The three pilots had just walked out walked out from the school into the noon day sun, heading towards the train and the Geofront when they were confronted with a crowd of confused workers milling about the train station entrance.
Shinji stepped past them and swiped his NeRV ID against the turnstile. "It's not opening"
"There is no mag-lev sound." Rei interrupted, "The power is out."
"Mag-lev sound?" Asuka asked.
Rei nodded, "The current applied to the rail makes it hum."
"You have to be a dog to hear it," Asuka countered as she turned to scan the street behind them. The traffic lights were out as well. "Your right. We need to get back to NeRV." Their officer's manual had said that they were to report to their commanding officer during any extraordinary circumstances. This counted.
She turned to follow the train track - it was two stops to the NeRV entrance.
"There is a maintenance hatch two blocks that way." Rei pointed in the other direction.
Asuka frowned before nodding. "Lead on, Blue."
Rei took a moment to orient herself as she recalled the technical manual that she had read a while ago, "This way." She started at a fast walk.
/\/\/\Stay/Light/\/\/\
"Are you certain this is the right way?" Shinji look around as they entered into an area of small shops. This was one of the rougher parts of town – he avoided it on his periodic rounds of 'saving people' (with food). Rei did not bother to reply, instead leading the group around a milling crowd of annoyed shoppers (aka looters-to-be).
"There," she pointed to a small structure that looked like a subway entrance. Loitering in front of it were three older teens dressed in identical denim jackets, smoking and gesturing wildly as they talked. They looked like a bunch of street thugs. The fat one was currently talking too loudly, gesticulating.
"Hey what have we got here?" The leader called out as he spotted the two school girls approaching his group - Shinji's presence didn't even register. "What brings out here, girlie?" He leered at the red headed foreigner.
"She wants some of you!" Giggled the fat one. His eyes were strangely unfocused.
Asuka didn't even stop, walking right up to the one that had accosted her before kneeing him in the groin, and as he folded in half, pivoting and shoulder-throwing him to the ground. But she was just standing up with a self-satisfied smirk when one of his buddies grabbed at her. Asuka might have been faster and stronger than a typical 16 year old girl, but she didn't have any experience with brawling. She struggled to break free from the larger man's hold.
At the same time, the remaining teen turned to face Shinji, only to have Rei lunged for him with a rough growl, bearing him to the ground.
Shinji stood, momentarily stupefied as the conflict around him blossomed. He looked to the right, where Rei had one of the teens pined to the ground as she choked him with an animalistic ferocity, shaking him so hard that he couldn't get a grip on her hands. On the left, Asuka was struggling with the teen who trying to keep his hold on her.
'I need to do something.' Shinji stood, at a loss. When he was in the Evangelion he knew what to do. Or if he had a weapon of some sort, even if it was just a stick, something inside of him clicked. But there was nothing on the ground he could use.
Asuka finally managed to break her opponent's the hold and elbowed him in his (large) gut. But at the same time the one that she had thrown to the ground staggered up. As he reached for Asuka, Shinji bum rushed him, pushing him away.
Shinji held on tight to his opponent. He wasn't certain what he was trying to accomplish. The older teen was still disoriented from before, so he in turn flailed uselessly at Shinji's back as the smaller teen held desperately. After a moment, a blue blur landed on the guy's back, forcing him down, out of Shinji's grasp.
Shinji staggered back. Rei grabbed the head of the thug who had been hitting Shinji, twisting it back and forth like a terrier shaking a rat until there was an audible snap.
Asuka stepped back from the ferocity of it.
After a moment, Asuka straitened her shirt. "Let's go, Baka." She was careful not to turn her back to Rei.
/\/\/\Stay/Light/\/\/\
"Now what?" asked Shinji.
"This is stupid. Why don't they have a backup generator?" Asuka ranted. "Every other business on the planet has one." They had gone into the access tunnel after Asuka had unlocked it by guessing the combination on the keypad based on the wear pattern on the keys, but they were now faced with an elevator, and the power was still out.
"The backup generator is not connected to areas of secondary importance," Rei explained.
"You know that for a fact, Blue, or are you guessing?"
Rei consider. "I am guessing."
"Good to know. You were pretty convincing, for somebody pulling shit out of her ass." As always, Asuka swore like a sailor whenever she was nervous. She carefully began casting about, looking for an emergency stair. There were several rooms to either side containing tools ranging from shovels to a water pump to even a snow blower (though why that was there when Tokyo 3 hadn't experienced winter in 15 years was not clear). "And for the record, I need to use this elevator, so it is of primary importance!"
The fact that she didn't dare turn her back to Rei made the whole procedure much more awkward.
Shinji glanced over at Rei as Asuka started exploring, "Are you ok?" She had been very quite since the the confrontation outside.
Rei looked down at her hands, which were clenched together in front of her, almost as if she was worried what they would do if she let them free. "I'm a monster." There was no hiding it now: Shinji had seen her beat another human being almost to death. He had seen her take pleasure in strangling the life out of that boy. She was what normal people's nightmares were made of.
"You are not," Shinji shook his head. He had been completely helpless out there. If it hadn't been for Rei (and Asuka) he would have gotten badly hurt. By his definition, that made her a hero.
"Yes, she is, and you're fucking useless. Get used to it. I have." Asuka retorted. "Now get over here, I found the stairs."
The two teens trooped over to Asuka, shoulders hunched.
"You don't need to fear me. I will not kill you." Rei sounded defensive.
"You certain about that?" Asuka asked.
Rei considered. "Yes."
Asuka stopped, confronting the blue haired girl. "See there? You hesitated. That hesitations implies to me that you had to think about if you would or wouldn't kill me."
"But I decided not to." Rei replied, puzzled at Asuka's anger.
"It's shit like that scares me. The idea that the people who are supposed to have my back when I am facing down an Angel will do something batshit crazy. You with your homicidal tendencies, and Shinji with no memory of what is clearly an attempted suicide!"
"I did not!" Shinji retorted, shocked.
"Well then, what's the deal with the scar around your neck?"
"I don't know, but killing yourself for no good reason is stupid!"
"Oh, 'for no good reason'. That's so reassuring. Maybe you thought you had a good reason." Asuka muttered quietly under her breath as she took the lead.
Shinji glanced over at the blue haired girl walking at his side. The finger nails of one hand were digging into the flesh of the other. He reached out and placed his hand over hers, gently pulling them apart so that he was holding one.
Rei looked up in surprise, but permitted him to hold onto it. It was surprisingly comforting.
Shinji tried to think of something to say, but his self esteem had plummeted back to the the nether regions where it had used to dwell before this summer. 'How could Asuka think I would try to kill myself? I would never do that - I have responsibilities!'
But at least as he wallowed in despair, there was somebody there with him this time. He glanced over at Rei and gave her hand a squeeze. 'I can't go to pieces. Rei is depending on me.'
"Where are we?" Shinji looked up see their trusty guide - Asuka - looking around in confusion. The stairs had ended at a corridor, which had in turn lead to another stair. Except this one went up.
"Well, let's give this a shot. It's heading in the correct general direction." Asuka took the stairs two at a time (so as to get over the fact that it was actually heading in the absolutely wrong direction as quickly as possible). Two flights later, there was a door. "Oh, this is not good." Asuka opened it, to get her bearings.
Looking back at them was a giant hairy eyeball.
"Ok, that's worse!" Asuka slammed the door shut on the spider-like Angel. "We need to get to the command center right away!"
"That conduit will be the shortest path." Rei pointed to a head height access panel.
"What makes you think that?"
"I have memorized the layout of all of NeRV, and I have a perfect direction sense." Rei replied.
"Why didn't you say so?" Asuka fumed. She wanted to grab the blue haired girl and shake her. Except that wold be a really, really bad idea.
Rei did not reply.
"You didn't ask her. Neither of us did," Shinji defended Rei as he reached up and yanked out the cover from the conduit. "Um, Rei, why don't you take the lead?" He stood under the conduit and cupped his hands to give her a boost up.
Rei ignored Shinji, grasping the edge of the conduit and pulling herself up in one fluid motion. As Shinji stood, slightly flabbergasted, Asuka walked up to him with a small sneer gently curling her lip up and duplicated the feat. "Don't dawdle, Third. And don't look up my skirt!"
/\/\/\Stay/Light/\/\/\
"Ma'am we have a report of an Angel!" Makoto ran into the command room, breathless. The entire building was running on emergency power. They had no internet communication, and the Magi mainframes were on stand by. He had been up in the antenna service room with a military radio, getting a status update from the SDF listening posts. "It's already entering the city!"
Lt. commander Fuyutsuki sighed. He wished that Misato was here - she was cut out for this military stuff. He was a college professor. "Do we know where the Pilots are?" He asked for the third time.
"Section two sent a car to pick them up, but without cell phone reception, there is no way to know their exact location," Aoba replied. Again. He glanced around to see if anybody had any other ideas to offer. It was just the three junior officers present - Makoto, Maya and him, and none ventured any opinions. They instead hunched over their work stations and hoped that they wouldn't be called on to offer an opinion on how to save the world.
Which was when the ventilation grill above them popped open and Rei dropped to the ground, followed by Asuka, sticking a perfect landing.
"Um, can I have a hand?" Shinji called down. Rei reached up, and displaying surprising strength, lowered him to the ground.
"Ok, you guys. Go suit up." Fuyutsuki gestured in relief towards the locker rooms. At least now they weren't completely helpless. "We'll have the Evangelions ready to sortie shortly." Unfortunately, it came out more as a question than a command.
"You heard the the Lt. Commander," Makoto called out, "shut down any unnecessary equipment and divert all power to the Evangelion trolley."
"What about the Pilots?" Maya asked.
"We can load them manually, after the Units are on the launch elevators." Makoto said with conviction that he didn't feel. Somebody had to take charge.
Shinji dressed in the dark, and then stumbled out, going down the dimly lit tunnels towards the cages. Under the emergency lights, everything was the color of LCL.
"This way kid," a technician led him over to a set of stairs leading up to another catwalk. As he followed the technician, he looked out over the pool of LCL. Unit 01 was not in its usual slot, but was already standing on the launch elevator, against the far wall. "Get in. And good luck." Shinji clambered up into the entry plug and started the activation sequence. The battery timer started up immediately, showing 5:00. "I'm ready for launch. I mean Unit 01 is ready."
"Unit 02 here. I am ready."
"Unit 00 is ready."
Nothing happened for several seconds. "We don't have enough power for the launch elevators. You'll have to climb up to the entry bay."
"We have reports that the Angel has penetrated the A08-23 launch shaft!"
"Ok guys, change of plans - that's your new destination." The Lt. Commander announced in his half confident fashion. "The map of the base is in your database."
The three Evangelions began the climb. Shinji kept glancing at the timer. It kept going down. 'Hurry.' He glanced up ahead. Asuka's red Evangelion had just entered an access tunnel leading to the A08-23 launch tunnel.
It was nerve wracking - The Eangelions weren't designed for climbing, and for their size, they were not fast.
All three of the Evangelions were inside the access tunnel when Unit jerked back. "Watch out!" a moment later it peared out again. "I think this is A08-23. There is some sort of acid dripping down. Unit 02 just got a few drops on it, and it hurts!"
"Can the AT field stop it?" Shinji asked.
"From what I saw, The Angel is still outside, at the very top of the tunnel. We don't have enough battery to maintain AT for the entire climb up." Asuka did the energy drain calculation in her head for a couple of scenarios. "Here is what we will do: I have the best sync score, so I will climb up half way. that should place Unit 02 close enough to cancel out the Angel's AT field. Then Shinji can use his pallet rifle to snipe the Angel."
"Negative," came the voice of an out-of-breath Ritsuko. "You will need to be closer than that to counter the AT field."
"Asuka, you take the shot." Shinji dropped his pallet rifle and squeezed past Unit 02.
"What are you doing, Third?" Asuka demanded.
Shinji didn't reply, instead he took a deep breath and reached out to the Evangelion, no, to Eva, 'Are you ready? Let's do it!' He / they leaped out into the tunnel, letting the acid splash across his / their shoulder. Shinji gritted his teeth against the pain as Unit 01 climbed. He couldn't raise the AT yet. He had to conserve power. After the way that he had just stood there as the two girls fended off the thugs, he had to prove that he wasn't useless. He had to.
The pain as the acid ate into Unit 01 was excruciating, but he could deal with it. As long as he had Eva, he could keep it together. They were a team. He climbed up the side, driving his fingers into the side wall.
Asuka crouched in the cross shaft, looking up the launch well. She maintained just enough AT field to keep the acid off of her head her as she peered up at the Angel. All she could see was a giant eye surrounded by stiff hairs that was shedding tears of acid. The tears were eating through the bottom of the shaft, but as long as her perch remained stable, Asuka really didn't care. She kept her pallet rifle steady and tried to concentrate, but she was furious with the Third Child. His behavior was so inconsistent that it made it impossible to work with him. If he was useless all the time, she could DEAL with that. But she never knew when he would actually contribute. Or which of his ideas were worthless and which weren't. Like now. Was this actually going to work, or did his stupid bravado just doom them and the rest of the world? And HOW was he managing to keep his AT field down? The AT field was almost instinctual – it should have come up as soon as he started to experience pain.
'Baka. You said you wouldn't commit suicide.' Her teeth ground together in anxiety.
Rei sat in her entry plug and tried to control her breathing. Asuka was blocking her path to helping Shinji. She was trapped in back, powerless. All she saw in front of her was red. She clenched her hands to keep them from reaching for the other Evangelion.
Ritsuko was looking over Maya's shoulder, monitoring telemetry from Unit 01. "He's almost there," she muttered. Maya swallowed nervously and nodded, hyper conscious of what was brushing her shoulder.
"I'm here!" Shinji called out, holding on to the side of the shaft, hugging it as close as he could so as to get out of the way. He pressed his AT field up. "Shoot it!"
"Friß scheiße und stirb!" Asuka roared as she leaned out and opened fire. The bullets tore into the eye, shattering it, causing a gush of acid to spill out and coat all the walls.
"Aah!" Shinji yelled, partly in pain, partly in surprise as the wall that he was holding on to collapsed, sending him dropping back down. Unit 00 shot an arm out, past Unit 02, to catch the falling purple behemoth. But the weight was too much - it yanked Unit 00 out of the tunnel, spilling all three Evangelions down to the bottom of the shaft.
"You idiot!" Asuka stormed at Rei, "What did you do that for?"
"Pilot Ikari was falling," Rei replied simply.
"Did we get it?" Shinji asked. There was no more acid spilling down.
There was a several moments of silence, before Ritsuko came on the radio. "Yeah, you got. We aren't reading a blue signal anymore."
A moment later, Fuyutsuki came on the radio, "Shinji it will be some time until we can get you out. How about we play a game of Chess, or Shoji over the communicators?"
Shinji frowned, puzzled. 'Why is he being friendly suddenly?' "I'm sorry sir, I don't play games."
"I could teach you."
"Maybe some other time," Shinji replied to the creepy old man.
/\/\/\Stay/Light/\/\/\
Touji had been waiting for the lunch bell to ring. It was the day after the power outage, and everybody was back in class. Including Hikari. She had been avoiding him since the party at Shinji's. Where he had told her that he liked her. And they had kissed. As soon as the bell rang, he made his way to the front of the class, to were Hikari was chatting with Asuka. "Um, hi. Do you want to go to the arcade with me this afternoon?"
"Um, sure." Hikari replied cheerfully. Actually, she really didn't want to go, but she didn't have any reason NOT to go, and she didn't want to be rude to Touji. It was all very confusing.
With his mission accomplished, Touji casually strolled down to the cafeteria to buy lunch.
"So, a date?" Asuka teased.
"NO!" Hikari immediately blurted as her cheeks colored. She didn't wait for Auka to respond, instead rushing to the back of the class, where Shinji was still putting his stuff into his bag, "Um, hi, Shinji. Do you want to go to the arcade with me? Touji just invited me, and I felt bad saying no, but I don't want to go just the two us - that would be awkward."
"Sure, I'd love to," he began when Rei stepped forward, interrupting: "Are you romantically involved with Suzuhara?"
"What? No! Why does everybody keep asking that? He's just a friend." She glanced over at Shinji trying to *will* him to understand what she wanted.
Rei considered. There would be crowds there, but at the party she had discovered that she could deal with them if she tried. And she did not trust the brown haired girl around Shinji. "In that case, I will come as well."
"Ok, that's great!" Hikari breathed a sigh of relief. And having Rei along would be even better - the poor girl didn't have many friends, so Hikari felt duty bound to include her whenever possible, even if talking to her was always a little awkward.
/\/\/\Stay/Light/\/\/\
It was awkward.
The outing ended up including Kensuke as well, and with that large a group, it should have been easy to keep conversation flowing. But instead it was almost silent. Touji was fixated on Hikari, but he couldn't really talk to her since she was walking next to Shinji, but Shinji kept turning to make sure that Rei didn't feel ignored, so Hikari couldn't keep up a conversation with him. Normally she would have just included Rei, but she kept getting distracted by Touji - she felt a little like a rabbit being watched by a wolf. And Rei was not interacting with anybody, as the large group was triggering her.
Meanwhile Kensuke was getting further and further ahead and getting frustrated at everybody else's glacial pace, wondering if he could ditch Touji or if he was honor bound to help him get Hiakri's attention somehow.
Hikari cast longing gazes at the clothing store as they entered the mall – if only there was some way that she could ditch the others, she and Shinji could spend the afternoon shopping. They could chat, just the two of them.. But n. It would be rude to leave Touji and the others 'I'll invite Shinji some other time'
Finally, as they were walking into the arcade, Shinji asked."Uh, so what games are good here?"
"You've never been to this arcade?"
"No, I actually haven't been to any arcades. I used to live out in the boonies – we didn't have any arcades in town. And now I don't have much free time." He had told the other boys that he had an after school job working for NeRV. It wasn't exactly a lie, "What little time I have spend doing homework and cooking with.." He glanced over at Hikari.
"With me and Hikari," Rei finished.
"Oh. That sounds..." Kensuke tried to find a polite synonym for 'deadly dull'. Seriously, cooking? Even an old fart like his father didn't like cooking. It was something that grandmothers did. And... He took a closer look at Hikari. And then Rei... and really hot girls. Never mind. "That's cool, I guess."
But appearance to the contrary, Kensuke was not stupid. With Touji just a few paces away, he knew that he was in an emotional mine field. "Well, let me give you the run down of what they have here, and you tell me what sounds good to you." Besides, his job as wingman was to keep Shinji away from Hikari. He threw himself into an explanation of the games and their good points as they turned to enter the arcade.
Rei tuned out the otaku's voice and concentrated on her breathing. 'This is harder than it was at the party'. There, she had known everybody in the room, so it had been easy to relegate them to 'non threatening' status. And from there, it was a small step to treat them as background furniture. But here, she didn't know any of the people, they were all exuding sweat and stress hormones. And the flashing lights from the machines kept breaking her concentrations.
Breath.
Her heart was beating like a trip hammer and she was almost vibrating with repressed aggression.
She balled up her hands, holding herself rigidly so that she wouldn't do something that she would regret later. 'Coming here was a mistake.' But she didn't want to leave. Then Shinji would be here alone with Hikari.
She glanced over at Shinji. He was listening to Kensuke, but every so often he glanced over at Hikari, who was half watching the console where Touji was showing off. Except when she was sneaking glances at Shinji.
'Hikari needs to die.' She immediately felt guilty at even thinking that. She liked Hikari. Except when she was close to Shinji.
Hikari smiled and 'oohed' politely a Touji did something in the game to knock his opponent out. 'This is really frustrating!' She wanted to ditch Touji and spend more time with Shinji, but Kensuke kept monopolizing him, slowly steering him off to one side.
Shinji was half listening to Kensuke expound. Games really weren't his thing. The closest he came was the combat simulator down on the base, and that was most definitely not a game. He glanced over at Rei. 'She doesn't look good. I forgot that she doesn't like crowds.' He reached out and took her hand.
Rei started, glancing at the other pilot, to see him giving her a reassuring smile.
"Why don't you play one, and we'll just watch." Shinji interrupted Kensuke.
The glasses wearing teen paused and shrugged, "Ok. Get a load of this one." As he he led the way deeper into the arcade, Rei walked alongside Shinji. It was strange, but the physical contact helped her maintain control. When they stopped behind one of the games, she stepped closer to press her side against his.
After a moment, Shinji put his arm around her. Neither one mentioned anything, or even acknowledged the contact.
The next time Hikari looked around, it took her several moments to spot Shinji – he was on the other side of the arcade, several rows over. All she could see of him was his head. And Rei's was right next to him. 'Too close to him.' Hikari heart skipped a beat.
/\/\/\Stay/Light/\/\/\
The next few weeks passed with little fanfare. There were no Angel attacks, so Shinji's days slipped into a comfortable routine. Every morning started out with him making lunches for all three occupants of chez-Misato, +1 extra for Rei on Monday, Wednesday and Friday (Hikari made them on Tuesday and Thursday), then walking to school with Asuka. Despite her volatile temperament, he found that he enjoyed her company. Yes, she put him down regularly, but she was really smart, and often had interesting observations, even if she didn't phrase them in a flattering fashion. School itself was a gamble. Some days he learned something, most he was bored out of his wits. But at least then Asuka would have something sarcastic to say about it later that evening.
The only problem was lunch. Rei had always been quiet, but at least he could rely on Hikari to help keep the conversation flowing. Not anymore. The atmosphere on the roof had become become frigid, even in the summer heat.
Shinji wasn't certain what to do. Hikari replied in single words to anything he said, but when he asked her if everything was ok, she said that everything was fine. And she always left early to attend to her class rep duties.
It had gotten so awkward that the most recent time they were supposed to get together at Hikari's, he had chickened out, volunteering to go for additional sync training. Ritsuko had happily agreed - she had wanted to try out a couple of new experiments that she had come up with, to see if she could get his sync score to spike & squeeze a massive AT field. Shinji was such a small package, who knew that there could be so many fascinating mysteries secreted inside. She even had him try out visualizing Eva, on the off chance that it would help. Those visualizations usually involved the two of them fighting together as a team, but during the long hours of floating in LCL, his mind did wander sometimes to.. other visualizations. Which was embarrassing as plug suits did not hide anything. But they apparently didn't affect his sync score, as Ritsuko never noticed.
He hoped.
It was dull, but Shinji was checked out on dull. That was his entire life up until this past fall.
/\/\/\Stay/Light/\/\/\
Rei floated in the tube of LCL. The synchronization training had ended an hour ago, but Ritsuko had asked her to come down to the Terminal Dogma lab afterwards for some 'fine tuning'. Rei glanced over to the array of tubes barely visible against the far wall. Inside floated dozens of clones. 'Back ups'.
'If I die, what will it be like waking up in one of those bodies?' Rei glanced over at Ritsuko. This was not the first time she had wondered this, but where as before it had been idle speculation, now there was an element of anxiety. For the first time, her days were not all drab and interchangeable. She had developed a connection to people, especially Ikari. Would that be the same in the new body?
"Doctor, what are you adjusting?"
Ritsuko started. This was the first time Rei had spoken in over an hour. And Rei always made her nervous. She knew what she, what it was. Her mother had started the project, but she had read her notes when she took over after her mothers death. "Just a slight adjustment to hormonal timing. It's based on a paper that came out last month. It will help you control the feeling of aggression that you have mentioned. "
"I do not consider it necessary. I have not had any problems controlling my need to kill in recent weeks." Rei calmly countered. In the inside, she quailed. The last time Ritsuko had adjusted her medication, she had felt detached from the world for weeks. She didn't want to lose the sense of connection that she had developed with Shinji.
Ritsuko paused, nonplussed, before replying. This was the first time Rei had ever taken an interest in her own body. "Don't worry - it won't affect your personality." You couldn't decrease something that didn't exist. "It will just give you more time to respond rationally to a situation."
"Will it affect my combat abilities?"
"No" Ritsuko replied as she went back to typing, 'And if it does, that's what the clones are for.'
/\/\/\Stay/Light/\/\/\
"How are the Children's synchronization scores?" Misato came into Ritsuko's office after Ritsuko finished whatever extra experiments she had for Rei. The chief scientist would put all the results into the weekly report, but it was dry reading and she was tired from a long day. Besides, this gave her an excuse to socialize.
Ritsuko sighed. 'Why do I even bother writing the reports?' Sometimes she wondered if Misato was illiterate. But it was just that her purple haired friend was very extroverted. "They are all good. Asuka has the highest, but Shinji is making steady progress. It's surprising how much he has improved from the beginning - he is only 8 points below Asuka now. Rei has also inched up some, but nothing significant." Which was not surprising - she was practically an automaton. She did some things well, others poorly, but it would be foolish to expect significant change in any direction. It's not how she was manufactured.
"Well, let's have them spend some time in the combat simulator, then."
"Ooh, video games. Can I watch?" Kaji asked as he sauntered in.
"They are not video games!" Ritsuko exploded, offended, as at the same time as Misato replied "You're such an overgrown child," but her tone was more affectionate than angry. Ritsuko quirked an eyebrow and withdrew from the conversation. 'About time."
"If you two are going to be flirting, why don't you do it Misato's office. I have work to do." And some of it nobody except Gendo was cleared to see.
Kaji cast a glance at Ritsuko's screen, trying to memorize everything there in a single glance before turning back to Misato, "Have you eaten yet? How about I take you to dinner?"
/\/\/\Stay/Light/\/\/\
Asuka strode imperiously out through the front door of the school. As usual.
Several teens - both boys and girls, tracked her with their eyes. Which was to be expected.
"Hello Asuka." Shinji was waiting outside the school building. Which was also expected, though not something to take pride in. "Why did you ask for me to wait for you?"
"We're both going to NeRV. We should walk together." Also, she wanted to pick at the scab that was the Third Child. He was such a spineless dweeb most of the time. At first, she had avoided him at school so as not to be infected with his loser-ishness, but then he had raced out to confront the angel without his AT field, letting its acid eat into him. And there was the incident at the volcano. She would never (ever) admit it, but she was impressed.
So instead, she decided to gather more data. "So, how is physics coming along. You having any more problems with that?"
Shinji turned bright red as he recalled the last time Asuka had offered to tutor him, "No, I'm doing ok. How about you? Uhm, you're supposed to be learning how to interact with the 'little people', right?"
Asuka rolled her eyes, "I'm here, talking to you, aren't I?"
"Yeah." Shinji walked silently next to Asuka until the train station. 'Why is she so friendly today?' It felt unusually awkward, like she was waiting for him to say something so that she could pounce. His neck was starting to get stiff from tension as they boarded the train. It was worse than when he had to fight an Angel. "Look at all that!" He blurted as he pointed out through the window as the car glided out of the station along the monorail. "That's what we're fighting for." As Asuka looked over at him questioningly, he added, "It's something Misato said. It made sense to me."
"Yes, I know. You told me all about your 'super hero' fantasies." As soon as she said it, Asuka wished that she hadn't – Shinji might be immature, with childish dreams, but she was one of those reaping the benefit of his character flaw.
The stress was too much for Shinji. For whatever reason, he was her chosen target today, and holding himself at the ready while he waited for the attack was more than he could handle. Better to just get it over with. "You know, a lot of people admire you from afar, but if they got to know you, I don't think they would be so enamored."
"Oh, yeah? That goes for you too!" Asuka spat.
There was a pause.
"Really?"
Asuka didn't answer for a long time. As the doors slid open at their stop, she finally retorted, "No. With you, it's the other way around." She stomped off. 'Stupid Shinji'. He just HAD to sabotage her plans.
As Shinji raced after her, he added, "I didn't mean to insult you. I .. You actually remind me of somebody I used to know."
"Who?
Shinji shrugged, not willing to admit that he didn't remember. It would just set off Asuka again, and there was only so much of her abuse even he could take at one time.
/\/\/\Stay/Light/\/\/\
"Today, all three of you will work in the combat simulator." Misato pronounced as the two teens came out of their respective changing rooms. Seeing Asuka's skeptical look, she continued, "We have the new weapons from the German branch that you need to acclimate with, and we have been so busy getting you to improve your synchronization with your Evangelions that we have neglected more advanced combat training. Now it is time to rectify that."
"I already have advanced combat training," Asuka pronounced, before adding quickly, "But working as a team will be good practice."
Misato nodded, turning towards the far door, "Rei is already waiting down in the simulator."
The simulator room consisted of three LCL dummy plugs, but these had a complete VR suite installed.
As they walked in, Ritsuko and Maya were discussing something technical while Rei stood patiently at one side. The younger engineer looked up and smiled at them
As they walked over to the dummy plugs, Rei joined them, momentarily placing a hand on Shinji's shoulder. It was a quick contact, so nobody else noticed, but Shinji turned to look at the other pilot, bewildered. But Rei just calmly continued walking to her dummy plug.
/\/\/\Stay/Light/\/\/\
"So, it's two-wielding Shinji?" Asuka teased as the simulation began.
"It worked against the Seventh Angel, so why not?" Unit 01 hefted the two short swords, "And this feels very natural."
"Cut the chit chat. I am activating the Angel."
Shinji took cover behind a shield wall that had come up out of the ground at the same time as the buildings had descended. Asuka crouched with a pallet rifle a hundred meter to his right, and Unit 00 was laying prone along a major street, a sniper rifle in front of her.
A moment later, a large creature lumbered into to view. It didn't look exactly like any of the angels they had fought before, instead it walked on two thin legs like the Sixth (the one that Asuka had soloed in 3 seconds flat), with whip like tentacles like the Fourth (that Shinji had soloed in 4:59. Barely).
"I have a firing solution" Rei announced, "I am taking a shot." The car- sized bullet bounced off of the Angel's AT field.
"We need to closer," Asuka took charge, "Shinji you circle left and engage, I'll go right, providing covering fire."
Shinji nodded, forgetting that Asuka couldn't see him. But apparently it didn't occur to the redhead that her ordered wouldn't be followed, as she darted away from him, spraying a burst at the Angel.
Shinji went the other way, inadvertently crossing Rei's line of fire. Fortunately, Unit 00 was still sighting for its next shot.
As Asuka distracted the Angel, Shinji managed to spiral into it's side. He was barely 50 yards away when it finally responded to him, lashing out with both tentacles. Shinji charged forward, deflecting them with his swords before striking at its body. The angel turned and deflected his attacks in turn, its tendrils moving at a ferocious speed as they whipped back at unit 01. The purple behemoth parried them just as quickly.
Asuka lowered first her rifle, for fear of hitting Shinji. Then, as the two traded blows faster and faster, her jaw.
Misato was watching the action on the view screen, along with Ritsuko and Maya.
"Hey, Rits, can you speed up the angel 10%? Just to see what will happen?" Misato asked nonchalantly.
The bottle blond scientist frowned. "I thought this was a training simulation."
Misato just shrugged.
Asuka watched as the Angel's attacks came faster and faster, but Unit 01 deflected each attack with an economy of motion, the short swords catching the whips and passing them harmlessly to the side. Soon the attacks and blocks were so fast that Asuka couldn't keep track of them even with her enhanced reflexes. 'That's not Shinji.'
Suddenly, a beam weapon lanced out from the Angel's head towards Unit 01, only to be blocked by a concentrated AT field from the Evangelion. As Unit 01 staggered back from the surprise attack, a sniper round tore through the Angels core, having pierced the AT field weakened by Unit 01's presence.
As soon as the Angel dissolved into pixels, Asuka mashed her intercom button "Ok, Third. How the HELL did you do that?"
"I don't know," Shinji sounded shaken.
"Shinji, take support. Asuka and Rei will engage the next one." Misato turned to the other two women in the lab, "Ok, so was that real?"
Maya had been going through a screen of data and replied first, "Assuming that Shinji had at least 60% synchronization - that's what we had set on all the Evangelions for the first run - it kind of is."
"But he's never seen that high a score, except for brief spikes." Ritsuko could always be counted to rain on other people's parade.
"The spikes always happen during the middle of combat," Maya countered, glancing at her sempai to see if she was annoyed at being contradicted. "Maybe its a symptom of the same... whatever that was."
"And what the hell WAS it? Shinji was all of a sudden reacting like an advanced martial artist. He hasn't been alive long enough to have that much training."
"Maybe he's a natural?" Maya asked. "His heart rate and stress levels went up less than expected."
"Pft! There's no such thing. Not to that degree, at least." Misato paused, "Could there be some sort of feedback from Unit 01? I mean could it be prompting him how to move?"
Ritsuko scowled, "I hope not. That would be really bad - that level of feedback could cause neurological damage." Actually, it would cause massive contamination as the Evangelion - their synthetic Angel - bled into the pilot. As if having one such monstrosity walking around wasn't bad enough. Ritsuko glanced at Rei's readouts. Her heart rate hadn't deviated from her average. She could tear a person apart with her bare hands and it wouldn't bother her at all.
The only time her heart rate picked at all was when she was thinking about food.
/\/\/\Stay/Light/\/\/\
"Ow." Shinji sat on the ground clutching his stomach.
"Why didn't you block that?" Asuka asked, shocked, as she put her foot down.
"Maybe because I didn't expect the crazy girl walking next to me to kick me in the stomach!" Shinji retorted.
"But you reacted much faster in the simulation." Asuka held out a hand to pull Shinji up. The two were walking home from the test (Rei, as usual, had gone off in her own direction).
"So, what, this was a test?"
"Yeah," Asuka for once looked chagrined. "You have to admit, you performance in the simulator was pretty amazing. It was like nothing I had seen before." She shrugged apologetically, "I wanted to know which Shinji was real - the amazing one, or you."
"They're both real" Shinji turned to continue, grumbling, "It's a good thing I didn't eat anything before the test." He rubbed his stomach.
"Yeah, I never eat before. Throwing up in the LCL is bad news. Speaking of, you want to go grab something to eat on the way home?"
Shinji looked in surprise at the mood whiplash, 'does hitting people put her in a good mood?' before shrugging, "ok."
"And maybe you can tell me about all the things you don't remember."
/\/\/\Stay/Light/\/\/\
Rei lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. It was the night after the simulator training.
That had been a bad idea.
Even though it was simulated, it was still a hunt. It had gotten her predatory instinct going, but the lack of a real kill meant that there was no sense of completion. She needed to go outside, to prowl the alley, to pursue, to..
No.
Rei took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
She wasn't going to kill anybody today.
She could feel the tension throughout her whole body. It was almost a tingling.
She glanced at the clock.
10:30.
She had been laying in bed for two hours now, trying not to think, not to twitch.
There had to be something she could do.
She grabbed her cell phone. "Hello, Shinji? I require assistance."
/\/\/\Beautiful/Night/\/\/\
Shinji had just been getting ready for bed when the call came in. This was the first time Rei had called him, ever. Usually they barely talked, and that was only in person, as they sat together for lunch.
He glanced at the clock. A normal person would defer whatever assistance Rei wanted until tomorrow, but Shinji really liked helping people. He glanced at the rest of the apartment - Asuka's door was closed, and faint music could be heard - she wouldn't come back out until tomorrow morning. Misato would be awake for longer. He wasn't certain what she did in the evenings, but she was surprisingly respectful of some boundaries - she wouldn't check up on him unless he missed school tomorrow.
'It's not really that late,' Shinji silently took his shoes and slipped out the door.
/\/\/\Beautiful/Night/\/\/\
"Hello, Rei?" Shinji knocked on the door in the unfinished hallway. He still didn't like the place. The fact that the front door was unlocked so that he could walk right in just seemed like an invitation for bad people. Not that he had seen anybody within a block of this building.
The door opened to reveal Rei dressed in her usual school uniform. Without saying anything, she took his hand.
They stood like that for a moment, awkwardly. "Um, Rei, so what did you need me to come over for?" He gently tugged on his hand, to see if he could have it back.
"Your presence is sufficient." The answer was no. Rei stood calmly in the doorway, holding on.
"Um, should I come in?"
"Yes, that would be good." Rei led the way into her apartment. After a moment, she added, "Thank you for coming. I was feeling unwell, and I find your presence calming."
"Are you ok? Do you want me to take you to the doctor?" Shinji tried to think of what the correct response in this situation was.
"No." Rei stood silently. She typically had no problem not doing anything - after all, she sat for hours looking out the classroom window. But having Shinji here somehow made the experience different.
Even though having him there was helping her calm down, she was beginning to feel strangely self conscious. "I am sorry for imposing. Would you like to go for a walk?" Or maybe they could lie down and... no. Shinji might object. She knew that her grasp of social rules was poor. Usually, she didn't care, but right now it was really very important that she not offend Shinji.
The two teens went back out into the city. Shinji hadn't been out this late at night since he had taken that 'walkabout' around the city to clear his head, and had ended up saving Mr. Myouji from a beating.
But now here he was again, except now he was walking around at night with an attractive girl. Shinji glanced over at Rei, confused. He had been thinking a lot about Hikari lately, wondering if she liked him, and maybe trying to work up his courage to her out. But here he was, walking with Rei. Was this a date? 'She doesn't intend anything romantic. I think she's just lonely'. "So, what sort of music do you like?" Shinji tried to make conversation. It was not a skill that he had.
"I play the violin." Rei wasn't certain what else to say. She had no preference in music. It helped sooth her her 'baser instincts'. That was all.
"Oh." Shinji nodded, "I used to play the cello."
"You no longer play?"
"No." Shinji replied anxiously. Whenever he talked about his past with Asuka, she grilled him mercilessly, and got annoyed when he couldn't answer all her questions. But Rei just nodded her acceptance. It was kind of nice.
They walked into the occupied parts of the city, and soon there were shops around them. Most were closed, but a few - bars and restaurants and such - still had people coming and going.
After an hour, Rei let go of Shinji's hand, "Thank you." She took a step back, as if to go, but not certain what the etiquette was for taking leave.
They two Pilots stood facing each other for several minutes as cars raced by on the street beside them.
Finally, Rei said, "I look forward to seeing you tomorrow" And departed, leaving Shinji to stand on his own, musing on what had just happened.