Neon Genesis Evangelion: Remastered
By Death 12
Chapter 4
Shinji set his jaw as his teeth clashed together, reinforcing his aim mentally he felt his Eva respond to the desire to hold steady, he could feel the strain the arms were under as he compared the force he was pushing against, which was only marginally stronger than the one Asuka was holding at bay in Unit 02. He cursed his girlfriend's perceptiveness once again, this exercise had been her idea, Ritsuko had been curious to how Unit 02's abilities had altered since it ingested the S2 organ a month ago and Maya had suggested they test the abilities of all three Evangelion units in a series of tests, her idea had been met with scepticism at best by the commanders but then she'd brought up the fact they worked remarkably like humans when it came to their muscle consistency and that the only Unit that was working at a healthy average both her and Ritsuko had scaled up from an average human was his unit, and the command had approved of the idea.
"Move!" Shinji ground out, forcing his Eva to take a step forwards and push even harder against the weight, only to find his connection suddenly cut by remote.
Forcing the Eva to sync with him he shifted it as it fell so the unit landed on its right shoulder, feeling a pain shoot up his back as the fall jarred the Evangelion's own spine.
(Page Break)
Asuka smirked as she saw Unit 01 suddenly collapse backwards, "Leave the tests of strength to me! You're obviously too weak baka!"
"Cut the chatter 02. And FYI, we cut his synchronisation from here, he nearly destroyed the equipment." Asuka deflated at Ritsuko's curt tone, only to find herself staring up at the ceiling of the chamber they were in.
"Damn it!"
(Page Break)
Shinji hissed as he collapsed into the chair, pain lancing up his back like white hot fire.
"Shinji? You okay?" He nodded his head weakly at Maya's concerned look as he reached around and rubbed his back in an attempt to quell the pain.
He shifted away from Maya as she tried to touch the spot he was rubbing on his back, drawing an annoyed look from her.
"Damn it Shinji-kun, stop trying to handle everything by yourself, you need to let people help you more, please Shinji-kun…" she drew to a close when his eyes filled with resignation, before he slumped forwards, letting her hands gently caress his back, loosening the knots that had tightened in his muscles and relieving the pressure against his spine that'd caused it to jar when his Eva collapsed.
Letting out a low contented purr Shinji leaned back into Maya's arms as she finished, effectively pinning her to the chair.
(Page Break)
Asuka frowned as she looked around the room, she'd been chatting with some of the other girls in her class over ice-cream when the room had suddenly fallen silent, not the quiet lull that occurred between conversations or the awkward silence that filled a room when someone lets the cat out of the bag, no this was more of a complete silence, as if she were in some horror film and the killer was about to tap her on the shoulder and claim her life next.
"What the hell? If the power's not up in the next ten minutes I'm gonna call this in."
"Shouldn't you call it in now? I mean, maybe its some sort of Angel attack…" the blond across from her probed, worried about what would happen if it really did turn out to be an Angel attack, as she was the only one who's Eva could operate indefinitely without an external power source.
"Damn, you're right, gimme a minute; I'm just stepping outside to call this one in."
The remaining three girls sat in silence for a few minutes as the Redhead disappeared out onto the surprisingly vacant street, it wasn't that they were usually crowded; most of the people still in the city had ties to NERV, but even then the place was never as empty as it felt now.
Asuka slipped inside the parlour and quickly made her way over to the group, quickly explaining what was going on and that she needed to head in to report and that they should head towards their shelters in case it turned out there was an Angel attack.
(Page Break)
Shinji scowled as the elevator suddenly died, stopping dead in the shaft, the emergency lights flicking on as the usual lights died along with the elevator.
His eyes fell to rest on the large emergency button, only to find it already being pressed by the elevator's sole other occupant.
"Guess we're settling in for the long haul…unless the backup kicks in anyway, wait, didn't you say the backup kicked in automatically?" Shinji's gaze turned to look at the roof of the lift for a scant few seconds before sighing. 'Get real, this isn't a film. In real life they don't want you to get out of one if it breaks down.'
"It must've finally keeled over, you know what the wiring's like in this place, it's the whole reason we've got Shigeru on the bridge, you'd be amazed how often he has to rig the boards because we can't replace them…"
(Page Break)
Rei stared listlessly at the still closed elevator doors, before turning around and walking back through the still open automatic double doors.
(Page Break)
Misato scowled, here she was stuck in an elevator, a hot elevator at that, and to make matters worse, she was stuck in here with her ex-boyfriend who she currently had little respect for, especially after the stunt he'd pulled during Unit 02's transfer, what in God's name had that been all about anyway?
She sat down in one of the corners, pulling her legs under herself as she glared at the pony-tailed man.
(Page Break)
Asuka slowed to a halt as she approached a heavy hydraulic door, pitted and pierced with debris from the collapsed ceiling, one of the larger tremors having sealed the tunnel.
Her gaze came to fall onto a small panel.
"There is no way in hell I'm gonna crawl through there!"
A deep rumbling announced the collapse of the tunnel behind her.
Sighing she pulled thin bar out of the rubble and set about ripping the panel off.
"At least I'm not crawling through a damn vent like they do in all those pre-impact spy movies…" she grumbled as she set about crawling through the small maintenance passage.
(Page Break)
Ritsuko groaned as she plopped down in the vacant chair before the now inactive computer consoles, frustrated at the lack of key personnel, more specifically Misato and the pilots, Maya she would've been able to get by without, but without any of the pilots or their operations manager she was at a loss, how the hell was she supposed to fight something she couldn't see that she had no previous data on.
She turned to look at the spooked tech who'd walked over to her.
"What?" she ground out.
"It's the maintenance duct ma'am, we can't be sure but we think one of the pilots may be trying to reach us through it." The young tech replied, either ignorant of her exasperated tone or he'd been expecting it, and considering the last one had been nearly pounced on she suspected it was the latter.
Ritsuko nearly strangled him where he stood. "And why are you stood here talking to me?" she paused to take a deep cleansing breath. "Sorry, I'm just a little stressed; you have sent someone in to try and find out haven't you?"
The tech nodded once before he walked off again, one of the others waving him over towards the open hatch, a head of almost glowing red hair poking out of it.
(Page Break)
Asuka took the offered hand and stepped out of the maintenance duct, brushing off some of the dirt that had clumped together on her once sunny yellow t-shirt and her faded blue jeans.
She looked around wearily before her red rimmed eyes came to rest on a familiar lab-coated form.
"Souryu reporting ma'am."
(Page Break)
Shigeru grunted as he pulled in time with the rest of his group, consisting of the strongest men they could find to help manually prep Eva Unit 02 for launch.
What they were doing was simple enough, pull the entry plug hatch open using a set of pulleys, the hard part had been attaching them in the first place, that hadn't been fun.
"Hatch is open; all we need now is the pilot." Shigeru looked over at the stone faced commander who had been leading the efforts to manually prepare the unit, his normal jacket having been discarded, left over the railings whilst he worked up a sweat with the rest of the men there, all the while organising the efforts.
"Sir, Pilot Souryu has just arrived! She's on her way to suit up now!"
"Get her back here now! We've not got time to waste for her to dress up in that useless suit." The tech nodded before running off to fetch the only available pilot to her unit, and send her off as quickly as possible.
(Page Break)
Asuka grumbled as she shifted in the LCL saturated plug, her jeans sticking uncomfortably against her skin as she tried to focus on getting to the surface, climbing up one of the launch shafts they usually used took longer than she'd thought it would, even now she was finally approaching the last hatch she thought of how much faster it would've been for her if the electromagnetic rails had been working.
Pulling herself up through the now destroyed final hatch she slid the rifle they'd told her to pick up from Unit 01's rail restraints, it being the standard armament for its deployment whilst hers was a much simpler progressive spear, like the one she had used against the seventh Angel when it attacked.
Tucking the rifle into her shoulder she expanded her AT field, just as she had been trained to do so until it was almost second nature to her, taking a rough aim at the spider like Angel she yanked the trigger and held it, struggling to keep the rifle aimed at the Angel she grunted, before releasing the trigger as the weapon let out a loud click, the clip empty.
She let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding when the Angel's spider like form collapsed, its body dropping down the shaft it'd been using to try and invade NERV.
She turned around and began to climb back down the launch shaft, idly wondering if she'd even get so much as a 'good job' for killing the Angel this time.
(Page Break)
Shinji blinked as he felt the elevator slowly rumble into life, continuing on its accent as it had been before the power went out. Shifting slightly he sighed as he noticed the tight embrace the warm body wrapped around him had entangled him in.
"Maya-san, time to wake up, we're moving again."
Maya groaned as she shifted, pulling herself flush against the warm body wrapped around her.
"Maya-san, Maya-san…" Shinji called to her for a few more moments before she cracked her sleep weary eyes, idly letting her jacket fall off to one side, revealing her bra clad form, her shirt having been discarded not long after the elevator had stopped, forgoing modesty for the sake of keeping cool, much as Shinji had, only he was sat in his jeans, everything else having been discarded and used as a pillow so he could get as comfortable as possible given the situation.
"We're moving again, looks like the power's back up." He felt Maya nod against his chest before she sat up and pulled her jacket back on, absently forgetting to pull her shirt back on underneath it.
Ding
Ritsuko blinked as the doors opened, revealing a pair of half-naked bodies.
"Sorry, did I interrupt something?"
(Page Break)
Two weeks later Asuka found herself blinking as she watched Shinji, she'd originally come in to tell him to turn his music down, or at least put something worth listening to on, this western pre-impact stuff was just downright screwed up.
"Fifty." With no further ad due he rolled onto his stomach, throwing his arms out to his sides as he began to repeatedly push himself off the ground, lowering himself before repeating the movement, calling out how many reps he'd done as he did so.
"Shinji!" she shouted, gleaning no response from the focused youth, she tried again.
"Shinji!" Once again she gained no response, the young man was either too wrapped up in the motion or he was ignoring her.
She felt the apartment's front door slam closed, meaning that her guardian was home, hopefully that would mean he'd turn the music down finally.
Misato poked her head around the door to Shinji's room, her head bobbing along to the beat, sending him a smile as she walked past him to his stereo she turned the volume up before waiting for him to finish his press-ups and help her with her own exercises.
Asuka's groan was drowned out by the volume as she slumped off.
(Page Break)
Maya smiled as she noticed the new addition to their small group, both she and Shigeru had managed to convince Ritsuko that they needed some more free time, or at least enough time to keep reasonably healthy, whilst originally they'd would've just used the time to work out in the base's Gym, they'd managed to get a sort of semi-formal group together, with a fair number of people working for NERV having learned some sort of Martial art, they'd managed to 'convince' the powers that be to give them the funding to buy the kit they'd need, as neither of them wanted a repeat of the last time anyone had not used any.
Misato looked around nervously, trying to forget the last time she'd been to any sort of fitness club; at least she knew some of the people here, she'd yet to decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing yet.
Now where was Shinji? If he wasn't here at least she might get some peace at home, but then that wouldn't matter if Maya or one of the other techs mentioned this to him.
"Captain Katsuragi report to Briefing Room one ASAP."
Misato frowned at the sudden save, while she'd been having second thoughts, this sounded like the prelude to another Angel attack.
(Page Break)
"So it's an Angel? And it's dropping parts of itself whilst it adjusts its aim?"
Ritsuko nodded.
"And we haven't got anything strong enough to blow it out of the sky?"
Another nod.
"So what are we going to do then? Catch it?"
Ritsuko looked at Misato with a raised eyebrow before shaking her head.
"That's insane. We need to order the evacuation from the city; we can always relocate to another base."
"In less than twelve hours? Are you fucking crazy? We'd lose everything excluding one maybe two of the Eva's!"
"Two Eva's would be better than losing all of them on some half-baked idea like that! Even the Magi recommend complete withdrawal from everywhere within a fifty kilometre radius."
"We'll work out the details later, right now we need to issue a D-17 and evacuate all civilians and non-essential personnel."
Ritsuko nodded once again before leaving the room.
'What a time for both the commander and sub-commander to be missing…'
(Page Break)
"I've called you here because there's another Angel." The assembled trio stared stoically at her, blinking in eerie union. "Right, the problem is it's attacking by dropping parts of its body from just inside the atmosphere, we calculate that when it reaches here it'll launch a full scale attack using its entire body; the blast radius will be huge, the Magi recommended we evacuate to outside fifty kilometres."
"And we're here for what?"
"You're here because I have a mission plan; however, due to the circumstances you aren't required to participate. The plan is to catch the Angel as it falls using the Evas and neutralize it."
She blinked when Asuka burst out into laughter.
"So we're to catch the Angel as it falls and kill it."
Misato looked at Shinji's cold features as he smirked. "Yeah."
"Sounds fun."
"I will also pilot."
"What the hell, if these two are going through with a half-baked idea like this then what have I got to lose?"
Shinji turned to look at Asuka. "It's not a half-baked plan."
"So what is it then? Because if it were any crazier we'd have to get Misato here committed."
"It's all baked."
(Page Break)
Shinji sighed as he lay back onto the standard issue bunk in the NERV barracks located inside the Geofront, folding his hands behind his head he closed his eyes as he tried to imagine he was back in Maya's apartment in Okinawa, with her snuggled up against him after they'd stayed up to watch some late night film.
His eyes snapped open as he rocked forwards, half-leaping half-rolling out of the bunk before he headed towards the nearby gym to take his mind off his next mission.
His mind absently recalled the shocked look on Misato's face when he laughed at the mention of writing a will as he threw a starting jab, setting the ceiling mounted punch bag rocking as he launched himself into a long combo of moves. 'Sure, I don't need one when I'm climbing in and there's likely to be someone to actually get anything I leave behind but when there's not gonna be anything left if I screw up then they tell me to write one, idiots…'
He weaved as he brought his jab back into his guard before throwing a powerful right cross at the bag, rocking it violently on its chains.
"Great, I really need to start using heavier weights; I can barely feel these…must be all that time in Eva…" Shinji scowled for a moment before twisting into a spinning hook kick that yanked one of the weak links apart, unnoticed as he twisted again and slammed his knee into the bag at stomach height, completely destroying its momentum.
Scowl still in place he stalked off towards the pilots changing rooms, in the hope of getting a nice relaxing shower.
(Page Break)
Maya stared listlessly out the train window, her empty eyes distant and detached.
'Why Shinji? Why did you send me away?' Maya mentally begged, trying to give into herself and believe that everything would be alright, that Shinji wouldn't leave her like everyone else did, like father did.
Maya shivered when she felt a pair of warm arms wrap a heavy coat around her, letting her snuggle into its warmth for comfort.
"Worrying about him again?" Maya nodded as she brought her formally empty gaze onto the speaker, finding a certain blond masseur giving her a sympathetic look. "He'll be fine, remember what happened with the fifth? We all thought that shot was going to kill him and he managed to come out of that one just fine. And there's three of them this time."
"I know."
(Page Break)
Shinji scowled as he looked at the projected map, trying to figure out how the hell he was supposed to get his Eva from one side of the city to the other if the Angel dropped there, especially with all of the armour on the damn thing.
"No fucking way."
The entire assembled group stared at him, mouths agape.
"There is absolutely no fucking way I can get Eva to anywhere near that projected area to cover. She might be fast, but she's not that fast."
Ritsuko was the first to recover.
"So what would you suggest?"
"That you rip off as much of the armour as you can in the next six hours, because even if it lands within four kilometres it'll take me about a minute to reach it, something that size dropping from orbit ain't gonna wait that long for me to catch it."
"So, on the off chance that you do manage to catch it if we remove the armour, what's going to protect you from getting crushed to death?"
"AT field."
Ritsuko had the good grace to look embarrassed. "…Why did the kid have to be so damn perceptive…" she muttered, rubbing the bridge of her nose between two fingers.
"Is there anything else or can I go now?"
Shinji shifted from one foot to the other, anxious to leave now that his point had been made, I mean come on, how much armour does a biomech really need to catch something anyway?
With a nod from Misato Shinji turned and walked out of the room, absently noting the pair following him.
Once the elevator doors slid shut behind him he lent back against the wall.
"Can I help you two?"
(Page Break)
Ritsuko openly scowled as she stood glaring at the formerly Purple Armour-clad form of Eva Unit 01, now having been stripped down to its base breastplate, greaves and gauntlets, even the brain case had been lightened as much as possible, and to top it all off, she had no idea of its new capabilities or energy requirements, as it was now quite possible that the internal battery would last twice as long under normal circumstances, but these could hardly be called normal circumstances could they?
"Ma'am, we've finished the adjustments you ordered, however, we've no way of knowing what the combat efficiency of the unit is now; or how long the internal power will last for." Ritsuko just rubbed the bridge of her nose; the damned third just had to be so bloody practical didn't he?
"I know, I suppose we'll find out sooner or later won't we?"
(Page Break)
Misato frowned as she looked over at Shinji from her position in the observation room, he was currently sat behind one of the unoccupied computer terminals fully suited up, a small MP3 player rest on the desk, the earphones stuffed into his ears as he swayed along to whatever he was listening to.
'Doesn't he realise how important it is that he doesn't screw this up? If he fails then we'll all die! Couldn't he be prepping for launch or something, he's never done anything like this before combat!' Whilst if anyone were to ask her what was wrong she'd just brush it off, the sheer surreal manner Shinji was acting in had sent up all kinds of red flags and every single alarm bell was ringing inside her, and probably more than a few of the others as well.
Shinji's eyes snapped open as the terminal before him bleeped into life, his eyes quickly skimmed the text before he stood up and strolled out of the room, reappearing back into view moments later as he walked towards his plug, shaking the earphones free before passing the MP3 player to one of the few techs that were still on base.
He eagerly leapt into his waiting plug before it slid shut and worked itself into the spine of the Eva, the few essential armour plates folding over but still leaving very little to secure it in place if anything were to go wrong.
"Move the Eva's into position as soon as possible."
(Page Break)
Shinji twitched along to an imaginary techno beat inside his entry plug whilst he waited for the nerve clusters to finish synchronising with him, only to smirk as the beat began to play inside the plug and over one of the comm. channels as well, at least, that was the impression he got when several people let out a squeak of surprise as it played out of several sets of speakers nearby.
"Ikari here, no problems, ready to move out."
Shinji blinked as he heard a few vague terms tossed about on the other end of the link before he felt the Evangelion being steadily raised towards the surface, towards the centre of his projected area he needed to cover so that all three Evas would cover the entire city.
He lowered the Eva into a crouch as the beat began to deviate from the beat he remembered, becoming a mix of the songs he'd heard as he waited to sprint off.
(Page Break)
Asuka shifted nervously as she focused herself, making sure tat she would get every last drop of energy out of her Eva's S2 organ that she could get, she knew her Eva was the heaviest of the three, it always had been, and that would put her at a speed disadvantage compared with the others, but she'd be dammed before she admitted it.
(Page Break)
Rei's features radiated a calm that eluded both Shinji and Asuka, her almost Zen like state due to her absolute knowledge that they would not fail to catch and neutralise the falling Angel before it destroyed NERV and Tokyo III along with it.
(Page Break)
"Target at 2000 and falling. Magi guidance will cut out at 1000, Move!"
Shinji burst into motion before the power cable fully ejected, his feet pounding against the ground as he sprinted towards the Magi's directions, grateful that the buildings had all been lowered and the emergency buildings hadn't been raised.
Had he not been pouring all his power into movement and a small amount to other vital systems Shinji might have noticed that the power remaining in his internal battery began to quickly drain as he literally ran up a hill before stopping as he leapt down the other side, before returning to its previous rate as he began to sprint towards the Angel once again.
(Page Break)
"Target at 1200 and falling, Magi guidance cut in 100." Misato reported, her tone cold and business like, those three were out there to save the world, and that was what they were going to do.
Ritsuko gasped as she looked at the energy readings she was getting from Unit 01, which, unlike the other two units, were rapidly fluctuating as if Shinji were subconsciously adjusting the output to suit his needs, but surely he couldn't be doing that, could he?
(Page Break)
A loud boom popped Shinji's ears as he forced the Eva to accelerate faster towards the Angel's impact zone, the music in his ears now pulsing in time to his own heart as it raced with him.
Cutting all power Shinji locked his legs into a skid as he reached the top of the hill that the Angel was going to land on, letting out a defiant roar as he threw up a wide AT field, literally snarling as the Angel began to push against it.
Another snarl tore itself from his throat as the Angel's body finally touched his hands; his muscles bulged in response, every single muscle in his Eva's body visibly contracting against the weight, shattering the greaves and gauntlets whilst buckling the breast plate away from his body.
Blood exploded from the overstressed veins and arteries throughout his Eva, pouring out onto the ground like some macabre fountain.
His salvation came in the form of Units 00 and 02 as they reached his location, adding their AT fields to his own as they impaled the Angel onto their prog knives.
Shinji breathed out as the Angel died, collapsing his AT field as the music around him faded out, only to throw his arms around his head as the Angel's body exploded around him, turning the Eva's exposed skin into charcoal.
"Shin…" Shinji weakly pulled his head from between his knees at the panicked voice before he found the world fading out around him.
(Page Break)
Rei stared at the bed's occupant, his body jerking slightly in response to some dream, she stood further back than the room's other occupant, NERV's purple haired operations chief, Captain Misato Katsuragi, who was leaning over the bed, trying to get its single occupant to sleep peacefully, and having little success, her last attempt had him violently jerk away from her, his teeth snapping together in a bite that would've probably taken one of her fingers off if she'd not been surprised by the sudden jerk.
Rei blinked only to find the fist still planted against Misato's jaw, only to find a pair of terrified deep azure eyes staring at the sight, before following the arm down to its shoulder, his own.
Shinji let out a whimper as he crawled away across the hospital bed, almost curling up into a ball as he did so, his face hidden behind his arms.
AN: This chapter will probably get rewritten at some time, and as the current shortest chapter, has successfully turned two of the more difficult Angels in the series into foot notes. Lovely.
Omake:
A hand reached out blindly to grab for the bottle of shower gel he'd put behind him, only to come into contact with something warm and squishy.
He squeezed.
"Ah."
Shinji turned around as he rubbed the water out of his eyes with his free hand and absently squeezed again.
"Ah. Um, Shinji-kun? A little harder please."
Shinji's eyes opened in shock as he recognised the voice. "Um, Akagi-san what are you doing in here?"
"Well, I came in here for a shower, but, if such a handsome young stud such as yourself wants me to do someone else. Well…" she grinned ferally as she pressed herself up against him, idly squeezing his hands against her breasts.
Shinji blinked.
"Rits, you should be ashamed of yourself!" the duo turned to face the new speaker as she strutted across to them, also naked as the day she was born. "Trying to steal Maya's young stud like that and not sharing him with me! Shame on you!"
Shinji gulped audibly as both women started to press themselves against him, each one pinning a hand to their chest.
More than a little flustered with two beautiful, unattached women rubbing themselves against him in an arousing manner, he quickly found himself backed up against the wall.
Squirming slightly he let out a girlish squeak as the water suddenly turned icy cold.
The two amorous women jumped back with a squeal of surprise and quickly backed off so as not to get splashed by the young man who was now desperately trying to get some hot water out of the shower.
The duo looked at one another.
"Think we should get outta here before he gets pissed?"
"You go on; I'm kinda enjoying the view…"
"And what a view it is…"