AN: This thing has been laying completed on my computer for a week and I just kept spell checking it way too many times so I decided to man up and just post the damn thing.
The day had been quiet and rather unremarkable, nothing out of the ordinary had happened, Shinji woke up, went to school, and headed to NERV, but his key card was failing to work.
Shinji's eyebrow rose slightly as he ran his card through the scanner for a second time. Nothing.
"Weird. Ayanami, try it with yours please." After no effect either a rather irate Asuka pushed her way to the door.
"What are you two idiots doing?!"Upon running her own card through...nothing. "This thing must be broken or something!"Shinji now had that feeling in his gut, even so, he followed Asuka's lead elsewhere while thinking of the possibilities of what was happening. When they arrive in the next location failure. And then another one, and another one.
"This one's failed too," Asuka said aloud with a sigh.
"None of the facilities work, unusual" Replied the ever stoic Rei, Shinji for his part continued to run possibilities through his mind.
"Could this mean that something's happened in the geofront?"Asuka Asked, Shinji had long ago reached that conclusion, but what exactly had happened?
"There's something fishy going on, "He said, Asuka looked at him.
"No shit Sherlock!"He sighed at her constant aggressiveness.
"I mean, worse then it looks, the only reason such a failure would happen on a large scale would be if the Geo-front was fully or partially offline."Asuka's eyes widen slightly at the implication
"So, your saying headquarters is under attack, or maybe a power outage?"He considered both implications.
"An attack? I doubt it, that wouldn't disable all of the entryways and a blackout.."He considers it for a moment, it was theoretically impossible for all 3 of NERV's generators to stop working at once, especially considering one of them was a series of Nuclear reactors that weren't meant to ever be disconnected from the main grid. Unless of course, sabotage had happened. "...a blackout then."
Asuka sighs with exasperation and begins pulling out something from her bag.
"What are you looking for?"He asks, she immediately moves her face up uncomfortably close and shouts.
"Looking for my emergency manual!"She then looks him up and down and says. "And why aren't you looking for yours, stupid!"
"No need, Come along, I've got the manual right here."He taps the side of his head, Asuka just sighs and follows him along, with Ayanami following silently behind.
And soon they came upon their first hurdle, lo and behold a door.
"And how are we supposed to get past this?!"Was it just him or was Asuka shouting more than usual today? Probably just his imagination
"Like this"And with that he took a deep breath and began to manually move the door's rotating lock, slowly leading it open. Their advance continued into unlit hallways and soon, they were lost, a fact Asuka seemed very pleased to point out.
"Well, you've gone and gotten us lost third!"He sighed.
"We're not lost, simply not on the right path."Of course had anyone said that besides him he would have told them 'that's the exact definition of being lost, you massive dumb ass'.
"Silence... I can hear a man's voice."Rei stated, Shinji quickly sprung to attention to pick up the man's voice. Hyuga by the sounds of it
"AN ANGEL IS ATTACKING I REPORT AN ANGEL IS ATTACKING!"Shinji's eyes widened in conjunction with Asuka's.
"An angel?!"They both blurt out at the same second.
"Damn it...Okay, time to take the alternative path."Shinji says, Asuka looks furious
"You knew another path and didn't tell us all along?!"He jumped back at her sudden outburst of fury.
"Well, it's kind of...humiliating, to be honest."And a few seconds later Asuka Agreed with Shinji on something for the first time in their lives.
"Hmp, this really is the worse!"Her statement was not left unanswered as Shinji quickly replied with an:
"I told you so."And so they continued walking or to be more precise crawling along in the ventilation system before finding their way onto the main path again. Once they arrived at a crossroads Asuka was quick to declare their way forward.
"To the right!"Ayanami raises a finger in protest.
"The correct way is left..."
"Well, what do you say Shinji-Kun. Who's right?"He had a feeling that this question had a lot more meaning than 'left or right' but seeing as one, he knew the correct way and two, the stake of the human race was at stake he quickly responded.
"Left."He answered to which she scoffed.
"Well both of you idiots are wrong anyway!"And as such, she stormed off to the right. wait doesn't that lead to a-
"ASUKA!WAIT UP!"He went unheard as she proceeded to rush to open the door, only to be met with the angel. Both he and Ayanami looked at her with a deadpan expression.
"W-well, we've confirmed Visual contact with the Angel, now we need to hurry to find the Evangelions!"
Soon they found themselves at another crossroads, this time Ayanami lead the way.
"...Your a favored smart ass who thinks she's better because she's treated differently than us!"Asuka and Ayanami were having a fight(Or Asuka was insulting Ayanami while she ignored the redhead)He sighed, now was not really the place for them to do this.
"You always have that smug look on your face"Ayanami ignored her and this angered Asuka who stormed up to the blue-haired girl "Do you think you can act superior just because you're treated better is that it?!"Ayanami was about to respond but Shinji was done.
"Stop it!"They both look at him with shock, well Asuka did, Rei had her usual expression"Save this for when the fate of the world isn't at stake damn it!"
Soon, they found themselves before a locked door, one of the big ones.
"Fuck..we're going around."He said Asuka stooped him as he tried to advance.
"What do you think you're doing ordering us around like that?!"He didn't have time for this, he had time for very few things and most certainly not this.
"Look, I don't give a crap about who the hell you think is 'leading' us if you know what you're doing then just lead us damn it!"She look offended at him for a second before grabbing him by the wrist and leading him ahead. Moving through the ducts proved to be another problem.
"Don't look forward, pervert!"He couldn't really follow this request mostly because he needed to look forward to move. "What did I just tell you, pervert, idiot, jerk!"Vents aren't meant to take the stress of a 14-year-old girl trying to beat the ever living hell out of a 14-year-old Boy and soon those they stood on collapsed.
As soon as he got up he headed to Ritsuko. "Evas how are they, report."
"They are ready and on standby for you."His eyebrow raised and soon she caught on to his confusion. "They were prepared manually, your father's idea." As Shinji looked up he saw his father along with a few other NERV personnel pull the entry plug open. "Seems like he knew you would come."
"Got it, I won't disappoint you, thank you, THANK YOU, FATHER!"The man in question looked at him and smiled as he began to prepare to activate his unit. And soon, everything was in place.
"Unit 01, reporting as ok for combat..wait no one outside the Evas can even hear me...right."He sighed at his own stupidity before continuing on, the 3 units soon beginning their movement through the shafts.
"Oiii, I look so pathetic."Shinji sighed and moved on, ignoring Asuka's comment
Soon they found themselves in the Vertical shaft, and then began the rain of acid, in an attempt to dodge the angel's attack Unit-02 slipped causing it to fall on Unit-00 which caused it to in turn fall into unit-01. Thankfully for the lot of them, Shinji was quick to react, projecting an AT field in which they could stand on, temporarily at least.
"It appears that the Target is trying to invade NERV using a liquid Solvent.."Shinji nearly responded with an 'oh, no shit Sherlock' but he felt that would be an inappropriate response for the person in question.
"The question is how we are going to beat it. Our packs have 3 more minutes of power and our rifles went down when you 2 ungracefully fell on me."Shinji said rather gloomily, soon however he heard words that gave him a spark of hope.
"I have a plan."Shinji snapped to attention at the Redhead's words, this better be a good one. "One of us neutralizes the Angel's AT field and protects the other from the Acid while they attack it, the last unit will go and retrieve the rifle and hand them to offense!"
"I see, I shall take the defense."Ayanami was quick to say, but Shinji decided to butt in immediately after.
"What, Hardly, I have the best AT Field manipulation."
"Sorry, but it won't be either of you."Shinji's eyes widen, she couldn't possibly mean? "It'll be me"
"No, its too dangerous, like I said I have the best AT field manip-" she interrupted him.
"I've got this Shinji-kun and besides I still have to pay you back for last time."What last tim-Oh, that.
"Going out to lunch with me would suffice you know, putting your life on the line isn't necessary to pay me back!"She seemed to ignore him but a slight reddening of her cheeks could be seen.
"Shinji, your offense, Wonder girl you are picking up the rifle and giving it to Shinji." Rei nodded.
"Understood."Asuka cuts the feed to Unit-00.
"Oh and Shinji-Kun, I'll take you up on that lunch offer,n-not that it means anything, Baka!"He looked at her directly through the feed.
"Got it"And with this she jumped up, taking the brunt of the acidic attacks of the angel, and while she pretended not to feel anything, Shinji could see the clenching of her teeth that indicated her pain quite clearly to him.
"Asuka! Ayanami hurry up!"Soon the rifle is in his hands. "Out of the way!"
With this Asuka dives out of the way, allowing Shinji to load the Angel with as many bullets as the magazine could fit before throwing the rifle aside to catch the falling unit-02.
"Now we're even Baka-Shinji"He smiled at her through the feed.
"Yeah, even."
"Without artificial light...the sky looks so much more beautiful," Shinji says, eyes glued to the sky.
"But without light, it feels like there are no humans here."Shinji turns his vision to the city below as the lights come to life "See, much better."He smiles.
"Aye, the city lights also have their own beauty I'll admit."
"Mankind has always feared darkness, so it scrapes at its edges with fire. Man creates life by diminishing the darkness."Rei said,Asuka continued looking up as did Shinji.
"That's what makes mankind special, we fear the unknown so we shed light on it, I suppose that must be why the angels attack us."And in part, it was.
"What are you, stupid? Who knows what they think"Shinji extended his hand toward the sky.
"Yeah...who knows?"