Shinji Ikari One Shot
Everything Louder Than Everything Else
(Listening to "We Are The Road Crew" by Motorhead is not required for enjoying this fic, but recommended.)
Shinji Ikari sat on the steps of the train station, waiting for the train that would take him to Tokyo-3, to meet his father, and unbeknownst to him, his destiny.
He really didn't want to see his father again. He was a terrible man and really scary. But what else was he supposed to do? He had been told to go and his teacher and just left him here at the station.
So here he was, rewinding his SDAT again, waiting for the train. It was like his whole life was on a train, just going down the track, stopping at the stations, just going along.
In the first days of steam power, trains were sometimes known as Iron Horses. Shinji would be riding a very different Iron Horse today.
"Oi! Kid!"
Shinji looked up, surprised he had somehow missed the huge black bus that had pulled up in front of the station. Hanging out the door was a profoundly ugly man with long hair and mutton chops, and moles on his face that made him look like a melting candle.
"Ya speak english?"
"Y-yeah." Shinji said, pulling down his ear buds.
"We're trying to get to Kyoto-2, got a gig there tonight. I think we're a bit lost."
"Yeah mister, you're a ways away." Shinji said. "About three hundred miles."
"Well that's not too bad given that we can't read the fuckin' signs." The strange looking man said and hopped down from the bus. He was dressed all in black and wore crocodile skin cowboy boots.
"Tell ya what kid, give ya five thousand bucks to read some road signs. Buy ya a cab back after the show too. Or ya know, could always use another roadie."
Shinji didn't know what a roadie was. He did know five thousand dollars was a whole lot of money, more than he had ever seen. What he did know was that this was his chance to get off the train.
"Sure mister." Shinji said, grabbing his knapsack.
"Good boy, whats your name?" The longhaired man said as they walked back to the bus.
"Shinji, sir. Whats yours?"
"Ian, but everyone calls me Lemmy. Welcome to the road crew, and knock that sir shit off."
-Several hours later, in Tokyo-3-
"Captain, what exactly do you mean 'he wasn't there'?"
"What the hell do you think I mean?! He wasn't at the station, he wasn't anywhere around, I even found the conductor and showed him a picture. He said he never got on!"
-At the same time, outside Kyoto-2-
The bus screeched to a halt, followed by the two lorries that followed. Lemmy was first out the door with Shinji close behind. They were in a big open field with nothing but dirt roads and some trees.
"Right, all hands, get this shit moving! Curtain up in two hours!"
"Um, what should I do?"
"Ever wired sound before?"
"Uh, no."
"Eh, Dan 'll get you squared away." The strange man said and cupped his hands around his mouth. "Oi, Dan! The navigator's with you!"
Within 15 minutes, a very loud Scotsman was shouting instructions up at Shinji, who was hanging from a scaffold that had only been set up 5 minutes before. He was clamping a speaker into place holding pliers in his mouth and holding on with his legs through the trusses.
As he caught the audio cable that was thrown up to him from the ground 10 meters below, he realized he was having more fun than he had ever had before. He was having the time of his life.
-Back in Tokyo-3, some time later-
"Dammit, there is no choice, but Rei in Unit One."
"But Sir she is still injured from…"
"Just do it!"
Rei Ayanami was not having the time of her life. What life she had had anyway. Not much of one having to be the commander's super polite child-surrogate. Oh don't say that, oh don't complain, oh don't let your feelings out, blah blah blah.
As the LCL rose around her, she decided if every moment up until now was not the time to let it out, then this must be the goddamn time.
"Rei, the angel is already in the city, but we had time to get the armory buildings ready. What do you want going up?"
"Guns, lots and lots of guns."
-Outside Kyoto-2-
"Alright everyone, I want you all to know, this wouldn't been possible without our newest roadie!" Lemmy said after the band had finished their first set. "Now I want to introduce him to ya, we just picked him up today. Come on out here boy!"
Lemmy waved Shinji onto the stage. He was covered in dirt and grease, and his button up had torn some time ago. What was left was a bandage wrapped around his arm, and he wore a black Motorhead t-shirt someone had snatched from the merch booth. They figured if the kid took a fall from the scaffold and got back up he rated a damn t-shirt. A bandaid on his head was holding the gash closed.
"Alright, this here is Shinji, been bustin' his ass all day so you assholes could see a rock'n'roll show. Whaddya got to say to that?!"
Whoops and screams and then the crowd began to chant.
"SHINJI! SHINJI! SHINJI!"
"Hey kid…" Lemmy said, mouth away from the high mic. "Ya ever do somethin' both really cool and really stupid?"
"Like taking a job reading road signs?"
"No, was thinking more like this, ya little shit." The man said and shoved the boy off stage into the crowd who hoisted him over their heads. Once he got over the terror, the boy threw one hand up with his middle and ring fingers tucked and the rest straight out.
"Right, Ein, Zwei, Drei…"
Another town another place,
Another girl, another face,
Another truce, another race,
Unit One sprang up right below the third angel, and Rei swung a vicious uppercut and sent the green monster reeling. As the angel picked itself off the ground, Unit one was plunging its hands straight through the armory building hatches on both sides of the eva.
I'm eating junk, feeling bad,
Another night, I'm going mad,
My woman's leaving, I feel sad,
The angel raised its claws to dispose of the human toy, only to be confronted by the wonders of human warfare…
Unit one ripped its arms from the armory towers, a 440mm gatling gun auto-clamped to each arm. Rei raised both to the angel as 12 barrels spun up.
Just for a moment, the third angel had some conception of the thinking mind of these tiny, pathetic Lilim. In that small moment, the angel Sachiel knew pants shitting terror. It was only aware of this sensation for such a short time, not even long enough to consider the existence of trousers or excrement, because by the next moment, its body was being turned into so many chunks of gore as geysers of blood covered the city.
But I just love the life I lead,
Another beer is what I need,
Another gig my ears bleed,
We Are The Road Crew
Maya Ibuki was retching under her console. Not from the barbarism of the battle, she grew up in the 90's and 00's and was as desensitized as anybody. It was from watching Rei, covered in bandages and blood, screaming seemingly straight at those watching the monitor.
"AHAHAHA, MORE DAKKA!"
High above the bridge, the vice commander cleared his throat.
"So Gendo, should I report the boy's disappearance to the authorities?"
The commander shrugged. "He'll turn up."
Another town I've left behind,
Another drink completely blind,
Another hotel I can't find,
When the crowd finally dropped Shinji he was in the pit. Surrounded by the jumping and flailing crowd, the smell of thin alcohol and marijuana in the air, the pain as blows landed from all directions at once.
It should have been terrifying. This was like some cultures' definitions of hell. Sitting at that train station in Sendai, he would have done anything to get away from this.
Now he just swung a couple elbows to make some room.
Another backstage pass for you,
Another tube of super glue,
Another border to get through,
"Hey, you're that guy, the roadie! Shinji!" Said the girl with the long auburn air. She was wearing a skirt that barely covered her ass and a little black leather vest with nothing under it that was straining to keep her chest in.
"U-uh yeah."
"Wanna ball?"
"What?" He yelled over the crowd and the music.
"Come on!" Mari said, grabbing him by the wrist.
I'm driving like a maniac,
Driving my way to hell and back,
Another room a case to pack,
"Hey what are you doing?!" He said as she pushed him up against the tree, off away from the crowd. The music was so loud he could steel feel it rattling his spine against the trunk.
"Thankin' ya for making sure I got to see my favorite band." She said and pulled open his belt, then his fly as she sunk to her knees.
"Oh… okay." Shinji said as he slumped against the tree. This roadie thing wasn't too bad, he could get used to this.
We Are The Road Crew
Another hotel we can burn,
Another screw, another turn,
Another Europe map to learn,
Hours later, Shinji stumbled back into the space between the bus and trucks that made up backstage. After his little adventure in the woods, he had made it back to the stage just in time to start moving stuff around for the next set. Now, after three encores, the show was finally over and he was exhausted.
"Boy!"
And there he was, like a vision from heaven, the man who was responsible for all of it, with a girl under each arm neither of whom could be more than a few years older than Shinji.
"Some girl used your pass and got back here, said she's your woman or something." He said and climbed onto the bus with the squealing girls in tow. Shinji reached down and found the lanyard with his badge indeed gone. Nobody had questioned him coming back, everyone had seen his face. He was either The Navigator or "the local".
Another truckstop on the way,
Another game I learn to play,
Another word I learn to say,
Dodging swinging scaffold and coils of wire as the stage was taken down, Shinji eventually found the crew bus. As he approached Dan, the Scotsman who had put him in the rigging earlier, was walking out.
"Oi, good show out'der." He said and pushed a red plastic up into Shinji's hand. "Caught yourself a good'un too. She's in ya bunk, third one on the left."
"Uh thanks!" Shinji said and waved as the crew boss walked away. He looked down and sniffed the drink. Fizz popped into his nose like soda, but there was a boozy smell to it too. He stepped onto the bus and saw the girl in his bunk, wearing nothing but that long dark hair and the triangle of metal studs across her torso. Shinji threw back the drink, tossed the cup aside and started pulling off his shirt.
Another bloody customs post,
Another fucking foreign coast,
Another set of scars to boast,
Hundreds of miles apart, Shinji Ikari and Rei Ayanami shared a sensation. Afterglow, that warm, fuzzy sensation that follows ecstasy. Shinji in the cramped little bunk, that girl with the crazy animal eyes on top of him, and Rei basking in the heat of the spotlights, lying on a pile of gigantic shell casings still warm to the touch, amid of a sea of angel blood.
In that moment, they shared a thought too.
"This is fucking awesome."
We Are The Road Crew
End
You may be saying having Lemmy show up in an eva fic is ridiculous. Well, Lemmy can show up in whatever fic he damn wants, Lemmy rules.
For those of you going WTF at all this, Ian 'Lemmy' Kilmister is the bassist and front man of the legendary rock and roll band Motorhead (properly rendered with several umlauts I am too lazy to find the keystroke for). He will be turning 70 this year and rocks harder than people a quarter of his age can even dream of. Also unlike most old rock stars, he is still getting up there and killing it. He is also known as God.
"We Are The Road Crew" is a song from Motorhead's album Ace of Spades. The album itself is considered definitive of the metal genre in general, and early thrash metal in particular, though Motorhead has always just called their music rock'n'roll. The song chronicles the life of a Roadie, which describes people who do all the jobs on a concert tour but perform, often at the same time.
Written as a small tribute to my brother in law. He fought in Afghanistan. His head got messed up really bad from an IED, he wasn't even on a mission at the time. So he gets back, has all sorts of PTSD shit going on, and his injuries prevented him from doing what he had trained in the army to do. Now he had a wife and family, no job, and problems to make Shinji Ikari blush.
So he gets on with wounded warrior project, and gets selected as one of two roadies for a concert tour. So turns out he has a gift for camera work and got hired on permanently for the production company. He can support his family, do fulfilling work, and he is handling his PTSD, all because he got a gig as a goddamn roadie.
I am not sure who is appreciated less, the soldiers or the roadies. They both deserve way more respect than they get.