Shinji dropped his food.
Asuka gasped loudly.
"WHAT?!" Misato yelled.
Kaji grinned.
Mari raised an eyebrow.
Rei looked around, unaware of why she was getting so much attention.
"A-A-Ayanami," Shinji stuttered out. "W-wha-" He couldn't get any farther as Misato grabbed him by the ear and hauled him out of the cafeteria. As soon as they were out the door, she let go of him and smacked him in the face.
"Ow!" Shinji said, clutching his face.
"What did you do?" Misato asked, her gaze made of iron.
"I didn't do anything!" he said loudly, "I haven't even talked to her in like a week!"
"Was that before or after you 'had intercourse' with her?" Misato pressed.
"I-I-I didn't do that!" he pleaded, "M-Misato-san, I-I'm not lying!"
At that moment Rei walked through the door, apparently oblivious to the argument going on.
Misato's demeanor softened, but she still flashed Shinji a look that told him he was done for.
"Rei, would you mind explaining what you meant back there?" she asked.
"Ikari-kun and I have had intercourse multiple times since our battle with the fifth Angel" she replied. Misato's eye twitched.
"Shinji, can you please leave?" Misato said through gritted teeth. Shinji practically sprinted out of the room. That was a mistake, as he found himself face to face with three more interested parties.
"You little pervert," Asuka said. Kaji winked. Mari was content to watch from afar.
"I-I didn't do anything," Shinji said, going to sit down at the table and trying to block out his memory of this event ever happening.
"Rei," Misato said. "Did he force himself on you?" she didn't want to believe Shinji would do something like that.
"...No," Rei replied, "he did not force me to talk to him."
"What?" Misato said.
"We have spoken multiple times since our last battle, I was told by someone offering to help that I should ask Ikari-kun to engage in intercourse again."
Misato's face went through about 10 different emotions before it settled on relief, and then she proceeded to double over in laughter. Rei watched in confusion. Misato caught her breath and steadied herself, still chuckling.
"Rei, that word... doesn't mean the same thing as talking. Just say you want to talk to him again, okay?" she said.
"Understood," Rei said. She left the cafeteria, passing by the bewildered faces of her fellow pilots. Misato caught Shinji's eye with an even more furious gaze as he stood around dumbly and mouthed 'Follow her!' Shinji reluctantly obliged. At least she seemed to not want to hit him anymore.
"Ayanami, wait up," Shinji said, following her down the corridor. Rei stopped at turned to look at him.
"I… am sorry for causing any confusion, I was under the impression that what I said would get your attention. It seemed it worked, but not the way I wanted," Rei said.
"Um… okay," Shinji replied. "W-what did you mean by i-in- by that word," he asked.
"I was trying to say I would enjoy speaking with you more often," she said. Shinji looked surprised, and he blushed a little.
"Oh, well, if that's what you want, you could have just said that," he said quietly. Rei nodded.
"It is," she said. Shinji smiled.
-
"What was that about?" Kaji asked as Misato sat back down at the table. She sighed.
"Rei was just confused about what word to use," she said.
"She's a strange girl," Kaji commented. Misato nodded.
"She's got no records, nothing before 2012. She just appeared out of thin air. I can excuse her personality, the commander isnt exactly a pillar of charisma. But there's something… different about her." Misato said.
Kaji nodded in agreement. "So, what have you been up to the past few years?" he asked, grinning. Misato rolled her eyes.
"None of your business," she said.
"You can't blame me for trying," he replied, shrugging.
"I can and will," she shot back. "So, I see Asuka is still all over you," she said.
"I've tried to be clear with her but she won't listen. As mature as she tries to act, she's still just a kid," he said.
"Shinji might as well be her polar opposite. I've thrown everything I have at him, and he hasn't so much as glanced. I thought he might not be into girls, but he's totally got the hots for Rei." Misato said.
"It looks like the feeling may be mutual," Kaji responded, grinning.
"Her? No way. The only reason… that happened was because she didn't know the definition," Misato said.
Kaji didn't look too convinced.
"Well," he stated, "let's say I asked you to engage in-OW!" his pickup line was thwarted by another stiff kick to the shin.
-
Asuka scoffed as she saw the First and Third run off. Perverts, the both of them. That teacher's pet didn't have the decency to shake her hand but wanted to talk about that stuff in front of everyone! She was surrounded by weirdos. Four Eyes wasn't much better, even if Asuka had known her for a while.
Speaking of her, she was busy eating her meal as if nothing had happened.
"Hey, aren't you gonna talk?" Asuka asked.
"About what?" she replied.
Asuka was lost for words. "About… that! Those two perverts! They have no shame!"
Mari shrugged. "It looks like blue misspoke, that's all," she said.
Asuka had to admit, given the reaction, that did seem likely. She huffed. "Still, it's disgusting," she said.
"C'mon, don't act as though you've never thought about it," Mari teased.
Asuka looked indignant. "I would never!" she said.
"Not even with Kaji-san?" Mari grinned. Asuka blushed and stuttered, the mental image not helping matters. Mari already got her answer from that.
-
Ritsuko sat at her desk, sipping some coffee Maya prepared. She watched the security footage and felt a cruel smile pass over her lips when she saw the scene unfold. She saw that freak walk out, and Shinji follow her like a kicked puppy.
"What are you looking at, sempai?" Maya asked, walking into her office. Ritsuko changed the tab and pretended to be working.
"Nothing, Maya. Did you get the brain scan results back?" Ritsuko asked.
"I did, I noticed something interesting, too," she said. "The lithium is not as effective as before. Rei's brain activity is less stable than our last test a month ago. Gray matter development in the limbic cortex is also increasing," she reported.
Ritsuko looked at the papers and furrowed her brow. 'Is she developing the ability to emote? It's overpowering the mood stabilizers.'
"We need to up her dosage," Ritsuko said absently. Maya looked concerned.
"But, sempai, isn't it good that she is expressing herself more?" Maya asked.
"Not for our purposes. We can't risk her emotions overtaking her during combat," Ritsuko said.
Maya frowned, not liking the way she talked about Rei. But she had no choice. She sighed, leaving without further comment.
-
Several weeks passed, and Shinji was beginning to feel better about things. He was talking with Ayanami a couple of times a week now, and he was on shaky but tolerable ground with Asuka. Mari was… overpowering, but she could be fun to be around. He started his day by preparing an extra lunch, and he hoped to give it to Ayanami during class. She never seemed to eat, and she looked pretty thin.
Rei had taken a sudden turn in the past week, though. She all of a sudden reverted back to how she was acting before their battle, cold and closed off. He didn't quite understand but assumed she may have been on her period. He was hoping that the food would be well received.
Unfortunately, he never got the chance. As he walked to school, the Angel alarms went off. He headed down to Headquarters quickly.
Once in Headquarters, he changed into his plugsuit and reported to the Eva cages. He got into his Eva, and realized this would be the first time they all fought together. They had trained, but they had not seen real combat as a group yet.
"Alright," Misato said over the commlink. "The Angel is approaching from shore. I want all four of you waiting for it when it arrives. Coordinate, and eliminate it before it can enter the city. Our defenses are still non-operational."
"Roger," the four pilots said in unison.
Shinji watched from shore, and he held a pallet rifle in his hands. Asuka and Mari were to his left, and Ayanami was to his right. The Angel burst out of the water, its crescent-shaped arms reaching towards the sky as it landed back down with a loud boom. It looked humanoid, with smooth gray arms curving downwards above nearly identically shaped legs. The core was located under its "face," a bowling-ball-esque blue shell with large holes and a seam running down the middle.
'This is my first real battle in Japan,' Asuka thought. 'I don't need these losers slowing me down.'
Asuka leaped forward, her Eva flying towards the Angel. She pulled out her sonic glaive and slashed at the Angel, lopping both its legs off. She repeated with the torso, splitting the being into four. It remained on the ground, motionless.
Asuka turned back to face her fellow pilots, smirking. "That's how it's done," she said.
"Asuka! Look out!" Shinji yelled. The Angel had gotten back up and was quickly forming into four perfect copies of itself, albeit each a quarter of the original's size. Asuka turned and yelped as her Eva was grabbed by the ankle and she was thrown into the side of a mountain.
Shinji and Rei began to fire, and Mari tried to fight one of the minions in close quarters. Three of them quickly overpowered her and threw her into the lake. Shinji and Rei were both taken by two each and met a similar fate. The operation was a disaster.
