Here's some more.
===
They had claimed that the extended stay in the testing area was his punishment for disobeying a direct order. They knew how much he hated it, knew how much it hurt even in spite of the - what had she called it again? Altered nerve endings surrounding the attachment? Something like that. Still hurt. Maybe not as bad as it ought to but it still hurt.
But no. No, of course not. The real punishment was yet to come, and it would happen in such an innocuous manner that it did not seem that way. Not at first. It had begun when he and Misato arrived home, and she said to him ôYouÆve had a hard day. DonÆt worry about dinner tonight. IÆll take care of it.ö
Of course, he tried to gently remind her that it was his chore to make dinner and that really, he didnÆt mind. She insisted. Shinji buckled, and now he was staring down at some insane mixture of instant noodles, beer, whipped cream and - æWhen did we get ice cream sprinkles?Æ He risked a look up and winced at the sight of Misato wolfing hers down without a care in the world. HeÆd seen shark attacks in documentaries that less thoroughly consumed their prey.
ôNow that was good eating!ö she said upon finishing. ôThis is the life!ö
Shinji reluctantly fed a small amount into his mouth, and it felt like the room did a simultaneous 360 degrees flip around every axis. Not his most unpleasant experience of the day, but it ranked in the top three.
ôHow did the weapons test go?ö Misato asked, but Shinji doubted that she didnÆt already know. She wanted to hear him say it. Well, fine.
ôIt didnÆt work,ö he said, pausing to take another reluctant mouthful of the meal in front of him. Nope. Much less painful to talk about the test. ôI tried to activate it like my other power, but it didnÆt take at all. Thank goodnessö
ôYou know, itÆs funny. Some boys would love to be in the place youÆre in right now,ö Misato said. ôPiloting giant robots, fighting alien monsters, getting superpowers. That Aida kid would probably sell a lung for a chance at this.ö
ôNo way,ö Shinji said. ôI donÆt believe that. Who would ever want powers like this?ö
On the other side of the planet, a red haired girl cursed the dusty room she was sitting in.
ôWho would ever want to have to fight monsters on a regular basis, being forced to fight weird alien things with even weirder alien powers?!ö
This time, the red haired girl swore a lot louder, paused the video she was watching and stormed off to get some allergy medication.
ôWho would ever want to be a freak like me?ö
The red haired girl felt a sneeze coming on... but it never arrived. Which was in its own way much more annoying than the actual sneeze.
ôEh? Well, thatÆs a shame!ö Misato leaned forward conspiratorially. ôYou could have put those whips to pretty good use on some lucky girl, huh?ö
ôM-Misato! I - I would never -ö
ôHm, or then again you might prefer to put that bone to good use instead? Just like a piston, isnÆt it?ö
Ah. HeÆd been wrong once again. The meal was not his punishment. It was the simple fact that the mental image inscribing itself unto his subconscious would not leave him until the day he died. Perhaps not even then.
ôEat up, Shinji! A growing boy like you canÆt afford to skip a meal,ö Misato said moments before gulping down another can of beer.
A growing boy like him couldnÆt afford a lot of things. The burden of having to pilot a giant robot to save more lives than he could imagine. The strain and responsibility that inevitably came from acquiring Angelic powers. The knowledge that he was a freak and that his actions today may have turned two other boys into one as well. Weirdos. Oddities. Creatures. Inhuman.
Nothing else for it. Shinji took a few deep breaths and wolfed down the - meal was the wrong word but nothing better sprung to mind - under the impression that it would be much better if he got it all out of the way all at once. The band aid principle. One sharp tug hurt way less for less time than attempting to gradually peel it off. This would hurt for a little bit but it would be better for him overall than sitting there picking at it for hours at a time.
Shinji let the container slide from his fingers barely noticing as it clattered against the table and rolled to the floor. All of a sudden he had much bigger concerns ahead of him, like the way that the ceiling was winking at him and beckoning for him to join it on jolly Jupiter where the happy cooks of the gas giant promised upon their third head and their heliotrope eyebrows that the pig people of alpha centauri would be forced to ride penguins to the moon. But first, the skunk plushies of stinkworld demand broccoli!
ôShinji? You alright?ö Misato said. When did she arrive on the SS Dust Bunny? Never mind! Her tactical genius and alcoholism was exactly what they needed to fight off the vodka horde! ôHere, drink this. You look a little parched.ö
The water drew him back down to Earth as the aftertaste retreated down towards his stomach. Which as an aside appeared to be more full of raw hatred than potential nourishment right about now.
ôI think IÆm going to go listen to music for a little while,ö Shinji said. He rose a bit slower than he liked from the table and damned the floor beneath his feet for being so determined to try and make him stumble. He arrived at the room with no further incident and lay in his bed, too lost in thought to properly enjoy his favourite musical piece.
He made an unconscious flexing motion with his arm, remembering what it felt like to have bone move under the arm. It didnÆt hurt, but that only served to make the experience all the more weird, all that more surreal and all that more exhilarating. It was power. Real power. Not borrowed from the Evangelion. His father could at a momentÆs notice deliver any of a dozen possible means to shut that down. This power was his and it felt good to use it. Nothing could take it away from him.
Of all the horrors Shinji had experienced since arriving in Tokyo 3, that was the one that chilled his spine the most. He didnÆt want any more powers but he ached for it. He was glad he didnÆt want the whip arms and felt guilty for the possibility that someone else should have it but he felt jealous of them, cursed himself for letting them taste this sweet nectar. Two conflicting sets of emotions whirling in his brain. He was a freak. He was not normal which means not boring which means people would not accept him screw acceptance you have power so they would leave him alone or hurt him they would not dare, you can make them stay force them to.
He flexed his hands again, and tried to move muscles he did not have at the moment. All it would take was a whisper and they would appear. All it would take was a whisper. All it would take...
Shinji lay perfectly still on his bed as the music continued to play. He barely even noticed his eyes drifting closed.
===
Imagine an apple. A simple ordinary apple. Could be red, could be ripe, doesnÆt matter. Just picture a single apple. Got the image? Okay! Imagine two of the same apple side by side. Got that? Good! Now try a row of ten apples, side by side same as before. Once that image is held, try two hundred and five. Two hundred and five apples sitting on some surface or other. White empty space, a field, a carpeted floor. DoesnÆt matter. Just, try to picture that without visual assistance. CanÆt be done. Not by most humans anyway. All that most people would say is something like ôthatÆs a lot of apples.ö Not a wrong answer necessarily, it kind of is a lot of apples to gather in one place and put all in a row for whatever quirky reason that probably only really makes sense in the head of whoever set the situation up. But, that was kind of the point. Humans have trouble with big numbers, largely because it is often difficult to properly visualise what that number represents.
As another more pertinent example, the various dimensions of the Evangelion. Height, width, depth, weight, mass, power requirements. Speak those numbers to an average person and the response would be a whistle and ôthatÆs a lotö. Yes. It was a lot. It really was. However! Until one found oneself standing at the feet of one of these monstrously huge structures, until one gazed into its eyes that lay somewhere between alive and dead... Until one of these was performed then the true nature of ôbigö did not quite occur.
It was not big in the same way that space was, which was more along the lines of vast and infinite. A beautiful, glorious nothing filled with massively tiny somethings so far away that a lot of them had probably ceased to exist by the time we noticed them. This was a different kind of big, the kind that had weight to it. A size you could touch, feel beneath your suddenly fragile seeming fingertips. It was not merely big. It was alive.
Right at this very moment, Ritsuko Akagi was staring down at one of the two Evangelions they had from a walkway so high above the floor that if she happened to trip and fall she would be dead long before hitting anything. Good thing she wasnÆt the clumsy or careless sort. Then again, nor was her mother...
ôHow long will the repairs be?ö Gendo Ikari said. The man moved like a ghost when he had the mind to. How long had he been there as she stared in contemplation at the culmination of the life work of - how many people? Too many to count, yet it was a fraction of the number that owed their lives to this very project.
ôAnother few days. A week at most.ö Ritsuko chuckled and shook her head. ôItÆs funny, isnÆt it? After two battles with an Angel, Unit 01 has sustained less damage than Unit 00 inflicted to itself.ö
ôSome might call that irony,ö Gendo adjusted his glasses. ôI am more concerned whether it shall occur again. Will it?ö
ôIt never behaved this way in previous tests. For whatever reason, Unit 00 has rejected Weapon Get.ö Ritsuko scowled down at it, and she could swear that even though it hadnÆt moved an inch, it was looking back up at her with mutual animosity. ôBefore you ask I donÆt know why. Not yet. Even I donÆt fully understand the system yet. I donÆt know why it worked for Unit 01 - and according to the report from Germany Unit 02Æs tests went even better - but not for Unit 00.ö
ôDo you understand why Shinji was not the recipient of the latest weapon?ö
Ritsuko shook her head in disappointment. ôNo. No, I donÆt understand that quite yet. He was the one that was synced with the Eva. He was the one that had received it the last time. Shinji should have gained the ability to turn his arms into whips with two spoken words and yet his classmate got it instead.ö
ôIs it possible to transfer the weapon to its rightful owner?ö
Him and his scenario. æPlan AÆ he called it. This was his philosophy. Always have a backup plan. Always. Even if things look like theyÆre going well, it simply means you have the better opportunity to plan for when things to tits up. If anything, Plan A was helped by Unit 00Æs rejection of Weapon Get. She wondered if heÆd intentionally sabotaged the experiment to prevent Plan AÆs possibly failure, but soon dismissed that possibility. Sure, he could have. Sure, it would fit in with his normal method of operation. But! It would interfere significantly with Plans B and C if anything did go wrong, much like the failure very nearly did.
Besides which even if he had, sheÆd never be able to get at the truth. The best thing to do was ignore the possibility unless she happened to somehow stumble upon evidence to the contrary. A small amount of paranoia was healthy while working for Nerv. Too much got a person killed. Finding the right balance was the trick.
ôNo,ö she said after considering the problem for a moment. ôNot until we can determine the reason Shinji didnÆt get the power originally. That being said, it might be a good idea to have our little weapon thief come back in for further tests.ö
ôYour determination to put the fear of science!!! into him may make the boy unwilling to return.ö
ôThat wonÆt be a problem,ö Ritsuko smirked. ôI have the perfect lure in mind to reel him in. Oh yes, if he thinks interfering in my system would merely result in him suffering just once then the brat has another thing coming! IÆll start with stress testing to see how long the whip arms can reach, and then - ô
Most people would let her get on with ranting, back off and hope she didnÆt notice. Gendo Ikari was made of sterner stuff. Some might well say the sternest. His reaction to the outburst was to simply look at her, peering through his glasses with an unblinking gaze. This was sufficient to make her wilt, but he had to be quite careful. Too much might have caused her to back up a little too far, which might lead to her backing up rather a lot further in an uncomfortably perpendicular direction.
ôAhem!ö Ritsuko coughed, mildly embarrassed by her outburst. ôIt goes without saying that both boys had it made perfectly clear to them that if they even hint at the existence of Weapon Get outside these walls, I will be given carte blanche to get a little more creative in dealing with them.ö
ôOutside interference cannot be tolerated. In this one case, you may be able to learn useful information.ö GendoÆs focus shifted as he took a tiny step forward, closer to the edge so that he could better look down upon Unit 00. ôRei will be returning to school tomorrow.ö
ôAlready? She has a rather remarkable recovery time, given her injuries.ö
ôShe has expressed a... fascination with the Third Child.ö
ôHer? Fascinated by something? How novel. I didnÆt think she had the capacity for curiosity.ö
ôIt is not curiosity as we would understand it. Rei perceives the world in a very different way from most people around her. It makes life difficult for her.ö
Ritsuko chuckled. ôHow do we know that what we see as red is the same as what everyone else sees? It is our senses that define how we perceive the outside world, yet each of them is so easy to deceive.ö
Gendo tapped a hidden button in his collar, prompting two flames to propel from the sole of both shoes. ôInform me when progress is made on any of these issues,ö he said, arms crossed behind his back as his jet shoes lifted him off the platform and carried him up towards the ceiling, where a panel slid open directly above him. ôAnd visit me in my office later for stress relief. Bring your electro-magnetic paddle.ö
As he walked off, Ritsuko let herself chuckle, not maniacally, she could keep that in check for a private joke like this. They said she was the one with the mad scientist tendencies, oh yes. She couldnÆt hear the gossip but she knew it was out there. If only they could guess that Gendo made her look particularly serene in comparison. He was simply that much better at hiding it.
===
The lights were out. It was pitch black outside. The light on the street outside was broken again because the blasted repairman was an idiot that didnÆt know what he was even doing and would have been fired months ago if he wasnÆt connected in some way or another, which made Asuka particularly sick because sheÆd had more than enough of nepotism for today thank you very much.
The sole light source in the room was the television in front of her, with an ion gun shooting out a series of charged particles of electricity through a cathode ray tube, painting images in rapid enough succession to trick the human eye into believing they were witnessing continuous movement on the screen.
At this very moment the motion in question involved a purple Evangelion firing massive bone spears out of its arm at the Angel it was fighting.
Weapon Get worked as advertised. Wonderful news. Exciting. Exhilarating. See how she skips around the room in a state of sheer anticipatory bliss and joy and butterflies and rainbows. See how glad she is that her earlier test of the systemÆs implementation with her own Eva merited greater results than any of Unit 01Æs. What, couldnÆt you see it? CanÆt you tell from the smile on her face, the twinkle in her eye, the spring in her step? Oh? You canÆt? Why not?
Because she was sitting in front of a television in a dimly lit room, scowling at it with the intention of setting it on fire with her mind. Jealousy is not a particularly nice emotion to be at either end of, but Asuka knew that she couldnÆt help but swim in it. Damned lucky Third Child! A rookie! A stinking, rotten, lucky lucky lucky rookie got to play with her favourite toy before she ever got the chance! And why was that? Oh! HeÆs the son of NervÆs Commander! So, of course he gets first crack of the whip! Well! Surely by now everybody would see that the Angels were attacking just one place. Only one. Japan. Soon enough they would send her along, and sheÆd surpass the Third and his stupid looking purple giant. Was it supposed to be cool? Before her glorious Unit 02 it would crumble to dust in any competition of coolness! Effortless flawless victory!
The door behind her creaked open a crack and additional light flit into the room across her back. It made her wince a little.
ôHow long have you been watching that recording?ö Kaji asked. She didnÆt know the answer, hadnÆt been watching the time. Too jealous to care. ôShouldnÆt watch television in the dark like this. Bad for your eyes.ö
ôAre they sending me yet? TheyÆd be fools not to,ö Asuka said, turning around only to give him a polite smile.
ôThen fools be they! In their exact words æOnce we can ignore. Twice is a coincidence. Three times is a pattern.Æ Seems like youÆll have to wait for another one to appear in Japan before they try anything.ö
Asuka scowled at the television. ôSo heÆll creep ahead by another Angel. Hmph! I suppose if I must give him that much of a headstart, so be it! IÆll catch up to his kill count in no time flat, just you watch me!ö
Kaji chuckled, and sat on the couch behind her. ôThe next one may not even attack Japan, you know. What will you do then?ö
ôOh please! Of course itÆll attack Japan! Two separate Angel attacks hitting the same place so soon after each other? And it just so happens to be the one facility to have two Evas - two of them - ready before anywhere else had even finished with one? The Angels want something there, and for whatever reason everyone in command knows that and wants to keep it covered up.ö
ôSmart girl,ö Kaji said, prompting Asuka to turn and smile at him. He rubbed his chin in thought. ôI wonder what it is...ö
ôI donÆt care,ö Asuka shrugged. ôSo long as they donÆt get it before I get sent there, the Angels never will! IÆll stop them at every step, and my wonderful Unit 02 will steal every weapon they have along the way!ö
ôOh, Asuka! IÆm not sure about this Weapon Get system. DoesnÆt something about it strike you as odd? What if there are side effects we donÆt know about yet?ö
ôThe only side effect of Weapon Get,ö AsukaÆs smile took on a darker tone, as a single word echoed in her mind. It would be hers. It would be her just reward for hard work, for toil for sweat and for tears. All for her. Not for some lucky rookie that so happened to be the commanderÆs son. Not for someone that simply tripped into the position. No. It was all hers and hers alone, just for the taking. ôIs awesome power.ö
===
Was that the worst the insects could manage? They had thrown their worst and the damage was already nearly repaired. At worst that had been an irritation. A distraction. A diversion from the purpose. The call, that sweet irresistible call was so much nearer now. Yes. So near. No more irritants to contend with. No more distractions. For now all that remained was to determine the most efficient way to get down to the right level. Dig. Must dig. Get closer, then dig.
An unknown quantity loudly declared its presence. Not with sound. With presence alone. ôI am your enemy!ö its presence roared. ôWe shall fight until one of us is dead.ö
Very well. This presence was an abomination. Even if it did not wish to fight, it would have to be killed regardless. The abomination rose out of the very ground, doubtless the final guardian barring the way to father. It stepped forwards, and crashed to the ground with its next. Pitiful. Regardless, destruction had to take place and a point of vulnerability was the best time to engage in this course. It was almost enjoyable breaking its limb. The scream of pain it made was even more so. How dare such a being exist! Pain was too good for it! No amount of suffering could be enough for this blasphemy! It even had the audacity to not put up a fight to defend itself, even as it lay on the ground with a gaping injury to its head.
Another roaring presence manifested, and for a moment confusion reigned. Another abomination? If so, from what direction? It was everywhere. No. Not everywhere. It merely seemed that way because it was so large compared to what came before... Could it be? No! It could not be! It must not be!
From the same being? Impossible! Where before there was a clumsy anomalous abomination, the final attempt by these insects to hide from the purpose... There was now a colossus, charging forwards with bloodlust oozing from every pore of its massive frame.
The assault was swift and brutal and relentless. The light of its soul flailed against that of the abominationÆs to no avail, being eaten away by the raw power the being now possessed. Where was this before? It was like a rampaging beast! Unthinking, merciless beast!
Fine then. Like any rampaging animal there was but one fate reserved for it. Defeat was inevitable now, which left but one recourse. To give a life to remove this heresy from the universe was a sacrifice gladly given.
ShinjiÆs eyes snapped open at the very moment in his dream where Sachiel exploded. He was in his room, on his bed, back to the door which was even now creeping open.
ôShinji?ö Misato said, standing in the doorway. ôI know we ask a lot of you, but... YouÆre doing a good job. Thank you.ö
The door closed and he let the breath heÆd unknowingly held leave his body. Shinji didnÆt sleep a wink for the rest of the night. He didnÆt dare even try.
