... yeah, so I'm late. It's not like you cats were actually expecting a timely update anyway right? I mean, have I not pointed out in nearly ever post just how much of a lazy bastard I am. But whatever. I'll try to keep things going faster if I can. My job might get in the way of that but I'll do my best.

/priest/

:the usuall disclaimer goes here. I own nothing but the story. the rights to Eva and the Matrix go to their respective owners.

/Welcome to the Real World/

- lawless priest -

0.13

He waited for him to make the corner before crossing the street, dodging the light traffic in his way. The scene felt as if it had been taken out of some seedy spy flick, the kind where the heroic sleuth crept about, catching brief glimpses of his prey while narrowly dodging numerous close calls along the way to save the world and his ultimate goal... getting the girl.

Shinji hated those old movies. He hated how cool the spy looked and how he knew that if it was him in that position he probably would have tripped over a lose stone and whack his head in front of the enemy guards or something, compromising the whole mission.

And he knew damn well that he would never get the girl. That was a definite given.

Of course lack of confidence was a subject the fourteen year old excelled in. So that line of thinking would not have been a surprise to anyone who knew him. But as he made his way around the bend in time to see 'his' objective enter a seemingly empty warehouse he couldn't help but wonder if his next move would lead him to the answers he sought or land him in a greater hell than the youth was prepared to deal with.

Inside himself, Shinji knew the truth of the moment, that he was most likely screwed in ways he didn't even know were possible until he found out about the Matrix, or it found him to be more exact. That the mecha pilot was walking into a trap was obvious, but the question was... whose trap was it?

So far his quest for the truth had tossed him about in a thousand different directions he hadn't wanted to go in and caused him to take countless chances he didn't want to take. But Shinji had to know. The addictive trap the Matrix presented demanded it.

In either case Toji was there, that was a fact. So he had to go in on the off chance that he could find out what had happened to him during his abduction and bring him back out alive.

So much had already happened in the troubling months since this crazy story began, too much to be in fact. There had been many times where the younger Ikari wished he could just forget any of it ever went down and just somehow go back to his old life. A life with no Nerv, no Angels, no Commander, no Agents and no Matrix.

But life had shown him repeatedly just how unlikely that was possible and how it wouldn't solve anything or lead him to the answers for his problems. And he seriously doubted the Agents would stop coming for him just because he refused to deal with it anymore.

And so the boy named Shinji, once the man called Neo, was left with a freighting choice that he knew he would end up making anyway. He was going to have to bite the bullet and face the devil in front of him before it consumed him first.

Standing there in that heat as cars carrying their respective families within; the children with wide smiles on their faces in the back seats, the men and women dressed professionally going to and from their jobs in the front, passed by him without a care. And without evoking it a brief bout of jealousy hit him like a rock, leaving a heavy lump in his throat as his blue eyes took in the contentment reflected in their eyes by the thin plane of glass separating the normality of their seemingly innocent lives from his own.

Shinji took one last fleeting look behind him, at the path he had given up and the life he would never know again. Bowing his head in a last moment of regret before turning away from that road, he took a deep breath and an unsteady step toward his new one only to bump into the person he had been searching for.

"Toji is that you?" Surprise was written plainly across the Eva Pilot's face while looking the stranger in front of him over.

It was obviously Suzuhara. Although seeing him in that all too familiar dark suit along with those dehumanizing sunglasses did throw Ikari off a bit. But apparently the true Baka like nature of his question entitled him to a free invitation to become more acquainted with the spiky haired youth's fist. Seeing as it smashed into Shinji's unprotected face and all, sending the boy's body flying into the busy traffic behind.

The steady ache in his face and back became more pronounce as his body bounced and skid across the pavement. All the while moving him progressively closer toward the speeding interchange he couldn't help but think to himself about how much he knew that today was going to suck, his fight with Asuka aside.

13.0 like a cold reckoning

/Part 3 ... the last part, I swear/

- 3 hours prior -

"Ow! God, that hurt." The bruise wasn't large but it wasn't miniscule either.

"Are you... ok?"

Stupid question really, but it's the one thing everyone asks in such situations in the honestly unbelievable hope that things weren't as bad as they seemed. Even when they know the replying answer will come out negative and most likely followed by a string of choice expletives.

"Do I look ok to you Stooge?"

See what I mean. Notice the amount of implied spite...

"Sorry... "

And of course they always come back with that response as if that one phrase will somehow make up for whatever action instigated the injury.

"Hold still. Oh come on, it's not like I did it on purpose..."

And then come the excuses...

"... hiss, ow, ow! Not so hard!"

"Sorry, sorry, but you need to hold still."

There's that apology again...

"Will you just shut up already? I heard you the first time!"

Apologies... they never solve anything. And the strained silence that followed was proof enough, leaving the summer air for the Katydids. Both of us simply content with staring in embarrassing silence in the other's opposite direction while we sat with our backs to an old willow tree.

"It's not like I actually hit you that hard..." I tried to say but my excuse sounded rather lame even to my own ears. She... well, she merely gave me a look, The Look to be exact.

You know the one... don't you?

Of course you do, yeah, that one, the one that does more than simply imply the threat of bodily harm if the current conversation does not engage in a profound and swift, which in other words indicates an immediate, alteration of subjects but also that the before mentioned bodily harm 'will' - notice the stress on will, be of the Lasting sorts. Once again notice the capitalization on lasting, signifying a greater stress level.

"Alright! Alright! I'll shut up, I'll shut up!"

...sigh. see, I told you, apologizing solves nothing.

It was noon by then and the sun blazed above uncontested by cloud cover as we sat there beneath the shade of the old tree.

And it was such a nice day too. But noooo... she had to go and ruin it. It wasn't my fault things turned out the way they did. I mean, hell, she really was kicking my butt in the beginning, her attacks coming out of the bloody ether while making contact with my thin frame like a scene from National Geographic of a lion leaping onto a hapless gazelle on the African plains, blood and guts ripped all a strew for all the world to see.

I swear I was a pathetic sight.

But what was I supposed to do, just stand there and let her wail on me? Come on... I was the One damnit! I couldn't go out like that.

Maybe in the past, but I had no skills back then. I still didn't like confrontations but I had already agreed to spare with her and I knew she would only have gotten angrier if I hadn't fought for real.

...sigh, how do I get myself in these situations? There were times where I just wished the brief appearances my spine made didn't have to land me it questionable circumstances with certain red heads and women in general.

It all started with that kick. No doubt there was going to be a bruise but I refused to touch it and let her know that she had gotten to me. But like I said, that had been the prompter that pioneered my descent into disaster.

I suppose that I was a little angry that she had actually gotten that one off. I could have sworn that I would be able to block it, but considering that I hadn't block any of its predecessors I probably should have taken that into account... but whatever!

She hit me... it hurt... and I got pissed.

Simple really.

And that smile she had on when it happened probably didn't help either and I was determined to wipe it off her pretty face one way or another.

Too bad I was too focused on thinking about putting her in her place to actually pay attention to the particular female I was talking about, resulting in my catching her other foot in the eye, spinning me around.

"Ahhh... did that hurt Third? I'm sorry. But don't worry, I've got something here that'll make it "alllll' better." Her sweet voice came to my addled brain with the promise of hidden vipers in the bushes.

And that something happened to be her fist, but just as she came to deliver her gift I came out of my daze and caught her with a trio of gut shots, throwing her offensive off balance enough for me to continue my attack while she was still in shock.

Of course this didn't last long. And so she was able to block my next few punches while she pressed forward with a low swipe followed by a high roundhouse.

But I ducked and jumped accordingly much to her disappointment.

There were taunts thrown about, words were said while feet met ribs, fist met chins and we both began to sweat in the summer heat.

But all good things come to an end right? Well if you could call beating and getting beat up by a girl you secretly had a crush on a good thing.

In any case I guess you could say it was her own fault. There she'd been, standing there, her face flushed with exertion, her eyes shinning brightly with a fierceness as they locked on to my own while the nearly non-existent wind blew a few of her wet tresses away from her face.

The young German held herself in a new stance that I wasn't aware of, simply standing there, carefully following my every move.

It might have been the heat or a combination of the two, but I still blame it on her. To say the least she had me in a daze. And a weird one at that. One I could seem to get out of which her current position wasn't helping to alter.

I mean, there she stood. With her outfight clinging to her shapely frame as drops of sweat slid slowly from her matted hair down her perfectly tan skin, only to pause for about a second or two before finally falling from her chin to land with a splat barely audible to human ears. Yet somehow I was able to catch it all in the vivid detail of an anime frantic about to catch some hell for not paying enough attention to the people around whose favorite anime he was bashing.

But it was in that moment that it happened. One moment I was admiring the determination of my roommate and fellow pilot and the next I was staring at the sweat matted face of an older black haired woman in a similar position with a fierceness greater or equal to that of young girl I had been fighting.

"Trinity...?" It was more of whisper, but what robed me of my movement was the fact that it wasn't my voice that spoke it.

"Stop your mumbling and fight me." The German's cry crashed through my hallucination but the foot she had aiming for my face didn't brake me out of my stupor.

A shame she never landed that attack. It might have changed the outcome for both of us later but that was not to be and as her leg came close enough, my body moved on automatic, catching her shin and flipping her in the air and on her back.

"Ow! Damnit ow! God that hurt." It was her cry that brought me back, forcing me back to the here and now.

"Oh, Asuka... I, I... I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, I just... and you... and then..."

Asuka didn't grace me with answer, which wasn't a good sign. It was her hand, she had come down on it during her fall.

I was immediately on my knees and by her side checking her hand. Instinct you know...

"Hey what do you think you're..." she started with a nervous timbre in her voice. Something I had never heard from her before.

"Good, its not broken I don't think, so you should be ok." it wasn't that I didn't notice the way she narrowed her eyes at the way I just brushed past what she was saying, I was simply more concerned about her injury to care much. And I suppose it was the coolly focused way I examined her hand that kept her from screaming at me.

"Ow! Damnit Shinji!"

Ok... maybe I was wrong.

/WRW/

It was some time later and we were some distance away. Our walk was filled with birdcalls and the general song of a tamed forest like park environment trapped like everything else in a fortress like city. And in the light of that it was no small wonder why neither of us pilots felt the pull to join in their little dance.

Our feet fell silently as we trod unhaltingly while their owners remained lost in our own troubled minds. The impromptu sparring match and the way it ended aside there where still a number of issues we hadn't been able to speak about let alone deal with. And had the sneaking suspicion that if left unsaid we only cause us more problems down the road.

But of course I was never the most conversational person in the world so it wasn't like I was expecting to somehow... I don't know, get her to just tell me everything. Hell, I'd be lucky if she didn't call me a baka and just write me off.

"Asuka ... um?" Wow, what an amazing start.

"What is it now Third?"

"Well... about your dreams..." My eyes easily caught the way my companion's whole body went rigid and I was wondering if this was the right topic to begin with but it lasted only a moment. One simple second and she was as she had been before, indifferent as a hippo was to a mosquito trying to achieve its life long, more like day long dream of draining that fat mother lover of its precious life sustaining substance dry.

"What about them?" Her voice was even and dry. A little too much in fact, but I pressed on anyways. Knowing she'd only be angrier with me if I gave up now.

"I just... I don't understand why you would be dreaming about Neo, that's all? I thought I was the One. I mean I not trying to say that I'm special or anything or that you're not. It's just... I just don't understand why are you and Hikari having these dreams too. I thought they were just my problem."

She didn't say anything for awhile, simply walking in quiet speculation.

"So, which is it?" She said in return after some time of leaving me in reflective silence, not even bothering to answer my question as was her want to do.

"Is this really the real world, or the Matrix, is there really no Zion and I'm not talking about that old warehouse with Kirishima and the American, Ikari. What happened to that old place beneath the surface? Did any of it every exist? I mean, what the hell is the truth? Is any of it real?

"What do you mean? Why are you asking me this now? I told you everything that I know."

"No, you told me everything that they told you, but is it true? You're the One! Shouldn't you know what's real and what's not? What is the truth Shinji?"

"Depends on you definition of the..."

"Don't bullshit me you bastard! Just answer the fucking question! What the hell is the Matrix and how the hell do I get out of it?"

"Asuka I..."

"This makes no sense. How am I suppose to find out if the life I've been living up until now has any meaning? Am I even real? I could be, hell we all could be a bloody machi..."

"No!" I cut her off. I refused to even consider that possibility. The memories of my past life wouldn't allow me to accept that as truth. Not after all that I had seen them do in the past. I just couldn't believe that I could be one of them.

'Ah... what's wrong... can't say it can you? Too afraid to let it sink in that you might be or do you just want to continue deluding yourself?'

'Shut up.' I screamed at the nagging little voice in the back of my head with my father's deep voice.

'Pathetic Third Child. And you're supposed to be the One.'

'I said shut up!'

"Why can't we just have a normal life? Why does it always have to involve war and death and us struggling to survive?" Asuka was saying while I was trying to deal with my overactive conscience. Inside I was rather surprised to hear that kind of talk from my German roommate who had always claimed to be the strongest woman alive. Who could weather any enemy, but just like that day back when she had first cornered me about the Matrix I could see her armour cracking.

Yet truthfully I couldn't really say thing at the time anyway. I had no answers to any of her questions. Was this world real or was I being lied to again? I remember hating her at that moment for putting the doubt back in my head. Before then I had plenty of questions and only a few solid answers to base my life on but after that day in the park with her I found myself sliding down a path that would become far more familiar as time went by.

One that would lead us all down a road that none of us, from Zion or Nerv was prepared to take. But at that time the surly looking individuals gathering around us crushed any thought of finding the Truth.

"Asuka." I warned as the strangers got closer.

"I see them Third. Get ready." Her voice was hard and emotionless, our conversation clearly forgotten and any evidence of her outburst had been erased from her expression as if it had never been.

We were surrounded and our odds weren't looking good. My intuition proved true but a formless figure of speech wasn't going to save us no matter how much I prayed for it. The men were obviously not Section two and their flashy expensive dress seemed to give them a Yakuza appeal. Nobody were suits that costly without making money off the backs of others.

Asuka, my fearless Angel slaying comrade, caught my eye and gave me a quick look, one that I knew well. It had been decided. We weren't going out without a fight. As if I was expecting anything less from her.

"Just like with the seventh, Third."

"Gotcha. And hey. Try to stay off my feet this time, eh?"

"Screw you Ikari! You know you were the one who screwed up our landing!"

I merely smiled. She was still in denial it seemed even after all this time.

"Sorry to interrupt..." one of them was saying

"So why are you?" Asuka broke in before he could finish.

The speaker snorted before continuing. "Like I was saying, we're working on a rather tight time frame here, so one way or another... you two little kiddies are going to be coming with us.

"Is that right?" She replied back, sarcasm dripping between the pauses of each word.

"Ahhh and I had all of these appointments lined up for today. But with the way this are going I just don't think I'll have extra time to spare. Well, what a shame, what a shame but I'm going to have to decline your weak little offer. I don't deal with boring little boys."

"Boring little boys, eh?" One of the others to side the said. It was obvious he found her statement amusing. All of them had to be close to twice our ages and four times our number.

"Ha, ha, well doesn't she have a mouth on her?"

"Yeah, and a cute one too. Foreign girls are the best."

"I know what you mean. All that attitude they throw around like they own the world is great when you get them in bed, especially the young ones. They're always so feisty."

"She looks pretty feisty to me."

Of course by this time my eyes were narrowed to slits. My heart pumping more blood through my veins than necessary while my mind was swimming in maddening loops, constantly thinking and throwing away possible strategies to deal with these scum. And by deal with of course I was referring to ripping their useless hides into as many pieces as was humanly and inhumanly possible.

How dare they even believe they had to right to even look at her let alone speak to her like that? I didn't matter though because I was going to take them out anyway.

"Enough talk!" I yelled, which only made the scum smile to themselves, thinking my spunk was just a joke.

"Right, let's do this." one of them said.

And as one they all gave this evil smirk with what looked like fangs peeking out their hungry lips. The demented look in their eyes only added to the picture. And then, the weirdest thing happened. The bastards grew elongated claws from their hands and the next thing I knew they were attacking.

I barely dodged a swipe from one of their fists. I'm not sure which one, there being so many of them crowded around me. I lost sight of Asuka quickly as I was forced to trade blows from one attacker to the next.

Someone must have gotten me with a lucky shot in the mist of it all because I suddenly found myself landing hard on the ground. Never even got the chance to pick myself up before one of their booted feet caught me in the gut and lifted me clean into the air and into the waiting fist of another of the goons.

If you've ever been kicked in the ribs b a a steel toed size 11 boot then you personally know the pain I was in at that moment. The rest of you can only dream of it and I can tell you right now that you just don't know how lucky you are.

And the situation only got worse after that. My earlier determination must have gotten caught stuck somewhere between who's ever it was fist who pounded my face and whatever I used to have in my jaw.

Before I even hit the ground they began to stump the life out of me. Their heavy feet pounding repeatedly on my small frame, leaving bruises and bloody wounds everywhere they landed. It was obvious that I wouldn't be able to take much more of this, but I couldn't find a way to get to my feet with them surrounding me on all sides. I was going to have to do something and quick.

To tell you the truth I had more or less forgotten about Asuka, that is until I heard her agonizingly loud scream of pain. They had gotten between the two of us right from the start so we couldn't stand together and use our sync training. It was doubtful that they knew of it, but the result was the same.

So there I lay, being beaten while somewhere, probably not ten feet from me those devils could have been doing anything they wanted to my friend. And you know how the mind works; throwing all of your worst nightmares at you, slamming your psyche with all the hatefully and absurdly painful images that your fear could create. Then blinding you with the one simple fact that you really didn't know what was going on over there and any one of the terrible things your mind had tortured you with could very well be happening that very moment.

And that was something that I just could not take. Asuka was my friend, my comrade, someone who understood Eva, someone who understood the Matrix... who understood me... I couldn't let it end like this, I couldn't... I couldn't, I... I wouldn't!

In the mist of all of this my mind had long since ceased recognizing the pain my body was supposedly receiving. The truth of the matter was it didn't matter what was going on. The fact that the fools standing over me were blocking my way to Asuka was the only thing that really concerned me.

That little problem would have to be corrected and the green tinted code encompassing my vision was sure to help in that regard. Once again I remember having another strangely detached thought as how accustomed I was becoming to the true nature of the Matrix and my ability to see it. But I didn't deal on that long. I had work to do.

I'm sure it most have surprised to them when I suddenly caught the foot that was aimed for my face and broken it in several places just as quickly. Then my left foot shot out at blinding speeds and embedded itself in the lower region of the fool to my right, clearly catching him off guard only to jack knife him immediately into the fool across from him to my left, sending both of the flying back.

The others jumped a step back so as not to get hit, giving me the room I needed to spin myself to my feet. I supposed that would have been the moment to give some kind of hero like martial arts pose to signal that I was about to seriously quick their asses, but I didn't have time for such bullshit.

My fist zeroed in and slammed into the nearest grill I could find with the all the weight of a speeding truck, crushing it while sending the owner several feet away from the fight. Another one of them decided that jumping in while I was occupied was the thing to do. He came at me with his claws out and ready to strike but that didn't stop him from catching my elbow in his throat.

And of course I couldn't just leave him there to choke alone in obvious pain. So I helped him to a healthy serving of my rage with a vertical back hand, several shots to his chest, ribs and stomach and a full serving of my sneakers to elevate his illness. You should have seen the gratitude written on his face. I did that man a great favor. And he didn't even have to pay me back. Aren't I a nice guy?

The last three goons must have felt jealous because they immediately ran in with these huge grins on their faces. Hell they were actually beginning to foam at the mouth they were so excited. Who was I to deny them their pleasure?

So why should they have to wait?

Running towards the speeding rabid like hounds, I did a forward flip to gain momentum, a cartwheel and then right as they were about to reach me, I leapt into the air, spinning so I was able to catch one with a rotating kick and then slammed my body into the last two.

We each flipped or rolled out from that and ran in to attack. I had to dodge a canine like bite from one of the bastards while punching another in his solar pollex behind me and kicking the last with a body shot.

Not giving them time to react I jumped in the air with a flying roundhouse kick to the punk who wanted to bite me and followed with a number of speeding punches to his unprotected head as he was going down.

His body hit the ground at the exact moment I uppercutted the guy to my right and finished him with another flying roundhouse kick.

I embedded my elbow in the last fool's throat as well, then backhanded him in the face with the same hand and then ending him with a tremendous punch to the face that was on par with a category five hurricane.

Now free of nearby fools I wasted no time in racing for the luckless beasts surrounding my Asuka.

And no I didn't realize that I had called her that to myself until much later. But right then I was only concerned with ripping my enemies to shreds. My fight had only lasted mere seconds but it seemed like hours since I had hit the ground and been stomped. And ever step towards my roommate seemed to take forever as well. I remember having the feeling that I was going to be too late, making me nauseous. And I could feel the acid taste of bile on my tongue.

But I finally reached them with determination burning in my chest.

I sigh when I say that the first guy I hit didn't even see me coming. He was too occupied with the show his friends were giving to notice my entrance. Of course the flying fool who rammed into the main performer sorta got all of their attentions, but I wasn't through.

If it hasn't been noted already, I happened to be a fan of the spinning roundhouse. So the ones I gave the first three bastards shouldn't have been much of a surprise, to them maybe it was, but to you, probably not. In any case, I was too much into whipping that ass to care if I was repeating my moves.

Screw originality, I had faces to drill. Like the angry, snarling punk who ran at me with his head down, probably thinking he was going to tackle me to the ground. I quickly thought about doing a spin off his back and going from there. But I was in a hurry so I just kicked him in his jaw, somehow completely stopping his momentum and ended him with a side kick to the ribs, no doubt shattering a few of those, to get him out of my way.

That left only three men left and as they moved to surround me I was finally able to get a view of what had become of Asuka.

And then... as my face registered my shock, my left eye gaining a nervous twitch while my hands clenched and unclenched at my side, the world went red and that nice, peaceful, clean summer setting lost much of its pureness that day.

/AN: I told someone a while back, 'who's partly responsible for this chapter even being written' that I was thinking of letting this story go. But I just let things hang. I saw the first two movies awhile backI and guess you could say that I gained my inspiration back again, but only to lose it due to an abundance of work. Luckly I found a few interresting stories to read which forced me to remember why I started writting in the first place. ...so here we are again. Hopefully I'll actually be able to update my other stories soon. Who knows. the writter's block I'm having for BI is still kicking my ass.

Anyway... this story should be picking up with more bull and plenty of fights for the Eva crew to have to put with.But I wouldn't have it any other way. You can email a brother if you have any questions or request. It'll probably get me to update faster than anything else.

/priest/