Unit-01 now sat motionless within its cage, its pilot unconscious in the infirmary. Asuka was in the brig, for what sounded like the rest of her life…if she was lucky. Rei was still in her coma, and for the sake of Shinji when he woke up was now in the same room as him.

Setting down the file, Misato leaned back and stared into the ceiling. 'So we don't have a pilot until Shinji wakes up. Asuka will probably never pilot again. We all knew of the tensions between her and Rei, but what pushed her to try and kill her?' She brought up the communications log and began to skim through it. Her eye caught one part and she immediately understood

"Well, looks like I need to rethink my love for Asuka, now don't I?"

'Jeez, no wonder. Asuka's pretty much had a crush on him ever since she saw him being nice to Rei. Or was that jealousy -sigh- with her you never really know the difference between the two emotions.' She stood up and stretched and decided that she would have to have a chat with the Second Child.

Maybe she would be able to give some insight as to what had happened to him.

Shinji's eyes felt like they had gold bars hung on them and the light was piercing. He was back in the hospital. But it looked clean.

'Why wouldn't it be clean? That's weird.' Shinji found that his neck was equally impaired and slowly started to survey his room. To his right was the door, which was closed. It took him a few minutes to bring his head back to its original position. 'Wonder if I'm all alone. Of course I am, since the only ones that I know are alive are Kaoru, Ritsuko, and Father. Wait a minute…something isn't right, I don't know a Kaoru. Plus I'm getting some serious déjà vu.' His mind flashed images of him in the hospital room, but this time one image set itself apart in that it was of the room, but it was disheveled and looked like a bomb had gone off in it.

Shinji now started to tilt his head to his left. It sounded like he was flexing a bendy straw. 'Jeez, how long have I been out?' The last thing he remembered was being sucked into the Sea of Dirac, but other than that, there was nothing. 'Rei!? How are you still alive?/What are you doing in my room?'

"R—Re---Rei." Shinji's voice was barely above a whisper, but to him he could tell it was deeper somehow. What had happened to him in there? There were conflicting thoughts as far back as he could remember. It was like he had lived two lives. There were drastic similarities, and the differences only started about the time that he had started inviting Rei over.

'Hmm…wish I could move more so I could check on Rei.' He sighed and heard the door opening. Internally he cursed because now he had to turn his head again, and it was still the painfully slow rate that had come before.

"Shinji. I want you to know that despite what's happened to you, I'll be there for you." He felt a hand on his shoulder, but couldn't place the voice because it was fuzzy.

"Wh…Who's…there?" He managed to get out as his face made the last bit of revolution back to staring at the ceiling.

"Shinij!? You're awake?" Misato slapped the alarm to get the medical staff in and then leaned down and dragged the boy into a hug. "We were worried that you were in a coma like Rei."

"How…long?" His voice croaked and he mouthed "Water." Misato gladly helped him into a sitting position and then got a glass of water with a straw for him. She thought that he would take it, but after about ten seconds realized that Shinji wasn't going to take it, so lifted the cup to his mouth.

"You've been out for about two weeks. We thought that having you with Rei might help you when you woke up. You came out of the Angel….different. Heck, even Unit-01 is different. Ritsuko isn't quite sure of all the details, but it seems that you merged with part of the Angel and, here's the freaky part, an older version of you and Unit-01."

Shinji kept looking at her while his mind scrambled to find any evidence of this. 'Images of…' The burnt landscape of Tokyo-3 came to mind, as seen from his window. The dusty rooms of Misato and Asuka. The giant face of Relith, split in two, staring at him. His father, white haired and repentant of his sins. 'Is this…what's to come? Is this the result of what I'm doing here?'

"Shinji, is something wrong, your heart rate just skyrocketed." Ritsuko looked up from her clipboard and stared into his eyes. 'Still can't get used to them being red.' She tried to hold back a shudder, but couldn't.

"Maybe. Mirror?" Shinji slowly nodded towards Misato, asking the question that they really weren't sure what they should do about. Should they let him see himself?

"Sure, you can use my compact." Misato reached into her purse and took out the object and laid it in his hand.

'I never had this much trouble using my body before.' Shinji scolded himself as he slowly brought the object up to his face, but found that when he tried to focus to bring the other arm up that the first started to fall. "Help. Bigger Mirror." His vocal cords were still hard to use and he started to reach for the water glass after dropping the compact back to the bed.

"Oh no you don't. If you have trouble lifting a simple thing like that, I'm not going to have you wet yourself." Misato lightly batted his hand and got the glass for him.

"Shinji I think we need to take you for some tests, we can take you on this wheelchair and on the way I know there is a full-length mirror that you can use. I…I want to warn you though…it…could be a bit of a shock." She motioned for the orderlies to come in and they unhooked him from the equipment and placed him in the chair.

"Misato?"

"Yeah Shinji?

"Asuka?"

"She…won't be around for a while." Misato didn't have the heart to tell him about what Asuka had tried to do to Rei, he already had too much on his plate. 'When I get to take you home…I'll let you see her…if you are ready.'

At this point they were in the hallway and the group walked down. Orderlies, nurses, doctors, even the janitors all seemed to stare as he passed. The worst of these had been when he had passed by a group of children who were on a tour from the daycare center. On sight, nearly all of them had started crying.

'What's wrong with me? I feel…normal. My head's a little heavy, but I don't know what else to say about that.' His mind raced through the possibilities. Maybe while merging he had grown a third eye. Maybe he had two belly buttons. The image that brought everything else to a stop was an image from an old comic. The villain's name was Two-Face. One side seemed normal enough; the other…was disfigured and horrible.

"Shinji." Misato sensed the boy's unease and laid a hand on his shoulder. "You don't look horrible, in fact, you are pretty handsome. You remind me of someone, but I can't quite place it. Anyway, you'll see in a moment what is making everyone so…shocked to see you." Misato turned the corner with the group and promptly ran into a man that had been running down the hall.

"Why you little punk I'm going to kick your ass!" Misato's anger reared its head and she promptly jumped on the guy and raised her fist.

"In the middle of the hall Misato? And you thought I was desperate?" Kaji grinned from below her.

"BAKA!" The fist came down and he was promptly knocked out. Fuming, she continued down the hall. It's never a pretty sight to see a woman angry, and men throughout the hospital suddenly knew that this woman was very pissed.

Section 2 Security Room for the Hospital

"Did you just feel that Mike? I think a woman is royally pissed."

"Yeah, I felt it. There is very big disturbance in the Force."

"Yes. There is. Should we inform the boss?"

"I think he already knows. Anyway, as long as we are in here we are safe."

The door was flung off its hinges and Misato stuck her head in. "WHY WEREN'T YOU TWO KEEPING THE PATHWAY FOR SHINJI CLEAR?"

The two security guards looked at each other, then gulped. "Mommy." They said in unison as Misato opened fire using both fists.

Commander's room, NERV HQ

"Jeez…did you just feel that?"

"What do you mean Gendo?"

"You've got to be kidding me. You didn't feel the ripple that was caused by a woman being royally pissed off?"

"Huh?"

"I wonder sometimes about you Fuyutski…" Gendo looked at his paperwork and sighed. "I suppose I better get started." He shuddered again then sneezed.

"You've been sneezing an awful lot since the Angels started arriving."

"Go figure. Between SEELE, my son, and just about everyone else here at NERV, I'm sure I've got enough people saying bad things about me to last a lifetime. Either that or I'm catching a cold. I felt another ripple. Whoever that woman is, I feel sorry for the poor schmuck that is at the end of that beating."

"Should I feel sorry for Yui's kicking your ass nearly every night for the past three weeks? And I think you are full of hot air. I don't feel a thing, except for how comfortable my new chair is behind my new desk. Ah." He leaned back and had his head against the wall. "So I was thinking about asking Major Katsuragi out on a 'working dinner', what do you think?"

"I think you need to be careful, she's—" A hand pounded through the wall behind Fuyutski and grabbed him by the hair, its owner came soon after.

"TRY AND ASK ME OUT EH? WHAT MAKES YOU THINK THAT I WOULD, CONSIDERING YOU LET SHINJI ALMOST DIE IN THAT HOSPITAL BED LAST WEEK?"

At this point Gendo was reaching for his Escape button under the desk. He would leave Fuyutski to his 'date.' He was going to go check on Shinji.

"Katsuragi, do whatever you want, minus killing him. We still need him to function."

"WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU ARE GOING?" She dropped the limp body of the Sub-Commander and started to walk towards her commanding officer.

"I'm going to go check on my son. And for your information, I've seen scarier stuff in my dreams that would make Stalin squeal, back off." It was a gamble for the elder Ikari, either it would work and he would escape unscathed, or it wouldn't work…

"Okay, go check on Shinji. He's in the testing area. I need to work out some pent up frustrations." She cracked her knuckles. "Oh Sub-Commander!"

From behind Gendo, Fuyutski spoke. "What are you doing? Why are you leaving me alone with her?"

"Two reasons. One, because those who cannot feel the ripples of an angry woman should get punished for not being observant. Two, because you wanted a 'working date' with Misato. She's going to be working out her frustrations, and I'm sure you'll enjoy eating your food out of a tube for a few weeks." He chuckled as he pressed the Escape button and was soon gone in a puff of smoke.

"Oh there you are…"

"Mommy…"

----------

"Shinji, good to see you are awake!" The boy's father reached down and brought his son into a huge bear hug.

"Um, Commander…I think you need to let go. He needs air. Besides, I don't think anyone is quite used to you being so…nice yet."

'Something about him isn't quite…right.' Shinji thought as he regained full consciousness and managed to smile softly. "Hi, Father." A weird emotion came to mind when he said it. Before the accident it had been hate, plain simple hate. Now those emotions were still there, but there was also a feeling of care. 'That's just weird. What ring of hell did I fall into?'

"Mirror. Want to see." Shinji laboriously told everyone to move away from the mirror. What he saw completely shocked him.

He looked older, not much, maybe a year or two. He had more muscle tone and definitely thinned out. He had red eyes, but apart from that and a light indentation on the left side of his face, it was he his normal face. What struck him the most was his hair. Most of it was black, but there was a single silver streak running back and he assumed along its entire length to about mid-back. 'No wonder those kids were crying. I feel like crying myself. I look like someone stuck Rei's eyes in my head then thought it would be funny to slap a streak of silver hair in the middle of my head.'

"Why…so hard to move? Talk?" He looked over towards Doctor Akagi who was patiently taking notes and waiting to get the testing underway. She looked towards his father as if the answer were classified.

"He has the right to know."

"Shinji." She took her glasses off and set them to the side. "Evidently you merged with another Unit-01 and Shinji Ikari. At least that was the story we told Misato. What we didn't tell you was that you also merged with part of the Angel. According to our psychograph readings, you are alone in your mind. If the Angel were sentient, none of it was passed to you. We don't know quite yet what all of the Angel you have, but we do know that because you are essentially a combination of three single entities that your nerves aren't functioning as well as they used to, and your brain has to rewire everything. Now that you are fully conscious we can help, but I'm amazed that you are taking this so well." She waited for the teen's response.

Shinji couldn't believe it. He was now part Angel. Part of him told him that he now had a similarity with Rei, but he wasn't sure what to make of that. Before he knew it he blurted. "So I guess I'll be able to fit the plans for Instrumentality better." He then violently coughed and mouthed for water and was quickly given the liquid.

"He knows about that?" Ritsuko was shocked. How had he known about that and still allowed to pilot? Maybe he could be reasoned with to get her in a better position of influence in the scheme of Instrumentality.

"I know…because I stopped it." Shinji wheezed.

"What?" The two senior staff members stared bug-eyed at him.

"I prevented it. Or rather…the future me had…fuzzy memories…but I rejected it…world was…barren afterwards. Father…if you…don't stop it…I will. By now…I'm sure Mom…has told you to stop….don't make me…do what she wants to do to you." He took another drink of water.

'How did he know? It can't be that he actually knows what is going to happen, and how things are going to happen…right? Things are different now that he is here. Things will change.'

"Will you stop?" Shinji stared down his father. The memories of just before, during, and right after Third Impact A/N: Essentially the entire movie "The End of Evangelion" compressed into memory fragments. were flashing in his head. With each memory, he wanted to strike his father. True while deep down for some reason he cared or him, he wanted nothing more than to beat him to a bloody pulp for what he had done. 'Will…could do.' Shinji reminded himself.

"Shinji…It's not that simple."

"Yes it is. Either stop easily, or stop hard. Either way, I will prevent it from happening."

Commander Ikari took a step back. 'He's standing up to me and staring me down…those eyes remind me of Rei…except they have emotion behind them. Hate, determination, and a fear of nothing except what will happen. I won't let him stop my work, even if Yui doesn't…wait a minute…what the hell am I thinking? Yui says not to do it or she'll put me in hell herself. I'm already in deep shit with her as is.' He stepped back forward. "Shinji, you must know that I'm not the top of that pecking order. The orgini—"

"SEELE. I know. You are the most important part. I don't quite understand it all…but…I know this is…paramount. Instrumentality must be stopped."

"Pilot Soryu. Stand." The door had opened blinding her with light. She obeyed but found that she had little strength. "You are convicted of attempted murder and the attempted destruction of NERV property. The punishment is death which will be carried out immediately." Chairman Keel lowered the sheet of paper and looked straight at the girl. "Unless you take the offer I'm about to give you, in which case, I can offer you the one thing you won't get if you stay here."

Asuka's eyes lifted to him, betraying the fact that the words had hit right where the man wanted them to.

"I can give you your happiness with Shinji Ikari. So long as you do what I say. Now come, and we shall get you started on your path towards happiness." He reached out and soon had the girl's hand in his as they walked out of the cell, and out of the GeoFront unnoticed to everyone.