Everyday Chapter 10, an evangelion fanfic

EVERYDAY

CHAPTER 10

BY WONGA316

EMAIL
wonga316(at)yahoo(dot)com(dot)au

MSN MESSENGER
Wonga316(at)hotmail(dot)com

PROOF READING
Lord Raa

DATE POSTED
20060105

AUTHOR'S NOTES
This is an AU fic where Shinji has the normal yet dysfunctional family. No EVA or Angels and I've decided to include almost all the characters from the anime. There is no real point to the fic. It's just some fun and a creative outlet. Hopefully it'll spark some better ideas for my other stories.

"…" Normal speech

'…' Thoughts

(…) Computer / phone / other chat (you will know what I mean…)

THE NEXT MORNING

Kaworu surveyed the surroundings of the inn. He was first to wake which wasn't a surprise since everyone had a late one last night. The grey haired boy was a light sleeper and felt uncomfortable in the inn's guest rooms. He walked along the hallway, trying to be as quite as possible.

When he reached his destination he steadies himself before going to knock. But before he could lightly rap on Rei's door and the unmistakable sound of a gun cocking made him stop.

"What do you think you're doing, boy?" Gendo growled as quietly as possible but it still held its menace. Kaworu turned his head slightly to see that the man had descended from the concerned hole in ceiling with a heavy duty cable and harness. A double barrel shotgun was thrust in his face.

"Ikari-san!" Kaworu quickly bowed and tried not to sound intimidated by the slight of the weapon and the upside down man.

"You shall address me as 'sir'," the suspended man used the barrel of his shotgun to lift the boy's head back up. "I asked you what you are doing outside my daughter's room."

"Well… you see sir…" his tongue failed to form the words that he wanted to say. The normally calm and cool Kaworu was replaced by a scared little child. Luckily, for him the door to Rei's room opened and the girl appeared.

"What are you doing father?" She asked still half asleep and rubbing her eyes.

"You can go back to bed, Rei. We just have a little unwanted visitor this morning." He jammed the gun into Kaworu's mouth. "I know about the little agreement that your mother made with him."

He was talking about the plan to get Shinji to prove that he wasn't gay. Yui had agreed to let Kaworu see Rei if he was able to help in her devious plan.

"That was actually partly me idea as well," Rei countered while still yawning.

"Huh?" both males in front of her just blinked their eyes. She went onto explain that she had struck a separate deal with Yui for helping her take out Gendo in the forest when he had kidnapped Shinji. She wanted to be able to spend some time with Kaworu to find out what her feelings were but didn't want to upset her brother.

"Damn… Rei is turning out to just like her mother… That woman is pure evil…" Gendo muttered under his breath. He hadn't factored this possibility in his scenario and was quickly trying to come up with something else to counter it.

"Do you want to tell me who's an evil woman?" someone asked from behind Gendo.

"Not now Yui! I'm thinking!" The man was so busy thinking that he didn't know that he had recognised the owner of the voice.

"Oh crap…" He felt his cable go slack and then his head hit the floor. Yui began dragging him to along with the rope to the balcony. Rei and Kaworu followed closing behind.

"You can do your thinking from the orbit of space!" she grabbed the slack length of rope that she left with both hands and began swinging the poor man around like an Olympic hammer thrower. She moved with enough speed that everything was a like blur.

"Was your mother an athlete?" Kaworu asked Rei, amazed at the skill and speed she managed to gain in a relatively short number of rotations.

"National track and field champion two years running," Rei answered as she pulled out a pair of binoculars from somewhere. She was all ready to watch where her father would land. Last time she wasn't as prepared and it was nearly two weeks before Gendo reappeared at home.

"You think she'll break the record?" A woman's voice came from the roof above the balcony.

"May be… She's looking good so far…" A second woman replied.

Rei and Kaworu looked up; they found Kyoko and Naoko still in their pyjamas sitting on the roof. Each of them had a set of binoculars and they were glued on the horizon.

Yui was spinning so fast that she felt the grip on the rope was beginning to slip. She decided that now was the time to release her husband and send him on his merry way. She did so and his body sailed into the air in a huge arc. As he travelled through the air, Gendo's body became more and like a tiny dot against the rising sun. When he eventually disappeared, the crowd on the roof plus Rei began applauding her record breaking performance.

"Thank you. Thank you." Yui bowed in appreciation to the response of the audience.

Kaworu saw that they were all distracted applauding and praising Yui and used it try to sneak away. He feared that the overprotective and sometimes lunatic mother would turn on him. After all, he was caught outside her only daughter's room.

"Ahem…" A not so gentle cough made him stop in his tracks.

"I think you have some explaining to do, don't you, Mr. Nagisa?" Yui had her hands on her hips and was tapping her foot. "Do you want to tell why you were sneaking around outside my daughter's room?"

"Ah… well…" He couldn't think up a plausible excuse. As failed Yui's eyebrow began to twitch more and more. Luckily for him Rei lean over and whispered something in his ear.

"That's right! I heard a noise in the hallway and found Mr. Ikari acting suspiciously when I went to investigate."

"That's so sweet!" Psychotic Yui was replaced by her normal lovey-dovey self. She pulled the young boy into a hug. "You were worried about my Rei-chan…"

"You are very lucky to have a boyfriend like him Rei sweetie…" Rei just sweat drop and let her mother continue along her lines of thought.

"So what about some breakfast?" She stopped hugging Kaworu and spoke to the both of them. "I'm really hungry after that work out and have a craving for some pancakes."

"Pancakes!" Kyoko and Naoko both yelled and jumped down from the roof onto the balcony.

"We'll I guess that's settled then." Yui lead her troops downstairs to begin tackling the task of breakfast. As they walked through the hall way pass all the guest rooms, they happen to pass by Shinji's. And being the prefect mother that she was; she barged her way into his room to wake him.

"Time to get up Shinji!" she shouted as the door to his room was slid open.

"Shinji?" The two other woman and Rei asked as they all stared into an empty guest room. His bed was made and everything tidy and in place. The only sign that anyone was ever in the room was Shinji's travel bag at the foot of the futon.

"AAAAAHHHHH!" Yui screamed on the top of her lungs. The other's quickly covered their ears. "He's missing! My baby's been kidnapped!"

Naoko offered a plausible explanation to Yui's exaggerations. "Now, now… He's most likely with Asuka or one of the others."

"Quick! We have to find him!" The distraught mother grabbed her friend's arm and tossed her out Shinji's room and into next guest room where Asuka was staying. Her body made light work of the shoji and landed right on top of the sleeping girl.

"What the hell!" Still half asleep but already pissed off Asuka grumbled and kicked off the dazed intruder.

"Asuka! Have you seen Shinji? He's not in his room!" Yui ran through the newly made entrance and began shaking her. She was shaking Asuka so hard that she didn't make any sense which just frustrated the mother further.

"Go check the others," Yui ordered to Kyoko and Rei who had moved back in the hallway from Shinji's room.

"He's most like gone for a early morning walk on his own. Why don't we get back to those pancakes?" Kyoko's hunger was more of a priority than Shinji at the moment.

"DO AS I SAY!" Yui's voice boomed and both of them scurried away like little mice.

HANAMAKI FOREST

"What was that?" Shinji turned around and see a flock of birds scatter from the tree tops in the distance. He could have sworn that the far away shriek sounded a lot like his mother.

"Mum's loud but not that loud." He opened the map of the area again to check where he was going. Shinji had woken early and decide to check what wonders the surrounding area had to offer. As he snuck out of the inn, he made sure to grab one of the tourist maps from the front counter.

"That stream should be up ahead." The tranquil sound of running water told him that he was right. He pushed pass the shrubs and made his way through. The stream was bigger than Shinji thought. There was no way that he could cross it without getting his feet wet. A mother deer and her fowl were further down the stream having their morning drink. They looked up at Shinji when he appeared through the bushes and didn't seem startled by him. Since the local fauna were drinking the water, Shinji wanted to try some as well. He bent down and brought a handful to his mouth. It wasn't the best water he had ever tasted but something about being from nature made him want some more.

Something made the deer nervous and they quickly trotted away. At first Shinji didn't think anything of it and went for one last drink. All of a sudden, something shot out of the water and wrapped around his head. With his eyes and mouth covered, he immediately panicked and tried to escape but it was no use. A single pull was all it took to drag him into the water. The only evidence that Shinji was even there was the tourist map from the inn floating down the stream.

HANAMAKI INN

"Ritsuko dear you better tell them the truth…" Naoko had recovered from her grand entrance into Asuka's room and was sipping on her morning cup of tea. Her daughter had been hog tied, gagged and dumped on top of the main dinning table.

"Don't try and pretend that you don't know! We all saw the way you got it on with my Shinji last night!" Misato foot came down onto the table just millimetres away from her friend's face. "Now tell us what you did with him."

The group had searched the entire inn and found no trace of the young man. This led to wild accusations and they all used Ritsuko as the scapegoat.

"WAAAAAAAAA! SHINJI!" Yui cried with fountain of tears from both eyes. The mother was going through the full cycle of emotions. She was currently at the depressed stage.

"Damn it Ritsuko! Look what you did?" Kyoko pointed at the crying Yui. "Do you have any idea how much I wanted pancakes this morning!"

"Will you forget about your pancakes!" Asuka told her mother.

"Now that you mention it, I wouldn't mind some of Yui's special pancakes," Naoko backed up her friend.

"I not sure about pancakes… But I wouldn't mind my morning beer." Misato had taken a time out from interrogating Ritsuko to join in on the conversation on breakfast.

"What's more important? Shinji or pancakes and beer!" Asuka laid down the ultimatum to the trio of woman. Each of them looked at each other before huddling in a group to discuss their answer.

"Can we have Shinji bring us the beer and pancakes?" Misato asked from the huddle. They had put a lot of thought into their answer.

"You weren't supposed to answer the question!" Asuka shouted back.

"Just give us a minute, Asuka dear…" Kyoko said before pulling Misato's head back into the huddle. They mulled over the details a bit more.

"Can you tell us how much beer and if we get any maple syrup with the pancakes?" Naoko wanted to know the specific details before answering again.

"Everyone look at this!" It was unusual for Maya to speak up during these events so everyone stopped arguing/crying/shouting and anything else to gather around her and the ever present laptop.

"Hanamaki Ghost Strikes Again," she read from the newspaper website.

"Another young man has been reported missing from the Hanamaki forest area last night. His disappearance is the fifth in just as many weeks. Police are currently at a stall with investigations.

"Locals have said that the disappearances are due to a white ghost haunting the woods. Legend tells of a young couple separated when war came to the country and the man went off to fight. The young wife waited for his husband to return. But he never did return even when the war ended. There was no letter or news of what happen to her beloved. The days dragged on to months and month became years. The once young beautiful woman had become just a former shadow of herself. Heartbreak and grief had taken its toll on the poor widow.

"One day the nearby villages reported her missing and she was never seen again. Soon after that sightings of a ghostly figure were reported near where their cottage was once stood

"Locals say the pale ghost is the widow and she is unable to leave this world until she has found her love. She has resorted to taking any man that comes across her path in an attempt to end her sadness.

"Then it just goes on about an interview with the chief of police," Maya finished reading the important parts of the article.

"OH MY GOD! MY SHINJI HAS BEEN KIDNAPPED BY A GHOST!" the story was too much for the mother and she fainted. Her body was conveniently caught by her daughter who was ready for the catch.

"Great…I'll never get those pancakes now." Kyoko's words had caused another round of bickering.

'I wish I could disappear like Shinji…' Ritsuko thought as she watched her family and friends get closer and closer to another all ready for a brawl.

HANAMAKI FOREST

The cool air and wet clothes made Shinji open his eyes. He was in a cave of some sort. The high roof was covered with stalactites and he could hear the sound of water dripping in fairly expansive cavern. Next he realised that he was lying on something very uncomfortable. Shinji sat up and pulled out the object that was sticking into his back.

"AH!" He quickly threw it aside when he saw that it was a bone of some kind. But it wasn't the only bone. Shinji was lying on a massive pile of remains. He scrambled off, causing some of the bones to fall of the pile. The hollow clunk sound they made just scared him more.

Then, out of the damp darkness, pairs of eyes began to open and look in his direction. They where blood red and didn't blink.

"Oh crap…" was all he could mutter as the more eyes appeared around him just like some kind of evil set of Christmas lights.

HANAMAKI INN

"Is everyone clear on the plan?" Yui had quickly regained conciseness after a couple of not so gently slaps from Rei. She had assembled everyone outside in the front of the inn and made them fall into formation. Everyone was dressed in there designated army fatigues.

"I have a question?" Kyoko said raising her hand. Her other hand was busy trying to keep the oversized army helmet from falling over her eyes. "When do I get my pancakes?"

WHACK

The oversized helmet had little protection from Yui's wooden spoon.

"No Shinji… No pancakes!" Yui snarled.

"Do I make myself clear!" she yelled at the rest of the group.

"This is absurd!" Ritsuko had enough and threw her helmet to the ground. "He's probably gone for a walk or something! There's no evidence that he was even kidnapped and to link it to some fictitious ghost story is even more ridiculous."

The blonde scientist turned around began walking back into the inn to wash the camouflage paint from her face.

"She's right." Touji and Kensuke followed Ritsuko's lead and dump their gear before heading back inside.

"Where are you all going?" Yui screamed as more and more people began walking away from her.

"Have any of you read this?" Fuyutsuki stood to the entrance of the inn holding a scrap piece of paper. Ritsuko was closest and grabbed it him.

"Gone for a walk in the forest, Shinji." Ritsuko read it aloud and showed the note to everyone.

"I found it in the kitchen. Why is everyone outside?" The old man was puzzled at what was going on but he should have known better than to ask.

"Oh my God! Do you know what this means?" Yui said and everyone turned towards her.

"The ghost has the ability to forge a note from my Shinji!" Everyone face faulted. Yui held a higher intelligence than average individual except in the case when it came to her children. Her love for them usually over rid her common sense.

"It might be one of those special poltergeists who have special abilities like making humans spontaneously combustion." Naoko added as the gears in her head began to turn.

"You really think so, Naoko?" Yui rushed over to her friend and began shaking her to see if she had any more answers. "Damn it, answer me!"

"There's no such thing as ghost, poltergeist or spontaneous human combustion." Ritsuko rubbed her temples as she felt a head ache coming on. "The widow in the newspaper was probably true but she most likely died of old age and a broken heart. End of story."

"Widow!" Misato only caught a few words from Ritsuko and her gears started to tick over "Then that bitch wants to get a piece of my Shinji action!"

Any association of another female and Shinji made Misato assume the worst and go on the offensive immediately.

"Shinji and I have discussed trying some different things in the bedroom but that doesn't mean he could jump straight into it!" Misato thought Shinji's disappearance could have been his attempt to spice up their relationship. She also tended to make things up to compensate for her lack of confidence in their so called relationship

"What the hell are you talking about!" Asuka grabbed the older women by the front of her shirt. She, too, didn't like Shinji having any association anything female except her.

"Oh, you're too young to understand." Misato said nonchalant.

"That's it!" Yui had borrowed Touji's and Kensuke's banner and changed the signage. She had enough of the messing about and there wasn't enough searching done for Shinji. It read – The Annual Shinji Game Hunt.

"The winner finds my Shinji safe and well. They will have the opportunity to do anything they want with him for twenty four hours!" She started reading out the guidelines for the competition.

"What if we don't him?" some yelled from the crowd. Yui wasn't sure but it sounded like Kaworu.

"Picky bastards…" she grumbled as she searched her pockets for something. "My only son isn't good enough for you…"

"How about ten million yen?" she found Gendo's credit card. She was pretty sure there was plenty of credit left. If not she had a contingency plan harvest her husband's organs and sell them on the black market. Although, she wondered who in their right mind would want to his damaged goods in the first place.

"WHAT!" everyone yelled in disbelief. Almost all of them would not have to work for a whole year with that amount of money. Most of them did work at NERV Heavy Industries and they were renowned for their employee packages and entitlements

"Alright, fine. It's twenty million and Shinji for a day if you want." Before she could she everyone scatted from the area, leaving her alone with the banner.

"Should have thought of doing that earlier…" she said coughing away the dust cloud her family and friends made in their mad dash for twenty million yen and Shinji.

"Hmmm… I wonder where is Pen-pen?" The mother mused. Normally the obnoxious little bird would have pestered one of then for his morning meal of sardines but there was no sign of him.

HANAMAKI FOREST

"Do you know how much stuff we could buy with twenty million Yen?" Touji asked his friend. Yen signs had replaced his pupils as he trotted through the forest undergrowth.

"Do you have any idea where you are going?" Kensuke answered back with a question of his own. He was the more realistic of the two stooges.

"Four-eyes is right!" Asuka grabbed Touji by the shoulder and swung him around. "Do we even know that Shinji went this way?"

"I have to agree with Asuka," Mana said. Surprisingly the two feuding school girls had something in common. "We need a plan if we are to find Shinji."

The seven school kids sat down in a circle in the middle of the forest. Silence fell on the five of them as they tried to think up a plan.

"Well does anyone have a map?" the class representative asked. Everyone looked at her like she had grown two heads. She just rolled her eyes. "A map of the area. If we don't know where we are going how are we suppose to find Shinji?"

"Stop pulling Misato!" The purple hair woman and her blonde companion emerged from a nearby shrub.

"Oh it's just you…" Misato said as she spotted Asuka sitting down in her little group. They began glaring at each other. Ritsuko's used this time to start picking out the stray twigs that have ended up in her hair from Misato's gallop through to the forest.

"What the hell do you want?" Asuka hissed back at the woman.

"It looks like you don't have a plan to find Shinji." Misato didn't miss an opportunity to get a cheap shot in with Asuka.

"And I suppose you have one? Your sense of direction is just as bad as Shinji's."

"Of course I have a plan! Misato Katsuragi always comes prepared." Everyone looked at her like she was serious and waited her for to explain the plan. But she just looked back at them.

"Well?" they all said.

"Well what?" she replied.

"TELL US THE PLAN!" they shouted as their patience grew thin.

"Oh, ok… actually it's better if I show you." Misato walked away from the group and took a depth breath.

"SHIN-CHAN! WHERE ARE YOU!" Misato bellowed into the wilderness.

Everyone face faulted as Misato continued her plan of shouting the boy's name on the top of her lungs in the hope for a response.

Meanwhile as Shinji's would be rescuers continued their search, the situation for our hero was looking very grim.

The flames at the bottom of the pole that he was tied to began to get higher and licked the bottom of his shoes. The light from the fire was isolated and Shinji still had no idea who had kidnapped him. He could slowly feel the temperature rise around him and smell of rubbing rubber filled the air accompanied by the rhythmic beat of tribal drums. His capturers with their evil red eyes danced around him in a ritual manner.

"At least this isn't as bad when Misato and the others gets drunk and wants to play dress up." He said to himself although the flames at the bottom of the pole did remind him of a time when Kyoko mention something about hot wax and candles. He had no idea why candles would be needed for a costume.

The beat of the drums gradually increased and eventually ended on a crescendo. The ritual dance stopped and all the eyes all turn in on direction as if they were expecting something. Then out of the darkness it appeared.

"What the hell?" those were all the words that escaped Shinji's lips as the leader of his kidnappers came into the light for the first time.

"WARK WARK…" A warm water penguin completed with grass skirt and traditional tribal head dress began waving his staff around at his disciples.

HANAMAKI INN

"Sensei, have you seen Pen-pen?" Yui asked the old man like a child who misplaced her favourite toy. He was reading the morning paper spread out on the kotasu since had no interest in the Annual Shinji Game Hunt that the Vice President of the company he worked for organised.

"No," he grunted almost like in a Gendo manner.

"Do you think the ghost took Pen-pen as well!" her heart skipped a beat as the possibility of two members of her family being kidnapped raced through her mind.

"If ghosts even exist, what possible reason do you think they would have for taking a warm water penguin?"

"May be… the ghost isn't human… IT MIGHT BE THE SPIRIT OF A POLAR BEAR!" Yui put two and two together. She knew that a penguin was part of a polar bear's stable diet and Maya had told her about the white ghost of the forest.

The old man face faulted at the mother's absurd suggestion.

"This isn't good…" Yui began nervously biting her nails. "The ghost bears must be really hungry today to take my Shinji and Pen-pen."

"Ok… Look…" Fuyutsuki decided to try and talk some sense into her. "There are no ghosts, poltergeist or spirits of either human or animal form. Your son and your bird have gone for a walk and will be back soon. So please call off this competition before someone decides to sue us. And polar bears and penguins live at the opposite ends of the Earth."

"You're right…" Fuyutsuki sigh a sign of relief but it was too soon for that.

"It's probably Bigfoot! He's neither man nor animal." Yui just wouldn't let go of the idea her son being kidnapped.

For the second time the old man face faulted.

"I've seen the discovery channel! There was this really good documentary." Yui reassured herself. "It might be a werewolf as well; I can't rule that out… If I remember those suckers are allergic to silver? I need to find some silver bullets. I should still have some left over in the kit bag from last Halloween…"

She continued to ramble on as she walked back out the front to the VTOL.

"Why the hell would she have silver bullets for Halloween?" Fuyutsuki asked. "Wait, I don't want to know."

HANAMAKI FOREST

"Pen-pen?" Shinji asked. 'Damn it! Why am I asking a bird for its name?'

"WARK WARK. WARK WARK." The head penguin continued to give orders in bird talk to his disciples. All of them were similar in size and had matching grass skirts. The only difference between them and leader was the crowd on the leader's head. There must have been over fifty penguins surrounding Shinji now. Shinji had a closer look at the leader and recognised it to not be the family pet.

He didn't like the look in their eyes. From his experience with Pen pen, the bird would get same look in his eyes would his meals were late. It usually resulted in a rampage of vicious pecking. Amazingly, the bird would move his beak as quick as a wood pecker went he needed to. Shinji closed his eyes and waited for death.

"WARK!" something fell from the sky and the air rushed passed his face.

"Pen-pen!" Shinji made no mistake with this bird now. The family pet turned around gave him the flipper equivalent of the thumbs up.

"WARK WARK!" Pen-pen began explaining something to the group before him. The bird banter continued as Shinji wondered.

'This is the weirdest shit I've seen in my life…'

HANAMAKI FOREST

"SHINJI! WHERE ARE YOU!" Misato had persisted with her plan of walking around aimlessly and shouting his name. Against better judgment the other followed her. It wasn't like they had any better ideas than her.

BANG

Out of no where a bullet barely missed Misato's head and buried in the tree behind her. She instinctively touched the top of her head to make sure everything was in place.

"DIE EVIL WEREWOLF!" Yui leapt out of the bushes sporting an oversize elephant hunting gun.

"Oh… It's just you Misa-chan…" the mother sounded disappointed. "From a distance you look like a werewolf."

"You nearly killed me!" Misato sounded upset. "And how the hell do I look like a werewolf!"

"Too bad she missed," Asuka muttered under her breath. The other children snickered.

"So have you guys had any luck in finding my Shinji?" Yui ignored Misato's questions and quickly shoved the point of the gun into her mouth to stop her from shouting obscenities. It did little as the metal object only muted her abuse.

"No we haven't been able to find any sign of him," Rei answered her mother.

"I see." She pulled the gun from Misato's gob and flicked off the dribble from the tip. Misato clutched her mouth and readjusted her bottom jaw.

"I was going to investigate that raising smoke over there." Yui pointed to the distance where a column of smoke could be seen going into the sky. The rest of the group simultaneously slapped their foreheads at the obvious clue that was in front of their eyes but failed to see.

"Ok troops! Forward march." Yui slung the hunting rifle over her shoulder and began marching. The rest of the group followed with a lot less enthusiasm as their gallant leader surged ahead.

In no time, our search party reached the source of the smoke stack. To their surprise it was coming out of the cave opening. It was well hidden by the forest undergrowth and if the smoke wasn't visible you would walk straight pass it without noticing it.

"What do you think?" Yui whispered to Misato.

"Not sure." Her adopted niece had forgiven her for nearly shooting her. Mistaking her for a werewolf was another thing. "There may be booby traps."

"You're right. These polar bears are tricky creatures…"

"Why are we whispering? And what do werewolves and polar bears have to do with looking for Shinji?" Ritsuko couldn't help it but she had to ask even though she knew she would regret it.

"SHHH!" Yui and Misato hushed her. "You'll tip them off."

Misato started giving instructions via hand signals that a solider give to other fellow soldiers for a sneak attack. Hand's flapped and fingers pointed in various directions.

"What the hell does this mean!" Ritsuko waved her hands around trying her best to mimic her nut case of a friend. "This isn't the jungles of the Mekong Delta!"

Misato just repeated her hand signals but with more emphasis and less patience.

"Look! I bet it's just a group of campers or some local kids playing." The blonde doctor pushed her way pass Misato and Yui to the entrance of the cave. As she got closer strange noises started to come from inside the cave. They weren't human and she didn't recognise it as any call from a wild animal. For only a moment she started to believe what Yui had said about the werewolves.

"Wark wark wark." Pen-pen waddled out of the darkness with a firm flipper attached to Shinji's hand.

"I have no idea what you said Pen- pen but thanks for rescuing me." Shinji scratched his head wondering if he was crazy for trying to have a conversation with a warm water penguin.

"Shinji?" Ritsuko asked surprised and relieved at the same time.

"Dr. Akagi?" The boy shielded his face as his eyes adjusted from the darkness of the cave to daylight.

"Ah… Look… I…" The older woman seemed lost for words. As soon as she had seen the boy, it reminded her of last night's kiss they shared. She began playing with a rock on the ground and couldn't look at him straight in the eye.

"Is there something wrong?" He asked innocently.

'How can he be so causal after that kiss!' she thought half mad. 'Wait! I'm the adult here. I should be the one…'

WHACK

Her thoughts were interrupted by the butt of Yui's hunting rifle. She had delivered the blow with such precision that Ritsuko instantly fell to the ground unconscious.

"SHINJI! YOU'RE SAFE!" she charged him and threw aside the gun. The next thing Shinji knew was that he was having the life squeezed out of him by one of his mother's patented bear hugs.

"SHIN-CHAN!" Misato was next to come and used her unconscious friend as a stepping stone. Her foot was planted on the back of her head and her face was pushed further into the dirt. Soon Shinji was being bear hugged from both sides.

"I was so scared. There was this ghost and it ate fire. Then a big polar had a fight with a werewolf. I had to shoot it but it got away and then I ran out of silver so I have to go mining and found a treasure chest but that was haunted. But the discovery channel was right. Baka Gendo's credit card. Pen-pen kebab stick. Did I mention the ghost who was a fire man but not a fire man? Kyoko's eating too many pancakes! Then polar bear ate Kyoko!"

Yui's words came out a million miles an hour and made no sense at all. She had a tendency to ramble on in a panic and spout nonsense. Shinji had learnt to let her carry on until she had finished.

HANAMAKI INN – EVENING

"Hey everyone come have a look at this!" Naoko called everyone over. She was in front of the TV and the local news was on. It was a news report with the same news girl that covered Gendo's daring prison escape.

(We are at an undisclosed location in the Hanamaki region where scientists today have discovered an extremely rarely prehistoric colony of ancient penguins.)

The camera panned over to the inside of the cave where Shinji was saved from being eaten.

"Hey isn't that…" Before the boy could finish, the reporter started speaking again.

(It's believed that these carnivorous penguins existed during the ice age at the end of the dinosaurs reign on the earth. The number of birds in the colony is about sixty with the majority of them being female.)

The camera panned again to a shot of Pen pen living it up with his newly found girlfriends.

"Rei, honey cover your eyes. I can't believe that they are showing this during prime time news." Yui was disgusted with the way the family pet was flaunting himself on national television. "Doesn't Pen-pen know that they might be children watching?"

"You should be taking notes Ritsuko. You might learn something from Pen-pen," the bottle blonde's mother suggested.

"Shut up!" It hurt to talk or she would have had a lot more to say. The ice pack she was holding to the back of her head wasn't helping much either.

(The entire area surrounding the bird's colony has been designated a protected area and the public access restricted to help protect their habitat. It's believed that the recent missing person's in the area are attributed to these penguins.)

"She's a pretty good reporter," Kyoko said aloud, impressed by the reporter's professionalism.

"You know, I heard a rumour that she's dating the sports guy," Misato added. Her endless hours reading soap magazines and gossip columns came in handy for something.

"You don't say…"

"So…" Naoko switched off the TV with the remote and turned to Yui. "Who gets the money?"

"Money? What money?"

"That's right!" Ritsuko stood up fighting the dizziness. "I was first to find Shinji so I get the twenty million Yen prize money."

"Oh, the prize money…" For the first time since leaving from Tokyo 3, Ritsuko was smiling. After all the hardship, pain and idiotic behaviour she had been through it was about to pay out.

"I gave it to Pen pen."

"YOU DID WHAT!" the Akagi daughter screamed like a banshee. It scared Yui enough to scamper around behind Shinji like a scared little girl.

"Well, it was Pen pen that lead Shinji out of the cave." Ritsuko thought about Misato's comment and looked for any mistruth in it. She recounted the events leading up to Shinji's discover and compared it with the statement. There was nothing she could find wrong with it.

"ARGH!" She threw the ice pack that she was supposed to have against the bump on her head through the nearest window.

There was a knock on the front door which was followed by a new voice.

"Excuse me? Is this the Hanamaki Hot Spring Inn?" A man in a courier uniform and clipboard stood in the door way.

"Yes it is. How can I help you?" Yui got up to greet the man. She tried to use her body to block his view of everyone trying to hold down a berserker Ritsuko Akagi.

"Ok…" He thought it was strange but it wasn't his place to say anything. "I have a delivery for a… Pen-pen Ikari." His voice trailed as he wasn't sure that the name the depot gave him was correct. When he mentioned the bird's name everyone stopped wrestling and looked on.

"I can sign for that." Yui took the consignment form and scribbled her signature along the dotted line. The man bowed and went back out where he began waving a dump trunk that was reversing into the front yard of the inn. The reversing warning signal further intrigue the group as they ran outside to see what was going on with the courier.

"Alright! Drop the load." The trailer section of the dump truck began to lift and the contents spewed onto the ground. Scores of tin cans began to flow out. Shinji picked up one of rounded cans as it rolled and stopped at his feet.

"Sardines." He read the label and the first trunk drove away. It was replaced by another with and same amount of sardine cans.

"It looks like Pen pen as already spent the money." Misato said as a matter of fact as she pointed to the endless line of dump trunks all filled with tin cans of sardines.

"He… spent… twenty… million… yen… on… tinned… fish…" Ritsuko's shoulder began to twitch uncontrollably with rage.

"But it's the good stuff." Naoko handed her daughter a can. "You see gold label."

END OF CHAPTER

AUTHOR'S NOTES
I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Years.

I'm not sure if deer are around the Hanamaki area. I just did a Google search for Japanese deer and Japanese hot springs.

I wasn't sure if this chapter was going to be 'funny funny' or just 'stupid funny' like in 3am in the morning when everything seems funny. So let me know what you think? More of this stuff or back to the regular funny? I also plan on doing some semi serious chapters in the future which leads me to my next question.

I want to do a chapter about Asuka and her father. But I need a German name. So before I just Google German's names and pick one at random, I want to know if any readers know of his proper name if he was even given one in the series or manga.

PROOF READERS NOTES
Stop complaining about the older women being interested in Shinji. Straight shota is funny.

Besides, it's clear that Shinji isn't interesting Naoko or Kyoko.