Rebuild of Third Genesis
Fourteen
Despite how busy the whole staff of NERV was with salvage and rebuilding both in the Pyramid and around Tokyo-3, the doctor still insisted Asuka continue with her physical therapy. Despite Asuka's arguing it wasn't that necessary, or that she was working just as hard hauling salvage, she still had to go to the weight room a hour a day.
With a soft hiss of pain Asuka finished doing her arm curls before letting the weight thump to the carpet of the large exercise room. She looked around and scowled once again at the overall pinkness of the place, but it was well equipped for what she needed to do. She had lost both her muscle tone and flexibility after her injuries, and working out in here helped undo the damage. And it also gave the orange haired young woman in white T-shirt and black shorts some time alone to think.
Last night, she, Misato and Rei had eaten a quickly prepared meal, then they had retired to their beds just like normal. Rei and her had disrobed in the little bedroom together, and again Rei had shown a utter lack of body modesty.
'Not that it should have mattered,' Asuka admitted, but she had found herself admiringly looking at Rei undress through her right eye. The round breasts, hips, and the small blue triangle of hair, she had seen them all before Rei pulled the white nightshirt on.
Rei had seemed to drop off to sleep in her bed almost instantly, but it took Asuka a bit of time to calm down before the long day finally caught up to her. She slept soundly, though her sleep was troubled by odd dreams, only awakening once in the night.
She still didn't know what caused it, but Asuka had slowly drifted back to wakefulness. Rei lay snuggled safely in her arms, obviously having gotten up out of her bed in the night and slipping into Asuka's. Her face childlike in repose Rei slept there soundly, and Asuka just couldn't bear to wake her up and send her back to her own bed. Instead, Asuka gently tightened her arms around Rei and returned to sleep.
The next morning had been a bit awkward for Asuka, but Rei had seemed entirely unaffected. Asuka still couldn't tell if Rei was doing all this intentionally, but whatever it was she was beginning to get to her. When Rei had softly suggested they push the two beds together Asuka hadn't even argued, just leant the muscle to help.
'I liked sleeping with her,' Asuka had to admit. She didn't think of herself as having such inclinations. At school she had the usual crushes on older girls, but nothing had come of it. And clearly she liked boys, considering her flirting with Shinji and interest in Kaji. But clearly Rei... triggered something inside her. What it was, Asuka wasn't quite sure.
Finishing her routine with the weights Asuka got up, stretching tiredly. She had to meet Rei and Mari at the simulators soon, then they would grab lunch together. She was trying to get to know Mari better, since the three were now NERV's only pilots, but she wasn't sure she liked her.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Meanwhile, in the main control center of NERV the staff were still familiarizing themselves with their new jobs. Satsuki Ooi was the new commander, which she found a bit of a odd fit. From here Misato Katsuragi had successfully fought off the Angels, quite possibly saving the world, and those were very big shoes to fill.
Aoi Mogami looked up at her friend, a slight smile as the young woman manned a work station. "Don't be so nervous," she advised.
"I am not nervous," Satsuki protested as she stopped her nervous pacing.
Mana bit back a chuckle as the brown haired young woman worked. She was running diagnostics on the Magi computers, the three super computers that ran Tokyo-3, NERV and much of the surrounding region. The tests checked out, but there was a odd degree of lag in responses.
"You're frowning," Aoi noted to the other young woman, "what's wrong?"
"Just running some simulated problems with the Magi," Mana admitted. She looked at the other two ladies, "I'm noticing some lag, and the three Magi seem to be communicating with each other more than the Magi at NERV-Berlin did."
"Huh," Satsuki checked the data logs, "point three seconds is a lag?"
"For a Magi computer, that's a lot actually," Mana said.
"She's got a point," Aoi conceded as she ran her own diagnostics. "Communication between the Magi is up too," she noted, "which isn't supposed to happen unless they have a major problem it takes all three brains to solve."
"First full day on the job and I have a computer glitch," Satsuki muttered, shaking her head. "Okay," she asked, "can you tell what is wrong with them?"
Both Mana and Aoi exchanged looks. "We can run pre-packaged diagnostics and try to narrow down the problem," Mana said diplomatically, "but the Magi are... incredibly sophisticated. Fixing them would require calling in a expert."
"And that would be...?" Satsuki asked, though she strongly suspected what they would answer.
"Ritsuko Akagi," Aoi shrugged.
"Ugh," Satsuki grunted. She ran a hand through her hair as she muttered, "She and Captain Ibuki are up to their tits in work trying to get Unit-00 up and running. I do not want to drop anything else in their laps."
"Well, we'll do what we can here," Mana said, "but why not bump this up to Katsuragi? She can then make the call to pull Ritsuko in."
"Sounds like a plan," Satsuki conceded, nodding slightly. "Thanks, Mana, she said as she trotted over to her workstation to compose a report to Misato.
"Nice," Aoi smiled at Mana, then both went back to work.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
"All right!" Mari cheered as the three pilots coordinated their attacks and destroyed another simulated Angel.
"We defeated the Angel three seconds faster," Rei noted cheerfully, a smile tugging on her lips.
Asuka still found it kind of odd seeing Rei be so much more emotional. She liked it, mind you, but it still felt odd. "Not bad, Mari," she conceded, "but be careful rushing in like you did on the last run. If the enemy has a unexpected ability, it could nail your ass."
Mari smirked in her simulated entry plug as she asked, "Oh, like what happened with you fighting against Israfel?"
Asuka bit back a growl, making herself calm down. She HAD screwed up back then, after all. "Yes, like I did," she agreed after a moment, "if Misato hadn't come up with a crazy plan, we might have lost that fight."
Mari looked disappointed that Asuka didn't get angry. As the three pilots waited for the next simulation to start she asked, "What was Ikari like?"
"I assume you mean Shinji, and not the old man?" Asuka asked, wishing the other girl had not asked that question. Mari seemed to have a real gift for hitting her switches.
"Yeah," Mari nodded, "I mean, I've read the after action reports and all that. But you knew him..."
Asuka gripped the controls, then let them go as she tried to decide what to say. "Desperately unhappy, probably," Asuka admitted.
"Huh?" Mari looked startled.
Asuka shrugged somewhat uncomfortably. "The truth is Shinji didn't want to be here and was pretty much forced to by his Dad," she said in explanation, "I won't go so far as to say he hated being a pilot, but he didn't want to be one."
"Makes you wonder how crazy Gendo was," Mari noted, "putting a kid who hatred him in the most powerful war machine around."
Rei surprisingly spoke up, "He had defensive measures available."
Asuna assumed Mari hadn't seen the unedited footage of some of the fights, or how LCL pressure was used to knock Shinji out. She also decided not to tell her, figuring it might be a useful little secret to keep.
Thankfully before Asuka had to say anymore, the next simulated Angel appeared. "All right, everyone. Let's take this thing," she ordered, "and Mari, try to coordinate with Rei and I."
"Yeah, yeah," Mari sighed.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Later that afternoon Mari headed back to her quarters, nursing a split lip. (Well, it wasn't THAT bad. Doc. Kazuko had fixed her up, but still...) Who knew Asuka would get that angry over her hitting on Rei? All the reports she had seen implied they didn't even like each other.
Mari knocked on her apartment door, then on recieving no answer from her roomie Mana unlocked the door and headed in. The suite was damn small compaired to her place back in Berlin, with just two bedrooms, a living room and a kitchen. Still, at least she had her own room, and they didn't have a older guardian living with them.
Still dressed in her NERV uniform Mari headed into her bedroom, casually shrugging off the uniform jacket. In a few moments she was in shorts and a t-shirt, and tying up her runners. Casually she headed out and locked out, then jogged off into Tokyo-3.
The city was a mess, but the rebuilding was obvious everywhere she looked. Construction teams were rebuilding broken roads and buildings, electrics were being rewired and people were gradually coming back.
They were nuts, in Mari's opinion. YES the angel wars were over, so they didn't have to worry about that any more. But if there was another war, or if the government decided to seize the Evangelion technology, this city would be another battlefield. Anyone coming back here was nuts, or they lacked other choices. Possibly both.
A few older guys gave Mari lecherous looks as she jogged by, and she smiled coldly. She almost hoped some idiot would attack her, she had been taking self-defence courses at NERV-Berlin for the last year. She wasn't the best martial artist in the world, but she was very efficient. Any bastard who grabbed her would regret it.
A group of kids in dorky looking Japanese school uniforms went by, and she snorted with amusement. They even had the kids back in school? Poor bastards. Thankfully she was home schooled, and intended to continue that at Tokyo-3. She was already doing college level courses anyway.
"Hey, you!" a boy's voice called.
Mari stopped and turned around curiously. The young man was in a cluster of students, his dark brown hair cut pretty short. Unlike the other kids he wore a track suit, and even more unusually he was leaning on a fairly new looking cane. Intrigued she walked back to where they were standing.
"Yeah?" Mari asked, well aware of how her sweaty shirt clung to her breasts. The taller boy was doing his damndest not to look, while his buddy was staring. The girl with them was frowning, her brown hair tied up in twin ponytails.
"Shouldn't you be in school?" the tall boy asked, leaning on his cane. He frowned, "Though I guess I haven't seen you before."
"Just got here a few days ago," she said, smiling slightly. She offered her hand, "Mari Ilustrious Makinami."
"Hikari Horaki," the girl frowned at her, "and this is Kensuke Aida and Toji Suzuhara. Nice to meet you."
'He's the guy who piloted Unit-03,' Mari realized as her smile widened. 'This could be VERY interesting...' Aloud she said, "Nice to meet you too. I hope we all can be great friends."
To be continued...
