Kaiju Slaying For Death And Profit Ch 48

Good evening, sorry for the late post.

I was trying super hard to finish both this chapter and the epilogue. And while the epilogue is like, 90% done, my brain is fried. I won't be able to do an editing pass and I absolutely positively don't wanna mess that up.

So please, have this chapter. I'll finish up and post the epilogue hopefully tomorrow, certainly before the next weekend.

Here is chapter, hope you enjoy.

=][=

For a God to learn to interact with mortal, a being so much lesser than itself, was a painful process.

On the count of the mortal, because a God’s mere attention was enough to burn their soul like kindling. Many is the God that passively plays its part in the great Cycles of Reincarnation, scouring souls clean with their gaze alone so they may begin their next journey as a blank slate.

On the count of the God, because unless a mortal had achieved a feat as unwise as it was monumental and managed to earn a God’s ire, then the reason It wished to bestow upon a mortal Its attention was benign. And thus solely by trying to interact with a lesser being, It brought to it harm.

But it is easier to list the things a God cannot do. And the God that had once been Ayamami Rei still retained many of the trappings of mortality.

Most important among them for this particular endeavor, was that she had always been a fast learner.

Even what few mistakes She had committed as She acclimatized would have irretrievably damaged the mind and soul of most mortals.

It was a good thing then, that Her beloved was not most mortals. And while Her study had not been kind to him, he was already recovering from an ordeal most others would not have survived.

Now that She knew She would not bring harm upon Her other beloved She could go to them and stop that which brought them distress, She cradled both the bodies of Her Shinji, for it was now Her turn to protect him the way he had protected that which She used to be, never again would She allow her Shinji to know hardship or harm.

With Her Shinji safely in Her embrace, She turned Her gaze up; the dirt and stone and concrete and metal all being no impediment to Her gaze, and She rose, the ground above Her parting for Her and joining behind Her just as air would. After all, they were the same, and while such seemed so incredibly obvious now, She had simply been too small to see it before.

She partitioned a small part of Her mind purely to indulge in the whimsy of these revelations, the majority of Herself far too preoccupied with reaching the rest of Her beloved, to give them that which they had provided to she whom She used to be.

=][=

“Unknown high energy object is ascending from the Terminal Dogma!” Shigeru said with tightly restrained worry in his voice.

“It’s the same AT field we measured before!” Kaede called out from Makoto’s station. “Pattern Red! But it’s magnitudes more powerful!”

“Looks like I get to say I told you so.” Katsuragi laughed, then coughed wetly. “Yay me.”

Maya looked up from her console as people in the Control Room screamed and scrambled out of the center. She watched as a painfully familiar stark white head of hair, larger than the MAGI casings phased through the floor with a ragged inhale as the Control Room’s smell changed to a painfully familiar scent. The huge creature continued ascending, revealing Rei’s beautiful features, her elegant neck, her pert breasts and flat belly. All the same stark white color as the girl’s hair.

She was clutching Unit 01 to her chest as if it were a child, the limp Evangelion moving through the reinforced concrete as if it were water.

Her bright ruby red eyes settled on Maya, her face breaking out into that small, reserved smile that Maya so loved, the one the taciturn girl saved just for Mister Shinji, and her, and sometimes Asuka. She felt an irrational bout of jealousy as everyone in the Control Room got to witness what should by rights belong only to Mister Shinji and his women.

“R-Rei?” Maya asked, taking in her full form. “Rei what are you doing!? Put some clothes on!”

The giant Rei blinked as everyone in the Control Room looked at Maya like she’d lost her mind. Maya herself couldn’t be certain she hadn’t. But that everyone had seen Rei’s smile was bad enough!

“You aren’t meant to show your bare body except to those you are in a relationship with!” Maya exclaimed shrilly. “So put some clothes on!”

Where they would find clothes for a girl that was at least twice the size of an Evangelion Maya did not know, but at the moment it was the only part of the situation that her mind could actually parse. Whatever had caused this…transformation would have to be dealt with later.

After Maya had some time to go to another room, cry her eyes out, and hyperventilate in peace. But at the moment, she felt like Rei needed her, so she would be strong for the girl.

Creature.

Being.

Rei blinked and looked down at herself, seemingly for the first time realizing she was naked. Maya swallowed the hysteric laugh that wanted to tear out of her throat, because that would not help anything right now.

Rei looked up from the sundress she’d been wearing when she emerged, tilting her head at Maya as if seeking approval, but for the life of her Maya could not understand why. It’s not like Rei had a lot of options for clothing what with now being a giant.

“Okay, okay Rei?” Maya said, stepping forward and holding her arms out, her colleagues all backing away from her. “I…”

What could she possibly say? What could she possibly ask? Was there even an explanation for how a human girl was reading as having the strongest AT field ever measured? Or was now a giant for that matter?

Rei smiled and reached out with the hand not holding Unit 01 to her chest.

“Maya! Be careful!” Aoba said, reaching his hand out to her, but his hand splayed against a red AT field that sprang up and separated him from her.

Maya wasn’t worried, Rei would never hurt her. She turned back to reassure her colleague. “It’s allrig—”

Rei’s white hand passed through Maya, making her feel as if her whole body had been caressed all at once. From the soles of her feet to the top of her head, a feeling that wasn’t entirely alien, she had caressed and been caressed by Rei before. They’d gone much farther with each other in fact. The list of things that Maya and Rei had done to each other and Mister Shinji included but was far from limited to licks, bites, pinches, and Mister Shinji particularly enjoyed spanking them.

No, that part was honestly rather lovely.

The fact that it felt like a full body caress was the issue. Maya had never felt the inside of her skin touched before, for that matter neither had anyone stroked her internal organs, her heart and lungs, muscle fibers and bones, or her bone marrow. The brain had no nerve connections, so it was impossible to feel it when it was touched, yet she certainly felt Rei gently touch every cubic millimeter of her brain as her hand passed through Maya.

As intimate as she was with the girl, this was not a sensory experience she’d want a repetition of.

The caress brought with it something else. An understanding of Rei’s emotions. Her Surety, Her Purity of Purpose, Her Elevated Existence. Rei was More now, a Being as far above Maya as Maya was from a microbe. Maya knew this instinctively, just like she instinctively knew that God was indeed real, and She loved Maya specifically.

Through Her touch, Rei who was God also learned everything that had been happening in Her absence, and Maya could feel…annoyance and sadness enter her emotions. Not at the dozens of people who had lost their lives in the Control Room or during the defense of NERV, but sadness at Maya’s sadness.

So She rectified it. It took no effort. She didn’t even wave her hand.

One moment dozens of Maya’s colleagues were dead, hundreds of them were wounded. The next Major Katsuragi gasped and breathed easy for the first time since she was shot. Kodama, Pilot 04’s older sister, groggily sat up and asked what time it was. Everyone who was wounded clutched at unmarred skin, those that had been dead blinked awake, their grievous injuries vanished as if they’d never been.

No, not everyone, a quarter of those who had died remained dead, among them the janitor that Maya had seen begin the firefight.

Rei scowled, and a quarter of Maya’s colleagues who had simply hid during the fighting turned into statues of salt.

Rei’s scowl found Ritsuko, the one person in the whole Command Room who had not been healed. The woman trembled, her mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water as her wide, terrified eyes filled with tears.

Maya took a deep breath, and stepped between Ritsuko and Rei, the girl/God’s face twitching in that muted way that only happened when She was greatly annoyed at something.

“Rei, no.” Maya said, extending her arms at the girl. “I don’t understand. I cannot, and if you really want to…to take revenge, I will not deny you. But you have to be better than her, Rei. You are better than her. Please, Rei.”

Rei’s features softened, Her huge hand reaching out to Maya, She extended a finger and gently placed it against Maya’s palm. Her frustration, and pain, and annoyance and anger boiling over from Her into Maya. But so did Her love, and Her childlike eagerness to please Maya and be praised by her.

Maya took a deep breath and released it with a shudder.  “Rei...Asuka needs you, Rei. She’s fighting, she and Hikari have been fighting, and they can’t win. Please Rei, go help them.”

The God that was Rei nodded and began to ascend, still clutching Unit 01 to Herself. As She rose, Maya saw that in a very Rei moment, the God had forgotten to put on her underwear again.

This girl would be the death of her.

As the white tips of her toes vanished into the ceiling, Maya brought her gaze down to the people around her. To Virgo who bowed more deeply to Maya than before. To Katsuragi who looked like she’d seen a ghost. To her colleagues, some of whom like Kaede, looked at her with an intensity that made her very uncomfortable.

She stood there, knowing that everyone there expected something from her, and followed the only logical course left to her.

She took a deep breath and promptly passed out.

=][=

“Und diesmal bleib tot, du wertloser Sack Scheiße!” Asuka screamed, crushing the enemy Evangelion’s head until its cranium gave way with a crunch, a cascade of blood and brain matter spilling around her Eva’s fingers.

She rolled, the blade of one of those weird swords crashing down onto the Eva she’d just finished killing for the…she had no idea. She stopped counting after twelve.

Without pausing to think, she pushed Unit 02 into a forward tackle, sweeping the enemy Eva off its feet, climbing to her feet on top of it, and stomping down on the head, crumpling the Eva’s mask and crushing the damn thing.

She saw Unit 04 struggling to stay upright as three Evas dogpiled it, she made to rush to her aid, but Unit 02 stumbled and fell. She looked back, seeing that she hadn’t actually killed the last Eva, merely blinded it, and it had taken hold of Unit 02’s ankle.

“Arschloch!” She screamed, kicking at it with her Eva’s other foot, trying to make it let go as the enemy Evas all rushed at her, prone and immobile for the first time since the battle started. She eventually succeeded, and jumped to her Evangelion’s feet, but was tackled before she could take more than a single step, she twirled aside, flipping the white machine over Unit 02’s shoulder and slamming it headfirst against the ground, the Eva’s neck snapping under the strain of its own immense weight.

She was tackled again, only this time her machine was borne to the ground, where a second and a third quickly piled on top of it.

She fought to breathe against the phantom sensation of weight on her chest, trying to wriggle Unit 02 free as a fourth machine approached, raising one of those blades high.

“Wertlosser Quacksalber!” She screamed, pulling at the controls in hopes of eking out a sliver more functionality form her machine.

The white Eva took a step forward even as it bent so far back it looked to be in danger of falling backward, anything to get just a little more power behind the inevitable swing.

Something white, no, a giant hand came out of the ground without disturbing it, going through the white Evangelion as if its body were ephemeral, when the hand went away, pinched between its index and thumb was a struggling form in a white plug suit between two fingers. Tubes that Asuka didn’t recognize hanging from its plug suit and leaking LCL.

The two fingers turned that struggling form into a red stain an instant before Rei’s head phased out of the ground, Her face set in a displeased scowl.

Asuka gaped at the sight of one of her girlfriends somehow made into a giant, her fight with three Evas forgotten as they all stared at the giant girl (wearing quite the fetching sundress if Asuka said so herself) as She came out of the ground, kneeling so that She only towered head and shoulders over a standing Evangelion, the limp form of Unit 01 clutched to Her chest.

Her eyes swept over the Evas that had given Hikari and her such a hard time, the ten still remaining enemy Evangelions all convulsed before falling limp, their struggling pilots levitating into the air, their screams sounding so…puny. She brought up a screen and zoomed in on one of the enemy Pilots, making sure that she was indeed struggling as she levitated higher and higher off the ground.

As she watched, the enemy Pilot was compressed into a ball that her Unit 02’s sensors informed her was two centimeters in diameter.

That was a lot more blood than Asuka would have expected.

[Asuka.] Hikari asked, her voice in a complete deadpan.

“Yes, Hikari?” Asuka asked, her eyes riveted to the face of her giant girlfriend, Asuka would swear that Rei’s eyes were staring straight into her own.

[I might be hallucinating, but I could swear that Rei just came out of the ground and killed all the enemy Pilots with her brain.] Hikari said, her tone lacking in any inflection. [Also She’s very unhealthily pale.]

“I don’t think that’s a hallucination, Hikari.” Asuka said as Rei tilted her head, still staring straight into Asuka’s eyes.

[Ah, okay. Just wanted to make sure.] Hikari said. [Also, she’s huge now.]

“That’s an impolite thing to say.” Asuka’s mouth said while her brain continued to try to reboot. “You know that you shouldn’t comment about a girl’s weight.”

[I dunno, I’m still jealous of Her figure.] Hikari said.

The two fell silent as they stared at Rei and Rei stared back. Unit 01 occasionally twitching in Her arms.

An AT field sprang up, larger than any Asuka had ever seen before, it looked like a layer of blood on the surface of water. A horribly bright light appeared behind it, a light that went on and on, not a flash, a constant light of immense power. When the silent light dimmed down, Asuka could see a great cloud rising into the sky, the hole that had been blasted into the geodome larger.

“An N2 missile?” Asuka whispered as two blurs moved into the geodome on the other side of the AT field and likewise became two bright stars on the other side of the sanguine barrier.

But…but why was it so quiet.

Asuka had seen what N2 mines could do. It was more than just lights and an explosion. Where was the roar? Why was the ground not shaking? Why was the geodome untouched? An airborne detonation was more devastating than a ground detonation, the shockwave should bounce off the ground and back into its own pressure wave, creating a layer of superheated and pressurized air pushed into an area of less pressure, acting as a huge razor that would scythe through steel reinforced concrete with just as much ease as it would cut through paper.

After the fourth detonation Rei finally deigned to look over Her shoulder. As a fifth blur came down, Rei reached through the AT field and when she retracted her hand, she was holding an N2 ballistic missile, holding it close to her face as she studied it.

“Scheiße.” Asuka muttered.

Rei went from holding a missile to having a small star resting on the palm of her huge hand, her eyes staring intently into the blinding sphere. Once again, no sound, none of the apocalyptic destruction that was expected from N2 technology.

The star in Rei’s hand snuffed out, She blinked then tilted her hand so ash and some scarp fell to the floor.

“Mein Gott.” Asuka said, staring at what remained of an N2 missile.

Rei looked at Asuka and smiled before looking up and slowly rising into the air, as soon as she cleared the geofront she was attacked by wave upon wave of missiles and tank shells. Her Eva’s sensors registered explosions, and Asuka was able to see what looked like a pillar of flame rising into the air, and Rei was from then on unmolested as she rose higher and higher before stopping.

Asuka stared up at where one of her girlfriends was levitating in the air over the giant hole leading to the geodome.

“I…am not dealing with that right now.” She said and turned to Unit 04. “Hikari? Are you okay?”

There was a long silence before Hikari said. [I fell and I can’t get up.]

Asuka took that in, thought about it, and decided Hikari had the right idea. She lay Unit 02 on its side and said, “Me too.”

She then turned off her radio so she could hyperventilate in peace.

=][=

“Form a fist.” I growled while staring at my unmoving right hand, trying to get my body to do what I damn well told it to. Doing my best to ignore the frenzied headache pounding against the inside of my skull. I very much was not a fan of the hangover without the drink. But thanks to that, Rei had been able to interact with Maya without hurting her, which made the drain bamage worth it for that alone.

Drain bamage.

Drain bamage.

Bright side, so long as I distracted myself, I didn’t have to think about the statues of salt that Rei had turned all the UN forces that had shot at her into. Nor would I have to think about the ruins of Tokyo-3. It didn’t really matter how tough you built your fortress city, there were not many things that faired at all well when on the receiving end of four low-yield nuke equivalent blasts.

“Form. A fist.” I said and managed to get my right hand to twitch. Which, yay, progress.

There was another flash, another muted boom, another puff of smoke as someone else was unwise enough to try their luck with a HEIAP shell that detonated just as uselessly against Rei’s AT field as the first fifty. I didn’t have to turn my head to know what would happen, but I felt it as Rei continued to escalate her reprisal, the resulting explosion causing one of the more delicate ruins to fully collapse down beneath us.

I sighed and turned to look at Rei. At least she was being…mostly proportional in her use of force.

Mostly.

For the most part.

Okay, okay. It’s fine. I can still salvage this. We just need to stay calm and not do anything rash.

Rei looked away from the tank that had distracted her, and her eyes speared into mine.

“What do you want?” Rei asked. The power of her voice still enough to vibrate my marrow but now no longer causing reality itself to go into conniptions.

The question almost made me laugh hysterically.

What did I want?

I wanted to be the Big Damn Hero and save the day.

I wanted the chunk of my soul trapped in the Eva back.

I wanted everyone responsible for this cluster fuck to get their just desserts.

But instead of asking for any of that, I said. “Rei, Rei please let’s just calm down, go back to NERV. Let’s figure out how to get you normal sized again. We can pick up Asuka and Maya, Hikari too, if you want. Let’s go back to my apartment, I’ll cook dinner, and we can spend the night watching movies, what do you think, sound like a plan?”

Rei gave me a beatific smile, and for the fleetest instant I thought that would work. But Rei had not asked me what to do. She’d asked me what I wanted.

I felt her stretch her consciousness out, encompassing the whole world, touching the minds of every man, woman, and child in the planet. Her touch gentle but insistent as everyone still alive all at once Knew several things with the same certainty that they knew how to breathe.

Information that was forevermore encoded into their very being. Information that would never be forgotten, that would never degrade.

Everyone in the planet learned at the same time that God was very real, She loved three people specifically, She was fond of five more and was approving of a few dozen. Everyone knew that there were two people She hated, several more that She disapproved of. And of every other one of the three and change billion humans in the world, She was wholly apathetic of.

Everyone Knew of SEELE’s machinations, of Gendo’s betrayals, of the sacrifices made by NERV personnel as they did their best to save humanity from their possible cousins and from themselves. Of my own trials, attempts, successes and failures to do the same.

The Twelve men, so terrified of death they’d prepared to sacrifice over a third of all humans in the world to fuel their immortality all cowered as they felt God’s attention turn to them specifically.

She Marked them each, a brand searing into their flesh that had only ever seen use once before. This Mark ensuring that no matter where they went, so long as there were humans present, they’d never be able to escape the consequences of their choices, and no matter how much they desired it, death would provide no succor to them.

One Ikari Gendo she left to his fate as he was apprehended by a united front of NERV mercenaries and apoplectic UN soldiers.

Lastly, She reached into the Eva’s core and from it drew out the souls within it. I screamed as she shoved the vast majority of my original soul into my body and welded them into a scarred whole, my body and mind feeling…overstuffed.

Color was suddenly more vibrant, my emotions harder to parse and control. A surprisingly large part of myself mourned no longer being a humongous cyborg creature of rage and destruction, because while it had certainly been incredibly inconvenient it had also been metal as fuck.

I blinked as I found myself agreeing with myself and realized that acclimatizing to my soul being whole again was…going to take some getting used to.

It was only then that I realized I was not alone in the plug, a woman wearing a white plug suit pressed into my side, her features both familiar and not. A face that looked like Rei’s, but with a few more years to mature, her hair a familiar messy bob cut, brown instead of blue, her eyes dark brown instead of red.

We blinked in confusion at each other. She was the first to recover. Her voice, too, was familiar yet alien. Rei’s voice if given a few more years to mature.

“Well.” Said Ikari Yui with a confused smile. “This is awkward.”