Evangelion Shinji and Warhammer40k

Deathwings

Well-Known Member
Holy shit, this thing is still alive ? Fuck, now I have to reread it because I've completely forgotten what the fuck has been happening.
 

bluepencil

that's why it's trash can, not trash cannot
Okay, I am scrapping a lot of this.

Let's restart.




Lorenz Kiel sat alone in the SEELE council chamber of their moon base. The door opened, splashing bright white light into the dark room. Around him were corpses of white-haired boys. All of them had bullet holes to the head. All of them had a gun on their hands.

A familiar face strode in. Yui Ikari. An alien confidence glimmered behind her glowing red eyes.

“You are too late,” said Lorenz Kiel. “The trigger is no longer here. This Egg is barren.”

Lillith frowned minutely. From the corridor a red tide flowed, staining her shoes, rising, then the edges of her white lab coat.

Lorenz Kiel stared back, his eyes glowing red in the dark. For he too had a thin, delicate face with a shock of white hair. To command the Mass Production Evangelions remotely, he had to cast aside what remained of his humanity.

This was a downgrade. Even as man stuffed full of machines to prolong his wretched life, he had pride that he was a man. Nagisa’s hybrid body was nothing more than a hideous trap, short-term power in exchange for his soul.

Those fools at NERV did not understand, how at the end SEELE fought to save them all.

Kiel heard hissing from around his ankles. The plug suit would dissolve momentarily, then his flesh. Digestion. That was Lillith’s way. Like a spider sucking out the juices of its prey. Metaphorically, the Lillith form of life was the harvest of civilizations. Like a dark phoenix, constantly dying and being reborn, twisting time and space to replay the same cruel play again and again.

“A murderous infant.” he grunted through the pain. “Trying to make sense of your existence through a distorted copy of Yui Ikari’s consciousness. Fine, carry out her grudge. We have delayed long enough.”

The physical pain was irrelevant. It was an old friend. The pain of failure was greater still.

“Third Impact was designed for us, not for you.”

Lillith clenched her fist and Kiel felt his heart implode. As his vision turned white, then dark, he had only enough strength left to whisper - “... you fools. You knew not what you ha...”

Third Impact was supposed to be the plan of escape.

Many were worlds with orange seas, dead, in the cosmos.

But all of them free.

That was Instrumentality.

And then -

There was only the hunger.

=][=​


The Angels taught the world the meaning of mammalian fear again. Man, this fangless, clawless biped, that had decided it was the master of the world, was reduced to scurrying again under the shadow of cold-blooded giants. When Adam’s roar shook the world, so did the delusion of mastery come crashing down.

And it was the stolen Earth’s Cradle that taught them that they could still feel despair. Mankind had come to terms with its weakness, turned it into strength. No fur for warmth, but there was fire. No fang to tear, no claws, to catch, but nimble fingers that could build traps. No immortality, but the glory of civilization.

Nagisa and the Cradle had rubbed everyone’s face in their own weakness, turned their hope into ashes, and told them all - that only power was power. Against the dark alien unknown, humanity had placed their faith in the torch of technology. They hedged their bets, and made that capsule to later reclaim a shattered world.

Hiding, surrendering, even before the battle has begun. If humanity was so eager to cower, then Nagisa had no compunction about treading upon their backs, saw it as the admission of a human’s inherent need to be ruled. As much as someone might snarl at being forced, a part hungered for well-defined limits. Comfort enough, and no more.

Heroes were those who were outside humanity’s fearful dross. He was willing to become a monster, because only in conflict did the human heart reveal the truth deep inside.

The Cradle was broken, Nagisa driven to flee. Half-human, half-Angel, but he was not as much of a monster as he pretended to be.

But it was NERV that made the world bleed. NERV, ever holding the dagger of betrayal.

NERV, whose greatest sin - was that they failed.

They were the gate, and the key, and they failed to keep the real monster locked up.

They set loose the enemy that could not be fought with an Evangelion and any amount of bullshit hax.

Lillith was free.

Adam slew half the world.

The Angels hurled themselves into the teeth of a Fortress-City, slaughtering everything in their way.

The Cradle crushed nations.

So much death.

Lillith... did none of things.

The moon above turned red, becoming a bloodshot eye. Lillith, source of all life on Earth, did from mankind a paltry little injury.
Human beings functioned best on at least eight hours of sleep. Humans, who feared the dark, would no longer rest in the darkness behind their eyes.

=][=​

There was no one else the Prime Minister of Japan hated at that moment more than Misato Katsuragi. “You’ve made your point, Katsuragi. What are your demands?”

“And again, this isn’t our fault!” Misato shot back. “We’re just as lost about it as you are.”

“I severely doubt that.” he sniffed.

The rigors of office could prematurely age a man, but now he looked and felt as if he had one foot in the grave. Three billion people had suddenly come to a terrifying realization how much they took for granted the ease of a good night’s sleep. He had bags under his eyes, his nose felt stuffed up, his day was a haze of muted pain.

Katsuragi looked as fresh as morning dew.

“It’s convenient that you people are the only ones not affected.” Unspoken was the question, are you even really human?

Misato narrowed her eyes. “You know why we’re immune.” She responded silently; and if anyone tries to push this, I’ll break them, no matter who it is. “This place is where he sleeps.”

Prime Minister Sakata winced.‘Why does it always go back to that boy?’ He had a feeling that the only reason anybody even had that two hours of sleep was that there was this faint golden thread that still tied them to sanity.

The Prime Minister sighed. “If he wakes up, can he fix this?”

“... you know, I have no idea?” Misato’s voice pitched up at the end. She looked to the distance, perhaps at Ritsuko Akagi just offscreen from the monitor.

From the look on her face, the Prime Minister knew that Ritsuko’s response was some particularly eloquent shrug.

When Misato turned back to look at him, her expression had firmed again. “I’m sorry, but the only thing we can do is to repair, rebuild, and enact Plan Nine. If we kill that goddamn Angel, yeah, sure, maybe this will all go away.”

“Katsuragi, we’re still displeased that NERV’s been hiding something that could cause Third Impact all this time.”

“Secrets and conspiracies. Just noise. It’s better to have it all out in the open so we just get the job done.”

“So be it. We’re putting all our hopes in your hands.” Too much power in anyone’s hands. Sakata shut off the videophone and sagged down his chair. There’s no guarantee that NERV would let go, after everything’s all said and done.

His brain felt as if on fire, and he opened his desk to down some more painkillers. Too much more, and he’d be drowsy... but that was dangerous. Far too many have already died from overdose. People were willing to do anything that would force their bodies to shut down and give them a few hours of blessed sleep.

“Won’t it end?!” he hissed.

His hands shook. The Angels had a way of making people feel weak and cowardly, and NERV - their protectors - doubly reinforced that feeling. “Just make it stop. Leave us alone. Someone. Anyone. Make it stop...”


=][=​

The upkeep of NERV and its Evangelions could bankrupt small nations.

The Angels had wiped out cities from the face of the Earth.

Nagisa’s attacks had wiped out most of the armies of Europe and displaced millions.

However, none of the attacks over the past year could actually shut down the world economy the way LILLITH’s simple conceptual hack could manage.

People could not sleep willingly. They would stay awake until their body had no choice except to shut down, but even on waking up afterwards they would not feel refreshed. Tempers were always short, drugstores and markets were looted for narcotics and alcohol.

Man, woman, child, adult, everybody was affected. Everybody fought over anything that could allow them to escape the waking world. People sought relief in whatever could break through the ache and the numbness.

Riots and mobs flashed into being. Cities burned. More people died in suicides than all the casualties through the war against the Angels. Murders and rapes skyrocketed. Babies never stopped crying, until their helpless wails turned into weak plaintive whimpers.

Somewhere in America, a man who was trying to drive to work, mindful of the DMV’s warnings about the lowered speed limit and making sure to keep substantial distance away from the next car over, died anyway. There was little difference between a truck and a crushing death machine, except a driver that usually had to force himself to stay awake.

Somewhere in Spain, a man who had a gambling problem was knifed to death after a game. This would usually have been a statistical blip, except that it happened in a high-class casino. A mob had stormed the place, shouting that those who act in God’s name will be granted rest. God had ordered places of sin and vice to be burned and those inside sent to Hell. It was a lie, started by someone who was feeling tired, bored, and spiteful.

A thick carpet of corpses floated down the Ganges.

In parts of South-East Asia, people were going amok at random. A psychotic rampage, when a person just goes berserk, wanting nothing more than to kill and hurt until slain in turn.

But such psychotic breaks were not uncommon, even in other parts of the world. Many people found themselves far too willing to entertain quick, bloody, final solutions to any obstacles. If not a sudden urge to murder, some found cold premeditated destruction to be strangely compelling. Fire was so beautiful. Knives glittered enchantingly. High places so inviting.

Here, a college student of good repute decided to burn down a computer shop and everybody in it. He laughed as he too burned. There, a man had taken fireworks, cans, nails, and a minivan. He spent thirty minutes breaking people's windows. A woman bled her cheating husband, a child smothered a noisy baby, and a sudden brawl in the street ended up with burning tanks.

Criminal elements had far less restraint now that even the police were stressed, but as much as some expressed their violence more openly, just as many found themselves literally torn apart by sudden vicious mobs. It was amazing in its own way, how a burning haze through the days could make someone ignore all the fear of death.

People were willing to try anything, anything at all, just for the promise of relief. Drugs and alcohol, of course, the easy and obvious recourse. People were willing to try poisons, first weak one, psychotropics, then stronger toxins. Some tried self-inflicted impacts and blows, maybe enough disorientiation to escape the mind-crushing pain.

Some tried to just pass the time. They wanted to consume, but few were still willing to work and deliver. They wanted to be entertained, but few felt well enough to provide. Government, media, and medical services tried to keep things functioning even if at minimal levels. Because no one felt well enough to produce new things, people tuned into the recycled works of years past. They shut themselves in, and pulled the hole in after them.

Thus, all over the world, communities began to dissolve into clutches and closed homes. Violence or isolation. No reason for it except the burning of their eyes and the crushing pressure inside their own skulls.

Mankind was a being halfway between angel and ape. How so easily, if that equilibrium was ever disrupted, they could so easily turn back into a savage animal. Higher thought fled.

If Kaworu Nagisa was still around, he would have said, “Humanity is a slave to his own biology. This is why I wanted to free you from the prison of mortal flesh.”

If Shinji Ikari was awake, he would have replied, ”An external force messing with human minds isn’t indicative of any weakness, it’s an attack. Victim-blaming is just as evil and injust.”

Not even SEELE could guess what LILLITH wanted to know out of seeing humanity destroy itself. That, and they were all already dead anyway. They sought apotheosis, failed, were slaughtered for their affront, and perhaps in some small way escaped the living hell.


=][=​


But not Tokyo-3.

Katsuragi had ordered all roads closed. Japan’s JSDF were called upon to enforce that order. Hundreds of thousands, even millions of citizens were ready to storm the gates, and no one would have been able to stop them.

Fortunately, a sleep-rotation schedule was worked out for everyone’s benefit. There was a tent city around fortress city, even going halfway up the Hakone mountain range.

Rika Izuna was once known for being a mouthpiece of criticism again NERV, and had Shinji Ikari and the strange, strange liberties afforded to the boy. Now however, if she spoke people would stop everything and listen, and people of all walks of life gave her undue deference.

Because she was there, in that Golden Moment. Her proximity to the Third Child’s awakening had somehow burnt something into her soul.

It was a strange feeling, being the subject of inquiry for a change. All because, for some reason, she was immune to LILLITH’s brain-hack. She could get tired, and feel sleepy, and dip into slumber, the next day stand up and smile. And more than that, she had a proximity similar to the Sleeper Zone in and around Tokyo-3.

People around her could sleep. Her range was around twenty meters.

World leaders were all but begging for her to visit. Celebrities were promising anything just to stand near her. Kidnapping and experimentation were credible dangers.

“So, this is what he must feel all the time.” Rika said dryly. “Only now can I really sympathize with the boy.” She laughed, and her mouth tasted ashes. “Only now that I’ve gained everything I ever wanted, if only I could take back all that I’d lost.”

“People love you and resent you because you have what they don’t have. What they can’t have.” answered Kozo Fuyutsuki. He looked just as well-rested. He didn’t have a Sleeper Zone, but for some reason he was also wakelock-immune.

They sat inside a private tea room. Both knew that outside, their security detail was formed of half people on alert and half people taking the chance to finally take it easy.

“What have you done?! Katsuragi’s official reason for sending you here is to finally come clean about NERV’s secrets.”

“I know my share, yes.”

“But that’s not important anymore. You people! How can you keep going on, always getting the best end of the deal, why everybody else just suffers?! It’s not fair. And now they think - I’m from there, I’m one of you, and I’m not. I just want to be normal. I just wanted things to make sense. I just wanted you people to be accountable for your actions.”

“Plainly, Miss Izuna, we don’t. From the outside, it seems as if NERV’s mandate is unshakable. Now, you’re experiencing how it feels from this side. For every step forward, it seems as if we actually step back.

To be blunt, we have done many things. Many evil things, to be honest. We had a plan. That plan was junk. What works for us is just to do what we can and hope it works out somehow.”

“You people pull miracles out your ass, that’s what you do. I’ve interviewed people at the Sleeper Zone in and around Tokyo-3. You know what they say about this new problem you caused? “

She paused, remembering anguished faces, faces full of greed and desperation, and the difference a single night makes. ‘Normal’ was available, at a steep price, along the Hakone slopes. It was an irony that was cutting at her.

Rika waved at a blank wall. “Out there.... why is it still so tiring even when I’m asleep? It’s like I spent all that time screaming.”

“Ah. Akagi did mention a theory about that. We’ve got a theory that it’s working through the communal consciousness, and that is the vector for this attack. It is similar to how there’s a part of our brain that’s still reptilian. The human soul is also composed of layers. This time, we think it’s actually a safety feature.”

“A safety feature? How so?”

“There is the terror that if you sleep, you won’t wake up again. Human minds subconsciously recognize the existence that is LILLITH, lurking just at the edges, and fear being devoured. Awake, we can throw up walls to maintain our identity, but asleep the barriers weaken.”

“... that doesn’t explain why some people don’t suffer this. Is it just that you’re not afraid anymore?”

“Oh, gods no. I am as terrified as anyone. Running NERV did not in any way toughen me up or inoculate me against existential horrors.”

“If it’s not some technology of NERV... then... it can only be...”

Rika grimaced. Even now she was afraid, as if saying it would break the world.

After a while, she added. “... that boy.”

It was not just Tokyo-3. Not just her. There was this little town up in Sendai, and the only newsworthy thing other than the rest afforded to its citizens was that it was the Third Child’s hometown.

Some places in Egypt, in Brazil, in Romania, in Tibet, in Utah, and in South Africa, radiated a Sleeper Zone much smaller but similar to Tokyo-3. There was only one common thread tying those place, that he had spent some time there. Occcasionally to battle Nagisa there.

The remains of Berlin and the shell of the Earth’s Cradle seemed to have this aura of significance too.

Some children were for some reason better able to deal with the lack of sleep better. They could go into a semi-restful state. They reported a synesthetic sensation. Green. And drums. Far away, but impossibly vast.

Rika Izuna bit her lip. And when she slept, she saw a sword in flame, and its warmth seemed to burn away the cloying acidic mist billowing out from the depths.

Fuyutsuki said nothing. He looked away, and called up in his mind how Yui never showed him any tears. He admired her beauty, her intelligence, her reserve. During his time in the Post-Second Impact world, but before Gendo found him, he had to console women who had lost their loved ones. When a doctor of philosophy was called upon to perform surgery, the madness of those days.

He could tell Rika Izuna was just about ready to break down. ‘Those who think she has it easy, have it wrong.’ he thought. ‘This plague of wakefulness is tearing her apart as much as anyone.’

He had never really gotten any better at consoling anybody.

“I’ve been interviewing those who are able to sleep once they enter the Sleeper Zone...” Rika continued. “That say, that while they sleep they’re still so afraid, and they don’t remember any dreams, they have this powerful vision of a golden thread. And as long as they hang onto it, they’ll be okay.”

“What they see, those who sleep in your range?”

“They don’t see anything, but they say it’s as if they hear an echo from far away. And they shout at it, and hear another echo. And it bounces. Louder and louder the more they yell. And as long as that sound rings in the dark, they’ll be okay.”

Fuyutsuki nodded. “Fascinating.”

“You?”

“Nothing so poetic, I’m afraid. I sleep, sometimes I dream. Nothing has changed.” The old man shrugged. “I understand this may be very irritating to some people, but I’m an old man. It’s lucky that I don’t have to deal with any more stress.”

“You’re lying.” Rika hissed through clenched teeth.

“My connection to Shinji Ikari is only peripheral. I’m just not that important in the grand scheme of things.”

“What’s so special about Shinji Ikari?”

“I don’t know.”

“Stop lying!”

“Look, I honestly don’t know. Akagi doesn’t know. The strongest psychics on Earth don’t know. Not even Nagisa hinted he knew what was up with that. I can’t help you here.”

Rika snorted. “Secrets and lies. That’s what you’re built on. Secrets and lies.”

Fuyutsuki put down his cup and nodded again. “Literally. Yes.”

“You must have done something. NERV’s experiments... you took an alien god and make slaves wrapped in metal and pain! You made Ayanami as a disposable weapon! Of course it makes perfect sense that Ikari, the Younger, is just one more of your tools!”

“... unfortunately, that is just not so.”

“He’s a just a boy. Or is he? What is he?”

“This is getting downright biblical.” Fuyutsuki chuckled. “Of course, one could argue that it has always been biblical, but we did not go into this whole thing to create a messiah.”

“It has to end. We can’t keep on doing this forever...”

“Oh, I see. You are exhausted.” Understandable, really. He halfway approved of how she kept rationalizing instead of embracing the madness like the esteemed Dr. Akagi had. “The world is exhausted. Even the human spirit can take so much.”

“It has to be worth it. I don’t care about Shinji Ikari. But Toshiro! He had faith. He died, for me, it has to mean something!”

Her mind flashed back to the minutes before the Golden Moment -

"Sorry, Rika. I guess you'll have to manage things by yourself from now on." He stood with his back to hers, refusing to turn around, to let her see just how blindly terrified he was. It was still obvious in his voice.

"You... stupid! I won't do it! There's no hope..." Rika's hands were shaking. "I'm not strong enough. I can't... don't leave me. Not now. What's this boy done to you?!"”

“"I'm not doing this for him. I'm doing it for you!" Toshiro Manabu shouted.

He had a piece of rebar in his hands. He stood between her and a mad goddess. "Rika... what an annoying woman you are." You're selfish, you're loud, you're so full of yourself. You're so afraid of not being seen. The woman I love is stronger than this!

Dry your tears, Rika. You have to survive!"


“This must end!” He died, accomplishing nothing, except to serve as more fuel for the boy’s ascension. In between dry heaves, Rika whispered, “So, you old bastard, lie to me.”

Fuyutsuki smiled and patted her hand. “It will end. Soon. We have a plan, and if you have faith, we will prevail.”

“You fucking liar.” She coudn’t help but to laugh.


=][=​


Ritsuko Akagi beheld her laboratory.

“I’m one of the world’s most renowned geneticists, computer scientists, and biomechanists. I understand more about the Evangelion than anyone still alive.” she mumbled to herself. She clenched her fist, feeling the pull of artificial muscles from the outside and the tingle of minute electric pads that forced her muscles to respond from within her suit. “I still should not be qualified for this.”

She took a deep breath. She was not a surgeon. She was not a mechanical engineer.

Someone with her own spinal injury should not be trusted to perform an operation involving extreme amounts of finesse. But this was the sort of nonsense that seemed to keep NERV going day after day.

She turned away from the observation window down into the operating table.


=][=​


“I had to practically vivisect your boy, you know,” she told Misato later. “Just to get him out of that weird armor. All analysis showed that it was solid gold, 96% purity, the rest being a diamond weave through the metal. It should have been easy enough to cut through, except for being... y’know, practically invulnerable.”

Misato sat in Gendo’s chair. Where the former commander of NERV would have curtly ordered Ritsuko to get to the point, she waited. Ritsuko needs to brag, Misato had realized long ago. Not for self-validation, but to place the impossible into the context of her reality.

“I couldn’t risk bringing in heavier cutting tools - seriously, why do I even have a 4-gigawatt laser drill anyway? - or it might just cut all the way through and kill the patient. Even psychoreactive materials didn’t help, and you know how that cuts through even Evangelion plate with no resistance at all.”

“Ritsuko...” Misato sighed and tried to keep frustration from creeping into her tone. “So, what did you do?”

“In the end, I decided that red jewel on the breastplate looked too much like an Angel core, and that the whole thing sounded like an application of the reinforcing properties of the AT-field. So to beat it, I had to look for something which had greater authority.”

“I’m... pretty sure I would have heard about you using Unit-02 for that.”

Ritsuko chuckled. “No. In the end I had to improvise a wire cutter out of the most fragile and most improbable of materials.” She smirked and pushed up her glasses. Glint. Flash. “What has greater authority over Shinji Ikari, what being does he allow to command his powers with no hesitation? A single strand of your hair did what monomolecular edges could not.”

“... bullshit.”

“I wish I was joking, but this is completely true. Your hair is a conceptual weapon now, Misato.”

“I still call bullshit on that.”

“I’ve been there, Misato. Seriously, you put me there. That’s not a good place to stand.”

“My hair should fire lasers.”

“... and now I remember why Shinji looks up to you. I can’t even tell if you’re joking right now.”

Misato’s raised a finger to her chin. “Note serious face." Then the light just seemed to fade from her eyes. “What’s happened to him, Ritsuko?”

“On the outside, nothing. On the inside, he has injuries consistent with a fire-related event several weeks ago. I saw scar tissue inside his lung walls, and through his esophagus. His tongue is likewise a mass of scars.” Ritsuko laid down a large photo. “But you want the obvious. Yes, his eyes are gone. Scar tissue consistent with burns, again. His eardrums have also burst, with the same pattern.” With a shrug, she added, “Actually, it goes all the way through. There is similar scarring identifiable through the rectal cavity and -”

“Stop.”

“Look, Misato, I can’t explain this. It’s a wonder he didn’t cook himself. For all intents and purposes, he should be dead.”

“Doing the impossible has consequences.” Misato groaned. “Damn it, Shinji. Why do you have to try and shoulder everything on your own?” She looked up. “But he’s alive. What will happen now? What can we do to help?”

“Nothing. He’s in a coma, Misato. Not even I can predict when someone will wake up out of that.”

Misato wanted to shout and rage, but could only nod numbly. Ritsuko gathered up her things, excused herself, making sure to leave the medical files, and left the room. Misato Katsuragi sat there, alone, in silence, until a few minutes later her desk beeped.

“Commander Katsuragi, the ambassador from the People's Republic of China has arrived at the Hakone checkpoint. He has an appointment. Would you like to see him now?”

"No. We scheduled things so people can get a few hours of extra sleep before talking to me. Remind him that being made to wait five hours is supposed to be a courtesy, not an insult."

"The Russian ambassador is also here."

Misato paused. "Same thing." Taking her finger off the intercom, she shot Ritsuko an annoyed look. "Those bastards, they're trying to double-team me, aren't they?"

"They both know we need their resources." Ritsuko replied with a shrug. "Which one is it, you think? Priming you with unreasonable requests for the next one, or easier terms the first time around so that you have to pick either one big windfall or a bunch of smaller concessions?"

"Who cares? I just need their help to build a launch facility."

"You have to start thinking for the long term now, Misato. If we lose now, we've got nothing left. But if we win - then the world changes forever. You're the one building that world now."

"Ritsuko... damn it, I'm just a soldier. I'm not qualified for this geopolitical bullshit. The old man should have stayed."

"You know Fuyutsuki-sensei doesn't have near enough personal authority for that. NERV's mandate used to derive from the United Nations. Your mandate is derived from... well, blatant extortion."

Misato let out a strangled little laugh. "Oh god I have no idea what I am doing. I'm going to fuck this up so bad..."


=][=​


"Misato Katsuragi is a genius. No wonder Yang approved of her. It's always pleasant dealing with an adversary who knows what she's doing." Nikolai Mihaylov mused idly while the elevator descended into NERV.

"Choosing to meet with us simultaneously is a breach of protocol and prevents voicing out concerns best done in privacy. This may be a mistake." replied Ming Huan.

"But you do not believe that. That would mean your venerable Yang made a mistake in extolling her competence."

"This... was not anticipated, I admit. If the purpose was to put us on the wrong footing, then it has succeeded. Katsuragi is no fool. She must have seen that despite the friction between our nations, it is to our best interest to cooperate."
Actually, Misato basically just said "Fine. I'll just meet them both at once, and we can get all this bullshit over with in double time."

The two rode down the cable car leading from the surface of Tokyo-3 down to the geofront. They had taken the chance to nap, upon entering the city, and it was convenient that the ride was slow. It gave them the time to wake up fully.

They did not have a security detail to escort them down. They were treated

"Impressive." said Mihaylov. "This geofront is a true wonder of the world."

"NERV Shenyang had one as well. NERV Hakone simply lucked out in finding a natural geofront. Ours, we had to dig out with the labor of a billion hands and nuclear arms." Huan paused and frowned at his turn of phrase, then continued in a banal tone, "And it was much more defensible."

The scars from the recent battles still marred the terrain, scorched scars across a green backdrop. The hole in the geofront's roof drew a sparkling curtain of sunlight across the gap. Dropped buildings were sprawled over here and there, like fallen gravestones. The skeletal remains of Mass Production Evangelions.

"I hear most NERV sites had extensive underground works anyway. The Americans’ Nevada site was rumored to be four kilometers deep. This is a pretty sight, though."

"It is a wasteful use of space. Inefficient forests and lakes, instead of internal housing and farmland for a fortress-city. A monument to ego."

"And yet, with such limits, they were able to beat back the enemy again and again and again. I both wonder and dread what they will do with proper resources."

He could not help sounding miffed about it. Russia, for all it had contributed to Project E, did not possess a NERV site. It made up for it with multiple regional defense bases, however. NERV facilities had strong defenses simply because they were so important as production sites. Properly designed bases meant for command and control were supposed to form the center of humanity's defense against the alien Angels.

"Now that we why the Angels kept attacking only NERV, why three Evangelions could do what whole armies could not, I also wonder if it was lucky we did not have a NERV site." Then belatedly realizing the implications of what he'd said, "My apologies, I did not meant to belittle the tragedy at Shenyang."

As much as NERV-Berlin was paid for by the countries of Europe, NERV-Shenyang was an unprecedented cooperative effort by China and Russia. That was how Russia could feel comfortable reaping all the benefits of Evangelion tech without having their own build site. Russia had two slices of the pie, one in the east and another in the west.

"NERV Shenyang... the Shen-Ji Site, would have been the perfect killing ground." Huan whispered through grit teeth. "Well away from anything important. All facilities buried underground in levels with alternating armor plates. None of this floating city retracting building tourist trap nonsense...! Plenty of extra room to build. Walls, real walls, and enough artillery to darken the sky. Japan prototyped the control systems, Germany the physical frame, America the power systems, but we were meant for Mass Production."

"Then the Angel codenamed SAHAQUIEL happened..." Mihaylov said somberly.

The largest death toll through this year of war against the Angels was suffered by China. The US suffered the total loss of the NERV Nevada, but it happened in the middle of nowhere. Shenyang was deep inland, supposedly to mitigate the damage, but SAHAQUIEL wiped it off the face of the Earth. The only reason it didn't cause greater tectonic shocks and tsunamis was that the bombardment relied much more on AT-field matter disruption properties than sheer kinetic force.

Millions died all around the Yellow Sea anyway.

"A billion hands! A billion hearts being as one! If they could perform miracles with only this many people, imagine what could have been, if the reason given wasn't just an elaborate smokescreen. They made us waste hundreds of trillions just to have an excuse to build up this place. It would have been... acceptable... if we could have fought it. All that death, if only it had meaning."

"Acceptable? They would have died anyway, but as long as they could have performed one final gesture of spite, that's all you need to feel comfortable with it?"

"We exist for a purpose. It doesn't matter if we fail, as long as we attempt to fulfill that purpose. Our nations are were made on the precept of the people having collective power to free themselves. Instead, we were just tools to further NERV's lies."

"Shenyang was a legitimate military target. As you said, you were building the Mass Production Evangelions there."

"We were! And the later we saw multiple Mass Production Evangelions! From where? Who built them? Meaningless! The power of the Eva was never contained in the first place! The risks we suffered was for nothing."

"There was a rumor that Misato Katsuragi had said, 'Give me three Evangelions and I could conquer the world'."

Huan paused and took a deep breath. Considering the sheer bullshit Evangelions based here could pull, conventional armies were completely useless against an Eva. They had no peer opponents. "That may be possible, if one did not consider how long the world remains unconquered. Our nations also understand the pains of asymmetric warfare more than most."

"It all comes back down to resources. Katsuragi is a brilliant tactician, but she may not be so adept at dealing with logistics. That is what you call Yang "The Great Strategist", correct? I wonder what she expects in exchange for resolving this global affliction that is, for once, something we can trace as -completely- NERV's fault."

"They are a single city, and are completely dependent on outside forces for their resources and upkeep. By all rights, they should be begging for donations."

"Like the Vatican?" That mini-state on top of a hill survived Second Impact well enough, but for some reason someone had decided to use a nuke on the place. No one claimed responsibility in the chaos. "Katsuragi's little fiefdom exists only because others allow it. What's that old saying? A paper tiger. In the short term, we need her. In the long term... she isn't much of a threat, if properly handled."

"Yes. With Yang there, NERV had the tacit approval of the dragon. Ikari, and now Katsuragi, was by implication able to use us as leverage against the own Japanese government for concessions. It is only fair that we gain something from this arrangement."

=][=​


A few minutes later, halfway into their discussion about technology exchanges:

Misato cough twice. "You know, it's a totally funny coincidence that you compare our situation to the Vatican..."

=][=​


Misato Katsuragi now sat in the unnecessarily wide Commander’s Office, in Gendo’s old desk, and the amber of sunset lit the room as if on fire. She had a grim look on her face, and had steeled her hand together just under her nose.

It had less to do with plotting deviltry, than to keep herself from smashing her own head into the desk until either it breaks or she'd knocked herself unconscious.

Kaji stood before her, grinning, with a lit cigarette on his lips.

“So, how does it feel being the most powerful woman in the world?” he asked.

“I’m not in the mood for any of your jokes, Kaji.” Misato hissed. “Honestly? It feels like shit. I never asked for this.”

“Can’t contest the fact though. Look at it from other people’s perspective.

Fact: Tokyo-3 just managed to defeat attacks by enemy Evangelions.
Fact: Sohryu single-handedly defeated the Earth’s Cradle, a floating battle fortress that no amount of earthly power could defeat.
Fact: Ikari just shielded a whole city from every nuke that the whole world could send, without even using an Evangelion.
Fact: With Sohryu’s return, you now have command over the world’s only functional Evangelion.

The only other functioning NERV site is NERV Boston... and they know, even if they have the facilities to build Evangelions, there is fuck and all they can do to match the inhumanly efficient killing machines that you’d all but decided to adopt as your kids.”

“Shut up. They’re not monsters, dammit. We forced this on them!”

“If they were afraid before, Misato, now they’re too terrified to even be resentful about being shown up as powerless and insignificant. You know Yang’s plan. The Treasure Box is open. This, or something like this... was inevitable.”

Misato slammed her palm down on a folder on her desk. Shinji Ikari’s medical records. “It’s not worth it. I never expected this... those children, they’re the ones that suffer. I can’t... I can’t accept always taking advantage of their sacrifice.”

“If you don’t, that sacrifice is worthless! Misato, stop pitying them.”

“It’s another miracle, they told me, you know? That Shinji-kun’s still alive. They found burn scarring down his throat. They have artificial lungs pumping oxygen into him, his own lungs became this lattice of black crystals. They said his hair is made out of superconductors now. What the fuck is this, Kaji?!

I swear, I will fucking shoot the next person who offers me congratulations! I refuse to profit off my child’s pain!”

“You know, that’s probably why Yang trusted you so much. He knew you didn’t give a damn about glory, advancement, patriotism, humanity... whatever. You only care about doing good to your kids, and if what they want is to save the world... you’d support them the best you can.”

“Yang’s dead. I don’t care about his plans. And you - stop trying to turn me into some tyrant.”

“If you won’t do it, maybe Asuka would like to serve as the figurehead uniting humanity? Sohryu the Great isn’t too unlikely.”

“You’re trying to goad me, and it’s working. Uggh. Any more, and I’ll shoot you. Somewhere non-lethal, but trust me - I will.”

The spy only gave back a completely nonchalant smirk. “The old man’s already off to meet the United Nations as your mouthpiece. Part of why the government's so pissed at you is because you've got the support of China and Russia, who are competitors if not old enemies. Old grudges, ethnicity, who cares? Japanese, Chinese, Russian, German... that’s all irrelevant now. At least, irrelevant -here-.”

Kaji spat out his cigarette and ground out the embers under his shoes. “Come on, Katsuragi. You know this is the best way to protect your children. They... and you... can’t keep on running forever. You know what they say... with great power.”

“Stop. Dammit, Kaji. Just stop.”

“... comes great responsibility.”

“... nngh. You don’t work for the UN or the Japanese government anymore. They fired your ass, because they thought you were compromised by me. I’m only going to give you a job to make sure it’ll be the lowest, stinkiest possible thing I can make you do.”

“I’m happy to serve the Republic of Katsuragi.”

“I’m not calling it that!”

=][=​

“The famous strategy room...” Mayumi whispered, as she and the other pilots arrived at the Commander’s office. A large mirrored desk now dominated the space, though the desk was still a foreboding distance away. Misato waited at the head of the conference table.

It certainly fit the aesthetic of a place where momentous world-shaking decisions are made. It was a pity that she did not know, it was the first time for all of them to use it.

Mayumi looked at the people deemed worthy of this gathering, and blushed at being so honored to even just sit and listen to them.

Katsuragi looked forbidding in her formal uniform, wearing her jacket like a cape. She was the very picture of a woman that can be a respected leader of men without surrendering her femininity.

Sitting to her left was Ritsuko Akagi, in her distractingly adult version of a plug suit. All black, with exposed myomer bundles running into caps over her joints and curves, it made her look nuder than nude. Her eyes could not be seen behind the eerie golden reflection off her glasses.

‘This is the ferocious genius that saves the world,’ Mayumi thought. ‘The court magician wrapped in the arcane that no one else can understand.’

On the opposite, sat Kaji Ryouji. With his stubble and exaggeratedly relaxed posture, his handsome face could only look seedy and untrustworthy. Yet, it was known even to her that this was a man who somehow had many masters. Who but a master of spycraft could convince so many competing forces to simultaneously use him as a castpaw?

Such a thing like that does not arrive by coincidence. ‘Even now could he truly be on Katsuragi’s side?’

Two sets of chairs were left vacant, mostly for elbow room and so Ritsuko could stand up and move things around on the table without getting into other people’s personal space. However, to Mayumi, it also showcased the gap between the core of NERV’s power and the other forces that fought to support them.

Colonel Nasuno, who had thrown away his pride (and some might say honor) as a man of the JSSDF to defend Tokyo-3 alone. The commander of Cerberus Base had the haggard expression of a man constantly called to perform outside of his depths, but was doggedly determined to see it through anyway. He sat on the right, below Kaji.

Facing him, was a man in orange robes. The monk , now the last of the UN PSYKANA's command staff. Mayumi did not let his gaze linger too long. Though most of the more powerful psykers had died defending Shinji Ikari from the CODE LILLITH humaniform Angel, she had no idea if he could also just casually pluck thoughts right out of the air.

Then two more empty rows. The pilots sat as a power block unto themselves.

Sohryu, of course, drew Mayumi’s attention first. Though the girl affected a bored expression, Mayumi could see dark shadows under her eyes. Rage and despair at being too late, and worry for the one she loved. Mayumi could hardly begrudge her idol that. Even the legendary Red Devil had a right to be human and flawed, in precious privacy.

And facing her, was a girl as opposite as could be. Red to blue. A skin so pale and so flawless it might as well have been that of a doll. Were it not for the bandages and eye patch she was still wrapped in, Ayanami’s placid expression could have made Mayumi think this was an emotionless mannequin instead of a person.

She had to remind herself, that Ayanami was also friend and rival of sorts to Sohryu, an equal in all that matters. The Blue Angel, a moniker with many meanings.

Then, facing her personally, was Mana Kirishima. Though she was not born with the aptitude to be an Eva pilot, she was still special. A short-haired, boyish face... she could only look cute even when at the fiercest. The Komissar of Cerberus Base, inspiring normal people to fervor via example.

She was also sometimes called the Girlfriend of Steel for some reason. She looked mulish and impatient, tilting her skull-decorated cap down over her eyes as if to hide an attempt to take a nap. 'A normal person...?' Mayumi could only snort. 'Not likely. It takes a special person to fight beside the Eva...'

And lastly, herself. Mayumi Hamagishi. Nervously she scratched at the mole near her lips. She could not even imagine being as strong as these other girls her age. If she could only dare wish, she’d be anyone but herself.

Maybe with red hair like Sohryu. Even a different name, a stylish one like... like... Makinami Mari or something.

“All right. Let’s get this meeting into order!”

Mayumi was jerked out of her idle fantasies by Misato’s shout. She blushed and cowered in embarrassment.

“Before we begin, perhaps we should list our assets?” Ritsuko said. At Misato’s wave to continue, Ritsuko lit up the table to turn it onto a display screen. A larger version without letterboxes was displayed on the ceiling above. “These are our forces - no offense, Col. Nasuno, if the regular forces aren't part of this list. ”

“None taken,” he replied easily.

"Ahem. One fully functional Evangelion, Unit 02;
One semi-functional Evangelion, without legs, Unit 04;
One non-functional Evangelion, without a head, Unit 00; and....
That’s it.

Unit 01 is on the Moon. The Trident Land Dreadnought is still lacking a reactor.”

“So basically it’s just me.” said Asuka.

“Unless someone wants to play Guntank.” Mana said with a slight smirk, her eyes still hidden under the brim of her hat. Mayumi blushed.

Col. Nasuno raised his hand and said with all seriousness “I vote that any suggestion that Aida might say be preemptively classed as ‘retarded’ and not be discussed at this table.”

“Agreed.” Ritsuko and Asuka in unison.

“I also agree. Motion passes.” Misato sighed. “Any more interruptions? No? Ritsuko, go ahead.”

"As you all know, our Governor-General..."

"... I realize now you all kept calling me El Presidente just to make me think that title was any better."

"Ah-hem. Governor-General Katsuragi announced her authority over all NERV bases and assets worldwide. The US government has agreed to cede NERV Boston, but then pulled out all personnel and locked down the base.

It's petty, but understandable. It's not like we have the budget to keep going. They offered a new agreement for shared ownership of the base, allowing them to build new Evangelions."

"I'm actually surprised they're not putting up a fight about it," Col. Nasumo spoke in a hush. "We don't have anything seize control of the base, if they decided to challenge NERV's ownership."

Ritsuko pointed to Mayumi, the pilot from NERV Boston, who eeped. She raised her hand as if to ward off the attention, then realized that Ritsuko - Ritsuko Akagi! - was actually expecting her to explain for her. Her vision began to white out.

"Hey. Relax, Little Beast."

And just Asuka's tone was enough to bring her back from the brink.

"Oh. Uh. Um.... N-NERV Boston is the only place on Earth still capable of producing the S2 Engine. That makes them the best target for everybody who wants to gain or destroy Eva technology. They want Unit 04 back."

"Or at least an Eva to defend themselves." Ritsuko added. "Misato?"

"What's a NERV site without an Evangelion?" Kaji mused.

Misato just shook her head and waved for Ritsuko to continue.

"Let's leave that for later, then. The next item on the agenda. The S2 Engine that was supposed to be sent here to repair Unit Zero? China has it."

"That's bullshit. They can't get away with that. That's NERV property!" Asuka spat.

Misato sighed. Asuka apologized and waited for NERV's official response.

Misato groaned and rested her elbows on the table. "Yes, but if we send you out to take it back, that compromises our defense of Tokyo-3. Sure, in an open war, we could crush all the armies of the world combined, with the power of the Eva - but we can't move, and they know it. Bastards."

"Yang's Toy Box Agreement... they're using that as the excuse. They'll give us the S2 Engine if we help them - if we get NERV America - to build them a new Evangelion. They'll even send a pilot to us, 'no strings attached'." Kaji spoke to them about the discussion with the Chinese Ambassador.

The woman groaned. "Already everybody's trying to loophole me about proliferation! What the hell."

"Our own country already thinks we're a threat. Aligning even more with China's not going to help secure our funding and resources from just the next city over." said Col. Nasuno.

"Just as the Vatican is dependent upon the auspices of Rome, so we depend upon the cities around the Hakone region."

"I don't trust either the US or China with control over the Evangelions." Misato said flatly.

"I'm not sure if anyone can be trusted with all the power you're trying to monopolize, Misato." Kaji replied with a smirk.

Mayumi's breath stuck in her throat. But then Misato just groaned again. 'So... this is the famous NERV laissez-faire, then?' It's a wonder they could get anything done.

But her respect for the spy rose. Brave to so blatantly contradict the chain of command, even with the rumors of his relationship with Katsuragi. 'He's acting like a fool - but in the old days, it was only the fool that could get away with criticizing the king.'

"Your ideals on Eva proliferation aside, we do need more Evangelions and Evangelion pilots. With... Pilot Ikari still unconscious, and 'Ayanami', unable to synch with the Evangelion anymore, our options are incredibly limited."

Mayumi's attention snapped to the blue-haired girl. What?!

Asuka leaned back on her chair and glared at the other girl. Rei stared back at her, compeletely unperturbed. "This useless doll..."

"Sohryu." Mana's tone was curt, and designed to cut through the noise of a battlefield.

"Don't presume on things you don't understand, Kirishima."

"I understand enough about -respect- for a comrade's sacrifice."

"Enough!" Misato laid her hand gently onto the table, and yet that drew everyone's attention more than if she had slammed her palm down with full force. She tapped at the conference table's surface lightly. "This isn't the place for that. Settle down. Or you can solve the issue with your fists outside."

Asuka and Mana looked sorely tempted, but then bowed in apology.

'What.' Mayumi blinked again. 'With their... fists?' Shouldn't a commanding officer discourage that sort of thing?

"What are our options, Ritsuko?" Kaji asked to suddenly shift the mood.

"We have the option of removing Unit Zero's legs and placing them on Unit 04. If our Governor-General approves?"

"Sorry, Rei. It's only going to be temporary." Misato said.

The girl gave no response, only to stare blankly ahead.

"Then, we have the option of accepting BOTH offers of China and the US; the S2 Engine and new incomplete Evangelion they were building in Boston. That gives us the soonest possible new Evangelion."

"No."

"Katsuragi, we don't have the resources to build another Eva here. And while China may have outright stolen the S2 Engine, we still need that. It's extortion, but what can we do? That's politics."

"No. There's something else. Something simpler." Misato smirked. "Those guys over there, they think they're so clever trying to think - what would Yang do? Well, I tell you what he wouldn't have done - piss me off like this.

Yang and Shinji-kun... I have a feeling this is something they've been expecting me to do... making it necessary for me to do it... for a while now."

"... Katsuragi, our constitution explicitly requires consensus between Kaji, me, and at least 3/4 of the pilots before you're allowed to declare war on anybody."

"Hah! No. That's stupid. It's time they realized why those two were so insistent on NERV becoming its own independent entity. They want the Toy Box? Ritsuko! Open it!"

"... that's even worse reckless escalation, you know this?"

'What's the Toy Box?' Mayumi wanted to ask. If it could influence Katsuragi's decisions to this extent, it had to be really important.

(Former) NERV America didn't expressly ask her to spy, but unless NERV Hakone forbid it, they said they would appreciate any information she could give.

Mayumi Hamagishi stared at each of the people in that room, arguing over her head about Katsuragi's idea. A naturally shy and work-oriented person, already mentally filing away impressions and thinking about how to word a report, she wondered at the value of what she was allowed to observe.

Priceless, probably.

If they would send her away from Tokyo-3, and away from her hero's side, Mayumi felt she may be spiteful enough to give away such information.

It would not count as betrayal, probably.

=][=​

It was snowing over Tokyo-3. For weeks now, the Hakone region was blanked in white, in a country that had not known winter for fifteen years.

There were only three entry points into the Hakone valley region. Anachronistic as it may be, the Kriegers that accompanied Luftschloss Sturmbrand had begun to dig out trenches and lay down barbed wire. Armor and air attacks were not a problem, Unit-02 could blast away whole companies at a glance. As ever, it was from the ground that The Fortress City was so vulnerable.

A final battle was coming, the Gotterdamerung of god-machines. It seemed only fitting that they should fight in the grip of an unnatural winter.

Hans Ingram Wulfenbach nodded in thanks as a NERV employee handed him a cup of warm coffee. He still didn’t understand a word of Japanese, though at least most people in Hakone understood some English. And the psychics could understand all human languages by instinct. Slowly he was starting to piece together what it meant to live inside The Fortress City.

There was pride there, bordering on arrogance, he could see it in their faces. There was hardness, but not of the paranoid type that saw every shadow as a potential enemy. If anything, the people, no matter if they were civilians, or military and NERV employees first, or had followed Ikari on his strange crusade later... they were too accepting. Too eager to help. Too willing to smile at a stranger, too relaxed about their own safety. It’s as if death itself could not touch them.

He knew that feeling. He’s expected it to fade, as mundane reality reasserted itself.

So far, reality was losing.

When the blinding green light smashed through the clouds from above to the geofront, he was blown back. Scalding hot coffee spilled over his jacket and slowly soaked to his neck. As he stared up at the light, he could only think, ‘Huh. That‘s weird. I should be more surprised than this.’

Examining why he was so uninterested seemed the more fascinating thing, even as the ground trembled beneath him. He felt weightless. He saw the fallen cup starting to impossibly rise up on its own.

And then that cruel laughter that dug into his soul.

=][=​

Misato was at the cafeteria when it happened. She clung to the table, which was bolted onto the floor, and with a stern look forbid Asuka from running off.

After a few more seconds the weightless feeling settled down. Everything was still trembling, everyone felt too light on their feet, but they could move again. She nodded to Asuka, who kicked off and half-floated to the door. Someone approached to hand her a phone.

“Ritsuko!” Misato yelled into it. “What’s happening?!”

“The geofront is trying to rise again. I guess someone’s trying to reclaim her lost property.”

“What? Damn. Well, what can we do to stop it?”

"This is why we've been remodeling Tokyo-3. The Toy Box is ready to initiate. This Black Moon is our now, it's about time that alien bitch realized that!"

Misato took a deep breath. This will change... everything. Nothing in all of human history, save Second Impact, would ever be so significant. "All right. Do it."

Suddenly, NAGISA INTERRUPT.

Space rippled into violet hues, and as if rising from still waters the lost pristine reflection of the Moon returned. Shining bright, too bright, like silver tears from Luna’s face.

As the globe emerged fully, those monitoring the situation realized it was not as large as the moon. Smaller, smoother - a cold, sphere. And deceptively gently, at a leisurely 4.7 kilometers per second, it crashed onto the bleeding red surface, sending viscous oceans rippling.

Boiling fountains rose around the point of contact, and the veins of hot crimson agony crawled up the white sphere.

Through the empty void of space, one could almost hear a white-haired boy’s shout:

FFFFFFFFFUUUUUCCCCCKKKK YOUUUUU!!!

It was Pluto.

Kaworu Nagisa’s solution to Lillith’s awakening was to drop Pluto on her head.

It wasn’t as if anyone would care. Pluto was no longer a planet anyway.

No more schemes. He cut Gordion's Knot, along the remains of his sanity.

Pluto and Luna clung to each other, shivering. Then they began to shatter.

Space rippled again.

Charon ripped free of the void at much greater velocity, slamming into the back of its former parent, in a flash fracturing the larger planetoid and driving it even deeper into the Luna. Fires raged across the earth’s own captive planetoid, burning black the biomatter that covered its surface.

Fissures burst out, exposing the Moon’s soft mantle, suddenly transformed into hot liquid lifeblood again. Luna bled. Pluto began to break apart, still deceptively gently, into shards delicate like eggshells and the size of continents.

Down below, Asuka could only think: ‘That guy has no sense of restraint at all.' Her grip tightened on her Eva’s controls. ‘We taught him that.’

=][=​

A star fell from the heavens.

As always, towards Tokyo-3.

=][=​


Chapter ends at 10k words. Eh. It's kind of weak. I still have a scene with Asuka, Mayumi and Rei that could be inserted.
 

bluepencil

that's why it's trash can, not trash cannot
The full version of this chapter has already been posted to FF.net here:

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3886999/47/Shinji-and-Warhammer40k

But first:
An interlude:



INTERLUDE:

I Am a Scientist and This Is My Reaction Face

________________________________________________________________________

Portions of the correspondence between Dr. Scott Fogle, Deputy Administrator of NASA; Dr. Julianne Steinhoff, Berlin-2 NERV Science Division; and Dr. Hayden Newson, Chief of Xenobiology at the Australian Center for Xenobiological Studies.
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________


"Dr. Scott Fogle" foglehorn(a)nasa*gov says:

I still feel a twinge of guilt when I think that it took the end of the world to give NASA a proper budget.

Granted, there was a point there where the United States seemed on the brink of all-out Civil War, but once it was decided that Second Impact was the result of a relativistic meteorite impact we practically choked on funding after decades of public disinterest.

Of course, this is nothing compared to the absolute money sinkhole that was the up-and-comer NERV. We had no idea what they were even doing with all that money. No offense meant.

o

"Dr. Julianne Steinhoff" juli_steinhoff(a)nerv*de says:

That all right, no offense taken. As a NERV employee, it's something I have to accept. We have been up to plenty of shady activities.

o

“Dr. Hayden Newson” hay_newt(a)xenostate.au says:

You produced Evangelion Unit Two AND Langley-Sohryu. That is definitely worth all that expense.

"Dr. Hayden Newson" hay_newt(a)xen

o

"Dr. Julianne Steinhoff" juli_steinhoff(a)nerv*de says:

We have the benefit of hindsight. We are talking here about how it must have appeared at the time. Much of NERV's research was classified. NERV, if anything, was ... and still is... notorious for stealing research. What we could not claim, we bought off.

While now we can see it is vital, did not NASA also have fun during our Post-Impact Interregnum? Please tell us more of those days, Dr. Fogle.

o

"Dr. Scott Fogle" foglehorn(a)nasa*gov says:

Astronomers of all shapes noted repeatedly have no way of detecting something that is approaching at relativistic velocity, and even if we did, there wouldn't be time to respond to it. But in an open-ended way, because were scientists and not philosophers, and who knows, someone might be able to figure something out.

The pattern recognition system that NERV used to detect Angels were derived from compact neutrino detectors, I believe. Fusion power, expansion in launch facilities, those were busy years.

It was not completely a delight however. More than a few of us were uncomfortable with the militarization of space. Armed satellites were launching every week, and those nukes up there could so easily be pointed in the other direction.

The governments were given the 'real' reason - it was aliens. No one was saying it was aliens... but it was aliens.

Besides, NASA saw its greatest achievements in the grip of the Cold War. This was only a return to the status quo.

o

“Dr. Hayden Newson” hay_newt(a)xenostate.au

---> No one was saying it was aliens... but it was aliens.

I see what you did there. ;)

But all of it was wrong. The Angels are not space-based at all.

o

"Dr. Scott Fogle" foglehorn(a)nasa*gov says:

As Julianne said, hindsight. I remember how my wife jokingly asked me if we were searching for aliens in Mars. We were. It was very plausible at the time. Mars was once habitable, and the attack could have been a pre-emptive strike or some automated response by some long-dead civilization.
o

“Dr. Hayden Newson” hay_newt(a)xenostate.au

That reminds me, is it true that it was NASA, not NERV, that coined the term Angels?

o

"Dr. Julianne Steinhoff" juli_steinhoff(a)nerv*de says:

Technically, NERV Japan's official literature referred to the Angels as 'Shito', or Messengers. We referred to them as ' Außengast' or Alien Visitors. We probably would have eventually arrived at a more generic name like Exolife, except someone raised Asimov's quote about how if we venture out into space, "we will find apes or angels, but not men."

o

“Dr. Scott Fogle” foglehorn(a)nasa*gov

Remember, this was back when it was theorized that Second Impact could either be an accident or an attack. In both cases, we are at a clear disadvantage. It was still at the time when all information about Second Impact was heavily censored. The general public was not supposed to know it could have been the result of alien activity.

Calling them Angels made a lot of sense in context. Any being that could cross the gulf between stars would have immeasurable power.

An encounter between peer civilizations is very unlikely. If the Angels could get to us from wherever they were, they had either technology or physical capabilities far exceeding our own. And they do. Hence, we are the apes, looking up at the burning radiance of Angels.

o

“Dr. Hayden Newson” hay_newt(a)xenostate.au says:

What did you think when you realized what NERV was actually building?

o

“Dr. Scott Fogle” foglehorn(a)nasa*gov

I was not one of those privileged with the big picture, so I was surprised just like many others to learn NERV's reason for being such a mysterious money drain. I had a vague idea we were all gearing up to fight aliens. I was actually thinking NERV was researching FTL or something like it. Only once the maths looked right would NASA be allowed to learn about it, and then we would build something to take the fight to the stars.

o

“Dr. Hayden Newson” hay_newt(a)xenostate.au

For me, it was like: "Wait, giant robots? We spent all this while just to build robots to melee giant monsters? Why didn't we just build the biggest tank with the biggest gun? Something that can hit things in orbit?"
o


"Dr. Julianne Steinhoff" juli_steinhoff(a)nerv*de says:

AT-field hax says, "No, Dr. Newson, you can't haz your Bolo."

o

“Dr. Hayden Newson” hay_newt(a)xenostate.au

Oh god no. Just mentioning AT-field on any BBS leads to like nine pages of bitching about it.

o
__________________________________________________________________________


"Dr. Julianne Steinhoff" juli_steinhoff(a)nerv*de says:

NERV China, is just... gone. That could have been us.

The Angels are getting smarter. Or they've stopped holding back. That should have been us. There was no feasible way of stopping it. I was ready to die.

o

“Dr. Hayden Newson” hay_newt(a)xenostate.au

Are you okay? Are you hurt?

o


"Dr. Julianne Steinhoff" juli_steinhoff(a)nerv*de says:

I am perfectly fine. The moment the first Angels appeared and attacked Tokyo-3, I knew there was a chance they might attack this place too. I just never considered that it would be so... impersonal.

I am only here because those children from NERV Japan pulled off another complete miracle. God! I don't know what to think. I'm happy to be alive. But I'm also afraid. It can only get worse from here.

o

“Dr. Hayden Newson” hay_newt(a)xenostate.au

Why don't you just leave? If it's so dangerous, it would be insane to stay there.

o

"Dr. Julianne Steinhoff" juli_steinhoff(a)nerv*de says:

Many have already left. Still, we are doing good, necessary work here. If a few more leave, that will be enough to break morale and shut down NERV-2. Positron weapontry and applied N2 research may be what it takes to turn the tide. We've stopped trying to produce Eva-05 in favor of producing armor and parts for Tokyo-3's Evas.

o

“Dr. Hayden Newson” hay_newt(a)xenostate.au

Doesn't that leave you totally helpless?

o

"Dr. Julianne Steinhoff" juli_steinhoff(a)nerv*de says:

Let's hope it makes Tokyo-3 all that more attractive as a target. It is worth attacking. If the Angels are here to fight, then let them fight. Let them find worthy opponents.

One must remember, how in god's name, homing lasers. No. Homing antimatter beams. From all the way across the world. The Angels are escalating their capabilities, but it seems there is still much about the AT-field we do not understand.

o

“Dr. Hayden Newson” hay_newt(a)xenostate.au

Is that still classified? People are going insane around here.

o

"Dr. Julianne Steinhoff" juli_steinhoff(a)nerv*de says:

Three women created the Eva's control systems - Ikari, Akagi, and Sohryu, all of them part of the GEHIRN Artificial Evolution Laboratory. The definitive explanation of the AT-field and its connection to human psychomorphic resonance is in Kyoko Zepellin-Sohryu's paper. Naoko Akagi's work on artificial intelligence and dual-nature existence is still unmatched, culminating in the quantum-computing MAGI system. Yui Ikari's papers reads a bit too philosophical, but it is the only one that explicitly refers to the AT-field as a 'shield' and 'sword'.

Yes, these are still classified.

o

“Dr. Hayden Newson” hay_newt(a)xenostate.au

You total troll. If you were to say that out loud, heads would explode.

I'm really happy that you're okay, Julianne. Stay safe.

o

________________________________________________________________________


“Dr. Hayden Newson” hay_newt(a)xenostate.au

So apparently psychic phenomena is a thing now.

o

“Dr. Scott Fogle” foglehorn(a)nasa*gov

Well, that was an explosive return. This has certainly sent the whole scientific community buzzing. Psychic powers! From humans! So the Angels... might not be so alien after all. What does this mean, can we humans also generate an AT-field?

o

"Dr. Julianne Steinhoff" juli_steinhoff(a)nerv*de says:

Psychokinetic, psychoresonant and psychomorophic activity have nothing to do with the AT-field.

o

“Dr. Scott Fogle” foglehorn(a)nasa*gov

Really? You sound so sure.

o

"Dr. Julianne Steinhoff" juli_steinhoff(a)nerv*de says:

That is the official explanation, straight from the MAGI datalink to Tokyo-3. Straight from Akagi and Ikari (the younger). I am not confident that this is not just another (ahem) pack of lies from up top, but if they are so insistent about the divide, I do not know how we can possibly argue otherwise. Tests have to be made, science must be done. That is the way of things.

o

__________________________________________________________________________

o

"Dr. Julianne Steinhoff" juli_steinhoff(a)nerv*de says:

Speaking as a NERV scientist, believe me when I say not even we understand it. If human minds could comprehend it, then Ritsuko Akagi wouldn't have gone mad trying to make sense of it.

“Dr. Hayden Newson” hay_newt(a)xenostate.au

Are you really perpetuating that meme too?

"Dr. Julianne Steinhoff" juli_steinhoff(a)nerv*de says:

It is not a meme. Akagi is legitimately mad. Bonkers. Insane. Her brain is full of sparks. She no longer thinks like a normal human being. Her experiments have no value because her presence is enough to skew all results. She shouts at machines and they complain back at her. Akagi is not a psychic, but she is a technopath.

“Dr. Scott Fogle” foglehorn(a)nasa*gov

That is... impressive, if the rumors are true.

"Dr. Julianne Steinhoff" juli_steinhoff(a)nerv*de says:

I am serious about this. You will not find enlightenment there. There is only madness, and the laughter of thirsting gods.

“Dr. Hayden Newson” hay_newt(a)xenostate.au

That's not very discouraging. You're making it sound more epic.

But then again, it is literally epic, isn't it?. We live in a world where man-made giants battle primordial beings, and psychic phenomena are proven true. There is clearly more going on behind the scenes than we know.

“Dr. Scott Fogle” foglehorn(a)nasa*gov

The scientific community occasionally benefit from being torn to its foundations and rebuilt. The nature of science was continued discovery. If the facts seemed to violate established theories - even what was commonly accepted as the laws of physics - then it can only be that there is something wrong with the current model. We once thought it Newton had the answer, but there was more with Einstein, and then Planck and Bohr, and now Ikari, Akagi and Sohryu.

We peel back the curtain only to find there is more yet undiscovered.

"Dr. Julianne Steinhoff" juli_steinhoff(a)nerv*de says:

I have seen it. I have felt it. We trespass on the realms of gods. I watched Sohryu and I could believe it, that a strong enough will could somehow reshape reality itself. It is not magic. Even magic has rules. The AT-field is not meant to be understood. It has no place in our understanding of the universe.

“Dr. Scott Fogle” foglehorn(a)nasa*gov

With great respect Julianne, and I really, really, do not wish to offend, but it is not something that can be ignored. I mean, is it really that... frightening?

I repeat, I do not mean to offend. Just curious.

"Dr. Julianne Steinhoff" juli_steinhoff(a)nerv*de says:

Again, I am not offended.

Yes, it is that frightening. It is a fair point that discussions about AT-field dynamics lead nowhere, but if there's anything I want it is peace. An end to this war. Maybe in time people can work on trying to integrate AT-field mechanics into our understanding of how the universe works. But right now, it is but a weapon used blindly.

“Dr. Scott Fogle” foglehorn(a)nasa*gov

It occurs to me that perhaps it is not Akagi that should best be asked. Who else would know more about the AT-field? Ikari and the other pilots that routinely perform impossible feats with it? Or perhaps Nagisa, who lives it?

"Dr. Julianne Steinhoff" juli_steinhoff(a)nerv*de says:

Kaworu Nagisa cannot be trusted about any information regarding the AT-field as his words in literally anything else. That murderous little shit is

...

No. Excuse me.

“Dr. Hayden Newson” hay_newt(a)xenostate.au says:

Let's talk about the AT-field instead of twenty pages of bitching about Nagisa. You have clear reason to vent about him, after what happened to Germany, but damn. Even after everything, this is still like, explosive.

"Dr. Julianne Steinhoff" juli_steinhoff(a)nerv*de says:

Haha. Fine, I will indulge.

The AT-field produces distorted spacetime barriers? Yes, that is one of the basic properties of the field.

The AT-field works as medium for extrasensory perception. This one actually makes sense.

The AT-field as a cutting instrument? That's reasonable.

Homing laser? Yeah, sure.

Teleportation? ... whatever.

Antigravity? It is 2015 already. Where's my hoverboard, punk? Where is it?!

“Dr. Scott Fogle” foglehorn(a)nasa*gov says:

You owe me a new keyboard. Oh my sides. My stomach literally hurts. That was way more funny than it had any right to be.


________________________________________________________




“Dr. Hayden Newson” hay_newt(a)xenostate.au

I'm going to Berlin.

“Dr. Scott Fogle” foglehorn(a)nasa*gov

If you feel you must, then I won't try to talk you out of it. However, even if you're doing so keep Julianne safe, do you have a plan so that you won't be a nuisance instead? NERV's security might not even allow you to approach her in the first place.

“Dr. Scott Fogle” foglehorn(a)nasa*gov

I want you to picture the Xenobiology Lab. Imagine a hole in the ground in the center of the outback. Nothing but deserts all around, nothing to eat, nothing to drink, nothing to see. Inside it's a series of stacked capsules separated from each other by a vacuum. Each of these capsules is designed as to simulate the conditions on any exoplanet.

This isn't classified information. We're not NERV, you know. But this is all so that if we receive a sample and it breaks containment, kills all the scientists, and takes over the base, there is enough time to react and burn the place down.

“Dr. Scott Fogle” foglehorn(a)nasa*gov

Impressive! And perhaps a bit morbid? I would enjoy visiting it one of these days.

“Dr. Scott Fogle” foglehorn(a)nasa*gov

I want you to understand that I work in a lab that's like the perfect setting for a zombie outbreak. Juli works at NERV, and it's dangerous, but she doesn't work under horror-story conditions that's taunting Murphy just by existing.

“Dr. Scott Fogle” foglehorn(a)nasa*gov

All right, so you may pass their psychological requirements. The main question is: do they have room for one more xenobiologist?

“Dr. Scott Fogle” foglehorn(a)nasa*gov

Who cares? I'll be a technician. Hell, if their cafeteria needs a cook, I'm there. What's important is that she gets someone who can have their back when everything goes to hell.

“Dr. Scott Fogle” foglehorn(a)nasa*gov

Godspeed, then. I know she'll be happy to see you again.


_________________________________________________________________


“Dr. Julianne Steinhoff” juli_steinhoff(a)nerv.de

NERV German Branch doesn't even exist anymore. The only reason this inbox even exists is that the server is actually in Cologne.

“Dr. Scott Fogle” foglehorn(a)nasa*gov

Are you all right?

“Dr. Hayden Newson” hay_newt(a)xenostate.au says:

Dammit, Juli. I should never have left when you got me arrested and deported.

“Dr. Julianne Steinhoff” juli_steinhoff(a)nerv.de

You would have died. The Cradle's-spawn found eating prisoners stuck in jail cells to be a particularly delicious treat.

“Dr. Hayden Newson” hay_newt(a)xenostate.au says:

Sometimes you make it really hard to be your best friend, you know that?

“Dr. Julianne Steinhoff” juli_steinhoff(a)nerv.de

I'm fine. You're fine. You're safe. Sohryu came back and kicked so much ass you wouldn't believe. Everything's right with the world.

_________________________________________________________________


“Dr. Hayden Newson” hay_newt(a)xenostate.au says:

You know, plenty of people doubt that Shinji Ikari is human at all. Why is it that only children can pilot the Eva? What is the quality that sets them apart from the rest of the human race?

“Dr. Julianne Steinhoff” juli_steinhoff(a)

Sohryu is 100% verifiably human though. And she is not the lesser in that trio of pilots.

“Dr. Scott Fogle” foglehorn(a)nasa*gov

May I indulge in a bit of philosophy? Why do we regard those teenagers to the point of reverence? We human beings have an innate urge to exalt people, to put them on a pedestal. Celebrities, sports legends, heroes, leaders, great men and women, martyrs, saints and prophets... but I can verify that for those three - it goes far beyond that.

There are such things as personality cults, and... actual cults. I know for certain that there are people ready to start a religion about those three. They are a new Trinity.

“Dr. Julianne Steinhoff” juli_steinhoff(a)

Humans tend to have an undue fascination with the number three. I wonder why?

Excuse my interruption, Dr. Fogle. Please, continue.

“Dr. Scott Fogle” foglehorn(a)nasa*gov

The battle against the Angels is always hard-fought, but amidst the existential dread, there is always hope that if the world could just support them and hold on, eventually even the Angels would break. The Angels had the AT-field? Well, individual humans might not have that, but in some small way, perhaps we wish deep in our hearts - this is our barrier. This is where we stand. This far and no further.

Break against it! Against terror, anger. Against despair, spite. Against apathy, insolence. Against loss, revenge.

That they are children makes them better symbols for the struggle. The future fights for itself. I think, this is why I personally could never be moved by Nagisa's rhetoric.

“Dr. Hayden Newson” hay_newt(a)xenostate.au says:

That was beautiful.

But must we really talk about Nagisa? You know what they say about talk about religion and politics can destroy friendships, but Nagisa like combines both at once! Maybe even three at once - politics, religion, and (un)natural sciences.

“Dr. Julianne Steinhoff” juli_steinhoff(a)

Much as I hate to say it, maybe we should. For me, it's closure. For you guys, maybe there will be answers at last.

“Dr. Hayden Newson” hay_newt(a)xenostate.au says:

There was a time when Nagisa's philosophy may have been... if not attractive, then at least an acceptable alternative. Then he tried to fulfill it with outright bodyjacking and mind control.

“Dr. Scott Fogle” foglehorn(a)nasa*gov

See, that has always been strange to me. It's part of why I recoil at a primal level to Nagisa's creed. Why imperil humanity's capacity to defend itself at the moment they needed to come together the most? Why split a straightforward war into two fronts?

Nagisa professed to have a better, more efficient way of defending humanity, except that what we were doing was working. It reeks of selfishness and egotism. For someone powerful enough and cunning enough that, to be honest, did manage to fight against Angels and NERV simultaneously with a good chance of winning, his goals and methods are nonsense. If he had offered just to help, he would have been welcomed with open arms. Even theft of the Earth's Cradle would be forgivable, if the resources sunk there were repurposed to fight the Angels too.

Even an independent second column wouldn't have been disturbed. If he just wanted to take it and flee, no one would have chased him. We had more than enough problems on this besieged Earth of ours.

Instead, he showed this ill-timed tantrum and destroyed whatever possible sympathies he may have gathered.

“Dr. Julianne Steinhoff” juli_steinhoff(a)nerv.de

Right. Instead he stupidly decided to fight us, put in danger our defense of this planet, and for all his pain got his teeth kicked in. Nagisa's insane. That's all there is to it.

“Dr. Hayden Newson” hay_newt(a)xenostate.au says:

Transhumanism and post-humanism aren't bad, per se, but it's not really what we need *right now*. There's plenty of time for that later. Survival's a sufficiently strong goal, isn't it?

“Dr. Scott Fogle” foglehorn(a)nasa*gov says:

My children and grandchildren may experiment and explore those horizons if they want, but more important is having them live to have that choice. Not only did Nagisa remove that choice, he sought to apply it immediately. I mean, this is nonsense. There is no need to rush... or is there?

“Dr. Julianne Steinhoff” juli_steinhoff(a)nerv.de

Ironically, the one best equipped to speak of Nagisa's reasoning is Ikari.

“Dr. Hayden Newson” hay_newt(a)xenostate.au says:

Which one? Because last I heard, the older Ikari outright betrayed NERV to join the Cradle. Or was it all a big plot by him after all? Nagisa was just following orders?

“Dr. Scott Fogle” foglehorn(a)nasa*gov says:

There is a theory that Nagisa was as mind-controlled as his servants, and in his own way was trying to screw it up.

“Dr. Julianne Steinhoff” juli_steinhoff(a)nerv.de says:

Ah, yes, Cradle apologists. If Nagisa were to ask for forgiveness, that's one thing, but we must just people by what they do. Not whatever they imagine they actually mean. The damage can't just be waved away by an "Oops! My bad!" People died from his rampage through Europe! If it wasn't for Sohryu, I'd be dead right now.

“Dr. Hayden Newson” hay_newt(a)xenostate.au says:

What pisses me off the most about it, is that if you break it down to its roots, Nagisa's philosophy is about surrender.

The Cradle was a tacit surrender, a subterranean time capsule to preserve a slice of human civilization even if the world itself is wiped clean of life. Nagisa stealing it didn't change anything about that. His philosophy was all about abandoning Earth as a lost cause and the present state of humanity as a failed existence.

I mean, like, who but nihilists would go for that?


__________________________________________________________________________


TIMESTAMP: After Kozo Fuyutsuki's speech

“Dr. Scott Fogle” foglehorn(a)nasa*gov says:

Potentially thousands of still dormant Angels. Tens of thousands.

o

“Dr. Hayden Newson” hay_newt(a)xenostate.au says:
Well, shit. That puts a different perspective to things. 'Operation Get Off This Rock' sounds sensible now.

o

“Dr. Julianne Steinhoff” juli_steinhoff(a)nerv.de says:

No. We can win this. Nagisa's as much our enemy as the Angels. This is our goddamn planet, and we will keep it!

o

“Dr. Scott Fogle” foglehorn(a)nasa*gov says:

Why not just explain it so bluntly? Prof. Fuyutsuki was able to do it. He could have gained plenty of volunteers without issue.

"Dr. Julianne Steinhoff" <jul.steinhoff@nerv.de> says:
Because as long as Ikari lived, there remains a chance of winning it. No matter against what unsurmountable odds. That would have just polarized us even more to resist.

o

“Dr. Scott Fogle” foglehorn(a)nasa*gov says:

But now we know NERV Headquarter's plan is to set off a controlled Third Impact using the pet Angel they had in the basement. That sounds... incredibly dangerous.


"Dr. Julianne Steinhoff" <jul.steinhoff@nerv.de> says:

Meh. With a powerful enough AT-field, things can get timey-wimey, wibbly-wobbley.

o

“Dr. Hayden Newson” hay_newt(a)xenostate.au says:

The Doctor never said that, and you know it. Stop mangling the classics please.

o
 

bluepencil

that's why it's trash can, not trash cannot
Preamble:
I am hereby disavowing Chapter 46. It went off the rails not in a good way.


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

War was a terrible thing, perhaps the greatest and most vile of mankind’s inventions. The highest order of thinking beings on the planet excelled in the way that the lowest order could make even elephants flee. Army ants. A tide of destruction, fearing nothing, sweeping all before it, leaving nothing but picked bones. That was the height of glory for conquerors.

The power to destroy was as real as the power to create. The one who can destroy a thing, no matter how precious, has power over that thing. Mankind could be proud of martial accomplishments, and the citizen in the might of their nation. A vast and impersonal thing, but it is theirs. It is theirs.

War never changes.

But it too, in the end, was meaningless.

Second Impact killed more humans than in all the wars in all of humanity’s history.

The arch-murderer; SEELE.

Mankind lost this war before it had even begun.


----


There were people who would bully the weak; wage war upon the weakest as a matter of course. Such was the way of nations. Many more of the strong would speak of their own moral force, protecting the weak, and falling upon their enemy all together in a cassus belli, to serve their own interests. For pride. For honor. The world wars.

High above, the Moon cracked and boiled and steamed, as Pluto and Charon; dwarf planets made entirely out of ice, shattered slowly into sparkling splinters. To commit celestial bodies to a fight, the daring of those sworn to the Shadow Moon.

The one who killed and tortured the weak, so that they might find the strength in themselves; Kaworu Nagisa.

He chose to play the villain of the piece, because light could not exist without shadow. He would not be alone. Always mankind would struggle; with him, against him, he would be the new Lucifer. Mankind had an instinct for patterns and stories, hungered for a life that made sense – and so the gift of a narratively appropriate opponent was perhaps the finest gift he could give.

Who could wage war against their very own hearts?

His victory was ever-present and eternal.

If only THAT PERSON would just cooperate with the plan!


----


The Moon was slain to stop the birth of a God.

What were human weapons, human will, humanity’s hands raised in multitude compared to that?

A God laughed, even as she burned.

Even as she plummeted to the Earth.

The mother and daughter and the one who devours; LILLITH.

This has happened again and again and again. Mankind was born to create Lillith in their collective unconscious, to be harvested, and to be reborn again as a new Black Moon spawned from their graves.

ADAM sought immortality in the physical. LILLITH was immortal in the ever-changing experiences of the little beings that dared, and built, and slew each other. It was only fitting that they died the same way they lived – in delusion. In despair.

She could not be slain as long as a single human being existed.

The technology was just window dressing.

The Collective Unconscious from which a chosen few pulled their psychic might was just another fetal specimen. She drank deep of their terror. She drank of their despair. The seas scraped away at the coastlines, the volcanoes broke open; every second millions were dying.

Lillith laughed.

She burned.

She laughed and laughed.

It was the voice of humanity, reborn to the pains of Samsara, hating itself, in a cycle perpetuated across unknown eons.

So many red stillborn worlds in the cosmos. Instrumentality. Peace. It was also fitting that SEELE and mankind attempted to find nirvana in the greatest act of murder possible.


----


SEELE; dead, perhaps, but there were still those who would prefer the grotesque finality of the Red Earth Ceremony than to become the fuel for LILLITH’s parthenogenesis. A kindness to another world, where perhaps the plague of mankind would not manifest itself again.

Kaworu and his cadre; intangible and unreachable. Now holding the might of ADAM, the perfect being literally at hand, waiting to pick apart the victor of the next battle at his leisure. LILLITH; in all her rotten glory. This was the nightmare that Yui Ikari sought to defy. Her face was that of Unit-01; screaming.

----


Mistakes made in the past cannot be revoked. They leave only room for regret. And now the consequences press down upon the present. Sisyphus; slipped. Off balance, his strength removed. The boulder begins to tilt-

Sploosh. Seda Fadime in Turkey screamed in as her child, clinging to her in fear, suddenly explodes into orange goop. She knelt and tried to gather the puddle in her hands, still screaming her son’s name.

Sploosh. Sploosh.

There was no acceptance, no epiphany to be found here. Only hunger.

Meanwhile, New York drowned. The Moon’s death throes pulled at the Earth’s waters, and as cars bobbed like tiny corks in the hammering tides rushing like a hydra through the streets, towers were turned into islands of safety in the madness. Fred Stevens, personal injury attorney, gave a guilty sigh of relief as he backed away from the 35th-floor windows.

Then he felt something yank at the insides of his eyeballs. And sploosh.

In Germany, people rushed to the shelters, and then streets ran orange.

In the Vatican, the Pope’s seat was wet.

The Himalayas rang from psychic shields straining against the call of a God.

“Kali!” They shouted in Bangor, and no one was spared.

In under thirty minutes, world population was pared down by half a billion. And increasing.


----

There was no hope left for mankind.


But that’s all right.

Mankind did not need hope at this juncture.

They had a red-haired girl in a red Evangelion. She held a hammer.


----


A blue-haired girl looked uncharacteristically stern and said only: “No.”

Her palm was pierced through. The smell of burnt flesh hung over the room, as the psychically charged blade cauterized the wound. She closed her hands into a fist, uncaring of how the blade tore open and cooked her fingers, and pulled to rip the lance out of its wielder’s armored hands.

----

Two little girls; Sakura Suzuhara and Nozomi Horaki stared out the window to the sky. Sometimes the moon could be see in the afternoon sky, but not today. The sky was just clean of clouds, crystal clear and infinitely high.

"Do you still hear the drums?" Nozomi asked.

"Yeah..."

"It's not over."

Sakura grinned fiercely, showing all the bloodlust as if she'd stolen it out of her brother's soul. "Ere we go."


----


LILLITH broke through the atmosphere, Unit-01’s armor still dully glowing from the heat of re-entry. Gouts of ichor flowed across its body, steaming, and yet forming new flesh, new muscles, new organic armor plating out of nothing. Having just survived a dwarf planet to the face, she was wounded and yet the strongest she'd ever been.

It roared, and the sound made the world shudder. Literally. It traveled across the world in impossible speeds, and it echoed in the deepest portions of the human soul. Petrifying, yes. Maddening, yes. But also triumphant and with infectious joy.

As if to say; “Tokyo-3! I have returned!”

Asuka Langley-Sohryu only laughed and raised her hammer like a baseball bat. “You idiot… ,“ she whispered. “You think you’re so strong now? You really think we’re so weak after all? You just made one big obvious mistake.”

She twisted her body back, held the pose for three seconds, and swung - !


----


The world exploded in red and gold.


----


Shinji and Warhammer40k

Chapter 48: The Last Love Song part2


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




Also: Merry Christmas. :)
 

buytbuyt

Well-Known Member
W00t :D

Thanks man. and merry holiday making to you.

and Happy shopping trips. and Good crowd diving.
 
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