CHAPTER THREE: LOVE BLOOMS?
Rei Ayanami awoke precisely at eight o'clock AM in her still rather small apartment. Her few treasured possessions sat on the desk to the right of her bed, which included Gendo's heat broken glasses, Tristan's signed CD, and her small CD player, the headphones coiled up, still connected. The apartments walls had a few Japanese calligraphy paintings, a reproduction print of "The Great Wave" by Hokusai, with a message on the frame that read "This was the spirit of Japan you are fighting for" along with a small NERV symbol besides it, which was quite ironic considering Hokusai's own work was heavily influenced by Western-style art in Japan's period of isolationism, but to Rei, this was her home, and she liked it.
As she rose from her bed, she stretched carefully, as to avoid extending any of her finely tuned tendons. Her face was a little puffy after staying up all night, she noticed after glancing at the mirror, so she headed over to her freezer which contained an ice-gel mask that she would wear for the rest of her morning routine.
While doing her stomach crunches, Rei felt a slight pain in her abdomen, no doubt because of her actions with Paul Oakenfold the previous night. Rei stood up and lifted her shirt, feeling the skin around the area of pain. There was no bruise, which she was thankful for, but the skin was tender, and she winced as she pushed the center of it.
Heading over to her white tiled bathroom, Rei disrobed casually and left her clothing on the floor. She looked at herself in the mirror once more, removing the gel-pack, pleased to see her eyes were looking much less puffy. Turning on the shower, Rei removed the body lotion and skin care gel from the cabinet under her sink, along with a soft, natural sponge to apply it. The water reached the desired temperature and she stepped in with never before seen grace and beauty. As she rubbed the sponge softly against her pale white skin, Rei thought about if her car was prepared correctly or not, because she did not wish to disappoint Tristan.
After applying the body gel and moisturizer to her skin in the shower, Rei applied the shampoo to her mid length blue hair, gently rubbing in the roots of the hair for a full shine. She rinsed her hair with the removable shower head, watching the soapy water go down the drain. Once her hair was rinsed, she removed a bottle of conditioner and put the conditioner in, running her hands through her hair, the warm water cascading over her breasts and the rest of her torso.
She rinsed her hair and turned off the water, wrapping a towel around herself, her damp hair sticking to her pale skin, looking for any imperfections that she could find in her face. Satisfied with the fact she could find nothing wrong, she removed her hair drier from the cabinet, replacing the body care bottles in their proper containers, while she dried her hair, carefully. She was aiming to keep her "cute and natural" look, but in reality, it took a careful hand and many different hair care products to keep it that way.
From L'oreal, Rei removed the gel and produced a small dab of it to apply to her hair. It spread evenly throughout her hair as she gently fingered it in, and made the controlled mess of hair that she worked so hard to keep. She put the gel back away and looked at her face one nose, making various expressions. Sullen, overjoyed, devious, depressed, horny, happy, indifferent, she tried them all. A small makeup kit was on her sink counter, and Rei considered putting some on, but something in her head made her think that Tristan was the type who liked natural rather than made up, at least when he was teaching her new techniques. Instead she decided on a small dab of moisturizer for her face, along with a hydrating facial mask to be applied five minutes after the usage of the moisturizer.
Rei returned to her bedroom nude, her hair, face, and body prepared for her lessons from Tristan Delecour. She opened her closet and looked through it. In it were several old High School uniforms, a few dresses from various designers like Gucci, Emporio Armani, Chanel, Prada, Versace, and various other fashion designers, that Gendo had given her, most of which she had worn once and hung back up, three silk kimono; red, blue, and white, and a few various t-shirts, sweat shirts, and some collared shirts that were from people over the years. She pulled out a dark red t-shirt that cut off a bit below her navel. She found some underwear and a bra, both of which were white cotton, and pulled them on while holding the t-shirt in between her teeth.
For her pants (an evening gown was not going to be able to work well in her newly installed five-point restraint system by Sparco) , she decided to wear something that was loose and comfortable, yet would not get in the way of her footwork on the car's pedals. She decided on a pair of light blue cotton/polyester blended cargo pants that she kept around for the weekends to relax in while not being bothered with things like her uniform. After putting them on with her shirt, Rei felt hungry and decided to eat something that was both filling yet healthy for her skin and body.
Rei opened her refrigerator and delicately removed a kiwi from the top most shelf, along with a stainless steel knife in the cabinet next to it. She went over to her table, sitting down with a plate, the kiwi, and knife. As she slowly peeled the fuzz of the kiwi, her mind wandered to Tristan again. "Was he going to be on time? Was he going to be friendly to her?"
As she was deep in thought, Rei did not even notice that she had cut her thumb with the knife while peeling the kiwi, the drops of red blood falling on the plate. She looked down in a perverse sense of interest and put her thumb in her mouth, dropping the knife on the plate. She ran over to her bathroom, pulling out a band-aid, and then rinsing the bleeding digit under the cold water before applying the new band-aid. Rei returned to her table and carefully dipped her finger in the small bit of blood that leaked on the plate. Its coppery taste was not unpleasant, but it was not something she enjoyed. She put a piece of the kiwi in her mouth, and savored the taste. The kiwi soon disappeared, and Rei ate another two before being satisfied.
The small clock on the wall read nine twenty, Tristan was not due for another forty minutes, and Rei was bored. The small television on the wall did not offer much entertainment, and she did not feel like staying inside on her computer on such a pleasant day. Rei grabbed her portable CD player and her keys, exiting her apartment after putting on a pair of white sneakers.
She was the only one in her building, and she walked down the hallway alone, listening to the buzzing of the fluorescent lights, along with the sun pouring through the windows, adding light yellow colored squares to the otherwise dull gray carpets. She reached the stainless steel doors of the elevator, pushing the down button. She wondered to herself if her small collection of tools was going to be good enough for the adjustment of her freshly installed Tein coil overs. Rei had visited Gendo right after talking with Tristan, and Gendo decided that if she was going to drive like that, he would have her car prepared to the upper echelon. Within five hours, Gendo had a team of forty-six NERV employees transform the humble commuter car into a full out drift machine.
Rei gently pushed the plastic button for the basement, the soft yellow light illuminating the face behind it, giving off a small sense of comfort. She was not at all worried about people entering the building unsupervised, as it was closely guarded by NERV guards whom she had yet to learn their names. As the elevator doors quietly closed, Rei removed the small black plastic ear buds from her pocket and gently inserted them in her ears, brushing aside the hair that covered them. She pushed play on the roll-style remote and skipped to track number four, her personal favorite track.
As the beat progressed on her headphones, the elevator sped to the basement, and Rei felt the slight bit of weightlessness that one feels while in an elevator that falls at that speed. The doors reopened and Rei headed out to her red Trueno. A two meter tall, eight meter long, red tool-rack sat undisturbed in front of it, locked with a padlock. Along the side were eight sets of ADVAN tires, which were Yokohama's racing tires, that were pre-mounted on bronze Volk TE-37 rims. Rei entered the familiar combination on the lock, and the steel doors easily opened with a silent grace that could only be compared to the likes of royal guards. She looked through the tools, which contained various metric socket sets and custom tools for removing or adjusting just about any component on the car. Rei opened the bottom cabinet and went through the components. A few different spring rates, six quarts of synthetic oil, wiring, three head gaskets, two sets of balanced pistons with rings, a complete rear end assembly for the Trueno, and various other parts that were of little consequence at the moment.
She sat down on the front bumper and was content to listen to her CD player, and she gently sprawled herself on the carbon fiber hood on the car, carefully laying her back on it as to not crack it. Time passed and she stared at the flickering light in the concrete ceiling. The ceiling had been recently done over, but for what reason, Rei couldn't figure out. It seemed so useless to be the only one in the entire thirty story apartment complex. She relaxed to the music and closed her eyes, ignoring the outside world.
---
"Rei, Rei? Are you okay, Rei?" Tristan tapped Rei gently on the shoulder. It was Tristan Delecour and he was wearing a navy blue t-shirt along with a pair of loose fitting gray pants that seemed to be made of a plastic and cotton blend. His hair was gelled slightly, holding the strands of hair together in a very attractive manner. His face had a days worth of stubble, giving that masculine, rugged look to his face that made Rei feel rather... different than she usually did.
"Oh, Hello.. I was... just..." Rei began to speak, her own red eyes darting away from Tristan's deep brown eyes. She quickly removed her ear buds and placed the silvery CD player in her side pocket for later usage. It was quite a nice system, considering the fact that it would stand temperatures upwards of 200 degrees centigrade, along with managing to be waterproof to an impressive 100 meters. Neither of those she had tested, but the box said so.
"Resting?" Tristan asked with a chuckle. "I understand, I mean, you were up at the club last night!"
"Yes... I was..." Rei shyly looked to the ground.
"Wow, so this is your car? It looks a lot different..." Tristan said, looking at the heavily modified AE86.
"Well, I had some help..."
"No shit... It looks like you've got more cash in this car than I do on my seven!" Tristan exclaimed, walking around the car, but not taking his eyes off of Rei's form.
"Gendo did that..." Rei said quietly.
"Heh, I need to get some connections to him like that," Tristan thought, returning to Rei at the front of the car. He dragged his finger over her hand and then gently tugged at her arm. "Let's drift..." Tristan said with a hushed voice, their eyes meeting for the first time.
Rei understood and slipped off the front bumper with incredible grace and ease, as if she was a dancer in the ballet. She opened the driver's side door and slipped in the red suede Sparco seats, and pulled the black woven restraints over her thin shoulders. Tristan did likewise closing his door and sitting back quietly. Rei inserted the key, and the engine leapt to life, expelling a stentorian note. Tristan glanced over to Rei, but she seemed determined to make this a worthwhile session.
"Okay Rei," Tristan said, "Let's take the route up to the..."
Rei sharply turned the car to the right, then tossing the wheel to the left, inducing a perfect drift while maintaining the angle of the sideways drift with a combination of the throttle and light emergency-brake work.
"Right then, you choose where you want to go..." Tristan said, looking out at the cityscape of Tokyo-3.
---
Rei tossed the rear end of the old Trueno out to the exit of the turn, with skill that intimidated Tristan's own drift skill. It was clearly obvious that this girl knew what she was doing.
"That was good, Rei.." Tristan said, noting the intense amount of concentration that was shown on Rei's face. She brought the car up to its new 9000 RPM redline and jammed the car into third, pulling the two of them higher up the empty mountain road. Tristan looked out the side and saw a lake that reflected the mountain like a mirror image. He was about to tell Rei to pull over at the next rest area, when she braked the car and slowly turned into an old dirt stop where a bench sat. Rei turned off the motor and pulled the cool metal lever that held the fastener together. Tristan looked over at her, but she had already exited the car.
"She's quite abrupt.." Tristan thought as he undid his own harness and exited the car. He followed Rei to the bench and sat down a few inches beside her.
"It truly is beautiful, isn't it?" She asked with a subdued tone in her voice, "I come up here to think for myself and reflect upon my actions, be it decisions in combat, or in my life," She turned and looked to Tristan, her eyes giving a pleading look for approval. "Don't you think?"
Tristan was just breathless by the serene beauty that Rei seemed to have found. The mountain reflection. The clouds in the sky. The subtle distortion that made it possible to know which side the sky was on... It was almost magical.
"It truly is beautiful," Tristan said, looking back at Rei, who had moved herself even closer to Tristan, and then leaned over on his side.
"Sometimes, I get so tired of fighting," Rei said, slipping her slender fingers around Tristan's hand. "Don't you get tired of it? Don't you want to escape from it all? Does the fame get to you? I want to know how.." Rei trailed off, her voice breaking up.
"I don't know how," Tristan said, looking back over at the mountain road. "It's hard. After losing my mother those seven years ago to NERV2, and my father shortly after that, it's like I've had no one to look up to other than myself, and other people to set examples for me. I've done what everyone has wanted me to do to the fullest extent that I can.. And sometimes I do want to stop it all..." Tristan looked back over to Rei, who had a single tear in her eye. "What's wrong?"
"... I'm worthless." Rei stated bluntly, turning her head away from Tristan's gaze. "I'm nothing compared to you."
"No you're not! You're a great girl!" Tristan said, trying to console her.
"I am not! I'm nothing but a worthless clone!" Rei turned away even more to Tristan, showing her back to him.
"What do you mean?" Tristan asked with a great deal of concern for the girl. "Surely you had parents at one point or another! You must have been loved as a child by someone! It's a biological thing!"
"No, no, I am nothing but a useless genetic experiment that failed. An attempt at one man trying to make himself a god, rather than caring about his own son. A try to control mankind's destiny seven years ago, and I am all that is left of that horrible project." Rei said, the tears flowing freely at this point.
Tristan looked at Rei with both an extreme case of sympathy and new found curiosity. "What are you cloned of?"
"I am half Angel, and half of Ikari's former wife, Yui Ikari," Rei said, burying her head in Tristan's chest while wrapping her arms around his torso. "I died three times previously. I don't remember much before those times, but I do know I did not survive."
"Half angel?" Tristan thought to himself. What was this girl? Was she really this far fetched story? She was different than other girls her age, but she wasn't some sort of horrible monster that tried to destroy Tokyo-3, or the world. "I don't care about any of that..." Tristan said, holding Rei close to him gently, the sun sparkling over the water.
"Aren't you afraid of me? Aren't I a freak of nature?" Rei said, her tears dripping down on her shirt, leaving small water stains around the top of her chest. "Don't I frighten you?"
"No, Rei, you do not," Tristan said with great sincerity. "You're truly a special girl and I want you to know something that I feel between us..." he continued, gently wiping away her tears from her eyes. She looked absolutely stunning to Tristan, given the scenery, her pale flawless skin and hair contrasting each other, the mirror-like lake creating even more of a mood.
"I-" Tristan took Rei's face in his hands softly when he felt his left leg spasm off and on. "... I will get back to you on that." Tristan removed his hands and answered the small red cellphone.
"A blue pattern!?" Tristan exclaimed, forgetting totally about the drift lesson with Rei. "Yes, we'll be right over!"
"There's another attack..." Rei stated, looking over to the evergreen forest. "They're coming again."
"We have to get back to headquarters..." Tristan said, standing up. "No time to go get my car, you'll really have to show me your skills now!"
"I will do so to the best of my abilities!" Rei said, wiping her face with her hand, wishing that Tristan had not brought his phone along. Rei had left her phone on her desk, just for the chance that was going to happen between the two of them.
---
"INVADOR ALERT! INVADOR ALERT!" The sixty centimeter flat-screen monitor read. Maya Ibuki looked over to Ritsuko Akagi, who kicked the terminal that sat under the steel metal desk. The screen quickly changed to "BLUE PATTERN" with a close up of a cellular structure.
"Be so kind as to note that error down for us, Maya?" Ritsuko asked her assistant.
"Yes, ma'am!" the brunette responded, rapidly typing some keys.
"Where are our pilots?" Ritsuko asked, looking up to the terminal with her eyes finding Gendo.
---
Asuka Sohryu Langley was not in a pleasant mood. Not only was Tristan gone before she awoke, but also she was crammed in the back of Misato's Renault, heading over to headquarters with Shinji. Sure, it might have been fine to fit back there when she was a few inches shorter, but getting her entire 5'9" frame into the back of the car was an ordeal in itself. Kaworu didn't seem to mind puttering along behind them in his Metropolitan, but he was no longer a pilot, but merely served as a consultant for those pesky creatures that SEELE seemed to be sending recently.
"I'm dying from lack of oxygen back here!" Asuka whined, tugging at her white sleeveless top which was clinging to her chest in a way that suggested that it was a few sizes too small.
"Hey, you're the one who lost!" Shinji said to Asuka, who calmly held on to the Renault's interior handle. "I got evens, and you put a one out. I did the same. I win."
"Would you two shut up?" Misato yelled, speeding through the traffic, the accessory siren blaring, causing her head to wrack in pain along with the siren's blare. Unfortunately, the old Alpine did not have a CD player, otherwise she would have been playing one of Tristan's CD's that Shinji had sitting in the left hand side driver's compartment. Misato sighed and pulled down her black DKNY sunglasses and tore into the underground Geofront.
---
"Zoom in on the creature!" Ritsuko ordered. The remote scout plane flew overhead, closing in on the angel's impact area, which was approximately ten kilometers away. The entire city of Tokyo three was already underground, and the plain white combat buildings were in their place, ready to dispense various weapons, if the pilots were out fighting.
"Dear God..." Fuyutsuki said while covering his mouth. "It's wearing a hula skirt?"
"Yes, it apparently is..." Gendo replied slowly, looking at the massive angel on his personal monitor, before the entire GeoFront was shook by massive reverberations from the angel's call.
"HALUGLAUGALUAGA!" The creature screamed again. The Angel seemed to be entirely black and white, as if it was drawn, rather than grown, with the mushroom shaped head with nine eyes, huge mouth, circle with another circle on the chest, along with being a bipedal humanoid body type, and the strangely placed hula skirt. It truly was disturbing.
"Where hell are they!?" Ritsuko yelled as the beast closed its nine eyes, opening its mouth, and raising its fists in apparent anger.
---
"Hurry up, Rei!" Tristan said as the Trueno Sprinter broke through the gates and ran up along side Misato's Alpine. Shinji gave a friendly wave and they were fast approaching the center of NERV. Rei pulled over to one side, ripped out the keys and ran to the entry plugs. Shinji, Asuka, and Tristan followed up right behind. While they were running through the silvery halls of NERV, they finally reached the entry plugs, each one labeled appropriately.
"Let's go!" Tristan yelled and threw himself into Unit 04's entry plug. The other pilots followed suit and sat in their entry plug while the LCL link fluid filled their plugs.
"Launching unit's 00 through 04!" Misato yelled from the control room, slightly disheveled from her jaunt through the hallways.
---
The Angel watched the four units launch from their respective pods carefully. It stood still and cried out once more, in frustration with its task. Having to destroy Lilith and retrieve Adam was not their goal. But now there were four relatives standing in between its task and that couldn't do.
"What is that thing?" Asuka muttered, grabbing for an ax. "Tristan, you take point, and Rei, you back him up and I'll go in with Shinji!" she commanded, much more secure of her piloting skills again.
Unit 01 was sitting on a building side, examining a new energy-style rifle that came out of one of the combat buildings. "Such a dreadful instrument!" Shinji said to himself, picking it up and looking at it. What he didn't know is that he had his finger on the trigger, and that he had just shot up one of the pure white GeoFront buildings.
"Sorry!" He said, handing it over to Rei in her blue EVA.
"Shinji-kun," He heard over his personal intercom, and it could only have come from one special person. "There's something strange about that angel. I'm working with the systems here to try to translate what it's saying!"
"Good work Kaworu!" Tristan said, grabbing a very large scale MP5 along with what seemed to be a giant Plexiglas shield that had a large NERV logo on it along with white bordering. "Are you ready Asuka?"
"Let's go!" Asuka cried and ran towards the target, her ax wielded high above her EVA's head. The Angel, however, had different plans for her, and screamed once more. The reverberations of "HALUGALUGALUGALUGALUGALUGALUGA!!" ripped through the air, and Asuka stopped dead in her tracks, her red evangelion clutching at its head in a sense of pain.
"What is it doing to me?" Asuka screamed and clutched at her head. The pain was unbearable and throbbing, probing at her deepest corners of her mind. It was like her mind rape all over again. "Not again! Not again!" she whimpered pathetically, yanking the aluminum butterfly handles with
---
"Pull her out of there!" Misato ordered, her fists clanging on the metal desk of the command console.
"Disconnecting neural network linkups to Unit 02... Now!" a technician announced calmly. This was all part of the job for him. He fiddled with a pen and typed in the command to disconnect Unit 02's network. "Disconnected!" he said as the status report on Unit 02 disappeared from the main view screen.
"Do you know what it's saying Kaworu?" Ritsuko turned to the pale, red-eyed man who was calmly sitting in his chair, watching Shinji's status.
"... Well, I'm not sure, and it seems completely crazy, but it's saying something along the lines of a demand for 'dongs'?" Kaworu blushed slightly and sat back a small bit more.
"Dongs. You're saying it wants 'dongs'. Not penis, not male genitalia, but 'dongs'?" Ritsuko raised an eyebrow at the former Angel known as Tabris. "It's a little bit of a fucking wrong time to be making jokes right now, Kaworu."
"I'm not making any jokes at all!" Kaworu stood up, slowly reciting this information. "He's saying something about putting dongs in his mouth."
"Look Kaworu, we can't deal with your bullshit any more, so why don't you just leave!" Misato roared, turning her attention from the fallen Unit 02.
"Why would I lie at this stage?!" he replied calmly
"Rei," Gendo commanded, ignoring the squabble below him, "Move in with great caution, and aim for the circles!"
"Yes sir," Rei blinked and Unit 00 ran in for the kill.
---
"What is she doing?" Tristan thought to himself, knowing that Rei was going to be thrown back like Asuka, if she tried to attack with her progressive knife.
"Rei, no!" Tristan cried out, but it was too late, as the angel had already thrown Rei back with its brawny arms. Unit 00 sailed through the air, colliding head first into the ground, unable to get back up. "Rei!" Tristan ran his silver and black Evangelion over to the impact area where Unit 00 laid limp and tangled within itself. The shoulder fins were deep in the ground, and the right hand twitched slightly around the progressive knife. "Are you okay?"
"I'll be fine..." Rei spat out, tasting her blood once more in her mouth. "although my EVA is trashed..."
"I know! I'll take care of him for you!" Tristan promised Rei, stroking the head of Unit 00, the black hand of Unit 04 carefully running down the edge of it.
"What are we going to do, Tristan?" Shinji asked, firing a few rounds of the energy rifle at the new Angel. They merely bounced off the Angel's AT field, causing the Angel to seem to get even angrier.
"Does this Angel have a name yet?" Tristan yelled to the control room.
---
"That's a positive, Tristan," Ritsuko said while carefully balancing a cup of coffee in her hand.
"Well, what's its name?"
"... Pants," Ritsuko replied, taking a large sip of the coffee. This was going to be a long day.
"Pants?" Tristan asked back, trying to take this seriously.
"That's what Kaworu said its name was," Ritsuko pointed her thumb back at Kaworu.
"Pants. That's completely and utterly asinine!" Tristan ranted at Ritsuko.
"Tristan!" Gendo yelled to Tristan, commanding his full attention. "I want you and Shinji to form a double point formation and close in on it. It's getting way to dangerously close to Terminal Dogma!"
"Don't you think they shouldn't know about that?" Fuyutsuki nudged Gendo in the side.
"They were going to know any ways, or one of them already knew. I can't keep track of all this stuff!" Gendo said, not looking over at Fuyutsuki. "Now where are my puddin' pops?"
---
Tristan concentrated for a moment. The beautiful clear sky stood out the most in his mind while he looked through the almost plastic-looking false city stood before him. Unit 01 stood to the right of him, maybe a few hundred meters away, while the angel "Pants" was lumbering past the fallen Unit 02 and heading towards the center of the city.
"Tristan!" Kaworu came on over the video screen to Tristan's left view-port. "It's demanding dick now!"
"... What the hell are you talking about?" Tristan said, looking closely as Pants blinked its nine eyes sequentially.
"Don't ask me what it wants, but it's saying something to the effect of 'Put your dicks in my mouth for a special surprise!'" Kaworu gave his trademark smirk and shrugged.
"Um, Kaworu, I know you're of the, ah, different persuasion, but this is hardly the time," Tristan furrowed his brow at Kaworu.
"Why doesn't anyone believe me?" Kaworu said, making a face.
"I do. And I'm going to try this as a distraction. Look, I'm going in on this one, Shinji, cover me when I'm going in!"
"Roger that, Tristan!" Shinji said back, grabbing a spear that was over the length of his own evangelion.
---
"YOU KNOW WHAT I LIKE THE MOST ABOUT LIFE?" Unit 04's PA system hammered through out the air. "IT'S LICKING DONG!"
The angel "Pants" turned around from its path to terminal dogma and blinked a few of its eyes at the Evangelion. "HALUGA?" it said, the giant hula skirt shaking slightly.
"YES, THAT'S RIGHT. I HAVE ALL THE DICKS YOU COULD EVER WANT!" Tristan called out to the angel, gripping the virtual progressive knife in his hand. "FRESH, HARD, AND LONG FOR YOUR SUCKING PLEASURE!"
"HALUGALUGA!" The Angel seemed to be pleased with this news and began to plow through the giant white buildings to Unit 04, when with lightning quick speed, Tristan tore through the angel's AT field with the progressive knife, piercing the center of the chest of the angel, cracking the S2 core.
Within the moment that the progressive knife contacted the S2 core center, four square kilometers of the city disappeared, along with Unit 04 and the angel.
"Where's Tristan?" Asuka mewed while watching the battle from her fallen EVA. "Where did he go!? Where's the angel?!"
NERV quickly scrambled, attempting to get radio contact with the lost EVA. Trucks were deployed to recover the fallen pilots as well as the evangelions themselves. Two minutes of absolute silence occurred as the trucks drove out with the recovery equipment before a small black dot was seen in the air.
"What's that?" Ritsuko asked, fiddling with the controls to zoom in. "Wait a second... That's Tristan's EVA! Everyone clear out from under it!"
Tristan's EVA fell through the sky at a blistering pace, the ground approaching the bottom of his EVA way faster than he desired. The EVA fought to respond to Tristan's commands, and finally managed to get into a proper landing procedure that would most protect the entry plug, which was on its two feet, in a crouching position with its right hand out in front. With a giant crash-impact, Tristan's red-soled Eva came in contact once more, promptly falling over after landing from an approximate height of over two kilometers.
---
"Tristan is safe!" Misato happily reported over the PA system. One of the cameras on the view screen showed his entry plug, fully intact, being removed. "Thank the heavens!" she said, sighing and drinking down a bottle of water.
"Yes indeed!" Kaworu chimed in. "I sure do wish he says what he said to that angel to me some day!"
Ritsuko gave a strange look to Kaworu, but she continued on her business with the MAGI system.
"Prepare the pilots for debriefing within the hour," Gendo said with an icy tone to Misato. He had his hands perfectly folded in front of his face, and it was obvious he wasn't happy.
Unit 02 and Unit 00 were found to be in recoverable condition, and their status was shown on the large projection screens, blueprints of them rotating, highlighting damaged areas. "Armor breaching is minimal to none on Unit 02, Unit 00 shows slight structural damage to the head and right arm, full recovery is estimated within a week," Ritsuko calmly read off the screen to herself, not paying attention to her cup of cold coffee that was sitting in her hands. "Unit 01, excellent condition, Unit 04... excellent condition?" Ritsuko scratched her head, and took a sip of the cold coffee.
"Something wrong?" Misato queried Ritsuko.
"No, just that Unit 04 is apparently perfect condition after that fall. Probably just some damaged sensors in the leg areas that won't report in, or maybe a few bugs in the system still..."
"INVADOR ALERT! INVADOR ALERT!" the MAGI screamed through the headquarters. Maya Ibuki, mimicking her favorite among favorite women, kicked the side of her workstation. The alert stopped and things returned to normal.
"Would someone please fix that? Christ on a cross!" Ritsuko muttered while making intricate paper-folds to make an EVA.
"Right then. I better go collect the pilots... We don't want the men upstairs to get cranky," Misato said, fixing her bra strap.
"As you always are."
---
"Wow, that sure was some report I had to give!" Tristan said as the four pilots along with Misato and Kaworu exited to the lot where their cars were parked. The pale white ceiling and walls gave the lot an open feel.
"Yeah, but you did a good enough job," Kaworu sighed happily as he reached his car. "If only you could speak to me like the angel!"
"Uh, what?" Tristan shook his head and continued over to the Toyota. "Well, any ways," he turned to Asuka. "I've got to go over to Rei's apartment to get the Seven, so I'll be back in a bit!"
"You better be back!" Asuka looked disappointed but she got in the 70's Renault Alpine 310 with no qualms. Misato got in and they drove off, leaving Shinji with Kaworu and Tristan with Rei.
"Ooh! Can I drive?" Tristan asked. He had always wanted to drive a Japanese AE86. "I promise not to smack it into the mountain!" he kidded to Rei, who could only grin amusedly at his antics.
"Sure, why not?" Rei replied, "It's not like you're completely and totally better than I am!"
"Like I needed that reminder!" Tristan laughed and went to the driver's side of the Sprinter/Trueno, opening the glossy red door with his right hand. "Shall we?"
"I can't wait!"
---
After a stunning display of car control and drift technique that was excellent, Tristan finally reached the apartment complex that Rei lived at all alone. The armed guards let him pass and into the empty parking garage, spare his beautiful RX-7, and he let the twenty valve 4A-GE with quadruple open throttle bodies hum to a stop when he parked in front of the tool wall.
"There's something appealing about such a simple engine," Tristan said as he brushed his hair back with his fingers. "It's so simple, yet it does so much..."
Rei merely undid her belt system, and put them carefully back on the seat, then walking around her car to Tristan. "Would you like to stay for dinner?"
"Well," Tristan said, looking over at his car, then at Rei, who had an expression that would suggest that she would break into tears if he was going to reject her offer. "I do have to go tune my fuel injection system on my seven..."
"Fine then, go do that..." Rei said quietly, turning her face away from Tristan so he wouldn't see the tears roll down her delicate, white cheeks.
"But I can always do that another day!" Tristan smiled and wrapped his left arm around Rei's shorter body. "With you, there's only so many chances!"
"You really would?" Rei's expression changed to that of one of pure joy. "I'm just so glad!"
"You know, I am too," Tristan said and walked her up to the elevator.
---
Rei unlocked her door with the key card that she was given so long ago. The door creaked open and her perfectly kept apartment was wide open for Tristan. He walked in and Rei followed a perfect two steps behind him, as to not disturb him. He walked up to one of the calligraphy works and looked at it closely.
"Absolutely beautiful," Tristan muttered, "much like Rei."
"You're too kind," Rei said, Tristan being the first one to ever have been so say such kind words to her. "Would you... like something to eat?" Rei offered pathetically. She was not used to being the host at all.
"Sure! What have you got?" Tristan asked, while moving to the cleared out dining area. It was plain and spartan for himself, but it had a certain design minimum style that he could appreciate. The furniture seemed to be straight out of the 1930's German Bauhaus movement. The simple black bed frame with its mono-pod base, and the surrounding Japanese art just worked perfectly. Tristan was quite a gifted graphic designer that most people didn't realize at all. He had done work for lots of companies, like Sony, Toyota, Pepsi, and lots of CD case design.
"Well," Rei looked through her refrigerator. "I've got... um... fruit... water... some lettuce... a tomato... some soft drinks... sake..."
"Hmm.. No meat?"
"Well... I don't really like it," Rei said, closing the refrigerator.
"Oh come on, you got to like it! I know, I'll go get us some sushi delivered and we'll have that, okay? Vegetarian for you, I'll assume."
"... Okay," Rei said, brightening up. The sun was beginning to set and the sky was turning a gorgeous orange color. She handed him a phonebook that was never used. Tristan looked up a number quickly, ordered quite a bit of sushi for the two of them, and then hung up the phone, placing it back on the wall carefully.
"It should be here within twenty minutes or so," Tristan said to Rei, who was sitting contentedly on her bed.
"That's... nice," Rei said, pulling out the CD player that was in one of her pockets. She tossed it to one side of the bed and it sat there, motionless at the moment.
"Well..." Tristan said as he sat down in one of Rei's chairs sitting around the small rectangular table. "I can't say that I'm more than impressed by your apartment!"
"Really?" Rei lit up at this compliment. She had never thought of her apartment as much more than a living space.
"Yeah, I like it a lot," Tristan continued. He looked over to Rei who was fidgeting with her hands. "Something bothering you?"
"No, it's nothing..." Rei said, putting her hands flat on her knees.
"Anything decent on your TV there?" Tristan pointed over to the screen.
Rei merely shrugged and handed Tristan the remote. He turned it on and flipped through the channels after he sat next to Rei on the bed. He flipped through them once, and then finally found a show he could settle on, which was his favorite show in the world, Sea Lab 2021. Fortunately for Rei, she had studied enough English as to understand the conversation, but unfortunately, miss out on the clever jabs at early 2000 pop-culture and humor. Tristan, however, enjoyed Sealab 2021 to its fullest extent, and lucky for him, it was a 24 hour Sealab 2021 station, which was set up in honor of Erik Estrada, CHiPs star, star of Sealab 2021, who bravely gave up his life to save the children of the next century. Truly a great American hero in all senses.
The door rang, and Rei jumped up to get the food.
"I'll pay for it!" Tristan said, pulling out his wallet.
"But I didn't have any food to eat and that's why we had to order out!" Rei tried to explain.
Tristan stopped her from talking and handed the delivery boy a large bill. "There are more ways than just money to repay me, Rei!"
"..." Rei stared blankly at Tristan, who could only sigh in frustration.
"I meant I enjoy your company and it's worth more than any amount of money," Tristan said, holding the tray of sushi. "Now why don't you go get some plates out and we can eat?" he suggested, motioning to her cabinets.
---
"That was some very good sushi!" Tristan said, laying down beside Rei on the bed. Rei was feeling very pleasant from the two drinks she had earlier, however she did not feel drunk at all, and she lounged on her side, her elbow propping her head high enough so she could easily look at Tristan.
"Yes, it was," Rei said and smiled, running her hand down Tristan's side.
"Woah, there feisty!" Tristan laughed and flipped off the 24 hour Sealab 2021 station, much to his own disappointment. "You're doing things that you might not want the consequences of!"
"And what if I do?" Rei said, putting her chin on the side of his shoulder, rubbing her chest against his arm. "You never did get to finish what you were going to say by the lake..."
Tristan thought back to that and reacquainted himself. "Oh yes, of course..." he said, stroking a length of her blue hair. "I was meaning to say that you're so special in so many ways to me, that I just never knew how to express it!"
Rei once again was overcome by her newly found emotions and could only feel to reply her own emotions to him. "I've felt a bond with you since the day you showed up in your heavily modified 1998 RX-7 with modified Hitachi twin-turbos, ADVAN tires, a fully painted carbon fiber hood, an Apex twin-chamber blow-off valve, Apex turbo-timer, Apex GT Spec stainless steel exhaust with a piping of 90 mm custom fabricated by Apex Japan just for you, and many, many, many other modifications that just made my heart melt."
Tristan held her face in his hands delicately, like a precious flower that would wilt if he was to touch it incorrectly. "Rei, you named off all my modifications in a beautiful manner. You're so wonderful.."
Rei closed her eyes slowly and then reopened them, to show her contentment for Tristan's presence. "I would give anything for you, Tristan. My body, my heart, and if I had a soul, I would give it to you. Tristan, please take me," she pleaded him.
"Well, since you put it that way, Sure!" Tristan said and kissed Rei Ayanami passionately. She responded ardently, which was such a change from when she normally fantasized about such a situation. Tristan made sure to guide her hands over his stomach to feel how carved his stomach was. Clothing was removed, bodies moved in harmony and writhed in ecstasy, and Tristan made Rei feel truly loved for the first time in her life.
---
"Tristan," Rei said as she sat watching the twinkling lights of the cityscape, and the occasional car passing by from her bed, "why were you really sent here? Were you sent here for me?"
Tristan sat up and wrapped his arm around Rei, watching her turn her head to look at him. "I was sent here to defend this city, but I'd like to think that I was sent here for you," he smiled and she smiled back at him.
"Up for another go?" Rei elbowed Tristan in the side.
"But that's number four!"
"Don't be a wuss!" She teased, climbing on top of Tristan. "If I wanted someone who couldn't get me off, I'd have gone to one of the Ikari's..."
"Hey!"
Rei could only laugh inside as she kissed her new love.
END CHAPTER THREE
Rei Ayanami awoke precisely at eight o'clock AM in her still rather small apartment. Her few treasured possessions sat on the desk to the right of her bed, which included Gendo's heat broken glasses, Tristan's signed CD, and her small CD player, the headphones coiled up, still connected. The apartments walls had a few Japanese calligraphy paintings, a reproduction print of "The Great Wave" by Hokusai, with a message on the frame that read "This was the spirit of Japan you are fighting for" along with a small NERV symbol besides it, which was quite ironic considering Hokusai's own work was heavily influenced by Western-style art in Japan's period of isolationism, but to Rei, this was her home, and she liked it.
As she rose from her bed, she stretched carefully, as to avoid extending any of her finely tuned tendons. Her face was a little puffy after staying up all night, she noticed after glancing at the mirror, so she headed over to her freezer which contained an ice-gel mask that she would wear for the rest of her morning routine.
While doing her stomach crunches, Rei felt a slight pain in her abdomen, no doubt because of her actions with Paul Oakenfold the previous night. Rei stood up and lifted her shirt, feeling the skin around the area of pain. There was no bruise, which she was thankful for, but the skin was tender, and she winced as she pushed the center of it.
Heading over to her white tiled bathroom, Rei disrobed casually and left her clothing on the floor. She looked at herself in the mirror once more, removing the gel-pack, pleased to see her eyes were looking much less puffy. Turning on the shower, Rei removed the body lotion and skin care gel from the cabinet under her sink, along with a soft, natural sponge to apply it. The water reached the desired temperature and she stepped in with never before seen grace and beauty. As she rubbed the sponge softly against her pale white skin, Rei thought about if her car was prepared correctly or not, because she did not wish to disappoint Tristan.
After applying the body gel and moisturizer to her skin in the shower, Rei applied the shampoo to her mid length blue hair, gently rubbing in the roots of the hair for a full shine. She rinsed her hair with the removable shower head, watching the soapy water go down the drain. Once her hair was rinsed, she removed a bottle of conditioner and put the conditioner in, running her hands through her hair, the warm water cascading over her breasts and the rest of her torso.
She rinsed her hair and turned off the water, wrapping a towel around herself, her damp hair sticking to her pale skin, looking for any imperfections that she could find in her face. Satisfied with the fact she could find nothing wrong, she removed her hair drier from the cabinet, replacing the body care bottles in their proper containers, while she dried her hair, carefully. She was aiming to keep her "cute and natural" look, but in reality, it took a careful hand and many different hair care products to keep it that way.
From L'oreal, Rei removed the gel and produced a small dab of it to apply to her hair. It spread evenly throughout her hair as she gently fingered it in, and made the controlled mess of hair that she worked so hard to keep. She put the gel back away and looked at her face one nose, making various expressions. Sullen, overjoyed, devious, depressed, horny, happy, indifferent, she tried them all. A small makeup kit was on her sink counter, and Rei considered putting some on, but something in her head made her think that Tristan was the type who liked natural rather than made up, at least when he was teaching her new techniques. Instead she decided on a small dab of moisturizer for her face, along with a hydrating facial mask to be applied five minutes after the usage of the moisturizer.
Rei returned to her bedroom nude, her hair, face, and body prepared for her lessons from Tristan Delecour. She opened her closet and looked through it. In it were several old High School uniforms, a few dresses from various designers like Gucci, Emporio Armani, Chanel, Prada, Versace, and various other fashion designers, that Gendo had given her, most of which she had worn once and hung back up, three silk kimono; red, blue, and white, and a few various t-shirts, sweat shirts, and some collared shirts that were from people over the years. She pulled out a dark red t-shirt that cut off a bit below her navel. She found some underwear and a bra, both of which were white cotton, and pulled them on while holding the t-shirt in between her teeth.
For her pants (an evening gown was not going to be able to work well in her newly installed five-point restraint system by Sparco) , she decided to wear something that was loose and comfortable, yet would not get in the way of her footwork on the car's pedals. She decided on a pair of light blue cotton/polyester blended cargo pants that she kept around for the weekends to relax in while not being bothered with things like her uniform. After putting them on with her shirt, Rei felt hungry and decided to eat something that was both filling yet healthy for her skin and body.
Rei opened her refrigerator and delicately removed a kiwi from the top most shelf, along with a stainless steel knife in the cabinet next to it. She went over to her table, sitting down with a plate, the kiwi, and knife. As she slowly peeled the fuzz of the kiwi, her mind wandered to Tristan again. "Was he going to be on time? Was he going to be friendly to her?"
As she was deep in thought, Rei did not even notice that she had cut her thumb with the knife while peeling the kiwi, the drops of red blood falling on the plate. She looked down in a perverse sense of interest and put her thumb in her mouth, dropping the knife on the plate. She ran over to her bathroom, pulling out a band-aid, and then rinsing the bleeding digit under the cold water before applying the new band-aid. Rei returned to her table and carefully dipped her finger in the small bit of blood that leaked on the plate. Its coppery taste was not unpleasant, but it was not something she enjoyed. She put a piece of the kiwi in her mouth, and savored the taste. The kiwi soon disappeared, and Rei ate another two before being satisfied.
The small clock on the wall read nine twenty, Tristan was not due for another forty minutes, and Rei was bored. The small television on the wall did not offer much entertainment, and she did not feel like staying inside on her computer on such a pleasant day. Rei grabbed her portable CD player and her keys, exiting her apartment after putting on a pair of white sneakers.
She was the only one in her building, and she walked down the hallway alone, listening to the buzzing of the fluorescent lights, along with the sun pouring through the windows, adding light yellow colored squares to the otherwise dull gray carpets. She reached the stainless steel doors of the elevator, pushing the down button. She wondered to herself if her small collection of tools was going to be good enough for the adjustment of her freshly installed Tein coil overs. Rei had visited Gendo right after talking with Tristan, and Gendo decided that if she was going to drive like that, he would have her car prepared to the upper echelon. Within five hours, Gendo had a team of forty-six NERV employees transform the humble commuter car into a full out drift machine.
Rei gently pushed the plastic button for the basement, the soft yellow light illuminating the face behind it, giving off a small sense of comfort. She was not at all worried about people entering the building unsupervised, as it was closely guarded by NERV guards whom she had yet to learn their names. As the elevator doors quietly closed, Rei removed the small black plastic ear buds from her pocket and gently inserted them in her ears, brushing aside the hair that covered them. She pushed play on the roll-style remote and skipped to track number four, her personal favorite track.
As the beat progressed on her headphones, the elevator sped to the basement, and Rei felt the slight bit of weightlessness that one feels while in an elevator that falls at that speed. The doors reopened and Rei headed out to her red Trueno. A two meter tall, eight meter long, red tool-rack sat undisturbed in front of it, locked with a padlock. Along the side were eight sets of ADVAN tires, which were Yokohama's racing tires, that were pre-mounted on bronze Volk TE-37 rims. Rei entered the familiar combination on the lock, and the steel doors easily opened with a silent grace that could only be compared to the likes of royal guards. She looked through the tools, which contained various metric socket sets and custom tools for removing or adjusting just about any component on the car. Rei opened the bottom cabinet and went through the components. A few different spring rates, six quarts of synthetic oil, wiring, three head gaskets, two sets of balanced pistons with rings, a complete rear end assembly for the Trueno, and various other parts that were of little consequence at the moment.
She sat down on the front bumper and was content to listen to her CD player, and she gently sprawled herself on the carbon fiber hood on the car, carefully laying her back on it as to not crack it. Time passed and she stared at the flickering light in the concrete ceiling. The ceiling had been recently done over, but for what reason, Rei couldn't figure out. It seemed so useless to be the only one in the entire thirty story apartment complex. She relaxed to the music and closed her eyes, ignoring the outside world.
---
"Rei, Rei? Are you okay, Rei?" Tristan tapped Rei gently on the shoulder. It was Tristan Delecour and he was wearing a navy blue t-shirt along with a pair of loose fitting gray pants that seemed to be made of a plastic and cotton blend. His hair was gelled slightly, holding the strands of hair together in a very attractive manner. His face had a days worth of stubble, giving that masculine, rugged look to his face that made Rei feel rather... different than she usually did.
"Oh, Hello.. I was... just..." Rei began to speak, her own red eyes darting away from Tristan's deep brown eyes. She quickly removed her ear buds and placed the silvery CD player in her side pocket for later usage. It was quite a nice system, considering the fact that it would stand temperatures upwards of 200 degrees centigrade, along with managing to be waterproof to an impressive 100 meters. Neither of those she had tested, but the box said so.
"Resting?" Tristan asked with a chuckle. "I understand, I mean, you were up at the club last night!"
"Yes... I was..." Rei shyly looked to the ground.
"Wow, so this is your car? It looks a lot different..." Tristan said, looking at the heavily modified AE86.
"Well, I had some help..."
"No shit... It looks like you've got more cash in this car than I do on my seven!" Tristan exclaimed, walking around the car, but not taking his eyes off of Rei's form.
"Gendo did that..." Rei said quietly.
"Heh, I need to get some connections to him like that," Tristan thought, returning to Rei at the front of the car. He dragged his finger over her hand and then gently tugged at her arm. "Let's drift..." Tristan said with a hushed voice, their eyes meeting for the first time.
Rei understood and slipped off the front bumper with incredible grace and ease, as if she was a dancer in the ballet. She opened the driver's side door and slipped in the red suede Sparco seats, and pulled the black woven restraints over her thin shoulders. Tristan did likewise closing his door and sitting back quietly. Rei inserted the key, and the engine leapt to life, expelling a stentorian note. Tristan glanced over to Rei, but she seemed determined to make this a worthwhile session.
"Okay Rei," Tristan said, "Let's take the route up to the..."
Rei sharply turned the car to the right, then tossing the wheel to the left, inducing a perfect drift while maintaining the angle of the sideways drift with a combination of the throttle and light emergency-brake work.
"Right then, you choose where you want to go..." Tristan said, looking out at the cityscape of Tokyo-3.
---
Rei tossed the rear end of the old Trueno out to the exit of the turn, with skill that intimidated Tristan's own drift skill. It was clearly obvious that this girl knew what she was doing.
"That was good, Rei.." Tristan said, noting the intense amount of concentration that was shown on Rei's face. She brought the car up to its new 9000 RPM redline and jammed the car into third, pulling the two of them higher up the empty mountain road. Tristan looked out the side and saw a lake that reflected the mountain like a mirror image. He was about to tell Rei to pull over at the next rest area, when she braked the car and slowly turned into an old dirt stop where a bench sat. Rei turned off the motor and pulled the cool metal lever that held the fastener together. Tristan looked over at her, but she had already exited the car.
"She's quite abrupt.." Tristan thought as he undid his own harness and exited the car. He followed Rei to the bench and sat down a few inches beside her.
"It truly is beautiful, isn't it?" She asked with a subdued tone in her voice, "I come up here to think for myself and reflect upon my actions, be it decisions in combat, or in my life," She turned and looked to Tristan, her eyes giving a pleading look for approval. "Don't you think?"
Tristan was just breathless by the serene beauty that Rei seemed to have found. The mountain reflection. The clouds in the sky. The subtle distortion that made it possible to know which side the sky was on... It was almost magical.
"It truly is beautiful," Tristan said, looking back at Rei, who had moved herself even closer to Tristan, and then leaned over on his side.
"Sometimes, I get so tired of fighting," Rei said, slipping her slender fingers around Tristan's hand. "Don't you get tired of it? Don't you want to escape from it all? Does the fame get to you? I want to know how.." Rei trailed off, her voice breaking up.
"I don't know how," Tristan said, looking back over at the mountain road. "It's hard. After losing my mother those seven years ago to NERV2, and my father shortly after that, it's like I've had no one to look up to other than myself, and other people to set examples for me. I've done what everyone has wanted me to do to the fullest extent that I can.. And sometimes I do want to stop it all..." Tristan looked back over to Rei, who had a single tear in her eye. "What's wrong?"
"... I'm worthless." Rei stated bluntly, turning her head away from Tristan's gaze. "I'm nothing compared to you."
"No you're not! You're a great girl!" Tristan said, trying to console her.
"I am not! I'm nothing but a worthless clone!" Rei turned away even more to Tristan, showing her back to him.
"What do you mean?" Tristan asked with a great deal of concern for the girl. "Surely you had parents at one point or another! You must have been loved as a child by someone! It's a biological thing!"
"No, no, I am nothing but a useless genetic experiment that failed. An attempt at one man trying to make himself a god, rather than caring about his own son. A try to control mankind's destiny seven years ago, and I am all that is left of that horrible project." Rei said, the tears flowing freely at this point.
Tristan looked at Rei with both an extreme case of sympathy and new found curiosity. "What are you cloned of?"
"I am half Angel, and half of Ikari's former wife, Yui Ikari," Rei said, burying her head in Tristan's chest while wrapping her arms around his torso. "I died three times previously. I don't remember much before those times, but I do know I did not survive."
"Half angel?" Tristan thought to himself. What was this girl? Was she really this far fetched story? She was different than other girls her age, but she wasn't some sort of horrible monster that tried to destroy Tokyo-3, or the world. "I don't care about any of that..." Tristan said, holding Rei close to him gently, the sun sparkling over the water.
"Aren't you afraid of me? Aren't I a freak of nature?" Rei said, her tears dripping down on her shirt, leaving small water stains around the top of her chest. "Don't I frighten you?"
"No, Rei, you do not," Tristan said with great sincerity. "You're truly a special girl and I want you to know something that I feel between us..." he continued, gently wiping away her tears from her eyes. She looked absolutely stunning to Tristan, given the scenery, her pale flawless skin and hair contrasting each other, the mirror-like lake creating even more of a mood.
"I-" Tristan took Rei's face in his hands softly when he felt his left leg spasm off and on. "... I will get back to you on that." Tristan removed his hands and answered the small red cellphone.
"A blue pattern!?" Tristan exclaimed, forgetting totally about the drift lesson with Rei. "Yes, we'll be right over!"
"There's another attack..." Rei stated, looking over to the evergreen forest. "They're coming again."
"We have to get back to headquarters..." Tristan said, standing up. "No time to go get my car, you'll really have to show me your skills now!"
"I will do so to the best of my abilities!" Rei said, wiping her face with her hand, wishing that Tristan had not brought his phone along. Rei had left her phone on her desk, just for the chance that was going to happen between the two of them.
---
"INVADOR ALERT! INVADOR ALERT!" The sixty centimeter flat-screen monitor read. Maya Ibuki looked over to Ritsuko Akagi, who kicked the terminal that sat under the steel metal desk. The screen quickly changed to "BLUE PATTERN" with a close up of a cellular structure.
"Be so kind as to note that error down for us, Maya?" Ritsuko asked her assistant.
"Yes, ma'am!" the brunette responded, rapidly typing some keys.
"Where are our pilots?" Ritsuko asked, looking up to the terminal with her eyes finding Gendo.
---
Asuka Sohryu Langley was not in a pleasant mood. Not only was Tristan gone before she awoke, but also she was crammed in the back of Misato's Renault, heading over to headquarters with Shinji. Sure, it might have been fine to fit back there when she was a few inches shorter, but getting her entire 5'9" frame into the back of the car was an ordeal in itself. Kaworu didn't seem to mind puttering along behind them in his Metropolitan, but he was no longer a pilot, but merely served as a consultant for those pesky creatures that SEELE seemed to be sending recently.
"I'm dying from lack of oxygen back here!" Asuka whined, tugging at her white sleeveless top which was clinging to her chest in a way that suggested that it was a few sizes too small.
"Hey, you're the one who lost!" Shinji said to Asuka, who calmly held on to the Renault's interior handle. "I got evens, and you put a one out. I did the same. I win."
"Would you two shut up?" Misato yelled, speeding through the traffic, the accessory siren blaring, causing her head to wrack in pain along with the siren's blare. Unfortunately, the old Alpine did not have a CD player, otherwise she would have been playing one of Tristan's CD's that Shinji had sitting in the left hand side driver's compartment. Misato sighed and pulled down her black DKNY sunglasses and tore into the underground Geofront.
---
"Zoom in on the creature!" Ritsuko ordered. The remote scout plane flew overhead, closing in on the angel's impact area, which was approximately ten kilometers away. The entire city of Tokyo three was already underground, and the plain white combat buildings were in their place, ready to dispense various weapons, if the pilots were out fighting.
"Dear God..." Fuyutsuki said while covering his mouth. "It's wearing a hula skirt?"
"Yes, it apparently is..." Gendo replied slowly, looking at the massive angel on his personal monitor, before the entire GeoFront was shook by massive reverberations from the angel's call.
"HALUGLAUGALUAGA!" The creature screamed again. The Angel seemed to be entirely black and white, as if it was drawn, rather than grown, with the mushroom shaped head with nine eyes, huge mouth, circle with another circle on the chest, along with being a bipedal humanoid body type, and the strangely placed hula skirt. It truly was disturbing.
"Where hell are they!?" Ritsuko yelled as the beast closed its nine eyes, opening its mouth, and raising its fists in apparent anger.
---
"Hurry up, Rei!" Tristan said as the Trueno Sprinter broke through the gates and ran up along side Misato's Alpine. Shinji gave a friendly wave and they were fast approaching the center of NERV. Rei pulled over to one side, ripped out the keys and ran to the entry plugs. Shinji, Asuka, and Tristan followed up right behind. While they were running through the silvery halls of NERV, they finally reached the entry plugs, each one labeled appropriately.
"Let's go!" Tristan yelled and threw himself into Unit 04's entry plug. The other pilots followed suit and sat in their entry plug while the LCL link fluid filled their plugs.
"Launching unit's 00 through 04!" Misato yelled from the control room, slightly disheveled from her jaunt through the hallways.
---
The Angel watched the four units launch from their respective pods carefully. It stood still and cried out once more, in frustration with its task. Having to destroy Lilith and retrieve Adam was not their goal. But now there were four relatives standing in between its task and that couldn't do.
"What is that thing?" Asuka muttered, grabbing for an ax. "Tristan, you take point, and Rei, you back him up and I'll go in with Shinji!" she commanded, much more secure of her piloting skills again.
Unit 01 was sitting on a building side, examining a new energy-style rifle that came out of one of the combat buildings. "Such a dreadful instrument!" Shinji said to himself, picking it up and looking at it. What he didn't know is that he had his finger on the trigger, and that he had just shot up one of the pure white GeoFront buildings.
"Sorry!" He said, handing it over to Rei in her blue EVA.
"Shinji-kun," He heard over his personal intercom, and it could only have come from one special person. "There's something strange about that angel. I'm working with the systems here to try to translate what it's saying!"
"Good work Kaworu!" Tristan said, grabbing a very large scale MP5 along with what seemed to be a giant Plexiglas shield that had a large NERV logo on it along with white bordering. "Are you ready Asuka?"
"Let's go!" Asuka cried and ran towards the target, her ax wielded high above her EVA's head. The Angel, however, had different plans for her, and screamed once more. The reverberations of "HALUGALUGALUGALUGALUGALUGALUGA!!" ripped through the air, and Asuka stopped dead in her tracks, her red evangelion clutching at its head in a sense of pain.
"What is it doing to me?" Asuka screamed and clutched at her head. The pain was unbearable and throbbing, probing at her deepest corners of her mind. It was like her mind rape all over again. "Not again! Not again!" she whimpered pathetically, yanking the aluminum butterfly handles with
---
"Pull her out of there!" Misato ordered, her fists clanging on the metal desk of the command console.
"Disconnecting neural network linkups to Unit 02... Now!" a technician announced calmly. This was all part of the job for him. He fiddled with a pen and typed in the command to disconnect Unit 02's network. "Disconnected!" he said as the status report on Unit 02 disappeared from the main view screen.
"Do you know what it's saying Kaworu?" Ritsuko turned to the pale, red-eyed man who was calmly sitting in his chair, watching Shinji's status.
"... Well, I'm not sure, and it seems completely crazy, but it's saying something along the lines of a demand for 'dongs'?" Kaworu blushed slightly and sat back a small bit more.
"Dongs. You're saying it wants 'dongs'. Not penis, not male genitalia, but 'dongs'?" Ritsuko raised an eyebrow at the former Angel known as Tabris. "It's a little bit of a fucking wrong time to be making jokes right now, Kaworu."
"I'm not making any jokes at all!" Kaworu stood up, slowly reciting this information. "He's saying something about putting dongs in his mouth."
"Look Kaworu, we can't deal with your bullshit any more, so why don't you just leave!" Misato roared, turning her attention from the fallen Unit 02.
"Why would I lie at this stage?!" he replied calmly
"Rei," Gendo commanded, ignoring the squabble below him, "Move in with great caution, and aim for the circles!"
"Yes sir," Rei blinked and Unit 00 ran in for the kill.
---
"What is she doing?" Tristan thought to himself, knowing that Rei was going to be thrown back like Asuka, if she tried to attack with her progressive knife.
"Rei, no!" Tristan cried out, but it was too late, as the angel had already thrown Rei back with its brawny arms. Unit 00 sailed through the air, colliding head first into the ground, unable to get back up. "Rei!" Tristan ran his silver and black Evangelion over to the impact area where Unit 00 laid limp and tangled within itself. The shoulder fins were deep in the ground, and the right hand twitched slightly around the progressive knife. "Are you okay?"
"I'll be fine..." Rei spat out, tasting her blood once more in her mouth. "although my EVA is trashed..."
"I know! I'll take care of him for you!" Tristan promised Rei, stroking the head of Unit 00, the black hand of Unit 04 carefully running down the edge of it.
"What are we going to do, Tristan?" Shinji asked, firing a few rounds of the energy rifle at the new Angel. They merely bounced off the Angel's AT field, causing the Angel to seem to get even angrier.
"Does this Angel have a name yet?" Tristan yelled to the control room.
---
"That's a positive, Tristan," Ritsuko said while carefully balancing a cup of coffee in her hand.
"Well, what's its name?"
"... Pants," Ritsuko replied, taking a large sip of the coffee. This was going to be a long day.
"Pants?" Tristan asked back, trying to take this seriously.
"That's what Kaworu said its name was," Ritsuko pointed her thumb back at Kaworu.
"Pants. That's completely and utterly asinine!" Tristan ranted at Ritsuko.
"Tristan!" Gendo yelled to Tristan, commanding his full attention. "I want you and Shinji to form a double point formation and close in on it. It's getting way to dangerously close to Terminal Dogma!"
"Don't you think they shouldn't know about that?" Fuyutsuki nudged Gendo in the side.
"They were going to know any ways, or one of them already knew. I can't keep track of all this stuff!" Gendo said, not looking over at Fuyutsuki. "Now where are my puddin' pops?"
---
Tristan concentrated for a moment. The beautiful clear sky stood out the most in his mind while he looked through the almost plastic-looking false city stood before him. Unit 01 stood to the right of him, maybe a few hundred meters away, while the angel "Pants" was lumbering past the fallen Unit 02 and heading towards the center of the city.
"Tristan!" Kaworu came on over the video screen to Tristan's left view-port. "It's demanding dick now!"
"... What the hell are you talking about?" Tristan said, looking closely as Pants blinked its nine eyes sequentially.
"Don't ask me what it wants, but it's saying something to the effect of 'Put your dicks in my mouth for a special surprise!'" Kaworu gave his trademark smirk and shrugged.
"Um, Kaworu, I know you're of the, ah, different persuasion, but this is hardly the time," Tristan furrowed his brow at Kaworu.
"Why doesn't anyone believe me?" Kaworu said, making a face.
"I do. And I'm going to try this as a distraction. Look, I'm going in on this one, Shinji, cover me when I'm going in!"
"Roger that, Tristan!" Shinji said back, grabbing a spear that was over the length of his own evangelion.
---
"YOU KNOW WHAT I LIKE THE MOST ABOUT LIFE?" Unit 04's PA system hammered through out the air. "IT'S LICKING DONG!"
The angel "Pants" turned around from its path to terminal dogma and blinked a few of its eyes at the Evangelion. "HALUGA?" it said, the giant hula skirt shaking slightly.
"YES, THAT'S RIGHT. I HAVE ALL THE DICKS YOU COULD EVER WANT!" Tristan called out to the angel, gripping the virtual progressive knife in his hand. "FRESH, HARD, AND LONG FOR YOUR SUCKING PLEASURE!"
"HALUGALUGA!" The Angel seemed to be pleased with this news and began to plow through the giant white buildings to Unit 04, when with lightning quick speed, Tristan tore through the angel's AT field with the progressive knife, piercing the center of the chest of the angel, cracking the S2 core.
Within the moment that the progressive knife contacted the S2 core center, four square kilometers of the city disappeared, along with Unit 04 and the angel.
"Where's Tristan?" Asuka mewed while watching the battle from her fallen EVA. "Where did he go!? Where's the angel?!"
NERV quickly scrambled, attempting to get radio contact with the lost EVA. Trucks were deployed to recover the fallen pilots as well as the evangelions themselves. Two minutes of absolute silence occurred as the trucks drove out with the recovery equipment before a small black dot was seen in the air.
"What's that?" Ritsuko asked, fiddling with the controls to zoom in. "Wait a second... That's Tristan's EVA! Everyone clear out from under it!"
Tristan's EVA fell through the sky at a blistering pace, the ground approaching the bottom of his EVA way faster than he desired. The EVA fought to respond to Tristan's commands, and finally managed to get into a proper landing procedure that would most protect the entry plug, which was on its two feet, in a crouching position with its right hand out in front. With a giant crash-impact, Tristan's red-soled Eva came in contact once more, promptly falling over after landing from an approximate height of over two kilometers.
---
"Tristan is safe!" Misato happily reported over the PA system. One of the cameras on the view screen showed his entry plug, fully intact, being removed. "Thank the heavens!" she said, sighing and drinking down a bottle of water.
"Yes indeed!" Kaworu chimed in. "I sure do wish he says what he said to that angel to me some day!"
Ritsuko gave a strange look to Kaworu, but she continued on her business with the MAGI system.
"Prepare the pilots for debriefing within the hour," Gendo said with an icy tone to Misato. He had his hands perfectly folded in front of his face, and it was obvious he wasn't happy.
Unit 02 and Unit 00 were found to be in recoverable condition, and their status was shown on the large projection screens, blueprints of them rotating, highlighting damaged areas. "Armor breaching is minimal to none on Unit 02, Unit 00 shows slight structural damage to the head and right arm, full recovery is estimated within a week," Ritsuko calmly read off the screen to herself, not paying attention to her cup of cold coffee that was sitting in her hands. "Unit 01, excellent condition, Unit 04... excellent condition?" Ritsuko scratched her head, and took a sip of the cold coffee.
"Something wrong?" Misato queried Ritsuko.
"No, just that Unit 04 is apparently perfect condition after that fall. Probably just some damaged sensors in the leg areas that won't report in, or maybe a few bugs in the system still..."
"INVADOR ALERT! INVADOR ALERT!" the MAGI screamed through the headquarters. Maya Ibuki, mimicking her favorite among favorite women, kicked the side of her workstation. The alert stopped and things returned to normal.
"Would someone please fix that? Christ on a cross!" Ritsuko muttered while making intricate paper-folds to make an EVA.
"Right then. I better go collect the pilots... We don't want the men upstairs to get cranky," Misato said, fixing her bra strap.
"As you always are."
---
"Wow, that sure was some report I had to give!" Tristan said as the four pilots along with Misato and Kaworu exited to the lot where their cars were parked. The pale white ceiling and walls gave the lot an open feel.
"Yeah, but you did a good enough job," Kaworu sighed happily as he reached his car. "If only you could speak to me like the angel!"
"Uh, what?" Tristan shook his head and continued over to the Toyota. "Well, any ways," he turned to Asuka. "I've got to go over to Rei's apartment to get the Seven, so I'll be back in a bit!"
"You better be back!" Asuka looked disappointed but she got in the 70's Renault Alpine 310 with no qualms. Misato got in and they drove off, leaving Shinji with Kaworu and Tristan with Rei.
"Ooh! Can I drive?" Tristan asked. He had always wanted to drive a Japanese AE86. "I promise not to smack it into the mountain!" he kidded to Rei, who could only grin amusedly at his antics.
"Sure, why not?" Rei replied, "It's not like you're completely and totally better than I am!"
"Like I needed that reminder!" Tristan laughed and went to the driver's side of the Sprinter/Trueno, opening the glossy red door with his right hand. "Shall we?"
"I can't wait!"
---
After a stunning display of car control and drift technique that was excellent, Tristan finally reached the apartment complex that Rei lived at all alone. The armed guards let him pass and into the empty parking garage, spare his beautiful RX-7, and he let the twenty valve 4A-GE with quadruple open throttle bodies hum to a stop when he parked in front of the tool wall.
"There's something appealing about such a simple engine," Tristan said as he brushed his hair back with his fingers. "It's so simple, yet it does so much..."
Rei merely undid her belt system, and put them carefully back on the seat, then walking around her car to Tristan. "Would you like to stay for dinner?"
"Well," Tristan said, looking over at his car, then at Rei, who had an expression that would suggest that she would break into tears if he was going to reject her offer. "I do have to go tune my fuel injection system on my seven..."
"Fine then, go do that..." Rei said quietly, turning her face away from Tristan so he wouldn't see the tears roll down her delicate, white cheeks.
"But I can always do that another day!" Tristan smiled and wrapped his left arm around Rei's shorter body. "With you, there's only so many chances!"
"You really would?" Rei's expression changed to that of one of pure joy. "I'm just so glad!"
"You know, I am too," Tristan said and walked her up to the elevator.
---
Rei unlocked her door with the key card that she was given so long ago. The door creaked open and her perfectly kept apartment was wide open for Tristan. He walked in and Rei followed a perfect two steps behind him, as to not disturb him. He walked up to one of the calligraphy works and looked at it closely.
"Absolutely beautiful," Tristan muttered, "much like Rei."
"You're too kind," Rei said, Tristan being the first one to ever have been so say such kind words to her. "Would you... like something to eat?" Rei offered pathetically. She was not used to being the host at all.
"Sure! What have you got?" Tristan asked, while moving to the cleared out dining area. It was plain and spartan for himself, but it had a certain design minimum style that he could appreciate. The furniture seemed to be straight out of the 1930's German Bauhaus movement. The simple black bed frame with its mono-pod base, and the surrounding Japanese art just worked perfectly. Tristan was quite a gifted graphic designer that most people didn't realize at all. He had done work for lots of companies, like Sony, Toyota, Pepsi, and lots of CD case design.
"Well," Rei looked through her refrigerator. "I've got... um... fruit... water... some lettuce... a tomato... some soft drinks... sake..."
"Hmm.. No meat?"
"Well... I don't really like it," Rei said, closing the refrigerator.
"Oh come on, you got to like it! I know, I'll go get us some sushi delivered and we'll have that, okay? Vegetarian for you, I'll assume."
"... Okay," Rei said, brightening up. The sun was beginning to set and the sky was turning a gorgeous orange color. She handed him a phonebook that was never used. Tristan looked up a number quickly, ordered quite a bit of sushi for the two of them, and then hung up the phone, placing it back on the wall carefully.
"It should be here within twenty minutes or so," Tristan said to Rei, who was sitting contentedly on her bed.
"That's... nice," Rei said, pulling out the CD player that was in one of her pockets. She tossed it to one side of the bed and it sat there, motionless at the moment.
"Well..." Tristan said as he sat down in one of Rei's chairs sitting around the small rectangular table. "I can't say that I'm more than impressed by your apartment!"
"Really?" Rei lit up at this compliment. She had never thought of her apartment as much more than a living space.
"Yeah, I like it a lot," Tristan continued. He looked over to Rei who was fidgeting with her hands. "Something bothering you?"
"No, it's nothing..." Rei said, putting her hands flat on her knees.
"Anything decent on your TV there?" Tristan pointed over to the screen.
Rei merely shrugged and handed Tristan the remote. He turned it on and flipped through the channels after he sat next to Rei on the bed. He flipped through them once, and then finally found a show he could settle on, which was his favorite show in the world, Sea Lab 2021. Fortunately for Rei, she had studied enough English as to understand the conversation, but unfortunately, miss out on the clever jabs at early 2000 pop-culture and humor. Tristan, however, enjoyed Sealab 2021 to its fullest extent, and lucky for him, it was a 24 hour Sealab 2021 station, which was set up in honor of Erik Estrada, CHiPs star, star of Sealab 2021, who bravely gave up his life to save the children of the next century. Truly a great American hero in all senses.
The door rang, and Rei jumped up to get the food.
"I'll pay for it!" Tristan said, pulling out his wallet.
"But I didn't have any food to eat and that's why we had to order out!" Rei tried to explain.
Tristan stopped her from talking and handed the delivery boy a large bill. "There are more ways than just money to repay me, Rei!"
"..." Rei stared blankly at Tristan, who could only sigh in frustration.
"I meant I enjoy your company and it's worth more than any amount of money," Tristan said, holding the tray of sushi. "Now why don't you go get some plates out and we can eat?" he suggested, motioning to her cabinets.
---
"That was some very good sushi!" Tristan said, laying down beside Rei on the bed. Rei was feeling very pleasant from the two drinks she had earlier, however she did not feel drunk at all, and she lounged on her side, her elbow propping her head high enough so she could easily look at Tristan.
"Yes, it was," Rei said and smiled, running her hand down Tristan's side.
"Woah, there feisty!" Tristan laughed and flipped off the 24 hour Sealab 2021 station, much to his own disappointment. "You're doing things that you might not want the consequences of!"
"And what if I do?" Rei said, putting her chin on the side of his shoulder, rubbing her chest against his arm. "You never did get to finish what you were going to say by the lake..."
Tristan thought back to that and reacquainted himself. "Oh yes, of course..." he said, stroking a length of her blue hair. "I was meaning to say that you're so special in so many ways to me, that I just never knew how to express it!"
Rei once again was overcome by her newly found emotions and could only feel to reply her own emotions to him. "I've felt a bond with you since the day you showed up in your heavily modified 1998 RX-7 with modified Hitachi twin-turbos, ADVAN tires, a fully painted carbon fiber hood, an Apex twin-chamber blow-off valve, Apex turbo-timer, Apex GT Spec stainless steel exhaust with a piping of 90 mm custom fabricated by Apex Japan just for you, and many, many, many other modifications that just made my heart melt."
Tristan held her face in his hands delicately, like a precious flower that would wilt if he was to touch it incorrectly. "Rei, you named off all my modifications in a beautiful manner. You're so wonderful.."
Rei closed her eyes slowly and then reopened them, to show her contentment for Tristan's presence. "I would give anything for you, Tristan. My body, my heart, and if I had a soul, I would give it to you. Tristan, please take me," she pleaded him.
"Well, since you put it that way, Sure!" Tristan said and kissed Rei Ayanami passionately. She responded ardently, which was such a change from when she normally fantasized about such a situation. Tristan made sure to guide her hands over his stomach to feel how carved his stomach was. Clothing was removed, bodies moved in harmony and writhed in ecstasy, and Tristan made Rei feel truly loved for the first time in her life.
---
"Tristan," Rei said as she sat watching the twinkling lights of the cityscape, and the occasional car passing by from her bed, "why were you really sent here? Were you sent here for me?"
Tristan sat up and wrapped his arm around Rei, watching her turn her head to look at him. "I was sent here to defend this city, but I'd like to think that I was sent here for you," he smiled and she smiled back at him.
"Up for another go?" Rei elbowed Tristan in the side.
"But that's number four!"
"Don't be a wuss!" She teased, climbing on top of Tristan. "If I wanted someone who couldn't get me off, I'd have gone to one of the Ikari's..."
"Hey!"
Rei could only laugh inside as she kissed her new love.
END CHAPTER THREE