Creation began on 05-02-17
Creation ended on 05-30-17
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Deliberate Risks
"That's odd," said Ritsuko, getting Misato and Fusei's attention during the morning synchronization test they were doing with the Fourth Child.
"What is?" Fusei asked; it had been a week since the Eighth Angel incident and things were slowly going back to their previous state.
"Commander Ikari hasn't been seen or heard from since the sub-commander went missing," she explained to them.
Ever since Fuyutsuki disappeared from incarceration, the base hadn't received any orders from the unscrupulous man in charge for some time. Any footage or audio recordings that might've led to the whereabouts or people that could've aided in the elderly man's disappearance had disappeared, as well.
"But…doesn't he do that even when an Angel's around?" Fusei questioned; all Ritsuko had confided in her was that Gendo was rarely around whenever an Angel was present, even disappearing for days or weeks when there was no immediate danger to the city, which seemed like a poor excuse for the commander to take advantage of.
"Except the absence would often leave the sub-commander in charge," said Misato to her; she didn't mind the authority of being in charge in the absence of both commanders, but the fact that Gendo was rarely there left much to question in his authority.
"Is it safe to speak one's mind here?" Fusei asked them.
"Yes," Ritsuko answered her.
"It might be better if he were absent from the base indefinitely. I wouldn't call it firing him or suspending him from duty, but he'd be unable to make choices that shouldn't even be followed."
"You mean, like the order he made to detonate Unit-01's arm in the last battle?" Misato asked her; Shinji had told her about the incident prior to the self-destruction of the Dummy Plug, and felt that, even if it had been her leading the mission, she couldn't order an Eva's limb to be detonated unless the pilot's synchronization was cut off first or reduced enough to spare them unnecessary pain.
"I…I don't believe it was the right choice when there were other alternatives to be considered," she responded, but in truth, she just wouldn't do that to anyone unless there was no other choice.
"I don't blame you for thinking that," said Ritsuko to her; of all the personnel within NERV, Fusei was the only actual parent of an Eva pilot and was likely influenced by her maternal instincts to keep her son safe from harm. "Subject change, Hitode. Kaji asked me to return the item you lent him earlier and to tell you that it was quite the knockout."
The faux-blond then dug into the right pocket of her lab coat and gave the other woman a small, wrapped object.
"I do hope it helped him to a degree," she expressed, putting the object in her lab coat's left pocket. "Subject change. Mister Aida's synchronization is thirty-nine percent. Having him tested while he's still mending physically isn't helping either himself or us."
Ritsuko checked and confirmed her conclusion.
"Okay," she accepted. "We'll retest the First and Second Children and record their data for future installment in the Dummy Plugs."
"We're through with you for today, Mr. Aida," Misato told the boy through the intercom. "The medical team will vacate you from the Entry Plug and escort you back to your room to resume your recovery."
"Yes, ma'am," Kensuke responded.
-x-
In his room, Shinji, enjoying his weekend off, courtesy of Ritsuko after the last synchronization test didn't go so well, was reading a book on recipes that he decided to pick up on after recalling an earlier conversation he had with his mother about having an aspiration or even a hobby. He didn't understand what was wrong, as he had just cleared his mind like he always did, but the synchronization was now less than fifty percent. All Ritsuko and Misato told him was that it was likely a glitch in the Eva's system that was affecting his sync ratio.
Knock, knock. Someone knocked at his door.
"Who is it?" He asked.
"Asuka," answered the redhead outside. "May I come in?"
"Yes."
The door slid open and the girl stepped inside.
"I just heard from Misato that Kensuke was temporarily tested with the Eva, but his injuries make it impossible for him to have a sufficient sync ratio with it, so he's back to just being on the mend until he recovers," she told him. "And they're about to test the Dummy Plug again, but with your synchronization data to make sure it will work until they figure out what the glitch is with Unit-01."
"Thank you," he responded, while not truly disappointed in his poor synchronization with the Eva, pleased that Kensuke wouldn't be piloting an Eva until his injuries healed up. "What about you?"
"They're gonna retest me and Rei later today," she answered him. "There is no way I'm going to let some autopilot system pilot my Unit-02."
"My mother is just trying to make sure that you don't get hurt when facing an Angel that is likely to have an edge against us."
"As much as I respect her doing her job, I still have my pride."
"Except that pride isn't always a good thing, Asuka. One of the things I recently learned from my mother is that pride is often viewed as a sin because people focus too much on their personal value, status or accomplishments. You focus too much on your position as an Eva pilot, it could backfire."
"Yeah, I've read about it before you were drafted into being a pilot, Shinji."
"Then you know how the prideful were punished for their narcissism during medieval times…and how the proud can fall from their podium when something worse can happen to them."
Before Asuka could say something to counter his argument, their cell phones rang.
Sighing, Shinji answered his whilst Asuka answered hers.
"This is Shinji," he uttered.
-x-
A new Angel was approaching the city…and the defense measures to intercept it or even to slow it down were proving ineffective against it. It was massive, brutal…and laying waste to whatever attacked it and then some.
"At this rate, it'll be here in less than ten minutes," said Shigeru to Misato and Ritsuko.
"How far out are the Second and Third Children?" Ritsuko asked Hyuga.
"It'll be eight minutes before they get here!" He answered her.
"All we have right now is Ms. Ayanami and the Dummy System," said Fusei to Misato and Ritsuko, keeping Kensuke out of the situation.
"We'll send Rei out in Unit-01," Ritsuko suggested. "Load a Dummy Plug into Unit-02."
Fusei did as instructed, but had her concerns about sending the albino girl out in Unit-01 after the compatibility test where the purple Eva went crazy. It was that particular Eva that, despite her would-be courage to stand near it (even if it was only for a short while), just gave her the creeps.
-x-
The civilians were in a frightful frenzy! Trying to reach the nearest designated shelter to wait out the rampage of the Angel. Because of the streets being packed with cars and bikes, with people taking whatever they could carry, it made getting to the Geo-Front difficult for Shinji and Asuka.
"We're not going to get there in time!" Shinji gasped, seeing the Angel as it appeared from behind a hillside, being blasted with rockets from helicopters and jets, but its AT-Field kept it safe from harm. "Oh, no!"
"We can't give up!" Asuka told him, grabbing by his right arm and dragging him away with her.
The Angel unleashed energy blasts from its head and attacked a section of the city, reducing it to a smoldering hole.
Before it could do anything else, an Eva arose from out of the ground.
It was Unit-01.
"Unit-01?" Asuka questioned. "They must've put Wonder Girl in it."
Then, another Eva arose from underground. This time, it was Unit-02.
"Oh, Gott im Himmel, they didn't use the autopilot system on my Eva!" She shouted.
"What choice did they have? We're not there!"
-x-
The Entry Plug was beginning to no longer smell like him in Rei's mind. She deduced that it was because of the Hitode woman; the more she and Ikari-Kun grew in their relationship, the less she felt she was able to recognize his scent in the Eva…and it felt wrong.
Armed with a Pellet Rifle, the purple Eva fired at the Angel while the red one brandished its Prog. Knife and ran around the buildings on streets that were clear of people; with the majority of the shelters packed, there were few people present with the exception of the bunch around Shinji and Asuka.
"Unit-02 will take out the Angel from behind while Unit-01 engages with the Pellet Rifle," Major Katsuragi ordered Rei.
The pellets just bounced off the Angel's hide and fell to the ground and several buildings; even with its AT-Field slightly diminished, this Angel was in a class by itself in terms of defensive power.
When the rifle was emptied, the Angel unsheathed a strange weapon: Where two arms would've been if it had been more humanoid, a pair of thin, paper-like whips unfurled themselves and immediately slashed through three buildings in between it and Unit-01, causing massive damage as its rifle was sliced in half and itself being forced backwards away.
"Rei, fall back and retrieve a second rifle," she heard Major Katsuragi order her.
"Yes, Major Katsuragi," she responded, but something was off right now.
Instead of falling back a few blocks away to where the backup rifle was located in an armament building, Unit-01 charged towards the Angel!
"Rei, what are you doing?!" Major Katsuragi demanded. "Fall back!"
"Unit-01 is not following command," the girl responded; try as she might to will it to do as ordered, the Eva was not listening.
-x-
"What is going on?" Misato demanded from Ritsuko.
"The synchronization is being rejected," the faux-blond revealed as she checked on the terminal. "It's gone berserk again."
Fusei didn't like this. She had seen the earlier footage of Unit-01 engaging the Third Angel back when Shinji was initially drafted into service by Gendo, and was disturbed by the unpredictable brutality that had been unleashed by it. While she didn't put it past Shinji to be capable of similar brutality, the very idea of him having anything to do with the way Unit-01 behaved in any sortie was unlikely…and now she had a better understanding of how and why.
"Fusei," went Ritsuko to her, "did you remember to install the emergency feature inside Rei's plug?"
"Yes, two days ago," she answered, "but unless the pilot is placed in danger, the emergency system won't do anything."
On the screens, the purple Eva had dodged one of the Angel's strange whips, but lost its left arm. It managed to slam into the Angel, forcing it backwards, but it caused Unit-02 to become part of the massive blow as they all crashed right into a hillside.
"I don't like this, Fusei," Misato told her. "Eject Rei's plug, immediately."
"I can't force-eject the plug! Unit-01 has no force-ejection capabilities!"
"Say what?!"
This was an eye-opener. For all Fusei knew, she thought Misato had an intimate knowledge of the purple Eva; the only reason she knew about this tidbit of information was because she wanted to make absolutely sure that her son was kept safe from inevitable harm. When she found out that it had no emergency system for ejecting the plug, she had put in a request for the Eva to be worked on to include this feature.
"No force-eject for Unit-01!" She told Misato. "I'm trying to activate the Dummy System that was inserted into the plug with Rei! That should get the plug out!"
She typed in the necessary command codes, but received quite the surprise. The Eva rejected the signal activation code for the Dummy System.
"Okay, we have a serious problem with Unit-01," she told Misato.
-x-
As the remaining civilians ran into their designated shelters, Shinji and Asuka were able to run faster to the Geo-Front. The sooner they got there, the better, even though the Evas wouldn't be there for them.
The sight of Unit-02 getting up and trying to tear off the Angel's armored, skull-like face made Asuka wonder how the Dummy System could make the red behemoth seem so vicious.
The Angel then wrapped one of its paper-like limbs around its head and lifted it off, throwing it aside.
"Oh, come on!" Asuka groaned.
"Asuka, it's an autopilot system," Shinji sighed. "It's always going to have kinks in its design that need to be reworked until it can mirror or surpass us in terms of performance."
They reached an entrance way to the Geo-Front and ran inside.
-x-
"…Wait a minute, what do you mean, the Eva's rejecting the Dummy System?" Misato questioned Fusei.
"That's what I mean," she explained. "It's rejecting every attempt to activate it."
"What about Rei?"
"We're still reading her vitals, but her synchronization's nonexistent. That Eva's got a mind of its own."
On the screens, Unit-01, even with just its right arm, fought against the Angel no differently from when it fought the Third Angel. It behaved like a savage.
"Are we sure that Rei isn't controlling it?" Misato asked.
"I'm dead serious on her synchronization being nonexistent with the Eva," Fusei answered. "This thing's got a mind of its own."
RIP! The Eva tore the Angel's right limb off like it was literally made of paper, and caused some of its side to explode small sprays of blood into the air.
"Rei, are you alright?" Misato asked the albino girl.
"She's angry," they heard Rei on the intercom; the internal camera had been disabled.
"What do you mean? Who's angry?" Ritsuko questioned.
"The Eva," she answered. "The Eva is angry."
This was a shocker to hear.
The Eva then, with the assistance of Unit-02, tore the head of the Angel off successfully, exposing a lot of muscle tissue and no trace of bone, suggesting this Angel had some sort of exoskeletal structure or only possessed an incomplete internal structure. Then, without warning, Unit-01 began to tear through the Angel with its teeth.
"You've gotta be kidding me," Fusei uttered; it should've been impossible for an Evangelion to be capable of consumption beyond electrical requirements.
"It's eating the Angel?" Misato questioned.
It can't be, thought Ritsuko, realizing what the Eva was doing. It's ingesting the S² Organ into itself.
In less than a minute, Unit-01 had eaten away at the majority of the Angel and left the remains to Unit-02, who just seemed to pick at them before shutting down.
"Unit-02 has gone silent," Fusei informed the bridge.
Then, Unit-01 also shut down, opening up its back and ejecting the plug.
"Retrieve the pilot and Evas," Misato ordered, "and I want Unit-01 on lockdown."
-x-
"…Would you care for seconds, Mr. Fuyutsuki?" An elderly woman asked the man on the run from NERV.
"Oh, no. No thank you, ma'am," he answered, setting his empty bowl of teriyaki chicken and chicken-flavored ramen down. "One bowl was enough. Thank you again."
"So long as that man…or anyone that might be looking for you, for that matter, can't find you here, there's really no danger having you here."
"I pray that Ikari doesn't come looking for me here."
It was only by mere luck (and simple reasoning) that the disgraced sub-commander of NERV found sanctuary for the time being at the residence of a relative of a NERV worker.
"Could you tell me something?" The woman asked him.
"Sure," he answered.
"What is he like? I mean…is he a gentle soul…or a hardened soul?"
"He seems to be both at times. Very sensitive…but with difficulties due to his childhood."
The woman then looked at a nearby wall with several pictures hanging on it. She focused on one that featured a man, a woman and two girls in front of a cherry blossom tree. And next to it was a picture of one of the girls with a boy that was slightly older than herself, laying on the grass of a small hill.
"I look forward to the day where I can meet him for the first time in many years," she uttered.
Even though it had been three days since his arrival, Fuyutsuki still found it a little weird to be in the presence of Fusei's mother and Shinji's maternal grandmother. This was a woman who had only met her grandson just once, and that was when he was just a newborn to a fourteen-year-old mother…and hasn't seen him since because of the Ikari couple.
"Again, my apologies for what they did to your family," he apologized to her.
"You didn't know," she responded. "Blame goes only to those that know they're committing an injustice and do so, regardless of whom they hurt. Forgiveness to those that seek to rectify the atrocities committed in the past without creating new ones."
Except Fuyutsuki felt there would be no forgiveness for the Ikaris. Not with their reasons or agendas. And he had to accept that he was rather foolish and pathetic to let past affection and personal hatred define his former loyalty to the paramilitary agency.
"You must be very proud of your younger daughter," he uttered, reminding her that Fusei didn't stop looking for Shinji, even when it seemed hopeless.
"Extremely," she responded. "She never stopped feeling concern for him. Even when her chances of finding him were slim to none, she never stopped hoping."
-x-
Shinji wasn't sure what was more disturbing: The fact that Unit-01 ate an Angel…or the fact that it was suspended from duty after the battle. He was starting to think that it was a good thing he and Asuka never got involved in the battle against the Angel. And now, standing in front of the caged Eva that had defeated an Angel by eating it, he wasn't so sure if piloting this one was safe for anyone.
One of the worst things about what happened was that the Eva rejected the activation of the Dummy System, which put Rei in jeopardy, something Fusei was trying to remedy, along with how this particular Eva was the only one that lacked the emergency ejection system present in the other Evas.
"So, your Eva's off duty," he heard Asuka say to him, and he turned to his right to face her. "Does your mother know what's wrong with it?"
"It's become defective, she and Misato say," he explained; he had a feeling that his mother hadn't told him the whole situation with the Eva yet, but had a reason not to based on concern. "They're not sure when or if it will be resolved."
"I guess that means you're out of a job, then."
Shinji didn't try to retort to that.
"Did you hear about Ayanami?" He asked her instead.
"Yeah, she had no control over the Eva at all when she faced the Angel. It was completely out of control and placed her in danger. They're retesting her with Unit-00 and trying to get the autopilot system to work for it."
"There's some doubt that Unit-01 will ever face combat until its kinks have been worked out. And it was something about what she said."
"What did she say?"
"The Eva was angry."
"That doesn't make any sense."
"It's still what she said."
-x-
"…I don't like this," went Misato to Ritsuko as they were on the bridge in Central Dogma, discussing the status of Unit-01 and the Third Child without Fusei's presence. "I understand that there are still three Angels left, but if we try sending out Shinji in Unit-01 as it currently is, with no way to keep it in check, we risk putting him in danger…and opening ourselves up to his mother's fury."
"That's just the worst-case scenario," Ritsuko informed her. "Only if the Eva refuses to work with the Dummy System. It worked with Unit-02, but if Unit-01 refuses to work with it, we're short on options and alternatives."
"If this is the case, then I would authorize suspending Unit-01 from combat duty indefinitely until it's straighten out."
"Only Commander Ikari has the authority to authorize this."
"If he wants to question it, I will take it up with him when or if he returns from wherever he is. Until then, we're not using Unit-01 if it doesn't work with the Dummy System or a pilot when expected to."
As she walked away from Ritsuko, Misato was hoping that she was doing the right thing by suspending Shinji from pilot duty until they could work out the bugs in Unit-01, such as installing the necessary auto-ejection system to evacuate the Entry Plug from danger. This…and because of other factors that needed to be taken into account with their current situation that was hardly NERV-related.
Ritsuko, on the other hand, was trying to figure out how to get the purple Eva to fall in line with the program after that last battle…and if Commander Ikari insisted on the Third Child continuing to pilot the Eva, unaware or even uncaring of the potential risks involved now that it possessed an S² Engine in it…and disregarding the pilot's safety, there was no telling what could happen.
I better find out what happened with the Eva back when it was being built, she thought, turning to the MAGI. The more that's learned, the better prepared we'll be.
-x-
Three Angels left, thought Shinji as he walked down the street to Misato's building as the sun started to go down. How soon will they appear?
Suddenly, a black Sedan rolled up on the road next to him and three men in black suits stepped out and surrounded him.
"Pilot Ikari?" One of them spoke.
"Who's asking?" He responded, and then saw his Commander Ikari climb out of the Sedan. Oh. You.
"I'll only tell you this once, boy," Gendo uttered. "You're to cease your involvement with Dr. Hitode, effective immediately."
Again, Gendo was trying to keep him away from his mother out of the depraved sense that she wasn't his mother and had no right to be near him or interfere with his agenda.
"And what if I refuse to listen to you?" He asked him, refusing to be intimidated by the man that wasn't his father and had no right to order him around. "What should happen if I choose not to follow that order at all?"
"Then something terrible will befall her," he answered him; if causing something terrible, such as a car accident or a house robbery gone wrong, to happen to Fusei in order to break the Third Child, then Gendo was willing to go to such extremes to make sure he fell in line. "She only works at NERV. I run the agency. Do the math."
Then he got back into the Sedan with the suits and drove off, leaving the boy on the sidewalk to ponder the intimidation tactic used on him.
For the first time in the short period that he found out about his real mother and everything about his other blood relatives, Shinji feared for Fusei's safety. He had just gotten her back in his life after fourteen years of being separated from her…and now this crazy man was threatening to take her away from him. If he obeyed this order to stay away from her, he wouldn't be able to forgive himself for such a heartache. But if he didn't, he was bound for heartache if something happened to her…and he'd know who was responsible and why. No matter which choice he made, it was the wrong choice…because it wasn't even a choice.
"Damn that man," he sighed, and turned around.
-x-
Failure to synchronize with the Dummy Plug. That was the only way to sum it up. Not once or twice, but eight times, to boot. Nothing either Fusei or Ritsuko did seemed to work with Unit-01. And the worst part of it all was that the Dummy Plug they were using had Shinji's earlier synchronization data installed in it, and it worked well with Unit-02 and met a sufficient expectation with Unit-00 after an internal software upgrade was made.
"I want to say that Unit-01 isn't just a temperamental Eva," said Fusei to Ritsuko, "it's a finicky one, to boot. It seems that, no matter what we try, it won't accept the Dummy System into itself. It's like it knows there's not a real person inside it."
"Probably a reason it was deemed the Test-Type to begin with," added Ritsuko in agreement with her. "We should attempt to test the First Child with it and see what happens."
"Are you thinking if we should test Shinji with it?"
"No. It's probably best if we didn't. His synchronization with it has dropped substantially, so there's no telling if he could sync with it to an acceptable extent. Plus, because it refuses to sync with the Dummy System that has his data installed, then maybe…we shouldn't risk testing him with it."
"Professional decision…or personal?"
Ritsuko turned to face the younger woman with her in the room just outside the chamber with Unit-01, and could see that there was no fooling her with her logic.
"Personal," she answered her. "If it risks your son's safety, then it's always personal."
Fusei turned away from the faux-blond woman and expressed, "Thank you for your opinion."
"Don't mention it. The sooner we find out what's wrong, the sooner we can find a solution."
-x-
Misato was in a bind right now. It wasn't her head or arm injuries that irritated her, but the lack of communication from Kaji.
Where is that jerk when you need him? She wondered, looking down a hall that led to Terminal Dogma. I wonder if Fusei had any problems like this when she was dating her boyfriend? Oh, who am I kidding? There's no way in Hell she had any of these problems when she was dating her boyfriend! He died shortly after Second Impact because of what the Ikaris did to him, her, and their son! There were no problems at all in their relationship!
Turning a corner, the purple-haired strategist saw someone further down the hall enter a room. Following them, she discovered that it was none other than Kaji.
What the Hell is he doing? She wondered.
-x-
Being given the rest of the night off (and because Ritsuko claimed to have an idea on how to get Unit-01 to function with the Dummy System), Fusei, in her Prius, was trying to gather her thoughts as she drove to her apartment. But there was something in the back of her mind that kept her from thinking about the Dummy System…and thinking about Shinji.
But why am I thinking about him at a time like this? She wondered, turning a corner and approaching the parking lot in front of her building. Huh?
Sitting on the ground away from the parking spaces was Shinji, who seemed to be bothered by something. And it piqued her interests in why he was there.
"Shinji, what are you doing out here?" She asked him as she got out of her car.
Getting up, Shinji slowly met with her and said, "I got threatened with your life by one of the people that took me from you years ago."
"What?"
"That man, Commander Ikari. He threatened me with your life if I didn't stop talking to you."
Fusei couldn't believe this. Of all the things that could've gone wrong with the people her son was unknowingly or unwillingly involved with, this was a new level of wrong. Having her own life threatened by a guy that, alongside his dead wife, took her son from her…and then being informed by her son.
"Does anyone know you're here?" She asked him.
"No," he answered her. "I was on my way back to Misato's when he just showed up and said what he said to me and left. After that, I couldn't go back there. I came here and waited for you to show up."
Which, in Fusei's mind, mirrored something she used to do when she was little and her father was alive, waiting around for him to return home from work.
"Thank you for warning me, Shinji," she told him, and then held him.
-x-
…There was something not right about Adam, thought Misato as she drove back to her apartment. There's no way he looked like that when I first saw him. Something is off here.
Parking her Renault, she got out, got into the elevator and pressed the button for her level. If that giant in Terminal Dogma was the First Angel, she was curious to why NERV had it and what its role in this Instrumentality Project was. It was just another thing to add to the list of problems that existed at NERV, just like the not-so-current situation with the Third Child and his familiar ties and those he wasn't related to.
If the Eva's become a danger to the pilots, then Shinji shouldn't pilot Unit-01 at all, she thought, not wanting to put the boy in a dangerous position where it was either risk personal safety or the fate of the world from the Angels.
When the elevator stopped and reached her floor, she walked out to her apartment door and unlocked it.
"I'm home," she announced.
The sound of footsteps came and Misato saw Asuka, who seemed disappointed.
"Shinji didn't come back with you?" She asked her.
"No, I… You mean, he didn't come back after he left NERV?"
"Un-uh. He should've been back over an hour ago."
One thought came to Misato's mind seconds later when she found that Shinji wasn't here: Call Fusei to see if she had seen him. Taking out her phone, she dialed the number.
"Hello, Hitode residence," a female voice spoke up after answering the phone.
"Hello, Fusei, it's Misato speaking."
"Hello, Misato."
"Uh, look, the reason I'm calling is… Have you seen or heard from Shinji?"
"Yeah, he's with me right now. He had to inform of something very…troubling."
"Troubling? How troubling?"
"According to Shinji, that man in charge of NERV threatened him with my life if he didn't stop talking to me."
Misato couldn't believe this. She sympathized for Shinji; the boy had just gotten to building up his relationship with his mother…and Gendo Ikari was trying to tear them apart by threatening the kid with her life.
How depraved is this man? She wondered.
Since it was approaching the eleventh hour, it was decided that Shinji would stay at Fusei's until tomorrow, and it was hoped that everyone (really just those that were affected by the threat) would have a clearer state of mind.
"Well?" Asuka asked her, only knowing that Shinji was spending the night at his mother's.
"Commander Ikari threatened him earlier this evening," Misato explained.
"I didn't see that coming. The guy's a complete nutter."
-x-
It was strange to be in his mother's apartment for the first time. While Shinji had his suspicion that she was still trying to sort out, Fusei's place did feel welcoming…and had a lived-in sense of effort thrown into it.
"Um…" He heard her voice behind him as he stood in the living room area, and turned to face her. "Are you hungry, Shinji?"
"Um, yes. Uh, famished."
It was obvious to any sane person that both mother and son were embarrassed right now; Fusei because having Shinji in her apartment was unexpected after discovering that her own life was threatened…and Shinji because he didn't know what his mother did in her home.
-x-
Ritsuko had to give Fusei credit for her work on MAGI Balthasar. Whether or not it was because of her skill in coding or because of her sense of motherhood, the supercomputer portion that represented the original designer's mother aspect worked faster and more efficient than the scientist and woman aspects did. Unfortunately, though, just because Balthasar worked better than the rest of the trio of supercomputers, it did nothing to improve the goal of making Unit-01 work with a Dummy Plug, no matter how many attempts were made. She had made five additional attempts with the Dummy Plug with Shinji's synchronization data installed and two attempts with Rei's data, but the purple Eva simply refused to cooperate with her.
"Has there been any progress with the Dummy System?" She heard Commander Ikari's voice behind her in the room she was trying to test Unit-01 in.
"The Dummy System has made some results with Unit-00 and better results with Unit-02," she explained, turning to face the man, "but there has been no such results with Unit-01. Multiple Dummy Plugs have been tried with variations in the installed synchronization data of the First and Third Children, but the Eva has rejected each and every one of them."
Gendo's face remained the same.
"Then retest the Third Child with Unit-01," he ordered her.
"Sir, Unit-01 was involved in a battle with the most recent Angel and acquired its S² Engine in the aftermath," she informed him. "We've yet to test the First Child with the Eva. We simply have no usable data to show what could happen if we attempted synchronization with a living pilot."
"Then we shall see what could happen," he responded to her.
-x-
"Urgh…" Shinji, asleep on a spare futon in a room across the hall from his mother's, shuddered as he felt an unusual chill run down his spine as he turned onto his left side, his mother's Phoenix charm dangling from his hand.
To be continued…