AN: This is a Matrix/EVA fanfiction, but that's where it ends. Expect nothing from the movies... this fic will not follow the script. It uses the ideas and concepts of the Matrix universe and applies them to the world of Angels and Evas. Oh and I don't own either of them. There will be very little OCC in this so don't fert. Shinji will be Shinji and not some super god with his name./An
/priest/
/Welcome to the Real World/
- lawless priest -
0.0 - a fever dream
It was a rather normal, quiet, peaceful day. A Sunday, the beginning of a new week, offering promise and optimism for the hopeful. Birds sang their songs uninterrupted. The sun shown it's rays down on the dawning world with its usual magnificent and all was in order.
"Misato, Asuka, Rei! Somebody help!"
Yes, all was in order. For one young boy the pain he was about to face would be nothing abnormal. Just another day at the job.
Helicopters flew overhead, their armaments trained and waiting readily on the being sent to end their existence. The pilots knew without a doubt that their weapons would have no effect on the creature beneath, terrorizing their city. Only weapons as powerful as it could compete against such a being. And some found it fairly disturbing that said weapons could only be piloted by children.
The scene most have seemed rather ironic to them, as they, with their perfect view, hovered above, unable to assist even as they had to witness the defeat of one of their only hopes of salvation.
And all some of them could think of was that he was only just a boy and a good kid at that. Their near crushing shame was also a normal feat in their line of work as each prayed to an angry god for the safety of the purple mecha's pilot.
Said pilot or baka depending on who you were talking to, screamed out over the com unit again, its panicked frequency reaching their ears, filling their hearts with guilt and frustration at their inadequacy.
He was falling, sinking further and further into the endless black shadow of the 12th Angel. The young boy saw the flying crafts as they circled above him like vultures, the scream of their passing calling out his funeral dirge. He thought it strange that he could have such an abstract thought even as he sank to his death with no alternative plan of action.
Frankly it was fairly disheartening.
The Angel's true shadow floated briefly above him, mocking his attempts on its life before fading out of existence as if it was no more real than a childish illusion, like his father ever actually showing him respect. All around him he could see the city and its skylines falling into the trap that he himself had set off, falling deeper into the illusion.
Buildings, cars, street signs, it didn't matter, they all sank unattended beneath the black waves as did he himself. His legs were already gone and soon his body would follow.
"I can't move! I'm stuck, my EVA is stuck!" Shinji Ikari, the Third child, stretched his hand forth as he cried out for support even with the deep sated knowledge that there was nothing Nerv command could do.
So, like every dying man with no hope in his decidedly short future, he aimed his hand high, reaching toward the seemingly unforgiving heavens, almost as if he was trying to claw his way back to safety with only the clouds as his hand holds.
Considering the past miracles that he had experienced, this wasn't as much of a far fetched plan as it seemed. And with the current state of the world, it was almost as if the heavens owed humanity for the injustices they were going through and that continuing to save the life of one of its few saviors was their way of evening the odds.
But unfortunately, today that was not the case.
"Shinji-kun!"
"What's the point in scoring good on the test if you can't survive real life?"
More noise filtered through his comm unit, but none of it was relevant as Unit 01 sank beneath the growing black pit of the shadowed 12th Angel with no hope of returning.
And it was there, in the endless space between worlds, that Shinji Ikari saw the world for what it truly was and the beginning of a new era began.
01 - just another dream
"AT Field detected. Blue pattern confirmed."
"It's right beneath Unit 01!"
"Unit 01 is sinking into the Angel's shadow."
"Shinji get out of there!"
"Misato, Asuka, Rei! Somebody help!"
"Shinji-kun!"
"SOMEBODY HELP!"
"Oh, shut up, you Baka!" A rather irate red head screamed at my bed ridden self.
"Asuka?" My sleep fogged mind tried to reason out the other girls presence in my private space, but it was coming up with blanks.
"What are doing in my room? Wait, this isn't my room?"
"Wow, your amazing detective skills have proven to be far more astonishing than I had figured for a stooge. It took you only about, forever to notice that."
"Um, Asuka?"
"What, Third?
"Why am I in the hospital?"
"Oh don't you give me that crap, Ikari. I know you remember what happened with that Angel." She shuddered slightly and I figured that couldn't have boded well in terms of how well the mission went.
"Well, not really, but since you're here, I bet you and Ayanami beat it, or probably just you, right?" I threw that last bit out knowing that her pride would keep her off my back. I had just woken up from a particularly disturbing nightmare to not only wake up to another but in a rather embarrassing way. I needed what little time I could get to get myself readjusted.
But that didn't seem to be about to happen any time soon.
"Wrong Third. I didn't get the chance to because 'somebody' had to just go and rip the thing apart from the inside out." She said all of this with her nose directly in my face and since I already had my back to the wall there wasn't anywhere else for me to go which didn't do much for my already unstable nerves.
"I know you remember, so don't you give me that stupid look like you have no clue what I'm talking about!"
"Yelling at him will not help him to recall what happened with the 12th, Sohryu."
'Was that Ayanami?' And it was, sitting in the chair across the room with a book in hand. Her disturbing or alluring, depending on who you were talking to, eyes were glued to my own, the girl's attention never wavering. It was enough to distract me from the previously fuming red head.
"And who asked you Wonder girl. Mindless dolls shouldn't talk until spoken to." and who apparently was still fuming. I was not expecting that both Asuka and Rei would visit me in my hospital room. That was surely a first of firsts.
"As I have told you before, I am not a doll, Second."
"Whatever, but you had better not get fresh with me again Wonder girl, or you'll regret it." The German girl replied back as she stormed out of the room. I had to admit that I was a little taken back that I hadn't noticed that Rei was there at all, but then again Asuka's overwhelming presence pretty much, well, overwhelmed her's. Of course the fact that I had just woken up didn't do wonders for my receptive abilities.
"I'm sorry that you had to go through that, Rei." I told the girl with a sheepish hand scratching my back.
"Why do you apologize Ikari-kun? You are not Sohryu. You have done nothing to offend me. Here." She said as she handed me a cup of water. "You have been asleep for three days now. Your throat is most likely parched."
'Three days? I've been in bed for three days? What could have happened during the last attack?' I couldn't help but wonder. I had never been hurt for that long before. Something really bad must have happened.
Taking the offered beverage in hand I would have given some weak reply or thanks, but what I was seeing before me effectively took away my ability to form coherent thoughts, let alone any possible string of words to help express myself.
The cup I held was like any other one of its make, with no adverse diversifying aspects apparent other than the small specks of peculiar looking green computer code running through it, making small gaps in the rather nominal ceramic surface.
I couldn't explain what I was seeing and I couldn't help but lean in closer, believing that my eyes had betrayed me.
'What is that? This can't be real? Can it?"
Rei watched me from her position across the room as I stared intently at the offered cup of water, probably wondering what about it could hold my rapt attention so. Hopefully she wasn't thinking that I distrusted her intentions because she had failed to offer me any assistance in the last battle? Or perhaps that it was the make of the cup itself that held my appeal or disapproval?
Who really know what went on in the gorgeous head of Rei Ayanami, but at the time I was not truly concerned with these thoughts.
And so I guess, Rei being the curious little angel that she was, she too leaned in closer to get a better understanding of the object that held such a profound significance to me.
"Ikari-kun?"
"Yes, Rei?"
"What are you staring at?"
"The cup."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
"OK, this is a not what I was expecting. I didn't know you two were so close now. Maybe I should leave and give you two a little more time to be alone?" Misato Katsuragi stood in the doorway looking in on us two young pilots.
It was around then that I noticed just how close my and Rei's faces had gotten. I was practically about to kiss her! Was I possibly so wrapped up the cup that I had forgotten the world around me? How long was I staring at that thing. It was just a cup of water, right? I looked back at it again, and there was nothing there that was unusual. Just a cup. Nothing strange.
"Um, Misato its not what you think! We were just, um..."
"Ikari-kun was very interested in the cup I gave him. We were studying its contents."
Misato stood there a bit lost. I'm sure she was trying to get around the non-existent, yet only in her mind, sexual innuendos. She should have known better. Rei wouldn't say anything like that.
"Um… ok. Anyway, Ritsuko says besides maybe a slight head ache, you should be alright." Her voice was so full and cheerful, that it left me with a small amount of jealousy at how easy it was for her to express her emotions. It was something so small, but at night I felt a yearning for it so deep.
But that aside, I couldn't help but to glanced back the cup and wonder if maybe I had just a little more than a head ache. But surly my mind was playing tricks on me? Yeah, there was nothing to it.
"Are you sure everything's alright, Misato-san?" Something inside just had to ask. Three days was a long time to stay unconscious
"Yep. We'll just have to get the doctors to check you out before we go."
We left shortly after the doctors had given me the once, more like twice, over. All the while I found myself wondering if Rei had seen what I had seen or if it was all just in my head. Truthfully, the actual prospect of asking her scared me a bit more, so I decided to keep it too myself. Besides, she might start to thank me daft or something. 'But it looked so real and what if she did see it, what would that mean? '
'No, it wasn't real so just let it go!'
Trying to force yourself to stop thinking about something has never worked for me. My usual depressed mode was evident of that surely, but silently screaming at myself did have a slightly calming effect, giving me the opportunity to see just how far gone I've become and hoping that it didn't show.
At the time I didn't know why I kept coming back to that cup. But 'It was just a side effect of the angel attack. Nothing serious, right?' This was all I kept telling myself on the way home.
Somehow in the back of my mind I knew that this wasn't the case, like some nagging feeling deep inside that ate away at my unfortunate and unlikely hopeful thoughts, spitting them out onto the cold ground that was the world as a sign to let me know that it wasn't just my imagination and it was bugging the hell out of me.
Misato's blue sports car's tires screeched to a halt, signaling for me to remove myself from the dashboard as was normal procedure.
Reaching our apartment I fixed Pen Pen his lunch and walked Misato to the door as she headed back to Nerv and thus completing my customary emergence into what Asuka would have called my House Broken Male mode. I didn't care. I knew that if I didn't do what needed to be done, the house really would be broken.
'Home alone, again." I sighed, but a picture of myself in that hospital bed all bandaged up swam in my vision. 'I guess this is better than the alternative.' And with that thought I headed to my room for some quite time. I would just have to clean up later.
Lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling always seemed to help me relax and as I lay there, letting all of my troubles past me by, I began to get back a little, just a small portion of the peace of mind that I needed so desperately and saw so very little of during the day.
My thoughts drifted as they usually did while I was there and the enigmatic Rei came to mind, filling my head with little blue headed Angel Slayers and thus turning it up a notch on the waff meter.
'She actually came to see me and not only that but gave me water. I doubt that she would have done that for anyone else. Rei never went out of her way for anything, let alone anyone.'
Rei's presence was an unexpected surprise, though, but it wasn't all that much of a shock.
'But what did that mean? Was she there because she was concerned or was it just out of mandate?' I couldn't help but let out a wistful sigh as I regarded the past morning.
'Maybe I'm just fooling myself. Why would Rei go to see me? Dr. Akagi probably asked her to, no doubt. But Asuka was there as well. What was that about? Why was she so angry.'
This, I couldn't quite answer but there was a great deal about the rather brash pilot of Unit 02 that I couldn't quite understand, so I just threw that morning into that particularly large pile of dirty clothes that I would eventually have to sort through later, panties, bras, booty cutter shorts and all.
'No need to sweat over something I can't do anything about.' I figured.
But all that heavy thinking was wearing me down. I needed something to do and of course, at house Katsuragi, there was always something that needed doing.
So it was rather easy for me to lose myself in the menial household chores that none of my roommates would ever bother doing and if they ever did, would probably do a terrible job of it and would then complain/yell at me about it until I came down off whatever cloud I had been able to climb up to in an attempt to get away and do the deed that anyone else other than those two could have done with ease.
I let out another wistful sigh as I put those thoughts aside.
I had been at it a few hours and had just started on the dishes which had piled up after the three strait days of my absence.
'The girls really can't live without me, can they?' this was a rather pleasing thought but knowing them it only meant that they needed me as a maid.
I was just about to dry off a certain dish, nothing significantly important about that particular dish. It was just a normal plate with some supposedly cute design drawn on its surface. But none of these things caught my attention, freezing me in place, my eyes wide and afraid.
The sound of the faucet running on in the background, unattended to, went unnoticed and the other dishes filling up in the soapy sink were of no consequence.
Only the green code which seemed to make up the dish held my eye. It was the same green computer code from before back at the hospital. What could it mean? Was I going insane? I was sure that that last Angel had done something to me other than put me out for three days and give me a head ache.
No, I was losing it. I had to be? It wasn't decoration, it wasn't something etched into the plate. No, it WAS the plate, a part of it, helping to form the plate.
RINNG, RINNNG, RINNNG.
The phone's ringing shocked me out of my stupor, making me drop the plate and the resounding crash sent my skidding back, my nerves frayed.
RINNG, RINNNG, RINNNG.
The sink faucet continued its steady down pour and the phone its song, but they did it to an empty house, for the young boy with the questionable sanity had long since left.
/WRW/
Two weeks had passed since I had woken up and the incident in the kitchen. Misato had questioned me about what had happened and I had told her some quickly concocted tale to get her off my back.
I was sure she didn't believe me, but she didn't question me further, which I was very grateful for. I had no wish to explain to her what had happened, especially since I didn't really know what was going on myself.
Of course this didn't stop Asuka, she being the one to come home to find the sink over flowing with an angry penguin using an old pizza box to stay afloat. Somehow I had dodged her adamant inquiries with a skill born of necessity, many hours spent practicing in my room at night, and far too many bumps on the head from the numerous chances I had to gain experience. So while I sat at my desk in school I knew exactly why she was giving me that evil eye.
'What is happening to me? Why do I keep seeing that stupid code? I don't even know any computer languages, so why is this stuff haunting me?'
There were many other occasions like the last, but I kept them to myself and tried to take them as they came without freaking out as before. I didn't want the others to think me weird or weirder than usual. How long would the sparse number of friends I did have stay if they found out I was crazy. And of that, I had no doubt.
I had seen the code far to many times to believe it to be just my imagination or just a head ache from battle. It was obviously more than that. What was even more strange was that I didn't just see it on small things like Asuka's bento or the in the hentai magizine the guy behind the counter at the local corner store always read, but I witnessed it in Dr. Akagi's coffee, on Toji's track suit, my father's glasses and even on my Unit 01.
Eva... that was another story that I didn't want to get into. The code from it just seemed... corrupted somehow.
Then there was earlier today. It was lunch time, we were down by the old willow, underneath its soothing branches, something that I so needed. I had been talking to Toji and Kensuke, which pretty much consisted of me and Toji listening to one of our military obsessed friend's rants as he babble on about the perks of some new gun or 'toy' as he liked to called them when Hikari Horaki walked by, completely capturing the eye of my spiky haired friend.
This was nothing new, and Kensuke and I gave each other knowing looks, but when I turned back around to the class rep with her cutesy pigtails and brightly beaming freckled smile, I couldn't help but notice the same green code that haunted my dreams flowing, not only throughout her school uniform, but her as well.
I gave her my greeting with a rather sickly smile and excused myself saying that I had some classwork I that I needed to finish up before I headed to Nerv that day. The others understood and were none the wiser, but this did nothing for my collapsing self confidence as I sat at my desk with Asuka's eyes on me and considering what little I had to begin with, I knew this would not help me at Nerv at all.
/WRW/
I was hoping no one would notice my mood, but of course they did. I couldn't get around the sync test and during it there was no way they couldn't notice.
"Shinji, your scores are slipping. Hell, they've been slipping for awhile now." Dr. Akagi was saying to me after a bout of our recent test. It had been days since I had seen Hikari, but I was unsure how many. The hours seemed to all run together, test merged into test, school into the home, home into school, nothing changed, only my depression grew.
"I don't know what's going on in that head of yours, but you've got to get over it or you won't be able to sync with EVA"
"I understand, ma'am. I'll try harder for now on." I meant what I said, but I didn't have any confidence in it and it must have shown in my voice for she gave me a sympathetic look, but it was quickly replaced by her usual distant, clinical gaze.
"Make sure that you do. Alright Shinji. You can go."
I headed out rather aloof, giving the fake blond a brief goodbye as was courtesy, but my mind was else where.
My problem was getting worse by the day. And with no clue as to its cause, I could do nothing to correct the mistake. What was I going to do. I had to do something, anything really because if I didn't then I was positive that was going to lose the rest of my scant amount of sanity to something that I was not even sure was even tangible.
Strolling down the halls of Nerv didn't do anything to improve my mood. Those stark, soulless corridors held no answers or any manner of soothing warmth for me. I must have been completely lost in my depressing thoughts for I failed to watch my step and ended up colliding into someone.
As I retrieved myself from the floor I immediately began offering apologies to the other but as before they were brushed off.
"It is of no concern Ikari-kun."
"Rei? Oh Ayanami, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to I swear!"
"As I said, it is of no concern. You are usually at your residence by this time. Why have you continued to stay here at headquarters?" The scarlet eyed girl inquired, giving me this odd look as she waited for my answer. I almost felt as if I was being examined.
"Huh, oh, I just had a few things on my mind that I wanted to go over. It's kinda hard to do with Asuka around if you know what I mean?"
"I do not. But I can see your logic. Ikari? Ikari?"
I could hear her calling my name, but the words and their meanings held no significance. The code, it was back. Just like with Hikari the day before yet this time it was different somehow, stronger, more pronounced.
It flowed through Rei and even the walls around me, covering everything within my sight, making my head dizzying with its glow, but only the girl before held my attention.
Rei, her code, for the lack of a better term was nothing like what I had seen with Hikari. Where Hikari's had been energetic and rather lively, moving around her form at a steady pace, seeming to signify her upbeat nature, I couldn't help but feel that if I had seen Toji's or Kensuke the mood or tone, I guess you could say, would have been different considering their personalities, but the over all nature of it would have been the same as Hikari's unlike that of the cup or the plate which seemed more stoic and lifeless.
Inanimate as there were, this was understandable. But Rei, Rei's was something all together different. The code itself was different. Before, I couldn't actually read it but I could understand a bit of what they were meant for. It was more like a feeling really.
To keep it simple it was as if the symbols had been familiar, as if I had seen them before in a dream or something, or maybe as a childhood memory that resurfaced and was vaguely recognizable.
Yet Rei's wasn't like this. Everything, from the walls around me to the floor beneath, were all made up of the same symbols, but Rei's code was not. Hell even the color was wrong.
Her's was the first I'd seen with a bluish tint. There was green in there just like everyone else, but the ciphers for her blue pieces of code where almost of an entirely different language. As if God wrote her into the system with ink and the rest of us in pencil.
Those were the last thoughts that I had on the subject that day or for the next week. before the green coded walls closed in around me and my world went black.