I have worked long and hard on this.

Enjoy.

I KNOW, for a fact, that some people are going to lynch me for this, but never mind.





"So, Otto... How's my car?"

"Fine, Misato, Fine! The engine has been retuned and rebored, the
wiring checked, and I've put in the reinforcements you asked for.
The whole structure is double-strength."

"Glad to hear it, Otto. Glad to hear it. So... what's the damage?"

"No damage! The car is in fine condition!"

Misato sighed. This guy was as bad as Rei, almost, at colloquialisms.
"I mean, what's the bill?"

"Ah... The bill..." Otto handed over a small, grubby sheet of paper.

"FOUR HUNDRED AND TWENTY-EIGHT THOUSAND YEN!?"

"Oy! Not so loud! The bill is in full, legal order."

"Well, what's this? 'Tip', I can understand, but what's 'S.C.'?"

Otto looked shifty. "Service charge."

"But that's the same as the Tip!"

"No, no! That is the charge for the time spent on the vehicle..."

"Sandwiches? Tea?"

"Charges for food and drink taken during the repairs..."

"I don't bloody BELIEVE this... 'Replacing funds lost during POKER games?'"

Otto was backing up... he'd never seen a woman this angry before. Nor one
with a gun, and he couldn't help noticing that her safety strap was loose...
"You want that I should scratch that?"

"TOO FUCKING RIGHT!"

The bill still came to 390,000 Yen.

As Misato drove off, anyone nearby could have heard her grumbling.

"Now I know why they call him 'Grand Theft' Otto..."

=====================

Fundamentals

A Neon Genesis
Evangelion Fanfiction

By Matthew Harrison

Part 4

=====================

Shinji lay flat on his back on his bed.

A chilly night; possibly the coldest since he'd arrived. But at least he
wasn't alone again; it was too often that he'd been alone in a place.
Some of the people he'd lived with in the past had barely thought
about him  more than to feed, clothe and house him. He had frequently
been alone in a house at night; eight, and a howling storm about him.
Nothing had happened to him, but he'd been terrified for half the night.

He was glad that there was generally three other people in the house
besides him most of the time- four, if you included Pen-Pen.

This night had a feeling of foreboding to it.

It certainly boded something; he didn't know whether it was good or bad,
but it boded.

Boded in general.

He turned over, and sighed. He just wasn't getting any sleep tonight. He
would have understood it if it were too hot, but there was something wrong.

He rose out of bed, and padded over to his tape collection. He needed
something soothing.

'Music of the Wolf'. What a name.

But most of this Aquarian age crap tended to be soothing.

He might even drop off from boredom.

*****

Asuka was having trouble sleeping, too.

First, there were the supremely annoying dayglo rats that had invaded her
bedroom shortly after she'd got into bed and were dancing on it, while she
chased others with an eggwhisk. There hadn't been a mallet to hand to
swat them with, and she hadn't been able to find anything heavier in the
utensil drawer beside her EVA's kennel. It stayed in there, on all fours,
barking madly at the chorus line of rats who seemed to think it was encouragement.

She couldn't get out of her room, either. Four lobsters were singing the
lumberjack song as they wallpapered over the door.

This did not strike her as strange in the least, as she rolled over in her sleep
and swatted blindly at the air in her dreamstate; noone had warned her about
eating cheese before sleeping...

*****

Rei watched as a white rabbit in a waistcoat bounded past her.

"How strange."

*****

In the streets of Tokyo-3, a number of trucks were moving to strategic points-
or so they were told. They were dedicated to their cause. There were seventeen
of them, each with two of the pseudotanks on board.

This could be considered strange, as there were only thirty of the vehicles to be
transported.

Their orders were to drive to their prescribed places, and then press the switches
that would disgorge their cargoes. The hour was preset, and they would wait.

The Abbot would not order anything that was bad for them.

*****

Morning came with its rosy fingers crawling across the horizon. The pilots were
oblivious to this little miracle of nature, simply dragging themselves out of bed,
and then into clothes, eating and preparing to go to school.

Misato slowly dragged herself awake, and into the kitchen. Shinji, Asuka and Rei
were there, drinking coffee and eating toast. Misato realised, vaguely, that there
was a smear of butter on the toast, proving that although Rei was a vegetarian, she
wasn't a vegan. She was glad about that; she thought that it was immoral not to
consume animal products. Man was an animal, and animals ate meat- these ones,
anyway.

Shinji, wordlessly, pushed a mug of high-caffeine coffee into her hand, and she took
a deep swig, ignoring the fact that it was hot enough to scald her mouth. All she
wanted was to be awake. They'd finally persuaded her to stop drinking beer as soon
as she woke up.

She missed that. She still didn't feel right without a bellyful of alcohol in the morning.
Alcohol was good. Since she'd started drinking, she hadn't had a single day's sick time.
She maintained, at full volume, if there was anyone to hear and argue with, that her
high alcohol concentration sterilised her system, preventing bugs getting a foothold
in her system.

Many people thought that she was whistling in the dark, and one old suitor had
jokingly called her Kagero.

They assumed that he'd swallowed some of his teeth when they got him to the first-aid
station.

Aside from all that, it looked to be a fairly quiet day- barring protests, and any arguments
about the budget, or any Angel attacks...

A normal day, in other words.

Oh, well. Time to get ready...

*****

The Abbot flexed his arm, admiring how he had gained strength over the past few months.
There were no more aches and pains as he moved, and he felt much better about himself
as he went about the Lord's work.

After all, he was told that the L-Serum was derived from the blood of an Angel, and
showed remarkable regenerative effects on living tissue. There was no way that it was harmful to life. Not a chance.

He no longer had to breathe, and he was eating very little. Apotheosis was near to him, and if he could , he would use his newfound sainthood- the only way he could describe it- to fight the fallen angels- for that was what the infamous EVA units were, were they not?- on their own terms. And he would destroy the blasphemous legion of Demons that NERV had produced to aid the kataangliou that they had working for them.

It had been a matter of some debate, whether the members of NERV were humans deluded by the kataangliou and persuaded to support them, or whether devious humans had subverted some angels to work for them. It did not matter, though... if innocent they would be gifted with Martyrs' deaths, and if guilty, they would be purged of their sins...

The Abbot fell to the ground as a wracking pain tore at his back. He couldn't quite place it; it was a kind of burning and tearing sensation, about the region of his shoulderblades. Something seemed to be up with his vision, too. Dark was light and light was dark... but that didn't make sense, now did it?

Maybe he was just working too hard.

Rubbish.

Nothing was too hard for the Lord's work.

*****

The Labs of NERV-HQ Japan.

Quiet.

Doctor Akagi Ritsuko leant back in her chair, and slowly exhaled a long, sensuous stream of blue-grey tobacco smoke into the air.

Nothing had gone wrong and it was already eleven. Her coffee break was sacrosanct, inviolate.

A time of day that she really, really enjoyed, when she got the time to make use of it, when there wasn't something wrong with an EVA or Rei or anything else...

And today was one of those days. No disturbances. She could get on with her pet projects in peace. Such as the EVA-gerbil idea. It was unique. And just a little silly, but wasn't that her wont?

It was vaguely based on guinea-pig flesh, with a considerable amount of cybernetics built in. She nearly had it generating an AT Field, but it wasn't there yet.

Maybe if she upped the para-barometric pressure in the Dirac field induction coil matrix while sub-routing the plasma flows throughout the quasi-pseudo-S2 system...

"Oh! A Star Trek fan, I see."

Ritsuko nearly fell off her chair. "Who are you?"

'You' was a man slightly younger than herself, looking not unlike Kaji, but a bit more plump, with thick glasses, wearing extremely stained lab whites and with a mechanical centipede slung across his shoulder. It was also in a plastic bag that had 'Evidence' stamped across it.

He extended a hand to her upside-down view (she was, after all, looking at him by leaning her head right back).

"I," He said, "Am a forensic scientist recently assigned to NERV-Japan after the mess in NERV-UK."

"What mess...? Oh, THAT." There was nothing more guaranteed to bring her relaxed state crashing down amongst the cigarette ends and coffee dregs than work- or , worse, bad news and work.

"So what do you have for me?"

"This mechanism... do you mind if we switch to English?"

"That's okay," she replied, in impeccable English with an American accent that made him wince slightly.

"Great. This device is a wonderful bit of kit- if you want to take possession of a cyborg."

"What?!"

"It would have to be a whopper of a cyborg, though. You see these spines?"

Looking over the thing, Ritsuko saw that the 'legs', as she had thought of them, were on hinges. It was, she saw, quite a bit of work. "What do they do?"

The newcomer pressed a little button on the back, and the spines snapped into a new position. "These are designed to drive themselves into the spine of a man. They're highly sensitive probes that also inject large amounts of NTGF-14 and associated drugs into the spinal column. The probes then link up with the spinal cord, and these holes on the back issue forth pseudonerves that link up into the quasineural systems of the organism. The device also has a variety of codebreakers and viruses integral to it.
    "Upon linkup, it allows a total override of the cyborg under attack. The little bugger can then convert ambient organic molecules into nutrients that the body can use, AND an oxygen screen for the system. We believe that it links into the bloodstream, and then supplies the operator with nutrients from there."

Ritsuko arched an eyebrow. "Anything else, Captain Exposition?"

"No, not here. We have a really odd device in the labs that we still don't know what to do about, or what it does. And the name's Mark. Mark Thorn."

"Thank you. And I'm Ri..."

"Ritsuko Akagi, class of  '04, New Yokosuka University, Ph.D. at Cambridge. I approve. I would have gone there but they didn't do Forensic Science. I studied at a second-rate Uni that  no longer exists."

"Second impact?"

"Indeed."

"Couldn't have been Newcastle or Glasgow then."

"Why not?"

"They're first-rate."

*****

Lunchtime came to the school where all the pilots were offered an education.

"You know, an Englishman once said that for every person who wants to teach, there are thirty people who don't want to learn."

Of all people who could come up with pearls of wisdom, enigmatic or otherwise, this was Kensuke.

"Obviously! That is patently not true in Japan..."

"There is a truck over there."

"What? Oh, yes, very nice, Rei, so there is. But as I was saying..."

"It has been there since we arrived here today."

That shut her up.

All the pilots looked over at the truck.

"She's right, you know."

"We should storm it and grab the occupants for security!"

"Dumbkopf!" Asuka applied a quick knuckle to the head of the pilot; he was too gun-happy for their own safety.

"OW! What do we do then?"

"To whom am I speaking? I require a numberplate search. Details are..."

*****

Hyuuga looked at the data just flashed up on  his screen.

"The details say it was one of seventeen superloader lorries bought by Combined Farm Shipping. Why do you ask?"

Hang on, he thought.... CFS... Church of the FlamingHELL!

"SECURITY! AT THE SCHOOL!"

*****

As the children watched, the eight NERV security officers stormed out of the building, sprinting for the truck. They took up positions around the vehicle, covering it with their weapons.

*****

Inside the truck, an alarm clock went off.

The cultist at the wheel blinked. It was time! Time to release the holy beasts that would destroy the evil in the heart of the world.

He leant forward and pressed the button that released the cargo.

*****

For the security officers, everything went a bright white.

*****

Misato Katsuragi screeched to a halt in her car as she saw the twin fireballs rise over the city. This was not good...

*****

Rei, Shinji, Asuka and Kensuke picked themselves up from the ground. Several of the children outside the school were. Sirens could be heard, faintly, and Shinji absently noticed that the school nurse was already rushing out with her extensive supply of Band-aid. There was something wrong with his hand, he thought.

That was it. There was a shard of metal through the hand. Gone in the back and out the front. Rei was all right. Kensuke's glasses were broken, but that was repairable. Asuka was white as a sheet and shaking. He looked at his hand again, watching as the blood trickled along the point and dripped off the end.  He was lucky, he thought, that it was his left hand. It would have been very difficult if he'd been hit in the right hand. Then he couldn't pull it out like he was doing now.

The metal came free with a sickly sucking sound, a bit like jelly splitting.

Then the pain hit, and he bit down on the scream that he felt would have ripped his throat. Thus the scream was merely loud.

*****

Kensuke and Asuka were trying to help in any way they could. They all had first aid knowledge, and were doing what was right.

Then Kensuke saw Hikari.

"Asuka!"

She was flat on her back, a spreading pool of crimson behind her.

"What? Oh, God... Do we roll her?"

A large piece of torn aluminium sheet, the jagged edge adorned with red, green and white, lay on the ground a little way behind her.

"Yes! We've gotta stop the bleeding. On three..." Kensuke pulled off his shirt, dropping it to the ground, and took position beside her head., a hand under her neck, another on her shoulder, placing her arm across her body.

Her face was white. There was no movement.

*****

Rei was unsure what to do.

Shinji was hurt, and the other two were helping Hikari. It was most likely that they would not need assistance with Hikari. Shinji's wound was not life-threatening.

Hikari, she guessed, was probably already dead.

Shinji was looking around, she saw, looking bewildered. He had wrapped a handkerchief about  has hand, and it wasn't bleeding much. He started walking towards the gates.

"No, Shinji. Stay here. Sit down."

He looked at her, and she saw a distance in his eyes. He wasn't quite looking at her.

"I mustn't walk away?"

"You mustn't. Sit here. Let a doctor see you, when they get here."

"I mustn't walk away."

"That's right." She tried to get a soothing tone into her voice, but wasn't sure how to. She hoped she was succeeding. Shinji planted himself on the ground, heavily. He was crying slightly, she saw. Tears were trickling down his cheeks.

"Now don't move. I'm going to help the others."

*****

Asuka was gory to the elbows, holding Kensuke's shirt in place.

"I can't keep it in place! What do we do?"

Kensuke thought for a minute. She had been losing blood fast, but his shirt was stopping the flow. He guessed that she'd lost about three pints so far.

He ripped open his bag and found a stapler.

He hoped that it would hold the cloth over the wound long enough.

*****

When ambulances arrived, they found two half-panicked teenagers trying to keep a brown-haired girl alive. They had succeeded; she was breathing on her own and her heart was still beating. They had, the paramedics said, 'done a sterling job'. Shinji was shot full of an anti-shock complex, and the hole in his hand patched up.

Rei Ayanami was impassive.

*****

Misato was stuck in traffic, as a result of the explosions. She had to get to the school, and the place was in near-total gridlock.

The place couldn't have been that blasted, could it?

Then she saw what was coming down the road and decided that oh yes it certainly COULD be in the next few minutes.

She got out and ran as a burst from a 30mm cannon tore through her car.

*****

A small transport helicopter landed on the roof of the school, emblazoned with the NERV logo.

"All pilots report to the roof. All EVA pilots report to the roof for transport to NERV."

Asuka and Kensuke looked at each other; they could hear sporadic gunfire from the city. They surely weren't going to be used in a non-EVA capacity?

*****

"What we have here, gentlemen, is an improvised tank. We have tentatively named them J-1, J-s and J-3, due to the three types seen."

An officer, from the JSDF, raised a hand. "Why, may I ask, the J series?"

"They appear to have been converted from the JCB earthmover models. J-1 is the green model. They are armed with a variety of heavy weapons, for a mixture of anti-personnel, anti-vehicle and demolition." He pointed to a slide projected on the screen beside him. The vehicle was heavily armoured, with a small viewslit on the front. "So far they have used them to moderate effect within the city. One destroyed an SO19 squad in Britain last week. Analysis of the debris has resulted in the intelligence we have on their approximate capabilities. Doctor Thorn will fill you in on the most dangerous part of them."

Dr. Thorn, the forensic scientist, took the stage, and the screen changed to a picture of the peculiar speaker apparatus that had been recovered.

"This device is attached to most of the J-series impros. They are devices for artificially recreating an AT-field,..."

A muttering grew in the gathered officials.

"...And, from our calculations, is quite capable of disrupting them."

The muttering grew to a small roar.

"Doctor Thorn! Do you mean to tell us that the EVA's are at threat from these... these... 'Heath-Robinson' devices?"

"They are. That is why I suggest that the EVA units are launched immediately."

The four pilots looked sick. Except Ayanami. She looked slightly troubled.

*****

It was dark.

Sometimes images and sounds would drift past her.

She couldn't feel her legs.

Or anything.

Was she dead?

She didn't know.

One image kept flicking in front of her eyes. Touji.

She must be dead.

"Hiya, Iincho. They got you too?"

Hikari looked around. She was in a garden; and behind her was a young man. Touji Suzuhara, looking better than ever, with a chrome arm. Still dressed in that eternal tracksuit.

"Where am I? This doesn't look like Tokyo-3... at least, no part of it that I've ever seen."

"That's because it ain't, Horaki-san... or can I call you Hikari?"

"Hikari, please. What happened?"

Touji's face fell slightly.

"Guess. You're not going to see your parents for another twenty years, at least."

"Then I'm dead? What... how..."

And then she remembered the sudden burst of activity at the school, and the noise like the anger of God, and the impossibly hot, yet frighteningly cold feeling that tore across her back.

"Bomb. Just like me." Touji flashed her a grin. "I was told ya liked me, so I came to see you, let you know that there are others here. It's not what you might think... we can go back and see what's going to happen, if you like."

There was a sudden, crushing pain across her chest, and she doubled up.

"Aw, hell. It'll be over in a few minutes. You're here now."

Another.

"What's going on?"

"The electric thing. You know, restart your heart?"

"I want to go back!"

Touji's face fell. "Hikari, if you go back, you'll be stuck in your body for another sixty years. The brain's damaged. The spine is severed. You'll never be able to control your body again. Do you want sixty years of boredom? Or do you want to spare your family a load of grief and die now?"

Again.

Never move...

Look at the same ceiling for six decades...

Not speak...

Again.

Not see her parents...

Not see any other friends...

Abandon an already doomed life...

Again.

"I'll... I'll stay."

A few moments passed. No more shocks.

"Welcome to the afterlife, Hikari."

"Is it worth it, Touji-kun?"

"Oh, yeah."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Look... did-do you really like me?"

Hikari studies the 'ground' for a minute.

"Yeah..."

"Well... I did... I do."

And there we leave the eternal lovers.

Perhaps heaven will have a nice future for them?

We- and they- can hope so.

*****

The four EVAs stormed across the city, stamping on any of the tanks that they ran across. The artificial AT-field systems that they had didn't always work, but they weren't very strong at the best of times.

"Unit-02, watch your back!"

Two of the things, a yellow and a white one, had sneaked up behind her- only due to the general noise- and were readying the missile racks the green ones lacked. The missiles had caused some general havoc due to their attempts to drop buildings on people. With the AT-fields, it wouldn't have been a problem, but the emitter arrays on the top of the things had completely negated them.

As Asuka spun around, the yellow one fired a pair of missiles.

She caught one, destroying it in mid-air.

The second one hit her in the chest, blowing off a chunk of armour.

She smashed the offending tank, but the white one fired one of its missiles.

That hit the point that had been cleared, and stuck.

It didn't detonate.

Asuka squashed it, but then her EVA began to tremble.

Then it shook.

Then it collapsed onto the ground, Asuka screaming all the way, as it dumped its neurotoxin load deep into her, screwing up all her control. And due to her link, she felt all the effects. Her vision blurred, her limbs spasmed.

And she screamed all the way to the ground.

*****

In NERV Command, Commander Ikari looked horrorstruck as they failed to eject the plug.

"Cut power to Unit-02. Emergency ejection can be made when it runs down."

"Sir!"

*****

Misato was worried. These unconventional attacks were causing much more trouble than they had thought. Who would have thought that anyone would have resurrected the Skreemer weapon system research?

But it seemed that the EVA units were counteracting the fields...

"Send all tanks and troops we can in. The EVA's can distract the things. How many are left?"

"Twenty, by our estimation."

"Good. Mobilise all forces we can. We can defeat them now. Just keep the EVA's on their toes." She turned to the console again, and opened a channel to the remaining EVAs.

"We're sending reinforcements. Don't tread on them."

*****

History recorded it as a very short urban tank battle, in the end. Attack helicopters, tanks and troops destroyed nearly all the vehicles, and the remaining cultists surrendered. It took less than an hour to end the struggle, after the UN made their assault.

The final casualties were not as bad as they thought; there were about a hundred civillians killed, four JSDF tanks destroyed and thirty troops killed. Police casualties ran to nearly two hundred, as they had engaged the things when they first appeared, disgorged from the wagons that had been liberally spread about the city.

The other lorry bomb had been spectacularly unsuccessful in doing any notable damage, as it had shattered part of the main entrance to NERV, when it went off as the cultists charged the place.

The city officials declared that they would rethink their defences against terrorist assault; they had not been changed since the Tokyo gas attack. No-one had thought that anyone would be able to do such a large assault since.

'em

"Can you tell me how anyone found out that the Vas have a large biological component?"

"No, Sir. Unless..."

"Unless what, Doctor Akagi?"

"Unless, Commander, that technician who disappeared with those samples went to the Church."

"I see. Where was it he went missing?"

"New Yokosuka, Sir. If you remember, it is believed that that is the Churches Base."

"I see. You are dismissed."

As Ritsuko left, Gendou thought about the possibilities. It was extremely unlikely that there would be any kind of serious trouble for a while, now that the Church had lost a large battle.

But it would be best to be sure.

*****

Kensuke, Shinji and Rei went to see the unfortunate Asuka in her hospital room. There was NERV security everywhere; everyone remembered what happened to Touji. They couldn't afford a repeat. The mood, as they entered, was subdued; they all knew what had happened to Hikari.

"So, how're you feeling?"

"Not bad now... according to the doctors, there should be no lasting effects of the poison. They pumped organophosphates into my system, you know? Into my EVA's system anyway. A variant of Sarin."

"I see." Shinji looked at his hand. "You know, I don't remember a lot of that battle. I suppose I was still in shock."

"I stood over you, Langley-san." This was Rei, who looked a bit uncomfortable. "I brought you this." A box was proffered, and accepted.  It was a selection of German chocolates. Asuka's mouth dried, as her eyes teared slightly.  She wouldn't have thought that Rei would have been so thoughtful... maybe Shinji helped her pick them out. She'd missed these.

The others had Gifts as well; Shinji brought a basket of fruit, Kensuke brought some flowers...

"A rose? You shouldn't have."

Kensuke blushed. "Ummm... how'd that get in there?"

"Never mind..."

Shinji spoke up again. "Misato sent you this... and Kaji this."

Kaji's present, to Asuka's chagrin, was an EVA-02 plushie. In Superdeformed style.

Misato had sent... A selection of romance novels. The raunchier sort. Asuka blushed.

"I don't know what to say... thank them for me, will you?"

"Don't worry, we will."

Kensuke looked thoughtful. "Commander Ikari sent you this, as well."

It was a card. With simply the message 'Get well soon'. Asuka half expected to see 'By Order' in subscript.

"So, when do you get out?"

"Oh, in a few days, they say, Shinji. They're just keeping me in for observation..."

-=End Chapter 4=-

Some people, as I said, are going to Lynch me for this part.

Never mind.

Part 5 coming soon!

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