A bird gently settled down on a branch high on a tree. The branch, slightly above a neighboring 2nd story window, held a clear view of one of the more abandoned side streets in Tokyo-3. The tree the branch belonged to was the oldest on the street, but it was far from the only one. Many other trees of varying heights had been left to grow unchecked in yards and other small green spaces. Vines had overtaken most of the houses in the area, creating large green splotches on the otherwise gray cityscape. Down on the street, weeds poked out from gaps in the sidewalk, destabilizing some of the tiles. A vibration shook the tree, and the bird flew off. If the bird had stayed just a few seconds longer, he would have seen the human child walking below suddenly collapse forward, striking his head on the pavement with a painful CRACK.
FUCBAOWASHIBIOW-
White. Silence. Black. A spew of images of his classmates. Dead classmate. White. A succession of images of something vaguely resembling an Eva. White. Multiple whites. Red. Red where it wasn't supposed to be. Silent screaming.
Shinji tried to form a coherent thought but kept getting cut off as each successive sensation and emotion pierced his mind, scattering all the previous ones that were halfway through coalescing into something coherent.
Eventually, the racing thoughts and emotions rushing through his brain slowed down enough for him to register outside information. He registered that he had been screaming for an indeterminate amount of time, he was on his hands and knees, and his head hurt like hell. He stood up, and took in his surroundings. He was still somewhere in Tokyo-3. A road littered with car lay to his left, a parking garage on his right, and in front of him..
No..
NO
NO!
A green telephone lay in a booth in front of him.
This isn't what I wished for. What the hell.
As that thought passed through his mind, the ramifications of what it meant gripped him.
Asuka… Rei.. everyone died.
The wind started to pick up, and Shinji covered his ears.
Why am I still alive? What happened to the attacking EVAs, Unit 01… Rei..
Shinji turned and looked upwards. A swarm of UN VTOLs slowly came into view, crowding the sky and firing backwards. Following them was a giant green figure.. It had a vaguely humanoid form, with a masked beak in place of a face, and an exposed ribcage with a red orb in the center. The VTOLs all fired at the form, and even though Shinji already knew what would happen, he couldn't look away. Every launched missile and bullet bounced harmlessly against a plane in front of the Angel, which then started shooting down the aircraft with a laser of its own.
Why the hell is Sachiel back. Why is that damn green phone still standing. Why…
I've gone back in time.
And I'm going to have to go through all the pain again.
I'm going to have to pilot again.
He turned back and started running. From the Angel. From the future. Misato had met him within a dozen feet or so of the VTOL that had landed… was about to land-
Shit.
He heard a loud rumble quickly approaching above him. The flaming wreck had barely missed him last time, and now he had started running towards where it had landed the first time. He dove to the right, rolling onto the street. A painful boom reverberated around him, and he closed his eyes. He could hear chunks of debris smashing glass windows behind him, and he felt a tugging sensation and a flash of pain in his right arm. He hugged his arms to his chest.
I didn't move this way the first time. I could die right here.
Somehow, despite that seeming like a perfectly acceptable fate an hour ago, he was more afraid now. Was it due to the pain?
Where the hell is Misato.
As if in response, a screech of abused tires on pavement made it past the cacophony of crashing aircraft and burning debris. Shinji opened his eyes and turned his head. A sports car had stopped several feet short of running Shinji over. In it sat a purple haired NERV captain.
"Well, I hope I'm not too late. I suppose this is close enough to the meeting site, get in."
5 minutes earlier, Classroom 3B
A small child sat perfectly still in his chair. His back was straight, head looking at the teacher, and hands grasped in fists beneath the desk, fingernails biting painfully into his palms. The effort required to suppress any of his body's natural movements and the pain his fingers were causing him from the static position they held partially embedded in skin was the only thing keeping his train of thought vaguely coherent. Around him, most of the children were looking vaguely in the direction of the blackboard, while a few were in whispered conversation behind him. He stopped restricting his muscle movements, opened his hands and looked down at his palms. He saw faint red marks where his nails had been digging in. He brought his hand up to hold his nose. Keeping his mouth closed, he attempted to breathe in. He failed. In every dream he had, that test had never failed. He took another look at the blackboard to confirm it hadn't changed from when he had first looked at it in horror.
4 x 6 = ?
12 x 5 = ?
3 x 17 = ?
Bean was officially in a living nightmare. As far as he could tell, all the children around him seemed to be about his age, although even the short ones were several inches taller.
He was in a third grade classroom.
He knew the I.F was taking measures to keep the position of Eros a secret, but he had at least been conscious for the flight there, sedating him seemed extreme. And what could anyone hope to accomplish by placing him in an Elementary school? Was this all some sort of sick joke by Graff? Had he already selected Bean's new location back on Earth, and intended for him to humiliate himself in his new life by showing he didn't have the patience to last through a child's math class? If so, his expectations of him must have dropped precipitously, perhaps something had happened with Ender to make Graff lose faith in children.
He may as well use this opportunity to try and guess where he had been sent. The International Fleet would probably try to send him somewhere safe, away from any battlelines. He knew the Warsaw Pact had been rattling sabers shortly after the end of the Third Formic War, so he had likely been sent somewhere in the Americas. He took a look at his surroundings. All of the students seemed Asian and they all wore school uniforms, so perhaps he was in some sort of higher end school. He looked over to the teacher. She was an older woman, still going over the second multiplication problem on the board. Bean tried to shake his disbelief over the absurdity of the situation in the first place, and concentrate on what she was saying. She was just going over how you would need to carry the 1 over from the 1's to 10's slot when Bean realized it.
All the words she was speaking sounded different somehow. He grasped the meaning of them immediately, but they weren't IF Common.
He took another look around the classroom to see if there was any writing in the language. Sure enough, he saw unmistakably Japanese characters on some of the posters scattered throughout the classroom. He must have overheard some Japanese whilst in Rotterdam, and his eidetic memory meant that it didn't matter that it was now 6 years ago. However, he had never bothered to study the Japanese writing system in Battle School, so of course he wouldn't know it.
He looked out the window to confirm, and saw Japanese architecture, albeit much of it overrun by plants. He was already turning back to the blackboard when he noticed a flicker of motion outside. He turned back, and sure enough there were aircraft flying overhead, firing backwards at something.
Why would the IF put me right on the frontlines of a war zone?! Unless it wasn't the IF… That would explain why I was unconscious for the flight back, they wouldn't want me or the other children to know who they are. But what faction besides the Warsaw Pact would be strong enough to do that? If the Warsaw Pact had kidnapped me, I'd be in Russia, not somewhere they're invading. Assuming that Russia is even the ones invading right now. Could we be at war with China? China is practically a Warsaw Pact puppet, but given they didn't have the military to resist falling to the Pact in the first place I doubt they're strong enough to pull off a naval invasion of Japan.. Also, if I got kidnapped, why did I wake up in a school? None of these possibilities make any sense.
Bean's train of thought was interrupted by an announcement coming over the speakers.
"As of 12:30PM today, a special state of Emergency has been declared for the Kanto and Chūgoku regions surrounding the Tokai district. All residents must evacuate to their designated shelters immediately. Repeat, as of 12:30PM today…"
Well that confirms it, definitely Japan.
The other students were already filing out of the classroom, so Bean spared a half-second glance at the emergency fire drill map posted on the inside of the door, then followed them out.
He saw everyone was heading right from the door, presumably to the shelter. He needed to gather more information, so he turned left and started running as fast as he could.
He started analysing the map in his mind, deciding to think of the top as North. Turning right from the original classroom led down a hallway that would go down a flight of stairs, turn once, and then exit East on to the street. It was likely the shelter was in that direction.
He thought about the aircraft he had seen just before the announcement. They were outside a window that gave a view to the West of the classroom. He wanted to see what they were fighting, so he needed to make another left as soon as he could. It was doubtful the faculty would notice one student going the wrong direction with all the chaos unfolding. The larger problem was that the hallway was far too small for the amount of students trying to fit through it, and everyone going to the shelter seemed to be trying to walk nearly as fast as Bean was jogging in the opposite direction. It didn't help that they were all far too large.
He felt himself getting shoved in first one direction and then the other, before someone finally pushed him over. He got up as fast as he could to avoid being trampled to death, and kept on heading in his original direction, but at a slower pace. Despite having ran for barely 20 seconds, he was already winded. He cursed the lack of exercise facilities on the asteroid of Eros. He finally cleared the crowd, and picked up his previous sprint.
Up ahead, he spotted the left turn he needed. The exit should be just a few feet past it, and based on what he saw of other external doors, it should be a push door he could use his momentum to open without losing any time.
He turned, and ran straight into a girl who was rummaging inside her bag for something. Going too fast to stop, his body's momentum was unexpectedly used to knock the girl down instead of pushing the door open. His hands, already prepped to push on the horizontal bar required to open the door, were fortunately in a perfect position to stop his fall forward and turn it into an impromptu plank position. Unfortunately, the girl panicked, letting go of her bag and throwing her arms wide trying to stop her own fall. Bean's right arm was thrown wide, and his head subsequently impacted between the girl's bag and chest. He immediately registered a slight pain on the left side of his head, where it had hit the bag.
Of course someone has to get lost not even a minute after a state of emergency declaration. I'm dealing with a bunch of 3rd graders.
Scowling, Bean pushed himself up, muttered an automatic apology, and started back towards the door. After a moment, he registered an irritating pressure stopping him from reaching the door. He turned around to see the girl had grabbed his wrist.
"Hey, are you alright? The shelter is the other way."
Damnit. Wait, why are you here in the first place if you know that?
"I'm fine, and I know." He pulled away and started to open the door. The girl's grasp on him didn't relent however, and he reluctantly turned back. The girl had stood up by now, and she stood several inches above Bean. Her brown eyes looked into Bean's with concern and a hint of curiosity.
"You have to go to the shelters during a state of emergency. How old even are you anyway?"
Great, now the protect the poor little kid act starts.
"I'm 10" Bean lied.
"Liar."
I don't have time for this.
"I really don't care if you believe me or not, I don't have time for a DNA test for you to confirm, and I bet you have better things to do as well."
Stepping back, he pulled his arm away again, much harder this time. Simultaneously, he used his other hand to hit away the arm holding him. He might not have had much muscle after Eros, but he bet he knew far more self defense than this girl did.
"Don't try and stop me" he warned, before running out the door towards where he remembered seeing the aircraft.
He heard footsteps start up behind him. "Wait! I want to see it too!"
Bean sighed. He didn't stop, but did slow his pace slightly. As much as he hated it, he knew he wouldn't be able to keep sprinting for long.
He took some time to take in the environment. Much of the city was made out of slums, and a significant portion of it was overrun by vegetation. He wondered just how long he had been unconscious since Eros. The lack of road maintenance and the vast amount of abandoned cars and buildings meant the city had experienced severe depopulation recently. However, he didn't see direct signs of warfare, so perhaps the civilians had just left in anticipation of it.
Still, that didn't explain why there was an active school in an expected warzone. Sounds of the aircraft firing continued ahead of them. The girl caught up to him and true to her word, didn't try to stop him, but rather just continued running beside him. Bean decided that while she was here, he may as well try to get some information out of her, even if it did end up feeding into her protect-the-little-kid complex.
"Do you know what's going on?"
"Nope." She replied excitedly.
Well she's useless. Good intentions and willingness to act on them mixed with poor decision making isn't a recipe for continued survival. Well, ignoring an evacuation order isn't strictly speaking a good intention. She's not…
He heard the aircraft firing again. This time, it was to his left. A side street led to the left between two abandoned buildings, and he took it, letting the girl keep up if she could.
"You know, you could make more of an effort to make sure I'm still here" the girl complained, but kept up with him without visible exertion.
Halfway down the corridor, he heard an intensifying noise from above and slightly ahead. He came to a halt. Without looking up, he knew exactly what it was, and searched desperately for an escape. The girl stopped her own run to turn to him questioningly. To his right was an open doorway into an abandoned building. He immediately jumped toward the doorway, grabbing on to the girl as he did so and throwing them both on to the ground immediately inside the entrance.
He heard a surprised "What the hell?!" before the crash of the aircraft against the ground made Bean regret not being able to cover his ears due to his arms being occupied. He saw several windows of the building shatter as debris rained through them. After a few moments, he felt the amount of flying objects in the room had decreased to acceptable levels and climbed off the girl.
The room they were in was at the corner of a block, with one entrance on the side street they had entered through, and the other opening to a larger street where the aircraft had crashed. The room appeared to be a shop of some kind. Bean carefully stepped over the broken glass which now littered the floor, over to the opening a window had previously occupied. The aircraft was now on fire, but the structure of it seemed stable enough for now, unlikely to start spewing forth projectiles again at least. A thin veil of smoke covered the street, and Bean thought he saw a boy sitting on the street next to the explosion.
He tensed his muscles, calculating whether it made sense to run to help him or not, before he felt a tap on his shoulder, startling him.
"We should go."
He looked back to see the girl's eyes were wide, her lips quivering, and she was holding her bag in what looked like a death grip.
"We don't even know what shot down that helicopter yet." As Bean was talking, a screech made its way towards them from the street. Bean turned towards it and saw a car coming to a sudden stop perhaps a meter or two in front of the boy. The boy stood up, clutching his arm, and ran into the car, which started accelerating forward before he had even closed the door. Bean thought he saw a glimpse of purple hair on the driver, but it was difficult to tell with the smoke and dust obscuring his view.
How many people could possibly have disobeyed the evacuation order just to get a look at what's going on?
Frustratingly, Bean still hadn't seen what shot down the aircraft. He took a step outside the building, looked up, and reflexively stumbled back inside, falling painfully on his butt.
A giant leg came down from the sky and crushed the burning remains of the aircraft. Yet more debris flew through the air, and one burning piece landed a few inches away from Bean's hand, which he quickly jerked away. He looked at the girl, who
at least had enough common sense to have huddled away from the former windows. She had been staring disbelievingly at the leg, but turned to face Bean. Bean spoke up.
"You know, I think it is time to go."
The girl nodded, and Bean motioned for her to follow him out the same exit they came in from. Once outside the building, they started sprinting as if their lives depended on it, which they likely did.
As Misato drove him towards the Geofront, Shinji slowly tried to calm his breathing and make sense of what had just happened. Somehow, he had been transported from the JSSDF's invasion of NERV back to Sachiel's attack. Asuka had died, he had been in Unit 01 immobilized by the attacking EVAs, and then… he lost track of exactly what happened. He remembered them all impaling themselves for some reason, and talking with someone afterwards. Had it been Rei? He shook his head in an attempt to clear his thoughts, and got reminded of his cut as his arm moved. He took a look down at the arm and tried flexing the muscles. It stung a bit, but it wasn't gushing blood. However, his shirt was ruined. It was fortunate he owned six more exactly like it.
He refocused his mind on the present. While he wasn't sure what he needed to do, he knew he wouldn't be able to manage everyone he cared for dying again.
Actually, maybe that did make his plan fairly obvious. He would not let anyone else get hurt this time.
He looked over at Misato, and couldn't help comparing her to the Misato he had known for the past several weeks. That Misato had always seemed distracted from daily tasks, her interactions with him, even her job at NERV sometimes. This Misato was anchored in the present, and had a cheer he had forgotten she possessed. Her brow furrowed in a way that let Shinji know nothing would distract her from her dual goals of getting Shinji to the Geofront as fast as humanly possible, and setting a new personal high score of traffic violations in a single trip.
His eyes drifted down her body, and caught on her necklace. He wondered why Misato had given it to him before… he felt the back of his neck get hotter as he remembered the scene, and desperately tried to think of anything else.
Misato noticed where Shinji was staring and got a gleam in her eyes as she turned to face towards Shinji without slowing the car.
Shinji noticed his mistake too late. One thing would take priority for Misato over setting a new traffic violation highscore, and that was embarrassing Shinji.
"Soooo, do I live up to your expectations?"
Can't let her know about the necklace can't let her know about the necklace can't let her know-
"I.. euhh…" Shinji choked a bit before getting out a "well, uh, I don't.. yes…?"
"Oooh boy, I better keep an eye on you!" Misato leered at Shinji, only turning back towards the road when she had to dodge a car someone abandoned in the middle of the road, and came a half second away from running over a fire hydrant.
Why didn't I just say I was looking at her necklace, she would have had absolutely zero indication there was anything else to it.
Shinji buried his face in his hands. Why couldn't Toji or Kensuke have lived with Misato instead of me.
He then immediately felt guilty for his thought, remembering what happened to Toji and his sister. I swear, I won't let either of you get hurt again. He thought back to Rei and Asuka and lifted his head back up out of his hands, balling his fists. I won't let any of you get hurt again.
Shinji felt his hands trembling uncontrollably as he, Misato, and Dr. Akagi entered the Cage and stepped aboard the walkway within it. The ceiling lights in the room were all off, so the only lighting came from small emergency lights aboard the walkway. They were enough to see the slowly sloshing LCL a few feet below, but not much more than that.
He had been given a booklet about NERV, and idly flipped through the pages to avoid having to make conversation with the Scientist or the Captain. He dimly registered a longer break in the conversation, and Akagi starting to talk about Unit 01.
"Mankind's Ultimate Weapon, our only fighting chance against the Angels…"
The light in the Cage turned on and Unit 01 was revealed.
Shinji looked up at the Evangelion, the monster that had saved him time after time in battle. The monster that contained his mother, who comforted him after he was trapped within Leliel. The monster which he knew could become his second body as soon as he entered the machine. The monster with which he could do anything.
The monster that had let Asuka die.
The monster that had trapped him to start Third Impact.
Dr. Akagi spoke again, "Shinji, you are to pilot Evangelion Unit 01."
Shinji dropped the booklet, and stumbled backwards on the walkway. Misato lunged and caught him just before he stumbled off completely. He fell down to his knees, unable to stop the torrent of flashbacks.
"Shinji, just concentrate on walking for now.
"Hurry, hurry, you've got to get up!"
"Sorry newcomer, but I had to clobber you"
"He's mean huh? His little sister was injured when you and your little robot fought a battle…"
"You won't die. I'll be protecting you."
"Oh, did I save you?"
"I think… I think I must be the third one."
"Of course that Idiot Shinji is nowhere to be found…"
He was a failure as a pilot. He caused pain to so many close to him every time he piloted. And the Evangelion only seemed to care that Shinji himself was safe, damn everyone else. He closed his eyes, not wanting to confront the monster that had taken so much from him.
Dr. Akagi stepped back, mouth partially open attempting to mount an automatic response. I knew the Evangelion wasn't pleasant to look at, but is it really that terrifying to a child? Maybe I've gotten too used to it working around it for so long.
Misato beat her at replying to Shinji, her hand still grabbing his arm from when he prevented him from dousing himself in LCL. "Shinji, are you alright?" Her voice showed genuine concern, and Shinji attempted to reconcile that with how she had sent him, Rei, and Asuka into battle. How she had let Asuka spiral until it was too late.
Her mutilated body flashed through his mind again, and now he couldn't get it out. They're all going to die again if I don't pilot it.
But every time I do pilot it I mess it up.
He opened his eyes in an attempt to silence the imagery. It didn't work.
An unrecognizing Rei joined Asuka, asking him who he was.
He heard voices around him but didn't register the words.
A crippled little girl looking up at him, not a hint of anger in her eyes.
Time passed, but he didn't register it.
Rei was wheeled out in front of him, Misato directing the crew to swap out the entry plug.
His father, asking him to pilot or leave.
Fury flooded through Shinji. His Evangelion might have been uncaring towards all others, but his father had been the one to cause all this pain and suffering. And he was going to have to help him fulfill all his ambitions again if he wanted everyone to live.
A shockwave spread throughout the Cage, and a piece of the ceiling fell down towards the walkway. Rei, right beside Shinji now, fell off the stretcher.
Instinctively, he shot his arms out and grabbed her before she hit the ground. Shinji was thinly built, and Rei was comparatively heavy for him. He couldn't keep her whole body up for long, and let her legs rest on the ground. As he held her, he felt the slow rise and fall of her breaths. He saw her eyes open in surprise as she took him and his actions in. The slightest expression of confusion coming over her face.
And he realized he could not let her die.
He gently lowered Rei the rest of the way to the ground, stood, and turned to face his father.
"I'll pilot it!"
Bean sat on the floor of the evacuation shelter and sighed. He had starved to the brink of death on the streets of Rotterdam before, but never had he felt like he was losing more brain cells at once than today.
Around him sat the other students from his class. Next to him sat a girl that seemed unable to sit still, and kept on sneaking not-very-covert glances at him.
The two had told the guard outside the shelter that they had gotten lost. While he seemed suspicious, he didn't inquire further. After getting inside, they went relatively unnoticed. Everyone seemed too busy gossiping, freaking out, or both to notice two late students.
After having seemingly given up waiting for something, the girl spoke. "Well, I do find it a bit wrong that I don't know the name of the boy who saved me."
Bean thought for a second. On the one hand, revealing his identity put him at risk if the Warsaw Pact or another superpower was hunting down Battle School graduates. On the other, this girl did owe him, and it didn't seem likely she would willingly out him to anyone. And the only other name that came to mind didn't feel right.
"Bean," he answered after a second.
"Just Bean?" the girl probed.
"That's all you get for now," Bean teased.
"Well Bean, I'm Miki Suzuhara. But you can just call me Miki. How did you know that VTOL was going to crash so close to us?"
"It was just a hunch" Bean really didn't want to have to start explaining Battle School right now.
"You shoved me into the nearest building and tackled me to the ground on a hunch? Do you do that to girls often?"
"Look, the sound was getting louder. That typically implies an object is getting closer. I thought a falling object from the sky might be dangerous."
Miki continued staring at Bean. She looked as if she was about to voice another counterargument, but then decided against it. "Well, next time just don't go in head first. That thing is hard," she complained, rubbing her ribcage in mock agony. Bean rolled his eyes.
"You know what's really hard?" Bean replied, "Your bag. What do you even keep in that anyway, a brick?"
Miki pulled down the bag strapped to her shoulder. "Actually, it's a camera from one of my big brother's friends. I told him I needed it for a school project, so he went and got this loaned for me the next day! Complete with a completely empty cartridge, which was really considerate seeing how old the camera is. Here, look."
Miki opened the bag and pulled out what was now a very clearly damaged camera. A large crack covered most of the length of the main lens, and one of the buttons was also smashed in. Miki stared at the object in shock for several seconds, and then glared at Bean accusingly.
Bean responded before she could voice another complaint at him. "There is no way that was my head."
"Yes way."
"You gotta keep that thing in a case or something…"
Miki continued trying to stare Bean down until it was clear he wasn't going to apologize, at which point she put away the camera. She leaned back against the wall, and thought for a while before speaking up again.
"Oh yeah, Bean?"
"Yeah?"
Miki leaned towards Bean as if she was about to tell him a secret, taking a deep breath in.
"What in the world was that foot that smashed the VTOL?!" she screamed, waving her arms wildly as the panic finally caught up to her.