Ah, Toby! You always were the most reliable soldier I had. Come here, I have some tuna flakes for you.
- Anon
Chapter 3 - Meetings
High above the Earth, preparing for it's drop back down to the ground, a high altitude transport plane carried Nerv personnell on what would be their first planned action outside of Japan.
Asuka stared at the bright red neural clips in her hands. She had always worn them, mostly to show off that she was a pilot. She had always been proud of them. They were like her badge of honour, and she wore them even if they clashed with her other clothes.
She would wear them again now. She had earned it through defeating the production model eva.
Asuka looked over from her seat to see a snoring Misato. The flight was only going to be about four hours long, but Misato had taken a few sleeping pills anyway. Asuka wondered what good it would do to get a a few hours sleep so early in the morning.
They were heading to America. Commander Ikari had told everyone that they were officially at war with some organisation, or something, and that they were going to mount a preemptive strike against one of their facilities.
Asuka didn't really cae all that much. She was too pre-occupied with her own role in what was about to happen to think about the 'why's. Misato had taken her aside after the Commander had finished his short speech, and told her that what was about to happen was not going to be fun, and she would have to do some awful things. She would have to kill people.
Asuka felt bad about that, she really did, but like she told Misato, "I can't not pilot the eva now."
Wonder girl was left behind to run synch tests with Unit 01, and to defend the city if it was needed. They would meet the new British pilot in America. Her eva was aready en route via some secret path that not even Misato knew about.
Everything was proceding forward with some kind of strange inevitability.
Asuka sighed and looked out of the window, feeling the slight change in acceleration of the plane as it began it's descent. The world was relatively peaceful up here, and unless you knew where to look you couldn't really tell where the scars from Second Impact were.
She thought about Shinji.
The way he was locked up in his room all day. The way he would no longer even look in her direction, no matter how much she yelled at him. His pathetic puppy smile now transfigured into a permament scowl, as if he was angry at everything.
She hated it, but could do nothing. She didn't know how to react to him these days, and her old habits were just making him scowl more. Misato's apartment was so full of bottled up tension that none of them stayed in there for very long, and they never even ate together.
She leaned her head against the cool plastic of the interior window, and stared forlornly at the world below her.
The truth was, she just wanted someone to talk to now.
Shinji fidgeted on the reclining sofa.
Gendo in his infinite wisdom, and possibly, thought Shinji, some last remaining shreds of parenthood, had sent him to a psychiatrist for a full mental evaluation. This was a little unfair on Gendo, but Shinji was in no mood to be fair to his father right now, a fact which had been underlined several times by the woman trying to get him to talk.
He looked around the room while the doctor paused to scribble down some notes about his current state of mind. Wood panels were verywhere, and there was the faint smell of fresh varnish. The bookshelves only housed a few thick volumes and reference books. This was a new place, and she probably had not been practicing in this room for very long.
The doctor noticed him looking around, "Do you like my room?"
Shinji shook his head, "It looks new," he said by way of explanation.
Again the pencil scribbled down something, leaving Shinji wondering just what he had given away. "Yes. My old practice was destroyed in the last Angel attack. This place was only finished a week ago."
Shinji nodded, unaware of the shadow that had crossed across his face when she mentioned the angel attack.
"You're actually my first patient since I reopened."
Shinji glanced at the cieling, "I hope my father is paying you well for the privelage."
The pencil made the underlining motion that Shinji had started to recognise whenever he mentioned his father.
He guessed the doctor was one of the old citizens of Tokyo-3 that were slowly returning to the city once Nerv had given the all clear about the victory over the Angels. He heard that there were celebrations all over the world, but life in Nerv had pretty much continued as usual. There were some contruction workers in the city, but these days he rarey left the geofront, and even if he did, he barely registered what was going on around him.
He sighed. He had been here for a long time now, and had answered some fairly irrelevant questions about Misato, Asuka and school, or lack there of. He really did not see what any of this had to do with why he could not pilot the eva. He rolled his head to look at the doctor, sitting in her arm chair, note pad on her knee, pencil poised, ready to map out his mind.
He idly wondered what good it was supposed to do.
"Okay Shinji, we're nearly done."
"Okay," he replied, in a voice he hoped didn't betray the relief he felt.
"I want to talk about Rei Ayanami."
"Oh." His relief vanished.
"You don't want to?" the doctor asked.
"Not really..."
"Why not?"
"Um..."
"It's okay, take your time."
Shinji gathered his thoughts for a minute. He had not really confronted his feelings on the whole matter fully, and he really did not want to just yet. His hesitation was not about that though. He was merely unsure of how much he could tell. Well to hell with it, if his father did not want him giving away Nerv secrets he should not have sent him to this woman. But Misato's career also hung in the balance, so...
"I'm not sure how much I can tell you."
The doctor nodded, "The Nerv security office did tell me this was one area I shouldn't talk about. So naturally I want to talk about it."
Shinji looked at her. And went on looking. Suddendly he was starting to hate this woman. Under the pretext of helping him, she was going to use him just to satisfy her curiosity about something that didn't matter to her at all.
What could she possibly hope to understand about it all. Shinji barely understood it, and he felt like he was right at he centre of it all, the pivot for all of the events that had happened in the last few months.
Everything had landed right in front of him, placed there in front of him by Misato and his father, by everyone at Nerv. Angel attacks, Asuka's selfish demands, Rei's mysterious past, the eva's deep rage, everything was an obstacle the world was clamouring him to hurdle, yelling at him to procede, and punishing him in equal measure for both success and failure.
And now this doctor, this person who should be trying to help him, was putting him yet another test, another situation that could lead to his father's or Misato's disappointment.
Oh, to hell with it.
He stood up, "You shouldn't ask questions that I can't answer."
And he walked out, ignoring her calls for him to come back.
"Okay Rei, that's enough for tody. Shut down the systems and we'll let you out."
"Understood," nodded Rei, and the video link cut out.
Maya leaned back in her seat and stretched her arms up high, closing her eyes and relishing the change in tension in her muscles, feeling the concentration in the command centre evapourate.
"Four hours straight," said Hyuga, collapsing forward onto his keyboard, "She's a machine."
Aoba hit some buttons, and relaxed as well, "Okay, the Magi are compiling the data. We'll have some useable results in about half an hour, so take a break while you can, guys." Aoba was in charge of the tests while Major Katsuragi and Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki were away.
The rest of te computer technicians grumbled something about going to get lunch and all filed out, leaving just the three bridge bunnies to their personal platform.
"You guys aren't going?"
Maya had shut her eyes, "In a minute. Just want to take a little break from moving for a bit."
Hyuga didn't even lift his head up from the keyboard, and merely waved his hand in a meaningless way at Aoba.
"Fair enough. Think I'll go get some coffee at least," he said standing up.
"Bring me one!"
"Me too!"
Aoba scowled at them both and left the command centre. Hyuga finally looked up whe he had gone out, and turned to Maya, "He's taking this being in charge stuff seriously, right?"
Maya gave a shrug without opening her eyes, "Who knows. We got the test done for the day, and that's all that matters."
"Well if he let the test go on for four hours, I'd say he was taking it seriously."
Maya looked around and saw Fuyutsuki walking towards them, "Sub-Commander-" she stated about to get to her feet.
"No don't get up," he said waving, them down, and taking Aoba's seat.
"How was the meeting with the JSDF?" asked Hyuga.
"Long, dull, and mostly signing papers. We'll have new armaments ready for conversion in a week though, thanks to the Commanders negotiating."
Maya grimaced, "More compatability programming?"
"Undoubtedly. But let's talk about more interesting things. How are the test results?"
Hyuga brought up some numbers on his screen, "The Magi are compiling the data now, but initial results are good. Nowhere near Shinji's level, but Rei should be able to pilot the eva without any problems."
"The synch ratio is a little higher than we expected," Maya added, "The eva seems to be a little more receptive to Rei these days."
Fuyutsuki stared off into space, "Perhaps she's getting used to it."
"Sir?"
He focused on Maya, "New neural paths. New connections made. These aren't mere robots we're dealing with, they can grow and adapt to things like any living organism."
He stood up, "Bring me the reports when you're done, and I'll hand them to the Commander myself. It's been a while since we did any real science together," he said, walking out of the command centre.
Rei let her plug suit fall into a puddle on the lcoker room floor, well moistned by the LCL that clung to her from the entry plug.
She wanted to sit, to lie down and to sleep, to let some of the exhaustion from her body drain out of her limbs. But she was covered in the translucent orange mess that connected her to the eva. Now it was out of the plugs purification system, drying into a crust onto her naked skin, it began to take on its bloody scent.
She left her suit in an untidy pile, and walked to the shower, leaving a trail of sticky foot prints on the tiles.
Usually she would be more careful in this room, since it was not her own, and was a place where she wanted to conceal her messy habits from others. But after four hours of total concentration, she hoped that other people would understand.
And the only other pilot who used this room was currently in America, starting the Commander's war.
Rei sighed, and turned the shower on, letting the steamy stream cascade down her porcelain skin, washing away the orange fluid. It gathered in a floating island around her feet before being carried off down the current to the waiting sink.
She would clean the floor later.
She stepped into the shower fully, drenching her already sodden hair in the warm water. She could feel the droplets penetrating deep into her blue strands. The LCL that had matted it into a stringy helmet was freed from her scalp, falling to the shower room floor like tangerine rain.
She closed her ruby red eyes and raised her face into the stream, luxuriating in the golden heat beating down onto her face. She could not tell how long she stayed like that, exhausted as she was from the synch test, and she could feel her eye lids growing heavier, even though they were already closed.
Without opening her eyes she searched with her hand, finding the hard shampoo bottle. She popped the lid and a wonderful fragrance filled the air, overpowering the lingering blood smell. Automatically she began cleaning herself properly, her delicate fingers working the lather throughout her fine blue hair.
Once done with the shampoo her hands roamed her body, accompanied by soap, searching out and gently teasing away whatever clumps of connection fluid still leingered on her fair skin.
She enjoyed her post-test showers, even more so now the other pilot was not here to ruin it by her constant stream of complaints or boasts. In some inexplicable way, removing all traces of LCL from her body felt nostalgic, and reminded her of being born.
With great reluctance, and after another few momments of bathing in the warm droplets, she turned off the shower, and left to towel herself off.
Refreshed from her experience, her mind wandered back to the synch test, and how easily the eva was responding to her. It was not like before, or like in Unit 00, which was more like a contest of wills.
Unit 01 now felt more like a reluctant collaboration. It was less like a competition for control, and more a sharing of a common goal, each and every movement, or simulated movement in this case, agreed upon, and with certain areas compromised between herself and the eva for greater fluidity of movment.
Rei took a small, yet functional towel from her locker, and dabbed away at the loose drops of water on her smooth skin. She examined her bare body in the full length mirror the locker room had.
She could feel scars all across her body. But she couldn't see any. Her skin was unblemished, ad pure, unmarked by even minor scratches.
But she could sense their presence. There was a particularly large one around her perfectly flat stomach, circular with tendrils spreading outwards around it. There were numerous other ones around her arms, legs, on her back. She even felt a faint whisper of finger marks around her neck.
But there was nothing there.
She sighed again. Strange, incomprehensible feelings.
She put on her uniform quickly, gathered up her plug suit into a bag, and set off to find a mop.
She needed to clear up after her own mess.
"... and so it's hardly surprising the patient is unable to perform his duties as he did before," the psychiatrist finshed her rather damning assesment of Shinji's mental health.
She looked at the boy's father, looking uncomfortable in the large armchir she used to talk to patients, while she sat behind her desk. He stared at her impassively from behind his tinted glasses, apparently listening to everything she said, and not even batting an eyelid when she outlined Shinji's feelings towards him.
She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her desk, "Mr. Ikari, can I be frank?"
Gendo nodded, "I would prefer it that way."
"Shinji is a fourteen year old boy. You cannot expect him to fight monsters for you. I'm impressed he's lasted as long as he has. I've seen people with less stress hang themselves with their own neck ties."
Gendo nodded, but gave no further response.
"He's just a little boy Mr. Ikari. Your son has been through so much, and he did it just to make you notice him. He's so obsessed with getting your approval he made himself do things so horrible, he can't even talk about them."
Gendo nodded silently again.
"He needs some semblance of a stable home life right now, or else.. well I don't know what he might do."
Gendo nodded, "And you're sure this mental damage is what is inhibiting his abiities with the eva?"
The doctor stared at him horrified, "He's your son! Aren't you at all concerned?"
Gendo's expression did not change, "Yes he's my son. Now is there anything else that I need to know about my pilot's state of mind?"
"My god... you simply don't care! You're using him just to play with your stupid robot!"
Gendo's expression still didn't change, but he moved imperceptibly closer to the doctor, "Yes. I used him. I had little choice in the matter. And you used him as well. You and every other person on this planet. You can claim as much ignorance as you like, but you knew our pilots were children."
He stood up.
"Yes, I used my own son to fight the Angels. Yes, that was my selfishness. And yes, I would do it again and again to make progress. But you, this city, this world, accepted that children were fighting. You accepted it, however blindly, to save yourselves. You could have said no, let the Angels destroy us, spare these children."
He walked towards the door, "But you didn't. I expect a full written report delivered to Nerv headquaters by the end of the week at the latest. You will recieve full compensation on reciept of the report."
The doctor recovered from her shock enough to shout a question at his back, "Mr. Ikari, why can't Shinji talk about Rei Ayanami?"
The look Gendo gave her before he went out of the door was far more threatening than anything he could have said. The psychiatrist collapsed into her chair, shaking like a child afraid of the dark.
Misato opened the door, and walked into the base's briefing room. She was wearing her least wrinkled Nerv uniform, and had taken a quick shower before coming out to the meeting with the new pilot.
Since this was her first time meeting him, and the British Army's representative she was going in full proffessional mode. That meant sparing make up, perfected after years in a military job to freshen up her face, and not be noticeable after what could be a days worth of running around after subordinates. It also meant her serious face, not her usual warm expressions.
She walked in, and saw the boy seated next to a stiff looking man in an immaculately starched and pressed dull green uniform, with near perfectly cut short hair. This man could have been a recruitment poster all on his own, right down to the determined expression of duty. She was slightly ashamed that her own efforts were going to suffer in the comparison, but hoped that her manner would make up for it.
She shot him a salute as he started to stand up, "Major Misato Katsuragi, representative for Nerv at this hand over," she said, in heavily accented but precise English.
The military man returned the salute, "Lietennant Thomas Atkinson, New Palace Guard. I'll be standing in for Brigadier-General Farringdon, who is officially ill, but in reality is opposed to this exchange."
Misato was taken back by the officers words. She rallied herself, "Should you tell me that?" she asked.
The officer nodded, "Both his Majesty and the General asked me to relay this to you. Both want you to have full information about where we all stand on this issue. Introduce yourself Art," he said, giving the boy a small nudge.
The boy gave Misato his own salute, "Sergeant Arthur Cooper, Royal Evangelion Guard," he said with the confidence of a fourteen year old who practised in front of a mirror.
Misato gave returned the salute, and noticed that he was actually wearing a uniform aswell, dull grey with black cuffs, although not nearly as well ironed as the officer next to him.
"Pleased to meet you, Arta."
Artur smiled, "Er, Arthur."
"Arfua?"
"Arthur."
"Arsa."
Arthur gave her an apologetic smile, "Close enough."
Misato returned his smile with an equally apologetic one, "Sorry, my English speaking isn't very good."
Lietennant Atkinson smiled, "On the contrary you speak very well. Art here just happens to have an awkward name. Have a seat," he said, gesturing to the chair opposite him, and sitting down himself.
"Thank you," replied Misato, sitting down. "So they made Arsa a sergeant? Why? The children in Nerv have no rank."
Atkinson smiled, "Internal politics and tradition I'm afraid. In the early stages of our Evangelion project Art was just a volunteer for the research division. Once the King took an interest though he was quickly brought into a newly formed Guard regiment directly under his Majesty's control. A security measure mostly, in case General Farringdon of the research division ever decided that his new machine could elevate his status."
"Are things like that in Britain now?" Misato asked horrified.
"No, but the King is cautious in the way he distributes power. Art here can tell you why he's a sergeant."
Arthur nodded, "It's because I'm technically in charge of a squad of people. When I pilot the eva I have to give commands about controls and power functions to a team of people back in command, and I can't do that if they're a higher rank than me."
Misato smiled, "I'm not sure thats going to work back at Nerv. Al the command centre personnell are officers."
Arthur grinned, "Same as back in the research facility. No one really takes it seriously. It's just a tradition the King dreamt up for my regiment... which basically consists of me and Toby."
"Toby?"
"The regimental mascot. He's a cat."
"That's... well..." Misato tried to find a way to be diplomatic, but was waved off by Atkinson.
"Don't worry about it. Traditions are meant to be silly, otherwise we wouldn't bother keeping them. By the way, where's Ms. Soryu?"
Misato welcomed the change of topic, "She's just on her way. We have just come off a long flight, and you know how we girls can be," she said winking at Arthur, who gave her a grin.
At that point, there was a knock on the door.
"Ah, speak of the devil," Atkinson said, rising, "Come in!"
Asuka waltzed into the room, wearing a yellow button down shirt and white jeans. Misato noticed that her hair was slightly more worked on than it had been in the past few weeks, and that she was once again wearing her red A-10 neural clips. She guessed that Asuka was in full proffessional mode as well.
Asuka looked around the room, "Sorry, I'm late," she said in almost flawless English, only slightly hinted with her German accent.
Atkinson smiled, "Quite all right. My name is Lieutennant Thomas Atkinson, and this is Sergeant Arthur Cooper."
Artur got up out of his seat and held out his hand, "Pleasure to meet you."
Asuka looked at his hand with a certain ammount of disdain, but shook it anyway, "Likewise. My name's Asuka Langley-Soryu." She looked a little closer at Arthur, and glanced at Misato, "He's not much to look at is he?" she said in Japanese.
"Oi," said Arthur, annoyed.
Asuka looked back at him with a raised eyebrow, "What?"
Misato started giggling behind her hand, "Asuka he can speak Japanese."
To Asuka's credit she only showed her shock for a nano-second, "So?"
Arthur cocked his head to the side, "Hey, I've just met you. Couldn't you be a little nicer?"
Asuka started to get annoyed as well, "Oh? And why should I be nice to you? What have you done to deserve that?"
"Well I haven't done anything to make you insult me. You should be more polite!"
"Wow, I can't believe I've been in the room for less than five minutes and the British guy is already lecturing me on being polite. Besides, its only a matter of time before your stupidity will annoy me."
"Stupidity?!"
Atkinson had sidled up to Misato during the confrontation, and chuckling to himself, said to Misato, "I think they like each other."
Misato still looking at the two of them, replied, "Yeah, they're getting along so well."
Atkinson looked at her, unsure from her heavily accented voice if she understood he was being sarcastic. In any case he cleared his throat, stalling the teeangaers verbal duel, "Sergeant Cooper, Ms. Soryu is undoubtedly tired and hungry from her journey. Why don't you escort her down to the mess for some refreshment?"
"What? I'm not-" Arthur started, before he caught the Lieutennant's expression. He gave him an imploring look, but Atkinson's expressin didn't change. His shoulders slumped in defeat, "Yes sir."
"Good lad."
Misato nodded, "That's not a bad idea Asuka. Go on down with Arsa, I'll catch up with you after we sort out some paper work."
Asuka looked as though she was about to protest, but it had been a long time since they had eaten. "Allright, if you insist, Misato. See you down there. Let's go 'Arsa'." And she strode out the door.
"After you, princess," Arthur muttered under his breath, following her out.
To be continued...
A/N: Chapter out! I'm treading a fine line between making Shinji too emo, and not staying true to what I think he would do and say given all the stuff that's happened to him. I think I've got the right balance, but I'm not sure.
Asuka's back to full fighting force, and we've introduced Arthur. If Lieutennant Atkinson looks too perfect right now, don't worry, that's because I wanted someone unmemorable to bring Arthur to the story. He'll disappear next chapter.
And that scene with Rei... totally unplanned. I'm not sure where the hell it came from, but I hope you enjoyed the fanservice, nevertheless.
Still extremely petty, and will accept any criticism, and will reply to any and all reviews.