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Chapter 10: "…I don't know how you were inverted…"
Two pilots in a single entry plug really made for a terrible experience.
Shinji was wrestling the controls with Asuka all the while the girl barked insults at him.
They were still stuck in the mouth of Gaghiel and Misato had just informed them about the two battleships currently on their way to meet them. That would be fine and dandy if it weren't for one small problem.
He was doing his best sync with Unit-02 without resorting to reaching out to the soul of Asuka's mother inside. If he did that and the Second Children felt the existence of her mother who knew what kinds of turmoil the redhead would be subjected to.
Not to mention the questions she'd be asking.
Then again, it would be a better alternative than both of them dying right here.
"You only have 20 seconds, get those jaws open now!" Misato shouted at them through the comms.
Shinji could tell he was failing miserably, his own damn hesitation and emotions getting the better of him with her so close.
He never did change.
"Do it baka Shinji, you're both going to die!" She was right after all, there were no alternatives.
Taking in a nose full of LCL he closed his eyes and reached out his mind to the deepest parts of Unit-02. Even further than he had to look for this mother in Unit-01. His mother's mind and soul hadn't been torn apart like Asuka's mother's.
There was nothing, he could feel nothing, at least nothing that he could find.
"Kyoko!" it was like shouting into an abyss, but what else was he supposed to do? "Asuka needs you!".
Unaware of her co-piolt's frantic search beyond the physical plane, Asuka could only feel the Third's lapse in concentration and growled at the perceived incompetence.
"Third?! What are you…" the Second Children was stopped mid-sentence with a sensation she had never felt before.
Time seemed to slow as she felt a connection with the Evangelion that she never had before. Like an adrenaline surge she was acutely aware of everything now, the Angel, the Third Children, and something else, and now she had the strength to push open those jaws.
Doing so in the nick of time, the two battleships came crashing down, jamming themselves into the mouth. The resulting explosion from their main armament sending them skyrocketing to the surface.
Then… the only thing she could compare what came next was sensory overload. The entry plug seemed to dissolve as she felt the presence of something warm reaching out to her. It was so warm, so pleasant, so encompassing that she never wanted it to leave her.
Then it was gone, much to her fury, washed away from something else.
Something cold.
She wasn't in an EVA anymore, she was standing somewhere else, watching… herself?
What had just transpired earlier on Over the Rainbow, but not exactly?
Suddenly images flashed in front of her, EVAs, Angels, Tokyo-03, things she'd never seen. The images came and went like a slideshow, only a few seconds until the next, faster and faster until it was hard to make out anything but a blur.
Then she was standing there alone in some crater. No, some warzone, she was rising up out of the ground, the wind whipping around here in a cyclone, some sort of spear in her hands.
Then she saw it.
"No…"
Those pale winged creatures, they circled in the sky, fleshy chunks of meat hung in their talons and their mouths with oversized grins.
Somehow, she knew it was Unit-02.
And somehow, she knew she had been inside.
"Look what he did to us."
Asuka spun around only to see… herself standing there, half bandaged and bloodied.
It was only the Second Children's blood curdling scream that brought Shinji back to reality.
She grabbed her head and pushed him away from her. The Third Children didn't understand what was happening. They were both on the opposite sides of the controls, with Asuka now curling up on herself, still clutching her head as she shook it.
"Nonononononono." She just mumbled to herself.
"Asuka?" he asked, reaching out across the controls to her.
"Get the fuck away from me!" she screamed hysterically at him, pushing herself up against the side of the entry plug.
Surprised by the outburst Shinji recoiled as well, those blue eyes of hers just stared at him, her skin deathly white even in the LCL. He could see the rapid raising and lowering of her chest, she was hyperventilating.
What just happened?
"Asuka, are you alright?" he asked softly.
She said nothing, she just looked at him with something that he'd never seen on her face before.
Terror.
Absolute. Pure. Terror.
"Wha…"
"I saw it." She whispered
"I saw her."
Turning to her left, she could now see with her own physical eyes that bandaged version of herself, just resting on the back of the pilot's seat, its head cupped by bandaged hands.
A massive grin on its' face.
"Well… isn't that interesting?"
With speed Shinji thought impossible, Asuka reached and smashed the emergency eject button. The two of them braced for the g-forces as the plug was released from the EVA and the third member of their group vanished, at least to the eyes of the Second Children.
Both just looked at each other as the LCL drained from the tube, Asuka's eyes remained wide like some animal backed into a corner, waiting for its predator to make the first move.
Her wet hair matted against her skin as the LCL drained, the last bits of it falling off her skin making it look like she was drenched in blood.
Neither said anything as the LCL dropped down and bellow their chests, all that could be heard were the last droplets falling from the top of the plug.
"What the hell are you?"
ʡʘʘʢ
She laid there, completely unable to fall asleep with this unfamiliar ceiling above her.
Her room was a mess, boxes half torn open, clothes thrown into piles, books and papers strew about without a home. To think she wasn't even half-finished unpacking.
Asuka raised the raggedy hand puppet/doll up in front of her, its wide eyes seemed to enlarge with the surrounding darkness.
"You know you're better than they are."
"They aren't special the way you are."
"Nothing's changed, it's just like before, you're still better off relying on yourself Asuka." She finished weakly.
Her mind drifted back to getting to sleep, but she didn't want to face those nightmares again, she didn't want to have to relive those things.
She shook her head and put the puppet down, rolling over, she tried to shut her eyes, only to hear some rather dull thumping's from the room across from hers'.
Perhaps he did sleepwalk after all.
Just another thing to add to the list of oddities that was the Third Child.
ʡʘʘʢ
"I don't know."
He whispered those words to himself as his eyes opened.
That had been the first life where anyone knew about him. Let's just say that had been a less then optimal way of Asuka finding out.
He was careful not to let that happen a second time. He figured it was a kind of micro-instrumentality between those within the entry plug of an EVA if both pilot's sync rates rose high enough.
He found that when the two pilots synced high enough, to the borderline of dissolving into LCL like he had, it became more a link with each other than purely with the Evangelion. Almost as if the Evangelion was the conduit between the two.
It had taken him a long time before he trusted himself to get back in an entry plug with her, even longer till he was certain it would never happen again.
The boy sighed at the memories and resigned himself to the day by rolling off his mattress. He dragged himself to the bathroom and went about getting ready for the day.
With a splash of water on his face he looked at himself in the mirror. Again those dark circles under his eyes told him no matter what happened he'd probably never get a full night of dreamless sleep ever again.
It's not like he deserved to either.
I am poison to everyone around me.
"I am Shinji Ikari… Third Children… Pilot of Evangelion Unit-01." He whispered to himself.
Exiting, he found himself face to face with a very annoyed redhead who scolded him for taking so long. Simply shrugging off the encounter, he went to the kitchen to make a small breakfast and lunch for the three of them.
"Alright you two, have a good day!" Misato called to them as she went to her own room to get dressed "Don't forget your first sync test together is after school!"
Shinji responded with pleasantries as Asuka just walked out the door grumbling something too low for him to hear. Heading out the door after her, the girl had just started off without him.
"Don't you want to know how to get there?" he called after her.
"I already know the way Third, you'll just slow me down!" she called back as he pace quickened.
Shrugging, he decided for now it'd be best to just let her go.
At least that was what he tried to do. Instead, he found himself managing to keep a steady distance between them. The thought occurred to him that this could be considered stalking, but they went to the same school, what was he supposed to do take another route?
Besides it was simply too easy to spot her in a crowd, how many redheads had A-10 clips in their hair?
Finally meeting up with the stooges, Shinji let himself be slowed down by the two of them. The familiar feeling of normalcy came over him as they walked and chatted about things that he really didn't find important.
Perhaps he could let himself feel a bit of this. A bit of the lightness that came from this world.
"Always the same baka Shinji, you're going to regret that." She called from behind him, probably not wanting to be near the stooges.
I know.
ʡʘʘʢ
"Guten Morgen." He said softly so that only she could hear.
She looked up at him, "[Do you want something?]" she growled in annoyance at being disturbed.
He just smiled and sat down across from the redhead.
It hadn't even been an hour after he got to class that it clicked for him, after all, when Asuka acted like that in front of the class, it was jarring to say the least.
Unlike every time when she had gotten up and wrote her name boldly on the board, how she had attracted every soul's attention in the class, this time she had just scowled at the class, and said nothing more than her name. That sense of nostalgia for his first life had been utterly shattered with the sight.
She had been hostile to just about every person who talked to her or even came close to her. By lunch every single classmate had been afraid to even approach and eat lunch with the German.
Even Hikari who was doing her best, (probably due to a sense of duty as class rep) had been beaten back by the irate redhead.
Last time she relished in her popularity. She loved being the center of attention, the new foreign student, who climbed the social hierarchy with ease and played the intricate (albeit unimportant) 'political' schoolyard system.
Now… well… antisocial was putting it lightly.
And it was more than slightly off-putting to him.
A moment ago, the stooges had tried to get him to sit back down, with cries and pleads that he'd be decapitated if he got too close to the fiery German. Shinji had simply smiled and said he'd be back, only to receive fake tears. Kensuke stated he'd write the eulogy and he was pretty sure there were dibs put on his belongings as well.
Now he was in the crosshairs of the dragon and well within striking distance to.
"[You don't seem like the kind that wants help, but if you can't read kanji…]" he said in her native tongue, eyeing the open book that seemed to be stuck on the first page.
"[I don't need your help!]" she barked back at him.
He smiled softly at her, but he hesitated.
He never changed.
"[You don't want my help.]" he corrected.
She just narrowed her eyes at him, but he couldn't help but feel giddy for some reason.
"[I get the feeling you're plenty far ahead.]" he said changing the subject, [Being an officer and all], he was definitely stroking her ego.
He could see her hands starting to grip her Wonderswan tighter, she seemed to play the thing nonstop, even being able to hide it from the teacher while the old man lectured. Shinji thought back to his old self, listening for hours to the same tracks on his SDAT player.
No… he wouldn't let her drown out her world to.
He wouldn't let her be consumed by that pit, not again.
The girl glared at him, he was agitating her, but she needed it, she needed this if she had a past anything like Soryu had.
Or if she wanted to avoid what had happened to the girl.
Speaking of his lovely companion, he had been doing his best to keep his focus on his laptop while she went around creatively insulting classmates around the room during the morning lectures. The Third Children had to admit some of the jabs had been rather amusing, which only made the bandaged girl more aggravated.
"[If you don't want to be bothered, ask her to change your seat next to mine.]" he said, motioning to the pigtailed brunette in the room.
"[Also,] he pulled out a wrapped lunch from behind him "[don't forget your lunch next time.]"
Her brow furrowed, "[I didn't forget it!]" she hissed at him.
Shinji shook his head and stood up "[I know you didn't.]".
He took his leave, he was beginning to be too pushy, he knew it.
Asuka glared at the boy as he made his way to Rei's table, another lunch in his hands. Unwrapping the food, she looked down at the expertly cooked meal.
The Third Child was still a mystery.
"Finally, back in class Rei?" Shinji asked the bluenette.
She made no notion that she actually heard the boy, instead she continued staring out the window for a moment longer.
"Rei?" he asked again, only to have the clone finally turn to look up at him, then down at the food in his hand.
To the Third Children, Rei's outward appearance seemed a hair more like his mother's than other times. Perhaps it was just him, but he swore he could see it.
It wasn't too important, what was important was if she still held the same purpose as before. Judging by the amount of time absent from class, he'd wager a bet that she was.
The conduit for the Third Impact, and at least partially, the one who put him in this mess just took the food from his hands slowly, the same blank face as always just looked at him.
"Thank you." She said meekly
He tried to think of something to say, something, anything. Instead, his mind just traveled to what Misato had reminded him of earlier.
"Are you going to be ok for the sync test after school?" he asked, the words almost bumbling out of his mouth.
Rei blinked, like she was processing what he had just said.
"Yes, why wouldn't I be?"
"Congrats, Wonder Girl, you're still the same even in this messed up world!" Soryu called out from the other side of class.
Ignoring her, Shinji just shrugged "You've been absent for a while."
Rei nodded "I have duties with NERV."
Shinji knew exactly what those duties were, nice long cozy times floating in an LCL tube. He had to admit it was a rather dull experience, one that he had not been fond of.
Taking his leave, he went back to Toji and Kensuke, who both acted rather dramatically at his return.
'All hail the conquering hero!'
'Slayer of the Ice Queen and Red Dragon!'
A quick hushed remark about Toji asking Hikari to the Spring Dance was all it took to get the attention off of him and onto the now blushing jock.
Things continued on that way till the end of the lunch break, when Shinji found he just needed a quick walk.
Getting permission to use the restroom, he let his feet take him through the halls.
Of course, he wasn't alone, but if anyone else were there they wouldn't have heard the second set of footsteps alongside him.
"So, she's not that impressive after all," Asuka said, her arms crossed over her chest "didn't even go to college, I graduated before I came to Japan."
"And that game she plays, what's with that, it's almost as pathetic as you!"
"You could've been just like her." He mumbled as his feet took him through a random open door.
"Hmph, no way, not in a million years!" she declared, pitching her nose up in defiance.
"We might just be that old." He chuckled to himself.
How old was he?
That was a good question.
It wasn't like he ever got past 15 most of the time anyways. Though he had started out a bit older in some lives. Even if he took every life and averaged out to 8 months of living…
He was still pretty old.
Though to do that it would mean he would have had to keep track of how many lives he had. That was a particular game he had given up or been forced to a long time ago.
Despite everything, he still thought of himself as a 14-year-old, a 14-year-old who hadn't had a birthday in a very long time. One that knew things that no one should and having experienced things that people only saw in their nightmares.
And after all that he still felt like he was that 14-year-old waiting to be picked up by Misato.
Looking around to where his feet had taken him Shinji was rather surprised to find himself surround by instruments. Some storage closet perhaps?
Reaching down to stroke the strings on a guitar which had been left without a cover and outside a case, the boy sneezed as dust came flying off the metal coils.
No one had been apart this school's band for a long time.
Which was strange because he could remember there being one before. He could even remember a nice quartet between himself, a German, a Clone, and…
Him…
Had that actually happened? Or was it in some other life?
"You're gonna need to get back to class soon baka."
She was right like always.
Looking around, Shinji found an empty case for the instrument and packed it up. He'd bring it back of course, just keeping it long enough to let his fingers remember how to play.
It wasn't like anyone was using it here.
Well, I said Monday -Tuesday didn't I? yeah, I couldn't keep away.
Shoutouts!
Greg242- Thanks! Hope you keep enjoying it!
dyinglittelstar- Well like I said, I've been working on the story for about a month and a half. So we got like 40-60k words already written.
Akomis- I'm always happy to make a morning!
The most annoying thing about 2.0 is the pacing, it works for a movie, but damn does it suck when you bounce between a bunch of different scenes in under 5 minutes, or have what seems like the movie going through long stretches of time without really telling you.
Until Next Time