Kaiju Slaying For Death And Profit Ch 32

Good evening y'all. Sorry for the late posting.

This chapter fought me pretty hard, until I got to the last bit of the chapter, and then it finally flowed smoothly. Originally it was going to be even longer, but I reached a good stopping point, and I think it'll be better paced this way.

Warning for those who read this later. The opening of the chapter is decidedly...spicy.

This absolutely 100 percent positively was totally needed for the plot.

Totally.

Tooooootally.

Don't read this at work unless you think you can get away with it. I don't want y'all getting in trouble cause of me.

Good?

Good.

Here is chapter. I hope you lot enjoy it.

=][=

Rei lay on the bed and watched enraptured as Shinji pushed Maya’s face into a pillow to muffle her cries as he took her from behind, her eyes ran over the lovely curve of the older woman’s back, her skin shining with sweat, the slap of flesh against flesh captivating as Shinji took his pleasure in seeming disregard for Maya’s.

He used the hair on the back of Maya’s head as a handhold, pulling her head back just enough for her to get a gasp of air before once again pressing her face into the pillow, though judging by the woman’s lack of struggle and the muffled sounds she was making, she was enjoying herself quite a lot.

It was a good thing, Rei decided, that she had pushed Maya to be with her Shinji, because Rei doubted she would have been able to handle his virility on her own.

Maya suddenly shuddered through an orgasm, making Shinji grunt and curse as he thrust so hard into her that her skin rippled, both of their bodies taunt as he further filled Maya with his seed. Once their bodies relaxed, he lay on his side, keeping Maya’s body flush with his, her blushing face coming into view as she gasped for breath.

Rei crawled to her on the bed, and promptly shoved her tongue into Maya’s mouth, the unresisting woman releasing a tired moan as she allowed Rei to have her way. Rei found that she really enjoyed kissing Maya, it was a completely different experience as when she kissed Shinji. She enjoyed kissing her Shinji, the way he took control was exhilarating, but there was also something very satisfying in Maya’s submission.

Rei pressed her hand onto Maya’s mons, and the woman whimpered as Rei could feel Shinji once again getting hard while still inside her.

“This is your fault.” Shinji said with a chuckle as he drew back, making Maya whine as best she could with her mouth currently occupied. “How’s a guy supposed to not get excited when his ladies put on a show like that?”

As he drove forward and once again filled Maya’s cunt to capacity, Rei deepened the kiss and explored the older woman’s body.

Tomorrow they would have more testing. And her physical with Ritsuko was drawing near. But for tonight, Rei would enjoy herself.

=][=

Hikari took deep breaths, she tried to get into what Asuka called ‘the flow state’ where she could sort of feel the Evangelion’s body as if it were her own. However, despite her best efforts, it felt heavy, sluggish, unresponsive. She took another deep breath and let it out slowly, relaxing as much as she could in the uncomfortable pilot chair, the strange, lukewarm liquid the plug was filled with giving her a weird, almost nostalgic sense of belonging.

Slowly, her connection to the Evangelion deepened.

[Synchronization rising, twelve percent, fifteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-three.] Said Miss Ibuki, the more approachable of the technicians, in the time Hikari had known her, she’d never been as intense as Doctor Akagi, but there had always been an underlying tension to her, like she was wound a little too tightly.

After she’d been appointed Shinji’s guardian while he was…convalescent, Miss Ibuki had relaxed a lot. Losing a lot of that tension that always seemed to be on her shoulders. Hikari thought that maybe Miss Ibuki had developed a bit of a crush on Shinji, which on the one hand was a little bit scandalous.

On the other hand, Shinji was weird.

Thoughts of Shinji inevitably brought her mind back to that day, to the feeling of that awful light stabbing into her brain.

[Psychograph becoming unstable. Beginning attempts at stabilization.] Miss Ibuki said.

[No.] Said Doctor Akagi. [The last two times we tried that it didn’t work. Let’s use this as an opportunity to gather data.]

[But ma’am!] Miss Ibuki said angrily.

[You have your instructions.] Doctor Akagi said

Hikari’s chest tightened at the woman’s cold dismissal. She tried to regain her calm, but every time that awful light came back, every time she felt it…stabbing into her, forcing her open, taking what it wanted. With every attempt to calm her breathing came the crushing feeling of guilt, of knowing she had made Shinji, Humanity’s best hope, into an animal sapped her of her will.

[Synchronization rate falling. Thirty-five percent, thirty-one, twenty-six, eleven.] Miss Ibuki said sadly, and the quiet disappointment in the kind woman’s words hurt Hikari more than the Doctor’s cold admonishments. [Synchronization rate has fallen to the single digits.]

Hikari sighed and slumped into the seat, she barely felt it when Unit 04 was shut down, the now familiar rumbling of the plug being removed jostling her about.

[Begin synchronization test with Unit 02.] Said Doctor Akagi, already moving on.

[But I…Yes ma’am.] Miss Ibuki agreed with a sigh.

Hikari exited the plug, her eyes firmly on the floor and doing her best to ignore the humiliating heat on her face. It was even worse that the technicians offered her nothing but encouragement. A disturbing detail that she’d picked up when Kodama dragged her to that meeting of Shinji’s ‘fanclub,’ was that there was a strong belief with them that Shinji had saved her ‘for a reason.’

In their eyes, the very fact that Shinji had risked his life to protect her, meant she was special. That she had just as much potential as Rei and Asuka, the only difference being, Hikari had yet to ‘mature’ or ‘blossom’ into what Shinji knows she can do.

Not that any of them had asked Shinji about his opinion on that.

Hikari sighed and made her way to the Pilot’s waiting room and got one of those apple-flavored sodas that Rei had introduced her to. She then nursed the drink and thought through the synch test.

She did awful.

Hikari had been getting consistently better results under Asuka’s tutelage, until…until the second time she went against an Angel. She’d even be somewhat inclined to refer to it as her first, as her true first was a confused blur of panic and pain.

And Shinji’s weird nonsense that seemed to make sense at the time.

Was she even cut out to be a Pilot? So far she’d accidentally killed one monster and had to be rescued from the second at the cost of nearly losing a more experienced, objectively better Pilot. Not exactly a stellar record.

Rei walked into the room and made a beeline for the soda machine.

Hikari stood up and made her way over to her friend. “Rei?”

Rei ignored her until she had her soda in hand, then turned to Hikari. “Yes?”

“I…can I…talk to you?” Hikari asked.

Rei blinked and tilted her head slightly. “We are speaking right now.”

Hikari felt dumb, because she’d walked straight into that one. “I mean, can I discuss something important with you?”

“Of course.”

Hikari took a deep breath. Then explained in detail that she feared that her older sister had joined a cult. Though she was careful not to mention that the cult was based around Shinji, she didn’t want to make things awkward between Rei and her boyfriend.

“That is very worrying.” Rei said in her usual monotone. “What was this cult making her do?”

Hikari blinked. “Uhh…well, they didn’t really make her do anything? She sorta went there herself?”

Rei nodded. “So, what were they doing? The people of this cult, what did they do once they assembled?”

Hikari thought about it. “Well…there were some study groups, and umm, board games and such, and a big forum where they discussed…stuff, some stuff related to the Angels too. I guess.”

“So, they just spent time together?” Rei asked.

“I…I guess?” Hikari asked, feeling her face getting warmer by the second.

“I see.” Rei said with a nod. “In that case, I feel it might be best t—”

She was cut off by the Angel-attack alarm.

=][=

Kaworu let the reports wash over him as he sat calmly in the Plug of Unit 04. He’d already set his synch to seventy-two percent, more than enough for the farce ahead. The metaphorical collar of Selle felt heavy on his neck as he readied to sortie out and kill that which was and was not his Kin.

That’s when an explosion threw several of the technicians to the floor and rocked the launch infrastructure. Kaworu spiked his synchronization so he could catch a technician who had been working on a gantry, checking the weld lines of Unit 04’s shoulder armor, Unit 01 and 00 both snapping out of the restraints of their launch cradles and catching technicians that had been knocked off the gantries by the blast. Asuka screamed as Unit 02’s left ankle was compromised.

[Is it the Seekers of Revelation again!?]

Kaworu stared down at the technician he had saved. He hadn’t chosen to save the man, there had been no conscious decision. His body had simply moved without his input. That had never happened before. He set the technician down gently on a gantry, barely hearing his shouted thanks as he rushed off to take care of something.

The chaos of the Control Room was quickly brought to heel.

[Pilots, the Director has been taken to the infirmary.] Katsuragi said. [We will be launching Units 00 and 04. Unit 02’s ankle has been compromised and will take too long to repair or regenerate, as such, Asuka will be sitting this one out.]

The girl in question launched into a string of German invectives that Kaworu muted.

Kaworu was crushed into his seat as the Evangelion was launched. They slammed out into the outskirts of Tokyo-3, Rei took the 457 mm rifle, while Kaworu was given a pallet rifle. The two walked out into the woods outside Tokyo-3, and saw the Angel, a circular glowing rotating double helix floating far above the ground, the speed of its rotation causing an audible hum.

[Target is airborne above Owakudani, continuing fixed-point rotation.] Aoba reported.

[Target’s AT field is active.] Hyuga said. [Pattern changing from blue to orange, alternating at regular intervals.]

[And what does that mean for us?] Katsuragi asked.

[The Magi is saying it cannot provide an answer.] Ibuki said. [We do not have enough information.]

[Its current state must be temporary.] Doctor Akagi stated.

[Oi.] Shinji cut in. [I’ve got a bad feeling. Send me out already.]

[Shinji, you will remain in standby.] Katsuragi said.

[It’s coming.] Rei said.

[Dodge!] Shinji shouted an instant before the double-helix collapsed and combined into a thick thread, the circle snapped into a long line as it whipped at the two Evangelions with the speed of a viper. Only thanks to Shinji’s command, both Kaworu and Rei had already been moving, causing it to pierce right through their Evangelions’ AT Fields, but miss them entirely.

Kaworu swung the pallet rifle around, emptying its magazine, striking the Angel and causing no damage. “The rifle is useless!”

[We’re deploying the chainsaw scissors!] Katsuragi said. [Run to C-883 to retrieve it!]

“Roger!” Kaworu barked and bowled over several trees as he charged through them.

The Angel struck at him like a whip, he jumped over it, but it twisted like a snake at the last instant and stabbed up at Unit 04. Kaworu used it like a springboard, kicking off the Angel and somersaulting away, gaining significant distance toward his destination.

[Amazing.] Ibuki murmured. [He moves better than Asuka.]

A pod slammed out of the ground, without the luxury of slowing, Kaworu was forced to destroy it as he snatched the weapon out of it as he ran past. He brandished the weapon, two long crisscrossing Evangelion-rated chainsaws. Seeing it, the Angel hesitated.

“Sorry.” He told it, a sad smile tugging at his lips. “The plan does not call for you. I’ll be the one to win this one.”

He rushed forward at the same time that the Angel drove toward him. Kaworu activated the weapon, the chainsaws spinning to life with a roar that was deafening even inside the Evangelion, and slammed the blades closed on the giant thread.

Where the teeth of both chainsaws promptly shattered as they attempted to dig into the Angel.

“Well shit.” Kaworu said.

Strange, before moving to Tokyo-3, he never would have used an expletive.

The end of the Angel that had so far remained largely motionless whipped around, the air screaming from its passing.

A 457 mm shell slammed into it, detonating and throwing it to the side without causing it any damage beyond inconvenience.

The Angel drove at Unit 00, it got one more shot off, a shot that did less than nothing, pierced through Unit 00’s AT field without slowing, and stabbed into Unit 00’s abdomen. Rei grunted, then moaned in pain as veins began to bulge out of Unit 00’s armor and body as the Angel undulated, burrowing deeper.

[The Target has made physical contact with Unit 00!] Aoba said.

[What about Unit 00’s AT field!?] Katsuragi demanded.

[It’s deployed, but the Angel corroded through it!] Ibuki informed her. [Unit 00’s biological components are being corrupted! It’s already taken over three percent of its body mass!]

[Launch unit 01!] Katsuragi ordered. [Rescue Rei and provide cover!]

[Fuckin’ finally!] Shinji growled.

[Unit 01’s launch cradle has failed!] Hyuga yelled. [The explosion must have damaged it!]

[Fuck! Rei! Rei hang in there, I’m coming!] Shinji said, his voice interlaced by the sound of shattering metal.

[Prepare another launch cradle!] Katsuragi said. [And Shinji, next time wait for us to release the locks on the launch cradle!]

Kaworu threw Unit 04 forward and tried to use the chainsaw scissors as a bludgeon to help Unit 00, but the Angel wound around the weapon, forcing Kaworu to let go lest Unit 04 be invaded.

The chainsaw scissors then rose into the air, supported by the ‘tail’ or the ‘head’ of the Angel, its teeth regenerated and began to glow with the light of the Angel’s AT field.

“Well, that’s not fair at all.” Kaworu said.

In response, the teeth started to spin as the chainsaws’ mechanism roared to life. Then he was too busy dodging to think.

He dodged, dipped, rolled, ducked, jumped, summersaulted, dove, fell into a split, rose into a handstand, threw Unit 04 onto its back and rolled again. Keeping ahead of the whirring teeth by ever shortening margins.

He jumped over a swipe, and when he landed, his Evangelion fell on its side, as the foot he’d expected to be there, wasn’t.

He looked down at the bleeding, ruined stump of Unit 04’s right leg. Stringy muscle and shattered armor hanging from the macerated ruin just beneath the knee joint, the wound spilling arterial spurts onto the ground.

And then the Angel stabbed into Unit 04’s abdomen, and he felt it forcing a connection within him.

“Ugh, this feels awful.” He murmured. He could fight it, deploy his personal AT field and rebuff it…but it would be very inconvenient for him to be revealed as what he truly was right now. So instead, he allowed it. Ignoring the panicked shouting coming from the communication system, he closed his eyes and allowed a small measure of the bond the Angel wanted to be forged.

He was floating above a massive pool of LCL, he felt…a gnawing pain in his heart, but at the same time a warm, glowing contentment in his chest, and an aching void within him that fondly remembered being filled.

A distance away, he could see Rei, her bare body floating serenely above the LCL, only her toes dipping into the liquid, veins bulged grotesquely on her belly, spreading outwards to the rest of her body.

Out of the LCL before her, another Rei emerged, her upper body breaking out of the liquid, her hair an LCL-logged mop, the liquid around her stained red as blood seemingly leaked out of her groin.

“You are not the me inside the Eva.” The floating Rei said to the Rei in front of her. “Who are you? Are you the Angel?”

Kaworu tried to answer her, but due to only allowing a partial bond, he found himself forced into the position of a witness, incapable of speech.

“Become one with me.” The Angel demanded.

“I can’t.” Rei answered. “I am me, I am not you.”

“I see…it’s too late though. You will become one with me. You cannot stop it.” The Angel rebuffed. “I’ll share myself with you, my heart with you. You will feel what I feel, because we’ll be one.”

Rei groaned as the veins became thicker and pulsed outward. A red light pulsed, moving out of the Angel and entering Rei, being assimilated back into her, even as her body fought against the intrusion.

“It hurts, doesn’t it? There. Your heart aches just like mine.” The Angel did not so much ask, as it stated.

Rei scowled. “This isn’t pain. It’s loneliness. You are lonely.”

“Loneliness? I do not comprehend.” The Angel said.

“You don’t want to be alone. There are many of us, but you are alone, you will always be alone, and you hate that. That’s what loneliness feels like.”

The Angel tilted its head. “But that’s your heart. That’s what is in your heart. You are feeling loneliness.”

“Not anymore.” Rei stated with complete conviction. “I was lonely before. It hurt. But I’m not alone anymore. I have Him. Thanks to Him, I made friends, thanks to Him I have Maya. I was lonely for a long time, but I have found Him and I’m not alone anymore.”

The feeling of warm contentment swelled with Rei’s words, its gentle heat searing away the cold agony (the loneliness) that plagued the Angel.

That plagued Kaworu.

He felt the warmth, the void within Rei (within him) that remembered being filled, she (he) ached for that which completed her (him).

The warm contentment as He made pancakes. The amusement and enjoyment as He made off-key sounds and awkwardly danced. The searing heat as He freely took His pleasure and did the things that drove her wild, as her wetness and His wetness combined, as she felt Him become harder inside her. The safety and surety of His arms wrapped around her.

All of these were as inviolable armor against the cold knife the Angel used to try and cut her.

“I don’t want to be alone anymore.” The Angel/Kaworu wept.

“You don’t have a choice.” Rei said. “You cannot become one with me.”

“I will take Him.” The Angel said. “I will become one with Him.”

“You cannot.” Rei said. “He will kill you because you hurt me.”

It was then that the world that Kaworu witnessed spasmed with pain, as a staggering mountain of searing hot fury broke through, bathing the world in wrath as a pillar of black rage shot down, broke apart into a fist, and closed savagely around the Rei-that-was-not.

Emotions flooded the connection, he could feel it, a protective urge, older than Kaworu’s current species, drove Shinji to a level of rage that would have left Kaworu apoplectic. A confusing mélange of love and fear, both used to fuel rage, hate, and determination. A focus so sharp it was monomolecular, an entire being focused upon one single goal…no, one single outcome.

The protection of Her. The need to sacrifice anything and everything, to ensure Her safety.

The black fist that was fury/wrath/rage/love/fear/protectiveness tightened further, then yanked savagely, tearing the Angel away from Rei.

Tearing it away from Kaworu.

Kaworu, who scrabbled to maintain any part of the connection.

Kaworu, who felt as if he had been given his first ever taste of air, and now could not bear to be without, now that he had been granted a glimpse of that which had been denied him.

But reality was cruel, and that which gave him that taste, that glimpse, that which granted him something he never knew he needed until it was given to him, was severed.

He slammed back, the back of his head bouncing off the piloting seat in the plug.

He gasped, the oxygen filling his system now…not enough, now it was missing something. Something he never knew he needed.

Something he couldn’t do without.

“I wonder…could I ever feel that way about someone?” He asked.