Chapter 5 – Big Big Churansformation
Auska stared in horror at her view screen at where the debris was going to hit. Even though she had left it in her locker, Asuka could feel the weight of the cross Misato had given her acutely. An evangelion was going to hurt someone – worse, someone she cared about – and there wasn't a thing she could do to stop it.
Then the strange part happened. The small blob of pink she recognized as Chu-Chu began to glow.
---
In the command center, everyone stopped. Misato stopped. Ritsuko stopped. Fuyutsuki stopped. Gendo stopped. On the screen even the angel stopped moving as the impossible happened.
---
Chu-Chu stopped growing as her height topped out at just over eighty feet. Smaller than an evangelion, but big enough. In her hand, she held a very nervous Hikari. She slowly and carefully secured Hikari in the ribbon on her head, before breaking into a full blown happy dance.
"Kyow! I did it! I did the big big churansformation!" She turned and glared at the angel possessing Unit 02. "Well, let's get ready chu rumble you bad boy! Get your butt ready chu be kicked across the other end of the horizon! I'm Chu-Chu. Don't be a bad loser! If you wanchu apologize, you had better do it while you still can!"
Everyone still frozen in shock, save Hikari who was attempting to keep from throwing up form Chu-Chu's happy dance, Chu-Chu calmly approached Unit 02, and laid both hands on it.
Chu-Chu began to glow once more, and the evangelion began to glow with her, a soul rending sound emanating from where the angel was attached. The angel finally detached, wriggling off Unit 02 and into the air.
Rei, finally, was the first to react. She switched on the com to Asuka. "Is that what happens when you feed one after midnight?"
Asuka blinked, twitched, and screamed in rage in that order. She scooped up her fallen knife, and rushed headlong at the angel again. The angel attempted to flow around the attack, but Chu-Chu's attack had taken its toll, and it didn't move quite fast enough as the progressive knife managed to cut through the AT field and sever a small piece of it.
As if suddenly realizing its vulnerability, it fled Asuka and went into the next viable target. Unit 00. Asuka maneuvered Unit 02 in close carefully, the giant Chu-Chu right behind her.
Rei struggled with the angel, hoping to buy enough time so that maybe the giant hairball could eject the angel from her evangelion as well.
---
In his chair in the command center, Gendo made his decision. It was brutally efficient, like almost anything he did. He tapped a few buttons on his consol. With the next press of a button, he would dispose of the traitor, gain a loyal pawn, and convince the old men of SEELE that all was well with the scenario.
Gendo pushed the final key, then watched with a grim smile under his folded hands as Unit 00 detonated.
---
Rei was in an extraordinary amount of pain as she lay in the shattered remains of her entry plug. He back was broken, she knew. There was a sudden pounding outside and Rei had a sudden feeling of déjà vu.
The pounding outside, muffled cursing as the person burned themselves on the superheated metal panels, finally the hatch coming open.
But this time the muffled cursing was female, and the person who stood in the hatch of the ruined entry plug was not Gendo Ikari, but Ritsuko Akagi.
The doctor took one look at her ruined form, and bolted inward, telling Rei to lie still and not to move, checking her vital signs as she did so.
Rei could feel the affection coming off the woman, someone who knew she was replaceable, and smiled, even as the world turned black.
---
Asuka rushed through the hallways as soon as her preliminary examination was through, attempting to check on the status of the First Child.
As much as she hated to admit it, Rei had become a close friend in the months since she had stopped idolizing Gendo. Rushing into Ritsuko's office, she found Hikari there, Chu-Chu being examined with… something. All three looked up at her approach.
"There something I can do for you, Asuka?" the scientist asked.
Asuka rushed in without any preamble. "What happened to Rei?"
Ritsuko paused for a moment, as if considering just what to tell the girl. Then she squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. "Rei…"
Then, the bastard king walked in the door, and she continued in a completely different tone of voice. "Will be just fine…" Her eyes had darted to Gendo the moment he'd walked in, and never left him.
Gendo merely grunted. Ritsuko switched topics. "This… Chu-Chu has a biology unlike anything I've seen before. On a cursory examination, its internal anatomy resembles most mammals, but that does nothing to explain the growth its apparently capable of.
"Apparently, her cells are somewhat… elastic, the cells receive energy from… somewhere… then fill the cells, causing them to balloon. The end result… an eighty foot pink hairball."
Gendo scowled. Ritsuko interrupted him as he opened his mouth. "No. I don't know where she gets the energy from. There's no sign of it being metabolized energy… it simply is."
Gendo's scowl deepened, but he said nothing, simply turned on his heel and walked out. Asuka looked at Hikari, who nodded. Asuka asked. "Can we see Rei?"
Ritsuko bit her lip. "Not… at the moment Asuka. Perhaps in a day or two. While she's… going to be fine, she'll need time to recover."
Asuka nodded her head, and Hikari gathered Chu-Chu before they left.
---
It was immediately apparent two weeks later that this was not the Rei Ayanami who had joined Asuka for lunch on that day almost a year previous. She entered the classroom, sat down and began staring out the window as she had previously, without even a nod to Asuka or Hikari.
Hikari, on the other hand, was mobbed by the classroom, as Chu-Chu had been recognized from the last angel battle.
---
Two months later, a figure sat making a few last minute changes to a file on the keyboard, as Miang entered the room.
"How's it going."
The spectacled person didn't look up from the current typing. "Very soon now. I've almost integrated the personality into the main structure. The difficult part was the physical adjustments we were forced to make. This is just setting up the autonomic functions."
Miang nodded. "How's the reliability?"
The figure smirked and used a free hand to adjust the glasses on their nose. "What do you think?"
Miang grinned. "Fantastic. Then as soon as we finish the testing and start up procedures…"
The figure nodded. "We can begin the recovery and restoration project. But I still think we'll need a distraction."
Miang nodded. "That's fine. I know of just the distraction we can use." She paused and fingered the coffin. "But sleeping beauty here will need more than just herself to move the damn thing. How's the rest of it working out?"
The figure nodded. "Yes… and the extras are working just fine, baring a real world test. Everything looks to spec."
Miang nodded, and rubbed her hands together. "Great. Very well. Send our girl after it once the next angel attacks. I will not leave it in the hands of that madman!"
The figure nodded. "Of course, Miang. I said I'd help, and I will. Now let me get back to work!"
Miang smiled sheepishly. "Right, right. Going."
---
Five months later Asuka changed out of her plug suit next to the 'Rei who wasn't Rei' pondering just what had gone wrong.
Certainly nothing on their end. This angel had seemed almost… pathetic compared to the last angel. Compared to something that was super fast, almost impossible to hit, and invaded your evangelion, an angel that was primarily a physical attacker, no matter how tough, was almost no challenge for their standard let Asuka go in with the pole-arm and let Rei snipe as best she can with the rifle.
The angel was down and destroyed, but something in Misato's face had tipped her off big time that something had gone horribly wrong in the fight.
She just wasn't sure what it was.
Asuka finished clasping the choker around her neck and walked out, Rei quickly coming up behind her as they made their way to the command center. Chu-Chu, having shown up again in the middle of the fight to heal some damage Asuka had taken, trundled up beside them, having come down on a launch catapult as well. Hikari was waiting for them in the command center. As much as Gendo hated relying on something he hadn't made for support, he currently needed all the help he could get.
As they entered, Asuka noted the air in the room seemed tense, as if the slightest thing could set off something catastrophic. A quick glance at his bastardness revealed that he was openly seething, something that easily explained the atmosphere of impending violence. "What… happened?"
Misato frowned, then looked at Gendo, who threw his hands in the air. "What the hell does it matter now?"
Misato sighed. "Lilith has been… misplaced."
Gendo erupted in fury. "Misplaced! Misplaced! Captain Katsuragi, a hundred foot rotting corpse in armor with a very large lance pinning it to the wall does not become MISPLACED!"
Asuka noted that Rei, who had walked up next to her, paled mightily., enough that it was actually visible on her. Asuka frowned. "So what's so special about Lilith?"
Gendo was muttering under his breath, so Dr. Akagi answered. "Lilith… in the hands of an angel, Lilith can be used to trigger third impact. It's what we've really been protecting all this time."
"And now it's gone." Asuka said this flatly.
Misato nodded. "I don't think it's as bad as it seems. If an angel had made off with it, one, we'd all be dead, and two, they wouldn't have bothered to kill all the cameras and security along the path there. And distracted as we were by the battle, no one noticed it was missing until it was too late."
Asuka groaned, and Misato nodded. "Like I said, we're fairly sure the angels don't have it, but it's something we need to reclaim and protect at all costs."
Asuka groaned as a dozen things connected in her head. "Let me guess. Whoever has them likely has evas to guard it?"
Ritsuko smiled and Gendo glowered. "You do catch on fast. Yes, we think so, but frankly, that means just about any terrorist or government could have it. But since you have training as pilots already…"
Asuka finished. "We're being asked to stay on even though this was the last angel, right? I did graduate college. And my Japanese is much better now."
Ritsuko smirked. "Well, you act childishly enough that we tend to forget it most of the time."
Gendo interrupted. "Both of you will cease this childish banter and get to work."
Ritsuko turned a cool gaze on him. "And just what are we supposed to do without more information? It's certainly not our department. I'm an expert hacker, but I can't start hacking people randomly. I wouldn't get anywhere."
Gendo, not having an argument, just growled and stalked out of the room.
---
Miang placed her hand on the glass as she watched the regeneration of 'Lilith' begin. She'd thought it was funny, actually.
It was a mistranslation. Someone had found some of the old texts and misinterpreted 'her giant's body' to 'her giant body'. It was all correct. Miang, the mother of humanity could indeed cause third impact under the right circumstances in conjunction with Deus. But her omnigear, Opiomorph, was hardly necessary.
Hearing clicking come up behind her, she saw the reflection in the glass.
"You did a good job."
"Thank you." The voice was feminine, but flat and cold.
Miang chuckled. "So cold? I thought you were over that."
The girl shrugged. "Perhaps, but it is still difficult to open up."
Miang nodded. "There are very few I let see who I really am as well. The rest are content with the façade."
The other girl looked back behind her. "Such as…?"
Miang understood. "No, I'm afraid. Not until recently. She-" Miang nodded back towards where the other girl had come from, "I had to awaken. I didn't let her behind my shell until I found out she was hiding behind a shell as well." Miang paused. "It's been a difficult road for her, managing her present in the face of her past. But I think she's finally starting to reconcile it." She eyed the girl next to her. "Partially thanks to you."
They were silent for a bit as the girl beside Miang contemplated this. "I think then, that I am fortunate not to have such a thing."
Miang smiled. "You're certain about that?" The girl started, but Miang shook her head, then cracked her back. "Oof. I think I may have been a bit hard on this body over the years." She grinned as she caught the other's look of skepticism. "Okay, so the body isn't that old. You have to understand though, that I've inhabited this body since very nearly birth." She paused. "While it's certainly not this first time it's happened, having to wait for a body to mature is a rare experience for me. I tend to… 'experiment' a little early. Impatient, I guess."
It was the girl's turn to smirk. "I have noticed that in you."
Miang chuckled and turned to go. "Remind Shion that we need to get up and running soon KOS-MOS. The contact won't be gone forever."
The female android nodded, and turned back to watch out the window.
---
May 29, 2018
A month later, Asuka walked into the apartment she still shared with Misato. Noting the elder woman had passed out on the couch, she walked into her room. As she began to get undressed and into fresh clothes, having spent the night before at Hikari's, she heard Misato stir on the couch, her customary wake up belch before the groan of hangover.
It was then she heard the voice.
It came from her bed.
It was male.
It said, "I know this ceiling…"
She reacted accordingly, given she was currently in her underwear, and there was an unidentified man in her bed. "PERVERT!"
Reacting quickly, she gathered the man with the long black hair into a headlock and began pummeling his face, listening with some satisfaction to the groans coming from his mouth.
Misato stuck her head in the door then. "Hey. I found Shinji last night. I dumped him in your bed after he passed out. Still can't hold his liquor. Excuse me."
Her door shut, and the door next to hers opened, and there was a retching sound. The man's hand reached vainly towards the door.
"Medic…" the voice croaked out weakly.
Asuka looked down at him. "Shinji!"
---
Shinji held an ice pack over the forming black eye as the three of them sat down on the chairs in front of the TV. Misato, years of experience having given her the ability to recover from hangovers quickly, smirked at her young friend.
"So, Shinji. Where've you been?"
---
Neverwhere: Chaos Mode – Shinji is finally back. And there was much rejoicing. Because we really don't feel like giving half hinted flashbacks (there's enough half hinted stuff in here already) and because it's already written that way, we now move onto section two of our story. What happened to Shinji while he was away.
Looks at ClassicCowboy And you! Get back to work!
C. Cowboy: ... looks up from his box of Lucky Charms Cereal and glances around nervously before going back to eating ...
Neverwhere: Chaos Mode – Sonuva… ah, the hell with it. See you in two weeks.