Shinji stared at the virtual world, a war-torn battlefield waiting for him and Unit-01 to explore and defend. Tokyo-3 and its environs had been transformed into a blasted, smoking ruin for the newest batch of training simulations dreamed up by Misato and Doctor Akagi. It was all part of the exercise, and he was immersed in LCL, he told himself, but his nostrils flared as he breathed and could smell the burning city. He shivered in the training plug, tingles running up and down his spine. Still scanning the horizon for the Angel, he opened a line back to the Pribnow Box.
"Umm, you said this was going to be part of a new batch of exercises, right?" He asked as he moved through the city, rifle at the ready, scanning for threats. "Am I missing something? It's not another invisible one, is it?"
"It's not an invisible Angel, Shinji." Lieutenant Ibuki's voice returned to him, and the visual cue popped up in the lower corner of his eye, displaying her smiling picture from the on-file security photo. "If you remember from the briefing, we're trying out a new possible form of Angel and not simply practicing against ones we've already seen."
"Yeah, but you didn't say what I'd be fighting! And we haven't seen invisible ones before, either." He complained, shaping his AT-Field and casting it out to bounce it off a hidden enemy.
In the control room, Maya giggled as Makoto silently pointed out the new waveform bouncing around the virtual realm. After being surprised by an invisible Angel in the simulators after fighting the twin Angel, Shinji always utilized his AT-Field as a sort of detection and ranging system when faced with uncertain circumstances. The girls often tried to duplicate the shape that allowed for it, but as it usually was when it came to the defensive system, their efforts were not as exact as his. This often caused him no small amount of grief from Asuka and a battery of questions from Rei.
"It's an extrapolation from the Sixth Angel." Doctor Akagi cut in, shooting a look at her techs, who bent back over their stations. "As you know, the Sixth was capable of twinning itself, becoming two slightly smaller Angels. Today, you'll fight a hive mind Angel, based on bees or ants."
"I'm fighting insects?" Shinji asked, a little skeptical.
"No, you're fighting an Angel with an aspect of a swarm of bees or a colony of army ants." Ritsuko corrected. "I'm going to start you off with a small swarm of truck-sized Angel."
"Do I need to kill them all at once to get rid of them? Do they mesh together to heal like the Sixth when they get hurt?" Shinji asked as he looked around, watching for scuttling Angels. "Because I'm probably going to need something with a higher rate of fire than this rifle."
Ritsuko smirked as she made some notations on her tablet. "I guess you'll have to find out. You can't always rely on us to determine the Angel's abilities before you go up against them." She cut the link and looked over at Lieutenant Aoba. "Go ahead and load the first wave."
The technician nodded and sent up the commands to the MAGI. Shinji saw the first of the swarm almost immediately. It was about the size of a truck and looked like a cross between an ant and a scorpion. The familiar bird's skull stared at him as it hurried through the streets, claws snapping at him, the tail curling over it, ending in a wicked-looking stinger. It was a mottled grey and black, the shiny carapace glistening like an oil slick. Shinji stared at it momentarily, his face twisted in amusement and disbelief. It was no threat to him in the Evangelion.
It snapped its claws at him again and continued to scuttle towards him. Shinji brought the rifle up and fired a short burst at it, obliterating it. The ruined carapace flew backward, blood and goo splattering the road and the buildings. Shinji hurried towards it, flipping it over with his rifle, looking for a core. Not finding one, he crushed it underfoot, making sure it was dead.
Looking around for the others, he found about thirty, some clinging to buildings and others moving resolutely toward him. Grinning, he raised the rifle. He made short work of most of them, cutting them down before they got close enough to use their claws or stingers. The remaining handful turned around and fled, prompting him to chase after them.
Inside the Pribnow Box, Ritsuko nodded to Aoba. He quickly typed in the next group of commands to the supercomputers.
Shinji's jaw dropped as the three mini-Angels began to shake, their backs deforming as they grew wings. They took to the skies and began to split, twinning themselves in the same fashion as the Sixth Angel. He quickly raised his rifle and began firing, but soon, the sky was filled with the Angel Swarm. Dropping the expended rifle, Shinji dashed for one of the armament buildings, swatting the swarm away from him whenever they came too close.
They buzzed in at him, claws and stingers useless against his armor, trying to latch onto him regardless. He pulled out another rifle, bringing it to bear against his foes. They died quickly, but the swarm seemed to be ever-growing. He watched in horror as they started to shake again, trembling as their tails shifted, stingers beginning to look like gun barrels.
He yelped in outrage and startled pain as the first of the blasts of light slammed into him. The sting was more annoying than painful. His AT-Field shot up in a tight bubble around him as dozens of blasts were fired from the buzzing swarm. Grabbing another of the rifles, he shot them one-handed, scything his way through the assembled swarm.
The technicians, watching his vital signs and the data feeds, sighed as they jotted down notes for the post-mission review. While his vitals and synchronization scores were acceptable, this was, tactically speaking, one of the worst training runs he had ever done. It certainly was the worst he had performed in a long time. Ritsuko sighed again and pulled out her phone to message Misato, telling her to come to the main control room.
Misato showed up a few moments later, having been watching Asuka's tests in the secondary control room. Her greeting died on her lips as she watched Shinji flailing about, swatting ineffectually at the insectoid Angels.
Slipping on a headset, she plugged into the communications network and shook her head at Shinji's panicked commentary.
"Oh, come on! This is bullshit!" He ran from the swarm towards another armament building.
"Shinji!" Misato cut in, her voice sharp and upset. "What are you doing?"
"Misato!" Shinji shouted back, sounding annoyed. "I'm trying to kill bees with a rifle! What does it look like I'm trying to do?" Having wrenched open the building's gate and securing a new weapon, he opened up on the angry cloud.
"How long have you been running around like an idiot?" She asked, her eyes narrowed and arms crossed. "What happened to the Evangelion pilot who likes to come up with new ways to use his AT-Field?"
"What, am I supposed to use the AT-Field like a weapon now?" Shinji retorted, still firing the rifle. "I thought it didn't work that way."
"So?" Misato said, unsympathetic to the pilot's complaints. "Think outside the box, Shinji. You're doing terrible in there. You haven't done this bad since you started pilot training." She muted her microphone and listened for a few minutes to the boy grumbling under his breath as he continued fighting. Turning the microphone back on, she interrupted his grousing. "Most of your kills are in the berserker state, Shinji. That might be well and good against a singular foe, even if it's not optimal, but against a group of enemies, it's not going to help you any." Hitting the mute switch again, she turned to her friend.
"If he doesn't start improving, start having them blow up on him. Run him through it again." She pulled the headset off and dropped it on the computer terminal. "I'm going to go check on Rei's test, and then I'm going back to watch Asuka."
"How are they doing?" Ritsuko lowered her voice. "If they are doing as well as Shinji, we'll be here all night."
"They've never had to worry about fighting an army before. I'm surprised he's managed to keep his field up as long as he has." Misato murmured back. "Asuka's also having issues, but she's managed to keep the swarm size down. She's also much more vocal about how much she thinks this is dumb." Misato made a face. "You know how she is."
Ritsuko laughed softly. "Yes, I know how she is. It's a good thing we decided to try this now. Can you imagine what a swarm-capable Angel could do if all the pilots were doing this bad? It's not outside the realm of possibility either."
"Well, that's why we're doing this, at least partly. It eases them into doing sims against an army. It opens them up to the idea of fighting multiple, independent targets rather than a singular Angel."
Ritsuko rolled her eyes. "I was at the briefing, you know. I helped you write it." She frowned as she studied her friend. "You aren't comfortable with them fighting people, are you?"
Misato shook her head. "I know I told the Commander they'd be fine, but… They're already just a few steps down from being child soldiers. The extenuating circumstances force us to use them to fight the Angels. Using them and the Evangelions against human targets... We'll be no better than war criminals."
Ritsuko sighed. "I know it's difficult, but… If the UN wants to try to take the Evangelions for their own, they'll take the pilots and force them to fight whatever they wanted them to. Or, they would take the Evangelions and not the pilots, and they would be worthless when the next Angel arrived. It's better this way, I think. Could you imagine what it would be like for them if we put them through the usual emergency drills?"
Misato shuddered, trying to imagine the three teenagers running through the semiannual close combat shooting course and the emergency threat repulsion course all regular NERV employees were required to take. Several NERV installations were in places that sometimes underwent significant civil unrest. NERV expected its employees to be able to defend themselves in emergencies.
"You're right; I think this is better. Even if they don't fight, if they're just in the Evangelions, they'll be safe from anything that anyone might throw at them. They wouldn't have an option otherwise. Now they just have to worry about getting cut off from the Evangelions." Misato sighed, running her hands through her hair as she watched the screen. "I'll be back in a little while."
"All right. I'll let you know how he does." Ritsuko nodded at her friend before grabbing her arm. "Oh, and one more thing. Don't tell the Commander what you think he wants to hear. If you've got doubts about something, let him know. He doesn't want yes-men for sub-commanders."
Misato winced, making a disgusted face. "Yeah, I know. But he knows anyway, doesn't he? He always knows what people are thinking, what they're about to do."
"He does, sometimes. But he wants to hear your suggestions and your thoughts. Don't be afraid to bring up protests or questions."
"Yeah, yeah. I'm still trying to adjust to thinking of him as a human being instead as… well, something else, I guess." Misato shook her head again as she left the room.
Ritsuko turned back to the main screen, watching Shinji's AT-Field manifest as he tried to use it as a fly swatter. Sighing again as she watched the waveform dance about on the display, she pulled out a cigarette and tucked it in her mouth, wishing she could smoke in the control room. It was going to be a long day.
Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!
Asuka grumbled as she waited for the coffee pot to finish brewing, wondering if she could get away with taking the entire thing back to the lab. Her hair was damp from the shower and still smelled like LCL. Frowning, she grabbed a strand and breathed deeply, her nose wrinkling at the mixed scents of blood and shampoo. She jumped slightly as a hand clasped her shoulder. Turning around, her frown grew deeper as she stared at Kaji.
"Hey, kiddo, what's up?" He asked, looking critically at her. Her eyes were bloodshot, and dark bags were beginning to form under them. "You look like a mess."
She pursed her lips for a moment before shaking her head. "I'm fine. Just trying to do some work." She turned back to the coffee pot. "What are you even doing here? I thought that the UN had pulled all their people."
A little shocked at her irate tone, he paused momentarily before answering. "They fired me. NERV decided to hire me on, like they did with Misato." It was not quite a lie. Gendo's move to retain several former UN personnel had shocked and upset his contacts in the UN. Still, it did give them a way to keep him in the middle of the organization after the recall or outright dismissal of the liaison officers assigned to NERV. Gendo, of course, wanted to keep him around to make use of him and probably keep an eye on his movements and activities.
She snorted. "I can see why they would want to keep her, but I thought you would have been a goner. You just work in Section 2." The coffee maker chirped at them, prompting Asuka to fill her red and white GEHIRN mug to the top with the hot elixir. "What do you do that would make the Commander want to keep you around? What makes you special? What makes you stand out? Security drones are a dime a dozen." She took a careful sip from her mug, studying him.
Kaji frowned back at her. "I do a lot of stuff. I'm very good at my job." He filled a Styrofoam cup with coffee, spooning a liberal amount of sugar into it. "I haven't seen you for a few days. Have I upset you or something? Let's sit and talk for a little bit."
She shook her head, one hand going into the pocket of her lab coat. "I've got work to do. This data won't analyze itself." She pulled out her datapad and brought up the latest data downloads from the day's tests. She walked out of the room before he could say anything else.
Kaji watched her go, torn between wanting to find out what was bothering the typically exuberant and attention-demanding girl and his desire to break into the hidden rooms several floors below them, tucked away in a black area on the blueprints, accessible only from a lift in the central labs. He shrugged and decided to talk to Misato about it the next time he saw her.
Asuka breathed a sigh of relief when the man didn't follow after her, demanding to know what was wrong. She had fantasized about it before, but now it was something she didn't want to deal with. Seeing him around these days was hard, and his casual comments didn't help. On the other hand, if he had followed her, wanting to console her... She sighed unhappily, wondering what exactly she wanted.
After hooking up with Misato, he had been at the apartment a lot, often having dinner with them, sometimes cooking when Shinji was off with Rei. She saw more of him now than she had after they first got to Tokyo-3. It was always obvious in retrospect, that it was Misato he was after, that she was the one he had deemed worthy of his affection. It had hurt a lot, and it still did, but she would bury herself in her work instead of confronting the man about it. Whatever he had to say was going to be the same old song and dance about her not being mature enough, and she was not in the mood to hear it. She could get away from the apartment, Misato, and him while in the labs.
Another plus to being down here was she didn't have to see Shinji and Wondergirl sucking face. While the couple was very boring, and she doubted that they had gotten any further than first base, no matter how naked they might have been at each other early on, she still didn't want to have to put up with them making kissy faces at each other. Sometimes, she wondered if she should have pushed them together the way she had if it was the right thing to do. It had seemed so then, but now she wasn't sure. Hikari and Toji were almost as bad, although the brunette acted all shy and demure about it, though Asuka was sure she was a little minx. Besides, as lovely as it was having Hikari to talk to sometimes, the girl just didn't understand half of what she was talking about, and the girl was still concerned about getting through high school. She just wasn't on the same level as she was; Asuka had grown out of those stages long ago out of necessity. What was worse was that Hikari and Rei spent almost as much time together at home as they did with their boyfriends. They collaborated on things like siblings; a close bond had formed from living together. She shared no such bond with Shinji despite her attempts to make him a more respectable person.
As long as her scores and performance with Unit-02 remained high, Misato didn't care what she did with her free time. If she stayed and worked on the technical aspects of the red Evangelion, that was fine. Maya had called their dalliance off a little while ago, obviously thinking of her as a child as well. The others grouped her in with the other pilots as a mere high school student and didn't consider her an equal.
It hurt her at her very core, their casual dismissal. Hadn't they seen her accomplishments? Did they forget she had graduated from university, that she was a tried and tested leader in actual combat, that she made regular contributions to the development of improved systems for the Evangelions, and that she was working on her research projects aimed at earning her first doctorate? She was at least the equal of the newest technical division hire, better than their interns and certainly better than the other pilots. As an organization, NERV was a meritocracy, and despite all the appearances given by the appointment of the pilots, it was not given to nepotism or cronyism. She had earned her spot as a pilot, but they still could not see that she had more than earned their respect as a researcher and technician. What else must she do to claim the recognition and accolades she was surely due?
Well, she would show them! They could think of her as uneducated and inconsequential all they wanted, but she would figure out just how Shinji was doing what he was with Unit-01, and then she would do it better. She would publish a paper on it, the first new one done on the Evangelions in years! Let them chew on that. While the primary research crews were focused more on improving armor systems and repairing the one-of-a-kind weapons systems, she would isolate and figure out the anomaly behind the Third Child's AT-Field abilities. She might even redefine what they knew about the energy field!
Locking the door behind her, she smiled as the MAGI unpaused the music she had been playing. Music always helped put her in a better mood, and it helped her concentrate when studying or working. She had an ear for it and sometimes wished she had learned to play an instrument when she was younger. But just like back then, there wasn't any time for it. Humming along to the cello suite, she slumped in her chair, kicking it into a slow spin as she sipped her coffee and started reviewing the raw data, already feeling better. Solitude might be better than dealing with everyone else, at least for now. Asuka had a good feeling about the results from the latest batch of tests and was sure she was on the path to a breakthrough.
She was no slouch when it came to the AT-Field as she routinely had the highest synchronization scores, which directly influenced how much the pilot could control the field and how strong it was. Tied into the subconscious part of the mind, it was a reflexive field that took the pilot's sense of personal space and made it a physical reality. It could be shaped and altered somewhat by the use of the emitters and by the pilot focusing on it, but the level of malleability Shinji enjoyed with Unit-01 was simply impossible with his synchronization scores, which, while not quite as good as hers, were still higher than would be expected from someone as new to the program as he was.
If he could do it at his level, she should be able to do it at hers. Despite how bleedingly cutting-edge technology the Evangelions were, they were still nothing more than puppets of meat and metal, cybernetic armored suits with which to defend the world. The products of a genius' mad dreams, yes, but still nothing that a determined pilot couldn't bend to her will. It was galling that he did it all as a matter of routine. No matter how much she pressed him for details or how Rei phrased her questions, Shinji wasn't able to explain to them how he did it. He would just shrug and blather on and on about how he didn't know what he did with it. As the other techs thought, it seemed he was simply a natural at it.
She couldn't accept that. The Dummkopf might be a natural at it, which was fine, even if it was shoddy thinking to look no further, but there was no way she was as bad as a pilot that she couldn't also do it. It didn't make any sense, which she tried to explain constantly to the others, but they just shrugged it off, too busy to want to dig deeper and unravel the mystery. But eventually, all mysteries were solvable, every riddle unlocked. All it took was time, patience, tests, and procedures. Every great researcher and scientist had a significant problem that defined them as a person, scientist, and legend. Einstein had Relativity, Plank had Quantum Physics, Oppenheimer had Nuclear Fission, and Von Braun had his rockets. Perhaps Asuka Langley Sohryu had the AT-Field.
She would get to the bottom of the issue, no matter what.
Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!
Kaji scowled at the obstinate lock, the only thing keeping him out of the set of rooms beyond the door and from whatever secrets lay within. Getting past the security systems on the lift that led to this level had been hard work, but he had managed it. It required crawling upside down through the cable duct parallel to the elevator, but he persevered. But there were no other ways past this wall except the door before him, and there was no way through the door except by opening the lock. His security clearance and official job gave him access to much of the base, even the ordinarily off-limits sections. Still, the elevator and the floor he was currently on weren't covered by any of the Section-2 offices he had poked around in. That alone made this a place of interest, and when one added that it didn't exist at all on the blueprints as doctored as they were, well, Gendo might as well have put a giant neon sign on it.
Whatever lay past door NTD402-1A was important to the Commander and thus important to Kaji's shadowy masters in the UN, JSSDF, and SEELE. Whether or not he told any of them what he had found in there was another thing entirely, though. SEELE was unhappy with him after the recent fiasco, saying he had acted on his own and that they had not dispatched any agents to deliver new instructions. Some choice intelligence on what Ikari's next moves might be could smooth over their ruffled feathers, but at the same time, he wasn't sure if their ruffled feathers could be smoothed out. His masters in the UN and the JSSDF were after him to get them more on the Commander's intentions, and both would welcome news of whatever was behind the door. They also wanted him to find out what exactly had happened to cause the power outage and what NERV was planning, but he wasn't planning on telling them about all that. Gendo had other spies scattered about, and he had no desire for the Commander to find out about his part in the whole affair.
Kneeling, he reached into the small bag of tools, going for his pass card machine. He decided he would try to spoof whatever pass card gave access to the door again. If it still didn't work, then he would have to try to nick a card from someone else with a higher security clearance. He had easy access to several such people, although he wasn't sure if he wanted to lift their security cards. He would have to develop the situation some more before acting on it.
The machine beeped a negative tone at him, unable to trick the electronic lock into thinking it was an appropriate card. He stuffed it back into the bag and stood up, stretching out the kinks in his back. Misato and Ritsuko should be able to enter the room, but both would notice they were missing their pass cards almost immediately. Misato might think she had lost hers in the mess of her apartment, but Ritsuko would suspect him of lifting it if it disappeared after he visited her.
As he worked out the tight spots, his gaze fell on the ventilation grate, a thoughtful look drawing over his face as he studied it. It would be a tight fit, but probably no tighter than the electrical duct he had crawled through. It had worked for the children on two occasions, so there was no reason for it not to work for him. Packing the rest of his tools into the bag, he hurried back towards the elevator. He would try to get Misato's card; if he couldn't, he would try the air vent. In the meantime, he still had the giant gate down in Terminal Dogma to get past, and he still wanted to get into Gehenna, the Angel Graveyard Ritsuko had mentioned before. While it might not offer any immediate answers to his questions, it would still be interesting to see what NERV did with the remains of the Angels.
As he reached for the call button, the elevator pinged and went into motion. He stared at it briefly before bolting down the hallway for one of the empty rooms his hacked pass card let him into. Pulling the door almost shut, he watched the elevator doors. They opened up, letting Rei out. The girl, wearing the lab coat she was sometimes dressed in, walked past him and headed down the hallway, stopping at the mysterious room. She swiped her card, and the doors unlocked for her, bathing the hallway in soft amber light. Kaji stared open-mouthed as she walked into the room, the lock engaging with a solid-sounding click as the door closed behind her.
Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!
Shinji looked up from his homework to Misato, standing in the doorway. "You've got a phone call, Shinji." Her voice was a mix of concern and confusion. "It's your father."
Sighing, Shinji pushed back from his desk, sure he knew why his father was calling. It wasn't that he didn't appreciate the overture, but at the same time, he didn't know how he should feel about it. He wondered if the phone call was partly prompted by the postponed dinner with Rei. Ignoring Misato and Asuka's curious looks, he picked up the phone.
"Hello?"
"Shinji. It's almost that time of year." His father's voice sounded almost bored, as if he was discussing the weather and not his dead wife.
"I wasn't planning on visiting if that's what you were wondering," Shinji said, deciding to get to the heart of the matter. "It's not like she's there – you said as much before." His voice was slightly accusatory. Asuka's mouth dropped open, but Shinji turned to stare at the wall as he talked to his father.
"She isn't there." Gendo agreed, his voice showing no surprise at his usually docile son's sudden show of backbone. "There was nothing left of her, but that in and of itself is no reason not to visit. It is a place to remember her. To mourn for those left behind to celebrate her life, and to grieve at her passing, to commiserate in their sorrow. That is the reason for the artifice of the grave, though it is empty." There was a slight pause before he continued. "I will be there this week. If you wish to go, you will be excused from class."
The invitation was there, a rare chance to spend time with his father. An opportunity to spend time together and to talk with him. Before he had stopped going, he had always been too timid, too intimidated by his father's presence, of the cold and uncaring exterior to speak, but now? "I'll go." Shinji blurted out, barely able to keep his voice level.
"I'll see you there, then." As usual, Shinji couldn't tell if his father approved or cared from his voice. The phone disconnected without warning, leaving him with the dial tone. If it had been anyone else, Shinji would have thought something was wrong with the line, but his father had never been one for goodbyes. He had never been much of one for hellos, either. Returning the handset to the cradle, he looked at Misato.
"I'll be going to my mother's grave on Thursday, so I won't be going to school." He informed her. "I'll let the teachers know and get my assignments from them.."
"Your mother's grave?" Asuka asked, curious. "Is it near the anniversary, then?" She ignored the pained look from their guardian.
"Yes, it's near the anniversary," Shinji confirmed. "It's been a while since I went. I stopped going a few years ago."
"I haven't been to my mother's grave since I was eight," Asuka said. "There was no reason to at first, and soon there was no time." She shrugged, returning to her tablet. "Now it's on the other side of the world. I guess it's okay for you if you like that sort of thing."
Misato breathed a small sigh of relief. The loss of loved ones was always a touchy subject, and Asuka wasn't exactly the most delicate person when it came to conversations. As a young girl, she had been brash and caustic and had viewed visiting her mother's grave in Berlin as a waste of time, preferring to focus on the present and future rather than dwelling on the past. Shinji might be a relatively calm and docile boy most of the time, but he had his buttons that, when pressed, could spark anger in him, and the problem with the quiet ones was you didn't always know what would set them off. Rei was one of those things, obviously, but she didn't know how he might take the casual dismissal of his dead mother.
Asuka had been a bit more subdued lately, though, and her abrasive edges were finally starting to smooth out. While she didn't know what had prompted the change, Misato was happy to roll with it. Less fighting inside the pilot corps was always good, and not having to put up with an irritable, jealous teenager at home was a definite plus. Kaji had said something about the girl having stopped leaving phone messages and texts for him last week, which Misato took for the girl starting to grow up and give up her crush on the man. That in and of itself was a relief.
"All right, I'll drop a call to the office then," Misato said, writing herself a note. "I guess you'll probably be out of training that day too?"
Shinji shrugged. "He didn't say anything about that, just class." Grabbing a glass of water, he returned to his room and homework. "Knowing him, I'll still have to do training." He called back to the living room.
Sitting back in his chair, he stared at the math problems, finding it hard to concentrate. It wasn't that he was feeling particularly morose, but he had been trying to not think about the anniversary of his mother's death for the past few days, trying to keep himself occupied with other things. His father's phone call had ruined that. Sighing, he got up and plopped down on his bed, taking his leg off and, in a fit of irritation, threw it at his closet door, the prosthetic bouncing off it into a corner. Reaching for his music player, he stuck the earbuds in his ears, deciding to try to drown everything out with music.
He frowned as a cheerful waltz filled his ears, not in the mood for Strauss. Staring at the display, he thumbed through the different playlists to find something more appropriate. Finally coming to a song that seemed to fit his black mood, Shinji closed his eyes as the opening strains of Handel's Sarabande filled his ears. The harpsichord sounded both mournful and upset, the slow meter of the song a fitting match for his growing dread and apprehension.
Far underground, ripples formed on the surface of the coolant in Unit-01's cage as a shiver ran through the Evangelion, a dull, barely noticeable glow coming from its eyes.
Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!
Asuka woke up with a start, drenched in sweat. Her stomach was killing her, her abdomen tight, this month's cycle being harsher than usual. Swearing, she staggered down the hallway towards the bathroom. Nightmares and menstruating did not mix, she mused to herself as she started the shower. Neither did this plague of self-doubt mix well with either, she thought as she tried to wash away the sick feelings along with the sweat from her night terrors.
Letting the hot water rush over her, she leaned up against the wall, trying to forget the stupid nightmare. It had been of her mother again after the accident. She tried not to think of her mother after that horrible day, preferring to try to remember her the way she was before, but it was hard. It was hard, and nobody cared or understood. Shinji at least didn't have to remember his mom as some insane woman who cared more about a doll than her daughter. The insanity was the worst part, especially when one thought about all the woman's accomplishments, all of her achievements being the products of a beautiful, brilliant mind. After the accident, there had been none of that left in her mother's body, only a raving madwoman who had supplanted her daughter with a doll and eventually killed herself and her 'daughter'. They were two different people, in her mind, and only one worth mourning or remembering. Kyoko Sohryu had died the day she had gone into the Entry Plug in the limited Contact experiment, not a year and some months later, and no one could ever tell her otherwise.
She had always thought it weird that two of the three pilots had lost their mothers to the Evangelion program. Rei was the oddball of the group, in more ways than one, of course, but she was an orphan, her parents having dumped her on the government. They probably didn't want to try to support a kid in the turbulent times after Second Impact. Lots of babies ended up in the orphanage systems if they were lucky enough to be born in a country that had one. Plenty of them hadn't, even after the worst of the wars and civil unrest were over. Plenty of third-rate dictatorships made extensive use of child soldiers.
Feeling a little better after the shower, she tossed back a few painkillers, glaring into the mirror. It was three in the morning. If she didn't take sleeping pills, she wouldn't be able to get back to sleep, but she would be groggy all day long if she did. She could stay awake and be a little tired later in the afternoon. Grumbling to herself, she decided to put the time she would be awake anyway to good use and go back over her research.
Walking past Shinji's room, she looked in through the open door. He was lying on the sheets, wearing shorts and a T-shirt. He looked weird without his fake leg, and the asymmetry of his body was a stark warning of the dangers of higher synchronization. She studied him for a minute, wondering again how he managed to do the things he did in the Evangelion. It should have been her missing her leg, not him. He shouldn't have been able to synch with her Unit-02 anyway. The personality core was set up for her, not him, and the cross-coordination experiments had shown that neither could move the other's Evangelion. It was another maddening mystery, another drop in the ocean of conflicting data and information surrounding Unit-01 and the boy.
She had poured over the data that had been recovered from the fight but couldn't get anything useful out of it. Maybe if she took another look at it and compared it to recent data, she might glean something new. One never knew what could be found in old data after new insights had been made.
Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!
Gendo put the phone down and smirked over the game board at Kozo. "They found the Lance." He said as he placed a black tile down on the board. "It's buried almost entirely in the plate shelf."
"Will they be able to salvage it?" Kozo looked up from the report he had been reading, glancing first at the board and then at his friend. "Is it to our advantage to remove it now and risk SEELE finding out about it, or should we leave it where it is and retrieve it later?"
"They've already begun salvage operations," Gendo said. "We're going to go inspect the site. If the Lance is there, there may be other artifacts from the expedition."
Kozo looked at his friend, a pained expression on his face. "In the Antarctic?" He asked as he placed a tile on the board, swapping out three of Gendo's for his. "To the Ruined Sea?" Travel had never agreed with the elderly Sub-Commander, even when he had been younger. His primary field of work was largely theoretical, and he was more than happy to spend his time in an office simply thinking about the problems they faced and how to solve them.
"It will be good for you to get out of the city for a while. Besides, we should let our new Sub-Commander spread her wings and see how she handles a solo command." He looked over the board and put down another tile before returning to his reports.
"What other sort of artifacts do you think might be found? The only things I recall from any of the reports were of ADAM and the Lance."
"I'm thinking of items from the base itself, not artifacts like those things." Gendo clarified. "I don't know how involved with SEELE Katsuragi was, but if there was anything left over that might be useful to us in our current struggles, I want it. I find it hard to believe he didn't have secure backups of his research in some sort of capsule. He knew what he had there in the caves of ice, in that ancient prison." The man shook his head as he studied the game board. "He knew full well what he was doing, that he was courting disaster. He would have had something prepared in the event of an accident."
"What was it like, seeing Him?"
"Amazing, at first. Terrifying after you realized just what it was you were looking at. He looked like a massive stone carving, a giant, frozen in ice, the Lance shoved through his midsection. Even knowing beforehand it was a god sleeping there, I could not help but think it was a creation of artifice at first glance.
The face was monstrous, a scarred parody of a man's. He looked somewhat like the Evangelions, in their base state, without the restraints. But they are mere shadows of the power that He was, even in that pitiful state. He was covered in scars, and what armor he wore was pitted and corroded, marked by titanic battles beyond our imagining." Gendo paused, his hands tented in front of him. He thought back to the first time he had stood in the presence of a god, open-mouthed and staring into the frozen cavern, and the memory of seeing ADAM sent shivers down his spine. Yui had laughed at him, telling him she had never seen him so incredulous-looking.
"His lower half was still frozen in ice, completely encased. It was very cold in the cavern, colder than anywhere else I had been at the labs. It would grow on him if they let it, frost forming first, then solid chunks of ice spreading across the excavated areas. They kept massive heaters on him, but still, he was so cold that you would get contact frostbite if you touched him without heavy gloves. It was unreal. We suspected that the ice continent had formed around him throughout all of History."
Kozo shook his head. "Well, if the Lance stopped Him in the past, it should do well for His progeny." He stood up, straightening out his jacket. "I suppose that I'll go pack." He paused, frowning. "Wait, aren't you visiting the grave with Shinji tomorrow? How soon are we leaving?"
Gendo shrugged. "We'll leave immediately afterward. I don't expect we'll have much to say to one other. He is coming along nicely, but I do not think he is ready yet to hear what I have to tell him. A few words should be all that is needed to push him along in the right direction, and Rei will handle the rest, as usual, simply by being there."
Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!
Rei looked up from her book as the helicopter came in and took off again after picking up the Commander. He was heading off with Sub-Commander Fuyutuski for the Antarctic to oversee the salvage operations on the Lance of Longinus, leaving Sub-Commander Katsuragi in overall command of Tokyo-3.
Today was the anniversary of Doctor Yui Ikari's 'death'. It was also the first time in several years that Shinji had visited the grave established in his mother's memory. She had gathered from both Shinji and Commander Ikari they were meeting at the gravesite more to share time to bond rather than mourn the woman. The Commander did not mourn her because she was not truly dead. She had no idea if Shinji mourned her, as they had never discussed it before. The subject of dead relatives, she had learned very early on, was one that should be avoided under normal circumstances.
After closing her book and putting it in her bag, she stood up, watching Shinji walking slowly back to her. His hands were tucked into his pockets, slightly slouched over. He did not look distraught, but she was unsure if she should take his body language as an indicator of his feelings. His father controlled his body language, giving no hints of what he thought or felt to anyone.
Shinji pulled his hands out of his pockets and hugged her tightly, kissing her forehead and resting his chin on the top of her head. She let out a startled squeak but wrapped her arms around him. He was tense, and she could feel his heart pounding away in his chest. Squeezing her, he let go, one hand grabbing hers as they started to walk back to the entrance of the graveyard.
"I don't understand him very well," he commented as they walked. "One day, he's cold and unreachable; the next, he's offering me advice."
"He is concerned about you. We have discussed this before," she said a tad reproachfully. "He is concerned for the future of all Mankind." She paused as Shinji grunted. "What advice did he offer you?"
"That man is supposed to stand on his own two feet, to seize what he can, and never look back. To keep everything he cares about close to him, to accept no obstacles as insurmountable." Shinji snorted and shook his head. "Whatever happened to not bothering him with childish things? Does he want me to not take no from him as an answer? How do I get him to acknowledge me as his son instead of a tool?"
"Even if he sees you as a tool, you are still a valuable tool to him," Rei said after a while. "We are all tools to be used in the fight to keep Mankind safe from the threat of a Third Impact. Have you never thought about what it is that he does? He built NERV, the Evangelions, as a safeguard against that day. Everything he has done is to secure the future of Man, to ensure we do not pass from History."
They left the graveyard in silence, the boy brooding over the mixed signals he got from his father, the girl brooding over how the two most important people in her life antagonized each other. Both sides had valid reasons for how they felt, based on the information available to them and their respective responsibilities, but she still could not help but wish they could just get along.
They had been given the day off from training at NERV. Doctor Akagi wanted the time to write new simulations for them, saying the swarm simulation wasn't enough of a test and that she had plans for a new batch of training scenarios. Sohryu was planning on sequestering herself in the lab she had claimed for her own, swearing violently that she would get to the bottom of Shinji's strange abilities with the AT-Fields, the latest of her academic pursuits.
Rei had opted to accompany Shinji to the graveyard, and then they would go for a walk through one of the several parks dotting Tokyo-3 on the way back to the apartment to review and study for their upcoming history test. Sub-Commander Katsuragi would not be home, as she would be busy getting acquainted with running the Geo-Front and the city.
Had Rei been prone to self-doubt, some of Tabris' parting words might have made her wonder if Shinji did not reciprocate her feelings. However, Rei was not one to suffer self-doubt, for she was as sure of herself as she was sure the sun would rise in the east in the morning. She knew why she existed, why she was born, why she lived, and why she would die. Her entire existence was to be spent in the service of the Commander. There was no room in her life for existential quandaries.
At any rate, she had empirical evidence supporting the theory that Shinji did reciprocate her feelings; his statements of affection, his demonstrations of physical protection against real and perceived threats, and his overtures of physical affection. While it was true she almost always was the one to physically initiate physical contact, he never shied away and often escalated the intimacy of their interactions. She knew that he loved her. Besides, if he was anything like his father, and she had concluded that they shared many similarities, then he would not be prone to overt displays of affection.
But a small, almost silent part of her subconsciously worried at her brother's words. It did not pick apart his words like a scientist would a mysterious sample, nor did it dissect them under an impassive, detached gaze. It worried at the phrase like a tongue seeking a cut on the roof of one's mouth, not quite wanting to poke at it but unable to leave it alone.
This voice led her to pull him against her tightly as they wandered through the rows of flowers, trying to console itself with his presence, to drown it out in physical contact, to silence it forever. It was not this voice, however, that led her hand to fall below his waist and rest on his rear, periodically squeezing it as he blushed a furious red. He did nothing to stop or push her away, though, pointedly ignoring some raised eyebrows and snickers from other people as they passed by.
They wound their way through the city at an unhurried pace but ended up at the apartment before too long. They had things to do, and neither was prone to procrastination – the girl by her training and the boy through the girl's prodding. As Rei started to lay out their notes and books, Shinji went into the kitchen to prepare tea for them. She smiled as she listened to him humming away in the kitchen, preparing the cups as the water boiled. He only hummed to himself when he was happy – if he was humming now, he must have come to terms with himself and his relationship with his father.
She looked up from her book when he returned to the room, carefully setting the two cups on the table. He sat down next to her on the couch, and she could see him watching her from the corner of his eye as he picked up a book and a cup. He put the book back down as he sipped carefully at the steaming liquid, his nostrils flaring slightly at the heady scent of peppermint, still watching her.
Curious, she picked up her cup and took a small sip of the tea. She detected nothing out of the normal, the tea being no different from the other times they had had it. She idly wondered if he had added anything to it. She did not think he was given towards pharmaceutical experimentation, but one never knew. For all their differences, he was still his father's son.
"Rei?" he asked, taking a deep breath as he set his cup back on the table next to his book, "why do you like me?"
"Why do I like you?" she repeated, her eyes going wide at the question. "I do not understand-"
"You like my father, which I guess you would; he practically raised you, and he rescued you, but why do you like me? I'm nothing like him, and I don't know why you like me- I mean, I know that you do, but I don't know why you like doing things like grabbing my butt and-"
Rei interrupted him. "I do not like you because you are like your father. I like you because you are yourself. I like you because…" she trailed off, unable to put her feelings and reasons into words. While she had initially had more than a passing interest in him, the primary reason for their initial interactions beyond that of as pilots of the Evangelions had been at the Commander's behest, and she did not think Shinji would like to hear that at all. Their cell phones started to ring, but she ignored them, her eyes locked on her boy.
"You are important to me," he said, "and I don't want to lose you. Not to an Angel, and not because I don't like my father." He looked uncomfortable and unhappy, but his features softened when he continued after a long pause. "You make me happy, Rei. I love being with you." He leaned in close to her, his eyes locked on her, pausing for just a second before moving the rest of the way in to kiss her, one hand pushing her down against the couch, the other closing in around her right breast, gently squeezing through the fabric. She arched her back underneath him, dropping the cup of tea on the floor as she reached up and embraced him, pulling him closer. Her mouth opened slightly, drawing in his lower lip as they kissed.
"Rei? Rei, it's time to get up for school."
Rei's eyes snapped open at Hikari's voice, going immediately to the doorway where her friend stood, already dressed. Rei sat up mechanically, pushing the sweat-soaked sheets away and looking for her alarm clock. It sat in broken shambles on the other side of the room, lying where she had thrown it.
"Rei, all you okay? You're normally up before your alarm rings." Hikari asked from the doorway, where she hovered uncertainly, unsure if she should go into the room. "Should I call someone at NERV?"
"No. I am fine." Rei reassured her friend, going to the chest of drawers, stripping off the shirt she wore to sleep, and pulling a bra from the top drawer. "I overslept." She took slow, deep breaths, trying to ignore the fact that her heart was pounding loudly in her chest. The flush she felt burning on her face extended down her body, feeling warm all over.
"Well, if you're sure you're okay, then." Hikari turned on the room's light and went off to make breakfast, closing the door behind her.
"Hikari," Rei called after her, prompting the other girl to open the door, a concerned look on her face. "I will not be attending class today. I will accompany Shinji to his mother's grave."
"I thought that you weren't going to go? What happened?"
"The Commander is leaving after they meet at the grave. He has business elsewhere to deal with," Rei stated as she buttoned up her shirt. "If Shinji has grieving issues, he will require additional consolation." She finished buttoning the top button and reached for her uniform's skirt. "I will console him."