Chapter 15 - Begin The Test

Shinji was nervous.

After getting home and eating dinner, he sat around in the lounge room wondering to himself just how NERV was going to be able to let him help Asuka and Rei, instead of focusing on his homework. Asuka was watching television, but Shinji paid even less attention to that.

Asuka had earlier claimed that she had an idea, but wanted to keep it to herself in case she was wrong. Rei, on the other hand, had nothing to say on the matter before returning to Misato's apartment when it started getting late.

In the end, Shinji went to bed not knowing what to expect. When morning dragged itself around he felt just as confused as before upon waking up, with the added benefit of an odd dream he couldn't quite recall beyond remembering that he was piloting and somebody was talking to him.

After getting out of bed, having breakfast and getting ready, Asuka and Shinji were taken to the Geofront by Misato. Rather than heading straight for the Evangelions as Shinji expected, they were taken further into the depths of NERV. Fortunately, Misato at least knew where to go this time. As they went through a veritable maze of corridors, all Shinji could gather from their journey was that they were now somewhere in the 'Sigma Unit', which wasn't very helpful. Soon, they came to a halt in front of a door with a label that simply said...

"Pribnow Box?" Shinji wondered, looking curiously at the label then at Misato.

"Don't look at me, Ritsuko came up with the name." Misato shrugged. "All I know is that this place was only finished about a week ago, and it's where we're going to test the prototype."

"Pribnow box is a DNA thing, something to do with RNA," Asuka distractedly replied. "Anyway, what's this prototype?"

"See for yourself!" Misato pressed a button next to the door, and it slid open.

Inside was a large room, with a floor-to-ceiling window in place of a wall on the left and several control stations facing towards it. An open doorway opposite the one the group came in from led off to some unknown place. Doctor Akagi was already here, talking with Lieutenant Ibuki, and several technicians were evidently going over last minute details. Akagi and Ibuki looked up as Shinji and Asuka approached.

"Good, you're here," said Akagi. She waved a hand towards the window. "You'll be working in there in a few minutes."

Shinji walked up to the window and looked through. In the rather small and narrow chamber on the other side, there was what appeared to be two entry plug pilot seats and control columns in close proximity to each other, with a multitude of cables running from them into the wall they sat against.

"Is this going to be some kind of synchronisation test?" Shinji asked, looking back at Doctor Akagi.

She gave him an appraising look. "Some kind, yes. Now then, we've got a lot of work to do today, so hurry up and get into your plugsuits." She then pointed towards the open doorway. "There's a changing room through there, and the path to the test chamber is just beyond that."

Shinji nodded, and headed for the doorway. As he reached it, he almost bumped into a distracted-looking Asuka. She looked like she was about to say something, but then she shoved him ahead of her into the hallway. When they reached the changing room, that was when she chose to speak.

"I'm pretty sure I know what the plan is," she said as they split up to move to their respective sides of the privacy screen. A packaged blue and white plugsuit sat on a bench, waiting for him.

"Well at least one of us does," Shinji drily remarked. He tore the plastic wrapping off of his plugsuit and unfurled it. "I'm still in the dark."

"Oh come on, figure it out," Asuka huffed. "You're not as dumb as you sometimes act."

Shinji directed a scowl at the privacy screen, but held his tongue as he began to undress.

While getting changed, he thought things over. Doctor Akagi had apparently found a way to let him safely pilot again, and the fight against the Angel in the ocean had supposedly contributed greatly to her research. He searched his memory, remembering how he and Asuka had managed to get Unit-02 to work underwater without the proper equipment by working together. And while it hadn't come up in the fight, Asuka had said beforehand that she could project an AT-Field to cover them since he couldn't.

And then there was what Doctor Akagi had said afterwards on the deck of the Over the Rainbow.

"We were... perfectly in sync with one another," Shinji quietly mumbled to himself.

"I hear gears grinding over there!" Asuka called out. "Have you finally figured it out?"

"I think so," Shinji called back. "They're going to... test how well two pilots can pilot one Eva?"

"Oh well done!" The sound of gloved hands clapping not-quite-sarcastically echoed through the small room. "That's exactly it. We did so well together against that fish when Unit-02 wasn't set up for it, they're going to see what we can do in a custom rig."

Shinji pressed the wrist button to seal his plugsuit. "One hundred and forty eight percent," he murmured. "How much better could we get?"

"That's what we're about to find out!" said Asuka as she stuck her head around the privacy screen, hair trailing wildly behind her. "Let's not keep them waiting any longer!"

The Second Child practically ran out of the room, causing Shinji to give a brief chuckle. It seemed like she was more interested in what the test could do for her rather than him. Following her down the hallway, Shinji soon came to the small chamber on the other side of the window. From this side he couldn't see in, but he sent a nervous wave that way.

Akagi's voice suddenly came through a speaker. "First we'll be doing a quick test to ensure everything's working optimally, as well as establish a baseline. Go to your assigned plugs."

Looking back at the plug seats, Shinji saw that they were labelled '01' and '02'. Asuka was already getting settled in hers, so he hurried over to the other. A second after he sat down, something began beeping and LCL began to pour out of the ceiling. Shinji closed his eyes and held his breath as the liquid flowed over his head, then let the breath out and quickly sucked in a lungful of LCL, just as Asuka had taught him during his week of hell.

"The entry plugs are remotely connected to your Evas," said Akagi. "If everything goes well, this first part should be just like you're in a normal sync test. Tell us if you feel anything strange or wrong."

A minute later, Shinji felt the same sense of almost-vertigo he normally got when synchronisation with a seventy-five meter tall robot was successful. At the same time, holographic screens erupted in front of his face, giving him a view of the cage where his Evangelion was stored along with several data readouts. With a thought, he directed his view to look around, then gave a small shake of his head as if to loosen his muscles, and Unit-01's head mirrored his movement.

"Everything's fine so far," he reported.

"Same here," added Asuka.

"Good." After ten minutes, Akagi reported the results of the sync test to them. "Preliminary results show fifty-two percent for Shinji, sixty-seven for Asuka. The same as your last sync test, so we know everything is as it should be."

The holographic screens shut off and the almost-vertigo sensation disappeared. Shinji let out a sigh of relief at the fact that the sync tests wouldn't be the standard who-knows-how-many hours long ordeals they usually were. The tests obviously wouldn't be as perfectly accurate, but Shinji didn't mind. He glanced left at Asuka, but she was still focused on where her screens had been.

A minute passed before Akagi's voice came back into the room. "Just one more quick test, then we'll proceed."

Shinji frowned as the test commenced. This time there was a fleeting sensation of... reluctance accompanying the vertigo, and then the holographic screens returned. The frown deepened. Were his eyes playing tricks on him? The cage seemed slightly different now. He looked around, but couldn't see anything that could confirm it one way or the other. A few minutes later, just as he was about to let the matter slide, Asuka piped up.

"Wait, why am I in Unit-01 now?!"

Shinji blinked, then looked 'down'. Sure enough, the torso now filling the bottom of his screens was red, not purple. "Oh, so I wasn't imagining things," he murmured.

"Yeah, all I had to do was look down to see some garish purple and green paint," said Asuka.

"We weren't trying to hide anything from you," said Akagi. "But we figured that while we were down here we may as well give you two a quick test in each other's Evas."

"What? Why?" asked Asuka, frowning at the window. "You already know I can pilot Unit-01 just fine."

"Yes, but we weren't sure about Shinji's solo affinity for Unit-02," came the terse reply. "This will give us another data point to use in the later tests, as well as let us know if Shinji could pilot your Eva in an emergency."

"Oh. Right." Asuka looked sheepish for a moment. She turned her head to look at Shinji for a second, then back to the window. "So... how is he doing?"

"Not surprisingly, worse than Unit-01. Still, he's hovering around thirty-five percent at the moment." The scientist almost sounded impressed. "Perhaps at a later date we'll do a full sync test with Shinji in Unit-02. If that's alright with you, Asuka?"

Asuka apparently decided to ignore the sarcasm in the scientist's voice. "Sure. It is the Production Model after all. If Shinji couldn't pilot Unit-02, I'd be looking at what's wrong with your systems."

There was something that could almost have been a growl right as the speaker cut out.

"Please don't antagonise the person in charge of our tests, Asuka," pleaded Shinji. "She might decide to make us do it naked next time, or something."

Asuka made a face, but didn't respond. Soon, Akagi's voice reached them once more.

"Alright, time for the big one. Hope you two are comfortable, because this is where things will start to take time. This is highly experimental and we don't yet know what could happen, so don't be afraid to speak up if anything at all feels wrong. Better safe than sorry. Now then, you're both going to synchronise with Unit-02 at the exact same time. Asuka, the system language will be set to Japanese. Data from your fight against the Sixth Angel showed that your sync ratio slipped a little whenever you had to communicate with us."

A groan came from Shinji's left. "Fine."

"Begin the test."

Vertigo. Reluctance. Confusion. But then... the reluctance faded, replaced by surprise and acceptance. The feeling lasted only a second, but Shinji hit his palm against the side of his head, trying to banish the strangeness so he could focus on the test.

"Something wrong, Shinji?"

"It's nothing," he mumbled. "Just... thought I felt something."

"...Alright then." Akagi didn't sound convinced, but fortunately she let the matter slide. Shinji didn't know how to begin explaining the sensations, and now wasn't the time anyway.

The holographic screens flashed to life once more, showing Unit-02's cage. Shinji tried to look around, but the Evangelion's head wasn't obeying his mental command properly. It 'felt' stiff, and seemed to jerk occasionally as if fighting against him.

And then Shinji remembered that this was a test with two people. The moment he gave up on turning the head it snapped to the right, giving him an excellent view of a wall.

"Shinji, stop fighting me!" Asuka growled.

Shinji glanced over to see that she was glaring at him. "S-sorry!" he stammered.

"Settle down," said Akagi. "There's a hell of a lot of interference, which I expected. You two aren't acting together. Stop moving on your own for the moment; I'll give you some simple commands to follow."

Asuka huffed and turned her attention back to her set of screens, and Shinji followed suit. In Unit-02's cage, a light began flashing accompanied by an alert siren. Shinji took this to mean that the cage was now a no-go zone for personnel. Then one of the data screens in front of him changed, showing a silhouette of an Evangelion.

"We've unlocked the arms on Unit-02. At the same time, both of you will do what the screen tells you to."

A timer appeared under the silhouette, which now had its right arm raised. The timer began to count down from five seconds, and Shinji readied himself.

At zero, he raised Unit-02's right arm. This time, there was no stiffness or jerkiness. The arm lifted smoothly out of the LCL and reached for the roof above.

"Very good. A massive improvement already," reported Akagi, with a note of approval.

"Way to go, you two!" came Misato's enthusiastic voice.

For the next minute or so, Shinji and Asuka followed the instructions; raising an arm, lowering it, making a fist, and other simple gestures they could do while Unit-02 was in its cage.

"Excellent. I would almost consider sending you two out against an Angel now if one attacked," said Akagi.

"Why don't we fight like this all the time?" Shinji inquired. "It'd definitely be safer for us to fight remotely."

"You're only linked to Unit-02 through a hard line connection," replied Akagi. "The moment it left the cage you'd lose that link. And a wireless receiver wouldn't have the fidelity required for maintaining a good synchronisation."

"Oh."

"Suits me just fine," Asuka airily remarked. "I like being close to the action."

"And now it's time for what I'm sure you'll come to think of as the boring bit," said Akagi. "Time for a sync test."

Asuka groaned, her jovial mood suddenly gone.

"Stop complaining. You'll be going through some simulation battles afterwards, so you at least have something to look forward to."

"Come on, don't you want to know what your official sync ratio is like this?" asked Misato. "I don't mind sitting around if it means getting to see what you two are capable of. Surely you can cope."

"Yeah, yeah," said Shinji and Asuka simultaneously. They froze, glancing at each other in surprise.

"See? You're working together better already!"

As one, the two pilots scowled at the window.

XXX

Unit-02 jumped over the hill like it was a hurdle, its massive feet crashing down on the other side and obliterating a house that happened to be in the way. By the time the first bits of debris hit the ground, the red Evangelion was already cresting another hill.

Shinji was thankful that this was just a simulation; there was no need to fret over collateral damage. Of course he and Asuka had been asked to treat the exercise like a real attack and to try not to destroy everything in their path, but they wouldn't always be able to spare the time or thought to avoid civilian buildings. The Angels certainly wouldn't care.

As if to prove that point, ahead of them the Third Angel fired a beam of light from its face as it emerged from the bay, shredding several buildings before gouging a hole in a mountain range. It then turned and fired another beam at the oncoming Unit-02. With a quick thought on Asuka's part, Unit-02 raised its AT-Field just in time to deflect the beam a dozen meters from its face.

This was now the second time they had fought the Third Angel, code-named Sachiel, having just recently slain the Fourth -Shamshel- as it approached Tokyo-3 from behind a mountain range. Fighting on uneven terrain had been tough at first, but the point of the exercise was to get Shinji and Asuka used to controlling the same Evangelion at the same time. It had taken them half an hour just to learn to move together at first, but soon they had zipped around Hakone like they were trying to break the land speed record.

The Fifth Angel, which had been given the name Ramiel, had been deemed too complex for the simulation in its original form. It had been replaced with an upgraded training Angel that came with a similarly powerful beam attack, but could not sustain it as long as the real thing. This had, eventually, allowed Unit-02 to get close and destroy it in melee combat.

Shinji brushed an errant lock of hair behind his ear as he felt the weight of the power cable return to 'his' back the moment Unit-02 reached flat ground near the city. Since this was a simulation, it had been decided that time didn't need to be wasted on detaching and reattaching power cables as they moved around the simulated Tokyo-3 and its surroundings. It would only manifest itself during active combat, during which they would have to remember to protect it just like in real life. Once the target was eliminated, the cable would disappear again until Unit-02 reached the site of the next Angel incursion.

Unit-02 put an armoured building between itself and Sachiel for a moment, where it drew the Pallet Rifle and readied it as another beam of light exploded against the other side of the building. Two seconds later, Unit-02 jumped out of cover and charged laterally towards Sachiel, firing the Pallet Rifle to force the Angel to deploy its AT-Field and rendering it unable to retaliate while they were in the open. A moment later Unit-02 reached the safety of another slab of armour and ejected the spent magazine, slapping a fresh one in before repeating the pattern a second time.

It was somewhat disappointing how quickly Sachiel fell once it was forced into melee combat. The Angel attempted to spear the Evangelion with its energy lance but Unit-02 almost lazily swatted the arm away, before dropping it to the ground with a leg sweep and shoving a Progressive Knife into its core before it could recover.

As soon as the dust settled Shinji was impatiently tapping his foot, already looking around for the next target. A strand of hair floated in front of his face and he irritably brushed it back again, wishing he'd remembered to tie his hair back.

XXX

"We have a-"

"Problem. I know."

Ritsuko, surprised by Misato's interruption, looked nonplussed for a moment before continuing. "Their sync ratio is over two hundred and ten percent and still climbing. I really don't like what their brainwaves are doing."

"Their minds are starting to merge," said Misato, arms crossed and eyes focused on the chamber.

"How did you know that already?" Ritsuko wondered.

Misato glanced sidelong at her friend. "While you were busy staring at what your screens have been telling you about the pilots, I've been watching them." She pointed into the chamber. "Twice now Shinji has mimicked Asuka when she adjusted her hair."

"Hmph." Ritsuko, somewhat put off by Misato's insight, turned to look at the teenagers. "Are you also going to tell me why Asuka hasn't acted like Shinji at all yet?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Misato unfolded her arms and placed her hands on her hips. "Asuka's the one with the bigger personality. Shinji's more... passive."

Through the speakers, the two of them suddenly heard Shinji swear in German as the simulated Shamshel pulled a fast one on them. Misato raised an eyebrow. His words certainly gave weight to what she had just said. "I'm pretty sure he didn't learn that from his teacher."

"Which one?" asked Ritsuko. "Sounded like he said six words in German there."

"'Arschgesicht'", replied Misato. "It means-"

Ritsuko quickly raised a hand to stop her. "I... think I'll choose to remain ignorant."

In the chamber, Asuka and Shinji whooped and cheered in sync as another simulation enemy fell before them. Misato sighed and turned away from the window, running a hand down her face.

"Please stop the test before it gets worse," she said.

Ritsuko nodded and pressed a button on her console. "Alright you two, we're going to finish up for today." Over the sound of twin groans of frustration, she continued. "We need some time to analyse these results and I think you've had enough fun."

The scientist's hands flashed across her keyboard as she input the commands to shut the simulation down. Another set of commands brought an end to the pilots' link to Unit-02. The moment she sent the final command, though, something unexpected happened in the chamber.

Two yelps of pain. Two pairs of hands clutching at heads. Shinji and Asuka both fell out of their seats and curled into the fetal position, sinking slowly through the LCL to land on the floor.

Misato swore as she hurried over to the microphone. "What's going on?!"

"Get a medical team in there!" Ritsuko shouted over her shoulder to Maya, who nodded and made the call. In the chamber, the drainage system kicked in and began sucking the LCL out of the room.

"Guhhh," Asuka moaned, coughing orange liquid out of her lungs and struggling to get back to her feet. "Feels like... someone just ripped half my brain out then taped it back in..."

"Can't feel my... everything," Shinji mumbled, before hacking up a glob of LCL. He tried to stand, but quickly collapsed.

Asuka finally managed to get vertical and began making her slow way over to Shinji, moving like an infant who wasn't sure how to walk. She braced herself against Shinji's pilot seat with one hand, and waved the other towards the downed boy. Shinji put out his own hand to grab it... in completely the wrong direction.

Misato frowned at Ritsuko, who sighed and covered her face with a hand. "I'm sure this will only be temporary," she muttered.

"Don't tell me this is going to happen all the time if we go forward with this plan," warned Misato.

Ritsuko shook her head. "It appears that not only were they synchronising with Unit-02, they were synchronising with each other as well, which fed back into the Eva and pushed their sync ratio to such a dangerous degree. We'll have to modify the safety systems, and add a limiter to avoid... this," she pointed at the two pilots, who were now being tended to by the just-arrived medical personnel, "in the future."

Misato nodded glumly as she watched the medics ease Asuka and Shinji onto a pair of gurneys. A few words convinced the two of them to stop moving, and the gurneys were wheeled out of the chamber. "Alright." She paused as a thought occurred; one that she didn't like the sound of. "I hate that I'm going to suggest this, but..." She turned to Ritsuko. "Make sure you can disable the limiter. As a last resort... emergency kind of thing."

Ritsuko stared at her for a long moment before responding. "I understand," she quietly said.

"Hey!"

Misato and Ritsuko turned around to see the gurneys as they passed through the room. Asuka waved, or tried to wave, at them.

"What sync ratio did we get?" she practically demanded of them.

Ritsuko glanced at Misato, who sighed and nodded. She took a quick look at her screen and turned back to the waiting girl. "Two hundred and nineteen percent."

"Yesssssss," hissed the Second Child. The medic continued to push her gurney, and Misato and Ritsuko just barely heard her mumble, "Shame we can't split it evenly," as she passed through the doorway.

"Well at least she's still happy," Ritsuko quipped, shrugging as she began to compile her notes on the test.

"Too bad she won't be as happy when we tell her about the limiter," Misato remarked.

"Gee, I'd love to be the one to tell her, but I'm going to be incredibly busy now. Besides, that's something best left to you, I think."

"You're such a considerate friend, Rits."

"Thank you."

XXX

Some medication, a checkup and some rest later, Shinji's brain remembered that his arms and legs actually belonged to him. He still felt like he'd picked a fight with an Angel without an Evangelion, but at least he could move around again. Asuka also seemed to have mostly recovered, but the two of them were still tired after the simulation mishap. Misato was quick to join them when they were cleared to leave the medical ward.

"Despite what happened afterwards, I'd consider today a success," Misato remarked as the trio got into an elevator on their trek to her car.

"I just hope... that doesn't happen every time," Asuka muttered as she rubbed her forehead. "I could do without the brain surgery after every fight."

"Well, there's good news and bad news on that front," Misato admitted. When Asuka and Shinji glared dangerously at her, she hastily continued. "The good news is that it shouldn't happen again once the dual-sync plug is finalised. The bad news is that it's because we'll be installing a limiter to stop your sync ratio from getting as dangerously high as it did."

"What?!" Asuka shrieked, her voice incredibly loud in the small elevator. "Screw that, I can handle the aftereffects!"

Shinji felt himself getting angry as well, but couldn't work out why.

"Really?" Misato asked, folding her arms and leaning forward so that her face was level with Asuka's. "I remember you saying that it felt like somebody had ripped half your brain out. Are you sure you want to deal with that every time?"

"Just keep some aspirin nearby and I'll be fine!" Asuka retorted.

Misato rolled her eyes and sighed. "What if it gets worse? What if you end up in a coma after every fight?" Asuka opened her mouth to reply, but Misato got there first. "And what about Shinji? Are you going to ignore what he goes through just because of your obsession with a number?"

"I..." Asuka glanced at Shinji, lost for words. Shinji felt the irrational anger get replaced by just as irrational shame. "Fine," Asuka grumbled halfheartedly. "What are we going to get limited to?"

"I don't know yet, Ritsuko's going to sort that out. It'll most likely be below two hundred, since that's when you two started getting..." Misato brought her hands together, interlacing her fingers before pulling them apart again. "Weird," she lamely said. "Apparently you two were synchronising with each other as well as the Eva."

Shinji gave a short laugh. "Think of it this way, Asuka. We apparently did so well they had to stop us before we hurt ourselves."

Asuka echoed the laugh. "Yeah, I suppose so," she conceded as she leaned against the elevator wall. "So... synchronising with each other, you said?"

Misato nodded. "I was watching you two. Whenever you brushed some hair out of your face, Asuka, Shinji was copying the motion. Looked weird considering how short his hair is."

Asuka smirked as she glanced at Shinji, who reddened in embarrassment. He hadn't even realised what he had been doing. Just as he thought that she was about to tease him, she changed the subject.

"Hey, have they decided on the layout of the entry plug yet?"

"Uh, I don't think so," Misato replied, nonplussed. "Why? What did you have in mind?"

"Oh, nothing major," said Asuka. "I just think it'll be better for us if the seats are positioned one behind the other, instead of side-by-side like they were in the test chamber. I kept feeling like I was too far to the left, if that makes sense."

"Yeah, I had the same kind of feeling," Shinji hastily added, eager to get the conversation as far away from him being a copycat as possible. "Only, you know, on the right."

"That makes sense, I suppose," said Misato. "I'll pass your suggestion on to Ritsuko."

The elevator dinged, and the door opened. Shinji and Asuka made to pass through the doorway, but it was too small for them both to leave at the same time. They stopped upon realising this, looking at each other and gesturing for the other to go first. Then they realised that they were mirroring each others movements, and groaned in unison.

"Boy, I hope this wears off soon," Misato remarked, taking hold of Asuka's shoulder and pushing her out of the elevator. "Imagine what your friends would think if they saw you acting like this."

Shinji reddened as he followed them, remembering that Kensuke had called him and Asuka a 'married couple' a while ago. The last thing he wanted was for something like that to spread around the school.

"Actually, keep it up. Gives me more ammunition to tease you with."

"Misato!"

XXX

Thankfully, the effects of the test wore off completely once Shinji and Asuka reached their apartment and split up to do separate things. Asuka watched television while playing a handheld game console, while Shinji got started on the homework that Rei had brought around for them.

When told about what had happened after the tests over dinner, Rei said, "Doctor Akagi is right to impose a limit. An excessively high sync ratio could potentially be dangerous."

"More dangerous than feeling weird when we disconnect?" Shinji asked.

"Much worse." Rei's eyes were steely. "If your synchronisation is too high you could lose yourself, unable to distinguish between yourself and the Evangelion."

Asuka's eyebrows raised. "You sound like you're talking from experience."

Rei nodded, her expression growing distant. "Two years ago, one of the safety systems malfunctioned during a test. My sync ratio reached over two hundred and eighty percent." She turned her head away from Asuka and Shinji, staring at nothing. "I saw no screen, felt no controls or pilot seat." Rei looked back at them. "For twenty-eight seconds, I was the Evangelion."

Shinji paused with a morsel of food halfway between bowl and mouth. He couldn't tell if Asuka's eyes had widened in surprise at the story, or at Rei's sync ratio. He shook his head in amazement, then said, "There's... no chance something like that will happen again, right?"

"No," replied Rei. "As I said, that was two years ago. Every single safety system was immediately overhauled to prevent something like that from happening again."

The rest of the meal time passed in awkward silence. After finishing dinner and cleaning up, Rei retired to Misato's apartment, taking their guardian's portion of dinner with her to store in the fridge. Asuka and Shinji continued with their game and homework respectively until it was time to turn in.

Three hours later Shinji woke up breathing heavily. He rubbed his head as he tried to recall the strange dream he had. In the end, all that he could make out was running down a dark hallway that had lots of doors leading off of it, while something slowly creaked in the distance. Groaning, he opened the curtains and cracked open a window to let some more air circulate through the room, then tumbled back into bed where he had a dreamless sleep for the rest of the night.

XXX

Several days passed before Shinji and Asuka were called back for another test of the dual-sync system. Ritsuko had apparently taken Asuka's advice, as this time the test chamber had a fully built entry plug with the seats positioned just as the Second Child had suggested.

With the modified safety systems and limiter in place, Asuka was disappointed that they 'only' peaked at one hundred and nine percent synchronisation during the test. Shinji had to remind her that it was just a simulation, and that real combat had been where they had had their best performance.

It was when Asuka and Shinji had almost reached home after that test that something not entirely unexpected happened. Their driver, a Section Two agent, suddenly put a finger to his ear for a moment before making the black sedan do a harsh one-eighty turn to rival Misato's driving.

"Sorry kids," the man remarked. "But it looks like duty calls for you."

Shinji pulled himself back upright after being flung about by the sudden manoeuvre. "An Angel?"

"Large object detected heading towards the Kii Peninsula. No need to guess what that means. Got fifteen minutes to get you two ready to give it a warm welcome." The engine roared as the agent pushed the car to its limits.

Asuka looked at Shinji. "You know what this means," she said.

Shinji gulped, suddenly nervous, but he held Asuka's gaze. "Y-yeah."

"Time for us to show them what we can do together."

"Yeah."

Asuka leaned closer, practically nose to nose with Shinji. A fire began to burn in her eyes "Come on. Time to get pumped up. That Angel is going to regret ever setting foot on Earth."

Shinji nodded resolutely. "Yeah!"

"What are we going to do?" Asuka was almost shouting now.

Shinji's response was a shout. "We're going to kick that Angel's ass!"