FicWad

I don’t own Warhammer 40,000 or Neon Genesis Evangelion.

To read the entire “New Chaos” series, go to http://www.fanfiction.net/u/1443555/Academia_Nut

ANANANANANAN

Ikari Gendo's office was a marvel of intimidation, a great hollow void with occult drawings and symbols on the ceiling and floor. To walk into this room was to enter the domain of some sinister sorcerer, an arcane manipulator of events and people.
The glass of fizzing Alka-Seltzer on his desk marred the image significantly, especially considering the fact that they had run out of regular, and loathe to actually admit to his underlings that he was taking the stuff, he was forced to make do with the cherry flavoured tablets remaining.
Fortunately only Fuyutsuki actually saw him drinking the stuff, a somewhat acceptable situation considering that he had suggested it in the first place, and because the old professor was dignified enough not to say anything to anyone else. Of course, he would still mercilessly rib his former student.
"Things not quite going to plan?" Fuyutsuki asks smugly.
Downing the entire concoction in one go, Gendo glares at his former mentor and says, "You laugh now, but when this all blows up in our faces it won't be so funny."
"So is it your son or the Old Men this time?" Fuyutsuki asks.
"Both!" Gendo exclaims. "With the Old Men, it seems that they didn't have their fingers in as many pies as we thought, and now they've taken issue with NERV having corporate sponsorship. They need me to come see them in order to work out how 'we' will handle things. I trust you can keep everything in line for a week or so."
"The last time you left for other business an Angel attacked," Fuyutsuki points out.
Groaning, Gendo says, "You realize that by the rules of cosmic irony there will be an Angel attack while I'm away."
Fuyutsuki considers this for a moment before hanging his head and saying, "Do know what schemers and writers have in common?"
"An acute sense of pattern recognition," Gendo answers while pulling out several files. "This brings me to the problems with my son. The boy is… not what I anticipated. Years of surveillance produced the image of a shy, introverted loner, but recent events have shown him to be a skilled dissembler. He has dropped most of his meeker attitudes in exchange for a position of strength, although he remains quiet most of the time. I do not know what lurks beneath the surface, but it is not something I can control as easily as this scenario called for."
Picking up a report, he says, "And the damage is spreading. Rei's personality is changing outside the bounds of my scenario, and at the last memory dump unusual fluctuations were detected. I'm considering termination and resetting to an earlier memory pattern, but she has shown significant improvement in piloting ability recently, and the Angels are demonstrating capacities far outside what we had originally predicted. My scenario won't work if I don't have control of Rei, but that will be pointless if we lose against the Angels."
"If Shinji were simply more wilful than expected, you would not be in this state old friend," Fuyutsuki points out.
"No," Gendo concedes, bridging his fingers so as to have something to lean his face against while he looked at the other files. "As I said before, pattern recognition. My son is a schemer, and damn it if he didn't inherit it from me. But he also apparently inherited his intelligence from Yui, because I am having a hard time tracking his true actions. All I can see are pieces, ripples on the surface from the motions beneath the water."
"You sound almost like you feel outmatched," Fuyutsuki comments.
Glaring at his partner in crime, Gendo replies, "Not by this boy alone. If it were just him, I could deal with whatever petty plans he has, but there are other players in this game, ones he is either not aware of or only peripherally aware, and visa versa, that I must deal with. He is clever, I will give him that, in that he knows many will underestimate him for his youth, allowing him a freedom of movement I am not afforded. He will need to be dealt with in due time, but right now I must deal with the Old Men. I cannot afford to dive beneath the surface of his schemes right now without proper preparation."
"You sound almost scared of what might happen," Fuyutsuki points out.
Smirking, Gendo says, "The first rule of scheming is 'always have a backup plan'."
"Was that pride in your voice?" Fuyutsuki asks.
"He is my son," Gendo replies, the smirk still on his face.
---
Toji was brooding. He was brooding because he had a dilemma. He had a dilemma because despite the fact that he had not seen Hikari's attraction to him, and his attraction to her, until Shinji pointed it out, he was actually rather perceptive of other people's emotions and relationships. And because of this, he knew that Shinji had a thing for Asuka.
Thing was, he found Asuka a complete and total bitch. Thus his dilemma.
Toji had already shut down Kensuke's little entrepreneurial photography business before it got started, to which Kensuke complied with little resistance. Especially when Toji found that Hikari was in a rather compromising view in one of the pictures. All Toji had to do really was point out that if Hikari found out, and considering how much she hung around them at lunch these days that was a real danger, then Kensuke would measure his remaining lifespan in seconds.
Kensuke's brooding was interrupted by the arrival of the one person guaranteed to brighten his day, the aforementioned Hikari. He still wasn't sure what to call what they had between them, but for now it was a comfortable sort of distance the two shared at lunch and whenever they visited his sister in the hospital. A distance that was day by day shrinking.
"Hey, why the long face Toji-chan?" Hikari asked, sitting down next to him, a bento in each hand.
"Just thinking about relationships and stuff Hikari-chan," Toji replies idly.
Frowning at him, Hikari says, "You were frowning while thinking about relationships…?"
Holding up his hands in protest, Toji says, "Not ours! Not ours!"
"'Ours'?" Hikari asks.
Blushing a deeper red than Unit 02, Toji just sort of stammers and tries to say something. After a moment of letting him flap about like a fish out of water, Hikari giggles and says, "Go back to what you were saying."
Still blushing, Toji eventually gets his thoughts in order and says, "I was thinking about Shinji-san… and the way he looks at Asuka-san."
Taking this in, Hikari lets out an, "Oh."
"Yeah. He… uh… goes about it a bit the way… uh… you did… with… uh… me," Toji squeaks out, shrinking further and further in anticipation of a helping dose of Hikari rage.
"You mean constant glances out of the corner of his eye when he thinks no one is looking," Hikari says.
"Uh… yeah…" Toji says, scratching the back of his head in slight confusion at the lack of the expected explosion. He would never get girls.
"Sounds like me," Hikari says with a shrug. "So you're conflicted about what to do."
"Yeah, that's the problem. On the one hand, I just want to look out for Shinji, but on the other Asuka's a real b… err… unpleasant person, in my opinion," Toji says, quickly altering his word choice as the glare of the class rep began to manifest in her eyes.
Shaking her head, Hikari says, "At least you're just trying to look out for him. No wonder they call you one of his Chosen."
"Chosen?" Toji asks.
"When they think I'm not listening, some of the other students will call you and Kensuke, and sometimes me when now that I'm hanging out with you more, the Chosen. Shinji is so quiet but when he does speak it's usually something profound, and with him as an Eva Pilot and all there's a bit of a hero cult about him. And we're the 'Chosen', the ones he chooses to speak to out of everyone else," Hikari explains.
"Ah… that's different," Toji notes.
"Yeah. So if you were to go about helping them, what would you do?" Hikari asks.
Blushing once more, Toji stammers before saying, "Well… I would… uh… I would… you know… I… well… you see… I would…"
"Toji…" Hikari says in an annoyed tone.
"I would ask you to help me scare off all the other guys going after Asuka," Toji blurts out before planting his face to the pavement. If he was going to be stomped he would damn well be prepared for it.
"You would ask me to scare off guys going after Asuka?" Hikari asks incredulously.
"Yes!" Toji says, face still on the pavement.
Bursting out into giggles, Hikari says, "Oh Toji, you're so stupid sometimes, but at least your heart is in the right place. Now come on, eat up, we don't have all day for lunch."
Toji definitely did not get women.
---
Asuka was annoyed. This seemed to be her default emotional state since coming to Japan, and since she wasn't quite sure when they had entered Japanese territorial waters, she may have been annoyed since before arriving as well.
And the worst bit was that that idiot Shinji was perhaps the least annoying part. Oh sure, he seemed to derive endless pleasure in pissing her off, but he seemed to sulk if she didn't try and fire back, so there was a sense of accomplishment when verbally sparring with him. Although from the singed looks, most bystanders seemed to consider their version of verbal sparring a live fire exercise.
No, what was annoying Asuka was school, mostly. While true that she deserved to be the most popular person in school, the sheep like way everyone seemed to follow her was pathetic. All the love letters from the obnoxious, buzzing insects compounded the problem, since not only was she not interested in the pawing advances of a bunch of blockheads, but they were all so insincere. And then there was the fact that people seemed to acknowledge her more for the fact that she was a foreigner, some exotic curiosity, than her skills as a pilot, her intelligence, or her natural beauty. That really pissed her off.
"Hey, why the sour face? Forget to drink your prune juice this morning?" Shinji calls out from the shade of a tree where he seemed to have been hiding.
"No, just wondering how this country ever became important when it's filled with morons like you," Asuka spits back.
"Oh, you wound me," Shinji says sarcastically and clutching his chest melodramatically before pointing out, "And I think you got a little collateral damage on you there."
"I'm a quarter Japanese, and I was raised in Germany," Asuka sniffs. "I think I took minimal splash."
"Ah, so the Übermensch German sides overwhelm the barbarian Japanese side?" Shinji suggested.
Growling, Asuka snaps, "Can you cut it out with the Nazi jokes?"
"But they're so easy! Come on, throw an Imperial Japan joke. Hell, I haven't even tried to throw out any weird German fetish jokes cause I know you'll have way too much tentacle demon material to work with," Shinji says cajolingly.
"Oh? You know about German porn do you? Pervert," Asuka strikes back.
Wincing, Shinji says, "I walked into that one."
"You set yourself up for that one," Asuka says while rolling her eyes.
"I see no contradiction between our statements," Shinji says with a smug smile on his face.
"Please, I don't need your help to insult you. Your face does it for you," Asuka replies.
"A 'your face' joke! What are you, thirteen?" Shinji says with a smile.
"Clever monkey, clever," Asuka replies with a roll of her eyes.
"You really should expand your Japanese vocabulary, there are so many primate terms you're failing to use: ape, chimp, feces flinging troglodyte… although typically we just use 'otaku' for that last one," Shinji says, ticking off the terms with his fingers.
"I have a plenty good vocabulary, thank you very much. It's just that your language is so polite that insulting someone right and proper requires more practice, and seeing as I'm not the kind of simpleton who looks up swear words when they first learn a language, that's practice I haven't needed up until I met you," Asuka says haughtily.
"Prove it," Shinji says.
Asuka then spent the next minute ripping Shinji a new one with a combination of English and German. Blinking a few times, Shinji pulled out a small note pad and flipped it open to make a tick under Asuka's name, saying, "That's three for you to seven for me so far. Incidentally, could you repeat some of those words? They just sounded filthy. As expected from a dirty foreigner like you though."
"I can give you a full transcript if you want, but I didn't swear once. I am far too elegant and graceful and feminine to stoop to such unsophisticated and vulgar language. That you would presume I was swearing shows what an uncultured barbarian you are," Asuka says with a smug smile.
Considering this for a moment, Shinji shrugs and says, "Whether that's true or not, I'm going to have to give you another point for that one. Well played, well played indeed."
"Why are you even keeping score? And intentionally incorrectly at that, I've won way more than you have," Asuka asks in an annoyed tone.
"Because the absurdist prop gag is sure to piss you off, and if I am incorrectly scoring, it is assuredly in your favour, seeing as you score a point whenever you can out insult me, while I score whenever you get pissed off. And since you seem to be perpetually PMSing I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt half the time," Shinji says gleefully.
Asuka's glare went from an intensity of 'targeting radar on a modern destroyer' to 'capable of getting into a beam duel with Ramiel' in about two seconds, and Shinji wisely decided that an exit strategy, namely running for all he was worth, was in order. Of course, he could not give up the opportunity to shout out, "Nine!"
Shinji then lead Asuka on a merry chase about the school campus, but with his greater familiarity with the lay out of the buildings, Asuka quickly lost him about a corner.
"He's hiding in the tree," a soft voice says behind Asuka.
"Damn it Rei!" Shinji shouts out from his hiding place.
"Stupid monkey! Get down from there!" Asuka shouts.
"No! If you want me that badly you're going to have to prove it by coming up here after me," Shinji replies obstinately.
Asuka glares at him before limbering up to climb after him, but Rei interrupts by saying, "He's just trying to embarrass you by having you flash your underwear while climbing."
"Stop reading my mind Rei!" Shinji cries back in annoyance.
A small leaf spontaneously combusted next to Shinji's head, although only he noticed, and he quickly smothered the flame with some precision telekinesis to prevent it from spreading. He also whispers to himself, "Ten."
Turning away from Shinji and sniffing dramatically, Asuka says, "I will not give you the perverted satisfaction then. Thank you Rei, it is good to see that one of my fellow pilots has some sense of responsibility."
"She only did it to annoy me," Shinji replies dryly from his perch.
"True," Rei admits. In recent days she had found a certain satisfaction in wrecking Shinji's plans, at least the minor ones. As soon as he had noticed the behaviour he laid down some guidelines for which ones were safe to interfere with. His 'Project Annoy Asuka' was one of them.
"Well then we should be friends. 'The enemy of my enemy' and all that," Asuka says.
"'And all that'?" Rei asks. Shinji had used a different ending to that phrase. "You mean 'dies next'?"
Asuka looks at Rei weirdly before saying, "No, the phrase goes 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend'."
Rei takes this in before shaking her head and saying, "I prefer Shinji's version."
Glaring up at the treed pilot, Asuka says, "What have you been teaching her?"
Shrugging, Shinji says, "I think it's a more valid interpretation in my opinion."
"Gah! Stupid Japanese! Corrupting a perfectly… good…" Asuka trailed off as her nostrils started flaring and her face crumpled into a confused and mildly disgusted expression.
"WHAT IS THAT SMELL?" She demands.
"Eau de Rei," Shinji replies from the tree. "We haven't had to go in for anything in the past couple of days, which is when Rei normally takes her showers."
Looking at the small, blue haired albino girl, Asuka can only ask the obvious question.
"WHY?"
Swinging down into view, Shinji decides to deflect the question for Rei to avoid the wrong line of inquiry.
"Rei lives on NERV handouts rather than accept the pilot combat pay, and they're real cheap skates. Her shower doesn't even work properly," Shinji explains.
"Yes," Rei says, deciding that his explanation was adequate.
"You should just… wait, what was that part about combat pay?" Asuka asks.
A sudden look of evil mischief settles over Shinji's face and he says, "Oh? They didn't even ask you if you wanted the raise to your pay, did they?"
"What pay?" Asuka asks. "All I get from NERV are disbursements for living expenses while in Japan."
"Oh really? Because a few months ago I successfully negotiated for all pilots to receive combat pay if they request it. Ayanami-san chose not to take it, but you are legally entitled to the same pay and should have been informed immediately after," Shinji says, still hanging upside down from the tree.
"How much?" Asuka asks while glaring at him.
Shinji told her.
Far away in a secluded SEELE meeting Gendo was suddenly overcome with a massive sneezing fit that lasted a good thirty seconds before it subsided, to be replaced with a general feeling of doom.
Once the storm of multi-lingual swearing subsided, Asuka turned to Rei and said, "First chance we get, we're going shopping!"
Dropping down to the ground, Shinji pulls out his wallet and says, "I feel awful for my father's utterly unethical behaviour. Here's a couple hundred thousand yen, interest free, for you two to have fun with."
Rei looked at Shinji's bright smile and realized that this was the price of betrayal. Rei would have to be more careful next time to she stuck her nose in one of Shinji's plans. Sometimes his Plan Bs were worse than his Plan As!
Looking at the offered money, Asuka snatched it up before saying, "This should be enough for the three of us."
"Three?" Shinji asks.
"Well there is Rei and I, but I should invite Hikari-san along as well. You of course can help carry our purchases," Asuka says.
The look on Shinji's face would warm both Rei and Asuka for a long time as he was most definitely hoisted by his own petard. He just glared at Rei, who had found the situation suddenly enjoyable again, before he suddenly broke out into a smile and said, "If you're going to bring along Hikari-san then perhaps Toji would like to join us."
The thought of having two out of three of the stooges was unappealing to Asuka, but she knew how much men hated shopping with women, and making the monkeys suffer was probably worth it. Plus, for whatever reason Hikari saw something in that ape and it wouldn't do to hurt her new friend's feelings.
Fortunately for Shinji, all three of their cell phones went off at once, causing him to roll his eyes and say, "Angel attack."
---
Several kilometres away and underground and several minutes in the past, Dr. Akagi Ritsuko was scrolling through the data collected from the last battle, and as usual just looking at Shinji's sync graphs gave her a headache. The boy seemed adamantly against actually giving proper sync data, because what she was ready was impossible.
According to the monitors, Shinji had neutralized Gaghiel's AT-field with a sync ratio of 10. The best explanation was that since Unit 02 was calibrated for Asuka the readings were all off, but Shinji consistently had sync ratings lower than should be possible considering what he did with his Eva. If the readings were correct, there was either still a bug in their measurements or he was precognitive, because Unit 01 moved far faster and with better reactions than should be possible with a 55 sync ratio.
Then of course there was the fact that Eva Units 00 and 01 were changing and adapting, just like Shinji had suggested. Unit 00 seemed to be changing the fastest, but further analysis was suggesting that Unit 01 may actually have been more altered by its experiences than previously thought. It also seemed that just simulations were enough to encourage the biomechanical war machines to begin adapting.
Unit 00 was taking on some unusual new physical properties. Its flesh was actually weakening, but it had a highly accelerated regeneration rate, and most solid weapons would probably over penetrate and cause minimal damage the way the Eva was developing. Worse yet, its blood showed trace amounts of toxins and acids. If it continued down this path, then eventually anything that hit it in close quarters combat and penetrated the armour would do little damage while being sprayed with a deadly chemical cocktail.
Interestingly enough, this could be categorized as a classic 'Rei' method of fighting. She cared more about the mission than her own well being, little surprise there, and so in the simulations she tended to simply wade into a fight, and endure any and all attacks until she or the target were destroyed. It was a simple, brutal method, but it could get results, especially when Shinji was backing her up.
This brought Ritsuko to Unit 01's data. At first it looked like little was happening, but upon closer examination it seemed that the Eva was getting smarter, terrifyingly enough. Its nervous system was changing, the relays becoming tighter and faster, while synaptic connections increased. The techs kept finding new bits of code that randomly popped up and tended to improve upon their own algorithms. Tests with the MAGI showed nearly an order of magnitude increase in the number of targets the Eva could independently track. AT field generation was also significantly improved.
Again, this fit with Shinji's combat style. He was capable in close quarters combat, but he preferred to attack at range whenever possible, which required a stronger AT-field as neutralizing the enemy at range was significantly harder than close up. He also had a tendency to use his environment to his advantage as often as possible. He hated stand up fights on open fields and felt that if the battlefield wasn't skewed in his favour, it wasn't a fair fight.
And he hated fair fights! He often commented that in battle the objective was to kill the other guy as quickly as possible and as massively as possible, and that meant stacking the deck in your favour. It was only proper because any competent enemy would do the same.
Ritsuko was interrupted from her thoughts by Kaji embracing her from behind, saying, "You've lost some weight. You're enduring an unrequited love."
"Oh really? You're so very sure, are you?" Ritsuko replies, playing along with Kaji's flirtatious teasing. He did this sort of thing all the time back in college.
Drawing his fingers across her face, Kaji continues, "A woman with a mole like a tear on her cheek is destined to a lifetime of heartache and sorrow."
"If you're trying to put the moves on me, I'm afraid you can't," Ritsuko replies with a small smile while glancing to the side. "Not while that face is pressed up against the glass anyway."
Misato's breath flared out of her nostril's and steamed up the window she was pressed against in animalistic ovals while she gave Kaji a glare that would have made Asuka humbled. Growling, she shoved away from the glass and went to enter the lab to give Kaji a chewing out.
"It's been quite a while Kaji," Ritsuko says warmly, glad to see an old friend.
"It's been a while alright," Kaji admits.
"You know, you're not as discrete as I remember," Ritsuko says while turning back to her computer and her work.
"He's never been discrete in his life," Misato grumbles loudly while entering the room. "You've finished handing over Unit 02 haven't you? What are you still doing here?"
"I received orders this morning that I'll be staying around," Kaji says smugly before turning to Ritsuko and saying, "So gorgeous we can hang around again, just like we used to."
"Don't flatter yourself," Misato warns angrily.
And then the alarms went off.
On the command deck, Vice Commander Fuyutsuki could only think Me and my big mouth.