Author's Notes: Anonymous – actually, that's not quite what I had in mind ;-) It has to do with her artifact. see below...
Chapter 10 – Doom is upon us
Gendo brooded in his office as Emperor Kihl droned on.
"...he will join us, or he will die," Kihl declared.
"Yes, my Master." Gendo considered his options. The boy would most likely join, after seeing the combined Charm power he and Kihl possessed. Between the three of them, they would have enough Charm to open a portal to Heaven and have an orgy the likes of which made Gendo's right eye twitch.
The door slid aside, and the Third Child walked in. "Shinji," Gendo said, "I am your father."
"Um, I know," Shinji said, looking a little confused.
Dammit! That sounded so much better when Vader said it, Gendo cursed. "Join me, and we will rule this planet as father and son!"
"I'll never join you," Shinji said coldly, thinking of what the man had done to Rei.
"So be it," Kihl said nastily, his hologram wavering into view on the desk. "The two of us will have to use our combined Charm to seal your powers, then. Get it?" he cackled maniacally. "Seal? SEELE?" Cackle cackle cackle.
"That kind of pun deserves the worst beat-down imaginable," Shinji said in disgust.
"Too bad you won't be able to give such a beat-down, boy!" Kihl continued to cackle.
"No, I won't," Shinji admitted. "But she will." He summoned Rei using his copy of her artifact card. She appeared in 'Love Potion' form, and Kihl froze.
"Impossible! She-AACK!" Rei went into a cute little pose, winked, blew him a kiss, and his heart exploded.
"Very impressive," Gendo intoned, reevaluating his son's progress. "Emperor Kihl was expecting a Charm attack, so he was unprepared for this. I am not." Gendo laughed rather nastily. "I, my dear boy," At that point, the Rei standing behind Gendo snapped his neck like a twig. A third Rei also stepped from the shadows.
"Thank you," Shinji said. "I'm not sure I could have taken any more of that evil laughter." Then he began drifting closer to the three Reis
"...er, sorry." Rei deactivated her Love Potion form and banished the other two Reis back to the Reiquarium.
"N-no problem, Shinji stuttered, both relieved and disappointed.
Ritsuko was watching all of this on a monitor.
"...oooh, completely unexpected," she exclaimed, clasping her hands together. "Shinji, you truly are a piece of work!" During the entire episode, she had been wearing dark glasses, and had been careful never to look into his eyes. She went to a deep cavernous section far below Terminal Dogma to activate another Gendo from the Gendoquarium. She paused, slobbering slightly at the sight of so many Gen-(AAAUUU! author runs away from the readers bearing pitchforks, and so decides not to be so descriptive in this section).
"...and that is my Ultimate Plan!" Ritsuko exclaimed to herself. "Is it not Glorious?? BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!" Ritsuko was actually as insane as Misato, just in a different way. They say that happy families are all alike, but unhappy families are each unhappy in their own way. Well, sane people are all alike, but insane people each worship Eris in their own psychotic way. In any case... (WHAT?! You people were the ones not wanting me to be so descriptive in this section. So I accidentally happened to cut out her plan. Your fault, not mine ;-) Runs from the pitchforks again).
Misato, Asuka, Touji, and Kensuke stood arguing with the Admiral of the fleet. They were getting nowhere, and Asuka was getting worried. Suddenly the door opened, and there was Kaji.
"Heeeey," Kaji did his best "Fonze" impersonation, standing in his usual I'm-a-stud stance in the doorway. Misato's head whipped around fast enough to cause the Carrier to change course slightly. Asuka looked at Kaji with a divided heart, and try as she might, she couldn't keep from morphing his face into Shinji's. Verdammt! Frantic tears gathered in her eyes. That idiot won't even let me have my dreams any more!
"KajiKajiKajiKajiKajiKaji!!" Misato hit the man like a human torpedo, propelling them through the doorway. From the sounds as they fell down the stairs, there was a bunch of stripping, then a bunch of... questionable stuff. Asuka's face fell. How would I even compete with that?
Asuka faced Mana outside on the deck of the battleship that held their Evas, and neither of them were at all happy.
"Unit-03!" Mana yelled.
"Unit-02!" Asuka shrieked.
"Unit-03!" A porthole cracked.
"Unit-02!" The porthole shattered.
"Rabid Squirrel: Extreme Technique – Naru Punch!" Her fist lashed out impossibly fast, and Mana was propelled up into the ionosphere. Asuka looked up in satisfaction, her hands on her hips. She was just turning to leave when Mana came screaming back down, her guitar out, her hair flapping crazily, and her mouth set in a frightening snarl.
"Guitar Hero: Special Technique – Karaoke Beatdown!"
The ship nearly sank.
After rescuing the survivors, Ritsuko informed Asuka that her Eva was ready, and that Shinji was ready. Mana was ticked off, and reminded Ritsuko that she had won, and so deserved to pilot with Shinji. Ritsuko reminded Mana who was in charge, and of the fact that Unit-03 had never been activated before and most certainly was not ready for combat.
The entry plug of Unit-02 was charged with tension as the two pilots prepared for battle. Shinji had been careful to bring his own plug suit.
"Sit, Shinji, sit!." He looked back, and noticed that while she wore her usual confident smile, her eyes were slightly red as if she had been crying. He sat carefully, which only served to frustrate her.
"Oh, come on!" she said, her voice rising, but still far kinder than her usual shrieks. "Be more assertive, you're a man!" She pulled him back towards her till he was snug against her curves, taking his hands and putting them on the pistol-grip controls, then covering them with her own red-gloved hands. Shinji blushed. She synced. Her mother's hologram appeared in the plug, and Asuka desperately made eyebrow motions at her. "Oh, hello mother!" she said just a touch too cheerily.
Kyoko was blissfully oblivious. "Daughter, who is this young man?" She squeezed his upper arms, "Oh, so strong, and such a high sync ratio," she purred. Asuka's cheeks began to take on a pink shade.
"Mother...!" It wasn't quite a shriek, but all the warnings were there.
Kyoko put an arm around his shoulders, a hand on his chest, and leaned her head against his. "Oh, but daughter, surely you don't mind sharing!" The hologram was blushing.
Horrifying Flashback
Asuka led Shinji across the deck towards the entry plug.
"Wait, Asuka, I dropped my A10 clips!" He pulled his hand from her grasp, bent down, and retrieved them. Standing back up, he noticed he was standing beside Unit-02's head. He stood there for a moment, wondering why this Eva had four eyes, as opposed to his two and Rei's one. The Eva looked back at him (it could do nothing else, being immobile), and sweat-dropped. Shinji eyes widened, and he looked away quickly.
End Horrifying
Kyoko oozed onto the boy's lap.
"Mother!" the redhead shrieked. "Stop molesting my copilot!!" She beat her mother's hologram off of Shinji, then slid back in behind him. He could feel her shaking furiously.
Asuka's Progressive Lance had morphed horrifically into a massive serrated sword/spear conglomeration, and she was currently digging her way into Gaghiel's thick hide. The Angel was desperately swimming in the direction Kaji's aircraft had taken, knowing that the man had Adam's embryonic form with him. Shinji looked back as the fleet receded in the distance behind them. Is this the power of Doom? he wondered. Then he heard Asuka crying.
"What an awful day," she whispered, continuing to dig into the Angel's hide.
"Please, madam," Gaghiel gasped, "I'm just trying to follow yon plane in the distance. Leave my precious flesh alone!"
Asuka ignored the Angel's plea. "Mana actually defeated me, and Misato and Kaji are... they're..." her whispered words drifted off. Shinji looked behind him in surprise. He had expected Asuka to be happy about him agreeing to pilot with her, or atleast try to throw herself on him, or something.
"Wait, that's," he looked up at the top of her head. "Asuka, your clips...!"
"Aren't they on the 'doom' setting?" Asuka asked, frantically feeling the top of her head. They were not, and in fact, Unit-02 (having left the fleet) was currently being completely powered by the redhead's concentrated angst. At this moment, Shinji's copy of the Love Potion card drifted from the pocket of his plug-suit and into Asuka's field of vision. She reached out a trembling hand and pulled the card closer, tears running from her eyes and dissipating in the LCL. Her Angst clips glowed, and there was a flash of light. Shinji turned around in surprise, assuming Asuka had de-synced accidentally, and this sealed his fate.
The redhead's hair shimmered in the LCL, its tips now a vibrant orange and frizzed out slightly, and impossibly the girl now wore bright red lipstick and a hint of mascara.
"Wh-what are you looking at, Th-Third?" she asked as he drifted helplessly closer. Dear Gott, is he feeling what I've been feeling? Against her will she began to sympathize with the boy. No! He's just being a pervert... She reached a hand out to stop him, and ended up accidentally stripping his suit off. "Th-Third, we n-need to t-talk..." He nodded frantically as they drifted closer. She reached up to make sure she still had her own suit on, and accidentally stripped it off as well. Schiesse! She put out her arms shakily to push him away, and too late remembered that she was already zero-for-two in successfully controlling her actions. She struggled mightily for a few seconds as her disobedient arms wound their way around his neck. Oh, the hell with it. Their lips met, her hair splayed out in all directions from the crackle of electricity, and her brain promptly fried.
Unit-02 began to shift slightly, and the sounds from the entry plug were reminiscent of two raging bull-steers battling for dominance.
Asuka awoke in her apartment, and stretched luxuriously before turning back over and wrapping herself around her body pillow. Just a few more minutes... The pillow shifted in her arms, moaning softly, and her eyes snapped open. Her resulting shriek was loud enough to wake the dead, and the next sound heard was the bathroom door being slammed and the cold water turned on full force in her shower.
Stumbling from the shower, wrapped in a sopping wet cold towel, she flung her bedroom door aside. It was empty. A d-dream. That's all it was, her mind insisted. She checked thoroughly in all the placed the Third might be hiding, but found nothing. Y-yeah, it was a tough battle, a-and I must've been delirious. Misato probably brought me back h- the thought died when she looked out her window.
Unit-02 was laid out face down some distance from the apartment complex, and looked as if it had dragged itself along the ground the last mile with its hands alone. Her ejected entry plug was embedded into the front facade of the apartment building right next to her deck, and there were LCL stains on the ground below.
A cheerful German waltz began to play, and she nearly jumped out of her towel. Scrambling around to find the phone, she froze when she saw the name flashing on the front display.
'M. Katsuragi.'
...I'm sooo dead...
Author's Notes: Pyro – Invader Zim FTW!