Shinji's Bizarre Evangelion

Chapter 3

You Can Redo

The clock buzzed 6 AM.

Shinji reached over without even looking and shut the damned thing off. He should have just turned off the alarm altogether, but that would require effort, which was something he had almost none of the past few days. He was still reeling from his 'epiphany' several days ago of being a child soldier, Misato not even trying to deny it, and the ease with which he was dropped when he didn't want to fight anymore. Men in black suits had come the very next morning and took away his NERV ID, cell phone, anything that was a direct link to the organization, then shipped him off to this two-room studio apartment practically on the other side of the city from Misato. That part was fine, though - at least he was alone.

Well, almost. The one thing they couldn't take away from him was that damned Stand, which he could feel inside of him at the worst times, almost like it was trying to talk to him, but spoke some kind of alien language. There was nothing he could do but distract himself or ignore it. Though, Shinji admitted it was very handy when he was too lazy to clean up around the house himself, which was almost every day now.

The doorbell rang, not quite suddenly but pointedly, as if commanding Shinji to rise. He ignored it, but it rang again, this time incessantly. He made an unhappy noise and rolled over in the bed, trying to will himself awake but not having much luck. Eventually, he managed to flop out from under the sheets, put on his shirt from yesterday, and stagger to the door to answer it, hoping the person had gone away.

They hadn't. Rei and Hikari stood outside the door as he answered it, and Hikari immediately launched into her usual tirade leveled at students who came to class not looking as good as her standard. Shinji just stared as the words went in one ear and out the other. She eventually stopped, and Shinji took a few moments to work up the energy to explain he had been feeling really sick lately and was bedridden. The girls seemed to accept this story and left without asking any questions.

Shinji slowly waddled over to the tiny couch in the living space and fell onto it. Even with the Stand helping out on chores, the place was still cluttered, and Shinji started getting angry with himself for living like Misato did. He started to be grateful she couldn't see him like this, but remembered that NERV had eyes on him at all times, and Misato likely had easy access to that part of Section 2. This didn't help Shinji's mood.

With no clock visible in the main room, Shinji had hidden it, he didn't exactly know how long he'd been laying motionless when his stomach voiced a loud complaint of how empty it was. Shinji practically fell off the couch and picked himself up off the floor rather than just getting up normally, and staggered his way towards the tiny kitchen. He wiped the egg skillet down with a paper towel, then proceeded to make the lowest effort scrambled eggs possible that were still edible. Transferred to a paper plate and eaten with a plastic fork to minimize the amount of washing up as much as possible, Shinji went to put them in the trash can only to be reminded it was already overflowing. He took a deep breath and, with the first burst of energy he'd had in the last few days, got every piece of trash in the apartment sorted, bagged up, and taken down to the dumpster at the bottom of the stairs, all without summoning Unit 01. It also left him completely exhausted. He turned the TV on to the least annoying news channel and flopped back onto the couch, only sort of listening to the weather report as he started to doze off.

Several hours later, Shinji was awoken by the sound of the TV and his phone both blaring the same alert. It was an evacuation order, with instructions on how to get to the nearest shelter. Shinji almost didn't know what to do - he'd never been on this end of an Angel attack, waiting for other people to make the danger pass. He went to his room and sloppily put on his pants and white shirt, grabbed a couple pieces of bread, looked at which bus the TV was instructing him to take, and opened the door.

Toji and Kensuke stood on the other side, holding some papers and looking at their phones. Shinji was so dumbstruck as to why they were there, he didn't even say anything as they looked up at him from their phones with concerned looks on their faces.

"See, he is here," Kensuke said, "and you thought he was still living with Misato after quitting."

"Well, great, we found him, now we gotta get to a shelter I guess." Toji said. He looked back at his phone. "Says to take bus C-13. Let's get moving."

"Wait, shouldn't we be getting Shinji down to NERV HQ?" Kensuke tilted his head a little. Shinji just started walking past them, eating a bite of bread.

"I don't give a shit about NERV." Shinji said, slightly muffled. "I'm just going to keep my head down and sit this one out. Rei said she's fine doing this alone. I'm not going to be a soldier for my father anymore."

It had taken an hour just to get down to the shelter, surrounded by people Shinji didn't know. Kensuke and Toji had stuck with him, the former fiddling with his camera and trying to get the TV receiver to work. Shinji wished he'd grabbed more than just some bread on his way out - he was already hungry again, and wasn't about to ask anyone if the shelter had rations.

"Got it!" Kensuke exclaimed, pumping both of his fists in the air. Several people stared, but he quickly closed his camera and almost literally dragged Shinji and Toji to a corner of the shelter, where he opened the camera back up to reveal a live video feed… Which shouldn't have been possible during an Angel attack. "I got my uncle to find me a decryption module. I can access every live feed NERV sends out over the TV station. Let's see if we can watch the action!"

Shinji checked out at this point while Kensuke and Toji channel hopped through mostly static images of an evacuated city. His stomach complained, he deflected questions from those two about it. Eventually, however, they found something. "Woah! What's that!?" Kensuke loudly whispered. Shinji shifted an eye over, but it quickly widened. A huge, blue double pyramid thingy was just lazily travelling along the same road Misato had brought him into Tokyo-3 on, with a comparatively tiny humanoid walking just below it. The panic in Shinji's mind settled, he wasn't fighting it after all, until he noticed the unmistakable orange figure of Rei's Stand approaching it. The resolution of Kensuke's camera display was crappy, but even through that, the sight of the Angel unleashing a huge energy blast was still enough to scare Shinji out of his gourd. His mouth hung open slightly as he realized what he had done. Rei was fighting that thing alone. Kensuke interrupted his thoughts with "Wow! This is going to be a great fight to watch!"

"Screw that." Shinji calmly said. He stood up, and Unit 01 appeared with just faint wisps of green flames. The room fell silent as the 8-foot tall giant towered over them all. "I'm getting out of here and helping." He began walking to the doors of the shelter, and Kensuke immediately scrambled after him, which prompted Toji to scramble after Kensuke. Shinji made it to the doors unopposed, and entered his code in an attempt to unlock them. The security pad rejected it, which he expected, but a smirk crossed his face as 01 reached forward and simply tore the one and a half foot thick doors right off their rails. The three classmates went into the elevator and ascended back to the surface, where Shinji was suddenly uncertain about how he was going to get to the battle.

"Hey, sweet, a Vauxhall SRi! I thought these had all been recycled by now." Kensuke said, pointing to a quite old, red car sitting at the curb immediately outside the entrance to the shelter. "I know how to hotwire one of these. Give me a sec." He banged on the front of the sunroof, and the back of it popped up enough to get a finger under. Carefully prying it open, he slipped an arm in and managed to hit the door unlock from the inside. He climbed in, then in a move Shinji didn't understand at all, took out the hazard warning light switch, put it in upside down, and suddenly the lights on the dashboard came on. "Shinji, give me a push?"

With careful maneuvering, 01 got the Vauxhall out from between the two other parked cars, then gave it a solid push down the road. Kensuke popped the clutch, and the engine lurched several times into life. He brought it around, opened the driver door, then pushed his glasses up as the sunlight reflected off them. "Let's ride." With no traffic at all, and ignoring the red lights, getting out of the city's core took almost no time at all, and Kensuke picked up the pace as they got onto the open road.

Eventually, the blue octahedron, and for some reason two orange giants, came into view as the three teenagers rounded the last bend. Kensuke smartly brought the car to a screeching halt before they got too close to the Angel, and the three boys filed out of the car. Shinji immediately summoned Unit 01 and noticed the Angel move and point toward him. The air shimmered slightly as Shinji expanded Unit 01's AT field, but was confused when he suddenly saw Rei and 00 appear in front of him, doing the same thing.

That was the last thing Shinji remembered before he found himself on the ground, groaning. He vaguely recalled an extremely bright light and the feeling of something pressing on his soul. As he raised his head to look around, he noticed the car was gone, and not only that, Rei and her Stand were gone. Shinji saw someone wearing an orange version of the pilot combat gear running towards him from the right, and then he suddenly had a very strange feeling in his stomach. His head went light and fuzzy, and his vision started to white out.

"Are you awake?"

Shinji opened his eyes to a blinding white fog. Was he dead? He didn't *remember* dying, but he had no idea if that was even a thing. The fog was so dense he couldn't even see his own body below the waist. He thought he heard a car engine running, but couldn't tell where it was.

"My my, this simply will not do. It seems your actions, or rather, inaction, has led to the death of someone you know." The words seemed to come from everywhere, an oddly soothing, smooth speech from an old-sounding man.

"Who are you?" Shinji said with a shaking voice.

"I have been watching you for some time. Your soul called out to me, and I responded."

"What do you want?"

"I am here to offer assistance. It has become too dangerous to continue the path you have gone down. You may choose to end your journey here, and live in the fog without pain or suffering. Or, I can help you retrace your steps some ways…" A bright blue door with ornate gold detailing appeared before Shinji. "The time has come to make a decision."

The door opened by itself, showing Shinji lying on his bed. The clock showed 6 AM. Retrace his steps… would he go back to that morning if he went through the door? He decided he had to take the chance, and ran for it.

Shinji's hand darted out from under the sheets and silenced the alarm clock on the first tone. He bolted upright on the bed and looked at his hands, then touched his face. He was alive. But how? The Angel was about to attack again… Had the voice in the fog actually sent him back in time? Shinji grabbed his phone and opened it, reading the same date as when he had woken up last time. He wasn't quite convinced. He got up and went to the other room; the trash was all back in the same spots, his clothes strewn about, and the bread loaf still had the two pieces he'd taken.

Shinji had been looking around in quite a stupor for some time when there was an alarming knock at the door. He darted over and opened it to find Rei and Hikari standing in the hallway of the apartment building, who were slightly taken aback by something, and Shinji took a moment to realize he hadn't put a shirt on after waking up.

"Rei!" Shinji shouted first, before Hikari could go into her tirade, "Are you okay!? What happened? Did we defeat the Angel!?"

Rei simply raised an eyebrow in concern. "We didn't fight an Angel recently." She said calmly. "Shinji, are you feeling okay? Do I need to take you to NERV's hospital?"

"You don't… remember?"

"Remember what?" Rei stroked her chin with her finger and thumb. "Hmm… This might be an attack. An enemy Stand might be trying to manipulate your memories."

At this point, Hikari couldn't restrain her rage any longer. "Shinji!" she shouted, "You haven't been to school in days and you don't even greet us with a shirt on!? What's wrong with you!?"

"Horaki! Class Rep! Uh, I'm really sorry, I'll get dressed right now and we'll all go together!" Shinji ran back to the bedroom and got dressed with the least wrinkled clothes he could immediately see. If Rei didn't remember anything, that means he really did go back in time. Right? She wouldn't have a reason to do something like this to him. So just what was that voice in the fog? He put that question aside for later and ran back to the girls, picked his book bag up from beside the door, and they headed out.

While they were waiting for the bus, Rei turned to Shinji. "Look, I know that I'm not technically your superior anymore, and even then we really don't know each other that well, but, you're acting kind of strange, Shinji. What's going on?"

"I…" He hesitated. "I specifically remember doing this already. Like, this morning. You showed up with Horaki and I made up a story about being sick to explain why I hadn't been at school. Then there was an Angel attack later in the day, and I saw you not being able to fight it on Kensuke's camera, and we hijacked a car to come find you. But I was too late. The Angel… killed you. Then it was about to kill me. But suddenly I was in this really thick fog and this old man's voice told me he could help me retrace my steps. And then I woke up again. You two knocked on the door, and now I'm reliving this morning."

Rei simply stared at Shinji, listening intently. Hikari was just confused and didn't know what to make of the explanation. Rei then went "Hmm. That's an interesting description. When did the Angel attack?"

"Well, I don't know exactly, but Kensuke and Toji had just showed up to give me homework so I guess it was after school?"

"Then you're coming with me after school back to NERV to get debriefed. I can't count out the possibility that you're telling the truth, especially since we know the Evas have unique abilities. The same could be true of the Angels."

"Wait, what?" Hikari piped up. "What unique abilities?" Rei and Shinji explained Zero Shift and the Super Grapnel to her. "Huh. So what's mine?"

"We'll have to find out during training this afternoon." Rei turned to Shinji again. "Unless you saw what it was already?" He shook his head. "Then we'll have to do some tests, hopefully without putting your life in danger like the two of us were."

The bus arrived, and the three boarded. Hikari brought up her lack of breakfast, which Shinji was grateful for as he'd skipped it as well, and after a quick cafe stop they got to school just two minutes before class started. Nothing of note happened for the entire duration of school hours, but that didn't stop Shinji from being paranoid the entire time that a blue octahedron was going to break through the second story wall and kill everyone. He fought the urge to summon Can't Be Yours and have it prepared just in case several times. After school, Rei brought the three of them to the front entrance and made a call on her phone. She mentioned something about a "Section 2 priority transport order", and a few minutes later an identical black car that they'd previously ridden in arrived and they all piled in, taking the near-freefall elevator down to NERV HQ.

When they eventually stopped and got out of the car, Shinji was slightly surprised to see Misato waiting for them at the terminal. "Alright, Rei, you better have a good reason for giving that kind of order-" She stopped herself as she noticed who else was in the car. "Shinji! You… You're back?"

"We may be under attack." Rei said, as the three of them walked towards Misato. "Shinji seems to have memories of an Angel attack that we do not. He needs to be debriefed so we can attempt to determine if an enemy Stand has been manipulating his memories."

"I see." Misato looked at Shinji for a few moments. "Well, let's get to a conference room, then. I'll have to stay with you at all times since you're not actually authorized to be back in here, Shinji." They went through the terminal door, and very shortly afterward, Misato summoned Paisley Park to navigate them towards the nearest suitable room. They eventually arrived at another identical beige and gray door, which Misato keyed open.

"Do you mind handling this alone?" Rei asked. "I need to get down to the training room and try to help Hikari find out what Beautiful World's ability is. I don't think Shinji will be attempting to hide anything, after all."

"Yes, that's fine, you're dismissed." Shinji followed Misato into the room, where she took a tape recorder out of one of the many drawers lining the walls, and had Shinji sit at the adjacent corner to her at the table, moving the chairs to do so. Shinji recounted what he'd said to Rei with minor variations. "I see. What did the Angel look like?"

"Uh, a blue… polygon. Eight sides. Two pyramids stuck together by their bases."

"And how was it attacking? A projectile?"

"No, some kind of energy beam. And it had a very strong AT Field, Rei couldn't pierce it even using Zero Shift."

"Well, I guess what you're saying sounds plausible. Luckily, however, I don't have to just trust you." Misato pulled out her cell phone and dialed a number. "Kaji, it's me. I need you in conference room 21-D. I need Heaven's Door." She got annoyed with the person on the other end and slapped the phone shut.

"Who was that?" Shinji asked.

"Someone who is invaluable to NERV and yet sometimes I really wish wasn't here." Misato quipped back. Shinji felt too awkward to say anything in the several minutes it took for the door to open, a somewhat haggard-looking man with a brown ponytail and merely a dress shirt and pants with a loose tie instead of the NERV uniform stepping in to join them. He also looked like he only shaved when it was absolutely needed.

"Ah, so you're the Third I've heard so much about." Kaji said, pulling up a chair across from Shinji. "I'd have introduced myself by now, but someone seems to think I'd be a bad influence on you and has been keeping me away."

"You know damn well why I wouldn't want you meeting Shinji so soon." Misato rolled her eyes. "I need you to read Shinji's memories. He's apparently gone through an Angel attack that we haven't. I need to know what's actually going on."

"Ah, certainly. I just need you to hold him down." Kaji cracked his knuckles, which only made Shinji more concerned as Misato moved behind him and put her hands on his shoulders.

"Wait wait wait, what's going on!?" Shinji said, quite alarmed.

"The first time I use Heaven's Door to read someone's memories can be quite disturbing. I promise you won't be hurt. Hold out an arm and please watch my finger closely."

Shinji did as he was told, the pressure from Misato on his shoulders not quite helping, and was quite surprised when the glowing outline of a boy in a bowler hat and an overcoat appeared in the air. Surprise turned to very alarmed when part of his outstretched forearm suddenly had visible lines, and peeled open to show book pages. Shinji yelled, green flames just starting to wisp away from his body, but Misato put more pressure on him with one hand and turned his head up to meet her eyes with the other.

"Calm down! It's temporary." Misato said. "He said you wouldn't be hurt."

Kaji began to leaf through the book pages, eventually setting on one in particular. After an excruciating amount of time to Shinji which was actually less than a minute, he closed the "book" and Shinji's arm returned to normal. "It is as he says." Kaji said, "He experienced an Angel attack and was sent back in time by some entity. He didn't learn who or what it was."

"Well, that's problematic." Misato sighed. "So we don't know who did this or even if it was someone's Stand. All we know is they are quite powerful to have turned back time like this. Thank you, Kaji, you can go back to chatting up Ritsuko now."

"Actually I was writing a report for Gendo." Kaji stood up and went for the door. "But since you gave me the idea, I think I will pay the nice doctor a visit." He very hastily exited the room as a notepad flew in his direction and impacted against the door.

Shinji was still reeling a bit from the experience of his arm being turned into a book, but tried to pull himself out of it since it wasn't even in the top 5 crazy things that had happened to him this month. "S-So" he managed to eek out, "What happens now?"

"Well, that's kind of up to you, kid." Misato sat back down. "You left us of your own volition but now you're back here voluntarily. So are you just going to give us this warning and bail? Or will you stay and help?"

"Well, I've already seen what happens when I just stay out of it, so… I guess I'll stay?"

Misato let out a huge sigh of relief. "That's so good to hear. I've been really worried about you. I couldn't bring myself to look at the surveillance footage so all I had to go on was the reports that you weren't going to school."

Shinji had his own moment of relief as he realized Misato hadn't seen him living like the same kind of slob she was. Still… The reasons he'd left in the first place hadn't changed. "I still don't like being a soldier." He said rather sheepishly.

"I understand that. But now isn't really the time to talk about it. Let's get this Angel dealt with and then we'll discuss your situation seriously. Is that okay?"

"I guess." Shinji was now unsure himself. But what else could he do? He'd already lived through failing this fight. He didn't really have a choice in the matter. Misato took him back to her office and she started through the paperwork of reactivating his NERV ID card. By the time that got cleared, Rei and Hikari showed up, both in their combat gear and looking a little worse for wear.

"We found out what my power is," Hikari said, "I can reflect projectiles and energy attacks." She slumped into an empty chair.

"So now we need to come up with a plan." Rei said, not as winded and seeming content to stand in her gear. "You said the Angel attacked with an energy beam, but also that I wasn't able to get through it's AT Field. If Hikari can hold up, we might be able to defeat it by having her reflect the attack right back at it. But how do we make that happen without getting her killed?"

That was the moment the alarms went off.

Misato ran to Central Dogma while the three pilots went for the nearest launch bay. Shinji had a bit of trouble getting back into his gear after a week of not practicing, the squeeze of the Skull Suit an unwelcome returning feeling but also somewhat familiar and the tiniest bit comforting. Seeing all three of them suited up, ready for action and waiting for Misato's orders also helped calm his nerves - three against one would make this an easy fight. Right?

Misato appeared on the large briefing screen. "Based on Shinji's description of the previous engagement," she said, "We're not going to attempt to intercept the target outside the city. We will wait for it to cross into Tokyo-3's suburbs so that we can support the three of you better and not give it easy targets. Rei, Shinji, you're deploying first. See if it's possible for one of you to engage to target while the other neutralizes the AT Field. If that doesn't work, we'll launch Hikari and do whatever it takes to defeat the Angel. Understood?"

Rei and Shinji both acknowledged in unison, with Hikari a second behind them. Shinji looked at Rei a bit awkwardly, but she just smiled and took his hand, pulling him over to his launch chute. The two of them got locked in while Hikari watched from afar with some trepidation. She decided to put her hair up tighter to give herself something to do while the three of them waited, the viewscreen showing the blue octahedron slowly advancing towards the city. Eventually, it crossed the border that was officially the city, where buildings started being more than two stories tall.

"There isn't a second launch chute near enough," Misato said, "So Rei, you'll go up first and immediately get off the pad and begin an assault. Shinji, you'll launch a few seconds after her, quickly approach, and attempt to break through the AT Field. Ready?" The two voiced in unison again. "00, launch!" Lightning briefly crackled as the railgun fired and Rei vanished up the tube. Shinji barely had enough time to register she'd left before Misato ordered "01, launch!" and he too shot upward, passing through the metal chutes of the base, then the geofront, then the concrete and steel armor plates of Tokyo-3 before finally emerging out of the street. The restraints unlocked the instant his inertia died and he stumbled forward, summoning Can't Be Yours instinctively. A loud, telltale ringing sprang forth as Rei and Unit 00 impacted the Angel's AT field.

Shinji snapped himself out of the stun from launching as the carriage Rei had taken fell into a building several meters away. He wrapped an arm around his Stand's waist, then had it launch a grapnel line at a building past the Angel and the two of them shot forward. He raised his own AT field as they flew, cut the grapnel line when they were near, and slammed into the Angel's field with both Unit 01's fists outstretched. They dented it's field somewhat but were pushed back quickly; 01 planted its' feet before they could be repelled and Shinji forced his soul against the Angel's as hard as he could manage. He noted that it felt similar to, but different from Rei.

The blue-suited man standing under the Angel turned toward Shinji and smirked. The Angel itself made a strange, almost singing noise, as the point closest to Shinji began glowing. He barely had time to change his focus from piercing to strengthening his AT field before it fired, the light temporarily blinding him for several seconds, during which he felt himself bounce against several solid surfaces.

"Shinji, are you okay!?" Misato shouted over the radio, "Get up! Second attack incoming!"

Shinji scrambled to get up off the ground, preparing to re-summon 01 and grapnel the hell out of there when the Angel's point began glowing again. He started to panic - it was too close. This time, however, 00 appeared in the blink of an eye behind it, progressive knife in hand, and made a huge slash across the surface. The Angel's user made a big yell and stumbled forward, turning around and revealing a huge vertical bloodstain coming from the inside of his suit. 00 disappeared in a brief flash of blue light and 01 reappeared in a cloak of green flames right next to the Angel, attempting to punch the user. It's fist met the AT field again, but Shinji instantly had it try to break through. However, with Shinji still on the ground and 01 between him and the enemy, he couldn't see the Angel charging up another attack, and let out a yell as his chest felt like it exploded in fire. 01 took the full force of the blast, flying backwards behind Shinji and hitting the ground three times before sliding to a halt. The pain kept Shinji from getting up again.

"We're launching Hikari! Rei, Shinji, hold on a bit longer!"

00 again appeared behind the Angel, but it was ready this time. The prog knife bounced off the AT field, and the user didn't even look as 00 was blasted point blank, flying backwards then disappearing into wisps of green flame as it either got out of range or Rei stopped being conscious. Then, the user began walking towards Shinji, who still couldn't move.

"The difference between me and you, human, is that I was meant to carry my Stand" he gloated, "That armor you're wearing looks quite uncomfortable, and I bet whatever they did to bind that purple monstrosity to your soul wasn't enjoyable either. But I have good news! Once I defeat you, my siblings and I will revive the remnants of DIO, and he will evolve your entire race to be like us! Everyone will have their own Stand. Everyone will be powerful." He stopped several meters away from Shinji. "I'll even spare your life if you cooperate. Then you can shed that beast your superiors call a Stand, and get one that's beautiful instead. How about it?"

Shinji honestly thought about it for an instant. He'd get to ditch Can't Be Yours, and get something better? Something more useful? But… No. He couldn't trust this guy. Not with the world at stake. Not if it meant losing Rei. Not after he was already sent back in time to fix this exact battle.

"Never" Shinji coughed out. He tried to get up again, to make 01 move, but neither body was responding to his mental commands.

"So be it. You'll be seeing your mother again, soon." The Angel's point began to glow again, and Shinji put an arm up and closed his eyes in a feeble attempt to block it.

The eye holes in Evangelion Unit-01's armor turned white.

Shinji felt a rush of air and heavy footprints against the concrete, and opened an eye to see Unit 01 standing in front of him again. But he hadn't commanded it to move like that. He saw the glow of the eye holes and stared - they'd never done that before. The Angel fired it's attack, and Shinji panicked, but he didn't feel anything. After several seconds, it ended, and 01 leaned back upright after being pushed backward from the beam.

"What… What is this!?" The Angel's user took a step back in fear. 01 answered his question by shaping it's left hand into a claw and making a vertical slashing motion at him. He screamed in pain, and the orange octagonal field reappeared - but did so sliced in two, fading away again and separating as though it were a physical object. 01 dashed forward, hitting the Angel with a right hook and making it spin, then a left hook as the area 00 had slashed came into view, the user following these movements. 01 put both hands in the wound, looked up to the sky, and roared. It forced the wound open, more blood appearing on the back of the user's suit, revealing the dark red core inside. 01 ripped it out with lighting speed, got both palms on it and squeezed. The user yelled in pain, holding his head as the core cracked, then shattered.

Shinji saw and felt the explosion, but a split second later 01 was beside him again, shielding him from the brunt of the force. Just like last time, it seemed to go on forever. When it finally cleared, Shinji got to his feet, and had just enough time to notice Hikari kneeling on the launch carriage with Beautiful World protecting her with it's AT field before falling to his own knees and passing out.

Rei opened her eyes to the very familiar ceiling of a NERV ICU.

She sat bolt upright, the pain in her chest barely registering. Limbs? All attached. Stand? Fly Me To The Moon's rage still boiled deep within her soul. Memories? Gendo, Ritsuko, Misato. Shinji. Hikari. Okay - She wouldn't be getting a visit from Kaji anytime soon. She stared downward through the floor, towards the deepest level of NERV, and shivered in fear at the thing that was stored in Terminal Dogma. Everything was accounted for. They hadn't lost yet.

Rei sighed in genuine relief and laid back down. Her body aches and pains finally registered to her and she groaned. This body made it very hard for her to function like she did with her original body, but that was long gone now, and acting "normal" didn't make things any better. She wondered if it would be possible to get it back after they won the war, and concluded that if SEELE didn't simply eliminate her after serving her role, and Gendo was still around for her to convince, and NERV's facilities still existed, it might be possible. So it was basically a solid no with all those requirements.

Still, that was three Angels down. Twelve left? Thirteen? She didn't know how many would be made after what happened, but it couldn't be much more than what was written. Plus, the shy boy's flaunt with quitting meant that the cool girl had been activated early, so once redhead got transferred they'd have four Stands to fight with. The thought made her smile - they'd be up to six ahead of schedule, which meant more time for her to train them all for the big fight. This was good.

Rei laid in the bed for quite a while, content to listen to the hum of the building and the music of the medical equipment in the room until Gendo or someone came to collect her. Eventually, she heard the familiar sound of someone unlocking the door, but this time was strange - they didn't come in right away, and… was that two people talking? Rei opened her eyes and looked at the door just in time to see it open, Hikari walking through with a cart and Shinji following her in and finishing his sentence.

"-should be able to get all the way to Hokkaido. There's a huge refugee camp there, it'll be easy to evade detection by NERV."

"Yeah, that sounds like a plan." Hikari went and got two chairs from the other end of the room.

"What are you two talking about?" Rei asked, slightly worried about the situation already.

Hikari pushed the cart closer to Rei's bed, which Rei now noticed had a vegetarian meal on it, then she and Shinji sat down in the two chairs. "We've decided to mutiny against NERV."

Rei's eyes instantly went wide. "I- What!? How can you say that!? We're trying to save the planet here! This isn't something you can joke around with!"

Shinji gulped. "Rei, we get that, but from our perspective this whole operation is just… horrible. We're teenagers, for god's sake."

"From what Shinji's been telling me", Hikari butted in, "The two of you have been treated like crap literally the entire time you've been pilots. Shinji had been intentionally kept in the dark about everything until the day of the first attack. Rei, you've been living in an underground apartment away from almost anyone else. Both of you have been forced to go to school while still recovering from serious injuries. I had to quit my part-time job because there was no way I could juggle work, school, and training, so now I don't have any spending money for myself or my little sister. This isn't sustainable. Surely you can understand that."

Rei just stared, her mind in panic mode. After a minute, she managed "What was that about going to Hokkaido?"

"Backup plan. If NERV doesn't accept our demands then we're just going to leave. Hokkaido is the best shot we have of losing surveillance without leaving the country. You're coming with us, by the way."

Rei looked at the camera in the corner of the room, silently watching and listening to them. "And you're just discussing this out in the open? You know we're still being monitored, right?"

Hikari let out a single laugh. "What are they going to do? We have the strongest Stands in the entire base. I've been told that everyone fighting against you wasn't enough to contain your Stand, and there's three of us. The only reason we haven't left already is because we actually do care about saving the world."

Rei let out a sigh of relief. "Okay. So you're not planning on blowing everything up and leaving immediately."

"No, why?" Shinji asked.

"Because I want to help you, silly." Rei shook her head. "If you'd come to me first before planning this out already, I would have pointed out that I can get face time with Gendo and phrased your demands as necessary to keep the unit from falling apart. I am officially squad leader, after all." The looks on Shini and Hikari's faces suggested to Rei that they'd never even thought of her helping out. It was slightly insulting -she'd been doing everything she could to act like a good leader to them- but also kind of amusing to see this bewilderment. She giggled and sat up, swinging her legs over the side of the bed and started to dig into the meal they'd kindly brought her. "So, let's talk terms. What exactly do you want changed?"

"Well, we want at least some control over our schedules." Shinji said. "Specifically, we want to be excused from mandatory attendance at school. Doing a full day of school and then several hours of training is nuts. So is having to go while crippled, like having an entire arm and eye completely disabled." He gave Rei a small look of disbelief.

"Also, we want a stipend like you seem to have." Hikari added. "If we're going to be doing the most adult job possible, the least they could do is pay us an infinitesimal fraction of what it must cost to run this circus."

"And this whole business of having to rush down below Tokyo-3 only to get catapulted back up again to fight the Angels is more than a little ridiculous. If there's already a car on standby to take us to the nearest elevator, couldn't that just be, like, a van with our combat gear in it?"

"Those are all good points," Rei said between bites of saucy potato, "I'm kind of ashamed I didn't think of any of that myself. Is there anything else?"

Shinji and Hikari looked at each other. "Uh. Not really," He said, "We honestly didn't expect to get this far this quickly."

"And what was your plan after coming to see me?"

"We… Didn't think that through either." Shinji scratched the back of his head. "We kinda just expected you to come along with us. Not immediately cede to what we had to say."

"Well here's what we'll do. I'll finish eating and get dressed, then you'll follow me up to Gendo's office. I'll present your demands to him and put my weight behind it. He'll cave. He has to."

Three hours later...

Shinji had never, ever seen his father so flustered and panicked in his life. The way he and Rei spoke, the way she managed to push his buttons in just the right way, it was almost like they were married. He and Hikari didn't even have to say anything, they just got sent straight to the financial offices and were issued very official NERV expense cards on the spot. Gendo seemed quite desperate to keep in their good graces. Yet another contradiction of the last nine years of Shinji's life.

As he laid there on a padded bench in one of the many small break areas scattered throughout NERV, listening to his SDAT player and staring at the new financial power he'd been given, Shinji lost track of time. Being underground, he didn't notice it was now solidly night, and was only roused from his trance when he heard a muffled "So are you planning on sleeping there tonight, or would you like a ride home?" through his earbuds. He sat up in a hurry and saw Misato standing over him, and he got the impression she'd been there for some time.

"Uh. Hi." Shinji managed. He didn't know what else to say.

"That's all I get, a 'hi', not 'yes Misato I'd like to not have to take public transit home in the dark'?" She shook her head. "Though I guess I should cut you some slack after the battle yesterday and apparently your very sudden growth of a spine. What happened?"

"Well it was mostly Hikari's idea, really." Shinji shifted a little. "Mostly what I did was answer her questions and filter out the swearing."

"Hmm, I see, sounds like you're developing a thing for her." Shinji got a mortified look on his face, and Misato laughed. "I kid, I kid. Come on, I'll give you a ride back to your apartment."

"Oh, yeah. Thanks." Shinji picked up his things and followed Misato to her car and they began the slow descent up through the geofront. He noticed that it looked very different at night - with no sunlight reflected, the only illumination was from harsh flood lighting set up sporadically on the ground and the deck lights of the lake's cruiser, though a myriad of red hazard lights also peppered the view.

"So I hear you got quite the package from Gendo." Misato stated out of the blue. "No more mandatory school, you got that card, and now I have to help set up an entire new branch of Section 2's support vehicles to act as mobile armories."

"Huh? Oh. Um. Sorry about that. I didn't mean to impact you personally."

"I mean, it is rather silly to collect you kids a kilometer underground just to shoot you back to the surface. Don't worry about it, it doesn't actually add much to my workload." Misato rolled down her window and stretched her arms all the way out, her left one basically right in front of Shinji's face, and made an obnoxiously loud yawning noise. "So… I do need to mention that you're welcome to move back in with me. I never looked at the surveillance footage because I think you deserve your privacy, but I can't imagine being by yourself made you feel better." She paused. "I think PenPen misses you. ...I miss you, too."

Shinji didn't have a mirror, but was certain he was blushing. He really wasn't used to people saying that. But at the same time, it kind of made him feel warm inside. She was right, too; it was miserable living alone. "Yeah… I think I'd like that." he sheepishly said.

END Part 1: Phantom Bonds

Follow this fic to see the action continue in OVA 1: Jet Alone!

The story will continue in Part 2: Angelic Tendency

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