Kaiju Slaying For Death And Profit Ch 23

Oof.

I'mma be level with y'all. A good chunk of this was written in a fevered stupor. And I fear it shows. It definitely meets all the beats I wanted for this part of the story, but I'm not well enough to be certain it meets them in the best way or with the best quality.

That said. I'm not certain what I would change if I were feeling better...I guess we'll find out. Let me know in a comment if I did good. Or if I should just have delayed a week while I got better.

Also, still sick. I'm exhausted. But no rest of the wicked! I did the work I needed to, I slept when I could, and I got this done. Because darn it, you lot deserve no less than the best I can provide, and my own state at the time is of no consequence to that!

Here is chapter twenty three. Please let me know if I did any good. Hope you enjoy. Next week is He Who Fights Demons.

=][=

Misato hadn’t been certain she would ever wake up again, that she had was a blessing, she very much did not want to die before the last Angel had been cast down and the world saved.

Truth be told she did not remember passing out. And the scar on her chest would now have a new best friend to keep it company. But she was alive and well enough to get back to work. Ritsuko had gotten off easier than Misato, which was good, her work was always very important after a battle against an Angel.

Speaking of Angel battles, Misato had been dismayed to learn of the Butcher’s Bill. Dozens of technicians, an entire platoon of rescue specialists, several dozen million yen in damages, a thoroughly annihilated section of crops that would cause food shortages in Tokyo-3 a few months down the line (if the world survived that long), every single veteran Pilot wounded, two Evangelions down for the foreseeable future, and a parrot on a goddamn pear tree.

The only thing close to a silver lining being that Unit 02 would be capable of deployment at reduced efficacy in three days. Unit 00 would take weeks, and Unit 01 would need over a month to regrow its arms.

Yes, they had managed to salvage Unit 04, the Evangelion largely undamaged by the explosion and the Fifth Children had been completely unharmed, but according to the test and calibration data that had been gathered during Misato’s time in the hospital, the Fifth Children was no Ikari Shinji.

She wasn’t an Asuka.

She wasn’t even a Rei.

If nothing changed, the MAGI predicted that Horaki Hikari would take upwards of nine months before she managed to successfully synchronize with an Evangelion.

And then Shinji got involved.

The reports Misato had access to indicated that under his tutelage, the Fifth Children had managed a successful synchronization in two days.

Misato did not know what, exactly, she would have imagined Shinji’s tutelage would have entailed.

“You have to FEEEEEEL it!”

But this was certainly not it.

“Know that you are the Eva and the Eva is you! Empty your mind, Hikari! Empty your mind and FEEEEEEEEEL!”

“And that’s the problem! You are closing your heart to it! The Evangelion screams for your understanding and yet you do not provide!”

Misato looked from Shinji, he was dressed in a polo shirt and cargo shorts, and was wearing a cast on his left arm and right leg. To the blank simulation room where the white Evangelion stood.

Misato had to repress a shudder. Unit 04 was largely physically identical to its defeated twin, but with the color of their armor swapped. It stood seemingly placidly, but part of her was braced for it to scream and…explode.

Shinji took a Kamen Rider ‘Transform!’ pose. “Think about nothing, Hikari! Quiet your mind so you can hear the Eva!”

“No! I mean literally ‘shut up’ but in your head!”

“Yes we can! Guys do it all the time! Think about nothing, be the Eva, and walk!”

In the room, Unit 04 took a wobbling step forward, followed by an even more unsteady second step.

Its third step saw it fall flat on its face.

“You did not feel it.” Shinji said and cut off the comm.

“It’s incredible.” Maya said. “I wouldn’t have expected her to manage two steps before falling at twenty-two percent synchronization!”

“Yep, she’s a natural.” Shinji said, disinterestedly scratching his side. “Her only real problem is her lack of crazy.”

Misato stepped forward and asked. “What do you mean? I’d imagine mental stability is very important for piloting.”

Shinji shook his head. “Mental health and crazy are different things. Crazy is diving into a volcano because fuck that one guy in particular, crazy is stabbing an enemy with a harpoon in melee and throwing yourself to the floor because you’re not sure you can land the ranged attack, crazy is the decision to attack an enemy who has a particle accelerator with fisticuffs. That’s the kind of crazy we need, and this girl’s got exactly none of it.” Shinji sniffed and pulled a sandwich out of one of his pockets and took a bite out of it. “Which is why I’m bombarding her with nonsense and overloading her with information. Once she is confused enough to forget that she doesn’t know how to pilot an Eva she does pretty alright.”

Misato scratched the side of her head and hummed. That…sounded like it made some amount of sense.

If she tilted her head enough.

Shinji thumbed the communicator on again and cracked the proverbial whip. “How much longer are you going to stay down there, get up and try walking again!”

[I’m stuck.] The girl said petulantly, sounding on the verge of tears. [I’m stuck and I can’t get up.]

“There is a saying in the West, Hikari.” Shinji said, affecting a wizened tone. “When you fall off the horse, you get right back up, and you eat that horse! Eat that horse, Hikari!”

[Why would I eat a horse!?]

Misato looked from Shinji, who ever more loudly demanded that Hikari ‘ate the horse’ (which…was it bad that Misato thought that sounded like a euphemism for sex?) to the slowly but steadily rising synchronization between Pilot 04 and Unit 04.

“—nd you’re gonna cut a piece of it off, and you’re gonna pound that piece. Pound it.” He started slapping his hands together, the distinct sound of flesh striking flesh making Misato…uncomfortable. “You’re gonna pound it. You’re gonna pound that meat Hikari.”

“And then you’re gonna marinate it, with some salt, and lime, and pepper, and cilantro, and some minced garlic, and a dash of tequila, just a dash mind! And then you’re gonna throw it in the fridge, and you’ll wait twenty-four hours, and you’ll get it out of the fridge, and you’ll throw it in the oven, and you’ll cook it in the oven.”

“And then you’ll get it out of the oven and toss it on the grill. A good charcoal grill mind you, none of this electric or propane nonsense. And you’ll sear it just right both sides. Just enough to get that nice look. And you’ll put it on a plate, and since a piece of meat does not a meal make, you’ll make some mashed potatoes.”

“And because mashed potatoes are boring you’re gonna make them with garlic, and because we can’t be too health conscious you’ll also make some mac n’ cheese. And some garlic bread because we’re tripling down on the garlic. And then, you’ll grab your fork and your knife, and you’ll cut a piece of it, and you’re gonna eat that horse, Hikari!”

“You’re the one in the giant robot!” Shinji snapped. “Get up here and make me! Because until you do, you’re gonna have to lie there, until you eat that horse, Hikari!”

The synchronization spiked, Unit 04 pushed itself to its feet and loomed over the view window, glaring daggers at Shinji. [I said stop saying that!]

“Well alright then. Congratulations, you got up.” Shinji said with a nod. “Take five, we’ll go get some grub.”

There was a long, tense silence, before Hikari said in a thoroughly confused tone. [Thank you, but I’m not hungry.]

Misato bit the inside of her cheek.

If it worked, it wasn’t stupid…right?

=][=

Asuka strode through the infirmary, head high and shoulders back.

It galled her that even though she had been the most lightly wounded of the three Pilots, Shinji had been the one to be released first, due to the simple brutish fact that even with an arm and leg in a cast, it was next to impossible to make that big oaf do anything other than what he wanted.

Still, Asuka in her magnanimity would visit Pilot 00, who would not be released for a while yet. Her superior genes would definitely serve as a balm for Rei in this time of need.

Stepping into Rei’s room, Asuka was surprised to see the girl sitting up in her bed, looking fairly well if airier than usual. She’d been expecting her to be reading a book or at least having the TV on, but the other girl was simply sitting in silence, her eyes roaming over the room.

“You’d think they’d at least turn on the TV.” Asuka said with a huff, walking in and heading for the remote.

“Oh, I turned it off.” Rei said, her eyes roaming over Asuka.

“What, why?”

“It made it hard to listen to the ringing in my ears.” Rei said absently, her eyes once again roaming the room. “It has quite the interesting rhythm.”

Asuka…was not sure what to say to that.

Thankfully, one of the Control Room crew came in, the girl-next-door that styled her bangs so they curved forward, framing her face. She paused, her eyes widening at the sight of Asuka. “Ah, Miss Soryu, what a pleasant surprise, have you been discharged?”

Asuka tossed her hair over her shoulder and crossed her arms. “Yes! Such minor injuries could not hope to keep me down!”

“You look better without the headset, Kaede. And you did well in changing the belt in your uniform to brown instead of the black one. The added contrast calls attention to your trim waist which makes your hips seem wider and your bust bigger.” Rei said in her usual monotone

The crew woman’s cheeks gained a dusting of red, and she wrote something down on her clipboard while muttering something under her breath.

“You have very pretty hands, most of the female technicians do. Shinji’s hands are rougher, callused. And while they don’t feel bad when I hold them, I imagine softer hands would be a different experience.” Rei continued.

Asuka looked flabbergasted at the normally taciturn girl. “What the hell got into you?”

Rei turned fathomless ruby eyes upon her. “Your figure has filled out further in the time I’ve known you. Though you remain svelte due to your exercise regimen. It really is rather lovely, though I feel you might benefit from spending a little more time in the sun. I am naturally very pale and there is little I can do to change that, but I think if you gained a bit of a tan it would contrast your blue eyes very nicely.”

Asuka felt her face burn.

“So, Miss Ayanami.” Kaede said, scribbling something down on her clipboard. “Do you still have a headache? Ringing in your ears? Nausea?”

“The headache went away when I woke up today, that was a relief.” Rei said, her eyes once again roaming over Kaede. “The ringing in my ears is still present, and while I do not feel nauseous, when I tried standing up, I felt dizzy.”

“Very well, please say the months of the year in reverse order.”

Rei blinked and remained quiet for a long while before saying. “December.” She kept her silence again for a while before stating. “October.” Rei skipped a few more months, but did eventually reach January. She also did a rather poor job of reciting numbers one through ten, and ten through one.

“I see,” Kaede said, scribbling something else before putting her pen away. “I believe we can safely conclude that you still have a concussion. As such, I am sorry to say, you will not yet be discharged.”

Rather than answer, Rei reached out and took hold of Kaede’s hand, intertwining her fingers with the older woman the same way she did when she held hands with Shinji. “I was right, your hands are softer.” She murmured.

The blush that had been receding returned to Kaede’s face. “Miss Ayanami, please let go.”

Rather than do what she was told, Rei pulled on Kaede’s arm, drawing the woman closer, then let go but touched the woman’s hand to her cheek and nuzzled into the woman’s palm. “This feels different too. With a smaller, softer palm.”

“Miss Ayanami.” Kaede squeaked.

“What are you doing!?” Asuka demanded.

“You should try it too, Asuka.” Rei said, tucking herself more tightly against the older woman, much to her consternation. “It feels really nice. Though it’s different if you do it with a boy, they’re bigger and denser, there is this strange feeling of excitement. The fear that they could use their strength to do whatever they wanted to you, tempered by the knowledge that he won’t if you truly tell him to stop. You are very warm, Miss Kaede.”

“Your reputation as a quiet girl will never recover, Miss Ayanami.” Kaede said, allowing herself to be manhandled by the smaller girl with a blushing face and stoic acceptance, absently stroking the girl’s hair.

“What is she even doing?” Asuka demanded, stomping down hard on the strange feeling writhing in her gut and reminding herself that she didn’t need anyone else.

“It’s the concussion.” Kaede said absently. “She’ll hopefully be back to normal in a week or two.”

“So what, a concussion made her into a horny brat?” Asuka snapped.

Kaede breathed out a long sigh as Rei wrapped her arms around Kaede’s waist and nuzzled her cheek and face against her stomach. “A concussion will affect different people differently. Miss Ayanami’s impulse control is clearly affected by her condition. It would be cruel to hold her responsible for things she says and does when her mental faculties are thus affected.”

“You would be an excellent mother.” Rei said, making Kaede’s blush return with full power. “You are soft, and warm, and gentle, and very patient. And you are at the age where you have both high fertility and the best chance to bring a child to term.”

The Angel attack alarm rang out before Asuka could figure out how to tell Rei to stop sexually harassing the bridge crew.

=][=

“Report!” Misato shouted as she sprinted into the Control Room.

“Target is currently advancing!” Aoba called out, glaring daggers at his station. “Komagatake defense line has been breached!”

On the main screen, Misato saw dozens of SAMs emptying their magazines into an angel, the camera’s resolution wasn’t good enough for her to make out anything other than a boxy creature floating several stories above the ground.

It flashed, the screen turned to static, and the ground shook hard enough to almost send her to the floor.

Misato felt faint as she heard that report. The first time those armor plates were tested, and they may as well have been papier-mâché!?

“Eighteen layers of special armor punched through in an instant.” Hyuga said, awed.

“We won’t have time for a surface intercept! Station Unit 02 inside the geo-front, its orders are to defend HQ! Tell Asuka to strike the target the moment it enters the geo-front!” She turned to Ritsuko, who was studying readouts over Maya’s shoulder. “What’s the status of the other Units?”

Ritsuko shook her head. “Unit 00 is ambulatory, barely, a fast jog could result in it becoming paraplegic. Unit 01’s arms have not regenerated yet. Unit 04 is on standby; we’re moving it to a spot where it can be used to neutralize the Angel’s AT field.”

“Hikari won’t be able to neutralize an AT field yet.” Shinji said, limping out of the elevator aided by his crutch. “She’s barely managed to take five steps without falling, deploying an AT field will be beyond her.”

“Then what would you suggest we do?” Ritsuko asked.

Shinji shook his head. “We need to use Hikari to create an opening for Asuka to kill it. We won’t win a protracted fight.”

Misato gnawed the inside of her cheek. Ruthless, but it seemed to have a good chance of success.

The ground shook harder, error messages and warnings filled the screens.

“Situation critical!” Aoba called out. “One more blast and all of our armor will be gone!”

“Oh no.” Maya groaned. “Pilot 04’s synchronization is on the single digits!”

“What!? Last training session she’d reached forty-two percent!” Misato snarled.

“Fuckin’. Okay, okay, fuck!” Shinji walked over to Maya and placed his right hand on her shoulder. “Cut off any communication Unit 04 has with…everything, leave only one communication line open, let me talk to her.” He turned to Misato, his eyes flinty. “Get in contact with Asuka, if she can kill it, great, but if her Eva is too damaged to fight before I get through to Hikari, tell her to play dead and wait for the right moment.”

“Right!” Misato said, turning to the screen showing Unit 02 as it stood around over a dozen Evangelion-grade weapons, and picked up a headset. “Asuka, can you hear me!?”

[Loud and clear.] Asuka said, her voice tight, on the screen, Misato could see the back of the pallet rifle as it aimed at the breach into the geo-front. [You wanna chat while I get my second solo-kill?]

Well, it’s a good thing she had confidence if nothing else. “Asuka, we’re having some difficulties with Unit 04. Hang in there while we get you some backup.”

Asuka scoffed. [It won’t be needed.]

Misato smiled and closed her eyes. “Right. Just be ready t—”

The ground shook as a blast vaporized an enormous hole through armor plates nineteen and twenty, bathing the geo-front in fire, smoke and rubble as several of the buildings that had been sunk below ground uncoupled and fell.

[Here it comes! Brenn in der Hölle, du dummes Schwein!] Asuka snarled, unleashing a barrage into the smoke. In seconds she’d dumped several hundred-million-yen worth of ordinance into the smoke the Angel emerged from, bulling through literal tons of munitions as it drove relentlessly forward.

The Pallet rifle clicked empty, Asuka discarded it and picked up two more, firing them akimbo at the Angel that seemed to not care one wit as it landed gently, then floated forward at an unhurried pace.

The Angel was as strange as all its kind, roughly humanoid, its body was white and dark blue, with four red spots on its thighs and where its armpits would be. It didn’t have arms, instead it had what looked like shoulder pads and something hanging from them that looked like cloth.

[Why won’t you die already!?] Asuka snarled, tossing aside the two pallet rifles and picking up two light recoilless rifles and emptying their magazines into the Angel as well, once again hiding it from view.

Misato looked back at the huddle formed around Shinji and figured that that was still largely a dead end.

When she turned back to the screens, Unit 02 was missing both its arms, its blood fountaining out of the stumps of its shoulders.

“Asuka! Asuka play dead!” Misato shouted into the headset. “Asuka acknowledge!”

[Why would I play dead!?] Asuka snarled. [I’ll kill this monster if it’s the last thing I do!]

“Shinji is getting you backup!” Misato said. “But Hikari won’t know how to cancel out an AT field! If we are to win, you need to bide your time! Play dead, do not react to anything the Angel does, then strike at the right moment!”

Asuka snarled her displeasure, but on the screen, Misato saw Unit 02 fall to its knees, then flop onto its back. The Angel paused and floated back several meters.

“Shinji! Shinji it’s now or never!”

“Fuck!” Shinji growled, then turned back to Maya’s console. “Hikari, Hikari we’re out of time. You need to get up and fight.”

[I can’t!] The girl’s wail came out of Maya’s console. [I’m no good at this! I don’t wanna die!]

“Hikari, if you don’t do this, we are all going to die, not just you!”

Shinji ran his hand down his face and took a deep breath. “Hikari, HIKARI!” At his shout. The girl hiccupped but fell quiet. “Hikari, you absolutely can, I know you can do this. Because you’re crazy.”

“You are human. And humans are crazy. For fuck’s sake we think a bed is something natural. Out there in the cosmos, right now, a star is exploding and sterilizing light-days worth of space such that life will be incapable of existing for hundreds of years! Free-roaming black holes are eating entire planets and throwing planetary systems into disarray! And humans think that something as unnatural as a bed is somehow normal!? That’s just fucking crazy!”

“And inside you beats the heart of a human! The species that crawled its way out of the goddamn mud, looked at a world that hated it for existing, and said fuck you in particular! And proceeded to rape that same world until it did what it wanted it to!”

“AND THIS MEANS!” Shinji shouted into the mic, his voice reverberating through the control room. “That inside you is three million years of fuck you! Waiting to be unleashed Hikari! And unleash it you will! Because you want to be a mother! And mothers are crazy!”

“I want you to imagine your baby Hikari!” Shinji continued, not giving the girl a second to think. Misato though, saw that Hikari’s synchronization had just climbed into the double digits. “Imagine their pudgy little fist! And their kicky little feetsies! I want you to imagine their squishable cheeks and toothless fucking smile! Have your baby in your mind Hikari! Your perfect little poop factory! What’s your baby’s name Hikari!?”

“Little Tsubame is in her crib, Hikari! Little Tsubame is in her crib, and she loves you, and she’s happy you’re there. And she’s the best little baby you ever did see as she drools all over the place. But this asshole here? This goddamn monster? It hates little Tsubame! It waited until your husband was sick and hurt, so sick and hurt that he can’t stand up to it and drive it away! It’s cunning, and it’s hateful, and it is going to kill little Tsubame in front of you!”

Before Misato’s disbelieving, bewildered gaze, Hikari’s synchronization rate climbed to forty-five percent. At the same time that the Angel poked at Unit 02’s unmoving form.

“It’s going to be a slow, drawn-out, painful death! It will make her suffer! It will cut out each of her pudgy little fingers one by one! It will cut off her arms! And her legs! It will make her die screaming! But you won’t let it do that! Because yours is the species that looked at a goddamn fundamental force of nature and used it to warm its balls at night! Yours is the species that decided an apex fucking predator looked cute, so it adopted it and bent it to its will and needs and created dogs! The one thing in all the goddamn world that is unequivocally good! In your veins runs the blood of crazy bastards who waded into a firefight with a sword and won!”

Misato walked over to Hyuga and shook the man who, like everyone else, had been drawn into a stupor by Shinji’s nonsense. “Launch Unit 04 to the geo-front, now!”

“R-Right!”

“So here is what you’re going to do!” Shinji shouted as Unit 04’s cradle slammed into place to the right of the Angel. “You are gonna to plant your feet! You are gonna grit your teeth! You are gonna clench your butt-cheeks! And you are gonna eat!

The sound that came out of Hikari was less a warcry and more a screech of sheer terror, but Unit 04 nonetheless launched itself at the Angel in an uncoordinated, clumsy, but extremely savage charge. The Angel interposed its AT field, only for Unit 02 to spring up and toss itself at it, its own AT field corroding and cutting through it an instant before Unit 04 crashed against the Angel, driving all three of the massive things to the ground, where Unit 04 began inexpertly pounding on the Angel with its fists to the sound of Hikari’s terrified weeping.

The Angel fired its blast, cutting through Unit 04’s right arm, only for the Evangelion to drive the now sharpened point of its cauterized stump into the Angel’s face, over and over, using it as an improvised knife to stab it to death.

“Oh thank fuck.” Shinji said suddenly, collapsing to his knees. “If that didn’t work, I had nothing.”

On the screen, Misato saw unit 04 pull the Angel’s head, exposing meat and veins and sinew, then hacked at it with its stump until it successfully beheaded the creature. Then continued its frenzied assault.

Hikari’s weeping sounding over the comms the whole time.