Heroes of Evangelion

An Iron Will

I O I

"Slow steps Shinji, you've been in there a while," Kodama's voice rang oddly dull in his ears, as his weight shifted unsteadily over limbs that felt made of overcooked soba noodles. His hands shot out, flailing for the handrails as a small, sarcastic part of his mind replayed Unit-01's initial faceplant into the streets of Tokyo-3.

To his credit, the live-action version was very true to history. "OK, ow."

Stifling a laugh behind her hand, his one other observer leaned down so she could see the look in his eye, a fall of red hair easily getting his attention. "Does the Invincible Shinji need help?"

"Depends on what you're offering to help with," he quipped, satisfied as the comment did it's rounds of altering her expression. Acknowledgment, confusion, shock, rage... then laughter.

"Baka."

Rolling over on to his back, Shinji reached up and ran a finger along the inset metal rim that sat above his heart. "Always."

I O I

"Mmhh. What?" Mumbling through his hazed perceptions, Shinji noted first that the pain in his head only got worse when he was awake. That initial momentum of sharp head stabbing fun seemed to expand on everything else he did. Basically, thinking about what made his head hurt, made his head hurt. This was, a petulant little voice decided, all Hikari's fault. At least until that other guy came back

Something sounded like bubblewrap being twisted, nearby, and... a carousel. Not trusting himself to do more than blink his eyes open and look up at the woman, Shinji forced the pain and the disorientation from his mind as the sounds resolved themselves to the staccato of gunfire and the occasional scream of orders.

"We have to move Shinji, something's going on," As she bit her lip and looked around anxiously, the young woman peered again at the guard behind the troop carrier. He stood uneasily, looking behind the vehicle often, his hands gripping and fidgeting with the machine gun he held. It was hard to tell the direction the man was looking, with the goggles and visor he had, but if posture were any indicator, Hikari figured the man's attention was anywhere but on them. "Do you think you can walk?"

Shinji wanted to say yes. He really did, but the fact of the matter was, he could barely breathe, much less walk. "Sure," he rasped, figuring if nothing else maybe him dying all over the trooper behind the truck would buy her some time.

I can't do this, he thought as an odd clarity washed over him.

He'd been in this place before, hadn't he?

Yes, this corridor led to the cages. His legs were weighted with anxiety, sorrow, heart slowing with the depression of all the loss, all the absolute loss and unreal, soul-crushing futility of what they were asking him to do. Save people? What did he know about saving anyone? The JSDF was outside, inside the base. He'd heard Asuka screaming, railing against the troops outside and then...

"You fucking bitch, I can't believe you'd show your face here!" Silence answered the redhead, as she screamed again, launching another snatched VTOL at the lumbering form of the T-Raiden unit that sat in front of her like a personal insult.

He couldn't save her. He tried, during the fifteenth, but they wouldn't let him loose! Tried t break past his own fear and self-loathing and comfort the one person in his universe that could not be so broken, so weak.

She pushed him away. She didn't need him. Asuka was there, and in the end, she would win. Without him, she was flawless.

Sounds of the battle continued, but muffled, distant and echoing.

It didn't reach him. He was too busy trying to die by willing it, curled up under a stairwell.

"You have to get up Shinji, we have to go! Come on, please," her tears were making her look younger, Shinji noted distantly, as Misato pulled him up by an arm. Christ he hurt all over... it didn't matter. Soon none of this would matter... he made a noise, half protest, half gurgled breath as something lanced through the side he was being supported by, against the slight woman.

She must be mourning, his mind said through a haze of cotton and hurt. She was too thin, too small feeling. "I'm sorry, Misato. I should have said... something. When you got that message... I'm so sorry, Kaji..."

Misato was sobbing openly now, trying hard to haul him bodily to the Evangelion that he knew she'd say would protect him – protect all of them. He wanted to laugh, but knew it would only cause more pain.

"Stay with me! God damn it, not now... Shinji!" Her face contorted with despair, he thought she was beautiful, just then. So real. So human. Gone here the hard lines that made her the Major, gone was that air of implacable vengeance and sorrow that her father left in her. This was now, this sadness, this pain. He felt her shudder against his side and it bit into his body with iron teeth.

Something struck him in the shoulder and spun him, but it didn't matter, the elevator was just ahead. He could see the dark, small cave of it yawning before him. Past that door, everything got worse. Shinji stumbled on, as the woman beside him jerked wildly, trying to aim a gun that appeared far too large in her hands. No, Misato had a pistol, this wasn't unusual. She must have taken the machine gun from one of the JSDF soldiers. It made sense. Small things that he could focus on, that made sense pleased him, as the dire presence of Eva above him called, a siren to him.

Complete me.

Complement us. He could almost see Rei, her face huge and smiling before him already. God how I miss you, Rei, he wanted to scream, but the strength wasn't in him. Not yet. Soon, but not yet. "I'm coming," he managed to rasp, as his back struck the far wall of the elevator. Something wet and hot was in his mouth and he spat it against the floor, uncaring. "Misato?"

She stood inside the elevator, confusing him. Her little hands smacked, slammed and pounded at the door as something pounded into his hip, startling a breath from him and rattling him like a bird in a cage. Misato screamed and rained death down the hallway.

That was right. She was here, and got shot and -

He reached out, as she stopped the sputtering of the gun and the surprise on her face pulled a frown onto his features, as the elevator door shut with a rumbling crash. She stood there, brown eyes blinking at him, as his hand made bloody tracks on her shoulder. "You're bleeding," he said, knowing she was just a ghost now. Just an image of the person he knew, lay dying outside the doors of the elevator below him.

She sniffled mightily, her body shaking, shuddering under his hand. The elevator, he reasoned. Misato never shook like that. She was strength. Resolute. He loved her. Ah. Right. "You forgot something," he murmured, slumping so his forehead leaned against hers. Small hands sped out to support him, keeping the illusion right. "You forgot to kiss me."

Misato's eyes went huge as he leaned down, parting her lips with his and hoping that the blood he tasted on her wasn't the first memory of LCL, sneaking into the now. Eva was soon, Eva and mother had their time.

This was Misato's time. Her memory. Her breath was sweet, hot. Her lip quivered, as her entire body shuddered with the motion of the elevator. Shinji always wondered... In that moment, and as his mind slowly shut down, he hazarded to ask, "What did you mean, by do the rest," he mumbled against her still trembling lips.

Blackness swept over him, as his leg finally gave out and slumping against the lift wall, Shinji fell, a shell shocked Hikari following soon after, the only thing on her mind that was even close to a coherent thought rebounding inside her skull like the gunfire they'd recently escaped.

"He kissed me. He kissed me... he kissed me." She reached up a hand that shook like a leaf and wiped at the blood that was on her lips, from Shinji's surprisingly thorough kiss.

Hikari's mind struggled with all that had happened, trying in vain to sort the images. She'd lunged at the soldier finally, her nerves frayed and gone and with a howl, smashed the small vial, her hand cushioned with a balled up wad of bandaging, against the man's head. Her other hand had ripped the goggles and balaclava off savagely, exposing the man's vulnerable face. Glass and drug mixed freely in the explosion of blood that was the man's nose and eye, as he fell heavily back. Somehow the exchange was missed, probably due to the explosions rocking the place they were, raining rock dust on them.

And then Shinji had all but thrown her ahead of him, stumbling after and levering his shoulder into her back, his arm wrapped around her own. She's barely had time to snatch up the fallen soldier's gun, before their stumbling exposure had alerted the nearby troops.

Then the shooting began in force. She's held on to his arm gratefully, as her own speed seemed insufficient to him. Despite it, he ran with his head down, eyes unfocused on the ground, his mouth working silently. Hikari moved to better support his weight and then-

"I'm sorry, Misato. I should have said... something. When you got that message... I'm so sorry, Kaji..." Swallowing hard she let her despair well up and tear through her, wracking her body momentarily. He was gone, his mind not even there.

"Stay with me! God damn it, not now... Shinji!" Screaming, she turned him as they rounded another truck, the moment's respite in their fleeing giving her the time to hopefully snap him out of this. He'd looked up at her then, his face lifting, as if seeing her for the first time.

Then he'd snapped his head around and she followed that gaze and saw it. A freight lift was open, it's bay welcoming them like home. Snatching his arm, she braced against his side and felt his ribs shift. Stifling her own cry at knowing she was hurting him, probably killing him, the woman struggled on toward the elevator.

All but one of the shots that followed missed them. The impact against his shoulder spun them forward and she noted with a growing sense of dread the unchanging, set cast to Shinji's face. He'd whispered something, as he looked up and... out, at the wall and then they were moving again, his shambling, offcenter run all but forcing her ahead to keep him moving. Like a miracle, they made it into the lift before they were struck again, and he leaned there while she tried to get the thing to work.

"Why is it all in fucking Russian," she screeched, smacking at the keys randomly, as the troops that were chasing them rounded the last troop carrier, gaining line of sight on them. Her eyes went wide as shots poured into the small space, and she heard Shinji sputter and the soft impact of...

Something in Hikari came loose. She'd never wanted to hurt anyone, ever, as much as she did right now. A small babbling part of her mind was still horrified at the brutality of attack on the guard earlier, but now... she looked down at the machine gun and her breath going fast and rapid, pulled the charging lever and screamed.

The first soldier, unable to see well because of the angle and gloom inside the lift, died as her shots nearly cut him in half. Beside him, the other soldier was diving for cover as her fire set a bloody trail from hip to shoulder as his lunge stalled, the impacts throwing him across the front of a truck like a rag doll.

Reinforcements held cover behind one of the carriers, and a man there readied a grenade to launch into the small box but his timing, and Hikari's luck, were too aligned at that precise moment. Sighting the girl shooting randomly and wildly at their position, the man motioned his team back, snapping lose the timing pin and lobbing it toward the deathtrap that lay open and waiting for it. As the explosive left his hand, Hikari closed her eyes and screamed again, uncaring who would shoot back, who she shot, or what at that point. It'd all gone so wrong.

One of those wild shots hit the grenade, not more than a meter from the soldiers. Hellfire bloomed around the carrier, as they were thrown down or back, and the doors to the lift mercifully slammed shut, a moment after the magazine to Hikari's gun went dry.

And then Shinji had spun her around, his eyes intense and focused. It took long moments to realize he was talking, speaking quietly. Then as he leaned against her, his hands running over her shoulders and arms slowly, Shinji's final words managed to penetrate the shock she was going into. "You forgot to kiss me." Hikari's brain shut down, when his tongue, tasting slightly of blood snaked between her lips.

"Do the rest...?" Her fingers worked, feeling the viscosity of the blood between thumb and finger before her vision went gray and she joined the dying pilot in blissful slumber on the lift floor. She remained there as the lift finished it's trek, opening up to two very surprised women and three confused security agents.

I O I

"This is looking more and more like a setup," Maya called over the sound of squalling tires on tile, as the miniature tram lift tore down the halls of Nerv-3, the four women and three security force personnel taxing it's limits.

Cursing the glorified golf cart's speed limitations, Mana looked over her shoulder and spared first Maya, then Asuka a glance. "Oh?"

Asuka didn't miss the look, but was too engrossed in trying to keep her facility in one piece. Speaking with a man beside her, his own attention glued to a data terminal he'd patched into the personnel and security grid. Although they couldn't track what went on below in the false housing project, she could monitor her own force and the progress they were making. "How can we be losing so much ground?"

"The force occupying the lower sections are heavily armed, and have body armor that defeats most of our ammunitions," the man replied, shaking his head. "We don't have the firepower to deal with them."

Maya's own data kept her making small noises of discovery every thirty seconds. It was beginning to grate on – Mana winced as another little chirp from the tech set her teeth on edge. "Can you just explain what you're seeing please? I'm really not in a mood to wait for the report later."

"Oh, right," biting her lip, Maya flailed about a moment as the tram took a turn too fast, almost losing her seat. "Kessler routed the funds to excavate and supply the sub-floor over the last two years. Apparently the man had a habit of firing or getting his aides transferred to other departments. Eventually he just didn't have anyone working with him."

Leaning over Maya's shoulder, Asuka looked over the material as well. "We had so many complaints, I just let it go. He managed everything well enough, I always wondered how. But he was an accountant, I didn't spare it another thought. Plus, all our UN audits came up clear, I had no reason to suspect him."

"UN audits," Mana murmured, not liking that aspect one bit. If Maya could snap the pieces together this fast, at team of UN bookkeepers should have seen it from Geneva. "What else?" She cut another turn, slamming on the provided klaxon as they rounded a populated hallway.

Her fingers unsteady, Maya managed to get her next tab up, "Scott visited under his guest pass. Also it looks like von Kessler was... oh wow."

"I hate it when you stop at the good parts, Maya," her voice brittle, Mana curbed the tram by a lateral lift depot, eyeing the speed tubes speculatively. "Shit." Maya turned the pad to Mana, and the woman's eyes narrowed under her visor. "Oh I'm so going to kill that pig."

Asuka turned the pad so she could see, and read the small series of correlated data, her hands shaking by the time she was done. "Implicated in the deployment of troops against Tokyo-3, dismissed from the UN Security Council, cleared of charges... applied for German citizenship... Why did none of this ping on our personnel records? What the fuck is going on here?"

"Someone wanted him inside," Mana ground out, checking the routing points for the tube station. "Everyone on cart 224. I'm going back to the Raiden, cover their escape route."

"I'm going with you." Asuka's tone stalled the JSDF officer, and Mana nearly tripped on her own feet when she turned around, having come to a full stop far too quickly. "What? You could use a gunner in that thing, yeah?"

The idea of the redhead anywhere near the Raiden's weapon systems made her skin crawl. "No offense Asuka, but that little bonding moment upstairs? Not really enough to make it OK for you to be playing with the Raiden." Turning as Maya and the security team boarded the other tube, Kodama following after, she wasn't surprised when the redhead slid into her car's doors just as they were shutting.

"Shouldn't you be with your men, securing the facility?"

Asuka regarded the woman, her expression as unreadable as ever. "Now isn't the time to micromanage them. I've alerted the local military, but time-to-arrival isn't optimal." Her posture wilting slightly, the young woman leaned into the bar she held on to. "I gave the order to evacuate and lock down the facility." Shaking her head slowly, she loosed a sigh. "We aren't prepared to do war with soldiers."

Mana nodded, oddly surprised by the woman's attitude in this. She wasn't sending her own to die by the droves, beating themselves apart on that wall of firepower. Oddly the ideal of Asuka backing down so quickly, unnerved her. "But you're still having some go after Shinji?"

"Volunteers," the woman answered shortly, looking through the windows. The scene reminded her of a memory... or a phantom of one. A red sunset, three young people sitting in a railway car, and she was yelling at the one sitting -

Hanging on to the rails so as to not go careening into the walls, the redhead looked back at Mana steadily, as the auburn haired JSDF officer seemed to measure her, her blue eyes raking over her. Swallowing a chill, Asuka blinked, looking up and catching the other woman's eyes. "You know, I never got to say... well thanks."

Not what she'd expected to hear, Mana's brow shot up and she blinked, "Wh-what for?"

"Back in the invasion. When the white Evangelions came."

Wincing, Mana looked away. It wasn't one of her favorite memories.

She'd been mobilized in a patched together T-Raiden unit, and given the order to suppress any "heavy support" that Nerv mobilized. She knew that the order was mean to have her fighting an Evangelion, and for all practical purposes, she figured it'd be her last mission.

T-Raidens, though superior to any human mobile weaponry, and capable of either outmaneuvering or shooting down any heavy munitions used against them, were simply too awkward, slow and underpowered for use against something like an Eva. It wasn't as if she had a family to leave behind, or friends... she regretted that the time she'd gotten to spend with Shinji would essentially be undone with this, but at the same time... could it really be true?

Could Nerv be attempting their own cataclysm, under their very noses? The JSDF thought so, and so the order came. Her initial though was relief, when no Eva was present, and then... Asuka rose, like a damned Valkyrie out of the lake inside the GeoFront and hurled a battleship into the advancing JSDF forces.

"Asuka, stand down! Why are you helping them do this?" she'd ordered over the tac-net, only to have the bloody shadow of Unit-02 turn with a feral snarl her way and lunged nearly a kilometer, trying by sheer force and impact to tear her apart.

Mana quickly dodged, only gaining a moment's respite as the VTOLs that were her backup moved in and simply managed to piss off the Second Child more. A comms window snapped into her displays, showing the maddened, wide-eyed visage of Asuka, her breathing so rapid and deep that Mana imagined the plug suit was creaking under the strain. "You little whore, how dare you!"

And Mana knew then, that all the rumors were true. Asuka really did care for Shinji, and here she was, facing off against the Demon herself in a flimsy tin shell that couldn't even scratch the biomechanical monster that the vengeful spirit within was riding like a steed from hell. Without looking away from the T-Raiden, the Evangelion snatched a pair of VTOLs out of the air and hurled them at the mech, as Mana watched in horror.

"Asuka! There are people piloting those! People! Stand down!" Shifting quickly to an airborne mode, the older T-Raiden hovered just out of Asuka's reach.

Her laughter was punctuated by the screaming of ordinance that just didn't seem to enter the woman's notice. "You fucking bitch, I can't believe you'd show your face here!" Another airship was launched as a thrown stone, as Mana continued to pray, hope that the gambit would play out. Hovering, she'd engaged a targeting laser, and the countdown to a missile launch from a nearby mobile SATC-platform was moving far too slow for her tastes.

Communications went dead as the missile finally roared past her, it's bulk unreal as it crumpled against Unit-02's face and then the world was painted dirty orange and red from the hellstorm that erupted over the GeoFront's floor. Mana set the T-Raiden down, waiting for her scanners to adjust to the noise, when the demon leapt from the inferno, it's hand driving her mech into the ground savagely as it landed fist first against her armor.

"I won't forgive you!" The Evangelion reared back, arms straining as it roared to the sky, the sheer force of the thing's AT field blasting her mech away nearly a kilometer.

Systems were red all over the board. "God what a monster," she moaned, pushing the jets hard to get away from the enraged pilot. Her tac-net screeched and whined, and the orders were replaying slowly as she evaded another savage strike, when it's words finally sunk in.

"Evacuate! We have inbound hostile units, repeat, Evacuate!"

Swallowing, hoping to whatever god's watched over spies and soldiers, she roared the T-Raiden up over the Eva's reach, settling on the GeoFront's broken shell, where Tokyo-3 still burned. Looking down, she could see the mech's shadow playing over the destruction below, a blocky, ugly reminder that this was ultimately her sin to atone for, as well. "Please don't let them use dirty bombs... I can't stand the thought of us being responsible for that."

The reality was much worse. As she looked up, the white forms that were falling resolved themselves finally, as wings snapped free and they began circling like carrion crows. Her blood went cold as the tac-net went silent, the combine forces on both sides going still in the wake of those shadows.

"Sir, what are those," she'd asked, her mind still not wanting to process the idea of eight Evangelions or what they could do.

Her net sputtered from various interference, the electronic warfare making even their communication difficult, "Nerv branches around the world have been constructing Evas. The UN has no idea what or who these are, and I'm not going to have my men sit in the middle of a fight between those monsters. Get out, Kirishima. That's an order."

Mana had been a spy, a data collector and personality scanner for far too long to let that one slide. He knew what they were, what sent them. Sent them after Asuka. She keyed her comms to the Eva and forced the window active. "Asuka, you have to listen to me-"

"Shut up! Shutup shutup SHUTUP!" her voice finally cracking, the redhead reached out and clawing a boulder from the GeoFront floor, hurling it at the T-Raiden, the impact destroying her makeshift perch. "Come down here and fight. Come down here and die!"

"Asuka! Look at those things!" her own temper growing hot, the JSDF pilot pulled her sensor feed into the main window. "Look at this! Don't throw your life away, why are you fighting for them? What is it Nerv is trying to do?"

A dark laughter was her answer, as Asuka's face was shrouded by her hair in the view. "Why are you fighting, traitor? My friends are here. My family," Mana's brows knit as Asuka reached out and seemed to caress the control module in the Eva's plug. "I don't care about Nerv! I won't let anything take them away." Her voice dropped an octave, and Mana was transfixed by the hate that radiated from the pilot's eyes, "I won't let you take him away!"

The first thing Mana thought was that the woman had gone mad, when she raked her hand across the video window, but when her Eva matched the motion and the first of the white Evangelions exploded in a burst of white light and blood, she quickly reassessed her opinion. "You're not the only one fighting for something Asuka."

"I don't need your words, traitor," the pilot hissed, barreling into the next Eva she could reach, destroying it's head with vicious double swing of her Unit's hands. "What would you do if it were Shinji here, hmm? I'm sure that'd please you, being able to stab him in the heart personally?" Another Eva fell, Asuka's fist slamming through it's chest impossibly, before goring it's companion just behind the thing. Giant muscles bulged and twisted, as the two impaled Evangelions shuddered and went silent.

Asuka's comment brought bile up in the spy's throat, and she let her attention falter, just long enough for one of those machines to cleave one of her mech's arms free. Scrambling to regain control of the T-Raiden's flight, she had to admit... if it were Shinji up here, what would that do the young man? Would he be fighting too?

What are they fighting for? She looked again to the sadistically grinning faces of the white Evas, featureless, distorted things. Mana could do nothing but hate them. Hate them for coming here, and for what they represented. Asuka wasn't her enemy, even is she defended those below, who's aims were unknown and unfathomable.

She couldn't let her die. Shinji would never forgive her.

Mana launched a volley of missiles, switching off her local tac-net. "No I wouldn't Asuka," her voice thick, the pilot rounded and fired another volley, making sure her point made it home. "But he'd tell me what Nerv was doing that has everyone thinking they're going to end the world." The barrage impacted three of the white things, as they turned their attention away from Asuka and onto her. "You may not think so, but we're on the same side here."

Picking up the dropped heavy sword one of the units had loosed from dead fingers, Asuka swung it in an arching sweep, digging a trench as tall as a building before effortlessly decapitating another Eva. "I. Don't. Need. You!"

Swallowing, Mana closed her eyes and pulled the jets to full, luring the things away as Asuka picked off another foe. "But we both... need him."

Her comm window snapped open, and Asuka's tear-filled eyes glared at her, teeth bloodying her lip. "Damn you. Damn you, Kirishima."

"You're welcome," the JSDF pilot replied softly, pulping the ground with gunfire before the Evas and sending up a storm of dust and debris, taking cover in the lake briefly to disorient the things. "Just let me help."

"Damn you."

I O I

Asuka watched as her words broke the woman before her, and sighed. When her eyes closed and her posture weakened, Asuka fought the inertia of the tube and pulled the woman down onto the ground, setting them both against the wall. "Mana. Mana..."

"Yeah..."

"Thanks," looking away, Asuka's gaze hardened , and she looked the other woman in the eye, her lips quirking just slightly. "You made a great decoy."

Shoving the other woman, Mana sniffed back her tears and took a few deep breaths. "Yeah, I guess so." She finally answered, her grin less sincere. "Will you tell me something, while we're sharing grossly inappropriate memories on our way to kill some fuckers who are threatening the one person we both value?" Nodding after a moment's thought, Asuka tucked her hands between her knees and watched as the tunnel walls sped by, the running lights out in the carved tube flashing by quickly. "Why didn't you tell him?"

"..."

Mana sighed, laying her head on her knees. "I knew. You know he knows, but you never said anything. You two..."

"We're...we're both too damaged." Her eyes distant and unseeing, Asuka shook a bit where she sat, looking again as old as Mana remembered, back in High School. Young and vulnerable. "There's so much hurt in us, that if one breaks, it could tear us both apart." Almost did so anyway, she admitted in a dark corner of herself. We almost destroyed each other just by existing near one another. "He didn't need me."

She hated the voice in her, that kept this conversation going. What was she, masochistic? Or was it more some perverse knowledge that though these things hurt her in asking, it hurt Asuka more to answer. "Did you ever ask him? I know... back before things just... " she swallowed, trying to dodge that taboo topic. It was just something you didn't talk about. As if doing so would summon some very real memory of something horrible that couldn't be unseen. "You two. Everyone knows it was just you two."

"Are you jealous, Kirishima?" The words held no malice, and the both knew it was rhetoric. Mana knew where Shinji's heart was, but there would always be a part of his soul that only spoke Asuka's name, which she knew as well. "We were... he saw what happened to me," reaching up, she ran a hand over her brow, the faint scars there barely visible. "We were pilots. He wanted to save me, and he did. That's all it means," she lied, her tone saying clearly that was the end of this discussion.

The rest of the trip passed in silence, as the two sat, absorbed in their own thoughts. Finally, as the car pulled to a stop by the surface access areas, the women stood and Mana was unsurprised that Asuka stood fast and sure, as if their little moment had never happened. As the two walked silently to the dock, Mana reached down and pulled the USP from her hip, the noise making Asuka's back stiffen.

"Here," she said simply, as the redhead looked at her steadily. Nodding once, Asuka took the weapon and the offered clips. She was still sorting them into her pockets as they reached the dock, Mana walking ahead, snapping down her visor without looking back.

I O I

Scott was livid. Two absolutely inconsequential events of utter insignificance had upset the entire scenario, and jeopardized the plan in it's entirety. "Find them. Take a team up and if you have to, kill every person in this damned warren till you are sure they are dead," he snarled at the soldier, pushing his way between the men as he sought out the other source of his annoyance. "Where is Kessler?"

"He was heading to the convoy trucks, by last sighting."

Running a hand along his scalp, the man turned and pulled a soldier to him, gesturing along the walls of the dug out cavern they were currently holding from Nerv-3's internal security. "Get these charges functional and accepting commands. I don't know what it is that you've done wrong, but fix it! We're running out of time here." Maxwell had been very specific about this part, and for the plan to succeed, they needed Nerv-3 to be reduced to little more than a smoking crater, with both Directors inside.

Their quarrel was legend, and with the man conveniently dead in Asuka's facility, the same suffering from a structural fault and being razed from the inside out, little blame could be handed out elsewhere. It would be a monumental display of bad timing and ill luck that the dying man, come to his long time rival's side, would die by the same.

Evidence had been planted, implicating the woman, and even if discounted, the ruins and the nature of the explosives they were using would mask any trace of another party.

Security from Nerv was pinned down, unable to make headway, and unable to safely retreat. Most of their holds were easily defended, yet dangerous to abandon, which made it doubly easy for his troops to pin down and exterminate them. Unlike internal security, soldiers were trained to deal with such things. Grenades were nice, too.

The American was just checking his own weapon, the P90 slung over his shoulder, when the first blasts pulled his attention back to the front of the cavern. "No..."

Two of the main support charges, set to collapse the three upper floors in a cascade that would hollow out the facility, had blown. Debris was blown across the main area, and he could almost guarantee half his troops were under that fall. His eyes scanned the nearby supports, and widened as he saw the detonator triggers go from a safety locked red to a primed green.

The initial blast nearly took off his ear, as he dived for cover behind a series of bulkheads that had yet to be put in place. Nearby those, the research labs, skeletal but functional, erupted and the smoke blanketed the cavern quickly, whatever had been left inside belching acrid smoke into the limited air. Hand over his bleeding head and ear, the man managed to stumble back along the cavern, between explosions and flying shrapnel. "The hell is going on? Those things weren't suppose to detonate till we were clear!"

Headlights further down the tunnel got his attention, as one of the convoy trucks careened madly around, turning to face out of the tunnel. Breaking into a run, he shouldered the weapon and yelled, waving his arms. When the truck showed no sign of slowing, he dumped the last of his energy into a sprint, just managing to catch onto the carrier's back ledge. "Stop! God damn it stop!" Stone from the cavern floor caught and pulled at his leg as he tried to swing it up into the truck's bed, and he gritted his teeth as sometime snapped and pulled harshly. "Fuck!"

Finally Scott managed to roll into the cargo bed, narrowly avoiding landing on the exposed edges of prototype weapons and the crates that held other. After catching his breath, Scott tried reaching down to inspect his knee, and the damage that had been caused. His hands flew away from the joint as spikes of pain lanced into him. Shuffling on his back, he pulled up to the cab and pulled open the door leading from one section to another.

"Ah, see you made it, yes?" von Kessler regarded him grimly, guiding the convoy over the rocky path with some difficulty. The fat man looked back down the path, paying the pained man's pleas little heed as the truck bounced and skidded along the rock. "Mm, terrible business back there, just loaded the truck when things started going wrong, yes."

Scott gritted his teeth and hauled himself up, sitting against the doorway as his leg bent at an obscene angle. "Wh.. where were you going? What about my men?"

Von Kessler spared him a look, brows raised as he guided the truck further along the darkened tunnel. "Oh? Would you like to go back for them?"

"Tch..." looking away, the American tried instead to bite back the lances of pain that shot through him each time the truck hit a bit of debris, or some irregularity in the path. "Convenient..."

Watching Scott from the corner of his eye, Maxwell waited for a sizable ridge in the path, to press the small plastic detonator back into his pocket. "Life is made of such things, Mr. Scott, mm? Yes, luck and timing. Everything about life, luck and timing." Humming a passage from an old classical piece, the man smiled as Scott writhed, trying not to pass out from the pain of his broken limb.

I O I

"Not good, not good not good... " Maya's mantra was beginning to etch it's way into Kodama's already frayed mind. She's expected to fall into some damned crevasse with how things were exploding below them, but so far the structure had held... again she looked to her patients. Shinji was barely alive, looking like he'd been through hell itself. Beside him, snoring slightly with her brow drawn, her sister slept.

She'd nearly lost her sense when she saw the state of the younger woman's clothes, but that had turned grim when she'd realized the blood to all be Shinji's. "What are you babbling about, Maya?"

Glaring over her terminal, the tech heaved a sigh, "I don't babble. I mutter, and I'm muttering about the structure. We've lost the main supports and with the way this place has been hollowed out... I think we may have a few minutes, at best, before the shifting of the floors breaches the reactor."

Kodama's eyes widened, as she considered the implications. Nerv-3 it seemed used an old nuclear plant to power the facility, and with the entire structure falling in on it... "We need to get out of here."

"There may be a problem with that," the man beside her announced. "The Director issued an evacuation order, and to control any further casualties, the facility is locked down to outside access." At the woman's look of incredulity, he shook his head. "We have the heliport. It's just a few minutes longer."

Maya planned the route and shook her head. "We... may not make it." As the walls flitted with images of bare rock, the passengers looked to their unconscious companions, the irony of finding them only to have the very weight of the whole of Nerv-3 crush them not lost. Keying in a comm window on her terminal, the tech hoped Mana would see reason, in the face of what she'd be asking her.

I O I

"This thing is pretty interesting," Asuka commented, until she saw the cockpit of the Raiden open. "And... cramped."

Shaking her head, Mana dropped the greatcoat into one of the small hatches lining the things control center, and inspected the pilot's couch. "It's not a passenger vehicle... this is going to be awkward."

Mana's alien appearance in her flight suit didn't help the illusion that woman was sizing her up. Asuka swallowed, before looking back to the tangle of cording and synthetic muscle that unwove to reveal the thing's control center. "How do you pilot it?"

The auburn haired woman paused, as she inspected the couch and looked back over her shoulder. "Transductive nervous transfer." Turning to shove some of the machine's muscle aside, the Eva pilot was surprised to see the material giving way and retreating before Mana's gestures. When the spy looked back at the other woman's uncomprehending expression, she sighed and pointed to her back, as she knelt down to adjust some more fittings. "I have needles in my spine that tell it how to go."

"I'm not an idiot," Asuka snapped, but realized she didn't have the technical knowledge of the machine Mana did. Her research went along different lines. "And fucking ow, yeah. Doesn't that... well hurt? Or paralyze you?"

Shrugging, Mana reached back and tapped the spinal interface plate with a fingertip. "I've been doing this since I was ten. The needle fibers degrade into saline if left uncharged too long, and the actual damage is healed by time and a special cocktail of localized nanomachines, thanks to Nerv Medical."

Nodding, Asuka halted a moment, looking back to the woman with wide eyes. "Nerv... Medical? That only became a real company four years ago."

"Makes you appreciate LCL a lot more, doesn't it?" Mana's smirk wasn't pleasant, as she reached down, offering the blinking redhead her hand. "Come on, and I hope you don't have personal space issues."

If her hand wasn't already clasped and her weight being helped up into the oddly organic looking bay, Asuka would have let go and wondered what the woman meant. On closer inspection of the couch, Asuka wished she'd just went with the others. "Are you sure I won't fit in one of those compartments?"

"Not in one piece."

Sighing, Asuka watched as Mana settled herself into the high G couch but didn't close the supporting structure that held her onto it. "So, um. Where do I sit?"

Smirking, the woman patted a thigh. "I think the more appropriate word would be 'spoon'".

"Oh you have got to be shitting me," she huffed, throwing up her hands and climbing in. They spent a few moments getting as comfortable as possible, Asuka ending up straddling the woman's thigh and curled around her side. Asuka's blush nearly matched her hair as the woman closed her eyes and gritted her teeth. "Never. Speak. Of. This." She sighed, but realized quickly the movement only increased their already excessive body contact. "Ever," she hissed, making sure the point was driven home.

Mana was glad of the visor and her covered eyes, as the Raiden lifted off and sped toward the false wall that they'd found earlier. Almost at the crest of the tree line, Maya's face snapped into her vision, an urgent call window framing it. "Mana! You have to come back!"

"What? We just got around the mountainside, we're almost to the tunnel!"

Maya shook her head hard, "No, you have to! Explosives have knocked out the main supports. The reactor is going to go critical any minute."

"Let me guess, you're not close enough to the heliport?" Maya shook her head. Damn it. Tensing, the pilot swung the machine around and gunned the repulsors, swearing at each passing moment. "Set up a homing beacon. I'll cut my way in and everyone can load up in the med-bay."

"We're in the tram, you'll have to chase down the car," the woman said, adding one more problem to the day. Growling, Mana felt Asuka's nails biting into her stomach and turned to glare at the woman. "What?"

"Untense. Your. Thigh."

Blinking a moment, suddenly she realized why the woman would be so annoyed at such a thing. Blushing heavily, her only response was a muffled, "Oh."

"Mana? Is Asuka in there-"

"No!" the two women yelled at once, the comm window snapping shut with Maya's wide-eyed expression.

Directing the mech to home in on the escaping tram car, Mana deployed the Raiden's main weapon, hoping it would be sufficient to cut a path into the transport system. It wouldn't have full power while the Raiden was in flight, but with any luck... "Hang on, this is going to get unpleasant."

"It not like I can hold on any tighter," the former pilot groused, then discovered she was wrong, as a dizzying set of high-G maneuvers set her head spinning. And then the world shuddered and screamed, and her vision went white.

"Asuka. Hey, Asuka...?"

"Mm?" Groaning, she blinked and realized how tight she was clinging to the other pilot. "Sorry... what happened?" Trying to relax her grip, the former pilot was jostled hard again.

"Forgot the Banshee has a heavy audio component, which my helmet dampens. I don't even have earplugs." Mana just shook her head. "Should have warned you." She should have warned the young woman that they were flying down a tunnel barely big enough to hold them as well.

The tram lines were cut out of the bedrock Nerv-3 was settled into, or formed concrete passages where they ran through the facility. Planning had used the system of them as an auxiliary support structure, so they ran trough most of Nerv-3. Raiden's main repulsor array, usually swung out on it's armatures like an insects forewing shell, were currently swept back along the mech's back and only ten percent of the thrust available was being used. That coupled with the tram's velocity on it's own didn't work in their favor, but there was one more problem that Mana was fighting with that complicated things.

She wasn't able to bring Maya's external bay with them, so she had to grab the tram and drag it out directly. Because the Raiden didn't have articulate arms, she had to position a leg forward, which meant the mech was flying in probably the most awkward pose she'd ever imagined. "This... is going to suck. Maya!"

"What is it?" The tech's face snapped into her vision, the comm window pulled into her vision and set to transparent. "How close are you, we're running out of time," her anxiety was apparent, and through the window Mana watched the tram shake violently. She winced, realizing that she couldn't feel the tremors that were likely rattling the facility as it shifted into the earth.

Pouring as much speed as she could into the chase, Mana swallowed, wetting her lips, "Maya, listen close. Button everything you can down. I'm going to grab the tram. Brace everyone on the leading side, and get ready for a rough go."

Looking behind her a moment, the tech regarded her anxiously, "Alright. Just be as easy as you can. We have wounded." When the feed cut out, Mana set the Raiden's systems to analyze the car's speed and how to best... pluck it.

"Everyone to the front and brace! Mana's going to have to haul us out manually," helping Kodama with the wounded, the young woman saw the security force conversing and setting themselves up against the wall, backs to the tram's shell and arms out wide. "What are you doing?"

"The Director gave us orders to protect and assist in any way to assure the safety of your team and Director Ikari," gesturing to the others, he nodded back to the woman. "We don't have time to rip out the seat cushions. We'll do in their stead."

Closing her eyes, Maya just nodded once and did her best to settle Shinji and the still unconscious Hikari in a way so that the men would function as a brace, hoping they all made it out of this in one piece. "Ready?"

Kodama nodded, as the security team did the same, strapping in with belts and what they could find to help keep the shifting to a minimum. She looked once more to the still forms of Hikari and Shinji and closed her eyes again, "Go, Mana."

And then the world exploded into noise and everything went sideways. Rapid deceleration threw them all against that wall, and her breath exploded from her in a burst as she slammed into a wall of black suit that grunted at the impact. Suddenly, their idea to act as a human cushion didn't seem so silly. Looking to the other side of the car, her eyes widened as the Raiden's clawed foot was hooked into and crumpling the rear of the thing. Again, the world went wrong as the sound of twisting metal and rock rending tore into the car, and it jerked to a stop, before another rising scream forced her to close her eyes, the noise too much to bear.

Mana lifted the tram car as easily as she could, biting her lip as the thing rattled and shifted below her. Almost all the glass was broken or blown free from the Banshee's second blast, to break them free of the system tube. As the Raiden lifted free, she pulled the gunship into a hover and sighed in relief, glad to have managed the rescue without accidentally killing everyone inside. "Stabilize and analyze the car, maximize maneuvers for it's integrity," mentally keying in the commands, she cast about and located the medical bay, grimacing as she saw the rooftop nearest it simply fall in. "Maya, hold on."

Not expecting an answer, she let the machine hover to the bay, hoping to arrive before it too sank into the earth. "Asuka, how are you doing?"

The former pilot tried to shake the ringing from her ears, and heaved a sigh, "I'm OK. Are they?"

"Thinking so, but won't know till we get away from here and get them into the bay," Stresses were causing the thing to begin shearing, and she bit her lip. "Got to get out of here. Is there a safe-zone that we can land? Anything that won't explode, melt or cave in under us?"

"That's not fair and you know it," she bit out, her vision full of auburn hair and Mana's neck. "How soon till we get there."

"Soon. Uncomfortable?"

"I hate your shampoo."

Chuckling, Mana managed a minute shrug, "Shinji likes it- ow! My ear, you little-!"

"Shut up and drive," smirking the former pilot found herself immensely more comfortable. "There's an airport three klicks west, just transmit this code..."

I O I

"Hey, earth to Baka, you hit your head harder than it looked?"

Shinji looked up, into the blue eyes of his former roommate. "No, no I'm fine. Just remembering the last few..." laughing quietly, he shook his head. "Months? Feels like it."

A noise to their right preceded Kodama coming into the room, from the observation area, "Still not steady on your feet? How's your hip?" Sitting a small bag beside the man where he lay, Kodama took out a small device and ran it over the device in his chest. "Hmm. Everything seems OK."

"Yeah, I'm fine, just had a moment where I got distracted," smirking up at the two women hovering over him, he chuckled. "Could be these two lovely ladies that keep watching me while I totter about in a pair of shorts and little else." As expected, Kodama simply grinned, her skin flushing just slightly while Asuka sputtered and jumped up, glaring at him. "But seriously, I'm just not used to feeling so... sluggish."

Kodama nodded, helping him back up and braced against the railings. "You were in a bottle of goo for a month, after getting blown up, I'm sure that being a bit unstable is allowed now and then." Patting him on the shoulder, she stepped back and tried to ignore the anxiety in his face, as he looked down habitually at the glowing module now resident in his chest.

"Yeah." Shaking off his mental fugue, Shinji's brows knit as he forced his feet to obey, his body sluggishly following. "It's not that I'm weak. My body is as strong as ever, it's more like there's a... layer of cotton muffling what I'm saying, to what it's hearing."

"It'll pass. In the mean time, how have you been feeling? Any symptoms that we mentioned?"

He considered the question a moment, and shook his head. "No sickness, no appetite issues, no..." Sighing, he pointedly didn't look at Asuka, "no dysfunctions in other areas."

Smirking, Kodama nodded. "So I've heard."

"Anyway," leaning heavily against a rail after the small trek from one side to the other, he frowned, mind on other matters. "Where's Mana and the others? I want to go over the new data on that UN issue."

Asuka helped him to the wheelchair, as he caught his breath. "She'll be along in a half an hour, so you have time to get on a suit. She's still sorting out the details of a personal project from what I hear." Though relations between the two had gotten better, amazingly so to Shinji's mind, it was still a strained thing at times. Usually this became more apparent when he was in the room, which pained him, but couldn't be helped. "We had a new breakthrough, but we still need to keep you as low profile as possible."

That was likely the understatement of the year. His staff had decided, through much argument, to release to the press that he'd been injured heavily, and was currently not in a state to see the public. Repercussions were immediate, with the UN reliably asking for a cessation of command of Nerv to itself, which was unanimously refused, after evidence of the attack on Nerv-3 was made public.

Since then, it had been a month of ongoing legal and political battles, and without much effort, a world court decided that with the available evidence and what had been found by private investigation and orders on the release of data, that the UN's vestment in Nerv and the actions leading to Shinji's near-assassination were a conflict of interest. Until such a time as Shinji could appear before the UN himself, no more claims or actions against his leadership would be made.

That of course, didn't keep them from choking funds and limiting their own resources, as a sign of the stressed relations.

Shinji for his part, initially had difficulty believing the UN capable of such a thing, .When faced with the fact some faction within it had plotted to kill him, and not only him but an entire facility to cover themselves, and blame it on Asuka, he'd stopped questioning. "Good. How about that other project?"

Looking at him askance, she tried to hide a smirk, "Surprised you're so interested in that considering."

"Just because you got to pick the colors, doesn't mean I don't like them," he replied, peering back and up at her. "Besides, I'm just glad Maya didn't get the chance to do it her way."

Snorting, Asuka laughed as she wheeled her boss down the halls of the lowest levels of Nerv. "Yeah. I'm sure you've had enough of wearing purple and green. And what was with that horn anyway?"

"Symbolic, really," he quipped, earning him a smack. "OK, ow."

"Baka," she muttered, sounding thoughtful. "Why didn't you complain about the colors?"

Smiling to himself, Shinji just looked down the hall and remembered seeing her, standing beside Mana as he woke up the first time out of the LCL that had stabilized him. The sun behind them had lightened and colored their hair into halos, red and gold. The shock of seeing them both, and not at each other's throats had almost convinced him that he was dreaming again. Truth was stranger, as always he'd learned. Shinji would let Asuka believe it was all her, and her arguing to have the project colored in the same tones as her Evangelion, but he and Maya knew the truth. "Doesn't this thing go any faster? Or are you wearing heels again?"

A small huff behind him was his only warning before the front wheels popped up off the ground, and the two of them tore down the halls at a sprint.

I O I

The same darkened room was host again, to those who had met months ago, for the purpose of saving the life of the very man this time in attendance. Lights, bright and focused picked out those present, one of whom looking about with a scowl. "What's with this stupid lighting?"

"Sorry," the lights came up, and Shinji snickered, realizing the meeting room was just corner of the labs, cordoned off with file cabinets and lit by skeletal lighting hung out over the warehouse like setting. Maya blinked, her hand on the lighting control as her eyes adjusted. "We usually kept them low, so we didn't get too much attention from passing techs and researchers."

Chuckling, Shinji shook his head as the woman took her seat, looking more at ease in the stronger light. Before them on the table, spread out all the information they'd collected, as well as some other files of interest for the day. "So, how goes our own investigation?"

The meeting began with those words, as heads of Nerv from across the globe bandied about information, data and finds from within their own facilities. More moles and subversives had been found and the data submitted to the world court overseeing the UN vs. Nerv hearings. Numbers of those were stunning, to the young man who thought with the end of the Angel Wars, people could start to live their lives in peace, working for a single goal.

If anything, the power vacuums left after Second Impact were magnets for the kind of thought that lead to even further subversive tactics. "Three more of those underground labs. Right under us. All abandoned you say?"

One of his counterparts nodded, displaying the relevant data on the holographic screen. "As well as two more in the works, found abandoned," as the data proceeded to tell them an approximate level of material and what had been made, and the mood darkened visibly.

"That's enough firepower and weapons to occupy most of Europe. How did this slip through?" No one had an answer, but he knew. The UN, part of it wasn't happy with just being a body of governors, officials in a system that had no power to rule, but the responsibility to protect.

Too long in that role, and it seemed some felt entitled to the crown of those they protected as well. "Any idea on a staging area? You can't just hide this much armament in the open."

Maya stood and keyed in a series of commands, "Mana's access to the JSDF and our close association have let us use their satellite system. We think they're dumping most of the weapons into PMC groups, using previous military systems under dummy administrations as warehousing, and networking it all via some of the NP technology I'm not sure of."

This got his attention. "NP tech? They're using medical nanomachines?"

"You have to remember, Shinji, these things are just like... worker ants." Rubbing at her temple, woman sighed. "You can program them to fix the body – or destroy it. Or simply change certain things within limits of the body's capability. PMC troops, given the option to be more efficient, more powerful as payment for laundering weapons, well... it's an easy equation."

"So," his mind whirring with the possibilities, probabilities, Shinji leaned forward, standing uneasily despite his caretaker's protests. Others at the table muttered amongst themselves, and through it all he could sense a thread of worry. Guilt. Anger. It built up in him, seeing these people, all of his own choosing, all like-minded. People who wanted to save others, help those that couldn't help themselves. Some were career scientists, some were recycled war technicians. All were his, and loyal to him. And now, they were all targets. "Quiet!" Silence fell as his voice's echo died off. "I've lived my life here, in Tokyo-3... since I came here I was fighting for people. To save people.

"I'm not brave and I'm not powerful. At the time, I wasn't even willing," shaking his head, the young man remembered the Angel Wars, his own broken soul and let that wash over him, the memory of who he was, tempering who he had to become. "But I never, ever wanted what I did to hurt anyone. Anyone here that thinks that Nerv is about that, can leave. Now." When no one stood to go, he nodded, a ghost of a smile on his face. "We unwittingly built the foundation for a system that has used us, to arm a group of terrorists masquerading under the banner of peace. We have our evidence, and in a month, I imagine the UN's hold on us will be gone. When that happens, you can expect one of two things."

Holding up a hand, he pointed to that rotating globe, "Those that have our weapons, and make no mistake, they are ours, will strike at the UN with our banner and cause us to be the devil in the world's eyes." Forcing himself to stand without support, he swept his eyes over the table, unhappy with his vision of the future, but prepared for it. "The other option is that they'll strike at us, directly, and use our unarmed status to take our branches. Once that happens, with the UN's controls gone, they can openly mass produce what they've been building in secret."

Slamming his fist into the table, the young man glared up at that globe, it's form reflecting cold and empty in his eyes. "I refuse them both options."

"What can we do?"

Maya stood, and turning to the data, pulled up another file, sitting to the side. "We can fight back." Schematics poured out, and the collected leaned forward, scientists and planners all, interested in what the answer would be. "This is the Mark I, Code named "Iron Man". Small, versatile. Capable of intercontinental flight and engagement. We've made it as prepared as possible to the ends of countering our own technology, but the production is limited. So is it's source of power." The diagram focused then on the unit at it's heart, the same that kept Shinji's own beating.

"You mean to say that-"

"I will pilot it." The sentence, said once before, made him smile. Shinji remembered then Rei's crimson eyes looking up at him. Remembered Misato, pushing him into an elevator. Remembered Asuka and Mana saving him and Hikari, whom had kept him alive. Gesturing to the side, he heard the small reply from Mana, and her team of troops moved forward, taking their place to the side. A familiar, older face in it's midst caused him to chuckle a moment, as the men's eyes met. Turning back to the display, he zoomed it out as the suit took form, red and gold and deadly. "It's my company. It's my responsibility. It is who I am.

"I will be the Iron Man."

-10-30-08 6pm est. Edits that didn't get uploaded.

A/N: Alright. If you're complaining about how long it took to get from word 1 to the suit, let me make this clear: I prefer plot to pointless flashy action. If I didn't develop a world that the story could be believable in, then this would just be a bunch of mismatched ideas, pointless posing and bad characterization. I thought about it, and there's no easy way to get Shinji into the Iron Man persona, without three things happening. 1) Injure him (Check). 2) Build a world where such a thing is plausible. Evaverse is not it, on it's own. It needed time, and effort. So, we fast forward a bit past 3I, and give Nerv a believable spin. (Check). 3) Give Shinji a reason, to be Iron Man. Hints at the Armor Wars plot, a dash of MGS, and some personal attacks and threats on the ideals he's established as his own reason to be, and there we go. Think it could be simpler. Go write it. I'll probably read it.

I don't write simple stories. Nor do I write fast, pointless action. Iron Man is as much "the man in the suit" as it is the suit itself. If the balance of shots between Tony and Iron Man in the movie weren't enough to prove that, read the comic sometime. His villain gallery sucks. Most of his enemies, are either his own demons, his own construction, or himself literally. Enough bitching. Justifying plot always makes me irritable.

--

Spotlight time for Asuka, because she deserved it in EoE, and a demonstration of how Mana got whooped then as well. That was Asuka's show, and as neat as the Raidens are - an Eva will still stomp them.

You'll be happy to know - History and setup for the story is done.

And yes, Shinji's mad. You'll get to see the significance of the new people next chapter. I didn't want this one to hit 20K words. Yep, More MGS4 references to be made soon, as I think that fits well with the technology and ideology of the people on this stage. Nothing like a crossover though. Logical progression only. PM me what you think Shinji should name his 'group'. I'm currently debating amalgams ranging from MGS PMC names to Marvelverse organizations to random junk that sounds cool. Current on the lists is "Heaven's Shield", a nod to SHIELD (which likely won't be around here) and Outer Heaven (MGS fame), as well as picking a little bit at the Nerv logo itself.