Alright everyone's, laptop's down, but getting the replacement part soon, it's in the mail. Still typing at a much slower pace in the family PC, and I have buffer for my bestest buddy Varanus to beta. This guy even tracked down a site that (badly) transcribed the Eva episodes, so I can still write while unable to load videos! Give him a big hand!
WWDW, it's the first season costumes.
Aoirann, thanks for reminding me. Bulk and Skull shall make their appearence in their own way.
-}+{-
September 2004
"This is a game we call 'Ring The Bell'." Chief Mendez told the cadets in the playground. "Your mission is simple. There are many routes to the bell, and you can take any one you like. You win when each member of your unit rings the bell. Are there any questions?"
Shinji looked at the wooden obstacle course. Many of the routes were impossible for a single child.
So after all the exercise of their body and endurance, now they're going to exercise their teamwork?
The boy behind Shinji raised his hand.
"117." Chief Mendez noted. "What is it?"
The boy lowered his hand. "Sir, what do we win?"
Shinji turned to look at the boy as the Chief smirked at the child's gall. "An excellent question cadet. You win dinner. Sergeant Manaka?"
A short-haired Japanese man saluted. "Sir. On the menu tonight is roast beef, gravy, Yorkshire puddings, mashed potatoes and Swedes, with broccoli and carrots. For desert there is raspberry-ripple ice-cream."
Shinji turned to the sergeant in shock- he'd never had such a feast since his birthday.
In fact, as most of these children had been born just before or just after second impact, most had only heard of meat, much less tasted it.
"That sounds delicious." Chief Mendez noted, before turning to the children. "Of course, for there to be winners, there must also be losers. The last Unit to ring the bell will have water and crackers for their supper."
Shinji looked at his Unit. These two looked strong. They'd look after him.
Of course, he wouldn't let them down either.
"On my mark!" Chief Mendez shouted. "Get set… GO!"
Shinji was pushed over by a boy in Unit 02 and fell behind the crowd.
The girl, 087, turned around to help him up. "Are you okay?" she asked.
"Yeah…" Shinji said, wiping mud from his face. "Come on, let's go!"
RING
Shinji and the girl looked up to see their teammate, 117, ringing the bell, pushing all the other kids away.
"I did it!" he shouted, jumping off the climbing frame and running to Chief Mendez with a huge grin on his face. "I won!"
Mendez just nodded, making a mark on his clip board.
"Let's hurry." The girl told Shinji.
087 was fast for her age, but she didn't let Shinji get behind her.
It was almost like she refused to abandon him, even though she could have done it much better on her own.
She and Shinji were the last two cadets to ring the bell.
"Congratulations cadets." Mendez told them all. "You've earned your meal. Everyone except Unit 01, follow Sergeant Manaka to the mess hall."
"WHAT?" the blonde-haired 117 shouted. "But I won!"
Mendez glared at him.
"You were first." The Chief told the boy. "Your team lost. Personal victory is meaningless if you leave your team behind."
Shinji would have cried.
He wanted to cry.
But he was too tired.
117 glared at Shinji, blaming him for his loss.
Shinji just drank the water in silence, munching on the crackers that only made him hungrier.
2015
"Killing the angel is our top priority!" Ritsuko barked at Misato.
"Those kids do not need to die!" Misato shouted. "The Dragonzord shifts its footing at all and they'll either be crushed or torn apart by the damned angel!"
"And what about all those people inside the shelters?" Ritsuko shouted back. "Do you want them to die either?"
"Man, you military types…" The Black Ranger sighed, taking the comm. link. "You always think in Yes or No, you never compromise."
"WHAT?"
"Listen Shinji." Takenaka told the Green Ranger. "You've got two options in front of you. As a soldier, you let your classmates die and stop the angel. As a human being, you let the kids escape, get your ass kicked by the angel, maybe hurt it if you're lucky."
He reached for a pack of smoked that wasn't there. "But you're not a soldier or a human right now." He said, abandoning his futile search. "You're a Power Ranger, a Super Sentai, you get that?" he asked. "We heroes aren't allowed to choose between the mission and saving lives. We have a third option available to us."
_\_ "I will not surrender." _\_ Shinji Ikari snarled.
Takenaka grinned behind the mask. "So you've taken the third option." He said. "Kill the angel, save the kids, and pull off some crazy shit while you're at it."
He leant back in a chair. "Now I'm gonna tell you how."
Shinji nodded, cutting the communications link.
It was a risky plan, but it was a good one.
He reached for the wall and grabbed the Power Axe that the Mastodon had left him, then leapt from the cockpit.
"AIDA!" The Green Ranger shouted, tossing down the Dragon Dagger. "Play the notes I tell you to! Toji, carry him the hell outta here!"
He didn't look at the two boys, trusting in them as Takenaka told him to.
Instead, he recited the short melody that had to be played on the Dragon Dagger in order to keep it going without a pilot, the ordered Aida to keep playing it over and over again.
Then, with the Black Ranger's axe in hand, the Green Ranger jumped from the Dragonzord and towards the angel.
"TAKENAKA, YOU ARE INSANE!" Ritsuko screeched.
"Swiiiish." Takenaka replied, turning in his chair to face her, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees and hiding the helmet's mouth behind his interlocked fingers, much like their absent commander. "Your lack of faith disturbs me, Ritski."
She backed-stepped in sheer shock as the Black Ranger span in his chair to face the monitor.
"Swish. Kick some ass kiddo."
The Power Axe embedded itself into the angel's core, dragging a chasm through the red stone as Shinji tried to slow his descent.
The angel screamed, but Shinji managed to secure a position in the angel's core. He twisted his body to jam his feet on either side of the core's wound as he twisted the Power Axe around and rammed the muzzle on the base of the axe's handle into the crack.
He pumped the handle once, as Takenaka instructed, and fired.
The blast opened up a sizeable hole in the massive core.
Shinji fell as the angel screamed, but the Masto-Dragonzord held it fast. Shinji rolled in the air and landed on the Dragonzord's leg, running up its body as he fired wildly at the angel again and again until he was high enough to jump off the Dragonzord's body and back onto the top of the angel's core.
He fired massive holes into the red core as the angel screamed and writhed, but Shinji held his place as he dug his way through the glowing red stone.
The Power Axe's blaster form was a powerful weapon if you could get close enough to use it.
He worked like a miner- digging through the stone with ruthless efficiency, no matter how much the angel round him writhed and tried to throw him out.
He blasted another hole, and the angel screamed, much more pained than before, but it stopped as the glow around Shinji died.
The angel's corpse rolled through the air as it fell to the ground.
Aida stopped playing as the Green Ranger hopped out of the alien's power source.
The Green Ranger walked up to him.
"S-Shinji…" Toji gasped.
The Green Ranger took the Dragon Dagger from Aida's hands. "Thank you for your help." He told him whole heartedly. "You'd best return to the shelter."
Shinji was in trouble.
He knew he was.
He almost abandoned the mission.
Once he returned to NERV, he was placed in a cell while they figured out what to do.
Technically, he hadn't done anything wrong, and Misato demanded to know why he was in a cell.
"It's not locked." The guard told her. "He just walked in there on his own, like he thinks he deserves to be punished."
Misato dragged him out of there and demanded an explanation for his actions.
Shinji began to debrief her on his actions during the mission, but that wasn't what she was asking for.
Shinji had performed admirably during the mission.
Why the hell was he punishing himself?
Gendo smiled once he heard the news in the jet.
"He defeated another angel." Kozo Fuyutsuki noted. "But that was only to be expected, wasn't it?"
Gendo placed the phone back on the hook. "Everything is falling to place." He said. "How is the first child?"
"The Red Ranger's preparing for shipment." Fuyutsuki reported. "The Tyrannosaurus will be able to take part in the battle against the sixth angel."
Gendo nodded.
"Send Berlin a report concerning the Green Ranger's battle prowess." Ikari said. "Both inside and outside the Dragonzord."
Fuyutsuki raised an eyebrow. "You're adapting the scenario." He said.
"Shinji was better trained than I previously anticipated." Gendo explained. "The Red Ranger, however, is exceptionally proud and incredibly competitive. She should keep the boy distracted in case he comes across too much free time."
"You think he would turn against us?"
"He's incredibly loyal." Gendo told his vice-commander. "But he will not tolerate those who betray that loyalty."
"So he's a bomb that we don't want to defuse." Fuyutsuki sighed.
"That's the Red Ranger." Gendo corrected. "The Green Ranger is a bomb technician we want to keep busy. Defusing Asuka will be less of a loss than creating a fuse for Rei."
Fuyutsuki shuddered at the thought.
Between a calm Asuka and an angry Rei, he knew which one he would rather deal with.
Besides, there is still America's Zord's to fall back on, now that the Second Child had been found.
Sixth Child- Green Ranger. Dragonzord.
Fifth Child- Black Ranger. Mastodon.
Third Child- Blue Ranger. Triceratops.
Second Child- Yellow Ranger. Sabre-Toothed Tiger.
First Child- Red Ranger. Tyrannosaurus.
Why no Fourth Child?
"Oh, that's Hyuuga." Takenaka told Shinji when he asked the question one day in one of the NERV staff canteens, patting the shoulder of the bespectacled as he sat down next to them. "He's the Pink Ranger. We trained him wrong on purpose as a joke, so now he's a Bridge Bunny."
"Yeah, and my Zord's a pterodactyl." Makoto Hyuuga sighed. "Very funny."
"So, what's the real reason?" Shinji asked with a slight grin. While his own attempts at humour were often flawed, he did enjoy other people's jokes.
"Well, America built the pterodactyl." Hyuuga explained. "And there is a Ranger Coin for it, but we couldn't find a user for it, so we abandoned that project."
Shinji furrowed his brow. "It's not like that." Hyuuga laughed, sheepishly. "The Zord itself is incredibly unsuited for battle, so we're not losing much in the name of resources until we try to make a Megazord.
"A Megazord?" Shinji asked.
"Well, you know that if the Dragonzord were to combine with the Mastodon, the Triceratops and the Sabre-Toothed Tiger, it becomes the Dragonzord Battle Mode?" Hyuuga asked him. "Well, if the Tyrannosaurus is also capable of forming the body as well as the Dragonzord, but it requires the Pterodactyl to form the chest plate in order to become the Megazord." He shrugged. "That's how useless the pterodactyl is; the most useful thing it can do is carry one person through the air like an oversized fighter jet, or become a chest plate. So we gave it enough funding to make it remote controlled in order to form the Megazord, but there's no Pink Ranger for it."
"Besides," Takenaka shrugged. "Who wants to be the country with the Pink Ranger as its claim to fame on an international level?" he asked. "I mean, sure, if all six of us were gathered in one city, then it wouldn't be so bad, but at least the Black or the Red Ranger can be a hero on their own."
"I suppose so." Shinji sighed, hoping for more men to use.
"So, when are you going to go back to school?" Takenaka asked Shinji, pointing a fork at him. "Your friends are worried about you."
"My friends?" Shinji asked.
"Yeah, Toji and Kensuke." Takenaka told him. "Plus Horaki's been on my case about you skiving."
"Y-yeah…" Shinji replied. "Sure…"
Five days after the Angel attack, Misato found a note from Shinji on his desk.
With the communicator and the Power Morpher.
- Don't look for me. I'll come back on my own. -
Gendo Ikari got out of the jet with Fuyutsuki and strode out into the rain with his umbrella.
PFT.
Gendo's chest hurt.
Like he'd just been punched.
He looked down to see two red blotches coming through his shirt.
"IKARI!" Fuyutsuki shouted, lowering his commanders head and leading him back towards the Pterodactyl, only to be stopped. "What?"
"It's paint." Gendo stated, opening his jacket to reveal an unblemished shirt underneath. "My son is sending me a message."
Shinji packed up his paintball gun and left the rooftop.
He just 'assassinated' the most guarded man in all of Tokyo-3 without a single Snag.
The guards were easy.
Tracking Gendo down was textbook.
His aim was perfect.
Shinji was not growing sloppy.
So why was he failing?
The Chief would know.
The Chief always knew.
Shinji was determined to figure it out.
Enemy recognition. That's what he'd do.
Within the hour, the police had been dealing with a number of people complaining of a paintballing sniper targeting random people on the street.
It was a childish prank, but the police could tell that his aim always hit either vital spots or non-vitals.
This didn't sound all that impressive, until you realised that it was always a perfect hit.
Some people the shooter wanted to 'kill', some he wanted to 'disable'.
This was a military job.
Of course, it was a no-brainer to work out how many children in the city had military experience.
Especially after the prison escape that NERV covered up almost four weeks ago.
Misato slammed the phone down in rage. "Who does he think he is?" she shouted at Penpen. "First he shoots the commander with a paintball gun, now he's Paintball Charles Whitman?" she growled as she tugged on a jacket and an umbrella. "Oh, he'll be spending a night in a cell after this."
Ritsuko laughed when Misato complained that after two days of chaos, they still hadn't tracked Shinji down.
"What's so funny?" her friend demanded.
Ritsuko wiped a tear from her eye. "It's just… you've never seen that training camp, have you?"
"And you have?" Misato asked.
"I paid an annual visit to check on him for the past five years." Ritsuko told her. "Wow… has it really been so long..?"
"Ritsuko." Misato snarled.
"Oh, of course." The blonde nodded, typing away at her computer. "Here's the recording they let me bring back for Gendo last year." She brought up the video. "They're playing capture the flag."
Misato watched from two dozen camera angles as half a dozen blindfolded children in bright orange uniforms were led into a fenced off forest. "The fence is twenty feet high and electrified." Ritsuko stated. "The forest itself is thirty-feet away from the fence. There are also video cameras attached to the trees and the soldier's helmets, as you can see from the rotation of the hundred video feeds."
"Soldiers?" Misato asked. "But those kids aren't wearing helmets."
"No, Misato." Ritsuko said. "This mission involves these 'kids' taking on a dozen soldiers in power suits armed with machine guns. Blanks, of course." She added, noticing Misato's horror.
"Are they insane?" she shouted. "Even blanks can kill at point-blank range!"
"Just watch." Ritsuko said. "There's Shinji, right there."
Shinji was being led along behind a slightly taller blonde boy and a tall brunette. The other three children were being led alongside them.
"What weapons do these children have?" Misato asked.
"None." Ritsuko shouted. "When the bell rings, they can remove their blindfolds and begin. Of course, the six of them are led to completely different locations within the forest."
"That's insane…" Misato shouted. "You're saying that Shinji and his friends won? Like this?"
"Just watch." Ritsuko whispered.
A few minutes later, the bell rang.
Darkness fell.
"What?" Misato shouted.
"Now the helmet camera's are switching to heat-vision." Ritsuko explained. "Of course, all the cameras on the trees have already been taken out."
"Was that blackout-"
"We still don't know how it happened, other than someone outside the fence cut the power." Ritsuko answered. "Now here come the reserve lights."
The children were gone.
The video feeds showing static were removed, leaving only the soldiers helmet cameras.
A black-clad body burst from nowhere and struck one soldier in the throat, taking his weapon and firing point-blank into the helmet, killing the feed and concussing the soldier.
Now all the camera feeds were gone.
"Three minutes later, the children left the training area dressed in their orange uniforms, with number 117 carrying the flag." Ritsuko told a shocked Misato. "We still don't know how they got the stealth gear, and this was an unplanned mission so there was no way they could have planted another child to take out the lights, except that somehow, it did happen."
Misato was still recovering. "Shinji…"
"In the debriefing report, Shinji reported that he took out four of the soldiers." Ritsuko told Misato. "Their debriefing information was impressive even for a veteran team, but they flat out refused to take any credit for the destruction of cameras, theft of stealth gear, or damage to the lights."
"What if they didn't?" Misato asked.
"They did." Ritsuko told her. "They did the same thing on a larger scale a month later against an Al-Qaeda faction in Afghanistan."
Misato sat down. "No way…"
Ritsuko turned in her chair to face Misato. "And now that boy is on the warpath in our city." She said. "It's only paintballs for now, and I doubt that it will escalate, but the fact is that you are not in control of this situation right now."
Maya Ibuki laughed despite herself. "I'm sorry…" she apologised, turning to pass the message onto Misato. "Five of NERV's Security Intelligence agents were just found knocked out half a mile from the city. A witness said that he was sharing a meal with Ikari when the agents surrounded them."
Misato groaned.
What had she done?
Junpei Kurosawa patrolled the NERV holding cells as usual, but stopped when he head a dull thumping sound inside one of them.
Gun at the ready, he opened the door.
Shinji Ikari was bouncing a tennis ball against the wall.
"What're you doing?" Kurosawa asked.
"I was gonna get caught anyway, since everyone knew it was me." Shinji told him, catching the tennis ball and throwing it again. "Please could you go tell the Captain that I detained myself?"
Kurosawa stepped backwards, then closed the door behind him, leaving the boy in darkness.
The thudding continued.
Light entered Shinji's world.
He caught the ball and held it as Misato walked in.
"Long time no see." She told him.
"Yes." Shinji nodded, holding the ball.
"Do you feel better after raising hell these past two days?" she asked him.
"I don't know." Shinji replied honestly. "My abilities haven't deteriorated, so I haven't found why I'm not performing as I should."
She held out a tray containing his Power Morpher. "The Dragonzord is on standby." She told him. "Will you fight? Or won't you?"
"You're not going to punish me for abandoning my duties?" Shinji asked. "Rei and Takenaka have had to deal with two golems without me."
"Rei can neutralise the golem's AT-field to the point where normal weapons can kill them." Misato explained. "Right now I'm more concerned about your emotional state."
"Of course you are." Shinji smiled. "You don't want me picking up an actual gun and shooting the commander. Has he increased his security detail?"
"That's not your concern right now." Misato told him. "Are you going to remain as a Green Ranger or not?"
Shinji was silent.
Then he said the last thing she ever thought he'd say.
"I can't go back to Boot Camp can I?"
"Are you sure it's still wise to keep the boy around?" Fuyutsuki asked Ikari.
"Of course." Gendo replied. "Why do you think he used a paintball gun?"
"Because he wanted to show you what he was capable o-"
"Wrong." Gendo told him. "I'm the hardest man to assassinate in the entire city. He's losing confidence in his abilities. What better way to make sure he's still got it?"
"So, why shoot civilians?"
"To provoke a response." Gendo smirked. "The boy wanted us to come for him. He wanted to keep testing himself."
"Will he leave?"
"He's nowhere to go."
"Father won't pay for me to continue training for a task that I walked away from." Shinji told Misato. "And the Team won't ever take me back if I abandoned a mission. I've nowhere to go but here."
"Why would you want to go back there?"
Shinji looked at her like she was insane.
"I was happy there." He told her. "I had friends. I had leaders. I had challenges." He turned back to look at the wall, and smiled as he read the NERV slogan.
"God was in his heaven." He said. "All was right with the world."
"You mean your father?" Misato asked.
Shinji thought about it.
"Yes." He nodded. "Father was far away doing something important. I was there doing something important. All was right in the world."
"Don't you think this is important?" Misato asked.
"I feel like I'm not performing as I should." He said. "I'm holding the Team back."
"Shinji." Misato sighed. "You're the only one who can pilot the-"
"I KNOW THAT!" Shinji shouted. "I KNOW I'M THE ONLY ONE YOU'VE GOT!"
Misato stepped back from the outburst. "So I need to do my best…" Shinji whispered, his shoulders shaking. "I need to be my best… anything less and I'm just letting you down…"
It clicked inside Misato's head.
"You left to train?" she asked.
"I can't be dead weight…" Shinji said. "I know I'm being useful, but I'm not doing enough… I CAN DO BETTER DAMMIT!"
"Shinji…" Misato smiled, tilting her head. "You're doing enough-"
"NO I AM NOT!"
WHAM
Shinji's knuckle bled from the impact with the metal wall.
"I won my first fight through a miracle…" Shinji sobbed. "I hadn't trained with the Dragonzord yet, so that was understandable… but the second time I had arms… but I still needed help to win…"
"Shamshel was much stronger than Sachiel." Misato explained. "It's okay that it was harder than you expected-"
"What's the fifth angel going to be like?" Shinji asked.
"You know we can't predict that-"
"Oh yeah?" Shinji… giggled? "I can." He said. "It's going to be stronger. It's going to be massive. It's going to slice anything that comes too close. It'll shrug off any attack that comes close while it just waltzes into Central Dogma while I can't do shit about it!"
Misato saw it then.
He saw a boy who spent his life fighting those bigger than him with his friends.
And now he was facing the biggest enemies of his life without his friends.
Without any friends.
All alone.
Surrounded by people.
Surrounded by dead weights that want him to do more.
Because he's a hero. A miracle worker.
But outside the suit, he's just a kid.
That psycho loner kid that put whatshisface into the hospital.
I hear he drowns stray cats just to get his kicks…
She put her arms around him. "You'll do fine." She told him. "We're all here for you. We're all trying our best too."
Shinji cried.
He had a lot to let out.
Shinji woke up to the sound of his phone ringing.
Not his communicator.
The phone Misato bought for him almost three weeks ago.
He picked it up.
"Hello?"
_\_ "What the hell 108." _\_
Shinji sat bolt upright. "John?" he shouted.
_\_ "That's 117 to you." _\_ the boy on the other end barked. _\_ "Just how bad did you screw up over there that they got me to talk some sense into you?" _\_
Shinji smiled. "Sorry." He apologised. "I have no excuse. I forgot who I was."
_\_ "And who are you?" _\_
"Shinji-108." Shinji replied, his eyes set and determined.
_\_ "What is your duty?" _\_
"Fight and Win." Shinji replied. "Control the battlefield and be the best."
_\_ "What are you?" _\_
"The best."
_\_ "Do you have permission to be a little bitch about it?" _\_
"No sir." Shinji said, rubbing his face.
_\_ "WHAT WAS THAT SERGEANT-FIRST-CLASS-IKARI?" _\_
"SIR NO SIR!" Shinji saluted.
_\_ "The get out there and kick ass Spartan-108." _\_
Shinji sniffed. "Yes Sir Master Chief Petty Officer John-117!" he saluted.
Few of the other Spartans had surnames.
None of them had families, except Shinji.
_\_ "Kelly says hi." _\_ John told Shinji. _\_ "I don't have much longer, so anything you wanna tell everyone?" _\_
Shinji nodded. "Tell The Chief to put more attention on social training." He said. "I crashed and burned there."
_\_ "No, you're just a loner." _\_ John told him. _\_ "And that's Chief Warrant Officer Mendez to yo-" _\_
_\_ The time allotted for this phonecall has ended. The time allotted- _\_
Shinji hung the phone up with a smile on his face.
Time for school.
"Hey, Toji." Kensuke told his friend when they approached Shinji at school that day. "Come on, say something." He added with a push.
Toji glared at the otaku, but turned around to the soldier.
"Ikari, I'm sorry I beat the crap out of you without understanding anything." He told him. "Please hit me back."
"You know I can't do that." Shinji told him. "Under orders, remember?" And he didn't want to hospitalise another student.
"Please!" Toji shouted, bowing. "I won't feel satisfied knowing I'm in your debt otherwise."
"He's a pretty embarrassing guy, isn't he?" Kensuke laughed. "Just like I said, right? But, if it'll put an end to this dispute, go ahead and smack him one."
Shinji smiled.
He remembered when John asked Shinji to punch him.
He wasn't missing a chance like this again.
Shinji walked around him, patting him on the shoulder. "Nah." He said with a smile. "I'd prefer to have you owing me one."
"What was that?" Toji shouted, turning around. "Ikari, just punch me already!"
"What, so you can smack me around again just so I can have my change?" Shinji laughed. "Not a chance, you punch like a girl! I don't have that much time to waste!"
Toji roared. "GET BACK HERE!"
Shinji ran, laughing.
Kensuke ran after Toji, laughing his head off.
Despite the rage on his face, even Toji agreed the whole thing was pretty hilarious.
The rest of the school still stayed the hell away from him.
But Shinji had some friends he could laugh with and piss off.
School was fun.
September 2004
"Line up!" Chief Mendez shouted. "Same Units as yesterday!"
Shinji looked at the new obstacle course as Kelly and that jerk 117 stood behind him. The bell was on top of a tower, about ten feet up.
"This is a different course, but the rules are the same." Mendez shouted. "Last Unit to blow ring the bell don't eat."
Kelly pushed 117 from behind. "Don't leave us behind this time." She snarled.
Shinji glanced back at 117 as he looked at the course.
"Whose fastest out of you two?" he asked.
"Kelly." Shinji told him.
"Kelly, you see that bucket with the pulley over there?" 117 asked. "When the Chief blows his whistle, I want you to sprint there and hold that position. Us two will follow you, make sure no one else gets to it."
Kelly looked to where 117 was pointing, then nodded. "Don't you dare leave Shinji behind."
117 looked at Shinji. "Try not to slow us down." He warned him.
Shinji gulped.
The whistle blew.
Kelly flew.
She really was the fastest.
She got to the bucket way before anyone else got anywhere near.
117 held onto Shinji as they pushed their way through the mad melee towards Kelly. Since they were holding onto each other, they were slower than everyone else, and there were two other boys trying to force Kelly out of the bucket by the time Shinji got there.
Shinji pushed 117 aside and tacked the biggest boy, screaming as he punched and bit the boy. 117 punched the other one, and the two boys ran away to find another route up the tower.
"Alright." 117 told the other two. "We'll go up in the bucket one at a time." He said. "The other two will pull you up, then we'll swap around. I'll go last this time."
Shinji nodded as he grabbed the rope and began to pull Kelly up the tower.
He was hungry.
He was tired.
But he was determined.
He pulled as hard as he could.
When it was his turn to go up, he rang the bell loud and clear.
When 117 went up, both he and Kelly pulled harder than ever.
Unit 01 didn't come first.
But they certainly did not come last.
"I'm sorry." 117 told the other two after supper. "I shouldn't have let you both down last time."
"It's fine." Kelly laughed. "Let's just keep working together like earlier, yeah?"
"But…" 117 glared at the two. "I want you to hit me. We'll be even then."
"What?" Kelly asked, but Shinji jumped at the chance, ramming a fist into the other boy's face.
Shinji was short for his age, but his father was a bar brawler. He had combat instincts.
He punched 117 enough for both him and Kelly.
Afterwards, they were a real Unit.
Shinji-108, Kelly-087 and John-117.
-}+{-
I wrote the second half of this chapter to "The Freshmen" by Verve Pipe. It worked, in my opinion.
And yeah. Shinji's back-story is a lot like Halo: Fall of Reach. Makes sense since that's pretty much what his backstory is.
Still, glad to see it's still Shinji there.
Much as I like Shinji and Warhammer40k, that won't be happening here.
