Disclaimer: I own none of the copyrighted characters in this work and I am not making any money off of this story.

Author's note at end of chapter.


Shinji Ikari shivered, trying to keep down the sniffles as he kept mechanically plodding forward through the night. He, Asuka and Rei stumbled through the darkness, night having fallen after the events of Fourth Impact.

The once proud city was torn apart by the machinations of an insane group of evil old men. Buildings crumbled while strange helices of unknown origin spiraled through the sky above. The gigantic EVA-like creatures, the Failures of Infinity, lay motionless and inert around the Impact blast area for miles around.

Shinji Ikari followed after Asuka Langley Shikinami and Rei Q, his expression as glum and dead—his psychotic break having almost broken his mind completely. Fuyutsuki's mind rape and Gendo's careful scheming had done their work well; Shinji's very brain matter was injured from all the psychological scarring. He felt numb, his body barely functioning as it was. It took all he could just to walk.

Kaworu was dead, and Rei was lost to him forever. Everything he'd ever done was for nothing. All he'd wanted was to please the people around him, and what had he gotten in exchange?

Nothing.

Everything he'd ever done was for nothing. He was completely worthless.

If he had the energy for it, he might have gotten angry. He might have thrown a tantrum, shouted and screamed and ranted and raved…but what was the point?

He was just a weak, stupid little boy. He was nothing, now.

All that was left was for him to return to WILLE, to the people who hated him more than anyone, and get thrown into a prison cell. Doubtlessly he'd be executed on the spot.. He'd seen the looks on their faces when they blamed him for Third Impact. Every soldier in that stupid ship wanted him dead. They'd only held off on attacking him outright because Misato was present.

He wasn't stupid, he knew hatred when he saw it. And in the bridge crew of WILLE he saw utter loathing.

Shinji debated pulling free from Asuka's hand and running off…but she'd chase him down. She wasn't content with letting him die in peace. No, she had to make him suffer first, just like she did when she nearly broke his neck fourteen years ago over a misunderstanding.

Bitterly, he wondered if she even remembered his attempt at saving her life in space. Probably not…but he couldn't just let her die, could he?

Not that it mattered. Nothing he did ever worked right—

He was jolted out of his inner misery by Asuka stopping abruptly in front of him. He didn't even bother to raise his head as he bumped into her.

The redhead was the first to speak, her remaining eye casting about in alarm. "What the fuck…?"

The very earth shook, tremors shaking the landscape around the trio. Rei was able to remain upright with some difficulty. Shinji stumbled, bumping into Asuka again as the shaking turned especially fierce…

Asuka turned around to glare at the imbecilic vegetable behind her. He was still unresponsive, annoyingly enough. She was about to shove him off of herself when the tremors ceased, and a horrible, groaning noise reached her ears.

Both children looked down to see a rapidly lengthening crack in the ground, stretching into the distance both before and behind them.

Asuka blinked in surprise, and was caught off guard by a pair of soft, firm hands on her back.

Before she could start screaming at the boy's audacity, the hands shoved her back about three paces, saving her just as the ground broke open.

Asuka stared at him, stared at the two blue eyes staring at her with a terrible, wrenching sorrow-

Shinji barely had time to scream before the world fell away, and he plummeted into the darkness below.

The young man plummeted, tumbling down a chasm into the darkness, nearly cracking his head one moment, his limbs thrashing wildly in mute panic. He finally landed in a deep pool of warm, black sludge.

Coughing, he sat up, waist deep in the warm fluid. The stuff had cushioned his fall but was stuck to his back and in his hair. Cloying and thick, it stretched like tar as he sat up

He raised a hand, staring at the weird, clingy substance surrounding his body. It was already stuck to the back of his hand, and he saw a bit of it stretched across his palm. It was jet-black, and out of the puddle the strands stretched across his glove resembled a spider's web. More strands were extending out of the pool, anchoring themselves in all directions. The spiderweb resemblance started to grow stronger...and Shinji grew nervous.

He started to sit up, only to find his other hand stuck in the gel. He tugged on it once, but it was as if something had tight hold of his other hand. He turned his head to look and gasped.

His left hand was stuck fast, a small army of streamers slithering up the wrist, interweaving themselves with his plugsuit as they rapidly climbed up to his elbow.

Before Shinji could even react, the rest of the inky black ooze came alive.

A forest of tendrils erupted out of the puddle and interweaved about his body. The streamers extending into the walls broke away to coil around his legs, binding them together. More of the things lashed out, winding around him as he thrashed madly.

Shinji screamed, thrashing about as he tried to claw the tentacles off him but to no avail. In seconds he was completely cocooned in a huge black web, tendrils erupting out of the pool to vine around the rapidly hardening substance. The warm streamers clung to his body like glue, binding to his flesh through his plugsuit and coiling around him as he thrashed about.

"GET THIS OFF OF ME! GET IT—GET IT OFF ME!"

More of the slime slithered up from the chrysalis, covering his neck. He could feel it spreading higher as he struggled limply, tears of frustration falling from his eyes. First his only friend dies and now he's about to be eaten by a horrible slime monster...

"Can't get it off…I can't stop this! I can't move…I can't…I can't—"

Higher it rose, covering his mouth, his nose, his eyes sliding shut as the blackness spread.

I can't…it's all over me…

Won't let go of me-it won't let me go! I can't stop this, I can't! I can't fight anymore…please, no more…no more! Make it stop, make it stop! I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE-!

Shinji felt the last of the darkness claim his vision before everything went dark.

He awoke, so to speak, in a train station.

Shinji started to walk, staring about at the horribly familiar surroundings. It was all coming back to him, the pain, the sorrow...and a figure walking away from him.

"W-Wait! Wait, please wait!"

The Third Boy broke into a run, his hands desperately reaching for the man who couldn't even spare him a backwards glance.

"Why did you leave? What did I do wrong? Tell me, what did I do to deserve this!?"

The figure stopped. It turned to face him and Shinji recoiled, horrified.

It wasn't his father. It was built like his father, it had his suit and beard, but the face was a horrifying rictus of a grin. Savage fangs glinted in the afternoon light, and two gigantic white eyespots stared out of the inhumanly smooth face directly at him. A hideous, pink tongue rolled out of the thing's mouth as it spoke.

"You ran away, boy."

Shinji turned away, but the thing resembling his father crossed the gap in an instant. The features resembling Gendo faded away, the suit melting, running into a mass of black slime. The arms grew whiplike, the suit, the human features vanishing almost entirely. The creature continued to lengthen and rise, leaving behind something enormous and writhing, a towering creature made of darkness with a hideous fanged maw and the same glowing white eyes. Bizarrely, it almost resembled a suit of some kind, a living costume without a wearer. Its many grasping limbs

It slithered towards Shinji as he stumbled back, trying to escape the monster, only for a tentacle to lash out and wrap itself around his wrist. The humanoid

"Do not leave us. We have much to discuss, Shinji Ikari."

Shinji froze. "Y-You can talk? Wh-what are you?"

The fanged maw grinned wider as the beast replied, "Yes, we can talk, and we can do so much more. We are called...the symbiote. More importantly, we have a question for you. Who do you hate most?"

Shinji did not even hesitate. "Myself."

"Why? What have you done to deserve such treatment?"

The former EVA pilot stared at the great slime monster before him, and his hands shook as he actually screamed. "I killed so many people I can't count them all. All my friends are dead, and everyone in the entire world hates me! And worst of all I gave all that up to save the one person I ever loved...and she's dead."

The slimy creature listened to his rant with patience, before replying, "And who, Shinji Ikari, killed her?"

Shinji blinked. "I did...didn't I?"

Memories played on repeat in Shinji Ikari's head. He thought back, to the day he fought the tenth angel...when he tore open its core to get to his beloved Rei. She was pulled out, and safe, with him in EVA-01's core. She was with him, she was safe...inside the beast.

His eyes widened. That's what happened. He knew Misato lied to him. Everyone but Kaworu lied to him, and even Kaworu didn't trust him enough to tell him everything. Shinji's fist clenched. Kaworu didn't deserve what happened to him either.

"Yes...that's it..." The creature seemed to grow larger as Shinji thought back to his rude awakening. Slowly its hollow form started to thicken, reshaping itself into a more solid figure. "Remember what they did to you. Remember who and what they took from you."

More memories rose to the surface: his father abandoning him, Asuka's constant abuse, Misato using and abandoning him in turn, Rei being devoured, Sachiel punching out his eye, Shamshel impaling him, Ramiel roasting him alive, Sahaquiel stabbing two holes in his palms, Bardiel strangling him to death before his father used him to murder Asuka, the desperate battle against Zeruel, Gendo abandoning him again and Kaworu being murdered by WILLE-

That last one sent a spike of pain through his heart.

"They took everything from me. I trusted them, I wanted to join them...!"

"Because you had no other choice. You were led around by the nose, told only what would make you useful to them, and put aside until they needed you to save them again. And how were you repaid?"

The living, hollow suit removed its hand from his arm.

"Say it."

"But Misato..."

"Yes, Misato. What did she do for you when you first met? She used you just like the others did. She ignored you until you were her useful puppet, her good little soldier to fight her battles for her. Did you forget how helpful she was when you had that reunion with your father?"

How could he forget? Misato had gotten right in his face, talking over his objections and all but ordering him into the chair. He'd trusted her...and that was his mistake.

He couldn't trust any of them. Asuka, Misato, all of them were worthless, faithless traitors.

As he lay still, covered in slime, musing on how much he'd suffered...he felt hatred, venomous and powerful. For the first time he felt hatred, hatred for Misato who'd betrayed him, Asuka who tried to kill him, his father for everything...

"I...I hate them..."

Shinji clenched his fist as he felt that first spark of wrath building in his heart. Not righteous fury, not the determination that let him fight Zeruel...this was something else. This was something venomous.

"I bent over backwards for them, did everything I could to please them, and they all abandoned me again to get their fucking ship going—"

Everything he'd done, he'd done for them, for Gendo, Misato, someone to actually give two shits about him and they didn't even care. He'd given them everything and they'd used him and spat in his face.

"Yes...they abandoned you. You should not hate yourself. You should hate the others; the ones that used you, the self-righteous ones that abandoned you and strapped a bomb to your throat. They turned you into a scapegoat to cover their own failures, Shinji. Think about it; you were a child. Who do you think the world would have blamed for their mistakes?"

The creature slithered both arms around his shoulders, its voice a sibilant whisper. "Do you really think the world would have allowed them something as powerful as that ship if they knew the truth? The whole truth?"

"But what can I do? I have no power, not anymore. I don't even have an EVA Unit to help me. I have to go back to WILLE now and try to make up for what I did. ...what other choice do I have?"

"Why must you make amends for something that is as much their fault as it is yours? Why must you clean up a mess that was created by forces beyond your control?"

"Because my friends—"

"Are dead, or were never your friends to begin with. You said yourself how you were betrayed, how much you suffered under their whims when they were only out to save their own skins. They care nothing for you. They will kill you."

The sibilant voice, seductive and warm, whispered in his ear. "And this is ignoring that your father is still alive."

Shinji froze. His father...

"Your father is seated on a throne, the king of this world, most likely gloating on how well he played you. WILLE will try to kill you once more and this time they will succeed. Neither side cares about you, so what do you owe these people?"

Shinji fell silent. More memories were dragged up, playing before him like a movie of his own horrendous life: all the abuse, torment and indignities he'd suffered working for NERV coming back to haunt him.

"What do you owe them? They have used you, betrayed you, abandoned you when you needed them most, abused you on every level save the physical. Why should you go back to them?"

Shinji looked into the monster's face, and whispered, "Where else can I go?"

The darkness answered, "Wherever you want. You've been kind, you've been polite, and put the needs of others before your own your whole life out of fear that you would be hated. We offer you eternal love, eternal congress with another. You never have to be alone again..."

His eyes flickered between their usual sad blue and an angry red "I…I…"

"Listen to us. You do not have to accept our offer…but we offer you power. We offer you love. We offer you pleasure. We offer you strength beyond your wildest dreams. And we offer you something glorious-a chance at revenge."

A thought occurred to the boy. "But what do you need me for?"

"We are powerless without one to bond to. Accept our gift, and we will both benefit…or you can decline. We will release you, and you can go back to those who will undoubtedly torment you or force you to play child soldier again. And do not delude yourself; you will never please them otherwise. They will kill you if they cannot use you."

The grip on his shoulders tightened.

"Accept us, let us in. Let us give you power to take revenge on all those that have wronged you."

Shinji gulped nervously, his jaw working for a moment before he replied, "And what do you get out of this?"

"We get a host to feed on, to love. You can do as you please. You can take your precious Rei back if you wish. You can be loved again…but the choice is yours. We will not force you...just say yes."

Shinji closed his eyes, thinking. He thought of Gendo, of Misato, of Asuka and all those who had abandoned and betrayed him. He thought of his horrible life, how everyone had spent years kicking him around, how everyone thought him pathetic.

He thought of all the bastards in NERV and his newly discovered wrath grew so thick he could choke on it.

The grinning monster in front of him laughed aloud. We sense your hatred, Shinji, your fury, and its taste is sweet. Do you hate WILLE? Do you hate NERV?

Shinji hunched forward, his bangs shadowing his eyes, his pain so great it nearly choked him. "Yes...yes I do. I hate all of them-Misato, Asuka, Gendo, all of them! Nobody cares about me so they can all just die!"

The symbiote stretched, shivers of pleasure running up and down its amorphous body as it listened in to him. "Yes...that's it. Bond with us, Shinji Ikari, mind, body, and soul."

Shinji's eyes snapped open. The irises glowed red as blood.

"Yes."

The creature extended a hand. Shinji took it. The beast melted away, its muscular body flowing like water as it started to meld together with his arm. The voice continued its rant.

"Accept our gift, and all of our power."

"Yes!"

"And together we will have our desire!"

The train station faded away. In the cavern, the cocoon shook, and shattered into a thousand pieces. A muscular, athletic figure dropped to the ground, small in height but built like a predator. It turned its glowing white eyes to the shaft of light above, and bared its many teeth.

"We will have our vengeance..."

Inside the newly liberated Geofront, Gendo Ikari sat in his desk, ruminating in his usual position.

Everything was going according to plan. WILLE was easily defeated, the Angels were out of the picture, and all that was left was to set off Final Impact and reunite with his beloved Yui. Third Impact, Fourth Impact, all those deaths meant nothing as long as he got his hands on his wife again.

If it had been in his nature to do so he might have gloated. Fourth Impact in particular was almost laughably easy to set off-it was as if the world itself conspired to give him what he had needed.

His son had proven the useful pawn he always was. Gendo allowed the resentment he'd fostered towards the third boy to fester for a brief moment. Wretched child stole Yui's affection away…but no matter. Yui would soon be back in his arms. Nothing else mattered-

His thoughts were interrupted by a muffled crash that shook the entire ruined structure

Gendo looked up sharply. "What the devil was that noise?"

He knew that the structure had been unsound since the events of 14 years ago, but this…was worrisome. The gigantic geofront had been removed from the ground and while the internal structures were still intact the crash itself was…damaging. He pushed a button on the desk, connecting him to Fuyutsuki's quarters elsewhere in the structure.

"Fuyutsuki, report in."

Nothing but static…the commander tried again.

"Fuyutsuki, where are you? Report in!"

Fuyutsuki was in fact running as fast as his aged legs could carry him, which was admittedly not fast enough.

Kouzou was old, and far too out of shape and fragile for this sort of chase, but the human body was capable of amazing things when its life was at risk. His shoes pounded on the catwalk,

And Fuyutsuki knew this thing wanted him dead. The moment he'd walked into the room with the cloning tanks and seen that beast inside, standing next to one of the long-dead Rei clones…the sound it had made when it screamed at him-

He felt his stomach heave, both from the exertion and the horrible images. What happened in the EVA battles was detached, clinical, many miles away from his own station.

But what he'd seen in that room, the organs scattered across the room, the blood spatter on the walls as the beast finished with the dummy plugs.

His terror-widened eyes glanced behind him, but he only ended up stumbling, hitting the ground hard enough to break one of his arms.

Whimpering, the old man struggled to get back to his feet, hearing a hissing growl behind him.

"Hungry…"

Gendo's second-in-command struggled to rise, gripping his wounded arm. His lungs burned, his blood turning to ice as he beheld the giant shadowy figure before him. At first glance, it looked like a human in a suit…but the proportions were all wrong. The arms were just too long, the height at least eight feet and those gigantic muscles…

Fuyutsuki took a step back as the figure turned to face him, two blank white blotches covering half of its face serving as eyes. It spoke again, in a warped voice.

"Want…food. Hungry….so hungry…."

Fuyutsuki swallowed. "W-Wait, please…I'm certain I can find you something…something other than myself of course. Let's j-just talk this out, young man—"

The thing laughed at him. The lower part of its blank face tore itself open, revealing a jagged row of misshapen teeth. A long, serpentine tongue slithered out to taste the air briefly.

"We think not."

Fuyutsuki had only a few seconds to scream before the monster fell upon him. A forest of tendrils erupted out of the creature, thick, powerful streamers that raced towards him and enveloped him in seconds. Fuyutsuki's scream was cut off as the beast's tentacles squeezed off his air supply and dragged him into the darkness.

In seconds all that was left were inhuman growls, the tearing of meat and the crunch of bone.


A/N: I've always wanted to make a tale of Shinji getting his revenge on the main cast. It's happened before, by other, better authors, but none of them have ever quite done it the way I wanted it I figured, why not do it myself?

The trouble was how-I wanted a monster story, but I also wanted a revenge story. Then I was playing one of the Spider-Man games and it hit me.