Disastrous. That was the only way to describe the first sync test after Shinji was back.

The only way fit for the official report anyway.

They were all in their Evas at the same time, as a precaution in case something went seriously wrong with Shinji's first attempt to sync since he'd returned. If necessary Unit 00 and Unit 02 could probably restrain Unit 01 between them if it went berserk. It also put them close enough that Rei and Asuka could get to Shinji fast if he started dissolving again despite the reconfigured limiters.

Everything had gone fine until the test started. The three of them had suited up, Rei had hugged Shinji and Asuka in turns outside the changing rooms, and the pilots had gotten safely into their entry plugs. All three Evas had powered up with no anomalies.

"Alright everybody," came Akagi's voice over the comms, "As planned we will take this one slowly. Asuka first, then Ayanami, then Shinji. Then we'll run through some basic tests to ensure everything's working and shut down again."

"Unit 02 online. Pilot Soryu synchronising. Threshold reached." Ibuki's tone was measured and calm until, "Synchronisation stabilised at 32%. That can't be right, Asuka's never been that low. Senpai, you need to look at this, I'm seeing 10% synchronisation with Unit 00. Asuka, not Ayanami, Ayanami is still offline"

"Shut it all down now. Reset everything and we'll try again"

Ibuki sounded more nervous the second time, "Unit 02 online. Pilot Soryu synchronising. Threshold reached. Synchronisation rising. stabilising at 68%, no sign of cross-contamination, the readings look clean".

"Ok. We can look into the earlier glitch later. Rei you're next"

"Unit 00 online. Pilot Ayanami synchronising. Threshold reached. Synchronisation stabilising at 40%. Low but viable"

"Ok Shinji, you're up next."

"Unit 01 online. Pilot Ikari synchronising. Threshold reached. Synchronisation stabilising at 64%"

"Nya! Still better than you, baka" Asuka makes a face at Shinji across the shared comm.

"Behave Soryu. This is a serious test."

"There's obviously still something wrong with the sensors if it thinks my sync ratio is that low."

"Senpai, I'm seeing that ghosting again. Asuka's showing up in both Unit 00 and Unit 01."

"Let me see, and get the Magi focused on this anomaly. I want to know if it's just a monitoring problem or not"

Moments later an alarm goes off as Maya hits the emergency eject on the pilot plugs.

"I assume there was a good reason you did that Lieutenant." snaps Akagi.

Maya brings up the last readings on the main screen, cramming multiple datasets together in a way that would only make sense to a few people in the world. Fortunately, most of those were in the room.

"That's why Senpai. Asuka dropped to 50% in 02, but the ghosting was up to 20% in 00 and 25% in 01. Rei started reading as being in 02 at 13%. I knew you were watching and you hadn't said anything, so I wasn't that worried. Then Shinji crossed the activation threshold on 02"

"Oh." There's a long pause before Akagi continues, "It looks like we have a problem with either the test equipment, the Evas or the pilots. Let's hope it's the first, so at least some of us get to sleep tonight. Shut everything down. Make sure everything is logged. Then everyone take a break while the Magi run the diagnostics and dig through the data. We'll meet back in two hours and see what we have."

"And someone go recover the pilots and get them to the infirmary. I want them all thoroughly checked out, including for any brain abnormalities. Just in case."