Neon Genesis Evangelion Fan Fiction ❯ Shinji Just Snaps and Totally Wales on Everything ❯ Rei and Asuka... ( Chapter 2 )

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is a Studio Gainax production, its characters created by Hideaki Anno. They say the word, and this story ceases to exist.

 

Shinji Just Snaps and Totally Wales on Everything: Rei and Asuka Get Their Shit Ruined

 

By Midnight_Cereal

 

“Okay, Wondergirl. I don't like you and you don't like me. But just because I sprayed the lining of your panties with liquid catnip doesn't mean we can't work together on this. Right? We're pros, so let's act the part.”

 

“That…you were responsible for that?”

 

“I got a plan. I can take him but you're going to have to distract him while I get in position.”

 

“They kept coming and coming. Mewling and scratching. Pawing down there…I was so confused at the end.”

 

“Now, we both know you're no conversationalist. You don't have to be. You've been doing this longer than even me, so just think of something to keep him occupied. Snipe his crazy ass, for all I care.”

 

“For two weeks mine was a lightless world of witch hazel and vulgar double entendre.”

 

“If we do this right we won't even have to kill him.”

 

“I will kill y-”

 

With the flicker of a thought the First Child's face winked out of existence right above Asuka's controls. That freak is practically gabby today.

 

No matter. She blocked Rei out, blocked everything out. Nothing except this moment mattered, because this moment was showtime. She did not care about the particular sequence of events that resulted in that dumbass razing Tokyo-3 to the ground. She didn't care how crazy he was; he had to have known it would eventually come to this.

 

And all because of his music box, his little el-cheapo second-rate name brand knockoff of a SDAT. Oh, sure, he'll cry and scream and care for that, but not for-

 

She blocked it out.

 

“I'll give him something to cry about.”

 

As if switch-activated, her confidence soared when she closed the circuit and was crushed into her seat at two-hundred and sixteen kilometers per hour.

 

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By the time Rei's tertiary locks had disengaged and her Eva lurched forward from its launch pad, she already knew -without Major Katsuragi informing her- where Evangelion Unit-01 was.

 

Because it was staring at her right now.

 

The First Child took a moment to flick a glance beyond the Test Type's left shoulder. She breathed, blinked, and looked to Unit-01's right. She became acutely aware of the fact that the left and right views were interchangeable.

 

Had Rei Ayanami been a girl of liberal conventions, she might have described the ubiquitous and wholly anarchic destruction Shinji had wantonly perpetrated on the Tokyo-3 Metropolitan Area as the result of God and Mother Nature playing naked landmine twister. Rei Ayanami was not a girl of liberal conventions.

 

She realized she was saying something. “-ister.”

 

Rei had spent an unpleasantly large amount of time in the presence of the Second Child.

 

RAGE.

 

Where did that come from?

 

Eva Unit-01 was still staring at her.

 

I must distract him. The Second Child will be moving to ambush position. The impossibly difficult Second Child will be moving…

 

She gave the mental command and a notepad-sized window materialized at eye level with a chirp, loud and bubbly and artificially coy.

 

Like the Second Child.

 

“Pilot Ikari, you are hereby ordered to immediately stand down and return to headquarters via Access Route Twenty. Once there, you will evacuate the entry plug and prepare for detention. Do you understand?”

 

“Who the hell are you supposed to be, my mother?” Unit-01 Sound Only answered.

 

“Uh…”

 

What is this feeling?

 

It is constricting, yet it breaches the stark light of my borrowed soul with hardly a feather's caress.

 

It is tangible.

 

Yet is beyond my grasping fingers.

 

It surrounds me, a hostile invader.

 

Yes, it is an enemy.

 

Yet it is an enemy also from within, as familiar to me as my name.

 

It clamors; a neglected and forlorn child hungering for its mother's nurturing eyes.

 

Yet it repulses me.

 

I turn from it and shun it to diminish its power ov-

 

AWKWARDNESS. GOD.

 

What?

 

IT IS AWKWARDNESS. YOU ARE EMBARRASSED BECAUSE YOU ESSENTIALLY ARE HIS MOTHER.

 

Who is this? Are you me?

 

ONE STUPID QUESTION AT A TIME, PLEASE.

 

Am I you?

 

REPHRASING A STUPID QUESTION DOES NOTHING TO DIMINISH ITS UNFAILING STUPIDITY. SO TO ANSWER YOUR REPHRASED YET SOLIDY STUPID QUESTION, I AM THE REI AYANAMI THAT EXISTS INSIDE REI AYANAMI, AND WHO WANTS REI AYANAMI TO PLEASE JUST GET TO THE FUCKING POINT, BECAUSE I HAVE OTHER THINGS TO DO TODAY, LIKE WASHING A LOAD OF WHITES, BECAUSE BUTTER PECAN STAINS DO NOT BLEACH THEMSELVES, THANK YOU.

 

Why are you shouting?

 

IT HAPPENS THAT I AM ALSO THE REI AYANAMI THAT JUST DOES WHATEVER SHE DAMN-WELL PLEASES, AND RIGHT NOW REI AYANAMI FEELS LIKE SHOUTING. YOU ARE NOT THE BOSS OF REI AYANAMI. TRICK.

 

Impulsive…were you the one that ate my eggplant somen?

 

LET US IGNORE THE GLARINGLY OBVIOUS FACT THAT I AM A MERELY A CONSTRUCT OF YOUR OVERACTIVE PSYCHE AND HAVE NO WAY OF INTERACTING WITH THE PHYSICAL WORLD IN ANY CONCEIVABLE MANNER; NO. THAT WAS THE SECOND CHILD.

 

But I had labeled it appropriately. I also do not understand how you would have knowledge of this incident, yet I do n-

 

BLAME THAT BITCH. ALSO BLAME HER FOR YOUR ACID REFLUX, AND PERHAPS COMMANDER IKARI'S HEMORRHOIDS.

 

He has been difficult that month.

 

THAT FOOL. HE SHOULD HAVE USED PREPARATION-H. NOW LOOK AT HIM, FIDGETING AND EVERYTHING. YOU JUST KNOW HE WANTS TO SCRATCH. AND DOES IT NOT FEEL NOT RIGHT NOT TO BLAME THE SECOND CHILD FOR INFLAMED ANUSES? YES OR NO?

 

If I desire…vengeance on Pilot Sohryu, would you assist me?

 

I AM THE REI AYANAMI THAT THOUGHT YOU WOULD NEVER ASK.

 

“Rei, you still didn't answer my question. Who're you supposed to be to me?” That was from Unit-01, crushing a Honda underfoot when it lightly stepped forward. A C-130 Hercules dangled loosely by an aileron from a giant purple hand. “It's okay. I never really knew my real mother…hey, maybe we can pretend!”

 

“I believe that would be inappropriate in lieu of the current situation.”

 

“C'mon, it'll be fun!” he pleaded as Unit-01 tossed the cargo plane over its shoulder and was momentarily silhouetted by a billowing collage of dirty oranges and yellows. “You need to loosen up, like I have. I'm so loose I think I'll fall apart. I need something else to hold me together, and I think you'll do fine. Be my mom, Rei.”

 

“I…I would not know how to-”

 

He produced a pallete rifle. “Please?”

 

“Okay.”

 

“Guess what I did today, mom!”

 

“Okay.” It disturbed her, how…natural this seemed to her. Hearing his smiling voice, however tinged with mania, was awakening something in her that she was not surprised existed, but nevertheless did not expect to surface.

 

She felt like smiling. She felt like talking him out of this and getting out of the plug with arms wide open and wrapping his kneeling form in a warm embrace, consuming all his fears and telling him how good he was and how everything was going to be okay. She wanted him to hear her voice, to hear her heartbeat, to slumber in her lap, utterly confident that when he awoke the Earth, the Moon and Sun would still be there.

 

“What did you do today…Shin-chan?”

 

“DON'T PRETEND LIKE YOU CARE, YOU BLACK-WINGED QUEEN OF THE ASS HARPIES!”

 

“…mrr?”

 

“YOU'RE JUST PUTTING ON AIRS FOR MS. SASAHARA BECAUSE HER DAUGHTER GOT INTO TOKYO UNIVERSITY!”

 

“What is an `Ass Harpy'?”

 

“WELL, I CAN'T BE SMART LIKE KIKYO, BUT I CAN DANCE, MOM, DANCE LIKE A SWAN! IF YOU REALLY CARED YOU'D WATCH ME DANCE!”

 

“I-I do care.” She really did, even though she did not know who in the name of Lilith Ms. Sasahara was, or how one would dance like a swan, or why Unit-01 had just taken a bite of a nearby skyscraper. “If I did not, I would not tell you to look behind you.”

 

“Why would I-” He turned…

 

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…but it was too late for him. She was too fast, too skilled, too experienced, too ruthless. He would see her for a moment and the next he would be staring at an unfamiliar ceiling.

 

He helplessly tracked her as she descended, a bird of prey, a black angel between the sun and sky whose form grew over the hanging rays of light. She spread her red wings and her progressive knife, the promise of order restored, hummed at the end of one. The energy blade came forward as she zeroed in on her target, which began to freeze as time became a cold molasses between them.

 

She saw beyond the tapering waves of superheated air convecting from her electric foil the eyes of the enemy -because that was what he was, now- somehow reflected in the unwavering yellow glowing slits.

 

Even in the crawl of milliseconds there was no hesitation, no dissenting whisper in the heart or mind to offer a scent of sweet mercy, no silent plea for forgiveness. A hunter rids herself of these fragile abstractions to become the harbinger of closure before, and the fulfillment of it after.

 

Her conviction remained toxically pure as the light of her soul easily neutralized his own with a slight shudder…

 

…way too easily…

 

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Rei felt no desire whatsoever to improve on her status as spectator. It was undesirable to be in Unit-01's position as the red machine fell upon it. It was even less desirable to be Unit-02, whose pilot seemingly did not care, did not notice, or had no time to react to the actions of its stalwart prey…

 

...whose arms shot out to the sides and extended like harpoon cables until the hands at the end of each dug into the facades of stupidly tall buildings. They instantly retracted, taking the superstructures with them in a conflagration of sound as they were ripped from their foundations and hurled backwards and up in a wide, perfectly timed arc…

 

Rei could not bear to look.

 

Yes she could.

 

It was like witnessing a man jump between two speeding trains on a collision course, and as in the case of David Blaine's final (and very unsuccessful) stunt, this could only end one way.

 

SPLAT, which was quickly and vigorously followed by what had to be every noise known to man.

 

I wonder what that must feel like.

 

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Ow.

 

Ow.

 

Ow.

 

Ow.

 

Ow.

 

Ow.

 

Ow.

 

Ow.

 

Ow.

 

Ow.

 

Ow.

 

Ow.

 

Ow.

 

Ow.

 

Ow.

 

Ow.

 

Ow.

 

Ow.

 

Ow.

 

Ow.

 

Ow.

 

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There was shock. Then there was the utterly ubiquitous emotional constipation that blew through Central Dogma like a desert wind, dropping jaws and bulging eyes faster than a wickedly clever analogy.

 

It was only when Unit-01 undid the makeshift sandwich over its head and Unit-02 had been shat out of the sky did someone in headquarters finally speak.

 

“MATT DAMON!” Aoba exclaimed, rising from his terminal and smacking his console with the flats of his hands…and accidentally depressing a large striped button.

 

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If the Third Child catching Unit-02 between two one-hundred and thirty-thousand ton supertowers had not validated Rei's satisfaction with being merely a conscientious observer, what happened next did.

 

Astonishingly, the red golem rose, steady as a punch-drunk ballroom boxer at the count of nine-point seven. It stood and swayed at its full height, just in time to have a hidden sheet of reinforced titanium shoot upwards from the street and slam unheeded into its groin at the speed of sound. Rei tracked the Second Child once more descend to Earth; fortunately, Unit-02 broke its own fall with its face.

 

I wonder what that must feel like.

 

As the first Evangelion production model began crawling to her like a paraplegic cat, something new, a burgeoning feeling, overcame the First Child.

 

What is this that floods my heart? The pain Pilot Sohryu currently suffers fills me with…happiness?

 

DUH.

 

Ah. I am beginning to understand…this bitch called payback. Is this not the appropriate time to rub it in?

 

MY WORK HERE IS DONE.

 

Unit-00's monocular head tilted downward as the Second inched closer. Had the blue Evangelion a mouth, it would have been grinning from ear to ear…had it also ears.

 

“Pilot Sohryu, you should consider yourself fortunate that you do not possess external reproductive organs. Otherwise, the last blow would have been exceedingly painful.”

 

As if operated by an octogenarian with Parkinson's disease, the red crawling mecha raised a quaking hand and, with the last of its failing strength, slapped Unit-00 on the wrist.

 

“Why did you just tag meeeeeeaaarrrRRRGGGGHHH-” was as far as Rei got before she was spear-tackled by Unit-01, which immediately proceeded to do things to Unit-00 that could only be described as exceedingly painful.

 

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Ritsuko Akagi stood and watched.

 

She watched not because she enjoyed seeing Shinji hold the Prototype by its ankles and crisply snap it as though it were a thick flag whipping in a stark wind. She took no pleasure in witnessing the purple hell beast invert Unit-02 to pile-drive it into a fleet of perfectly full eighteen-wheel petroleum tankers. She felt nothing positive as Unit-01 became the tallest, most deranged carousel on Earth, its counterparts flailing wildly from each of its serpentine arms. Asuka caught a small stadium with her face. No joy. There was nothing remotely amusing about the way Unit-01 DDT'd then expertly riverdanced on the neck of Unit-00.

 

She watched, because not watching meant having no excuse to avoid Misato Katsuragi's glare. “Dr. Akagi…W…T…F.”

 

The Major's voice belonged to a twitching drunken lunatic. What disturbed Ritsuko most was the underlying sweetness in Misato's tone; she hid her anger the same way a Great White Shark hid row upon row of teeth.

 

If I move suddenly, I will be shot.

 

The best friend Ritsuko ever had took a deep, deeeeeeep breath. “Alright…I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume I would've realized he had extendable arms had I listened in the briefing today. So, to be perfectly picture postcard clear, is there any other weapon that you pimped Shinji's ride out with -surface-to-air nipples, ultrasonic atomic farts, honey-coated fingers- that you should tell me about? BECAUSE IF THAT THING STARTS PEEING FIRE I'M GOING TO BE REALLY PISSED!”

 

“It's probably not going to start peeing fire,” Ritsuko assured, making a mental note to move the SAN room to a level requiring a higher clearance. Much higher, she thought when she finally looked at her buddy, absently rubbing the small angular bulge beneath her jacket…and also the gun on her hip.

 

The Project E. Chairwoman turned away and back to the monitor, where she not at all enjoyed seeing Unit-01 drive Unit-02's back across its purple knee as if it were a rotting broom handle.

 

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Every once in a long while Kensuke Aida came down from his self-induced state of high-level military otakudom to take a good look at his surroundings. Some days he came down in front of a crinkled tube of rubber cement and his unfinished 1:72 scale model of a Boeing-Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche, and let loose a deep and jagged sigh. This had considerably less to do with the epoxy fumes, and considerably more to do with the fact that he knew what a Boeing-Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche was.

 

One day the sandy-haired be(freckled/spectacled) teenager came down in the middle of the girl's locker room after the volleyball team's afternoon practice…allegedly (They'd need evidence to prove their ridiculous accusations, and that hole in the wall of his room behind his dresser had been sealed with a thin steel plate and a liberal application of rubber cement).

 

He came down again today, away from his home, his sanctuary of plastic model kits, replicas of automatic firearms, his dating simassively multiplayer first-person shooters, and saw the inside of a sterile civilian evacuation shelter. It was an utterly expansive nouveau-utilitarian space, its white walls filled with people and laughter and crying babies.

 

An evacuation drill manager stepped past Kensuke, who sat on the floor and threw languid glances at his father, Touji Suzahara's grandfather, and Hikari Horaki's dad, chatting amiably a good distance away.

 

Kensuke's father laughed, the most fun Kensuke had had all day.

 

“We're missing something. Something big.”

 

The larger boy sitting on the floor to his immediate left immediately became wary.

 

“Don't give me that look, Touji. We've been here for five hours. You can't tell me you don't want to know what's happening up there!”

 

“My guess,” said Touji, “is that something really big is beating the crap outta something else really big, and when it's all over, one or both of them'll blow up. Now, you tell me why we need to be standing fifty feet away from them to prove me right.”

 

“Because I'd rather be shot by an eighty caliber bullet than sit here another minute and be bored to death!”

 

Touji looked at his good friend as though he had Kool-Aid pouring from his ears, and then shook his head. “Wow…I don't really think that's normal, Ken. Maybe you should think about seeing a traumaticist or something.”

 

And right then, never had the urge been stronger for Kensuke to punch Touji in the face. On one hand, he was happy that his friend was making a conscious effort to improve his vocabulary, but only insofar that Suzahara tried using words that actually existed.

 

To Kensuke's knowledge, there was no such thing as a scrotary phone.

 

“C'mon, Touji…who knows how long we'll be stuck in here. And we've done crazier things than this, haven't we? Like that time we went to Misato's-”

 

“NO, don't remind me!” the jock nearly yelled, shielding himself as if the memory would bite him clean in half. “I couldn't see straight for weeks after it was all over. Besides…” He flicked a nervous glance to something a few meters away. Someone. A girl.

 

Kensuke could only blink at first. “Uh…where'd Hikari get that crossbow?”

 

“I think a better question is why she won't stop stroking it. Maybe she's still mad about that time we snuck out and nearly got smushed. You know she got in trouble for letting us out of her sight?”

 

The girl's face had turned to them so slowly that Kensuke didn't realize at first that she was now staring at them, and had been in earshot the whole time…

 

“Nope,” Kensuke sighed, “we're not going anywhere.”

 

Touji punched his friend in the shoulder. “It's for the best, dude. Whatever's happening out there's not good. It never is. There's evilry afoot, I'm sure of it.”

 

Jesus Chr…where's rubber cement when you need it?

 

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“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”said Asuka.

 

Earth and sky exchanged positions at will as she tumbled parabolically through the air. As Asuka's stomach enthusiastically performed Olympic-level rhythmic gymnastics she felt equal parts relief and bone-deep apprehension her involuntary aerial cartwheels afforded her periodic glimpses of the approa-

 

BAM.

 

Mountains hurt.

 

Asuka just sat there in the plug, twitching, when a voice came over the com link.

 

“Sarsuka! Bar su kanrkit snapokuvit! Sarsuka? SARSUKA!” It sounded like Misartope, but the naked green elves kept sticking q-tips in her ears.

 

“Sarsuka? Asuka? Snap out of it!”

 

“I'm fine,” the German pilot relayed when the Japanese language ceased to be linguistic slush. She looked at her concerned guardian through the liquid portal. “I'm okay, now…the elves are gone.”

 

“O…..kaaaaaaay. Look. It's time to try something different. Rei's fine, but Unit-00 is down a kilometer west of you. And about eight-hundred meters east…and maybe two k southwest, and-”

 

“They were magic elves.”

 

“ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME?”

 

“Yeah. Wondergirl punked out. I can finally tear into him now that she's out of my way.”

 

If there was a way to strangle the sardonic look off the woman's face through the video link, the Second Child would have discovered it. “Right…maybe if you keep this up he'll drain his battery punching you in the face.”

 

DAMMIT. It killed the proud teenager to admit it, but she was outclassed. It would kill her even faster if she charged Shinji's machine again; getting within his guard had proved so far impossible.

 

There was just something sobering about being uppercut by someone a football field away from you.

 

And that battery of his! He had fought them both, never having to worry about tangling himself in or severing his only source of power. Even now she sat in intermediate mode, her internal clock frozen at a little over four minutes. Asuka Langley Sohryu needed a plan. She needed to think. She needed to talk to him…

 

“WHAT?”

 

“You heard me, Asuka. Talk to him. We tried fighting him and all that's done is wreck Unit-00 and left you sitting on a hill mumbling about magic faeries.”

 

“They were elves, Misato-”

 

“I DON'T CARE IF THEY WERE…” By some act of God, Katsuragi regained her composure and lowered her tight fist. “Why is this going to be a problem?”

 

“Why wouldn't it be a problem?”

 

“Let's get real. Okay? Neither one of us is stupid enough to not realize that you can get to him.”

 

Die, Misato. Die. Drop dead. I don't want to hear this. “You're imagining that.”

 

A very live Misato shook her head knowingly and grinned dangerously. “It's up to you. We both know it. You can touch him in a way no one else can. Not me, not Rei, not this…this Mana girl that just popped up out of nowhere. You. Talk to him. Can you try?”

 

Asuka didn't like where this was going, or how loudly it was going, or who it was going so loudly to, and she said as much.

 

“Oh, cut the crap, little girl! Everyone down here is too busy running around like a chicken with its head cut off to give a damn how we stop him. You honestly think there's one person here that doesn't know what it's like to be loved?”

 

----------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------

 

Makoto Hyuga sighed.

 

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The prospect of walking right up to Evangelion Unit-01 and allowing it to break her in half suddenly appealed to Asuka very much. Anything else. Anything else but…

 

“Come on…” she heard Misato softly plead. “We're not asking for some full-blown confession, just for you to try to appeal to him, to buy Dr. Akagi some time. Please.”

 

“NO.”

 

The hairs on teenager's neck stood as Misato erupted in peals of haughty laughter. “Oh, this is too good…who would've thought the Great Asuka Langley Sohryu was nothing but a skinny poser-”

 

“WHO'RE YOU CALLING A POSER YOU WINO SLUT?”

 

Misato chortled. Asuka tried killing her with a glare. “What's the matter? Couldn't kick Shinji's ass, now you can't even outsmart him? Christ, Asuka, you might as well use your diploma to wipe your scrawny butt, because that looks like the only way it's getting any use.”

 

Realization pushed its way through the Second Child's occupied brain, and now it was her turn to laugh. “Maybe I am slipping. But I know what you're trying to do, and I haven't got hit in the head nearly enough today for your half-assed reverse psychology to work on me.”

 

Misato shrugged. “It was worth a shot.”

 

“Don't insult me. My ego is not that damned big, okay? Why do I need to negotiate with Shinji just to prove to you that I can?”

 

Misato just stared.

 

Asuka just sagged. “I HATE it when I answer my own questions…”

 

Next Chapter: Both of You, Slam Dance Like You Want to Win!

 

A/N: Don't have a whole lot to say…maybe I'll plug my new LiveJournal, in which I have not posted a damned thing. It's MidnightCereal, with the M and C lowercase.

 

Don't be surprised if some parts of the next chapter are just the teensiest bit serious. Not to worry though, it's justified, and it will be counterbalanced by even more wholesome stupidity.

 

And a Laz-E-Bastard, almost by definition, must be more comfortable than a Laz-E-Boy.

 

A Laz-E-Bastard must inspire jealously, it must afford the person sitting in it numerous opportunities to be a ginourmous dick. Its wheels are constructed from space-age carbon composites for maximum toe-crushing ability. It offers approximately seventy-nine different types of massages (a great supplement to Preparation-H), all of which are designed to disrupt the concentration of everyone in the immediate vicinity, and in some cases, cause involuntary diarrhea. And perhaps Dana Carvey-level Royal Horniness ©. It is also doubles as a wheelchair powered by eggplant somen.

 

Its seat is dyed black and quadruple-stitched from the pelt of only the fattest baby harp seals, bartered in exchange for a motorcycle sculpted from dry ice, and from only the drunkest of Yup'ik Tribesmen.

 

The Laz-E-Bastard makes you better than EVERYONE ELSE. This is a scientifically proven fact (1).

 

(1) This is a lie.

 

Random A/N: Foolish daywalker, did you really believe even for the slightest sliver of a moment that you could stay up longer than a Night Owl? Very funny. Your pillow is calling you and you have made your bed with the Sandman, now go to sleep. The next 8 hours will be brought to you by the letter z.

 

 

Thank you for reading and your criticism. Ja.

 

Yeah. Aoba meant to say pentagon.