Fanfiction Neon Genesis: A Tale of Masks and Monsters

I wasn't originally going to post this story here but you know what? I feel pretty proud of what I've written so far and want to share it. Behold, my new Neon Genesis Evangelion/Godzilla/Ultraman/Kamen Rider crossover! Yes, really.

Warning: This story contains spoilers for the end of Evangelion 3+1: Twice Upon a Time

Spoiler: Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Rude Awakening​

Shinji Ikari
March 31st, 2024, 10:27 am

I poured myself a cup of tea and headed into the living room, taking a seat on the old green couch. Sitting on the coffee table in front of me was a thick textbook that I hadn’t quite gotten around to opening yet, though it was already fairly well-worn. Setting my tea down, I finally picked the book up and looked over the cover. ‘Monsters of the Deep: A History of Aquatic Megafauna’. That title didn’t really mean anything to me yet but the picture beneath it showed what looked like an artistic rendering of some kind of dinosaur swimming through the ocean, so detailed that I could have mistaken it for an actual photograph. The book must have been about prehistoric sea life, though I didn’t exactly know much on the subject. I had only just found out that ‘Killer Whales’ were actually more closely related to dolphins than actual whales.

Humming a familiar tune, I opened up to the first page of chapter one, ‘Gojira, and the Turning of an Era’, which had another picture of what looked like that same strange dinosaur, though the details were different and the picture seemed grainer, also lacking color. Before I could get the chance to read anything else, though, I heard a knock at the door. Setting the book back down, I walked over to answer it. The woman I found waiting for me wasn’t exactly who I’d been expecting, though. But I think I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. Let’s rewind a bit, shall we?


February 1st, 2024, 6:00 am

I was pretty sure that I had just saved the world or something. It was kind of hard to tell, though, since things had gotten so crazy by the end that I’m not entirely sure what was going on. What I did know, though, was that the world I had grown up in didn’t exist. It had been replaced with a better, brighter world that had never heard of Evangelions, Impacts or Angels.

Unfortunately, there was a slight complication. Well, actually there were a lot of complications but we’re just going to start with the simple one. I was still there.

I woke up that morning not feeling particularly well-rested. Considering that I had just lived through what I was pretty sure was the end of the world, that wasn’t too surprising. But then as I stirred in bed, I noticed that something was wrong. I was in a bed. Not the kind I was used to but a Western-style mattress. The kind that I was only used to seeing in hospitals. At first, I thought that’s where I was but I couldn’t smell the usual antiseptics or whatever. Despite my grogginess, I slowly opened my eyes to stare up at a shadowy ceiling. Looking around, I could faintly make out through the dark that I was in a bedroom, one that I had no memory of.

Then a warm hand brushed up against my chest and I jumped so hard I managed to fall onto the floor in a jumble of blankets that I’d managed to pull off with me.

“Huh, Shinji?” I heard a woman’s voice ask, which sounded strangely familiar but that I couldn’t quite place.

I sprang to my feet, nearly falling over again because of the blanket wrapped around my legs, and nearly had a heart attack as I saw the naked brunette that I had just been in bed with. Her long, dark hair fell over her shoulders and, thankfully for my pubescent mind, her, um… you-know-whats, as she sat up and rubbed her eyes. Then she flipped on a lamp sitting on the nightstand beside her and reached for a familiar pair of red, horn-rimmed glasses.

“M-Mari?” I stammered, recognizing the other Eva pilot that I’d met only a handful of times. She was definitely much older than the last time I had seen her. Like the Curse of Eva or whatever it was called had lifted and she spontaneously aged into an adult.

“Yeah?” she asked, squinting as her eyes adjusted to the light. “What’s wrong? Another nightmare?”

I glanced around wildly, trying desperately to figure out just what the heck was going on. We were in a bedroom, a fairly nice one at that. Decorations were sparse but my gaze eventually settled on a framed photo sitting on the nightstand next to me. Mari and I were posing together in front of what looked like the big castle at what used to be Tokyo Disneyland. Rather than the ruins that I’d seen pictures of in textbooks and museums, however, the structure seemed perfectly intact. And that was without going into the fact that not only was Mari an adult but so was I.

That was when I finally looked at my own naked figure and realized that I was a far sight from the skinny teen I had been just a day before from my perspective. I was taller, still lean but noticeably bulkier than I’d ever been. I then did the only rational thing that I could do in that situation and let out a scream.


February 1st, 2024, 8:00 am

Around an hour or two later, I was sitting on the couch in the living room with a blanket draped over my shoulders and a hot cup of tea cradled in my hands. Mari, who had slipped on a shirt that looked just a bit too baggy to be one of hers, was crouched down beside me, sandwiched between the couch and a wooden coffee table. I had just finished telling her everything that had happened, to the best of my memory. She was my first and, for the time being, only confidant regarding my experiences and the old world.

“Hm…” she hummed to herself, eyes shut. For a moment, I worried that she would think I was crazy. But then she opened her eyes again and gave me a comforting smile. “Well, that’s certainly a lot to have been through. I can’t even imagine what it must have been like for you.”

I blinked a few times, surprised by that response. “Wait, you actually believe me?”

She shrugged, her expression shifting to something a bit more apologetic. “Well, that is kind of a wild story. But I can tell that you believe it and for now, that’s what’s important. But if you don’t mind, I think I should give you a quick checkup. Just to make sure you don’t have a concussion or anything.”

I nodded quietly and she pulled out a small, flat screen that I would later find out was what cell phones looked like in this world. Certainly a huge departure from the clamshell design that I was barely used to. She turned on the built-in flashlight, shining it in my eyes to check my reaction. After a few more quick tests, she nodded in satisfaction and set the phone down on the table.

“Well, everything looks fine to me but I’m not exactly a professional, yet.” She gave me a sad smile. “So, you really don’t remember anything? Well, anything from this timeline? World? Life? Whatever you want to call it?”

I shook my head. “N-no.”

She sighed, clearly disappointed, before putting on a forced smile. “Well, then I guess I should introduce myself. “My name is Mari Makinami. I was born in London, England but grew up in the States, that is, America, and moved here to Japan a few years ago, where I’m attending Tokyo University in the psych department.”

She held out her hand and I hesitantly shook it. It felt weird, being introduced to someone I’d already met. “I’m Shinji Ikari. Um, it’s nice to meet you, I guess.”

She let out another small sigh. “And I guess now I need to tell you about yourself. Or at least, the you that I know. You already know your name, obviously. You’re twenty-four years old, not fourteen, and you’re also a student at Tokyo U, going for your doctorate in marine biology.”

“Marine biology?” I repeated the words. Even though I knew what that was, it still felt like a foreign concept. In my world, at least ninety percent of sea life had been wiped out when I was still just a baby.

“That’s right.” Mari gave another one of those sad smiles I kept getting from her. “And you may have figured this out already but we live together. We’re, well, we were a couple.”

“Oh,” I said like an idiot, having no idea how to react to that information.

“It… probably wouldn’t be appropriate to, well…” She flushed, looking uncomfortable. “Well, if what you think is true, then we’re basically strangers, and even if it’s not, then it seems you’ve mentally regressed back to your early teens, so… staying together probably wouldn’t be appropriate. I’m not going to kick you out of the apartment or anything, though.”

“Oh,” I repeated. “Um, I guess I can stay here on the couch, then. Until I can find my own place.”

“Oh, no, that won’t be necessary.” Mari shook her head. “We’ve… I’ve got a spare bedroom that I can fix up for you. And don’t worry about trying to find your own place. For now, just try to get settled until we can figure out what’s going on and what will be best for you. I’ll do what I can to help you.”

“Alright.” I nodded, and my new life in this unfamiliar world began.

The one good thing about my situation, apart from Mari being there for me, was that I had woken up in this world just after finals week, which meant that I had some time to get caught up on studying and learning more about my new life before the new term started. Unfortunately, I was still struggling to learn a subject that I knew nothing about. Mari had suggested that I switch courses to a field that might be more familiar to me or even just transfer to a different school, but I did my best to stick with it.

She may have given up on the idea of ever seeing ‘her’ Shinji again but I sure hadn’t. I was still determined to find a way to give my new life back to him and wanted to make sure that I kept everything just as he left it for when the time came. Unfortunately, my plans hit a snag when Mari suddenly got a call a few days ago. Apparently, one of her aunts back in England had gotten really sick and she had to go take care of her for a while. Mari wasn’t sure how long this would take but promised to be back as soon as possible. She also said that she’d get a friend of hers to come over and help me with my studies, someone she called ‘Sohryu-chan’. That brings me back to where we left off.


March 31st, 2024, 100 am

The woman at the door looked to be my age, with an athletic build and wearing a leather jacket over a red tank top and black jeans. A pair of brilliant blue eyes stared at me from under the brim of a black baseball cap with a logo I didn’t recognize, and her face was framed by that distinctive orange-brown hair that I would never be able to forget.

“Asuka?”

“That’s my name, don’t wear it out,” she said with a playful smile that I was all too familiar with. “Second Lieutenant Asuka Langley Sohryu, at your service. You must be Mari’s boy toy, right? Shinji?”

“Oh, um, yeah.” I couldn’t believe my luck. Why, out of all of the people in the world, did it have to be her?

The cocky redhead, who had been my roommate, classmate and fellow pilot back in my old life, walked past me into Mari’s apartment without so much as an invitation to come in. Typical Asuka. At least she remembered to take her shoes off.

“Hm, cozy place you two have here,” she said as she casually strolled around, hands on her hips. I noticed that her accent seemed a bit thicker than I remembered, which made me wonder if she’d spent more time in Germany before moving here. That was when I realized that she’d introduced herself by a different name than I was used to. Sohryu, like Mari had called her, instead of Shikinami. Was she married in this world? I couldn’t see a ring on her finger. “A bit bland, though. You guys should really spring for some more decorations, liven the place up a bit.”

“I’m sure that we’ll get right on that,” I replied sarcastically, heading for the kitchen. Even if Asuka was going to be… Asuka, I could at least try to be a polite host. “Tea?”

“Earl Grey, hot.” She looked over some photos that Mari had displayed on a bookshelf, mostly of her with the other Shinji. Asuka leaned forward to get a better look at the ones on the lower shelves, inadvertently giving me a good look at her, *ahem*, assets. I turned my gaze away from her before she turned back to me with a smirk. Perhaps it hadn’t been as accidental as I would have liked. “Wait, no, you probably wouldn’t get that reference. Whatever you’ve got will be fine.”

I quickly went to get her tea ready. While my mind was rapidly catching up to my new body, a side effect of that was that I was essentially speedrunning through puberty. And of course that meant that being alone with the girl who, despite myself, I used to have more than a small crush on was very much not what I needed while my hormones were on overdrive. Especially since she had, well, developed quite a lot in all the right places. It was like someone had stuck Asuka and Misato in a blender. Wait, no, that simile didn’t make any sense. Doing that would just be a bloody milkshake of viscera and bone, not the redheaded bombshell in the other room.

“Ahck!” While my mind was on that, I managed to accidentally spill boiling tea on my hand. I quickly set the kettle down and rushed to the sink, pouring water on my hand. Room temperature, of course, not cold.

“Something wrong?” Asuka asked as I walked back into the living room, holding her tea in the hand I hadn’t managed to scald. She was now sitting on the couch, waiting for me.

“No, it’s fine,” I lied. Nothing was fine. Regardless, I handed her the cup, which she graciously accepted as I struggled not to look down her ample cleavage.

“Thanks.” She took the tea and began gently blowing on it before looking back up at me while I sat down beside her. “So, Mari said you needed help with studying or something?”

I nodded.

“Huh, she always made you out to be some kind of brainiac,” she mused before taking a sip. “You certainly make a damn good cup of tea, I’ll give you that much. I’ll see what I can help with but I’m not sure how a fighter pilot’s supposed to help you study fish or whatever.”

“You’re a pilot?” I asked. It seemed some things didn’t change. Though she probably flew a plane rather than a giant robot. Wait, but did the Japanese Defense Force accept immigrants? Or maybe she was with the German Air Force? Did Germany even have any air bases in Japan?

“That’s right.” She smiled at that, clearly just as proud of her profession as the Asuka I knew. “I’m with G-Force.”

That reply meant nothing to me at the time but I smiled and nodded like I knew what that meant, before reaching down and grabbing my textbook again. Asuka’s eyes widened as she saw the cover.

“Oh, that’d explain it,” she whistled. “Titan studies, huh?”

I looked over at her, confused. “What?”

“Oh, right, I guess you’d call them kaiju,” she corrected herself, not that it helped me in the slightest. “Or is it daikaiju? I always get those mixed up.”

“Daikaiju?” I repeated, knowing what the word meant and yet at the same time not understanding the meaning.

“Yep, giant monsters.” She nodded, then pointed to the picture on the cover. “You know, I actually got to see Big G in person once, when I was still just a cadet. We were on a training mission in the Pacific when he happened to pass by. I don’t think I can really describe what it was like. He was awesome, in the oldest sense of the word. Terrifying in the best way possible.”

“B-Big G?” I looked down at the picture, only then realizing that it really was a modern photograph of some horrifying monster, not just a detailed artist’s rendering of some long-extinct species.

“Godzilla.” Asuka nodded excitedly, opening the book back up to the first chapter. “Or Gojira, as he was originally called. Generally considered the first modern kaiju. Though personally, I think that honor should go to King Kong. Sure, he wasn’t that big when he was first discovered in the ‘30s, but still. But I guess I’m getting kind of off-topic.”

“I see…” A sense of growing horror washed over me as I realized the implications of what she was saying. It was then that I learned the awful truth. I hadn’t saved the world. I’d only swapped out one devil for another. “And let’s just say that I didn’t know anything about… Gojira. Why don’t we start from the beginning?”

“How the hell would you have not heard of Godzilla?” Asuka stared at me like I’d just grown a second head, and I flinched at the strong language. “You’re Japanese, for Pete’s sake! This godforsaken archipelago has been at the center of more kaiju attacks than anywhere else in the whole damn world! Especially when it comes to Godzilla!”

“I-I just meant hypothetically,” I tried to cover my tracks. Clearly, this was a sore subject for her. And the way she was talking, it should have been for me as well. “When studying, it’s best to start from the basics, just being thorough.”

Asuka blinked a few times, before blushing. “Oh, right. I’m, uh, not used to this sort of thing. Sorry for losing my head there.”

Well, at least this Asuka was more levelheaded than the old one. It seemed that she’d matured with age.

“Alright, so it all started back in the early ‘50s when the Americans were testing out hydrogen bombs in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Because of course, nothing could possibly have gone wrong with that. And, well, they woke him up. He was first spotted off the coast of Odo Island, before attacking the island itself-”


March 31st, 2024, 10 pm

I was glad that I’d prepared our lunches ahead of time while getting ready for the tutoring session because there was no way that I would have felt up to cooking anything. I felt clammy, after hearing stories of what kind of a world this was that I’d been living in for nearly two months already. Giant monsters roamed the Earth, attacking cities and leveling towns indiscriminately. It was a common enough occurrence that organizations and infrastructure were built around these things. It was both horrifying and yet, in a way, mesmerizing. These creatures, kaiju as they were collectively called, didn’t feel like they had the same sense of… wrongness, that the Angels of the old world had. They somehow felt like a natural part of this world, at least for the most part.

But it also raised an important question. Why had it taken me so long to finally hear about this?

“-and King Ghidorah is still the only kaiju widely accepted to be from space. Though some people insist that he was a swarm of mutant bats that got hit by the same bomb that mutated the first Godzilla, as if that makes sense.” Asuka stretched before looking down at her phone. “Oh, wow, look at the time. I hadn’t realized that we’d been talking for so long.”

I spared a glance at the clock on the wall and realized what she’d meant. Half the day had already passed them by. “Yeah, I guess it is starting to get a bit late. Sorry for taking up so much of your time.”

“Nah, it’s good.” She smiled as she stood up. “It was fun to chat about this stuff, and thanks again for lunch. Mari’s one lucky girl to have snagged a good cook like you for herself. My bf can barely make microwave ramen. But I should probably get going. We can meet up again sometime, right?”

“Oh, um, sure,” I said as I followed her to the door.

Just then, an alert went off on Asuka’s phone and her eyes widened before she pulled it out. “Ah, hell.”

“What is it?” I asked nervously. There was no way that anything that warranted that response could be good.

“We got a Meganula outbreak at the other end of the city,” Asuka explained hastily. “Apparently, some bozo scientists were studying some eggs they found that turned out to not be quite as dormant as they thought. Total bloodbath. I’m going to need you to stay here and lock the door, but I gotta go. I’ll text you when everything’s over. Wait, no, shit. I don’t have your number.”

I immediately pulled my phone out of my pocket and flipped it open.

“Damn, I didn’t know they still made those things.” Asuka whistled, her tension momentarily eased slightly as she saw the purple flip phone in my hand that Mari had helped me pick out because I was having too much trouble trying to figure out how to use Other Me’s smartphone. I quickly showed her my number and she plugged it into her contacts. “Alright, thanks. I’ll text you when we get the all-clear. But until then, do not, I repeat DO NOT leave this apartment under any circumstances. These things eat people.”

“Wait, but what about you, then?” I asked, more than a little concerned. Even though we’d just met, I already liked this Asuka more as a friend than the old one and I didn’t want anything to happen to her. Or anyone, really, but Asuka was my focus at the moment.

“I’ve gotta get to base, ASAP,” she explained. “My team’s on kaiju cleanup duty, which means I’ve gotta take down as many of those bugs as I can. I’ll be fine, though, don’t worry about me.”

Then she gave me a quick peck on the cheek and ran down the stairs outside, soon climbing in the fancy red sportscar she’d left in the parking lot and driving off. It wasn’t until after I’d closed and locked the door that I even realized what she’d just done. I don’t think she’d even thought about it, either, so I tried not to think about it too hard. Just caught in the moment, right?

Then my back slid down the door as I dropped to my knees. Monsters were real and they were far more numerous than I could have ever imagined possible in the old world. This wasn’t what was supposed to happen. This wasn’t the world that I wanted. Why? How was this even possible?

I was pulled out of my downward spiral when my phone buzzed. My first thought was that it was Asuka but it had only been a few minutes since she’d left. Not remotely enough time to take out an entire group of… whatever Meganula were.

‘U no wut happening? Out watching Erika but city seems in lockdown’ It was one of Other Me’s University friends, a botanist named Ichiro Akamatsu who he’d apparently had an underwater plantlife class with last term. I hadn’t met him personally, but I’d seen his picture and gone through our messaging history. ‘Erika’ was his nickname for some kind of rare wild rose that he’d been studying out in the hills outside the city.

‘Not sure’ I texted back. ‘Meganula outbreak?’

‘Crap, really? U no if any shelters out here?’

‘I don’t know’

I stared blankly at the wall in front of me as I waited for another response. I didn’t know the guy at all and I didn’t know what a Meganula was, other than that it was some sort of man-eating monster. Asuka had specifically told me to stay put. I should just follow her advice, right? Ichiro would be alright, wouldn’t he?

‘Hold on, I’m coming to get you’

I didn’t know what came over me but I couldn’t just sit still and leave him in danger. I scrambled to pack for the hike and a few minutes later, I was slipping on my shoes and backpack while heading out the door. As I went down the stairs to ground level, I pulled my phone back out and checked Ichiro’s response.

‘Dude, no! U crazy! There r giant maneating dragonflies out ther! Ill be fine’

So that’s what Meganula were. I slowed my pace as I walked along the sidewalk, considering turning back and heading inside. But then an overwhelming sense of urgency washed over me and I found myself running down the street, cursing myself for not having gotten around to getting a bicycle. Fortunately, I had a map in my text history showing where ‘Erika’ was, so I knew where I was going. But it would take a while for me to get there so I hurried as fast as I could.

“I mustn’t run away,” I repeated my old motto to myself. “I mustn’t run away.”

Sometimes I wonder if I should have listened to myself that day.


? ? ?
March 31st, 2024, 2:45 pm

There were eight men gathered around a condemned warehouse that was scheduled for demolition in roughly a week’s time. That would have been considered suspicious behavior even if the kaiju sirens weren’t blaring outside and all of the normal civilians had fled to shelters or locked themselves in their homes. Six of the men were just members of a local gang who called themselves the ‘Spider Clan’. Street thugs with delusions of grandeur. Not the kind of punks that I would normally waste my time on.

No, it was the other two that had drawn me here. Both dressed in white labcoats over black tactical gear, they couldn’t have stood out any harder if they tried. One was carrying a briefcase and both were armed with concealed handguns. I couldn’t make out the models from my hiding place on the overhead catwalks but that information was irrelevant. Once I had confirmed what I came here to check, I wouldn’t give them a chance to draw their weapons.

“Yo, you got the stuff?” one of the gangsters stepped forward. Distinctive features were the frosted tips of his spiked black hair and the spider tattoo on his bare chest. Thin but muscular frame. Likely had a background in gymnastics, which was unusual for a Yazuka wannabe.

“That depends,” the man with the briefcase said. “You got the cash?”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s all here.” Spider Tattoo motioned to the man on his right, who held up a duffel bag and opened it to show that it was full of American dollars. An odd choice of payment method for Japanese street thugs. Perhaps I’d have to keep an eye on them, after all.

“Very well.” The other man clicked open his suitcase, revealing rows of glowing blue vials. Bingo.

“Alright, now we’re talking,” the man with the spider tattoo said as his lackey slid the duffel bag along the floor, and the briefcase snapped shut again, completely oblivious as I readied my improvised weapon overhead. “Now, let’s do this quickly before- WHOA! What the hell!”

Everyone jumped as I threw my sharpened pipe like a javelin, aimed directly at the man with the briefcase, with enough force that it punctured straight through his collarbone, went out through his hip and embedded itself roughly thirty centimeters into the concrete floor, pinning his body down while spraying a fountain of blood that dazed and confused everyone present. The dead man’s associate reached for his gun but didn’t get the chance to draw it before his brains splattered everywhere as I smashed his head into the floor with a falling kick.

I rose to my full height with my back turned to the thugs. I may not have been what anyone would ever consider ‘tall’ but I still managed to make an intimidating enough figure. All five of them took a step back, with one of them going so far as to wet his pants at the sight of me covered in blood.

“My fight is not with you,” I told them. “Leave this place and never deal with the organization again, or I will be forced to take action against you.”

“Ah, shit! It’s the Kamen-” One man raised a spiked bat, ready to fight. One punch proved enough to shatter most of his ribs and rupture a few organs. He fell dead at my feet.

Kamen Rider. The Masked Rider. These are not names that I chose for myself. Nevertheless, they are the names that have become ‘me’. It seems my reputation is growing even further than I anticipated if even localized gangs are able to recognize ‘me’. But that does not matter, it is irrelevant.

“I will only say this one more time.” I keep my voice calm and level. One might say monotone. “Leave without a fight, never deal with Shocker or their wares again, and I will spare you. Otherwise, you will meet the same fate as him.”

They failed to comply and met the consequences, falling one by one. By my calculations, the fight took no more than five minutes. There were only two survivors. Myself, and the man with the spider tattoo. I had broken his right arm and left leg but chose to spare him for the time being. Despite his injuries, however, he remained defiant.

“Screw you, bitch!” He spat out along with more than a little blood as he propped himself up against a support pillar as best he could.

I bent down before him, lowering my helmeted face mere inches in front of his. He stared intently into the bulbous red lenses before him, without so much as a hint of hesitation. Men with his level of courage were rare. He intrigued me.

“You will survive this and endure,” I instructed him. He spat blood on my helmet but I didn’t flinch. “You will be the example to others of your ilk. Anyone who makes deals with Shocker will meet the same fate as your compatriots. There will not be another warning.”

Then I stood back up and turned around, walking away slowly. I grabbed the suitcase and checked that its contents were still there. Satisfied, I head for the door. I had no need for the duffel bag or its contents.

“I’m going to kill you!” he yelled as I reached the door. “You hear me! I’m going to kill you!”

His threats were irrelevant. He was in no position to endanger me and I did not predict that he would become a threat in the future. Thus, I exited the old warehouse and made my way to where I left my bike parked in a nearby alley. Along the way, I see a young man, roughly my age, running down the street. He wore a white button-up shirt, black slacks and was carrying a green backpack. That was odd, particularly in the middle of a lockdown. He looked familiar but I didn’t get a good enough look to identify him. It seemed unlikely that he was relevant to my mission, though and I calculated the chances of his survival as minimal as he was headed in the direction of the Meganula outbreak. Thus, I returned to my attention to my motorcycle.

I pressed a button on the side of my rider belt. In a flash, the Kamen Rider is gone, replaced with the unassuming Japanese woman who wore the mask. I put on a more traditional helmet than the insectoid one and ride off toward the nearest shelter.

Once there, I slip inside undetected. As far as anyone is concerned, the woman known as Rei had never left. She merely blended in with the crowd, unseen.


Shinji Ikari
March 31st, 2024, 3:15 pm

My legs were burning and I felt about ready to cough my lungs out but I had finally reached my destination. Taking a moment to stop and catch my breath, I leaned against a tree at the edge of the forest and took a drink from one of the water bottles I’d packed. This was crazy. Why was I here? I should have just stayed home.

By this point, Ichiro had either found a shelter or somewhere else to hide, or he’d already been eaten. I wasn’t doing anyone a favor by trying to play hero. And why was I playing hero, anyway? It wasn’t like me at all. I was the quiet kid who just did what he was told and ran away at the first sign of trouble. It just didn’t make any sense and yet it was like I had a voice in my head, my voice, urging me on. Telling me that I couldn’t leave well enough alone when someone needed my help.

And so I began hiking through the forest. I didn’t know exactly where Ichiro would be. Even if I knew where that rose bush of his was, there was no guarantee that he would still be anywhere near it. So, I stuck to the main trail and hoped for the best. After a while, I heard a loud moan off in the distance.

“Akamatsu!” I cried out, hoping that he could hear me.

“Ikari?” came the reply and I ran in the direction it had come from, having to climb around some bushes to get to him. “Ikari, is that you?”

“Yeah, it’s me,” I said as I finally found him, lying in a patch of mud and cradling one of his legs. He matched what I’d seen in pictures, a rather average young man, maybe a year or two younger than me with short black hair. It looked like he was trying to grow out a beard but it wasn’t coming along very well. “Are you alright?”

“No!” He gasped in pain, struggling to speak. “I-I thought I saw something so I tried to make a break for it and I tripped. I think I broken my leg or something!”

“Here, let me take a look at it.”

I knelt down beside him and gave his leg a quick once over, never so glad for the first aid training that I’d had to do back at NERV. After applying pressure to a few spots and checking his range of motion, I was able to confirm that he hadn’t broken his leg like he’d thought but that he had probably twisted or sprained his knee. Fortunately, I’d come prepared and slipped my backpack off. Getting a cloth wet, I wiped the mud off his leg before pulling out a bandage and applying it. I didn’t have the materials for a full tourniquet, unfortunately, and I didn’t want to risk foraging for the right size sticks when there could have been monsters lurking about nearby. So instead, I had him lean on my shoulder so that he could shift his weight onto me instead of his bad leg.

I managed to lead him back to the trail and we slowly made our way back to the city. At first, it seemed like we’d be able to make it to one of the shelters without incident, where medical professionals would be waiting who could give Ichiro the proper care.

Then we heard the buzzing.

Ichiro suddenly pulled me aside and we ducked into a bush, just in time. A massive brown, prehistoric-looking dragonfly that had to have been at least the size of a horse flew by. Its yellow wings beat so fast that I could hardly see them and its mantis-like front legs looked like they could easily kill a man. To say nothing of the rows of big white fangs that made up its mouth. No wonder people were so afraid of these things.

“That was a close one,” Ichiro muttered once we were sure that it was gone and climbed back out of the bushes. “We need to hurry.”

“You don’t need to tell me twice,” I said bitterly. Just what had I gotten myself into?

We continued walking and had almost made it to the edge of the woods when the buzzing returned. I turned around just in time to see another Meganula, or maybe it was the same one, diving straight at us. Reacting on instinct, I shoved Ichiro to the side. While he fell into the bushes, the ancient dragonfly monster slammed into my chest, knocking the wind out of my lungs and slamming me into a tree.

I felt a searing pain in my chest and spared a quick glance down to see that the Meganula had taken a bite, tearing up my shirt along with a sizable chunk of skin. I was now in even worse shape than the person I was trying to save.

The gigantic insect turned for another diving run and I reacted on instinct. As it rushed towards me, I slipped my backpack off and swung it up with as much force as I could muster. The bag slammed right into the Meganula’s jaw, knocking it off course just enough that it slammed into the tree over my head instead of me. That tree didn’t stand a chance between the force of impact and the large chunk of wood that the monster had inadvertently bitten out of it, and it toppled over.

While the Meganula reoriented itself, I ducked to the side and picked up the sturdiest-looking branch I could find. My current body may have lacked the muscle memory of my NERV combat training but I still had those lessons drilled into my mind and assumed a proper swordfighting pose. After the monster recovered, however, it didn’t come after me again, flying off instead.

It seemed that I had managed to fend it off somehow. I slumped to my knees, completely stunned by everything that had just happened. Had I really just fought off a monster like that? On my own?

The answer was no, I hadn’t. The Meganula had simply decided to circle around and attack me from behind. I let out a garbled scream of pain as its teeth sank into my upper back and it wrapped its enlarged front legs around my bloody chest to carry me off to who knows where.

As I was pulled above the tree line, I thought I was going to die. I should have died. My consciousness was fading as the Meganula continued shredding my back and shoulders with rows of sharp teeth digging into my flesh. I could vaguely make out more of the monsters swarming around the forest and nearby city. Fighter jets were flying around, shooting down as many of them as they could. What looked like a shooting star fell from the sky, heading straight for me.

When characters are on the verge of death in books or on TV, they always talk about the light at the end of the tunnel. My addled mind thought that’s what I was seeing as the intense, burning light grew larger and closer. In a way, I wasn’t wrong.

Shinji Ikari died that day, struck by a falling meteor while getting eaten alive by a Mesazoic-era dragonfly. That was just my luck, wasn’t it?


Asuka Sohryu
March 31st, 2024, 30 pm

“Die, you stupid bugs!”

The way I see it, there are two kinds of titans. The massive behemoths that leveled cities and took an entire army's worth of artillery just to fend off until a slightly less malevolent one stopped by to save the day, and the pesky small ones that came in droves and took forever to butcher your way through. Personally, I find the first kind to be much more exciting to fight. You put everything on the line and give it all you’ve got against an opponent that you shouldn’t stand any chance against. Unfortunately, those bastards are always too strong for us to take down and either we only manage to drive them back or another one comes along to ‘save the day’. Stupid kill-stealers. The swarm type may not have been as exciting, since you’re just mowing down endless waves of enemies until you’ve finally butchered the whole lot but at least you got the satisfaction of ‘winning’. If I could just combine the best parts of both, I’d be living the dream.

I was working on that, of course, but this wasn’t the time to be thinking about it.

My squadron and I had spent the last several hours mowing down as many of these damned bugs as we could while trying to keep property damage to a minimum. That was easier said than done, given that those ugly sons of bitches could easily outmaneuver us. Our Valkyries were good but they were still restricted by the laws of physics. Fortunately, the bugs were also about as intelligent as normal insects. Which was to say, very, very dumb.

“I’m headed your way, Torwart!” one of my squadmates said over comms, call sign Cowboy. Sure enough, I saw his plane turn a corner around a skyscraper and fly straight at me. Five bugs were right on his tail.

One of the advantages of a G-Force Valkyrie was that they were much more maneuverable than a traditional fighter jet. I made a vertical ascent and hovered there until the moment that Cowboy reached me, then showered the Meganula in a rain of bullets. Didn’t even need the masers to take these things down.

“Thirty-seven!” I announced my current kill count to the others as I turned around and went back on patrol. We’d almost taken out the entire swarm but almost wasn’t good enough.

“Really, Torwart?” Snake replied. “I’m already at forty-one.”

I grit my teeth as my grip tightened on the controls. Smug bastard. I was going to have to find more bugs soon if I wanted to knock him down a peg. Speaking of which, I spotted several of the ugly insects flying off towards the woods outside the city. I thought it was my lucky day, especially since I wouldn’t have to worry as much about collateral out there. I went in pursuit and managed to take a few more out.

“Forty-two,” I said to myself. I’d wait until I took out a few more before announcing it to the others again. Instead, I set my sights on the next one, easing my thumb down on the trigger and…

Oh, god.

It had a person in its jaws. A man, by the looks of it but that was all I could make out from that distance. Some unlucky sap who hadn’t made it to a shelter, apparently.

I hesitated on the controls but quickly recovered from the shock. Before I could blast that murderous bug off the face of the Earth and avenge that poor soul, though, a proximity alert blared on my dashboard. Something was closing in and fast.

I looked to up see a flippin’ meteor of all things coming down. Right here? Right now? It smashed into the Meganula I was about to take out, killing it and the guy it was eating, assuming that he wasn’t already dead, before smashing into the forest.

“What the hell?” was all I could say as I stared down at the crater surrounded by smashed and burning trees.

“What was that?” Screwdriver’s voice came over the radio but I wasn’t listening to her or the others as they started chattering.

I circled the crash site a few times in stunned silence. Had that really just happened? Finally, after a few minutes, the shock wore off and I snapped back to my senses. Before I could fly back to the city and catch up with the others, however, things got worse.

The meteor strike, as random as it had been, had woken something up. The trees parted as another bug emerged, which dwarfed the ones I’d been taking out for the last few hours. How had one of the Meganula already reached that stage? It must have been those damned scientists trying to play god or something. Accelerated the aging process, maybe? Or maybe this thing was already here and had triggered the dormant eggs into hatching?

However it happened, I didn’t have time to dwell on the ‘why’. The ‘what’ was what was important.

“Megaguirus!” I shouted into my radio and I’m not ashamed to admit that there was a bit of panic in my voice. Well, maybe a little ashamed but there were more important things than pride. “I’ve got eyes on a Megaguirus!”

You remember earlier, when I was talking about titans that we couldn’t defeat, only hold back? Well, this was one of them. The situation had just grown far more dire.

And they were about to get a whole lot weirder.

Spoiler: Chapter Notes

This story idea has been festering in my brain for months and it's high time that I finally get it off the ground. This first chapter took a lot of workshopping to improve the narrative flow and avoid getting bogged down by too much exposition all at once. Hopefully, this was a much better read than my original version would have been. I think my decision to switch to first-person helped a lot with that, even if I’m more familiar and comfortable with third-person writing.

I hope you enjoyed this introduction and look forward to reading more. I have a lot of plans for this story, with a lot of twists, turns and developments along the way. Unfortunately, I’m not a particularly fast writer and this is a lot more intensive for me to write compared to my other fics so I’m not sure how often I’ll be able to update but I’ll do my best.

Edit: I decided to go back and make a few changes to this chapter. All of the names are now in ‘western order’ (first name, last name) for consistency, instead of being contextual, as I thought that might get a bit confusing. Alternate timeline Mari’s name now uses the canon spelling instead of ‘Mary’ since that change felt kind of pointless. The reference to Ghidorah now makes it clear that the ‘he’s from space’ theory is the more widely accepted one, and the ‘swarm of bats’ theory is considered a joke instead of the other way around. The existence of aliens in this setting is still a highly contested idea in-universe, but not as much of a fringe theory as I was originally going to go for.

 

Spoiler: Chapter 2

Chapter 2: More Than a Man​

Shinji Ikari
March 31st, 2024, 35 pm

I sat quietly in the empty train car, leaning forward in my seat with my eyes closed. I had my earbuds in and was listening to one of the songs I used to play on loop with my old SDAT player. For the first time in a very long time, everything was normal.

“Where are we?”

Then I opened my eyes to see a man sitting across from me. The man I saw every time I looked in a mirror this past month. The other me. Behind him, I could see out the windows that the train was traveling underwater. If I recognized the fish outside correctly, it seemed we were under the ocean.

“I'm not sure,” I replied honestly. “I think we might be dead?”

“Oh.” Other me leaned back in his seat, looking around. “Not quite what I expected. I take it you’ve been here before?”

I nodded silently. How exactly were you supposed to talk to the guy whose life you stole? “I'm sorry.”

“For what?” the other me asked with a note of genuine confusion. Just when I thought that I couldn't feel any more guilty about what had happened.

“For taking your life away from you and then dying before I could give it back,” I replied, shrinking back to try and take up as little space as possible.

The other me smiled softly and shook his head. “You didn't take anything from me.”

That caught my attention and I looked up at the older Shinji. Did he really not understand the situation or was I the one who was missing something?

“I-I’ve been living in your place for over a month, now,” I tried to explain, tears welling up in my eyes. “I’ve been trying to find a way to give you your life back but now it looks like I screwed up and got us both killed. I-I… I’m just a failure and now you’ve suffered because of my mistakes-”

Before I could go on, the other me dropped to his knees in front of me and placed his hand firmly on my shoulder.

“No,” he said, staring me dead in the eye. “Never tell yourself that, because it's not true. I’ve seen bits and pieces of the life you lived before this and do you know what I saw? I saw a courageous boy trying to make the best of a situation that was way over your head. No one would have been able to do any better in your shoes but you were never given a fair chance to live. That's why I gave you the reins.”

“I…” My eyes widened as I realized the implications of what he'd just said. “You… what?”

Other me sighed and returned to his seat as the train broke through the surface of the water. We continued riding, a wake of seafoam splashing up on either side of the train.

“It's my fault we're here now, anyway,” the other me muttered. “I’m the one who urged you on to rescue my friend. I didn't think you'd actually respond to me, though, since before now you haven't been able to notice me.”

I struggled to find a response to that as I looked out the window, trying to work out just what he was trying to say. The ocean seemed to stretch out as far as I could see.

“Are you saying that you let me take over your life?” I asked.

“You seemed like you needed a break, so I decided to give you a shot at the peaceful life that you never had.” He scratched his neck nervously. “I… might not have fully grasped the implications of what I was doing but I don't regret it. I’d make the same decision if I had to do it over again.”

I stared up at him, now more confused than ever. “But why would you do that?”

Other me shrugged. “It seemed like the right thing to do. I’m sure you would have done the same for me.”

Would I have? Thinking it over, I wasn’t sure. Would I have let another me live my life? Probably not but I didn’t exactly have a life that I would have wanted someone else to have to suffer through.

“Well, it’s not like it matters much now, anyway,” I muttered. “I’ve seen a lot of weird stuff but I don’t think that I ever would have imagined getting eaten by a giant dragonfly to be how I’d die.”

“Well, I think it was the meteor that killed us,” other me noted. “But if it hadn’t shown up, then we would have been eaten.”

“What even was that, anyway?” I asked. “That seemed a bit too random to be, well, random.”

The other me just shrugged. “Hell if I know. Getting killed by a kaiju attack would have been much less surprising.”

“What are kaiju, anyway? Where did they come from? We didn’t have anything like those in my world. Well, other than the Angels but those don’t exist anymore.”

My questions were met by another shrug. “You might as well ask me where birds come from, or grass. From my perspective, your world’s the weird one for not having them. Maybe it's not that something happened in my timeline to create these monsters but that something happened in yours that wiped them out. I only got brief flashes of your memories but from what I could understand, your world was practically destroyed shortly before you were born, right?”

“Second Impact.” I nodded in confirmation. “But that was only about a year before I was born. If monsters, er, ‘kaiju’ were around before then, then I think I would have heard about them in school.”

“Right, so that couldn’t have been it. But if that was Second Impact,” he held up two fingers then lowered one, “then there must have been a First Impact. Maybe that’s what did it.”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” I relented.

We sat there in silence for a while. Other me eventually took to looking out the window, where an island had appeared off in the distance. It seemed to grow steadily larger as we approached.

“Why do you think we’re on a train?” he eventually asked me.

“I don’t know,” I admitted, looking down at my knees. “I guess I’ve never thought to question that.”

“I’m guessing this place reflects our memories in some way,” the other me speculated. “I’ve always loved the ocean and here we are. I think that part’s me, so the train must be you.”

“I… guess that makes sense.” I looked up again, thinking back on it. “I guess I used to ride a lot when I was younger. Trains weren’t very popular when I was growing up, since most people didn’t have anywhere that they were eager to go. So whenever I ended up having to ride one, I’d usually be alone, or at least close to it. The quiet was nice, especially after things got so crazy later on.”

“I can imagine.” Other me smiled before looking back out at the island, which was growing ever closer. “They’re also nice because they can take you where you want to go and I think I have a pretty good idea where this train’s taking us.”

“Where?”

“Someplace that I have a lot of fond memories of,” he replied wistfully. “But I don’t think that you would have ever had the chance to visit. Come on, I’ll show you when we get there.”

The older Shinji rose from his seat as the train finally slowed to a halt, holding his hand out to me. I hesitantly accepted it and he pulled me to my feet just before the doors opened. Together, we walked out onto a small beach, white sand beneath our feet. Most of the mountainous island was covered in dense forest but there were signs of a small village in the distance, as well as an old cabin at the edge of the forest up ahead.

“Welcome to Odo Island,” he said. “My home away from home!”

He was right about this being a place that I’d never been and I wasn’t sure that it was somewhere that I wanted to be, either. I’d only heard that name once before, earlier that day. It was the island where the first Godzilla was said to have first been seen.

“What?” I blurted out, pulling my hand away as I took a step back from the other me. “We’re where?”

“Oh, I suppose I should explain.” The other me rubbed the back of his head with an apologetic expression. “You see, Mom, or at least my mom, was a kaijuologist, meaning that she studied kaiju for a living. She was particularly interested in Godzillasaurs and we used to visit this place every summer.

“You see that house over there?” He pointed to the large cabin over on the other end of the beach, with a balcony overlooking the sea. “That’s ours. It used to be that the whole family would stay there. Then it was just Mom and me… Now it’s just me…”

“Oh…” I said as the mood suddenly became much more somber. “What… what happened?”

“She had to get her appendix out a few years ago, a bunch of medical stuff that just went over my head,” other me said sadly. “The doctors said that she had an allergic reaction to the painkillers or something. She didn’t survive the operation.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, bowing my head.

“You’ve got nothing to be sorry about.” He gave a weak smile, though I could still see the pain in his eyes. “Hey, if we really are dead, then maybe Mom’s in there waiting for me. Yours too, maybe?”

“I don’t think so.” I shook my head, then turned back to the train. “I-it was nice meeting you but I think I should probably go.”

“Are you sure?” He followed but made no effort to stop me as I reached one of the doors and pressed the button to open it. “We just got here.”

“This is your life, not mine.” I shook my head. “I don’t think I should-”

The train doors slid open and, to both of our surprise, the conductor walked out. Or at least that’s what I thought it was since he was wearing a Japanese Railway uniform. Then I realized the conductor’s silver skin was smooth, almost metallic, and covered in vibrant red markings across his body. And that was to say nothing of his boxy, sculpted mouth and ears, the domed yellow lenses of his eyes and the fin stretching out from where his nose would be to the back of his head. It was like looking at some sort of alien straight out of an old cartoon.

“What? Who are you?” The other me asked as I continued to stand there in shock at the unexpected new arrival. “What are you?”

The silver man seemed to regard them silently before he finally spoke up. “I am an officer of the Inter Galactic Defense Force, hailing from the nebula that the people of your world have dubbed M78. My name cannot be pronounced by your human tongues, so you may call me what you wish.”

“So you’re… an alien?” I took a step back. The only alien beings that I’d ever faced before were the Angels, which made me wary of any being that claimed to be of extraterrestrial origin. My other self, however, seemed much more enthusiastic, leaning forward to get a closer look at the alien.

“Really?” he mused, putting his hand to his chin as he carefully examined the red markings across the alien’s skin. “I knew there were theories that some kaiju came from space but I never would have imagined that I’d ever get to see a real alien before. But why are you wearing that uniform? If you’re from a defense force, wouldn’t a military or police uniform make more sense than a train conductor?”

“I do not know.” The alien shook his head. The motion was stiff, almost mechanical, as if he was only imitating the human motion. “This is your mindscape, not mine. My form here is adapted to reflect your perception of me.”

“Mindscape?” I repeated the word that had stuck out to me. “Does that mean that we’re not actually dead?”

The alien stared at me. While I couldn’t make out any hint of expression on the vaguely humanoid being’s rigid face, I could somehow still sense a feeling of sadness and… regret, coming from him.

“It seems that as I arrived here on this planet, my course led to a direct collision with your body,” the alien explained. “You did not survive. I am sorry.”

My heart sank in my chest as my worst fears were proven true. The other me, though, seemed far less broken up to learn of his passing.

“Well, that’s fine. We were about to die, anyway,” he pointed out. “If anything, you did us a favor. At least this way, we didn’t have to suffer from getting eaten alive by that Meganula.”

“No, this is not fine.” The alien shook his head again. “I am a defender, a protector. To have taken an innocent life is an unforgettable sin. One which I must atone for. For that reason, I have given my life to you.”

That caught me by surprise. The silver man had given his life for us? What did that mean? I turned to the other me, who seemed just as confused.

“I have infused my essence within your shared body,” the alien explained. “We are now bonded in a form of symbiosis as your body recovers even as we speak. Soon, you will awaken, recovered and whole. However, it will be some time before our essences can be safely split apart again. Even I do not know how long this process will take but until then, I will be a part of you and you a part of me.”

“Oh.” I felt so dumb, not being able to think of anything to say.

“Thank you.” The other me bowed. “It seems that we owe you our lives.”

“Though I appreciate the sentiment, I do not deserve your thanks,” the alien replied. “This is mere penance for my sins, after all, and by doing this I have placed a great burden upon you both.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “What burden?”

“I am a member of the Inter Galactic Defense Force,” the alien repeated his earlier introduction. “I have a duty and a responsibility to defend life, protect peace and ensure that justice is dealt where it is needed. While I am a part of you, my powers will be yours but so will my responsibilities. Until the day that we are able to go our separate ways, you must take up my cause. For this, I am also sorry.”

I stared down at my hands, processing what I’d just been told. So, what, I was supposed to be some sort of alien police officer now or something? I couldn’t do that. I’d already failed my own world, time and time again. I was just a screw-up. I couldn’t handle this kind of responsibility. I couldn’t-

I suddenly froze up as I felt the older me’s arm wrap around my shoulder.

“Hey, it’s okay,” he said calmly, apparently trying to calm me down. “We’ll get through this together. Whatever you’re worried about, relax. You’re not alone anymore.”

“Indeed.” The alien nodded. “While I am not accustomed to your kind’s emotions, I will do what I can to aid you and guide you through this.”

We both looked up at him, and the older me asked an important question I hadn’t thought to consider. “Hey, don’t you think it’s weird that there are two of us in here?”

“It is unusual for two essences to share a body as you do but I received both of your memories as part of the bonding process and understand your unique situation.” The alien turned his gaze to me, specifically, though I wasn’t sure how I knew that given that his eyes just looked like pale yellow lenses. “I also believe that you may be why I am here in the first place.”

“W-what?” I stammered, staring back up at the silver alien. “Me?”

“I was sent to this planet to investigate a strange anomaly, which I now believe that you may be involved with. Do not worry, you have done nothing wrong,” the alien said. “I will explain more later but for now, we do not have time. Your body is ready to wake up and when it does, you will be thrust into an unusual situation. I will do my best to guide you through what is to come. We are out of time.”

The alien turned around and walked back onto the train. My other self and I glanced at each other, unsure of what to do. The older Shinji quickly found his resolve and nodded to me before boarding the train. I hesitated but followed. The doors shut behind me as if to signal the start of my next journey.


Asuka Sohryu
March 31st, 2024, 36 pm

My whole squad was gathered at the edge of the city. Our squad leader Aesop, Angel, Sunshine, Wizard, Screwdriver, Cowboy, Snake and myself, Torwart. Before us, a fifty-meter-long cross between a dragonfly and an actual dragon was flying over the forest towards us. We had no chance of defeating this thing. All we could do was stall for time until backup arrived or its presence attracted the attention of another powerful kaiju. Chances are, not all of us would be making it out of this alive. But even if we weren’t going to make it through this, we all knew that we’d at least go out shooting.

The Megaguirus let out a shrieking howl as it approached, which was our cue to split up and start firing. We each tried to attack from a different angle but of course, our bullets weren’t enough to put so much as a scratch on something that powerful. Seeing this, most of us switched over from conventional artillery to the miniaturized maser cannons mounted under our Valkyries’ wings. The bolts of atomic blue lightning fired from those cannons proved much more effective, burning the titan’s flesh where they hit and even managing to draw a bit of blood. It seemed as if we were getting the upper hand against the red-eyed monstrosity.

Naturally, that didn’t last long. The giant dragon bug decided that we were a threat now and took us seriously, suddenly turning into a blur of motion. Despite her bulk, the first Megaguirus, which had been fought off back when I was still just a baby, had been reported to be able to fly at around Mach 4 and this one seemed to be at least as fast. In other words, she was fast enough that she could easily keep up with us. The Megaguirus swatted its stinger tail at Angel, who barely managed to roll out of the way. And as if that wasn’t enough, the handful of smaller Meganula that we hadn’t taken out yet were also gathering around their queen, meaning that we now had to deal with the small fries on top of the queen bitch.

The Megaguirus charged in the direction that Cowboy and I were shooting from and I barely had time to duck out of its way. Cowboy wasn’t quite so lucky, choosing to go up and getting swatted by the tail. Fortunately, it seemed to be little more than a glancing blow but was still enough that it disabled one of his masers.

The battle raged on like that for a few more minutes. It seemed like we were gradually wearing her down but the Megaguirus was dishing it out as well as she took it. After a while, the big bug tried to chase down Snake and it was only his usual erratic flight patterns that allowed him to stay out of reach of her arms. Or legs, whatever you want to call those appendages it had. He decided to take the monster for a ride, diving towards the woods and pulling up just before reaching the canopies. Unfortunately, the dragonfly kaiju was maneuverable enough to avoid the trap and didn’t smash into the tree line like he’d hoped.

The Megaguirus hovered above the forest as I managed to shoot down another one of its spawn, letting out another shriek as if challenging us. Screwdriver tried shooting it in the eye but she missed and only managed to leave a scorch along the ridge over the right side of its head. I decided to try diving low to attack it from behind while the beast was distracted, inadvertently giving myself a front-row seat to the strangest thing I’d ever seen up to that point.

A hand, a giant, silver, human-looking hand reached up from the woods and grabbed the Megaguirus’ tail. An arm followed, red markings running along its length, before finally a whole-ass giant man rose from the trees. He looked like he’d just walked out of some old sci-fi B-movie, with silvery skin, two giant domes lenses over where his eyes should be and heavily sculpted features. I’d seen a lot of crazy stuff but this easily took the cake.

The silver giant proceeded to swing the Meganula overhead, smashing it down into the forest before standing up to his full height. Or it’s full height. Whatever this thing was, it seemed like some kind of new kaiju unlike any I’d ever heard of before. The boys back in the lab were going to have a field day with our reports on this thing.

“What the hell is that thing?” Cowboy shouted over the radio.

“I don’t know but I hope it's on our side,” came Angel’s reply.

“Whatever it is, we need to stay well out of its way,” I barked into my com set. “Everyone, pull back and stay on standby.”

“We don’t take orders from you!” Snake shouted back.

“Do you want to want to get in the middle of a kaiju brawl?” Sunshine asked.

“Yeah, no way we’re taking on two raid bosses at once,” Wizard said with one of his usual annoying videogame metaphors.

“Everyone, form a perimeter around the fight,” Aesop ordered us.

We all pulled back and did as instructed as the unfolding battle as the Megaguirus lifted itself into the air. We’d almost had this one. Why did these things always have to escalate into monster-versus-monster battles? Sometimes it felt like the only way to take down a titan was to be a titan.


Shinji Ikari
March 31st, 2024, 3:45 pm

What

Was

I

DOING?

The absolutely gigantic bug-like thing in front of me shook itself off as it rose back into the air. I should have felt utterly dwarfed by a creature of that size. Instead, I was almost as large as that thing was.

It felt almost like I was piloting an Eva again. Specifically, when my synchronization levels would get high enough that it was like I was feeling things from the robot’s perspective. Except this giant silver hand in front of my face wasn't just some artificial limb of a machine I was piloting. It was my hand. Well, it seemed more like the hand of the alien whose power I was now borrowing, really.

Before I could keep freaking out about how utterly weird this whole thing was, I had to turn my attention back to my opponent and our surroundings. It seemed like we were standing over a forest of some kind, with a city in the background. It took me a moment to realize I was in the same place where I had died just a few minutes earlier. Everything seemed so different from this perspective, almost like I was an actor on one of those old miniaturized sets, surrounded by scale models instead of the actual thing.

We seemed to be surrounded by a circle of futuristic-looking fighter jets and I briefly realized that Asuka was probably in one of them.

Oh, crap! Asuka! How was she going to react, seeing me like this? Would she think that I was some kind of monster?

I raised my hand to my face as I panicked, feeling the smooth, rugged features that weren't my own. It seemed that I was a perfect facsimile of the alien, just scaled up to giant size and without the conductor’s uniform I had seen him in before. Good, that meant that no one would be able to recognize me. I just had to hope that I’d have a way to turn back.

While I was distracted, the giant bug-dragon-monster-thing charged and tackled me to the ground. I let out a grunt, vaguely aware that my voice was deeper than I was used to hearing it, as it sank its teeth into my shoulder and scratched at me with its legs. I struggled to push the monster away and managed to pry it off of me, but the creature’s tail swung down and jabbed me in the gut. I could feel the twin stingers dig into my flesh and it felt like it was draining my energy, somehow.

I managed to throw the monster off of me and clutched at my stomach as it reoriented itself. To my surprise, I wasn't bleeding at all and the wound was already healing. On the other hand, I also noticed that red marks all over my body had dimmed.

“They are an indicator of our power.” I heard the alien’s voice in my head. Because only sane people hear voices. “If we lose too much solar energy, we won't be able to maintain my form and you will revert to your human body. At our current levels, I calculate that we won't last more than three minutes. Caution is advised.”

I found myself reminded of whenever Unit-01’s power cord was disconnected, leaving it with just a limited amount of power before it would be forced to shut down. It seemed I was now operating by similar rules. At least I wouldn’t have to deal with a big cord hanging out of my back.

Now knowing that I only had a very limited amount of time to try and somehow defeat this thing, I took a combat stance drilled into me through the close-quarters combat lessons I had to take as an Eva pilot. Most of my training back then was focused on weapons, especially firearms, but I would have to get through this with just my bare hands.

I had expected the monster to try and attack by ramming into me again so I prepared for it to do that. What I was not prepared for was for the bug to open its jaw wide and suddenly launch a stream of small blue energy balls that formed into a laser that fired straight into my chest. I was sent sliding back along the ground by the sheer force of the attack and was barely able to keep myself upright long enough for the laser to dissipate. Taking that shot took a lot out of me, as shown by the red marks along my skin turning to a greenish hue. I was guessing that meant I was almost out of time.

“This isn’t good,” the alien in my head stated the obvious. “By draining my energy, this creature has gained the ability to control Spacium. The attack that it just used was a variant of my Spacium Beam technique.”

I tried to steady myself as the monster dove towards me again. This time, I grabbed it by the shoulders, or the insect equivalent, and angled it over my shoulder, using the creature’s own speed and momentum to smash it into the forest below us. While it recovered, I used that time to think.

If the thing that it had just used against me was something that it copied from the alien, then that would mean that I could do it as well, right? And the monster didn’t seem to be as durable as I now was, meaning that the attack would harm it even more than it had me.

“Excellent thinking,” the alien said. “Allow me to show you how to use the Spacium Beam.”

The giant bug monster rose back into the air, turning about to face me. I could tell that it was getting ready to attack again but I didn’t give it the chance. The mental image of what I needed to do filled my mind and I followed its instructions. Crouching down to brace myself, I brought my right arm vertically in front of my shoulder and then slammed my left arm, held horizontally to the ground, against it so that my wrists touched. A blue beam of charged energy particles shot out of the edge of my right hand, striking the monster dead on. It let out a howl of pain as its chitinous armor began to crack and shatter under the force of the attack. The suddenly exposed inner flesh melted and soon what was left of the giant bug fell dead to the Earth.

It seemed that I had used up the remainder of my energy reserves in that attack and I could feel myself growing faint. For a moment, I thought I was about to pass out from exhaustion. Instead, I experienced a strong sensation of vertigo as the world seemed to expand around me. Then I realized that I was the one who was growing smaller. Soon, I was back to my usual human self, leaning against a tree as I tried to catch my breath. I felt like I had just run several miles, or fought a particularly hard battle in Unit-01. The latter was probably the more accurate comparison considering what I had just gone through. It was hard to believe what had just happened, what I had just done.

“That was a decent showing for your first battle.” I heard the alien’s voice in my head again. “Especially given the circumstances. It seems that you may have what it takes to defend this planet.”

“Yeah, good job!” This time it was the voice of the other Shinji that I heard. “There’s no way that I could have done that!”

“Yeah, that’s because you haven’t had to fight for your life like that before,” I muttered. “That’s a good thing.”

“For now, I suggest that you return to your home as soon as possible,” the alien told me. “You will need to rest and recover your strength. I also suggest that you keep your identity a secret for the time being. If you are spotted out here, then it will be hard to maintain your cover.”


Asuka Sohryu
March 31st, 2024, 50 pm

I wiped my face with a towel as I walked out of the showers before tossing it into the laundry bin. Angel and Screwdriver were already getting changed in the locker room while the guys were probably doing the same in theirs. It had been a long afternoon for all of us and I’m sure that they were all just as ready as I was to head home for the night.

“What a day,” Screwdriver mused as I slipped my shirt back on. “What do you think that thing was?”

“I think I’ve been asked that question more than enough already,” I replied. We’d each had to turn in our reports almost as soon as we got back to base and of course, several of the higher-ups had felt it necessary to personally ask us about this new titan on top of that.

“I think it was an alien,” Angel said conspiratorially as if that was supposed to be some kind of big surprise.

“Yeah, no duh,” Screwdriver shook her head. “Big red ball falls from the sky and a few minutes later, a giant silver dude pops up from where it landed. Not hard to put two and two together.”

While my squadmates continued to bicker as they usually did, I finished getting dressed and grabbed my stuff to head out. I wasn’t particularly in the mood to linger and chat. As I made my way to the door, though, I couldn’t help but feel like I was forgetting something.

It didn’t take me long to reach the motor pool, where my trusty car was parked in my usual spot. As I made my way over to it, however, I noticed that I wasn’t alone down there. One of the support technicians who worked with my team and our planes was waiting there for me, leaning against a support pillar. Even in the dimly lit garage, I could make out the familiar unruly brown hair, glasses and green camouflage jacket of Kensuke Aida. Or Aida Kensuke, since he was Japanese.

“What’s up?” I asked him as I walked up to my car.

“Oh, hey, I was just waiting for you.” He looked up from his phone and smiled at me.

“Yeah, I can see that.” I glared at him. “Is there a reason why?”

“Because…” Kensuke looked at me like I’d grown a second head or something. “You’re my ride home?”

I blinked a few times before nodding. “Oh, right, I dropped you off this morning. Sorry, I forgot.”

Kensuke just shook his head and sighed. “And now I’m worried that if there hadn’t been a kaiju attack today, you would have just left me stranded here.”

“What?” I gave him a look of false indignation. “That doesn’t sound like me.”

“Sure, sure.” Kensuke just rolled his eyes as I opened the door and climbed in.

I immediately reached to pull my seatbelt in and went to grab the steering wheel. However, I found my hands grasping at empty air. I’d accidentally gotten in on the passenger side, again, because of Japan’s stupid insistence on making cars backward so that they could drive on the wrong side of the road. Before I had a chance to correct my mistake, Kensuke hopped into the driver’s seat and turned the car on.

“So, how’d it go?” Kensuke asked me as he pulled the car out and started driving towards the exit.

“What, you didn’t already read my report?” I gave him an evil smile.

“Yeah, yeah, but I want to hear it from you,” he replied.

“Eh, you know,” I shrugged. “Blew up some bugs, fought a dragon, watched a freaky giant alien robot thing pop up out of nowhere and kill the dragon before I got the chance to. Normal day.”

“I wonder what that thing was,” Kensuke said as we pulled out onto the main road. “He didn’t look like any kaiju I’ve ever seen before. Way too human-looking.”

“Well, I’m sure the boys down in the research lab are going to come up with some cockamamie theory or another,” I replied. “They got a name for it, yet?”

“Last I heard, they’re leaning towards ‘Bemular’. But honestly, I think they’re just going to go with whatever the media decides to call it. I’m sure that fight’s going to be all over the news tonight. It’s already spreading like wildfire on social media.”

“And that would be…”

“I’ve seen a few different names going around,” he explained, “but right now it looks like the one gaining the most traction is ‘Ultraman’.”

“Ultraman?” I repeated, trying not to let out a snort at how ridiculous that sounded. “What, like evil Superman?”

“What?” Kensuke spared a quick glance at me before turning his gaze back to the road.

“Never mind.” I wasn’t really that interested in pointing out that I used to read enough American comic books to know an obscure DC character like that off the top of my head. “So, what’s for dinner?”

Ah, right, I think I forgot to mention something. In addition to being a part of my support team, Kensuke was also my boyfriend. That’s right, we’d been going steady for a while now and things were going pretty good. I’d even recently moved into his place, mostly to save on expenses. Yes, he was a hopeless nerd but he was my hopeless nerd.

“Eh, I don’t feel like making anything tonight,” Kensuke shrugged. “How about we stop somewhere on the way home and pick something up?”

“Yeah, sure.” It seemed like we’d been going out for takeout a lot lately. Normally I wouldn’t care but I wouldn’t have minded a homecooked meal every once in a while, not that I could be bothered to actually cook. Although, I had just had a homemade lunch that day, hadn’t I?

“Oh, yeah, You had that tutoring thing today, right?” Kensuke asked as if reading my mind. “How did that go?”

“Oh, shit!” I sat up, eyes going wide as I scrambled to pull my phone out of my pocket. That's what it was that I had been forgetting earlier. I noticed Kensuke give me a confused look so I went ahead and explained. “It was going well but then I got the call before we could wrap things up. I promised Shinji that I’d let him know when everything was over but I forgot.”

“Ah, okay,” Kensuke nodded as I quickly sent the text. “Shinji, huh? Should I be jealous that you're already on a first-name basis?”

I rolled my eyes, having already heard this joke before. “You know I call pretty much everyone by their first name. I’ll never understand this country’s obsession with being so overly formal.”

“And I’ll never understand why you Europeans are so casual,” he shot back at me.

I tuned Kensuke out as I stared at my phone waiting for a reply. Although by this point, Shinji had probably already heard that the outbreak was over. But then again, maybe not. He didn’t seem all that… What’s the word I’m looking for? Attentive? Apt? He didn’t seem like the kind who paid much attention to the news.


Shinji Ikari
March 31st, 2024, 5:45 pm

I managed to stumble my way out of the forest and made my way to the edge of the city when my phone buzzed in my pocket. I was almost surprised to find that it was still working considering everything that had happened. I’d completely lost my backpack and everything that was in it during all the chaos and my clothes were still in tatters from when that giant bug tried to eat me.

‘All clear. We managed to take out the bugs and save the city. You’re welcome. ’

Really? I never would have guessed.

‘Okay, thanks.’ I texted back, then mentally kicked myself over how dump that probably sounded. ‘I’m sure you did a great job out there.”

No, wait, that sounded even worse.

I decided to just try not to think about it and shoved my phone back in my pocket. As I reached the edge of town, I could see that people were starting to come out from the shelters now that the monsters were gone. Still not as many people as I was used to seeing in a big city like this but it wasn’t the ghost town that I’d run through on the way out there. I noticed that I did get a lot of strange looks as I limped through the streets in a tattered shirt and torn pants but considering the circumstances, that was to be expected. I’m sure that I probably looked like I’d just lost a fight with some kind of wild animal. In a way, I almost had.

It ended up taking me longer to get back to my apartment than it had to leave. I would have tried taking the bus but, well, I wasn’t sure if they’d even let me on in the state I was in even if I had any money on me to pay the fair. Once I finally managed to get home, though, the first thing that I did after getting my dirty shoes off was lie down on the couch.

Every inch of me was soar and I felt like I just wanted to pass out and never wake up again. And after a few minutes, I did pretty much exactly that. Minus the never waking up part, of course.

I found myself sitting on the train again. This time, I was alone and it was still stopped at the island beach from earlier. I walked out along the sandy shore and made my way over to the cabin that my other self had tried showing me earlier. He was resting on a chair set up on the front porch while the alien that apparently now lived in our brain was outside practicing what looked like judo moves on a straw training dummy. I noticed that he’d ditched the uniform from earlier so that he was now the spitting image of what I’d looked like during my transformation, except for the size.

“Oh, hey, there you are!” The other Shinji got up from his seat and ran over to me. “How are you holding up?”

“Fine, I guess,” I mumbled, avoiding eye contact.

“I am sorry to have placed this heavy burden upon you,” the alien said as he walked up to us. “But you did well out there. I had been worried that I would need to try and take control but it seems that my worries were unfounded.”

“Um, thanks,” I said, too tired to think of a proper response to that. “I think that I just want to go to sleep for now, though. I’m so tired.”

“Yes, you should,” the alien agreed. “Proper rest is important, especially since you have an important day waiting for you tomorrow.”

“What?” I looked up at him, confused, then turned my gaze back to the other me as he smiled.

“The new term starts tomorrow,” he pointed out. “We’ve got school!”

“Oh, great.” I smiled weakly. “Yeah, I’m going to bed now.”


Rei
March 31st, 2024, 7:00 pm

I pulled into a small parking lot overlooking a public beach outside of town. Looking down, I could see a rowdy group of people partying in the distance around a large bonfire that they had lit. That was exactly what I was looking for.

I pulled off my helmet and pulled the briefcase I had acquired earlier out of one of my saddlebags before heading down the steep stairs leading to the beach. No one seemed to question my arrival as I marched up to the party. The bonfire burned bright and tall, the flames a mix of yellow and orange as I approached. Once I was close enough, I held up the briefcase and tossed it into the fire, watching as it warped and melted in the flames. The smoke turned blue for a moment, to the surprise and delight of those around me, as the chemicals housed within evaporated harmlessly into the atmosphere.

It took a lot of experimenting to determine that this was the most efficient way to dispose of the contents within it. The harmful mutagenic properties of the substance were completely neutralized when evaporated into a gas, meaning that there would be no risk of anyone or anything being infected by it. My job was done and it was time to return to my dwelling place.

However, as I headed back to my motorcycle, one of the partygoers stepped in my way to obstruct my path. He attempted to flirt with me, his breath wreaking of cheap alcohol. He rejected his advances but he insisted on getting in my way. He was much more willing to accept my rejection after I had dislocated his shoulder, however. I did make sure that it would not leave any permanent injury, of course. While a nuisance, he was still just a civilian.

After that, I left the beach and drove back to the city. Since my job was done for the day, I decided to take a scenic route home. While this decision was made partly to avoid potentially being followed, it was also because I wanted to. I could enjoy the simple pleasures of riding when I allowed myself to. The wind rushing by, the changing scenery as I traveled. It was a nice night, which stood in heavy contrast to the unpleasantness of earlier that day.

I needed that moment. A reminder that despite what I was, the abomination that I’d been turned into, I was at my core still human.

The Kamen Rider was me but I was Rei. Rei Ikari. The person underneath the helmet.

Spoiler: Chapter Notes

I remembered that I actually have a box set of the original Ultraman (sadly only the first twenty episodes, not the full series) and I decided to rewatch the first few episodes to refresh my memory while working on this chapter. I’d forgotten how good it was.

If you’re wondering about what happened to Shinji’s classmate, he just kind of lost track of him in all the chaos and didn’t have the energy to track him down again after the battle. He’s fine and will show up again later.

 

Spoiler: Chapter 3

Chapter 3: First Steps​

???
April 1st, 2024, 7:00 am

I woke up to find myself staring up at an unfamiliar ceiling. Sterile, white tile. There was only one place I could be and, looking around the room, I confirmed my suspicions. I was lying in a hospital bed, bandaged up like some kind of mummy. It felt like some kind of cruel, sick joke that I was even alive at all, especially since I was probably the only one that bitch had left alive.

Despite the pain, I forced myself to sit up and yanked the tubes out of my arm. I had to get out of there, fast, before anyone decided to start asking questions about what had happened in that warehouse. But as I moved to get up from the bed, I found my left hand pulled back to the bedframe as soon as I moved it. Damn it, I’d been cuffed to the bed. I wouldn’t be able to get out of there without finding a way out of that thing. Not unless I wanted to try dragging the whole bed with me, anyway, but that would have been damn near impossible even if I wouldn’t have to sneak out.

As I was contemplating trying to break my own thumb like they do in the movies, I heard footsteps coming from outside, growing closer as whoever was out there came closer to the room I’d been left in. It was probably a doctor or, more likely, a nurse who was coming to check up on me. If I was lucky, and I never was, then I might be able to convince them to uncuff me long enough that I could make a break for it. But then again, they probably wouldn’t have been able to. Or it could have been a cop coming to interrogate me and I could overpower them and take the key to escape.

What I wasn’t prepared for was for a damn vampire to stroll right into the room like he owned the place. Seriously, what the hell? His long, dark hair was graying at the sides and was wearing a freaking black and red high-collared cape over a three-piece white and cream suit.

“Who the hell are you?” I blurted out, completely caught off guard by this wacko’s unexpected appearance.

The man just gave me a smug look before opening his mouth and I wasn’t sure if I was relieved or not that he at least didn’t have fangs. “Not much for formalities, are you Mister Komori?”

Despite looking Japanese, his accent was distinctly Russian, as if he couldn’t have been any more strange. Not that I could blame anyone for being a foreigner. After all, I hadn’t been dragged off to this shit country until I was in high school.

“No, I’m not,” I said bluntly as the weirdo casually took a seat on the chair next to my bed.

He gave me a disapproving look before nodding curtly, as if I cared what this random old dude thought of me,

“At least you’re honest,” he said at last. “That counts for something in my book, I’d say. You may call me Doctor Shinigami.”

…

Doctor God of Death? Did he really just call himself that with a straight face? Ah, he must have wandered out from the psyche ward.

“What kind of name is that?” I laughed. “Might as well call you Doctor Death! You some kind of supervillain trying to recruit me into your gang?”

The self-styled doctor smirked and crossed his legs casually, folding his hands over his knee. “You’re not as far off as you might think. I believe you may recognize some of my work.”

My eyes widened and I quickly shut up as the old man proceeded to pull a glowing blue syringe out from his jacket pocket, holding it out in front of me. Of course I knew what that was, it was the same stuff that my gang had just been killed trying to get our hands on.

“Yes, I see it in your eyes that you know exactly what this is.” The doctor gave me another smug look, which seemed like it might as well have been his only expression. “I understand that you had a bit of an… incident, trying to acquire some samples of my product yesterday.”

“Your product?” I found myself asking, unable to but two and two together at the moment. Looking back, I probably had a nasty concussion at the time.

“Why yes, of course,” he replied. “I used to be the head of Shocker’s augmentation research and development team and this serum was the fruit of our work.”

“So, you’re from Shocker?” I asked accusingly, prompting a chuckle from him. “So then you’re, what, here to finish me off for getting two of your guys killed?”

“Oh, no, I couldn’t care less about them.” he waved his free hand dismissively. “It’s their own fault for not being more careful. No, I’m here because regardless of how poorly that transaction may have gone thanks to… our mutual enemy… it is our responsibility to make sure that you get what you paid for. Though, there is one thing….”

“Yeah, and what’s that?” I was already growing tired of this guy.

“This is merely a sample of our basic G1 Mutagen,” he explained as he did that thing doctors do where they squirt out a bit of the liquid in their syringe to make sure there isn’t any air in the needle. “It will enhance your strength, speed and reflexes to the limit of what the human body is physically capable of, maybe a bit past that if I’m being honest, but it’s also the same basic formula that we use for our combatmen, our mass-produced, rank-and-file enforcers. And you, my friend, seem neither rank nor file.”

I had to scoff at that, despite myself. “Yeah, and just what’s that supposed to mean?”

The doctor let out an overly dramatic sigh, clearly making a show of himself. “What I am trying to say, Mister Komori, is that you strike me as a man who’s meant for far greater things than just running drugs and guns for other people’s criminal enterprises. If you really feel content with a life of second-rate street crime and whatever else thugs like you do, then feel free to just ignore this old man and keep on as you will. But, if you wish to be something greater, then I will be waiting for you in a black car parked along the road outside the south side of this building. I will wait for half an hour, no more. But either way, this is yours.”

With that, the doctor stood up with a creak of his knees and walked around the bed to place the still-glowing syringe on the counter beside me. Then, with a curt nod, he saw himself out of the room.

That was… certainly a thing that had just happened. I was left reeling with my thoughts as I tried to process it all. I didn’t trust that guy as far as I could throw him but… something about his offer enticed me. It was true that I wasn’t exactly happy with what my life had become. The Spider Clan wasn’t exactly a glamorous group. We weren’t even proper Yazuka, just a gang trying but failing to make a name for ourselves. And even if we had, what then? What was it that I even wanted? To make a name for myself? To work my way up the criminal ladder? That all seemed so petty and small, now.

And that was before five of my best guys got slaughtered by the hands of that bug-eyed bitch, the so-called ‘Masked Rider’. I could practically feel my blood boil at the memory of her standing over me, bloodied and broken, like she had my life in her hands and chose to throw it away like it was trash she didn’t want to dirty herself with, just like so many others had done before. I was tired of it. Tired of everything.

The memory of my fight with that helmeted freak flashed through my mind again. She'd taken down my whole group like it was nothing, not even breaking a sweat after killing over half a dozen grown men with ease. She had a strength to her unlike anything I’d ever seen before. She'd even had the gall to look almost graceful and poised while doing it.

Whatever that bitch was, she wasn't human. That kind of strength, that power, wasn't natural. Even the goons I’d seen hopped up on Shocker’s new wonder drug had nothing on her. She felt almost more like a Kaiju than a person.

I wanted that. No, I needed it.

With only a moment of hesitation, I reached for the syringe. Unfortunately, that bastard had left it to my right side and that arm was currently bound tightly in a plaster cast. Judging from the wave of pain that shot out from it when I moved the arm, I was pretty sure it was broken.

But I was never going to get anywhere if I let something like that stop me. I reached out again, powering through the pain and making sure not to bite my own tongue off. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to grab the glowing syringe since I didn't have any usable fingers at the time and the bulky white cast just bumped futility against the glass, causing it to roll out of my reach.

Damn it!

No, keep a cool head, Takuya! This was just a minor setback. I swung my legs over the handrail I was cuffed to, noting that one of my legs was also broken and in a similar cast to my arm. More pain had to be ignored as I stood up and tried to move. The bed may have been on wheels but they were locked in place and I wasn't going to be able to do anything about that in my current state, which meant that I had to physically drag the whole table around to get to the counter.

I couldn't exactly do that quietly and the shrill shriek of the wheels dragging along the tile floor seemed almost deafening. The sound was nothing compared to everything else I was experiencing at the moment but it would definitely alert people outside that I was awake and that something was wrong. But soon, that wouldn't matter.

At last, I managed to grab the syringe, holding it not-so-gently in the fingers of my cuffed hand, the only one I could actually use at the moment. Since movement was rather limited in that arm, I had no choice but to bend over and jab the needle into my neck.

PAIN

It was unlike anything I’d ever felt before. Like I stuck a fork into a power outlet while someone posted a bucket of ice water over my head. I could feel my broken bones snapping back into place, feel my muscles start to swell. You would think that the pain would have been overwhelming but somehow I could also feel my senses coming into focus and I was completely alert as a group of nurses and orderlies rushed into the room to see what the screaming was.

A hand touched my shoulder and I reacted almost instinctively, whipping around and smashing my arm against the nurse’s head hard enough to crack the cast and probably her skull. As the body fell to the ground like a discarded ragdoll, two large men rushed to grab me. One found his fingers broken as I crushed his fist with one hand while the other received a knee in his gut with enough force that I could feel his ribs shatter.

Once everyone but me was either incapacitated or dead, I rushed out of the room only for the cop who’d likely been stationed to guard me, though apparently he hadn't been doing a very good job considering how long it took him to show up, to take a swing at me as I ran through the doorway. It didn't exactly hurt but was enough to knock me flat on my ass.

He tackled me, trying to pin me to the floor, and yelled something that I was too riled up to make out. Unfortunately for him, I was able to use his momentum to push him to the ground. Before the pig could get up again, I pulled off the hospital gown that I’d been left in and wrapped it around his neck. After a couple minutes, he stopped struggling and fell much like the nurse before. Just to be sure, though, I stomped his head in with my left foot and discovered that it was still in a cast.

Realizing that it would be harder to run with that thing on, I started slamming my leg against the doorway until it broke enough that I could tear it off. Then I did the same with the one on my arm before running again.

Of course, a naked man running around a hospital covered in bandages and blood that wasn't his own was going to attract a lot of unwanted attention and if I stopped to take down every orderly or security guard I came across, I wouldn't be able to make my deadline even if I didn't get worn down through sheer numbers. So, I did my best to avoid people as much as I could. Unfortunately, I happened to be in the middle of a very crowded public hospital. Fortunately, thanks to those super steroids the doctor had given me, I was able to keep pace at a full sprint for far longer than I should have been able to.

Of course, there was only so much that the supposed wonder drug was able to do and by the time I finally managed to run out the front door, I could feel my legs burning and my lungs wanting to revolt. I may have been stronger but I wasn't as strong as she had been.

Despite the fatigue, I had to hold on just a little longer. Doctor Death had said he would be parked outside the south side of the building, so I checked the sky. Figuring that it was probably morning, that meant the sun was still east and I quickly worked out which way I was going. Maybe my parents making me go to all those Boy Scout activities as a kid wasn't such a bad thing.

Sure enough, I found an unmarked black car parked along the road. And by car, I mean a freakin’ limo with windows tinted so dark they were impossible to see through. Subtlety, thy name was not Doctor Death. I ran over to the overly suspicious vehicle, opened the unlocked door and hopped in. I took a seat opposite the old man, who looked up at me with a small smile on his face.

“Hm, that took longer than I was expecting,” he mused.

“Building’s like a damn maze,” I muttered back.

“Well, regardless, you’re here now which means that we may begin.” The doctor knocked on the small window separating us from the driver and the limo started to move. He then turned back to me and dropped the fake smile, his face curling into a scowl. “Ugh, you’re getting blood everywhere. Not yours, I should hope.”

“Course not,” I said.

“That’s going to be a pain to clean out but I suppose that we have people for that.” He shook his head dismissively before picking up a neatly folded stack of clothes and handing them to me. “Here, you can at least cover yourself up.”

I reluctantly took the offered clothes, a cheap black tracksuit, and slipped them on. Not uncomfortable, I supposed, but I didn’t bother zipping up the jacket. Once I was settled in, I noticed the Doctor’s gaze settling on the tattoo on my chest.

“What, you got a problem with my ink?” I asked accusingly.

“No, no,” he waved dismissively. “I was simply admiring the work. Whoever gave you that must have been a skilled artist. That would be a Kumonga scytodes, correct? One of the giant spiders found on Sollgel Island?”

I glanced down at the brown-and-yellow spider sprawled out across my chest.

“Um, yeah.”

“Interesting,” the doctor said. “You know, I once had the chance to visit Solgell Island on a scientific expedition. The kumonga are quite impressive creatures in person. I take it that you must have some affinity for them, to have one permanently drawn onto your flesh.”

“I guess,” I shrugged, not really one for that kind of introspection. “Spiders are cool but most people hate them, and Kumonga’s the biggest spider of all.”

“I see.” Doctor Death nodded and wrote something down in a notebook he pulled out of his jacket pocket. “Well, I suppose that’s enough small talk. I suppose now it’s time to move on to the matter at hand. Welcome to Shocker, Takuya Komori. We will be expecting great things from you.”


Shinji Ikari
April 1st, 2024, 12:45 pm

My first day of college certainly could have been going better. Although considering I never finished middle school and knew next to nothing about the subject that I was supposed to be majoring in, things also could have been going much, much worse. Thankfully, day one was mostly focused on orientation and getting introduced to classes so my almost complete lack of knowledge wasn’t too much of a hindrance yet. Still, I found myself wishing that I knew how to hand control of this body back over to its rightful owner, the other me. He was the actual university student, after all. I didn’t even know any of my classmates even though a lot of them were people he’d already worked with before.

In fact, thinking about it, I should have just handed this life back to him in general. Not only was I very much not comfortable living another me’s life but I’d already had my chance at life while that Shinji still should have had his whole future ahead of him. It wasn’t fair for a screwup like me to get this second chance. Unfortunately, I hadn’t had any contact with the other me or the silver alien man living in our brain since I’d woken up that morning. It felt almost like I’d been cut off from them again and that I was back to how it was before yesterday. At least I was having brief flashes of insight about things that I was pretty sure were from the other me, so I at least had some confirmation that they were still there and that I wasn’t just going crazy. But then again, things would make a lot more sense if I was going crazy.

At the moment, I was sitting on a bench somewhere on campus, though I wasn’t familiar enough with the university’s layout to be sure where specifically I was. I didn’t have much longer before my next class started and I wanted to enjoy what was left of my lunch break before heading back into the academic nightmare that was being a middle schooler attending the country’s most prestigious university.

“Ikari?”

“I looked over to see someone running up to me and it took me a moment to recognize Ichiro Akamatsu, the guy I’d tried and sort of failed to rescue the day before. Apart from a few bandages, he seemed no worse for wear, which was a huge relief. I’d kind of just forgotten about him after that whole thing with the alien and fighting a giant dragonfly-dinosaur-thing. I was still having trouble believing that was actually a thing that I did. Though considering what my old life was like, I supposed it shouldn’t have seemed that strange. But somehow it still felt like it was.

“Hey, that is you!” Akamatsu exclaimed excitedly as he came to a stop just in front of me. “Dude, I thought you were dead! What happened?”

Oh, right. Last he’d seen me, I was getting carried off by one of those giant man-eating bugs. The fact that I was, if anything, in even better health than before should have been impossible.

“Uh, yeah, I barely made it out of there,” I said weakly. It wasn’t even really all that much of a lie. “I'm glad to see that you’re alright.”

“Me, what about you?” he asked, clearly exasperated. “You took on a Meganula by yourself! I thought you were done for! And that’s not bringing up the Megaguirus that showed up right after that! And then the Ultraman!”

Yeah, talking my way out of this was going to be a challenge…

Wait…

“Ultraman?” I parroted.

“That silver giant that showed up right after the Megaguirus woke up!” Akamatsu fiddled with his phone before turning it around to show me a shaky photo of, well, me. Judging from the low angle and the trees in the way, it looked like Akamatsu had likely taken that picture himself. “People on social media are calling him Ultraman.”

Well, that was certainly a name. Not the one I would have picked out. Then again, I had no idea what name I would have picked. I hadn’t even come up with anything to call the alien, yet.

“Ah, well,” I tried to think of what to say, “I’m not really sure what happened after that. I, um, passed out after that dragonfly thing grabbed me and… I just kind of woke up like this?”

There was no way that he was going to buy that story but it wasn’t like I could tell him what actually happened. I’d sound like I was crazy! Which I probably was. Not to mention that this was definitely something that I should keep secret. There’s no telling what would happen if I told him about what happened, about what this ‘Ultraman’ really was.

“Ugh, whatever,” Akamatsu sighed, giving me a skeptical look. “Dude, you have got to stop doing stuff like this. It was bad enough when you fell out of a tree trying to save that girl’s cat, or jumping in front of a truck to save that old lady, but trying to donate your kidney for that guy you met on the bus was crazy and this… this is a whole new level of insane, even for you! You need help, man, and I don’t think that therapist girlfriend of yours is enough.”

“Oh, um, sure,” I said awkwardly, not really sure how to respond to that.

My increasingly frustrated classmate checked his phone and rolled his eyes. “Look, I’ve gotta go. Professor Fuyutsuki will have my head if I’m late for the first day of class. But seriously, stop with the heroics. There’s only one of you.”

I watched as Akamatsu ran off in a hurry, starting to get a very different look at my current situation. Did the other me really do those things? That Shinji seemed so calm and collected when I’d met him before, like he actually had his life together and knew what he was doing. But the way Akamatsu was describing him just now… he sounded almost suicidal. But I guess he was still Shinji Ikari, which meant that he had to have his own issues. And somehow, his insisting that I take over was starting to make a lot more sense.

Wait, who was that professor that Akamatsu just mentioned?


Takuya Komori
April 1st, 2024, 1:00 pm

I don’t know where I was expecting to be brought. Some kind of underground lab or supervillain lair? With the way Doctor Death presented himself, maybe an old European Castle in the middle of an endless thunderstorm? But where we eventually ended up getting out of the car was just outside the entrance to some fancy lab on the outskirts of town, the kind of compound where they’ve gotta buzz you in to get past the big iron gate blocking the entrance.

I let out a groan and stretched my back once I was finally able to get out of the limo. I’d finally come down off the adrenaline high of my earlier escapades but thankfully I wasn’t having to deal with the pain of everything I’d gone through back at the hospital. I did have a serious itch around where I’d injected myself with the serum, though, and the area where I was scratching felt strangely hard. If I had a mirror, I would have seen that the area around the injection had grown black and scaly.

“The Institute of Super Science?” I scoffed as I read the sign outside. “Really?”

“This way,” the good doctor waved for me to follow him as he strode towards the front door, practically gliding along the ground.

“I’m just sayin’, it sounds like the villain group from a Saturday morning cartoon or one of those shows with the guys in rubber suits,” I said as I followed him inside.

The ISS was pretty much what I expected it to be from the outside. A sleek, open-air ‘modern’ office that tried to strike a balance between post-modern art and a minimalist aesthetic. The kind of place I’d expect to find in Silicon Valley or something. Also not a lot of color, it seemed like almost everything was stark white, with a bit of black and light gray to spice things up.

“Good morning, Doctor!” A peppy young receptionist looked over at us from behind the front desk.

“Tell Doctor Heinrich to prepare the augmentation lab,” Doctor Death told her as he made his way towards one of the hallways leading out from the foyer or entrance hall or whatever you wanted to call that room. “We have a volunteer. Oh, make sure that he has the Kumonga scytodes sample on hand for the procedure.”

“Of course, Sir, right away!”

After that, we made our way down to an elevator the doctor pressed the button to go down. The doors opened almost immediately and I followed him inside. He swiped a card key next to the floor buttons, after which we just had to wait.

“Sooo…” I started to say, if for no other reason than to break the awkward quiet of the elevator. “What is this place?”

“Well, you clearly already know this company’s name, seeing as you were just making fun of it as we came in,” Doctor Death said disdainfully, sparing me a sideways glance. “Officially, it’s a biological research lab owned by the Ishigami Group, focused on the study of DNA manipulation to fight diseases such as cancer, AIDS and other such things. In fact, the upper floors of this facility are actually used for that research.”

“But unofficially?” I prodded.

The doors opened again before he could reply and we stepped out into the fourth basement floor. To my mild disappointment, we were still in what looked like a perfectly ordinary research lab.

“You won’t find this level on the publicly available floorplans,” he said as he guided me down another hallway. “This is our new human augmentation lab, where we take people like you and bring out their full potential beyond what ‘nature’ would allow for on its own.”

“Your ‘new’ lab?” I asked. “What happened to the old one?”

Doctor Death stopped in front of a door and turned to me, a sour expression on his face.

“The Kamen Rider,” he said. “I would tell you more but you don't have the clearance for that particular story. Not until you’ve come out the other side, at least.”

“The other side of what?” I asked, not knowing how much I would come to regret the answer.

“Hell, of course.”


Shinji Ikari
April 1st, 2024, 8:45 pm

After classes finally ended for the day, I found myself exhausted and just wanting to go home. Instead, I somehow found myself standing outside the biology department’s faculty offices, feeling like I was about to have an anxiety attack as I debated with myself whether or not to go inside. I had just decided against it when the professor from one of my marine life classes walked by.

“Oh, Ikari,” he greeted me somewhat awkwardly. “Heading inside?”

I would have shaken my head and turned around but he was already holding the door open for me and it would have been impolite to just leave, so I walked in. The professor went down a hallway, presumably heading to his office, while I ended up making my way to a reception desk. No one was there but there was a listing of all the professors, along with room numbers and office hours. My eyes were immediately drawn to one name in particular.

Professor Fuyutsuki, Kozo - Kaijuology

I could feel a lump growing in my throat as pained memories came flooding back to me of my father's right-hand man. I thought, or perhaps more accurately hoped, that it must have been a coincidence. It couldn't have been him, could it?

I turned and hurried for the door, deciding that I was better off not knowing. If I didn't check, then I would always have room to doubt, to assure myself that it couldn't have been the man who had loyally aided my father in his schemes. That life was gone, I knew that much for sure, and I didn't need any reminders of those horrible times.

Before I could see where I was going, I accidentally bumped straight into a tall, older man in a brown suit and dark blue tie.

“Oh, I'm so sorry!” I reflexively bowed after taking a hurried step back.

“No trouble at all, I wasn't looking where I was going.” My breath caught as I recognized that voice and I hesitantly looked up. I knew that face, even if it was rather less haggard that I was used to seeing. And from the way his eyes widened, he recognized me as well. “Gendo?”

He suddenly shook his head, as I tried not to panic.

“Wait, no, sorry. You just remind me of someone I used to know.” The professor narrowed his eyes as he looked down at me again. “Pardon me for asking but your name wouldn't happen to Ikari, would it?”

I straightened up at the sound of my name and hesitantly replied. “Yes, sir. Shinji Ikari. Gendo Ikari was my father.”

A warm smile fell over the elderly man’s lips. “Ah, yes, you're Yui’s boy, right? I haven't seen you since you were still just a baby. How are you?”

“I’m fine,” I replied automatically. I wasn’t fine, though. I felt like I was on the verge of a panic attack. Again.

“Would you care to come into my office so that we can catch up?” he asked, gesturing towards one of the doors leading out of the hallway behind me.

I didn't but I also didn't want to seem rude, so I nodded my head and he led me into what must have been his office. I took a seat on one of the empty chairs in front of his desk while he sat down on the other side with a creak of his knees.

“You know, I saw your name on the student listings and I was wondering if I’d get the chance to meet you,” he said. “I taught both of your parents here back in the day and your mother in particular was one of my favorite students. I’d never seen anyone with such a passion for Kaiju Studies.”

His smile turned to a pained frown. “My condolences. I heard about what happened but it's hard to believe that she's gone. And she was still so young…”

I stared down at the desk, unsure of what to say. I had never had the chance to meet my mother. Thanks to my father, I’d never even so much as seen a picture of her to know what she had looked like. An image flashed through my mind of a dark-haired woman in a hospital bed, who looked almost like an older, more weary Rei Ayanami. It took me a second to realize that it was a flash of the other me’s memories of his mother. Which meant that she was also what my mother must have looked like before she passed away when I was young. Despite myself, I was suddenly overcome with intense emotions that I didn't know how to describe.

Fuyutsuki reached over and handed me a tissue before I’d even realized that I was crying. I took it from him and tried to wipe the tears that were running down the sides of my face. It was a few minutes before another word was exchanged between us.

“I haven't heard from your father in quite some time,” he said at last, catching me off guard. “Do you know how he’s doing?”

I just stared up at the professor. I had assumed from what the other me had said before that this world’s Gendo Ikari had also died but was that actually the case? I tried to look inside myself, so to speak, and was met with a no to both my question and Fuyutsuki’s. I shook my head.

“I see.” The professor muttered bitterly. “Gendo was always distant. I’m not surprised to hear that he wouldn't even make time for his own children. But enough of that, let's switch to happier topics, shall we? What are you majoring in?”

“Marine biology,” I said, glad to finally get an easy question.

“Ah, a good field.” Fuyutsuki nodded. “And one not so distantly related to your mother's line of work. She was one of the world's top researchers on Godzillasaurs, you know. I take it that some of her enthusiasm passed on to you?”

I squirmed back in my seat, back to not knowing what to say. I ended up just nodding. “I guess?”

“You know, I’ve still got a few seats open in one of my classes,” Professor Fuyutsuki said as he grabbed a sheet of paper from under his desk and handed it to me. “If you’re interested and you have the time available in your schedule, I could get you in as a last-moment enrollment. Only if you want to, of course. I don't want you to feel pressured to join or anything.”

I looked down at the paper, a course schedule, and realized that the class did line up with a free period in my schedule. I wasn't going to sign up, of course. I was already far too busy and there was no way I’d be able to throw another class on top of things. Even though something about the subject did seem to stand out to me-

“I’d love to.”

The words may have passed through my lips but I wasn't the one who said them. Fuyutsuki smiled at me as I internally panicked.

“Very well then. I look forward to seeing you in class tomorrow, young Shinji. But for now, I’m afraid that’s all the time I have available.”

We both stood up and shook hands. A moment later, I was walking outside while the professor returned to packing up his things for the night. I stared up at the cloudy evening sky, trying to figure out what had just happened. It seemed that I was going to have to have a talk with my other self, assuming that I could even figure out how.


April 1st, 2024, 10:00 pm

When I finally got home that night, I dropped my school backpack, which thankfully wasn't the one I’d lost in the woods during the Meganula incident, on the floor and slipped off my shoes before making myself a quick dinner and settling down on the couch. After that, it wasn't long before I found myself lying in bed, trying fruitlessly to fall asleep. At least I didn't have to deal with homework on the first day.

After what felt like forever, I finally managed to drift off to sleep, where I found myself sitting on an empty train, SDAT in hand. It was nice, peaceful, but not where I needed to be. I pulled out my earbuds, pocketed the old tape player and disembarked the old passenger train to stand once again on the sandy shore of Oda Island.

I could see the old cabin that the other me had shown me before and headed towards it.

The alien, ‘Ultraman’ as people were apparently calling him now, was outside practicing what looked like judo moves on a straw dummy that looked less like a human and more like some sort of lizardlike hedgehog creature.

“Good evening, young Ikari.” Ultraman bowed to his ‘sparring partner’ and turned to me. “It is good to see you well. How went the day?”

“It could have gone better,” I admitted, then gestured to the cabin. “Is the other Shinji inside?”

“He is.” The alien nodded, his blank expression as unreadable as always. It was subtly unnerving, how his face, almost more like a helmet, didn’t move at all even when he spoke. “But before you go to speak with him, I would like a word with you.”

I had already started walking towards the door but stopped mid-step and turned to face him again.

“What is it?” I asked hesitantly.

“When we spoke before, I told you that you will need to take on my role as a defender and protect this world from threats until I am able to safely extract my essence from your own,” he said. “But while you have some combat training from your formal life, I do not believe that it will be enough. We do not know what challenges may await in the future and it will be best to prepare while we can. Would you be willing to let me train you here, while your body rests each night?”

“Yeah, sure,” I replied, finding myself unable to say no to the request.

The alien nodded again. “If possible, it would also be best to clear time in your schedule so that you may train in the real world as well, to get used to fighting in my body and familiarize yourself with how to properly utilize my abilities.”

“But… wouldn’t it be easier to just have you take over if we get into a fight?” I asked. “I mean, you’re the one who knows what you’re doing.”

He stood there for a moment silently, looking to all the world, or I guess just me, like a statue.

“That is one possibility,” he said at last. “However, I believe that with our unusual circumstances, it will be best for us to try and work as a team so that we may utilize our individual strengths and perhaps cover our weaknesses. Perhaps rather than me merely instructing you in how to fight as I would, we should learn to work together in sync with each other. We will have to work this out as we go.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so I ended up just standing there awkwardly.

“That was all that I had to say for the moment,” he said. “If you wish to speak with your counterpart, then I will not hold you up any longer.”

“Right,” I nodded. “Um, I guess I’ll see you later.”

“Indeed.”

With that out of the way, I walked up the stairs leading to the front porch and opened the door to the cabin. This was my first time seeing it from the inside and yet it felt oddly nostalgic. Almost like I’d been here once before a long, long time ago. It had a cozy feel to it, feeling more like a home than anywhere I’d ever been except maybe the apartment that I had shared with Misato and Asuka during what would end up being the best few months of my old life. I found myself lost in thought as I looked around at the various decorations and photos scattered around, remnants of a life I hadn’t lived.

“Hey, there he is!” I heard the other me’s voice and turned around to see him walking up behind me from what looked like a living room, snapping me out of my thoughts and reminding me why I was there.

“What was that?” I suddenly snapped, surprising myself almost as much as I did him.

“What was what?” he asked, though didn’t sound convincing in his apparent confusion.

“You left me in charge all day, making me go to all those classes that are way above my level, then take over just to sign me up for yet another class against my will!?”

He turned his head, unable to meet my gaze at the accusation.

“Well, it’s your life now so I thought you should be the one to experience everything but I also knew that you weren’t going to take the professor up on that offer even though I could tell that you wanted to-”

“No!” I suddenly took a step forward. “None of this is my life! We may both be Shinji Ikari but we are not the same person. I’m not ready for college, I never even went to high school. How can you just expect me to just slide right into your life? Besides, I heard what Akamatsu said about you. Why would you keep throwing your own life away like that?”

“Well, what am I supposed to do?” he suddenly grew heated at that. “Not help the people around me when they’re in need? You’re right, I guess we’re not the same because I can’t just stand around and not lend a helping hand to someone who needs it!”

“That only goes so far,” I argued. “But that’s not the issue right now. You need to be the one in charge and take your life back because I can’t live it for you!”

“What life?!” It was his turn to step forward, glaring down at me with such intensity that I couldn’t help but back down. “My father left us and took my sister away from me! My mom died and left me behind! All I can do is try to help the people who need my help and if I can’t even do that then what good am I?”

“But what about Mari or your other friends?” I pointed out as he backed up against the wall and slumped down. “You’re in a good school and I’m sure you’ve probably got a good career lined up for you. You’ve got a good life so how can you just throw that away and hand it to the screwup who destroyed his own world, twice?”

“Easy for you to say,” he sighed. “Your life was taken away from you by circumstances far beyond what you could be expected to control. I’ve had everything practically handed to me and yet I haven’t been able to make anything worthwhile out of it. If anyone’s the screwup here, it’s me.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, kneeling down next to him.

“What do I have?” He looked up at me through bloodshot eyes. “University? I only got in because of who my parents were. A job? I don’t have anything lined up after this. Friends? Not really.”

“You have a girlfriend,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, the one thing I have going for me,” he looked back down at his knees, pressed firmly against his chest. “And I don’t even know what she sees in me. Sometimes I wonder if I’m just a test subject for her studies… But, yeah, I see where you’re going. How about a compromise?”

“What?” I asked, urging him to continue.

“We split our time. I’ll handle classes and schoolwork, you get the rest of the time. Deal?”

I grimaced at that. “I still don’t like it.”

“That’s how compromises work,” he said and started to hold his hand out for me to shake but then pulled it back. “Oh, and one more thing. You get Professor Fuyutsuki’s Kaijuology class.”

“What, why?” I stared at him in confusion.

“Because I could tell that you’re interested in it.” He cracked a smile. “Besides, if I’m handling the rest of our education then it’s only fair that you get at least one of the classes, right?”

I closed my eyes and sighed, before turning back to him and holding out my hand. “Alright, fine. We can do this for now.”

“Then it’s a deal,” the other me accepted the handshake, and the deal was struck. “...Now what?”

“I don’t know,” I said as I pulled him to his feat. “Do you have a cello?”

 

Spoiler: Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Just Another Morning​

Asuka Sohryu
April 2nd, 2024, 5:00 am

Setting my phone’s alarm to random was a mistake. Having a chorus of hallelujahs blasting me awake was not how I needed to start my day but I suppose it could have been worse. As much as I would have liked to just go straight back to bed after turning it off, that wasn’t an option and I had to rub the grogginess out of my eyes while sitting up. On the other side of the bed, Kensuke stirred before rolling over and starting to snore. That damned technician still wasn’t out of bed by the time I’d brushed my teeth and got dressed. It was only after I’d finished brushing my hair and making sure that it was styled to my usual picture-perfect look that I finally heard him get up and shuffle groggily to our small excuse for a kitchen.

“Hmph,” he grumbled as he stumbled over to the counter to pour himself a bowl of one of those ridiculously sugary American cereals that he’d taken a liking to. “G’morning.”

“Morning, sleepyhead,” I replied tersely as I slipped my boots on.

“Hey, you’re not skipping breakfast, are you?” he asked, slowly growing more alert to the world.

“Of course not,” I rolled my eyes while grabbing my car keys from the kitchen counter. “I’m picking something up on the way.”

“You know, going out to eat too much is bad for your health,” he joked.

I just turned and silently stared at him, then down at the bowl in front of him.

“Touché,” he said at last.

After going over my mental checklist of everything I needed to do before I left, I nodded in satisfaction before stepping towards the door.

“Bye, Ken,” I called back to him before leaving. “See you at work!”

“Bye!” he shouted after me. “I love you!”

A moment later, I was pulling out of our apartment’s parking lot and on my way to work. As I told Kensuke, I stopped by a fast food place on the way to work to pick up coffee and a couple of those breakfast sandwich things they have where they put eggs and sausage inside of an English muffin. Probably not the healthiest way to start the day but it was still more than enough for me. Even if the sausage was terrible but that was something that I’d learned to live with since leaving home.

Before I exited back to the main road, I pulled out my phone and started scrolling through podcasts, trying to decide on something to listen to for the drive. None of my regulars had new episodes up so I settled for a Kaiju conspiracy series I didn't normally listen to, who’d just posted an episode titled ‘Tokyo’s Silver Giant'. You didn’t need three guesses to figure out what that was going to be about.

“Welcome to another episode of Godzilla Land News,” a young woman's voice opened as I returned to my commute. “I’m your host, Daughter of Mothra.”

“And I’m CornMuncher108,” a much older-sounding man chimed in.

“Why are you still calling yourself that!? I thought I told you to come up with a better name.”

“Because I like corn. Corn’s delicious.”

“Rice is better but that's not what we're here to talk about today.”

“It's what I talk about every day, DoM.”

“Don’t call me dom! It's weird.”

“Then why did you name yourself that!”

“I didn't!”

With that intro, I was just about ready to turn it off and switch to something else. Just before I could tap my phone, though, they finally got on topic and I decided to keep listening for a bit.

“Now, the topic that everyone’s been talking about is one of the biggest stories in kaiju news since the original Godzilla’s return over twenty years ago,” Daughter of Mothra announced, referencing an infamous and highly disputed ‘Ghost Godzilla’ theory regarding the Tokyo Bay attack that happened when I was a baby, which anyone with even half a brain knew was complete unsinn. “The new silver giant that was seen near Tokyo, battling a new Megaguirus that the G Squad pigs found themselves unable to match up against, like always.”

My hands tightened around the leather grip on my steering wheel as I imagined them around the neck of that disembodied voice.

“Hey, go easy on them,” Corn Muncher said, instantly winning me over to his side despite how impossible to take seriously his name was. “They’re out there doing their best. It's not their fault that they're grossly underqualified for this sort of thing.”

Nevermind. Any goodwill that he had earned with me was immediately thrown out the window.

“For those who haven't heard yet,” Daughter of Mothra continued, “there was a Meganula outbreak in Tokyo yesterday followed by the sudden appearance of a Megaguirus much like the one Godzilla defeated back in 2000.”

“Go, go, Gojira!” CornMuncher cheered.

“But rather than the big G himself showing up to save the day again, this ancient dragonfly was defeated by a giant silver man falling from space in a meteor and saving the day before vanishing without a trace as quickly as he had appeared. Not much is known about this new alien hero but folks online have already taken to calling our new guardian the Ultra Man.”

“More like ‘Ultra man, I hope it isn't an alien’.”

“What do you have against aliens?” DoM asked. “Aliens are cool.”

“My friend, you weren't there for the seventies,” Corn replied as if that wasn't a complete non sequitur.

“O~kay… So, if not an alien, then what do you think the Ultra Man is? Wait, why am I even asking you that? You always pin everything on the Americans. Let me guess, this is some new project by the Men in Black.”

“Of course not,” Corn said. “This is clearly a new Jet Jaguar.”

I picked the wrong moment to tap a sip of my coffee and suddenly found myself wishing I had windshield wipers on the inside of the car. Instead, I had to pull over and make do with the stash of napkins I always kept on hand.

“Jet Jaguar?” DoM’s tone mirrored my own dumbfounded reaction to such an asinine theory. “That robot from the seventies that no one's seen in, like, fifty years?”

“Correct.”

Both insane podcast hosts remained silent for a moment, while I continued on my way.

“That’s the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard,” Daughter of Mothra said at last. “And I work with you, so that's saying something.”

“Look, I watched all the security footage and I’m telling you, it's Jet Jaguar. The silver body with marks on the chest, the sculpted face, and you can't tell me that the way he shows up and then disappears isn't just him changing his size. It's clearly my boy JJ.”

“Then how do you explain the lasers it fired from its arms? Or how it moves like a human being and even had Megaguirus drain it's power like an organic being? He’s an alien.”

“I don't know, nanomachines or something,” Corn said defensively. “It's been fifty years I’m sure the technology has advanced a lot since then.”

“Unlike your theories,” DoM replied sarcastically. “I mean, you might as well say it's Zone Fighter.”

“Hey, it's still more likely than aliens. I’ve seen aliens before and they're not like that. And don't diss Zone Fighter, that was a great show.”

“I know, we did a whole retrospective on it and everything, which our viewers should all watch as soon as they finish listening to this because it was great and didn't get nearly as many views as it should have.”

“I even got to interview the show’s costume designer for that one,” Corn said right before I finally turned it off.

I had no interest in hearing those two idiots plug their own shit, or even just keep rattling on their absurd theories. What, was I just supposed to believe that ‘Ultra Man’ was some kind of size-changing alien hero of justice or something? Besides, I was just driving up to the security gate and needed to shut it off, anyway.

Pulling out my ID card, I pulled up in front of the gate while one of the usual security guys walked over.

“Good morning, Lieutenant Sohryu,” he said while giving my card a quick look and signaling for the guy in the gatehouse nearby to let me in. “Hey, you hear the big news?”

“What news?” I asked, mostly just to humor him.

“Well,” the guy whose name I couldn't be bothered to remember glanced to the side conspiratorially before leaning in as he handed me my card back. “You didn't hear this from me, but word is that we’re going to be getting a high-ranking visitor soon.”

That caught my attention.

“What? Who?”

“Don't know yet.” He shrugged as he stepped away and motioned for me to go through. “But I think we all know what this means.”

“They’re finally moving forward with it,” I muttered, more to myself than to him.

My mouth cracked into a smile as I made my way to the garage. It seemed that I was finally going to get my chance. All I had to do was wait just a little longer. It felt like I’d been preparing for this my entire life. I’d even moved halfway across the world just to improve my chances. Now, all I had to do was impress the bigwig when they got here and the opportunity would finally come falling into my lap.

What could possibly go wrong?


Rei Ikari
April 2nd, 2024, 6:00 am

I was already awake by the time the alarm clock sitting on the dresser next to my bed went off. Despite that, I waited for the third buzz before hitting the off button. Not because I needed to, but simply out of habit. I continued to stare up at the blank white ceiling of my room. Nothing would be accomplished if I simply laid there like some kind of doll waiting to be played with, so I swung one leg off the side of the bed, then the other, before standing up and walking over to the bathroom to commence my morning hygiene routines.

Picking up the toothbrush sitting beside the sink, memories came of another life. One that felt more like a dream than something I had ever lived. A young girl looking at her reflection in the mirror of a much nicer bathroom while her mother stood beside her, showing the girl how to brush her teeth.

I couldn't see that little girl in the mirror in front of me, however. Instead, I stared into the blood-red eyes of a monster, bulging green veins spreading out across its face like a demented spider’s web and sharpened, curved teeth protruding from a gaping mouth.

…

Hesitantly, I picked myself up from the floor. I had to fight against the tremors as I quickly opened the medicine cabinet and grabbed everything I could. I downed a cocktail of various painkillers, antipsychotics and antidepressants, among other things. Enough to kill a normal human being.

Unfortunately, I was not human, or something that would die so easily.

When my senses returned to me, I was staring at my reflection again. What stared back was not me but the face of the seemingly normal young woman I might have been if my life had gone differently. Brown eyes, red only because they were bloodshot. The pale skin of someone who didn’t get enough sunlight. Faded blue hair that was starting to show its natural dark color at the roots. Rei Ikari stared intently at me as I stared back at her, content that I hadn’t transformed in the middle of the night into that thing. The real me, if such a thing even exists.

After returning to the main room of the small studio apartment that I had to myself until the end of the month, I made my way to the kitchen area and opened up the minifridge sitting on the counter. Rei Ikari was a vegetarian, not by dietary restriction but by choice. Growing up, she’d always felt a strong sense of connection to all animal life and couldn’t stand the idea of eating what had once been a living being. But I was no longer so lucky as to be afforded the luxury of being a picky eater.

I procured a slab of raw meat from the fridge and proceeded to bite a chunk out of it. While I could still eat ‘normal’ foods and did, in fact, regularly do so for other meals, my altered physiology could not properly sustain itself without a certain intake of what I could only describe as life force. I did not fully understand the situation and any who could have informed me of what was going on were already dead by my hand. What I did know, however, was that if I did not consume the flesh of a recently deceased living animal with some regularity, my body would start to break down and, more importantly, my baser instincts would take over.

After waking up in an alley hunched over a pack of stray dogs, their blood still fresh on my lips, I had decided that it would be far more prudent to start making regular trips to local butcher’s shops instead.

I finished my meal, for lack of a better term, and struggling not to think of the cow that it had once been, I headed back to the kitchen for a shower to get the blood off. After that, it was finally time to get dressed and head out for the day.

I’d never been much for fashion. Even before, Rei had a tendency to just wear her school uniforms as regular clothes even when not required. That was no longer and option for a variety of reasons, though, so I’d had to start building up a small wardrobe of outfits.

Today’s outfit was a simple white sweater that covered my belt and tartan skirt over a pair of plain black leggings. Nothing that particularly stood out but was not conspicuously nondescript, either. One of the keys to not standing out in a crowd was not to look like you were trying not to stand out, after all. Add to that my regular leather riding boots and jacket and I was almost ready to head out. There was just one thing that I was missing.

I picked up the long red scarf hanging from a hook on the door. My fingers brushed along the faded cotton fabric as I wrapped it around my neck and tied it securely the way I had been shown long ago. The last thing that Rei Ikari had ever been given by her mother and my symbol to remind myself that despite everything, that girl was still a part of me. That I was still, on some level, human. And that I still had something worth fighting for.

I stepped out into the sunlight looking, for all intents and purposes, like an average young woman getting ready to face the day. I didn’t have any leads to follow up on this morning, so I would spend my time maintaining my current civilian identity and keeping my ears and eyes open for any signs of potential Shocker activity. Said identity was not Rei Ikari, of course. That name would draw too much attention.

Regardless, I walked down the flight of steps leading to the parking lot where my bike was waiting for me. A seemingly ordinary white motorcycle with prominent red and black accents. Perhaps a bit high-end for someone of my supposed modest income to be driving around casually. But the Cyclone was, much like its rider, more than it seemed.

I mounted the Cyclone as I had done countless times since taking it from a Shocker research and development lab that I had raided early in my campaign to destroy the organization, before putting on my helmet and putting the key in the ignition.

The best places to go for information were where a lot of people gathered regularly. Even the most seemingly upstanding establishments were often frequented by people with unsavory connections, or those who knew people who did. I recalled hearing of a trendy café downtown that had been growing more popular lately. It seemed as good a place as any to begin my search.


Shinji Ikari
April 2nd, 2024, 7:00 am

One moment, I was getting tossed into the sandy beach of Odo Island by a silver alien. The next, I was lying in bed as my other self’s alarm clock was going off beside me. I wasn’t sure which was worse. Especially because while my combat training with Ultraman had taken place in a dream, or whatever you want to call it, I was still feeling it as if we’d been practicing in the real world. My joints were stiff and my muscles ached like I’d spent all day working out despite having just woken up. I could only hope that wasn’t an indicator of how the day was going to go. I wasn’t exactly holding my breath, though.

After shutting my alarm off and stretching my aching back, I climbed out of bed and made my way to the kitchen to put on a pot of rice. While I had that going, I went back to the bedroom to get freshened up and take a shower. After getting dressed, I returned to the kitchen and started frying some eggs to go with my rice. It was a simple breakfast, especially compared to some of the meals I’d make for Asuka and Misato back in what I couldn’t believe I could now call simpler times.

Once the food was ready, I moved out to the living room to turn the tv on, planning to watch the news while I ate. A lot of it was speculation about Ultraman, about me, but of course, they reported on other things, too. It was mostly just a reminder that this world wasn’t that much better than my old one, mostly just different. It also made me realize that I hadn’t really watched the news much before. If I had, I certainly would have learned about kaiju much earlier than I had.

After I’d finished eating, I sent a quick text to Mari asking how she was doing before getting ready for school. It seemed odd that I hadn’t heard from her since she’d left to go take care of her sick aunt back in England but she was probably just busy. I couldn’t help but start to worry, though. What if something had happened to her?

Regardless of the status of Other Me's girlfriend, it was time for me to get to school. So, I grabbed my backpack and headed out for my second day of college, nearly missing my train. Since the other Shinji and I had finally decided that he would be the one taking classes and doing school work, though, we made the switch in the middle of the ride to campus.

This was actually the first time that he’d fully taken control of his body from me and it proved to be a strange experience. It was as if I was just sitting there normally on the train seat when suddenly something pulled me back, dragging me out of my body while someone else stepped up into my place. And then I was sitting again, not on a train seat but on the old couch in the living room of the cabin back on Odo Island. The big TV in front of me was turned on and playing… well, me. The image on screen was exactly what I’d been looking at before and I could hear the sounds of the train and everyone on it over the speakers. This must have been how the other Shinji watched what I was doing while I was in control.

“Good morning, Shinji Ikari.”

I turned to see Ultraman walking into the room. Even though I’d known him for a couple of days now, it was still a strange sight to see. Especially how his… skin, I guess it was, looked like it was solid metal and yet still moved like it was human skin. Even stranger, even though I was no longer looking at the screen, I could still somehow see what the other me was doing back in the real world at the same time as what I was actually looking at here in our shared mind.

“Um, morning,” I replied. “Should we get back to training?”

The alien shook his head.

“No, Shinji 2 will require plenty of energy to make it through the rigors of his schoolwork,” he explained. “Energy which we would be using up if we were to train while he does so. For now, we rest.”

“Oh, okay,” I said, not really sure what else to say. “Wait, Shinji 2?”

“I need some way to differentiate which of you I am referring to,” Ultraman said. “Context clues can only go so far. Thus, I have settled for now on calling you Shinji 1, while he is Shinji 2. Though I may change this manner of address later if a more appropriate system of designation presents itself.”

“But, shouldn’t that be the other way around?” I argued. “I mean, he’s older, so it makes more sense that he’d be first.”

“That is not true.” Ultraman shook his head again. “Both of you were born at exactly the same time as each other relative to your respective timelines, which would make you both the same age by that metric. It is true that Shinji 2 has many more hours of consciousness, you are from a future point in time relative to Shinji 2. Thus, neither of you can truly be considered older or younger than the other as the answer changes depending on what metric is used to measure age. As your timeline’s existence predates the one we currently reside in, it seemed more appropriate to give you the designation of Shinji 1.”

I opened my mouth to argue but I couldn’t think of anything to say so I ended up just standing there like an idiot. “Okay... So, what do we do now?”

Ultraman took a moment to give that question some thought before answering.

“I have taken to meditation while I wait,” he said at last, and it occurred to me once again just how strange it was how his mouth didn’t move at all as he spoke. In fact, I was pretty sure that it couldn’t move at all. “I take this time to reflect on my past experiences and consider what future actions to take. However, if you wish, we could use this time for conversation. I have countless experiences which I can share of my past exploits as a member of the Intergalactic Defense Force and also wish to hear what tales you have of your world.”

I considered that for a moment but a thought popped into my head. “Wouldn’t that be distracting for the other me, though?”

“Have you been aware of what we’ve been doing in here while you are in control?” he asked me.

“No,” I replied.

“Then that is your answer,” Ultraman nodded. “It is up to you if you wish to do so, however.”

Giving it some more thought, I couldn’t think of a reason not to and, if I was being honest, I was curious what kinds of stories this ancient alien being had to share. The only other aliens I’d ever met before were… less than conversational, to put it lightly.

“Alright,” I agreed.

“Very well,” he nodded, then gestured towards the other room. “Shall we go somewhere more comfortable?”

I followed Ultraman into a room that led out into a patio, where among various shelves and other decorations, two large wicker chairs were set on either side of a wooden table that looked like it had been made of polished driftwood. The alien took a seat in one of the chairs while motioning for me to take the other, which I did.

“I have told you that I am a member of the Intergalactic Defense Force and that while we are bonded together, it will be your responsibility to act in my place,” he said. “But due to the impending attack by the monstrous insectoid known as Megaguirus, I did not have the time to fully explain what this means. Allow me to begin by correcting this mistake.

“My people come from a world in the distant Nebula M78, which we call the Land of Light. Roughly 30,000 years ago by how you measure time on this planet, our world was attacked by the Lord of Darkness, the sole survivor of a dead world who had embraced the powers of darkness and led a conquering army to enslave the universe. My people, as beings of light, were able to combat this threat and, after a long and grueling war, finally defeated him and his empire for good. In the aftermath of what we call the Ultimate Wars, my people decided that they must continue to use their power to spread peace throughout the universe and so the Intergalactic Defense Force was formed.”

I followed along, trying to take in everything that he was saying. Though it was pretty hard to believe. 30,000 years? I couldn’t even begin to imagine something happening so long ago.

“Our organization is dedicated to defending those in need and stopping threats against inhabited worlds,” he continued. “I, myself, am a warrior specialized in battling and subduing monsters much like the ones that inhabit this world.”

“I see,” I nodded. “Then, did you come here to fight the kaiju?”

“No.” Ultraman shook his head. “Though that would be in line with my usual responsibilities and, if you are willing, I will help you defend this land from any monsters that attack, that is not why I was sent here. Your planet is actually outside the territory currently patrolled by the Defense Force, though we have expanded this way in recent centuries.”

“Then, why are you here?” I asked, thinking back on what I could remember of when he’d first introduced himself to me. “Wait, didn’t you say something about being here because of me?”

Ultraman was quiet for a moment. His blank face was as unreadable as ever but I assumed he was thinking of how to respond to my question.

“That was a theory, though I do not know for sure,” he said at last. “A strong chronal anomaly was detected in this region of space and eventually tracked to this planet. I was sent to investigate this anomaly.”

“A chronal anomaly?” I repeated.

“Put simply, something that goes against the normal flow of time,” he explained. “For example, if something had traveled forward or backward in time relative to where it should be. However, the anomaly we detected was too great to be something as simple as that. Like, perhaps, a refugee from a dead timeline finding their way into this one.”

“Oh,” I replied, my eyes widening as I realized the implications. “So it is me, then?”

“That would seem to be the case, though it is too early to jump to any conclusions,” Ultraman confirmed. “Regardless, I have determined that you are not a threat to the peace and stability of this region. For now, I will simply sit back and observe. However, if any threats do appear, we will need to work together to stop them.”

“Of course,” I muttered, subconsciously gripping my knees. “Well, it’s not like I don’t already have experience with that sort of thing.”

“Indeed, I sense that you have been through much,” Ultraman said. “Would you care to share your story?”

“I thought you said that you’ve already seen what I’ve been through?” I asked, looking up at those yellow, lens-like eyes that never seemed to betray even the slightest hint of emotion. It must be nice, being able to hide what you were feeling so easily. I wouldn’t look so afraid all the time.

“I would still like to hear you talk about it,” he said after a moment’s pause. “And I have a feeling that it will be good for you, as well. Sometimes it is good just to have someone to talk to.”

“Oh, okay.” I sat up, trying to think back on everything that had happened before. It felt like a lifetime ago. In a way, it had been. “Well, I guess it started when I got a message from my dad telling me to come to Tokyo-3. I was supposed to meet a woman there, Misato Katsuragi, who would take me to the place he worked. I remember standing at a payphone when she didn’t show up, finding out the line was dead. Then I turned around and… That was the first time I’d ever seen a monster-”


Takuya Komori
April 2nd, 2024, 9:00 am

Pain.

Every cubic centimeter of my being was pain.

I regained consciousness strapped to an operating table. The same table where I’d been cut open, injected with so many needles that I’d already lost count long before I’d finally passed out, and watched as parts of me had been removed or replaced. I was like a frog in a high school science class, if all the students were sadists trying to cause as much agony as they could.

While I was still slowly coming to my senses, I started coughing up blood. A lot of it. Some dark, some fresh. I could swear that one of my lungs tried to make its way up through my esophagus before I finally managed to get it under control.

“Ah, I see that you are awake.” A blurry shape walked up to me and it took me a moment for my vision to focus enough to see that it was Doctor Death. That vampire-looking bastard had his usual smug grin on his oh-so-punchable face. “How do you feel?”

“Like shit that got run over by a lawn mower,” I rasped, noting that it felt like I’d been gargling rusty thumbtacks. “So, we done here yet?”

“Done?” the Doctor asked. “My friend, we are remaking you from the ground up into something beyond the limits of human nature. Did you really think it would only take one day?”

“No,” I admitted. That would have been far too easy.

“Don’t worry,” Doctor Death said in a clearly false tone of reassurance. “We’ll have you in fighting form soon enough. Now, then. Let’s get back to work, shall we?”

The good doctor then proceeded to take a scalpel to my stomach, or rather, the open hole where my stomach should have been. I’m not sure which I felt first, the blade against whichever organ it was that he proceeded to cut out of me, or the icy chill of his hands.

“You won’t be needing this one, anymore.” Doctor Death’s flippantly calm tone was that of someone commenting that the weather was nice, not a mad scientist pulling out what I think might have been my liver. It was slowly dawning on me where he had earned his moniker of ‘Doctor Shinigami’. “Another one for the pile, then.”

The last thing I saw was another doctor running over with a red bin marked with a biohazard symbol that Doctor Death casually tossed what I was pretty sure was my liver into. Then I passed out again. A small mercy.

 

Spoiler: Chapter 5

Chapter 5: Maids and Monsters​

Asuka Sohryu
April 2nd, 2024, 11:00 am

My team and I flew in formation over the mountainous crags below in pursuit of our target. A monster had been reported attacking a large mine out in the countryside. The skies were dark, swirling black clouds overhead blocking out the sun almost in its entirety, yet not a single drop of rain fell. Weird weather like that was never a good sign, so I made sure to stay focused and alert for anything unexpected.

“Alright, everyone, we’re coming up on the target,” Aesop said. “Remember, slow and steady wins the race. I don’t want to see any reckless behavior from any of you. You got that, Snake?”

At last, we passed over the last ridge, to the sight of the destruction. It looked as if the whole area had been struck by an earthquake. Machines destroyed, trees felled, the works. Despite that, there didn’t seem to be any sign of the monster we were looking for anywhere around.

“Where the hell is it?” Cowboy yelled.

“Well, they found it beneath the mine, so it probably went back underground,” Sunshine pointed out.

“Well, that doesn’t exactly help us,” Snake complained.

We broke off to search the area. According to the report, the monster was only about 10 meters tall, which was tiny by Titan standards and meant that it had a lot more opportunities to hide compared to, say, the 80-meter-tall Godzilla.

I flew out, scanning the area both visually and with my Valkyrie’s sensors. No signs of the monster at first until I finally caught a blip on the edge of my radar.

“Hey, I think I found it!” Sunshine announced. “But something’s wrong, it’s-”

A mangled roar could be heard over his radio before the signal abruptly cut off.

“Sunshine?” Snake called out. “Sunshine? Sunshine!”

The lack of a response told us everything that we needed to know.

“Everyone, to Sunshine’s last position!” Aesop ordered. “And be careful!”

It didn’t take us long to converge on the area, and even shorter to figure out what was wrong. Or at least the most obvious thing that was wrong.

“What the hell?” Cowboy cursed as he spotted the monster stomping on the downed remains of Sunshine’s plane, destroying what was left of it. “That thing’s not supposed to be that big!”

Sure enough, the ugly beast was at least four times as big as it should have been, though still relatively small compared to some monsters. At first, it seemed like a fairly standard titan, standing in a bipedal posture with a long tail trailing behind its legs. The monster was covered in dark blue armored scales resembling those you might see on a pangolin, with tufts of dark fur here and there. Its most distinctive features, though, were probably the large tusks sticking out from its mouth and, even more noticeable, the large, crescent-shaped horn jutting out from the top of its head.

“Gomess sighted,” Angel said before starting a strafing run.

The monster braced itself for the hail of bullets pelting into its armored hide. It didn’t seem particularly bothered by the lead shower, though, even with Wizard and Cowboy joining in.

“Looks like this thing can shrug off ballistics.” Aesop pointed out. “Switch to Masers!”

“I’ve got your Masers right here!” Snake shouted into his radio, making a dive for Gomess.

The monster ducked out of the way of a blast from Snake’s Maser cannon and took a swipe at him with its claws. He was easily able to swerve out of the way, but the monster then followed up with a swipe of its powerful tail that Snake barely managed to dodge.

My eyes were suddenly drawn away from the battle by the sound of thunder and a flash of light overhead. Bolts of black lightning arced through the clouds before suddenly coalescing above the monster and firing down upon it like some kind of laser beam. Snake was still too close and was struck by the sudden attack, going down and crashing into the mountainside. The clouds dissipated as Gomess rose from the smoke, the spikes along its back leading up to that unique horn glowing an intense red violet.

Everyone present swore.

“What, were you expecting a giant bird to come and save the day?” a particularly callous technician’s voice came over the radio.

I just shrugged off the unwarranted taunt as we all flew off to circle it from what was hopefully a safe distance.

“Alright, this is looking bad,” Aesop said, starting to sound unsure. “Sunshine and Snake are both gone, the monster just absorbed some form of unknown energy and we have no idea how that will affect things. But we need to keep a level head here and figure out how we can take this thing down.

“Screw this! I’m taking this thing out here and now!” Cowboy shouted before veering off course to attack Gomess directly.

“No! Cowboy! Stand down!” Aesop ordered, but the rogue pilot ignored him.

Cowboy fired a continuous blast from his Maser cannons as he made a diving run toward Gomess. The monster responded by drawing in a deep breath, its spikes arcing with black electricity before firing an intense, violet energy beam from its mouth straight at him. Cowboy tried to barrel roll around the beam (and I mean an actual barrel roll, not the move that many misinformed gamers use that term to describe) but all it took was Gomess tilting his head back slightly to alter the attack’s trajectory so that he rolled straight into it, his Valkyrie exploding instantly with him still inside.

“Idiot,” I grumbled under my breath, gripping my controls hard and trying not to draw blood as I bit my lip in sheer frustration. This thing was going down and I was going to be the one to kill it.

“So, apparently this ugly son of a bitch is just a mini-Godzilla, now,” Screwdriver grumbled bitterly. “Now what?”

“I’m not going to lie, things are looking grim,” Aesop said. “But we just need to hold it together until backup can arrive.”

“There is no backup,” the same technician from earlier said. “You need to take this thing down on your own.”

“Well, shit,” Angel cursed.

“Guys, I think I have a plan,” Wizard said.

“Well, don’t keep us waiting. Let’s hear it,” Aesop replied. “I’m open for anything at this point.”

“If one of us can coax it into using that energy blast again, the rest of us can circle around and fire at its spikes while it’s building up energy. With luck, that will overload it and blow that MF straight to Kingdom Come.”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we haven’t exactly had much luck so far,” Screwball replied sarcastically.

“It’s risky, but we’re quickly running out of options,” Aesop said. “Unless anyone else has any ideas, I say we go for- Everyone, up!”

We all obeyed without hesitation, pulling up overhead just as Gomess tried charging forward, slashing its claws wildly.

“I’ll be the distraction,” I said. “I’m the best pilot here.”

“Well, someone’s full of herself today.” I could almost hear Angel’s smirk over the radio.

“No time to argue,” Aesop snapped. “Torwart, draw that thing’s attention away from the rest of us. Everyone else, we circle around and hit that bastard with everything we’ve got as soon as it starts charging up. Understood?”

“Yes, sir!” we all called out in unison.

I pulled out of formation as the others continued circling about overhead, switching on my external speakers.

“Yo, you fat, ugly unicorn!” I yelled into my mic. “Overhear, you overgrown pangolin!”

“The hell’s a pangolin?” Screwdriver wondered aloud.

“Look it up!” I shouted back, seeing that my taunting was working, and Gomess turned its gaze on me. Well, it probably had no idea what I was actually saying, but the noise drew its attention at the very least.

Gomess eyed me warily but seemed cautious, possibly expecting that I was up to something. Damn it, why did most kaiju have to be smarter than regular animals. Since shouting at it wasn’t enough, I turned to grow closer to it, making sure that I was still at an angle so that I could move out of the way without repeating Cowboy’s mistake, and started firing my guns at it.

That did the trick, and Gomess started charging up for another beam attack. Everyone else who was left dove into position behind the monster, and-

Damn! It must have caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of its eye or something and seemingly realized what we were up to. It promptly closed its mouth, the energy buildup there dispersing while the dark electricity arcing along its back suddenly ruptured.

The unknown energy exploded behind Gomess’ back, sending beams scattering in every direction. I watched in horror as all of my remaining squadmates were caught up in the blast, exploding one by one.

I let out an incoherent scream of fury, gripping the controls in front of me so tightly that my knuckles were probably white under my gloves.

“Die! You ugly bastard!”

I turned my Valkyrie around and made a beeline straight for the monster before it had a chance to recover, unloading everything I had into it. Gomess’ eyes widened and it raised its arms instinctively just before I rammed straight into that ugly mug it called a face, firing a Maser cannon into its open jaw.

The next thing I knew, all of the screens and lights in my cockpit had faded to a dull, oppressive red and I was left sitting there, slamming my fists in the console in front of me while letting out a scream of frustration. With that out of my system, it was time to climb out of the simulator and head over to where the others were already gathered.

“Ah, glad you could finally join us, Torwart,” Aesop said as I walked up to them.

I had to bite my tongue before I could let slip a comment that would have gotten me reprimanded. I didn’t need that on my record. Not now.

“Well, I can say that we can write that one off as a complete and total failure,” Aesop said, addressing the group as a whole. “If that wasn’t just a combat simulation, we would all be dead right now.”

“It’s not fair,” Angel complained. “Those basta-uh, those jerks messed with the simulation! That’s not how the Gomess fight is supposed to go!”

“I asked them to,” Aesop revealed. “We’re not going to learn anything if we just go through the same scenarios over and over again. We need to be ready for the unexpected.”

“So, you Kobayashi Maru’d us?” Cowboy asked, and I found myself almost embarrassed that I understood the reference.

“I don’t know what that means,” Aesop said.

“It means that you gave us an impossible scenario to see how we would react,” I reluctantly explained.

“Oh, then yes.” Aesop nodded. “Although it shouldn’t have been impossible. Assuming the guys running the simulation followed my instructions correctly, we should have been able to beat that thing without taking any casualties, but I asked not to be informed of the details so that I wouldn’t accidentally mess up the test. That being said, I think I may have to have a word with them.”

The rest of the meeting went as expected, with Aesop lecturing us on needing to work together better as a team, citing a bunch of random stories as examples of what not to do, and ultimately just using a lot of words to not say much at all. We’d all been through this enough times to know the drill.


Shinji Ikari
April 2nd, 2024, 1:55 pm

I ‘woke up’, so to speak, standing in the doorway of Professor Fuyutsuki’s lecture hall just a few minutes before class was going to start. It took me a moment to even realize that I was back in control of the body, as I was still a bit overwhelmed by everything that I’d learned already that day. As it turned out, an ancient alien guardian of the universe had a lot to teach me about, well, everything. It wasn’t until another student bumped into me as they tried to squeeze by that I finally snapped back to my senses and entered the room proper.

I would have preferred to have taken a seat near the back of the class so that I could just sit and listen without drawing any attention to myself or, ideally, without having my existence acknowledged in any capacity. Unfortunately, it seemed that I wasn’t the only one who felt that way and I had lingered long enough that the only seats left were up near the front of the classroom. So, I ended up having to walk all the way up to where the professor was greeting students before the class itself started.

“Ah, Ikari!” the old man brightened as he saw me, shaking another student's hand and motioning for him to take a seat. “So glad that you could join us.”

Another professor might have made that sound sarcastic, but his tone couldn’t have been any more genuine as I walked up to him.

“Hello, professor,” I said shyly as I took his hand. His grip proved surprisingly strong for someone of his age.

“Come, take a seat. I was just about to get started.”

We broke our handshake and he gestured to one of the open desks in the front row, so I went ahead and sat down at that one. It seemed he wasn’t joking about being ready to start as he introduced himself to the class while I was still getting ready. He opened by discussing the class, a bit about the history of kaijuology and his personal involvement in the field. From the sounds of it, this Fuyutsuki had been one of the leading researchers in the early days of the subject when they were still just starting to branch out from more conventional forms of biology. He even claimed to have been one of the first people to have ever seen a Rodan nest up close, though I wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, yet.

He handed everyone in the front row, myself included, a stack of course syllabuses (syllabusi?) and told us to take one and pass the rest down to the back of the room. As I did so, I noticed that most of the other students had laptops out to take notes on. I’d seen that in a lot of my other classes, too, and we had used computers for our work back when I was a student in Tokyo-3, what felt like a lifetime ago, yet I sat there awkwardly with a plain old notebook and pencil sitting in front of me. I almost felt a bit foolish but then remembered that I didn’t even know how to use a modern computer, the technology had changed so much, and I felt even more foolish.

“Alright, now that we’ve gone over all the stuff that I’m sure you’ve all heard a thousand times before,” Fuyutsuki said after he’d finally finished going over stuff like the schedule, grading and general policies of the university, “Let’s get on to the fun part.”

He took a seat on the chair by his desk and pressed a button on his projector remote, or whatever you call those things, so that the picture displayed against the wall behind him changed from the last page of the syllabus he’d handed out to an old, grainy photo of a group of scientists gathered around what looked like a dinosaur of some kind. It stood about as tall as the scientists, with grey skin, yellow eyes and a short pair of ears protruding near the back of its head.

“We’re here to talk about kaijuology, or Kaiju studies if you don’t like big words,” Fuyutsuki began. “But then again, if you don’t like big things, I think you may be in the wrong class. While it can be difficult to say exactly what a ‘kaiju’ is, and you’ll find many different theories and definitions of what that term really means and what, exactly, constitutes a kaiju, I believe the best way to think of them is as creatures that don’t fit within the understandings of more traditional fields of biology. Or in some cases, botany or even geology, but we’ll save further discussion on those for the more unique specimens for the more advanced classes. This course is just meant to give you a better understanding of the basics of the field.

“Our field is still a relatively new one, with most agreeing that the study of these ‘monsters’, as they are often referred to, goes back to the 1930s expedition to Skull Island led by the American film director Carl Denham and their accidental discovery of King Kong. And we will get more into that later but for now, I’d like to focus on what I consider the true birth of kaijuology, which was the discovery of Junior here in 1993. Which I am only now realizing makes him older than most of you here, so I suppose you would know him better as simply Godzilla.”

From there, Professor Fuyutsuki went on to discuss how ‘Junior’, apparently the third known member of the ‘Godzillasaur’ species which I remembered him mentioning that my mom… the other Shinji’s mom studied, had been hatched in a research facility in Kyoto after having been found as an egg on the arctic island of Adonoa. This meant that he was not only the first kaiju born in captivity, at least intentionally as he implied there had been accidental cases of it happening even before then, but the first that scientists had ever been able to really study in-depth. While they were eventually forced to let him out into the wild to be raised by his predecessor, the second Godzilla, their time with him allowed those researchers many breakthroughs in the understanding of not only the godzillasaurs but also kaiju as a whole, such as some of the common biological functions which allowed such titanic monsters to seemingly defy the laws of physics.

Trying to write down notes while still focusing on the lesson proved a challenge, yet at the same time, I felt like I barely had a chance to set down my pencil until he started to wrap things up. It was strange. After my experiences with the angels and evangelions and everything else, I thought I’d had more than my fill of giant monsters. Heck, I now had an alien living in my brain who could turn me into one of those creatures and I’d nearly been eaten by a giant prehistoric dragonfly just a few days earlier. And yet, something about the subject just seemed to captivate me in a way that I don't know how to explain.

By the time I’d finished packing everything up after class, most of the other students had already left. That meant that as I slung my backpack over my shoulder, there was little to distract Professor Fuyutsuki from walking over to me.

“So, how did you like the class?”

“Oh, um…” I was caught a bit off guard by the question and it took me a moment to gather my thoughts. “Well, it's kind of hard to say after only one class but I guess it was interesting.”

He seemed amused by my answer and let out a soft chuckle.

“Yes, I suppose it is,” he said. “I’d love to chat more but I don't want to make it seem like I’m giving you any preferential treatment and I'm sure you probably have another class to get to. I know I didn't assign any homework today since we're just starting out, but I would suggest checking out some of the books in the recommended reading list on the syllabus, in addition to your textbook. You should be able to find most of them in the school library if you wish.”

“I’ll be sure to think about it,” I said.

“Well, I won’t keep you.” The professor took a step back and held his arm out towards the walkway back to the door. “Have a nice day.”

“You, too.”

With that, I quickly rushed over to the door. When I stepped out into the hallway, I took a deep breath. The other Shinji exhaled as I found myself back in the cabin.

“How did it go?” Ultraman asked me from where he was seated on the floor in what looked like the lotus position.

“Alright, I guess,” I said, feeling kind of awkward.

“Well, shall we resume our conversation?” The alien stood up and walked over to me.

I thought about it but ultimately shook my head. “I think I’d rather have some time to myself for a bit if you don't mind.”

Ultraman just looked at me for a moment before nodding. “Very well, then.”


Rei Ikari
April 2nd, 2024, 3:00 pm

After spending most of the day running errands and making stops at my usual places, it was finally time to investigate the café that I had been hearing about.

“Welcome home, Master!”

In retrospect, it should have been obvious that ‘GodziGirls’ was a themed maid café.

I was greeted at the entrance by two girls wearing charcoal gray maid uniforms that both had lace running down their backs that resembled a familiar dorsal fin design and matching clip-on tails. The only notable distinction between the two Godzilla maid costumes was that the one on the right had blue highlights on hers, while the other girl had pink. According to their name tags, they went by the names Riko and Mire, respectively. Most likely, those weren't their real names, though.

“Right this way,” Mire bowed and turned around, motioning for me to follow her to an empty table. “Do you have a preference for which maid you want to serve you this evening?”

“No,” I replied as she turned around and gestured to a small table in the back corner of the dining area. I took a seat and noticed that I had a good view of the rest of the café, which worked out well. “This is my first time here.”

“Well, thank you for visiting the Godzigirls Café!” she said cheerily. “I hope you enjoy your stay, I’ll be sure to send one of our best maids your way!”

With a bow, Mire walked away, leaving me alone to scan the café. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary at first. The clientele consisted mostly of the usual nerdy schoolboys and tired salarymen that you would expect to find in such an establishment, though the time of day suggested that many of them may have skipped school or ditched work to be here. Concerning in a general sense but nothing that warranted my attention. Similarly, the only reason the staff stood out at all was the colorful costumes loosely resembling well-known kaiju. A part of me that was still mostly human felt like she could relate.

“Hello, I will be serving you today, Master…?”

I turned my attention to the pair of yellow-lensed goggles that seemed to stare at me until the maid who was wearing them as a hair band stood up from her bow. She had on a dark green uniform that, apart from the goggles, was customized with a pair of insect wings and a silver opera glove on her right hand. Her name tag read Kiri.

Since she seemed to be waiting for me to give her a name, I told her my current alias. It wasn't as if there was any purpose in hiding that, after all.

“Welcome, Master Hongo!” she said enthusiastically with another bow before handing me a menu. “What would you like today?”

Most of what they had available was too sweet for my tastes, not to mention the ridiculous names that they had come up with to try and keep everything on-brand with the Kaiju theme. As I had to order something in order not to stand out, I eventually settled on a simple milk coffee and what sounded like some sort of chocolate funnel cake.

It was as I was sitting there sipping the coffee I had ordered that something notable finally happened.

“Welcome home, Masters!”

The two Godzilla maids from earlier greeted a pair of men in long-sleeved shirts and slacks. To a casual observer, they wouldn't have stood out from any of the similarly dressed men already in the café. But my eyesight was strong enough that I could see the bright colors poking out from under their collars and the ends of their sleeves even from across the café.

With Japan’s heavy social stigma against tattoos, that meant only one thing: these new arrivals must have been members of the Yakuza. Or at least a small-time gang like the one that I had fought the other day. It was hard to say for sure without getting a look at what was under their shirts but there was no good way to do so and it would likely be a waste of my time if I tried.

I watched as they were taken to another table in the far corner from the entrance, trying not to draw attention to the fact I was doing so. While it was not out of the question for unsavory criminals to offer a business such as this one their patronage simply because they liked the place, I could tell that something was off when, instead of one of the maids that was already out coming over to them, an older woman came out from the back room to greet them.

She had her back to me, so I wasn't able to get a good look at her to notice much other than her orange maid outfit and the brightly colored Mothra wings on her back.

“Do you need anything, Master Hongo?” Kiri asked, walking up to me with a fresh pot of coffee.

“Not at the moment, thank you.” I gave her my best approximation of a genuine smile. “You’ve been a wonderful hostess so far.”

“Thank you, Master.” Kiri bowed, almost spilling the coffee.”

“I do have one question,” I continued, deciding that it probably wouldn't hurt to ask. “Who’s that maid over there?”

“Oh, that would be Madam Imago, our manager,” Kiri informed me after she'd turned to look, a surprised look on her face. “Odd, I thought she had the day off. Must have been a special request or something.”

That confirmed it, there was definitely something shady going on. I didn't know yet if it was related to Shocker but even if it wasn't, if I could put a stop to any potential criminal activity, then I had a responsibility to do so.

It didn't take much longer for me to finish the cake I’d ordered and making any attempt to try and linger too long could throw suspicion upon myself, so I flagged Kiri over to get my check.

“Would you like a selfie?” she asked me. “We're having a special, half-off for first-time customers.”

I was indifferent to the offer but, if I was going to be investigating the café, then it seemed a good idea to have someone on the inside that I could get information from. As ‘Kiri’ was the most readily available candidate for that position, it seemed a good idea to get on her good side.

“I’d love to!” I said with a smile. “I’ve always been a fan of Kamacuras.”

Kiri blinked a few times, seeming stunned. “Huh, not many guests realize which monster I’m supposed to be.”

“Well, what can I say, I’ve always loved bugs.”

Kiri’s cheeks flushed as I pulled out my phone and she knelt down next to me for the shot. After I took the picture, I paid my bill and soon left the café. As far as Kiri or anyone else there was concerned, the young woman known as ‘Ruriko Hongo’ was gone. But in truth, after driving around the block on the Cyclone and parking in a nearby lot, I pulled out a pair of binoculars and a plain gray tarp from my saddlebag and climbed up a fire escape before jumping across a few rooftops to reach a good vantage point of the GodziGirls Café.

Lying flat on the roof of a nearby manga shop with the tarp over me to act as camouflage, I vigilantly waited. While it was possible that the suspected Yazuka thugs could exit through the back, I was, despite everything, only one person and therefor only capable of watching one spot at a time. Since they hadn’t been acting outwardly suspicious, I had deemed it more likely that they would leave the café like any other customers.

Sure enough, I watched the two men as they walked out through the front door. One was carrying a takeout bag but otherwise, they looked the same as when I had first seen them. Perhaps my suspicions were unfounded but it would be better to find out for sure. So, I got up and followed in the same direction from the rooftops. Staying low enough to not draw attention to myself while also making sure not to let the two leave my sight was a challenge but one that I was up to.

I eventually found myself looking down at a large pachinko parlor in a shady part of town. Even to the untrained eye, it would have seemed obvious that the parlor, and in fact most if not all of the businesses on that street, were fronts for the Yakuza. The two men entered the gambling den, clearly on friendly terms with the doorman.

With at least one of my suspicions confirmed and the knowledge of where their hideout was, I headed back the way I came after taking a few quick shots of the place and its surrounding businesses on my phone. I had done enough for one day and it was starting to grow late. My investigation could resume another day. For now, it was time to return ‘home’ to my apartment for the night.


Asuka Sohryu
April 2nd, 2024, 5:00 pm

After our abysmal showing in that training simulation, it was just another boring day at the office. There weren’t any actual attacks in or near the city, which I guess was a good thing but meant that there was hardly anything to do. It was mostly just equipment checks, paperwork and the usual boring crap.

Since it still wasn't quite time to head home but I didn't have anything else to do, I found myself at the shooting range. Unloading a full clip from my service pistol into the vaguely humanoid shape of a target meant to resemble a matango-infected zombie. Well, they weren't officially called zombies but that's basically what they were, right?

Anyway, the target came back to me riddled with holes all clustered just under the base of the neck, which in theory would have prevented the mushrooms puppeting their host from moving the body long enough for someone to incinerate the abomination before it could spread. Shooting paper wasn't exactly thrilling, though, so I decided that I might as well just get ready to go home.

As I made my way back to the locker room, I suddenly remembered that tutoring session with Mari’s boy toy and realized that we’d never scheduled a follow-up appointment. So, I pulled out my phone and sent him a quick text.

‘Hey, just remembered that our lesson got cut short. You want to set up another meeting?’

After taking a quick shower and getting changed back into my civvies, I checked my phone again right as he finally sent me a reply.

‘Sure. I’m only free on Sundays, though.’

I smirked, remembering how busy my college days were. Of course, I’d also managed to fast-track my way through school before getting accepted into G-Force.

‘Sunday works. Time?’

‘I don’t know. What works for you?’

Thinking about it, I decided to see if I could get a free meal out of him for my trouble.

‘If we go noon, can you provide lunch?’

‘Yes.’

Score! Now I actually had something to look forward to for the weekend, instead of another boring Sunday in this boring ass country.

‘Hey, babe! Want 2 cu b4 u leave. Can u stop by the hangar?’

I stared down at my phone, very confused at the complete shift in tone and seemingly nonsensical request before I finally looked at the name and realized that it was Kensuke who’d just texted.

Right, boyfriend. I should probably have checked in with him before setting up a meeting with another guy. Then again, it was just a tutoring session with an old friend’s boyfriend. It’s not like it was a date or anything. That would have just been silly.


Shinji Ikari
April 2nd, 2024, 50 pm

“What the hell am I doing!?”

I curled up on the couch, struggling not to hyperventilate as I stared at my phone. Did I just set up a date? With Asuka? The same woman who bullied and made fun of me when we were kids? I could still feel her hands gripping tightly around my throat when she’d strangled me in what would be the future if it wasn’t for the fact that my world didn’t even exist anymore. And what would Mari think? Wasn’t I supposed to be her boyfriend, sort of?

‘Mari knows that you’re not me,’ I heard the other Shinji’s voice in my head. ‘I’m sure that she’d understand if you wanted to see other women.’

“But no one else knows that!” I shouted into the empty living room. “She knows me as her friend’s boyfriend! And what if anyone else saw us together? It would look like you were cheating on Mari!”

‘Oh, right. Well, I’m sure we can figure something out. Besides, this isn’t a date. It’s just a tutoring session, plus a meal as payment. Nothing to worry about.’

“I guess,” I muttered, wishing that I could share my other self’s confidence. Talking about Mari, though, made me switch over to her texts. Or rather, my wall of texts to her, full of status updates and asking how she was doing only to be met with nothing. “Is it normal for her not to text back? I’m getting worried.”

‘...’

“Shinji?” I asked and suddenly realized how weird to address someone else with my own name.

‘I’m sure she’s fine,’ he finally said, though he sounded unsure of himself. ‘She’s probably just busy with her aunt.’

“If you say so.” I shook my head, trying to get my mind off the topic. It wasn’t like worrying ever helped me, so I decided to pull out my Kaijuology textbook and start reading. Nothing like giant monsters to help you get your mind off of things, right?

Spoiler: Chapter Notes

This chapter was supposed to be about Shinji’s class but that ended up being much shorter than I expected. In addition, Rei’s section of this chapter was an idea that popped into my head after mentioning her going to visit a café in the last chapter, which is now forming a mini-arc to give her something to do before her rematch with Takeshi, which is good because that was a big blank spot on my notes before now.

I had fun coming up with names for the various kaiju maids that showed up here and they all have some sort of reference to the monster they’re dressed as, though some are more obscure than others. Riko, the blue Godzilla maid, is named after a character from the unproduced Bride of Godzilla, who was a woman that the scientist who designed the titular robot girl was in love with and modeled one of his other robots after. Mire, the PInk Godzilla maid, is named after MireGoji, the Godzilla suit used in Godzilla 2000 and vs. Megaguirus, which added pink edges to his dorsal spines (and was also the first Godzilla suit to be green instead of gray). Kiri, the Kamacuras maid who serves Rei, is named after the Japanese word for Preying Mantis, kamakiri, which of course is where Kamacuras gets its name (also, the wings on her uniform are based on the ones from its Final Wars design, the silver glove references the original design’s spear-like right arm). Madam Imago’s name is meant to emphasize her matriarchal position over the other girls, in parallel to Mothra often being shown in a maternal light, and an Imago is the technical term for an adult insect. Speaking of names, Rei’s alias Ruriko Hongo is a combination of Ruriko Midorikawa and Takeshi Hongo from the original Kamen Rider (and by extension, Shin Kamen Rider). Hongo, because she takes his place as the first Kamen Rider and Ruriko, because she takes her place as the daughter of the scientist who created Kamen Rider (Gendo Ikari’s exact role in all of this will be something for later, though).

Since the scenes I had planned weren’t enough for a full chapter, I added Asuka’s parts. The simulated battle was originally a throw-away line, but I decided to flesh it out into a full scene. Originally, I was going to have the simulation be an accurate recreation of Gomess’ attack in ‘66 (based on the first episode of Ultra Q) that the squad would have won easily, but I decided to mix things with by bringing in aspects of Gomess’ later appearances in the Ultra franchise (his increased height and the powers he got from the Dark Thunder from Ultraman X).

 

Spoiler: Chapter 6

Chapter 6: The Other Side​

Shinji Ikari
April 7th, 2024, 11:50 am

I felt like a mess. No matter how much I tried to calm down, I couldn’t stop fidgeting and glancing towards the front door, even though I knew that simply staring at it wasn’t going to do anything. I had my textbook open on the table in the kitchen along with a notebook and several assorted pens and pencils, I’d spent the morning dusting the apartment and making sure that everything was clean, I was dressed in my usual white shirt and black slacks, with my hair freshly combed and lunch was just about ready. There was nothing left to do but wait. Wait and stress out.

This was a terrible idea. What was I even thinking? She wasn’t even my Asuka, was she? Not any more than the other Shinji was me. She didn’t even have the same last name. Sohryu, instead of Shikinami. I had no connections to this woman and didn’t even really need a tutor now that the other Shinji was handling most of our schoolwork. Not to mention that being around someone who reminded me so much of her would make it hard for me not to slip up and accidentally reveal that I was from an entirely different world. Or worse, what if she found out about Ultraman? She was from the organization that specifically hunted down kaiju. What would she do if she found out that I was one?

I ended up getting so caught up in my thoughts that when the doorbell finally rang, I was so startled by the sudden sound that I shot up from the couch so quickly that I nearly fell over. I had to take a second to steady myself before I could walk without losing my balance and tripping over my own feet, and the doorbell rang again. By the time I reached the door, it seemed that Asuka’s patience had run out and she’d resorted to pressing the doorbell button as rapidly as she could, giving me a headache in the process.

My irritation quickly melted away once I’d opened the door and I saw Asuka standing there, a cocky smile on her face that I knew all too well. She was wearing the same black baseball cap as last time, as well as a light red jacket over a black t-shirt with the words ‘Get Rekt’ written on it in sloppy white letters, and a dark blue denim skirt that reached just above her knees. She looked, well, amazing. My Asuka had always been beautiful, a fact that she was well aware of and loved to exploit when she could use it to her advantage, and with the benefit of not having her aging process slowed to a halt by overexposure to LCL, this Asuka had developed a figure that wouldn’t have been out of place on the cover of one of those magazines that Toji was always trying to sneak into school whenever Hikari wasn’t looking. Even though my hormones had finally settled down now that I’d had more time to mentally adjust to my new age, I couldn’t help but gawk.

“Eyes up here, idiot,” she said sarcastically, causing me to snap back to attention. “Now, are you going to invite a girl in, or what?”

“R-right, sorry, come in,” I said, standing aside so that she could walk past me. She actually took the time to take her black tennis shoes off this time, while I closed the door. Halfway through, though, she suddenly looked up, sniffing the air and letting out a soft moan.

“Mein Gott, it smells like I died and went to heaven.” Asuka practically shuddered, her eyes rolling up, and a bit of drool building up in her mouth. “Is that bratwurst?”

“Yeah, I found a grocery store that specializes in foreign foods and picked some up for a recipe that…” I practically bit my tongue, stopping myself from saying that she’d been the one who’d made me learn how to cook it. “Well, I thought you might miss German food, so I looked something up.”

“Please tell me that tastes even half as good as it smells,” Asuka moaned, walking towards the kitchen.

“I should hope so, given how long I worked on it,” I said, hurrying past her.

Once I’d made it to the kitchen, I used a pair of tongs to grab the thick German sausages and place them on a pair of empty plates, two each, before slathering them with a generous amount of curry ketchup. Then, I put on an oven mitt to pull out a tray full of French Fries, which always seemed an odd name considering they were from America. I assumed there was a story there, but regardless, I scooped the fries up and split them evenly between the two plates before bringing them over to where Asuka was practically drooling on the table.

“Shit, I haven’t had currywurst since I left Germany,” she said dreamily as she stared at the plate in front of her with wide eyes. “I didn’t even realize how much I missed it until now. Thank you!”

I smiled, both at her reaction and the memory of the first time that I’d made this dish for the other Asuka. That night was one of the first times that she’d actually been genuinely nice to me, a side of her that I wish I could have seen more of before everything went… Well, before things got complicated.

“Well, feel free to dig in,” I said, though she’d already taken her first bite, letting out a loud moan as she pulled her fork away from her lips.

“Ah, this is amazing,” she said with her mouth full. “It reminds me of this one street vendor that my dad used to take me to sometimes when I was off from school.”

Huh, that was odd. The Asuka I knew never talked about her family.

“Your dad?” I asked, curious.

“Hm, oh…” Asuka looked confused for a moment, apparently having not realized what she’d said. Then she set down her fork, staring down at the table with a sad look on her face. “Yeah, we were pretty close when I was a kid. Before my mom caught him cheating on her, and everything fell apart.”

“Oh, I'm sorry.” I flinched, not intending to have dug up what was clearly a painful memory for her. But still, I felt like I understood the old Asuka a little more, if her family life had been anything like this one’s.”

“Nah, it's fine, I’ve had time to get over it,” Asuka said dismissively, cutting up a sausage with her fork before taking another bite. “Mostly. Mom got me in the divorce and made me take her name, while dad immediately ran off with that tramp he’d been sleeping with, who turned out to already be pregnant with my bitch of a little sister.”

“Ah, okay,” I nodded, thinking that I’d put together the mystery behind her different last name than what I was used to. “So then your dad's name would have been Shikinami?”

Judging from the baffled look she gave me, I was completely off the mark on that guess.

“No, Langley,” she said. “Where the hell’d you get Shikinami from? I'm only Japanese on my mom’s side.”

“Oh, uh, I must be thinking of someone else,” I said nervously, trying to cover my tracks. I was so stupid. Even if I had been right, I wouldn't have had any reason to know that. Deciding to change the subject, I grabbed my Kaijuology textbook and pulled it over. “Anyway, we were just going over the big battle of 1968 in class. Do you know anything about that?”

“The war of the monsters?” she asked. “Of course I do, any monster hunter worth their salt knows about when Godzilla was crowned King of the Monsters. You see, it all started when a bunch of Kaiju started acting up-”

After that, the rest of our tutoring session managed to go much more smoothly.


Rei Ikari
April 7th, 2024, 120 pm

No one paid much attention to the girl walking down the street with a veggie burger and a shake, dressed in a simple gray cardigan and matching skirt over a plain white shirt. As far as anyone who noticed me was concerned, I was just an office worker enjoying her lunch break, seemingly oblivious to the fact that I was in a sketchy part of town.

In reality, I was employing my usual methods of hiding in plain sight, quietly following a pair of Yakuza thugs from the casino from a far enough distance as to not draw attention to myself. They seemed to be arguing about something, but unfortunately, the street was too noisy for me to pick most of it out, save for a few words here and there. Something about whether or not velociraptors would be capable of riding motorcycles. Apparently one of them was trying to trying to write a screenplay.

After a few more minutes of listening in on their insane babble, I finally decided that I wasn't going to get any useful information from them and that my time would be better spent elsewhere. Just as I was about to turn onto a side road, however, something interesting finally happened.

“Hey, you think I can get the boss to fund this?” the thug pitching his movie idea asked his cohort.

“No, you pea brain!” the second thug replied. “Even if your ideas weren't all dog shit, it's not like he’d just suddenly dive into the film industry just because you asked! Do you even realize how expensive a movie like that would be? Even if it were animated, that would cost a fortune!”

“No, it has to be live action,” the first one insisted. “Animation could never capture my vision.”

The second one let out a beleaguered sigh. “Look, I am not having this conversation with you again.”

Okay, perhaps it wasn't that interesting. I took a slurp of my drink before turning to leave-

“Besides, the boss’s assets are all tied up in the thing.”

-Only to stop again and pretend to look at an interesting cloud while finishing off my burger.

“What thing?” Goon #1 asked.

“The thing!” the second peon repeated unhelpfully. “The thing with the thing!”

“Oh, right, the thing.” The first guy nodded, and if I didn't have a mouth full of food, I likely would have been grinding my teeth in frustration.

“You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?” thug 2 sighed, and his companion shook his head. “Ugh, I’m talking about that new hypno gas thingamajig that the boss is buying from that ‘Spooker’ organization, or whatever they were called. You know, the one that’s supposed to get people to gamble more so that they lose more money.”

Hm… some sort of drug pumped into the air to make people more susceptible? That certainly sounded like something that Shocker would try their hand at. It looked like there was more to this than I thought.

“I thought we already did that?” the first one said questioningly.

“That's just regular oxygen that we pump into the air to keep people extra awake so that they're less likely to want to leave early,” the other one explained. “Everyone does that. But not everyone can get all of their customers to give up all of their savings in one go.”

“It's a casino, we do that all the time,” the aspiring screenwriter pointed out. “Besides, that doesn't seem like a sustainable business model. What happens when all of our customers run out of money and no one wants to come to the place where they know they can't win?”

“Ugh, forget it.” The other one let out another groan. “Let's just get back, our shift starts soon and I don't need the manager getting on my case again.”

The two Yakuza thugs got back to their walk, but I went the other way, content that I’d gotten enough information for now. I thought I’d merely stumbled onto an illegal gambling ring and maybe some extortion, something to deal with until I found my next lead in my one cyborg war against Shocker, but it seemed there was more to it.


Shinji Ikari
April 7th, 2024, 2:15 pm

“Well, that’s probably enough for one day,” Asuka said, looking down at her phone. “Been two hours already.”

“Wait, really?” I asked, glancing over at the clock on the oven. “Oh, wow, it doesn't feel like it's been that long.”

“I know, right?” she said. “So, did you actually manage to learn anything?”

“Yeah, I feel like I understand this a lot better now, thank you,” I said earnestly. “You're a great teacher.”

“I think that's the first time I've heard that one.” Asuka let out a small chuckle. “But I guess it's no surprise. I am the best at everything, after all.”

“Right, sure you are,” I replied doubtfully. “And I’m Ultraman.”

“Haha, yeah right.” Asuka smiled at first, but that quickly faded. “Ugh, Ultraman.”

That was not the reaction I was expecting from my joking confession. Not that I knew what I was expecting. Why did I even say that?

“I take it you don't like him?” I asked.

“What's there to like?” she replied rhetorically. “Big guy that doesn't match the profile of any titan we’ve ever seen before pops out of nowhere, steals our thunder and then just vanishes, never to be seen again.”

“Does G-Force have any idea what he is?” I asked tentatively, hoping to sound like I was just idly curious.

“Nope,” she said simply. “Not that I’ve been told, anyway. But even if they did, I wouldn't be allowed to say anything until that knowledge goes public.”

“Ah, okay.” It seemed best to drop the subject for now. “Well, um, have a nice afternoon.”

“Oh, um, right.” Asuka blinked a few times, seemingly just remembering that she was just about to leave. “You too.”

With that, we both stood up from our chairs and headed back to the living room. I opened the door while Asuka reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a set of keys. My eyes were immediately drawn to an enamel keychain of a chibi figure with red eyes and a familiar blue bob cut that I would recognize anywhere.

“Rei?” I muttered, not realizing that I’d just said that aloud.

“Huh?” Asuka looked at me, confused, before looking down at the keychain in her hand. “Oh, verdammt! I must have grabbed my boyfriend’s keys this morning!”

“Boyfriend?”

“Yeah, Kensuke,” she said. “Have I not mentioned him?”

Wait, Kensuke? As in Kensuke Aida? They were dating in this timeline? How had that not come up?

Well, I guess they were living together in the future I came from, but not like that.

“We met shortly after I transferred here,” she explained. “He’s a nerd and can be kind of oblivious sometimes, but he's sweet, you know?”

“Yeah,” I said, deciding to just go along with it, though my head was swimming. What was this world’s Kensuke like? We’d been friends back in mine, would we get along here? But there was something more pressing on my mind. “Um, who’s that girl? Just curious.”

“I don't know, some Vtuber that Ken likes,” she said, staring at the charm. “Zero, I think? Something like that.”

“Rei?” I suggested. Now that I thought about it, it seemed a bit on the nose that Unit 00’s pilot’s name was just the Japanese word for zero. It should have been one of the first signs that something was off about her.

“Nah.” Asuka shook her head. “I remember now, it's definitely Zer0, spelled with the number instead of an ‘o’, and using the Japanese pronunciation with the soft ‘e’ instead of the hard ‘e’ that it would have in English.”

“Oh,” was all I could say. The chibi figure was definitely Rei. She had the same hair, her red eyes, she was even wearing her old white plug suit, just with one 0 under the collar instead of two. The only thing that was off about her was the big, goofy grin that I couldn’t imagine the Rei I knew, er, the two Rei’s that I had known, ever having. “What's a Vtuber?”

Asuka shrugged. “Don't know, I’m not really into that shit. They're like… digital idols or something? Except they stream videogames instead of singing and dancing? Honestly, I couldn't care less.”

“Right, of course,” I said, trying to wrack my brain around the implications. Was Rei here? I don't think I’d ever learned what she was, but she definitely wasn't human in my timeline. Was her creation not tied to the Evas? How did that work? What was going on?

We both stood there for a moment before Asuka finally spoke up again.

“Well, I should probably get going.” She gestured over her shoulder.

“Oh, right,” I said. “See you later, I guess.”

“Same time next week?” she asked while walking out the door.

“Yeah, sure.” I waved as she walked away, closing the door again once she reached her car.

I was still reeling as I walked back into the kitchen to clean up. I already knew that people from my world existed in this one albeit with notable differences. I’d already met a few, after all, including Asuka. So it wasn't that much of a surprise to hear that Kensuke was here, too. In fact, Toji, Hikari and our other classmates probably were, too. Even Misato, Kaji and the others.

But how much was actually different? How much was the same? Was Rei here? What about people like the ones my dad worked for? There was really only one person that I knew for sure wouldn't be here, and at the moment, it felt like he might have been one of the people I needed most.

But this was a world without Angels, after all. I was confident that Kowaru couldn't be here.


Takuya Komori
April 7th, 2024, 2:45 pm

Doctor Death had called this place hell. I thought he’d been joking at the time. I had been naive.

At this point, I wasn't sure if I’d been locked up in that lab for a week, a month, or a year. A part of me wondered if I’d always been in that lab. That I’d been born in the underground facility and simply imagined my life before it.

My mind went back to an idea I’d been taught about in school, growing up in America. A group of people lived in a cave, staring at shadows on the wall and thinking that was the world. One man stumbled upon the exit and wandered out to see the real world for the first time. Excited at his new discoveries, he eagerly ran back into the cave to tell the others what he’d seen. But they wouldn't believe a word of what he said. They already knew what the world was, after all. It was the shadows on the wall. They wouldn’t believe that there was anything outside, and they cursed him for spreading his lies.

Was I the man who’d finally left his cave, or one of the fools who was stuck looking at shadows? Or maybe I was the Ship of Theseus? It did feel like they’d somehow managed to replace everything that had once been a part of me, after all.

“Ah, I see you are awake, good.” Perhaps the doctor walking over to me was the man telling me of a world outside my cave and I was the fool who was listening.

Was I getting too caught up in this stupid metaphor? Probably, but I needed something to get my mind off the sensation of wind blowing through my body. Every subtle shift in the air, every breath, the flapping of the fabric from Doctor Death’s lab coat, formed a hurricane that I could feel passing through my bones. Assuming I still had bones.

“I’m not in the mood,” I said, jumping down from where I’d been standing on the ceiling and flipping through the air to land on my feet.

“Really? You should be,” the doctor said coyly. “After all, you’re complete.”

“Huh?” I cocked my head to the side, wondering what his game was this time. I studied his face, watching every twitch of every wrinkle in sharp focus for any clues, but the man, assuming he even was a man and not the literal devil, must have been a beast at poker. “What are you talking about?”

“Your transformation, of course.” His mouth slid into an insincere smile. “You are… more.”

Yeah, ‘cause that wasn't cryptic at all. I looked down at my gloved hands, not entirely sure if there was even skin left under the black leather. You would think that someone who’d gone through what I had would have been dressed in another hospital gown or something like that, if anything at all. Instead, they'd dolled me up in a black getup that would have looked more appropriate in a very different kind of basement, or some shady truck stop bar.

“Come, I have something for you,” the doctor said, heading back to the door while motioning for me to follow.

“Nothing good, I’m sure.” I shook my head but followed him anyway. It wasn't like there was anything else I could do.

He led me back to the first room of the underground lab that I’d been brought to, the closest I’d been to the exit since checking into the Hotel California. A yellow helmet designed to look like a spider crossed with a gas mask sat on a desk, complete with spindly legs sticking out of the sides.

“Well, that's gotta be the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen,” I said as we walked up to it.

“Is that really something that you should say about your new face?” Doctor Death asked.

“Yeah, no, I’m not wearing that.”

“Are you sure?” He motioned to a mirror hanging on the wall, as if telling me to look at my reflection, which I did.

The face that stared back at me was gaunt and pale. My eyes had turned red, both in the sense that they were bloodshot and also because my irises had turned red while my sclera was a dark pink. Not helping me in the looks department were the thick black veins spreading out from them like rotten vines. Oh, and my teeth looked like fangs. Can't forget that.

“Still better than that stupid helmet,” I said as I turned back to him.

“I see…” he said, a genuinely amused expression on his face. “Well, I suppose we can get you a new one that better matches your sense of taste. If you prove worth our initial investment in you, that is. But for now, you’ll need to make do with what you get, as well as this.”

He held up a fancy belt that looked like it came out of some sci-fi series, a bulky metal thing with a big red turbine in the middle of the buckle. I’d seen one like it before, what felt like a lifetime ago.

“That's Kamen Rider’s belt,” I pointed out.

“Not exactly,” the doctor replied. “Hers was a stolen prototype.”

“So, I take it they're not for fashion.”

“Indeed,” he confirmed. “This is an energy converter designed to… Well, a full explanation would probably go over your head. Lots of technical information.”

I nodded, self-aware enough to know he was probably right. I wasn't exactly the sharpest bulb in the tool shed, at least when it came to science mumbo jumbo.

“Have you ever wondered how Kaiju are able to sustain themselves?” the doctor asked, which sounded like a non-sequitur but was probably meant to lead back to the belt somehow. “By all known laws of physics and biology, it should be impossible.”

“Not really.” I shrugged. “That's like asking why the sky is blue, or why water is wet. Or why people celebrate Easter as a Christian holiday when it's named after a pagan goddess.”

“All of which have explanations,” the doctor pointed out.

“And none of them affect me,” I countered, earning a chuckle from him.

“A creature as large as, say, Godzilla, cannot sustain itself through conventional means,” he explained. “It was one of the reasons why scientists believed that they couldn't exist, until suddenly they did. It turns out that these organisms feed off of an ambient energy that permeates our atmosphere, like a form of radiation engulfing the planet. There is no agreed-upon name for this energy yet, though the late Doctor Akagi dubbed it Prana, and my more sentimental colleagues have taken to calling it that in her honor.”

“Silly name,” I said dryly. “You might as well be calling it mana or ki.”

“Indeed,” the doctor agreed. “But back to the point, the augmentation process involves splicing our DNA with that of Kaiju. This means that our bodies also become able to process this energy. Dependant on it, even. You can likely feel it now, even as we speak.”

“Was wondering what that was,” I replied. “Feels like wind passing through me.”

“Hm, interesting,” Doctor Death mused. “Most of our augments have described it as more of a faint tingle, but that description does match reports from our earlier test subject. That suggests that you may have a higher than average aptitude for the adaptations.”

“Yeah, yeah, that's interesting and all, Doc, but we were talking about the belt,” I said, trying to hurry him along to the point.

“Ah, right, of course,” he replied, holding up the device. “Our bodies are too small to pick up enough of the energy to sustain a transformed state under normal circumstances. The reason you haven't reverted to your human form yet is because we're pumping extra Prana into the air. Otherwise, you would be almost indistinguishable from a normal human right now, which can be advantageous at times but would also make the procedure rather pointless, wouldn't you say?”

“So the belt helps with that?” I guessed.

“Yes, it gathers extra Prana from the air around you and stores it for when you need it.” He motioned to the fan-like part on the front, then a button on the side. “This is one of our older models, which collects the energy through the front and requires a large burst of wind to activate, while this button on the side will release your energy to undo the transformation.”

“Older model?” I questioned. “What, you don't have any new ones lying around?”

“Shocker’s finances are vast, but they are not unlimited,” he explained, then lifted up his shirt to show off a similar belt to the one he was holding, but sleeker and in white. “If you succeed in your task of killing the Kamen Rider, then you will be rewarded with an upgraded model, as well as the new helmet you want and an official codename besides just ‘Kumonga Augment-01’, not to mention a proper position in our organization.”

“And if I don't?” I asked.

“Then you will be dead,” he said. “One way or another.”

“Yeah, that's what I figured.” I shook my head before reaching over and picking up that stupid helmet. God, it looked even more tacky up close. “So, you just said something about getting a new name? I hope I can get something better than Doctor Shinigami.”

His eyes narrowed in disapproval. “I’m afraid that's up to our Great Leader to decide.”

“Great Leader?” I repeat questioningly. “Wait, is this a cult?”

That prompted a chuckle from the mad doctor.

“I suppose it could be seen as one,” he said. “Black Moth’s faction would certainly think so.”

“Yeah, but those guys are crazy.”

I practically jumped, looking around for the source of the woman's voice I’d just heard. Doctor Death seemed pretty surprised as well, though it looked like he probably knew who it was.

“Agent Iscariot, how long have you been here?” he asked, hostility in his voice. “I believe I’ve already told you not to sneak into my labs without permission.”

There was a chuckle, and suddenly a woman seemed to fade into existence on the other side of the room, stepping over to us. She had on a classic spy catsuit with the zipper pulled down to her belt, which would have been a lot sexier if her skin wasn't leathery and gray. Her eyes were notably black, and a pair of curved horns framed her head like a laurel, as well as a third horn sticking out of her forehead like she was some kind of demented unicorn.

“What? I wanted to check out the new guy,” she said, standing up from her seat and walking over to me. Like the doctor, and me for that matter, her accent was distinctly foreign. “Mh, doesn't look like he's changed much. You sure you did anything to him?”

“Not every transformation is as… pronounced, as you well know,” the Doctor explained.

“A spider, huh? Can he shoot webs or something?”

“You do realize that I’m standing right here, right?” I asked in English, more than annoyed that she was talking about me like I wasn't even in the room.

“Oh, I didn't take you for a Yank,” she said in what I could now tell was an English accent. Didn't know enough about that stupid country to say where she would be from, though.

“Why, because I’m Asian?” I asked sarcastically.

“No, you just didn't look that stupid.”

I gave her my well-practiced death glare before finally putting on my helmet.

“You're talking pretty smug for someone standing in bitch slapping distance,” I said, my voice sounding slightly synthesized through what I assumed was some kind of speaker fitted into the helmet.

“Oh, am I about to be slapped by a bitch?”

“I can't tell if you two are about to fight or fornicate,” the Doctor grumbled, “either way, my lab is not the place for that.”

“Eh, suit yourself,” Iscariot shrugged. What kind of a name was that, anyway? “We don’t have time for that, anyway. Meeting’s about to start.”

“That’s not for another hour,” the Doctor pointed out.

“You might need to check your messages,” she replied, holding up a phone and waving it under the doctor’s nose.

“What? When did you…” Doctor Death snatched the phone out of her hand and checked it, then swore loudly in Russian. “Why would they change the time last minute like this? Bah, it doesn’t matter.”

With that, he stormed out of the lab in a hurry, Iscariot following close behind. Not sure what else to do, I grabbed my new belt and hastily put it on while following after them to the elevator.

“What’s this about?” I asked as we rode back up to the first floor for what was about to be my first time on ground level since I got there.

“A progress report between the local heads of Shocker,” the Doctor explained. “Not something that you would need to be concerned about. You can wait in the foyer until I return, just don't leave the premises or enter any restricted areas, and for God’s sake, both of you shift out of your augmented forms before we get to the public floors.”

I glanced down to the side of my belt, to the button that the doctor had pointed out to me earlier. I pressed it with my thumb and immediately felt like I had all the wind sucked out of me at once. I had to lean against the side of the elevator just to keep my balance.

“Whoa!” I gasped before realizing that my voice sounded normal again. I reached up to my face, and my gloved hands touched the skin of my cheeks. “What the hell happened to my helmet?”

“You learn not to question these things,” Iscariot said dryly, zipping up her suit so that it only showed off a moderate amount of cleavage before pressing the button on her belt. At once, her skin turned to a normal human tone and texture, her eyes lightened from black to blue, and the horns on her head were replaced by lengthy brown hair that fell over her shoulders. She then pulled out a small case from her breast pocket and pulled out a pair of sleek, pink-framed glasses. From the looks of her, she probably actually was British, but she had just enough of a Japanese look to her in the shape of her eyes and face that I figured she must have been mixed race. “Science stuff, the kind of thing that goes way over our heads.”

“Don't pretend that you don't know exactly how it works,” Doctor Death said as the doors finally opened and we stepped out into a moderately busy hallway. “You have more PhDs than most of the scientists who work for me.”

“Ah, but where's the fun in that?” she teased.

We made our way to a big set of double doors, the sign next to them reading ‘Conference Hall S’, which is where we stopped.

“Are there conference halls A through R, or is this just on the nose?” I asked.

“Both,” Iscariot replied cheerily.

“Wait outside,” Doctor Death instructed me. “I will come find you when we are done here, so that we can begin testing your abilities to see if you're ready.”

“Got it,” I replied, giving him what looked at first like a thumbs up, until you noticed that my middle finger was sticking out from the others. That earned an exhausted eye roll from the doctor and a chuckle from the Brit.

“Just don't cause any trouble,” Doctor Death sighed before turning to enter the conference room. “It would be a shame to lose you before you even get to be of use.”

“Yeah, way to make a guy feel valued!” I called after him.

“Oh, don't mind him, he’s just not much of a people person.”

I almost didn't catch the soft voice from behind me, and for a moment after I turned around, I thought I was looking at a ghost. The lanky man’s skin was as white as the moon, with wild silver hair and piercing red eyes that looked like they were staring right through my soul. Then I remembered that albinos were a thing, and seemed a far more likely explanation. Then again, considering the world we lived in these days, him being an actual ghost or something really wasn’t that much of a stretch.

“Sorry to startle you, Mister Komori,” he said apologetically. In contrast to his pale complexion, he was dressed in a very expensive-looking black suit over a black shirt with the top few buttons undone and no tie. The only splash of color was the red and gold scarf draped over his shoulders.

And there was something about the way that he carried himself that seemed… off. He was too calm, too relaxed. His posture, the way he moved, it was as if he were the only person in the room. No, the building. In a crowd like this, you never knew who might be a pickpocket, about to fly into a rage over some small thing, or even just accidentally bump into you while walking by. Even the most outgoing and relaxed people would react to the presence of others in subtle ways. Unless they were just that oblivious, but even with my enhanced senses dulled back to normal, I could see it in his eyes that he knew where everyone in the room was, what they were doing, and even everything that they would do. And that wasn't even the most concerning thing.

“How do you know my name?” I asked, regarding him coldly, wondering if I could run fast enough to trigger my transformation if I needed to. Probably not.

“Ah, right, forgive me.” He gave me a polite smile that seemed oddly sincere. “I go over the records of everyone that Doctor Shinigami works on. I simply recognized you from the photo we have on file.”

“What photo?”

“A mugshot we got from the local police,” Iscariot said with a smirk. “Quite the flattering one, too. Almost makes you look handsome.”

“Now, now, Mari,” the albino tittered. “Let’s not tease our new brother so much, shall we?”

Iscariot, or Mary, or whatever her name was -Pick a Bible reference and stick to it, lady!- waved him off dismissively.

“Whatever,” she said. “We’ve got to go, anyway. Don't want them to start without us, do we?”

“Of course, I’d hate to keep anyone waiting.” He took a few steps to follow her before stopping again and turning back to me. “Oh, I do believe I forgot to introduce myself. My official name within the organization is Black Moth, but you may simply call me Kaworu. Kaworu Nagisa.”

On that note, he walked into the conference hall and closed the doors behind him. I didn't know it yet, but I had just met the man who would destroy my life.

Spoiler: Chapter Notes

Don’t you just love it when you finish a chapter and realize that it’s only half as long as you wanted it to be? I wasn’t planning on including the Shocker stuff until at least the next chapter, but somehow it ended up turning into half of this one.

Anyway, Shinji’s just learned a bit more about the world he’s living in, and maybe realized that more of his old world might have carried over than he thought. Meanwhile, Rei’s investigations into the casino continue. Her plotline will probably jump to the forefront for the next few chapters, as I don’t really have much else planned for Shinji and Asuka in this arc, though I might throw in a kaiju attack or something just to give them something to do. Right now, we’re headed towards the Rei vs. Takuya rematch, or should I say Kamen Rider vs. Spider-Man, I mean Man Spider. The other main characters will have more to do after that, though.

I’d worked out Kowaru’s role in the plot fairly early on in my planning, and I know exactly where I’m going with him, but it wasn’t until I was writing his introduction in this chapter that I realized I hadn’t come up with what his Shocker Codename could be. I was thinking about doing something moon-related in reference to his first appearance in the Rebuild movies, but couldn’t come up with anything that sounded right. Unfortunately, I couldn’t come up with anything better than Black Moth, which I’m not really fond of. But, I’m mostly going to have him be referred to by his real name, so it shouldn’t be that much of an issue.

Are there any specific kaiju (giant monsters) or kaijin (humanoid monsters) that you’d want to see show up in this story? I have a bunch that I know I’ll be using in various important roles in the plot, but I’m curious to hear what my readers would want.