Chapter 9 – Rei's Love Potion Number Nine II
Shinji came to himself in Unit-01's entry plug, his hands on the pistol-grip controls. He was comfortable, and things felt right, which was the first indicator that something was very wrong. I'm in my Eva. I should be in pain. I don't like to pilot. He felt a warm body against his, and took a deep breath. Ayanami. Her scent tickled his nostrils. She was sitting between his legs, and her hands were over his on the pistol-grip controls. He opened his eyes and caught sight of his mother standing in front of the plug seat, her arms crossed, a terrible look on her face as she glared out at the battle-site. She glanced back at him.
"Ah, good, you're up." Her face broke into a smile. "They keep complaining that I'm too brutal..." Outside, half the city was devastated, Shamshel was running into the distance (Sachiel in his arms), and Unit-01 had one of Sachiel's legs in its hands. Yui had apparently been beating the Angels senseless with it.
Obligatory Humiliating Third-Person Flashback
Sachiel watched enviously as Ramiel laid waste to the wretched city in the distance. "Brother, let me control it for a little while," he begged.
"Shut up!" Shamshel snapped, his tentacles manipulating the remote control almost maniacally. "This is personal!" He stabbed down on a button and in the distance Ramiel cut loose with its beam cannon, devastating another section of the city. "No one should have their tentacles ripped off and shoved up their a-"
"Please?? Just let me push the 'fire' button..."
And that was when the horrible purple Eva found their hiding place. The confounded machine ripped off Sachiel's leg and proceeded to beat the tar out of them with it.
End Humiliating
Shinji looked around at the ruined wasteland of Tokyo-3. Hm, this isn't good...
"Okay!" Asuka's voice over the comm. It sounded like she was struggling to keep control of the mike. "Shinji, reset things! I know how Ramiel is being controlled now!"
"What about Misato?" he asked.
"Yes-yes-you've-got-some-explaining-to-do!-But-first-save-the-city...the-precious-ruined-city!" he heard a choked sob, and knew things were bad. Misato never cried.
He reset them all to the beginning of the battle.
A blip appeared on his radar overlay as Ramiel loomed in the distance, approaching Tokyo-3.
"That dot is where the control signals are coming from!" Asuka's voice again. This time they found the two Angels before Ramiel could even get to the city limits. Sachiel saw them coming and immediately began screaming and gibbering. Shamshel let out a pitiful-sounding shriek, threw Ramiel's remote control into the air and took off running, Sachiel behind him.
Unit-01 picked up the remote control and began to trudge back to the city. Shinji was dead tired, and wondered how long he'd been resetting. Then he happened to notice that Rei's hair still had purple highlights, and he remembered the real reason why he was tired. Forty minutes of reasons. "R-Rei, it's kind of d-distracting to have you in this form." He unconsciously nuzzled her neck, and saw the corner of her lips turn up.
"But Pilot Ikari, I have nowhere to store the card." It was an excuse if he ever heard one. "Allow me to pilot if you are unable..." she offered, and against his will, his hands began to drift to her chest. She shivered.
"...do-do you need your plug suit t-to pilot?" he asked.
"No."
He stripped her out of it.
"Now where were we..." He discovered he was still wearing his own suit. She rectified that situation, then sat back down in front of him, putting her hands on the pistol-grip controls. He tried to do the same, but his arms were wrapped around her stomach, and refused to obey his orders.
"Ayanami," he murmured into her neck helplessly. "Pay attention to me."
"I must pilot," she said as she shivered. "You pay attention to me." He decided that this wasn't very fair, and so with a monumental effort he brought an arm up, grasped her chin, and turned it so she was forced to look in his eyes.
"Wh-what are you doing, P-Pilot Ikar- Pilot- Pilot Ik-" her cheeks went lavender as she tried to resist his entrancing eyes.
"You can say my name, you know," he said, also struggling to keep control. Her 'make-up' was still perfect somehow, and he couldn't tear his gaze from her perfectly decorated eyes.
"Sh-Shin-Shinj-" Apparently she couldn't say that either. Their lips touched, and he swore he heard the crackle of electricity as she went crazy in his arms.
When next he came to himself, she was facing him in the seat, her arms and legs wrapped around him, their foreheads touching. "Th-this may... hurt later," she warned him. He could do no more than nod. He heard Yui giggle and titter in the background. She was apparently driving the Eva now, and she took the long way back to the city.
Another Rei opened her eyes in the Reiquarium.
He opened his eyes to find Rei in his arms, the both of them in his futon in Misato's apartment. The young pilot was no longer in 'Love Potion' form, for which he was at the same time grateful and disappointed. He resolved to be kinder to all the girls, now that he knew just a taste of what they went through constantly. Misato poked her head in the door.
"Oh-good-the-love-birds-are-up-hehehehehehehe!"
This could be bad in so many ways, thought Shinji.
Fortunately, it was not. Or atleast not very. After all, if everything were perfect, there would be no story.
In Post-Third-Impact, there was much arguing and discord (not discordianism, the story contains enough of that already).
"Miss Misato told us how your Eva kept going berserk," Hikari said, looking at Shinji and Rei with both pity and perhaps a little bit of wanting it. Asuka and Mana looked distrustingly at the two of them, with absolutely no pity and a whole bunch of wanting it. Shinji, that is, not Rei. The girls did not swing that way (yet?).
Your hair was different, Mana wanted to say, but she wasn't quite sure. The LCL could have obscured things, and made Rei's hair seem different. Asuka fumed in silence, almost preferring not to know for sure what had happened. She couldn't glare at Shinji because if she did she would want him more, and she couldn't glare at Rei because she didn't know how to handle the girl's content expression. Finally, she took the 'spoiled girl' route, and stole enough glances at the boy to get her cheeks flushed, then said in a shaky voice,
"I-I want my artifact, Third."
Shinji nodded and materialized Kamo, who apparently was in the middle of 'something.'
"...yes, yes, take it all off-AAAH!" the ermine's fur stood on end as it tried to regain its bearings. Hikari blushed and almost reached for her stun baton, but Mana stopped her ("you'll kill the poor creature." "No I won't, the baton's got varied power levels. I'm learning more about it." "Look, we already knew the creature was perverted..." and so the conversation went). Asuka grabbed the rat and tossed it into the sand.
"Draw." The rat drew. Asuka put her arms around the boy's neck, looked him in the eye until she was shivering, and then attached herself to him like a leech. Rei tilted her head to the side, trying to pick up the girl's technique, and Shinji frantically waved her off, thanking his lucky stars that it was not Asuka who had gotten the Love Potion card. Death-by-lovemaking, while sounding all nice and happy, is most probably not all that great. Shinji's hand must have accidentally brushed through her hair, because the redhead lost it very sloppily. Wrapping her legs around the boy's chest with enough force to nearly crack a rib, she began mewling noises into his mouth that sounded like an angry beaver. Asuka's card had been resting on her bangs for the last minute or so, and Mana took the opportunity to practice her guitar. She practiced it all over the redhead, who reluctantly released Shinji.
Panting heavily, Asuka glanced at her card with what she hoped was a nonchalant expression. Her face lit up before she could regain full control of her faculties, but she quickly schooled her features back to the usual bored/dangerous look. "...pshh, whatever," she said over her shoulder. Shinji got more happiness from that 'pshh, whatever' than he did from the multitudes of praise he had gotten in the original time-line whenever he killed an Angel.
The card showed a stunning picture of Asuka in her red plug-suit, one fist slammed up against the other palm, with a very wrathful look on her beautiful features. Above the picture were the words 'A10 Clips of Doom and Angst' with little arrows pointing to the clips on the girl's head. The card 'poofed' and Asuka stripped off her old clips, tossing them over her shoulder without a second thought. Indeed, each A10 clip had 'doom' printed on one side and 'angst' printed on the other. Thereafter, Asuka almost always wore the clips in the 'doom' position.
Misato vibrated over, picked up the dropped A10 clips (knowing how much they were worth, and how underfunded NERV was), and then proceeded to put Shinji's mind at ease. "Don't-worry-about-the-resets-I-trust-you-Shin-chan!-by-the-way-nice-harem-but-I'm-going-to-be-screwing-Kaji-hope-you-don't-mind-you're-just-not-my-type." Shinji nodded, hoping the other girls had not picked up on the word 'harem.' Just because something is true doesn't mean it should be shouted from the rooftops, and the three girls who might be offended also had potential to cause him great amounts of pain, each in their own way. He had doubted Misato was vulnerable to his Charm, and that could be for any number of reasons. The actual reason is quite arcane and-(Mana begins waling on author with guitar screaming "dammit, no infodumps! You'll ruin the plot!" (hehe there's a plot? -ouch- stoppit mana)).
While Asuka was putting on her Doom Clips, Hikari and Mana took Rei aside, ostensibly to make small talk (with Rei? Meh) but in reality to take a closer look at her hair ("and I swear she was wearing make-up!" Hikari whispered to Mana, who returned a disbelieving stare. The girl had just come from over an hour of soaking in LCL, so make-up seemed like an impossibility). During this time, Misato quietly vibrated over to Shinji and with a wink told him that if he crossed her she would tell the girls what he and Rei had been doing for forty minutes in that entry plug. He paled, and nodded. She smiled and vibrated. Everybody was happy (sort of).
Author's Notes: Pyro – more Rei waff. Love Potion Rei (sheds a tear)
glAssbOy – indeed. Soon Asuka shall receive her Evangelion and become more powerful than one could ever imagine. Oops, did I say that out loud? (heck, it's not like it's a secret) Prepare for a Mr. T beatdown.
