chapter 4
"Have you taken a look at the data from the last battle?" Ritsuko held up a ream of print outs.
"You know that stuff is all gobbledygook to me." Misato took a sip of her coffee.
"According to the theory, when you have two people trying to sync with the same Eva, their brainwaves will interfere, and their sync score will drop. But Asuka and Shinji manged to boost their sync score. It was in the 80s, which is higher than either pilot has exhibited before."
"Maybe we should look into putting a second pilot's seat into the entry plugs."
"Maybe," Ritsuko mused, "Except we don't have any spare pilots. But it might be worthwhile doing some experiments, to find out what exactly is happening."
"Yeah," Misato mused, "that could be interesting from a purely personal perspective." She envisioned having two teens in the cramped environs of an entry plug, 'Huh, let's see how Shinji reacts to spending an hour with Asuka or Rei in close proximity. That'll bring him out of his shell.'
/\ PoC /\
"Do you think this is ok?" Kensuke asked as he counted the money. He and Toji were under the stairs at the back of the school, selling photos of Asuka that Kensuke had taken on Over the Rainbow.
"What? You're always talking about how much money you can earn with your photos. Well, here it is! And if we are going to be stuck in the same class as that red devil, we might as well get some benefit from it."
"I guess. I just don't want to get slapped." The money WAS good – it was incredible how many guys were obsessing over the European girl. They were even jamming her locker with love letters, which she promptly threw out. With scorn.
"It's a good thing they don't know her personality, or they wouldn't be so interested."
Meanwhile, the object of their discussion was at the other end of the building, on her way to get lunch.
"Asuka, do you want me to show you around?" Shinji asked querulously. He was determined to help Asuka the way that Inia had helped him, but …
"No, Third. I don't need your help." Asuka jerked her chin up and stalked off, a trail of male eyes following her. She was determined to show that she didn't need anybody.
Shinji sighed. This was a lot harder than he had thought, 'Inia? Any advice? I tried talking to Asuka like you recommended, but she just brushed me off.'
'Huh. That's strange. I had no problem with getting Yuuya to follow me around, back at the Alaska base.'
'That's because you're a pretty girl. It doesn't work like that for guys!' Shinji replied exasperated.
There was a pause, and then: 'You think I'm pretty?'
Shinji paused to consider how to answer that, 'Well, I've never seen you, but you're 5'7", slim and ah.. buxom. I bet any guy would think you are attractive.'
There was a subdued 'oh' from the other end. Shinji glanced up to see where the redhead had gotten to. It wasn't difficult – he could just follow the wake of male classmates. "Oh, this is not going to end well." he muttered, 'Asuka is going over to talk to Rei. And I bet you Rei is going to snub her. And Asuka is not going to handle it well.' There was nothing he could do, so he just watched , 'yup. Huh. No explosion. Maybe she handled it better than I thought.'
'Shinji,' Inia sounded disappointed, 'just because a person doesn't show that they are hurt, doesn't mean they aren't. Especially girls.'
'Um, yeah. I used to be that way. Not that I'm a girl or anything!' Shinji quickly added.
'Oh, I don't know – I think you would look good in a dress.'
'Cut it out!' Shinji squawked, horrified. He wasn't going to wear a girl's plug suit, much less a dress.
'I'm sorry. I didn't mean..' Inia began.
"I have to go," Shinji cut her off. A moment later, his cell hone rang.
"Shinji report to NERV HQ. We have detected another Angel."
"Yes, Ma'am."
/\ PoC /\
"The seventh Angel is approaching off the coast of the Kii peninsula. It will make land fall in an hour. That will give us just enough time to get the Evangelions there. I want you to coordinate your attacks. This is the first time we have numerical superiority to the Angel, so let's use that to our advantage." Misato looked at the two teens. Shinji nodded, but Asuka just looked bored. 'Why do I have to work with teenagers. They don't listen', "Asuka, coordinate with Shinji so that we can keep the Angel localized on the peninsula, away from the inhabited areas."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Dismissed, now get to your Evas."
As the two teens went over to the cages, Asuka grabbed Shinji's shoulder. "You stay out of my way, Third. I'll deal with this Angel."
"We were instructed to work together."
Asuka rolled her eyes, "So you make sure that there are no civilians around to get trampled when I attack. I don't need support – I am more than a match for any Angel: I have been training for this since I was ten!" She went up to climb into her entry plug.
/\ PoC /\
The giant figure was slowly wading ashore. This Angel was surprisingly anthropomorphic, except for the lack of neck – it just had a shapeless lump for a head protruding from it chest.
"Asuka, stay back and provide supporting fire as Shinji circles to the left and closes with the Angel." Misato called out "Asuka! Where are you... Follow orders, Asuka!" Misato took another breath to berate the errant teen as Evangelion 02 leaped into the fray, lashing out with its halberd to cleave the Angel in two. "Oh."
Asuka turned to face Shinji, who was still standing on shore, gapping, "And that is how you do it, Third!"
"Asuka, look out!" Shinji called out.
Moments later, both Evangelions were sprawled on a sand dune, as the angel, now split into two identical humanoids, wadded towards them through loose sand.
/\ PoC /\
"What did I say?" Misato stormed, as the two teens stood at attention before her, "I said work together. Instead, you, Asuka had to grand stand, and then you both ended up getting knocked head over keister. You embarrassed NERV publicly. The UN had to intervene, dropping an N2 mine on the Angel halves." Misato waved to the screen showing the two Angels stuck waist deep in sand that had been melted into glass. "According to Ritsuko's projections, we have a week before it – they - get out. That's how long we have to come up with a strategy to destroy it."
Misato sighed and looked at her two charges "So, do you have any ideas?"
"No, ma'am." It appeared that the two teens had weathered the (immediate) storm. Now they just had to not die when they fought the Angel next time. But that was a problem for next week.
"Dismissed. Go get cleaned up."
As soon as the pair were out of earshot of their commanding officer, Asuka turned towards Shinji, growling, "this is your fault for not backing me up properly, Third."
"What? You ran off without waiting for me. Misato gave us a perfectly good plan, but you changed it!'
"No battle plan survives contact with enemy. You need to improvise."
Shinji drew himself back as Asuka leaned in, waggling her finger at him. He knew that she was wrong. He had talked to Inia about this. You don't 'improvise' in combat, you 'adjust'. Meaning you start with the original plan and try to make it work, not throw it out the window. "Ok."
Asuka glared at him for a moment longer before storming off to the locker rooms.
/\ PoC /\
Shinji took his time getting changed. After showering and getting dressed in his civvies, he sat in the locker room. He wanted to talk to Inia about what to do next, but he didn't want to tell her what had happened: it was too embarrassing. And when he walked out of the locker room, somebody would want to interact with him. They would ask him what happened, what went wrong. And he didn't want to talk about it.
When he finally stepped out, he headed up to the surface and then walked up to the overlook where he could see all of Tokyo-3. There was a little path along the hill side, and he made his way to a grassy spot where he could lay and look at the sky
It was almost dinner time when he finally got home. Much to his surprise, the entire entry way was packed with moving boxes.
"Um, Misato, what's going on?" Shinji peered into his room, to find Asuka arranging her clothes into his drawers.
"Isn't it obvious, Third child? I am moving in. You have been replaced."
Before Shinji could say anything, Misato stepped in from the living room, "no Asuka, you will both be living here."
"What? No! It's not appropriate for a teenage boy and girl to live together!"
"Don't worry, you won't be unsupervised. But the plan for dealing with the Angel calls for you to be in complete coordination. That means for the next week, you will be doing everything together – eating together, living together and training together." She turned to Shinji and pointed to the small second room, "I'm sorry Shinji, but I moved your stuff to the other room, as Asuka has a crap ton of junk."
"That's ok, Misato. I don't need much."
Misato scowled as she nodded, 'That boy needs to come out of his shell. Maybe having Asuka here will be good in the long run as well.'
"Well, I won't stand for it!" Asuka pronounced, only to wilt under Misato's glare.
"You will follow orders. If you had followed orders back in battle, we wouldn't be in this situation!"
"Yes, ma'am", came the tentative reply.
/\ PoC /\
As Kensuke and Toji approached the door of their missing classmate, they were met with the sound of classical dance music – a waltz or something like that (Kensuke was mostly tone deaf, and Toji didn't care about old-people music).
Kensuke knocked. "Um, hi. We're here to check up on Shinji – he hasn't been at school for a couple of days." And for Toji to ogle Misato some more, but that didn't need to be said.
"Come in." The music turned off as Misato opened the door, to reveal Shinji and Asuka dressed in matching leotards as they stood over a twister board, in close proximity.
"What are you doing here?" they ask in unison.
"The better question is what are you doing, here?" Kensuke made a lecherous face.
"It's nothing like that - these two have just been working on coordination training." Misato sighed, "It hasn't been going so well." She gestured to where the two teens who had quickly moved away from each other.
"That's because this idiot keeps zoning out on me. It's like he's not even paying any attention at all." Asuka was furious. They were supposed to step on that stupid twister board at the same time, like some sort of dance. That was bad enough, but the baka was making her look like a klutz!
Shinji flinched. He HAD been talking to Inia sometimes during training (a little bit) but he didn't think anybody would notice.
"Asuka, you have not been putting your best effort into this either," Misato countered, "You have intentionally been pushing faster than Shinji can keep up."
"Is it my fault that the Third Child is slow? Am I supposed to hold back for him?"
"Um, Excuse me?" Hikari pushed through the half closed front door, "I was coming by to bring Asuka the classwork she missed."
Misato turned towards the pig tailed girl, "So, are you flexible?"
"Um, a little? I took acrobatics in primary school."
"Well, come give this a shot" Misato waved towards where Shinji was standing on the Twister board and turned the music back on.
"Wait, she's not a pilot!" Asuka shouted at the same time as Shinji interjected, "Asuka's my partner for this!"
Asuka froze and glanced at Shinji as the male pilot held up his hand, "look, I'll try to be less distracted, and you know, concentrate more on what we are doing, but you have to slow down a little. Deal?"
Misato jaw hit the floor, 'He .. that was actually very well said. Where did those interpersonal skills
come from?'
At the same time Asuka slowly pivoted to look at Shinji. Shinji stood calmly and waited. "Fine. I will teach you." Asuka took a ready position, "Well, what are you waiting for, baka?"
This time, the two teens were much closer to being in sync, with Asuka athleticism and Shinji's preternatural ability to read what Asuka was going to do next helping them overcome each other's mistakes.
/\ PoC /\
That evening, as he lay on his futon, Shinji connected to Inia, 'I think I'm going to have to go off line for a bit, so that I can concentrate more on this coordination training with Asuka."
'That makes sense,' Came the reply, 'How long will you be gone?'
'We have to fight the Angel in less than a week, so it will all be over by then.'
'Ok.' There was a pause, 'I'll miss you.'
Shinji wasn't certain how to respond. He finally sent, 'And I'll miss you too', but by then Inia had disconnected.
/\ PoC /\
The next several days were spent in intense training. Asuka and Shinji did everything together. They ate together, they trained together, the brushed their teeth together. And through out it all, they strived to keep their motions in sync.
"This is the most frustrating process ever!" Asuka fumed. "You are so slow at everything!"
Shinji just shrugged. They were having dinner alone, as Misato had called in to say that she had to prep for the battle that was scheduled for the following day.
"You know, we should do something, since we're all alone like this" Asuka gave a side-long glance at Shinji to see if he would respond.
"Uhh... Do you want to watch TV? Just for a bit?"
There was quiet pause, and then: "You're such a child!" Asuka huffed and stormed into her room, leaving Shinji to clean up the plates.
After putting everything away, Shinji knocked tentatively on Asuka's door, "I was serious about watching TV. I'll even let you choose what to watch."
There was no response. Shinji waited for a moment and was just turning to go when Asuka called through the door, "Go to sleep, baka. Tomorrow is our big day."
/\ PoC /\
The appointed day finally dawned, and both teens woke up early from nervous energy.
"Are you ready?" Misato asked of both pilots as they activated their Evangelions. At the positive response, she keyed on the music, "remember, stay together. Just like you trained. Now go kick some ass!'
"Misato!" Came he scandalized response from Maya.
Misato turned off her mike and replied, "They can use all the encouragement they can get."
The battle proceeded with a precision that showed the long hours of practice that they had put in, though not necessarily much grace. The two Evangelions darted in just as the angels pulled themselves free of their encasing glass. Then, each leaped forward, kicking their respective opponents in the head, sending them to the ground. With a back flip, they landed and lunged forward, jamming their Progressive knives into the Angels' cores at the same moment.
It was quick. It was accurate. Shinji was amazed at how easy it had been. 'I wish all practice paid off like this.' He was just turning to congratulate Asuka when the cores blew up.
The two Evangelions flew through the air, flailing in synchonicity, before landing in a sand dune. Asuka grumbled, "It's all your fault. If I wasn't forced to perform at your level, this would never have happened!"
Shinji didn't reply, letting Asuka fume on her own, but as they exited their Evangelions and finally made it to the changing rooms, he turned to the fiery red head, "Um, so.. do you want to go watch TV?"
Asuka rolled her eyes. "Way to set the bar real low, baka." But as she turned away Shinji caught the small smirk that formed on her face.