Chapter 2: A Secret Discovered
The helicopter touched down and was quickly lowered down underground into a massive Geofront command center. His arm was grabbed by an attractive woman, about 25 to 30 years old, black short cut hair. She was wearing a red jacket with half a maple leaf on it, and a few buttons which Shinji recognized as medals. The only outstanding feature of her apparel was a chromium cross that hung from her neck via a black strap of some sort. Beyond her apparel Shinji noticed that she had an outstanding figure. ^ Oh man, if I was only ten or twenty years older I would love to. ^ / Dream on bud, now on the other hand if I were still alive and wasn't married, I'd show her exactly how flexible a martial artists body really is. / ^ Ranma I really don't think she's the type of woman to go for lesbian action. ^ / HEY I'M A GUY REMEMBER!!! / Shinji was doing his best not to laugh, if he did they'd probably commit him to a mental institution. / Exactly where you belong, pervert. / Ranma said then stalked off to sulk in the recesses of Shinji's brain. It wasn't an easy task and he eventually gave up.
Misato and Shinji arrived at what seemed to be a gigantic hangar of some sort. There was a catwalk that stretched across a giant pool of yellowish liquid. In the middle of the pool stood what appeared to be a huge purple and lime green robot. ^ The paint job has something to be desired, I wonder if this is why I'm here? ^ / Hey Shinji who's the really serious looking guy up there with the stupid orange glasses? / ^ That Ranma is the old man. ^ "Shinji I trust that little mishap with the transport didn't affect you too much?" "Why am I here father? Why now?" "We need you to pilot the Evangelion and defeat the Angels." "What are you talking about?" Misato cut in. "Shinji, that," pointing at the robot "is Evangelion unit one or Eva unit one for short, and the Angels, that giant thing with arms trashing downtown you couldn't have missed it, are an alien species that seem hell bent on destroying the human race. You're here to defeat them, and to do it we need you to pilot unit one." Shinji turned to look at his father. "Why me? Why now?" Gendo looked down at his son standing there on the catwalk. "Because you're the only one who can. Will you do it?" Shinji started thinking. Gendo took his silence as a 'no'. "Very well then bring out Rei." "No you can't it'll kill her." Misato shouted. "She's not dead yet." Gendo replied in a monotone voice. Several technicians and doctors wheeled out a stretcher and an IV unit onto the catwalk. On the stretcher lay a girl not much older than Shinji. It was obvious that she had been through hell. Her head was heavily bandaged, and she had casts on both her arms and one of her legs. She was in a form fitting body suit but both Shinji and Ranma could see the bandages underneath. / Shinji you can't. If she's the only other one who can pilot that thing, you can't let her do it. / ^ But I'm scared. I've never done anything like this before. I don't think I can do it. ^ Before Ranma could respond the hangar was shaken by a massive explosion above. Several metal plates fell from above. Shinji ran faster than he'd ever ran before, he was almost a blur. He gently grabbed Rei off the stretcher and jumped out of the way milliseconds before a panel crashed down onto the spot Rei had just been totally destroying the stretcher. He gently laid Rei down on the catwalk and turned to glare at his father. Through clenched teeth, he spat out, "I'll do it." To this he turned to Misato, nodded then turned and walked off to his office. Misato tossed Shinji two neural interface receptors, then started to run to the command center. "Put those on your head and get into the plug, hurry we don't have much time left." Shinji did as he was told. He then did something really unusual. Instead of using the stairs he jumped onto Eva 01. It was a jump worthy of Ranma for he made it from the catwalk to the entry plug in that one jump and he was even seated properly. / How the hell did you do that? / ^ Do what? ^ / Shinji you just jumped 25 to 30 feet straight up! / It suddenly hit him. ^ I. I have no idea, I just did it. It was like instinct. ^ / Well we know that you seem to be able to do some of my moves, but just not when you want to do them. Listen we are about to fight a 25 story tall monster we had better find out how you are able to do my martial arts or else there will be a good chance we'll be killed. / The discussion continued inside the entry plug. Misato had reached the control room. There she found everybody standing there with their mouths open in utter shock. "Hey what's everybody doing just standing around we've got a fight on our hands." She turned to Ritsuko. "Ritsuko what happened?" "H. h. he j. jumped." "Who?" "Shinji" "No just what we need our one and only pilot commits suicide just when he's needed most. Damn I guess we need Rei." "Misato, he. he jumped from the catwalk to the entry plug in ONE jump." "That's impossible but we'll investigate later right now prepare to launch." Everybody was still in shock. "NOW!" That worked. Through the entry plug speaker Shinji heard Misato's voice. "Now Shinji we're going to have to fill the entry plug with LCL, don't be afraid." The entry plug started filling with some sort of orangish liquid. Shinji was squirming. "Uh Misato there's something I need to tell you, I can't touch cold water." "What's that about? Don't worry LCL is a highly oxygenated fluid, it's not water, and it's not cold." Though reassuring him, she stuck the cold water thing in her mind. + Could be useful as a practical joke later. + The LCL was rising higher and higher, even though he found he could touch it without activating the curse the faint smell of blood was sickening. He didn't know why but he believed that Ranma drowning in a pool of his own blood had something to do with it. It was over his head he held his breath for as long as he could but finally he had to exhale. What he inhaled was slightly more viscous than air, but it was breathable. "How are you feeling Shinji?" came Misato's voice over the loudspeaker. "I feel a little sick, I think I may throw up." "Well if you puke you're cleaning it up, got it." "Yeah I got it." Inside the control room Ritsuko was analyzing the readouts from Shinji's neural interface sensors. The results were to say the least confusing. There were two distinct brainwave patterns. This was scientifically impossible. "Maya begin interface, let's get him going." Shouted Misato across the room to Maya. "Approaching break even point, passing , Captain he's stabilized at 56% synchronization." Under her breath Misato mumbled to herself, "way to go kid now go get em." "Launch Eva 01" Shinji felt the Eva and himself slowly merge, the Eva's arms were now his arms, the Eva's legs were now his legs, when he closed his eyes he could still see, but they were not his eyes. The entire experience was slightly disorienting, kind of like the first time he'd stepped into a full virtual reality machine. Then there was a sudden jolt as the Eva rocketed skyward. On the ground everything was different. He looked around and saw the Angel 5 blocks dead ahead. Through the loudspeaker. "Ok Shinji no pressure just try taking a few steps." Eva lurched forward and fell flat on it's face. Inside the entry plug. "Ow that's going to leave a mark." From the speaker. "Shinji get up it's coming right at you, GET UP." Misato's voice seemed urgent. Eva was struggling like a baby who had just fallen down and couldn't get up. For a 25 story tall monster the Angel moved quite quickly, covering the distance between itself and the fallen Eva in a matter of a few seconds. / Uh Shinji if you're holding out on me time to cut it out and get serious, it's coming over here and it looks like Happosai after we threw out his entire collection of panties and bras. / ^ What do you think I'm trying to do. Stupid thing how do you move. ^ Shinji finally figured out how to move but it was too little too late. The Angel had grabbed the Eva by it's arm, then it twisted it till it snapped in half. Shinji screamed in agonizing pain. Misato came through, "Shinji that's not your arm it's the Eva's arm." It didn't matter who's arm it was it still hurt like hell. The Angel grabbed hold of the Eva's head and started pounding on it with some sort of energy lance. Shinji passed out. "Maya cut neural connections or we're going to loose the pilot." "No good control circuits are shot, we've got no way of getting in touch with the Eva." This wasn't quite true Ritsuko was still getting readings. She saw the dominant brainwave become the passive brainwave and vice versa. It still made no sense. In the entry plug, Ranma found himself in control of Shinji's male body. He also couldn't hear Shinji's thoughts so he concluded (and rightly so) that Shinji had passed out. Then it hit him, the reason why Shinji had passed out. Two stabbing pains, one from his arm the other from his head. / Guess I can't blame him for passing out. Wonder if my healing ability would work on the Eva? One way to find out. / From the control room. "The Eva's regenerating." Maya yelled to Misato. "What?" Indeed it was regenerating. Almost instantly the arm snapped back into place and the damaged eye healed. Ranma stood up and flexed. The Eva flexed with him. Using what he'd learned from Shinji's failed attempt at walking he took a step. It worked. / Awright now to get down to some serious business. / He cracked his knuckles. He was to be the sole savior of the world. It was really quite thrilling. He let out a roar and the Eva responded likewise. "It's gone berserk again." Maya called out. "Ritsuko I thought you fixed that." Misato said to her friend who was totally engulfed in the readings she was getting. "What do you expect from an untested highly evolved cybernetic weapon." Responded Ritsuko not looking up from her readings. "So that means what." "No warranty." Outside there was a battle raging on. After Ranma had flipped the Angel the bird, it had 'run' up and kicked the Eva in the nuts. (if Eva's have nuts) It hurt like hell, and Ranma wanted revenge, for everything. He was doing a series of devastating roundhouse and jump kicks, none of which seemed to be penetrating the Angel's weird kind of force field. However Ranma noticed that each blow seemed to weaken it. Through some amazingly quick and insightful thinking Ranma realized that if he could land thousands of punches he should be able to weaken the field and collapse it, then make that ugly thing even uglier, i.e. bloody pulp. "Katsu Tenshin Amogouriken!" he yelled as Eva's arms started flying out faster than the speed of sound, sending out mach cones, which also slammed into the AT field. Ritsuko was pissing herself. Everything was wrong, first Shinji jumping into the entry plug, then the dual signals, now whatever was in control of Shinji and hence the Eva was making it's arms move beyond mach 1 this was impossible. Misato looked over at her friends stunned reaction, then she looked down. "Ritsuko look what you did on the floor. Baaaaaddd Ritsuko, baaaaadddd scientist." The Angel was weakening rapidly and the AT field finally collapsed. Ranma however didn't stop he saw the red core and decided to trash that first. He did a front kick aimed at the top of the Angel it toppled onto it's back. Ranma jumped on and started doing the Amogouriken technique downward directly on the core. It cracked and the Angel stopped moving.
The recovery room was bone white and barren. Kind of like Saskatchewan in the winter. Ranma was awake but pretended to be unconscious in fear that he would be discovered, not knowing he already had been. Ritsuko was standing outside the door talking to someone. Three people entered the room and shut the door and the blinds, one of them unhooked the security camera. Cold water splashed on the bed, one very impressive transformation later a damp redhead jumped out of the bed. "What'd you do that for?" she screamed. Her eyes crossed as a 45 special, that would have made Dirty Harry cream his jeans, was pointed directly at his/her nose almost touching it. Misato narrowed her eyes. "Now who are you?" "I'm Shinji." "Wrong answer," As the audible click of the hammer being pulled back and locked into place. "Now let's try this again, who are you?" Gendo spoke. "The captain is a little trigger happy. Now whoever you are I've only seen two people in my life who were able to pull off the Katsu Tenshin Amogouriken," he narrowed his eyes "and both of them my dear, are dead. So I ask who are you?" Ranma lowered her eyes. "I'm Ranma Saotome of the Saotome School of Anything Goes Martial Arts. Sorry about this." "You're lying, Ranma's dead, and besides Ranma was a guy." Gendo said coldly. "Misato shoot her." "But sir it was your son?" Misato's moment of confusion was all Ranma needed. / He doesn't believe I'm Ranma, I'll show him. / "Hiru Shoten Ha!" he yelled This shook Misato out of her state of confusion, just in time to see a miniature whirlwind spinning towards her current position. It picked her up and spun her across the room, dropping the gun. Ritsuko was also caught up slightly and was pushed against the door, Gendo was just ruffled a little before the whirlwind spun down. He showed his shock. His left eyebrow twitched slightly. "You can't be alive." "Who says I am, now sit and I'll try to explain." After two hours of curses, martial arts explanations, and various other things, Ritsuko got up. "I can't possibly believe it but here it is right in front of me. I can't take much more of this I'm going to do my work now." With this she huffed off. Gendo left for his office after reassuring Ranma that the entire transformation thing would be kept top secret except for Nerv officials. It was just Misato and Ranma in the room. Misato had gotten used to everything by now. (well almost everything the changing into a girl thing was still really weird) Ranma got up went to the bathroom and came out as Shinji again. "Why'd you do that?" Asked Misato. "Well I figure that Shinji is going to be waking up soon and he would probably want to be in control of the body." "Oh." Almost on cue Shinji came to. ^ Oh man, my head hurts, hey Ranma what'd I miss. ^ "Hey Shinji is that you?" asked Misato curiously "Or is that still you Ranma?" ^ She knows!!! Ranma how does she know. ^ / I told her. They found out because that stupid machine told them. Stupid machine. Don't worry it's all going to be kept top secret. / ^ She tried to shoot you. ^ "Helllooooooo, anybody home?" Misato waved her hand in front of Shinji's eyes. "Hm what?" "What were you doing?" "I was talking to Ranma." + Two people in one body, that's got to be strange. + "Well I guess we should get going." "Going? Going where?" "Home of course silly, you're staying with me." "Goody"
Ritsuko was walking down the hall to her office. She had tons of work to do. Two souls in one body, and one of them was that of a dead man. This was just too weird. She rounded the corner and opened her office door. On her desk was a box of diapers. A practical joke spawned by her earlier accident, probably the brainchild of the guys. Heads would roll, and she wasn't thinking about the kind that sat on their shoulders either.
The ride home was pretty much uneventful. Shinji was really tired for some reason, Ranma didn't tell him he'd pulled off a chi attack, and Shinji was too tired to press the issue. Misato opened the door to the apartment. "Well Shinji, Ranma welcome home." The apartment was to put it mildly a disaster, there were instant Raman noodle cases everywhere, and the dishes in the sink were piling up. / She can't cook. / ^ How can you tell? ^ / Look around it's elementary all this instant food. / "Well get settled in supper will be in about five minutes." She moved to the cupboard and pulled out three packages of noodles and some stuff. She went to the sink and pulled out a pot, sniffed it, rinsed it gently under the water then filled it half full. ^ I don't think I'd survive that stuff, could take this one please. ^ Ranma laughed / Sure, sure I've survived worse believe me. You know what to do. / Shinji wandered over to the sink. "Misato, I'm really not hungry right now but Ranma says he's starved." With that he dumped the water on himself. The transformation tore his clothes a bit, as the bigger Ranma came forth. / We've got to get you some new clothes, preferably ones with some give to them, this shirt's tight. / He exhaled and the shirt developed two big tears under the arms and two buttons popped off. / Much better. / One of the buttons hit Misato in the back of the head and she turned to see the cause. Her eye twitched heavily. There was Ranma severely busting out of Shinji's now way too small shirt. "Ranma don't you have ANY female modesty?" "Not a shred, I'm a guy remember." He went to the refrigerator and opened it. Beer. (an engineers best friend) Row upon row of beer. "Lemme guess, hmmm you would like a beer, is that right?" "You got it, how'd you know." "Instinct." Ranma said as he procured two beers from the fridge. He handed one to Misato and kept the other for himself. She saw him crack his and pound back the entire can. "What are you doing!!" yelled Misato "You're way to young to drink." Ranma just crumpled the can into a small ball, crossed his arms and looked at Misato. "Look, how old are you?" "Twenty six, why?" "I'm thirty seven so I can damn well drink beer if I want." "But." She for some reason she couldn't come up with a response to this, it had never occurred to her that this girl was older than she was. So she did the only thing she could, she slammed her beer. "Hooo Yaw. That's one to one Ranma." "One to what?" "Get us another beer." She narrowed her eyes. "By slamming that beer you challenged me to a drinking contest, and I never back down from a challenge." Walking to the fridge Ranma opened it and tossed her another beer and got one for himself. "Well awl right, you're on." ^ You've never drank before in your life have you. ^ / Not a once, but don't worry I never loose. / Shinji didn't want to say this but challenging somebody with a stack of filled out frequent drinker cards at the local liquor shop, probably wasn't a good idea. An hour later, the Raman hadn't even been touched. Ranma was sloshed, Misato was even showing quite a bit. "Shyou know yoush verrrrry boootiful Mishato." Ranma slurred. ^ Ranma you're drunk stop now before you do something. ^ "Aw shaddap Shinji yoush spoiln my fun." He turned on Misato he used his martial artist balance which even when he was drunk didn't fail him. He lunged at Misato knocking her out of the chair and onto the floor. He pressed his lips to hers in an unbreakable liplock kiss with tongue. Misato in her drunken haze was shocked that she was being kissed by a girl, Shinji was shocked that Ranma was kissing Misato, and Ranma was shocked that he wasn't using his hands to get a feel. Before he could act the body failed and he passed out. Misato lay on the floor. + I was just kissed by a girl, no wait I was kissed by a boy, no wait I was kissed by an old man, no I was kissed by an old dead man in a young girls body. Yeah that's right. He was a good kisser. + That was it she too passed out. Shinji lay there on the floor, unable to move. When he took over Ranma's body he got the alcohol rush too. He was too drunk to do anything. A penguin waddled out to where Shinji/Ranma and Misato lay on the floor. It stopped in front of Shinji, 'warked' at him then raised it's leg.
The helicopter touched down and was quickly lowered down underground into a massive Geofront command center. His arm was grabbed by an attractive woman, about 25 to 30 years old, black short cut hair. She was wearing a red jacket with half a maple leaf on it, and a few buttons which Shinji recognized as medals. The only outstanding feature of her apparel was a chromium cross that hung from her neck via a black strap of some sort. Beyond her apparel Shinji noticed that she had an outstanding figure. ^ Oh man, if I was only ten or twenty years older I would love to. ^ / Dream on bud, now on the other hand if I were still alive and wasn't married, I'd show her exactly how flexible a martial artists body really is. / ^ Ranma I really don't think she's the type of woman to go for lesbian action. ^ / HEY I'M A GUY REMEMBER!!! / Shinji was doing his best not to laugh, if he did they'd probably commit him to a mental institution. / Exactly where you belong, pervert. / Ranma said then stalked off to sulk in the recesses of Shinji's brain. It wasn't an easy task and he eventually gave up.
Misato and Shinji arrived at what seemed to be a gigantic hangar of some sort. There was a catwalk that stretched across a giant pool of yellowish liquid. In the middle of the pool stood what appeared to be a huge purple and lime green robot. ^ The paint job has something to be desired, I wonder if this is why I'm here? ^ / Hey Shinji who's the really serious looking guy up there with the stupid orange glasses? / ^ That Ranma is the old man. ^ "Shinji I trust that little mishap with the transport didn't affect you too much?" "Why am I here father? Why now?" "We need you to pilot the Evangelion and defeat the Angels." "What are you talking about?" Misato cut in. "Shinji, that," pointing at the robot "is Evangelion unit one or Eva unit one for short, and the Angels, that giant thing with arms trashing downtown you couldn't have missed it, are an alien species that seem hell bent on destroying the human race. You're here to defeat them, and to do it we need you to pilot unit one." Shinji turned to look at his father. "Why me? Why now?" Gendo looked down at his son standing there on the catwalk. "Because you're the only one who can. Will you do it?" Shinji started thinking. Gendo took his silence as a 'no'. "Very well then bring out Rei." "No you can't it'll kill her." Misato shouted. "She's not dead yet." Gendo replied in a monotone voice. Several technicians and doctors wheeled out a stretcher and an IV unit onto the catwalk. On the stretcher lay a girl not much older than Shinji. It was obvious that she had been through hell. Her head was heavily bandaged, and she had casts on both her arms and one of her legs. She was in a form fitting body suit but both Shinji and Ranma could see the bandages underneath. / Shinji you can't. If she's the only other one who can pilot that thing, you can't let her do it. / ^ But I'm scared. I've never done anything like this before. I don't think I can do it. ^ Before Ranma could respond the hangar was shaken by a massive explosion above. Several metal plates fell from above. Shinji ran faster than he'd ever ran before, he was almost a blur. He gently grabbed Rei off the stretcher and jumped out of the way milliseconds before a panel crashed down onto the spot Rei had just been totally destroying the stretcher. He gently laid Rei down on the catwalk and turned to glare at his father. Through clenched teeth, he spat out, "I'll do it." To this he turned to Misato, nodded then turned and walked off to his office. Misato tossed Shinji two neural interface receptors, then started to run to the command center. "Put those on your head and get into the plug, hurry we don't have much time left." Shinji did as he was told. He then did something really unusual. Instead of using the stairs he jumped onto Eva 01. It was a jump worthy of Ranma for he made it from the catwalk to the entry plug in that one jump and he was even seated properly. / How the hell did you do that? / ^ Do what? ^ / Shinji you just jumped 25 to 30 feet straight up! / It suddenly hit him. ^ I. I have no idea, I just did it. It was like instinct. ^ / Well we know that you seem to be able to do some of my moves, but just not when you want to do them. Listen we are about to fight a 25 story tall monster we had better find out how you are able to do my martial arts or else there will be a good chance we'll be killed. / The discussion continued inside the entry plug. Misato had reached the control room. There she found everybody standing there with their mouths open in utter shock. "Hey what's everybody doing just standing around we've got a fight on our hands." She turned to Ritsuko. "Ritsuko what happened?" "H. h. he j. jumped." "Who?" "Shinji" "No just what we need our one and only pilot commits suicide just when he's needed most. Damn I guess we need Rei." "Misato, he. he jumped from the catwalk to the entry plug in ONE jump." "That's impossible but we'll investigate later right now prepare to launch." Everybody was still in shock. "NOW!" That worked. Through the entry plug speaker Shinji heard Misato's voice. "Now Shinji we're going to have to fill the entry plug with LCL, don't be afraid." The entry plug started filling with some sort of orangish liquid. Shinji was squirming. "Uh Misato there's something I need to tell you, I can't touch cold water." "What's that about? Don't worry LCL is a highly oxygenated fluid, it's not water, and it's not cold." Though reassuring him, she stuck the cold water thing in her mind. + Could be useful as a practical joke later. + The LCL was rising higher and higher, even though he found he could touch it without activating the curse the faint smell of blood was sickening. He didn't know why but he believed that Ranma drowning in a pool of his own blood had something to do with it. It was over his head he held his breath for as long as he could but finally he had to exhale. What he inhaled was slightly more viscous than air, but it was breathable. "How are you feeling Shinji?" came Misato's voice over the loudspeaker. "I feel a little sick, I think I may throw up." "Well if you puke you're cleaning it up, got it." "Yeah I got it." Inside the control room Ritsuko was analyzing the readouts from Shinji's neural interface sensors. The results were to say the least confusing. There were two distinct brainwave patterns. This was scientifically impossible. "Maya begin interface, let's get him going." Shouted Misato across the room to Maya. "Approaching break even point, passing , Captain he's stabilized at 56% synchronization." Under her breath Misato mumbled to herself, "way to go kid now go get em." "Launch Eva 01" Shinji felt the Eva and himself slowly merge, the Eva's arms were now his arms, the Eva's legs were now his legs, when he closed his eyes he could still see, but they were not his eyes. The entire experience was slightly disorienting, kind of like the first time he'd stepped into a full virtual reality machine. Then there was a sudden jolt as the Eva rocketed skyward. On the ground everything was different. He looked around and saw the Angel 5 blocks dead ahead. Through the loudspeaker. "Ok Shinji no pressure just try taking a few steps." Eva lurched forward and fell flat on it's face. Inside the entry plug. "Ow that's going to leave a mark." From the speaker. "Shinji get up it's coming right at you, GET UP." Misato's voice seemed urgent. Eva was struggling like a baby who had just fallen down and couldn't get up. For a 25 story tall monster the Angel moved quite quickly, covering the distance between itself and the fallen Eva in a matter of a few seconds. / Uh Shinji if you're holding out on me time to cut it out and get serious, it's coming over here and it looks like Happosai after we threw out his entire collection of panties and bras. / ^ What do you think I'm trying to do. Stupid thing how do you move. ^ Shinji finally figured out how to move but it was too little too late. The Angel had grabbed the Eva by it's arm, then it twisted it till it snapped in half. Shinji screamed in agonizing pain. Misato came through, "Shinji that's not your arm it's the Eva's arm." It didn't matter who's arm it was it still hurt like hell. The Angel grabbed hold of the Eva's head and started pounding on it with some sort of energy lance. Shinji passed out. "Maya cut neural connections or we're going to loose the pilot." "No good control circuits are shot, we've got no way of getting in touch with the Eva." This wasn't quite true Ritsuko was still getting readings. She saw the dominant brainwave become the passive brainwave and vice versa. It still made no sense. In the entry plug, Ranma found himself in control of Shinji's male body. He also couldn't hear Shinji's thoughts so he concluded (and rightly so) that Shinji had passed out. Then it hit him, the reason why Shinji had passed out. Two stabbing pains, one from his arm the other from his head. / Guess I can't blame him for passing out. Wonder if my healing ability would work on the Eva? One way to find out. / From the control room. "The Eva's regenerating." Maya yelled to Misato. "What?" Indeed it was regenerating. Almost instantly the arm snapped back into place and the damaged eye healed. Ranma stood up and flexed. The Eva flexed with him. Using what he'd learned from Shinji's failed attempt at walking he took a step. It worked. / Awright now to get down to some serious business. / He cracked his knuckles. He was to be the sole savior of the world. It was really quite thrilling. He let out a roar and the Eva responded likewise. "It's gone berserk again." Maya called out. "Ritsuko I thought you fixed that." Misato said to her friend who was totally engulfed in the readings she was getting. "What do you expect from an untested highly evolved cybernetic weapon." Responded Ritsuko not looking up from her readings. "So that means what." "No warranty." Outside there was a battle raging on. After Ranma had flipped the Angel the bird, it had 'run' up and kicked the Eva in the nuts. (if Eva's have nuts) It hurt like hell, and Ranma wanted revenge, for everything. He was doing a series of devastating roundhouse and jump kicks, none of which seemed to be penetrating the Angel's weird kind of force field. However Ranma noticed that each blow seemed to weaken it. Through some amazingly quick and insightful thinking Ranma realized that if he could land thousands of punches he should be able to weaken the field and collapse it, then make that ugly thing even uglier, i.e. bloody pulp. "Katsu Tenshin Amogouriken!" he yelled as Eva's arms started flying out faster than the speed of sound, sending out mach cones, which also slammed into the AT field. Ritsuko was pissing herself. Everything was wrong, first Shinji jumping into the entry plug, then the dual signals, now whatever was in control of Shinji and hence the Eva was making it's arms move beyond mach 1 this was impossible. Misato looked over at her friends stunned reaction, then she looked down. "Ritsuko look what you did on the floor. Baaaaaddd Ritsuko, baaaaadddd scientist." The Angel was weakening rapidly and the AT field finally collapsed. Ranma however didn't stop he saw the red core and decided to trash that first. He did a front kick aimed at the top of the Angel it toppled onto it's back. Ranma jumped on and started doing the Amogouriken technique downward directly on the core. It cracked and the Angel stopped moving.
The recovery room was bone white and barren. Kind of like Saskatchewan in the winter. Ranma was awake but pretended to be unconscious in fear that he would be discovered, not knowing he already had been. Ritsuko was standing outside the door talking to someone. Three people entered the room and shut the door and the blinds, one of them unhooked the security camera. Cold water splashed on the bed, one very impressive transformation later a damp redhead jumped out of the bed. "What'd you do that for?" she screamed. Her eyes crossed as a 45 special, that would have made Dirty Harry cream his jeans, was pointed directly at his/her nose almost touching it. Misato narrowed her eyes. "Now who are you?" "I'm Shinji." "Wrong answer," As the audible click of the hammer being pulled back and locked into place. "Now let's try this again, who are you?" Gendo spoke. "The captain is a little trigger happy. Now whoever you are I've only seen two people in my life who were able to pull off the Katsu Tenshin Amogouriken," he narrowed his eyes "and both of them my dear, are dead. So I ask who are you?" Ranma lowered her eyes. "I'm Ranma Saotome of the Saotome School of Anything Goes Martial Arts. Sorry about this." "You're lying, Ranma's dead, and besides Ranma was a guy." Gendo said coldly. "Misato shoot her." "But sir it was your son?" Misato's moment of confusion was all Ranma needed. / He doesn't believe I'm Ranma, I'll show him. / "Hiru Shoten Ha!" he yelled This shook Misato out of her state of confusion, just in time to see a miniature whirlwind spinning towards her current position. It picked her up and spun her across the room, dropping the gun. Ritsuko was also caught up slightly and was pushed against the door, Gendo was just ruffled a little before the whirlwind spun down. He showed his shock. His left eyebrow twitched slightly. "You can't be alive." "Who says I am, now sit and I'll try to explain." After two hours of curses, martial arts explanations, and various other things, Ritsuko got up. "I can't possibly believe it but here it is right in front of me. I can't take much more of this I'm going to do my work now." With this she huffed off. Gendo left for his office after reassuring Ranma that the entire transformation thing would be kept top secret except for Nerv officials. It was just Misato and Ranma in the room. Misato had gotten used to everything by now. (well almost everything the changing into a girl thing was still really weird) Ranma got up went to the bathroom and came out as Shinji again. "Why'd you do that?" Asked Misato. "Well I figure that Shinji is going to be waking up soon and he would probably want to be in control of the body." "Oh." Almost on cue Shinji came to. ^ Oh man, my head hurts, hey Ranma what'd I miss. ^ "Hey Shinji is that you?" asked Misato curiously "Or is that still you Ranma?" ^ She knows!!! Ranma how does she know. ^ / I told her. They found out because that stupid machine told them. Stupid machine. Don't worry it's all going to be kept top secret. / ^ She tried to shoot you. ^ "Helllooooooo, anybody home?" Misato waved her hand in front of Shinji's eyes. "Hm what?" "What were you doing?" "I was talking to Ranma." + Two people in one body, that's got to be strange. + "Well I guess we should get going." "Going? Going where?" "Home of course silly, you're staying with me." "Goody"
Ritsuko was walking down the hall to her office. She had tons of work to do. Two souls in one body, and one of them was that of a dead man. This was just too weird. She rounded the corner and opened her office door. On her desk was a box of diapers. A practical joke spawned by her earlier accident, probably the brainchild of the guys. Heads would roll, and she wasn't thinking about the kind that sat on their shoulders either.
The ride home was pretty much uneventful. Shinji was really tired for some reason, Ranma didn't tell him he'd pulled off a chi attack, and Shinji was too tired to press the issue. Misato opened the door to the apartment. "Well Shinji, Ranma welcome home." The apartment was to put it mildly a disaster, there were instant Raman noodle cases everywhere, and the dishes in the sink were piling up. / She can't cook. / ^ How can you tell? ^ / Look around it's elementary all this instant food. / "Well get settled in supper will be in about five minutes." She moved to the cupboard and pulled out three packages of noodles and some stuff. She went to the sink and pulled out a pot, sniffed it, rinsed it gently under the water then filled it half full. ^ I don't think I'd survive that stuff, could take this one please. ^ Ranma laughed / Sure, sure I've survived worse believe me. You know what to do. / Shinji wandered over to the sink. "Misato, I'm really not hungry right now but Ranma says he's starved." With that he dumped the water on himself. The transformation tore his clothes a bit, as the bigger Ranma came forth. / We've got to get you some new clothes, preferably ones with some give to them, this shirt's tight. / He exhaled and the shirt developed two big tears under the arms and two buttons popped off. / Much better. / One of the buttons hit Misato in the back of the head and she turned to see the cause. Her eye twitched heavily. There was Ranma severely busting out of Shinji's now way too small shirt. "Ranma don't you have ANY female modesty?" "Not a shred, I'm a guy remember." He went to the refrigerator and opened it. Beer. (an engineers best friend) Row upon row of beer. "Lemme guess, hmmm you would like a beer, is that right?" "You got it, how'd you know." "Instinct." Ranma said as he procured two beers from the fridge. He handed one to Misato and kept the other for himself. She saw him crack his and pound back the entire can. "What are you doing!!" yelled Misato "You're way to young to drink." Ranma just crumpled the can into a small ball, crossed his arms and looked at Misato. "Look, how old are you?" "Twenty six, why?" "I'm thirty seven so I can damn well drink beer if I want." "But." She for some reason she couldn't come up with a response to this, it had never occurred to her that this girl was older than she was. So she did the only thing she could, she slammed her beer. "Hooo Yaw. That's one to one Ranma." "One to what?" "Get us another beer." She narrowed her eyes. "By slamming that beer you challenged me to a drinking contest, and I never back down from a challenge." Walking to the fridge Ranma opened it and tossed her another beer and got one for himself. "Well awl right, you're on." ^ You've never drank before in your life have you. ^ / Not a once, but don't worry I never loose. / Shinji didn't want to say this but challenging somebody with a stack of filled out frequent drinker cards at the local liquor shop, probably wasn't a good idea. An hour later, the Raman hadn't even been touched. Ranma was sloshed, Misato was even showing quite a bit. "Shyou know yoush verrrrry boootiful Mishato." Ranma slurred. ^ Ranma you're drunk stop now before you do something. ^ "Aw shaddap Shinji yoush spoiln my fun." He turned on Misato he used his martial artist balance which even when he was drunk didn't fail him. He lunged at Misato knocking her out of the chair and onto the floor. He pressed his lips to hers in an unbreakable liplock kiss with tongue. Misato in her drunken haze was shocked that she was being kissed by a girl, Shinji was shocked that Ranma was kissing Misato, and Ranma was shocked that he wasn't using his hands to get a feel. Before he could act the body failed and he passed out. Misato lay on the floor. + I was just kissed by a girl, no wait I was kissed by a boy, no wait I was kissed by an old man, no I was kissed by an old dead man in a young girls body. Yeah that's right. He was a good kisser. + That was it she too passed out. Shinji lay there on the floor, unable to move. When he took over Ranma's body he got the alcohol rush too. He was too drunk to do anything. A penguin waddled out to where Shinji/Ranma and Misato lay on the floor. It stopped in front of Shinji, 'warked' at him then raised it's leg.