Despite the numerous shock-absorbing devices installed between myself and the outer hull of the modified AT-AT Barge we were currently within, I could still feel every dip, rise, jar, shudder, shimmy and shake as we descended through the Earth's atmosphere.

After finding Shinji and beaming over to The Nerve, where the three functional Evas were now housed, we quickly loaded up, and were now forced to wait out our ride to the outskirts of Tokyo-3. Upon arrival we were to head south, where an area of little concern would act as a staging ground for the next battle.

"And we're headed to this field why?" I asked, as the briefing continued. Sometimes, real-time video communications weren't all they were cracked up to be.

"The field allows both The Nerve and Jupiter's Thunder to fire down without fear of hitting entrenched units, as well as giving some of the new ground-based defenses a clear shot without endangering nearby buildings or structures," Dr. Akagi explained, as Misato waited to continue the briefing.

When it was clear the doctor had finished explaining, Misato continued, "your records indicate the Angel is sensitive to Eva's, so it's a safe bet your presence will draw it to you."

"The records also indicated that nothing short of a self-destructing Eva could kill it. How do you intend to avoid that eventuality?" Nabiki cut in, from the Thunder.

"We're hoping the combined firepower from Imperial weapons will suffice," Misato explained, curtly.

The looks on Shinji and Rei's faces were unreadable, and I'm fairly certain mine was similar; that, or incredulous. "So it's another 'lets try this out and see what happens?' battle?" I asked, finally.

"Both MAGI systems are unwilling to give solid numbers without more time to go over all the variables," Dr. Akagi explained.

"As if their answers are ever right, even when given time to compute all the variables," I grumbled.

The Doctor scowled, "I'll have you know-"

She was cut off by Lieutenant Aoba, who shouted from off screen, "Reaction from the target! It's moving to intercept!"

"They're not in position yet!" Misato shouted, as if the Angel would back off and give us time to prepare.

Glancing at the Altimeter built into the modified Entry-plug, I frowned, "Um, we're not even close to the grou-" I was cut off as the external displays, previously showing the darkened interior of the Barge, suddenly flashed as one of the side walls exploded inward, a double-helix of light passing between my Unit-04 and Unit-00 before exiting out the opposite side. A moment later there was a jarring flash as the barge exploded, and through my link with the Eva, I felt myself falling.

Unit-01 was falling nearby, but 00, which had been closer inside the barge, had been thrown away by the blast. Engaging my AT-Field for a second, I deflected myself towards Shinji's unit, which had gone relatively unmodified compared to mine or Rei's, and snagged his Unit's arm before engaging my Repulsors.

While not quite powerful enough to support both Unit's full weight, they had enough effect to turn a messy impact into something merely jarring, and I nodded to Shinji's image when he thanked me while trying to find out where the Angel had gone.

"AT-AT Barge has been eliminated," Misato stated grimly.

"The crew?" I asked, hoping SHODAN had teleported them out in time. Misato shook her head, and I scowled. The Angel's had finally managed to take out Imperials. My men.

"Where is it?" I asked, prepping a pair of concussion missiles.

"It's holding stationary above you, in the sun, almost," Misato offered.

"It looks like it started to engage when you flared your AT-Field, but when Rei engaged hers to slow her descent, it paused."

"Confused?" I asked, trying to spot it. The screens and sensors did their best to block out the sun to help locate the target, but the amount of radiation coming from the star was too great to get a solid lock on it.

"Kyle, we've got a couple AT-STs and an AT-AT converging on the clearing now," Nabiki reported.

"Understood," I replied, curtly, as pieces of the Barge continued to rain down around us. I glanced around the area, before turning to Rei and Shinji, "Spread out, and try to avoid deploying your AT-Field unless absolutely necessary. We'll try to keep it between us as we wait for reinforcements to arrive."

The two pilots nodded in reply before moving. Glancing up and still unable to see the 16th, I made my way over to a large flaming piece of debris, so that the three of us were fairly equidistance from each other.

"Rei, flare your AT-Field once... try to draw its attention, but be prepared to dodge," I said, as I prepared to do the same. A moment later, a section of light disengaged from the sun, streaking towards Rei with far more speed than I'd expected. Before it could reach her, however, I flared my own AT-Field, causing the Angel to pause, as if confused.

"That's an interesting game," Nabiki commented dryly as Rei repeated the move when the Angel began moving towards Unit-01.

"How long until reinforcements arrive?" I said, flaring up again as the Angel again tried for Rei.

"Not too much longer, Kyle," Makoto said, before giving me a weak grin. Not that I could blame her; this plan was the best one we'd been able to come up with, and the chances of success weren't that high.

The angel flashed slightly before suddenly heading towards Shinji again, and Rei's AT-Field flared again in an attempt to distract it. This time, however, instead of changing directions, the opposite end of the angel, which had remained almost stationary between the three of us, took off in her direction, and a moment later, both ends impacted.

"Contamination!" Dr. Akagi shouted, as alarms began ringing out from around her.

"Units-00 and -01 have been compromised. Contamination spreading from impact point," Lieutenant Ibuki stated.

"Pilot's synchograph is fluctuating" Lieutenant Aoba shouted.

I heard Shinji shout incoherently, and Rei was frowning onscreen, her expression somewhat pained, and I scowled before taking aim and letting loose a blast from the wrist-mounted lasers. Upon impact, however, instead of an expected reaction from the angel, both Rei and Shinji shouted in pain, as If I'd shot them, instead.

"Oh, that's just not fair," I mumbled, disabling the lasers and pulling out the progressive knife I'd hoped to never be reduced to. Moving forward quickly, I raised the blade high, before apologizing to Rei and Shinji for what I was about to do.

Then I grabbed the Angel with my free hand in order to keep it still while I went to work with the glowing blade.

The moment Unit-04's hand wrapped around the glowing Angel, the Entry plug around me disappeared, and I found myself once again in the endless sea of waist-deep LCL.

"What the-" I said, before scowling. Apparently, the angel's entire surface was capable of infecting an Eva, not just both ends.

"You," someone said behind me with such venom in their voice I actually felt the hatred roll over me. Turning, I smirked at the figure standing on the surface of the LCL like it was standing on solid ground.

"You must know where the rocks are," I stated, calmly, while I began to assess my opponent. Armisael was, in this place, about five-six, and looked sort of like a blonde Asuka. Or maybe that was just the scowl. Her eyes were red, though, like Rei's, and she appeared to be in her early- to mid-twenties, with a more mature figure than either pilot.

"You do not belong here. You trespass, invade, interfere where you do not belong," she hissed.

"I think we got off on the wrong foot," I replied, briefly trying to summon my AT-Field to stand on like she was, but in here, it didn't seem to work. Shrugging, I pointed at myself, "I'm Kyle. You are...?"

"You know who I am, traitor. You help the Lillim against our brothers, and yet have the audacity to act as though we are friends?"

I frowned, "Brothers? Were all the others male?"

If anything, her glare intensified. "You and these-" at this Rei and Shinji appeared nearby. For a moment something about them confused me, until I realized that, despite our differences in stature, we all seemed to be waist-deep in LCL and eye-to-eye with each other, while Armisael towered over us as she continued, "-puppets of humanity delay the inevitable, and you sew chaos as you repeatedly nullify plans eons in the making."

"Commander?" Rei asked, looking somewhat surprised at the rather plain surroundings. Shinji was looking around as well, but also looking somewhat relieved.

"You two okay?" I asked.

Rei nodded once, and Shinji gave a quiet "yeah," before looking around, "where are we?"

"You are in-" Armisael began, before I cut her off.

"We're in the Angel's head. Notice the utter lack of thought or originality here. If I knew all the angels were so mindless, I'd have just presented them with a couple math problems," I said with a shrug.

"How dare you!" Armisael gasped.

"Oh I dare," I said, turning to pin the angel with a glare of my own. "I dare because in your over-the-top comments, you've totally failed to be of any use whatsoever. So if I can't learn anything from you, I might as well make light of you to entertain myself."

Armisael visually paused at that, as if the concept was utterly foreign to her. Actually, it might have been. Do the angels understand entertainment? Finally, "You... You're not frightened, or worried you'll never get out of here, or I will contaminate your unit to the point of causing Third Impact?"

Shinji stiffened at that, and I shrugged, "I do care, but you're not really doing anything but talking here, so I'm not feeling all that threatened."

"Fool! At this very moment, my physical body is at the precipice, preparing to plunge into the core of your precious unit and initiate that which is unstoppable," she gloated.

"Can you do that from in here?" Rei asked, with a frown.

Armisael paused, and I smirked, "Well, isn't that nice. Bit of a stalemate, then; if you let us out, we'll fight the contamination, and might come up with a way to destroy you. But if you stay here, you fail your mission."

"My... but..." Armisael faltered, her superior look giving way to momentary uncertainty.

"Commander, can you not hear Dr. Akagi?" Shinji asked softly, while the angel looked withdrawn in thought.

"Do what?" I asked, frowning.

"The commander is apparently fully within this place, Shinji," Rei stated.

"You mean you two are in here and in your Eva's at the same time?" I asked, frowning. Was my unit to blame for my total immersion, or my cursed form?

"Dr. Akagi has ordered me to prepare Unit-00 to self-destruct," Rei stated, though her voice sounded worried. Only a little, but for Rei, that was saying quite a lot.

Thinking it over briefly, I wondered at Dr. Akagi's reasoning. But it was fairly obvious, once I looked at it in a way Makoto would have hit me for. One pilot versus the world. Still, it was rather cold of her to give the order to Rei's face. Even if there was no obvious other way.

"Do as she says, but only initiate if you feel it is what you must do," I finally said with a heavy sigh. If things didn't improve, then she'd have little choice.

"But sir!" Shinji began to protest, but I waved him to silence.

"Shinji, this is... this is a difficult decision to make, and I leave it to Rei... but in the end, you must know that one pilot is worth the lives of billions. You, too, should prepare your unit to self-destruct. I would too, if I could, but I'm afraid I don't have any say, at the moment."

"I... alright," he said, before his eyes went dead, much like Rei's had. Apparently, when they focused their attention on the real world, their presence here diminished to almost puppet-like projections.

I finally realized Armisael had been speaking again, turning to her, I begun to pay attention to her again. "-and in so doing, will finish what should have been done long before now."

"Wait. Could you repeat all that?" I asked, frowning. Armisael's face darkened, and she took a menacing step forward, tiny ripples in the LCL radiating out from each footstep.

"You were ignoring me!"

I frowned at the ripples as they gently brushed up against my plugsuit. Looking up at her, I shrugged, before concentrating and forcing my wings to materialize.

"In my own mind, you have the audacity to-" she started, before I leapt, jumping free of the water and flapping once with my wings as hard as I could, to take me soaring into her as she spoke.

"OOOF" she said, as my shoulder impacted with her stomach, driving her from her feet and folding her over as my tackle took her by surprise.

"Not so high and mighty now, are we?" I asked as my head cleared the surface of the LCL. Shaking my head clear of fluid and frowning as my wet hair slapped me in the face, I proceeded to hold her under the surface. Her struggling continued for a few moments before I realized you could breathe in LCL, even if this wasn't real, and just in her mind.

Grabbing a fistful of her robe, I pulled her up, giving her a second to cough the LCL out of her lungs before pulling her face-to-face with me. "Not as omnipotent here as you thought," I stated, before heaving her around and back under the surface.

At least, I would have, if halfway through the hurl, I suddenly found myself back in my Entry plug, and my arm painfully struck the display beside me.

"What the-" I mumbled, before smirking. I was back! Unit 01 and 00 were both covered in vein-y protrusions reaching out from where the Angel was buried in both units, and I noticed my Unit 04's hand was also showing signs of contamination, though it wasn't moving at all, compared to the steady growth on the others.

"Kyle!" Makoto shouted, obviously glad that I was no longer seemingly catatonic.

"You were talking to nobody, and staring off into space. Are you better now?" Nabiki asked.

"Umm... yeah... you heard everything I said?" I frowned.

"Not the time commander," Dr. Akagi cut in, "Contamination in unit's 00 and 01 are critical. Much more, and the Angel could initiate-"

"Third Impact, yeah, I got the memo," I muttered, before tightening m grip on the Angel. "Doctor, do angels have souls?" I asked, as an idea popped into my head suddenly.

"An AT-Field is a barrier between souls, so yes, the angels would have to have a soul or something remarkably similar... why?" she answered.

"Because... I think I have an Idea..." I muttered, before trying to invert my AT Field. Or, more specifically, Unit-04's AT Field. At first, nothing happened, then suddenly, there was a double-pop, and both ends of the Angel were wrenched from Units 00 and 01, speeding into Unit-04's hand, which glowed briefly.

My orientation swiveled, and numerous alarms began going off as armor buckled and cracked under the changes Unit-04's form experienced as the Angels mass was absorbed, but I ignored them, concentrating on the distant feeling of being stuffed mentally, and trying to shove the mass I assumed was Armisael's soul into the empty core of my Eva.

"What are you doing!" Dr. Akagi shrieked, before yelling at someone nearby to try an override me and destroy Unit-04. The changes, however, instigated by my new "save the pilots" policy rendered her orders moot, and I ignored them as I concentrated on the task at hand.

I could feel the indistinct mass slowly filtering into the barren core, and smiled to myself as I could faintly hear in the back of my head a feminine-sounding "Noooooo!" ring out through Unit-04.

Relaxing my mental hold for a moment, I realized that the empty core was actively absorbing the soul, without my intervention. Even when all the laws of physics had been ripped to shreds, nature still abhorred a vacuum. Just as I was beginning to relax, however, I felt Armisael reach out, and suddenly I was back in the LCL of her mind.

"You may have trapped me, traitor, but I will not go on alone. We will spend eternity together in the core of this abominat-" she paused, and I looked down to see that my form was fading out.

"No! This is impossible!" She cried, suddenly looking like a genuinely worried 20 year old, and less like the humanoid-representation of a truly alien-intellect.

"Your brothers didn't freak out when they died," I pointed out. Her anguished expression didn't abate. "They returned to the Host upon destruction... you are trapping me, forever, away from my home. Why couldn't you have just killed me like the others!" She shouted, visibly crying now.

"I'm sorry," I muttered, feeling a little sorry for her.

"Your pity is not wanted," she said, then scowled. "I may not have won, but I will not admit defeat so easily."

Suddenly, the LCL, which had been utterly calm moments before, flared up, until it was engulfing me up to my neck. Armisael approached, frowning for a moment before a bright light appeared in her hand, so bright it hurt to look at.

"You have taken from me my freedom, my duty, and my very home. In return, I take from you that final thread that connected you to the Lillim you so foolishly help." Without warning, she shoved the ball of light into my chest, the LCL between us parting to allow her easy access.

The pain was excruciating. Radiating out from the place her hand rested near my heart, white-hot tendrils of pain shot across my body and through it, and I know my screams were loud enough to wake the dead.

When the agony finally stopped, and I lay panting in the Entry Plug once more, every system but Life Support and Communications dead, I glanced at where a shocked and worried Makoto and Nabiki stood through the video link. "Next time," I said, between gasps, "I'm self-destructing." Then I let the darkness creeping in around the edges overwhelm me.

"-coming around?" I groaned. Indistinct voices spoke excitedly around me, and I cracked an eye, wincing in the bright lights before trying to cover my face. 'Trying' being the operative word, because my hands made it only so far before they were stopped.

"Wha..?" I mumbled, shifting my gaze. One, I was still female, and two, I was handcuffed to the bed. Actually, trying to sit up and finding similar restraints across my chest, I realized I was fully restrained.

"Makoto, I don't think now is the time to get kinky," I said, before finally opening my eyes and looking around the room.

"He seems normal," I heard Nabiki say.

"Umm, hello. A little help here?" I said, looking at her, before turning to look at Dr. Akagi and Makoto, all of whom were staring at me with worry evident on their faces.

"Kyle? Is it really you?" Makoto asked.

"Yeah, It's me. Could someone explain why I'm tied down? And maybe get me something to drink?" I asked, feeling just how dry my mouth and throat were.

Nabiki nodded and turned towards the door, and I fixed Dr. Akagi with a stare. "So, what's with the restraints? I didn't think my jokes were that bad."

"You... the last battle," Makoto started, then paused, before sighing, "Kyle, your Unit went berserk at the end of the battle."

Dr. Akagi spoke up then, "You damaged Unit 00 and 01, before tearing into everything around you. Only after issuing an emergency shutdown and forcibly ejecting the Entry Plug did Unit-04 stop."

I stared, wide-eyed, "and you think that was ME?" I asked, incredulously.

"Not at first," Nabiki said, as she entered with a cup of water. She handed it to Makoto, who stepped forward with it and gave me a sip.

I frowned at my inability to drink by myself, but there was little I could do about it at the moment, so I suffered the indignity of it, and finally waved her off with my eyes before turning back to Dr. Akagi; "well?"

"After we recovered you from the Entry Plug, we discovered some... changes..." she trailed off.

"I... I can still turn back, can't I?" I asked, wide-eyed. I didn't mind the curse like Ranma did, but that was because it was reversible. Was it still?

"Honestly, we haven't tried. We were worried about other things," Nabiki stated.

"Such as?" I inquired, sighing. At least I should be able to turn back.

"Your eyes... and... you..." Makoto trailed off, and I frowned.

Before I could demand an explanation, Dr. Akagi picked up for her, "Scans indicate you've grown an angelic core beside your heart. Further tests show it's active, and since then, we've recorded instances where it has briefly activated to supply your body with energy."

I blinked. "So... previously, I didn't have a core?" I asked.

"None that could be detected by sensors or tests both here or at NERV," Nabiki explained.

"And... this changes things how?" I continued, frowning again.

"We... the destruction caused by Unit 04 was either a berserk Eva... or a berserk pilot. When your core was discovered, we were no longer sure which one it was," Makoto said, before stepping forward and taking my hand in hers. I gave it a squeeze, looking her in the eye for a moment, before tuning to the Doctor.

"So... you tied me up to be safe?" she nodded, and I smirked, "And this whole wake-up conversation was to ascertain whether or not I was still myself?"

"Something like that," Nabiki said.

"So... can I go now?" I asked, looking down at the straps holding me in place.

"Do you promise to behave?" Makoto asked with a smirk.

I shrugged as best I could in my current situation, "no, but you never complained before..."

She smiled, before reaching over and releasing me. When I was finally free, I rubbed my wrists theatrically, despite the soft fuzzy liner on the cuffs that had held me down, before turning to the sink in the corner.

"Lets see," I mumbled, making my way across the room on shaky-legs. "How long have I been out?" I asked, frowning. They didn't feel too weakened, but they were far too unsteady for me to have been out for les than a day.

"A week," Makoto said, once again taking my hand as she moved to stand beside me.

"Oh," I replied softly, before getting a good look at my reflection. I was the same, mostly, though, as Makoto said, my eyes had changed. They were familiar, though, just not mine. Rei had eyes like that. As had Armisael. Now, too, did I, apparently.

"Hmm," I hummed, before turning and letting my wings out. There was a bit of shock, however, when instead of two feathered wings like I'd expected, a dozen glowing wings of light appeared, emerging from my back, side, shoulders, calves, and head. The majority of them had emerged from the same place my old ones had, three sets, but the shoulder-, calf-, and head-wings were decidedly new, and while I couldn't move them by will, they were apparently decorative.

"What happened," Makoto asked, looking back at them.

"What are you talking about?" Dr. Akagi asked.

"You can't see that?" Nabiki asked, staring at the doctor in surprise.

Ritsuko frowned, "See what? Nothing's changed."

"Kyle's wings are... umm... different," Nabiki retorted.

"What do you mean? I don't see anything," the doctor insisted, her frown deepening.

"Umm, there's a dozen of them. And they kind of migrated," I said, staring at them in the mirror for a moment more before willing them away. Instead of disappearing, the larger ones folded up in a way that eerily reminded me of a dying spider's legs, while the smaller ones sank back into my sides, like dying flames.

"Okay, that was in no way weird," Nabiki finally stated, breaking the silence.

"I don't understand... are you sure about what you saw?" The doctor said, looking frustrated now.

"Umm... Yeah." I replied, glancing at her in the mirror before turning on the hot water tap. After a moment, the water heated up, and I buried my hands in it, smirking as the feeling of change went through me, and I gained a few inches in height.

"I'm back," I replied with a grin, before frowning. I felt horrible. Gripping the edge of the sink weakly to hold myself up, I winced as I realized I was utterly starving. And my chest hurt.

"Kyle? What's wrong?" Makoto asked.

"I'm... hungry. What...?" I looked at Doctor Akagi in confusion after she gasped in apparent surprise.

"We took you off the IV when we realized your S2 Engine was feeding you... it apparently doesn't carry over to this form," she explained, before tossing her clipboard into a nearby chair and moving over towards me. "Help me get him back in bed. He needs to go on an IV and some food immediately," she explained, taking one arm while Makoto took the other. Nabiki left the room quickly, apparently to get the food or help, while they got me back in bed.

"Damn, I'm beginning to hate this room," I said weakly. The longer I was up, the worse I felt. And the pain in my chest wasn't helping, either.

"Doctor, my chest hurts," I said, rubbing the area the pain seemed to be coming from. Then I realized, it was the same place Armisael had touched me with that light. Behind the ribcage, where all the pain had been, before I passed out in Unit 04.

She stared, wide-eyed at where I was indicating, before diving across the room and returning with a wand and a packet of gel. Before I could protest, she tore my hospital gown away, earning a yelp of surprise from me and an indignant Makoto who quickly covered me up with the discarded sheets while glaring at Ritsuko.

The Doctor, however, didn't notice, merely squirting a bunch of the gel on my chest before rubbing the wand in it and turning to look at a monitor that had just activated. There was a familiar sound, and I realized finally that it was an ultrasound machine, though the image was far clearer than any I recall seeing before.

Still, despite the technology, my ribs took up a big portion of the screen, and it took a moment before she managed to find a spot that peered past them and into my chest proper, where a small spherical lump sat beside a pulsing mass I assumed was my heart.

"Is that..?" Makoto asked, and the Doctor nodded, a grimace on her face.

"It's smaller, I think, and I'm not certain, but it's probably inactive, since you're not gaining strength from it... but it's definitely your core."

"But why? Shouldn't that go away when he changes form?" Makoto asked a moment before Nabiki came back in, a bag in one hand, and another doctor wheeling in an IV-stand and a cart full of bags.

"Oh, goody," I spat eyeballing the metal rod with disdain as Dr. Akagi began to set it up. Nabiki, however, distracted me and my ire with her other acquisition, pulling a couple slices of pizza out of her bag with a flourish, and setting them in my lap before giving my exposed chest a quick glance. Makoto frowned at that, but said nothing as I took a towel and tried to wipe away the slimy gel Ritsuko had smeared on me before turning to her and asking for an explanation.

"Did the angel do anything while you were absorbing it into Unit-04?" she asked, after a moment's hesitation.

I nodded. "Umm, yeah, it shoved a ball of light into my chest which hurt like hell."

"Did it say what it was?" she immediately asked after.

"Yeah, she said it was..." I frowned, trying to remember. "Hmm... she was going to take from me the 'thread that connected me to my humanity,' or something to that effect."

Dr. Akagi sighed, "That's pretty vague. That all she said?" I nodded, and she continued, "I think she gave you a portion of her core... just enough to jump start yours; or, really, yours in your angelic form. But since it was foreign, and not part of your curse, the piece she gave you stays with you, even when you change back," she explained.

"Can you remove it?" Makoto asked, a hopeful expression on her face.

"Not likely. It's really in the thick of things. If all your experiencing is pain, then it's probably not pressing up against anything, but that entire area is full of critical parts. Your esophagus, and trachea, veins and arteries, lungs and heart... Most doctors don't go in there unless it's life-or-death, and that core is not much larger than a pacemaker..." She trailed off, frowning.

"What's wrong?" I asked, doing my best not to literally inhale the pizza as I did so figuratively.

"Well, there's another concern... if that piece compliments your angelic form's core and makes it complete... and your other core has been activated and is supplying you with power in that form, then removing that piece and then changing you to your angelic form might kill you," she explained.

"Well then, leave it in there," Nabiki said with finality. Makoto and I nodded in agreement.

"For now, that's what I'd suggest as well. There's a chance it might not... might even undo the changes you underwent... but for now, I'm inclined to believe they're not so easily reversed. I need to go consult the Magi if you want any certainty," she replied, taking a step towards the door.

"How's Unit-04?" I asked between bites, not quite ready to end the conversation.

"Whatever you did completed it. Like you, it has a functional S2 engine, though it's currently restrained and powered down. Since we weren't sure if it was you or the Eva, we had to restrain both. Now that I see you're back, I think it's safe to say that Armisael was the cause of Unit-04s rampage."

"Is she still..." I paused, wondering how to phrase it. Finally I shrugged, "coherent? Conscious, in there?"

"It will take some time to tell. That's one of the many things we have scheduled to test." She took another step towards the door, and I smirked.

"Thanks for the help, Doctor. Go have fun with your computers," I said, glancing down at the IV drip in my arm that she'd placed while I was eating. I'd barely felt her put it in.

"I'll do my best," she mumbled, before disappearing out the door.

"So," I said, staring at the bag Nabiki had set down on the corner table, "got any more pizza in there?"

Right. That's IT. NASIF 4 is DONE. Next on the Agenda: NASIF: EoE. I'll leave it to you all to speculate as to what, exactly, that means, before I release it.

Of course, it's going to take a while to write. I know how it is going to begin, and end, and certain scenes that will happen in the middle.. but I'm aiming for a 2-part, lengthy, entertaining bit of writing that will require a bit more work than a NASIF chapter usually does. Ideally, I'm thinking large in length, like a novella, but realistically, I can't, without going off on a lot of tangents, really see myself going longer than 100 pages, though I'll try to make it big and fun, like always.

Once more, thanks to Parker and Nate, who's pre-reading and commentary have helped keep me grounded, and my fics reasonable readable.