Finished thanks to the raging debate regarding FFML and the lack of
fics.	

	The sun shone brightly, glare flickering off the silent buildings. The
massive towers of Tokyo 3 remained above ground, subjected to the
uncaring rage of the 9th Angel. On the streets, the citizens evacuated
as best they could, scurrying towards shelters they hadn't been warned
to be around, huddling in houses, basements and high rises. The low
thump of the Angel's walk was a constant, heard across the muted city
like the ringing of a bell.
	Those people unfortunate enough to be close to the center of the city
saw a massive robot staggering in a region strewn with rubble, caused by
the robot itself. It stood on wobbly legs, shifting its weight from leg
to leg as if it couldn't remember how to stand. As the Angel neared it,
it dropped to its knees, head resting on the remains of a blue sports
car. 
	The Angel looked down on it, placing its feet carefully in the wreckage
as it picked its way towards the robot. It paused for a moment, as if
contemplating what it should do. Then it raised a foreleg over the
shaking robot and drove it downward, through the shoulder of Unit Y and
pinning it to the ground. The Unit's shaking stopped, abruptly, and the
flash of pain seemed to clear its head. 
	It looked up at the Angel, who had positioned itself so that the center
of its body was above Unit Y's back, and tried to move itself up, or
turn and face the enemy. The foreleg pinning it shredded the shoulder
assembly and opened a large hole into the machinery that made up Unit Y.
The collection of pistons, cables and myomar bundles looked perfectly
inorganic separate and unpowered. But when assembled and running the
effect was to turn it into something almost�biological.
	And when the carefully calibrated machinery was ripped out with
accompanying writhing from its owner, the effect was disturbingly human.
	Inside the cockpit, the Unit's pilot could only scream silently. The
neural impulses that would normally be directed to the muscles and
nerves responsible for vocalization were stolen by an array of
Superconducting magnetometers that coated the liner of the pilot's plug
suit, along with all other neural data. The mental scream was not echoed
by anything in his physical demeanor which, contrary to expectations,
was almost comatose. 
	Nothing makes any sense, the pilot thought. Everyone's dead. I'm dead. 
	Not yet, he thought back at himself. Crazy maybe, but not dead. 
	His vision consisted of the underside of the Angel, a cluster of eyes
all focused on him, staring blankly at him, exactly as an insect's
would. Pure instinct instructed him to fight back, to push the attacker
off of him somehow. The pain in his shoulder was sharp and vicious when
he tried to lift the Unit back to its feet, and he gave up. It didn't
matter anyway, he thought, returning his gaze to the ground underneath
the Unit, I'm already dead.
	Above him the Angel's central eye began to form a tear, dark and green.
It collected in the center and broke free, streaming the thick liquid on
the Unit's back, where it steamed and burned, shredding a large chunk of
bonded polycarbonite armor.
	I'm already dead. The thought echoed in his mind as the pain jumped
another level in intensity. 

A Change of Pace Production, Ltd.

Catering by ARMARK (damn it)

Titles by The Lowest Bidder, Inc.

Unfamiliar, But Welcome pt. 4 "Change of Pace"

Special Effects by Digital Wizardry (pen and paper division)


	Shinji ran his card through the dead lock at the entrance to NERV. It
wouldn't register, nor did it blink red. The lights were out, and
nothing seemed to work. Shinji dropped his head. She told me to take a
walk, he thought, clear my head, and now I'm locked out with no power.
It was another piece of evidence that rested in favor of Shinji's theory
of life, which paraphrased read: "God hates me."
	Behind him he heard a flurry of footsteps. Turning he saw Rei, running
fast towards the gate. Behind her a half length was Asuka, dressed in
her school uniform. Rei stopped next to him and wordlessly withdrew her
NERV ID, while Asuka stopped short and rested for a moment. Unlike Rei,
she was panting slightly, an irritated look on her face caused by her
loss to Rei in the race towards HQ. 
	"It doesn't work," Shinji said softly as Rei ran her card through the
lock, receiving the same result as Shinji had a few moments before.
Asuka thumped her foot on the ground to get their attention.
	"We have to find a way in there and to the Evas," she ordered.
	"Yes," Rei said as she dug the NERV handbook out of her school bag.
"There is an emergency entrance down this hall," she said as she pointed
down the hall to their left. 
	"Lets go," Asuka said, taking the leader position, followed by Shinji
then Rei, nose still buried in the little book. 
	They ran to the door, and located the manual crank that opened the
door. Asuka looked at Shinji expectantly, nodding to the crank as if to
say 'What are you waiting for?' He sighed, not having the energy to
argue the unfairness of having him do this simply because he was a boy.
	He strained to turn the crank as Asuka looked impatient and Rei
continued to read her handbook.

	"Unit Y has severe damage to rotor assembly," Maya read breathlessly.
	"AT field collapsed once the Unit left the launch tunnel. Integration
steady," Shigeru reported, punching up another display. "Angel's path
has halted above Central Dogma."
	"Status report," Fuyutsuki ordered. 
	"We still have no power," Ritsuko said, typing furiously. "but I've
managed to break the security encryption on the Unit's computer."
	"Shut it down."
	"Sir?" Ritsuko said, whipping her head around to stare at the
Commander. The other bridge staff turned to look as well, expressions
varying from confusion to amazement. Misato lowered her head, expression
of suspicion crossing her features briefly.
	"You heard the Commander," Fuyutsuki barked.
	"Yes, sir," Ritsuko replied, fingers flying across the keyboard of her
laptop. "Shut down of MHD completed," she said with the finality of one
delivering a eulogy.
	"The Angel has stopped its attack," Shigeru reported in tone of
amazement. "It seems to be waiting."
	Misato looked towards the commander, normally expressive face blank.
Ikari, she thought, focusing on his features through the haze of red
emergency lights. What are you up to?

	"Pilot Langley, I believe the proper direction is to the left."
	"Listen Wonder Girl, I don't think you understand the chain of command.
I'm leading this expedition, and I'm sure we go to the right," Asuka
said in a patronizing tone of voice. "Right, Shinji?"
	Hearing his name called, Shinji looked up from his resting position
against the wall, in the midst of wiping the sweat from his brow. There
had been two more doors between the entrance and their present position,
and each one had been his responsibility. And now Asuka was demanding he
show a little backbone. He glanced at the split, trusting Rei's
judgement instinctually.
	"I, um, think," he stammered, receiving a dark stare from Asuka. "Well,
the left does go down," he said, "but, um, Asuka is, um�" he finished,
completely waffling on any decision, which drew him a odd look from Rei
and a scornful glance from Asuka.
	"Lets go," Asuka said in an imperial tone. Shinji followed the order,
as did Rei, though for entirely different reasons. The dimly lit
corridor extended upwards for a hundred meters or more, and as they
walked, Shinji began to regret his decision to go along with Asuka's
leadership. He thought about speaking out, while Rei followed silently
behind him.
	Her thoughts were foreign to her, a combination of certainty in her
judgement of direction and anticipation of Asuka's eventual failure. A
bit of well hidden smugness in her own knowledge and foresight and the
failure of another. It was the exact response that Ikari Gendou would
have had in the same situation.
	The Children finally made it to the end of the corridor, finding a dead
end to the long hall, with a door to the right. Asuka grinned as she
grabbed the handle, too excited to demand Shinji's participation. With a
grunt she pulled the door open, and started to step out the door, into
what she expected to be a familiar hall in NERV HQ. Instead she was
greeted by a view of the street, almost a half kilometer from the
entrance to NERV's main building. 
	And a view of the Angel, poised above what appeared to be an EVA pinned
to the ground. As the Children watched they saw the massive leg of the
spider shaped creature plunge down into a great rent in the Unit's
armor, accompanied by a horrible shriek of tortured metal. Small pieces
of metal shot from the hole, scattering across the block, some of which
came shockingly close to the doorway. Frozen, Asuka couldn't do anything
but watching the writhing Unit, a view of the robot's interior. 
Asuka, shocked into action by the scene before her, slammed the door
shut. She turned to face the other two Children, face slightly paler
than usual. 
"We've just accomplished the reconnaissance portion of our mission. Now
lets get to the Evas."
The other two just stared at her, Shinji in shocked silence at the scene
played out before him and Rei in her usual fashion. As Wonder Girl
turned and led the trio back down the hall, Asuka thought she saw a
slight grin. No, it couldn't have been�could it? Asuka thought.

Above the Geofront the Angel paused for a moment, the stream of acid
halting as the creature stared down at the now still form beneath it. It
shifted its torso slightly, as if wondering what to do. Finally it
withdrew its forward claw from the Unit's shoulder, giving one spiteful
last twist as the massive form move onward. 
Out from underneath the shadow of the Angel, Unit Y remained still, as
still as its pilot, who languished in the synthetic LCL of his cockpit.
The ragged breathing that had characterized his panic had subsided, his
mind no longer really functioning beyond a instinctual level.
[Get a hold of yourself] he said as he heard the crackling of a radio
inside his pod. His muscles now his own, he reached over and began
messing with any dials that looked like a radio.
[Can you hear me, Jerico?] the voice asked through the radio. [Can you
hear me? Please answer. You are under attack from a new Angel. We have
managed to shut you down until we can get you backup, but we don't know
where the Children are. We need to know your condition.]
By condition, Jerico knew, they meant 'are you still crazy?' The answer
to that was a great big yes. He found the receiver, amazed at how little
the manual radio transmitter had changed in fifteen years. He was on the
right channel, so he lifted the little receiver and tried to say [I'm
operational.] but it came out like a ragged gasp as the weight of his
situation returned. I don't want to die, he thought. But I have already,
he answered. 
[I'm better, now,] Jerico said, hands gripping the little transmitter as
hard as he could. [What is my Unit's status?] he asked, all his
diagnostic screens blank thanks to the lack of power. 
[Primary shoulder region compromised. Damaged to back armor.
Destabilized MHD coils. Neural arrays in the head a little shaken up,] a
new voice reported. Ritsuko, he realized suddenly, sounds a bit like my
mother. Shaking his head in a vain attempt to focus, he keyed the
button.
[What the hell just happened? Where did the others go? And why can't you
send me up some weapons?]
Misato returned to the communicator to answer. [There has been a serious
power failure down here, and we don't have any way to find the Children.
We hope they are on their way to find us, but if not�] she trailed off,
meaning clear.
It'll be up to me, he silently finished for her. What did I do to
deserve this? He asked himself. I ignored reality, he answered himself.
This is at least what I deserve.
"Give me power," he demanded. [Give me power.]
The internal screens lit up as power returned to the stricken Unit. As
integration grasped him, Jerico felt a strange sense of belonging. This
is as close to a home as I have anymore, he though darkly. So I'd better
treat it right. 
He rose to his feet, amazed at how easy it was to control the massive
Unit. The robot behaved, no it was an extension of his own body. One he
could control as long as he didn't think of it as a piece of equipment.
He squeezed the massive hands into fists, pooling his anger and
directing it towards the Angel, who had halted its movements to face the
now standing unit. 
	[Yo, she bitch,] he said, some element of humor returning to his
person. [Let's roll.]
	The best thing about being dead, he decided, was being able to use such
cool quotes. Because it doesn't really matter anymore.

	"If I catch you sneaking a look, I'll kill you," Asuka reported as a
matter of fact. Shinji kept his glance at the ground of air shaft the
trio were crawling through. It made his path much more difficult but it
appeared to be the only way he could manage without serious damage to
his person. 
	"How much further is it, Ayanami?" he asked the girl behind him.
	"We should be above the Cage any moment now," she reported quietly. 
	"Hey Shinji," Asuka said from her point in the leader's position, which
she had refused to vacate. 
	"Yes?"
	"What do you think of Touji?"
	"I don't know. I wish I knew�"
	"It seems kinda strange though. That Jerico," she said the name in a
truly annoyed tone, "came out of nowhere like that."
	"Fuyutsuki-sensei says the pattern formed in the Eva should slowly
begin to collapse in time," Rei said suddenly, her voice a half octave
higher that usual. "Eventually Touji will return to control of his
body."
	"Then what happens to Jerico?" Shinji asked quietly.
	"I'll be damned if I care," Asuka said. "I never thought I'd say it,
but I'd rather have the stupid stooge than the annoying American."
	"Come on Asuka," Shinji complained, remembering Jerico's attempts at
Japanese humor and language. "He's not really that bad."
	"He's more of a pervert than that idiot Touji ever was.  Not to mention
louder."
	"Is loudness an quality possessed by all irritating people?" Rei asked
innocently from behind.
	"Are you implying something, Wonder Girl?" Asuka asked dangerously.
She's been acting weird since what's-his-face got here. They couldn't
be, no. She cut the thought off, more assured that Shinji would make a
pass at her than Wonder Girl entering a relationship with anyone,
especially the loud, obnoxious know-it-all Jerico.
	"No," Rei answered. "We are above the Cages."
	"How do you know?" challenged Asuka. 
	"Asuka, be quiet," Shinji said distractedly, pressing his head against
the wall of the small vent. He could make out noises of activity. "Can't
you-"
 	He was cut off by a quick smack to his head from Asuka's foot,
followed by a snort. "Don't tell me what to do, Shinji."
	"Sorry. Just listen okay." Asuka smacked him again, glancing back to
see him looking up at her. "Ahh! Stop trying to look up my dress!"

	The Cage was filled with the sounds of men at work. Swears in at least
three languages bounced off the walls, as did pieces of unneeded
hardware. The advanced technology of NERV had given way to pulleys,
levers and inclined planes as soon as the power failed, and the staff of
scientists and technicians had adapted as best they could to the
necessity of preparing the Evangelions. 
	Commander Ikari Gendou labored along with a dozen others to pull the
ropes that held Unit 01's entry plug. Down to his undershirt and covered
in sweat, Ikari felt happier than he had in years. For now there was
nothing for him to think about, nothing he could do but pull the rope.
He was surprised at how much effort the others were putting in. The men
and women of NERV were doing something they believed in, a fact that
couldn't help but make Gendo grin.
	All of this is important, and vitally so, he thought. But none of it
matters if the Children don't arrive soon. He held no hopes of Unit Y
defeating the Angel alone. He knew the Unit's limitations and advantages
better than any man alive. And as well as its creator.
	That madman had been a kindred spirit of sorts, out of place and alone,
with nothing to go on but a plan. Unfortunately, Gendo thought with some
actual honesty, his plan and mine were mutually exclusive. It was sad
really, that so many of the greatest minds of the earliest part of the
twenty first century had found their way to Project E and its big
brother. 
	He looked up from his work as he noticed one of the supply vents buckle
and snap, spilling a pair of interlocked bodies on the gantry that ran
towards Unit 01's head. His son and the Second were tangled up in what
could have been a fight but looked oddly�romantic in nature. He grinned
again, some twisted bit of fatherly pride rising in intensity as he
noticed the two of them blush as the Captain spoke with them. Mocking
them no doubt, he thought. He noted Rei make a perfect landing as she
followed the less graceful pair out of the hole in the vent. It
interested him that he still identified himself with the weak little boy
that was his son. 
	Then he shut off the interest, the grin and the outside thoughts. It
was time for the Children to go.

	Jerico ignored the string of Japanese that was pouring through the
communications array. He was too busy to translate any of it. I probably
couldn't focus enough to translate English right now. He stepped back,
dodging the attack of one of the Angel's legs, corner of his eye
following the countdown of his power supply. He had three minutes left
before the whirling cyclone of ionized gasses in his Unit's MHD array
cooled below the critical limit and reverted to a less convenient phase
of matter.
	He had spent the last two minutes trying to find an opening in the
whirling mass of dangerous legs that made up his enemy's defense and
attack methods. It was impossible, he thought, to get in there without
getting hit.
	As if to prove the point, one of the Angel's legs flew outward,
changing direction just as Jerico decided how to dodge. It collided with
Unit Y's outstretched arm, just above the wrist, tearing a good sized
chunk of armor from the Unit's skin. 
	Integration inspired pain filled Jerico again, giving him focus. Why
does it only work when I hurt? He asked himself. He shifted his balance,
reaching out with his good arm, grabbing one of the legs that the Angel
had left just a little too far out from under its body. Setting his legs
into the ground firmly, he pulled, ignoring the three other legs that
struck across his chest and face. No, he mentally corrected himself.
Across Unit Y's chest and face. The distinction was becoming harder to
make, he commented absently as he twisted the leg and pulled again,
wrenching the lower segment from the absurdly spherical joint.
	The Angel backed off for a moment, leaving Jerico panting heavily and a
half minute closer to what he was assured to be death. The rambling on
the communications array increased in intensity, so Jerico mentally
turned it off with the neurological equivalent of a shrug.
	They were counting on him. All of them. Especially the ones he'd
already failed.

	The two square blocks of Tokyo 3 that held this match were obliterated
from only a few moments of battle. Two and a half minutes worth of
fighting had resulted in several billion yen's worth of damage, not
including overhead on operation of what would soon be four gigantic
robots. It had displaced twenty-three businesses, seventeen apartment
complexes and ten thousand people from their homes and work.
	Shinji reflected on all of this as he stared at the map of the target
area displayed in his vision. He knew it was an unavoidable consequence
of his actions inside Eva. He would hurt people. 
	"What are you thinking about, Super Pilot Ikari?" Asuka asked as her
face popped up inside his field of vision. Her voice was thick with
scorn, and try as he might Shinji couldn't stand up to it.
	"Nothing. Nothing at all." He glanced around his entry plug, the image
of his father slaving away to get him inside the object of his misery. 
	"Jerico is not answering any communications," Misato reported over the
comm. "He's still fighting however, and has managed to damage the Angel
a bit. His Unit is less than a minute and a half from shut down."
	Shinji took it all in, glancing up the launch shaft the three Eva's
were climbing. Asuka's red 02 took up most of his vision. Below, he
knew, was Rei's blue Eva, also laboring up the shaft. He glanced at his
power readout, comforted by the twelve-minute countdown that blinked
reassuringly in his vision. Then Asuka slipped.

	Jerico glanced at his power readout, the vanishing figures sending
dread into his very heart. It was a countdown that he couldn't put off,
shirk from or ignore, no matter how hard he tried. Returning attention
to the whirling mass of legs in front of him, he wished for all the
world that he had a gun. 
	Need to work on that, he thought in the silence of his cockpit. He
stepped back from the Angel, dropping to one knee to grab a car that had
managed to avoid destruction and crushed it in his hand, as if preparing
a snowball. The Angel, pressing forward, swung a leg out at him
connecting squarely with his chest, tearing a mass of shaped polyceramic
plates with it as it retracted. Underneath the armor was a layer of
plastic and ceramic shaped charges, the last layer of defense between
the vulnerable power supply and control elements that made up the Unit's
heart. An idea struck Jerico as he remembered Ritsuko explaining the
details of the Unit's reactive armor.
	A wide grin, almost psychotic in its intensity, crossed his face. Fifty
seconds left, he thought. Might as well give it a shot. The crumpled car
dropped from the towering robot's hand and bounced across the tarmac of
the NERV's main parking lot.
	As he readied his leap of faith, Asuka, Shinji and Rei exited the
launch shaft. Asuka leapt out first, rifle at the ready as she covered
the other two Unit's exits. Shinji readied his own pistol as Rei hefted
the pallet rifle in the general direction of the battle.
	"Spread out!" Misato shouted through the comm link, watching from her
screen down below as the video feeds panned across the battlefield. The
damage done to the small region of the city was incredible. Not a single
building stood without some major structural damage. The same was true
of vehicles, roadside shops and even pedestrian walkways and sidewalks. 
	The two combatants were in no better shape. The Angel was missing
several legs, with dents and ruptures in its main body. It stood on half
as many legs as it had started with, and teetered like a prize fighter
after six or seven rounds. Pools of acidic blood covered the streets
below it. Unit Y was crouched twenty meters in front of the Angel,
shards of armor poking out of its body from the repeated blows of the
enemy. The chest was bare, revealing a smooth gray underbelly of some
synthetic material where there would be skin on an Eva. The gaping hole
in its shoulder was visible, as were the backup supports that allowed
the shoulder to bear any weight at all. Acid burns marred the once
symmetrical face, and the armor around one of the eyes held a three
meter long rent from one of the early strikes landed by the Angel.
	"Get ready to fire," Misato shouted as she took all the data in,
bouncing strategies around in her head. "Asuka, suppression fire across
the Angel. Shinji, nullify the AT field. Rei, shoot to kill," she said,
deciding the actions based on unconsciously remembered debriefings from
training.
	But before Asuka could so much as pull the trigger, Unit Y launched
itself at the Angel. The Angel, bracing itself with as many legs as it
could spare, lifted a pair of legs to act as a pincushion, locking the
'knee' joints firmly. Unit Y, impaled mostly by its own weight and
momentum, forced itself down the length of the legs until it was right
up against the Angel's body.
	"I can't get a clear shot," Rei reported calmly as Asuka swore and
tried to change firing angles to get a clear shot. Anger burned in her
chest as she watched her chance pass.
	The legs burst out the back of Unit Y, running the robot through just
above where the navel should have been on a human. It gripped the edges
of the Angel's body tightly, shaking with effort.
	"What is he going to do?" Shinji asked quietly, awed by the ferocity of
the attack. And understanding where the rage came from.
	"He's getting ready to detonate the reactive armor!" he heard from the
background noise in the command center. Shinji focused his AT field on
the Angel, easily neutralizing it a nanosecond before the explosion.
	The force hurled Unit Y back off the spikes it was impaled on, and
hollowed out the Angel's body. Shockwaves raced across the battlefield,
pushing Shinji a half step back. All in all, he wasn't impressed, having
been at the heart of a couple more explosive encounters. Sachiel's self
destruction was much more violent. But he was awestruck as Unit Y landed
in a heap thirty meters from the hole in the ground that had been the
Angel.
	And even more impressed when the Unit stood back up, lifted its fist as
if to smack itself in the chest. It glanced down, noticing the gaping
hole in its armor, revealing the structures inside, including a small,
dull red sphere, slightly above its stomach. The robot seemed to think
better of it, then, running out of power, toppled on to its back.
	"Idiot," Asuka said in a low tone as she lowered her rifle and sat her
Eva down. 


Author's drivel:
	I've been sitting on this fic for a bit now, trying to work out the
kinks. Due to the raging debate on the FFML (not the one on Dark Pokemon
fics, though I did write one of those, kinda) I decided to submit a fic
to hopefully prove that some of us New Schoolers do still write. Anyway,
Part 4 of the Unfamiliar but Welcome series is done. I hope it lived up
to its title.

Part 5 might take some more time (which I think is a good thing). It
should deal with the fallout from Jerico's first battle, his mental
state and the worries and preoccupations of various NERV employees. 

As always, all characters except Jerico Mele are copyright Gainax. For
more like this (and several things completely different, visit
www.brandeis.edu/~jmele. And email me at jmele@brandeis.edu.