Story: Rei Swarm

You know when you wake up from sleep? That critical moment where you're not quite there yet, and you assume your current location because you've not quite caught up on where you are and what you were doing? Kind of a scary moment, really, if you think about it in those terms, but it doesn't feel it at the time. It's almost blissful. Our brains are reset, our muscles relaxed. We're ready to face the new day (hopefully).

Ritsuko's first assumption was that she had fallen asleep at her desk. Again. It wouldn't be the first nor the last time such a thing would happen. She worked hard. Very hard. Very, very hard. The only trouble was that she worked hard while wearing clothes, which her conscious mind had just become awake enough to tell her that she was not.

Unexpected nudity is the sort of thing that can accelerate the process of awakening to a nearly instant state. Ritsuko tried to stand up. Found her arms and legs bound to a chair, and thus failed the very first thing she did after waking up.

"He~ey!" a chorus of voices cooed, and Ritsuko looked around at the twenty Reis surrounding her. Soulless clones that should not be moving, nor should they be talking, nor should they be showing the remotest sign of personality or sentience or intelligence. So, maybe that whole "sleep" thing would be a nice state of being to return to right now?

"What's the meaning of this?" she demanded, struggling in her seat. Her clothes were being used to tie her up, it seemed. Alright. Well, all she had to do was pull along the seams, and then - "Let me go, right away! You're only going to make trouble for yourself!"

The Reis looked at one another and giggled playfully. Then, one of them picked up a bucket full of LCL that must have been drained from the tank, they all dipped their hands in and then reached out to - Ah!

To understand what happened here, it's best to understand what Rei and her clones are made of. Aside from being very pale white, it looks and feels just like flesh. But it isn't. Obviously, otherwise we wouldn't bother discussing it in the first place. Anyway. Their flesh wasn't flesh. It was a similar substance that Ritsuko referred to as "Lilith Artificial Based Skin" or "LABS". Now, LABS had several fairly interesting properties that depending largely on Rei's will, and she had been conditioned very carefully to never use those properties unless directly ordered by Commander Ikari himself.

The first of which was its "phasing" properties. It was entirely possible for LABS to phase through organic matter without harming either. From what they could see, this had some very interesting potential properties. Not least of which was enabling Rei to, in theory, directly interact with a person's nervous system and - just for example - induce a level of orgasmic pleasure the likes of which they'd never experienced before.

So on the one hand, all twenty of the Reis were rubbing Ritsuko's skin with LCL. That was no problem. She'd mucked around in the stuff enough to know it wouldn't do anything to her. The way little parts of their fingers kept on phasing through her flesh and tricking her nervous system into feeling pleasure, on the other hand... That was definitely having an effect!

"Ah!" she gasped, writhing uncontrollably in the seat. The Reis held her fast in place. "Ahhhh! Stop that! Wh-What are you trying to - Oooh, no! No! Not like that! I can't take it!"

"It's okay," said the Rei rubbing her face. "We're almost done, and then we'll answer your questions."

Almost wasn't nearly soon enough. She knew all too well that the human body wasn't supposed to endure this level of pleasure before it stopped feeling good and started feeling bad. Really bad. It was a defensive mechanism. If you're feeling this good for this long, then you're probably distracted from some kind of danger and need to snap out of it. Fast. But - Ah! - But this was all because of the LABS manipulating her nervous system. Not real pleasure. They were bypassing that defensive measure and others besides, making her feel - quite literally - better than she'd ever felt before and from that making time slow down to a crawl as each and every single pair of hands played her body like a grand piano.

"And done! Yay!"

Air. Sweet, sweet air! Ritsuko gulped it in and felt her body sagging. Muscles she only ever knew existed on an intellectual level before now were screaming for blessed relief. Or for those hands to resume their work. Her sweat was mixing with the LCL sticking to her skin, and she completely lacked the strength to struggle out of her clothes anymore. Which might be what they were aiming for from the very start.

"Hi there!" one of the Reis said, skipping forward and cheerfully waving while the others giggled and wandered off out of sight behind Ritsuko. "I'm Rei, and she's Rei, and she's also Rei... Well, I guess we're all Reis here! 'Cept you, of course."

"Who are you?" Ritsuko asked. Her voice came out a bit more groggily than she liked, so she tried to shake it off. Instead, all she seemed to do was shake it further on. If she wasn't tied to the chair she'd have fallen over. "What do you want?"

"Oh, I'm the evil space lord Sexulon, and I'm here to sex the human race into submission and take over the world!" the Rei addressing her said in, shall we say, a nudely jubilant nature. (That is to say, with great exuberance while making use of gestures that emphasised her lack of attire over all other things.) The other Reis behind Ritsuko all giggled and tittered, then the one in front cutely knocked her knuckle against the side of her head and said, "Only kidding! Teehee!"

Right. Definitely not Rei, then. The personality was beyond wrong. Playful? Mischievous? Sarcastic? Even if she was directly ordered to be sarcastic, Rei would not be able to do it! She wouldn't know how! An external influence rather than some psychological bleedthrough. An Angel? No, the prophecies didn't give any indication on something like this. So what...? She needed more information and she really needed to stop shuddering from aftershocks so she could properly digest everything. Keep her talking, think this through!

"You must want something," Ritsuko said. "Otherwise what's the point of tying me up?"

"Fun," Rei said. "It's fun, that's why. And we're going to have so much -"

And then there was the sweet, sweet sound of her mobile phone ringing in her lab coat. Hah! If she didn't answer that, it would automatically go into speaker mode and she could yell her situation to whomever was calling. What's more, if she didn't respond to it within ten minutes or so someone would want to check up on her. And since her last recorded location would be down here - Well, that might well mean the Commander or Sub-Commander could very well come down to check up on her.

Well, that was the hypothesis. Sadly, one of the Reis seemed to want to put this to the test. She reached into the lab coat, plucked out the phone while the other leading Rei sat in Ritsuko's lap, wrapped her arms around Ritsuko's head and used their lips to create two things: First, a perfect, inescapable seal. Second, a large amount of gugugbuguh.

"Doctor Akagi," Ritsuko heard her own mouth say from the Rei behind her. What? No! Come on, what?! She struggled to make a noise, but got exactly nowhere. "Yes, Maya. You did the right thing calling me just now. I shall be with you shortly to help you deal with it." Click.

The seal on her mouth broke, and Ritsuko gulped in as much air as her lungs could efficiently process. "You'll be with her shortly?" Ritsuko sneered. "Unlikely! You won't get -"

"Past the security cameras all over the corridor without being seen?" a Rei said. "And then they'll lock all of the doors, send down a specialised team and maybe even the Evas just to be sure.  Even if we got by them, we wouldn't be able to pass the biometric scanner or enter code P3AAC9 to get out. Aww, it's so cute the way you feign surprise! Don't tell me you thought we were interfacing with your nervous system for funsies!"

"Actually, we were!" another Rei said. "It was really fun!"

"Well, there was that too... But also to access all of your juicy, juicy memories. Your brain is part of your nervous system, so all I had to do was massage your scalp. Hmm... You really shouldn't be so obsessed with cats, and your relationship with the Commander isn't healthy either..."

Ritsuko snarled and tried hopelessly to leap out of her seat at that last remark. However. The Reis behind her were plenty strong and plenty quick. They were holding her shoulder back with an index finger on each shoulder, and they felt as immovable as the Commander's iron will.

"You still won't escape," Ritsuko said. "The vents down here are filled with obstructions that the upper layers aren't, not to mention motion- and heat-sensitive alerts that will block you off if you try to go through them. If you know anything, you know you're not going anywhere, and no matter how long you stall with that voice mimicry you won't be able to -"

That smile. In any other situation, it would be serene and genuine and not at all disturbing. But you know, it was this situation. It was disturbing. The way they all smiled the exact same way, using the same muscles to form exactly the same shape. The same way they were all lining up in front of her and tilting their head while their hands swayed in place in the same way.

It left Ritsuko with the feeling that something quite bad was about to happen, and that she had rather less say in things than she might have originally thought.

<hr>
Maya was a diligent worker. Now, there were really two reasons for this. The first, their work was so terribly important, meaning that they owed it to all of humanity to do their absolute best. The second? The blonde-haired beauty striding into the room to help her deal with a technical glitch that she really didn't quite understand.

"He~ey!" Doctor Akagi cooed with an odd smile tinging her lips.

"Doctor Akagi!" Maya smartly saluted, in that way someone does when they sincerely hope that someone notices how smartly they are saluting and takes it as an invitation to do other things that tend to make people stupid for a short period of time. "Thank you for responding on such short notice. I am very sorry for having to ask you, however -"

"It's quite alright," Doctor Akagi said in a strangely breathy voice that actually had the effect of making Maya briefly forget how to breathe. Was it her imagination, or had Doctor Akagi put on a little... Weight? Apropos of nothing (really and truly!) but Maya had been quite aware of Doctor Akagi's figure. Was she usually that busty? Her figure seemed just a little touch curvier than before, and - "Let me take a look."

Now. Ah. Right. Where exactly should she be putting her eyes right now? Because at this particular moment in time, Doctor Akagi was bending over in a way she really didn't technically have to in order to take a look at the faulty equipment and swaying her slightly-bigger-than-it-used-to-be butt as if politely requesting Maya to, please, inspect it for imperfections. In which case she might be staring for a little while because there really weren't any to be found. Probably. To be on the safe side, she really should take a closer look.

"Having fu~un?" Doctor Akagi asked, suddenly peering over her shoulder at Maya, who was now standing straighter than she'd ever stood in her entire life. "Oh, Maya! You naughty girl. Don't tell me you called me all the way out here so you could check out my firm, tight body."

Red. Bright, bright red. Seeing Doctor Akagi of all people, her beloved and beautiful superior, suddenly behaving in a languid and erotic manner directly towards her? It was - It was too much to take! "N-No!" Maya insisted. "It's not like that! It - It really is broken! I tried my best to make it work, and - And it wouldn't! I would never waste your time just to - Just to -!"

"It's okay," Doctor Akagi said, slipping her lab coat off her shoulders with far too casual ease. That tore it. This was a dream. This was an amazing dream that she didn't want to wake up from. "I also want to have a little fu~un."

Doctor Akagi beckoned with her finger, and do you know? Maya had never been the kind of person to disobey direct orders from a superior officer.

1. A Rei is copying Ristuko.
2. A Rei has "absorbed" herself into Ritsuko and is controlling her body.
3. The Reis have brainwashed her into obeying their commands.
4. Meanwhile, the remaining Reis are working out how to escape.
5. Meanwhile, the remaining Reis get another visitor.
6. Something else