In the grand scheme of things, nobody really explains the reason for synch ratio drills. They serve no purpose in the long run, as narrative causality always determines how good or bad things go for the pilots. If anything, they did the opposite of denoting pilot suitability: the most erratic pilot gets to be a god and the "best" pilot ends up Eva food. The one with the lowest consistent ratio is the one who can unmake the world, so that doesn't even do anything. It's a terrible ranking metric, unless playing a video game where it is given a tangible effect. Not like that didn't stop Asuka from gloating about her scores, however.

When they played Super [REDACTED] Wars, she wouldn't shut up about how she hit the damage cap. 400% Synch Ratio, she'd say; 114156 damage, she'd say. Conveniently, she'd forget that it was the Unison Kick that nets the magic number; a combination attack with Shinji. Bringing up this fact would earn a smack on the head and a relegation to lackey status for the Third Child. That was a pointless interlude, much like synch ratio tests were pointless exercises. Even Ritsuko seemed to be realizing this; the more recent tests were more about pushing the limits higher. When asked as to why, she just muttered something about Dirac Seas and hyperspace. As long as there were no ghostly versions of the Children or crippling emotional issues bubbling to the surface, things would stay pretty normal. The worst part about synch tests is the waiting period right afterward. You have the LCL sticking to you and you've just taken a shower but the feeling just doesn't come off. You have to do something to take your mind off of the itching sensation. Or the fact that you smell like an unloved tampon. It is under these conditions we find Shinji Ikari in his latest attempt to reach out to/get in the pants of one Asuka Langley [REDACTED].

"Hey Asuka."

"What?" Asuka looks at him sideways, brushing dried LCL out of her hair. The stuff was so difficult to clean out. Loath as she was to admit, Asuka kind of liked being in the entry plug. It was like being with her mama all the time. She felt safe in the shallow womb analogue, plus it was nice to be able to vent to someone who understood her. Mama wasn't a PhD in Psychology for nothing.

"I had the weirdest dream last night, but before I tell you, you have to promise me something."

Her eyebrow twitches. "What kind of dream is this?"

He sighs. "Look, just don't hit me after I tell you okay?"

The eyebrow twitches up a notch higher. "This is one of those perverted dreams, isn't it?" She purses her lips and pouts. "Were you choking me when you fucked me this time?"

Shinji almost literally jumps out of his plug suit at that one. Why would she jump to that conclusion first? More importantly, why hadn't he thought of that one before? A shameful part of his mind files the concept of erotic asphyxiation away as the rest runs .

"Oh god, why would you even joke about things like that!"

She gives a trollish smile. "Because the two most deviant things you do involving me are choking and sodomy. If it's deviant enough to require a cease-fire, it must be a combination of the two. It's Occam's Razor, dumkoph."

Shinji's posture straightens, hand on the back of his head. It's depressing how little she thinks of me, if I didn't think worse of myself I'd be crushed. "Well, you're half right. We were making love." He pauses, overcome by the smug his distaff counterpart exudes. She could probably out-smug my father, he thinks. Scary thought, that. "We were making love and you wanted a sandwich, so I made you one."

"That's pretty boring, you were probably hungry when you went to sleep," she snorts. "You're wasting my time Shinjecchi."

Shinji begins to speak with his hands, maybe pantomime will help. "We were in the bedroom at the time. I took you from the bedroom to the kitchen and I made you a sandwich. My penis did not leave your general vaginal area for the duration of this journey. I was making sandwiches and making love to you simultaneously. I used you as a table, while I was doing you on the table for God's sake." He takes a breath, "They were good sandwiches too."

"Okay, that is kind of weird," says Asuka, thoroughly interested. The sheer efficiency of Shinji's dirty dream was strangely alluring. Sating the two most basic human needs at the same time was brilliant in that mad sort of way.

"I haven't even gotten to the best part yet: for some reason I was a Nephillem like-"

"Me, Ikari-kun?" Rei peeks her head from behind the changing curtain, blue hair spiked outwards. "I read a most interesting situation like that involving Renton and Eureka recently. You see, Renton had become a Corralian and-"

"Attention, blue pattern detected. I repeat, blue pattern detected. All personnel to level one ready positions." The soothing, vaguely British voice drones throughout the complex, an old friend by now. The three Children sigh in unison, hastily throwing their plug suits back on. You'd think that the Angels would get the hint by now.

"What have you got for me Maya?" Ritsuko already knew the answer: some crazy shit that would, in another time, make her lose faith in a just and rational universe.

"It's an Evangelion, but it's dinging blue," Maya looks back to the screen, making sure her eyes don't deceive her. "And it seems to be flying."

"Maybe someone installed a Minovsky Craft on it," Misato jokes. A ladylike hand over the mouth hides Ritsuko making a note to develop said parts. They don't exist this time, so she can call them Akagi Crafts, like she always wanted to.

"No, that would make too much sense Misato. That, is what I like to call AT-Fuckery."

A rich lilting voice comes over the speakers as the target makes first contact. "Such a crude word to describe the art of the soul." Video contact is made, and a familiar face is writ large on NERV's viewscreens. Stray sparkles frame high smiling cheeks and wizened eyes as Kaworu Nagisa, Eva's answer to female teenage promiscuity, looks down upon his inferiors. "I mean you no harm, I just wish to play with the Children for a while."

"Oh hell, it's you again," says Misato, rubbing her sinuses. Her console shows the three pilots ready to sortie, everything present and accounted for. "Shinji, Asuka, Rei?"

"Yes'm," the respond in unison.

"Your good friend Tabris is back," she says with cruel intentions. "Show him a proper Tokyo-3 reception."

Track 7: Personal Jesus

Buildings move aside and the streets of Tokyo-3 part like seas for their defenders, all three Evas launched in close formation. Facades open up to deploy a rack of weaponry. Asuka grabs her trusty spear, while the members of the Ikari family tree roll out in modified Pallet Guns. 3D displays pop up in Unit 02's cockpit, replicated flat on her comrade's viewscreens. The Red Comet of Tokyo-3 cracks her knuckles, power of authority wrapping around her like a security blanket.

"Alright folks, the Seventeenth Angel has come a little bit ahead of schedule. We don't know what he can do in an Eva, so be smart out there. Shinji, you've tangled with him before so you take point on this mission. Wondergirl, you shadow him, neutralize any attempts for the target to do Angel-y stuff. I'll hang back and provide suppressive fire."

"Are you sure about that?" Asuka? Not taking the initiative? What fresh hell is this?

"What are you, stupid? I'm the only one who doesn't know this guy inside and out, I'm not putting my neck on the line with no intel." She puts on her best queenly mask, sweeping her comrades onwards with a hand. "So I'm sending you two off to die first. Don't worry though, they'll tell tales of your bravery for all time." She gives a textbook Anime Princess Laugh, finely honed in the bowels of NERV.

"How noble of you," Shinji says. God, even when she's being nice she's a horrible person.

Rei nods, intent on her mission. Her left eye has gone partially black, keeping every aspect of Tabris in measure. He waves in her mind's eye, sparkling like diamonds. Why is he wearing only a towel in an Evangelion? Why is he now on a horse? She shakes the cobwebs out and he returns to a plugsuited form, humming contentedly. The majesty of Adam is nigh-omnipotent, so why does he waste it on making everyone want to make BABIES with him? Not that it isn't effective, she thinks with a guilty shifting in her seat. No, focus on the mission, not licking every inch of Tabris' body.

"Pilot Sohryu?" Rei can't quite deaden the fangirlish waver in her voice.

"Yes Rei?"

"Permission to cut loose?"

"Not yet Wondergirl, we need to have a few aces up our sleeve."

Rei deflates a little, crying inside. "Understood."

"Alright then, let's get this show on the road," Asuka smiles. "Remember, if you die out there, I'll fucking kill you~" She leans forward, every inch of her singing with the urge to grab glory with her own two hands. "Operation Twilight is go in drei, zwei, eins, NOW!"

Unit 01 gives a throaty howl and barrels forward, leaping over buildings in a single bound. She was getting stiff in that cage, a girl needs her exercise. It was a shame that she had to fight that charming Nagisa boy again, if only he or Shinji were a girl, they would be perfect for each other. Still, seeing his head pop off like a Pez dispenser was morbidly amusing. Unit 00 was right behind her, extending her AT-Field outwards like a parasol. The Ayanami girl was nice too, very docile, a perfect Yamato Nadeshiko. Being the progenitor of mankind was just an interesting quirk. As she brought her AT-Field up in a neutralization pattern, Unit 01 wondered if her boy going steady with a partial clone of her would be considered incestuous?

Mark 06 extends a hand almost thoughtlessly as orange meets orange, refracting and shifting like soapbubbles made of nonsense. With a careless flick of the wrist, its field accelerates forward, bowling Unit 01 off its feet. Unit 00 swings out from behind, forcing a lance of Absolute Terror into a weak point. A shift in concentration brings the field around and down, parrying the offending attack. A black and blue hand lashes forward with unnatural flexibility, barely pushed away from Unit 00's face. It rolls back into a crouching position, letting a quick burst of hot lead out at the Mark 06's head and shoulders. A flourish of Mark 06's free hand sends razor sharp projections of AT-Field fuckery through each bullet, turning them into buckshot for Unit 01 to deal with. In the Entry Plug, Kaworu smiles, eyes closed.

"Now now Lilith, you can do better than that?"

"Bite me Tabris," Rei says, deadpan.

He chuckles. "You would enjoy that, wouldn't you?" To be perfectly honest, yes she would.

"All the more reason to put you down quickly. Ikari!"

"On it Rei!" Shinji follows suit with a spray of lead, strafing to Mark 06's blind spot. Rei falls back, predicting the buckshot as a hail of knives fill her previous position. Caught off guard, Nagisa gets his AT-Field up a second slow. That second proves costly, as Unit 01 rips her Field-sheathed hand through a kink in the coverage. The hand holding the Pallet Gun. Eva and Child roar together as Shinji empties his clip in Mark 06's face. Bullets strip armor and flesh away, and the Mark 06 stumbles back, folding its AT-Field inwards to reject the foreign element. Momentarily blinded, Kaworu fails to notice the positron-tipped spear hurtling in his genera direction. Or the gaping hole in his defense that Rei has opened up. It runs him through, bending the Mark 06 backwards, pinned to the ground like a butterfly.

"Let's see how you like getting turned into a human pincushion!" Asuka howls in triumph, cape fluttering like angel's wings, Prog Knives at the ready. She rains down a veritable typhoon of pointy things at the rogue Eva, many finding their mark through its weakened AT-Field. Unit 02 does a lazy roll in the air, before bringing its foot down across the remains of Mark 06's head in a devastating Axe kick.

"Well, that was disappointing," she says with a backwards glance, Unit 02 with its hands on its hips. "I thought the last Angel would do better than that. Matariel was more of a challenge than you, and that's saying something."

"That was a total rip-off," Misato huffs, looking out at the destruction from NERV viewscreens. "I mean, come on!" She turns to vent at Ritsuko, but is greeted by Mana, Mari, and Liao. "When the hell did you three get here?"

"When I remembered I was a main character, duh," Liao says as if she were talking to a child. She's wearing a pair of Commander Ikari's sunglasses for some reason. It was probably best not to ask why.

"Around the time Prettyboy got a lead makeover," says Mari, cleaning her ear with a pinky.

"Ritsuko went to do more tests on the Ree," Mana explains, "Said this was a 'foregone conclusion'. Invited us to the bridge to watch the fireworks." She holds out a box of chocolate crack sticks to Misato in offering. "Pocky?"

"Kicked the habit, thank you very much." She sighs; the booze she could live with, but Pocky laid her a bit too low for her tastes. Liao takes the offering, eating the entire box in one exaggerated gulp. She opens a channel to the three pilots. "So, report back to base guys. Good job, I guess." "Damn cheap bishounen Angels," she mutters to herself.

"Hey Mari, you'd consider Tabris to be like the final boss right?"

"I don't know what this has to do with anything, but yeah fujoshi, he'd be the final boss."

Mana rests a hand on her chin, looking inquisitive. "Don't final bosses usually have multiple forms?"

"Yeah," Mari responds, the significance of the question dawning on her. "Oh. Oh shit!"

And that's when the laughter started. Slow, soft, and strangely sensuous. It rolled through the air, like cheap perfume. Outside, the three Children felt that sense of foreboding that can only really be encapsulated by a long, drawn out

"Fuck," Rei blurts, both eyes black.

"Am I hearing things Shinji, or did Rei just say fuck?"

"I was about to ask you the same question Asuka." That can't be good. He twitches, eyes wide. As far back as he can remember, Rei has never said fuck. The number of situations in which proper, sedate Rei Ayanami would drop an f-bomb were few and almost certainly catastrophic. The fact that Mark 06 seemed to be glowing white and rapidly regenerating served to drive home this point.

"Ah, my deepest apologies, I was being a terrible playmate." Kaworu's eyes burn an unholy whiteness, his soft grin turned sinister. "I will play with you properly from now on." Angels sing out in immaculate chorus as six AT-Field wings sprout from Mark 06's back. The sky darkens as energy gathers in a halo above 06. The cameras that don't immediately short out return pure white static to NERV HQ.

"AT-Field is blocking out radio waves, infrared, whiting out our systems. The MAGELING daemon-servers are crashing!" It takes a lot to unnerve Shigeru Aoba. Being swarmed by an army of nude Reis did the trick; his collection of Ayanami merchandise was his greatest shame. Whatever the hell is going on right now is getting pretty close. Staring at the junk data the overtaxed scanners spit at him, he curses not going into music. Why did he listen to his mother, instead of following his heart?

"Mark 06's AT-Field, it's, it's too much high power man!" Makoto Hyuuga always wanted to say that. Not in a situation like this, but there might not be more chances soon. "High energy I-don't-even-know-what signature detected!"

"Get the Children out of there, now!" Misato near begs the civic engineers. "Blow the street overlays, put up every blast shield we have!" She grips her cross pendant, eyes full of motherly worry.

***

For the first time in [REDACTED] cycles, Rei Ayanami felt fear. True, chilling fear. Tabris was strong, but he did not know restraint. He could unmake everything she held dear right now, destroy her children, her wards. He could end them, completely and utterly.

She could not let that happen.

"Pilot Sohryu, Pilot Ikari. I believe it is time for me to die again." She exhales, a shaky breath. "Permission to break rank, Pilot Sohryu?"

"Permission denied, Wondergirl," Asuka says flippantly. "We're not just going to throw you under the bus because the Seventeenth's gotten all glowy." Her bangs fall over her face, leaving one eye gleaming violently. "What we're going to do, is kick our AT-Fields into high gear and tell this guy where he can stick his One Winged Angel form. Got me Wondergirl?"

Rei looks down at the handcuff on her wrist, holds it tight to her body. It feels warm, or is that her? She closes her eyes, making peace with her sisters. When they open, they are both black, twin lanterns of passion set in a defiant face. "Loud and clear, Pilot Sohryu."

"Rock. You ready to flip death the middle finger again McDumbass?"

Shinji's got his game face on, Unit 01 following suit with a rictus grin. As the last testament of humanity's existence, she wasn't going down to some no-count alien. "Always. I mustn't run away, after all."

Asuka can't help but laugh. It's amazing how she can motivate a robot and a pansy into throwing their lives away with a few words. It's even more amazing how she can convince herself to do so. They're probably going to die here, but it's been fun. Fleeting happiness is the sweetest, after all.

"Good to hear. Now, it's not like I like you two or anything, but if this is really it, I want you to know that I cherished-" She shakes her head vigorously. "Fuck that, that's way too cheesy!" Unit 02 points out towards the dramatically paused Mark 06. "Alright you dogs, who wants to live forever!"

"Not I, Comrade Langley!"

"Not I, Pilot Sohryu!"

Unit 01 roars in Greek chorus.

"And neither do I. It looks like I'll die with you after all, Mama."

Heat and light, brighter than the sun, hotter than hell itself becomes reality. It becomes their bodies, engulfs their hearts, but cannot touch their souls. The lights of their collective beings scream a shared challenge, try to knock us down. A pure white cross blooms like corpse lilies as the bottom drops out from underneath the three pilots. The blast vaporizes anything without an ego, the shared fields the only thing keeping the escape chute intact. Halfway across the world people can see a testament to humanity sparkle like stardust tears. From the epicenter of the blast, a heavenly figure emerges.

"It looks like this will be more fun than I imagined," whispers Tabris. "The Seventeenth Angel, the Alpha and the Omega, Adam, Tabris, or simply Kaworu Nagisa; whichever name you choose for me I shall oblige you." A contented look falls upon his face, stray sparkles falling out of his scalp. "I will absolutely make all of you happy this time. This, I swear."

Completely drained of power, smoldering like used charcoal, the three Evangelions still stand tall. Emergency crews retrieve the pilots post haste, barely conscious but alive. As they are dragged from certain death, the pilots catch a glance at each other. And they laugh. It hurts, everything hurts, but they laugh nonetheless.

"We really suck at dying, don't we Ayanami?" It's the only coherent thought Shinji can string together.

"What do you mean, 'we', Ikari-kun?" Rei seizes, gripped in sudden pain. "I am quite adept at dying, thank you very much."

"What are you two, stupid?" Asuka stares up at the ceiling, unable to move. Looks like Mama is denied her wish again. "Who would want to be good at dying?"

{End EP 1: Smile}