Episode 3


Side A: Start Me Up



The price of praise and personal self-worth is apparently soaking in blood-flavored orange beverage. If he had known that, maybe Shinji wouldn't have been so excited to receive it.

They've got hair clips on him now; they had to use the First's for a neural map first. Asuka's not going to let him live this one down, but fuck her; he feels pretty. He can breathe in the orange stuff, but the wonderful taste of iron and placenta in his mouth makes the decision to do so more difficult than it should be. It's translucent, so he can see through it to the blank screen in front of him. There are no seatbelts in this thing, that can't possibly be safe.

"How do you feel, Third?" Ritsuko asks over the radio connection, already bored.

"Like I'm developing an unbirthing fetish, ma'am," he replies, guilelessly.

"That's to be expected, the extra oxygen and cocktail of sedatives we put in there will do that to you." Well, that and the fact that the whole act of riding an Eva is an exercise in Freudian symbolism. "Let me know if you start seeing phallic or yonic imagery."

"What?"

Ritsuko shakes her head, damn kids don't understand her genius. None of the other viewers understand her genius, they just ask her to do science to things. She peers over Maya's shoulder to gaze listlessly at the harmonics data while the other techs keep the basics running. She perks up. "Maya."

"Yes, sempai?" she responds mousily.

"Did you calibrate the First's A10 connectors before this?"

"Even though you only gave me five minutes, yes, they checked out."

She shoots a furtive glance to Rei, who shrugs. "You didn't do anything funny with Unit 01, did you?"

"I did not become one with it this time. Will that suffice?"

Ritsuko leans in further, slack with interest. "Huh. Well fuck me."

"If you would be so kind," Shinji interjects. He coughs nervously when there's no response.

"Should we tell the Second?" Maya whispers to her superior.

"I kind of want to see her pitch a bitch, so yes," Ritsuko responds, leaning back into an embrace of masculine arms. "Make it big and brassy, too. You won't mind?"

"It'll be a good test for her," the owner of the arms, Ryoji Kaji responds. "See if she can share the spotlight." He gives a rakish glance to the Operations Director and winks; she bites a handkerchief in some combination of rage and jealousy. "The best way to learn a woman's heart is to see her handle her envious nature."

"Is it supposed to feel like you're being caressed by dozens of delicate female hands?" Shinji asks, girlish giggling ringing in his ears. "Can I come out now?"

"No," Ritsuko glares at Rei, who begins to whistle and tents her hands in front of her face. "And yes. We've got what we need." She takes one last look at the data on Maya's screen, double and triple checked accurate, and shakes her head. "Come on out, kid."

The lights shut out inside of Shinji's cockpit and he feels a great weight being lifted from him. Bloody orange beverage drains out from the plug and the world returns to normal. He coughs and sputters, takes deep, heaving breaths of sweet, clean, clear air. He gags and sneezes Nickelodeon orange; spits and coughs. The LCL clings to him and he suddenly feels kinship with tampons.

He looks down to pointy red boots, follows them up sinuous legs, balled fists on shapely hips, pinched waist, perky breasts, copper hair, and the smuggest expression this side of his father.

"So, how's it feel?" Asuka asks, dripping with cheerful malice. He retches in response. "That's what I thought, bitch."

"That bitch," Ritsuko says over the sound system. She lights a cigarette and takes a drag, savors the next few words in her head. "Just matched your average Sync Ratio." She drives the point home with a flourish. "Without a plugsuit."

Asuka crouches down, looks Shinji over like some strange and alien creature. Apparently finding nothing to explain why the world doesn't make sense anymore, she turns to her default reaction; indigent rage.

"No. No no no. Bullshit. BullSHIT!" She stomps out a tantrum, beating a tattoo on the Eva's catwalk. "How can this," she gestures emphatically at Shinji, "Be as good as this?"

He gives her a weak smile, wipes some LCL saliva from his lip. "You always said making you miserable was the only thing I was good at, Asuka."

That just pours kerosene on the flames. She grabs him by the lapels, crusty with primordial goo, and lifts him onto his feet. "Listen here and listen fucking good Stupid Shinji. If you are going to have the gall to luck into Syncing as good as me than so help me God you're going to act the part!" She shakes him a few times, drawing another coughing fit from the poor boy. The three college compatriots look on in horror, while the techs keep to their busywork. Rei wheezes, or maybe giggles.

"I thought you were supposed to calm her down, Kaji," Misato hisses.

He smirks and rubs knowingly at his stubble. "I already did Misato, watch and learn."

Asuka pulls the beleaguered Third Child close, grinds forehead to forehead with him. "You are not going to run away. You are not going to be a weeping vagina for me to sop up." She snaps at him, so close she could bite his nose off. "You will give your all in piloting Eva. You. Will. Keep. Up. With. Me."

Shinji gulps and exhales; matching Asuka's towering rage with cold fear. "What if I can't?"

Her demeanor shifts pleading; the inferno collapsing into a hurt sadness. "Then I'll never forgive you."

They share a tense moment, and then she shoves him down; storming off towards the observation chamber. She's gotta make it look good for the cameras.

"Oh yeah, that was calm," Misato snarks. "You're as good at raising kids as you were at pressing my buttons."

Kaji stretches out, maintaining cool guy persona. He runs the whisper of fingers across the back of her neck and she freezes. "So absolutely amazing at it, you mean?" Ritsuko turns away from the display of affection; prods Maya to do busywork faster. Before Kaji can make further work of Misato's defenses, Asuka blows into the room like a hurricane; tugging him along with her.

"You. Me. Shopping. Swimsuits. Now."

Kaji slouches along, chuckling an apology as he goes. Once out of range of any prying eyes, his henpecked position shifts to a confident stride. As he does so, Asuka's angry stomp slows and softens; she falls slightly behind him. She tugs at his shirt, bangs over her eyes, a little blush on her cheeks.

"Hey Kaji."

"Yeah, Asuka?"

"I think the Th..Shinji's gonna be alright."

He gives her hair a playful little rustle, "Of course he is. He's got the Great Asuka Sohryu-Langley watching over him."


~!


LCL is a very itchy thing when it dries, especially when it gets in one's hair. Shinji learns this firsthand as he scratches madly at his scalp, orange flakes falling like the snow Tokyo-3 never gets. He slumps onto the work bench in the closet-sized changing room and stares contemptuously at certain parts of his anatomy.

"Man, my dick is so confused right now," he mutters to no one in particular.

"It seems to fit in the NERV collective then," says a soft voice from behind. Shinji whips back, locks eyes with the no longer wheelchair bound blunette. "We haven't properly introduced ourselves." She pauses for a moment. "Well, I know everything about you already, but I don't believe it's mutual."

"What do you mean, "everything"?" Shinji asks, more than a little creeped out by the fey girl's flat demeanor.

"I know your height, weight, blood type, food allergies, Midichlorian count," Rei states, listing off each point with her fingers. "But I've never seen you in the flesh, Shinji Ikari."

"That's…nice," Shinji responds, a nonaggressive slink giving him a better view of the strange girl's ample talent.

She hobbles in through his personal space. "They are, aren't they?" she says as she looks down with her one good eye.

Shinji gives a nervous chuckle, "Why yes, they're round and pert and just the right size." He gives her a nonthreatening grin, which is met with a confused look.

"The Evangelion units are not round, they're humanoid," she says, frowning slightly. "How can you get that wrong?"

"No, no, not that," Shinji flails. "I was referring to you, Rei."

Her frown becomes stormier. "I am not round either, I am humanoid." She tilts her head, as if a different angle could provide a different perspective on the kid. "Could you be simple, perhaps?"

They stare at each other for a long moment; Shinji's consternation matching Rei's confusion. The intensity of the blunette's gaze gives Shinji greater pause; if he didn't know any better he would think that Rei was sizing him up like a target.

Or perhaps a piece of meat.

"So, you were in Unit 01 to fight that Angel, right?" he says awkwardly, wilting under Rei's red eyes. She nods.

"You did well."

"If this is well," she says, waving her injured arm, "Then death must be mediocre."

Shinji blanches. This girl was giving off some serious weirdness vibes here, but hey, Misato wasn't lying about her; as far as 16 year olds went, she was built like a brick shithouse. "That's an interesting way of twisting my words," he says, pulling out his NERV-provided civilian attire. "You sound like my father."

"That's because I am your father," she says with a note of whimsy, eyes trailing his movements. "I'm also your mother, your sister, your aunt, and possibly your brother."

"What?"

Rei coughs demurely into a hand to hide the ghost of a smirk. "Bad joke. I do spend a great deal of time with Commander Ikari however."

"Makes sense," Shinji says, glancing over his shoulder at a Rei that seems extremely interested in him stripping to his skivvies. An edge creeps into his voice as he pulls his pants back up. "Father always was an eccentric."

"Eccentricity is the single defining trait of my peers," Rei retorts, huffing slightly at the striptease going on in front of her. "And don't mind me here; change, change."

He hikes up his pants further up, blushing hotly. He was supposed to tell the pretty girls to strip, not the other way around. "I can't do it when someone's watching!"

Ayanami clicks her tongue and hobbles away, as nonchalant as a girl half-wrapped in bandages can be. She takes one good look with her good eye; nods approvingly. "Pilots dress together, Shinji Ikari. NERV policy." She waves a limp salute and walks off, a broken spring in her step. Shinji watches her leave, dumbstruck, mouth agape. He shakes the cobwebs out and continues changing; only stopping to take a disapproving glance down at himself.

"You're going to get me into so much shit, aren't you?"


~!


If one is going to charge slutty swimsuits on an international super-spy's dollar, it pays to have friends to direct traffic and carry the bags. Asuka never really had friends; she had those that respected and feared her. Well, she did, back in Berlin-2, but this isn't Berlin-2. It's Tokyo-3 and she's the fish out of water again. She could probably Gaijin Smash her way into some followers, she thought, but Kaji told her to stop doing that after the second assault charge. Since she couldn't use her prodigious talents, she had to settle for whatever drifted her way.

"Long time no see 'Suka," a cheerfully smug Mari Makinari Illustrious calls out; already two stores deep with jailbait finery. "Still hugging Kaji's nuts I see."

Said nuthugger playfully flips her other half the bird. "If you're saying shit like that, it means you still have more tits than brains, I take it?" They measure each other up, get chest to chest and stare each other down like bull rams; Asuka's determined grin met by Mari's amused smile. The tension can be cut with a knife but is shattered with a hug.

"Oh man, I missed you so much 'Suka-nya," she purrs, nuzzling against the younger girl's head.

"Yeah, whatever," Asuka replies; breaking the embrace. She sizes up her elder, shifts into a taunting demeanor. "Still have that tic, huh? Trying to turn some otaku on?"

Kaji puts a paternal hand on both girls' shoulders, interjecting himself into the reunion. "Girls your age shouldn't worry about turning anybody on," he says, drawing bemused looks from his wards. "Although beauty is a burden that knows no age, and the both of you are quite encumbered."

"You're such a manwhore, Kaji," Mari chuckles, smacking his hand away. She sallies forth through the shopping complex, sniffing out the most expensive outfitters.

"Yeah," Asuka says, wrapping his arm around her to lead him by the nose, "Do you say anything to a woman that isn't to get into her pants?"

"Why of course," he says with mock hurt. "Everything I say is honest and forthright. It wounds me that you would think I have an ulterior motive for anything."

They smirk at him, give him looks that scream bullshit. "Yeah, Kaji, you're completely pure and honest."

"A regular saint you are."

Asuka's the first to crack a sarcastic break, "And Four-eyes here has a healthy, totally not perverse enjoyment of competition."

"Yeah, I'm the spitting image of effort, friendship, an' victory," Mari says, cracking her neck with a shrug. "Just like 'Suka's a perfectly well-adjusted social butterfly."

"Hey Four-eyes; what are you, stupid?" Asuka teases back, "I am a well-adjusted social butterfly! Everybody loves me, unlike your kinky ass."

"You have one orgasm during a live fire exercise and you're marked a pervert for life, eh Sohryu?"

"No shit."

"You girls sell yourselves far too short," Kaji whistles, steering Asuka away from the fetish shop and towards a delicatessen. She pulls against him, but his flowing gait catches her in his undertow and into the restaurant.

"Or maybe you're just trying to bolster our fragile egos, so we don't kill ourselves or something," Asuka says in a drunkard's whisper. "Gotta have warm bodies for the Evas."

"But if that were the case, he'd want us dependent and needy," Mari responds, looking over her shoulder at Asuka. "Well, needier. Like drugs, beating, and rough sex dependent and needy." She pauses for a moment, thinks it over. "Y'know that might actually be fun…"

Kaji grumbles just a little bit, his shoulders slump just a little bit, but his demeanor stays relaxed. He pulls out chairs for his girls; Mari takes it with a grin and Asuka swings her way into his chair. He tsks and takes the only open chair. "Katsuragi'd have a field day with this. I think I have a complex."

"A Lolita complex," Asuka snipes, rubbing hopefully against his arm. Mari snickers and makes kissy noises; which just makes her rub harder, up to the point where she could probably catch fire from it. Kaji tries his damnedest to shake her politely, but when Asuka Sohryu-Langley locks onto something, nothing short of death will make her let go.


~!


When Touji Suzuhara is convinced of something, nothing short of death will make him let go of that idea. Such is the case of his current consternation with the fine men, women, and whatever the hell Ayanami is of NERV. It wasn't so much that the pilot flailed about like someone who had never piloted a giant robot before, because he or she didn't; it was that the combined shockwave from the N2 mines, combined with the small lake of blood that washed through the city totally ruined his folks' house. The carpets and walls were dyed red and stank of old blood for days on end. It got into the water supply somehow too; made taking a bath look like someone stabbed Mr. Bubble.

Oh, and his little sister got swept away by the tide of blood. She was asking for it; leaning outside of her bedroom window baying for blood like a berserk hound, or for those who've been playing along, Illustrious during her period. Which, all things considered, are probably the same thing. She got banged up really bad, but was pretty happy about the whole thing; said she could've died happy in that moment of surfing the crimson tide.

More importantly, bathing in water that looked and smelled like old rusted iron doesn't make one a happy person. Having to do that for a week on end can drive a man to murder. He forgot to take a knife from the kitchen, and Ai had taken Murasame-chan with her, so no murder today. So he has to settle with the next best thing.

"Hey Ayanami," he says, lip puckered in punkish indignation. "You're a pilot, right?"

The pale girl nods, leaning heavily on a crutch. She gives the best puppy-dog face she can with one eye covered, which isn't a very good one.

"Well I've got something to say," he sulks.

"By the way you're standing and the quivering of your lower lip, you wish to converse with your fists." She stares him down, one good eye dead with killing intent. "Go ahead, speak your peace." Her voice goes cold and quiet, "But be prepared, for I shall speak mine, too."

He keeps her chin up, but his knees start to quiver. He makes a move to make her flinch; she blinks and lifts her eyebrows up a fraction. He turns away and spits.

"Can't hit a girl, anyway," he mutters, walking away; hands in his pockets and head good and far down. He impotently kicks at a rock and turns a corner; opting to go into the school's main entrance than walk past Ayanami.

"See you in class, Suzuhara," she says, before spinning on her heel and heading to her homeroom. The Third would need someone to watch over her...him.


~!


"My name is Shinji Ikari," he says with a deep bow, "And I would like to make your acquaintance for this school year." His classmates don't share the enthusiasm, as they chatter amongst themselves. Fine then, let them chatter, let them ignore him. He's got a giant robot. Along with no less than one, and no more than three girls who have fallen under his moe spell. One of which kicks him off the stage that is the front of Classroom 2-A.

"Can't you see you're putting them to sleep, stupid?" Asuka blurts with a positively Haruhiesque smile. The crowd looks up at the sound of Shinji tumbling over a desk; the pain of others was always a good reason to pay attention. He rights himself and slams his hands on the desk he fell over.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" he yells.

"The hell is wrong with me?" Asuka fires back, "The hell's wrong with you? You're boring, that's what." She turns her back on him, erases his name with aplomb before writing her own in big, bold Latin letters. "My name is Asuka Sohryu-Langley, pleased to meet you." She looks around to the class, points out certain elements. "Except for you, you, and you," she grimaces and stops on a kid with bushy brown hair and nerd glasses. "Oh god, especially you." She shivers, then rights herself and gives a small curtsy to the class, before walking off to the back of the class. Once in her seat, she kicks her feet up on the desk and smirks at Shinji, arms crossed.

"Well, that was...interesting," says the teacher; a short thing who, if it weren't for her golden eyes and long twintails, would be a dead ringer for a twenty-something Ayanami. "I see Ms. Sohryu believes this is an English class. Could you please write your name in Katakana, please?"

"Kata-what-now?"

"You're joking, right?"

Asuka scoffs, "Of course I am. What do you take me for?"

"Very well," she says, directing her to the board. The German girl slides out of her seat with an annoyed sound and stomps up to the board. She picks up a piece of chalk and surreptitiously slides out her NERV ID card; copies her name off of it with nervous glances. Even so, she's a little slower than someone who knows the language should be. She slides the card back into a breast pocket as she whirls towards the teacher; tosses her head defiantly at her, and walks back to her desk.

"You wrote 'Asuka Nnryu Langley'," Shinji whispers to her. She growls and he shrinks; grin hidden by a cross-armed face block.

The class goes by without any further incident; the teacher went through her astrophysics lesson, stopping every few minutes to mutter how she was surrounded by idiots as the kids payed her no mind. There were more important things to talk about than how there was the possibility of life on Mars and the use of mecha anime as broadcast material for extraterrestrial dowsing; like the relative bangability of the new girl, or that giant robot that survived getting nuked a week back. Who'd be crazy enough to do that, they thought. It had to be some sort of manly, lovable, charismatic sociopath; the kind of guy who had wicked sideburns, wore red scarves, and made important life decisions at the behest of British tabletop game figurines. The gaijin girl wasn't a guy, and more importantly, wasn't Japanese. Everybody knew that only Japanese kids could pilot giant mecha with any success.

By process of elimination, it had to be the wimp. So someone had to ask him. It was the only neat thing to do.

It came via text; the past two years of disseminated and declawed UN military tech had pulled the post-Second Impact world out of the Sega-dominated dystopia of 1994 Japan. A healthy bit of corporate competition fueled by unseen puppet strings does a lot to speeding up advancement up the old tech tree. Sure, Southeast Asia was still basically the closest thing to Hell on earth a man could get without getting Adam involved, but hey, that's a small price to pay for texting and portable pornography.

It would've been better for Shinji if they'd just shown him porn. But no, they had to ask him four simple words. Are you a pilot? He wanted to lie, he wanted to just blend in and be normal because Lilith knows there are going to be a scant few opportunities for him to do so very soon. He wanted to, but there was this girl with glasses and big boobs looking at him with hope gleaming in her nerdy little eyes. He loves girls with glasses and big boobs, as long as they don't sniff him and make him pay to see their panties. Now he was faced with a dilemma: normalcy, or boobies?

Normalcy?

Boobies?

Normalcy?

Boobies?

Fuck normal, what did normal ever do for him?


Side B: You Got Knocked the [REDACTED] Out


The nerdy girl faints with happiness. The crowd goes wild. Asuka stares daggers at him. Ayanami sighs and stares out of the window. People only seemed to notice what she does if she's in a skin-tight bodysuit looking like she's three seconds away from being ravished. All a part of the trials and tribulations of being NERV's doll.

"Was it scary?"

"Did it hurt?"

"Does it combine?"

"Could it fight Godzilla?"

The attention washes over Shinji like a wave of self-actualization; it felt nice being wanted, even if it was for a half-truth. In the back of his mind, he had a feeling that this would bite him in the ass later, but the glorious strain of the newly conscious girl's bosom against her uniform does a good job of smothering all thought. He laughs and acts deferential; partially because it's still strange to be liked, mainly because he doesn't want to be caught in his duplicity. Before he can grow fat off of praise, a surprisingly strong female hand yanks him away. The end period bell rings and before the crowd can bring him back, he and Asuka are off into the hallway.

"How does it feel, Third?" she whispers in his ear, sweet voice dripping with jealousy.

"It feels pretty damn nice, actually," Shinji replies, buzzing with unwarranted self-importance. "You should try it sometime."

"Lying?"

"Being nice," he fires back. So enamored is he with his own self that he takes the most obvious bait in the world.

"Hey, new kid?" Toji says to him, his fake smile downright feral, "I wanna show you just how much I appreciate you, outside, where there are no witnesses."

"Alright," Shinji shrugs, "It's the least I can do for my adoring public."

Asuka locks an arm around his neck, flashing a smile no less fake and no less feral, "I'm going with him. As a member of his entourage, of course."

"Then you wouldn't mind me coming along as Suzuhara's cameraman, right" the bushy, nerdy kid from before interjects, stepping in from wherever socially invisible nerds come from. Possibly Subspace.

"Follow your bliss," the blissed-out Shinji replies as the group steps outside. "So, what did you want to talk to me abou-," he turns to flash Toji his winningest smile and gets his second most painful punch to the jaw in return. His sense of self-love plummets like bum stocks; crashing to acceptable canon levels as he hits the ground with a thud.

"Sorry kid, had to hit you for hurting my sister."

"You have to excuse him, he gets this way sometimes," the nerdy one apologizes. "I'm Kensuke Aida, Toji's Meathead to Japanese interpreter."

"You want one too, Aida?" Toji says, cracking his knuckles. He scampers away from Shinji, falls back by Toji's side.

Asuka crouches down to survey the damage. It's nothing major, probably wont even bruise that much. She pokes Shinji in the shoulder, "Get up you pussy." He groans.

She leans in closer, speaks a lot more softly. "You okay, Stupid Shinji?" He grunts affirmative.

"You want I should kick his ass?" He nods vigorously.

She pops up, rolling on the balls of her feet, gives him a smarmy little look, then knees Toji in the stomach. His eyes bug out, he clutches his stomach, and he sinks to his knees in shock and pain. He collapses onto his hands, in faux-reverence to his redheaded destroyer.

"At least someone knows who the real attraction is," Asuka says, one foot on Toji's back. "Alright meathead, some ground rules. You touch Shinji, I touch you, got it?" He grumbles assent, to which Asuka stomps him into the ground. "Good." She lifts up a foot and looks at it disapprovingly. "Hey, Stupid Shinji. I think I stepped in something nasty. Is it still on my shoe?"

"Nope, but there's a puddle of emasculated jock over there that you stepped in," he replies, "Might want to watch out for that."

"Thank you, I will," she says, kicking Toji in the ribs for emphasis. "I'm off to do cool people stuff. See you assholes later." She walks away, humming a tune like some kind of 1920's Hollywood ingenue. Leaving Shinji, of course.

"Is she gone?" Toji grumbles into the dirt.

"Yeah, she's gone," Shinji says, helping him to his feet. "Sorry about that man, she gets a little crazy sometimes."

"A real charmer, that one," Toji says, brushing dirt out of his prized tracksuit.

"Hey, Toji, was it?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry about earlier, and I'm sorry about your sister. I wasn't in the Eva; Ayanami was."

Toji shrugs, "I had a feeling about that. Ayanami and I, ah, had a discussion earlier," he shudders, cold dead eye staring into his soul again. "Couldn't hit a girl, so I had to take it out on somebody."

Shinji frowns, rubbing at the stinging in his cheek. "That's a pretty dick move."

"Toji's a pretty dick guy," Kensuke sneaks in between pauses.

"Can it, Aida," he snaps. "So, uh, see you tomorrow?"

"I guess," Shinji says, his brief tormentor's awkwardness only serving to make him more awkward.

He walks off, Kensuke in tow; waves a lazy salutation. "Peace." Shinji watches him go, touches tender fingers to a more tender patch of flesh. Out of the corner of his eye, he catches a glimpse of blue and white.

"You were there the whole time?"

Rei steps out from aside the school's main doorway. "Yes. Always." She passes him by, motions for her to follow, which he does.

"Hey Ayanami, what did you and Toji discuss, anyway?"


~!


"The Hedgehog's Dilemma," Ritsuko says slowly, as if explaining to a child. She's sharing a ski-lift like tram with a mildly hung over Misato, which is a lot like dealing with a child. A cranky child who swears like a sailor.

"What do pickles have to do with hedgehogs?" Misato grumbles, rubbing her temples. Why did the gears for this thing have to be so loud? And why was the room throbbing?

"Dilemma. Dil-em-ma." She straightens up in her seat. "Hedgehogs must get close to other hedgehogs, but they cannot do so without spiking themselves."

"We're not hedgehogs, silly," Misato half chuckles before the room spins around her and she puts her head in her lap. "Oh god."

Ritsuko sighs and rubs her friend's back, the only sounds the creak of the lift and the pitiable moans of Misato. "You know what I'm talking about; the Third had an incident today. He got into a fight."

"Did he kick the kid's ass?" Ritsuko shakes her head no.

"Did Asuka kick the kid's ass?" She pauses for a moment, grimaces a little, and shakes her head yes.

"So what's the problem?" Misato says, looking up. "He seems to have learned that part of becoming an adult is delegating things you don't want to deal with onto people with lower scruples."

"That's not right at all," the bottle-blond replies; wishing she could have a drink of her own. "To try and solve the dilemma, the hedgehog may retreat inwards; that only makes the spikes protrude further. The only neat thing to do is for the hedgehog to open itself fully; the more open it gets, the less the spikes protrude and the less it hurts."

"Is that what the Commander says when you're tickling his hedgehog?" Misato snickers, earning her a too-hard pound on the back. She coughs and sputters as the tram stops; Ritsuko already upright and moving into action. She looks back to Katsuragi, almost as an afterthought, and continues on to more important things.

"Sober up, you've got to spit platitudes at the boy for his combat training." She lingers for a moment, gaze going unfixed, thinking of her own platitudes. Misato rises to her feet, tottering; centers herself with a deep breath. She walks past her starstruck comrade and gives her a knowing wink; snapping her out of her reverie and into lockstep.

"Who needs to sober up now?"

As far as computerized murder simulators go, the one that served as the Evangelion combat simulator was underwhelming at best. For one thing, there was no viscera, no geysers of blood rushing into the sky like gravity-reversed waterfalls. According to it, the rest of the Angels were going to be collections of gray blocks. Shinji could deal with gray blocks; gray blocks didn't make him lose any motes of sanity.

"Center the target, pull the switch," That's what Misato said. "Center the target, pull the switch," That's all he needed to do to make the things die. "Center the target, pull the switch," Mow down one; another will take its place. "Center the target, double tap."

Okay, strike that not losing any sanity bit. Shadows pool around his eyes; rendered flat with the boredom that can only come from banal acts of murder. It was almost as if it wasn't him, and there weren't beings. It was like nothing was anything anymore, just as long as he centered the target and pulled the trigger.

"He seems to be taking to this quite well," Maya says, keeping an eye on his ever-rising score counter.

"A little too well," Misato replies; the beginnings of motherly worry stirring in her ample bosom. "I need a pilot, not a robot. Well, another robot."

"They're artificial humanoid cyborgs," Ritsuko corrects, watching his slipping reaction times. "Third, you're slowing down. Do we need to stop the test?"

"We don't stop until everything is dead," Shinji says flatly. "I keep centering the target, and pulling the switch."

The Operations Director looks to the known head of Project E and her lackey, who look back apologetically. "Shut it down," Ritsuko says to Maya conspiratorially. She executes a quick task kill and the simulation stops; disembodied Eva head slumping in feigned sleep.

Shinji pulls at the trigger a few more times, seemingly unaware that there's nothing left to shoot. He blinks and shakes his head, returns to the land of the sane. "I just had the weirdest dream where Ayanami became a bunch of zombies and I was a chubby mangaka fighting them off." He blushes and coils in demurely. "Could, uh, one of you shake your tits for me? The dream won't feel complete if you don't."

Misato rolls down her jaunty military jacket and lifts up her shirt like a college girl at Mardi Gras. Ritsuko, Maya, and Shinji stare at her, mouths agape, each for totally different reasons. Her jovial jiggling slowly fades and she shoves her shirt down with a pout.

"Hey, it's not like NERV didn't hire me to watch my tits jiggle," she says, crossing her arms in a huff. "Besides, don't act like you haven't seen them before, Ritsu." Maya abruptly excuses herself from the premises, clutching her nose. The college comrades pay her no mind; too busy reminiscing about the past. Shinji nods knowingly at her exit; he's been there before.

We all have urges, after all.


~!


"No Grace, we can't use Alpha to get milkshakes," Miss Mao says with exasperation, pulling her hat over her eyes. The pink haired girl opens her mouth, starts to speak. "We can't use Beta either." She deflates like a fleshy balloon.

"But why not?" she moans, ahoge sagging in disappointment. "I mean, you know Alpha and Beta get bored sitting around in the hangar like statues and we get bored just watching Alpha and Beta get bored so if we all went out for frosty chocolate milkshakes nobody would be bored and we'd have milkshakes!" Grace takes a deep breath, since she almost passed out from that last outburst. "And isn't that what NERV-Mass is all about?"

A calloused, grease and LCL stained hand ruffles Grace's hair playfully; she giggles as the ahoge wraps around a finger. "She's got a point, you know," Simon Kazahara, the owner of the offending hand says, trying to work it free from Grace's grip. "We don't fight Angels, so we might as well go for milkshakes with all the good we do." He grabs a chair and sits in it; arms perched on the back rest.

"Constant vigilance is the most important part of life in wartime," Miss Mao says sharply, the click of her heels reverberating down empty halls. "And as long as the Angels come, we are at war. So there will be no milkshakes." A grate clatters behind her, as Patricia unfurls herself upside down above Mao's shoulder.

"We could just go without Alpha and Beta," she says, holding a finger out as a point of reference. Grace squees at her sister's impeccable logic.

"That's assuming you don't dissolve on the surface," Miss Mao responds, proper and metered, not bothering to turn around.

"If that happened, then that means you haven't been doing your job. And you know that's not awesome."

"How do you know I didn't put that in specifically to prevent you from the unauthorized acquisition of milkshakes?"

"Because you're not omniscient," Patricia says, "And you're not that mean."

Miss Mao clicks her tongue, "Oh really? Well I'll have you know that if you go for any unauthorized milkshakes, I have the authority to prevent that with extreme prejudice."

Patricia grins a sharklike grin, "If that's the case, I'll have you know that I can bite through Kevlar, my AT-Field can stop a shotgun blast at point-blank range, and I've been taking a Saikyo-Ryu video correspondence course." She drops out of the air duct and lands in a perfect ten point stance; red veins pulsing with excitement within her jet black plugsuit. "And Grace is well,"

"I can break walnuts with my bare hands!" she says on cue, splaying out. "Also bones. And solid steel doors. " She puts a hand on her chin, caught in deep thought. "And solid steel bones. And walnuts with steel shells and bones inside that taste like-"

"You've made your point," all three say in unison; Simon shakes her to get her back on track. Patricia ahems; swings over to Grace in a display of sisterly unity.

"What I'm trying to say is, if we want milkshakes," both sisters flash knowing smiles, "Then we're gonna get milkshakes."

"Very well then," Mao says, coolly. "Then I'll have to order you not to get milkshakes." The girls snap to attention, eyes pleading. Grace whimpers softly. "At ease, girls," she says, holding her hands out, "I wouldn't do that." They relax, suddenly relieved. "We can get milkshakes, if you really want."

"Huzzah!"

"Yayifications!"

"Do I get one too, Mao?"

"Of course, of course," she says; popping her hat into a rakish tilt. "As long as you have the money for it."

"Ah, so stingy," Simon teases; corralling the girls along arm in arm. "My blood, sweat, and dashing good looks should be enough payment for you."

They head off into the service elevator; the doors closing just as the Angel detection alarm sounds. The service elevators are quite soundproof, as long as the internal alarms aren't triggered. The viewscreens display that a betentacled cicada with a halo of light floats past the Pearl Harbor relay station, but that's not important. What's important is that Patricia and Grace got their chocolate milkshakes.

They were frosty, and they were delicious.