Kaiju Slaying For Death And Profit Ch 39
Good day y'all. Once I got going, this chapter demanded to be written.
Then again, this chapter essentially has one of the two the scenes that inspired the whole fic! So, it makes sense that it would be smooth sailing once I got to a certain point.
Hope you lot like it. Lemme know your thoughts in a comment.
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I watched in relief as Rei was brought out of Unit 01. She’d gotten consistently high synchronization throughout the entire test, a first for her, the fragment of her soul inside Unit 00 had never quite accepted her. The big chunk of mine seemed to like her a lot more.
I wasn’t entirely certain what to make of that.
I sighed and scratched the back of my head. Another day, another set of tests, another day that Kaworu didn’t go full Angel. For the nth time, I tried and failed to recall what the catalyst for his transformation was. Beyond the knowledge that he would turn, I had nothing.
All I could do was be ready for the moment he did.
Bottle-blonde excused herself the instant the test was finished. Maya for her part, sighed and leaned back, my eye drawn to the curve of her neck as she stretched, the way her modest bust pressed against her uniform making my heart speed up and my mouth water. “It’s nice to see Miss Ayanami become so proficient, it’s a shame that we no longer have an Eva for her to Pilot.”
I grunted. “On the one hand, I agree. On the other, I kinda feel better that she’ll only be put in the line of fire if I’m incapacitated or unavailable.”
Maya smiled softly, her cheeks warming, her hands fidgeting in a way that told me I’d done something right and I could expect an enthusiastic reward from my favorite horny analyst when I got home.
Unfortunately, my mental image of lovingly pushing Maya’s head down my shaft until her nose was buried in my pubes was interrupted by Hikari running into the testing control room.
“Shinji!” She panted and trotted over, every eye turning to look at her. “Shinji!”
“That is, indeed, my name.” I said as she stopped next to me and panted. She really needed to work more on her cardio.
“Shinji! Kaworu!” She gasped.
I raised an eyebrow. “What about Kaworu?”
“Kaworu! He’s! Kaworu! Weird!”
I nodded. “And?”
Hikari shook her head. “Weird!”
I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. “Hikari, take a deep breath and start from the beginning, what’s up?”
As Hikari opened her mouth, and the Angel attack alarm sounded through NERV.
“Fuck!” I shouted and ran for the Eva, Maya hot on my heels as she sprinted to the Command Center. The others presumably got over their shock at different times and made their way to their jobs, but by then I wasn’t around to supervise.
Stupid! Kaworu being his regular level of weird would not have driven Hikari into a panic! Fucking stupid!
I ran past Rei, her fathomless red eyes showing little emotion as she gave me a firm nod.
[Eva Units 02 and 04 activated!]
[Where are Pilots 02 and 04!?]
[Pilot 02 is in the food court! She is secured!]
[Pilot 04 is unaccounted for! Find and secure Pilot 04!]
[Where is Pilot 00!?]
Then, Maya’s voice joined the chorus of reports as I reached the upgraded cryogenics chamber that housed Unit 01.
[There are no entry plugs in Units 02 and 04! They’re unmanned!]
[What, how!? I thought only Unit 01 could do that!]
The alarm became shriller as I threw myself at Unit 01’s shoulder and began to climb on my way to the barely ejected plug.
[The Magi have detected an AT field in Central Dogma! Pattern Blue! An Angel is inside Central Dogma!]
[Target has passed level 4 and is descending! It’s not using the maglev!]
Misato’s voice cut in through the flood of reports. [Lock down all Central Dogma emergency blast doors!]
I slapped the lever that inserted the plug into the Eva before I was even fully inside it, the sudden lurch almost making me lose my footing as I scrambled for the seat.
[Activating Malebolge levels emergency lockdown! All personnel evacuate now! I repeat, all personnel evacuate now!]
After one and a half eternities, I was seated in Unit 01 and activated the Eva, I felt the Eva reach out and into me, forcefully connecting with me as it angrily sped through its activation sequence.
[The armored bulkheads are being breached! They cannot withstand the assault of two Evas!]
[Targets have passed Cocytus number 3!]
For once, I agreed with the Eva and didn’t wait for the restraints to be loosened, we flexed our shoulders and arms, tearing through the reinforced restraints as if they were paper, and sprinted as best we could to the Central Dogma maglev shaft.
[Shinji, for once I don’t care about the damages.] Misato’s voice said through the radio. [Get out there and kill the Angel. We’re lowering an umbilical, use it to descend. We’ll see what we can scrounge up to provide support…we’re counting on you.]
We had a few moments of relative silence as the litanies of reports continued, before my communicator crackled again.
[Mister Shinji.] Maya’s voice said calmly in my ear. [Asuka and Hikari are safe and accounted for, Rei…Rei said that she had something to do. I’m covering for her but be careful, I think she will do something to help you.]
I grunted an acknowledgement.
[You will see us through this, Mister Shinji.] Maya said with complete conviction in her voice. [Whatever you need from me, you need only ask.]
We reached the edge of the shaft, a precipice leading into unfathomable depths, and without bothering to reach for the cable that had been lowered down, jumped straight off the edge. Power thrummed through our veins, it sang in our bones. It felt good to be free of the restraint imposed by the umbilical, even if the armor chafed us with every shift.
We made our body straight as a rod, crossing our arms in front of our chest to minimize air resistance and increase the speed of our descent.
[Unit 01 is in freefall!]
We felt more than saw the Evangelions. They were turned to meet us.
We modulated our AT Field, creating two shields, pushing the shields out to block the Evangelions as we reached out for the small floating form and tried to crush it in our grip as we sped past on our fall.
Our hands closed around a visible sphere around the small body, it was inviolable and immovable, our armor squealing in agony as our grip on the sphere violently halted our descent.
[Unit 01 has engaged the target. It…It has the strongest AT field recorded to date.] Maya said with a tinge of awe in her voice.
The enemy’s AT field flared, blasting apart the shields we’d used to push away its puppets and nearly breaking our fingers.
We blocked a clumsy swipe from the Red One, kicked the knee of the White One, shattering it, then bit down on the other arm of the Red One as it tried to claw our eye out.
“You really do not waste time once you have made up your mind, do you Shinji?” Asked the Angel, taking a small sip out of a glass bottle. “No matter how conflicted you feel, once you decide on something, you do not hesitate. This I found admirable.”
The White One and Red One deployed their knives, we drew our own, using it to block the White One’s knife while grabbing the much clumsier wrist of the Red One.
“Among those that do not know what the Evangelion are, they believe them to be mere tools. But in those that understand their true nature, there is often shame and disgust.” The Angel said, absently levitating the glass bottle over its palm. “But not you. You understand, you’ve always understood. And yet you are not disgusted, you are not ashamed. To you they are not mere tools, but neither do you acknowledge your people’s sin in creating them. This I found vexing.”
We crashed onto one of the barriers set along the maglev shaft, we did not allow the Red or White One the luxury of destroying it uncontested. We shattered elbows, dislocated knees, bit chunks of their flesh out. But no matter what we did, one would always block us from achieving a killing blow, and would keep us at bay while the other was forced to regenerate.
They could not stop us, they were significantly weaker than us.
But there were two of them, and the barriers, though mighty, had not been made to withstand three Evangelions struggling on top of it.
[The Evas have breached Central Dogma 23!]
[The three Evas have descended past the Seventh Malebolge, at current rate of descent they’ll arrive at the Eight in seventeen seconds.]
The reports continued, our battle destroying the gates protecting NERV’s greatest shame one by one until…
[Closing the Final Gate.]
We crashed onto the thickest and deepest gate. With solid ground beneath us, ground that could withstand our might, we could beat them back. We roared, tackling the Red One and lifting it off its feet, its knife sank into our left bicep, but we ignored the wound and spiked it head-first against the unyielding floor. An impact that would have caused an earthquake failed to make a dent upon NERV’s final defense.
“Incredible.” The Angel said. “You Lilin truly never fail to amaze me.”
As we battled the White One, the Red One was forced back onto its feet and thrown at our back, its arms attempting to clamp around our neck, pulling our head back and providing the White One an opening to stab us.
“To think that you would be able to harness the very material of the Moons.” The Angel continued. “I did not think you could do it. You do not comprehend it. The process of its creation is a mystery, but even so you have transmuted it to serve your needs. I wonder, if given enough time, would you, who partook of the Fruit of Knowledge, truly be able to recreate it? This which was made by a being as far above you, as you are to a microbe?”
The White One attempted to retrieve its weapon, but we clenched our stomach and stopped it, then kicked it away.
We now had two knives.
“Still, as impressive as that is.” The Angel said, then took another sip from its glass bottle. It then closed its eyes and tilted its head back.
A physical force swept away from it, nearly creating a vacuum as it staggered us and made the Red One and the White One take several steps back. Our link to the Command Center was severed, the constant litany of reports silenced in a heartbeat.
Then the entire platform that we stood on broke away from the foundation that kept it anchored and dropped into freefall into a vast chamber, its roof was the milky way, its floor composed of stalagmites of salt.
As we fell, we kicked the Red One away, took hold of the White One and pushed our feet against it. Our landing shattered its pelvis, nearly disconnecting the upper and lower halves of its body, its blood causing the salt to bubble as it absorbed as much moisture as it could. We turned to the Angel and were tackled to the floor as the Red One threw itself at us, the White One tangling up our legs.
“You struggle and struggle.” The Angel said, turning its back to us and leaving, the tips of its plug suit clad toes hovering centimeters above the salt. “Not all of you do. This too is vexing. There is so little uniformity with you. Some of you freeze, others of you fight, yet others run away, a few of you even pass out. Or worse, a combination of those. A truly random set of responses hardcoded into your DNA. But not you, Shinji, you fight, and fight, and fight. And when you do not, you are merely waiting for an opening.”
It turned around, still floating away. It took a sip of its drink. “I wonder, why do you fight so hard? I could not tell before, but I can tell now. You are not fully from here. Part of you is from here, but a large part of the essence of what makes you, you, is from Elsewhere.” It huffed in amusement. “It is obvious in retrospect. It is vexing I had not seen it before. You really are not good at hiding that.”
It rotated until it once more had its back to us. “Still, struggle as you must, for such is your nature. I admire that about you Lilin. You had no right to achieve what you have: unlike the Fruit of Life, the Fruit of Knowledge jealously guards its benefits for millennia. But you persevered.”
We tried to fight off the puppets, but each time we tore their grasp away, the other held us still long enough for them to regain their grip. We had to stop the Angel, but the Greater Self and the Inner Self disagreed.
So the Greater Self severed the connection.
I snorted as I was forced back into my own brain, my connection to the Eva severed forcefully as the Plug screamed an alarm before the synaptic monitors shut down and part of the plug’s wall bent in with the screech of tearing metal.
“The fuck?” I asked as the plug’s monitor changed to show the view of external cameras, and I saw myself suspended above the Eva as it reared its arm back, the plug held in its enormous fingers.
Oh.
I didn’t even have a chance to curse as Unit 01 threw the plug.
“Fuck!” I cursed as I grasped for the manual override for the ejection system.
Have to give it to the me inside Unit 01, he was surprisingly good at throwing darts, as the plug flew surprisingly straight even though it lacked stabilizing fins.
As soon as I thought that, the cylinder started to tumble.
And that’s when the ejection system kicked in, it finished scanning the area around it, selected a location, and fired off all thrusters to achieve a safe landing.
By which I mean I only had to pop one of my dislocated shoulders back into its socket.
I crawled to the hatch, twisted it open, and jumped out of the plug, my feet crunching as I landed in the ankle-deep salt.
Kaworu floated toward me, looking pleasantly surprised.
“You really do not fail to impress or entertain, Shinji.” He said, his face splitting into a wide, innocent grin.
I rushed him, the salt crunching beneath each of my steps as I ran, arms outstretched. My fingers closing upon a cylindrical forcefield several centimeters away from his neck.
He hadn’t even bothered to raise his arms in defense.
“You must have known this would happen.” He said, then blinked as I was suddenly holding a machinegun and a few seconds later had emptied several hundred rounds into his chest. A gossamer thin, shimmering shield slapping the heavy, armor-piercing bullets aside as if they were specks of sand. “That’s a new trick.”
I slammed the butt of the empty machinegun at his face, it ‘thunked’ as if I had used it to strike Evangelion grade armor.
Then he was upon me, I dug my feet into the salt as I pushed him with the body of my machinegun, his unhurried levitation unchanged.
He laughed, not unkindly. “I honestly admire your insistence. But you won’t be able to do much as you are. You Lilin depend on an Evangelion to create an AT Field.”
“Fuck, you!” I growled, pulling out my laspistol and shooting him with it. The AT Field blocking the ruinous bolts of light.
“I had hoped for some wittier repartee.” He said with a disappointed sigh.
“Blah blah blah, survival of the fittest or some shit!” I growled, my feet digging in the salt for something that would allow me to anchor myself and try to stop him.
Suddenly there was pressure, something pushing gently down on my shoulders.
It smelled like Rei.
Kaworu was forced down to the floor, an instant later his AT Field collapsed and the body of my machinegun slammed against his chest as, suddenly missing the force that kept me back, I surged forward lifting him off his feet, nearly falling on my face until I slammed him into a stalagmite, which cracked under the impact and squeezed the air out of him. His right hand shot out and hit me in the neck, making me cough and stagger back, dropping the weapon I’d used as a lever. He tried to slip past me, but I was able to grab his shoulder, spin both of us around, and slam him back against the stalagmite.
“Oh…What an unexpected development.” Kaworu wheezed, smiling beatifically. “She…She hid this perfectly! I did not even suspect! But just like you, it is obvious in hindsight! But…But this is not in her nature. You are the cause of this! You changed her, Shinji! In a far greater way than even I had suspected!”
“Yeah, I don’t know what you’re on about.” I growled, grabbing him by the neck. “This ends here.”
“Yes.” He said with a relieved sigh. “Thank you.”
I blinked. The fuck?
“The fuck you mean thank you!?” I growled.
Kaworu didn’t open his eyes. “If you end it, if you kill me…I will not see myself forced to destroy the Lilin.”
I blinked again.
“The hell you mean forced?”
He opened one eye. “Forced is the wrong word, perhaps compelled is better?”
“Kaworu, start talking sense or I will see myself forced to use violence.”
He smiled and shook his head. “Shinji…I am an Angel, I must return to my Father, my Other Self. I didn’t want to do this so soon, I…I had found fulfillment among the Lilin. Given the choice I would have put it off indefinitely. But choice is not something afforded to me.”
“The hell you mean you don’t have a choice?” I growled.
His head drove forward, his forehead crunching into my nose, making my eyes water as I spat out a curse. The pressure that was Rei surging as Kaworu did something, keeping him contained.
I slammed my own forehead into his nose in retaliation.
“My apologies.” He said, sniffing as blood poured out of his nose. “I could not help it.”
I pulled him toward me, then slammed him against the stalagmite, not caring that he’d headbutted me. “The fuck. Do you mean. You don’t. Have a choice.”
He sighed and took a sip of his Manzanita Sol. “SEELE has numerous ways to control me. They forcefully activated this…phase of my existence. Now? Now I must find Adam, merge with the body of my Father, recreating the world in my image, a process that shall not be halted, as the spear of Longinus is currently orbiting the moon.” He shrugged. “This will, of course, change the Cradle so it is inimical to Lilin life. Or, preferably, you will kill me. Stopping the entire sad state of affairs.”
The pressure that was Rei intensified, the colors around me washed out as every stalagmite within thirty meters of me, barring the one I pushed Kaworu against, all flattened.
“It would behoove you to hurry.” Kaworu said, beads of sweat appearing on his brow. “I do not know how much longer I will be able to hold myself back. She has become far stronger, but I am truly uncertain as to which of us would succeed in an altercation.”
I clenched my jaw. “Answer me one question.”
“Anything.” He said with a smile.
“The day we first met. The kitten. If you could go back in time, supplant the past you with the you of now…the you that was before you became an Angel. What would you do?”
His face twisted into a rictus of shame and pain. “I would take the cat to an animal shelter.”
…
Okay fuck this shit.
I put together a data package, flagged it as important to be read under time dilation, and sent it off to the boss I hadn’t spoken to or communicated with. Not even sending status reports of my capture of the Angels.
I liked to pretend they didn’t exist.
I suppressed a grin as, in my HUD, a doorway opened to my left.
“Well, it’s your lucky day, fucker.” I said with a triumphant grin. Then threw him through the doorway, where he vanished.
And like that, he was officially not my problem.
Hell, having Kaworus around for the Finals and becoming Agents might even be helpful to other Mes across the Company! Kaworu wasn’t too hard to get along with, it would all work out for the better!
Probably.
I dusted off my hands and stretched.
Now I just needed to come up with a convincing lie as to why there was no body or even a bloodstain. Huh…I probably should have thought of that before I sent him to the Company with a recommendation for becoming an Agent.
And that’s when Kaworu stepped out of the doorway, which then vanished.
Rei’s pressure returned with such force that the salt around us compacted into stone.
“That…explains much that I had wondered about.” Kaworu said with a smile.
A twitch settled into the corner of my left eye as I did an about turn. “Kaworu, what, the fuck.”
“I understand now, where your soul got all of those scars.” Kaworu said, his expression that of a boy doing everything in his power not to cry.
“Kaworu.” I said, my knuckles popping as I clenched my fingers into fists. “Why are you still here?”
“Because I understood in those scars what you had to do in order to make it here. Each and every little compromise you made, in order to survive in that environment.” He smiled sadly. “And I refuse to go through the same.”
“Your choice is not a factor.” I growled.
“Oh, but you’ll find that it is.”
“No.” I said, stalking forward and grabbing him by the neck. “No it is not. I am going to start beating you now. I will stop once you agree to go through that door, accept the contract I so graciously allowed you to be put in front of, and then you’ll stop being my fucking problem.”
His smile widened. “No, you will not.”
I grit my teeth so hard I tasted blood in my mouth as I pulled my fist back. “Oh? Pray tell.”
The ground shook as Unit 01 crashed a hundred meters to our left, crushing the head of Unit 02 into the ground and turning it to pulp.
The decapitated body of Unit 04 was stabbed into a large stalagmite in the distance.
Unit 01 tossed its head back and roared in triumph.
Neither of us bothered to take more than a cursory look.
“You will not beat me until I agree. Because no matter how hard you hit me, how much blood you spill, how many times you break my bones. I will regenerate. And I will not go back to that rotten Company. I refuse to join something so morally bankrupt, so corrupt, and so unprincipled.” His smile widened as sweat fell in a cascade down his neck, his breathing becoming uneven. “Perhaps you can hurt me to the point I would agree. But you do not have the luxury of time to find out exactly what that threshold is. The longer we take, the less successfully I hold myself back. And eventually, Rei will fail, she will have to fight me with all she has in order to survive. And by then, you will no longer have the ability to kill me.”
I took a deep breath and slowly let go of his neck.
“Besides.” He continued as he rocked back and forth on his heels. “You abhor needless suffering. And would be loath to inflict it on someone.”
I stepped back, stretched my hand out and out of midair I snatched an enormous, double-barreled break-action shotgun. I held the barrels a handspan away from Kaworu’s head.
Still. I had to try one final time. “I believe you are making a poor decision.”
Kaworu’s smile became inviting and warm. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back. “Maybe, but it’s mine to make.”
I took a deep breath, my finger slowly tightening on the trigger.
He opened one eye. “Oh right, please do not be so gauche as to capture my soul, the way you did my siblings. That would rather defeat the whole purpose.”
I worked my jaw, swallowed, then nodded.
“Good.” He said with one last smile and closed his eye again.
The hammers fell. And Nagisa Kaworu was no more.
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