Chapter 13: Commander Ikari is a robot.

Half an hour later.

"There once was a man from Peru
Who dreamed he was eating his shoe
He woke with a fright
In the middle of the night
To find that his dream had come true."

-Poem attributed to the world class poet "Gary Snail", first class citizen of the underwater city Bikini Bottom.

Angelo POV

My very psyche was teeming with irreversible shakes as I led the three childhood friends who had somehow had it in their pure and unselfish souls to follow me all the way here through the depths of hell and back.
I couldn't believe what we were about to do. How the four of us could be so fortunate to be so blessed with a golden opportunity that even now I felt could only be a dream.
Perhaps it was.

Perhaps the very next second, I would awaken to the irritated shrieks of my uncaring parents as they ordered me sternly to get dressed and ready for school or face a month of grounding where I'd not be allowed to see the friends that had made my dreary existence worth weathering.
No. It wasn't as terrible as being cursed to eternal starvation in a third world country as I struggled to find a dish of rice.

It wasn't as insanely cruel as being forced into a killer "robot" with your very mind forcefully hooked up to an interface that made you endure every bit of damage you took while fighting the killer alien whose sole purpose it seemed was to delight in your pain and suffering.
Poor Shinji and Rei.
To think I once thought the idea of being given the same job they were forced into, was my life's ambition.

"I used to be an EVA pilot just like Shinji the great. But then I took an arrow to the knee" I sometimes joked when I had finished the latest issue of the American Edition of the Evangelion Manga comics which I blew most of my humble allowance I could never seem to raise in spite of my best-efforts toward.
No matter how hard I worked or how much better I studied, the few coins in the family budget left for me after most of it had been split between my domineering older sister Elena and my incurably disobedient younger brother peter could be counted with one finger.

Not one hand mind you. One finger. One solitary finger and the intelligence level of a newborn infant that had been dropped on its head from the top of Mt Everest was more than enough to count my share of the treasury.

But when the next issue of "Evangelion" dropped, I never came up short of the change the greedy cashier demanded. It got to the point where he decided just to let me take it if it would mean I got out of his face and stopped bothering him constantly quicker with my over eager attitude as I dashed to the front of the line just managing to avoid causing a right ruckus in my haste.

"I want to be an EVA pilot too one day. I'm tough and brave like Shinji and his one-of-a-kind kick ass sidekick Rei." I would muse to myself when I lay awake entire nights without sleeping, imitating with crazy hand gestures and zany made up sound effects in the obscurity of my bedroom with the flashlight on. I even set the Evangelion theme tune to play at a volume too low for anyone but me to hear and dove under the covers when I feared my family was onto me staying up past my bedtime so that I could continue the whimsical fantasy hidden.

I heard it so often that I memorized all the lyrics and could perfectly recite them in my dreams (and I had some very crazy dreams).
I hoped some of those words would turn out to be common conversation vocabulary which would help me not fumble up completely when the hero of my childhood, our childhood my friends and I finally graced us with his actual living presence.
Him and his equally amazing girlfriend Rei. The Moe to end all Moes.

I nearly let out a squeal at the last thought only managing to stop upon realizing I already had a girlfriend and it would be unfair to her for me to continue so immaturely.
Lola deserved my complete sincerity after abandoning all her life and family to chase me through all the long and twisting path I had chosen in my escape. Her choice to stay with me when I declared I wouldn't go back to my unloving family and downright abusive school of bullies, snitches and bullying snitches no matter what, was the first moment in my years away from home where I could crack a genuine grin.
The full extent of how much she meant and still meant to me though was very much another story for another day.

It got me several detentions and even more parental punishments and even made my faithful friends laugh at me (in good spirit of course) on more than one occasion.
But it felt so worth it at least then when I was still the young and immature troublemaker my uncaring society rightly declared me to be.
Maybe I wasn't exactly a priest either despite my friend's constant assurances that without me their lives and the lives of most everyone back at the dreary establishment of pointless education we once attended would have been true hell.

I was told to go to bed at eight while my siblings as far as I could tell had no bedtime.
Elena could stay up all night keeping me awake with text beeps of her phone and her obnoxious over the phone voice and Peter could be up at midnight watching his favourite preschool shows babbling nonsense.
I couldn't get proper sleep even if I tried.

I couldn't have a phone when Elena was glued to hers and basically half the household budget was blown on her constant swipes and calls and everything else.
And always, always my responsibility to babysit for the very irritable Peter because I wasn't distracted by a screen or big pr strong or abrasive enough to goad my younger siblings into doing my bidding and getting my way. And when mum and dad decided it was time for a lovely hug or a sweet kiss, I could stake my lifetime's allowance that the recipient would certainly never be me even with a full grade's column of straight A's and all the autumn leaves in the yard raked up with my own two hands alone.

There was more sadness to be found if I really looked harder back into my past but why bother?
The bottom line was that I had waited eleven years to be loved the same way as the rest of my family loved each other and eleven years was more than enough.
First world problems they might have been but first world problems were still problems.

I may not have been starving to death or ill with cholera (or stuffed and strapped into a killer metal beast which fed on your very sanity to keep it operational) but all the same I felt that I was quickly withering into a hollow and empty shell. Lola and Sherwood, my only two loyalists could only do so much and I could only confess so much about the true extent of my depression in my incoherent state of blue even to them.

Realizing that as my Teacher Mr Foot's Niece, Tracy's deceptive blackmail in which she could easily get any student she liked into trouble as easily as a hop skip and a jump. He never seemed to think her capable of the least wrong, at least not enough that it mattered to him anyway.
Hello teacher tell me what's my lesson
Look right through me.
Look right through me.

Realizing that Menetti, the school muscle would always be several times bigger and stronger and more ferocious for me to handle and that he always had ways of harming me even when I was in his greatest graces along with his other hapless targets.
Went to school and I was very nervous. No one knew me. No one knew me. At least not in a meaningful way where my struggles where understood.

Knowing that even to up my studies as high as my grades would go would only be so that I could be used as a wage slave when I came of age from my spendthrift parents who could not go two steps in the most unruly yard sale of useless Knick knacks without breaking bank.
Bright and early for the daily races. Going nowhere. Going nowhere.

"Goodbye everybody. Goodbye my friends. Goodbye Lola. Take good care of her, Sherwood for I know in spite of everything that you viewed me only as an obstruction in your neverending quest to have the greatest girl in the world all to yourself" I sobbed, letting my sorrow fully be externalized the sleepless night I decide enough is enough.
Hide my head I want to drown my sorrows. No tomorrow. No tomorrow.

Where I packed the modest stash of possessions, I had gathered in my lifetime along with a six pack can of beans and a five pack bottle of mountain dew which I had just helped pack away the same evening all on my own while Elena played with her phone and Peter with his trucks.
Getting so enthusiastic in his play that he tossed the metal toy witlessly over his shoulder decking me squarely in the chest of my thin and fragile ribs.

There'll be time for the rest later, I tell myself as I go over once more the little bit of Japanese Sherwood being the bigger Otaku and linguist than me as managed to ingrain into me.
The rest be perfect when me and Shinji trade our lives struggles for the head to heart talk neither of us knew we needed till now.
If nothing else, it will help my tragic but godlike hero realize that his struggles at least in part are not his own. That familial neglect and academia struggles of being the class clown and jester are not relegated to EVA pilots alone and that one other guy in existence concurs that in some cases, school is hell.

"It isn't just you who suffers Shinji. And as greatly as I sympathize, your problems are not your own." I whisper inwardly as I clutch my chest in a pang of true heartache.
The last line of American English I'll be speaking for a while as the man of the hour and his truly awesome lady is escorted by Mari into my sight.

"And if it's any comfort. My lifelong pal Lola had her problems with bullying back in her days in Germany before meeting me. And her tormentor was the red haired Asuka I'm certain you're beyond well acquainted with no less."

Most of all, I know he will shed tears of joy to know that the four of us Americans though we are by nationality, are all hardcore diehard Otaku's whose brains and eyestalks have probably half rotted from our devoted worshipping of our one true religion.
Your faith is alive and well Shinji. The faith that your lionized heroism evangelized from its roots.

It seemed that for once in forever, the all-seeing Lola was wrong. Shinji wasn't as legendary as they say after all.
He was so much better. Such honesty in his every stance, gesture and expression. Such wide and gentle unintimidating eyes that firmly proved his desire to speak the truth, the whole truth and nothing else.
The way his shockingly well maintained and miraculously undamaged lips were twisted, they told of a spectacular orator who said what needed to be said and nothing more.
A famous break dancer would be incapable of matching his smooth gestures which flowed so seamlessly as to defy all Earthly expectation.
A grizzled war veteran who'd survived a thousand of the bloodiest battles of world war two could not compete with him in his vast collection of battle scars which made me shudder apologetically to even glimpse.

"This is Shinji, Angelo" Mari says in good English turning to me. "Shinji. Angelo." She continues, gesturing back at my hero both in the fantasy world and the real.
Never have I been so grateful to have met a fellow rebel Agent of two nations and two fluent languages.

He turns to regard me with a complete look of indescribably wholesome respect and humility.
It invited confidence without demanding it in a way which I never thought possible.
Knowing I will seem rude if I cannot even bring myself to formulate a response to the idol whose heroic acts had been the driving force for every step of my life since leaving all that was familiar and "normal" and safe, I clear my throat and put every ounce of my soul into my voice.

"Konichiwa Shinji. Watashi No Hiro " I shyly mutter hardly louder than a whisper as my feet dig into the muddy undergrowth hard. "Arigato."

The grateful nod he gives me as my throat seizes up once more, firmly vindicates my seemingly reckless and moronic decision to leave home and come to Japan.
This was going to be the start of a long and soulful friendship in which the combined might and companionship of our two groups could be overcome by no force on Earth or off it.

Tremble Gendo Ikari and Asuka Langley Soryu (who I always viewed as a brutal jerk even in the whitewashed version in the fictional series I now knew to be wholly fake and disrespectful to great heroes of legend). For the day of your reckoning comes soon.

There once was a boy from Chicago.
His unluckiness made his hopes and dreams a no go.
He endured till one day
He decided to run away
And came face to face with the star of his greatest show.

I was the luckiest human alive. All my hardships had been worth this.

Asuka POV

"I've been learning bassinet for years. Give me an a buddy" I gleefully signal my greatest roommate as I hold my bassinet at the ready and he rambles off an A note on his cello.
"Shinji is my best friend in the world" I sing happily as his face lights up with the same joy causing my very heart to feel like bouncing out my chest.

But for some inexplicable reason, the bow snags on the strings of the bassinet causing a very nasty noise of misery to roar out making the Japanese boy of my dreams cover his ears as his smile completely vanishes.
"Shinji is my best friend in the sea" I try to continue the song hoping the rest will improve his mood once again but this time my bow only tangles on the leftmost string and flies completely out of my grip when I try my utmost to slide it all the way.
It's launched like a stray bullet straight in the direction of an unfinished self portrait of Shinji himself, a magnificent outline of the most handsome and submissive husband in existence standing proud as he opens his mouth in a panicked scream as if reacting in great fear to some unseen danger not in the portrait.
It outlines his cowardice perfectly.

This stunt only makes Shinji growl savagely in a way I never thought possible of such a gentle pacifist as he snaps the bow in two as I smile sheepishly.
I decide to continue the song anyway with my fingers strumming the bassinet as if it were a guitar. He surely knows that it was an unfortunate accident.

"Shinji..." I continue only to be completely cut off as my most despised adversary, the commander's pet and the world's biggest cheater Rei Ayanami sticks her head from an open window nearby. She's somehow managed to scale nearly the entire building in the time it took me to reach this verse of my carefully composed masterpiece of musical genius. All this without there being any piping or ledges on this side of the apartment for her.

"Likes Rei more than Asuka..." She trills melodiously finally costing me the last of my patience as I forcefully shut the window causing her to scream hopelessly as she falls down the massive distance she somehow climbed up.
A passing NERV truck speeds by just as before she hits the tarmac of the road below, knocking her completely for six.
There was certainly no way she or any living being however resilient could have survived such a blow.

My fury is still unquelled as I raise the now badly scratched bassinet over my head and pummel it time and time again into the ground.
"AND REI IS A DIRTY STINKY ROTTEN FRIEND STEALER!" I yell as steam blows from my ears causing Shinji to shake his head in disgust as to my great shock, he lumbers forward with no fear whatsoever and grabs me by the collar the way I had done to him many times before with no retaliation on his part.

"Um. I can fix this" I try to tell him only for him to bare his teeth as he throws the window I had just closed open and without allowing me a word in my defence, drops me out.
I remain conscious just long enough to hear the shattering of every bone in my body as I join Rei in her resting place on the now traffic congested road below as a siren wails in the distance.

The sound of a loud ringing siren snaps my eyes wide open once more as I shake myself to fully reawaken. Phew. Only a daydream. Something only lesser simpletons like Rei and Shinji would while away their precious time with.

Not the fabulous me.

Nein Shinji. Nien Nein Nein. Falsche.
Du bist eine grobe Idiot.

Your years of getting royal treatment despite being a crap pilot holding NERV back from its full prominence have clearly made you forgetful.

Well in case you've forgotten. Here's how things work around here.
I order the food. You cook the food. Then I eat the food and if it's tasty enough for my liking, I don't lose my temper and slam my fist into your face.
You do that for forty years and then you die.
Sounds like a good deal to me? What say you, idiot?

Or if that's too difficult for your feeble retarded mind to comprehend, let me simplify it for you and your so called "waifu's" benefit in a way that even you two morons won't be able to misunderstand.
It's a bug eat bug world in this crazy era we are all forced to share. A circle of life kind of thing.
So here's how things are supposed to work.
The sun grows the food. The ants pick the food. And the Grasshopper eats the food.

It's not your fault? It's not the two of your faults?
And I'm the bad pilot who needs to improve despite already spending years training at a private academy whose floors are trimmed with gold and whose rugs are lined with ermine and velvet?
First rule of leadership. Everything's your fault. Never mine.
Mistakes make me worthless and I'm anything but.

It feels so damn exciting being in charge of a war machine this big and noisy.
Such a hum. Such static cracks. The way the Earth shakes with each step of my march onward from the authority of my seat in the control cockpit.
If you were only here to witness this, dear mother.
Shame you were too selfish to stay with me long enough in my finest hour.
But no matter. I shall make you proud anyhow from beyond the grave wherever you've ended up going in your daughter's most glorious day.

"Exterminate. Exterminate" I happily trill as I bring a ginormous fist of my EVA into a Sushi shop and bash into it repeatedly till nothing is left but ruined rubble.
I hate Sushi. Less Sushi means more room for Bratwurst and Schwartzwalder Gateau instead.
Sushi is boring bland Japanese food not suited to my exquisite palette and I need not abide it's superfluous presence a second more.

"You are terminated" I whop for joy as I bring a mighty food to stamp down on a drive in Anime theatre now broadcasting the televised version of the "Death note" series.
Japanese humour is bland and tasteless and I do not need such paltry entertainment ruining my view of this already dismal capital that cannot possibly compare to my motherland's seat of power.

"Haha. Missile go boom boom." I cheer as I set a deadly volley of biochemical rockets on the course of an origami school. I can replenish my ammunition at any time by consuming just about anything made of enough metal with my EVA's razor jaws.
No more of this pointless art when there's so much better that the uncivilized and uncultured riff raff of this impure land could be devoting themselves toward.

I will catch you soon Shinji, Rei and Mari. Don't try to frighten me with your sorcerous ways of claiming to be the three remaining followers of Otaku-ism or whatever it is you crazed cultists call it.
Your sad devotion to that ancient religion has not helped you conjure up the stolen data tapes (which the commander has been losing sleep over since they somehow went missing with no explanation some few months ago.) or given you clairvoyance enough to evade the path of destruction I will leave behind in my tireless crusade for you.
I am making history. And changing it in the process.
The whole world will sing my name with love and fury long after the three of you are forgotten like dust in the wind.

Maya POV

Now Shinji will never know the truth. Now no one will know.
Ritsuko, my Senpai isn't the irresponsible drunk slouch that Major Misato is.
She only took up smoking two years ago when she tried every type of antidepressant there was and it didn't do her a smeck of good.
She was on the verge of committing suicide after the loss of her mother shook her to the core.

She's been doing her best to quit. Time and time again she's given it her all only to fallback once again after a session with her commander and "lover" Gendo puts her back into her traumatized state.
He orders her to be there for him and when she refuses...
I don't think I need to explain what happens when you refuse the advances of a monster whose willing to cut butts off as punishment for getting permanent paint by completely accident on his photograph of his long deceased wife while he spends his days force working their son, the life they created together to the bone for no other reason than spite.

It certainly wasn't Shinji's fault that Yui's gone. Shinji hardly even knew his mother and he was only an infant. He couldn't have killed her even if he wanted to. He struggles to kill even Angels when they've killed thousands of mankind and threaten those he loves on a daily basis.
And he always picks up the spider on the floor and carefully puts it outside.
Shinji didn't kill Yui. Shinji was not the imposter.

Why can't commander Ikari just get that in his thick skull?
Why won't he just let me confess the truth that in reality, I'm his bastard from one of his one-night stands of his wild and heedless youth so that I can start calling Shinji "Bro" and he can start referring to me as "Sis" instead of officer Ibuki which is far too stiff and formal for my liking.
My fellow officers like to call me a snivelling crybaby bastard.
They're dead on about the bastard part. Yes Kaji. I'm a bastard. A big useless bastard. You can stop rubbing it in with your inconsideration. Not that you'd know but you may as well not with how inconsiderately I know you'd treat such an important fact.

"Who's going to tell the blooming boss the bad news?"
I ramble incoherently, my head still on fire as we stagger back to NERV's command centre knowing how badly we've screwed up.

"Don't look at me, I ain't saying nothing. You tell him" Ritsuko pleadingly demands, her state of wellness also not the best after she crashed her head on a staircase pillar in a fainting fit of dizziness.

"Me. I told him last time we messed up and I don't believe in doing it twice." I try to reason only for Ritsuko's completely innocent and pure pout to make me want to slap myself in the chin hard.

"Please Maya. I'm terrified. You don't know the awful things the commander puts me through when he forces me to be his "lover" for his sick and twisted amusement." The blonde scientist sobs as she wipes a stray tear away. "Just tell him that we've botched the job and let's get it over with."

The finishing stanza of the imperial death march from Star wars assaults our ears as we enter the command centre almost like the universe itself knows we are completely in for it.
Each note settles into my skin making my hairs stand on end as we take the elevator to commander Ikari's top floor and Ritsuko wishes me luck before slumping into one of the waiting room chairs chattering her teeth.

The music comes to a dead stop as I make it to the commander's office which even in this state of emergency with Shinji and Rei missing still has four armed gunmen guarding its entrance watching my every movement.
I wonder if they have any emotion whatsoever since they make neither sound nor motion as I reach a fist to gently knock.
Even if these four guards were not here, there are countless wall mounted turrets nestled into the futuristic folds of the specially designed tiling the commander has spent a bomb fitting on his personal floor.

A slight suspicious movement and I could enjoy a delicious feast of lead in my head.

"I feel completely recharged." came the gravelly yet unusually excited intonation of what was unmistakably my commander as I came up to the door.

"That sounds like commander Ikari" I faintly whisper too quietly for the guards to hear as I poke my head just enough to see through a reinforced bulletproof glass window built for his sake rather than mine, the commander holding up a radio.

"Come on little buddy. Play it again. Please. One more time. For me"
He says to the small gadget as he looks at it almost endearingly like it was his own flesh and blood partner rather than the inorganic and non living scrap of metal it is.

I look away briefly.
"That's strange." I remark inwardly "Commander Ikari was talking with his radio and he said he feels recharged!"
My banged up head somehow settles upon a vague memory of a movie a younger and carefree me with the younger and much more attractive Ritsuko watched together as part of an all nighter which ended up being the best night ever. The scary robot movie we called it after insisting that it wouldn't freak us out only to end up unable to sleep the rest of the night as we mutually wondered whether everything and everyone around us was really a robot.
"If you're a robot Ritsuko. You'd tell me right?" I had to ask Ritsuko and for her to agree before I could finally get any peace of mind.
Younger Ritsuko would bring anyone without the stone heart of our commander to love filled eyes.

"Could it be that he's a robot?"
No. I think. That's childish.

Gendo POV

"Yes hello. I was wondering if you could play that song again?" I say through my expensive cellphone which I've dialed to the radio company of which I have complete control over being the chief of NERV and all that.
I never believed in using newer forms of music technology when my good fashioned radio did the job fine.

"Mmm which one man?" the manager on the other side nonchalantly slurs lazily.

"The one that goes. Beep boop boop bop. Boop boop beep" I tell him impatiently, unable to be bothered to pronounce the full name of the song out of laziness and an eagerness and impatience to just get back the adrenaline rush my beloved jam was bestowing upon me with its musical blessings.

"No man you're thinking of beep boop boop bop. Boop boop bop. "

"Beep boop boop Boop boop bop?" I demand angrily, convinced that this operator was just a uncultured janitor they put on the phone for a hamburger and a shake.
He wouldn't know the first thing about a jammy tune if a piano landed on his head.
Is he so foolish as to be unable to recognize one of the most iconic classics of all time even with such poorly outlined and cryptic instructions I deliberately made as unspecific as possible?
No I will not just say the name of the song.
I don't recognize the Imperial death march for its title but from its sick and snazzy notes.

"Beep boop boop bop?" I reply as he somehow gathers the nerve to tell me I've been pronouncing my long-time motivational tune wrong and to try and correct me on what he calls "the correct pronunciation."

"Boop boop. Beep bop? Not beep boop boop beep?" I'm reluctantly forced to concede, despising the need to be corrected despite being the head of the second largest security company on the face of the Earth. No, I never finished college or received the "customary credentials." I didn't need to after Yui was so sweet and patient enough to demonstrate to me the ideal concoction of poisons that would prove undetectable in any chemical test and be impossible to trace back to me.
Even so. It was completely wrong to believe I could be wrong after I had accomplished so much in constructing my iron empire from which there was no resistance.

"Bop? Beep? Boop boop bop! " I snap back at the operator, determined to wring his neck like a chicken if he still fails to comprehend me even after I had lowered myself so greatly as to use his corrected version of the song's pronunciation against all my wishes.
At least this means he'll finally understand the song and let me get back to my celebration of utter destruction.

Maya POV

"Oh. Oh. Oh my gosh. Why was commander Ikari making all those beeping sounds? Could it be that he's a robot."
I utter with my hand over my mouth in a voice so quiet I can barely hear myself.
I know that the guards are very twitchy with their trigger fingers and undyingly loyal to the commander. If he's a robot then surely they must be too!
No two ways about it.

But then again... it is only a cartoon. A childish one at that so...

"No. It's not possible" I try to reason with myself mentally only to look back at the peephole once more to see as the music comes back on that the commander is completely losing all sense of maturity as he breakdances around the room thrashing about madly.
He nearly breaks several pieces of his valuable furniture as he wiggles his arms and legs like an utter lunatic and his eyes completely zone out like he's in another world.
His rhythm is perfectly in line with the song's and it's this that finally breaks all remaining suspension of my disbelief.

I bow briefly at the suspiciously watching guards as I excuse myself with a salute and run all the way back as quickly as I can back to the waiting Ritsuko sat in the one unguarded room of this floor.
Not waiting to see her expression or for her to ask about the punishment the commander is sure to have for us, I fall into her arms nearly causing her to nearly trip

"Oh Ritsuko Senpai. It's terrible." I manage to gasp out in between heavy breaths.
"Commander Ikari. Talking to radio. Beeping sounds. Strange dancing. Robot."

"What on Earth are you talking about Maya. Talk sense." The scientist firmly insists as she hardens her attitude and backs away nearly causing me to trip.
Even I had my limits on what I could get her to believe in her rational and objectivist attitude to an anything but rational existence in this chaotic apocalypse hammering on our doorsteps.
A scientist was a scientist.

"I am." I insist. "Commander Ikari is a robot. One of the killer robots from that film we saw back when we were kids. I can prove it. I swear."
I say, having recovered an ounce of my air after a few painful coughs.

"Those robots don't exist Maya. Stop being immature and act your age." the disbelieving sceptic who also happens to be my sole companion in this bleak time uninterestedly sighs.

Gendo POV

The music which took a lot of bother to get back quickly rolls to a halt almost as soon as it restarted.
"Aww me radio died. " I grunt with great frustration as I wearily pick it up to check the problem.
A quick glance at the battery meter reveals the problem as I flip open the back hatch and take the almost drained cylinders of lithium out.

"Mmm. These batteries still have a little juice in them." I remark as another genius idea pops into my vast and powerful mind.
"I know. I'll sell them to SEELE for one of their stupid and pointless experiments".
My eyes light up at the thought of the massive stack of notes those suckers are bound to offer me for these useless power containers that have long outlived their usefulness as I place the batteries into my trouser pocket.

A buzz on a nearby portable pot over a flame over a tripod catches my attention.

"Me hardboiled egg is ready. I can already taste it" I excitedly comment to myself as I take out a set of metal tongs to reach inside the boiling water.
"Come to papa. Got you." I triumphantly exclaim as I catch the peeled egg out and hold it close to me salivating all the while.

I reach for a nearby container and hold it up in my free hand that isn't holding the tongs with the eggs.
"And what good is a hardboiled egg. Without a little salt?" I quizzically inquire as a sudden cramp of my arms caused from the dancing fit that had exhausted me catches me off guard and I accidentally spray a bombardment of concentrated salt into my eyes completely blinding myself and dropping the salt container onto the floor where it shatters spilling salt everywhere.
"Ow my eyes. Ah!"

Somehow my other hand manages to hold onto the tongs despite the egg having slipped from their grip long ago as I run for the nearest washroom to find some water and soap to clean my completely reddened eyes.

Maya POV

"Stop talking nonsense Maya" The love of my life demands almost angrily as I look at her like the most lost and kicked puppy in existence battling for her belief in me.
I never intended to offend her so. If only she wasn't a scientist with such a passion for her vocation...

"Now listen. What did the robots in the movie look like?" She asks, relenting slightly upon realizing how much hurt she is causing me with her refusal to at least give me a chance to prove myself.
Such patience was the reason I loved Ritsuko so greatly.

"Well..." I explain as I scratch my head a little. "They had piercing red eyes. Metal pincers for hands. And they ran on batteries."

"Okay. Now tell me. Does Gendo Ikari look ANYTHING like that?" she barks, once again regaining her stern edge that I hated while I stammered for a response.
Maybe I was wrong to hope too soon.
Maybe this was the end of what could have been a long and beautiful relationship.

Almost immediately as my brain shuts down after repeated failed attempts to formulate any coherent answers, the killer robot in question bursts into the waiting room accompanied by a frowning guard pointing his gigantic rifle right in our faces.

I'm more interested in the appearance of the commander however.
Shinji's father's eyes are crimson red, their veins and arteries incredibly visible and grotesque in their intricate detail.
One of his hands fiddles a massive set of incredibly pointy edged tongs in an incredibly menacing gesture that makes apparent his murderous intent.
Big and bright double A batteries line his front pocket in his legs, most likely metal stumps beneath his trousers.

Ritsuko's anger at me completely melts away and she quickly regains her loving and caring persona as she lets out a cry silently begging for mercy before joining me in screaming our heads off as the commander rushes away with his henchman still training his gun at us until they were out of sight.

"I'll evacuate the few people we can trust and you call the navy" she quietly instructs as she puts her lips to my ears with both hands covering both sides of her face to completely dim out her instructions to anyone else who might be listening in now that we had discovered a dark secret of our commander so dark it warranted immediate action.

I nod silently as I rush for the one telephone in the building, I am fairly certain to be unoccupied at this time and ready my final precious coin.
At least it was going to a good and noble cause.

"Shinji. Bro. Please get away as quickly as possible and don't stop running whatever you do. Sis will find you again. I swear I will and you won't be all alone anymore."
I pray as I clasp my hands together briefly in my dash before looking skyward even more briefly.
Please be safe Shinji. Please take care of yourself, small bro.

Kyoko POV

A good life with a big luxurious mansion costs a lot of money. Being enrolled into the greatest university with the greatest academics costs more.
Money needs a lot of hard work. Hard work tires the most well intentioned mother out when she has to work herself to the bone.
Sometimes she needs to take food out of her own mouth to put it on the table for her beyond lovely daughter.

Sometimes she can't speak because of the long and pointless meetings she's forced into every day just so she can meet the increasingly demanding lifestyle demanded by her little one who always seems to want more despite how the dining table already has two velvet tablecloths and her room is full of the most expensive toys where it's even hard to walk without tripping.

Is there no mercy even despite all this...
No consideration, no thanks, no gratitude.
Oh Asuka. Why?

Shinji tried so hard to replicate to the best of his ability the royal treatment I offered you, and this is how you repay him.
Oh Yui. If only you and I still had our bodies. Then you could stab me repeatedly with a knife until you've smeared my entrails all over the room and then finish up by jamming the tip of the blade into my neck bleeding me bloody.
That would ease up my guilt in my part of this mess just the faintest bit.

I wish Yui would insult me instead during the few times our souls connect instead of being so polite and empathetic.
"Hit me please" pleaded the masochist. "Heck no." Shouted the sadist. "You don't deserve even that"
Maybe she knows her friendliness will hurt me the most and that's why she does it.

Asuka... If I could but connect with you even briefly.
If I could but hold you in my arms just one more time...

I'D THROTTLE YOU!

And yet another chapter draws to a close. Once again thanks so much everyone for reading and special thanks especially to Neo-Warkid4, fictionelement 777, bandiras2, the hiddenLettuce, soma35 , sauce, Zm93, Rockxy, KySocceref, James Birdsong, Fantasian, Ascandas and all the other unnamed readers for the kind time you took to kindly review my work.
It really brings tears of happiness to my eyes and I love you all for it.
It really makes me glad to realize that at least some of you agree that the way Asuka treats her fellow pilots even when they repeatedly save her life on more than occasion is at the very least, very nasty.
If she smacked Shinji and Rei a fraction how hard she did in real life, she'd be in Juvenile detention especially with their importance in mankind's survival.

A lot of people dislike Shinji because he hates piloting, but perhaps the more important point is that he pilots really well and saves the world and all his friends and family despite hating piloting meaning he works himself really hard for those he loves.
It doesn't matter intentions or personal feeliings. At the end of the day, results are what speak for themselves.
This is also true in the real world.