Kaiju Slaying For Death And Profit Ch 46

Good morning!

I wrote not a single word during the whole week! I got a whole extra day worth of work time. Yaay overtime! 

Save me. ;_;

This chapter...this chapter was clawing at my brain meats to get out. I wrote over five thousand words in a single day yesterday. XD

This morning was for editing. And now here we are.

I hope y'all enjoy this chapter, it has a few of the scenes of the whole story that I looked forward to writing the most.

Lemme know if you enjoyed it in a comment!

...Oh shit I forgot to put a poll for the side story.

=][=

Major General Timothy Anderson resisted the urge to swear as he finally got what remained of the artillery to stop shelling the roads leading into the city, the ones that incidentally were full of the second and third waves of infantry that were supposed to have already stormed the various entrances into NERV.

The Lieutenant Colonel in charge of the tank battalions had had to be shot by the First Lieutenant to stop the tanks from finishing off the artillery and get them attacking Tokyo-3’s static defenses. And the entire air wing had to be landed, reorganized, and relaunched. But his division was, finally, under his control again.

Lastly, everyone in his division had to change the encryption of their communications.

High Command had been compromised. No aid would come, he couldn’t be certain his reinforcements would be under way, and if they were, he had no way to be sure that they wouldn’t shoot his men in the back.

NERV must have been readying this ambush for months, maybe years. The ones seeking to end the world as Timothy knew it had prepared supremely well to backstab the UN when the time was right. The last shred of doubt Timothy held had vanished when he saw his division decimate itself before the operation to stop the end of the world had even properly begun.

“Sir! The last of their static defenses is destroyed!” Called out Annabeth, one of his best analysts and the only woman in his staff.

Timothy held in a sigh. “Very good, all units forward, they should try to avoid civilian casualties but the moment they encounter any resistance, it’s weapons free. We cannot allow NERV to do what they seek to do. What are our casualties?”

“Uncertain.” She said, her eyes having a glassy, faraway look as she listened to reports on the radio. “My best estimate is that we are down at least three thousand men.”

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.” Timothy swore. Decimation had been too optimistic an outlook. Nearly one quarter of his force was rendered combat ineffective and they’d yet to properly get to grips with the enemy. “Keep me appraised Anna.”

“Sir!”

“Arthur! Any word from Command!?” Timothy demanded.

Arthur shook his head. “It’s still a mess, sir. Nothing but contradictory orders. They seem to be catching on to the fact that we’re no longer following orders.”

Timothy grunted. “How are our boys in the enemy Head Quarters?”

“Doing poorly.” Arthur said gravely. “They are encountering unexpected resistance and resilience. And we have reports of several individuals wearing what appears to be power armor and utilizing heavy machine guns as infantry weapons. Our own weapons are ineffective against them.”

Timothy closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Of course NERV would embezzle funds to secretly advance weapons and armor programs not related to defeating the monsters. They truly must have been planning to betray humanity from the start.

He held in a laugh. Now let his peers tell him that he was paranoid for having a plan to sever ties and operate independently of any oversight.

“Get more MPATS in the second wave.” Timothy said. “Nothing is impervious.”

“Uhh, sir?” Arthur said. “I have some helmet cam footage that may be pertinent.”

Timothy raised an eyebrow but walked over to see the video Arthur mentioned. Then, clear as day, he saw a power armored individual, its armor needlessly gilded and decorated with frills of all things. Two portable rockets struck the individual, flinging her into a wall.

Where she proceeded to stand up and keep firing, her armor scarred but the operator alive and well.

“Well…” Timothy said, chewing over his words, he quickly went over his various plans, making a mental note of which ones remained viable after receiving this new information before sighing. “Fuck.”

=][=

Hikari was crushed into the seat of Unit 04. She curled up into the fetal position, her whole body rocked as the Eva came to a stop, she felt the machine around her shudder as the restraining bolts released explosively.

The screen in front of her was dark blue, showing she was underwater, its surface rippling just above her Eva’s head. The lake in the Geodome, she was inside the lake, why would NERV have a way to deploy there? She did her best to hold on as the screen in front of her tilted, the floor of the lake coming up swiftly to meet her as Unit 04 fell forward and faceplanted.

Asuka’s face appeared on a screen to her lower left. [Still having trouble, Hikari?]

Hikari sighed and admitted. “I can barely feel the Eva.”

[Well buckle up.] Asuka snapped. [It’s do or die time.]

Easy for Asuka to say. Other than being honest with the boy she’d liked there was nothing she’d ever feared.

Hikari hugged her legs to her chest and listened to the reports coming from her radio. Wondering why she even needed to be launched in the Eva. The mercenaries were holding everything back fine, according to some of the stuff she’d heard, NERV even had people in power armor. Which was news to her but she guessed it made some sense.

She wondered where Shinji was, or if Rei was okay.

Maya’s face appeared on her lower right. [Miss Horaki? How are you doing?]

“Feeling utterly useless.” She mumbled. “I’m…I’m scared. I can’t do anything. I’m just useless, a dead weight.”

[Miss…No, Hikari. Please. I know it’s not fair, but we need you to get your synchronization with the Eva to be higher.] Maya pressed.

Hikari hid her face behind her legs. “Why? The Angels are supposed to all be dead, why is this happening?”

The world lurched. There was a titanic impact that beat back the water long enough for Unit 04 to be uncovered. Hikari blinked the spots out of her vision and saw a huge hole in the sky.

No, not the sky, the Geodome. Something had blown an enormous hole in the Geodome. She didn’t have the time to see anything else as the water rushed back and covered the Evangelion.

[Scheiße!] Asuka said a bad word in German as her Evangelion stood back up, then snarled. [Hikari, move!]

“I can’t!” She screamed as something impacted the water so hard that it sent her Eva tumbling.

[Hikari! They detonated an N2 mine over the Geodome!] Asuka said, her voice tight as more and more impacts struck the lake. [Tokyo-3 is above the Geodome!]

Hikari’s heart turned to ice as something crashed into the water above her, on the screen she saw a huge slab of concrete as it careened down onto her.

She barely had the time to register that it was a building before the screen turned black, the sound of grinding impacts letting her know she had been buried.

[Hikari! Hikari are you alright!?] Asuka called out.

“Y-Yeah.” Hikari said, trying to control her breathing. “I…I’m fine.”

[Hikari, you have to dig yourself out!] Asuka said before snarling. [Arschloch!]

“Asuka?” Hikari whimpered.

[I’m under attack. They’re swarming down with VTOLs.] Asuka said, her voice tightly controlled, [Hikari! Get up here and help me!]

“I can’t!” Hikari gasped, breathing in short, panted breaths. “I can’t! I can’t! I can’t!”

[Schwein!] Asuka screamed.

Belatedly, Hikari remembered that the Evas could share telemetry, and she set up a screen to see what Unit 02 saw just in time to see Unit 02’s red hand grab one of those fancy aircraft with the wings that tilted. It used its new handhold to throw it at another aircraft, sending the two to the lake in pieces.

Something impacted Unit 02, making the view shake. A shimmering field sprang up and blocked a follow up barrage that obscured her vision with smoke. Only for another impact to send the Eva careening to the side.

[Hurensohn!] Asuka snarled, blocking the next one with an AT field, only for the screen to whirl around, Hikari saw an instant of a ship connected to the side of Unit 02’s foot before Asuka finished the spin and brought up an AT field to once again block a barrage.

They were going for her umbilical. Asuka’s Eva wasn’t like Hikari’s, if the umbilical broke…

Hikari couldn’t catch her breath no matter how quickly she breathed, her head spun. She felt like she was going to throw up.

“I don’t wanna die.” She murmured. “I don’t wanna die…Kodama, help me.”

On the radio, she heard Asuka grunt in pain again before she went into what sounded like a very long and angry tirade in a language Hikari didn’t understand, presumably German.

“I don’t wanna die. I don’t wanna die.” Hikari murmured.

[Hikari.] Her radio crackled.

Hikari blinked, her breath stilling. “Kodama?”

There was a sharp intake of breath, almost a hiss. When next her sister spoke, her voice was tight. [Yes, baby sis, I’m here. I…I burrowed someone’s radio, and Maya was kind enough to patch me through.]

“Kodama. I’m sorry.” Hikari wept.

[It’s okay, Hikari.] Kodama said. [It’s okay. You’ll be safe.]

Hikari continued apologizing as the girl that had quickly become her best friend continued to fight alone. She cut off when Kodama hissed in pain.

“Kodama?” Hikari asked.

[N-No it’s nothing.] Kodama said, her voice coming in quick, short pants.

“Kodama, what happened?” Hikari demanded.

[Hikari. I need you to listen to me.] Kodama coughed. [While I can still talk.]

Hikari’s breath caught, she barely managed to whisper. “Kodama?”

[Everyone here…Everyone here is fighting. Hikari.] Kodama said. [We’re fighting, because if we don’t, everyone is going to die. That…that club I’m in. We weren’t a club, Hikari.]

Hikari blinked, was her sister seriously going to admit to having been part of a cult?

[We found.] Kodama paused as she groaned. [We found bits and pieces, no solid evidence. But…no, we don’t have the time for the full story. I’m sorry Hikari. We did what we could to stop it. We tried, I swear we tried, but it wasn’t enough.]

“K-Kodama? Kodama what’s wrong?” Hikari asked.

Hikari’s heart stopped.

[Do you remember, when you were little.] Kodama coughed, it sounded wet. [And you were afraid to get on the swing…but you eventually did, and you had fun?]

“Kodama! Don’t talk!” Hikari begged.

[I love you, baby sis. I’m so proud of you. You’ll do big things…all…all big like.] Kodama coughed again. [Why is it so cold?]

After the radio was silent but for Asuka’s screams, Hikari begged into the radio. “Kodama! Kodama talk to me! Kodama!”

But no matter how much she called, her sister didn’t answer. She tried to raise Maya, to ask what was wrong, but she couldn’t get through.

She screamed, thrashed, and pulled at the controls. But no matter what she did the Eva refused to move. So she did the only thing she could do, she curled up, cried, and was a useless weight.

…No.

No she would not. Hikari would not let her family suffer for her weakness. Her sisters needed her, her friends needed her. And Kaworu had even told her what she needed to do in order to successfully pilot her Eva. Her only problem was that she was far too much of a coward to do what needed to be done.

And now, Kodama was paying the price for that.

Hikari took a deep breath and bit down on her lower lip so hard that she tasted blood. The pain helped center her.

She knew what she needed to do.

Slowly, she began to feel concrete and rebar poking against her plug suit.

She would do what she’d been taught to do.

The plug was filled with the sound of breaking concrete as she felt Unit 04 begin to stir.

She pressed her feet against the plug’s chair, she grit her teeth so hard that they hurt, she clenched her butt-cheeks as tightly as she could. She took a deep breath and with a roar of pure rage, Unit 04 tore through the building that had fallen on top of it.

The world around her was a sickening mélange of color and light. She could feel that awful light and its reaching grasp trying to dig into her brain so she took a piece of the building that had buried her and threw it as hard as she could. Shattering the light to pieces. She threw herself forward, crashing against and through a hovering thing with wings, it screamed as it burst into flames.

She took pieces of it and used them as weapons. She reached Unit 02 and extended her barrier just in time to block a stream of bullets that would have severed its umbilical cable.

In her mind’s eye, the great winged light thing tried to drown her, it tried to make her feel small, and vulnerable, and she raged at it, she grabbed more aircraft and threw them at it until it shut the hell up.

Until suddenly, she stood alongside Unit 02, taking great heaving gulps of…well…not air, but…yeah.

[I knew you had it in you, Hikari!] Asuka gloated. [I knew it!]

“Horse.” Hikari gasped. “Eaten.”

Asuka groaned, sounding significantly less happy. [Of course.]

Hikari mentally stabbed at her Eva’s radio until Maya answered. “Maya! How is Kodama!”

[Sh-She’s unconscious.] Maya said. [We have a lot of wounded. She’s been seen to by a medic.]

Hikari sighed in relief. “Thank God.”

One after another, eleven impacts shook the earth around them in great plumes of dirt and mud.

As the dirt settled, she saw that they were surrounded by eleven stark white Evangelions, carbon copies of Unit 04, each holding a weird, blunt, double-bladed staff, each as tall as the Evas themselves.

“They have Evangelions.” Hikari said as her stomach dropped out from under her.

Asuka didn’t wait or hesitate, she charged. Another stream of German invectives flying as she drop kicked the first Evangelion she came within reach of, sending it tumbling.

Hikari charged another, its movements slow, languid…no, delayed. She easily ducked past the huge telegraphed swing and shoved her Eva’s fists forward like battering rams, the impact cracking the chest plate of the enemy Eva, as it fell, clutching its stomach, Hikari stretched Unit 04 up to the tips of its toes, and brought both its elbows down on the enemy Eva’s back, the impact causing a shockwave and visibly denting its spine.

She left the fitfully twitching Eva behind, rushing a second that was making its slow, lumbering way toward her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that Asuka was rushing as well, leaving four variously dismembered white Evangelions in her wake.

Hikari jumped over the slow horizontal swing and crashed Unit 04’s arms into the Eva’s neck, she felt its vertebrae give out under her machine’s forearms. The strength of her uncontrolled charge sent her into a tumble, Unit 04 and the now quadriplegic Eva tearing the ground and sending tress flying through the Geodome.

She blinked at the sky, then threw herself into a roll, avoiding the edge of one of those weird double blades as it sank into the ground, the white Eva nearly faceplanting as it sought to keep hold of the weapon.

Hikari made Unit 04 climb to its feet, grabbed the enemy Eva by the back of the head, then drove Unit 04’s knee into its face, she felt the armor of her knee and the face of the Eva both give way. The white Eva faceplanted, leaving it face down and ass up in a pose that, in a different situation, would have been comical.

She stomped on its head until she felt it crack and give away.

She turned, seeking another target, and was just in time to see Unit 02 launch into a quintessentially Karate flying sidekick into the core of the last standing white Evangelion, cracking it and sending the huge machine tumbling.

Unit 02 jumped back to its feet, threw back its head, and roared.

[What’s with these guys!?] Asuka said, laughing. [They were so weak!]

Hikari saw movement out of the corner of her eye, and threw Unit 04 forward, tackling Unit 02 to the ground. She felt the ghost of a cold touch on the back of her neck as one of those double blades flew through the air where her Eva’s head had just been.

[The hell!?] Asuka demanded as both made their Evas climb to their feet.

There was a twelfth…and a thirteenth, and a fourteenth.

No…

“They’re regenerating.” Hikari whispered.

[Scheiße!] Asuka swore, then threw her Evangelion into a sprint at the nearest white Eva as it pushed itself ponderously to its feet, she jumped and landed on the back of its head, driving it into the ground and popping it like an overripe melon. [Have the decency to stay dead after I killed you!]

Hikari remembered her Evangelion had a high frequency blade, drew it, and used it to slash at the nearest Eva, cutting its neck wide open and causing a torrent of blood to pour out onto the ground.

The second time they ‘killed’ all the Evas went just as quickly as the first. By the end of it, Hikari was panting, her heart thundering what felt like a thousand beats a minute as she tried to catch her breath.

But the white Evangelion got up again.

So with a twin scream, Asuka and Hikari rushed them, intent on killing them as many times as it took.

=][=

“They must have two cores.” Maya said as she watched the enemy Evangelion they’d tagged as ‘7’ stand up after the fifth time Unit 02 had dealt lethal damage to it. “One of them hidden somewhere in their bodies.”

“And with eleven of them to only two of ours, they aren’t getting the time to do a proper vivisection in search of them.” Major Katsuragi said, then turned to the power armored maid who had brought tea for Maya and her coworkers. “Anything to add miss ‘Young Master’s Head Maid’?”

“Such an analysis would beyond the remit of my duties.” She said, her voice somehow managing to be both subservient and brooking no argument.

The Major just could not relax around the woman. This was understandable, but the others like her were fighting hard to keep the staff of NERV safe.

Still, other than ‘Virgo’, there were only twenty-one of them.

Well, twenty-one of them and one who could only be Mister Shinji, who was reaping a hefty toll on the soldiers invading NERV.

But they could not be everywhere.

Maya’s eyes were drawn to the blanket covered form of Horaki Kodama. She felt wretched for lying to Hikari, but her synchronization was above forty percent for the first time since her last deployment. They could not afford the hit to her synchronization that learning of her older sister’s passing would likely cause.

Maya could only hope the girl would eventually forgive her.

“Is Rei still missing?” Major Katsuragi asked.

“Yes ma’am.” Maya answered. “The teams we sent to find her have all become embroiled in the fighting.”

“And Shinji is busy slaughtering a whole company on his own. If we call him in to deploy his Eva, those reinforcements of theirs may well break through.” Major Katsuragi snorted. “That’s if we could contact him without using the intercom.”

“R-Right.” Maya said. Pointedly hoping that Virgo would not volunteer whether or not she could contact Mister Shinji or not. It was obvious to Maya that Mister Shinji didn’t want to deploy in his Eva. He could have made his way to the launch cradles at any time, from what she’d seen, the UN forces didn’t have anything short of a tank with which they could actually threated Mister Shinji.

There must be some reason why he wasn’t making his way to the Eva to deploy.

Her screen flashed red as an alarm sounded. “Unit 04 has lost its left hand!”

“Dammit all! Can it be reattached!?” Major Katsuragi demanded.

“Not during combat operations!” Aoba answered.

On the screen, Unit 04 used the jagged stump to beat one of the enemy Evas to death before moving on, the tears streaming from Hikari’s face and being absorbed into the LCL.

Maya gnawed on her thumb. This situation could not last. Hikari and Asuka were clearly the better Pilots. But Asuka had to guard the umbilical cable or she’d have at maximum one minute of fight in her before her Eva shut down. And the damage to Unit 04 would mount until it shut down or died.

Likewise, wherever the twenty-one girls in power armor and Mister Shinji tread, UN soldiers died. But even if they were largely impervious to small arms fire, their armor was not indestructible, eventually they would fall. There were simply too many troops arrayed against them.

Not to mention, one of the last things that they saw on radar before losing the last station was a large wave of incoming reinforcements.

Something had to change.

But what?

=][=

After getting my fill of using a motherfucker to beat other motherfuckers, I tossed the broken body of the latest UN soldier I’d been using as a club, splattering two others.

Without pausing my movements, I picked up two rifles, pointed them in the general direction of the target rich environment and squeezed the triggers. The huge blocky housing around the barrel slammed back immediately after each rifle flashed three times in quick succession. The recoil enough to actually make me flex my wrists in order to absorb it.

Seriously. Who the hell arms an entire regiment with G11s? The over engineered Swiss watch of caseless German Black Magic fuckery was not what anyone with a brain would call cost effective!

After the G11s clicked empty, I tossed them into my pocket space and pulled out my heavy assault rifle, unloading on the enemy soldiers and tearing them apart as their bullets flattened against or ricocheted off my armor.

I had to admire their grit if nothing else, I had turned the hallway where I’d run into them into a gorefest, my arms were coated nearly up to my shoulders in the blood and innards of their compatriots.

Their weapons were ineffective, melee was not a good option, and I moved too quickly for any of them with a heavy weapon to draw a bead.

One to three of them died every second, yet they did not flee. They fought on with grim determination and the occasional grenade.

I honored that in the only way available to me and killed them quickly and as painlessly as I could manage. Switching out to the shotgun, its gatling triple-barrel configuration revving up and making short work of an entire squad in two and a half seconds.

A triple impact to my visor slammed my head back, making me take my first step back since the fighting began. Their fire paused as the moment stretched, I heard at least one of them praying that I fell.

I straightened and the three bullets that had flattened against my helmet’s visor tinkled down to the floor, the sound deafening in the sudden silence.

I pumped the shotgun’s forestock.

That’s when they broke.

Unfortunately for them, I couldn’t exactly allow them to simply leave.

After doing what was needful, covered in blood and gore, I opened the door that I’d beaten the UN forces away from.

The group of terrified NERV personnel stared back at me. One of the women wet herself.

“Go deeper into NERV.” I said. “Find security personnel, if you find anyone in power armor, they’ll protect you. Either way, you are not safe here.”

With that said, I closed the door and left. Suiting my own words and heading deeper into NERV.

I had to find Rei. Whatever fuckery Gendo was up to, it would revolve around Rei. Damn my entirely too funny prank on the Judas boys. The merry chase I’d led them on had dumped me on nearly the opposite side of NERV headquarters from where I needed to be when the attack began.

It would be smarter for me to make a beeline for the deeper levels and ignore all fighting on the way, but I couldn’t just leave the NERV nerds to die.

So I killed UN soldiers on my way to my objective. I wasn’t in too much of a hurry. Rei was mine, Gendo’s plan was stillborn, he simply didn’t know it. Everything would be okay, I just needed to secure Rei, then grind my way through however many soldiers SEELE threw at NERV.

They’d run out eventually.

I could only wonder who they’d put in charge of the attack, whoever he was had made order out of complete chaos remarkably quickly.

I reached the hidden elevator that would allow me to access the lower areas, muscled the door open, and jumped straight down the shaft. Once I saw the ground, I stabbed my arms into the concrete wall of the shaft and used it to slow my momentum enough not to splatter against the floor. Muscling that door open, I pushed on and into the room that led to the shaft that would lead down into the elevator that itself led to the pit where they held Lilith’s body.

I slid to a stop at the sight ahead.

Gendo on the ground cradling his right hand, its palm a bleeding ruin of torn muscle and ligament. Rei stood naked over him, a look of absolute revulsion on her face.

“You don’t get to touch me anymore.” She said to him. “You don’t have that privilege.”

“Rei…why?” He gasped.

“I am not your doll.” Rei said and turned her back on him, her face breaking into a small, reserved smile when she saw me. As she walked toward me, she put that extra sway to her hips that on any other situation would do things, but right now was not the time.

“Rei? I’m uhhh…I’m here to rescue you?” I asked, the scenario not playing out the way I had thought it would.

Rei’s smile grew. “I know, Shinji.”

“You.” Gendo said with surprising venom. “How…How did you do this?”

My lip curled in hatred and disgust, and I couldn’t help myself. “I gave her a sandwich.”

Gendo growled.

I really wanted to enjoy the satisfaction of that, but there was literally no time. I took Rei’s hand and began pulling her behind me. “Okay Rei, we need to get you somewhere safe. I actually have a safe place to stash you. Don’t worry, I’ll deal with the situation here.”

“Shinji.” Rei said.

“I need to stay away from Unit 01, it’s what they want, and I cannot afford to play into their hand.”

“Shinji.”

“Hikari and Asuka have been fighting for a while, so I’ll do something about that. The question is how, I’m not at the point where I can join Evangelion scale combat outside an Evangelion.”

“Shinji.”

“But still, don’t worry about that, you leave it to me an—”

I lurched to a stop as Rei suddenly became immovable.

“Shinji.” She said quietly. “I’m going to deal with everything.”

I turned back to Rei. “No, Rei, I’ve got it, really.”

She shook her head, her free hand coming up to rest against my helmet, somehow I felt the warmth of her hand touching my cheek. “I do love that about you. Your drive to take responsibility. But that won’t be enough. There’s too many of them, Shinji. You cannot do it alone, not without using the Eva, and that will just give them exactly what they want.”

I saw movement behind her and immediately interposed myself. Gendo’s face was set into a snarl as he squeezed the trigger of his pistol. The bullet pinged off a gossamer thin sheet of energy that appeared before me.

“Shinji.” Rei said, and with her small, warm, soft hand, turned me around with a strength I could not contest. And I felt my stomach drop out from under me. “While I love that you are trying to take responsibility, this time, I will have to be the one to take care of things.”

I shook my head. “No, Rei, I won’t allow it. I will not allow you to sacrifice yourself to…to become something you shouldn’t. You are mine Rei, mine, and Maya’s and Asuka’s, and you will remain mine. And I will not let you become something you’re not.”

Rei gave me a beatific smile. “But my Shinji…I will still be yours. I’ll just be something more.”

“No.” I growled. “And that’s final. Now drop this nonsense, I need to get you to that safe spot.”

“I’m sorry, Shinji.” Rei said, placing her hand on my plastron. “I’m sorry. But I will be a naughty girl, and I will be taking care of this.”

“Rei.” I growled, a clear warning in my tone.

“But I need you to do me a favor, so I can take care of things, Shinji.” Rei said.

She looked up, her scarlet eyes meeting mine through my visor. “I need you to get in the fucking robot.”

She pushed me lightly, and my back slammed into the seat of Unit 01’s plug.

I blinked, looking around, and immediately tried to go for the emergency exit hatch.

Something forced the Eva to activate, the me within the Eva awoke, forcefully synchronizing with me just enough to get through the activation sequence so he wouldn’t shut down after a few seconds of operation.

“FUCK!” I screamed, pulling at the bloody useless emergency exit hatch. “Could you fucking work for goddamn once!?”

I felt dread bubble up from the me inside the Eva.

I paused and searched for the bond with that me and saw that he couldn’t move. Some great force kept Unit 01 locked down tight.

Through the screen, I could see Rei’s naked form, cradled carefully in Unit 01’s palms.

She gave me that same soft smile. “Let’s go. My Shinji.”

Unit 01 began levitating and heading toward the shaft that I’d last jumped down to kill Kaworu.

The one that led to the body of the god that NERV had enslaved and butchered.

“Rei! Rei don’t you dare! Goddamit, Rei! Rei you stop this nonsense this instant!” I shouted, pushing forward into the screen and slamming my fist against it, cracking it. “Rei! I know you can hear me! You stop this right now! You hear me!? REI!”

I ranted, threatened, cajoled.

Begged.

But when locked inside an Evangelion, nobody outside can hear you scream.