As Shinji spread butter on his toast, dressed in crisp new uniform with his book bag filled with all of the things he would need for the day, it was handy for Kaji to get him a copy of his timetable other wise he wouldn't have a clue.

Noticing that Misato isn't up yet, he goes to her room and begins to knock on her door,he can hear Misato stirring from beyond the door. He opens the door seeing Misato lying on her futon covering her head with her blanket.

"Umm Misato, its morning time to get up"

"Actually Shinji-kun I just to sleep a few hours ago, an its my day off so I think I am going to sleep just a little longer Shinji-kun"

"Ok then I will going to school now" Shinji goes to close the door, however Misatos hand waving in the air catches his attention.

"By the way Shinji, after school Ritsuko wants to take you through a few training drills in preparation for the next angel attack"

"Ok Misato, I will be there as soon as I can after school"

"Have a good day at school Shinji-kun"

Shinji takes out some of the rubbish from the party before, most of which was in the recycle bin to be taken to the deposit to be lifted to be recycled later in the day.

The morning sun was baring down on the streets of Tokyo-3 as Shinji made his way to the Tokyo-3 public school. From what he knew it was the closest school to the apartment, guess he wouldn't be able to use "the train was late" as an excuse to miss school.

After a brief 20 minutes walk, Shinji followed the insturction left by Kaji to go to reception, meet the school principal and then he would introduced to his designated class.

"Ummm excuse me Miss, my name is Shinji Ikari and this is my first day"

A blonde woman in her late 40's looked over the desk, her face was quite greasy, even worse than the teenagers who got part-time jobs in Mc Donalds, her cause was probably not taking care of herself as she should, or too much greasy food.

"Yes Mr Ikari, we are all well aware of your arrival today, its not every day that NERV demand the immediate enrolment of a student" Her words were full of annoyance, not to him but more about the situation

"Oh I am sorry about that..."

"Yes well its too late for that now isn't it?" she proceeds to glare over the desk to the young man, "Well follow me to be principals office and then we shall get to class"

Shinji follows the woman pass a wooden door, walking down a long hall the floor of which appears to have been recently washed and polished. He notices several paints on the wall, probably previous principals or members on the board of directors.

The receptionist opens the door ushering Shinji inwards, he spots and elderly man sitting in a large leather chair at what appears to be an old mahogany desk with several thousand leather back books, on a large book shelf.

His hair is black but has proceeded to grey at the temples, with a dark blue pin stripe suit which is obviously off the hanger of a department store as it appears to be too loose around the shoulders and a little long in the arms.

"Ah Mr Ikari so nice for you to join us, and punctual to, I like that in a student"

"Umm thank you sir"

"Well I hope you will keep your nose clean and not make any trouble here Mr Ikari, now if you will excuse me I have a busy day ahead of me, and you should be in class"

"Ah- excuse me sir" Shinji turns an exits the office door, were he is greeted by a young woman approximately around his own age. She is dress in the school uniform which is neat and presentable, he has dark brown hair which comes down to her delicate shoulders which she wears in pigtails, deep dark eyes which hide an unexpressed passion and possibly her cutest feature was the freckles on her cheeks just under her eyes.

"Hello Mr Ikari, my name is Hikari Horkai an I am the class rep for the class 2-A" She says with a pleasantly cute smile

"Err.... Hello Miss Horkai, could you not call me Mr Ikari, when you say it, I think that my father is standing behind me instead call me Shinji" He says with an amused smile on his face as he extends his right arm as a gesture of greeting

Wow where did that come from? It sounded something Kaji would say

Meanwhile Hikari was amused at Shinjis quick response an didn't hesitate to let out a brief giggle which again Shinji thought was very cute. She accepts his handshake even if it is a little limp for a boy.

"Well Mr... I mean Shinji, if you would please follow me I will guide you to the home room"

"Ok lead the way Hikari"

While on the way, all Shinji could think about of how out of character it was for him to say something like that, it was more like something Kaji would say. Then it dawned on him, it was his first day at school an here he was relaxed, until he remembered it was first day an then all of his nerves began to wash over him.

He felt his hands grow cold and sweaty as well as his heart begin to beat fast an catch in his throat, oh how he wished he could just take it all back an return to being Mr Cool like he was earlier. He followed the class rep into the class room designated 2-A. Shinji saw that the sensi was ready to being the lesson, as he looked around the room noticing all of the usual clicks, the jocks, the nerds, the musicians, the manga fan boys, the popular kids, the not-so popular kids... Just like my old school I guess some things never change.

"Well class, it looks like we have a new student with us today, why don't you introduce yourself young man"

"Hello everyone, my name is Shinji Ikari, but please call me Shinji" he said with an awkward, nervous smile

"Well Shinji, you can sit in any vacant seat, now class please excuse me for a few minutes an please turn to page 43 and look over exercise C, Miss Hokari you are in charge"

Shinji made is way towards the back of the class, noticing the same girl he met at NERV sitting by one of the seats next the window staring out to the school yard. The class rep also made her way to the back of the class, specifically towards a boy with glasses and light brown hair.

"Whats up class rep?"

"Did you deliver the print out I gave you yesterday?" Her voice stern, but with a little hint of concern

"What!... well I erm...there wasn't anyone home over at Toji's place" He quickly tries to hide the print out under his desk as well as averting his eyes from the class rep

"Mr Aida aren't you Suzaharas friend?"

Aida lets out a small uncomfortable groan

"Aren't you even just a little bit worried about him?"

"You don't suppose he was injured do you?" His mind filling with possible scenarios on his friend has been injured during the mecha battle from the previous night.

"What you mean in the robot incident? But the television reports said that no one injured"

"No way, you saw the sight of the explosion up in the mountain was didn't you? There were fighters scrambled from everywhere"

Just then the door to class room opened by a tall athletic boy, with a serious look on his face.. only instead of being dressed in the normal school uniform he was wearing the gym kit permitted by the school as an alternative.

"Suzahara?" Gasps the school rep, glad to see that he is ok and slightly annoyed that he has shown up to school 15 minutes late.

The tall young man made his way towards the seat adjacent to his friend Aida, placing his bag on the desk before sitting on Kensukes

"So where is the rest of our class? Or did everyone decide to disappear or something?"

"Alot of people have either evacuated the city or transferred to other schools"

"Guess you must be excited, getting a chance to see an actual war?"

"Yeah, hey why have you been off so much? You didn't drafted did you?"

"No Kensuke I didn't my family was close to the battle the other day and we need to take care of a few things. By the way who is the new guy?"

"Oh him, I think his name is Shinji, just transferred here, hey do you think that maybe he is the pilot of the giant robot?"

"What are crazy? He looks just like a normal guy and besides its only in those bad manga comics you read that they make kids the pilots of top secret robots, now come on get back to reality"

"Well what do you suggest we do?"

"You know Kensuke you are so anti-social"

Toji gets up and walks over to Shinjis desk, putting his hand on the desk to get Shinjis attention. Shinji was sitting reading a book with his earphones listening to SDAT. Shinji lift his head up and pulls out his ear phones.

"Hey you are Shinji right?"

"Er.. yeah"

"Hi how you doing my name is Toji Suzahara and this is my partner in crime Kensuke Aida"

"Oh nice to meet you guys!"

The sensei then entered the room again, the class rep commanded the students to stand bow and sit. The teacher then went through explaining all of the details on how to answer the questions from the exercise which he had given the student so complete before his departure.

There wasn't much to the rest of the day, Shinji went to class, at break an lunch he hung out with Toji and Aida. He didn't want to be awkward an impose on the guys however they had insisted that he joined them, then even exchanged numbers so that they could arrange to hang out after school and the weekends.

After school Shinji remembered he was scheduled for some training exercises with Ritsuko, he went to the male changing rooms and changed from his school uniform and dressed and changed into his plug suit. Pressing the button on his left wrist causing the fabric to contract to hug on to his skinny frame.

Looking at himself in the mirror Shinji thinks Oh man, I need to get to the gym.... I am so skinny

Later Shinji is in the simulator repeating the battle with the third angel which NERV had designated as Sachiel. He had been in there for 20 minutes and had been failing to hit the target

In the observation lounge Maya and Ritsuko wear watching the third childs action as well as monitoring his sync ratio. His new confidence with even had caused the sync ratio to raise by 10%, but it was obvious that he had no previous combat training.

"Look Shinji, just think of it as a video game... wait till the cross hairs align on the target and then pull the trigger"

"Ok I will try that"

The simulation level was then restarted, an Shinji took on Ritsukos advice by repeating the mantra, cross hairs align, pull the trigger... cross hairs align, pull the trigger. The scientist and technition watched on as Shinji repeated to shoot down the angel, next they then went through some hand to hand combat simulations as well as ammo runs to familiarize Shinji with all of the various weapon, ammo and umblical cord locations.

It was late when Shinji, had gotten home from NERV, Shinji had used the breaks between simulations to complete his homework, and had been glad that Misato and Ritusko had thought it was best to order in pizza. Shinji had had his favourite a large pizza with chicken pieces as well as extra cheese and pepproni.

Shinji decided that the best course of action would be to just make his lunch and pack his book bag with all of the books that he would need for the next day. Looking at his timetable he noticed that he had PE for the last 2 periods before lunch.

Authors Note:

So Shinjis first day of school has come and gone, he has made some new friends and has even went through some EVA boot camp.

I know two chapters in under 24 hours, I wouldn't get use to it though, for those who have taken the time to review this story I thank you.