Neon Genesis Evangelion: Nobody Dies - Ichi's Birthday Party

Episode 02 – And, 'Lo, There Were Biscuits


...

There have been sounds associated with the start of battle which have driven a spike of terror into the hearts of mortal men. The warcry of the Cossacks, fundamentally linked with rapine and arson, the pounding of the feet of a Roman legion, and the chatter of a row of machine-gun positions against a hapless horde of infantry have all bought terrifying flashbacks. Old men, crippled by the depravities of war, have stared into their locally-used-containers of their alcoholic beverage of choice, and shivered, remembering all the faces that had marched to war with them, never to return, their corpses piled upon some foreign field like so much carrion.

The equivalent for the early twenty-first century, to those in the know, was almost certainly the cry of an Evangelion. A ferocious, animalistic (no... animalistic wasn't the right word; demonic was more accurate) bellow with, to those prone to overimagination, oddly human undertones. At this point, not one had been used in anger. The nations of the world were very, very glad of that fact, because those things were estimated, if the intelligence reports, combined with NERV's official reports to the UN, to be able to take a full battleship broadside to the chest, and still be able to carry on functioning. And that was before the AT-Field was taken into account, which was unquantified, as of yet, and even believed by some to be a limitless-defence, capable of expanding its defensive capabilities to deal with any threat.

To those in the know, such a noise from an Evangelion which lacked a pilot or an entry plug was even more worrying. Much, much more worrying.

Unit 01 screamed, its head twitching around in the restraints, sending the pipes which were feeding the carbohydrate-rich slurry (with a rich chocolaty flavour, and a hint of orange) to the Evangelion whipping around. There was a cry, as a platform overturned, sending suited workers flying down into the reddish-purple fluid with a series of splashes. There was, in fact, general havoc.

"Independent movement... we have independent movement! Moving to amber alert!"

"Get everyone out of the chamber! Prepare the Bakelite!" ordered Dr Akagi, waving the crew onwards, even as the technical staff grabbed what equipment they could.

"It's... no AT-Field. The Unit isn't manifesting an AT-Field."

"Odd neural patterns! Odd neural patterns! Is... is it going berserk?" called out Maya, sweat beading on her forehead, even as she scooped up the laptop, and began to scurry for the exit, gaze still lowered to the computer.

With a clang, the restraints for one of the arms came flying off, scything through the air with a noise like a child tearing tin foil. With a yell, Dr Akagi dived at her shorter assistant, knocking her over and sending the laptop flying into the coolant fluid as the restraint flew by at head height, tumbling end over end.

Maya Ibuki let out a squeak from somewhere underneath the brown-haired woman's breasts, a noise somewhat muffled by the labcoat, and fainted.

Ritsuko pulled herself to her feet, "Yui, what the hell is going on in there!" she screamed, clutching the radio in whitened knuckles. "The Eva's... it's breaking its bonds, and we're getting really odd neural activity! Get out of there!"

Elsewhere in the facility, the body of Yui Ikari, enmeshed in motion sensors, bought a gloved hand into clanging contact with the virtual reality helmet she was wearing. Elsewhere, in virtual space, her avatar replicated the gesture, although the space did produce the fleshy slap of a palm against a forehead.

"Kiko," she said, in a stern voice, glaring at the blue-haired girl crouched over the smaller, younger brunette who was squirming on the floor, "Stop tickling Ichi."


...

It took a few minutes after that to properly calm down Ichi, although, mercifully, once the direct tickling had ceased, the thrashing of her Evangelion body stopped, and allowed the slow process of repair to begin. And, despite her calm, even smiling face, Yui could feel her stomach crawling up into a little ball. The budgetary expenses for this birthday were going to be even larger than normal. And these parties were not exactly cheap, especially when the elevated price of food in the post-Impact world, and the necessary overtime which the technical staff had to pull were taken into account. Worse, the clauses for unpaid overtime in NERV employees' contracts covered situations like any possible future Angel attacks, or other such emergencies.

They had not managed to find a loophole in the employment contracts to declare a birthday party an emergency. Even if Ritsuko had started begging after what had happened last year.

Yui put the thoughts aside, and glanced down the table, at all nine of her daughters, who were, to varying extents, stuffing their faces with the virtual party food on the table. She couldn't touch any of it, of course; she wasn't here, not really, and... well, even if it had been real, it wasn't as if she could have eaten any of this high-sugar stuff anyway. An annoyance. But the girls, none of whom she had carried to term, or were, in fact, human, were enjoying it just as anyone else their age would. Just like any other human would. They were people, yes, certainly, but they were not human, although, to varying degrees, were capable of pretending to be so. At least for short periods. And the most human was almost certainly the sixty-metre tall god-thing, loathe though she was to admit it.

Had she been able to tell her self of eight years ago, just before the abortive contact experiment, what her life would be like now... well, she'd probably not believe herself. At least it was better this way. Much better. She was glad; truly, utterly glad, she had blinked first, and not tried to outstare the oncoming abyss.

"You've all got even taller," piped up Ichi, who was sitting on Kiko's lap, to the left of her. The little girl paused. "Well, apart from you, Mommy," she corrected herself, conscientiously, "because you haven't grown at all since last year."

Yui nodded. "That's right," she said. "They're all growing. Sometimes I think I can hear Rei's bones creak."

"Oh, come on!" Rei interjected. "That was too~ootally an accident. I didn't mean to do that."

Yui smiled, though with a slight wince. "I... I was actually talking about how fast you've been growing," she said. "Not what happened when you broke into one of the sausage-making factories in the industrial district."

"It wasn't just sausage! They did bacon, and gammon, and bacon, and ham, and bacon, and bacon."

"You said bacon four times."

"I like bacon." Rei's eyes flashed red. "As in, re~eeally like it." To emphasise it, she grabbed a virtual handful of those little sausages wrapped in bacon, and stuffed them into her mouth.

"Wee~eeell, I don't think that eating meat is really ethically sound or stuff," interjected Iti. "I mean, I did that thing where you look at the things which go into making things, and it turns out things are much more efficient if you stop people eating meat. And that's really kinda important, when you look at the food problems Second Impact made."

"Wait, was that the things I really liked?" asked Kiko, a confused look on her face.

"Naa~aaah," Iti said, shaking her head. "Nah. You were..."

"What?" called out Nana, from the other end of the table, where she and Siyon were locked, talking, heads close together. Ingrained maternal instincts from Yui were screaming that she should separate them, before one caught nits off the other, before her active consciousness kicked in, and she was reminded that a) this was a simulation, and b) the number of things that could feed off Siyon's blood without being rapidly vivisected could be measured on the fingers of a blind, leprous butcher . "What're you sayin' about me?"

"Wasn't talking to you, Nana."

"Why'da say my name, then?"

"I didn't."

Ichi crossed her arms, and pouted slightly, creating a slightly euphoric squeak from Kiko. "I was trying to talk," she said, grumpily. "As I was saying, you've all gotten taller." She paused. "Apart from Mommy," she corrected herself again.

"Don't worry, Ichi!" Hatchi said, enthusiastically, waving a glass full some something bright red and sticky in the air, and managing to splash quite a bit over Iti. "You're still waa~aaay taller than the rest of us." The blue-haired girl ignored the sudden warning glare thrown at her by Yui. "Even if, right, we all stood on each other's shoulders."

"I woo~oonder if we could all merge into one super-Ayanami?" said Kiko, resting her chin on Ichi's head. "Would we be taller then?"

There was silence from the others, barring the glass of blue (not 'blue' anything, just... blue) being thrown at Hatchi, and even a few scared looks thrown at their mother. Yui had always been very careful to impress upon them the difference between safe speculation, which they could talk about, even if they weren't allowed to do it, and unsafe speculation, which they weren't even allowed to think about, and even if they did happen to think it up, really, really weren't meant to share with their sisters. That was decidedly unsafe speculation. And, yes, had the idea come from anyone but Kiko, Yui would in fact have been deeply concerned. But... well, Kiko's ideas were typically somewhat... freeform in their methodology. It was almost certain that she hadn't meant anything sinister or hypothetically-Third-Impact-or-at-very-least-Angel causing, but instead had been trying to work out a way to get all of them to count as being taller than their chronologically-older-mentally-younger sister. Or maybe half-sister.

Language was not really designed to deal with Yui Ikari's family, it had been agreed at NERV by those in the know. For one, it was hard to be polite enough while doing so, unless you had grown bored of your job. And possibly your health and/or life and/or sanity, come to think of it.

"I do not believe that would be an enjoyable thing to do, Kiko," Kei, sitting at Yui's right said softly. She was always the quieter, clingy one.

"Oh yeah. Good point. It'd be kinda dull. Kinda really dull. We'd just be like *merge*, and then we'd go compare our heights, and... bleeargh." Kiko pulled a face. "Boooo~ooooooring."

There were scattered sighs of relief around the table. Apart from Ichi, who was still pouting.

"I'm trying to talk, you know. But you're not listening! It's not fair! I am interesting, aren't I?"

"Yeah," Rei said, through a mouth full of a virtual chocolate-covered chocolate-centred chocolate cake with chocolate sprinkles. "Course you are. 'Cause it's yooo~oour birthday, and that means you're the specialist." Rei paused, cocking her head. "Specialist? Specialest?" She nodded. "Mostest superest special person for today!"

"Mostest bestest superest special person ever!" added Nana.

"Yes, Ichi, you are interesting," confirmed Kei.

The little girl nodded her head once. "Good. 'Cause, as I was saying, you've all, apart from Mommy, got taller. But what I was trying to say, yes, is that you're all different shapes, too. I mean, right, Kiko is more comfortable to sit on."

"Is it nice? Are they good changes?" asked Kiko, hugging Ichi tighter.

"No, they're not," Yui just heard Kei mutter, from her right.

"Yeah!" grinned Ichi. "You're softer and less bony! It's nice!"

"It ree~eeaally is nice, isn't it?" said Kiko, with a sudden hint of thoughtfulness in her voice. "And softness and huggableness are really nice, aren't they?"

"I like hugs," Ichi confirmed.

Yui's insides squirmed. "I'm so sorry I can't hug you more, Ichi," she said, her tone suddenly stricken. "Or at all. It's just that I can't be here, in here with you, ever. I never can be."

"It's all right," Ichi said, turning and trying to pat her mother on the shoulder, only waving her hand through her immaterial-in-this-virtual-reality body. "You give me cake. Real cake. And cake is like hugs for the tummy, right? And," she let out a small, self-pleased smile, "I have a really big tummy, so this is like a really big hug."

Yui let out a weak smile. "Thank you, Ichi."

"Of course, if you could please, please, please," she had her hands clutched up close to her chest, large brown eyes watery, "let me have more cake more times a year..."

The older woman glanced from side to side, noting how several of her daughters seemed to be getting bored, quite apart from the fact that the conversation seemed to be getting into expensive territory. Even by NERV's standards, which were somewhat laxer than most parental budgets. "I think it's time for presents for Ichi!" she loudly announced.

"Yaaaaaay!"


...

The concept of 'presents', when dealing with a sixty metre tall war machine, was somewhat shifted from what it was when dealing with a normal child's birthday. There was less of a shift than one might have expected, though, due to the fact that this sixty-metre war machine did have a virtual sanctum where its psyche spent most of its time, and thus the presents it was given were of use there, as opposed to, say, an appropriately scaled hula-hoop. Suggestions that they somehow persuade Ichi that upgrades to Unit 01 counted as her birthday presents had been ruthlessly crushed by Dr Ikari; a display of maternal affection which had only been somewhat negated by the fact that Ichi herself tended to view them as extra presents which she didn't have to wait until her birthday for. Although, it should be noted, they were still viewed as inferior to real birthday presents.

Yui suspected that this was because of the lack of associated cake or parties.

And then came the organisational hassle of the order in which the girls got to give their presents.

Or not, as it so happened this year.

"Yee~eah, there's really no need to bother," Iti explained, with a shrug, as Yui tried to hand out pieces of paper with random numbers on them.

Yui narrowed her eyes. "And why is that?"

"See, what we were thinking is, right, that it normally means we end up doing stuff, and then you go and get all disappointed at us. But, right, we were thinking that there had to be a better way, or at least one which was way more fun. So we just had a marital arts contest..."

Yui spluttered. "What?"

Her daughter frowned. "Huh?"

"You what?"

"Oh, come on. It's not like we haven't ever ever done it before. Tonnes and tonnes and tooo~oonnes of times."

"Bwha?"

"You know, getting up close and personal with each other."

"Bwha?"

"Sometimes it's better to get everyone doing it together, in a ree~eeally big ball of stuff, but sometimes it's more fun if two, like Kiko and someone else, right, do it, and the rest of us watch."

"Hargelen?"

"I mean, we could even do it here again, but I knoo~ooow you wouldn't want Ichi doing it, 'cause she's too young... even if she's, like, older than us, and then we'd probably need new clothes and you don't let us make stuff in Ichi's world for soo~oome reason, and, you know, doin' it is kinda exhausting."

"Fhtagn?"

"Lotsa fun, though." Iti fell silent.

They started at each other in mutual incomprehension for a moment, Yui turning increasingly red, although whether through embarrassment or anger, it was hard to tell.

"You mean 'martial arts'," Kei said softly, leaning in while, behind her, Siyon was taking the opportunity of Yui's distraction to give Ichi an impromptu lecture on the proper way to hold a progressive knife, using one of the plastic ones on the table as a demonstration.

The glace cherry on top of Cakeiel, the temporarily designated 'Angel of Cake', was suffering major core damage in the process.

"Oh, yeah," Iti said.

"You have a noted deficiency in your linguistic skills, including a tendency towards vagueness and excessive use of metasyntactic variables in situations which warrant clarity beyond that which imprecise terms can provide. You might want to consider putting effort into remedying it."

"And yooo~oou have a noted deficiency in your... stuff! You might want to consider puttying effort into remedying it." Iti retorted.

"Oh, well done. How long were you thinking about that comeback?" Kei paused. "And you meant 'putting', not 'puttying'."

From behind them, the lecture could be heard. "And then you adjust your grip, 'cause for fine cutting, you want your index finger... that's like your one next to your thumb, running along the back of the blade, 'cause that way, you give up stabbiness for ree~eally close control."

"But if there's actually an Angel of Cake," Ichi said, her tone a little upset, "then doesn't that mean that cake might be evil? Sort of, not really true?"

"Nah. Nah. I mean..."

"What is it?" called out Nana.

"Not talking to you, Nana!" shouted back Siyon. "Anyway, right, there's meant to be an Angel of Embyros, too, and they're babies, and babies can nee~eever be evil. Yeah? Makes sense?"

Ichi paused, and nodded seriously. "Yes. That makes sense." She licked her lips. "Can't I just eat an Angel of Cake, though?" Her pupils dilated slightly. "Oh, wow," she said, in a dreamy voice. "It would be like every birthday added together... though without the spending fun-time with you," she hastened to reassure her instructor.

"Not the point, Ichi. There isn't ree~eeally an Angel of Cake, it's just a target for the stabbin' and slicin' and cuttin' and..."

"You don't knoo~oow that, Siyon," interjected Kiko. "I mean, there might be. And... and it would be big, and float, and... and it would have a jam filling of LCL, and its core would be this ree~eeally big cherry on top, and it should shoot laser beams pewpewzaa~aaap from the sprinkles, and, like, the icing should be made of tentacles and stuff and it could ooze off and make little cakes... or maybe meringues. Yes. Meringues. I like meringues. They're all fluu~uuffy and suu~uugary and taa~aasty," Kiko sang.

Both Ichi and Siyon stared at her blankly for a moment. "What's a mermang?" Ichi finally asked, curiosity in her voice.

Kiko patted her on the head. "You'll find out when you're older," she said.

"While that's technically true, that's not a helpful reply, Kiko," Yui said, but too late to stop the next question.

"Is it something to do with girls and when they get older and why you're more comfortable to sit on? Because I think that's what 'You'll find out when you're older means'."

"No, darling. A meringue is something made from sugar and egg whites all whisked together. It normally has added cream, and strawberries or raspberries or other things on top."

"Oh. That does sound nice."

Yui paused. "We could look into getting you one for next year," she said, slowly, before frowning. "It wouldn't be as nice, though," she said, "as well, the fact we have to feed it through the nutrient pipes means that it'll lose its texture."

"But it still sounds nice," Ichi said, a slight frown on her face.

"Well, maybe. As I said, we'll look into..."

"Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!"

Yui sighed, both gloved hands colliding with her VR helmet. Turning, the cluster of blue-haired girls (including, somehow, both Siyon and Kiko, who had been remarkably fast to get there) had already formed a lose circle, insofar as a circle can be composed of only six people, around a warring pair.

In the centre of the pseudo-circle, Iti smashed a chair into Kei's face, only to get an underarm-lobbed cupcake into the middle of the forehead, which stuck. These combats were actually unusual for a form of Ree-based violence, as they were utterly and clearly locked as Users, not Superusers, inside Ichi's simulation, and so the normal reality warping and use of hammer_.exe was replaced with vicious and rather malevolent improvised combat. Hence, when Iti charged forwards, spork in hand, she was disarmed with a ladle which continued into her leg, causing her to stumble, and mash herself forwards into Kei in a bear hug. The momentum of the pair carried them forwards into the table, and, with a smashing of cutlery and glasses, they began to roll, only accentuating the destruction to the euphoric enthusiasm of their blue-haired sisters.

"Ooh," said Ichi, eyes alight, "the fight. I was wondering why it was taking so long so start," she added, as Kei managed to end up on top, and started holding Iti facedown in the trifle bowl, volcanic eruptions of air being forced out from the dessert and splattering everywhere.

Yui looked down at the little brown-haired girl. "You were expecting this?" she asked, split between the urge to intervene, and curiosity over Ichi's statement. She was, at least, glad that Gendo wasn't here right now. He'd have a few things to say about the techniques the two were using; Yui could see, just at a glance, how relatively sloppy they were. And then she'd have to send him to sleep on the couch for a week, for 'corrupting' them, and those occasions were always a real try of her willpower to hold out for the full duration of his punishment.

"Of coo~oourse," Ichi drawled, the arrogance of a small child in her tone. "This is what always happens in between the end of the not-real food, you saying we should open the presents, and me getting my presents. I mean, they're starting to get bored by now, so they just start fighting, but it's okay unlike real fighting, because it's not real fighting and no-one gets hurt," which was an unfortunate thing to say, perhaps, because at that point an ascending leg with an not-inconsiderable amount of force behind it was elevated with extreme prejudice between Kei's legs, sending her flying off over into the drinks table. Staggering, dripping with blue, red, and even orange, the girl pulled herself to her feet, eyes slightly crossed, only to be hit by the charge of her trifle-covered sister.

With a few thoughts, Yui realised that, yes, Ichi was right. And that she'd pointed the same thing out last year, but Yui had forgotten.

So much for a normal family outing, she thought, shaking her head. If this has become so mundane that Ichi expects it... oh well.

"This is normally the point at which you stop them, and then tell them that they're going to be sent back to the Magi if they don't stop acting up and trying to ruin my birthday," Ichi pointed out, as Iti tried to punch Kei in the face, and Kei tried to headbutt Iti's fist. There was a moment of confusion, as both stumbled backwards, one clutching their forehead, the other massaging their hand, before they were both picked up and separated by glowing bluish-white forcefield bubbles, the lines of projection emanating from Yui's fingers.

"Oooo~oooh," was the general consensus of the onlookers, with a minority report of "Pree~eeetty."

Yui sucked in a breath, and got her thoughts in order. "Girls," she managed.

"She called me stupid!"

"I did not! The word 'stupid' was not used once."

"She called me a load of long words which all mee~eean stupid!"

"... she was the one who initiated violence!"

"Enough." Yui's words were final. "I am rather disappointed in you. This is Ichi's birthday, and you certainly will not ruin it for her by fighting. Look at it. Look what you did to the table, and all her birthday food."

"Buu~uuut I can't move my head!" whined Iti, body locked in the field.

"Me neither," added Kei.

Spinning, Yui repositioned them such that they could see. "Look! Did you know how long it took me to make all this for this year."

"Didn't you just open the party food fileset?" asked Kiko, frowning, before an elbow to the gut from Rei silenced her. "I mean... oof."

"Not. The. Point," snapped Yui, with a glare over at the girl.

"Remember to threaten them," said Ichi, her hand floating where she would be tugging on Yui's skirt, if the woman was actually material.

"Now, if you aren't going to sit down, behave, and be sensible, I will send you both back to the Magi. And," she added, despite her concern that this was possibly setting the wrong example for Ichi, "demote you to User status for two days. That would mean no editing rights at all."

Both of the already pale girls paled further, Kei looking especially upset. "I'll be good," she said very, very quickly.

"Very, very good," added Iti.

"Now..." Yui reached down, back in real space, and flicked the screens over her left eye into Control Mode, selecting the option she had already prepared, "...now is time for presents."

The world disappeared, to be replaced by the infinite white plane of loading. Apart from the bits of trifle and drink dripping down onto the white plane, which discoloured it.

Yui frowned. That wasn't meant to happen. It had somehow been bought along, in some kind of memory overflow issue linked to the use of the Pointer. And just looking at the gleaming look in at least four of her daughters' (she was very glad that the apostrophe was there, as opposed to "daughter's") eyes, they'd noticed it, and were almost certainly trying to work out how to use it to circumvent her own barrier syst... no, wait, five now.

Honestly, she wasn't going to test it herself against the interface barrier between her Magi and one of SEELE's systems. Really.

And the infinite white featureless plane was replaced by a... well, an infinite white featured plane. Very featured, in fact, considering the sheer scale of some of the mounds of wrapping paper.

Very few parents had to consider the problems of wrapping up a worldspace.

With a yelp, Ichi darted forwards, grin on her face, before she blinked, and turned, eyes very wide at her mother. "Mommy," she said, clutching her interlocked hands to her mouth, "Please please please please can I open my presents now?"

Yui smiled maternally. "Of course," she said. "Just, remember, you need to check the name tag before you open it," she added, noting the slight pout that it produced on the present-addled little girl's face.

"The biggest one is from mee~eeee!" called out Nana. "So you don't need to check the tag!"

"Yaaaaay!"

It suddenly became necessary to duck away from the explosive flurry of wrapping paper flying everywhere, as a sixty-metre tall version of Ichi started pulling the paper away. Not a sixty metre tall Unit 01, it should be noted. No, this was a giant little girl.

"Wow!"

"I know." Nana looked smug.

"My very own desert island adventure playground." Ichi stared down at Nana, ankle deep in blue-green sea, with perhaps the largest big brown eyes that most beings would ever encounter. "Thank you thank you thank you!"

"Aaa~aand there totally aren't any massive shoota emplacements, wartrak racecourses, fighta bomba landin' strips or anything," Nana said. "Because Little Mommy took them away. Which is... just the superest awesomest thing ever!" she added, after a glare from Yui.

"Next is me!" shouted Hatchi, "'cause I came second. Miii~iiine is over by the one in silver paper, but you'll have to be smaller to find it!"

"'Kay!"


...

The emergency teams were already at work fixing the damage that Unit 01 had inflicted on the area with its little outburst or, at the very least, trying to get new restraints in place. There was a general slight relaxation in the workforce, though; the kind of slightly giddy euphoria which comes after extreme stress.

There was, thus, quite a lot of rather urgent dry cleaning needed when the Evangelion began to roar again. Largely because they did not have the restraints back on, but did have quite a few workers nearby.

"Don't worry!" called out Lieutenant Aoba, having taken over Lieutenant Ibuki's workstation. The woman was currently in sickbay, still not having regained consciousness after her fainting incident. The medic said that it was just the stress from almost having been hit by the projectile restraint, although, privately, he was getting a little concerned by the grin on her face, and the periodic cooing noises she was making.

"Why shouldn't we worry!" snapped Ritsuko, turned to glare at the man, who cowered slightly in his seat.

"It's just the presents!" he managed.

The synchronised release of breath from all parties actually tripped a pressure sensor in the chamber, the sudden change triggering alarms in the command room. Which only brought all new kinds of stress.

Aoba was blamed for it.


...