Fifth Times the Charm

He had to admit, things couldn’t really get much worse.

First the test of Unit-03 literally blew up in everyone’s faces and Misato was nearly killed, then an Angel attacked and, as Unit-01 was the only one that wasn’t either in the deep freeze or undergoing repairs, it was down to him to deal with the threat alone. A threat which, as it turned out was Unit-03; with Asuka still inside. Of course he was expected to attack and defeat the Angel…Eva…Angel…Eva-Angel, but he couldn’t. As he looked up at the thing that was crushing the life out of his throat all he could see was the fiery red-headed German girl stuck inside. Even as an extra pair of arms erupted out of the Evas back and pinned his arms and he heard his fathers continues orders to attack he couldn’t, wouldn’t attack, not her. And then….

“Unit-01! Shinji!”

It was his father, no doubt about to yell at him to attack, like the 20th time would change his mind. But, something was wrong with his tone. Shinji wasn’t sure but he could have sworn he heard fear in the words. It was probably just oxygen deprivation.

“Father?” he weakly chocked back as the phantom fingers grew tighter around his neck and he felt an in explicable freezing hot sensation on the skin where they would have been.

“Run!”

Run? He could barely muster the strength to think and his father wanted him to run? Wait; run? His father wanted Him to run? And this time Shinji was sure he had heard a hint of fear in his voice. His father afraid, impossible, what could possible make his father feel even a small amount of fear? But, as he was on the verge of being strangled to death, that particular curiosity wasn’t really at the top of his list of priorities.

As Shinji gasped in what he was sure would be his last breath and he resigned himself to the encroaching darkness creeping across his vision all he could think of was the girl in the black Eva wringing the life from his neck. That stunning red hair, those confident blue eyes, her fiery personality which clashed with his but which he secretly respected. In some ways, many ways he guessed, Asuka was a lot like the massive burning plane that was on a direct collision course with the back of the Angel infected Eva; the flickering red of the flames lapping along the side of the craft the same as her hair, the reflective cockpit windows glinting the same blue as her eyes, the…wait…plane?

What the…

As Jason hung up on the commander of NERV he smirked, bet Gendo isn’t used to being hung up on, he thought as he used the moments before combat to formulate some kind of strategy to combat the ‘Angel’.

‘Facts’, he whispered to himself, ‘What are the facts?’

In rapid succession the neurons in his brain fired collecting, simplifying and analyzing all the information he had.

First: the Angel was in the body of an Eva, which was good, there were few in the world who knew more about the strengths and limitations of the Evas’ than he did. That knowledge would prove invaluable.

Second: the Pilot was still inside the Unit. Problematic, yes, insurmountable, no.

Third: the Test models pilot seemed incapacitated or in some other way unable or unwilling to combat the threat.

Finally: he was in a 95 meter long, 97559 kg plane traveling roughly 380 mph with enough fuel on board to turn most national parks into smoldering ash.

He smiled, knowing exactly what he was going to do.

Opening the planes loading doors, a pair of giant hatches specially built into the roof of the plane so that the Eva-X could be loaded in and out in secrecy whilst the plane was in its hanger, he carefully rolled Xavier so that he was on all fours. Commanding Troy to keep an eye on the planes systems, making sure that he didn’t tip the craft over, Jason stood up to a crouch as to not disrupt the planes center of gravity more than he needed to. Once he gained his balance against the wind he moved as fast as safety allowed to the front of the plane, with just over 15 meters of space this next part would be tricky.

“Troy when I say I want you to close the cargo bay doors as fast as possible. I don’t care if you have to blow the hydraulics just get those doors closed as fast as physically possible! Also as soon as I do what I’m about to do incline the plane by 60 degrees to compensate for the new weight distribution.”

“Understood Sir, if I may inquire what is it you’re planning to do sir?”

Jason laughed as he told Troy.

“Have I told you that your clinically insane today Sir?”

“Not today, no.” came he amused response, “Ready?”

“On your go Sir.”

“Now!”

As Jason yelled the command he pushed down on the roof of the cockpit, the hands of Xavier fanned out to the side, and preformed a handstand at 15,000 feet. Within seconds the cargo bay doors slammed shut, small explosions along the doors joints showing Jason that Troy was forced to destroy the hinges in order to get them closed in time. No matter as very soon this whole plane would be a complete tax write-off. When the doors were as secure was they were ever going to be again Jason shifted Xavier’s weight back so that its feet began falling towards the planes spine.

“Troy, tilt the plane down 70 degrees!”

The feet of the Eva touched the planes back, the nose tilted down, the full weight of the mechanoid rested on the crafts back and the nose leveled out again. Xavier spread its legs, knees bent and hands stretched out slightly to the side getting its balance. And so it was that an Evangelion used a plane for a surfboard.

“You know the probability of that actually working was…”

“In the billions probably hundreds of billions!” laughed Jason a huge grin spreading across his face. But before anything else there was one final thing.

Commanding Xavier to stretch its left arm to point at the back of the plane Jason fired a grappling wire he had had installed into the forearms armor, the head pierced the back of the plane near the base of the tail fin and secured itself with eight hooks. Capable of supporting several 100 thousand pounds worth of weight the cable would do in helping to keep Xavier on the planes back during what was about to happen.

“Troy time to contact?”

“2 minuets Sir, though we are still at 14000 feet.”

“Not a problem. Lock targets position into the HUD,” a small red dot popped up on the HUD slightly off center to the left. “Adjust heading,” the plane realigned to center on the dot, “increase speed.” the 8 1000 lb jet engines roared.

“One minuet to contact, Sir.”

“Good, then let us prep this candle stick, Troy flood the engines with all the remaining fuel.”

“Sir?”

“Do it!”

“Done Sir.” The engines wined and nearly died but, though smoking, they soldiered on.

“Good,” the HUD showed they were virtually over the target, “let’s ‘land’ then shall we?” added Jason laughing with pure joy.

And pulling on the wire behind him and leaning the weight of Xavier forwards the plane veered downwards (a practically vertical descent) its nose pointed right at the back of the black Eva strangling the Test model.

It was as the plane rocketed down that the engines finally decided that they had had it. After flying over 5800 miles over two continents, after the stress they had just been put though during the Evangelion acrobatics session and after being flooded to bloating with fuel they had had enough and gave out in a frizz of sparks, which ignited the fuel to which Jason only laughed harder as the Angel infected Eva went from small spec to full size in under 30 seconds.

And so it was that the whole command center of NERV watched on in varying states of uncertain confusion and disbelief as perhaps the largest plane any of them had ever seen its wings and most of its body engulfed in flames with a grey and silver Evangelion, tinted flash red by the fires, riding on its back using the plane like a strange aerial surfboard exploded into the back of the 9th Angels calves with enough force to blast the beast into the air and, somehow, back the way it had approached releasing Unit-01 from the death vice.

“What the hell was that?” yelled Fuyutsuki in complete shock looking at Gendo, “Gendo,” he added leaning closer to his old student and lowering his voice, “Gendo is that…”

The Commander of NERV assumed his characteristic sitting posture: elbows on table top, fingers interlaced in front of his mouth, glasses opaque and regarded the scene of spreading wild fire and burning plane parts as an Evangelion which (according to him) shouldn’t exist walked though the raging inferno.

“It is,” he confirmed, “the ‘Demon of the Misty Isle’. Jason Hastings.”

“Oh God,” said Fuyutsuki breathlessly, “I had heard rumors that he had built an Eva but I didn’t think they were true. How is it possible? Where did he get the necessary…?”

“This is Hastings we’re talking about,” said Gendo as he watched Jason’s ‘Xavier’ help Unit-01 to its feet “do I need to remind you who that boy is?”

“No, no of course not, it’s just that to privately build an Evangelion…even for a company like his is…”

“That boy has friends and connections throughout the UN it’s not surprising he was granted permission to build one. Besides they don’t call him the ‘English Devil’ for nothing.”

“Yes,” said the sub-commander still reeling. Jason Hastings, sole surviving member of the Hasting dynasty.

The Hastings went back centuries in the United Kingdom, allegedly as far back as the Norman invasion in 1066, and over those many years they had built one of the most successful and influential companies in existence which had patents in everything from toasters to the space travel. Until a few years ago the company was run by Jason’s parents but after their sudden death when he was 8 Jason was left the responsibilities of managing the affairs of the family business and dealing with the political and social fall out from the death of his parents. Now this might seem impossible for one so young but Jason, was a genius. At 10 he left high school with Honors, by 14 he had graduated University with a Ph.D in Physics, Masters in Economics and Engineering and completing Bachelors in Political Science and Anthropology. Safe to say he didn’t have much of a social life.

By the time he returned to his families company, which in his absence had fallen into disarray (due to the internal strife between board members and external pressure from competing companies trying to muscle in on the vacuum left behind after the lose of the companies Chairman), Jason was already known across the country as possible the greatest young mind of the last three generations. Within a year he had managed to put his competitors out of business or simply bought out their companies merging them with his own. At 15 years old he had personally patented over 100 inventions and his company had them in the thousands. As of last year the Hastings Corporation was the main (some argue the only via proxy companies) supplier of armaments and munitions for the United Nations which had afforded him a certain amount of influence amongst the heads of the organization.

It was this frighteningly rapid expansion of his families assets and the apparent ease at which he had assimilated or eliminated his competitors combined with the now 17 year olds scarily massive brain and the sheer level of influence he held over organizations like the UN which had given him the pet name (at least amongst those he had destroyed and those who feared) the ‘Demon of the Misty Isle’ which is often simplified to the ‘English Devil’.

So perhaps it was not surprising after all, that he had been given permission and the materials necessary to produce and Evangelion for his own.

Either that or the UN had simply looked the other way out of self-preservation.

As Fuyutsuki tried to contemplate the effect the Hastings presence would have to NERV, Gendo looked on as the battle between the Eva called ‘Xavier’ and the Angel got under way.