Author's notes: So, Shinji is not OOC. (For that matter, neither is Rei despite what Shinji thinks in this chapter.) At least, that's what I'm trying. In the anime, he started off desperately needing his father's approval, but now he has his twin as well. Of course this will cause him to act a bit differently even though he's the same person. You'll get the info slowly, sort of like what they did in canon. Plus, it may make y'all stick around longer. More explanations are at the end of this.
This chapter will hopefully be the only one that's this close to the original. I kept the body under 4k for you on this one, but don't expect that for the other and non-introductory chapters. I'll shoot for updating once a week.
Every morning, I wake up. Sometimes, I wonder if it'd been better if I didn't. Life is a blur, like a wisp of smoke. My tutor forced me to learn foreign languages that I'll never use, read obscure texts about warfare, and excel at every damn course. I want a break; I want my family back. I want her back in my life. She was always the happier one, the one who picked me up when I was down. Now, I'm alone, and it sucks. Screw it. I'll do what that letter said. I'm gonna find my family.
The voice sounds cheerful, almost happy to be speaking. It's all a lie, since some woman had to say this message. "We're sorry, but due to the state of special emergency, no lines are currently available. This is a recording." Why couldn't these phone lines still work? He needs to be picked up, but the stupid phone lines are down. The military has been making a racket too.
"Ugh, it's no use. This is dumb. I shouldn't have come here." Some jet flies overhead the boy. Is this a military drill? No, why would they be doing a drill in a city?
He looks down at the postcard, the sole thing in the mail that had any emotion. While the letter from his father was harsh and emotionless, this postcard it creepy. What woman would draw an arrow to her breast when she knows it's being sent to a kid? Why would she even work at NERV? She seems better fit for a modeling job or something, anything else.
"Ah, I guess we won't be meeting here." He looks at his watch. Hell, she's almost an hour late. With the military becoming louder by the moment, it may not be safe much longer. "Maybe I should find a shelter." Those speakers have been blaring out orders to find shelter, and only he has been dense enough to ignore the warning.
The streets have been empty for a long time, but he sees someone out of the corner of his eye. "Huh?" He looks over. A girl with a schoolgirl uniform and strange blue hair stares at him. What is she doing? She seems almost familiar. Wait. Is that Rei? "Sis?"
Birds fly from some power lines making him jump. When he looks back at Rei, she's gone. It must've been my mind playing tricks on me.
He grimaces from a bang. Something exploded. The power lines shake and wind blows past him. Shinji covers his ears until it's over. This is bad. They're doing something more than a drill. Is another country invading?
The boy stares far away where the sound came from. A squad of advanced hovering jets back up while something makes crashing sounds, almost like footsteps. Then, a giant black thing comes into view. It was a white mask on the top of its chest, and no head. The thing is taller than skyscrapers and has spikes jutting from its elbows and middle chest. What the Hell is that?
The monster outstretches its arm and fires a beam of purple light at a jet. It pierces through as if it was butter. The jet crashes to the ground right towards him! He ducks and clutches his head. He screams as it slams into the ground a few dozen meters up the street. The monster leaps and crushes the rest of the wreckage with its foot, causing an explosion that pushes Shinji onto his rear.
Car tires screech to a halt. "Sorry," a cheerful voice say. He opens his eyes and sees that purple haired woman from the postcard. She opens the door. "Get in. Am I real late?" She sounds so calm, yet a massive monster is just meters away from them!
Shinji jumps inside the blue sports car. The jets fire missiles at the beast, but none seem to hurt it. A giant black foot almost squashes them as the car speeds away.
What's happening? He covers his ears and closes his eyes. The car swerves and his stomach churns, but he won't open them up. It continues forever. What was that thing? He almost died!
He never should have come. It was a bad idea from the start. Life was fine. Yes, it was lonely and boring, but Shinji likes boring. His father abandoned him. He hasn't seen Rei for almost five years. Now, he's in a car with a strange woman and fleeing from a giant harbinger of death. He must run away from this all.
The car stops. The woman takes out some binoculars leans over Shinji. Her breasts are way too close to his face, but she seems too focused on whatever's out there to notice. "Now wait a second." She's wearing a one piece dress and a cross. She didn't seem to be the religious type. "No! They're gonna use an N2 mine!" Aren't those nukes without radiation? Oh shit.
She pushes him onto the seat of the passenger seat. Her body suffocated him. She shouts, "Get down!" The loudest thing Shinji ever heard tears his ears apart. He can almost see the light even though his eyes are closed. The shockwave hit the car tossing it across the road. He and the woman tumble inside.
Before the explosion finishes all the way, they climb out the passenger window. The car came to a rest on its side. The two stare at what used to be a glorious sports car.
"Are you alright?" She still stares at the car.
"Yeah." He pauses to cough. "But my mouth is full of dirt." He spits some out. The dirt makes crunching sounds between his teeth.
"You'll be alright. Come on."
She backs up to the car. I suppose she wants my help. He puts himself in the same position. He sighs. This is gonna be a very bad day. That's assuming he'll be alive at the end of all of this. After a few tries, they get the damn thing on its wheels.
She looks at him and smiles. "Thanks Shinji, you're pretty useful."
"Thank you, but I should thank you Miss Katsuragi." She did save his life after all, regardless that she was late. The praise makes him feel warm inside, though awkward too.
"Aw, Misato is fine." She takes off her sunglasses. "So Shinji Ikari, we meet at last."
"Uh, yeah." At least she's sorta nice.
Plus, that thing is dead now. Nothing could withstand a blast from an N2 mine.
Shinji pays attention to her conversation again. "Yes, don't worry. His safety is my top priority." That must be someone at NERV on the other line. "Look. Can you get a car-train ready for us? An express of course." He looks out the window. That's more polite than staring at her legs. "Well I did volunteer to pick him up, so it's only my duty to make sure he gets there." Oh, everything she's been doing is out of duty. He's just another face or another job to her, though he shouldn't have expected otherwise.
"See ya!" She hangs up the phone. Shinji glances at the back seat. Those batteries make him uncomfortable.
"Um, Miss Misato?" he asks, "Excuse me, Misato?"
She gives a large smile and takes her eyes off of the road. "Hmm, what's that?"
"Those batteries, isn't that, um, theft?"
"Don't worry about that. It's an emergency, and we needed a working car, right? I am a government official after all, so everything is gonna be perfectly fine, okay?"
"I don't think anyone will buy that excuse."
Theft is theft no matter how one could twist the words.
"You're no fun. You know, you're not as cute as I thought you were." Why is she insulting him?
"Is that so?" He tries to sound ticked off.
"Oh sorry, are you angry?" She laughs. "You're just a boy after all."
He glares at her, but it doesn't seem to work. What could he say that'd annoy her? Oh, that's a good one. "You're not as mature as I thought you would be either."
Ha, that worked. She's so annoyed now, but maybe that was a bad idea. She swerves the car around the road making him grip onto the side of his seats. Crap.
"The gates are not closing. Please, stay clear." It's another cheery, fake voice. Shinji sighs. The world is an artificial land of plastic smiles. No one cares.
He reads the logo. "NERV," he says. He must be close to his father now.
"Uh huh. It's a secret organization controlled by the UN." Is she trying to impress or scare him? Either way, neither works.
"I know. My father is the commander. Last time I heard, NERV was putting a lot of focus on this thing called Project E." He looks at her to see her reaction. Will she be surprised that he knows?
Her eyes widen. "What the Hell! How do you know that? Did your teachers tell you? No, that doesn't make sense. Did your dad tell you?" She appears uneasy. Her eyes dart around the car more.
"No, all me teachers told me was that NERV was important to the future of mankind. I was around when Gehirn existed and in the first year of NERV. Then, my father sent me away."
"Oh, I didn't know that."
An awkward silence surrounds the pair. The train clanks against the tracks below and the tunnel's lights flash by overhead. How much does this lady know?
"Misato, are we going to see my father?"
"Of course. Of course we are."
He grumbles. That doesn't sound promising. Why else would his father write that letter? Shinji is just fourteen. There's nothing he could do that'd be useful, so he assumed his father wanted him back. Maybe Rei wanted to see him again. Something doesn't seem right. It's as if there's a piece to this puzzle missing.
These lights and sounds remind him of that day. Shinji was just nine. He thought he was a big boy, but he cried like a baby. With nothing but a bag of clothes, his father dropped him off at the train station. He seemed so distant, no emotion at all. It made no sense. His father said nothing about this. Then, he was sent off to some Godforsaken town to live with a tutor. He never got to say bye to Rei, so maybe that's why she never contacted him. If not his father, maybe Rei will open up. She was always so happy.
"Oh, did your dad send you an ID card?" Shinji turns his head to Misato. He takes out the card and hands it to her. "Here, start reading this, okay?" She hands him some sort of booklet on NERV. Oh uh, this isn't good.
"Am I going to be working for him?" She stares at the roof resting her head on her hands. "What am I saying? He wouldn't have sent for me unless he needed me for something." Now, he'll be working for the man. It'll be worth it if Rei's around.
"It sound like you don't get along with your dad." She closes her eyes. "You sound just like me." What is she talking about?
Before he could respond, they exit the tunnel. "Awesome! It's a real GeoFront!"
"That's right. This is our secret underground base, NERV central. This is the key to rebuilding our home, a fortress for all mankind."
This is amazing. It's all a giant dome, large enough to fit in a city. Skyscrapers come down from the ceiling. That is odd. Anyway, there's a blue lake and green grass at the bottom. A pyramid, like the ones in Egypt, stands next to the lake. This place is right under Tokyo-3, and nobody knew about it!
All of the excitement caused by the GroFront has been squashed by boredom. They've been wandering around these halls for minutes, hours, days? It's most likely an hour, but the only productive thing that happened was him reading some more pages from the booklet. It doesn't contain anything interesting.
She mumbles to herself about how hard it is to navigate through the halls. They walk half the time since there's countless of those flat escalator things. It's not that bad. Shinji glances from the book to their location. They're on a flat escalator, moving across a giant chasm, and inside a white room that could house a few baseball fields. He sighs. "You know, we've passed by here two times before."
"Well," she says in a too cheery voice, "They make these transit things to be used!" Oh, these are transits.
They step into an elevator. It might be an illusion, but it feels as though it's moving slower than a snail. Why is every single wall a pale white? The elevator stops and the doors open, so Shinji glances up from the book. He sees a blonde woman wearing both a lab coat and a swimsuit. I won't even ask why she's wearing that.
"Hi Ritsuko." They must know each other, but Misato looks embarrassed. She should be after getting lost here.
"Why are you wasting my time, Captain?" She emphasizes the rank. "Don't you know we're short on time and manpower?" Huh, maybe they called him in for cheap labor?
"Sorry." She either bows or apologizes like an embarrassed schoolgirl. It's hard to tell the difference.
"So is this the boy?" Ritsuko asks.
"The boy"? What does she mean by that? There is a puzzle piece missing.
"According to the Marduk report, he's the Third Child." He never heard of a Marduk report before, but "Third Child" sounds like a designation. He's gonna work for NERV somehow.
"Please to meet you," says the blonde. Something about her voice sounds forced, as if she's showing emotion as a courtesy instead of a true expression of her emotions.
Oh, he forgot to respond. "Uh, sure," he says.
"I'm afraid he's just like his father, the unfriendly part that is." Misato folds her arms.
Shinji looks back at his book. I am not my father. He engrosses himself back in the book instead of listening to the others talk. Other than a warning about going to battle stations, he can't help but hear some of what the two women say. It's about something named Unit 01. It's troublesome and impossible to activate.
The conversation dies down. They get in a boat and speed across some weird pink liquid. The three walk into a dark room which makes it somewhat different then all the other rooms. Why is it dark? Then, all the lights go off. "Hey, why is it so dark in here?" Dark rooms are never good.
The lights come on. A giant purple face stares back at him. Shinji screams. After a moment, he realizes it's not going to kill him. In fact, it doesn't move at all. "It's a face, a giant robot." Why is that thing here? He flips through the pages of the booklet for more information.
"You won't find this in there," Ritsuko says. "This is man's ultimate fighting machine, the synthetic life form known as Evangelion Unit 01. Built here in secret, it is mankind's last hope."
The Evangelion's head and shoulders are the only parts above the pink liquid. It is purple and green with a horn on top of its head. The thing looks like it's made for fighting. It's also freaking scary, but it also seems familiar somehow.
"Is this my father's work?" he asks.
"Correct." That voice, he knows that voice. He looks up, and in a window at the top of the room stands his father. He looks down at his son. "It's been a while." There he is. After five years, there he is. That's all he could manage to say?
"Father." That's what the man should be, but he isn't.
"We're moving out." What does that mean?
"We're moving out? Unit 00 is still in cryostasis." Misato gasps and looks at the purple robot. "Wait a minute. You're gonna use Unit 01?"
Ritsuko glares at the other woman. "There's no other way." Shit, why am I here?
"Rei can't do it yet, can she? We don't have a pilot!"
Rei! She is here. There's a chance they can become friend again, real siblings again. Who cares if his father won't be nice? Shinji just wants his sister back.
"We just received one," Ritsuka says. Misato frowns at her. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. This is the last piece to the puzzle. "Shinji Ikari, you will pilot it." She says that as if it's a fact of life.
"But even Rei Ayanami took seven months to synchronize with her Eva."
Wait. This is a different Rei? Rei's a super uncommon name, but she didn't say Rei Ikari.
"It's impossible for him to do it! He just got here." At least Misato seems to care about him, just a little bit.
"He just has to sit in the seat. We don't expect more than that. Listen, defeating that Angel is our ultimate priority." Was the monster out there called an Angel? It seemed like a demon. Also, it's alive? How? Where's Rei? "If we have someone who has the chance of synchronizing with an Eva, then we've got to risk it. You do understand that, don't you Captain Katsuragi?" She emphasizes the rank again.
"Yes Ma'am."
His father wants him to pilot this thing. He wants his son to fight against a monster that withstands N2 mines? "Why did you send for me?" Please, show that you do care for me.
"You know why I sent for you."
"You're asking me to get in this machine, and go out there to fight?"
"Correct." His father never changes his gaze.
"How can you do this to me!" Tears fall down his eyes. "You don't want me! Why did you call me now father?"
"Because I have a use for you."
Shinji looks at the ground. "Why, why me?"
"Because there's no one else that can."
Shinji doesn't know what to do or think. An Angel attacking, his father hating him, a robot that only he could pilot… How can this be happening? "There's no way I can do this! I've never seen this thing before!"
"You will be instructed." His voice hasn't changes, emotionless.
"But still, there's no way. I can't pilot that thing!"
"If you're going to do it, do it now! If not, then leave." His voice rises.
The ground shakes like an earthquake. Something explodes far away. "It's close. It must sense us." His father looks up. There's another explosion.
"Get inside." Misato's arms are crossed. She doesn't care about him.
"This is so wrong. I came all of this way, why did I come!" He should've stayed home, where it's safe.
"Why Shinji? Why did you come? You mustn't run away, and you must confront your father. You must confront yourself."
Shinji looks away. "I know that, but, but. I can't!"
Overhead, he hears his father say, "Fuyutsuki, wake up Rei. She's not dead yet."
What! How dare he speak about her life that! Rei is part of their family. She is the nicest, happiest person Shinji ever knew. Now, they're going to put her in this monster. Is she hurt? Is this why they brought him in?
"Rei," his father says.
"Yes." Shinji knows that voice. It has been half a decade and her voice comes over a radio, but he could recognize that voice no matter what. That is his Rei!
"Our spare is unusable. You will do it again." I'm your son, not a damn spare like a tire.
"Yes Sir."
Shinji stands and cries. How is his father so evil? Why is Rei a pilot? Is she injured? His father doesn't need him, and Rei is about to fight a monster because he is weak. The staff scrambles around trying to reconfigure that purple machine for Rei.
A door opens. Three doctors wheel a bed with an IV. Shinji freezes in fear. Is that Rei? When they pass him by, he sees the injured girl. It's Rei. Her head is bandaged. Her right arm looks sprained or broken. Other bandages wrap around her body. She stares at the ceiling, not even noticing her brother.
She sits up and gasps in pain. Her arms shake as he cries more. God! Why am I such a coward?
Another explosion, this one louder, rips through the base. Rei falls off the bed, so Shinji sprints to her side. He lays her head in his lap. "Look out!" yells Misato. Giant slabs of metal fall down to where they are. He holds onto his sister. At least we were together one last time.
The metal bounces off the hand of the Evangelion. "The Eva activated itself, but that's not possible! The entry plug wasn't even inserted!" Ritsuko says. Shinji looks up. The entire arm shields the two siblings.
"It activated without any kind of interface?" Misato asks. "Did it act to protect someone, to protect them?"
Rei shakes in pain. Shinji feels something wet on his hands. It's blood, her blood. He looks back at the Eva, and its eyes now glow white. He knows what he must do.
"I'll pilot the damn thing." He strokes her hair, blue hair. That's new. "Just protect Rei!"
Everything becomes a blur. Rei is carted away. They drag him up and into something called an entry plug which seems like a man-sized soda. They tell him to wear some sort of headband. Shinji doesn't care if he'll die. This is for Rei.
Everything gets worse. Orange liquid fills up the cramped, tubular plug. All he gets out before he's submerged is, "What is this stuff?" He holds his breath.
Ritsuko's voice comes over the intercom. "Don't worry. Once you lungs are willed with LCL, you're lungs will be oxygenated directly."
Rei must've done this before. Shinji breathes in the liquid. It tastes like blood and his stomach twists itself in knots.
They start saying technical terms, but the world around Shinji changes. Every color he's ever seen flashes before his eyes until something clicks. He sees outside to cockpit from the vantage point of the Eva's eyes. He can almost feel the machine.
"Synchronization ratio at 44.3 percent," says some unknown voice over the intercom. What does that even mean? Oh, I'm synced with the machine with my mind. That must be it.
"Begin launch sequence." That's Misato's voice. Why is she with those scientists?
The technicians remove the restraints from the Eva. Shinji feels less constricted. Someone tells the maintenance crew to move the Eva to a launch pad. Does this thing fly?
He hears Misato's voice. "Can we really do this?"
"Of course," his father says. "Unless we defeat the Angels, we have no future."
It's okay. I'm doing this for Rei. I'm doing this for Rei. I'm doing this for Rei. He repeats the phrase again and again.
"Eva launch!" Oh, Misato must be some sort of a leader in NERV. Maybe she's his new boss. That'd be better than his father because she's nicer.
Shinji once went on a roller coaster. It was with Rei a few months before he was sent away. That little boy thought the ride would kill him, but it pales in comparison to what he feels now. His internal organs sink into his feet as the Evangelion launches up to the surface. He cannot hold back a scream.
Then, it stops. Shinji opens his eyes. The monster stares at him, just a block away. Now, it has two heads, and its red core glows even brighter. At least Rei won't have to fight this thing.
Misato's voice: "The Eva triumphs, but this Angel is only the beginning. Worried about Shinji's mental state, Misato brashly him in with her; however, Shinji's mind only become more shut off from the rest of the world even while he tries to reconnect with his sister. It all happens in the next chapter, and I'll be slipping you a little extra as well!"
Author's notes (more!): Sorry, I couldn't help myself with Misato's sneak peak. I did modify it a bit though.
What made Rei so interesting in canon was her mystery, but we all (most likely) know her past already. Essentially, this is an AU with the point of divergence being Shinji has a twin (Rei). How could such a humongous lore change still result in this very similar-to-canon chapter? I do have my reasons, very detailed reasons that will be explained later. (See? Now, you have to read the next chapters to find out.)
Rei and Asuka will also be POV characters. I don't want to use any adults, though I may have to if necessary. It'd be fun to see things from the children's very confused perspectives. As chapters go by, I will want everything to be recognizable to the reader but simultaneously original.
To Asuka fans, don't worry. She's just as important of a character as the twins. I also won't regulate her to "bitchy roommate who gets mind screwed". Still, there's three Angels to kill before everyone's favorite screwed up redhead drops by. :)
As for Rei, there is a reason why she is called "Rei Ayanami" instead of "Rei Ikari". I'll probably put that one in the next chapter.
As for Shinji, he now wants both his father's approval and friendship with his sister. With the extra driving force, he acts somewhat differently than canon Shinji at this point. I think he would've acted this way, however, if they did make Rei his twin in canon. I'll delve more into this relationship in the next chapters.
Also, for those of you who skipped through the body, here's the things we saw that were different.
Shinji and Rei are twins.
They were really close.
Rei was happy.
Shinji was sent away by Gendo at nine.
The twins never contacted each other since then.
Shinji had a somewhat better education. (Oooh, why did this happen?)
Unit 01 protected both children when the random metal tried to squish them. (Shinji was already by Rei's side in this story.)
Shinji had more of a reason for his motivation to pilot Unit 01 (since Rei is his twin).
His sync rate is 3% higher than canon at this point. (He was more sure of himself to pilot. He wanted to protect his twin instead of this random, injured girl he just met.)
Most importantly, Shinji thought it was weird that she had blue hair. Well, that's not the most important thing, but I always find it odd how everyone seems to accept that the girl has blue hair. Do they assume Rei takes the time to color it?