Chapter 27 - Ireul

It was a beautiful day outside. The semi-permanent blazing summer heat had retreated for the time being, throwing a look over its shoulder that promised a return. The people of Tokyo-3 were temporarily allowed outside without having to slather on sunscreen or worry about heatstroke. It was also a Sunday, and therefore a day off from school.

This all meant that today was the perfect time for NERV to pull all its pilots a kilometre underground for the mysterious tests Doctor Akagi had talked about.

Shinji, Asuka and Kensuke all stared forlornly at the entrance to the Geofront as the gate closed behind Misato's car. While Shinji himself didn't have any plans for the day, Asuka had been intending to spend the day with Hikari at the mall, and clearly Kensuke had had something planned as well. Instead, now they were all going to have to sit and do nothing in a metal tube full of orange sludge for hours on end while other people observed them.

As Asuka had ground out through gritted teeth: What. Fun.

Even the beauty of the outdoor area of the Geofront to the right of the vehicle elevator did little to improve the mood of the teenagers. It just seemed to be salt in the wound, since they weren't going to be anywhere near it soon. Like passing by a fairground on the way to the doctor.

Shinji quietly gave a mirthless chuckle, drawing a glance from Kensuke. Considering who they were about to meet, that was an apt analogy.

XXX

"Hello," said the doctor in question ten minutes later, once the pilots finally arrived at the entrance to the Pribnow Box. "Ready for the most complicated sync test yet?"

Asuka simply shot Doctor Akagi a scowl. Shinji frowned at that; normally she was the one who most looked forward to the tests. As their scores steadily increased, Asuka's went up just that little bit faster. Except when she was on her own, on the rare occasions Shinji was pulled away for a solo test 'just in case'. Then, Asuka's scores actually seemed to dip fractionally, letting the others catch up a little. Of course, as she repeatedly said, tests and combat were two different things.

Doctor Akagi opened the door and stepped inside, and the pilots and Misato followed. They immediately halted, bunching up in the doorway and gasping at the changes.

Before, the Pribnow Box had been a little room with a couple of control panels looking into a just-as-small test chamber. Now it was larger, with a lot more computers all over the place, and the test chamber...

Shinji stepped over to the window. His stomach flipped a little as he saw how far down the test chamber's floor was; it looked like it could hold an entire Evangelion now, but it didn't hold anything interesting just yet.

"As you can see, the changes are quite drastic," said Doctor Akagi behind him. "We've got more specialised tests planned in the future."

"So what are we doing today?" asked Kensuke.

Doctor Akagi jerked her head to the doorway to the change rooms. "Well for the moment, you four will be going through that door."

"Right, plugsuit time, boys and girls!" Asuka announced, beckoning the other teenagers along as she headed through the door. Shinji followed, but heard a snort behind him and turned his head. All he saw was Misato looking into the test chamber and Doctor Akagi staring intently at one of the computers.

It must have been his imagination.

Heading into the corridor, Shinji reached the revamped change room. Or rather, rooms, as it was now four stalls, their walls coming up to about neck height, instead of a single room separated by a privacy screen. He hurried to duck into the first booth, which was still open. He closed the door, turned around and-

"Wait, where's my plugsuit?"

"Wait, where's my plugsuit?!"

Once again, he and Asuka said the same thing at the same time. A moment later, Kensuke said something similar.

"...Okay who's the genius NERV lackey that forgot to supply our plugsuits?!" Asuka demanded. "How are we supposed to do the tests without them?"

There was a crackle, and a voice came over a loudspeaker. "Doing the tests without them is exactly what you'll be doing," said Doctor Akagi. Shinji looked up, but couldn't see anywhere obvious her voice could be coming from.

"What, are we not getting changed after all?" asked Kensuke.

"Oh no, you'll still be getting undressed. You're required to be naked for these tests-"

"Ex-cuse me?!" Asuka shouted at the ceiling, her voice dripping with disgust. "You're making us prance around naked just for some tests?! Do you really expect me to bare all in front of your cameras, your goons and these boys?!"

The teenagers glanced at each other over the privacy screens, four pairs of cheeks turning bright red. Shinji was sure he could see steam rising from Asuka's head.

"You are required to be naked for these tests because we'll be monitoring your bodies directly. Yes there will be cameras, but they'll be switched to thermal vision so we won't see anything, and there will be no NERV personnel on your way. I don't care how you decide to preserve your modesty, but you are not taking anything into the test chamber besides your own bodies. Not even A-10 clips. Just be glad we're not putting you and Shinji in the same plug today. Now figure something out. You have five minutes." Another crackle signified the end of the conversation.

"Goddamnit," Asuka muttered. "We can't go out there like..." She growled deep in her throat. "If I didn't know better I'd swear you thought this up, Glasses."

"Hey, I'm just as nervous about going out there naked as you, Soryu!" Kensuke retorted.

"I see no issue with this," Rei calmly remarked, her arms already going up as she peeled off her shirt.

"Of course you wouldn't," sighed Asuka. "Alright alright, just... give me a second to think about this. There's gotta be a way we can do what Doctor Pervert wants and keep our dignity intact."

"Might want to make it quick. I'm sure she's got something inventively nasty planned if we're late."

Shinji slowly unbuttoned his shirt, while his face steadily grew more and more hot out of pre-emptive embarrassment.

"Okay, I've got something," Asuka finally announced. "You two boys will go first on my signal. You will look up, keeping just enough of what's ahead of you in view so you can still walk safely. Rei and I will go after you, doing the same. There will be no looking around until we're in our entry plugs, or I will be sticking my Eva's boot up your ass. Understood?"

"Yes ma'am!" Kensuke replied. Though he wasn't looking, Shinji knew his friend had just ripped off a salute.

Eventually, he managed to get the rest of his clothes off, by which point his face felt hot enough to boil water. At Asuka's call, he opened the door and stepped out, staring intently at the metal ceiling. Turning right, he lowered his gaze until he could see the back of Kensuke's head, and moved forward. Behind him, he heard the last two stall doors open followed by the sound of bare feet on the metal floor.

"Asuka, are you-"

"Not now, Wondergirl!"

Shinji blinked at the ceiling, wondering if he should ask what was happening behind him before deciding he was better off not knowing.

"Oh yes, I forgot to mention," came Doctor Akagi's voice. "You'll need to pass through the decontamination room before you get into your plugs. Keep your eyes tightly closed when you're in there until we say otherwise, unless you want to go blind."

When his feet felt a metal grate underneath them, Shinji realised they had reached the room in question. He soon sensed someone close behind him, and a door slid shut as lights flashed in the corners of the room. A second after he scrunched his eyes closed, what felt like a torrent of water sloshed over him and he struggled to keep his balance while being pummelled by the sudden tsunami.

Just as he was starting to wonder if NERV was trying to drown its pilots, the flood receded, leaving Shinji soaking wet, but that was soon remedied as the water was replaced by the surface of the sun. A light bright enough to almost be painful through his eyelids, accompanied by heat that reminded him of Mount Asama, filled the room for a few seconds until it mercifully shut off with a ding.

"Okay, you're all clean. Keep going."

"Damn that was nasty," Kensuke remarked as they continued forward. "I feel like I lost a couple layers of skin back there."

"We probably did," replied Asuka, sounding strangely like she was right next to Shinji's ear. "Decontamination is more than just a scrub in the shower." He could swear he felt her breath on his neck, but there was no chance in hell he was going to turn around.

The pilots rounded a corner, and Kensuke breathed a sigh of relief. "Here are the plugs," he announced. Since he was in the lead, there was no reason for him to stare up at the ceiling.

Shinji resisted the impulse to immediately look around; it wasn't safe just yet. He shuffled forward, waiting til he heard the sound of an entry plug open and close ahead of him, and then brought his gaze down from the ceiling.

The four entry plugs were hanging in some kind of mechanical harness in front of holes that likely led back to the test chamber. With the furthest plug now occupied, Shinji clambered into the third one. Seconds after getting settled down in the seat, a video screen suddenly opened in front of Shinji as Misato spoke, scaring him for a moment and causing his hands to dart towards his lap before he realised it was a sound-only comm connection.

"Comm check. Everything okay so far?" Receiving a chorus of affirmatives, she continued. "In a moment we'll be bringing you into the test chamber. We'll be hooking you up to some simulation bodies and doing a few tests first, then linking you to your individual Evas. Shinji and Asuka, you two will be dual-synced to Unit-01 so we can run some tests on your link with each other. After that, we'll see if we can do a tentative activation test with Kensuke and Unit-00."

"Are you sure that's wise, Captain?" asked Rei.

Ritsuko responded instead. "In what little spare time I've had, I've been trying to code out as much of the troublesome behaviour Unit-00 has exhibited in the past as possible. The next time we attempt an activation test, we shouldn't have to deal with a berserk Eva crippling its pilot. Hopefully."

"Umm..." Kensuke's nervous voice joined in. "I'm perfectly alright with waiting a bit longer, if it's alright with you."

"You'll be fine. With the test plugs and simulation bodies you're perfectly safe. Probably."

"Could you... err... please stop ending your sentences like that?"

"I could do that. Maybe."

Shinji chuckled at Kensuke's discomfort as his plug began to move forward, presumably along a track of some kind. It soon stopped and tilted forward, and then the familiar entry plug insertion procedure began. The plug began to fill with LCL, so Shinji breathed out until his lungs were empty, waited for the LCL to pass over his head, and filled his lungs with the liquid. Even after all the times he'd had to do this, it was still disgusting.

The entry plug lit up and the metal shell disappeared as it linked to the simulation body, allowing Shinji to see through its eyes. Once again resisting the instinctive urge to cover himself, he looked around. Now the test chamber was occupied; it had been filled with a bluish liquid, and ahead of him he could see the window between the chamber and the control room. He-

…Huh...

Shinji rubbed his left arm. It seemed to have gone numb, as he couldn't feel the sensation of his right hand on it, even when he squeezed and poked it.

"What's going on? I can't feel my legs!"

It sounded like Asuka was having a similar problem.

"My arms have gone all funny."

Kensuke too.

"I am experiencing numbness in my left arm and leg."

...And... Rei as well...

What the hell was going on?

As Asuka and Kensuke began to get louder, an authoritative voice cut them off. "Everybody relax!" Misato shouted.

"The numbness is simply a result of the state of your simulation bodies," said Doctor Akagi. "If you'll take a look, you can see that your numbness directly correlates to the limbs the bodies are missing."

Shinji turned his head, feeling like he was moving through treacle. Indeed, there was a noticeable lack of arm on his left side. Looking around, he saw that the other simulation bodies were similarly missing body parts. They actually looked somewhat desiccated, bare flesh and muscle stretched tight over the skeleton. It was easy to tell which body Asuka was in; one of them had nothing below the waist except a mass of dangling tubes.

This, naturally, did not seem to sit well with the Second Child.

"Why the hell are you giving us inferior equipment to work with?! How is any test supposed to be accurate under these conditions?!"

"You won't be doing much movement," Doctor Akagi tersely replied. "In fact, practically the entire body is vestigial. All you really need to do is sit there and let us run our tests."

"Then what's the point of sticking us in here?" asked Kensuke. "Why did you make these bodies like this if they're not going to do anything?"

"They aren't custom-built testing devices." Shinji could sense strain returning to the scientist's voice. "These are failed Evangelion prototypes that have been repurposed for these tests. Now are you children going to settle down so we can actually get these tests under way?"

"Please just calm down, Asuka," Misato almost pleaded. "As far as I can tell this will basically be like a regular harmonics test."

"Fine, fine."

It was plain to hear that Asuka was not fine at all. Shinji almost wished he was in the plug with her, just to try and get her to relax a bit. Of course, if they were in the same plug, they would likely be incredibly edgy around each other considering their current state of dress.

Now it was simply a matter of not falling asleep. Whatever tests were happening in the control room, Shinji couldn't sense anything happening. Whether this meant that things were going as expected or that they were failing one by one, he couldn't tell. As usual, the pilots were left out of the loop.

Eventually, it finally seemed like NERV deigned to recognise their existence.

"Okay. Shinji and Asuka, we're going to try a little dual synchronisation," said Doctor Akagi.

"Finally, something interesting."

Seconds later, Shinji's legs began to feel... strange.

"Whatever you've done, it's made my left arm feel wonky," Asuka announced, and Shinji reported something similar, along with his legs.

"As to be expected. Asuka, I want you to try and move your left leg. Point your foot out in front of you."

The strangeness in Shinji's legs increased slightly; the simulation body's left leg began to come up, and then his own left leg began to twitch. He rubbed a hand over it, but didn't feel anything.

"What the hell?! Something's feeling up my leg!"

Shinji blinked in puzzlement. He stared down at his leg, then began to poke it, pushing a fingernail into the skin over his kneecap.

"...Shinji, are you poking your own knee right now?"

The tone of Asuka's voice's made Shinji glad they weren't in the same plug. "Um... yes?"

"Hmm. Hey, in that case can you feel this?"

A second later his left arm jerked as something seemed to hit it.

"...Ow." If he were a more temperamental person, Shinji would have immediately retaliated by punching his own leg. But that would be starting a war he had no chance of winning, and in any case he would really only be hurting himself.

"In-ter-est-ing." As was to be expected, Doctor Akagi seemed rather interested in their impromptu experimentation. "Despite being completely separated, not even in the same plug, you're now synchronised with each other to such a degree that you can affect each other physically."

"Whatever you've done, it feels... wrong," Shinji mumbled. "Can we please stop this now?"

"Yeah, before this pervert gets any more dirty ideas."

And then alarms began blaring.

"Oh great, what now?" Asuka groaned, before levelling an accusatory glare at her fellow pilots. "Did one of you guys break something?"

Shinji couldn't hear much from the control room besides a lot of people shouting technical things at each other. He could see Doctor Akagi running from terminal to terminal while Misato stayed at the window, looking frantically between the personnel and the simulation bodies. In the blue water of the test chamber, Shinji saw several drones enter through hatches in the walls and move to float in front of a pipe, pointing towards it. As if they were expecting an attack.

And then Asuka let out a scream.

"Asuka?!" Shinji shouted, despite being drowned out by the noise in the control room. "What's going on?!"

Asuka's simulation body was shifting around, its arms pressing against the wall of the test chamber as if it were trying to push itself away. Its right arm began to reach for the window of the control room, but then something exploded on the body, cutting the arm off at the shoulder. The next thing Shinji knew, he was being pushed into his seat as the connection to his own simulation body cut off. Somebody in the control room had finally initiated the ejection sequence. In the split second before his view went dark, Shinji saw the drones firing at the pipe.

There was an invisible hand on his chest, keeping him pinned to the seat as the entry plug shot up to wherever it was going. Finally, the hand deigned to let him go, but now Shinji felt the whole plug slowly spinning around, which wasn't helped by the internal socket constantly rotating to keep him 'down'.

Just as he was about ready to test the LCL filter's ability to recycle the contents of his stomach, Shinji felt the plug jerk around as it breached the surface of... something. The plug's systems, evidently deciding everything was fine now, vented the LCL; he quickly took a breath and hacked up a lungful of gunk as the LCL dipped below head height.

"What the hell was all that about?!" Asuka demanded as a sound-only comm window opened.

I don't know, but I think we got thrown out of the danger zone," Kensuke replied, his comm window opening next to Asuka's.

"But where are we now?" Shinji asked. "And are we just supposed to sit here?"

"Well there's no goddamn way I'm putting one foot outside of this plug naked!"

"I'm gonna go ahead and agree with that sentiment. Besides, my hatch is underwater."

"Yeah, mine's basically in the water too."

Shinji looked behind him. Because of the internal socket spinning him around during their escape, the plug hatch was now below and to the right. "Same here," he said.

Another comm window opened. With video. Showing Rei's face. And Rei's shoulders. And Rei's-

"Uh. Buh. Guh."

"Fucking hell, First!" Asuka swore. "Sound only! Sound only!"

Shinji jolted in his seat as he realised he was staring, and slapped a hand over his eyes.

"...Oh. Yes. Of course," Rei's voice seemed entirely unperturbed. "I still fail to see what your concern is, however."

There was a nervous cough from Asuka. "Uh... okay boys, it's safe to look. And if I find out that you were staring-"

"Let me guess. Eva boot in our ass?"

"Precisely."

Wisely deciding not to say a damn thing, Shinji slowly peeked through his fingers; indeed, Rei's video comm window had been replaced by another sound-only window.

"As I was about to say," said Rei. "My hatch is out of the water. I can go see where we are."

"Just stick your head out then," replied Asuka. "Don't go giving any potential onlookers a free show."

"Very well." There was the sound of metal on metal, a few seconds of silence, then more metal noises. "We are in the Geofront lake. There appears to be nobody around, even on the destroyer, and I cannot hear any alarms."

"...Well what are we supposed to do now?" asked Kensuke. "Are we supposed to get out and swim and run to our Evas naked?"

"This is an emergency evacuation point," said Rei. "If we are here, then we are meant to stay here. Had we been needed in our Evas, we would have been directed towards them."

"Oh just fucking great," Asuka moaned. "More sitting around and waiting."

"...I cannot reach command," noted Rei after a few moments. "Not even the MAGI. I presume they are too busy combating this threat."

"Everyone in NERV could be dead now, for all we know," Kensuke darkly mused. "Whatever this thing is that attacked, it came out of nowhere inside the Geofront. What if it's some sort of... plague or virus thing?"

"You think the Angels have just suddenly gone from big stompy monsters to something infectious?"

"Is there anything to say that that couldn't have happened?"

"Considering how little we know of the Angels, such an event is not entirely impossible."

"Wow, pessimists the lot of you. Guess it's up to me to be the optimistic one. They can't be dead that easily, they're obviously just busy containing the threat. Let's at least give NERV a couple hours before writing them off. The backup power in an entry plug can last sixteen hours if everything's shut down bar life support."

Shinji tried to make himself comfortable on his seat, absently tuning out his fellow pilots while the leftover LCL started to dry on his skin.

"Fine by me. But what are we supposed to do in the meantime?"

"What's there to do?" asked Asuka. "We can't exactly play 'I Spy' like this."

He was starting to wish the LCL had stayed in the plug. At least then he wouldn't be feeling so... icky.

"Twenty Questions then?"

"Pass."

Shinji glanced back at the hatch. As much as he wanted to get some fresh air in the plug before the usual stink of dried LCL began to permeate it, the position of the hatch prevented it. And as cleansing as water was, it was not a breathable liquid.

"Rei? any suggestions?"

"Sorry, I cannot think of anything to pass the time."

Shinji blinked, looking around at the interior of the entry plug itself. The socket that kept the pilot right-side-up according to gravity ended right behind the seat, with the rest of the plug behind it being mostly blank metal. The plug itself would be heavy, but clearly not so heavy that it would sink. He got out of the seat, gingerly testing his weight as he headed towards the back of the plug. It didn't seem to be shifting much at all; a reassuring thought given the idea brewing in his head.

He placed his hands on the wall of the plug, leaned forward, and slowly started putting one foot in front of the other. The entry plug gradually began to spin, and Shinji smiled as his plan came to fruition. He picked up the pace, considering if he could actually get ashore like this. It was certainly more interesting than sitting around doing nothing, and it could result in one less plug to fish out of the middle of the lake.

And then, a few minutes later, something he should have expected to happen, happened.

The plug hit something with a dull and hollow metal clang, the impact causing Shinji to stumble a bit.

"What the hell was that?!"

"What happened, Pilot Soryu?"

"Something just smacked into my plug! Are we being rescued already?"

"I shall check."

Too embarrassed to say anything, Shinji simply stood where he was as his face heated up. The Geofront lake was massive, and yet somehow he'd still managed to bump into somebody else. And Asuka of all people...

Rei came back on the comm. "It... appears that one of our plugs has spontaneously moved and collided with another."

"Well considering that it hit me, and you're able to look out and see both of us... Oi Glasses, I bet that was you somehow."

"What?! I'm just sitting here not doing a thing!"

"Well then obviously it was-"

Shinji finally got his brain to correctly re-interface with his mouth. "Y-yeah... it was me, Asuka," he said sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head.

Even through the comm system, Asuka sounded incredulous. "...Just how did you manage to hit my plug with yours?! We don't have control of the ejection thrusters or anything."

Sighing softly, Shinji went back to his seat so as to be closer to the comm's audio pickup. "I wanted to open my plug up to get some fresh air in, but the hatch was in the wrong spot to open safely. So I decided to spin the plug and... well... I got kinda carried away."

"You... spun the plug?" Asuka's tone changed. It now sounded, dare he say it, impressed. "And you got it moving... Oh Shinji you clever little bastard!"

He didn't know whether to feel complimented or insulted.

"Wait, what am I missing here?" Kensuke cut in. "How'd he spin it?"

"Ever seen a hamster wheel?" replied Asuka. "Shinji just used his brain and kinetic energy."

"Hamster-... Aaaah I see now! But so what... oh, you're planning something aren't you?"

"Damn right. I'd rather be doing something than just sitting on my ass. Wondergirl, can you take a look around and see which shore is closest for us?

"Okay."

"Shore?" Shinji repeated. It seemed that Asuka was now getting the same idea he had.

Though he couldn't see her, Shinji knew Asuka had just shrugged nonchalantly. "Yeah, let's see if we can roll these plugs right out of the water. Gives us something to do, and it'll take a while since these plugs aren't exactly paddle steamers."

"The closest shoreline is on your left, Pilot Soryu," said Rei. "The slope should be slight enough for us to leave the water. However, our plugs are not all aligned the same. All four of us are roughly abreast, but my plug is angled more to the right than yours and Pilot Aida's is angled more left and slightly in front."

"But we could still roughly all go the same way, right?"

"Correct."

"Wait a second," Kensuke thoughtfully said. "If I push my plug into yours, Rei, would that realign us enough?"

"Hmm. Give me a moment." An awkward silence descended upon the comm system for a good couple of minutes before Rei returned. "Based on the position of our plugs, I believe that colliding with my plug would alter your angle so that the two of us are parallel. Then, we could push in the direction of Pilots Soryu and Ikari to align ourselves with them. Together, we would then be able to get ashore at the same place."

Shinji raised an eyebrow. Rei sounded surprisingly enthusiastic about the entire thing. Her voice actually raised slightly in pitch as she spoke.

"Awesome!" Asuka eagerly chimed in. Right about now she would probably be pumping a fist, if Shinji knew her as well as he thought he did. "Then get your hatch closed, Wondergirl, and let's get this ridiculous show on the road! Or... water!"

It took a few minutes before Shinji finally heard the sound of metal on metal indicating that another entry plug had just collided with his.

"We should all be parallel now," reported Rei a few seconds later.

"Then it's time to row for shore! Last one there's a rotten egg!"

Asuka sounded as if she were preparing to fight an Angel, causing Shinji to give a small grin at her infectious attitude as he once again placed his hands against the wall of the plug and 'walked' forward.

"Hey wait a minute!"

The grin widened involuntarily as Kensuke caught on.

It felt like it took forever before Shinji felt the sudden resistance of solid ground beneath his plug. The effort required to roll the plug greatly increased now that he wasn't fighting against mere water, but eventually the ground seemed to even out.

"Hey rotten egg, you out of the water yet?" Asuka inquired a minute later.

"Yeah, I-... oh screw you Soryu!"

Asuka cackled, then said, "Everyone make sure to get your hatches facing upward before stopping so we can open them. Keep rolling against the next plug if you have to."

Shinji looked up; his hatch was right where it needed to be, so he stepped away from the wall of the plug with a thankful sigh. He heard and felt Rei's plug shifting against his for a moment before that too settled down.

"Right, we can finally air these tin cans out! And no peeking!"

"I know, I know. Eva, boot, etcetera."

With great relief, Shinji opened his hatch. The cool air coming in felt wonderful on his body after far too long trapped in a metal tube full of recycled air. He looked at the pilot seat; to his disappointment there didn't seem to be any way to shift it towards the hatch.

"Before any of you ask, I have just attempted to contact command again," said Rei, her voice coming through both the comm and the open hatch. "There is still no response."

"Whatever's happened, it's damn serious then," Asuka remarked. "Otherwise they would have at least sent us a message."

"Could it be a cyber attack of some kind?" asked Kensuke. "That could explain why they're so silent, if everything's either shut down or offline."

"I doubt that," replied Asuka. "The only thing powerful enough to attack the MAGI is another MAGI system. And at that point you've clearly managed to somehow piss off an entire NERV branch."

Everybody fell silent, either out of concern for the people they knew in NERV or for simply having nothing else to say. Shinji returned to his pilot seat and tried to make himself comfortable once more. Now that he could, mostly, hear the others without the comm system, he flicked it off. The bright holographic screens vanished, leaving a few blinking lights and the artificial Geofront daylight streaming in through the hatch as the only light source. He closed his eyes for a moment, thinking back to the test chamber.

The dual synchronisation he had with Asuka was starting to become somewhat concerning. Whatever Doctor Akagi had done, it had allowed them both to essentially interact with each other's bodies. All he could hope was that that wasn't implemented going forth. Things were constantly getting awkward between them enough without Asuka constantly accusing him of touching her.

And then there was-

Something banged on the hull of his entry plug. "Hey Shinji!"

"Bwuh?"

The suddenness of the interruption practically propelled Shinji out of his seat. He looked towards the hatch and saw some clothes laying directly under it.

"Did you doze off or something?" came Asuka's voice. "NERV's finally sorted itself out and come for us, so get dressed and get your ass out here!"

Shinji blinked. Had he fallen asleep? Surely it had only been a few minutes since they'd gotten their plugs onto dry land. He roughly shook his head before reaching for the clothes. They weren't his own -rather they seemed to be a standard issue NERV shirt and trousers- but it was better than the nothing he currently had.

Once appropriately dressed for polite company, Shinji climbed out of the entry plug. His feet almost immediately lost grip on the metal hull, sending him sliding into the gap between his plug and Asuka's where he landed rather unceremoniously on his ass. A shadow fell over him.

"Nice dismount," Asuka remarked, before extending a hand.

She was similarly attired, as were Rei and Kensuke when Shinji raised his head to look. He sighed and took the help to get out of the gap and onto solid ground, and the two of them headed over to where the other two pilots and a group of NERV personnel were standing by a small convoy of vehicles. Misato, seeing them approach, halted her conversation with Lieutenant Aoba and a rather frazzled-looking Lieutenant Ibuki and walked over to Shinji and Asuka.

"Here we were, all prepped to sail out and pick you kids up, and we get here to find out you did our job for us!" Misato looked around at the plugs, and then shrugged. "Eh, whatever works I guess. How are you kids doing?"

Asuka airily waved a hand. "We're fine," she replied. "Got a bit boring though, especially since we were kicked out of the party."

Misato gave her a look and shook her head. "Trust me, the other guests were not friendly. You would have had a lousy time."

One of the NERV technicians walked over to Shinji and Asuka, holding two water bottles and some energy bars which he gave to them.

"What actually happened, anyway?" asked Shinji as he twisted the lid off his bottle. "All we know is that something attacked NERV and that, basically, we weren't needed."

Misato scratched her head for a moment, then said, "An Angel infiltrated NERV as... some sort of nanomachine swarm, resisted all initial attempts at neutralisation and managed to partially infect the MAGI. Doctor Akagi eventually managed to science it to death before it could force a self-destruct."

"Wait..." Kensuke hurriedly swallowed his mouthful of food and bounded over. "Nanomachine swarm? Infecting the MAGI?" He turned to Asuka with a victorious grin. "I was right! The MAGI got hacked!"

"Hacked?" Lieutenant Ibuki repeated, with an air of disbelief. "You want to hack the MAGI? Good luck, they're behind seven firewalls, not to mention other safeguards I can't tell you about. No, this Angel was a biological organism, and it infected the organic components of the MAGI."

The look Asuka shot Kensuke was a mirror image of the one he had just given to her.

Ibuki ran a hand through her hair. "Anyway, the crisis is averted, but the tests will need to be abandoned for the foreseeable future, seeing as we need to rebuild the Pribnow Box. Again."

"Oh no," Asuka said in a monotone to match Rei. "We won't get to be tested while naked again."

"What a shame," Kensuke added in a similar tone.

"Absolutely hilarious, you two," Misato quipped.

"Fortunately, we did manage to gather some useful data," said Ibuki. "So we'll just have to go with what we got."

As one, Shinji and Asuka turned worried expressions on each other. Shinji was the first to speak up. "Um... can I please ask that you not implement whatever it was that let us... poke each other? It was really distracting. And... you know, kind of an invasion of each other's privacy."

"A teenage boy turning down something like that?" Aoba wondered aloud. "You... no, I'm not Captain Katsuragi, I won't go there."

Misato stuck her tongue out at him.

"You'll be happy to know that that test wasn't done with the intent to implement such a 'feature', but rather to prevent it," said Ibuki. "Your dual synchronisation is still not fully understood. With what we learned today, we hope to actually filter out that sort of thing, to try and keep you two separate in case of another... fusion incident."

"Oh." Asuka blinked. "Well... that's good. So you're sure I won't ever have to worry about suddenly feeling this pervert's hands running all over me?"

Shinji coughed up the mouthful of water he'd been just about to swallow. "A-Asuka, I-I would never do something like... like that!"

"Well I wouldn't mind if a man could do that to me," Misato mused, staring off into the distance with a grin on her face. This only made Shinji's face even hotter, and Asuka's cheeks started to pink up as well.

Aoba turned his head away and rather deliberately cleared his throat.

"Oh. Right." Getting back on topic, Misato said, "The pilots are safe, and all we need to do is haul the plugs back where they belong. Oh, and retrieve the Evangelions too."

"Huh?" Shinji and Asuka said at the same time. Asuka continued on alone. "What did you do with our Evas?"

"Commander Ikari ordered the Evas to be launched to prevent the Angel infecting them as well," said Ibuki. "They're sitting on the bottom of the lake right now."

The water was too dark for Shinji to see anything, but he didn't see any reason to disbelieve her. "How deep is this lake?" he asked of nobody in particular.

"Deep enough that even an Eva would be up to their chest in water," replied Aoba.

Ibuki glanced at her watch. "Well, since everything's well in hand here I need to head back and help Doctor Akagi check the MAGI for any lingering problems. She needs to report to Commander Ikari soon as well."

Misato made a face. "Wouldn't like to be in her shoes right now, after an Angel slipped right into NERV."

XXX

"The Angel apparently got in on some sheets of metal used in the Pribnow Box's renovation," said Ritsuko. "Anybody who saw it passed it off as rust or corrosion, and evidently didn't think it worth mentioning to somebody."

"Find out who noticed and said nothing, and terminate their employment immediately," replied Commander Ikari, glancing to his right at Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki. "This situation was entirely preventable."

"Understood sir," the older man said with a nod. "The first I noticed of it was when Lieutenant Hyuga brought it to my attention. Though I must confess that I too thought it was simply corrosion. I'll see to the dismissals right away."

Ritsuko frowned slightly as Fuyutsuki left. Only the fact that he was the Sub-Commander prevented her from calling him out on his laziness. "Well it's dead now, and I'm almost disappointed there's nothing left of it to analyse."

"No trace of it remains in the MAGI system?" asked Ikari.

He was still sitting in that same damn pose he liked; hunched forward and covering his mouth with his hands, like he was afraid his own teeth were trying to escape or something.

"Nothing that I've been able to find," replied Ritsuko. "But I've got several high level diagnostics running over the next few days to try and catch anything. Even the slightest discrepancy will be noted and looked into."

"Very well. Have you also purged all information about this breach?"

"I just finished doing that before coming here, sir."

"Good." Finally, Ikari did something other than sit and stare at her. He got out of his chair and walked over to the floor-length window, where he clasped his hands behind his back and stared out at the Geofront. "The Council is going to stick their noses in where they don't belong. I don't want them to be able to sniff out anything."

Rather than shouting across the ridiculously large room, Ritsuko chose to move past the desk and stop a few meters away from the man. "As far as the MAGI are concerned, the Angel alarm sensor grid malfunctioned. The MAGI are being checked for errors as well, since they clearly didn't verify the alert before informing the Council."

"Hrm." Ikari's head turned slightly as his gaze shifted towards the lake where the entry plugs were being recovered. "There is a folder on my desk for Major Katsuragi. See that she receives it."

Ritsuko glanced at the desk to see the folder in question. "Of course sir." She moved over to pick it up but stopped, her hand hovering over it. "...Sir? Major Katsuragi?" she asked, looking back at him.

Ikari gave a fractional nod. "Correct. As the Head of Tactical Operations it's high time she received a promotion."

Ritsuko's fingers twitched. Did he know...

"I am choosing to pretend the incident with Rei's medication never happened," Ikari continued. He turned his head to look at Ritsuko over his shoulder, a hint of a smirk on his face. "I did not get to where I am today by being ignorant, Doctor; I know what happened during Israfel's attack."

"...And you're still choosing to promote her despite what she did?"

"Katsuragi was acting out of some sense of concern, misplaced though it was, not malice or stupidity. Besides, you know as well as I how replaceable the First Child is."

"Yes sir." And yet he still fawned over the girl as if she were the only one. "Is there anything else, sir?

"That is all. Dismissed."

Ritsuko nodded and picked up the folder. She took a few steps towards the door, but then hesitated, tapping an index finger against the folder.

"Did you forget something, Doctor?"

She inhaled deeply. It had been quite a long time since she'd last asked him. Perhaps he had finally changed his mind.

"My... my offer still stands, you know," she nervously said.

"...I... appreciate the offer, but my answer is still no."

Even with the distance separating them, Ritsuko could hear the slightest of changes in his tone of voice. For a second, he'd stopped being the Supreme Commander of NERV.

"I... I see," she said, unable to disguise her disappointment. "But... if you ever change your mind..." She left the rest unsaid as her nerve broke, and the head of Project E practically ran from the room like a shy schoolgirl.

The door clicked quietly shut behind Ritsuko, and she leaned her forehead on it and sighed heavily.

"Is everything alright, Doctor?"

Ritsuko gave the door a weak smile as she recognised that voice behind her. Of course it was Maya. Dear, trustworthy, dependable Maya. Her only real companion besides Misato in this godawful place.

Brought back to reality, the scientist stood up straight and turned to her protégé. "I'm fine, Maya. Let's get going, I have a present for Misato and we still need to make sure the MAGI don't drop a byte after the day we've had."

XXX

Gendo stared at the reflection of his office door as it shut, breathing a quiet sign of relief. He had been expecting Ritsuko to try and press the issue yet again, but it finally seemed like she was starting to get the message. Once had been enough to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that there was only one woman for him. Even now, a decade after her death, his love for Yui burned hot in his chest.

The soon to be officially promoted Major Katsuragi and the pilots had already left the artificial surface of the Geofront, leaving the crew tasked with loading the entry plugs onto trucks. Gendo took a last lingering glance at the shimmering lake before turning around. He took one step towards his chair, and then halted. He had spun the chair around as he had gotten up, yet it was now pointed back at the desk. He cleared his throat.

"To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?"

"Oh, you're no fun!"

The chair swivelled around, revealing a woman in a business suit with hair of fire.

"I'm so sorry to disappoint you, Bwynvienne," Gendo deadpanned.

She gave him a cheeky grin. "Now why don't I believe that?" Leaping out of his chair, Bwynvienne sauntered over to the window, mimicking his previous posture. "It's a slow day at work, I'm on break, and I just wanted to drop in and see how things were going on this plane. Especially since both you and your son are my clients, so to speak. Speaking of which... any changes yet?"

Gendo shook his head. "No. The chill is still slowly creeping over me." Only the memory of Yui kept him warm enough to sleep at night.

"Troubling," Bwynvienne replied, turning to face him with a frown. "You are the first in recorded history, mortal or Infernal, to have had a soul ripped away from you."

Gendo grit his teeth, recalling the horrific pain he had felt at the moment of Yui's death. It had been as if somebody had snapped his rib cage open and scooped its contents out with a white-hot shovel. And now he could feel the tentative fingers of the reaper grasping for him.

All because Yui, bless her, hah, soul, found an amusing piece of paper and convinced him to play along. He never could say no to her. The sole concession was that, due to the loss of her soul in such a violent way, the existence of another plane of reality had been revealed to him, what with Bwynvienne having had to make an appearance in a vain attempt to sort out an apparent breach of contract.

He refocused his gaze on the representative of the Infernal Administration. "Is that all you came here for?" he asked.

Bwynvienne shrugged with one shoulder. "Mostly just checking up on you, making sure you haven't gone mad or something. I'll also be having a quick incognito look at your son just to make sure a mortal completely lacking a soul hasn't resulted in anything anomalous."

"Would he not be feeling the same effects as me?" Gendo wondered. "After all, we are both soulless."

Fire sprayed around the room as Bwynvienne shook her head. "Shinji's soul was removed cleanly, seeing as it was a trade, but you are not quite soulless. There are still some tattered scraps left, but they're... bleeding, so to speak."

Gendo refrained from putting a hand on his chest. "I see. Well, as far as I am aware, the only noticeable effects are his inability to project an AT-Field and being unable to taste anything not prepared by the owner of his soul."

"I can't comment on the AT-Field, but the loss of taste is normal. It's a sort of devotion thing; only your soul-bonder is able to fully satisfy your cravings, in a manner of speaking."

Well. That certainly explained things between himself and Ritsuko.

Bwynvienne glanced at her wrist, There was no watch there, but Gendo speculated she did the gesture simply for his benefit. "Well my break will be over soon. I'd better go check on your son."

"One moment," Gendo quickly said, before she could vanish into thin air. "If... if I were to reunite with Yui, would that... repair the tatters?"

Bwynvienne gave him an uncertain look. "You're the first to experience such a loss. I can't be sure one way or the other. All I can say is... there's nothing to definitively say it won't."

The woman disappeared with no fanfare or farewell, leaving Gendo alone. He stared at the spot where she had been for a long time, before slowly trudging over to his desk where he dropped down heavily in the seat, his arms hanging by its sides. After a minute he gathered his strength, bringing his hands up to his mouth and placing his elbows on the desk as he composed himself.

"In the end, it will matter not whether I will be healed," he said to the empty room. "I will still do everything in my power to return to your side, Yui."