Fan Fiction Loaf 3

By: Sorain

Below is the basic idea for a piece of Fan Fiction. I may, or may not flesh it out beyond this. If you find it to your liking, do tell me.

E.C.S.

Following the second incident where the Evangelion "Went Berserk" Misato has come to doubt that is the truth. The mysteries of NERV continued to confound her, but there had to be a connection between the Blue entry plug shaped pendant Rei always wore and the Red one Shinji did. Thinking of Shinji brought her back to her initial line of thought. Shinji has begun to act strangely, he is himself most of the time, but just before the fourth he was pulled off a student named "Toji", the Section 2 footage truly disturbed her, one moment he was his normal quiet apologetic self, then Toji hit him and he started to cry, then Toji said something. She dearly wished she could find out what he said, because the moment it came out of his mouth Shinji... changed. She could not get the images of him grabbing Toji's leg and pulling him down, the kids head cracking on the concrete sounding through her head despite the lack of audio, and then his attack on the larger, stronger, more physically fit kid from running on a loop in her mind. This was not the attack of a child's brawl, a trained combatant, or an angry man, sane people do not try to pick up their enemy by their neck and throw them against the wall, they do not head butt them (certainly so unskillfully he must have nearly knocked himself senseless) and then try to... she did not know what the kid would have done next, since the section two agents tackled him to the side, taking the kid down and wrenching that poor student from his grip. There was a single still shot, a frame taken from the second angle survey camera, a close up of what looked like Shinji's face, but her mind could not tie it to the quiet child she had lived with the past two weeks. Shinji could not have a face nearly foaming at the mouth, pupils dilated in the way only people on combat drugs, those so deep in shock they fought on with lethal wounds, or frenzied madmen did.

The worst part was the way the commander dissected the event, his observation that "This is wasteful, the child is clearly unconscious from his head hitting the ground, everything after that is pointless." Was inhuman, cold, clinical, like this was a computer model, and not the real world, while the kid was still out cold in a hospital, kept under by drugs while the sutures on the back of his skull help him heal the wound.

"Ritsu, could you please explain what is going on with him?"

"Look, I am not a psychologist... I can only give a example."

"Anything, I just don't understand it."

"In mechanics, when you place stress on an object, it starts to edge up an imaginary curve called the stress strain curve. At a given point anything will bend, but once the strain ends, it springs back to its shape."

"So Shinji will recover with a little break?"

"No, I am not finished, just let me finish my example!"

"Fine, fine."

"Once it reaches its limit, the point at which it can not stand, there is a reaction. Some objects fracture, coming apart to release the strain, Others begin to deform plasticly, this point is important, because once that point is passed, the object can never be the same shape again."

"You mean Shinji?"

"This is the last time I will tell you to wait, before I stop trying."

"When a smith beats metal into shape, that is plastic deformation as well, forging a lump of metal into a useful shape, and removing impurities at the same time. The smiths of old would work an immense sheet of metal into a single blade with as many as several thousand layers, creating swords of exceptional strength that could compare to the material of an Evangelions armor." 'That was the goal of Rei's upbringing, to forge a sword for his raised fist that would never bend, never deform...'

"So the question is, is Shinji being beaten into a shape, or simply deformed beyond recognition?"

"For all we know Misato, it is both. Remember the old adage about beating swords into plough sheers applies both ways. A jagged edged blade is a cruel and terrible weapon, but it works. It looks like it should not cut as well, or be as strong, as it is, but there is a reason they were banned as being too cruel."

"You really think Shinji could become cruel?"

"Metal, good strong metal, is equally good as a tool or a weapon, and the same forces shape both." 'I suppose that is as close as I can come.'

"Then lets just pray that our resident weapon smith is making a blade out of his son that he can live with." 'And that the Blade does not slay the smith.'

The worst part for her was that after the incident, when the time to fight the fourth angel had come, his sync ratio had rose 3 points. But when the Eva was sent flying into a mountain, after Shinji cried "No, it can't-" they could hear his sobbing, and the visual from outside did not help, some idi- Kensuke Aida? He was there when-

"Shinji, you need to get that civilian out of there, if you don't he could die."

Shinji looked up from his hands, and saw the kid.

"Open the entry plug!"

over the external speakers carried her voice. "Get in, NOW!"

the fourth Angel was taking its damn time getting to them, cutting its way though the buildings.

Once the kid climbed in, and the plug was sealed again, there was only a moment of static before the interior went to red.

"The Angel just hit the power line!"

There was no option now, they had to get the kid to shelter, and get the Eva supplied with power.

"Shinji, fall back!"

He hesitated for an instant, an instant too long.

The Angel had reached Unit 01, and plunged its whips into its torso. Shinji evidently did not feel much, his sync ratio was down to 31 now.

"knock it off you and fall back or you could die!"

Misato did not hear what he said, what he whispered through suddenly tear laden eyes, though Kensuke did. "I don't want to die..." Misato saw the look of terror on Shinji's passengers face, a look of recognition, of something you never wanted to know again before you. Before she could speak, The Sync graph came up onto the main display, which it only did when a change of more then 10 points was detected Worse, the battery time remaining change display came up, going from 4:32, down to 0:47, along with a symbol Misato had no time to recognize in her shock. She despaired, 'No, if his sync falls more then 11 points, he wont even be able to move!'

Later, she decided never to tempt fate like that again. The display showed a simple arrow pointing up, and a number, 32. When she later looked up the symbol, she found that it stood for "Overdrive: Diversion of maximum battery power to operation, maximum duration is 1/5th normal, with a corresponding increase in physical power." The manual noted that this setting strained the batteries enough that it could cause permanent erosion of battery life.

Above the command center, on the side of a mountain, Evangelion 01 twitched visibly, and then struck, the bolts constraining its mouth straining and deforming somewhat as the echo of a growl resounded. Inside the plug, Shinji strained forward, clutching the grips, that grip being the only thing keeping him from falling forward. Growling, highlighted in the red tones of the internal lighting, eyes wide and pupils dilated to the point that it seemed he had nothing but black for eyes. Outside that little pocket of blood red terror, the Evangelions arms reached up for the roots of the Energy whips plunged into its chest. It grabbed the roots of the arms sporting them in a grip that crushed into the Angels side, breaking the hand armor in the process, ending the whips glow abruptly, before lifting the Angel above it, smashing its head through the bone's as it did so. Rearing its head back into the hill hard enough to damage its own rear head armor, it smashed its face into the Angels core, breaking the horn in the process, and further cracking the skull armor. The growl turning to a roar, its helmet's jaw piece shattering open to echo the open mouth of the now screaming pilot, it clamped the teeth few knew it possessed onto the Angels core, shattering little parts of it the size of cars as it bit down. Then it Tore the Angels flimsy arms off, Shinji's hands pulling the grips open and without unclench springing up to mimic the motion. Through the blood spray from each side, and the screech somehow made by the Angel, the sight of Unit 01 grabbing the base of the Angel's head in both hands, thumbs alone visible from its viewpoint was presented to them. Then, with the sound of all to normal tearing flesh, in mirror of the pilot's actions in the entry plug, it ripped off the Angels false head, holding onto the torso sized chunk above its own head. Then it started to smash down, smashing the Angel with its own body part to the frenzied and intermingled screams of the pilot and Roars of the Evangelion. The core gave way with a sound of shattering glass, and the Evangelions jaws snapped shut on something that exploded with blood for an instant before exploding with Light and energy.

"The Pilot has lost consciousness, The LCL could not supply oxygen fast enough..."

"And that kid?"

"Reserve vital monitors show two heartbeats in the entry plug, the second on the verge of unconsciousness from blood pressure."

The feed from the plug returned for a second, showing Shinji slumped forward, and Kensuke curled into a fetal ball, eyes unfocused and hyperventilating. Then the feed ended with the Evangelions power supply being depleted.

"How is Shinji?"

"Physically, he is actually in terrible shape, he nearly broke his own arm bones somehow, and from the damage, it was from over strain by his own muscles."

"What?"

"Human muscles can exert more strength then our own bones can withstand, even without working out, theres things you can do to harden them, but they strengthen muscles too. In the end when someone pushes hard enough, they can and will break their own body. Micro Fractures are covering all his bones from the shoulder down, and we nearly lost him when his marrow leaked into his bloodstream through them. His jaw and teeth show signs of intense strain, like he tried to bite though a I-beam. His muscles themselves are as torn as a patent I once had that was so hopped up on PCP he nearly crippled himself by lifting too much weight, but given time and diet they will recover, muscles grow stronger by tearing and repairing themselves stronger then before."

"What about Kensuke?"

the doctor sighed, and flipped past at least fifteen pages of notes covering the assorted damages to the kid.

"Physically, he is a little shaken up, couple of light bruises But thats not the problem."

seeing Misatos visual question mark, he continued.

"Shock, extreme physical response to fear caused it. When he was brought in here he was hyperventilating so much we had to put an oxygen mask on him. I do not know about his mind, its not my department, but he seems to have withdrawn to try and process whatever happened. We have him sedated as well, though for him its not to avoid needing to give him morphine"

she could only imagine what seeing that up close was like...

"I know its not my place to question NERV, but just what the hell are you people doing? That Ikari kid strained his entire cardiovascular system, and apparently nearly broke his own arms! People have a pain response to warn them about that, and as far as I know only three things can let a person do what happened here: drugs to suppress the pain, Extreme Martial Arts training to push through it, and being so desperate that their mind blocks out the damage, placing them into a state of shock. With respect to NERV, that kid in there is not a Martial Artist."

in the office of Gendo Ikari, a single picture of what looks like a dummy plug on a cord Labeled ECS, hanging around Shinjis neck is shown.

"Once we have an accident, Twice we have a fault, Three times is delinquent, and Four times is the fall." - Gendo is viewing the footage of the Fourth Angel battle along side the Third.

"You will learn just what is causing the system to engage outside of the Evangelion, and not on command. I will not have years of work on this gone in an instant."

once Ritsuko left the room, Kozo spoke up.

"You should have thought about possible instability in the system before you placed it around his neck."

"He has no anger outside of the system, there is no reason to believe that this is beyond salvage yet. Besides the Mark two has worked perfectly all these years, if anything it is proof that I improved on her work."

"You realize that-" He pointed to the still shot of Shinji Roaring from the fourth Angels fight. " Is the real Shinji Ikari, right?"

"Of course, that is why she made the system in the first place. Adapting it is not an exact science."

'I don't think she ever meant for that thing to be run for such a long period... is it wise to suppress his emotions into that little thing? If the vessel containing his actual feelings ever cracked, much less broke... and if the valve we keep opening to win this war can not be shut again? What then Gendo?'

then the most terrifying thought to come to his mind in years came to the old man. 'What if the Mark two were to fail? Do we even have a plan if Rei goes beyond our control?'

The Emotion Containment System, chief designer Yui Ikari, Keyed to the individual it used a principle of metaphysical biology to contain the emotions of anger, hate and loathing for others. The Mark Two, chief designer Gendo Ikari, designed to contain all emotions of the keyed subject. The tube itself is filled with core material of the subject, and can be unsealed remotely to release the emotions. Used to grant control over the extreme emotional reactions of Shinji Ikari, it built up the emotions in a manner that meant that when it was unsealed all the emotional strength came out at once. Yui refused to use it for longer then a few days at a time, concerned with the potential implications of overloading it. The Mark Two was designed for long term storage of all emotional input, but the compromises in its design meant that it had much lower capacity. Rei was brought up to have as little emotional reaction as possible to combat this.