Story: Drive

 

The last obstacle had been cleared before the final layer of hell. The party progresses once again unto the breach, into the final layer - and here, Asuka was starting to get worried. And hungry. That wasn't anything new, though. She'd do pretty much anything to have Shinji's dick in her mouth right now.

At some level they had all been corrupted. Even as they left that squabbling wreck of a convention behind, with all the cosplaying Reis bickering about useless bullshit, it wasn't hard to see that even Rei had been tainted somewhat by the experience. Just as she had by Gluttony. Just as Shinji had by Greed. Just as the other musclebound her had been by Wrath, and just like Misato had by - By...?

"Hey, are you normal?" Asuka asked their supposed mentor and guardian.

"Huh? I mean, are any of us at this point?" Misato asked. "Your boobs are enormous. You've got a butt and legs some models would kill for, and that's not even hyperbole. Shinji looks like he could run a marathon in his sleep, Rei's a walking sex dream, and I'm a little afraid to look in the mirror to see what stares back... but since I already had zero problem getting laid at a moment's notice, that's probably going to be even more true now."

Looking her up and down... Yeah, actually. Misato had a bit of a headstart on her and Rei as it was, but - Yeah, if Rei was sex on legs then Misato was an orgy. Asuka bit her lip and barely resisted the urge to try taking a bite out of those boobs, but - 

Shinji suddenly burst in between them, put a hand on her butt and said "Mine." Putting himself right in between her and Misato.

"I really want to fight something right now," the other her huffed and puffed. "What the hell is down here, anyway...?"

"Well, if we are keeping on theme," Asuka said, drawing the moment out purely because, when you get right down to it, she's an overly dramatic bitch. "Then the lowest level should be something like a frozen lake, within which Satan himself sits. Beating his giant wings and contributing to his own imprisonment. Furthermore, frozen within that lake are the great betrayers - including several people that Dante had personal beef with, because he was petty like that."

Rei didn’t respond. She rarely did when Asuka got like this—flamboyant, theatrical, half-performing for an audience that didn’t exist. But her silence wasn’t passive. It was observational. Calculating. The group walked right into the very heart of Central Dogma, the most secure part in the Geofornt by... a lot.

And then they found themselves staring at the LCL lake within. It wasn’t cold in the usual sense. No breath fogged the air. No frost clung to their suits. But the stillness was oppressive. The kind that made you feel like movement itself was a sin.

“Do you think he’s down there?” Shinji asked. “Satan, I mean.”

Asuka snorted. “Don’t be stupid. This is our hell. If anyone’s frozen in that lake, it’s probably your father.”

She said it like a joke, but no one laughed. Nobody was in the mood for jokes right now. This was the culmination of their journey. Whatever happened here would influence not just their world, but multiple worlds across the multiverse - which in turn meant that there would be other worlds where things went very differently, and oh dear, even Asuka was feeling a headache from that one.

They ventured in further, and what did they find...?

At the center, suspended like a crucifix in amber, was a giant pale thing. Its wings were broken. Its face - if you could call it a face - was serene. But her body pulsed—each beat spawning another Rei, who giggled and oozed off sensually.

Rei watched them without expression as they drifted off one at a time. “They are not me,” she said. “They are functions.”

"So aren't we all...?" Asuka grumbled. "Alright. We're here. What the fuck do we do about that?"

No answer. That was a big fucking Angel right there. Big, even by the standards that Angels went by. They were like fleas compared to it. Gnats. But the thing that was really upsetting? The realisation that it was making Reis out of its own flesh, and there were a fuckton of Reis all over the Geofront.

Which meant that... this thing had been even bigger before it had started spawning all these Reis. How absolutely gut-wrenchingly terrifying.

"What circle was this again?" Misato asked.

"Betrayal," Asuka answered immediately. "It's why Dante had guys like Brutus and Cassius frozen next to Judas. All the worst traitors, according to his very Catholic and Italian grudge ledger.” She said it with relish, like she was savoring the pettiness. Misato raised an eyebrow. “Brutus betrayed Caesar,” Asuka continued, ticking them off like she was reciting a shopping list of damnation. “Cassius helped. And Judas, well—he sold out the Son of God for pocket change. Dante stuck them in Satan’s mouth. Three heads, three chew toys. Eternal gnawing because Dante really liked Caesar and thought things would have been better if he'd been alive long enough.”

"Would it?" Misato asked.

"Who knows? Maybe? Maybe not?" Asuka shrugged. "Either way, I don't much like this. Betrayal is the theme here, and the most cliche thing they could do would be - "

"Surprise!"

A whole bunch of Rei suddenly broke through the frozen LCL all around them, posing like they were at a photoshoot, putting their - quite frankly - absurd bodies on full display. Oh no, it was an even bigger cliche than she'd been expecting! A surprise party! Perhaps the worst kind of betrayal... that didn't involve physical injury!

"Say, have you guys heard of the prisoner's dilemma?"

Verdammit, never mind, it was exactly as cliché as she thought it would be. Asuka groaned audibly, the kind of theatrical exhale reserved for moments when reality had truly outdone itself in stupidity.

“Oh fantastic,” she muttered. “We’re being psychologically tortured by a swarm of fanservice mannequins with a freshman philosophy syllabus.”

One of the Reis—legs crossed, lips pursed, eyes vacant—gestured toward the thrones. “Each of you may choose to betray one of the others. If you do, you ascend. If you do not, you remain. If all betray, you fall.”

Another Rei struck a pose that could only be described as existentially smug. “You have five minutes. Please enjoy the ambiance.”

The ice beneath them shimmered with embedded memories—moments of abandonment, manipulation, silence. Misato’s hand twitched. Shinji looked like he wanted to cry but wasn’t sure if that would help.

Asuka stared at the mask in front of her. It had Shinji’s name on it.

“Verdammt nochmal,” she hissed. “This is exactly the kind of thing that happens when you let clones read too much game theory. Hey! What happens if we just refuse to choose?"

"Then Lillith eats you all up~" the Reis all said in eerie union. Asuka looked over to the pale giant. "Yes, that is Lillith~" they all replied.

"Wunderbar!" Asuka threw her arms up into the air. "Lillith, is it? Really mixing in the Judeo-Christian symbolism here aren't we? She didn't even appear in the Divine Comedy, because she was a Jewish figure. And we're mixing all that up with modern economic ideas? If you add Freakonomics to this, I'm going to go insane."

A small voice in her head whispered 'too late'. The rest of her was wondering what else there was to this little game of theirs, because there had to be more to it than that. Right?