Chapter 2
"Dude. He's totally the pilot" Kensuke and Toji were sitting in the bunker under their school as they waited out the Angel attack. Not that there had been much information provided – they had just been instructed to report to the shelter immediately – but Kensuke had managed to get a live feed of the Angel on his phone for a couple of minutes before the doors were shut (and the bunker walls cut off the transmission).
"I should'a punched him in the face for what he did to my sister." Toji fumed.
Kensuke didn't dare raise the issue of collateral damage being unavoidable, and the fact that his sister was lucky to only be sightly injured. Toji was his friend, but he was a jock. He wouldn't get it. Not when it was his own sister that got injured. And it was nice being friends with a jock – he could keep the other jocks from hassling him.
"Let's sneak out and watch the battle?" As Toji hesitated, Kensuke added, "And I can totally sell the video. And I'll give you a cut."
"Yeah?" Toji turned to Hikari, who was helping manage all the students who were locked into the room, "Hey class rep: I got to go take a whiz. I'll be back in five." He turned and headed out the door, followed by Kensuke. With everybody inside the shelter, nobody was around to see them walk past the bathroom and head up the stairs.
"Ok, I think these doors use the same lock code as the rest of the doors in the school – the RFID signature I copied from Mr. Miyami should pop it right open" Kensuke held his phone up to the RFID panel near the door, "Aaand" click "Presto chango! We're out!" He lead the way, taking the stairs two at a time.
/\ PoC /\
"Shinji, you need to neutralize the Angel's AT field!" Misato interrupted Shinji as he darted to another building and fired another burst. "You're not actually damaging it."
"What?" Shinji finally took a close look at his target: It looked the same as when the battle had started. It was even floating in the same spot.
While Shinji stood and gaped, the Angel finally darted forward - gliding like fleshy paper airplane - right at Eva 01.
Shinji raised his pallet rifle in a panic, but the Angel's whip-like tentacle cut right through it. As Shinji flinched backwards, the second whip wrapped around his arm and sent him pinwheeling across the landscape.
When the Evangelion landed, the Angel again skimmed towards it, lashing at its face with the tentacles as the prone Unit 01 sprawled on the hillside. When Eva 01 raised its arm to protect its face, the tentacles wrapped around it, squeezing and cutting into it.
/\ PoC /\
"Oh, dude, that's got to hurt!" Kensuke crowed from his perch on the hill behind their school.
Toji nodded his agreement, "Man is getting his ass handed to him."
The two teens ducked as the giant slammed into the neighboring hillside. "I think we should go back inside!" quailed Kensuke. Combat didn't look so cool from close up as it did on the TV screen. You could DIE out here! They just got up to run for the school entrance when the ground shook as the Angel slammed the Eva into the ground again, knocking them down.
They watched as the Evangelion grabbed hold of the tentacles that were cutting into its left arm and yanked the Angel up close, before jabbing at its midsection with a knife. As the angel struggled, flailing at the Evangelion with the ends of its tentacles, Unit 01 kept pressing in with the knife, even as it flinched in pain from the gashes left by the lashes.
The two teens scampered for cover on all fours at the terrifying noise. Pieces of debris scattered in all directions. They had just gotten inside the school entrance when something in the Angel finally gave out, and the whole thing exploded, pushing Evangelion 01 deeper into the hillside.
/\ PoC /\
"You disobeyed an order to retreat!" Misato was debriefing Shinji. He had changed out of his plug suit, but he still looked like a drowned rat, staring down at his feet like this was a test, and the answers were written on his toes.
"I though... that it would be better to fight it out." He replied quietly.
Misato stared at the dispirited teen and sighed, "Fine. You did ok. Just next time, follow orders, ok? Now go get some rest." He had won in the end, and she couldn't really blame him for lacking military discipline – he wasn't a soldier.
Shinji nodded and shuffled out.
He soon found himself on a train on the loop line that circumvented Tokyo-3, his SDAT plugged into his ears.
'I'm not certain I can do it. I.. it's not that I was scared at the time. But afterwards.. it was awful!' He reported.
'Yeah, combat is like that. Sometimes, you get out of the cockpit and you are amazed that you are still alive.' Inia commiserated, 'Don't tell anybody. I mean anybody: I had one really bad battle where afterwards I couldn't stop shaking. It was so bad, I couldn't get out of the cockpit until Cryska lifted me out. She told everybody that I had injured my hip during one of our high G turns, and so I couldn't walk on my own.'
'I..' Shinji had been about to say that he didn't have anybody like that, but that sounded pathetically needy even to his own ears.
'You should get somebody like that,' Inia continued, 'some friends that will support you no matter what.'
'The only other pilot is a really aloof girl. I don't think it will work.'
'It doesn't have to be Rei. Just regular friends.'
'Oh, and how many regular friends do you have,' Shinji shot back angrily, 'you're always telling me that it's you and your twin against the world.' Technically, Cryska wasn't even Inia's sister, but they had been raised together, and from her description, they were identical in appearance.
'That's not... ' Inia paused, 'Look, I have a meeting. We'll talk later. You need to talk to friends. I.. I'm worried about you.'
Shinji finally got off the loop line to buy some food. Several hours had passed, with Shinji making his never ending circuit of Tokyo-3. It was getting dark now, and Inia still hasn't re-contacted him. After eating the whatever-it-was that he had purchased at the food stand, he found shelter at a movie theater. Some docu-drama was playing, but nobody was paying any attention. The only other people in the theater were a pair of teenagers making out (and possibly more) on the far left, and a drunk sleeping in the front row.
Perfect.
'Shinji? Sorry for not contacting you sooner. We had a training accident.'
'Are you ok?' Shinji found himself asking. He was surprised at the tone of concern in his 'voice'.
'Yeah, I'm ok. A couple of ground crew got hurt when a gun pod slipped off of its moorings on a TSF. One guy ended up in the hospital with broken bones. It's hard, working with these prototypes – nothing is quite what you expect.' Inia paused, before continuing more cautiously, 'Shinji, what I wanted to talk to you about is... my history, I guess. You know that I'm an orphan. But what I never really mentioned is that I was raised in an experimental facility. We – all the kids there – were bred for telepathic potential. It was.. It was really, really horrid. Many of the kids were physically or mentally damaged by the mutations, and then we were given drugs, and training...' Shinji could hear her shudder, 'most of, of, the other kids died. You learned not to make friends, because you never knew what would happen to them. But Cryska – she was also there – she.. one day, she sat down next to me at lunch after I had had a really bad day and gave me a teddy bear and started talking to me. And.. what I'm trying to say is that if I didn't have her, I probably wouldn't have survived. You need to have somebody there for you. Somebody who is just physically there.'
There was silence, as the movie played on. A man was arguing with a scientist about something. A huge wave was coming, possibly to sweep them both away.
'I understand. I'm not certain I can do it, though.'
'What's there to do? Just walk over and say hi! And maybe give them a teddy bear.' Inia replied, sounding more cheerful again.
Shinji smiled. That was so not going to work with a teenager. Especially with a guy. 'Thanks. You're a good friend.' But he really appreciated the sentiment.
/\ PoC /\
The following day, Shinji staggered into class. He didn't want to be there. He wanted to be hiding under his covers. But Inia would think he was a loser if he did that. So he would try.
Conversation paused as he came in, and then swelled back up, but several students eyed him speculatively.
Class was... surprisingly ok. The teacher droned on, the students gossiped. Everything was normal. Slowly, Shinji relaxed. He was still on the outside looking in at the bustle of a regular school life. His life still sucked, but it sucked in the usual, normal, almost comforting fashion.
"Hey, kid," the bell had just rung for the day, and Shinji was gathering his books when somebody grabbed his shoulder.
"Yes?" He almost cringed.
"You pilot the giant robot that was fighting the alien things?" It was the jock, Toji. The nerd was standing behind him.
"Look, I don't want to pilot the stupid thing, but somebody has to and for some stupid reason they picked me, so I'm doing the best I can, ok!" Shinji exploded out of nowhere.
Toji carefully withdrew his hand from Shinji shoulder, so that psycho-boy wouldn't bite it or something. "Uhm, that's fine." He stood there, silently, not certain what to do. He had planned on punching the pilot for making a mess of things, but the way Shinji looked, it would be like kicking a (possibly rabid) dog.
"So, you never did come with us to the arcade," interrupted Kensuke, "the offer still stands. You want to come with us?"
Toji gave his friend a skeptical look, and then shrugged. "Sure, why not?"
And with that warm invitation, Shinji made his first friends in Tokyo-3.
/\ PoC /\
"Are you certain? I thought having a sync score of 84% with this little practice was extremely unlikely." Misato was on the phone with Ritsuko, and they were chatting about their mutual charge, Shinji.
"It may be because unit 01 has a more advanced interface. Whatever the case, I can go ahead and schedule him for more simulator time instead, like you asked." Ritsuko paused, and then asked, "does he like that? Most boys his age like the idea of shooting a big gun."
"Eh, I don't know. I don't think so, but it's hard t tell. He's the sort that does what he feels he needs to do, whether he wants to or not. He's a very responsible kid." Misato wandered into the kitchen to get another beer when the door to the apartment opened.
"I'll see you guys later." Shinji headed inside as Kensuke and Toji peered in.
"Dude!"
"She's hot!"
"Who's that?"
Shinji shut the door in their faces.
"Oh, I see you've made some friends. They even walked home with you," Misato burbled. She had been worried about her house-mate, given how withdrawn he was yesterday, but it looked like he was on the road to recovery, 'He recovered from his trauma pretty well. He might not be tough, but he is resilient.'
"No, they just wanted to see where I lived."
"Invite them for dinner tomorrow. We'll have a celebration!"
"For what?"
"For what? Do you really need a reason to celebrate? For your arriving at Tokyo-3, for starting school, for surviving all this insanity." At the last moment she changed from saying 'survive the Angels', as too morbid.
"Ok. I'll cook today," Shinji casually displaced Misato from the kitchen before she could concoct another of her culinary catastrophes.
/\ PoC /\
"Um, hi?" Shinji stood in front of Rei as she sat under a tree, reading a book. It was lunch period in school, so the area was filled with teens chatting in small groups. Shinji had (sort of) tried to find Kensuke and Toji, but after a quick glance around the cafeteria gave up in defeat.
Now he was following Inia's advice, and trying to talk to Rei. Through the idea of one girl advising him to make friends with another one seemed sorta weird. Well, life wasn't like TV (his main resource on how human teens interacted with each other).
Rei looked up, "Yes, pilot Ikari?"
"I was thinking we should be friends, and stuff..." Shinji faltered at the cold reception. 'I bet she thinks I'm some sort of creep now.'
"Why?"
"Because we're both pilots, and it would be convenient.."
Rei looked back down to her book, "I will if I am ordered to."
"Oh. Ok" Shinji turned and slunk of with his tail between his legs. It was just that she was so difficult to talk to, compared to Inia. It wasn't worth it.
/\ PoC /\
Shinji floated in what looked like a giant test tube, wearing only his plug suit. 'You still haven't told Cryska about our link? I thought you shared everything?' It was another harmonics test. It would have been the most painfully boring exercise in the world, except that he usually used the time to chat with Inia. Whatever was in the tube, it shared the same characteristic as the Eva in boosting their link.
'I'm worried that she will feel bad that the two of us don't have the same connection.' Inia temporized. The reality was that while she did idolize Cryska, it was hard not to be jealous of her a little. She was taller, prettier and the commander respected her. Inia? They treated like the sidekick. So having Shinji all to herself was very... nice. 'How about you – are you inviting the two guys over to Misato's shindig tonight?'
Shinji snorted, drawing a concerned look from Ritsuko, "everything ok in there, Shinji?" She glanced up from the EKG she had been monitoring.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Just had to sneeze."
Ritsuko nodded and went back to adjusting the LCL composition to optimize sync. While the point of this exercise was primarily for Shinji to practice getting in sync with the Evangelion, she was also personalizing his environment to increase the ratio. She glanced over to the other test plug, where Rei was floating serenely. Both teens were very socially withdrawn. Which was part of the scenario. Ritsuko pressed her lips together in disapproval.
Shinji noticed none of this. He was even (mostly) ignoring Rei floating nearby in her skintight plug suit. 'No, I am not inviting them. The way they are obsessing about Misato is just... embarrassing.' The non stop barrage of 'your guardian is really hot' and 'can we come over to play video games' was getting real old now.
'So she's really pretty?'
'I guess.'
'Is she prettier than Rei?'
Shinji glanced over at the teen in question and looked away quickly before she could notice.
"Would you stop trying to set me up with women you have never met. Why don't you worry about your Lt. Yuuya?' Shinji sent in exasperation.
'Because I want you to have friends. And I'm not trying to set you up – especially not with that Misato woman – that would be gross – she's twice your age.'
'She certainly doesn't act it.' Shinji replied.
There was a pause, followed by a tentative, 'ARE you interested in her?'
'NO! Anyway, I need to run through some drills next. We'll talk later?' Shinji sent as the time for the sync test came to an end
'Count on it!'
Shinji was waiting for the LCL to finish draining as his father stepped over to where Rei was exiting her test plug. 'Huh.' Rei became more animated than he had seen her before, and his father actually smiled as he talked. 'I didn't know my dad was a pedophile.'
/\ PoC /\
The following day dragged on. Shinji found himself repeatedly falling asleep – he had stayed up later then he had planned last night, watching Misato and Ritsuko banter back and forth. It had been Misato's celebration. Shinji had decided to 'forget' to invite Kensuke and Toji: It was just too awkward – so it had been just the three of them. It was surprisingly enjoyable, watching the two friends. Especially after Misato convinced the usually straight laced Ritsuko to have a few beers.
Actually, that was how he had lived much of his life, getting vicarious enjoyment from watching other people do stuff. Except now, he had gotten pulled into actually participating in life. Though the participation was liable to kill or injure him.
In the end, he and Ritsuko had had to help steer an inebriated Misato back to her room.
Finally, the school bell rang.
"So, let's hit the arcade?" Shinji and Kensuke spent the next hour with a shooting game. It was much quieter than usual, as Toji had basketball practice, and Shinji didn't feel comfortable enough to ask Kensuke question. The other teen did talk a little, but he mostly concentrated on the game: he was very serious in his battle to kill every last zombie.
"It's too bad they don't have paint ball around here. I would love to do that," Kensuke finally volunteered, after beating Shinji handily. "I imagine you have pretty awesome training facilities at NERV, for the pilots." He paused before adding, "you could use a little work, you know."
Fortunately, Shinji didn't hear him, as he had already started to panic "Oh, shoot!"
"What's up?" Kensuke asked asked.
"I forgot, I need to give something to Rei. Do you know where she lives?" At Kensuke's shrug, he ran off, pulling out his cell phone.
Kensuke muttered "Dude. Visiting her at home? He's totally hot for her."
/\ PoC /\
'What are you up to?'
'I'm on my way to Rei's'
'Oh?' came the reply, dripping with innuendo.
'No! It's not like that! It's just that Ritsuko asked me to give Rei her new ID badge at school today, and I forgot.. So I called up NERV and got her home address.'
'Hmm. Well, that is very responsible of you,' Inia paused, 'So... what does she look like? You've talked about her a couple of times now, but you've never told me anything about her appearance.'
'Well, she's average height, maybe a little shorter than me, slim.'
'Does she have a big chest?'
"WHAT? NO" Shinji blurted out. Fortunately, this part of Tokyo-3 was still under construction, so there was nobody around to see him talking to himself. 'No, the most striking thing about her is that she has blue hair. Otherwise, she's very quiet. I've never seen her talk to anybody.' Well, except his dad, but he avoided thinking about him as much as possible anyways, so he didn't count.
'Maybe she dyes it?'
'No, her eyebrows are the same color.'
'Hmm. A lot of the kids in my program also had strangely colored hair, though most had white like me. Maybe she was also engineered for telepathy. It would make sense, given the Evangelion user interface.'
'Well, I'm here at her apartment.' If you could call it that. Shinji hadn't been paying much attention on the walk over, as he 'talked' to Inia, but now he realized how empty and unfinished everything looked – there were no covers over the lights, and several weren't even installed. And some people had taken advantage of that, spray paining the entryway with graffiti. Here at Rei's apartment, the mailbox was jammed with mail that had never been taken in.
'Let me try something.' Shinji concentrated on Rei and sent 'CAN YOU HEAR ME?"
'Yes, I can hear you. No need to yell.'
'Not you – I was trying to reach Rei, to see if she's a telepath.'
'Oh. And did you?'
"I don't thinks so. Unless she's ignoring me, or she's not here.' In retrospect, it was a pretty dumb experiment. Shinji looked around, but there was no place to leave the ID card where Rei was likely to find it. He tentatively tried the door handle. "Hello? Anybody here?"
'Slip it under her door.'
'Her place is a mess, she'll never find it. Her doors unlocked, so I'll just drop it on her nightstand or something.'
Shinji pushed the door open "Hello? I'm coming in!" and walked in, 'It's almost as bad as Misato's. Are all girls this messy?' He looked around the sparsely furnished room which was covered in old bandages, school papers and clothes (not that there were many of these, and they were all just school uniforms). There were dishes on the counter, and a dirty pot on the stove. The only spot that was tidy was the top of a dresser, where a single pair of glasses rested.
He walked over and put the card next to it. He was just turning to leave when the bathroom door opened, "Oh, hey, Rei, I didn't think anybody was hea-YEAhhh...!" Shinji squawked and flailed as Rei walked out of the bathroom completely stark naked. He took a step back, flinging a hand in front of his face to provide her with some modesty. As he did, his foot slipped on a discarded bra and he fell, still flailing, onto his back.
Rei walked calmly over and stared down at the prone boy, "What are you doing here, pilot Ikari?"
Shinji lay there staring up at the (still nude) Rei Ayanami as he tried to process that. 'Why _am_ I here?' He had no good answers, and he had lost his connection to Inia when he had first started to panic, so he just stared up at Rei for several moments as his brain rebooted. And promptly crashed again as he realized he was staring at a naked woman.
Finally, he turned to stare at a wall, "Um, I ah, brought over your new ID card. For NERV." he managed to stutter. He could hear Rei getting dressed behind him.
Finally the sound stopped, and he dared a glance behind him, to find the room empty. He scampered up and glanced around. Rei must have left. 'That was very strange.' He paused and repeated it out loud. "That was really freaking weird!" Just in case some unseen cosmic force was watching him. He wanted to be clear that stuff like this didn't usually happen to him, and it wasn't his fault. He wasn't a pervert.
Well, he should get going to NEV. He wasn't scheduled for simulator time today, but maybe Ritsuko would let him use it anyway - he really needed to blow stuff up.
'Shinji, you ok?' came a panicked voice in his head.
'Yeah, I'm fine. It turns out that Rei was there – she was in the bathroom. When she came out, she startled me badly.' He decided to omit the details. All of them.
'So you never told me – is she pretty?'
Shinji lost the connection again.
/\ PoC /\
"Tonosawa listening post has a radar echo. No IFF..." Makoto announced as he read off his screen. The rest of the command center fell silent. "They confirm signal is Blue shifted. It's an Angel"
"Bring up a video feed," Misato commanded.
The main view screen turned on, showing a giant floating duotertahedron, reflecting a slight blue light.
"Maya, contact the pilots and have them report to action stations."
Maya checked her console, "Both pilots are checked in on base. I will page them."
/\ PoC /\
"We're not certain what the capabilities of this new Angel. So far, it has shrugged off an artillery barrage and several cruise missiles, but that's typical. It has not responded in any fashion to the attacks." Shinji listed to Misato's briefing as Evangelion 01 was prepped for launch. "I want you to approach cautiously. Stay to cover. Don't shoot until you are close enough to neutralize its AT field."
"Yes, ma'am," Shinji responded.
"Unit 00 will be on standby to assist. Good luck."
The cage holding Unit 01 rolled back to elevator 2 and shot up to the surface.
Hello guys, if you liked this story, you can read more: I am going to try my hand at original writing,
You can see my efforts here:
bonanza booths/Writeshop/
a selection will also be uploaded to my Fictionpress account
(link is my author page)
or you can search for writeshop on fictionpress. com