“Sir? Your orders?”
Shinji snapped out of his introspection and considered his next move. “…Start scanning the Earth; look for unusual bio-readings.” Lieutenant Lakir nodded and turned back to his station, tapping away at the display. Shinji turned back to Ruki. “I need you to hack into the main computer of Nerv and copy every secure file. Ikari is up to something, and I want to know what it is.”
“Aye sir.” The lavender-haired woman placed the palm of her hand on a circular panel, and in an instant her mind was in cyber-space.
“Captain, I have the results of the scan.” At a nod from his Captain, Lakir gave a brief summary. “As far as life signs go, it’s a pretty standard ‘Earth’, with a few anomalies; the sensors picked up three large, unknown life signs beneath the city designated ‘Tokyo 3’, as well as several dozen smaller, yet similar, life signs close by. Three other large sources were detected, one in a military base in Nevada, and another two in the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of Japan.”
“…Put the Pacific Ocean anomalies on the view screen.”
A few beeps later, and the forward view screen was filled with image of a substantial fleet of warships, and near the center was a single vessel with huge tarp covering what Shinji assumed was an Evangelion. “If I remember correctly, Misato told me that Eva Unit Two was being shipped to Japan a few days before I left. This must be it.” The former Third Child frowned. “But what in Bahamut’s name is the second anomaly?”
Lieutenant Lakir tapped away at his computer station before shaking his head apologetically. “I’m sorry sir, but the life signs are difficult to get a solid reading on. All I can tell you is that there are definitely two, and they are both in that fleet.”
Shinji’s blood-red eyes narrowed in thought before he stood from the command chair. “Captain Shinji to the Hanger.”
There was a brief silence before a gruff male voice rang from the overhead speakers. “Aye, Cap’n, we can ‘ear ya.”
“Prep a VAF-6 Alpha and a VBF-1A Beta for flight; I’m going out for a little spin.” He thought it over for a moment before grinning. “And would you be so kind as to replace one of the standard GU-XX’s with one of Xander’s modified models?”
Laughter burst from the speakers, and it took a moment for the speaker to calm down enough to answer. “Unnerstood Cap’n. They’ll be ready for ye by the time ya get down ‘ere.”
Captain Misato Katsuragi was not having a good day.
Or a good week, for that matter.
Shinji, the shy young man she was supposed to protect, had disappeared from their apartment three days ago. Nobody saw him leave, and none of the apartment buildings security cameras recorded his departure. Hell, not even Pen-Pen had seen him go!
The past few days had been filled with organising citywide searches, filling out reports, and listening to Ritsuko bitch at her for being irresponsible.
And today, what should have been a routine escort job had become so much harder due to the unwelcome presence of a few hard-headed Navy jerks. ‘Hmm, it looks like Admiral Sea-Pig is wrapping up.’
“…What a ridiculously grandiose assignment for the entire Pacific Fleet!”
“It’s still not enough, not when you consider the importance of the Eva.” The purple-haired Captain drew a clipboard from under her arm and held it out to the grizzled Admiral. “Sign these transfer documents, please.”
The man Misato had cheerfully nicknamed ‘Admiral Sea-Pig’ turned his back to her dismissively. “Not yet. Eva Unit Two and it’s pilot have been entrusted to us by the Third Branch in Germany. You’re not going to just waltz in here and do as you please, Captain Katsuragi.”
Glaring at his back, Misato placed the clipboard in its former position under her arm. “When will you transfer them to us?”
The First Officer answered her. “Once we’ve docked at New Yokosuka.”
The Admiral of the fleet puffed up as his ego swelled. “The ocean is our jurisdiction. You will follow our orders here.”
Misato nodded and answered with a distinctly cold tone of voice. “I understand. However, I should remind you that in an emergency Nerv’s authority overrides your own.”
Admiral turned to answer but was cut off by an incredibly unwelcome voice from the door leading into the bridge. “Well, you’re as confident as always…”
Misato froze, and the Admiral growled in annoyance. “Mr. Kaji! I must insist that you stop inviting yourself onto the Bridge!”
The longhaired, unshaven man grinned sheepishly and scratched the back of his neck. “Oh, sorry about that.”
Turning around resignedly, Misato cheered up a little at the sight of a redheaded teen with a death grip on Kaji’s arm. “Hi Asuka! Wow, it looks like you’ve grown a bit since I last saw you!”
The Second Child smirked haughtily. “I know. And I’m not just taller, my figure has filled out as well.” The teen squeezed the older mans arm tighter and looked up at him adoringly. “Right Kaji?”
Kaji ‘hmmed’ in a neutral fashion, not taking his eyes off his former girlfriend for an instant.
As Misato scowled at the scruffy Special Inspector, one of the Bridge Crew called out to the Admiral. “Admiral, an unknown aircraft is roughly four hundred kilometers away and closing on our position!”
“What!?” The grey-haired man strode across the Bridge, followed by his First Officer, Misato, and the locked-together duo of Kaji and Asuka. “Do you have an ID?”
“Negative, Sir. The computer can’t match the aircraft with any known designs, and at this point it hasn’t responded to our requests for identification.”
The Admiral turned to the First Mate. “Send up a pair of X-35s, and tell the pilots to intercept the target and order it away from the fleet. They are to shoot it down if it gets any closer than 50km from the battlegroup.” As the First Mate made to relay the orders, the Admiral moved to the Communication Station and picked up a microphone. “Patch me through to the rest of the fleet.” When the Comm Officer gave the thumbs up he clicked on the microphone. “This is Admiral Forrester to the Seventh Pacific Fleet; assume battle stations. I repeat, assume battle stations.”
On every ship, klaxons wailed and crew rushed to their stations.
In the cockpit of what was currently the most advanced aircraft on the planet, Shinji smirked as he listened to the intercepted communications between the two aircraft chasing him.
=Hey Magik, you ever seen a bird like that?=
A few moments passed before ‘Magik’ answered. =Negative, but It looks a little like something from one of my Dads old anime tapes.=
=Heh heh! Your old man and his kiddy cartoons…=
=Hey! Lay off my old man, Hawk! Besides, his cartoons aren’t nearly as bad as your ‘lucky’ pink jock-straps!=
=They’re not pink, they’re red! They just faded in the wash!= An aggravated growl from Hawk came in response to Magik’s mocking laughter. =Let’s get this fat-assed crop duster out of here so I can kick the shit out of you back on the ‘Bow.=
As the two X-35s took up positions on either side of the Alpha Fighter, Shinji glared at the jet with ‘Hawk’ stenciled under the canopy. His glare grew more intense as Hawk’s voice rang from the radio.
=Unknown Aircraft, this is Captain Rogers of the US Navy. I am ordering you to turn from your current heading and move away from the Seventh Fleet. I repeat; You are ordered to turn from your current heading and move away from the Seventh Fleet. Do you copy?=
Shinji’s hands moved from the joystick to a pair of glassy ebon hemispheres above and to the outside of his knees. A pair of U-Shaped designs glowed on the backs of his hands, and a spider-web of similarly glowing lines appeared on the black half-orbs. ‘Oh, I heard you alright.’
Magik and Hawk froze in shock as the fighter they’d been flanking morphed into a 28ft tall mecha in mid-flight. Their shock was so great that Hawk failed to dodge in time as the mech leveled a massive rifle at his jet and opened fire.
*Tnk!Tnk!Tnk!Tnk!Tnk!Tnk!Tnk!Tnk!Tnk!Tnk!Tnk!Tnk!*
Reacting a second too late, Hawk banked sharply and swerved hard to port, briefly exposing the underside of his jet to the enemy onslaught. On the other side of Shinji, Magik swerved on an identical but opposite path to his colleague. Moments later, the two fighter jets met up a position some fifty meters behind their target, which was once more in ‘jet’ mode.
=Sweet Jesus, for a second there I thought I was a dead man!= It was only when Hawk’s heart stopped racing that he saw the stains on his canopy. ‘Pink? PINK!?’ =That fucking S.O.B. castrated my manly ride!=
Despite the seriousness of the situation, Hawks wingman couldn’t help laughing at the mass of pink polka dots covering the right hand and underside of Hawks ship. =Don’t think of it as pink, think of it as ‘faded red.’=
Back on board the ‘Over the Rainbow’, Admiral Forrester listened to a brief report from his pilots out in the field. ‘Another damn robot? A transformer?’ He vaguely remembered something like that being popular with children back before the Second Impact, but dismissed the memory as irrelevant. “Pilots, take up positions 100m behind and 50m below the target. I don’t want to risk your lives in a dogfight with such an advanced fighter, so the fleet will shoot it down, understood?” When the two pilots answered in the affirmative, the Admiral addressed the fleet. “All ships, fire at will!”
Shinji arched an eyebrow as more than a dozen vessels opened fire, sending a veritable swarm of missiles at him. Having roughly ten seconds before the S.A.M.s were on top of him, the Angelic Dragon leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes, immersing himself in the fighter jet's systems. He could now see, with perfect clarity, each individual missile and what path it would fly. With a grin, he pushed the aircraft faster, engines roaring as they launched the Third Child towards what would be almost certain doom for any other pilot on Earth.
Hawk and Magik, flying behind and below the Unknown Pilot, could only watch as missile and machine rocketed on a collision course with each other. But when the moment of impact came there was no aircraft shattering kaboom; the mysterious plane had banked out of the way of the first missile with centimeters to spare.
Then it dodged the second. Third. Fourth. FifthSixthSeventhEighth.
Again and again the red and silver plane weaved between the deadly projectiles, twisting, banking, and rolling in a series of maneuvers that would have shattered the bones of any human. After two seconds that dragged on like a lifetime, the transforming aircraft shot out of the back of the cloud of doom and continued on toward the fleet. The missiles, having missed their intended target, swerved to give chase. Some impacted with each other and were destroyed, but most were back on track in seconds. Their target had a head start, but the missiles were almost twice as fast. They would catch up.
Hawk whistled slowly, awestruck. =Fuck me. That bastard can fly!=
=…Roger that.=
Shinji hummed cheerfully as he shot towards the fleet at about fifteen feet above see level. Glancing back via his ships sensors, he took note of the slowly gaining missiles. ‘They’re getting a little close for comfort.’ He banked suddenly to avoid a stream of high-velocity metal. ‘Huh. Phalanx Weapons systems. I almost forgot about those.’ Banking from side to side, with the odd roll thrown in for good measure, Shinji was able to avoid being hit by the Automated gun turrets, but the evasive moves really cut down on the time the missiles needed to catch up. At the last second Shinji pulled up, flipped a virtual switch, then drove the Alpha Fighter into the ocean.
Less than a heartbeat later, the missiles followed suit, exploding as they hit the water.
“The target is gone sir. At the speed it slammed into the water, I’d say it was torn to pieces.”
Admiral Forrester snorted in contempt. “So much for that. Deactivate the Phalanx. Stand down from battle stations.”
“Aye sir!”
Turning to Captain Katsuragi, Forrester smirked cockily. “As you can see, Captain, the United States Navy has everything under contr-“
*Tnk!Tnk!Tnk!Tnk!Tnk!Tnk!Tnk!Tnk!Tnk!Tnk!Tnk!Tnk!Tnk!Tnk!*
“-oEverybody get down! As the Admiral hit the deck, the rest of the bridge crew and various guests followed suit. Once the gunfire tapered off, there was a roar of engines that rapidly got closer, the clacking and clicking of a fresh clip being reloaded into a rather large gun, and then yet more bursts of gunfire. Heavy footsteps stomped across the deck, and once they stopped…
*KLANG!… KLANG!… KLANG!… KLANG!…SHREEK!SHREEK!SHREEK!… KLANG!… KLANG!… KLANG!… KLANG!… SHREEK!SHREEK!SHREEK!…*
Curious, Misato slowly lifted herself from the floor and peered out the paint-riddled windows. She promptly hit the deck again, laughing her ass off.
The Admiral, not to be outdone by a woman or a mere Captain, leapt to his feet and looked out the window himself. “WHAAAAAAAT!?”
As the Admiral roared with confusion and rage, others stood and took a peek for themselves. There, in the middle of the deck, were the words ‘THE US NAVY FIGHTS LIKE LITTLE GIRLS!’ written in ten foot high, bright pink letters. The odd clanging and shrieking noises were from a nearly thirty foot tall mecha, waving its ass at the bridge and spanking itself in an extremely mocking fashion.”
Kaji chuckled. “Now there’s something you don’t see every day.”
By now the Admiral was all but frothing at the mouth. “REACTIVATE THE PHALANX, DESTROY THAT BLASTED BUCKET OF BOLTS!”
The First Officer sighed and shook his head. “We can’t, sir. The weapons systems have a number of built-in safeguards to stop them from shooting in a manner that could damage the ship. That robot is close enough that the Phalanx won’t risk the shot.”
Before the Admiral could burst a blood vessel, the mecha’s jets roared to life once more and propelled it into the air. It shifted into ‘Jet’ mode and shot straight up, and before any of the ships could open fire it disappeared, both from sight and from their radar.
In the near silence following the Mysterious Fighters disappearance (Misato was still laughing), Asuka snorted and grumbled to herself half-heartedly. “Mine’s bigger.”
Shinji tapped a few buttons on a floating black panel, watching the VAF-6 Alpha on a second ‘screen’ panel as it rejoined the Beta and left the Earth’s atmosphere. A final tap on the ‘keyboard’ and the two panels faded away. “Now to find Misato. It’s been far too long since I’ve seen my first flat mate.” With that, the white-haired ‘teen’ shoved open a door leading into the Over the Rainbow Super-Carrier, and stepped inside.
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(Posted Mon, 28 Mar 2005 22:27)
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