Yeah, I'm not bothering with the disclaimer this time.

It was some obscene time of night, like five in the morning, and Tom had had quite enough of being awake for at least several days. This sudden loathing of being aware had originally prompted him to try to sleep, hell, he'd been trying to sleep since he got back from visiting Rei, but it seemed whenever he was almost asleep someone would barge into his room asking for one thing or another.

This didn't raise as much alarm as it would with other people, even when taking into account that aside from Rei (who kept to her own side of their shared residence most of the time, thank fuck, he had enough problems as it was), Tom lived alone. It should have just been him in the residence, and it technically was.

Alternate and Future Toms were kind of dicks like that.

About 6 AM the same day, Shinji Ikari got out of bed, got dressed and did all his other morning stuff. He'd not slept well the previous night, between the nightmares/memories of the Angel battle and the feeling he kept having of someone else being in his room. The latter was probably just something like mental feedback from the Evangelion, he rationalized. No need to bug Dr. Akagi about it, or Misato. Especially not today; he probably wouldn't even see them until late.

Today was kind of special. It marked Shinji's first ever day at school.

One may be inclined to ask how the hell that happened. The explanation is quite simple; between being home-schooled by the guy his father left him with (who didn't do too bad a job, because Shinji did know all the academia an average fourteen year old might know, that is, next to none) and subsequently being half caught up in the strange whirlwind that followed the Commodore around (which taught him, if all else fails, bluff your way out of trouble), he didn't really have the time or the need. This also kind of played into the Commander's plans; after all, if he didn't have any friends, then no-one would tell him to man the fuck up and get in the giant robot already.

Strangely enough, Shinji was looking forward to being shut in a succession of small rooms with other people his age who'd turn towards the weakest acceptable target in the class to vent their frustrations. The idea of threatening them with being stomped on by the Eva didn't occur to him, neither did the idea that his classmates might try to hurt him.

During this narration, Shinji had managed to get to school about twenty minutes before they actually started having classes. Had any of the other attendees been around, this would have marked him for the special treatment, then they would have reasoned that it is his first day and all (if they'd have been perceptive enough to notice such things) and let him off the hook. This time.

Of course, there wasn't anyone else around, aside from the receptionist who gave him directions to his main classroom. Said directions were incredibly terrible, to the point that Shinji was actually five minutes late to class. This marked him out as a target, and under other circumstances he'd have been abused by both authority figures (for being late) and by his fellow classmates (for being stupid enough to be late, especially with the class representative they had), but fate had other plans. These were forcing him to introduce himself to the class - a task which he somehow managed to pull off despite no-one actually paying attention - and finding a free seat to be permanently assigned to under pain of death. School discipline got a lot stricter after the Third Japan-Peru War of 2010. He chose one just behind the only person he even recognised, some blue-haired chick who was in bandages. He wavered a little before sitting down, waiting for Rei (yes, the girl was Rei, somehow she managed to break out of hospital to go to school or something) to introduce herself, but she was currently feeling the downside - or upside, depending on perspective - of downing a whole bottle of painkillers so she could introduce herself to the Third Child. That is to say, she was out of her mind.

Once Shinji finally sat himself down, the teacher, who was some old guy who will probably never be important to this narrative, started droning on about pre-second impact life in some obscure Japanese fishing village. Something to do with volcanoes, ninjas and a British spy. Somehow, this was supposed to be teaching orbital mechanics. Curricula also got a lot tougher after the Third Japan-Peru War, and teaching standards dropped.

Fortunately for both the narrative and Shinji's patience, a message decided to pop up on his screen right then:

ANON: Is it true you're the giant robot pilot?

Strangely enough, it only took Shinji a moment to respond. This could tie into a theory about how all teenagers subconsciously seek attention or something, but research into such areas is annoyingly sparse. Then again, perhaps scientists don't want to waste their time paying attention to teenagers when they can go to the moon.

: Yes.

Needless to say, this caused the entire class (aside from three people: Rei, the teacher, and some tracksuited douchebag at the back) to leap up and start asking him questions.

He blacked out until after the lesson ended.

Noticing everyone (except Rei, who was still high) had left the classroom, Shinji decided to go explore the school and see if he could find some food somewhere. It was almost midday, and he still hadn't eaten.

He was almost at the canteen - and thus, partial safety - when the tracksuit accosted him, pushing him outside and then punching him solidly in the face, shouting something about his sister, while some nerd kid filmed the whole thing.

Ten seconds later, Tracksuit (whose name, it turned out, was Toji) was on the ground fixing a broken nose. Rei had finally snapped out of whatever daze she'd been in, and noticing that the current object of her fascination was being assaulted by some asshole in a tracksuit right beneath the window she was passing, had jumped out said window and performed a move Tom might have recognised as a mid-air assassination attempt, only without a knife or other deadly implement. Her rationale was not to protect Shinji per se (although that was a factor) but more to reverse the "white knight" scenario she was trying to set up between them.

Shinji, faced by a look from his classmate (who'd just jumped from a second story window and landed on another student as an attack) that said "Why the hell didn't you protect yourself, you incompetent git", hastily explained the situation.

Before he could mess things up, though, Shinji's mobile phone started beeping, indicating an Angel attack. Toji quickly disappeared, along with nerd kid, and Rei decided to get herself back to the hospital before anyone started looking for her, leaving Shinji alone to get to NERV.

Fortunately, his Section 2 detail, who had been getting coffee and donuts shortly before the attack, had been ordered to pick the kid up and get him into the Evangelion.

Shinji took several deep breaths of the LCL, steadying himself for the fight to come. He ran through the plan in his head: Get deployed in building (45284C), deploy AT field to neutralise Angel's field, shoot Angel in the giant red thing (Core) with rifle, go take all his competitor's food and women. The last one was subconscious, for the record.

It turns out that nobody at NERV had thought about what he should do if the plan were to fail.

He walked out the building, spread his AT field as far as he could, then sighted on the Angel's core and pulled the trigger. Every single shot went on target, and the Angel disappeared behind the cloud left behind by the explosive munitions.

It was just a pity the Angel's AT field was out of range of the Evangelion's.

It reached out with its energy whips (all jokes about tentacles and sex toys having been exhausted about five minutes after the Angel was first spotted) and tore the rifle apart. Shinji did what he was conditioned to do under such circumstances, and tried to charge the Angel. He had been taught a little by the Commodore, after all. The Angel responded by grabbing the Evangelion - forcing a feeling of having burning ropes squeeze Shinji's torso - and threw it at a mountain.

Inside a shelter inside a mountain, two fourteen year old boys were talking. Well, one was talking about how the news blackout sucked, the other was just tuning him out. At least, until the bespectacled one mentioned needing to talk to the tracksuited one in private. They made their excuses and headed to the bathroom, conveniently located just beside the secondary exit for the bunker.

"So, Ken, what the hell did you drag me out for this time?" asked Toji.

"It's just... well, I found a way to override the locks on that door back there, the one that leads to the surface. I need to see this fight, but it's a two-man job to get it open." The boy named Kensuke - the nerd kid from earlier - replied.

"You want to go out there, while another one of these battles is taking place!? Have you lost your damn mind?!"

"Look, it's going to be him out there, and we kind of owe it to him to watch this. You did beat him up. And if anyone asks, we're just looking for Rei - she's not around here."

"A good excuse, but there's no way in hell I'm actually going to help that psychopathic bitch. Come on, then, may as well do this now before you start whining."

Shinji reflected on the fact that all was not going according to plan. This actually caused him to learn that his plans were fallible, no matter how infallible they may seem, and thus made him a better strategist than, say, SEELE 04 or the Emperor from Star Wars.

Such growth would not do him much good, however, if he didn't find some way to get rid of the Angel. Misato was screaming something about retreating, but the Angel was in the way of all the places he could go. And to top it all off, he had just two minute's power left.

That was, naturally, when the viewscreen of the Evangelion noticed the two civilians on the battlefield. And, of course, they were the same pair who'd beat him up (well, one did the beating up) earlier. "Erm... Captain? There are a couple of kids on the battlefield, and I can't move without either killing them or mentally scarring them with the AT field. Advice, please."

A small amount of debate ensued. There's no rush, Shinji mentally complained, it's not like I'm down to one minute and thirty six seconds of power or anything. Just let me kill the bastards already.

The order came in, Misato's voice flowing from a communications box: "Lock the Eva into position and let them into the cockpit. You'll just have to deal with the mental contamination, we can't let any civilians die in this battle!"

Well, shit. Looks like it's your lucky day, assholes. Shinji did as instructed, and as soon as he heard the splashes of people entering the plug, closed the Eva back up and re-synchronised. Then, letting the anger and frustration at his shitty day build, he let out a brutal war scream, pulled out the Progressive Knife and charged down the mountain at the Angel, not even noticing when it impaled him on its whips or even when he stabbed its core with his knife.

He didn't stop screaming until the Angel was dead.

Then, about to pass out from the pain of the battle, he turned to his unwelcome hitchikers, and spoke: "Next time I'm in school, you asshats wait on me hand and fucking foot, got it?" The two others in the plug hastily nodded.

That was when he passed out.

"You owe me fifty quid. He actually got pissed enough to threaten them." The Commodore passed the requested money to the alternate him who'd been watching the battle. "You kind of cheated, though, I bet you've already done this battle," he said.

"Oh, dozens of times," he replied, "but normally he just sits there crying until he passes out, then they become friends or some stupid shit like that."

"Speaking of this battle, you'll never guess what my Rei did today," he started.

"So long as it's not something like setting fire to your house or something, I'm interested. Seriously, all the Reis seem to do that at some point," Tom replied.

"She sneaked out of hospital, while still in bandages, then jumped out of the school's second story window to land on that Toji kid."

"...That's actually something I've never heard happen before. That earns you your fifty pounds back." The alternate Tom passed the note back to the Actual Tom.

"Heck yeah," Actual Tom celebrated, "I'm going to go get some food and stuff. Get your ass out of here before anyone notices."

END

Author's Notes

Oooh, mysterious mystery time! What's going on with Tom now? Will these alternate/future Toms ever actually intervene in the plot? (The answer to that one is "Not until I get bored and decide to have a mass of Toms vs. everything else showdown) When will Rei actually get out of hospital? Will Toji and Kensuke heed Shinji's warnings? Why is Shinji slightly more badass than usual? Why is English currency being used in Japan? The answers to all these so unimportant questions, and more, may or may not be answered at some point in time.

Hope you enjoyed, now get the hell off of this story page and go read something better.