Thanks for the review, Oldschool97! There's more where this came from, that's for sure.

And thank YOU for checking out this story!
-Vel

Three weeks later
NERV HQ under severe repair
Magi Control Center A.K.A. the Bridge

Maya gently sat her phone back onto its cradle and swiveled her chair around to face Ritsuko, "That was Medical. They report the Second Child is missing from her room. The door was forced open from within and some bandages were strewn about in a trail from the bed out into the hallway." She shifted back to her computer, taking a moment to rub at the bandages covering her left forearm.

Doctor Akagi returned her attention to her terminal when it beeped in a heartbeat pattern, "The hell? Orange pattern detected in here?" She lifted her hazel eyes to peer at the recently replaced catwalk overlooking the Evangelion cages. Those hazel eyes slowly deepened as their irises drew inward on the pupils, "Asuka!"

Either the redhead didn't hear the scientist, or she just didn't care about anything else. Asuka stopped her bandaged feet to face the heavily bandaged Purple Behemoth and stared at its uncovered eye, "Alright, you big, bucket of bastardly bolts. Where is he? What have you done with my Shinji?!"

Asuka found herself standing on another beach, this time in the dead of night with a dark, cloudy sky, "Answer me, dummkompf! Where is he?"

She whirled around to see a humanoid figure made mostly of shadow, its double voices were discordant, but not harmful to the redhead's ear, "He is somewhere- -within us."

The young girl annoyedly folded her arms over her chest, "Any ideas where to start looking?"

"I- we-," the voices stuttered as a shrouded hand lifted, turning up a fleshy palm. "We do not know where he is, but we do know he has not left our body."

"Fick. Look, here's the deal. You don't try to join or merge with him, and I won't rend you into fish food."

The figure contemplated the girl's words for a moment, "Your threat is un-. Oh, we see you have Adam's Gift as we now do. We would attempt not to do so, but our wish to join with others to stem the tide our own pain is quite strong."

It was Asuka's turn to think, "Loneliness isn't pain. It's kept me going for three years."

"We will not trespass your A.T. field as you normally have it-"

"Glad to hear it."

"-but we will not accept a lie as an answer from one such as yourself."

Asuka narrowed her eyes at the figure, "You're still wrong about loneliness being pain. It's a longing, a need for interaction and comfort with others." She put her hands on her hips and cocked her head just-so, "I'm not alone in wanting Shinji back in the land of the living, but I want him back with me. Intact. Understand?"

The shadow nodded its shrouded head in compliance, "We are trying, but he does not respond to us."

The redhead relaxed, exhaling in deflation, "Shit. I'll see about getting his friends together. Maybe all of us can get him to answer."

"Til we meet again, Sohryu-san." The figure nodded again and Asuka blinked awake on the catwalk.

Not yet having changed from her hospital gown and some bandages, Asuka sat in NERV HQ's mess hall with some sort of sandwich before her, Who the fick could help?! If Shinji were here, I could ask him. But NO! He's trapped inside a Gott Verdammt Evangelion!

She hadn't noticed herself devouring her food, but at least she'd had the decency to leave the paper plate alone. You'd think I hadn't eaten in a week.

Come on Asuka, think! Who would Shinji ask- "Mein Gott! How could I be so stupid? Now if one of those Stooges is actually awake, I can get some answers!" She discarded her trash before tearing down the hallways, back to the Medical Ward.

Sakura Suzuhara awoke to several machines intent on keeping her human body operating, but she began to gag on the tubes running into her lungs. The heart monitor beeped at a faster pace while she struggled to free herself from the insipid devices. Her gut tried to expel whatever it contained before the tube was extracted, but the girl succeeded in containing the reflex long enough to haphazardly flop onto the floor.

A Japanese woman wearing powder blue scrubs rushed into the room and abruptly halted. Three other nurses and a male doctor did not stop, causing all but the first nurse to haphazardly collapse in the doorway, with the doctor slimly missing a gurney along the opposite wall with his head.

The woman hurried over to help Sakura to her feet, which then descended into getting the girl back onto her bed when her legs refused to function.

Once they were all again standing, the doctor dismissed the other nurses.

He calmly walked over to Sakura's bed, "Sakura-san, how do you feel?"

It took her a few tries and a few coughs to get her voice working, "I- I feel like myself. Alone, but good."

The doctor scribbled a note on a pad pulled from his pocket, "Hmm, is there anything else? Different or new, I mean-"

He found himself standing in a white void opposite Sakura, who told him, "Somehow- I can be here, too." The poor man fumbled through his clothes, but couldn't find the note pad or the pen he held a moment ago. She added to him, "This isn't our normal, mortal plane of existence. Anything is possible here."

"I would very much like to return now," he calmly stated. Immediately, his perspective shifted back to reality and he wanted to scratch more into his notepad, but found he was simply dumbfounded with what to write, "I'll be dammed." He put the pad back in his pocket, "I don't see a reason you can't be released, but it's not up to me. I just make the recommendations." Before he left, he did make some notes on her chart at the foot of the bed.

Sakura went to read what he'd written:

Subject has the 'gift'. Recommend caution in dealings with. Provoking negative reactions not recommended. Instead, release A.S.A.P.

She gasped as she realized it had been written in an obscure dialect of Japanese and in a shorthand form of it at that. Before that day, Sakura Suzuhara had neither heard this particular dialect, nor had she ever seen it before, but somehow she could read it without effort. The girl inwardly wondered how far her instant comprehension of written language extended.

As Asuka padded back into the hallways of NERV's Medical Ward, she finally felt goosebumps on her skin. The remaining bandages and hospital gown were insufficient to keep the air conditioning from her supple form. With a quick glimpse around, her sharp blue eyes fixed on the room number her quest had begun in.

Finding her school uniform cleaned, pressed, and sealed in a seamless plastic bag, Asuka got dressed without fuss. There was a NERV branded makeup kit on the stand beside the sink, but the redhead wasn't in the mood for wasting time, He may be an idiot, but he's MY idiot!

Asuka stared at herself in the mirror and crossed her arms over her chest, When the heck did I start caring about someone else? Her mind washed over with various images of the events of the past seven months. Kind, caring, helpful bastard. Somehow he's kinda cute, too. "Argh! What the hell am I thinking?! I don't need-." Her subconscious betrayed her ego with a warmth in her heart when she merely thought of the Stooge. Under cover of her breath and her hair, she almost silently admitted to the drain, "He does make all of this bearable. Someone who cares about me in return? That's worth fighting for- surviving for- killing for!" She hadn't felt a few tears fall down into the sink, not that she had heard them land, but there they sat before her sharp blue eyes. Asuka relaxed her tensed muscles enough to smile, and loosed some more tears into the ceramic basin as her thoughts wandered around her memories of their time together so far.

Kensuke slowly drifted back to consciousness, finding himself in a numerously divided hospital recovery room. Though some of his bandages had once kept his insides from falling out, he was surprised to neither feel, nor find any injuries. Weirder still was when he habitually gathered his glasses and put them on.

Rei abruptly woke by a shriek! and tore from her bed in a split-second, aiming to discover the source of the offending noise. Not all of her bandages went with for the ride, and her hospital gown had only been secured around her waist.

A small group had simultaneously assembled around Kensuke's cramped space. The four of them looked around for a moment. The First Child gazed at the Class Representative and broke the silence, "Horaki-san, you are not a pilot."

Hikari Horaki, standing in her own hospital gown and naught else, shrugged, "The shelter I was in had a wall melt from some bright light. I managed to get whoever was still alive to safety, but there was a big piece of- was it a building? -that was falling down. It's a dark blur after that."

"That explains you, but what was that noise for, Stooge!?" The group turned to the doorway where Asuka was standing. She pointed at Kensuke like he was on trial, "I bet the Commander heard that squeal way back in Headquarters!"

"I-uh-," he stammered in response, trying to remember what she was referring to. The Stooge interjected before the Red Devil could make a threat, "Shocked to find out I can see without my glasses."

Rei's now violet-white eyes widened akin to saucers, "You- do not need them- anymore?" She didn't exactly bite her lower lip, but the expression, not to mention a little red in her cheeks, was firmly engraved on her face.

Kensuke gazed at Rei's face, and his eyes widened somewhat. Your eyes aren't red. They're a purple.

I believe the color you seek is called Violet.

Its- they're- gorgeous.

Asuka crossed her arms over her chest in annoyance again, "You guys help me get Shinji back to this world, and I'll tell you what you haven't figured out."

The group's voices sounded off one at a time, indicating what was different for them individually. "My scars are all gone." "There's my fully restored vision." "I- I can't or don't remember." Rei's revelation disturbed Asuka visibly, "Nothing has changed for me."

The redhead exhaled in new defeat, "For those of you who do notice a change, or rather, able to do things you could not before-." She relaxed her arms and leaned against the door frame lightly, "You're now ascended beings."

"Ascended?" Hikari asked.

Asuka nodded, her long, red hair draping itself over her shoulders, "Humans are children of Lilith; Angels, children of Adam. Lilith is the seed of wisdom, while Adam the seed of life."

The group stared at Asuka in wonder. Kensuke broke the silent moment, "Right. So-"

"So that light you saw around your own bodies in the other world when you accepted Shinji's hand was him SHARING ADAM'S GIFT OF LIFE!" Asuka turned in anger and stomped down the hallway back toward the tram station that led back to NERV HQ.

Making her way back on foot, Asuka stopped to examine a patch of watermelons hidden suspiciously in a mess of hedges. The scene befalling her sharp blue eyes would have made even the Red Devil weep, if it hadn't been half-destroyed with a footprint from an Evangelion. Asuka looked up at the ceiling and saw the holes made by yesterday's Angel assault being repaired. She squinted to peer at them clearer, but choose to ignore a sense of weightlessness. The harder her will was to examine the ceiling, the less effort she had exert to see it. She held that thought and blinked before looking around. Her feet and the ground were more than twenty meters apart! This realization culminated in panic, and she flailed about like a fish out of water as she started to fall. Thoughts of staying airborne at the last moment halted her velocity, and she hung in the air just above the ground.

Asuka exhaled again before softly touching down, "Great. Now my gift finally asserts itself."

She took another look around, "Hmph, which Eva ruined this pretty scene..." As she flew up out of the trees, Asuka could see the Pyramid a ways ahead along the trail, while the landing spot of a now obliterated Eva was not too far back, "Unit Three and Bardiel. I should have known." She didn't think anything of just flying back to the Pyramid.

Sitting at her terminal with little to do, Ritsuko was pouring over some old data from ten years ago. Several non-threatening alarms blared to life, all of them coupled with the same message text: Orange Blood Pattern Detected. Alert Status 2. "Dammit! These patterns are all around us! How the hell did they get past our defenses?!"

Without thinking, Maya ditched her Styrofoam coffee cup onto the edge of the desk, where it dropped to the floor. She focused on sorting through the alerts from the MAGIs' auto-detection protocols, not to mention all the windows without any serious data beyond relative location. Her deep brown eyes widened as a large group of signals were remaining where they were, the NERV Medical Ward. "Ma'am, the Medical Ward-."

"I see it, too." One more notification popped up on Ritsuko's screen, stating a detection within Central Dogma, "Argh! Now there's one here!?"

Asuka entered the doorway to the Bridge, "One what?"

Maya must not have heard the redhead at all, "It's pretty strong, too!"

The redhead took in a breath and spoke quite a bit louder, "What are you guys talking about!?"

Maya turned to the voice by the doorway in embarrassment, "Oh, Asuka!"

"Come here and look at this," Ritsuko pushed herself and her chair back, letting Asuka have a look at the data.

The girl stared at the location information displayed like a sonar map. A group of blips were about two kilometers to the East, while a single blip was within the Pyramid itself. Asuka shot a confused expression at the Doctor.

"You and the other pilots aren't the only ones who have changed." Ritsuko slid in beside Asuka and took the mouse to zoom out on the viewer, "Whatever it is, it's spreading out into humanity like a plague."

"Gift," Asuka grunted.

Maya hadn't strained to overhear them, having walked over to sit on the end of Ritsuko's desk. The blonde was slightly, yet pleasantly, surprised by her assistant's mental faculties again, "You mean a gift from Adam? How is that possible?!"

The redhead sighed for the tenth time that day, "Shinji told me about when he had the container with Adam in it switched at the docks in France, before its scheduled truck ride to the Third Branch in Germany." Asuka went over and grabbed a chair to sit with the two women at Ritsuko's desk, "He said he picked out the one container that didn't stand out. With all the security bypassing NERV was doing at the time, fudged paperwork was nothing."

Ritsuko thought aloud, "So how did-"

"I'm getting to that," Asuka stated, shifting herself and her skirt to be more comfortable in the office chair. She grabbed an offending lock of her hair and pushed it back behind her shoulder, "That's how he got Adam into America. Once he cracked open that container, everything changed. He told me about the dreamworld where all our dreams could be true, but never manifest here. That was not the same for Adam's children. They take whatever form they want, in whatever size they desire, and can keep it in the material world. Our world."

Ritsuko and Maya had each blinked and saw a vast, empty, white plane of existence. Asuka materialized before them, "This is the seat of the Angel's power and Humanity's wisdom. Even if only an embryo in the physical world, or separated world as some of the Angels called it, Adam's power was not dimmed. He brought Shinji into the dreamworld. After a heated discussion about Angels, Humans, and the Human creation of the synthetic life form called Evangelion, Adam chose to help us. Whatever argument validated things for the father of the Angels, only Shinji really knows." Back in reality, Asuka had gone and retrieved a bottle of water from the mess hall vending machine, while the pair of women remained in the dream world, listening to her mind. She willed them back to reality, where a moment of panic wanted to take them over, but Asuka shifted her grip on the bottle, making a plastic crinkle that echoed for a moment, "Shinji shared Adam's gift with several people, probably making his ego weak enough to disintegrate in the Eva plug when he pushed close to his absolute limit."

"Hey! Speaking of attempted resurrection..." Ritsuko tapped on her keyboard, bringing up all of the Eva Plug Retrieval data.

One name caught Asuka's attention immediately, "Yui Ikari." Her face contorted in realization, "Fick! That's who's merged with the soul of Unit One!" She sensed the silence from the two women, and sighed again, "I talked to her- it- in the dream world. It promised not to try to join with him."

Maya wondered to the redhead, "So, about the data from this other retrieval experiment-"

Asuka shook her head after looking through several pages on the main screen, "No. This method is external. The Eva's A.T. field would just block everything. Especially now, what with that damn Super Solenoid organ."

"That's Adam's Gift. Isn't it?" Ritsuko's voice was cold, but thoughtful.

"Only about half of it. The truth of the Gift runs far deeper than just a bodily organ that could be surgically removed without killing the ascended human."

Maya lifted her finger to her chin in thought, "So what would happen to-"

"Reverted to a normal human. No flying, A.T. field using, living for a darn long time. Probably a veritable cornucopia of other perks to being ascended."

Ritsuko thought she was being secretive and brought up the data from twenty minutes ago from the MAGIs' sensor logs, "Flying, huh? That explains what the MAGI saw someone doing..."

Asuka peeked down with only her sharp blue eyes and puffed her reddening cheeks, "Well, my gift had to manifest at some point!"

"I guess thirty meters up is good for a first try."

For the first time in a week, Asuka laughed.

The problem was that she laughed so hard, she needed a change of undergarments.

Maya grabbed something from Ritsuko's desk and shoved it into the girl's hands, "Go change." When Asuka looked at what she'd been given, she gaped at the brown-clad bridge bunny; who, in turn, just nodded, "Go. Change."

When the redhead returned, her cheeks were red from self-conscious embarrassment. Mein Gott! I swore it was a bottom half of a swimsuit when I took a peek! Except for the part where they're made of silk.

Asuka knew she hadn't willed herself into the dream world, but there she stood. So... now what...

The shadow-clad Yui Ikari coalesced nearby, "We see you and your friends have just started to comprehend Adam's gift. They would be able to help us, you and we, gather our son."

Closing her sharp blue eyes, Asuka brought Ritsuko and Maya into the dream world. She told them, "Ritsuko, Maya- meet- uh-" She turned to the figure, "What do I call you, anyway?"

"We are Ev- no, Yu- -hmm." The figure's voice trailed off as it gave the matter some thought. "We never gave it much thought."

A reddish-shadow materialized near the darker haze, "We're glad our Asuka gave us a name. Practically the first moment she laid those big, blue buttons on us."

Asuka lowered her head and pressed a palm to her own forehead, "You agreed you wouldn't mention that again..."

The red shadow formed into a humanoid figure, akin to Kyoko Zeppelin Sohryu, "We are sorry, little Asuka. But every time we think of that moment-"

"Just- please keep your enthusiasm about that to yourself. I'm not sure I'll ever heal up from that childhood horror."

"In any case, we were Yui Ikari." The darker shadow seemed to be taking pains to seem human, it's normally doubled voice was, for the moment, mostly singular and definitely that of a kind mother. The smile that went with that introduction left much to be desired, however.

Maya couldn't speak, but was greatly impressed with Ritsuko's resolve. The blonde didn't have to fake a smile, "It's nice to meet you, Ikari-san." She acknowledged the red-clad shadow figure as well, "And you, Liebkind."

The Kyoko figure saw a smirk on Yui's face, and gave a shrug in response, but somehow had the prudent idea to keep her mouth shut.

To everyone's surprise Rei willed herself into the group. With violet-white eyes, she peered at Asuka, "Miss Sohryu, the others await." Her her voice greeted Ritsuko and Maya, "Doctor Akagi, Miss Ibuki." Rei spoke blatantly to the redhead, "You may as well offer them the gift, as was offered you."

The albino got a smirk for an answer, "I've been thinking how I was going to Segway into that." Asuka smoothly pivoted to the two women, and extended her right hand as if this were a first, formal greeting, "Doctor, Lieutenant, would you help us in forging a new future for humanity?"

Laughter was not the response Asuka was expecting from either one of them, let alone both! Her face went red with anger, "Hey! I'm serious here!"

Maya had to sit down, but continued to emit a chortle. Meanwhile, Ritsuko nearly had her head between her knees, and lifted her palm to visualize a request to halt. So, Asuka crossed her arms and waited. At least this isn't the real world, where they'd have to go change.

The blonde got herself calmed down first, and tried to explain without inciting another incident. It was not easy, "Gendo- -God, this is hilarious- -he said nearly word for word that same request to nearly everyone who joined this branch of NERV!"

Asuka peered around at the two shadowy figures in the dream world, "No warnings, eh? -o- -kay. I see how it is."

Liebkind shifted her eyes and looked away with amusement, while Yui just shrugged. Rei noted, "An a-typical reaction. Most odd."

Ritsuko helped Maya back to her feet, and turned to Asuka, "We'd love to. Besides, the dream Gendo was clinging to is pretty much gone. Now that he openly won't needlessly endanger lives for personal gain." She thought hard for a moment about that, "His old plan-" Ritsuko's face went pale, "Shit! Asuka, send me back! I should check the MAGI for something!"

The Doctor made short work of nailing her keyboard to the desk with her fingers. When she was done, she turned her hazel eyes to Unit One off on the far wall and nodded.

Back in the dream world, everyone was staring at Ritsuko, so she explained, "A few weeks ago, I noticed some large chunks of data being sent off-site. Naturally, I shuffled through it and found nothing. Something kept nagging at me that there was a hell of a lot more to it than just some erroneous data, so I put in a time-delay of a week for all off-site data packs larger than a megabyte. I just saved us the trouble of having last week's data logs transmitted, and sent out false data logs in their place. Not to mention, checking on an ongoing background trace to see how the scrambled data was being manufactured. I should know before the end of daylight tomorrow."

Yui's voice went back to it's doubled tonality, but deepened, and she narrowed her eyes, "Chairman Keel."

Rei deadpanned in perfect comedic form, "That sounds like a ringing endorsement for political candidacy."

The collected beings gaped at her until she spoke with a contented smirk, "I made a funny."

Asuka just folded her hands behind her back, pushing her chest forward in pride and grinned while the only true humans of the group looked at eachother with genuine surprise. The redhead padded over to Ritsuko and Maya, "The Gift." She offered a hand to each of them, "It doesn't hurt, I promise."

As the pair of hands touched her own, Askua's form glowed, then the two other beings contacting hers did the same. Asuka smiled with amusement and not a small amount of pride, "Omedeto! You can eat whatever you want, sleep only if you want to- amongst anything else we find out we can do."

Almost as an aside, Ritsuko glimpsed past Asuka to Yui, "Keel and the others were assassinated a few weeks ago. You've got one guess by whom."

Yui tilted her head in consideration, "Not Gen- he wouldn't do that!"

The doctor nodded in confirmation, "Did. Of course, Section Two hasn't confirmed all of their deaths yet. Some of the Committee members lived in secluded, heavily-hardened bunkers." Ritsuko smirked, noting that, "Keel was in Munich, of all places."

Kyoko was confused as to why she found that amusing, while Yui just shook her head, "We never met him. The voice on the other end of the phone always seemed cold and calculating. Even when the old bastard was honestly interested."

Rei concluded, "Most odd." To which Yui had to nod in agreement. "I'll get the others,' and she disappeared back to reality.

A will coalesced into being in the void. Having not the faculties to describe its world, it did not comprehend the red-haired creature that seemed in search of something. Whatever that- -being?- is looking for, it seems important to it.

Floating along, Asuka felt a twinge at the back of her neck; the feeling that one is being watched. She whirled around, but saw nothing. "Who-?" she stopped herself. Just think it, Asuka.

Asuka? Wh- what is Asuka?

She blinked in surprise; she was not currently alone. The voice was certainly familiar, but it seemed so unlike him to be uncertain of- -anything. I am Asuka. What's your name?

We- I, do not know. What is a name?

Asuka rubbed her nose with her fingertips. What's the last thing you remember?

This world. What is this?

It's called the dream world. It doesn't exist anywhere specific. It just exists.

What are you?

The redhead lifted a reddish eyebrow at the question while she formulated an appropriate answer, I'm a g- My species is Human. There are two genders: male and female. I am female.

When another question was not automatically forthcoming, Asuka wanted to smirk, but slightly widened her mouth instead, What are you thinking?

You're very colorful.

Sh- Shinji? Slowly, her face gained color, and her sharp blue eyes more easily telegraphed hope. Asuka had not noticed her body lean forward a little, too.

The underside of a hand formed before her, wanting to touch her shoulder. It stopped short as her blush deepened, Is that- uh- I don't have a word for that.

"Normal? Usual? Supposed to happen?"

Yes, that. Your face. The hand decided to rest its fingertips on her lightly freckled cheek instead, making her heart beat loud enough for her to hear; at the same time, her sharp blue eyes widened and her pupils began dilating. I- I think I like this.

Sans thought, Asuka gently raised her hand to touch- to hold the hand lightly caressing her soft skin. As soon as she grabbed the hand, a nearly blinding light made her lose most of her sensation of arousal.

A naked Shinji stood there, holding her cheek. I do like this. What is this?

His hand didn't feel warm like her skin did, but he wasn't cold to the touch, either. "A feeling. A good feeling."

Something sharp slid into the soft skin of Asuka's cheek, garnering a pained squeal and her taking a few steps back from this "Shinji". He was staring at her blood on a claw-like, deformed, but still human-like hand. "Shinji!? What are you doing?!"

You Lilin certainly are a strange bunch. What had been Shinji standing before Asuka shifted into a dusky, pale boy in informal business attire. Openness to hostility in a split-second. I wonder, Sohryu-san, what should become of us all?

"Where's Shinji!?" Asuka demanded and narrowed her eyes.

If I knew that, I would not be here.

"You're not exactly an Angel. You're-" His reddish eyes reminded her of another pilot, "You're like Rei."

He sighed, "Perhaps I am, but it doesn't matter. The compulsion to merge with Lilith and wipe your kind from this world is- well, very compelling." A sinister smile grew on his face.

She crossed her arms and peered at him with annoyance, "So why the false pretense? Why not just get on with trying to get to Her?"

"So far, only one of my brethren have even made it inside your facility. I was curious what made you Lilin so special that you easily outclassed them all."

The warmth of her heart was a music unto itself for him. She was his focus, his reason for being. Sure, the rest of Humanity deserved a life free of external horror, but there were limits to what he would do for others individually. Every word Asuka Langley Sohryu spoke, every thought she had, could make Shinji Ikari feel filled with light. Slowly, his memories drew together.

Her exposed body visible to any in Misato's living room Shinji thought, Nobody's here. Asuka was passed out. It had only taken him shutting her up with a kiss in order to avoid two or more hours of her ranting about life, or turning into an alcoholic, caterwauling samurai.

That idea brought a smile into existence where Shinji's face soon coalesced around. He appeared to sigh, and his torso began to take shape. Warmth filled his form as he recalled the rest of those two hours not spent talking that night. The more he thought about their time together, the faster his body looked like he remembered.

He widened his deep green eyes as his awareness began to assert itself with her current whereabouts: the dreamworld.

"Tabris," a quiet voice behind Asuka noted. "Your family has the insatiable habit of pissing me off."

Tabris brightened at the new voice, "Ah! Ikari-san. So good of you to join us!"

A hand rested on Asuka's shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze, "I'll be alright, mein liebe. Did me good to hear your voice."

She nodded, trying to seem indifferent, "I didn't come here to save your scrawny ass." Not that she could stop him feeling the warmth her soul was emitting.

Tabris frowned, "While I'm delighted you didn't die, Ikari-san, there is still the matter of your conversation with Adam-"

Asuka interrupted, pointing a finger at the humanoid Angel, "You're not-"

The redhead stopped talking as soon as she felt Shinji's hand pressing down on her arm. Wonder Boy issued a long-suffering gaze to Tabris, "It's about time one of you stopped to look around and ask questions!"

With a swirling of colors and the sensation of weight returning, Asuka was looking around the park just outside of their apartment, one that Shinji had a printed photograph of hanging on the kitchen wall. The boys looked around at the scene, until Shinji broke the silence with a calm, lowered-tonality voice, "Having diverted his prison to America, Adam dragged my consciousness into the dream world. He asked me why I found it necessary to defy the natural order of the universe: the strong conquering the weak."

Tabris crossed his arms over his chest, though he let out a sigh, "You Lilin have certainly proven your mental fortitude."

Shinji shook his head, "That's not it at all. I told him that if there was a way to make peace between our two kinds, I would go through with it. Human history is rife with conflict, and all it ever got us was sadness."

The Angel tilted his head and twisted his mouth to one side in thought, "Then his gift makes perfect sense. The others were sternly against making nice-" A police siren interrupted his train of thought.

Shinji sighed, "Humanity has had the same thought with those who bloody others' noses- -for nearly all of our brief existence."

Dozens of Japanese Strategic Self Defense Forces soldiers emerged from all around the trio of children, surrounding them with assault rifles of varying makes and configurations. One of them shouted, "Don't move! Stay where you are!"

Shinji looked Tabris square in the eye and suggested, "There is always room on this new path. All that stops any from joining in is their own fear." He extended a hand and began waiting with patience.

Asuka spoke to Wonder Boy's soul directly from her own, I was wrong the other day. THIS is the craziest plan I've EVER heard of!

There is no good way for this war to end without someone conceding. Every other scenario I can think of ends with excessive pain and death. I even ran a few through the MAGI. You do NOT want to know how bad their predictions went, love.

Asuka sighed, but kept silent, If he betrays us, I'll tear his heart out with my bare hands.

You really do have a red fetish. For a split-second, Asuka's sharp blue eyes spied a smirk on Shinji's face directed at her alone. She failed to register the rest of the scene, instead staring at Wonder Boy and involuntarily granting him the blush he had sought.

A light in the sky shown down into the clearing, nearly blinding everyone. Tabris, of course, spotted the light source without flinching, "It's Arael!" The soldiers were all writhing in agony from the light. A few shot each other, while others committed suicide; a pair of the men wildly fired into what had been the night sky.

Shinji held Asuka's hand with one of his own, and again extended the other to Tabris. The human-Angel hybrid wasted no time in accepting the invitation, "Whatever it takes to end this insanity!" Though Shinji and Asuka glowed together, Tabris's body did not follow suit. When the pair looked at him with a mirror-like cocked eyebrow, he shrugged, "If Ayanami and I were made the same, did not the same occur with her ascension?"

Shinji nodded, "Her change was internal, mostly, as yours has been. Congrats, you have a working heart."

"Is that what this annoying sensation in my chest and my mind is? Though, it does seem to let me ignore the call to merge with Lilith, herself." Tabris smirked, "Call me Kaoru Nagisa."

Asuka calmly gave Shinji's hand a squeeze. "Let's go, Wonder Boy."

For a very brief moment, Shinji looked around the clearing at the nearly dead men.

Asuka's thought brought Shinji into focus, The sooner we kill that Angel, Arael, the better their chances of survival.

Jawhol, mein liebling.

In a flash, the trio were standing on the catwalk halfway from NERV's bridge to the Evangelion cages. Shinji called over the alarms, using his hand beside his mouth like a horn, "How soon will our Evas be ready?"

"Evangelions One and Two, ETA thirty seconds to final Gate. You'll note they barely have armor, as will Units Zero and Four when they are ready to be sortied, Pilot Ikari." Shinji wasn't surprised by his father's differentiation of their titles.

Asuka looked over to the rail equipment towing their Evas into the final gate, "Fick! I don't even have time to change!"

The three looked down the metal catwalk stairs toward noises of incoming footsteps.