This was not a good place to be, not at all. The room was dark despite all but the back wall being completely made up of glass, and the air was chill due to the huge industrial fans on the ceiling. Unfortunately for the young boy walking through the hallways of NERV HQ, this was a place that he could not avoid.
The boy walked through the hallways of NERV HQ, his footsteps echoing loudly with each step. He looked down at his handcuffed hands, then at the two people at either of his sides. The first was a young bespectacled man with short black hair, the second a young woman with a petite build and short brown hair. Makoto Hyuga and Maya Ibuki. Shinji frowned depressingly. He knew that they did not want what was happening to happen to him, but it had to be done. He was sure that the two of them would allow him to turn around and run from the building, but it would lose the both of them their jobs. There was no getting out of this one.
Makoto, Maya and Shinji rounded a tight corner into a short hallway, about ten feet in length. At the end of the hall was a red metal door. Shinji gulped. This was the main office of NERV's Commander, Gendo Ikari. Shinji looked over at Makoto, who frowned at Shinji before knocking on the door. "I'm sorry, Shinji."
"Bring him in." Makoto opened the door and the trio walked into the room. The room was dark despite all but the back wall being completely made up of glass and the air was chill due to the huge industrial fans on the ceiling. Gendo Ikari sat at his desk in the back of the room, his arms folded onto the desk before him, his glasses obscuring being able to tell what he was feeling. Shinji made his way to stand before his father while Maya and Makoto walked to stand at either side of Gendo. Shinji stared coldly at Gendo. Hate filled his eyes, but fear and loneliness backed up his rage. "Why, Father?" He asked, his voice as cold as the metal floor he stood upon. Gendo stared back at Shinji, his arms still folded before him. He showed no sign of emotion. "Why did you use me like that?"
"What I did had to be done, Shinji." Shinji grinded his teeth together in anger. "She became infected by the -"
"I would have saved her, Goddamnit!" Makoto jumped from the tone of Shinji's voice. He had never seen the boy so angry and unstable. He had always saw him as laid back and careless. This was a completely different Shinji then the one that he knew. 'Well I guess that love really can change a person.' He thought, looking over at Maya with a light smile. All Gendo did was blink. He didn't even flinch at the new side of Shinji.
"You couldn't have done anything, Shinji." Shinji's eyes widened, his clenched fists turning white from lack of blood. "You are too weak. You never could have saved Asuka." Shinji had enough. Screaming at the top of his lungs, the boy charged NERV's director. He jumped the desk that Gendo sat behind and kicked him in the face, doing seemingly nothing to harm Gendo. Shinji gasped. "Like I said, Son, you are just too weak." Gendo stood up from his seat, ignoring the red mark on his right eye. He grabbed Shinji by the collar of the shirt and swung hard with his free hand. Shinji was sent hurtling across across the room, landing harshly on the back wall of the office. "Ikari, Shinji, for acts of treason against NERV and for refusal to comply with your given orders, you are now officially dropped from NERV's ranks, and along with that you are stripped of the title of 'Second Child'. You have one hour to clean out your locker before being banned from NERV HQ for life." Mikoto and Maya removed themselves from the Commander's side and walked over to the fallen Shinji. They undid his handcuffs placed a hand on either of Shinji's shoulders and escorted him back out of the room. They felt bad for the boy. Nobody should ever have to go through the things that he had been forced to do.
"I'm sorry, Shinji." Maya said, looking up to the young boy. Shinji stayed fiercely silent. "We tried to stop Mr. Ikari, but we just could-"
"I don't care anymore." Shinji said, thrusting Maya and Makoto's hands off of him. "It's over and done with. I can't change the past." Makoto and Maya stopped dead in their tracks, remorse and guilt clouding them. Shinji walked on alone to the locker room, not even noticing that his two friends had been left behind…
-/-
In the semi darkness of the room, Asuka Shikinami Langley opened her eyes weakly. She grabbed her head with one hand as soon as she did so, screaming out in pain. 'Wha-What happened?' She asked herself. She forcefully straightened up her body, took a deep breath, and pulled back the strands of hair that had protruded her eyesight. The room was completely white, and there was nothing in the room besides her and a bed that she had just removed herself from. The wall before her was completely made up of glass, but she could not see through it. Her cheeks becoming bright red, Asuka covered up her breasts and lover half, noticing from the reflection of her in the mirror that she was completely stripped of all of her clothing and accessories. "What the fuck is this!?" She screamed walking over to the glass window. "What the fuck kind of perverts are hiding behind here!?"
"There are no perverts behind the glass!" Asuka jumped, not expecting to hear someone else's voice, but calmed down once she connected the voice to the people that she knew.
"Misato," She said, relaxing her body. "What is this?".
"Asuka, you are in quarantine now… You were infected by the Ninth Angel during Unit 0-3's activation test. Commander Ikari ordered that we dispose of you with the use of EVA Unit 0-1's Dummy Plug System. Shinji tried to stop him, but he couldn't. We retrieved you from the destroyed Entry Plug of Unit 0-2." Asuka's eyes widened. Flashbacks of the Evangelion Unit 0-3 Activation test raced through her head. Breathing heavily, she puked all over the floor. She remembered as the blue substance that was the Angel's blood gripped her body before encasing her in a cocoon-like shell. Her eyes then widened again once what Misato had said about Shinji trying to save her processed in her head.
"That Baka!" She said, anger and worry filling her voice. "What the hell happened to him?"
"Shinji has been defected from NERV. He is packing up and leaving for North America within the week." Misato braced herself for what was about to happen. Examining the glass, Asuka could see that a blue light was reflecting from the spot where her left eye should have been.
"What the fuck is this!?" She asked Misato, frightened through her rage. Misato saw this too, and gasped. "Activate the Angel-sealing Hex Glyphs now! The Ninth Angel is attempting to take over!" Ritsuko Akagi, who was sitting at a computer next to where Misato was standing, slammed desperately on the computer keyboard before her and pressed the enter key, but not before Asuka was able punch through the containment glass.
"Goddamnit!" She screamed. Fangs had protruded from Asuka's mouth, her face a sure sign of her internal fury. "Goddamnit, Shinji! Why the fuck would you risk your life for me!?" She straightened up and examined the wall, which was now covered in hieroglyphic-like symbols. There was something different about her. "Do you think that these damned things can stop… Me-" Asuka's voice had become dark and hate-filled, but her eyes closed suddenly and fell harshly to the ground. Her body had turned back to normal, and her eye stopped glowing.
"So she wasn't completely free of the Ninth Angel's contamination after all..." There was a choke in Misato's voice. Tears started to fall from her eyes as well.
"It appears that way," Ristuko typed a code into the computer and deactivated the Angel-Sealing Hex Glyphs, trying not to look at either Misato's or Asuka. "It seems like the Ninth Angel can only take over if she is in a seriously pissed off state of mind, so there is a way that we can save her."
"You don't mean..."
"Yes, Misato." Ristuko picked up a red telephone on the desk before her. "Bring in the glyph tester and a device that can encode the glyph onto an eyepatch. This is a Stage One, Code Blue."