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leliel_12[Trigger warnings: Aftermath of mind rape, gore, discussion of sexual assault, misogyny. It’s the last few stretches, folks.]
[Image heavy.]
[ Link to my journal for non-members]
[You may have noticed that one of the IRL co-sporkers has been renamed to Wanderer. Rest assured, it's the same guy, and I'll explain what I can if asked in PMs. Suffice to say, he wants a clean break from his old ID. He is Wanderer/Wanderer2691 in all my previous sporkings now.]
Leliel: Third to last…third to — [Notices Wanderer leaving] ...Wanderer, where are you going?!
Wanderer2691: [Flatly, dressed in a Hawaiian shirt, trunks, luau wreath, fedora, shades and crockers, while holding a suitcase full of clothes and his portable game consoles with their associated games] Elsewhere.
Futaba: [Eyes Widen; Exasperated] You mean we can just leave the whole time if we wanted to?!
Wanderer2691: I can, you can't. Remember we own this domain, and I've decided a nice vacation in Hotrealm is what I need after this... shitshow. [Shudders, Before Sternly Grimaces] I'm sorry, normally I’d love to help, but even I've hit my ceiling with this garbage long ago. It's not even funny bad like Shield Hero's inceldom or A Brighter Dark's valiant failure at the source material. This is just bad-bad. I genuinely cannot stomach it any longer.
Leliel: Wait, you can't just leave me here to—
Wanderer2691: Hey, you’re the one who decided to do the Stupid Psychonauts in one go, dude. Just keep me posted if you have anything new, okay? Depending on the future, we may have a skunk to skin... [Beat] ...or an isekai orc. Or— well, whatever, just anything but this. Ciao!
Leliel: Hey, don't you just—
[Wanderer2691 invokes the power of the First Dragons, and warps out of there]
Leliel: [Deflatedly] ...leave me. [Groans in self-pity]
Emma: [Wry Smile] In his defense, he's not wrong; there’s no good way to split this thing. You’re always dealing with entirely too much Thousand Shinji for anyone's sanity.
Taion: Which is why Nocht and Diego are taking a break, I see…but I must ask Shinobu why he tortures himself.
Shinobu: [Bleak smile] Because it gives me an excuse to avoid the next chapter…one I’m informed Nocht needs to see.
Futaba: Hoo boy…I’ve been given the quest log for that too, which is apparently so insane that, despite this not being as terrible as the last two chapters, it’s being spliced off so we can give it all the attention it deserves…especially because, as the title notes, we’re about to see what this fic thinks is a good ending for poor Misato. We will have words.
[Image heavy.]
[ Link to my journal for non-members]
[You may have noticed that one of the IRL co-sporkers has been renamed to Wanderer. Rest assured, it's the same guy, and I'll explain what I can if asked in PMs. Suffice to say, he wants a clean break from his old ID. He is Wanderer/Wanderer2691 in all my previous sporkings now.]
Leliel: Third to last…third to — [Notices Wanderer leaving] ...Wanderer, where are you going?!
Wanderer2691: [Flatly, dressed in a Hawaiian shirt, trunks, luau wreath, fedora, shades and crockers, while holding a suitcase full of clothes and his portable game consoles with their associated games] Elsewhere.
Futaba: [Eyes Widen; Exasperated] You mean we can just leave the whole time if we wanted to?!
Wanderer2691: I can, you can't. Remember we own this domain, and I've decided a nice vacation in Hotrealm is what I need after this... shitshow. [Shudders, Before Sternly Grimaces] I'm sorry, normally I’d love to help, but even I've hit my ceiling with this garbage long ago. It's not even funny bad like Shield Hero's inceldom or A Brighter Dark's valiant failure at the source material. This is just bad-bad. I genuinely cannot stomach it any longer.
Leliel: Wait, you can't just leave me here to—
Wanderer2691: Hey, you’re the one who decided to do the Stupid Psychonauts in one go, dude. Just keep me posted if you have anything new, okay? Depending on the future, we may have a skunk to skin... [Beat] ...or an isekai orc. Or— well, whatever, just anything but this. Ciao!
Leliel: Hey, don't you just—
[Wanderer2691 invokes the power of the First Dragons, and warps out of there]
Leliel: [Deflatedly] ...leave me. [Groans in self-pity]
Emma: [Wry Smile] In his defense, he's not wrong; there’s no good way to split this thing. You’re always dealing with entirely too much Thousand Shinji for anyone's sanity.
Taion: Which is why Nocht and Diego are taking a break, I see…but I must ask Shinobu why he tortures himself.
Shinobu: [Bleak smile] Because it gives me an excuse to avoid the next chapter…one I’m informed Nocht needs to see.
Futaba: Hoo boy…I’ve been given the quest log for that too, which is apparently so insane that, despite this not being as terrible as the last two chapters, it’s being spliced off so we can give it all the attention it deserves…especially because, as the title notes, we’re about to see what this fic thinks is a good ending for poor Misato. We will have words.
Chapter 18
This was bad, this was very bad.
Leliel: Why, a crappy crossover fanfiction extended to 18…oh I don’t care. It’s just too obvious and the fic is just so damned stale by now towards the end…
Shinji had been right at the core of her being when he had been yanked out by the detonation, and while there were safeguards in place, those mostly protected him from psychic backlash. Worst case scenario he should have been yanked clear and whatever damage his abrupt exit caused would have been repairable.
Futaba: To say nothing of the amount of damage you caused entirely on your own simply by being the worst boyfriend. Speaking of, I notice you protected yourself. Those could be a limit on your powers, but given demonstrated expertise and being a fucking awful person, I’m not buying it.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 966
Unfortunately, her mind was already starting up and he had done enough repair work that her psychic defences were now manifesting themselves.
Angharad: You say unfortunately, I say you’re the second worst thing a Khornate ever had put in her head and some part of her knows that.
Magdalene: Wait, second worst? Did you just joke about the–
Emma: Moving rapidly along–
He couldn't access her mind to soothe over the distress he had caused with his abrupt departure, and he couldn't use his psychic abilities to try and calm the electrochemical storm raging across her brain.
Taion: Which makes it not at all your fault. How very convenient.
Emma: Maybe things would work better if you’d get your gross hands off her cerebral cortex? You;ve found the one thing grosser and more violating than That Part of EoE, and you think it’s helping!
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 881 (Womenz must be protected from self, doncha know?)
He had to find some way to restrain her or she was going to thrash herself to death, but there wasn't anything strong enough to contain her warp-fuelled muscles, and he couldn't use his telekinesis on her without her permission, something she couldn't give in her current state.
Taion: …why? Telekinesis isn’t something intruding on her, he just needs to pin her limbs via mental force-
A sudden burst of realization came over him as he realized that while he couldn't use his telekinesis directly, he could apply force to an intermediate object to restrain her.
Taion: Oh right, he needs to “outthink” this. [Sigh]
Leliel: Fun fact: restraining someone in the middle of a seizure is actually a really bad idea. You’re supposed to get anything the patient can hurt themselves on out of the way, and wait for them to stop before you approach. So no, Tzeentchji’s best plan is to keep his nose out of this - but that wouldn’t be ~Romantic<3~ enough, so we get this shit. In fact, I’m going to apply one TALON ON THE SCALES per bad seizure technique. Starting now, with two, because he’s literally putting more shit in her way to injure herself on.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 412
Angharad: It would be best for everyone if he let her tear herself to shreds and heal it off. At this point, he’s not going to do anything but get his dumb little twig limbs broken.
Magdalene: Not to impugn your healing abilities but this little shit of an Arcanite does claim he’s stronger than any baseline, and if we want to look at true followers, well my children are no weaker than any other Astarte.
Angharad: *Dismissive grunt*
Shinobu: To be honest, given the level of mutation-slash-author favoritism shown, it would not be surprising if he does have Astarte-style regeneration. Of course, it’s interesting he only cares about consent when he is physically blocked from doing something he wants to do. Charming, asshole.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 967
Of course, there was the danger of accidentally crushing her as the feedback from such a situation was far less fine than a direct application.
Taion: Or doing so at all, but that would be a double point.
Unless…
Dismissing the risks to himself, Shinji slammed his hand down on her sternum, holding her torso down as she shook to keep her from breaking her own spine with convulsions, his telekinesis applied to his arm.
Taion: …like this, for instance. Excellent job if you want to get her to crush her ribcage on it, to say nothing of you.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 413
It hurt.
A lot.
He was subjecting his body to stresses it wasn't meant to endure, and then holding the bones and flesh together with nothing but the power of his will, when by all rightsthey should have shattered from the massive compression he was subjecting them to.
Shinobu: But of course, the power of MAN keeps him through the process of MAN helping WOMAN through the MANLY resistance of MANPAIN. Please note this is the most he’s put himself at risk all fic, and it’s to preserve one of his trophies. I’m not impressed.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 968
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 882
The heavy duty bed frame collapsed, but Shinji caught the comforter with his telekinesis, not that it was doing much good as the springs were rapidly being crushed into a useless mass.
Futaba: Which is why you should be using that telekinesis to get the flying frame parts out of the goddamn way. Skill issue, by definition!
TALON ON THE SCALES: 414
And then Shinji noted to his horror that Asuka was snapping her jaw open and shut spastically. She was going to bite her own tongue off and drown in her own blood if he didn't intervene.
Taion: Not bloody likely. A tonic-clonic seizure, which this is, is characterized by bites on the side of the tongue - that organ is prone to remaining still during an episode. On a side note, you cannot swallow your tongue like this. Even if so…telekinesis, and you have shown fourth-dimensional awareness for perversion. Easy enough to tilt her so the blood comes out.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 415
The irony of a Khornate berserker dying like was not lost on him.
Angharad: Oh, I’m so glad I had the Tzeentchian to explain to me how shameful and undignified this is. I can put that together on my own. I could have put that together on my own before Sophia’s meddling.
Leliel: This isn’t quite point-worthy, since it’s showing concern, but out-of-universe it’s clearly the author thinking he’s clever.
He needed to do something quickly before the situation degenerated to the point of no return. He couldn't think of anything strong enough to…
With his telekinesis he had maintained the integrity of his arm when steel had given way. Mentally preparing himself, he put his left hand between the super human teeth snapping away and threatening to take off Asuka's tongue.
Leliel: Absolutely fucking not. People used to do this, it’s true, but in fact, it’s actually better to bite open your own cheek than risk the damage to the mouth. If Tzeentchji is going to protect his arm at all, it’s likely that doing this would break Asuka’s jaw open. Fucking yikes.
Emma: I think I read somewhere that it requires like. A horrifyingly small amount of bite force to sever a human finger. If Asuka’s at risk of biting through her tongue… Shinji’s not getting those fingers back out, and it’s easier to choke on some idiot’s severed fingers than your own tongue. I think I have the freshest first aid certification of anyone here, and there is no choking risk during a seizure greater than “well meaning bystander shoving shit into your mouth so you don’t bite or choke on your tongue”.
Leliel: And that, my friend, is something no Space Marine-level healing factor is going to fix. None of it - why else do you think Iron Hands have so many cybernetics at all, even beyond “the flesh is weak”?
TALON ON THE SCALES: 416
Taion: We are going to spare you a detailed description of her crushing Tzeentchji’s hand in her mouth, as satisfying as it is, but it is, in far too much detail to enjoy and moves the plot nowhere.
Angharad: Well, I’m enjoying it. Maybe she can sit up, go for his trachea next.
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 783 (Technically the Blood God’s AT Field, but still, lurid.)
Futaba: That sidequest done, Tzeentchji splints himself and runs into the halls of NERV, seeing it become clear that the base is under attack.
And then Shinji saw a face he recognized. He had only seen it once, but he never forgot the face of anyone he owed a favour to.
Shinobu: And also “remembered” this was ever a thing. Would’ve been nice, having that. Might make you likable.
Futaba: But yeah, this scene’s okay. The NERV troop, one of Ramiel’s killers with a TOW, reports the JSSDF is attacking, as they did in canon once SEELE decided it was time for their sudden but inevitable betrayal. He’s here to get the pilots to their Evas, and since Tzeentchji agrees that’s probably safest while Asuka’s brain comes back online (she’s still unconscious), and he’s being guarded by his Rubrics, he points the dude in the right direction and then confronts the JSSDF.
He tasted the emotions of the soldiers advancing forward. There was a great deal of anger and resentment, but there was also an enormous undercurrent of fear tinged with a grim dark resolve to do whatever needed to be done.
[Suddenly, all of space echos with Diego’s voice, screaming “BOOOOOOO!”]
Taion: …okay. So, that requires some explanation for the comm members…
Leliel: [Evil Grin] Well, let’s just say the Scion version of a nascent Daemon Prince is losing the “nascent” part. More in the spitefic. [/shameless plug]
Shinobu: Wow, he works fast - ahem! But our co-sporker gradually metamorphosing into a lesser Elder God aside, he’s right. In a better story, this would be a moment of reflection, that the JSSDF is doing their duty too, just like the 40K people - as it is, it’s just an awful pun.
Magdalene: Normally I’d disapprove of ascending on the basis of rage at a pun… but that’s a really, really bad pun.
Futaba: Technically, there are other reasons, but the fire of apotheosis doesn’t mind a spark or nine! …Crap, I think there may still be Tzeentch in me…
They had ordered the bombardment with the N2 mine before their main advance, terrified of what NERV could do. They had seen what the Evas were capable of, and they weren't taking any chances. They wanted the enemy citadel open to direct fire as quickly as possible.
Taion: This is…actually intelligent. What is the ‘but’ I am sensing…?
A pity. If they had begun with a conventional attack, Shinji might not have been roused so soon. Then again, he was almost done with the process of healing Asuka, so it was somewhat moot. Of course, they were so deliciously vulnerable at the moment.
Taion: [Groan] Of course. Their caution actually worked to his benefit. What else? Clearly, they need to kiss the ass of the author more, because overcoming the power of fiat through raw strength is not viable.
Magdalene: You know, the reason why everything is a benefit to me *sounds of Emma trying to surpass a coughing fit in the background* is because I go to it and bend it myself! The world doesn’t just start pre-bent to my benefit!
TALON ON THE SCALES: 417
Futaba: So, before I get to the next bit, I want to emphasize that while the JSSDF is in the pocket of SEELE as a death squad here, and clearing the way for them to initiate Third Impact, they don’t know that. They were briefed that NERV was trying to cause it, and are trying to save humanity. Sort of like Tzeentchji, ostensibly, is. He, as Grand Poobah Sorcerer Psyker, is able to scan this very easily, because it’s on their minds.
Now, let’s see how he works with that info!
Ah! There is the mind of their commander!
The general of the operation was an old veteran of the Post Second Impact Wars and all the horrors that had occurred during them. He was a hard man who accepted no compromises from his men or from the enemy. He was the perfect man to lead the purging of NERV.
His mind held off Shinji for all of three milliseconds.
Leliel: See, this is something I’m not sure is a canon violation. Because people in 40K resist through willpower and focus. But Tzeentchji is legitimately that powerful, so I’m being merciful - this guy, for reasons that aren’t especially good but have been established, was not prepared for a mental attack.
Emma: I’m not willing to be merciful because the mere fact Tzeentchji is that powerful is directly tied back to this whole thing being an especially convoluted jack-off session. It’s yet another bead in a long string of self-aggrandizement and I don’t care for it.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 418
The second and third in command of the entire operation were dead before anyone had realized that the general had drawn his side arm and shot them point blank in the head. By the time the guards had started to respond, 80 of the senior command staff for the entire operation were dead or wounded, and then they blew away their commanding officer.
Futaba: This, on the other hand, is just being a dick!
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 969
Shinobu: Honestly, I get it, they’re attacking everyone he considers important…but on the other hand, they’re also misled, and you can’t tell me “beaming the actual truth” won’t cause at least some of them to lay down arms.
Magdalene: This would be more appropriate if it was Asuka avenging Tzeenchji. Carving an indiscriminate swathe of bloody vengeance through people vaguely connected with your pains is a Khornate tradition.
Angharad: That was one planet.
Leliel: Times…I’ll let it drop, there are more pressing issues. By this point, the somewhat clever stuff Tzeentchji does with tearing out access codes and confusing the IFF protocols of the opposing forces and the perceptions of the human pilots to make them shoot the JSSDF isn’t even entertaining. It’s just a couple paragraphs of a lovingly described curbstomp, and I don’t even find it entertaining on a technical level…I do find it interesting he found all the needed codes in a few people and always where to sow confusion.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 419
This went beyond a simple cluster fuck, this transcended into the realm where future generations of soldiers would refer to a situation this badly screwed up that they would have to call such scenarios 'Tokyo-3'. Military historians could make entire careers on writing books on how everything went south all at once.
Entire special weeks on the History channel would be devoted this single battle!
Taion: And why are you still boasting to yourself!?
Angharad: I think you greater underestimate just how fucking stupid warfare frequently is. Even confining ourselves to Old Terra, there are an astounding amount of battles that went just as badly without a wizard digging around in the opposing commander’s head.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 970
That however left the light infantry, spearheaded Special Forces that had already infiltrated Headquarters. They had quickly moved to a self-imposed communications black out and they were in close enough quarters that they would be able to tell who was firing on them by visual inspection. More then that however, they were trained to fight in situations of poor communications and confusion, thus making them less reliant on the technology that was the doom of the pilots and tankers on the surface. Shinji could take them apart one squad at a time, but that would take a great deal of time, allowing the enemy to get into the various critical systems of NERV.
Taion: [In Dumbstruck Awe] Did…did he just choose the smart option, that wasn’t bloodthirsty sadism? Is the superintelligent Tzeentchian showing strategic sense?
Emma: I’m sensing a nasty catch somewhere. He’s never pragmatic or strategic when he can be doing shit that’d make Guts Berserk go “gee dude, that’s a bit much”.
Leliel: The other shoe is “it won’t last” if nothing else, but yeah, for once, he shows actual restraint…if mostly so the author can boast about how very SMRT he is to prioritize while looking for Misato. And to confirm that, skipping a bit more fight-
There were screaming, panicking civvies all around, but orders were to wipe out anything that moved, with special emphasis on the three Children capable of pilot the monstrous Eva Units. If those fuckers were actually allowed to get into their war machines, then it could very well be the end of the world as they knew it.
Best to just shoot first and never ask questions.
Futaba: Yyyyep! The author knows that these guys are being misled! Now, the JSSDF isn’t exactly on the northern part of the big ol’ alignment wheel, but the thing is, as far as they know, a bunch of young teens are going to end the world. And they may or may not know what they look like.
Shinobu: This is part of something very insidious. We see it in the sequel more, but Academia Nut uses “we protect children” as a default reason his pet version of Chaos is better. What shows they’re villains with a point, or at least not the worst option. The thing is…creating orphans offhandedly is also harming children. And as we saw throughout…everything in the fic, this apparently doesn’t cover sexual assault, manipulation, or a significant portion of people not of age of majority, or did the fact that the pilots are fourteen pass everyone by? But the thing is…after the shit Tzeentchji pulled, it feels like an excuse. In fact, it comes off as outright fashy - it’s an ultimately hollow “limit” that exists to neatly avoid the fact that Tzeentchji is murdering people for his own pleasure, and to make it seem simultaneously righteous while allowing for being an absolute and utter asshole. How dare you accuse him of being a sadistic serial killer, can’t you see he’s doing it for the children?!?!?!?!
Emma: *breaks into hysterical laughter* Oh my god you didn’t tell me he’s one of those “we’re protecting the children (but not from us)” guys! Oh my GOD! It’s like a belated Christmas present, finding out he’s one of my least favourite types of specific guy! *calming down* Anyways, there’s a reason this seems fashy, and it’s because the protection of children as a vague idea of personal property or future vessels of your ideology while being incredibly cruel to actual children is a cornerstone of pretty much every reactionary movement I can think of.
Taion: In the end, and as we’ll see, Tzeentchji wants to be both some anti-authority figure and to wear the boots to crush faces with, and so he invents a bunch of conveniently awful enemies that cross a moral line that only exists for them, so that nobody notices and calls him out - or at least gets a nice shield of supposed “standards” and “honesty” to hide behind.
Futaba: And it is all bullshit, especially given how he treats people on his side. Cutting forward:
A few rather nervous looking NERV guards moved up to intercept him, but Shinji just glared at them and said, "There are some rather unpleasant soldiers that way who may, in fact probably will, kill you if you fight them," he pre-empted their challenge, pointing to a second door on the far side of the room. "That way leads to the defensive positions the rest of the facility are now forming. The way you are headed right now, which is to say 'in my way' ends with certain death at my hands after considerable amounts of fire and screaming. I suggest you make a good decision."
Leliel: Translation: “I recognize you’re on my side and I recognize my powers may not be the most precise when violent, but admitting to that might make me come off as something than a psionic god, and I need panic to help me forget my masculinity issues.” For this, in light of the whole rampage, five points; the JSSDF were being assholes, but Tzeentchji managed to completely outshine them in assholery, because at least they had legitimate reason apart from “interrupted me polishing my trophy wife and being obnoxious”, and didn’t have reason to know that NERV members not named Gendo poses less threat that SEELE (in canon, Tzeentchji is enough of a menace that Exterminatus of the planet seems like a send-up).
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 975
Futaba: Anyway…oh. Oh shit, here we go….
Strolling leisurely down the detention block cells, Shinji stops before the one with Misato on the other side and casually gestured with his hand, wrenching the heavy door open to find Misato huddled up in one corner, her fingernails broken off from clawing at the walls and her own flesh. She looked up at Shinji with wild, frightened eyes, before she shook her head and turned away from him.
Leliel: Gee. It’s almost as if demonic possession is bad.
Shinji growled in barely contained fury. That Keeper of Secrets was going to pay for this.
Shinobu: And you still dealt with it, and let it play with an eldar soul. Forced deal or not, what does that say about you, especially given how you let it do the same exact thing to others later? Hell, come to think of it - you let it into Asuka’s mind too sans your own deal to avoid fucking her up, too. I get the sense that you’re more mad it’s an unruly tool.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 976
Gendo was going to pay too for not even trying to give her the basic attention of a straitjacket, but honestly at this point Gendo could probably kill everyone else on the planet and it wouldn't particular increase the suffering he would experience at Shinji's hands. He'd kind of plateaued on the crimes thing a while back.
Shinobu: His intelligence, on the other hand, just continues to dig into the dirt, as he has no reason not to, especially after she killed Ritsuko and is, as shown, complaining of hallucinations that sound suspiciously like actionable intel. We’ve been free of one of these counts for a while, but this is a stay of pain, not notable improvement.
Emma: I’m not sure a straitjacket would help at all. Like compassionate restraints are a real thing, although I pray to god I never have to use them, but I can never remember where straitjacket falls on the “can be useful, was regularly used as a tool of abuse” to “literally no good way to use this” scale.
Taion: Better question - why would Tzeentchji care beyond the excuse given to indulge his hate?
DUMMY PLUGGED: 760
"Misato-san, please don't be afraid, you're not dreaming, its really me here, and I haven't come to do anything atrocious to you," Shinji said gently while squatting down at the edge of the door to avoid towering over her.
"No… no… you can't be real… can't be…" Misato mutters while continuing to avoid eye contact.
Leliel: And then she realized he was, and promptly strangled him, recognizing the horror for what he was. Because, fun fact - as someone who was previously a victim of Daemonic possession, and it left, Misato is now an Exorcised - having had the very embodiment of Chaos in you but removed through great difficulty immunizes you against further corruption, and usually can sense the Warp. It’s not worth it, but it’s ironic.
Taion: [Looking up from web search] And that was also only made clear in the Dark Heresy rulebook The Radical’s Handbook, published a year after the fic finished. In addition, that is the result of actual exorcism, not bribery to leave by another Chaos sorcerer. So, we won’t hit it with PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART for that…we will hit it with noting that before one gets to full Daemonhost level, a symptom of possession is increasing psyker potential and physical abilities, which likely last if a Chaos-aligned person is doing the exorcism. But damsels must be in distress, right?
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 352
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 883
Reaching out his hand, Shinji says, "Touch me then, feel that I'm real. I know you can still feel, right?" A daemon of Slaanesh would never take that sort of thing away. Sanity, yes; the ability to feel, never.
Futaba: …because otherwise they wouldn’t be able to overload it and burn it out through experience does the fact that Slaaneshi daemons look like pink Hellraiser Cenobites mean nothing to you?
(Slaaneshi host, from https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Keeper_of_Secrets)
(Cenobites, from https://hellraiser.fandom.com/wiki/Cenobites)
Pinhead and Company have more clothing and are more grey, but you can see the resemblance, yeah? Skintight, humanlike, kind of sadomasochistic? That’s because finding sensation is the whole purpose of the God of Excess!
Shinobu: Seriously, what is this? Comfort and all, but - Tzeentchji, you’ve been intimately familiar with what a Keeper of Secrets is and does. “You can feel me” is exactly the kind of thing they’d see, they’re defined by it!
Emma: Yeah, a Slaaneshi demon wouldn’t take away your ability to feel… but you would have absolutely no reason to trust any of your sensations ever again. It’s almost like they’re not good at mental healing, or something!
Taion: Depends on the definition…but I agree that post-Slaaneshi functional sanity would not resemble anything conventional. Certainly would not avoid giving you new sensations where “it isn’t from something real” is a mere detail.
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 353
Misato glanced up at Shinji's hand before looking away and mumbling, "Makes it look so real… not real… not really real…"
Taion: See, even the fic agrees!
"Misato-san, the daemon isn't here right now, I can tell, and I won't let it harm you again. I know it was doing terrible things to you, telling you truths you were better off not knowing…" Shinji begins.
Leliel: First, that’s Tzeentch, second, daemons lie. All the time. As in, even followers of Chaos flex by forcing daemons to tell the truth through intimidation and power. So just assuming it’s doing anything “honest” is something nobody at all aware of daemons would do.
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 354
"It told me who killed Kaji," Misato exploded, before idly pulling another bloody clump of hair out of her now thinned out scalp.
Futaba: First, ew.
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 784
Second…oh boy here we go. [Retrieves Button] One for each repeat of this urban myth!
DUMMY PLUGGED: 761
"Who? I'll bring them here and we can butcher them together, maybe bring in Asuka and Rei too, be one big psychotic family," Shinji says far too warmly for the content.
Taion: Agreed, but somehow I don’t think it’s funny anymore. Far too much sincerity.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 977
"Too late," Misato intones in a sing-song voice while considering the scrap of hair and skin in her hands.
Shinobu: Ew, again. Given how she’s part of the harem, how does - oh wait, I remember Nurgle Rei. The author probably likes this.
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 785
Shinji went quiet for a moment before saying, "So Ritsuko did it, huh?"
DUMMY PLUGGED: 762
"Kaji… Kaji was investigating NERV. Trying to find out all the dirty, dirty little secrets. He managed to slip down to the lowest levels, to find out what is sitting at the bottom of Terminal Dogma… but he had bad timing… bad timing… someone was already there… she knew, knew… and then… and then… and then… BANG! Ahahhahahahahaha!" Misato ripped apart the blood scrap in her hands at the exclamation, gibbering maniacally before trailing off into sobs.
(https://imgflip.com/i/59fkdz)
Futaba: Okay, I’m being facetious. Kaji is dead. Okay, end of exaggeration - this lore be lyin’. He was killed because SEELE ordered him to kidnap Fuyutsuki but he let the Vice Commander free when Misato was suspected for it, freeing her at the cost of lethally pissing off Keel, and that was after he gave the secrets of the Human Instrumentality Project he already had to her. He didn’t die in central dogma, SEELE’s assassin was a random hitman they sent out to shoot him - and this was repeated twice over just so the tutorial wasn’t missed, Hideki Anno was so alarmed by the idea Ritsuko shot him that he dropped his normal ambiguity to go “oh hell to the naw!” He does say “you’re a little late, aren’t you?”, but it was because he realized it was SEELE’s enforcer and he was just amused they were slow on the draw. It was not Ritsuko, who alienated him, but he didn’t really come to hate like Misato did. And doesn’t work for SEELE. That bit of fanon needs to die.
Shinobu: Even if that was the case - there’s a reason Kaji didn’t run. Or look betrayed - if he’s going to come off as an assassination target, anyone SEELE forces to kill him isn’t going to leave them a choice. If anything, and for the sake of argument, discovering her motives from the Keeper is likely going to make Misato hate SEELE far more than she does Ritsuko. Don’t get me wrong, Ritsuko is going to be high on the vengeance list, but Misato is more likely to work with her to avenge their mutual friend.
Emma: See, you’re assuming this writer wants to write a coherent, character driven story, instead of fulfilling the “punish the evil bitch who won’t be part of the harem” segment of the power fantasy.
Leliel: I feel that deserves one point per item, so…six. Plus one for Ritsuko totes shooting him.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 769
"Ritsuko couldn't get me out of Unit 01 fast enough, couldn't make me wake up, she shot the love of your life, and then to top it all off she started belittling you for the disintegration of your family that she caused. You couldn't let that stand, could you?" Shinji asks quietly, trying to see if he could follow her twisted logic. Just because his logic was warped didn't necessarily mean it was warped in the same way as hers.
Taion: “Someone killed my mate and I wanted revenge.” Mudder, if that is ‘warped’ logic to you, the idea the sun rises in the east must be fathomless to you. To say nothing of how…stereotypically maternal this makes Misato sound.
Angharad: Getting vengeance without 500 layers of groxshit justifications and plots is incomprehensible to a Tzeentchian. We all knew that.
Magdalene: Right, next time I’ll charge in, completely thoughtless, and maybe if I’m lucky I won’t also die and make the whole thing a complete farce.
Shinobu: Still doesn’t mean the average Tzeentchian doesn’t get it, they’d just dislike the lack of artfulness; this is all Tzeentchji.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 770
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 883
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 978 (Logic like hating the failure that, according to this, killed your boyfriend, is warped? Says more about you than her, Tzeentchji.)
Nodding profusely and excessively, Misato says, "Yeah! I… I wanted to kill her so bad, wanted to let her suffer the way I suffered… wanted to make her suffer the way I suffered… maybe cut up that fawning little Maya bitch in front of her… maybe violate her physically the way she violated my soul… maybe…"
Sporkers: …EEEEHEWWWW!
(https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/310209-what-has-been-seen-cannot-be-unseen)
Shinobu: Fun fact, Maya does not reappear after this. We feel deeply relieved and yet envious of her.
Leliel: Even as a threat, this is just…URGH. Co-sporking with Emma has opened my eyes to just how…patriarchy-affirming that kind of threat is, as if it wasn’t gross enough…
Emma: Wow, a rape threat and a threat of punishment for a lesbian crush! We’re two-for-two!
Taion: …and just for that, five points, plus the running tally.
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 790
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 888 (Oh mighty Khorne, discipline me for this most sacred number belonging to something even the Dark Prince would regard as a tad gauche…)
DUMMY PLUGGED: 771
Cutting off the growing rant, Shinji says, "But you didn't. You snapped."
"I… I… thoughts not mine… Ritsuko my… friend? I… I didn't want to believe… fed up with her… fed up… had to hit that bitch. Had to hit that bitch! Feel her flesh crumple beneath my fist… yeah, just hit her, just make her shut up. Shut up! Shut up!" Misato screams, clutching her head and adding fresh marks on top of the numerous weeping wounds and scars she had accumulated during her incarceration.
Leliel: And it’s still going! Plus, again, this is something the fic thinks we should take at face value!
DUMMY PLUGGED: 772
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 883
The fact that none of them were infected was rather telling.
Futaba: I don’t know what’s being implied here, and I have run out of “care” energy for the day. Not spending money on a refill.
Emma: That… Nurgle’s ignoring her? That the EVUL EVUL NERV people have been keeping her clean but not doing anything else? Fuck if I know either.
"And then she pulled the gun," Shinji says quietly.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 773
"Yes, The gun, the one she used to gun down Kaji… she's not a very good shot… she bungled it… not quick… not clean… made him suffer before he died. The gun is proof! She killed Kaji! She had to die!" Misato wails.
Magdalene: And you stabbed her to death in what I can only describe as a “drawn out orgy of violence”. Do you think that balances things out?
DUMMY PLUGGED: 774 (Also keeping the running tally.)
"And she's dead now," Shinji tells her.
"Yes… yes… but… but… every time I stabbed her… it… it… it whispered another crime… so many… so many! Oh Shinji!" Misato bawls, before lunging out and grabbing on to Shinji, burying her face into his shoulder to cry it all out.
Taion: Especially because she would never see the bridge that the member of a conceptual species known for being notorious liars sold her.
Magdalene: I won’t say believing daemons never lie is an unfair belief, provided we’re talking about young daemonologists. Much past your first summoning, you learn better or get eaten.
Emma: Also it is absolutely insane that this fic is using daemons never lie as a point in Chaos’ favour. Like, okay, maybe Academia Nut didn’t go through a phase of being obsessed with faery lore, but “Things that cannot lie but are still fundamentally untrustworthy” are a touchstone of folklore and from that, pop culture.
(https://www.homestuck.com/images/storyfiles/hs2/02253.gif)
(IYKYK, and if you don’t, well, guy has a whole subsection in the Biography section of his wiki page that is just “manipulating children”)
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 355
DUMMY PLUGGED: 775
Feeling distinctly uncomfortable and distinctly angry at what had been done to one of the few precious people in his life, Shinji could only pat her on the back and wait for her to get it out of her system.
Shinobu: Since part of that was Tzeentchji himself, the mutated immune cells in her body promptly overloaded him with sensation and fried his brain. The end.
"They killed your mother…" Misato mumbled into him, her voice muffled by his clothes and flesh, but the meaning still there.
(https://media1.tenor.com/m/QIbYO1KaBhEAAAAd/eyeroll-ugh.gif)
Leliel: So, remember how we said waaaaay back in chapter 2 that Academia Nut thinks every member of Tzeentchji’s school is a potential pilot, not just 2-A? Well, it’s time for Deep Thoughts on Eva Construction! And who he thinks Yui is! [Changes DUMMY PLUGGED Button Battery]
Emma: Oh, this is going to be good. *beat* I mean, it’ll be bad but I’ll get a lot of sporking material out of it.
That piece of shrapnel that had been twisting about in Shinji's mind for so long suddenly moved like it had been caught in the magnetic field of an active MRI machine.
Taion: The sudden realization of how pointlessly delayed this was in order to maintain stations of the canon promptly drove him to catatonia pondering his misspent life. The end.
Shinji began to shudder with emotions he had not even known he had been building up since he had arrived here. Now he remembered. Now he remembered that day over ten years ago when he had watched his mother climb into Unit 01, and never climb back out…
Futaba: …which is evidence your memories aren’t complete, because you’d also remember what happened just before, when your mom had some very telling dialogue with Fuyutsuki:
Fuyutsuki: The same weather day after day… The disappearance of autumn from this country is sad beyond words. According to the scenario in SEELE's Secret Dead Sea Scrolls, Third Impact will definitely occur in a little over ten years.
(Source: https://www.evaotaku.com/html/dircut/eps21.html)
Shinobu: See those last lines? That’s basically all but screaming that Yui merging with Eva was something she was planning on, especially with this image of Toddler Shinji hugging his mom’s face:
(https://wiki.evageeks.org/Theory_and_Analysis:Yui%27s_Agenda)
Leliel: That, right there, is the face of a woman who knows she’s not going to be alive in the traditional sense in the near future. Combine that with the fact that it’s all but stated that by the end, she had always intended to go into space as Unit 01 to be an eternal, lonely monument to humanity once existing and seems bitterly resigned to it as a backup plan to save humanity when it seems that Shinji has fully decided the species needs to be liquified, and I think the “superhuman intellect” might realize his mom was kind of a schemer herself. Hell, that sounds interesting - it’d show the Arcanite viewpoint to not be disappointed or betrayed, but impressed and proud! To become an eternal bearer of information…that sounds like a worthy ending if Plan A doesn’t work. But as Emma said long ago, Yui isn’t just Anime Mom, she’s Dead Mom, and thus was a perfect little saint.
Emma: Yeah, I think Yui is like, probably closer than any other character in NGE to fitting the idea of a sympathetic, big picture Chaos worshipper that 1k Shinji claims it’s playing with. The problem is that a sympathetic, big picture Chaos worshipper is still going to be not an especially good person. Like Yui has to willingly kill herself in front of her son for the greater good, and that cannot exist in a fanfic where “did you hurt Shinji” is the entire determiner of morality.
Futaba: Not to mention, is really more Imperium in Chaos Metal Makeup.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 776
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 889 (Making her out to be a victim, purely.)
She had been absorbed into Unit 01, body disintegrated into LCL and soul bound to the Eva.
Yet somehow they had been able to reverse the process for him…
Taion: …because you aren’t the core CPU for the Levnis. Taking her out would lobotomize it, because she’s literally its brain. Say it with me:
Sporkers: SAME. FUCKING. SPIRIT!
DUMMY PLUGGED: 777 (All Lucky Sevens! [Starts pounding Tzeentchji repeatedly for 7,777 damage per hit])
"They… they needed a person's soul to bond with the Eva, to control it, so they… they… oh Shinji-chan, I can't believe I had you climb into the one that killed your mother…" Misato told him miserably, not noticing as Shinji's face became increasingly expressionless.
Shinobu: This is a nice way of saying “more vacant as the vacuum of intelligence that is the Eva plot in this fic sucks away all thought from his skull.”
Angharad: I don’t know what he’s so upset about. Mothers are always doing shit like this.
Emma: I think you’re operating from a skewed sample size, there.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 778
Leliel: And then…I shit you not, we have seven fucking paragraphs that can be summarized as “Tzeentchji gets pissy, Warp reacts and turns weather stormy, spooks SEELE and the JSSDF but they’ve come too far and release the Mass-Produced Evas”. Right in the middle of the fucking exposition!
I’d make another Terrible Writing Advice reference here, but this is literally the opposite of intrusive exposition! This is suppressing plot info! You are literally doing worse than the parody advice channel!
Emma: The narrative priorities of this fic are absolutely insane.
"The… the souls couldn't be just anybody though… they… they had to want to work with the Pilots, to protect them… they had to be the mothers of the Children," Misato tells him.
Shinobu: Oh look, the broken clock is right twice a day…by sheer coincidence.
Now he remembered what he had found in the ruins of the testing site for Units 03 and 04. Not only had they known, in fact encouraged, the infection of Unit 03 by the Thirteenth Angel, but they had done something far, far worse when the Evas arrived.
"How. Many. Tanks. Do. They. Have?" Shinji grits out between his teeth while seeing red.
Futaba: …is he seriously-
"Fifty. They have fifty women in suspended animation, all of them mothers of your classmates, in the event that they decide to use them as Pilots," Misato tells him.
Futaba: …he is. Because apparently, Academia Nut doesn’t know that Asuka’s entire issue is from Kyoko being separated from her soul and still being around outside a tank oh my fucking Anno you literally spent several chapters on it.
Shinobu: Leaving aside the fact it’s heavily implied they uploaded the mothers’ souls to the Eva cores…the implication is that nearly every student in that school has their mother vanished and pickled in a tank. How does nobody notice?! Even in-universe Toji and Kensuke got suspicious when they realized they and Shinji were all missing a mom! Hell, YOU ARE A TELEPATH! YOU DIDN’T NOTICE THE MISSING MOTHERS FOR EVERYONE?!
Magdalene: That would imply he has not blinkered his telepathic potential by, to put it colloquially, being unable to see beyond his own ass. Noticing that all his classmates are missing mothers would require him to give a damn about them, when they aren;t even pawns to him.
Taion: And moreover, from the sound of it, the mothers died for various reasons from the way Toji and Kensuke talk about theirs, so clearly, they could retrieve souls for cores later somehow, as shown by Kyoko having hers extracted but still alive. No stasis tanks needed. This is dumb. Fifty points each, because this isn’t just vital to the plot or ironically fitting - it’s flying in the face of this very same fic!
DUMMY PLUGGED: 828
TALON ON THE SCALES: 469 (For the sheer contrivance of it, and Tzeentchji only knowing now, after EoE conveniently began.)
Shinji threw his head back and opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came out in the physical world.
Across the planet animals began to panic, those in cages thrashing at the bars to escape. Most people suddenly felt shivers up and down their spines, while more sensitive types winced in momentary pain or even suffered from minor nosebleeds. Dozens of light years away Eldar looked up in fear and confusion for a second.
Leliel: [Mouths Wordlessly] Y-you mean the Eldar who would be generating daemons due to their beliefs, including from the War in Heaven in which they were made in this supposedly sterile Warp?! …it’s the same as last time, but a great reminder of how that calm is somehow only present when convenient.
EXCOMMUNICAE CANONICUS: 356
Tears were streaming down his face. Two thirds of his life Shinji had lived without his mother. Two thirds of Asuka's life she had been tormented not just by the loss of her mother, but from seeing her dead body hanging from the rafters. Toji and Hikari and Kensuke… all the friends he had made here, they had been made to suffer the loss of a parent because they were special and a group of old men desired to harness powers they did not understand to their own benefit.
Taion: And of course, SEELE and NERV didn’t help, but Academia Nut and StarDestroyer.net butchering the canon were the initial aggressors.
Angharad: CRY HARDER, YOU SPOILED INFANT.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 829
Shinji had been mad the first time he learned this, learned what that other presence in the Eva truly was. But now… now after having suffered so much more, having seen how the machinations of those responsible for this had inflicted so much more suffering on the ones he loved the most, after having already thought that he had reached the point where there was that could make the situation worse… now…
Now he had transcended anger.
A strange calm and clarity washed over him. He would not get mad.
He would get even.
Shinobu: How very touching. Almost touching enough to make me forget the dialogue where he viewed most of these same people as pawns, and the co-pilots as your trophies. And once again: SAME GODDAMNED SPIRIT!
DUMMY PLUGGED: 830
Leliel: Thankfully, the next bit is fairly okay. Misato regains enough lucidity to help out and Tzeentchji gives her a pep talk, but on the way there, his lackadaisical attitude towards his psychic effort, plus the Keeper of Secrets’ spite, bites him in the ass and Misato needs to eat JSSDF bullets to protect him, akin to canon. We also get a rare sight…
You really shouldn't have fucked with me! Did you know there was a 'secret' maintenance tunnel that can be used to bypass that little kill zone you set up? Or that you're using up so much psychic energy right now you forgot to assign some to precog?
Futaba: [Sigh of pleasure] Tzeentchji getting pwned and called out for being a thuggish blaster caster with no creativity. Admittedly, he immediately blames the Keeper for this oversight, but even in that case, it’s his own arrogant assumption that thing is going to take him messing with it lying down. So he still fucked himself over.
Magdalene: How do you “forget” to use precognition? WHat’s wrong with this child?
Angharad: I’d make a nasty joke about Arcanites and responsibility, but given the amount of time you’ve spent wallowing in how everything that goes wrong is your fault, specifically, it’s not even accurate.
Magdalene: Oh, was that really necessary?
Taion: Okay, leaving that aside for another day! Back to the fic, there is an…honestly alright scene in which Misato dies despite Tzeentchji’s best efforts. As much as I think most was stolen from the movie, the fact that Tzeentchji actually gives a good effort and is faced with limitations, combined with the Keeper taunting him, makes this a lot more interesting than yet more gorey death..
Leliel: Of course, it can’t last, as the Keeper decides to…well, apparently channel every edgy asshole on 4chan at the time of the fic’s writing.
You know, it's a pity you made me promise to leave her alone. I might have been able to snatch her soul before it goes to the place where human souls go. It's not very nice. Did you know that it's possible to bind a mortal's soul to a host body much in the same way as with a daemon? Obviously the result isn't very powerful, but it can be done if you have the soul and know what to do. A pity that we don't have the former, because I know all about the latter.
Leliel: This part is the most in-character for a Greater Daemon it gets. Pseudo-polite, and with mentioning an actual Chaotic technique. Mortarion is all-too-familiar with that, what with how he or she was set against those sort of true undead by Necare during their childhood.
Shinji ignored the daemon's taunting, too numb to care.
Misato was dead.
Shinji just looked down at her body, gently stroking her hair a few times.
Oh for the love of… look hero, this is starting to go a little outside of plan, which I assume you still don't consciously remember. Now, I know that you're suffering a little, hey, suffering is my job, I can grok that shit, but try to look at the bigger picture.
Taion: This is…probably as close to nice as daemons made of lust and sensation get, and it is to maintain a deal and for its freedom from it, so I will let it slide.
Shinji still wasn't listening. He had already spent all of his emotions for the day; he was tired of this shit.
Look, you've still got Rei and Asuka to worry about. Remember them? Little blue haired Nurgle worshipper, could be considered your half sister. Psychotic red haired Khornate berserker, awesome lay in bed despite the whole crude Blood God thing. Ring any bells in there?
Taion: …and while regarding Asuka in terms of sexual ability is also in-character for a being made of lust, it’s still something that comes off as the author reducing her to the ability to be a sex object. Again.
Emma: Yeah, this is largely indistinguishable from Tzeentchji’s narration about Asuka and Rei. Hell, it’s less horny, given that it describes Rei in purely familial terms and not as a… manic pixie incest nightmare.
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 890
Shinji blinked once.
He blinked twice.
Someone hit reboot to clear out the damn blue screen of death.
Oh… right. There are other people I love in mortal peril. I had better go kill anything that glances at them funny.
That's the little sociopath we need.
Understand me clearly daemon. There will still be words later, when I am not so in shock.
Try me Tzeentch-boy.
Futaba: Me, I’m more realizing that Tzeentchji is probably one of those people who claim to have antisocial personality disorder to excuse them being an obnoxious troll. He’s just that kind of edgy, as is this fic.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 979
Shinobu: And with that, even the more artful forms of violence in this fic no longer are interesting. We do have Tzeentchji carrying her body on a psychically-lifted disc while the Rubric Marines clean house. For once, I also buy Tzeentchji has some tactical smarts, as he does actually collapse an entry point to make the Rubrics the only way through, and as noted, that’s a trap. He does this in spite of being devastated by Misato’s loss (allegedly), and just being focused on finding Rei before eliminating all attackers in the Evas.
Leliel: But, for people who act dumber…
Asuka arouse from her coma in her Plug Suit and safely encased in the quiet darkness of Unit 02's entry plug. Thoughts resonated within her mind, a feeling of warmth and well being radiating outward.
Shinji was alive.
He had kept his promise to her, to crawl his way back from even the depths of Hell itself just to be with her. He cared for her. He loved her. He would never leave her alone. She wasn't alone anymore. She would never be alone again.
Emma: Okay, cool. Anything else? You got any other deep-seated issues to work for? Any other problems? Any relationships you might want beyond a single guy? No?
Taion: [Sarcastic applause] You MAAAAAN is present. Congra-tu-fucking-lations. That is the only thing worth mentioning. Just…peachy…
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 891
More warmth flowed through her limbs and core, as if phantom arms were wrapping themselves about her, filling her with pride and joy. She could feel it spreading through every inch; every pore; every cell of her being.
All those years she had spent being angry and sad at the whole world, she had never realized that the source and cure to all her sorrows was right next to her the entire time. But now that her heart was truly open…
Mama.
Shinobu: Oooh, how touching. How touching that you discovered this you didn’t pick this up any other time you were in the Eva, or suspected it, until this exact moment! When in canon, your life needed to be in danger first and you were falling apart mentally after you woke up before she comforted you! Did you read the script while comatose or something?!
Angharad: What I want to know is why she’s glad to have her teeth pulled.
Emma: Well, I don’t think that’s-
Angharad: No, shut up. I know better than you about this. Oh course she’s angry and sad at the world! It’s a terrible world! The only benefit we get from it is that rage is power. And she thinks she can replace that with what? A mother’s love?
Emma: Well, I guess that was correct, in the “if you want to write truly Chaotic protagonists, you have to be willing to forgo a lot of happy character moments and resolutions” sense.
Leliel: Agreed. And ultimately…in canon, it doesn’t, it just snaps Asuka out of her fear to get properly angry. So this is way too saccharine. Unnecessarily so, and frankly, a Khornate would at most nod in gratitude before going back to rage.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 831
TALON ON THE SCALES: 470
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 357
Shh… I'm here with you… I've always been here with you. I'm proud of you Asuka. I don't care what you've become; you're still my daughter, my baby to me.
Futaba: *Kyoko* “Your boyfriend though…I have questions. And a request for a speaker in the cyborg Levnis, so I can ask for a restraining order on your behalf.”
Asuka grinned. Mama had never left her either. Shinji was back. Mama was back.
The warmth inside her exploded into fire.
It was time to kick some ass.
Leliel: …fun fact, this “kick some ass” has been a bit recurrent this chapter. It was used to try and stop Misato from dying, encouraging her to kick ass. Causes a certain loss of gravitas in the supposed darkest hour, doesn’t it?
Emma: What, is she all out of bubblegum, too?
Taion: Anyway, cut to the JSSDF forces outside, hiding from the storm that Tzeentchji’s psychic manpain caused…
A colonel from a reinforcing group and his command staffstrode up to the largest assembled collection of the ragged men on first contact and demanded to see who was in charge. He did not expect to get a salute from a second lieutenant.
"You're in charge…" the colonel read the man's name off his uniform, "Lieutenant Gorman?"
"Y-y-yes sir. Most people above the rank of major were dead within minutes, assassins apparently, and then they suborned our communications gear.
Shinobu: For the record - they were induced to shoot each other. How you arrive at “assassins” from that, everyone can see guns firing in the direction they shouldn’t be, is beyond me, but it is quite convenient that nobody in SEELE notices their current archenemy is a telepath. I would also critique Lieutenant Gorman in a Japanese military, but to be honest, I can see SEELE supplementing the kill squad with some of their native Europeans who aren’t attached to NERV.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 471
Futaba: But, before the debrief, the deployment bay below them opens, introducing several troops to gravity physics while Unit 02 rises.
Disengaging from the launch rails, Unit 02 bellowed a challenge to any that could hear it.
The infantry in the Geofront were disinclined to answer. But surprisingly, there were a series of return bellows, weirdly modulated. Looking up, Asuka saw nine white shapes rapidly spiralling down into the Geofront, dropping altitude as quickly as possible to get out of the nightmare storm above. Rain and lightning sleeted harmlessly off their backs, their AT-fields flashing to disperse the energy of the storm. The winds still buffeted them, but their size made them all but inured to the winds on this level.
Leliel: Holy shit, Academia Nut let something SEELE designed look cool and eerie! Frankly, at this point I was expecting “smart” mockery of how the Mass Production Evas here lack eyes.
(https://evangelion.fandom.com/wiki/Mass_Production_Evangelion)
Taion: [Shivers] Is that thing…smiling?
Magdalene: Even I can tell something is very, very wrong here.
Shinobu: Yeah, it is. And to be frank - it’s heavily implied the reason they lack eyes is because they lack identities. They have to have some souls in there, because they have AT Fields, but there’s nothing in there but a mission to initiate Third Impact as SEELE sees it. They don’t even have true pilots, but Dummy Plugs based on Kaworu. Really, they’re a fuckton weaker than the true Units…but A), there’s nine of them on one Unit 02, B), they have S2 engines, so they don’t need to futz around with umbilical cables or batteries, and C), that sword each has is actually a shapeshifted copy of the Lance of Loginius - including ability to pierce AT Fields. In the great D&D Class Analogy, they’re a group of Rogues with Sneak Attack and Critical Hit Chance raised compared to epic-level Fighters of the Evas. Wolves, not bears.
They were the only thing in the whole world capable of standing against Asuka at this point.
The safety on Asuka's bolter clicked off and her chain-axe hummed up to full speed.
Futaba: We hope you have enjoyed the last unironically cool moment of this fanfic. Because next…hoo boy. I’ve read summaries…
Leliel: Yep. Come back next time, as we examine…well, the first half will be…sane. As for the second…well, consider this man and his current disguise a hint:
(https://media1.tenor.com/m/ZiDLY6uVfw0AAAAd/faceoff.gif)
Till next time.
Meanwhile, Somewhere Across the Seas of Tindalos…
Timeline NDS-9182736 (Xothian Classification),
Earth, Ruins of Tokyo-3, Sea of LCL
Death, reflected Diego, was itchy.
Well, maybe it was the inferno bullet rounds. But it was a dull “this is going to keep me up all night” pain, not “oh god spare me and give me a quick end” pain.
Maybe his ceased brain functions were to blame. Of course.
It was inevitable, really - as soon as that Warp thunderstorm started up, Diego had made himself known. The JSSDF suddenly found themselves with a new doctor who spoke broken Japanese and was treated wordlessly without warning or permission. And did well. Miraculously well. Several commanders were merely unconscious rather than dying after the man in the strange glasses did basic triage on them.
Of course, the fact he was there alarmed the JSSDF, especially when he wordlessly moved on to NERV troops after removing the weapons from both. And how the communication with command suddenly ceased whenever he appeared, the voice on the other end replaced by what, for all intents and purposes, seemed to be singing in an alien language.
Ia ia…ris Dia’go…fhtaghn lohk…
By this point, though…dozens of men went mad in the middle of a rainstorm. Shooting each other. And the air had suddenly become an almost arctic chill. By that point, the only thing the soldiers cared about was surviving. Old allegiances forgotten as what some thought was a less alien angel dashed from man to man, troop to troop, muttering to himself in what a couple of them recognized as Spanish.
As the MP Evas arrived, however, that was when a different figure showed himself - who from one angle appeared to be a young boy in gaudy school clothes of cotton, another a dark-skinned giant with red, hateful eyes and a draconic snout, tongues of dark flame escaping from dark green armor and breaks in his skin.
The man didn’t have time to react before he was telekinetically grabbed mid-transport. Nor did he react.
“So. You are the fool that meddling little wasp spoke of,” Vulkan the Black Dragon asked, dropping all pretense of being the boy he murdered and replaced.
“Don’t let Ichiro let you call him that,” Diego replied, not at all betraying any fear. “He is a honeybee, and takes too much pride in his nectar.”
The Dragon sniffed, contempt obvious. “Your pet kingdom literally defines itself in opposition to the Tsan-Chan, and you defend its founder and god? Truly the rot of compassion has hollowed you even more than this…stunt. What were you even trying to do? When I take my rightful place as Dark God, their souls will belong to my hoard, flesh-clad or not.”
“It is my nature,” Diego replied, simply. “I am becoming a god of renewal. To heal is simply a facet unto it.”
The Dragon gave him an incredulous look. “You could choose to be lord and king, to be life itself to your slaves…and you chose to be a medicinal plant? To be something the world eats? Your ignorant contempt for the nature of the world and humanity is spectacular.”
“At least I can see it and not run,” Diego shot back. “How’s your brother, by the way? I read you picked up your mother’s parenting techniques with him.”
The comparison to Kesare, and the initial wound that set the Black Dragon on his obsession with strength, hit home. The next thing Diego knew was being torn apart by Warp dragonfire, revived as an undead, shot by suborned Rubrics, and then tossed into the LCL sea as a final demonstration of contempt for the strange healer.
If he still had working lungs, he might have drowned due to laughing.
Vulkan’s Chaotic counterpart was an absolute fool - or at least so blind to anything but his own greed that he did not study how myths worked, especially when Diego was already closer to a daemon defined by belief than human. To be slain without breaking, for saving others…that was the core of a myth about saviors. The kind of myth that deified the sufferer.
And he knew exactly how a dead man would become a God.
The mental shape of Kaworu Nagisa passed by him, before the shifting thoughts of the liquified humans began to enter Diego’s corpse, directed by the nephilim. The symbiotes in him stirred, eager to accept thought and nutrients into themselves, and started to sprout…and bloom. Fruiting bodies sprung forth, fertilized themselves, and their spores sprung into mycelium that grew over the caps of their parents in a self-sustaining rush of fungal mutation.
Or rather, an organic crucible.
The seedpod that was Diego’s human skin sloughed away, letting free his skeleton, symbiotes, and soul. The LCL continued to nurture and feed him/them/it, as the ever-expanding tangle of chitinous growth overtook more and more of the sea…and then settled upon a piece of the corpse of Ramiel. The crystalline body into the growth as food and scaffold as more independent spores detached to find the corpses of other Angels and retrieve them, the shattered carcass vanishing beneath the riot of expanding biomass from the sapling of Shub-Niggurath, just mutated enough from the primeval genes that were her blood and mind to be an independent child of hers.
But not quite a child yet. An instar, certainly, no longer a larva…but Diego-the-Scion’s purpose to learn and organize was done. Now his symbiotes were eating machines, preparing enough metabolic load for the next stage…and the necessary resources for the self-made imago.
Slowly, the center mass began to weave into a great fungal tree that seemed more plant and animal than mushroom…but to look closer was to see thinner material at the top. The neotenic god within the forming pupa settled in and submerged himself in a divine instinct that knew his needs more than he did himself, and patiently awaited his eclosion.
(A/N: Entomology is perfect for being a bit purple in prose. Can you spot the terms?)
Leliel: Why, a crappy crossover fanfiction extended to 18…oh I don’t care. It’s just too obvious and the fic is just so damned stale by now towards the end…
Shinji had been right at the core of her being when he had been yanked out by the detonation, and while there were safeguards in place, those mostly protected him from psychic backlash. Worst case scenario he should have been yanked clear and whatever damage his abrupt exit caused would have been repairable.
Futaba: To say nothing of the amount of damage you caused entirely on your own simply by being the worst boyfriend. Speaking of, I notice you protected yourself. Those could be a limit on your powers, but given demonstrated expertise and being a fucking awful person, I’m not buying it.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 966
Unfortunately, her mind was already starting up and he had done enough repair work that her psychic defences were now manifesting themselves.
Angharad: You say unfortunately, I say you’re the second worst thing a Khornate ever had put in her head and some part of her knows that.
Magdalene: Wait, second worst? Did you just joke about the–
Emma: Moving rapidly along–
He couldn't access her mind to soothe over the distress he had caused with his abrupt departure, and he couldn't use his psychic abilities to try and calm the electrochemical storm raging across her brain.
Taion: Which makes it not at all your fault. How very convenient.
Emma: Maybe things would work better if you’d get your gross hands off her cerebral cortex? You;ve found the one thing grosser and more violating than That Part of EoE, and you think it’s helping!
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 881 (Womenz must be protected from self, doncha know?)
He had to find some way to restrain her or she was going to thrash herself to death, but there wasn't anything strong enough to contain her warp-fuelled muscles, and he couldn't use his telekinesis on her without her permission, something she couldn't give in her current state.
Taion: …why? Telekinesis isn’t something intruding on her, he just needs to pin her limbs via mental force-
A sudden burst of realization came over him as he realized that while he couldn't use his telekinesis directly, he could apply force to an intermediate object to restrain her.
Taion: Oh right, he needs to “outthink” this. [Sigh]
Leliel: Fun fact: restraining someone in the middle of a seizure is actually a really bad idea. You’re supposed to get anything the patient can hurt themselves on out of the way, and wait for them to stop before you approach. So no, Tzeentchji’s best plan is to keep his nose out of this - but that wouldn’t be ~Romantic<3~ enough, so we get this shit. In fact, I’m going to apply one TALON ON THE SCALES per bad seizure technique. Starting now, with two, because he’s literally putting more shit in her way to injure herself on.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 412
Angharad: It would be best for everyone if he let her tear herself to shreds and heal it off. At this point, he’s not going to do anything but get his dumb little twig limbs broken.
Magdalene: Not to impugn your healing abilities but this little shit of an Arcanite does claim he’s stronger than any baseline, and if we want to look at true followers, well my children are no weaker than any other Astarte.
Angharad: *Dismissive grunt*
Shinobu: To be honest, given the level of mutation-slash-author favoritism shown, it would not be surprising if he does have Astarte-style regeneration. Of course, it’s interesting he only cares about consent when he is physically blocked from doing something he wants to do. Charming, asshole.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 967
Of course, there was the danger of accidentally crushing her as the feedback from such a situation was far less fine than a direct application.
Taion: Or doing so at all, but that would be a double point.
Unless…
Dismissing the risks to himself, Shinji slammed his hand down on her sternum, holding her torso down as she shook to keep her from breaking her own spine with convulsions, his telekinesis applied to his arm.
Taion: …like this, for instance. Excellent job if you want to get her to crush her ribcage on it, to say nothing of you.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 413
It hurt.
A lot.
He was subjecting his body to stresses it wasn't meant to endure, and then holding the bones and flesh together with nothing but the power of his will, when by all rightsthey should have shattered from the massive compression he was subjecting them to.
Shinobu: But of course, the power of MAN keeps him through the process of MAN helping WOMAN through the MANLY resistance of MANPAIN. Please note this is the most he’s put himself at risk all fic, and it’s to preserve one of his trophies. I’m not impressed.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 968
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 882
The heavy duty bed frame collapsed, but Shinji caught the comforter with his telekinesis, not that it was doing much good as the springs were rapidly being crushed into a useless mass.
Futaba: Which is why you should be using that telekinesis to get the flying frame parts out of the goddamn way. Skill issue, by definition!
TALON ON THE SCALES: 414
And then Shinji noted to his horror that Asuka was snapping her jaw open and shut spastically. She was going to bite her own tongue off and drown in her own blood if he didn't intervene.
Taion: Not bloody likely. A tonic-clonic seizure, which this is, is characterized by bites on the side of the tongue - that organ is prone to remaining still during an episode. On a side note, you cannot swallow your tongue like this. Even if so…telekinesis, and you have shown fourth-dimensional awareness for perversion. Easy enough to tilt her so the blood comes out.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 415
The irony of a Khornate berserker dying like was not lost on him.
Angharad: Oh, I’m so glad I had the Tzeentchian to explain to me how shameful and undignified this is. I can put that together on my own. I could have put that together on my own before Sophia’s meddling.
Leliel: This isn’t quite point-worthy, since it’s showing concern, but out-of-universe it’s clearly the author thinking he’s clever.
He needed to do something quickly before the situation degenerated to the point of no return. He couldn't think of anything strong enough to…
With his telekinesis he had maintained the integrity of his arm when steel had given way. Mentally preparing himself, he put his left hand between the super human teeth snapping away and threatening to take off Asuka's tongue.
Leliel: Absolutely fucking not. People used to do this, it’s true, but in fact, it’s actually better to bite open your own cheek than risk the damage to the mouth. If Tzeentchji is going to protect his arm at all, it’s likely that doing this would break Asuka’s jaw open. Fucking yikes.
Emma: I think I read somewhere that it requires like. A horrifyingly small amount of bite force to sever a human finger. If Asuka’s at risk of biting through her tongue… Shinji’s not getting those fingers back out, and it’s easier to choke on some idiot’s severed fingers than your own tongue. I think I have the freshest first aid certification of anyone here, and there is no choking risk during a seizure greater than “well meaning bystander shoving shit into your mouth so you don’t bite or choke on your tongue”.
Leliel: And that, my friend, is something no Space Marine-level healing factor is going to fix. None of it - why else do you think Iron Hands have so many cybernetics at all, even beyond “the flesh is weak”?
TALON ON THE SCALES: 416
Taion: We are going to spare you a detailed description of her crushing Tzeentchji’s hand in her mouth, as satisfying as it is, but it is, in far too much detail to enjoy and moves the plot nowhere.
Angharad: Well, I’m enjoying it. Maybe she can sit up, go for his trachea next.
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 783 (Technically the Blood God’s AT Field, but still, lurid.)
Futaba: That sidequest done, Tzeentchji splints himself and runs into the halls of NERV, seeing it become clear that the base is under attack.
And then Shinji saw a face he recognized. He had only seen it once, but he never forgot the face of anyone he owed a favour to.
Shinobu: And also “remembered” this was ever a thing. Would’ve been nice, having that. Might make you likable.
Futaba: But yeah, this scene’s okay. The NERV troop, one of Ramiel’s killers with a TOW, reports the JSSDF is attacking, as they did in canon once SEELE decided it was time for their sudden but inevitable betrayal. He’s here to get the pilots to their Evas, and since Tzeentchji agrees that’s probably safest while Asuka’s brain comes back online (she’s still unconscious), and he’s being guarded by his Rubrics, he points the dude in the right direction and then confronts the JSSDF.
He tasted the emotions of the soldiers advancing forward. There was a great deal of anger and resentment, but there was also an enormous undercurrent of fear tinged with a grim dark resolve to do whatever needed to be done.
[Suddenly, all of space echos with Diego’s voice, screaming “BOOOOOOO!”]
Taion: …okay. So, that requires some explanation for the comm members…
Leliel: [Evil Grin] Well, let’s just say the Scion version of a nascent Daemon Prince is losing the “nascent” part. More in the spitefic. [/shameless plug]
Shinobu: Wow, he works fast - ahem! But our co-sporker gradually metamorphosing into a lesser Elder God aside, he’s right. In a better story, this would be a moment of reflection, that the JSSDF is doing their duty too, just like the 40K people - as it is, it’s just an awful pun.
Magdalene: Normally I’d disapprove of ascending on the basis of rage at a pun… but that’s a really, really bad pun.
Futaba: Technically, there are other reasons, but the fire of apotheosis doesn’t mind a spark or nine! …Crap, I think there may still be Tzeentch in me…
They had ordered the bombardment with the N2 mine before their main advance, terrified of what NERV could do. They had seen what the Evas were capable of, and they weren't taking any chances. They wanted the enemy citadel open to direct fire as quickly as possible.
Taion: This is…actually intelligent. What is the ‘but’ I am sensing…?
A pity. If they had begun with a conventional attack, Shinji might not have been roused so soon. Then again, he was almost done with the process of healing Asuka, so it was somewhat moot. Of course, they were so deliciously vulnerable at the moment.
Taion: [Groan] Of course. Their caution actually worked to his benefit. What else? Clearly, they need to kiss the ass of the author more, because overcoming the power of fiat through raw strength is not viable.
Magdalene: You know, the reason why everything is a benefit to me *sounds of Emma trying to surpass a coughing fit in the background* is because I go to it and bend it myself! The world doesn’t just start pre-bent to my benefit!
TALON ON THE SCALES: 417
Futaba: So, before I get to the next bit, I want to emphasize that while the JSSDF is in the pocket of SEELE as a death squad here, and clearing the way for them to initiate Third Impact, they don’t know that. They were briefed that NERV was trying to cause it, and are trying to save humanity. Sort of like Tzeentchji, ostensibly, is. He, as Grand Poobah Sorcerer Psyker, is able to scan this very easily, because it’s on their minds.
Now, let’s see how he works with that info!
Ah! There is the mind of their commander!
The general of the operation was an old veteran of the Post Second Impact Wars and all the horrors that had occurred during them. He was a hard man who accepted no compromises from his men or from the enemy. He was the perfect man to lead the purging of NERV.
His mind held off Shinji for all of three milliseconds.
Leliel: See, this is something I’m not sure is a canon violation. Because people in 40K resist through willpower and focus. But Tzeentchji is legitimately that powerful, so I’m being merciful - this guy, for reasons that aren’t especially good but have been established, was not prepared for a mental attack.
Emma: I’m not willing to be merciful because the mere fact Tzeentchji is that powerful is directly tied back to this whole thing being an especially convoluted jack-off session. It’s yet another bead in a long string of self-aggrandizement and I don’t care for it.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 418
The second and third in command of the entire operation were dead before anyone had realized that the general had drawn his side arm and shot them point blank in the head. By the time the guards had started to respond, 80 of the senior command staff for the entire operation were dead or wounded, and then they blew away their commanding officer.
Futaba: This, on the other hand, is just being a dick!
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 969
Shinobu: Honestly, I get it, they’re attacking everyone he considers important…but on the other hand, they’re also misled, and you can’t tell me “beaming the actual truth” won’t cause at least some of them to lay down arms.
Magdalene: This would be more appropriate if it was Asuka avenging Tzeenchji. Carving an indiscriminate swathe of bloody vengeance through people vaguely connected with your pains is a Khornate tradition.
Angharad: That was one planet.
Leliel: Times…I’ll let it drop, there are more pressing issues. By this point, the somewhat clever stuff Tzeentchji does with tearing out access codes and confusing the IFF protocols of the opposing forces and the perceptions of the human pilots to make them shoot the JSSDF isn’t even entertaining. It’s just a couple paragraphs of a lovingly described curbstomp, and I don’t even find it entertaining on a technical level…I do find it interesting he found all the needed codes in a few people and always where to sow confusion.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 419
This went beyond a simple cluster fuck, this transcended into the realm where future generations of soldiers would refer to a situation this badly screwed up that they would have to call such scenarios 'Tokyo-3'. Military historians could make entire careers on writing books on how everything went south all at once.
Entire special weeks on the History channel would be devoted this single battle!
Taion: And why are you still boasting to yourself!?
Angharad: I think you greater underestimate just how fucking stupid warfare frequently is. Even confining ourselves to Old Terra, there are an astounding amount of battles that went just as badly without a wizard digging around in the opposing commander’s head.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 970
That however left the light infantry, spearheaded Special Forces that had already infiltrated Headquarters. They had quickly moved to a self-imposed communications black out and they were in close enough quarters that they would be able to tell who was firing on them by visual inspection. More then that however, they were trained to fight in situations of poor communications and confusion, thus making them less reliant on the technology that was the doom of the pilots and tankers on the surface. Shinji could take them apart one squad at a time, but that would take a great deal of time, allowing the enemy to get into the various critical systems of NERV.
Taion: [In Dumbstruck Awe] Did…did he just choose the smart option, that wasn’t bloodthirsty sadism? Is the superintelligent Tzeentchian showing strategic sense?
Emma: I’m sensing a nasty catch somewhere. He’s never pragmatic or strategic when he can be doing shit that’d make Guts Berserk go “gee dude, that’s a bit much”.
Leliel: The other shoe is “it won’t last” if nothing else, but yeah, for once, he shows actual restraint…if mostly so the author can boast about how very SMRT he is to prioritize while looking for Misato. And to confirm that, skipping a bit more fight-
There were screaming, panicking civvies all around, but orders were to wipe out anything that moved, with special emphasis on the three Children capable of pilot the monstrous Eva Units. If those fuckers were actually allowed to get into their war machines, then it could very well be the end of the world as they knew it.
Best to just shoot first and never ask questions.
Futaba: Yyyyep! The author knows that these guys are being misled! Now, the JSSDF isn’t exactly on the northern part of the big ol’ alignment wheel, but the thing is, as far as they know, a bunch of young teens are going to end the world. And they may or may not know what they look like.
Shinobu: This is part of something very insidious. We see it in the sequel more, but Academia Nut uses “we protect children” as a default reason his pet version of Chaos is better. What shows they’re villains with a point, or at least not the worst option. The thing is…creating orphans offhandedly is also harming children. And as we saw throughout…everything in the fic, this apparently doesn’t cover sexual assault, manipulation, or a significant portion of people not of age of majority, or did the fact that the pilots are fourteen pass everyone by? But the thing is…after the shit Tzeentchji pulled, it feels like an excuse. In fact, it comes off as outright fashy - it’s an ultimately hollow “limit” that exists to neatly avoid the fact that Tzeentchji is murdering people for his own pleasure, and to make it seem simultaneously righteous while allowing for being an absolute and utter asshole. How dare you accuse him of being a sadistic serial killer, can’t you see he’s doing it for the children?!?!?!?!
Emma: *breaks into hysterical laughter* Oh my god you didn’t tell me he’s one of those “we’re protecting the children (but not from us)” guys! Oh my GOD! It’s like a belated Christmas present, finding out he’s one of my least favourite types of specific guy! *calming down* Anyways, there’s a reason this seems fashy, and it’s because the protection of children as a vague idea of personal property or future vessels of your ideology while being incredibly cruel to actual children is a cornerstone of pretty much every reactionary movement I can think of.
Taion: In the end, and as we’ll see, Tzeentchji wants to be both some anti-authority figure and to wear the boots to crush faces with, and so he invents a bunch of conveniently awful enemies that cross a moral line that only exists for them, so that nobody notices and calls him out - or at least gets a nice shield of supposed “standards” and “honesty” to hide behind.
Futaba: And it is all bullshit, especially given how he treats people on his side. Cutting forward:
A few rather nervous looking NERV guards moved up to intercept him, but Shinji just glared at them and said, "There are some rather unpleasant soldiers that way who may, in fact probably will, kill you if you fight them," he pre-empted their challenge, pointing to a second door on the far side of the room. "That way leads to the defensive positions the rest of the facility are now forming. The way you are headed right now, which is to say 'in my way' ends with certain death at my hands after considerable amounts of fire and screaming. I suggest you make a good decision."
Leliel: Translation: “I recognize you’re on my side and I recognize my powers may not be the most precise when violent, but admitting to that might make me come off as something than a psionic god, and I need panic to help me forget my masculinity issues.” For this, in light of the whole rampage, five points; the JSSDF were being assholes, but Tzeentchji managed to completely outshine them in assholery, because at least they had legitimate reason apart from “interrupted me polishing my trophy wife and being obnoxious”, and didn’t have reason to know that NERV members not named Gendo poses less threat that SEELE (in canon, Tzeentchji is enough of a menace that Exterminatus of the planet seems like a send-up).
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 975
Futaba: Anyway…oh. Oh shit, here we go….
Strolling leisurely down the detention block cells, Shinji stops before the one with Misato on the other side and casually gestured with his hand, wrenching the heavy door open to find Misato huddled up in one corner, her fingernails broken off from clawing at the walls and her own flesh. She looked up at Shinji with wild, frightened eyes, before she shook her head and turned away from him.
Leliel: Gee. It’s almost as if demonic possession is bad.
Shinji growled in barely contained fury. That Keeper of Secrets was going to pay for this.
Shinobu: And you still dealt with it, and let it play with an eldar soul. Forced deal or not, what does that say about you, especially given how you let it do the same exact thing to others later? Hell, come to think of it - you let it into Asuka’s mind too sans your own deal to avoid fucking her up, too. I get the sense that you’re more mad it’s an unruly tool.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 976
Gendo was going to pay too for not even trying to give her the basic attention of a straitjacket, but honestly at this point Gendo could probably kill everyone else on the planet and it wouldn't particular increase the suffering he would experience at Shinji's hands. He'd kind of plateaued on the crimes thing a while back.
Shinobu: His intelligence, on the other hand, just continues to dig into the dirt, as he has no reason not to, especially after she killed Ritsuko and is, as shown, complaining of hallucinations that sound suspiciously like actionable intel. We’ve been free of one of these counts for a while, but this is a stay of pain, not notable improvement.
Emma: I’m not sure a straitjacket would help at all. Like compassionate restraints are a real thing, although I pray to god I never have to use them, but I can never remember where straitjacket falls on the “can be useful, was regularly used as a tool of abuse” to “literally no good way to use this” scale.
Taion: Better question - why would Tzeentchji care beyond the excuse given to indulge his hate?
DUMMY PLUGGED: 760
"Misato-san, please don't be afraid, you're not dreaming, its really me here, and I haven't come to do anything atrocious to you," Shinji said gently while squatting down at the edge of the door to avoid towering over her.
"No… no… you can't be real… can't be…" Misato mutters while continuing to avoid eye contact.
Leliel: And then she realized he was, and promptly strangled him, recognizing the horror for what he was. Because, fun fact - as someone who was previously a victim of Daemonic possession, and it left, Misato is now an Exorcised - having had the very embodiment of Chaos in you but removed through great difficulty immunizes you against further corruption, and usually can sense the Warp. It’s not worth it, but it’s ironic.
Taion: [Looking up from web search] And that was also only made clear in the Dark Heresy rulebook The Radical’s Handbook, published a year after the fic finished. In addition, that is the result of actual exorcism, not bribery to leave by another Chaos sorcerer. So, we won’t hit it with PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART for that…we will hit it with noting that before one gets to full Daemonhost level, a symptom of possession is increasing psyker potential and physical abilities, which likely last if a Chaos-aligned person is doing the exorcism. But damsels must be in distress, right?
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 352
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 883
Reaching out his hand, Shinji says, "Touch me then, feel that I'm real. I know you can still feel, right?" A daemon of Slaanesh would never take that sort of thing away. Sanity, yes; the ability to feel, never.
Futaba: …because otherwise they wouldn’t be able to overload it and burn it out through experience does the fact that Slaaneshi daemons look like pink Hellraiser Cenobites mean nothing to you?
(Slaaneshi host, from https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Keeper_of_Secrets)
(Cenobites, from https://hellraiser.fandom.com/wiki/Cenobites)
Pinhead and Company have more clothing and are more grey, but you can see the resemblance, yeah? Skintight, humanlike, kind of sadomasochistic? That’s because finding sensation is the whole purpose of the God of Excess!
Shinobu: Seriously, what is this? Comfort and all, but - Tzeentchji, you’ve been intimately familiar with what a Keeper of Secrets is and does. “You can feel me” is exactly the kind of thing they’d see, they’re defined by it!
Emma: Yeah, a Slaaneshi demon wouldn’t take away your ability to feel… but you would have absolutely no reason to trust any of your sensations ever again. It’s almost like they’re not good at mental healing, or something!
Taion: Depends on the definition…but I agree that post-Slaaneshi functional sanity would not resemble anything conventional. Certainly would not avoid giving you new sensations where “it isn’t from something real” is a mere detail.
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 353
Misato glanced up at Shinji's hand before looking away and mumbling, "Makes it look so real… not real… not really real…"
Taion: See, even the fic agrees!
"Misato-san, the daemon isn't here right now, I can tell, and I won't let it harm you again. I know it was doing terrible things to you, telling you truths you were better off not knowing…" Shinji begins.
Leliel: First, that’s Tzeentch, second, daemons lie. All the time. As in, even followers of Chaos flex by forcing daemons to tell the truth through intimidation and power. So just assuming it’s doing anything “honest” is something nobody at all aware of daemons would do.
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 354
"It told me who killed Kaji," Misato exploded, before idly pulling another bloody clump of hair out of her now thinned out scalp.
Futaba: First, ew.
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 784
Second…oh boy here we go. [Retrieves Button] One for each repeat of this urban myth!
DUMMY PLUGGED: 761
"Who? I'll bring them here and we can butcher them together, maybe bring in Asuka and Rei too, be one big psychotic family," Shinji says far too warmly for the content.
Taion: Agreed, but somehow I don’t think it’s funny anymore. Far too much sincerity.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 977
"Too late," Misato intones in a sing-song voice while considering the scrap of hair and skin in her hands.
Shinobu: Ew, again. Given how she’s part of the harem, how does - oh wait, I remember Nurgle Rei. The author probably likes this.
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 785
Shinji went quiet for a moment before saying, "So Ritsuko did it, huh?"
DUMMY PLUGGED: 762
"Kaji… Kaji was investigating NERV. Trying to find out all the dirty, dirty little secrets. He managed to slip down to the lowest levels, to find out what is sitting at the bottom of Terminal Dogma… but he had bad timing… bad timing… someone was already there… she knew, knew… and then… and then… and then… BANG! Ahahhahahahahaha!" Misato ripped apart the blood scrap in her hands at the exclamation, gibbering maniacally before trailing off into sobs.
(https://imgflip.com/i/59fkdz)
Futaba: Okay, I’m being facetious. Kaji is dead. Okay, end of exaggeration - this lore be lyin’. He was killed because SEELE ordered him to kidnap Fuyutsuki but he let the Vice Commander free when Misato was suspected for it, freeing her at the cost of lethally pissing off Keel, and that was after he gave the secrets of the Human Instrumentality Project he already had to her. He didn’t die in central dogma, SEELE’s assassin was a random hitman they sent out to shoot him - and this was repeated twice over just so the tutorial wasn’t missed, Hideki Anno was so alarmed by the idea Ritsuko shot him that he dropped his normal ambiguity to go “oh hell to the naw!” He does say “you’re a little late, aren’t you?”, but it was because he realized it was SEELE’s enforcer and he was just amused they were slow on the draw. It was not Ritsuko, who alienated him, but he didn’t really come to hate like Misato did. And doesn’t work for SEELE. That bit of fanon needs to die.
Shinobu: Even if that was the case - there’s a reason Kaji didn’t run. Or look betrayed - if he’s going to come off as an assassination target, anyone SEELE forces to kill him isn’t going to leave them a choice. If anything, and for the sake of argument, discovering her motives from the Keeper is likely going to make Misato hate SEELE far more than she does Ritsuko. Don’t get me wrong, Ritsuko is going to be high on the vengeance list, but Misato is more likely to work with her to avenge their mutual friend.
Emma: See, you’re assuming this writer wants to write a coherent, character driven story, instead of fulfilling the “punish the evil bitch who won’t be part of the harem” segment of the power fantasy.
Leliel: I feel that deserves one point per item, so…six. Plus one for Ritsuko totes shooting him.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 769
"Ritsuko couldn't get me out of Unit 01 fast enough, couldn't make me wake up, she shot the love of your life, and then to top it all off she started belittling you for the disintegration of your family that she caused. You couldn't let that stand, could you?" Shinji asks quietly, trying to see if he could follow her twisted logic. Just because his logic was warped didn't necessarily mean it was warped in the same way as hers.
Taion: “Someone killed my mate and I wanted revenge.” Mudder, if that is ‘warped’ logic to you, the idea the sun rises in the east must be fathomless to you. To say nothing of how…stereotypically maternal this makes Misato sound.
Angharad: Getting vengeance without 500 layers of groxshit justifications and plots is incomprehensible to a Tzeentchian. We all knew that.
Magdalene: Right, next time I’ll charge in, completely thoughtless, and maybe if I’m lucky I won’t also die and make the whole thing a complete farce.
Shinobu: Still doesn’t mean the average Tzeentchian doesn’t get it, they’d just dislike the lack of artfulness; this is all Tzeentchji.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 770
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 883
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 978 (Logic like hating the failure that, according to this, killed your boyfriend, is warped? Says more about you than her, Tzeentchji.)
Nodding profusely and excessively, Misato says, "Yeah! I… I wanted to kill her so bad, wanted to let her suffer the way I suffered… wanted to make her suffer the way I suffered… maybe cut up that fawning little Maya bitch in front of her… maybe violate her physically the way she violated my soul… maybe…"
Sporkers: …EEEEHEWWWW!
(https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/310209-what-has-been-seen-cannot-be-unseen)
Shinobu: Fun fact, Maya does not reappear after this. We feel deeply relieved and yet envious of her.
Leliel: Even as a threat, this is just…URGH. Co-sporking with Emma has opened my eyes to just how…patriarchy-affirming that kind of threat is, as if it wasn’t gross enough…
Emma: Wow, a rape threat and a threat of punishment for a lesbian crush! We’re two-for-two!
Taion: …and just for that, five points, plus the running tally.
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 790
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 888 (Oh mighty Khorne, discipline me for this most sacred number belonging to something even the Dark Prince would regard as a tad gauche…)
DUMMY PLUGGED: 771
Cutting off the growing rant, Shinji says, "But you didn't. You snapped."
"I… I… thoughts not mine… Ritsuko my… friend? I… I didn't want to believe… fed up with her… fed up… had to hit that bitch. Had to hit that bitch! Feel her flesh crumple beneath my fist… yeah, just hit her, just make her shut up. Shut up! Shut up!" Misato screams, clutching her head and adding fresh marks on top of the numerous weeping wounds and scars she had accumulated during her incarceration.
Leliel: And it’s still going! Plus, again, this is something the fic thinks we should take at face value!
DUMMY PLUGGED: 772
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 883
The fact that none of them were infected was rather telling.
Futaba: I don’t know what’s being implied here, and I have run out of “care” energy for the day. Not spending money on a refill.
Emma: That… Nurgle’s ignoring her? That the EVUL EVUL NERV people have been keeping her clean but not doing anything else? Fuck if I know either.
"And then she pulled the gun," Shinji says quietly.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 773
"Yes, The gun, the one she used to gun down Kaji… she's not a very good shot… she bungled it… not quick… not clean… made him suffer before he died. The gun is proof! She killed Kaji! She had to die!" Misato wails.
Magdalene: And you stabbed her to death in what I can only describe as a “drawn out orgy of violence”. Do you think that balances things out?
DUMMY PLUGGED: 774 (Also keeping the running tally.)
"And she's dead now," Shinji tells her.
"Yes… yes… but… but… every time I stabbed her… it… it… it whispered another crime… so many… so many! Oh Shinji!" Misato bawls, before lunging out and grabbing on to Shinji, burying her face into his shoulder to cry it all out.
Taion: Especially because she would never see the bridge that the member of a conceptual species known for being notorious liars sold her.
Magdalene: I won’t say believing daemons never lie is an unfair belief, provided we’re talking about young daemonologists. Much past your first summoning, you learn better or get eaten.
Emma: Also it is absolutely insane that this fic is using daemons never lie as a point in Chaos’ favour. Like, okay, maybe Academia Nut didn’t go through a phase of being obsessed with faery lore, but “Things that cannot lie but are still fundamentally untrustworthy” are a touchstone of folklore and from that, pop culture.
(https://www.homestuck.com/images/storyfiles/hs2/02253.gif)
(IYKYK, and if you don’t, well, guy has a whole subsection in the Biography section of his wiki page that is just “manipulating children”)
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 355
DUMMY PLUGGED: 775
Feeling distinctly uncomfortable and distinctly angry at what had been done to one of the few precious people in his life, Shinji could only pat her on the back and wait for her to get it out of her system.
Shinobu: Since part of that was Tzeentchji himself, the mutated immune cells in her body promptly overloaded him with sensation and fried his brain. The end.
"They killed your mother…" Misato mumbled into him, her voice muffled by his clothes and flesh, but the meaning still there.
(https://media1.tenor.com/m/QIbYO1KaBhEAAAAd/eyeroll-ugh.gif)
Leliel: So, remember how we said waaaaay back in chapter 2 that Academia Nut thinks every member of Tzeentchji’s school is a potential pilot, not just 2-A? Well, it’s time for Deep Thoughts on Eva Construction! And who he thinks Yui is! [Changes DUMMY PLUGGED Button Battery]
Emma: Oh, this is going to be good. *beat* I mean, it’ll be bad but I’ll get a lot of sporking material out of it.
That piece of shrapnel that had been twisting about in Shinji's mind for so long suddenly moved like it had been caught in the magnetic field of an active MRI machine.
Taion: The sudden realization of how pointlessly delayed this was in order to maintain stations of the canon promptly drove him to catatonia pondering his misspent life. The end.
Shinji began to shudder with emotions he had not even known he had been building up since he had arrived here. Now he remembered. Now he remembered that day over ten years ago when he had watched his mother climb into Unit 01, and never climb back out…
Futaba: …which is evidence your memories aren’t complete, because you’d also remember what happened just before, when your mom had some very telling dialogue with Fuyutsuki:
Fuyutsuki: The same weather day after day… The disappearance of autumn from this country is sad beyond words. According to the scenario in SEELE's Secret Dead Sea Scrolls, Third Impact will definitely occur in a little over ten years.
Yui: SEELE and Gehirn - organizations for preventing the final tragedy.
Fuyutsuki: I support your intentions - Not SEELE's.
Yui: Professor Fuyutsuki, it would be terribly dangerous to break that seal onto the world.
Fuyutsuki: I've given all the materials to Ikari. It's not something one can do alone. We won't repeat what happened last time. Oh, and I've also been given a warning - It seems that it would be no trouble at all for them to erase me.
Yui: And those who survived as well. It's easy to exterminate people.
Fuyutsuki: Still, that's no reason for you to become a test subject.
Yui:Everything happens as it must. That is why I am with SEELE - for Shinji's sake.
(Source: https://www.evaotaku.com/html/dircut/eps21.html)
Shinobu: See those last lines? That’s basically all but screaming that Yui merging with Eva was something she was planning on, especially with this image of Toddler Shinji hugging his mom’s face:
(https://wiki.evageeks.org/Theory_and_Analysis:Yui%27s_Agenda)
Leliel: That, right there, is the face of a woman who knows she’s not going to be alive in the traditional sense in the near future. Combine that with the fact that it’s all but stated that by the end, she had always intended to go into space as Unit 01 to be an eternal, lonely monument to humanity once existing and seems bitterly resigned to it as a backup plan to save humanity when it seems that Shinji has fully decided the species needs to be liquified, and I think the “superhuman intellect” might realize his mom was kind of a schemer herself. Hell, that sounds interesting - it’d show the Arcanite viewpoint to not be disappointed or betrayed, but impressed and proud! To become an eternal bearer of information…that sounds like a worthy ending if Plan A doesn’t work. But as Emma said long ago, Yui isn’t just Anime Mom, she’s Dead Mom, and thus was a perfect little saint.
Emma: Yeah, I think Yui is like, probably closer than any other character in NGE to fitting the idea of a sympathetic, big picture Chaos worshipper that 1k Shinji claims it’s playing with. The problem is that a sympathetic, big picture Chaos worshipper is still going to be not an especially good person. Like Yui has to willingly kill herself in front of her son for the greater good, and that cannot exist in a fanfic where “did you hurt Shinji” is the entire determiner of morality.
Futaba: Not to mention, is really more Imperium in Chaos Metal Makeup.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 776
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 889 (Making her out to be a victim, purely.)
She had been absorbed into Unit 01, body disintegrated into LCL and soul bound to the Eva.
Yet somehow they had been able to reverse the process for him…
Taion: …because you aren’t the core CPU for the Levnis. Taking her out would lobotomize it, because she’s literally its brain. Say it with me:
Sporkers: SAME. FUCKING. SPIRIT!
DUMMY PLUGGED: 777 (All Lucky Sevens! [Starts pounding Tzeentchji repeatedly for 7,777 damage per hit])
"They… they needed a person's soul to bond with the Eva, to control it, so they… they… oh Shinji-chan, I can't believe I had you climb into the one that killed your mother…" Misato told him miserably, not noticing as Shinji's face became increasingly expressionless.
Shinobu: This is a nice way of saying “more vacant as the vacuum of intelligence that is the Eva plot in this fic sucks away all thought from his skull.”
Angharad: I don’t know what he’s so upset about. Mothers are always doing shit like this.
Emma: I think you’re operating from a skewed sample size, there.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 778
Leliel: And then…I shit you not, we have seven fucking paragraphs that can be summarized as “Tzeentchji gets pissy, Warp reacts and turns weather stormy, spooks SEELE and the JSSDF but they’ve come too far and release the Mass-Produced Evas”. Right in the middle of the fucking exposition!
I’d make another Terrible Writing Advice reference here, but this is literally the opposite of intrusive exposition! This is suppressing plot info! You are literally doing worse than the parody advice channel!
Emma: The narrative priorities of this fic are absolutely insane.
"The… the souls couldn't be just anybody though… they… they had to want to work with the Pilots, to protect them… they had to be the mothers of the Children," Misato tells him.
Shinobu: Oh look, the broken clock is right twice a day…by sheer coincidence.
Now he remembered what he had found in the ruins of the testing site for Units 03 and 04. Not only had they known, in fact encouraged, the infection of Unit 03 by the Thirteenth Angel, but they had done something far, far worse when the Evas arrived.
"How. Many. Tanks. Do. They. Have?" Shinji grits out between his teeth while seeing red.
Futaba: …is he seriously-
"Fifty. They have fifty women in suspended animation, all of them mothers of your classmates, in the event that they decide to use them as Pilots," Misato tells him.
Futaba: …he is. Because apparently, Academia Nut doesn’t know that Asuka’s entire issue is from Kyoko being separated from her soul and still being around outside a tank oh my fucking Anno you literally spent several chapters on it.
Shinobu: Leaving aside the fact it’s heavily implied they uploaded the mothers’ souls to the Eva cores…the implication is that nearly every student in that school has their mother vanished and pickled in a tank. How does nobody notice?! Even in-universe Toji and Kensuke got suspicious when they realized they and Shinji were all missing a mom! Hell, YOU ARE A TELEPATH! YOU DIDN’T NOTICE THE MISSING MOTHERS FOR EVERYONE?!
Magdalene: That would imply he has not blinkered his telepathic potential by, to put it colloquially, being unable to see beyond his own ass. Noticing that all his classmates are missing mothers would require him to give a damn about them, when they aren;t even pawns to him.
Taion: And moreover, from the sound of it, the mothers died for various reasons from the way Toji and Kensuke talk about theirs, so clearly, they could retrieve souls for cores later somehow, as shown by Kyoko having hers extracted but still alive. No stasis tanks needed. This is dumb. Fifty points each, because this isn’t just vital to the plot or ironically fitting - it’s flying in the face of this very same fic!
DUMMY PLUGGED: 828
TALON ON THE SCALES: 469 (For the sheer contrivance of it, and Tzeentchji only knowing now, after EoE conveniently began.)
Shinji threw his head back and opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came out in the physical world.
Across the planet animals began to panic, those in cages thrashing at the bars to escape. Most people suddenly felt shivers up and down their spines, while more sensitive types winced in momentary pain or even suffered from minor nosebleeds. Dozens of light years away Eldar looked up in fear and confusion for a second.
Leliel: [Mouths Wordlessly] Y-you mean the Eldar who would be generating daemons due to their beliefs, including from the War in Heaven in which they were made in this supposedly sterile Warp?! …it’s the same as last time, but a great reminder of how that calm is somehow only present when convenient.
EXCOMMUNICAE CANONICUS: 356
Tears were streaming down his face. Two thirds of his life Shinji had lived without his mother. Two thirds of Asuka's life she had been tormented not just by the loss of her mother, but from seeing her dead body hanging from the rafters. Toji and Hikari and Kensuke… all the friends he had made here, they had been made to suffer the loss of a parent because they were special and a group of old men desired to harness powers they did not understand to their own benefit.
Taion: And of course, SEELE and NERV didn’t help, but Academia Nut and StarDestroyer.net butchering the canon were the initial aggressors.
Angharad: CRY HARDER, YOU SPOILED INFANT.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 829
Shinji had been mad the first time he learned this, learned what that other presence in the Eva truly was. But now… now after having suffered so much more, having seen how the machinations of those responsible for this had inflicted so much more suffering on the ones he loved the most, after having already thought that he had reached the point where there was that could make the situation worse… now…
Now he had transcended anger.
A strange calm and clarity washed over him. He would not get mad.
He would get even.
Shinobu: How very touching. Almost touching enough to make me forget the dialogue where he viewed most of these same people as pawns, and the co-pilots as your trophies. And once again: SAME GODDAMNED SPIRIT!
DUMMY PLUGGED: 830
Leliel: Thankfully, the next bit is fairly okay. Misato regains enough lucidity to help out and Tzeentchji gives her a pep talk, but on the way there, his lackadaisical attitude towards his psychic effort, plus the Keeper of Secrets’ spite, bites him in the ass and Misato needs to eat JSSDF bullets to protect him, akin to canon. We also get a rare sight…
You really shouldn't have fucked with me! Did you know there was a 'secret' maintenance tunnel that can be used to bypass that little kill zone you set up? Or that you're using up so much psychic energy right now you forgot to assign some to precog?
Futaba: [Sigh of pleasure] Tzeentchji getting pwned and called out for being a thuggish blaster caster with no creativity. Admittedly, he immediately blames the Keeper for this oversight, but even in that case, it’s his own arrogant assumption that thing is going to take him messing with it lying down. So he still fucked himself over.
Magdalene: How do you “forget” to use precognition? WHat’s wrong with this child?
Angharad: I’d make a nasty joke about Arcanites and responsibility, but given the amount of time you’ve spent wallowing in how everything that goes wrong is your fault, specifically, it’s not even accurate.
Magdalene: Oh, was that really necessary?
Taion: Okay, leaving that aside for another day! Back to the fic, there is an…honestly alright scene in which Misato dies despite Tzeentchji’s best efforts. As much as I think most was stolen from the movie, the fact that Tzeentchji actually gives a good effort and is faced with limitations, combined with the Keeper taunting him, makes this a lot more interesting than yet more gorey death..
Leliel: Of course, it can’t last, as the Keeper decides to…well, apparently channel every edgy asshole on 4chan at the time of the fic’s writing.
You know, it's a pity you made me promise to leave her alone. I might have been able to snatch her soul before it goes to the place where human souls go. It's not very nice. Did you know that it's possible to bind a mortal's soul to a host body much in the same way as with a daemon? Obviously the result isn't very powerful, but it can be done if you have the soul and know what to do. A pity that we don't have the former, because I know all about the latter.
Leliel: This part is the most in-character for a Greater Daemon it gets. Pseudo-polite, and with mentioning an actual Chaotic technique. Mortarion is all-too-familiar with that, what with how he or she was set against those sort of true undead by Necare during their childhood.
Shinji ignored the daemon's taunting, too numb to care.
Misato was dead.
Shinji just looked down at her body, gently stroking her hair a few times.
Oh for the love of… look hero, this is starting to go a little outside of plan, which I assume you still don't consciously remember. Now, I know that you're suffering a little, hey, suffering is my job, I can grok that shit, but try to look at the bigger picture.
Taion: This is…probably as close to nice as daemons made of lust and sensation get, and it is to maintain a deal and for its freedom from it, so I will let it slide.
Shinji still wasn't listening. He had already spent all of his emotions for the day; he was tired of this shit.
Look, you've still got Rei and Asuka to worry about. Remember them? Little blue haired Nurgle worshipper, could be considered your half sister. Psychotic red haired Khornate berserker, awesome lay in bed despite the whole crude Blood God thing. Ring any bells in there?
Taion: …and while regarding Asuka in terms of sexual ability is also in-character for a being made of lust, it’s still something that comes off as the author reducing her to the ability to be a sex object. Again.
Emma: Yeah, this is largely indistinguishable from Tzeentchji’s narration about Asuka and Rei. Hell, it’s less horny, given that it describes Rei in purely familial terms and not as a… manic pixie incest nightmare.
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 890
Shinji blinked once.
He blinked twice.
Someone hit reboot to clear out the damn blue screen of death.
Oh… right. There are other people I love in mortal peril. I had better go kill anything that glances at them funny.
That's the little sociopath we need.
Understand me clearly daemon. There will still be words later, when I am not so in shock.
Try me Tzeentch-boy.
Futaba: Me, I’m more realizing that Tzeentchji is probably one of those people who claim to have antisocial personality disorder to excuse them being an obnoxious troll. He’s just that kind of edgy, as is this fic.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 979
Shinobu: And with that, even the more artful forms of violence in this fic no longer are interesting. We do have Tzeentchji carrying her body on a psychically-lifted disc while the Rubric Marines clean house. For once, I also buy Tzeentchji has some tactical smarts, as he does actually collapse an entry point to make the Rubrics the only way through, and as noted, that’s a trap. He does this in spite of being devastated by Misato’s loss (allegedly), and just being focused on finding Rei before eliminating all attackers in the Evas.
Leliel: But, for people who act dumber…
Asuka arouse from her coma in her Plug Suit and safely encased in the quiet darkness of Unit 02's entry plug. Thoughts resonated within her mind, a feeling of warmth and well being radiating outward.
Shinji was alive.
He had kept his promise to her, to crawl his way back from even the depths of Hell itself just to be with her. He cared for her. He loved her. He would never leave her alone. She wasn't alone anymore. She would never be alone again.
Emma: Okay, cool. Anything else? You got any other deep-seated issues to work for? Any other problems? Any relationships you might want beyond a single guy? No?
Taion: [Sarcastic applause] You MAAAAAN is present. Congra-tu-fucking-lations. That is the only thing worth mentioning. Just…peachy…
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 891
More warmth flowed through her limbs and core, as if phantom arms were wrapping themselves about her, filling her with pride and joy. She could feel it spreading through every inch; every pore; every cell of her being.
All those years she had spent being angry and sad at the whole world, she had never realized that the source and cure to all her sorrows was right next to her the entire time. But now that her heart was truly open…
Mama.
Shinobu: Oooh, how touching. How touching that you discovered this you didn’t pick this up any other time you were in the Eva, or suspected it, until this exact moment! When in canon, your life needed to be in danger first and you were falling apart mentally after you woke up before she comforted you! Did you read the script while comatose or something?!
Angharad: What I want to know is why she’s glad to have her teeth pulled.
Emma: Well, I don’t think that’s-
Angharad: No, shut up. I know better than you about this. Oh course she’s angry and sad at the world! It’s a terrible world! The only benefit we get from it is that rage is power. And she thinks she can replace that with what? A mother’s love?
Emma: Well, I guess that was correct, in the “if you want to write truly Chaotic protagonists, you have to be willing to forgo a lot of happy character moments and resolutions” sense.
Leliel: Agreed. And ultimately…in canon, it doesn’t, it just snaps Asuka out of her fear to get properly angry. So this is way too saccharine. Unnecessarily so, and frankly, a Khornate would at most nod in gratitude before going back to rage.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 831
TALON ON THE SCALES: 470
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 357
Shh… I'm here with you… I've always been here with you. I'm proud of you Asuka. I don't care what you've become; you're still my daughter, my baby to me.
Futaba: *Kyoko* “Your boyfriend though…I have questions. And a request for a speaker in the cyborg Levnis, so I can ask for a restraining order on your behalf.”
Asuka grinned. Mama had never left her either. Shinji was back. Mama was back.
The warmth inside her exploded into fire.
It was time to kick some ass.
Leliel: …fun fact, this “kick some ass” has been a bit recurrent this chapter. It was used to try and stop Misato from dying, encouraging her to kick ass. Causes a certain loss of gravitas in the supposed darkest hour, doesn’t it?
Emma: What, is she all out of bubblegum, too?
Taion: Anyway, cut to the JSSDF forces outside, hiding from the storm that Tzeentchji’s psychic manpain caused…
A colonel from a reinforcing group and his command staffstrode up to the largest assembled collection of the ragged men on first contact and demanded to see who was in charge. He did not expect to get a salute from a second lieutenant.
"You're in charge…" the colonel read the man's name off his uniform, "Lieutenant Gorman?"
"Y-y-yes sir. Most people above the rank of major were dead within minutes, assassins apparently, and then they suborned our communications gear.
Shinobu: For the record - they were induced to shoot each other. How you arrive at “assassins” from that, everyone can see guns firing in the direction they shouldn’t be, is beyond me, but it is quite convenient that nobody in SEELE notices their current archenemy is a telepath. I would also critique Lieutenant Gorman in a Japanese military, but to be honest, I can see SEELE supplementing the kill squad with some of their native Europeans who aren’t attached to NERV.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 471
Futaba: But, before the debrief, the deployment bay below them opens, introducing several troops to gravity physics while Unit 02 rises.
Disengaging from the launch rails, Unit 02 bellowed a challenge to any that could hear it.
The infantry in the Geofront were disinclined to answer. But surprisingly, there were a series of return bellows, weirdly modulated. Looking up, Asuka saw nine white shapes rapidly spiralling down into the Geofront, dropping altitude as quickly as possible to get out of the nightmare storm above. Rain and lightning sleeted harmlessly off their backs, their AT-fields flashing to disperse the energy of the storm. The winds still buffeted them, but their size made them all but inured to the winds on this level.
Leliel: Holy shit, Academia Nut let something SEELE designed look cool and eerie! Frankly, at this point I was expecting “smart” mockery of how the Mass Production Evas here lack eyes.
(https://evangelion.fandom.com/wiki/Mass_Production_Evangelion)
Taion: [Shivers] Is that thing…smiling?
Magdalene: Even I can tell something is very, very wrong here.
Shinobu: Yeah, it is. And to be frank - it’s heavily implied the reason they lack eyes is because they lack identities. They have to have some souls in there, because they have AT Fields, but there’s nothing in there but a mission to initiate Third Impact as SEELE sees it. They don’t even have true pilots, but Dummy Plugs based on Kaworu. Really, they’re a fuckton weaker than the true Units…but A), there’s nine of them on one Unit 02, B), they have S2 engines, so they don’t need to futz around with umbilical cables or batteries, and C), that sword each has is actually a shapeshifted copy of the Lance of Loginius - including ability to pierce AT Fields. In the great D&D Class Analogy, they’re a group of Rogues with Sneak Attack and Critical Hit Chance raised compared to epic-level Fighters of the Evas. Wolves, not bears.
They were the only thing in the whole world capable of standing against Asuka at this point.
The safety on Asuka's bolter clicked off and her chain-axe hummed up to full speed.
Futaba: We hope you have enjoyed the last unironically cool moment of this fanfic. Because next…hoo boy. I’ve read summaries…
Leliel: Yep. Come back next time, as we examine…well, the first half will be…sane. As for the second…well, consider this man and his current disguise a hint:
(https://media1.tenor.com/m/ZiDLY6uVfw0AAAAd/faceoff.gif)
Till next time.
Meanwhile, Somewhere Across the Seas of Tindalos…
Timeline NDS-9182736 (Xothian Classification),
Earth, Ruins of Tokyo-3, Sea of LCL
Death, reflected Diego, was itchy.
Well, maybe it was the inferno bullet rounds. But it was a dull “this is going to keep me up all night” pain, not “oh god spare me and give me a quick end” pain.
Maybe his ceased brain functions were to blame. Of course.
It was inevitable, really - as soon as that Warp thunderstorm started up, Diego had made himself known. The JSSDF suddenly found themselves with a new doctor who spoke broken Japanese and was treated wordlessly without warning or permission. And did well. Miraculously well. Several commanders were merely unconscious rather than dying after the man in the strange glasses did basic triage on them.
Of course, the fact he was there alarmed the JSSDF, especially when he wordlessly moved on to NERV troops after removing the weapons from both. And how the communication with command suddenly ceased whenever he appeared, the voice on the other end replaced by what, for all intents and purposes, seemed to be singing in an alien language.
Ia ia…ris Dia’go…fhtaghn lohk…
By this point, though…dozens of men went mad in the middle of a rainstorm. Shooting each other. And the air had suddenly become an almost arctic chill. By that point, the only thing the soldiers cared about was surviving. Old allegiances forgotten as what some thought was a less alien angel dashed from man to man, troop to troop, muttering to himself in what a couple of them recognized as Spanish.
As the MP Evas arrived, however, that was when a different figure showed himself - who from one angle appeared to be a young boy in gaudy school clothes of cotton, another a dark-skinned giant with red, hateful eyes and a draconic snout, tongues of dark flame escaping from dark green armor and breaks in his skin.
The man didn’t have time to react before he was telekinetically grabbed mid-transport. Nor did he react.
“So. You are the fool that meddling little wasp spoke of,” Vulkan the Black Dragon asked, dropping all pretense of being the boy he murdered and replaced.
“Don’t let Ichiro let you call him that,” Diego replied, not at all betraying any fear. “He is a honeybee, and takes too much pride in his nectar.”
The Dragon sniffed, contempt obvious. “Your pet kingdom literally defines itself in opposition to the Tsan-Chan, and you defend its founder and god? Truly the rot of compassion has hollowed you even more than this…stunt. What were you even trying to do? When I take my rightful place as Dark God, their souls will belong to my hoard, flesh-clad or not.”
“It is my nature,” Diego replied, simply. “I am becoming a god of renewal. To heal is simply a facet unto it.”
The Dragon gave him an incredulous look. “You could choose to be lord and king, to be life itself to your slaves…and you chose to be a medicinal plant? To be something the world eats? Your ignorant contempt for the nature of the world and humanity is spectacular.”
“At least I can see it and not run,” Diego shot back. “How’s your brother, by the way? I read you picked up your mother’s parenting techniques with him.”
The comparison to Kesare, and the initial wound that set the Black Dragon on his obsession with strength, hit home. The next thing Diego knew was being torn apart by Warp dragonfire, revived as an undead, shot by suborned Rubrics, and then tossed into the LCL sea as a final demonstration of contempt for the strange healer.
If he still had working lungs, he might have drowned due to laughing.
Vulkan’s Chaotic counterpart was an absolute fool - or at least so blind to anything but his own greed that he did not study how myths worked, especially when Diego was already closer to a daemon defined by belief than human. To be slain without breaking, for saving others…that was the core of a myth about saviors. The kind of myth that deified the sufferer.
And he knew exactly how a dead man would become a God.
The mental shape of Kaworu Nagisa passed by him, before the shifting thoughts of the liquified humans began to enter Diego’s corpse, directed by the nephilim. The symbiotes in him stirred, eager to accept thought and nutrients into themselves, and started to sprout…and bloom. Fruiting bodies sprung forth, fertilized themselves, and their spores sprung into mycelium that grew over the caps of their parents in a self-sustaining rush of fungal mutation.
Or rather, an organic crucible.
The seedpod that was Diego’s human skin sloughed away, letting free his skeleton, symbiotes, and soul. The LCL continued to nurture and feed him/them/it, as the ever-expanding tangle of chitinous growth overtook more and more of the sea…and then settled upon a piece of the corpse of Ramiel. The crystalline body into the growth as food and scaffold as more independent spores detached to find the corpses of other Angels and retrieve them, the shattered carcass vanishing beneath the riot of expanding biomass from the sapling of Shub-Niggurath, just mutated enough from the primeval genes that were her blood and mind to be an independent child of hers.
But not quite a child yet. An instar, certainly, no longer a larva…but Diego-the-Scion’s purpose to learn and organize was done. Now his symbiotes were eating machines, preparing enough metabolic load for the next stage…and the necessary resources for the self-made imago.
Slowly, the center mass began to weave into a great fungal tree that seemed more plant and animal than mushroom…but to look closer was to see thinner material at the top. The neotenic god within the forming pupa settled in and submerged himself in a divine instinct that knew his needs more than he did himself, and patiently awaited his eclosion.
(A/N: Entomology is perfect for being a bit purple in prose. Can you spot the terms?)
