Okay so yeah this is a day late. Maybe its better if I do this on Christmas though...eh whatever. As I post this chapter it has literally been (counts off on fingers) twelve hours since I started working on this. As for my one shot...its done and all, but needs to be proofread. So that wont be out till sometime later today. And for ever body that wanted a lemon you got your wish. Anyway I'm gonna go to sleep now and wake up in the next four hours.
Shinji wasn't sure how long he had been sleeping, but it didn't feel like a full day, in fact, it felt like only a few hours had gone by since his visit with Asuka. At least they had decided to let him sleep on a bed this time instead of an operating table.
He was in his usual white room, though it might not have been the usual, since he suspected that there was more then just one. Looking down at his arms, he didn't seen any cords or wires, just the scars from when he received the glass shards.
Swinging his leg over the side of his bed, he was determined to get out of this depressing room and find something to eat, when the door slid open and Ritsuko walked in.
"...Shinji?"
"I'm not doing anything wrong, so you don't have to act so defensive. I was just thinking of looking for some food."
"Oh..right. Well, before that, I was hoping you could accompany me on a tour of some sorts."
"I really don't care to see more of Nerv then I already have."
"I'm sure you will be interested in this particular thing."
Shinji stood, staring at Ritsuko before sighing in resignation, he said, "Lead the way."
Shinji had certainly never been this far down into Nerv headquarters, he thought as the elevator they were on continued to descend deep into Central Dogma.
After passing the thirty-third floor, Shinji was becoming suspicious.
"What exactly is down here?" He asked with a slight edge in his voice.
"...Something that I figured was worth while for you to see."
"Does my father know about this?"
Ritsuko hesitated for a second before she finally said, "No, the commander does not know that I am bringing you here, though he does know about this dark secret kept at Nerv."
"Who all knows about this besides yourself?"
"The commander and vice commander."
"Misato doesn't?"
"...She suspects, but her clearance isn't high enough to get her down here."
Shinji felt slightly fearful suddenly. What could be so bad that they had to keep it away from even Misato?
As the lift came to a sudden jolting halt, the rot-iron gates slowly opened, and Shinji stepped out into a wide opened room.
After taking several looks around, Shinji realized what he was looking and said, "This is-"
"The failed attempts at creating the first Evangelion."
Giant pits opened up in the Earth, in which the failed corpses of previous Evangelion lay there, slowly decomposing. Barely any flesh was left on the disfigured bones of the bodies and Shinji suddenly felt sick. Hardly anything was left except for the bones, which consisted largely of the skull and the backbone and several limbs which seemed to be some sort of strange mutation.
"This is awful," mumbled Shinji.
"This is the reality of what has transpired here. Some might consider what we conducted an atrocity, we consider it as a scientific breakthrough."
"But the Eva's are still organisms. They must have...some sort of feelings."
"Irrelevant. The Evangelions were derived from Adam, the first angel, they are nothing more then our tools."
"Then what about the souls of the people that reside in them?"
Ritsuko froze for a second, momentarily surprised that he knew about something so sensitive as that.
"Where did you hear that?"
"Doesn't matter...people's souls are inside of those things."
"Dead people's souls," Ritsuko reminded him.
"Are we just supposed to forget about them?"
"Some things are better left forgotten," said Ritsuko, ending the conversation and continuing forward.
Shinji grumbled silently as he trailed behind her, trying to ignore the corpses on either side of him.
Eventually the wide room filled with the corpses of past Eva's came to an end and they stopped outside a door. Swiping her key card through the slot, Ritsuko punched in several numbers, and the door swung open to admit her.
They were in a high ceilinged room now that seemed to stretch upward forever. As Shinji took a step forward he looked to his left and right, noticing the small island in the middle while a watery substance seemed to be surrounding it.
"What is this place?"
Taking several steps forward, Ritsuko said, "This is what is known as the Black Moon, the resting place of the second angel, Lilith."
As Shinji heard her words, what was nailed to a cross in the center of the island soon became apparent. It looked like a white, faceless, legless giant, with a mask over what looked like an upside down triangle, with seven opened eyes adorning it. Where a stomach should have been, the skin was disfigured, with large bulges popping out of the side. Shinji then realized that a fluid seemed to be leaking from this apparent wound.
"This is an angel?"
"Correct," Ritsuko replied.
"But what is it doing here?"
"Lilith was found buried underneath Japan. The Geofront was build upon it and Nerv created an entire city to hide its existence from the public. The fluid that you see leaking from its chest cavity, is in fact LCL fluid, the same that we use to supply the Evangelions."
"But why here?"
"Tokyo-3 is the safest and possibly dangerous place on Earth right now. The reason the angels appear here is because of Lilith, they are drawn to its presence, but we have three Evangelions here, which makes us more then prepared enough."
As Shinji continued to look up into the eerie face of Lilith he asked, "Why are you showing me this?"
Shrugging, Ritsuko said, "For my own purposes, and I believe you deserve to know after everything that you have been put through. I'm sorry about the whole confinement, but there really is nothing I can do."
"Yeah, I know," he mumbled.
They stood there for a while longer looking at the soulless face of Lilith.
"I have something else that I wanted to tell you while we're down here, which is probably the main reason why I brought you down here. Try not to get...agitated as I know you probably will be furious."
"...What is it?"
"After a failed experiment The United States of America has relinquished its grip on Eva Unit-03; they have decided to send it to us. Due to the writings of the Vatican Treaty each country is allowed to have a maximum number of three Evangelion at any given time, this limits the country in questions power. Because we will be gaining control of Unit-03, the commander has deemed it necessary to place Unit-01 in storage."
"Why is that?"
"...Honestly, we don't know how your powers will be affected during actual combat, and furthermore you may pose a threat to the other pilots."
"Why did you expect me to get angry? Its not like I care that much to begin with."
"I'm...not quite done. The original pilot for the synchronization was supposed to be you, but after that last test, the commander decided to have Asuka pilot it."
Shinji could feel the ringing settle in his ears almost immediately after she spoke.
"What was that?"
"Shinji...you promised you would't get angry."
"...How could I not be angry! Does my father want me to break his fucking neck?"
Ritsuko could feel the change in his aura and his anger boil over to the point where she felt something constricting her trachea.
"...Shinji!"
At her sudden scornful words, Shinji's shoulders relaxed slightly, passing a hand over his head, he wiped the sweat off his brow and glanced in the direction of Lilith. For some reason he felt a presence that felt oddly familiar.
Shaking off the feeling of deja vu, he looked over at Ritsuko and said, "Sorry...when is the test supposed to take place?"
"Tomorrow at noon."
"Am I allowed to be there?"
"...No. You weren't even supposed to know about this."
"Right," said Shinji moodily. Turning around he walked past Ritsuko, and towards the lift to take him back up to the surface.
Asuka got the news that she would be the test pilot for Unit 03 later that day, and she wasn't entirely thrilled. She was afraid that her synchronization rate would have dropped dramatically; she had been reliving the rape every night, except that Shinji didn't rescue her. Her eyes were bloodshot now and she had black bags under her eyes from the lack of sleep.
Resting her head on the couch, she buried her face in a pillow and thought about what she had been told by Misato.
She knew that Shinji had been the original test pilot for Unit 03, but something had changed and she had been chosen.
Rolling onto her back, she bit her lip in frustration at what she was supposed to do tomorrow. She was afraid that she would have a mental breakdown.
"Asuka?" Came a sudden voice from the doorway of the living room.
Asuka looked up to see Misato leaning against the door frame, with a frown creasing her brow.
"You okay with this," she asked.
Asuka simply nodded and said, "Yeah...its fine. Its better for Shinji this way."
"I could ask the commander to reevaluated his deci-"
"Its fine," she said in a much sterner voice.
"Asuka...if you need to talk to me about anything you know-"
"I'm perfectly fine," shouted Asuka. Throwing herself off the couch, she stormed passed Misato before slamming the door of her room, only to have it bounce back and rebound against the opposite wall.
Flattening herself against her futon, she crushed her face against the pillow as silent tears started streaming down her face.
When was this nightmare going to end?
Asuka woke early the next morning, and hurriedly dressed to prepare to leave for Nerv. Even if she didn't want to admit it, she was extremely nervous.
Going down the highway leading to the testing site, Asuka constantly bit her already chapped lips, and curled a loose strand of her hair around her index finger. She was constantly looking out the window, trying to judge if they were any closer.
Leaning against the window, with her chin resting in the palm of her hand she asked Misato, "Is Shinji going to be there?"
Misato glanced over at Asuka for a second before saying, "No...he wont be. He doesn't even know about today, or the fact that he was chosen as the original pilot. You can at least understand what he would do if he learned that you were taking his place."
"Yeah, he can be rather stubborn," mumbled Asuka.
Pulling up to the contained area where the tests were supposed to be conducted, they both handed their pass cards over to security, before being sent onward.
Stopping at a fork in the road, Misato waved Asuka onward while she entered a nearby tent where the monitoring equipment was being held.
As Misato opened the flap of the tent, Ritsuko was just about to leave it. Passing by each other for a brief instance, Ritsuko whispered a few hasty words to Misato. "I told him. He seemed to appreciate it."
Misato gave no sign that she had heard Ritsuko's words, but was glad that she had at least listened to her request. She didn't care how she had done it, as long as Shinji was aware of what was happening she felt less guilty for putting Asuka through this.
Asuka meanwhile had already changed into her plug suit and was climbing the ladder to the entry plug of Unit 03. It felt so much different, quite unlike the warmth that she was so used to while inside her own Eva. It was the first time that she felt that the Evangelion's were wrong, an abomination. She felt revolted that she was sitting inside of something that just felt so...evil."
"Asuka...can you here me?"
"Perfectly fine," replied Asuka to Misato's question.
"How do you feel?"
Asuka hoped that Misato didn't notice the waver in her voice as she said, "Fine..."
"Okay. We're going to start the first phase. Just perform as you usually do in your synchronization tests and everything will be fine."
"Right," said Asuka as she took a deep breath.
"LCL pressure at normal level, plug depth within acceptable parameters, pilot pulse and brain wave normal. Synchronization holding at seventy-four precent. No abnormalities detected."
"Good," said Ritsuko as she ducked into the tent, standing beside Misato. "Proceed to the second stage of the test."
Asuka nodded and closed her eyes.
She had done this over a thousand times, and in so many different scenarios, that she felt confident saying she could sync with an Eva while in a coma. Yet she had never found it so difficult as she did now. Maybe it was like she had thought before, the feel of the Eva was completely off. She didn't feel safe in here, she felt scared and afraid, and more then ever, she wanted Shinji to be with her, at possibly the most painful moments of her life.
They said some women never overcame the trauma that was inflicted on them by a rape, Asuka could very well be leaning towards that. She had lied to Shinji about receiving help from Hikari; she had lied about Touji and Kensuke being nicer to her, because when she wasn't crying her eyes out on her pillow, she was aimlessly wandering around Tokyo-3. This usually happened while she was supposed to be in school, and amazingly, it was even starting to affect her grades.
She tried to imagine herself inside her own Eva, curled up in a ball and floating in the sea of LCL fluid, but even this wasn't enough to make he feel safe and protected. It seemed only one thing could do that, and that one thing was gone.
...She heard a voice...softly beckoning to her. Eyes opening slowly, she felt a shift in the LCL fluid, and thought she heard a voice whispering softly into her ear. Turning her head both left and right she didn't see anything, but she kept on hearing a voice calling to her.
"We can help you. You have nothing to fear with us here."
She suddenly felt as though she was being propelled down a long tunnel, with no end in sight. The tunnel walls on either side of her were a dark red, and the blackness that started to squeeze all around her was almost to much to bear.
A hand suddenly reached out from the darkness and beckoned to her. Asuka who was at her wits end, grasped it without thinking, and felt herself pulled roughly through the far corners of her mind.
Deeper blackness engulfed her, such that it seemed as though the light of the universe had suddenly gone out. She groped around frantically in the dark, trying to find any substantial object that she could latch onto and claim as her own safe haven. Eventually she tripped over her feet, falling flat on her face. She wrapped her arms around her head and willed herself to wake up, Surely this was all just a terrible dream that she was having, right? She was sleeping and she was going to wake up any second and laugh it off, right?"
A white hand appeared out of the blackness, and grasped her hand pulled her towards its owner. Asuka went freely, as the light was better than anything the darkness could hold. Though as the owner of the hands face came into stronger perspective, Asuka's eyes widened as her mouth opened in a silent scream. A pure whitish face greeted her, with a lopsided red smile. The edges of its body were blurred and fuzzy, and it seemed to have a human shaped body.
Asuka's silent scream had resounded loud inside the entry plug of the Eva, as the plug depth suddenly shot above one hundred.
"What's going on, Asuka!" Shouted Misato into the intercom.
Asuka had been completely silent for ten seconds before she suddenly let out her high pitched screech.
"Plug Depth exceeding one hundred. The Pilot is in danger of mental contamination."
"Cut the synchronization between the pilot and the Eva!"
"The Eva is not registering the code."
"Pilots brain waves are going sporadic, heart rate is accelerating rapidly."
"Misato!"
Nodding at Ritsuko's quick question, Misato said, "Disengage test. Forcefully eject the entry plug out of the Eva, and remove the umbilical cord."
"...Eva is rejecting both of the signatures."
"What the hell is going on-"
"...Ma'am I have a confirmation of pattern blue."
"What?"
"Unit 03 is being contaminated by an angel."
"Try ejecting the plug again damn it."
"Unable to, a glue like substance has coated itself around the entry plug making it impossible to eject."
"Sudden heat source detected. Thermal energies rising. Unit 03 is breaking apart from the constraints."
"Damn it, send a call to central command!"
"...What should I-"
"Ask for support from Rei and...ask for the release of Unit 01 and its pilot Shinji Ikari."
Gendo Ikari stood in his office, having just gotten off the phone with an operative from the test site. The situation had changed, but not to the point where he was readily worried.
"Is that you Fuyutsuki?" Asked Gendo as he heard the door open.
"Yes."
"What is the overall status of the situation?"
"Unit 03 is on a rampages in the northern hills of Tokyo-3 and seems to be continuing south. An evacuation order has been issued."
"...What else?"
"The Eva seems to have been taken over by the angel Bardiel, while the life of the pilot is unknown."
"Reclassify Unit 03 as an angel and a threat to humanity. As for the life of the pilot," here he paused, turned around to face Fuyutsuki and said one word, "irrelevant."
"And what about the request put in by captain Katsuragi?"
Gendo took a long time to answer, thinking about the pros and cons of each action before he said, "Release Unit 01 from storage, though the pilot stays."
"...But then-"
"And tell the engineers to outfit it with the dummy plug. This should be an adequate test for it."
Fuyutsuki nodded his head once, before leaving the room. Gendo meanwhile sat back down at his desk before picking up his phone and saying into the receiver, "Get me doctor Akagi."
Shinji knew that the test had started half an hour ago, but he still couldn't help but look at the clock every few minutes, hoping that the hands would suddenly start spinning faster. Sitting around and doing nothing was far worse then he had expected, and he found that he had soon worn a hole in the floor with his pacing. What he wouldn't give to be out of this shitty room.
Maybe he would get his wish as he saw the door nob turn slightly, before being jerked forward, banging it off the opposite wall. Though it became clear that they weren't simply there to ask him questions.
Four soldiers, complete with automatic weapons, stormed into his room, guns all aimed at him. Shinji stood dumbstruck at the wall of destruction that was just waiting for him to make a move that they even though as suspicious. If they did, his body would be riddled with bullet holes.
Suddenly one of them motioned to the other, and what appeared to be the captain in charge, walked forward cautiously, keeping an eye on Shinji at all times.
"You're Ikari Shinji, correct?"
"...Yes," said Shinji curtly.
"You have been requested at Unit 03's testing grounds."
Shinji suddenly let out an angry snarl and yelled, "What happened to Asu-"
Cutting across him, the solider said, "Unit 03 is rampaging around the country side but is slowly making its way south, towards Tokyo-3. We have orders to escort or detain you as necessary as we bring you to Unit 01."
"I thought it was placed in storage?"
The soldier completely ignored his question and instead said, "We don't want you to try anything Mr. Ikari, so if you can just follow us we can get this over with."
Shinji snorted, "Yeah...because I'd never try anything with soldiers watching me. Just lead the way before I feeling like venting my frustration on one of you."
The soldiers must have taken his threat fairly seriously, because they all crouched on one knee, flipped the safety off, and put there index finger over the trigger.
Sighing, Shinji said, "I was kidding..."
Seeing that he was completely laid back, the soldiers hesitantly removed their index fingers from the triggers, though they did not flip the safety back on.
"Lets go," said Shinji as he followed the soldier out the door and up several flights of stairs. He didn't think they'd want to take the elevator as they would be enclosed in a small space where they wouldn't have much room to shoot.
It felt oddly good to be back in the entry plug of Unit 01 after such a long while, and he also knew that his mother was watching over him silently. The only thing that made this painful was that he was supposed to battle an angel that had taken possession of an Eva's body while Asuka was inside the entry plug.
Rocketing up elevator shaft number seven, he soared out through the end of it, landing cleanly on his feet. He was just inside the city limits of Tokyo-3 and the only thing that he could really see were a lot of trees and several power lines.
"Ikari-kun."
Rei in Unit-00 appeared next to him as she came up the same elevator shaft that he just did.
"Ayanami...Asuka..."
"...Its coming."
Sure enough, the two of them saw it at the same time as it came over the hump of the hill in the distance. Large pieces of the black armor had been coated with the white, glue like substance that coated the entry plug that Asuka was stuck inside.
Shinji swallowed hard as the enormity of what he was supposed to do hit him, "Ayanami...how exactly are we supposed to-"
Unit-03 suddenly rocketed down the hill, splitting the ground as it went and upending trees. Bracing himself, Shinji felt two large arms barrel themselves against Unit 01 arms, and felt pain constrict his arms.
"Asuka..."
Rei appeared out of nowhere and with her progressive knife in hand, drove it into the arm, through the armor and eventually down to the soft tissue underneath. Unit 03's mouth opened wide as it bellowed in anger and pain. Knocking Shinji out of the way, it pulled the knife out of its arm and flung it at Unit 00's direction.
Dodging it easily, Unit 00 ducked a series of vicious kicks and punches, until Unit 03 finally grabbed it by the throat with both hands and pinned it to the ground. Snarling in fury, Unit 03 continued strangling Unit 00 and Rei.
Shinji with Unit 01, swung its arm around Unit 03 neck, catching it by the throat and flung it backwards, and off of Rei."
"Thank you, Ikari-kun," gasped Rei.
"Ayanami...how are we supposed to fight this thing without hurting Asuka?"
"The commander gave us the order to defeat it in a fashion that suggested the pilot of 02's life as an afterthought."
It took Shinji a second for him to decipher the meaning in her words, but when he did, he felt boiling blood rattle his ears, as he realized what his father had said.
"Ayanami...did my father say that?"
"Yes, he did..."
Shinji's snarl was so loud that it rattled the eardrums of everybody in the commander center. Yelling at the top of his voice, he bellowed over the intercom, "WHERE THE HELL IS THAT BASTARD! DON'T YOU DARE FORFEIT ASUKA'S LIFE YOU DECEITFUL ASSHOLE!"
"Shinji think of it from a militaristic standpoint."
"I DON'T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT THE MILITARY OR NERV! I WOULD RATHER DIE THEN TAKE ASUKA'S LIFE!"
"Ikari-kun!"
Shinji had just enough time to roll out of the way as Unit 03 charged at him on all fours, swiping at the armor of his Eva as it went. Skidding across the ground, Unit 03 poised on all fours again, before flinging itself through the air, and landing just where Unit 00 had been moments before.
"Ayanami!"
Running at break neck speed, Shinji flung himself in front of Unit 00 as Unit 03 bore down upon her. Grasping the side of Unit 01's head, Unit 03 smashed in through somebody's abandoned house, and drug it through the dirt, before jumping up in the air to pounce on it.
Rolling out of the way quickly, Shinji swung Unit 01's legs outward, catching Unit 03 on the way down, and knocking it off balance. As Unit 03 stumbled backwards, Shinji grabbed both of his shoulders and forcefully pinned it against the ground.
"Asuka, damn it answer me! You're the last person I know that would give up on this. Wake up!"
Unit 03 simply opened its mouth and roared. Forcefully ripping Unit 01's hands of its shoulders, it kicked Unit 01 in the chest, knocking the breath out of Shinji in the process, and sent him skidding across the earthen ground, kicking up great chunks of dirt.
Turning to Unit 00, it flew at Rei, tearing apart the ground as it ran, and grasped Unit 00 around the throat and started strangling it savagely. Even though Rei's synchronization wasn't nearly as strong as Shinji's she was still able to feel a fraction of the pain Unit 00 felt, and her trachea was soon being constricted.
As Shinji stood up, he had to fight the urge to vomit out of his system. Shaking himself of the dizziness, he saw Unit 03 bearing down over Unit 00 and crushing its wind pipe. Sudden anger shot through Shinji even with his best attempts to control it. Next second he was beside Unit 03, and slammed an AT-field directly into the side of his foe.
Unit 03 went flying backwards, kicking up dirt, toppling power lines, and making houses turn to powder.
"Ayanami...you okay?"
"Unit 00 has suffered some contamination, but I will be fine.
"You sure?"
"Yes, I will be fine..."
"...Okay."
Looking back over at Unit 03, Shinji had just enough time to see it getting up, before both its arms suddenly swung at them from four hundred yards away. Shinji managed to dodge out of the way, but Rei didn't react quickly enough and Unit 03 hands wrapped around Unit 00 head, and pummeled it against the ground.
"Ayanam-"
Unit 03 other arm swung outward, gripping Unit 01's wind wipe, constricting it, and almost instantly, Shinji felt as though he was going to pass out. Gripping both his hands around Unit 03's arm, he twisted it, forcing a break, and making Unit 03 rear backwards in anger and frustration.
Roaring angrily, the bulge in the side of its arm suddenly rightened itself with a loud snap, setting it back into place. Snarling angrily, the holsters for the progressive knifes in the shoulders suddenly exploded, showering the ground in flesh and bone, as two humanoid arms shot out of the wound.
Grasping Unit 01's arm, Unit 03 cleanly broke it, making Shinji howler as pain coursed through his right arm.
Moving over to Unit 00, Unit 03 grabbed the right arm and pulled with all its might, until the arm came clean off, spewing blood and gore around the ground and on its hands. Throwing the arm off to the side, it reared backwards and prepared to smash a fist into the head of Unit 00 when an AT-field flashed suddenly, severing one of its newborn hands.
Blood spewed out of what was once a shoulder and seemed to rain down upon its head, creating a fountain.
Shinji started to lose focus as Unit 03 slowly started walking towards him, regrowing its arm in the process.
"Shinji...what are you doing?"
Shinji froze as he heard his fathers voice over the intercom.
"Fa-fath-"
"The enemy is in front of you...destroy it."
"But Asuka's in there! I can't hurt her!"
"Doesn't matter. That is an angel, our enemy."
"I'd rather die then kill her."
"...If you are so set on dying then find death in your own way, but don't go throwing away Unit 01 which your mother put her life's work into."
"Fa-"
Shinji felt the density of the LCL fluid change abruptly, as everything went dark.
"Father...what are you..."
Shinji felt something moving behind his seat and next second a robotic figure was hovering over him, locking his hands against the controls of Unit 01 with several metallic clicks. It bent down to an inhuman level so that a monitor with the words DMYSYS displayed in front of him. Then his visual screen suddenly turned a blood red color as he felt the the Eva start moving again.
"FATHER YOU-"
Unit 01 charged forward towards its target, all sign of Shinji's childish emotions lost. As Unit 03 flung out its arms to attack, Unit 01 one grabbed both arms, and pulled Unit 03 towards itself, before kicking it squarely in the chest, sending it flying backwards at the speed of a jet plane.
Crashing into a nearby hillside, Unit 03 dodged out of the way just in time as Unit 01 followed up with swift punch to where its head had been moments before. Gouging out a great mound of dirt with his punch, Unit 01 jumped high in the air, before falling down directly in front of Unit 03.
Unit 03 swung outwards with its stretched arms, grabbing Unit 01 left arm and attempted to pull it off as it had done to Unit 00. Unit 01 reared its head, grasping at the outstretched arm of Unit 03 and ripped a large chunk of flesh off the bone. Tossing it aside, Unit 01 followed up with quick jab to the open wound, splitting the bone instantly.
Unit 03 let go in pain, and retreated backwards a few steps before Unit 01 roared in front of it with its fist cocked backwards. Punching with the full power of an Eva, the shockwave that followed stripped the bark off trees, and shattered the windows of houses within a thousand yard radius.
Staggering backwards, Unit 03 clutched at the large dent in its chest, just as Unit 01 palmed Unit 03's head in its hand. Smashing it into the ground repeatedly, Unit 01 proceeded to start the dismemberment.
Finally Unit 01's mouth opened, as it tore into the lower abdominal cavity of Unit 03. Organs were removed and slithered out onto the already blood soaked ground, while bone was smashed cleanly in half as though it had been cleaved by an axe.
Throughout the horror fest, Shinji constantly cursed back at his father. Didn't he understand that Asuka was the first person that he had connected with? Why didn't he understand that she was someone special, someone important to him?
As Unit 01 started ripping apart the flesh of Unit 03, Shinji almost gave up hope when he heard a familiar voice resounding in his head.
"What the fuck is this shit? Son of a bitch trying to control me with this fucking copy."
Shinji had never heard the 'voice' talk in such a scornful tone before.
"Bastard's trying to control me, not like it will do any good without you here anyway. I'm going to connect directly with you again. If we achieve a high enough sync rate we should be able gain control again."
Shinji nodded and prepared to feel the nerves pierce his skin and connect directly with his thoughts. Feeling a hot white poker hit his brain he knew that the connection had been made.
"Haven't done this in a while..."
"Why is that?"
"Because you learned how to control the Eva by yourself. I was simply guiding you the other times. Now quiet and think about dismantling this pile of shit."
"I have something else I wanted to-"
"Not now, do you want to fix this or not."
'Right,' thought Shinji.
Closing his eyes, he thought of Asuka and nobody else. If she wasn't one hundred percent perfectly fine, heads would roll, and not in a figurative sense.
He pictured them back in Misato's apartment. No school, no Nerv crap, just the two of them lazing around on the couch together. She'd be watching T.V. as usual, and he'd be listening to his SDAT. Eventually she'd yell at him to make dinner or go somewhere else because he was bothering her. He didn't care to have it anyway else.
Inside the Geofront, Gendo was presiding over the task of managing the dummy plug. Ritsuko, who may have been the lead designer of it, was still unknown at the time because of the activation test with Unit 03.
"Dummy plug is operating at full capacity with a minute and a half of remaining battery life"
"Hang on..."
Fuyutsuko who was standing beside Gendo asked, "What?"
"The plug depth is increasing rapidly...passing over the danger area...one hundred...one hundred and ten. Pilot seems to be willfully entering the containment zone."
"Cut the synchronization of the nerve receptors down to-"
"Hold on," said Gendo in his loud voice.
"But sir, any more of this and the pilot might never be human again."
"He can handle it. Continue as planned, release the limiters on the dummy plug."
Back inside Unit 01, Shinji felt the blood slowly flowing from the small piercings in his skin and dissolve into the LCL fluid.
"Okay...I'm going to attempt to break the control over this thing. Get ready, that thing out there is able to regenerate faster then I expected. I don't want to gain control again, only to have us lose next second."
"Ready whenever."
"Disengaging...now..."
Shinji immediately felt the difference in the LCL fluid. It became much lighter, and less hostile. The blood red glow around the screens slowly faded away, letting Shinji see the landscape once again.
"Shit..."
"What?"
"That damn thing is trying to come back online."
"Can't you do anything to stop it?"
"Yes, but not for very long."
"How long!"
"A minute at most."
"Do it. I've got to get Asuka out of that thing before it has a chance to regenerate."
Moving so that he was standing directly beside the broken Eva's head, he molded his thoughts to that of a shape that would perfectly fit around the entry plug Asuka was in. Now projecting it, he carefully concentrated on that single point and started crisscrossing other points until he had created something like a net. Filling in the small holes, he carefully carved away the white substance that was clinging to the entry plug, and gently lifted it out of the Eva.
"You're getting pretty good at creating exactly what you want..."
"Thanks," mumbled Shinji as he chose a place to set the entry plug down
"Now hurry up and destroy the rest of it."
Shinji nodded and drew back Unit 01's fist, and smashed against the Evangelions skull. Brain matter exploded and shattered the ground with bits of gray tissue.
"Its over," breathed Shinji.
The aftermath of the battle took a while to mull over. Misato and Ritsuko had been found with no bodily injury. Rei was fine though a little sore, and Unit 00 would need some replacement part.
Asuka though...Shinji still wasn't allowed to see her since her admittance to Nerv hospital.
He had been the first to see her, and it was something that would probably forever stick in his mind when he opened managed to get into the entry plug.
He had forcefully ejected himself for Unit 01, and slowly climbed his way down to the base of the foot. When he had arrived at the entry plug, he realized that the handle had the glue like substance caked over it. He tried several times to break through to the handle, but he found that it was just to strong. He eventually decided to try something.
He had become conscious of his own AT-field, it felt like his outer skin was coated in jello. Molding it to his thought, he carefully sliced a sizable hole in the metal of the entry plug. He had expected to step into waist deep LCL fluid, but was surprised when the liquid barely came up to his knees.
Crawling over to where Asuka was, he found her hand and squeezed it, expecting to feel her reassuring warmth that she was okay back. He did not expect to feel her hand, freezing cold, and coated in her own blood.
After the medics arrived he got a good look at he face and realized that her she was coated in her own blood, and yet, she didn't have a wound on herself. After that, Shinji had to be detained as he had caused a large fuss, and nearly broke several peoples necks trying to get to Asuka.
Right now he was back in his favorite room, that made him look like a mental patient.
Curling up in a ball on his unfavorable bed, he heard a brief knock on the door and Ritsuko poked her head in.
"I wasn't sure if you had been asleep..."
"Like I could sleep after today...I don't think that I'll ever get that image out of my head."
"You should be just happy she's alive, though not readily well."
"How is she, and can I see her?"
"She's fine in the sense that she's breathing and alive, and no you can't see her."
"Why is that," asked Shinji, slowly brimming with anger?
"You won't be able to handle it, and I don't want your reaction to send her into a coma. Thats the last thing we need right now."
"What is wrong with her? She seemed fine physically-"
"Thats what you were briefly able to see, and its lucky the medical team got there so fast, she was slipping."
"Are you going to-"
"She lost roughly half the blood in her body."
"What! How!"
"I only have a theory as to that, and its pretty farfetched."
"I don't care."
"Ok then...hows this. The angel that we encountered seemed to be able to contaminate other hosts. My question is, what was that limited to?"
"I'm not following you."
"During the activation test, Asuka wasn't completely there, and it was apparent. She hasn't been coping well since the-"
"Right," said Shinji, cutting her off."
"We shouldn't have used her. We should have used you like we originally thought of, or chosen somebody from your school."
"From my...what?"
"Each child in your class has the possibility of being an Eva pilot. Touji was a prime candidate before Asuka was chosen."
"Why wasn't he chosen?"
"Something about the belief that children that have siblings don't produce good sync ratios. Anyways, Asuka didn't want to do the test, but because she was filling in for you, she was okay with it enough to accept it. That led to her mentality being damaged during the test. My guess is that she had some encounter with the angel in her mind, and willfully let it take control of her."
"Then she was possessed by the angel? But then what about the Eva? Was it possessing both of them?"
"You know how you gain wounds and get hurt every time you enter Unit 01, because you have such a high sync rate with it."
"Yeah..."
"What if Asuka experienced that, only opposite."
"I don't understa-"
"Asuka took the wounds for Unit 03. The angel was possessing her, not the Eva."
"But how did all that blood?"
"High speed regeneration most likely. Asuka would take the brunt of the damage from the attack, and the angel would be fine. After the dummy plug was used though, the angel couldn't keep up with regenerating constantly."
"But why possess her? What was the point?"
"As to that...I have no idea."
Shinji paused for a second before he said, "You said something about a dummy plug. Was that the thing that took over for me during the battle?"
"Yes..."
Shinji sat there for a while on the edge of his bed, thinking about what he wanted to do. Of course he wanted to run to Asuka's side, but he had to agree with Ritsuko for once. Seeing her later would have to wait, and besides, he had somebody else he wanted to talk to.
Standing up abruptly, Shinji said, "I have something that I want to help me with."
Ritsuko hesitated, unsure whether she should agree, not knowing what it could be. Figuring that it couldn't be anything harming, she said, "If its something within my power...I shall try."
Taking a large gulp of air, he got the words out of his mouth that he had been thinking about for a while these past few weeks. Words that he had always been too afraid to ask because of the shear fear and intimidation that pushed at him when he thought of the man.
"Ritsuko...I want to talk to my father..."
P.S. Merry Christmas!