Dedicated (With Crap Poems) To:
Western-Otaku
I read up on your super-slick
Genderswap fic
It really was a hit! though
Shinji sounds like Rukako.
NarwhalWarlord
To whom the author gave a sneak peek
At this chapter now of whom we speak.
Some days ago
Asuka was twirling a pen round his finger, while Hikari, sitting next to him, was staring at Toji with unabashed affection.
"What are you staring at?" Asuka asked Hikari.
"Um." Hikari shook her head to clear it of the fog. "Nothing."
"Huh," Asuka said, not believing a word of it. "Say, what happened between those two?" he asked, pointing at Shinji and Toji, who flinched every time Shinji made a sudden movement.
"Trust me, it was very violent," Hikari said, growing a sweatdrop.
"Define," Asuka said, rolling his hand in a continue gesture.
"As in, give him a concussion and send him to the nurse's office for a day violent," Hikari clarified. "That clear enough for you?"
"Ah." Asuka finally realised what the mysterious crimson stains on the pavement were... and just how far the limits of "pissed" could stretch for his fellow pilot. "Still didn't answer my first question, though."
"Eh?" Hikari was beginning to sweat slightly. She thought she'd diverted his attention enough with that last answer...
"You like him, don't you?" Asuka stated flatly.
Hikari blushed bright red.
"If that's all, then just ask him out to dinner or something." Asuka shrugged his shoulders. "Just so that I don't feel like gagging every time you look at him," he added snidely.
Hikari would've strangled him right then and there for his comment had she a) not been class rep and b) not had a much better plan for revenge.
"All right then," Hikari said icily. "But I have one condition."
"What's that?" Asuka was sure he'd gotten a checkmate. No two ways about it. "Just to prove I'm not afraid."
Bad choice.
"You go out at the same restaurant we do... with Shinji."
==2.2.2==
Eva One-Half
==2.2.2==
"So, an outfit for a nice dinner?" Kaji asked, as they walked through the aisles and aisles of assorted shirts and ties. "You asked the right person. Now, what to do..." He scratched his chin in thought for a second, before running off. "Try this one on," he directed, proffering the clothes at Asuka.
Asuka darted into the nearest change rooms before reappearing again. "All right, how do I look?" he asked, grinning broadly.
Dressed in a leather jacket and sunglasses with jeans, the redhead had a few... color clashes.
Kaji blinked, before cringing visibly. "Not as great as I thought," he sighed. Damn, the leather jacket always worked for me.
Asuka once again disappeared into the changing rooms and reappeared.
Kaji looked him over once more. "Oh, come on, that's just... no."
Asuka sighed, and finally reappeared once more in a plain tux... which was nothing more than a swanky suit over his school uniform,
"To be totally honest, I think that looks the best on you," Kaji noted. "Let's not waste more money than is necessary, shall we?"
"Agreed," Asuka sighed, dejected and downcast. "I should probably head off to Nerv now..."
"True. If we're late, Misato will kill us," Kaji said thoughtfully.
There was wordless agreement.
Being a pilot at Nerv came with benefits, like enjoying this luxury pool exclusive to HQ.
While Asuka and Rei were doing what people with the ability to swim do - use it - Shinji was doing her homework by the side of the pool.
Misato had absolutely chewed them out for flunking in school, and Shinji didn't want to have a repeat incident. As such, she thought it best to just bring her laptop and get the stuff done.
"Hey."
Shinji looked up to see Asuka standing over her.
"What are you working on?" he asked, in a tone of voice that was relatively nice.
"Uhm. Just... thermal expansion," Shinji said.
Asuka looked unimpressed. "Huh. Let me just check that for a second..."
He leant over, causing Shinji to start turning bright red, and examined the equation.
"That simple, huh?" he said to himself. "No sweat..."
Shinji was feeling a little uncomfortable right about now and her face had gone from "small sprinkle of moeblush" to "full-on crimson", especially since Asuka was in the ideal position to give her a large serve of eye candy.
Asuka finally straightened, with a self satisfied smirk on his face.
"That wasn't so hard," he said haughtily. "If it was that easy, why did you struggle with it for so long?"
"Well, I-I just don't know that much about the theory," Shinji said, trying to defend herself.
"Simple. Professor Asuka here to save the day." Asuka smirked, knowing that they'd just entered his academic turf, and he said "Professor" with enough conviction to make Shinji wonder if it was really true. Apparently her face showed her disbelief, because Asuka continued with "No, I'm not literally a Professor. Just a lowly alumni."
"Say what?" Shinji asked. "I thought alumni was if you'd completed-"
"-college," Asuka completed. "That's right, ladies and gents, I've already finished college. I just do so badly 'cause I can't read most of the kanji," he said nonchalantly. "Anyway, back to the lecture! Things expand when they get hot, and they shrink when they cool. The exception is water between 4 degrees and zero degrees, which expands as it cools to become less dense. It's simple! If you're still struggling..." Here Asuka leaned over again. "... what else expands when it gets close to hot things... or people?"
Shinji wasn't the most knowledgeable person in the world about physics, but it only took the dirtier part of her mind to work out what he was talking about.
"I-I wouldn't have a clue!" Shinji yelped. "I-I'm not that kind of girl, you know!" she stammered, disproving her point exactly.
"Hmph. How boring," Asuka sighed, before making his way back to the pool.
As he left, Shinji sighed. Finally the pressure was off, and she could turn to other things, like her homework, or Rei...
"Hey! Heeeey!" Asuka waved about frantically. "Watch this!" he called from the pool.
Splash.
A perfect Olympic 10/10 dive.
Another day in the life of Shinji Ikari, Shinji mentally sighed. I'm actually hoping sync tests will come soon.
Unfortunately for her, there were no sync tests.
Just an Angel attack... or something rather different.
Asuka rummaged about in his changeroom locker for his plugsuit, only to find a much different model as opposed to his regular red affair.
"What the..."
Several pipes and tubes ran through the plugsuit, all seeming to come from one source on the back.
Asuka examined it critically for another few minutes before thinking, Well, OK and just putting it on.
Normally plugsuits shrink down to skin-tight.
This plugsuit seemed to shrink down to small-intestine tight.
Asuka managed to stagger his way through the corridor and finally make his way to where the other Children were waiting, before collapsing onto a bench and struggling to regain his breath.
"Are you having an asthma attack?" Rei asked, staring at him.
"No... *wheeze*... it's fine... *gasp*..." Asuka wheezed. "Nothing... guh... wrong here... except for baka-Shinji..."
Asuka's vision might not've been optimal (given that his eyes were currently being squeezed out of their sockets) but he could still clearly see Shinji's nose bleeding.
This plugsuit, after all, was tight in many areas.
Ritsuko was also there, glaring at him for generally looking a mess.
"Sorry... *pant*... Dr. Akagi..." Asuka would've said something more cutting had it not been that his oxygen supply was also cutting... off.
"We're going to go ahead as planned and sortie Unit-02 and Unit-01 for this mission. Unit-00 will stand as back-up in Nerv. Understand?"
"Yes, ma'am," was the response from all three Children, with a few extra wheezes being thrown in on Asuka's part.
As they made their way to the Eva cages, Asuka noticed something was off with Unit-02.
Make that several somethings.
The Evangelion had been covered in another piece of D-Type equipment, and this one could not have been more humiliating than the tight and heavy plugsuit Asuka was wearing right now.
"Y-you've got to be kidding me, right Dr. Akagi?" he asked, staring at the fatsuit that enveloped his Eva.
"You got sortied to go into the volcano," Ritsuko replied. "That's the D-Type suit for the Evangelion. Wouldn't want you to be protected from outside heat, yet still feel like you were being char-grilled."
"That doesn't matter if my dignity's being treated even worse!" Asuka cried, tearing his hair out. "What is it with me and stupid outfits..." he moaned.
Soon the Evangelions had reached Mt. Asama, and Unit-02 was being dropped into the volcano.
"Huh," Asuka said, noticing the planes flying above him. "At least they gave me back-up."
"Wrong," Ritsuko said over the intercom. "If your mission fails, an N2 mine will be dropped."
There was a moment of awkward silence.
"Oh, yes," Asuka said sarcastically. "I'm so glad you guys have so much faith in me."
"Stand-by to drop," another voice said.
"3..."
"2..."
"1..."
Asuka hit the surface of the lava with a small sploosh, before sinking down into it.
The tight plugsuit was now the least of his problems, and Asuka wished for way, way, way more coolant pipes (even though they felt like they weighed a ton.)
Peering out through the "visors" of the Eva, all he could see was an endless expanse of warm shifting and glowing orange.
"Tell me we're going to actually see the Angel sometime soon," he said to nobody in particular.
"Strange," Ritsuko said, rubbing her chin. "The MAGI report it should be down around here somewhere... Keep descending."
Asuka had a very detailed knowledge of physics, but it didn't take any of that to realise that if he kept going down something would give, whether it was the Eva, the Entry Plug or him.
Murky orange glow. Nothing too exciting right at the moment.
Then his Prog Knife snapped loose of its moorings... right as the Angel came into view.
"Oh, scheisse," Asuka muttered. "Please tell me you have something planned..."
"You didn't need it anyway," Misato reassured. "It's a capture mission, and a simple one. Just deploy the EM field cage."
Asuka did as he was told, gingerly moving towards the Angel before engaging the cage. Long blue lines of light wrapped around the Angel, and Asuka breathed a subconscious sigh of relief. Maybe things were going to plan.
In the true style of both Nerv and Seele, the bell did not ring and the scenario didn't go as planned.
As you do when you have 30 megavolts put through you, Sandalphon awoke. And it was not happy.
Shinji was twiddling her Evangelion's thumbs when suddenly the volcano erupted.
"Holy crap."
Despite not reaching Rei levels of emotionless, the normally gentle Shinji swearing was cause for alarm on its own. The MAGI reporting the Angel was waking up was even more alarming.
Ritsuko immediately reached for the radio. "Prepare the N2 drop," she ordered. "Asuka, it's no longer a capture mission. Destroy it as fast as possible."
Asuka gritted his teeth and cracked his knuckles, before realising he was unarmed. He was about to go bare-mecha-knuckle against the Angel, until Shinji intervened by dropping a timely care package from the skies.
"Hey! Incoming!" she called through the intercom, and threw the knife straight down.
Asuka caught it, and charged headlong at Sandalphon.
"Gotcha now, you little-!" Asuka swung, and the mighty arms of the Evangelion slashed across Sandalphon only for the knife to skitter off. "DAMMIT!" he roared.
"Protective armor," Ritsuko reported. "Logically, it would have to be equipped with something on a titanium alloy scale just to withstand living in here," she muttered.
"Well thanks for that well-timed deduction. Not!" Misato snapped.
The Angel was rapidly mutating into an aquatic behemoth, or should that be a lava-tic behemoth?
Ritsuko considered her options.
Shinji was powerless to help, and a D-Type suit couldn't be delivered and put on the Eva in time. Rei couldn't do anything from all this way, and their most powerful weapon, the positron rifle, took up a lot of power and wouldn't get there in time.
Asuka wracked his brains frantically for a solution, before inspiration once again came from the heavens.
"HEY! ASUKA!" Unit-01 cupped its hands to its mouth. "DELTA T! DELTA T!"
"What's she screaming about now?" Ritsuko wondered.
"Delta T... temperature difference... thermal expansion! The coolant pipes!" Asuka snapped his fingers. "All right, you bastard, eat liquid nitrogen!" he screamed, tearing through the coolant pipes and aiming directly at what he assumed was the face of Sandalphon.
The effect was immediate. The once-solid armor cracked as it contracted and expanded, blisters on the Angel's flesh compressed by the force of hundreds of liters of coolant. Asuka spotted one particularly vulnerable patch that glistened a bright gleaming red, and instinct took over.
Sandalphon screamed and thrashed, before it finally stilled and began to burn up in the lava.
"YES! Take that! Angels zero, Asuka one! Woohoo!" Asuka was celebrating in the Entry Plug.
"Um, about that, Asuka," Ritsuko said delicately. "You're still sinking."
"Whu- Oh. Oh crap." Asuka frantically looked about for a solution, but there was none this time. Nothing could carry an Evangelion and withstand the heat, save for...
Another Evangelion.
Unit-01 approached the crater, and Misato could instantly tell what Shinji was thinking.
"Shinji, listen to me." She tried to put some reason into her words. "You're going against orders. You could die too. We can't lose both you and Asuka down there!"
"I could die every day. What's another risk to me?" Shinji's voice said over the intercom, the nonchalance in her voice chilling Misato slightly.
The purple Evangelion leapt into the crater, immediately giving Shinji the sensation that her flesh was being roasted.
At this stage, though, she didn't care.
"Asuka!"
The Second Child had resigned himself to his fate, before noticing an arm, distinctly visible through the lava.
"Need... a hand?" Shinji asked, body wracked with waves of pain.
Asuka looked up, and smiled.
"Idiot! What did you think you were doing? Trying to get yourself killed, showoff?" Nonetheles, he reached up for the hand and felt himself being slowly lifted out.
"Can't hold on... much longer..." Shinji groaned with pain. [1]
Unit-01 and Unit-02 broke the surface of the now active volcano, and finally made it to land.
A few minutes later, Asuka and Shinji were finally out of their Evangelions, Shinji looking slightly burnt after her impromptu "diving trip".
They were in the change rooms, and by now Shinji would've at least gotten the arms of her plugsuit unstuck from her skin. Unfortunately, plastic at high temperatures doesn't cope well.
"Um, Asuka..." Shinji tugged at her plugsuit. "I need some help with this. It's..."
"Oh, no. Oh, no." Asuka looked pale. "Y-you're kidding me, right?" he stuttered. Flirting was one thing. Doing this was a whole new level of wrong.
"I wish I could say no. Looks like it melted..." Shinji replied, trying to peel off one particularly goopy patch of plugsuit. "After I saved you, of course."
"O-OK," Asuka stammered, blushing bright red. "So, w-what do I have to do, here, exactly?" he asked.
"Just close your eyes and pull," Shinji instructed.
Asuka did as he was told, and tugged. At the tearing sound, he instinctively snapped his eyes open, and...
Oh. My. Goddess.^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H
The author mashed the delete key.
"WRONG FANDOM! CRAPCRAPCRAPCRAPCRAP-"
Oh. My. Goodness.
Asuka no longer had the capacity to think, because all the blood was being rerouted to more vital places right at the moment.
Funny that. Both her typical loose t-shirt and her plugsuit did a great job of concealing her curves. And boy did they look great without the cover...
His luminescent red blush and bleeding nose confirmed all Shinji needed to know.
"HENTAI! IDIOT! SHUT YOUR EYES!"
WHACK!
Because out of all the forces known to mankind, a girl being spied on is the most destructive. Save for gossip and yaoi fanfic.
Kawoshin fangirls spontaneously combusted as they read this fic, driving evolution a tiny bit faster.
The author giggled at his dig at yaoi until he realised he was supposed to be writing more random Asushin crap.
"OK, OK, OK..."
After a few hours' worth of surgery to fix the effects of the volcanic version of the bends, Asuka woke up in the infirmary of the Nerv hospital with an IV drip stabbed into his arm, a pounding headache from the anaesthetics he'd been given and Shinji by his bedside.
"Whu?" Asuka said articulately, before he was wrapped in a crushing hug by Shinji. "...Ribs."
"Sorry. Just, y'know. Glad you're alive and all." Shinji's face was pink.
"Of course I'm not dead, Third Child! The great Asuka Langley Sohryu is too young to die, and more importantly too skilled! H'mph!" Asuka huffed. "How dare you doubt my skills in Eva piloting!" he scoffed. "Anyway, what happened to you here?"
"Um. They gave me some stuff to manage the burning sensation [2] I got from the Eva's neural link, and that was all, really. I was going to ask the same about you," Shinji replied.
"Suffice it to say my skin will have a couple of interesting marks from now on," Asuka grumbled. "Apart from that, just a bunch of bruises from the Angel thrashing about. Now, I'm hungry, baka-Shinji! The hospital must have Misato or someone of even worse quality on their payroll of kitchen staff."
"What was that, Mr. Sohryu?" Misato stuck her head into the room, her voice filled with mock ire. "The Katsuragi Katsu and Ramen Special is nothing short of a delight!"
"That's because you eat it while you're hung over," Asuka said drily. "Anyway, could you tell baka-Shinji to get her hentai hands off me?"
Shinji's eyes widened slightly. He wouldn't dare!
Misato glanced at Asuka, before turning her gaze to Shinji. "Ms. Ikari, how could you take advantage of Asuka while he was lying there unconscious?" [3] she said with a trace of horror in her voice. "Why, I thought you were an honourable young lady! Now it seems I'll have to cordon off your bedrooms from each other..."
"Misato!" Shinji cradled her head in her hands. "It wasn't like that at all!"
"So then what was it like?" Misato replied.
"It was... um..." Shinji turned bright pink again. "I... um... hugged him. That was all, I swear!"
"And nearly broke my ribs, too," Asuka added.
"My, my, my, Shinji Ikari..." Misato grinned mischievously. "That tight hospital gown showin' off a lot more than you expected?"
Poor Shinji wanted nothing more than to melt into a puddle of LCL right then and there. (Mmm, foreshadowy...)
Misato signed the discharge forms for the two pilots and led them to the waiting Renault. "I was going to take you two to an onsen, but after that little stunt with the volcano..."
"I'm done with hot baths and anything that involves me placing myself into hot liquid," Shinji said, shuddering at the thought. "Especially not a volcanic hot spring."
For the second time that day, Asuka was cut off from saying something sarcastic, this time from his phone buzzing.
"Hm. A text." Asuka scrolled through his phone. "Weird..."
It was from Hikari.
"Same time, Saturday. -Hikari."
Misato opened the door of the car. "Well, I guess we'd better be going back home. Nerv wanted to do some sync tests in three or four days."
"What? Again?" Shinji groaned. "Ugh."
"Wait, three or four days. Would that include Saturday?" Asuka asked.
"Yep. Why? Planned anything then?" Misato asked.
"Well, you see, I have a-"
The author was slumped over his keyboard.
"How'd you like that... readers?... tease... ending... hahaha..." he mumbled.
A sniper scope aligned with his brain.
"I know, I know," he groaned. "Working on the next chapter..."
Stuff that Didn't Make The Cut
(M-Rated For A Reason)
[1]: This has to be the beginning of a lemon. Somebody write this. Please.
[2]: It was chlamydia.
[3]: If I ever take this up to EoE, prepare to see this in written form. Mweh. Heh. Heh.
A/N: Edited once again to set up some more WAFF in the next chapter. Fuahahaha. I really need a pre-reader. Anyway, I promise I'm working on the next chapter! A preview might be posted up on here soon. I promise. *swears on great-aunt Mildred's life* Sorry for the lack of omake, which I'll remedy in the next chapter... of Eva One-Half. Read and review. -_^ Aiden out.