Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from the fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

Disclaimer: Birdy the Mighty is the creation of Masami Yuuki. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from the fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

Prologue: Shinji's Bad Day

"What a day," Shinji groaned to no one in particular, his head hung low and his school bag slung over his shoulder as he slowly treaded home. "What a day…"

The universe had seemed even more intent on ruining him today than usual. It was the first Sunday since he and Asuka had managed to destroy the Seventh Angel, and Shinji had been looking forward to some well deserved rest.

Unfortunately, Misato and the Tokyo-3 public school system had had other plans.

Since he and Asuka had both missed nearly two weeks worth of classes while they had done their synchronization training, their teacher had "generously" offered to come into school and spend the day tutoring the two of them to help them get caught up. Misato had thought this was an excellent idea and had ordered them to go.

Asuka had, in true Asuka fashion, proclaimed that there was no need for her to go and had skipped the tutoring session. She'd probably spent the day at the mall or something.

Shinji's conscience wouldn't quite allow him to follow suit (their teacher was willingly sacrificing his day off, too, after all), and even if it had, he simply didn't have the nerve to play hooky from a private tutoring session, much as he would have liked to. So he'd gone and made some muddled excuse for Asuka's absence to the Sensei.

And then he had entered hell.

While the Sensei had actually covered useful subjects such as math and science for the first hour or so, he'd then quickly lapsed into his favorite activity: rambling on and on about Second Impact and reminiscing aloud about what the world had been like before it.

During school days, the bell could be counted on to eventually stop the man, and Shinji, being just one among several students, could get away with dozing. Neither of those things were true for this private study session, and by the time Shinji was finally released, the sun had set long ago and he was fervently wishing he'd followed Asuka's example and skipped.

"What a day," Shinji said again. The words were quickly becoming a new mantra of his.

Of course, it wasn't over yet. He had missed the bus that would have taken him back to the apartment, which was why he was currently hoofing it toward home.

"Hope Misato and Asuka don't mind that I wasn't there to cook dinner," he muttered to himself. "What a day. Well, at least nothing else could possibly go wrong today."

Had Shinji been a little less wiped out, he might have realized the extent to which he'd just jinxed himself. And had he been a little more observant, he probably would have realized that the brief flares of orange light he was seeing were caused by a series of small explosions that were in the distance behind him.

The world around her blurred as she ran in search of her target. He had been a wily one, there was no denying that. She had almost had him half a dozen times in the course of her investigation, but each and every time he'd given her the slip.

Now, though, the trail ended here. He was reduced to fleeing from her on foot and occasionally launching his feeble attacks at her. It was pathetic really, but she'd long ago stopped expecting the criminals to just give up when it was clear they'd lost.

She had no idea why he'd come to this backwater—there were better places to hide by far out there—but she didn't care. All she cared about was that soon, Geega would be in her custody.

And Geega could lead her to Christella Revi, the one she really wanted to bust.

Smiling, Birdy Cephon Altera leapt from the sidewalk onto the room of a two story building. She looked around and quickly spotted her prey standing on the street below.

Before she could react, he had sent a blast of energy flying at the building she was perched upon. Birdy immediately leapt to the rooftop of a neighboring structure, landing just as the energy blast struck its target and most of the first building's second floor was consumed by an orange ball of fire.

Birdy looked down at the street again but this time didn't catch sight of Geega. Scowling, she leapt back down to the ground and took off in the direction he'd most likely gone off in, determined not to allow him to slink away this time.

Shinji was just minding his own business when it happened, really.

In a narrow and fairly isolated walkway that was almost, but not quite, within view of the apartment building where he lived, a man ran into him, very nearly knocking him over.

"I'm sorry," Shinji said once he had regained his balance, even though the guy had been the one that ran into him.

The man stared dumbly at Shinji for a moment, and the Third Child took the opportunity to get a look at him. He was perhaps in his early forties, with olive skin, short black hair, and a wholly unremarkable (if rather unfortunate) face. He was dressed in a business suit and had a coat over that, despite how warm the evening was.

"Please! Help me!" the man exclaimed, abruptly regaining the power of speech. "You must help me!"

"Help you?" Shinji echoed stupidly.

He was about to take a step back, but the man suddenly grabbed his shoulders and drew him in closer than Shinji was comfortable with, forcing the Third Child to look into his obviously panicked face.

"You gotta help me escape!" the man said. "A…a monster! A monster's coming after me!"

A monster? Shinji thought, his eyes widening.

There was, so far as he knew, only one kind of monster that plagued the city of Tokyo-3. And while he hadn't seen any ten story tall beasts running around lately, Dr. Akagi had once said that the monsters NERV had been created to slay were likely to come in all shapes and sizes, and that the only thing they were certain to all have in common was that they would all be incredibly deadly. It was possible a new one had just arrived, and that it was small enough that not everyone within ten kilometers could easily see it.

"Is it an Angel?" he asked, voice barely more than a whisper.

"Uh, yeah! Must be!" the man said, nodding rapidly. "You gotta hide me! It's trying to kill me!"

Shinji sighed slightly. There was little he could hope to do against an Angel without his EVA, yet as a member of NERV, he still felt obligated to try and do something to help this poor guy.

"Follow me," Shinji said, coming to a decision.

He broke into a jog, heading back the way he'd come, and the man followed him, sputtering words of thanks. The Third Child didn't exactly know where he was going; he wasn't very familiar with the city yet, save for the few parts of it that he had to venture to regularly. However, he was fairly confidant that he wouldn't need to find a phenomenal hiding place. He couldn't imagine an Angel pursuing one specific person for very long, unless, of course, that person happened to be an EVA pilot, which this guy wasn't.

Soon, the two of them were crowding into a small, dead end bit of alley that was wedged between a pair of old buildings and settling down to wait for the threat to pass.

Within twenty seconds, it became very obvious to Shinji that his impromptu companion couldn't keep still. The man fidgeted with extreme agitation, kept constantly peeking out of their little hiding place, and started at small noises.

Looking at him, it finally occurred to the Third Child, who'd been about to take out his cell phone so he could call NERV and alert them of the Angel, that perhaps there was no monster at all. Perhaps this guy was just crazy.

It would figure that I'd run into some random nut, with the way my day's been going, Shinji thought sourly, suddenly wondering where his Section Two detail was.

Alas, Shinji hadn't seen hide nor hair of NERV's secret police since he'd gone into the school that morning, and he suspected they hadn't noticed when he'd left the building. It seemed like the sort of thing Section Two—which only ever seemed to be around when Shinji didn't want them to be—would do.

"Hey," Shinji spoke up tentatively, "are you sure that—"

His carefully worded inquiry was cut off as a metal beam suddenly came falling out of the sky toward them. Shinji's eyes widened until they were practically bugging out of his skull. He froze up, his mind instantly flashing back to the last time he'd faced such a threat, back when he had first been brought to NERV.

This time he was saved by his strange companion, rather than by the giant hand of a biomechanical engine of death. The guy grabbed Shinji's arm and dragged him out of the alleyway with him before he took off running.

Knocked out of his momentary paralysis, Shinji quickly fell in step behind the guy as they ran, neither caring where they went so long as it was away from there.

It has to be an Angel! Shinji thought, a new wave of panic rushing through him. What else could possibly do that?!

The man abruptly stopped after perhaps a minute of sprinting, catching sight of something that Shinji couldn't see in the darkness. The Third Child saw this and he halted as well, panting.

Then something Shinji never could have seen coming happened.

Yellow eyes that were at least the size of a man's fist opened on either side of the guy's neck, which seemed to lengthen and expand until it was almost as long as the rest of him. A great jaw full of deadly, spike like teeth opened just below the yellow eyes.

Shinji backed away fearfully as the creature's neck bulged grotesquely, like that of a frog, some kind of light illuminating it from within.

The creature opened its mouth, and with a great gasping sound, it fired a blast of blue light outward into the darkness, causing Shinji to release a strangled sounding yelp of fear.

The energy blast struck a parked car, instantly creating an explosion and setting the vehicle aflame. Shinji squinted as the harsh orange light flooded his eyes, which had been adjusted to the darkness, but he was now able to make out the silhouette of a…woman?

"Give it up, Geega," the mystery woman said. "It's over."

Shinji turned back to look at the man (apparently Geega), who was indeed a man again, the bizarre transformation he'd undergone having reversed itself in the few seconds the Third Child wasn't looking at him.

Quick as lightning, Geega's arms shot out, one hand clamping down hard on Shinji's mouth, and the other grabbing him around the waist. Shinji struggled frantically, but he couldn't break of this thing's hold, nor could he utter a single sound.

Geega leapt from the ground to a second story window ledge on a nearby building with one jump, carrying a terrified Shinji with him.

"Birdy!" Geega shouted, causing the woman to turn sharply in his direction.

Then he released Shinji and have give him a savage push, sending the Third Child falling toward the woman.

Shinji flailed his arms and legs uselessly about in the air as he fell. The Third Child tried to scream, but an icy hand had clamped down on his lungs, stilling his voice.

Then the woman reached out, just as he was about to fall onto her, and her hands came into contact with his chest. Jagged blue tongues of electricity arced off her hands and then flooded his body, and now he did scream, agonized shrieks bursting forth from him as he fried.

Birdy abruptly realized that this wasn't Geega and stopped her assault, but it was too late. Shinji's eyes had rolled back into his head until only the whites were visible. The boy gave the occasional spasm but otherwise did not move.

He also wasn't breathing.

"Birdy!" Geega called, and she looked back up at him, hate burning in her blue eyes as she quickly worked out what exactly had just happened.

"Geega," she hissed.

"It looks like you killed a human, Birdy!" Geega taunted. "We'll meet again!"

Geega rushed off, and Birdy was sorely tempted to pursue as she watched him leave, and her best chance at getting to Revi with him. However, she turned back to look at the poor boy she was holding and all thoughts of continuing the chase tonight vanished.

When Shinji started coming around, the first thing he realized was that his entire body was submerged in liquid. For a moment, he thought that he might be inside of EVA or a test plug, that perhaps he'd fallen asleep after a test or was waking up after being knocked unconscious in battle.

He soon realized that this wasn't the case, however, because he couldn't smell blood. There was no way he was in LCL and not smelling blood.

Where am I, then? He wondered dimly. Is this a dream?

The question actually seemed rather unimportant now that he really thought about it. Wherever he was, it was comfortable. It was soothingly dark, and the mystery liquid he was submerged in was quite warm. He felt at peace with himself, for once.

Maybe I'll never wake up, Shinji mused, a rare smile spreading across his face, and he was completely oblivious to how macabre his wistful thought really was.

Then, voices impinged upon his moment of quiet serenity.

"It was unavoidable!" a female voice exclaimed. "When Geega—"

"I'm not interested in excuses," another voice answered, firm but level. This new voice was obviously masculine and quite deep. "You have made a grievous error, Birdy. Now, you must atone for it."

"No way!" Birdy protested. "I don't want to be stuck with this puny human!"

Puny human? Shinji thought, his smile morphing into a smirk. Must be talking about me.

"Hurry!" the male voice said. "Your window of opportunity will soon close! Go!"

"I'm really not sure about this," Birdy said, though her tone was one of resignation rather than protest.

A great light appeared above Shinji, and he soon saw a small, dark shape against it. It grew steadily larger as it came closer, and Shinji placid expression shifted into one of shock as he realized it was the girl he'd seen earlier, the one who'd been pursuing Geega.

He opened his mouth to release a cry as she reached out for him, and—

"Wake up, baka!"

Shinji sat bolt upright in bed, going from a dead sleep to complete wakefulness in less than a second. He was panting hard, covered in sweat, and his heart was pounding. Someone was banging rather insistently on his door.

Ignoring this for a moment, he stared at his hands at a second, quietly reeling.

"Was it all a dream?" he whispered to himself, brief flickers of the previous night flashing through his mind.

"Baka!" Asuka shouted through the door. "Get your lazy butt up and cook breakfast, or Misato might decide to do it!"

Shinji turned slightly green at this prospect. "I'm coming!" he called, and the pounding on his door stopped.

He quickly slid out of bed and started getting ready to face the day. Surely, it couldn't be any worse than the previous one.

However, before he left his room, the Third Child took a moment to inspect himself. There were no burn marks on his chest, nor were there any other injuries on any other part of his body.

He shook his head. "It must have all been some kind of crazy dream," he muttered to himself as he left his room, headed for the kitchen.

Shinji wouldn't discover just how wrong he was until later.

Author's Notes: Here, ladies and gentlemen, we have the start of my latest fic, a crossover between Eva and Birdy the Mighty. The latter is a pretty obscure show, with all of five fics of its own here on FFN, but it fits so perfectly in with Eva for a crossover that when orionpax09 was kind enough to toss the idea my way and I watched it, I had to agree to write this fic.

For those of you who have never seen Birdy the Mighty before (and I assume you're in the majority), fear not. Next chapter will explain the crazy situation that Shinji's fallen into this time, and I'll be doing my best to make this fic accessible to readers who are unfamiliar with Birdy.

Anyway, thanks as always to my readers and reviewers. Also, sorry, but no omakes today. I just couldn't think of anything, except a lame South Park reference ("Oh my god! She killed Shinji!").