Evangelion The Rule of Thirds

Lord Raa

Exporter of Juice Tins
#1
Something that I had floating around. I might look into writing more of this one if the feedback is favourable.

Basically, the minor change in this alternative timeline is that Yui's gift to Shinji wasn't an SDAT music player, but a digital camera.


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The Rule of Thirds


An Evangelion story by Lord Raa

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Disclaim-me-do: Let’s get real for a moment: Pooping is awesome.


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Part 1


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Shinji Ikari looked around the abandoned train station. The lack of people made it feel eerie, but there was something that made him feel he could get some good photos of the area. He felt the urge to look over his shoulder. As he turned, he saw her.

The “her” in question was a girl with pale skin and blue hair. She was dressed in a school uniform and she stood out in the middle of the road as if she didn't have a care in the world.

Shinji knew he had to take her picture. A single figure in an abandoned cityscape would be a great image, something striking that could make his visit to Tokyo-3 worthwhile.

The young man fumbled for his trusty compact camera. It was an old model, one that had been discontinued long ago, but it was his primary camera for a good reason: It had belonged to his mother.

Readying the digital device, Shinji looked up to see that the figure had disappeared. He frowned. His peers at the photography club often joked that he could see things that others couldn't, but that was a different thing to hallucinating.

Before he could give it any more thought, a bomber flew overhead, its powerful jet engines screaming as it hurtled through the sky. As his ears recovered from punishing noise, he noticed a car racing towards him. It was a dark blue sporty model, one that Shinji couldn't identify.

It screeched to a halt, the punished tyres kicking up a cloud of dust that made the teenager cough slight

“Hi there, Shinji Ikari, sorry I'm late,” the driver apologised with smile.

Shinji looked up to see who the amateur racer was and blinked in surprise. It was a beautiful woman with long purple hair. He lifted his camera up and took a picture on reflex.

The woman noticed the camera and smiled broadly. “We can do a photoshoot later, but we've got to get going. Put the camera away and get in.”

“Oh, right,” Shinji nodded. He did as he was told and climbed into the passenger seat.

“I'm Captain Katsuragi, and I'm here to take you to NERV,” the woman said as Shinji buckled up.

“NERV?”

“Yeah, it's what your father has been doing.”

“Father….” Shinji repeated sadly. He looked up at the driver. “So what do you do at NERV, Captain Katsuragi?”

“It's complicated. But read this while I drive us there,” the Captain said, handing over a dossier. She gave him a wink. “And call me Misato.”


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Three weeks later, Shinji Ikari found himself being accosted by a larger boy from his class.

“Just what do you think you're playing at, new kid?” the aggressive youth demanded.

“W-what do you mean?” Shinji replied, confused.

“You pilot that purple robot! Because you were careless, people got hurt!”

“I didn’t mean to hurt anyone!” the pilot protested. “I didn’t ask to pilot it, they told me that I’m only one who can.”

A red mist descended on the youth and he punched Shinji in the face, connecting with his left eye. As Shinji fell backwards on to the ground, his compact camera fell out of his pocket. He scrambled to retrieve it, but was beaten to it by his assailant.

“Oh, what's this? A camera? This is a bit crappy,” the boy in the tracksuit said as he inspected the old camera.

The silver-coloured plastic casing had countless scratches on it, indicating it has seen many years of use.

“G-give that back!” Shinji said, slowly lifting himself off the ground.

“You hurt my sister when you piloted that robot, so it's only fair if I hurt something of yours. And remember, you can always get a new camera, I can't get a new sister.”

The camera was thrown to the floor. It bounced once before being stamped on by Shinji's attacker. When it broke into a thousand pieces, it was Shinji's turn to see red.

The pilot leapt to his feet and started swinging for the boy's face. The first punch failed to connect, but the second and third did, causing the taller boy to stagger back. The flurry of punches continued to connect, knocking the tracksuit clad boy to the ground.

Shinji started to pound his nemesis to the dirt when three people came running up to him.

“Stop it!” a young brunette instructed.

Shinji turned to the interlopers and glared at them, stopping two of them in their tracks. The third was Rei Ayanami, and she continued to approach the scene.

“Ikari-kun, you are required at NERV,” the blue-haired girl said in her neutral tone.

“What?” Shinji asked, panting as he forced air into his chest.

“You are required at NERV,” Rei repeated. “It is your top priority.”

“What happened?” the brunette asked.

Calming down slightly, Shinji looked down at the bloodied face of the boy who'd broken his most prized possession. He felt slightly bad, but if he hadn't broken his mother's camera, he wouldn't have had to beat him up. As he took in more details of the injuries he'd caused the boy on the ground, the young Ikari felt a little nauseous.

“I….” Shinji trailed off as he fainted.

Kensuke Aida pulled the pilot off his friend and the brunette attended to him.

“You picked a fight with the wrong kid, Touji,” he said as he pulled out a handkerchief and wiped away some of the blood from the injured boy's face.

“Caught me off-guard, that's all,” Touji insisted weakly.

Rei noticed that there was a pile of debris on the ground. She leant down to inspect it. There was a number of plastic shards, printed circuit boards and broken glass. She blinked slowly as she realised what it was that had been destroyed.

‘This was a camera. If Ikari-kun had a camera and Suzuhara-kun damaged it, then it might cause a fight. But if Ikari-kun is normally timid, then this must have great value to him for him to become so enraged,’ the blue-haired girl reasoned. She gathered the bits up and placed them into her bag.

If the camera could not be repaired, and it looked pretty hopeless, then at least it could be properly disposed of, and where possible, components recycled.

Shinji started to come to and blinked in the bright sun. “W-what happened?”

“That’s-” the brunette's response was cut off by Rei repeating that Shinji was required at NERV immediately.

“Oh, OK,” the young Ikari said slowly getting to his feet. “Let’s get going, Ayanami-san.”


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Misato noticed that Shinji didn't look well when he came into NERV with Rei.

“Are you alright, Shinji?” she asked. Her eyes scanned the young man for signs of distress and noticed that his knuckles looked red. “Did you get into a fight?”

“I... Yes, Misato-san,” the young Ikari said, not able to look her in the face.

“What happened?” Before Shinji could formulate an answer, an alert sounded. “Crap. Shinji, get ready to pilot.”

“Y-yes, Misato-san.”

As Shinji ran off to the locker-room, Rei opened her school bag.

“I believe that Ikari-kun was upset about the destruction of his camera,” the blue-haired girl explained as she held up a large piece of the case.

“He did like that camera, but it was a pretty old one. I'm sure that he could get a much better one these days,” Misato mused.

“Perhaps it had value to Ikari-kun?”

“Maybe. But we don't have time to think about it now, we’ve got an Angel attacking us.”


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Shinji's classmates were bored as they sat in the shelter. The class representative, Hikari Horaki seemed to be making the best of a bad situation as she kept herself busy looking after the others present.

Kensuke was surprised that Shinji had been able to overpower Touji.

Touji Suzuhara was big for his age. He was not academically inclined and spoke with rather rough language patterns when compared to the others in his class. He was, at least looking from afar, a prime candidate to be a bully.

And maybe he could have been a juvenile delinquent in another life, one where he didn’t have a sister that had been injured during Shinji's first mission in the Evangelion.

Touji's sister, Sakura, had been injured when the shelter she’d been in had been hit by the Evangelion. It had been quite bad, so much so that Touji had spent most of the last three weeks visiting her in the hospital rather than attending school.

Like most of the young people in Tokyo-3, Touji and Sakura’s parents were often busy. It was creating a generation of latchkey kids that, while somewhat self-reliant for basic functions like cooking and cleaning, were often struggling to deal with emotional problems that came from adolescence. Having crusty old teachers who would have retired years ago if it wasn't for a lack of replacements didn’t help matters much, either.

Touji was angry. Angry with himself for letting someone as spindly as Shinji get the jump on him, but twice as angry with Shinji for what he did to hurt his sister and the beating he’d received at his hands.

“Kensuke, you have to help me get Shinji back.”

“Dude, you sure about that? I mean, from what you told me, he wasn’t going to fight back until you broke his camera.”

“Camera? You think I give a shit about a camera when Sakura’s in the hospital?” the bruised youth growled.

When several people turned to look at the pair, Kensuke suggested they find somewhere more private for their discussion.

“Hey, Rep, we need to take a leak,” Touji called over to Hikari.

“You should have gone before we got here,” Hikari chided.

“Didn’t need to go then. Besides, I could do with some cold water on my face.”

Hikari frowned for a moment before sighing. “Alright, but come straight back, OK?”

“Sure thing,” Touji lied.


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In the men’s room, Touji and Kensuke continued their discussion about what to do with Shinji Ikari.

“I’m telling you that you should drop it, Touji.”

“I can’t do that.”

The bespectacled youth shook his head. “You don’t get it, Touji. Ikari works for NERV and he’s the only one who can pilot that robot. If you try something, they’re gonna stop you. Probably permanently.”

Touji bristled for a moment, then his friend’s words sank in. “Maybe. But that doesn’t mean I have to like him.”

“I’m not saying you have to be friends,” Kensuke said before heading to a urinal. “I’m just saying that you have to use some subtlety if you want to get him back.”

“Like what?” Touji asked. “Like some kind of scheme? Your great plan to get us a peek in the girls’ locker room didn't work, did it?”

“That's because you wouldn’t wait your turn and made too much noise,” Kensuke shot back. “My point is that you don’t have to use your fists to get your own back. I can come up with a plan, but I need your help for something….”

“You’re on your own with that.”

“Not this, you idiot,” the otaku said as he finished urinating. “I need your help sneaking out to get a look at the robot!”

“Why? It’s dangerous! It's why we’re in the shelter.”

“But I gotta see the robot for myself!”

“You’re gonna get us killed!”

“But….”

“If I get hurt out there, who's gonna look after Sakura?” Touji asked. “Look, I'll deal with Ikari when we get out of here. I’ll figure something out on my own.”

“But….” Kensuke protested weakly, his dreams of seeing a giant robot fight crumbling away.

“Dude, if you want to go that badly, go on your own. I won’t snitch on you, but I ain’t helping you get us killed.”

“Alright,” Aida sighed in defeat. “We’ll head back.”


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Not only had Shinji had managed to kill the marauder that had threatened Tokyo-3 with minimal property damage, he'd managed to leave a large amount of the Angel intact enough to permit a vast amount of data collection and analyses. Were it not for the highly classified nature of NERV's work, several PhD theses would have had some fine subject matter.

Ritsuko Akagi was looking forward to seeing what could be learned from the Angel and was about to leave for the site when Rei approached her office.

“What is it, Rei?” the bottle blonde asked, hoping that this could be tied up quickly.

“There was an incident school just before we arrived at NERV.”

“I heard that Shinji go into fight, what of it?”

“I believe that Ikari-kun was distressed at the destruction of a camera,” Rei answered as she pulled out several fragments of the camera in question. “I have inspected it for clues as to its make, model and quality as a camera, and I have determined that it was an older model that has long been discontinued and superseded by other cameras that are even cheaper to purchase than this one was.”

Ritsuko looked at the camera and quickly concluded that it was basically landfill. “Unfortunate, but I am about to head out to the Angel to oversee sample collection, Rei. So please, make your point quickly.”

“I was curious as to what kind of value such an obsolete device could have for someone.”

“It’s likely that it was a gift from someone who was important to Shinji. Look, I’m too busy to help with this right now, but if you take it to the tech lab, they might be able to recover some of the images but it would be a low priority for them. Of course, you could always ask Shinji who gave it to him. If you tell him the tech lab are trying to recover images, he might tell you about it. Or he might cry I don’t know, I’ve got more important things to deal with right now.”

Rei nodded as she replaced the pieces of plastic into her bag and walked out of the office.

“Why is it always me they come to with their problems?” the faux-blonde sighed in frustration. After shaking her head to regain her focus, Ritsuko grabbed her bag and headed out to the car park.


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Misato walked to where Ritsuko was supervising the sample recovery work. The teams had erected a shroud and the local police a cordon to keep prying eyes from getting too close to the nature of the hulk that had menaced the city. The speed of the work had impressed the Captain, but she'd decided against mentioning that, lest one of the workers get the wrong idea.

“How’s it going, Ritsuko?”

“Not too bad,” the bottle blonde replied. “Thanks to Shinji, we managed to recover the Angel mostly intact. We’re going to learn a lot from this, so when you see Shinji again, tell him I said thanks.”

“About Shinji….” Misato smiled nervously.

“What about him?”

“He’s feeling a bit down at the moment.”

“Why? Did you shout at him for burning dinner?”

“No, it’s…. well, he’s kinda depressed at the moment.”

“I don’t mean to be rude, Misato, but I’m busy overseeing the recovery on an Angel right now. Samples have to be properly catalogued and preserved. You’re his guardian, you take care of him,” Ritsuko said, frustration creeping into her voice. “I’m too busy to be the number one problem solver of NERV.”

“Sorry,” Misato winced.

“Look,” the scientist sighed. “Rei mentioned something about a camera earlier. I told her to take it to the tech lab to see if they could recover any images. Maybe you could tell Shinji that they’re working to help him out?”

The Captain nodded. “Yeah, that might help. Thanks, Ritsuko. If you need anything from me, let me know, OK?”

“I'll hold you to that,” Ritsuko smirked. “Now, get out of here and let me do my work.”

“Sure thing, Doctor Akagi,” Misato said with a crisp salute.


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The tech lab at NERV was a department that didn't stand on ceremony or formality amongst its members. They had a loose interpretation of the standard dress code and tended to treat each other as members of an after school club rather than members of the well-funded technical team that they were.

They kept to themselves as they completed their tasks and they didn’t cause trouble for other departments, so a number of NERV employees were unaware of their existence. A few that were made them the butt of a few jokes, but it was nothing that they hadn’t heard before.

The main reason for their allowed leeway was the fact that the Commander had given them a few highly classified tasks that had been completed to his exacting standards.

When one factored in the climate control, it was a pleasant environment for a number of socially awkward otaku who liked to discuss the merits of various fictional characters.

There was a knock on the door and nearest tech and Kenichi Aoyama wanted to see who wanted to talk to them. He looked at the security camera and saw it was Rei Ayanami.

“Can I help you, Ayanami-san?” he asked into the intercom.

“¬I was told to come here by Dr. Akagi,¬” a calm voice replied. “¬She said that you might be able to assist me.¬”

“Hang on,” Kenichi said as he hit the door release.

Rei walked into the lab, noticing the temperature was lower than that of the corridor. She glanced at a digital thermometer and saw that it was 20°C, while the humidity was 36%.

“What can we do for you, Ayanami-san?” he asked as he watched the door close. Visitors were rare to the tech lab, but not always unwelcome.

“I have the remains of a digital camera. Is it possible to recover the images from it?”

“Possibly,” Kenichi answered. “It would depend on the damage and state of the data. What are we dealing with?”

Rei pulled out the small clear plastic bag that contained the remains of Shinji's camera. “This.”

Kenichi laughed. “I might be able to get a fingerprint from that.”

“I do not require a fingerprint, as I know who its owner is,” the blue-haired girl said. “It belonged to Shinji Ikari.”

“The Commander’s son?” another tech asked as he walked over with a cup of coffee in his right hand. He saw that there was a fragment of a memory card amongst the debris. “I can see a bit of a memory card, can I take a closer look?”

“Yes,” Rei said.

The second tech, Hikaru Kazuma placed his cup down and opened the bag, spreading the contents over the desk. Using a pair of tweezers, he retrieved the parts that looked like they might have made up a memory card in a previous life.

“What do you think, Hikaru?” Kenichi asked.

“Some memory cards do have a reputation for robustness, so perhaps we'll get lucky. Most of the data will be lost, but we might manage something. Let me check my box of tricks,” Hikaru winked.

A few minutes later, he'd pulled out an old piece of equipment from a drawer and connected it to a computer.

“What is that?” Rei asked.

“It's an old memory card reader,” Kenichi answered. “Hikaru's something of a hoarder.”

“Oh, that's not good. Err… I know,” Hikaru said as he reached for a set of screwdrivers. He opened the card reader and gently placed the part of the memory card that had the contacts onto the corresponding location.

A chime indicated that something had been connected to the PC.

“Excelsior!” Hikaru exclaimed. “Well, it’s seeing what’s left of the card, at least.”

Rei nodded once. She knew from Dr. Akagi’s earlier reaction that this might be a fruitless endeavour.

The computer accessed what remained of the memory card and showed four filenames.

“Well, let’s see what we’ve got here,” Hikaru smiled. “A formatting file to help the system read the card. Three image files….”

The computer accessed the images and showed the most recent one.

“That’s Captain Katsuragi!” Kenichi announced when the face was shown on the monitor.

“Yeah…. Man, Shinji’s got some talent,” Hikaru said, admiring the way Shinji had managed to capture a casual beauty in the Captain's face. He saw the look on his colleague's face and nodded. A few keystrokes later, and the image had been saved to a backup location. “Let’s see what else there is.”

The next image was an older one, one that according to the metadata, had the creation date of April 2004. As it loaded, the two techs noted that it showed a research facility of some kind. Then they saw the face. They knew it felt familiar, but couldn’t place it. They also decided that this woman was attractive.

“I wonder who that is,” Hikaru mused as he copied the image to his back up. “Last image.”

The third image had been corrupted slightly, causing some artefacts and colour loss, but it showed someone who looked like the same woman as the previous image with two other figures.

“Send it to my workstation, Hikaru, and I'll run it through the image enhancer,” Kenichi said moving back to his desk. A flurry of keystrokes and mouse clicks loaded up the appropriate software and after a minute, he was importing the image. Another minute later, and the software was performing its first pass.

It had removed enough of the artefacts to reveal that the woman was the same as the previous image and the second figure was an adult male and the third figure was a child.

A second pass showed that the second adult was Commander Ikari.

“Oh….”

“Yeah, this is….”

Not knowing what else to say, Kenichi completed the third pass to see that it was a young boy with the two adults, one that could have been Shinji Ikari. “That’s the best I can do.”

“That is sufficient. Please may I have copies of the images you have recovered,” Rei asked.

Not having a reason to refuse the girl, Hikaru printed off the images he had and waited for Kenichi to print the extrapolated version of the family photo. “Here you go, Ayanami-san.”

“Thank you. You have been most helpful,” the blue-haired girl bowed before leaving the technicians.

“Man, that Shinji's got some serious talent,” Kenichi declared. “That pic of Captain Katsuragi was great.”

“Yeah, but let’s be honest here, Captain Katsuragi would look good if you had her portrait done in finger-painting.”

“True.”

The techs sat in silence as they pondered what to do with the rest of their day.

“I think I’ve just had a stupid idea….”

“Go on, Hikaru-kun.”

“Consider this, Shinji-kun will want a new camera. What if we were to furnish him with one. One that happened to automatically upload the images to our server.”

“Your ideas intrigue me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter. I'll get the coffee in and you start thinking about what sort of thing we should make for Shinji-kun.”


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Shinji sat at NERV, feeling sorry for himself. It wasn’t that he was unhappy at being at NERV or even in the employ of his distant and callous father.

He felt bad for injuring his classmate. He knew that if Kensuke Aida hadn’t intervened when he had, he might have killed that boy. Not that the boy was entirely innocent in the matter, given the destruction of his mother's camera, but perhaps he’d overreacted.

Letting out a sigh, Shinji looked up at the ceiling, hoping for some guidance as to what to do next.

He wasn’t expecting to see Rei Ayanami approach him.

“Ikari-kun, I have some things to show you.”

The young Ikari blinked in surprise, but rose to his feet to greet his fellow pilot.

“What is it, Ayanami-san?”

“I believe that the destruction of your camera was the reason for your altercation with Suzuhara-kun,” the blue-haired girl said. “Unfortunately, while it was not possible to repair your camera, it was possible to recover these three images.”

Shinji took the printouts from Rei and felt his heart soar. “It’s….” he started to say, but he started to choke up and tears formed in his eye. “T-thank you, Ayanami-san.”

Misato saw Shinji was talking to Rei and realised that this might be a good chance to find out what was bothering her roommate. As she approached, she saw that Shinji was in tears, but still smiling.

“Normally, it’s the boys who make girls cry,” she said playfully.

“No, it’s just….” Shinji struggled to speak and just showed Misato the pictures.

The Captain looked over the pictures, when she saw the group shot of the Ikaris, she realised why that camera had meant something to Shinji. The other shot made her raise an eyebrow.

“So, I should make a note that it’s not a banana in your pocket and that you’re happy to see me,” she teased, causing much embarrassment for Shinji. “But I’m glad that you’re feeling better. Ready go home?”

“Y-yeah,” the teenaged boy nodded. “Thank you again, Ayanami-san.”


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To be continued... ?
 
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