+++++ ? (Sunday + 1)

Shinji awoke with a startled roar of frustration and fear, then sucked in a startled breath of confusion and anger. He was…in a bed. Feeling the sheets with one hand, he made an educated guess that he was in an industrialized facility that cared far less about comfort than it did about uniformity and cost reduction. Swinging his legs to leave the bed, he tore off the sheet and discovered that he was naked just as the door on the opposing wall slid open to admit a woman only a few years older than him. Embarrassment might have been his first reaction, if circumstances hadn't already been as aggravated as they were. Instead, confidence grew out of fear that he might not have managed to save those given to his care. "Where am I?"

The woman, wearing a uniform that indicated government affiliation, recovered from her surprise at seeing him both nude and standing, and motioned for calm. "You're somewhere safe. The answer to your question wouldn't make much sense to you, because to be honest I'm not entirely sure I'm correct in what I'd answer." With short brown hair, and a pixie-like figure, she had a comforting smile and an aura of innocence about her. "I'm Lieutenant Maya Ibuki, and I'm currently responsible for making sure you're unharmed after everything that happened."

Her calm was infectious, and he found himself settling down as well. "And…the others?"

"I'm sorry, but we found no survivors of the train crash. I was told you weren't to be exposed to anyone else, but not everyone might have known not to talk to you on the train. It's a miracle you survived, considering the violence of the crash."

Just as he was about to correct the misunderstanding, and ask about the group of women he'd met inside what they'd called 'Tartarus', another woman, this one much taller than Maya, entered the room and looked him up and down. "Well, you certainly look like you're in control of your limbs." Her chestnut brown hair and emerald green eyes were odd for someone so clearly Japanese, and her mannerisms spoke of a frustrated woman with too much on her plate and not enough support.

Maya shifted her position subtly to stay between the newcomer and Shinji himself. "He's just had a shock, Senpai. I'm waiting for the adrenaline to wear off before I begin diagnostics. You don't need to worry."

"Yes, I do. The bridge is insisting that as soon as he's mobile we shove him in, physical trauma or not. I want to get imagery of that thing in his neck and confirmation that he somehow avoided breaking anything after being launched out of a disintegrating train." Turning her attention to Shinji, she tossed a thumb over her shoulder. "Since you don't mind being nude, would you mind coming with me to Imagery? I want to get some CT scans of you."

"Senpai!" Maya stomped her foot, setting a few things to jiggling that Shinji only noticed because of the violence of the motion. "I doubt he has realized he's not wearing anything considering how he woke up, and it is not appropriate for him to be paraded naked throughout the facility!"

Shinji felt things collapsing around him. 'The bridge' wanted to see him, and it was unlikely that anything he did to prevent that at the moment would be either successful or without significant repercussions considering who he believed likely to be on said bridge. He couldn't find out if everyone else made it out before he was allowed to walk around the city, and he wouldn't be allowed to walk around the city before he presented himself. Turning around, he grabbed the bedsheet and wrapped it around his torso at the waist. "Let's go. I doubt I'm going to get much peace until I find out why I was summoned all the way here from Nagano anyway."

Sympathy radiated from Maya, but the other woman simply nodded in understanding. "Credit where it's due, you're facing it head on." Gesturing out of the room with one arm, she patted him on the shoulder with the other as he passed her. "Few people are willing, let alone ready, to face the burdens placed on them by those who came before." Of a height with him, she walked at his side easily, guiding him towards their destination. "Ritsuko Akagi. I believe I can say that it's a pleasure to meet an Ikari, for once."

Frustrations and social anxieties swirled around him; his emotional state plainly visible to everyone nearby. "To my knowledge, there's only the two left."

"You would be better informed than I, at the moment," she agreed with a nod. Turning him towards the next in an endless stream of empty halls, she rolled her finger around to indicate said emptiness. "I'm not really sure what Maya's worried over, honestly. We went from a facility of several thousand to less than three hundred after the Event. I could strip nude and sprint for a quarter hour in any direction and likely not run into anyone else."

That prompted a blush from him, as the woman walking by his side was simply a more mature form of the beauty he'd seen in Tartarus. Picturing her without clothing, and the movement of her flesh beneath said clothing, was a more than enticing proposition.

"I'm worried," Maya said from behind them as she hurried along struggling to keep pace with the two taller people, "because Shinji-kun doesn't deserve to be treated like he has no dignity to speak of."

Shinji's reply was curt, and the subtext begged for her to stop attempting to defend him, "I'm used to it, Ibuki-san."

Anyone who knew Maya Ibuki, however, would have spared him the effort by telling him that she would respond exactly as she did, "That is absolutely no excuse to continue abusing you!" Hurrying past and interposing herself between him and the door to the Imaging Lab, she set her fists on her hips and leaned forward at the waist. "Just because you've lost feeling in your hand after burning it doesn't make it a good idea to continue shoving it in the fire!"

"You're cute when you're angry, you know that?" Ritsuko's comment took most of the anger off of Maya's face, replacing it with a blushing confusion. The taller woman took Shinji's hand and pulled him along behind her as she slipped past Maya. "Over here," she kept his hand in hers, and indicated with the other that they were entering the Computed Tomography chamber, "I'd put you in an MRI to reduce the radiation you're exposed to, but I'm worried about breaking your neck with that miniature Entry Plug you have shoved in there if it doesn't play well with the magnets."

With a slightly better read on the woman beside him, Shinji realized that she wasn't rude or terse, she simply didn't care. "Thank you." He smirked, self-deprecation hanging from him. "I'm fairly confident that I understood enough biology to know that I need my neck to remain unbroken if I want to live."

She responded with a similar smirk, then squeezed his hand and tipped her head towards the bed. "I prepped it to support having that thing in there. Lay your head on the top of the donut pillow, let the capsule rest in the hole." Turning away and making a herding motion towards Maya, she flipped the script on the smaller woman, "Alright, Maya, stop ogling Charlton Heston. I'm sure we'll get an eyeful if we ask nicely later on."

He had no idea what she meant by the strange two words she included, though he understood enough from context that she was referring to him. Regardless, the way she phrased it managed to amuse him enough to bring a smile to his lips as he dropped the sheet and laid down on the bed attached to the complex radiology machine. At least one person here managed to understand that sometimes he just wanted someone to leave the terrors of life alone so that he could go back to ignoring them after the spike of anxiety died.

"Ok, Shinji," Ritsuko's voice emanated from a speaker attached to the CT machine, "do me a favor and lay still. Listen to the machine and stop breathing when it asks you to, then resume breathing when it asks you to. If we get this done in one go, I'll give you a special treat."

The beginning of Maya's next interjection was cut off as the microphone was silenced in the control room, not that he would have heard it over the sound of the machine spinning up to speed. He'd never been in a CT machine before, but he also didn't need much by way of encouragement to not force a repeat of the process. Failing to do as asked had always led to punishment, and so lying perfectly still was a skill that he'd long since perfected to avoid rolling over onto a bruised limb in the middle of the night.

His mind drifted away from the present, as it tended to when he was forced into situations such as the one he was in at the moment. The discussion with 'Tony' replayed itself, without presenting any new information to be analyzed. What he could remember of the discussion with Qodeshah came next, accompanied by the memory of her body against his as they danced. Followed by the feel of the 'Jack Frost' as he impacted it, and the stunning beauty of Rise Kujikawa. Mentally, he scowled as he realized that nearly every one of the women he'd met recently could be considered superlatively alluring. This was a strange new place he found himself, and despite the pains he'd experienced he wasn't certain whether or not he was dreaming.

+++++ NERV Imaging Labs. (Sunday + 1)

Maya had not once stopped her protests, continuing straight on through the bulk of the CT scans as Ritsuko observed the output, "…and furthermore senpai, it is-"

"Maya, breathe." Ritsuko waved airily towards her favorite technician. "There is absolutely nothing we can do to improve his situation until we understand his situation. He chose to stand there nude. He was standing there ready to defend a third party that neither of us know about. He was the one that stated he was used to being treated as he has been. Without further information from him, I'm going to act as if he has agency and allow him to dictate the pace of our interactions." Taking her eyes off the compiling scans for one second, she pressed the point home to Maya with a firm glare. "We can only help him so much. I know you don't have much experience with men, but they tend to become mule stubborn if they feel you're pushing them onto a course of action that they'd prefer to avoid. Whatever is torturing him enough for him to suffer from night terrors, and whatever is worrying him enough to ignore social propriety in favor of ensuring the defense of said thing, we're not going to get to the bottom of it unless we start at the top."

The mousey Lieutenant scowled down at the floor, surrendering the immediate battlefield to someone she knew had greater experience in fighting upon it. "We don't know where we are. We don't know where the enemy is. We don't know who is still out there." She hesitated. "We don't know if he's going to help us."

"He'll help us." Returning her attentions to the musculoskeletal structure of Shinji Ikari, she began developing other tests she'd need to perform on him to understand why he was able to move his head at all with what appeared to be a miniaturized version of the entry plug for the Evangelions jammed into the back of his neck. "He wouldn't have asked where 'they' were if he wasn't the type of man to take the need to defend others seriously." Stopping the machine before it reached his skull, she flicked the switch that allowed her to speak to him via the CT machine's speakers. "Thank you for sitting so still, Shinji. We're going to bring you some clothes, and then we'll all march on up to the bridge to get that over with." Muting the microphone and locking the terminal, she stood and moved over to grab the package she'd left here for when he was ready. "Modifying this was a pain. Hope it fits."

+++++ NERV Imaging Labs. (Sunday + 1)

Once the bed he was lying upon finished moving back out of the large donut he'd been shoved through, Shinji swung his legs to the side so he could sit up. Nudity was one of those things that only mattered as far as other people were concerned. He knew that humans were supposed to be embarrassed about being seen without clothing, just as he knew that he himself wasn't actually human. He could control his physical reactions, to an extent, which would render his nudity nothing more than a point of concern for those who chose to view it as such. The woman that entered the room first did not seem to, unlike the woman who entered after her. He wasn't sure how he felt about either of them, but something told him that both of them were not terrible people.

Ritsuko held out what appeared to be a baggy bodysuit made of latex as she came to a stop near him. "Would you mind if I help you put this on? Our test subject for the fitting of your variation, standing behind me, nearly toppled over several times while getting her limbs in the right places."

"It's slippery!" Maya's protest was paired with a flush of embarrassment.

"If you think it'd be better." Shinji eyed the bodysuit warily. "I…have to wear a uniform?"

"Eventually, yes." Ritsuko nodded slowly. "I figured you'd rather put it on here, where fewer people can see you, instead of at our destination, where there are far more people to see you."

He could respect her logic and appreciated the way she made it out to be an offer instead of a demand. "Ok." His confidence was wearing off, as he realized that there was precious little he could do to determine the whereabouts of the ladies he was supposed to protect. Once more he was being asked to go through contortions at the behest of someone who'd abandoned him at a train station, and being angry about the situation was not likely to garner anything but pain. "H-how do I put it on?"

"Feet go through here," dropping to one knee, Ritsuko held open the top aperture for him to slide his feet into the leg holes, "and once you're confident you have your toes together inside the 'shoes', you stand up," she shifted so that Maya could help him stand upright and become accustomed to the slightly reinforced soles of the plugsuit, "and then you pull it up and over your shoulders like this." Standing up herself, she settled the shoulders of the plugsuit around his own shoulders. "The extra fabric helps it stay on you while you fit your arms, hands, and fingers into place." Observing as he deftly maneuvered his limbs, she lifted up her left wrist and jiggled the red bracelet she'd worn for the day. "Once you've got your fingers in the gloves, hit the blue circular button on the wrist there."

With respect for how cautious they were clearly being about making sure he had fingers and toes in the right place, Shinji was prepared for the bodysuit to do something. That did not stop him from being impressed as the button produced a small electric current that caused the outfit to conform to his hands then arms, then torso. It also did not stop him from wincing in pain as the suit clenched tightly around a specific portion of his body that had a stark difference from the same location on Maya Ibuki. Dropping hard back onto the bed, discomfort evident on his face, he swallowed and managed to quietly ask, "I-is it s-supposed to do that?"

She pushed the button on his wrist to release the suit and found that it was quite unresponsive. "Spread." Ritsuko was, once again, on her knees and forced her way between Shinji's legs. "No, it is not supposed to cause you harm. Maya, support his shoulders, I need him to settle back some. Something's bunching here."

"Oh! Oh, oh biscuits!" Maya hurried around the other side of the bed hugging Shinji from behind and tipping him back slightly to lay against her. "Oh, Shinji-kun, I'm so sorry!"

The stark difference in his expectations between what he believed would happen with a woman's touch and what was happening with Maya's touch caused him a more than mild amount of confusion. She wasn't doing what he'd anticipated, not at all. "I-it's n-not your fault." Ritsuko's probing touches, around such a personal area of his body, were also nothing like what he'd expected they would be. "This…happens."

"A positive attitude to have," Ritsuko agreed, her tone abstracted as she ran her fingers around the suit, searching for the flaw that was causing the delay. "I think part of this folded in on itself as it received the current."

"While I can appreciate taking your chances where you can find them, Rits," a new voice carried more than a hint of amusement from the doorway, "I have to admit I'm a little shocked that you'd go down on a guy with Maya present."

"I'm broadening her horizons, you oversexed harlot," she retorted without any true venom behind the words. "Get over here and help me. The system's short circuited to protect the pilot, but the pilot's onboard weaponry is being mistreated by the short circuit."

Shinji was better able to see the woman as she approached. Wearing a red leather jacket, of a different hue and length than the one 'Tony' had worn, with a body designed by a god of lust and naturally violet shoulder-length hair, a woman no taller than Maya came over and gave him a look of empathy. Her voice carried slight amusement, however, "Not exactly how I wanted to meet you, Ikari-san. Misato Katsuragi, Tactical Commander."

Ritsuko motioned for her to move into position. "Get your shoulder under his left knee, lift when I say."

"N-nice t-to meet y-you, Katsuragi-san," Shinji panted out.

Misato moved into place, lightly massaging Shinji's thigh to ease some pain as she spoke to both of the other ladies without adding tension or haste. "I came down to see what was taking so long. We still haven't found the Angel, but I'd like to give him some time to get used to the saddle before throwing him to the wolves."

"We would have met you in the hall, if the fabrication team hadn't sent me a piece of shit instead of a plugsuit." Moving herself so that her shoulder was under his right knee, she patted his stomach until he looked down at her. "I am very sorry about how much this might hurt. Once we're done this evening, I'll take you to dinner to make up for it, ok?"

"Y-you d-don't n-need to." Physical pain was something to be ignored, or endured. Emotional pain was a much greater danger. "N-not y-your fault."

Unseen by him, Ritsuko showed Misato two fingers. "On three, lift and pull towards you."

Misato understood well enough what was about to happen. "One?"

"Two." As Ritsuko stated the second number, the two women moved as one to stretch his legs outwards. The motion snapped the fabric out of the crimped fold it had created, freeing the imprisoned flesh violently and restoring the elasticity of the entire fabric. When she didn't hear the anticipated yowl of complaint, she hurriedly stood to see if Shinji had lost consciousness, and was impressed when she saw that he was instead beginning to relax. "How are you feeling?"

Controlling his breathing, as he had learned to do over the years, he sighed out, "I've survived worse." Opening his eyes, he looked to Ritsuko for an answer, "Is this going to happen every time?"

"I'll insist rather firmly that the Fab Lab not incapacitate my pilot, and they'll print off a few more to test before we put you in it again," Misato answered instead. "Can you walk?"

Realizing that he was still being held by the Lieutenant behind him, Shinji turned his head slightly. "Excuse me, Ibuki-san."

"O-oh!" Hurriedly helping him sit upright again, Maya was blushing violently. "I-I'm sorry, Shinji-kun, I didn't mean to-"

Standing on his own, Shinji shook his head slowly. "As I said, ma'am, it's not your fault." Forcing himself to walk without any limp, he took a few steps towards the door and then looked back to Misato. "You…mentioned 'pilot'?"

"That I did." Misato was flatly impressed at the level of stoicism radiating from someone nearly a decade her junior. She'd seen full grown combat veterans whine like puppies at less after the trauma had been mitigated. "Ready to go meet your new toy?"

"Evangelion Unit-01 is not a toy." Ritsuko moved past both Shinji and Misato, turning around and walking backwards while making a beckoning motion to the former. When he dutifully began to follow down the long corridors between them and their destination, she turned around and matched his pace to walk at his side. "It is the Ultimate All-Purpose Humanoid Decisive Battle Weapon developed by humanity."

Misato managed to walk at his side easily, despite the height difference. Leaning in playfully, she grinned and stage-whispered, "It's a big robot toy."

Shinji wasn't quite sure what to make of the 'Tactical Commander'. To him, it appeared that she wasn't terribly worried about whatever he was walking towards. Alternatively, he mused, she might be attempting to keep him calm for whatever storm he was entering. That he might be piloting a, quote, 'big robot toy' was in his estimation a source of concern. "And I'm…piloting?"

"You're the only one who can," Ritsuko announced with aplomb. "Nobody else will even be able to get it started. Kind of dropping a heavy weight on you first thing, I know, but to be frank…you're our only hope." When he looked at her, she smiled with that same hope. "No pressure."

Shinji had started this day receiving a terse note asking him to travel across the country by train without any pre-coordination. His day had continued with a strange man stabbing him in the neck with a metal tube. He then woke up in a blue room with a woman informing him that he was destined to protect a group of women. Twice, now, he had been introduced to a group of women that were appearing as if they needed him to protect them from…something. He was able to summon magic. He was fighting a machine-bug-man. He was going to pilot a, quote, 'big robot toy'. If this was all a dream, it was the worst dream he'd ever had. "Why am I the only one?"

"Biology. Evangelion Unit-01 won't work for the vast majority of humanity. Before a few hours ago, less than a millionth of a percent could even activate it, let alone operate it. Now? We're not kidding, you are our only hope."

He might have run, if he had anywhere to run to. If running would actually accomplish anything. If running wouldn't lead directly to people being killed because he was tired of suffering. "Then I guess we'd better hope I'm good enough, for once." A more solid set of doors slid open, revealing a gantry suspended over an enormous black void. Standing with placid menace to one side of the walkway was the largest thing Shinji had ever seen. Standing at near one and a half hundred meters tall, weighing far more than he believed possible, Evangelion Unit-01 dominated the room. People were busily moving about, seemingly little more than ants in comparison to what they were working on, and the closer the small party got the larger the 'big robot toy' became. Leaning against the railing, trying to look through the darkness down towards the enormous feet of the enormous machine, he put voice to the first thing to come to mind, "How does this not collapse under its own weight?"

A voice that he'd only heard a few times since he'd been abandoned at the train station nearby responded through the loudspeakers attached to a nearby observational room within the hangar, "Because nothing is impossible for humanity, if they are willing to sacrifice enough to achieve it."

Shinji's hands clenched upon the bar he was leaning against, anger and contempt clawing for control over his voice. His response was frigid, flat, and intentionally on the outermost border of polite, "Hello…mother."