If you think not, you shall blossom.
Nor shall you blossom if you think. - Anon
Chapter 2: Tomorrow's Perfume
Asuka sat in the plug, idly waiting for the test to begin. Her plug suit was a little wrinkled in places, despite the suction action forcing it to cling to her body.
The cause was simple. The suit was made for a thicker Asuka, one with a little more meat than she currently had. Weeks of malnutrition and inaction had left her in a rather sorry state, a far cry from the tough, and relatively strong girl she used to be.
In the pilot locker room she had been critically examining her body in a full length mirror before putting on her scarlet suit.
The doctors and physiotherapists had done a good job getting her to her current level of fitness, but this was not something she was just going to bounce back out of. She was a shadow of her former self.
Her body was frighteningly thin, and her ribs stuck out unashamedy from under her breasts, which had also lost a little of their fullness. Her legs were decidedly boney, and her knees looked fragile in a knobbly kind of way. Even her arms looked like sticks wrapped in paper.
Asuka had always been proud of her body. She had always been pretty proud of everything about herself until a few months ago. Seeing herslef like this was bruising her already ravaged ego.
Thankfully the changes to her face were slight, so clothes could cover up most of the damage she had done to herself. Her eyes were a litle more gaunt now, although it was impossible to tell if that was just due to weight loss or if her experiences had permamently marked her. Time would tell, and now she had a lifetime to find out in.
"We're going to start the synch test now Asuka," came a familiar voice through the radio.
Asuka took a deep breath.
This was her first contact with her eva since she had gone crazy. She freely admitted that she had gone insane for a few weeks. Just saying it like that seemed to make the nightmare a little less real, like it was the narrative of a fictional character rather than herself.
Her heart was beating a little faster than usual, and the fluid around her tasted a little more salty than usual. There was a very faint stinging sensation in her eyes. These little signs were the closest you ever came to sweating inside the plug.
She shunted the questions about whether or not she could do this from her mind, and focused on the task at hand. Self doubt could come after the results.
She breathed out again.
"Ready."
Shinji leaned on the railing on some random catwalk deep within the bowels of the geofront. His little cassette player, now devoid of electric life, lay useless in his hands.
He heard approaching footsteps, and looked up to see Rei walking towards him. Well, not Rei. Or at least not the Rei he knew. Or at least not entirely the Rei he knew. Well, whatever, Rei but not Rei. Ayanami then.
"Ikari. Why are you down here?"
Some things never changed. "Ayanami. I'm down here because there's nowhere else to go, and nothing else to do," he mimicked her dispassionate tones.
The not-Rei forwned in a hauntingly familiar way sending spasms across Shinji's heart, "We were meant to report to our tutor today. You didn't come."
And again, the same strangely formal way of speaking followed up by an almost normal voice. It was maddening, even more so now that he knew what she was, and the meaning of being replaceable.
He turned away from her, and shoved his useless cassette player in his pocket, "What's the point Ayanami? It's not like she's a real teacher."
"First Lietennant Ibuki gave a good lesson today-"
"It doesn't matter, okay!" Shinji shot back in frustration.
The girl he hardly knew went suddendly silent, and her expression went blank. Guilt coursed through Shinji for the thousandth time today.
"I'm sorry."
Ayanami said nothing.
Shinji collapsed onto his arms, leaning heavily on the railing. Thousands of thoughts had been rampaging across his mind for weeks now, and had finally coalesced into one great feeling.
He turned his head to see the familiar stranger a few yards down the cat walk. Still wearing the school uniform, just like him, even though the school was most defintitely closed. God, they were pathetic. Clinging to these clothes like a life raft of normality in the face of outrageous reality.
He looked away, "I have to get out of here Ayanami."
He didn't see her face, and only heard her question, "What are you saying?"
'I'm saying I love you.'
And there it was again. The small tuft of hair, the almost toy like feel in his hand. The slight pressure. The way it all simply fell apart.
He squeezed his eyes tight, refusing to follow that memory again.
"There's a new pilot coming. Misato told me. He can do all the tests now. The Angels are gone, and there's no reason for me to stay here." He looked up at her once again blank expression, "No reason at all," he added, turning away.
"What about Unit 01?" Rei asked. If Shinji had been capable of hearing past his own clamouring thoughts at that point, he might have noticed the desperate edge creeping into her voice.
But his emotions and feelings were overiding every part of his soul. It had been a long time coming, but the boy who had clung so dearly to the hope it would all end soon, was coming to a realisation that now, he could simply walk away.
And if anyone had won their freedom from the eva's he surely had. The things he had been through would take a lifetime to forget, if that.
"To hell with that thing," he said, with a calm venom his voice.
They stood in scilence for some minutes, Rei trying to think of something to say, and Shinji wondering when the copy of the girl he knew would leave.
Eventually Shinji straightened up, and simply walked away, Rei watching his back go further and further into the distance.
Misato's office was one of the great wonders of Nerv.
When considering her personality and homelife, everyone assumed that her office would be a mess of discarded proposals and paper coffee cups, with great stacks of unfinished paper work, and dog eared documents currently being worked on.
The truth was much stranger.
Her office floor was spotless, and her work surfaces were free from the usual office detritus of pens and loose pieces of stationary. Her desk only had a lamp and an in/out box, with crisp and undamaged documents ready to be worked on, or taken to their next destination.
She was a major now, so perhaps it was not strange for her to show a certain level of proffessionalism. But this office was like it beonged to a completely different woman. It had no personal effects, and nothing to detract from the harsh military nature of the room.
Misato leaned back in her chair. She had come here after the plug test to browse through the initial reports and get some of her paper work done before her in box was full of her subordianates' beaucracy, all demanding equal attention.
Plug tests for the pilots may just be an hour or two long, but for Misato it was a day long headache, and these days made even longer by Ritsuko's absence. She hated to admit it, but her old friend could really streamline a lot of the procedures that made both their jobs a hasssle.
She was largely done with the early synch test results, and was now turning her attention to the dossiers on the new British pilot that would be arriving in the near future.
His photo was a little unremarkable. Dark brown hair, rather uninteresting blue eyes when compared to Asuka's. Back when she had been happier with herself, Asuka's eyes had caused more heads to turn than even her red hair, something that Misato had always been slightly jealous of.
But this kid didn't seem anything special. Maybe he would be cute in the right clothing and with a decent hair cut, but his current straight, short cropped mop did little to help his features.
She glanced over his background.
Good grades. A's in most subjects, except for Art and English, which she assumed actually meant literature. He had won a number of school awards, with the majority of them being for skill with languages.
He spoke French and Spanish almost fluently, and had some grounding in German, Arabic and a little Mandarin. His Japanese was meant to be at a pretty good level, and he was currently undergoing some classes to bring it up to a working level.
Misato frowned. Why was he so good at languages?
She read on to his parents background. Both dead. Ouch. He was currently living with his uncle in the country somewhere in the middle of England, a banker who spent most of his time in London.
His father had been an accountant with a firm that went under soon after he died, and his mother was a Proffessor of Linguistics at a university. That explained the languages.
There was nothing there to connect the kid to the government, nothing to connect him to eva research at all. No wonder the Marduk institute had missed him out as a potential eva pilot. The British Army had probably just picked him up as some random child that wouldn't really be missed by anybody if something went wrong during testing.
Misato sighed, and tossed the document onto her desk. She reached down and opened her drawer, causing a minor eruption of papers stuffed inside, pens and paperclips cascading to the floor. She took out a smallish teddy bear, paced it behind her neck and leaned back full onto the chair, to take a short nap.
Some character traits always float to the surface eventually.
It was early in the afternoon for the rainy little island in the North Sea, where a boy anxiously packed his bag for a journey he was sure would change his life forever.
But for the large island adrift in the Pacific half the world away, night had closed in, and clouds circled the coasts, expectant and pregnant with rain and thunder.
Warning klaxons had sounded, messages had been sent, and defenses hastily thrown up. But this country was used to this kind of action, and was well practiced in matters of defence.
It had been a long time since an invader of this size had come from the sea, but what seemed like ancient plans had been brought back from the tactical libraries. Although a good chunk of the city had been wiped out, and the usual evacuation plans had been ommitted, soldiers and Nerv personell went about their business with a confidence born from experience.
This city was indeed well prepared for attacks like this.
The monster which now stood under fire at the city gates had been spotted in the ocean by a UN submarine, and preparations had been done calmly.
It was the same white eva that had attacked the submerged cliffs around Dover. The scars from the initial barrage were clearly visible, blackened scorch marks and circular patterns grouped tightly around the giants body.
It stood, almost ignorant of the automatic defences laying their ordanance into it, bathed in the orange glow of it's AT field. It was patient. It waited. It knew what lay below the surface of the city.
All this was lost on Shinji though, as he desperately pulled on the control sticks of the Eva, panic overiding any previous thoughts he had of leaving.
"Move! Move! Why won't you just move?!"
But the eva did not repsond. He couldn't feel the connection like before. It was just so quiet inside the plug. And it was just so cold.
Misato's voice came on the radio, "Shinji? What's wrong?" she asked in an urgent tone.
Shinji gave the control stick one last ferocious tug, before collapsing forward, his strength suddendly leaving him. He felt so tired. Tired of the eva, tired of panic, tired of guilt, tired of life in general.
"It won't move," he said quietly, numbness spreading from his gut outwards to his limbs.
"Maya, check the synaptic relays!"
"I've been runnig the diagnostic programs non-stop, there's nothing wrong!"
"What about power?"
"Power going in is fine, but the eva's just not taking it!" came a man's voice, which was probably Aoba's.
"What about-"
"It just, won't move." Shinji cut in with forced calmness. The numbness was being swallowed up by frustration, a great rising tidal wave of bile, clawing and burning in his throat.
"I know Shinji, we're trying to find the problem. Try-"
"You're not listening!" Shinji shouted, "I. Can't. Make it. Move!" he yelled with all the force and venom he could muster, his frustration and rage at being forced yet again into this situation fueling his scream.
His voice reverberated around the plug, and stunned the entire command centre, once a babble of people working under pressure, into shocked scilence.
He looked up, and saw a stunned Misato. Guilt washed away all his anger, making his body feel heavier than lead. His shoulders slumped. It felt like too much effort to hold up his head. It flopped down to his chest.
"I'm sorry," he whispered.
Misato regined her composure, "Prep Unit 02 for launch. Get Asuka out there."
"Yes Ma'am!"
Her voice softened, "Shinji-"
But he had already shut off the radio.
His humiliation was now complete. After all he had been through, after every struggle, after every drop of blood on his hands, now he couldn't even make his Eva move.
Now, when it was another monster he could fight, he couldn't even lift a finger to attack it. He couldn't even shuffle one toe towards it. He couldn't even force his weapon of war to glance at it.
Why now? Why not with Touji? Why not with Karou? Why could he move then, and not now?
The answer was simple to his mind. The eva, Nerv, his father, Misato, Rei, the not-Rei, Asuka, everything about his life in Tokyo-3 was his own personal torture. When a hero in a book goes through all his suffering he is rewarded at the end. But Shinji merely had more challenges, and more pain to walk through.
He had had enough.
He shut down the power systems around him, and waited for the plug to be retracted out of the back of this purple demon. So he could face his humiliation again in front of the people he could no longer protect.
The plug went pitch black, and he sat back in the pilots chair, and folded his arms. He shut his eyes against the darkness, anger playing freely across his expression.
"To hell with you," he whispered.
He could almost feel something break as the plug shuddered in the retraction mechanism. And as the plug was pulled free from the body, he felt something let go inside of him, leaving a hollowness. It was like a sudden release of pressure. It almost hurt a little.
But there was also some relief.
Asuka gripped the controls in her feeble hands, adrenaline pumping raw strength into her fingers. Her skin was whitely taut across her knuckles, and she knew that panic and fear were causing her to react this way.
She forced herself to relax.
"Okay, Misato, let's do this!" she yelled, injecting more confidence into her voice than she truly felt.
Misato gave her a worried expresio across the radio, and hesitated.
"I'm ready! Let's go!" Asuka yelled again, a little more desperately this time.
Misato scowled. Asuka knew she had no choice.
"Launch Unit 02!"
Asuka felt the rush of the launch catapult propelling her upwards towards her enemy. Her opponent. She would be alone this time, and she couldn't help but remember what happened to her the last time she faced off against a foe alone.
She shook those memories from her head. Now was not the time. Focus!
The elevator crashed into place, the hyrdaulics just catching the full force of the rising eva. Locks were released in great gouts of released pressure, and Asuka felt the sudden freedom in the eva's shoulders.
Her score in the mornings synch test hadn't been good. She had never gotten a score that bad, even when she first set out on the path of becoming an elite pilot.
She willed the eva forward, and even now everything felt clunky, every action forced. It was like trying to control a robot made from jelly using cheeswire. Control kept slipping in and around her, and she could only make it move on average in the direction she wanted.
She saw her opponent at the cities edge.
The clouds had finally moved in land, and a light drizzle had started up, removing even the star and moonlight. The white behemoth was lit up by floodlights manned by Nerv and JSDF soldiers, each one of the expecting her to bring forth victory with her eva's hands.
The sight of the white eva only hightened her fear and anxiety of performance. She could feel her last meal threatening to violently explode from her throat. She clamped down on her emotions, and tried to remember the feel of her old confidence. It wasn't working.
She shook herself again, and took a rifle from the nearby weapon rack.
The white eva watched her impassively, as if she wasn't even what it had come for, and was only mildly interested in what she did.
"Centre the target in the circle. Pull the switch," she murmured to herself.
Her red eva brought the rifle to bear, automatic systems loading and cocking the rifle. The muzzle made a clear line to the white eva, and it's almost comical grin. It's expression filled her with revulsion.
She took a deep breath. "Go Asuka," she whispered.
And pulled the trigger.
What happened next all happened in a blur. The bullets shot out towards her target. They bounced of the AT field. Suddednly it was on top of her eva, clawing for her eva's throat. She flailed her robots arms, and somehow managed to break free.
She tried to run her eva to a more secure position to shoot from, but lost control when she suddednly realised her eva had dropped the gun. The titan crashed to the ground with stunning force, breaking the glass in the buildings around her not lucky or important enough to be brought into the geo fronts safety.
She pushed the eva's arms forward, but the white grinning monster was again on top of her back, encircling it's arms around her throat. She clawed at the arm, but she was just too weak to pull her eva free. In desperation she let off the close quarter counter measures in the eva's shoulder blades and the spikes plowed uselessly into the neighbouring buildings.
She jerked her head up, cracking the back of her skull against it's face, and the arm hold loosened slightly. Taking advantage she sprang to her feet, and sprinted a few steps, spinning around again to face it. The white eva regained it's composure, and settled into a balanced stance and came slowly towards her.
Asuka grinned. She wasn't down yet, and this guy was now starting to take her seriously. She adopted a familiar stance of her own, and pulled the vibro knife ffrom her shoulder blade, holding it out in front of her, beckoning her opponent to make the first move.
At a short distance in front of her it suddendly charged, and Asuka let it come full on, letting her eva rock back to the ground, simultaneously plungng the vibro knife into it's AT field, and kicking upwards, sending her foe flying.
She sprang up again, ready to face it, and suddendly realised how light and easy the controls were. She tried flexing her arm, and wathed in amazement through the view screens as her Eva did the same.
She also became aware that Misato had been screaming at her through the radio throughout the entire match.
"Yeah, what's up Misato?" she said lightly, again shocked at how naturally the lightness was coming to her.
"Asuka! Your synch ratio is climbing at a crazy rate! Are you okay? Still in control?"
Asuka gave her a little hop, "Never better." Her opponent got to it's feet. "Excuse me. Gotta fight."
Euphoria poured out from her heart, as she rushed towards the white monster. She knew now what she had been doing wrong for so long.
Focusing on her failure, she had been forcing herself to act differently, to try and control the eva in a different way. That was never how it was. The eva had always felt like a part of her, and she had lost sight out that. She had been trying to move her left hands fingers by pushing them around with her right hand.
The eva was an extension of herself, of her body. She didn't need to worry about synch ratios as long as it moved like she wanted to.
The plug actually started to feel warmer around her. She no longer saw view screens, just the outside. She barely noticed her movements as she pummled the white monster in front of her, gouging and slashing at it.
She wanted to scream and sing she was so happy. Her smile wasn't like her usual triumphant smirk, it was almost child like, and innocent. An expression of true joy at finding something like an old friend.
But there was still something missing.
Ah. Yes.
The white eva planted a round house kick at her. She moved her arm to block, but the kick never landed. It stuck itself in the orange octaganol glow of her AT field.
Asuka gave the monster her trademark victory grin.
"It's been fun. But I'll be winning now."
She wasn't entirely sure of her exact movements. All she was aware of was breezing past the monsters AT field, using her knife to dig away flesh before plunging it into a small ruby coloured shell in the things chest.
As soon as the S2 organ was cracked, the released energy exploded.
A fitting end to Asuka's true return.
Gendo sat in darkness, leaning on his desk, his hands in front of his face, in a pose that many around the base had adopted because it was so intimidating when he used it on them.
He waited. This was going to be fun for him.
The first obelisk appeared in front of him, and began speaking angrily, "You do not summon the council, Ikari!"
Gendo remained silent. What he had to say was for the chairman to hear in front of all the members of the council.
The rest of the obelisks filtered in, all with their own variations on why he shouldn't summon the council, but he did not care. He logged what they were saying in his memory and would analyse them later for tid bits of information that could prove valuable.
These were powerful men, and as such had the egos of five year olds. Each was so concerned with his own self importance and role in the future that dealing with them was tiresome and dull. It took nothing to manipulate them. Their hooks and carrots were plain for all to see, and they indulged in their own magnificience. They rarely got their hands dirty in a physical sense, and ironically, although they had brought about some of the most deplorable acts of inhumanity, they themselves were largely innocent.
Except for the chairman. Except for Kheel.
Gendo actually liked Kheel. In him he had found a kindred spirit, and a mutual loathing for each other as only two similar people with the same goal could have.
Kheel understood how to run an organisation, and also understood that any means to maintain it could be justified in the long term. The rest of the council might guiltily order the silencing of a potential risk, but both Gendo and Kheel merely accepted it as the next step.
The organisation, and the prize at the end. That was all that mattered.
Finally Selee 1 appeared before him and spoke.
"Ikari. Why have you called council?"
It was simple, and direct. And so Gendo responded in kind.
"Today a Selee production model eva attacked, and was destroyed at Nerv headquaters in Tokyo-3."
The council waited in silent anticipatioin.
Kheel responded by going from the voice-only obelisk to the holographic projection Gendo was using.
"That is regrettable."
Gendo raised a theatrical eyebrow, "Regretable that it attacked, or was destroyed."
"Both," repsonded Kheel calmly.
Gendo smiled under his hand, "I would like to know what the council intended by attacking my organisation."
Kheel was silent for a few seconds. Gendo knew he was weighing up his options. His response now could give away some information about the operating procedures of the production models, or even a free admission of guilt or incompetence.
It really didn't matter what he said. The outcome would be the same.
"The attack was not council sanctioned, and was the result of certain rogue elements," Kheel admitted.
Gendo knew better than to push for the meaning of rogue elements. He could guess that something had gone wrong with Selee's copy of his dummy plug program. The fools never understood the true science behind it.
"This is the same rogue element that led to the attack on the european country?"
"Yes."
Gendo lowered his hands and dropped his smile. "I'm afraid that Nerv can no longer be associated with such a dangerous organisation as yours."
Kheel was not surprised, "You understand what you are saying, Ikari." It was a statement, not a question.
"Yes."
"Very well."
Gendo nodded, and his hologram vanished.
The council erupted in a clamour of discontent. Kheel listened impassively, regretful that he no longer had verbal duels with Ikari to look foward to, and merely had to contend with this rabble of egotism.
He raised a hand to scilence them, "Gentlemen, we have suffered a blow here, and must begin damage control."
"Damage control?!" roared on of the obelisks, "We must repsond to this insult!"
"We could begin the attack on Nerv now. It was timetabled for this week," offered Selee 2.
"We can't. Our resources have been removed," replied Selee 3.
"What? An army can't just up and disappear!" said Selee 10.
"No, but the attack on the United Kingdom, and the subsequent treaties and agreements between Nerv and their King have changed the landscape. The Japanese government is unwilling to risk angering the British. They are one of the chief importers of Japanese goods and their investments are critical for Japan. We can no longer use the JSDF," Selee 3 informed.
"What about the production model evangelions? I have a plan that only uses them."
Selee 4 cut in, "Since the prime conciousness has shifted the entire dummy system is in shambles. I can give you one, maybe two useable ones in a few weeks, but it'll take some months of reprogramming to-"
"Okay, what about mercanaries?" Selee 10 continued.
"Far too expensive," said Selee 5, "We need all of our resources to maintain our current holdings in light of Nerv's removal. Ikari has effectively stolen some of our most valuable assets by doing this."
"Commendable," sneered Selee 7.
"Quite."
Kheel spoke, and they all listened, "As I have said. Prepare for damage control. Ikari will strike at us soon, and there will be some unexpected twist to the strike. Be cautious."
And with that, his hologram vanished as well.
To be continued...
Whelp, a few years later and the second chapters up. I'm not going to apologise for being late, because I never gave a schedule in the first place, and any apology would be, lets face it, pointless anyway, and would not give you back any months you spent waiting.
Well, sorry anyway.
Anyway, I'm trying a new method of writing to get this all out as quick as I can. Sort of a creative blitzkrieg. Next chapter up fairly soon.
Ok, I'm still looking for a beta-reader. I don't even have a working spell checker on this machine (weird these days I know), so everything is pretty much done by my own knowledge of English.
Still a petty man, and will accept any review of any flavour, from anybody.