Prologue
On judgment day, fire will reveal the work each builder has done, and their...
On judgment day, fire will reveal the work each builder has done, and their...
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Ignis Aurum Probat [Neon Genesis Evangelion]
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Prologue
- Location
- https://discord.gg/z9tBvbh
Prologue
On judgment day, fire will reveal the work each builder has done, and their foundation shall be made manifest to all.
Pray then, pray thus.
Hope that the builder did not build on straw and wood, but steel and rock.
For if he hasn't...
...you will burn.
Shinji Ikari was not afraid.
He wasn't afraid because he was alone in the middle of a train station. He wasn't afraid because he was surrounded by absolute nothingness as far as his eyes could stretch if not for an empty, desolate city that seemed to have been abandoned in such a neat manner that there still was a half-lit cigarette on the floor near him, rolling about carried by the wind on the tiled pavement.
He was, rather than afraid, slightly perplexed. He phoned, but the phone did not seem to be working, neither his cellphone nor the nearby call box had any signal, and only a prolonged 'beep' could be heard whenever a number was inputted.
"Is this the...twilight dimension?" he murmured, looking awkwardly around for any signs of life. Anything at all would have been fine, but except for the wind, a sudden shudder at the back of his spine and him exhaling and rubbing his hands along his arms, nothing else seemed to be making noise.
He got nothing.
Had he ended up leaving the train at the wrong station?
The sign did say 'Tokyo-Three' on it. It swung lazily, carried by the breeze. The pungent taste of iron and copper -the crimson sea's regular smell- hung thickly in the air. Seriously though, this was starting to get creepy.
"Could this be a prank?" Shinji wondered aloud, as if hoping his words alone would be enough to dispel the overwhelming silence. Apparently, they weren't. His father, in the few terse phone conversations they had had, hadn't seemed the kind of person to play pranks.
He sat down on a nearby bench, and waited for a sign, any sign really, that he wasn't dreaming and was, in fact, still on the train. His luggage was there by his side, and as he opened the top zipper, he pulled out a bag of sweets and began to carefully munch on them.
"I wasn't expecting a welcoming party," Shinji said, sounding offended even. "But was it so hard to just send someone?"
"Wark!" a penguin suddenly screeched from Shinji's side, making him turn his head sharply towards him and, at the same time, jump away and land with his backside on the floor nearby.
"Gah!" he screamed, flailing wildly much to the penguin's amusement. "Uh?" he said after a short while, as the penguin simply flapped its tiny arms and began to guzzle down the sweets that had dropped on the floor. "So I'm sleeping," Shinji said in the end.
Unless pinguins were the latest fad in pet animals, and Tokyo Three actually allowed for them to roam free, but where would anyone even buy a penguin? And, most importantly, why would anyone buy one just to let it roam free without supervision?
Shinji Ikari wasn't afraid however.
He was simply too perplexed and curious to be afraid.
"So...Mister Penguin?" Shinji asked carefully, "Are you...real?"
The penguin made another 'Wark' sound, and then scuttled closer to Shinji, looking at him straight in the eyes. "Wark!" it said, as if it made all the sense in the world whatever it was saying, and then nodded at his own sounds. "Wark." It then began to walk away, not really bothering if Shinji followed him or not.
Shinji didn't really know what to do, but following a penguin in the middle of an empty city? It didn't feel like the responsible thing for a teenager to do.
Thankfully, he wasn't a teenager any longer.
And if his father wouldn't even send someone to get him, then he'd just have to walk his way to Nerv on his own two feet.
He was an adult, after all.
Adults never ran away from anything.
AN: ...This♥is♥going♥to♥be♥fun♥.
On judgment day, fire will reveal the work each builder has done, and their foundation shall be made manifest to all.
Pray then, pray thus.
Hope that the builder did not build on straw and wood, but steel and rock.
For if he hasn't...
...you will burn.
Shinji Ikari was not afraid.
He wasn't afraid because he was alone in the middle of a train station. He wasn't afraid because he was surrounded by absolute nothingness as far as his eyes could stretch if not for an empty, desolate city that seemed to have been abandoned in such a neat manner that there still was a half-lit cigarette on the floor near him, rolling about carried by the wind on the tiled pavement.
He was, rather than afraid, slightly perplexed. He phoned, but the phone did not seem to be working, neither his cellphone nor the nearby call box had any signal, and only a prolonged 'beep' could be heard whenever a number was inputted.
"Is this the...twilight dimension?" he murmured, looking awkwardly around for any signs of life. Anything at all would have been fine, but except for the wind, a sudden shudder at the back of his spine and him exhaling and rubbing his hands along his arms, nothing else seemed to be making noise.
He got nothing.
Had he ended up leaving the train at the wrong station?
The sign did say 'Tokyo-Three' on it. It swung lazily, carried by the breeze. The pungent taste of iron and copper -the crimson sea's regular smell- hung thickly in the air. Seriously though, this was starting to get creepy.
"Could this be a prank?" Shinji wondered aloud, as if hoping his words alone would be enough to dispel the overwhelming silence. Apparently, they weren't. His father, in the few terse phone conversations they had had, hadn't seemed the kind of person to play pranks.
He sat down on a nearby bench, and waited for a sign, any sign really, that he wasn't dreaming and was, in fact, still on the train. His luggage was there by his side, and as he opened the top zipper, he pulled out a bag of sweets and began to carefully munch on them.
"I wasn't expecting a welcoming party," Shinji said, sounding offended even. "But was it so hard to just send someone?"
"Wark!" a penguin suddenly screeched from Shinji's side, making him turn his head sharply towards him and, at the same time, jump away and land with his backside on the floor nearby.
"Gah!" he screamed, flailing wildly much to the penguin's amusement. "Uh?" he said after a short while, as the penguin simply flapped its tiny arms and began to guzzle down the sweets that had dropped on the floor. "So I'm sleeping," Shinji said in the end.
Unless pinguins were the latest fad in pet animals, and Tokyo Three actually allowed for them to roam free, but where would anyone even buy a penguin? And, most importantly, why would anyone buy one just to let it roam free without supervision?
Shinji Ikari wasn't afraid however.
He was simply too perplexed and curious to be afraid.
"So...Mister Penguin?" Shinji asked carefully, "Are you...real?"
The penguin made another 'Wark' sound, and then scuttled closer to Shinji, looking at him straight in the eyes. "Wark!" it said, as if it made all the sense in the world whatever it was saying, and then nodded at his own sounds. "Wark." It then began to walk away, not really bothering if Shinji followed him or not.
Shinji didn't really know what to do, but following a penguin in the middle of an empty city? It didn't feel like the responsible thing for a teenager to do.
Thankfully, he wasn't a teenager any longer.
And if his father wouldn't even send someone to get him, then he'd just have to walk his way to Nerv on his own two feet.
He was an adult, after all.
Adults never ran away from anything.
AN: ...This♥is♥going♥to♥be♥fun♥.
Lostpancake
You gain Brouzouf
- Location
- Australia
Time to get back on the shade train I guess.
Your stories are way to damn addicting my man.
Your stories are way to damn addicting my man.
Dromeosaur
Feathery Raptor of snowy planes and frozen sea
- Location
- The land of Trees and Squirrels
I used to like your writing.
Then I got relatively up to date with Soul Arts Online.
Well, one more try shouldn't hurt, right?
Can't say I have ever seen Pen-Pen meeting Shinji on the train station.
It will be interesting.
Then I got relatively up to date with Soul Arts Online.
Well, one more try shouldn't hurt, right?
Can't say I have ever seen Pen-Pen meeting Shinji on the train station.
It will be interesting.
Last edited:
cupcakeviolater
Verified Cupcake
- Location
- USA
...oh God. I'm afraid, Shade. So very, very terrified.
Hyacinthium
Writing about sad cannibals as we speak.
- Location
- Bedroom
- Pronouns
- He/Him
An adult Shinji...? Penpen. An adult Shinji and Penpen.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Chapter One: "Nulla tenaci invia est via."
- Location
- https://discord.gg/z9tBvbh
Chapter One: "Nulla tenaci invia est via."
Shinji Ikari, age twenty-six, was a part-time violinist and full-time professor. Grown up under the protective wing of a professor of Kyoto University, he had ended up traveling abroad and settling there. He hadn't graduated from a prestigious university, but he had, all the same, managed his lot in life.
His hobbies included reading and listening to music, and while many considered him a friend, nobody considered him a 'best friend' material. He was shy, spoke little, and while he had no problem helping others, he'd never wake up before nine o'clock to do so. This was, in a nutshell, Shinji Ikari.
It would be a lie to claim that the reason he had left Japan all together was because of the opportunity European universities offered him, due to the United Nations being the top-seat power in the world. Truth was, he left Japan so he'd have an excuse not to visit his mother's tomb on the anniversary of her death -the same day he'd end up meeting with his father, punctually, even though he tried his best to arrive either earlier than most, or later than all.
Somehow, he suspected his father began his mourning in front of his mother's tomb at midnight of the day before, and finished it at midnight of the next day.
And yet, now here he was, Shinji Ikari, carrying his luggage as a penguin, of all things, seemed to be guiding him through the desolated and abandoned buildings of Tokyo Three.
The stillness of the world around him was second only to the vivacious sound that the penguin's webbed feet made on the concrete, acting as if the world itself was but a mere drum for the strange and out of place animal.
"Have I eaten too much last night?" he most certainly hadn't drunk more than half a bottle of wine. No, to be honest, he hadn't drunk more than one plastic cup of cheap wine that was served on airlines that went back and forth from the continent to Japan. The jet lag and the hours of travel burdening his body aside, he wondered if perhaps the train ride at the end had been the final straw that broke the camel's back.
Maybe he should have taken a plane straight into Tokyo-Three, but they always had the bad habits of cancelling those flights, and he didn't feel like having to wait at the airport more than usual. If his father wanted to see him, then he'd see him.
He'd be coming down on him with glorious anger, the image in his head of his father realizing his mistakes triumphantly making him grin, even as the penguin-creature seemed to be 'warking' in excitement now.
That was how Shinji Ikari met the penguins.
A second and third penguin-head emerged from a nearby garbage bin, and as they turned their head towards him, curiosity won him over. Was there a population of penguins hanging around Tokyo Three? Like pigeons, only made of...penguins? One of the two penguins inside the garbage bin jumped out, as if it had been in water rather than human waste, and began to trot away with a half-eaten sandwich in its beak. The other one simply jumped atop the garbage, staring at Shinji from the higher ground he claimed.
"Wark!" the penguin said, flapping its wings by its sides as it looked straight at him. It looked old, and was perhaps the 'father' of the penguin that had guided him till there, and was now instead simply rummaging through another trashcan.
"Good evening," Shinji answered. "I am lost."
"Wark," the Venerable Penguin said with a knowing nod of its beak. Somehow, the thought that he was having a conversation with a penguin, and somehow could understand what he was saying, passed straight over Shinji's head. This was, perhaps, the jet lag speaking.
And if it wasn't the jet lag, then it was the cheap wine knocking at his brain from his stomach, since not even his stomach wanted such a thing inside of him.
"This...This is kind of silly, isn't it?" Shinji said hesitantly, his eyes scanning the alleyway. "I followed a penguin in an alleyway, and now I'm talking to an older penguin who's standing atop a garbage bin."
"Wark," the penguin said.
"Do you know where 'Nerv' is?" Shinji asked. "I'm kind of lost."
The old penguin did not 'wark' again, but simply looked at him with its gleaming eyes, before dropping down from the garbage bin not with a jump, but with a small hop. It then began to slowly walk away, and out of the alleyway.
"Is this how tourists are welcomed in Tokyo Three?" Shinji muttered. "With penguins?"
It was, honestly, a nice idea.
Although he wondered if they weren't afraid of thieves, or people who took joy in hurting animals. The 'change of the guide' simply forced Shinji to follow behind the new penguin, who seemed to know his way around the main streets.
The silence was still deafening.
"Do you know what's going on?" Shinji asked, only to receive no reply from the penguin, who had stopped to catch its breath. The penguin then turned, and eyed the trolley Shinji was pulling along.
Shinji did not need to know penguin-speak to know what he had to do.
"Wark!" it said after a short while, flapping its right wing. Shinji took a right.
"Wark!" it said again, flapping the left wing, and thus Shinji took a left.
"I really am letting a penguin guide me," Shinji mumbled. "Well, it's something funny to write home about."
Not that he had anyone waiting for him back home.
He had cut off the gas and electricity before leaving, hadn't he? The sales agency would find a buyer pretty soon, or so he hoped.
"Come to Tokyo, Shinji," Shinji said. "I have a job for you. Maybe I shouldn't have sold the house. This is all my father complex coming to the fore-my psychiatrist was right, I should have demanded a proper phone call in order to settle any issues before doing this." He sighed. "Do I sound desperate for parental affection, Mister Penguin?"
"Wark!" the penguin said.
"You're just an old penguin scavenging food from a garbage bin," Shinji said flatly. He didn't know if the penguin had said something nasty, or not. It was a penguin, in the name of God. It couldn't understand him, and yet here he was, talking to it. "Does that make you homeless?"
"Wark," the penguin said, looking kind-of sad if Shinji had to be honest.
"Well," Shinji looked uncomfortably to the side. "I don't know if the place I'm staying at allows animals. If it does, would you like to stay with me?"
"Wark."
Whether that was a 'yes' or a 'no', Shinji did not know.
His psychiatrist really was right on the spot. He was so desperate for recognition, he'd go as far as make an offer to an animal.
Was he mad? Hopefully not.
"Is this the place?" Shinji asked, looking up at the building in question that had been gestured by the penguin all along. The penguin managed to free itself from the trolley's zipper, and headed for a door nearby.
"Waaaarrrkkk!" it said, beating its beak against the metallic door.
The door, finally, opened up.
"Penpen-How many times does the Major have to tell you not to-" the man behind the door looked up from the penguin to Shinji, and then bristled. "Oi, what's a civilian doing outside? You haven't received the news on your phone? We're doing a mock evacuation of the city-show number and identification papers-"
"Uhm..." Shinji looked around, a bit lost. "Is this Nerv?"
The soldier looked at Shinji as if he had grown a second head. He carefully pushed the glasses on his nose further back, and then squinted his eyes a bit. "Is that...a cello?"
On Shinji's back, there was indeed a cello within its protective casket.
"Yes?" Shinji said, slightly embarrassed. "Is this Nerv?" he asked once more. "My father sent word-"
"Oh-" the soldier's eyes widened. "Oh!" he said next, "Just a moment!" he then closed the door swiftly, letting it clank and hit the poor old penguin straight in the beak, as the animal hadn't yet stepped inside.
"WARK!" the penguin said angrily, now known as 'Penpen'.
A few minutes later, and the door opened once more. "Right this way, sir!" the soldier said cheerfully, putting his body to the side to better allow Shinji entrance. "I called for a replacement-there you are, man," he waved at a fellow soldier, who returned the greeting with a stiff nod and took the post previously occupied.
"Come with me, sir," he said next, dutifully starting to guide Shinji down a long winded set of corridors. "Commander Ikari was waiting for you. Was it hard to find the place?"
"Waiting?" Shinji remarked. "I...I followed a penguin. Couldn't you have sent someone to pick me up?"
The soldier furrowed his brows for a brief instant, and then sighed, dejectedly too. "Major..." he whined. "At least not when the Commander orders you to do it directly," he whispered under his breath, still close enough for Shinji to hear him. "Well," he tried to smile. "All's well what ends well, right?"
Shinji smiled awkwardly back. He had no idea what the man was talking about, but he had a rifle, so the man with the rifle had to be nodded to. At least, that was what common sense told him to do.
A long elevator trip next, and the smell of blood and iron was replaced with that of fresh air. Air recycling with pine fresheners in the mix was the most apt answer to the disappearance of the 'normal' smell of sea breeze. The well lit corridors seemed to be mostly devoid of personnel, but every now and then a human face did appear from a half-closed door, or a random scientist walking by.
"Here we go," the bespectacled soldier said, standing in front of yet one more elevator, this time with a polished jet black exterior. It didn't inspire trust. It really didn't. "This should bring you right up to the Commander's office. Try not to get lost on the way up," the man chuckled, saluted, and then went on his way.
This was it.
Shinji swallowed nervously as he pushed the button to call for the elevator, which opened immediately -as if it had been waiting on the ground floor all this time- and once he stepped inside, and the doors hissed to a close, he didn't know whether his heart was beating fast due to elation, or if it was because of fear. Still, he was not going to run away from this confrontation.
It had taken years of therapy, but finally, he would do it.
When the doors opened up directly into the office, which felt as if a bond villain was about to turn around with a cat in his lap, Shinji Ikari looked straight ahead at the visor-covered face of his father, who had definitely aged since the last time they had met, and not even all that gracefully.
"Shinji," Gendo Ikari's voice came through firm, rough, and to the point.
"Father," Shinji Ikari answered in turn. He still had his trolley in his right hand, and the cello inside its case on his back.
Thick silence descended between the two men as they stared at one another. Neither seemed keen on saying anything, and neither seemed to wish to be the first one to break the silence.
"Did you have me fired from my job in Paris?" Shinji asked, finally breaking the silence.
"Yes," Gendo answered. "You were needed here."
"You could have phoned me before going through with choking the University's budget for the upcoming year."
"Their budget will be reinstated as is, if you accept my job offer."
Shinji blinked. "You want me to work for you so much? What's the catch? If you wanted to make up for the lost time, you could have sent me a postcard, invited me over for Christmas-perhaps phoned me for my birthday."
"I send you a gift each year."
"You paid an agency to send me a single bottle of wine once a year from the moment I turned twenty-one. They even have a copy of your signature, and print that on the happy birthday card. I have all of them neatly arranged on my fridge-well, had really. They're also kind of creepy. 'Twenty-One, Gendo Ikari' and 'Twenty-Two, Gendo Ikari', and 'Twenty-Three, Gendo Ikari' and so on. It's like you're counting up to one hundred."
The visor gave away nothing of Gendo Ikari's face.
"Do you want the truth?" Gendo Ikari spoke slowly, and as he did he stood up from his chair and began to move around his desk, using a walking cane as an aid, a noticeable limp in his right leg. "I do not need you. Mankind does."
Shinji quietly looked around, and then he gave one look at the ceiling.
"I'm not seeing the cameras."
"This isn't a joke!" Gendo's voice rose hotly, his hands both clutching firmly on his walking cane. "If I could go without you, boy-then I would! But it's not possible," he shook his head, his face definitely red from sheer frustration. "You can thank your mother for this."
"What does she have to do with...this? Leave the dead out of it," Shinji's voice rose by itself, and he took a step forward without even realizing it, moving his free left arm in front of him in a dismissive fashion.
"If she were completely dead," Gendo said quite calmly, in neat contrast to his previous outburst, "Then I would."
Shinji blinked. "...My Japanese must have become rustier than I thought-or did you just say that mom isn't completely dead?"
For the first time in perhaps all of Shinji's life, the man saw his father at an actual loss of words. It lasted only a brief second, and it was soon gone, to be replaced with the usual control and coldness typical of him, or at least, typical of Shinji's memories of him.
"Mankind's existence is at stake here," Gendo Ikari spoke. "If you want to know more...then you will have to work with Nerv."
"Why you-" Shinji dropped the trolley and clenched his right hand in a fist, "What makes you think I've come all the way here only to be made fun of?! Old man or not, I'm going to punch you in the-"
"We both know you won't do that," Gendo said firmly.
Shinji gritted his teeth, and slowly lowered his fist. "I don't hit people with glasses," he said in the end. "But what you just said-I can't just let it go. I'm sure if I do, you're just going to find another way and if this is your 'carrot', I don't want to think about the stick. Fine," Shinji said. "Whatever. I'm a bioengineer-I suppose you'll want me in a lab or something?"
"No," Gendo said. "I want you to pilot a biomechanical instrument of mass destruction for the sake of humanity's future."
Shinji, most aptly, did not answer at first.
He looked down at the penguin that was comfortably snuggled inside his trolley, only its head emerging.
He looked at his father, who had just told him he -a twenty-six years old university professor in Bioengineering- had to pilot a giant 'instrument of mass destruction' for 'humanity's future'.
He couldn't even muster a smudge of anger.
He was just...
"...what."
Shinji Ikari, age twenty-six, was a part-time violinist and full-time professor. Grown up under the protective wing of a professor of Kyoto University, he had ended up traveling abroad and settling there. He hadn't graduated from a prestigious university, but he had, all the same, managed his lot in life.
His hobbies included reading and listening to music, and while many considered him a friend, nobody considered him a 'best friend' material. He was shy, spoke little, and while he had no problem helping others, he'd never wake up before nine o'clock to do so. This was, in a nutshell, Shinji Ikari.
It would be a lie to claim that the reason he had left Japan all together was because of the opportunity European universities offered him, due to the United Nations being the top-seat power in the world. Truth was, he left Japan so he'd have an excuse not to visit his mother's tomb on the anniversary of her death -the same day he'd end up meeting with his father, punctually, even though he tried his best to arrive either earlier than most, or later than all.
Somehow, he suspected his father began his mourning in front of his mother's tomb at midnight of the day before, and finished it at midnight of the next day.
And yet, now here he was, Shinji Ikari, carrying his luggage as a penguin, of all things, seemed to be guiding him through the desolated and abandoned buildings of Tokyo Three.
The stillness of the world around him was second only to the vivacious sound that the penguin's webbed feet made on the concrete, acting as if the world itself was but a mere drum for the strange and out of place animal.
"Have I eaten too much last night?" he most certainly hadn't drunk more than half a bottle of wine. No, to be honest, he hadn't drunk more than one plastic cup of cheap wine that was served on airlines that went back and forth from the continent to Japan. The jet lag and the hours of travel burdening his body aside, he wondered if perhaps the train ride at the end had been the final straw that broke the camel's back.
Maybe he should have taken a plane straight into Tokyo-Three, but they always had the bad habits of cancelling those flights, and he didn't feel like having to wait at the airport more than usual. If his father wanted to see him, then he'd see him.
He'd be coming down on him with glorious anger, the image in his head of his father realizing his mistakes triumphantly making him grin, even as the penguin-creature seemed to be 'warking' in excitement now.
That was how Shinji Ikari met the penguins.
A second and third penguin-head emerged from a nearby garbage bin, and as they turned their head towards him, curiosity won him over. Was there a population of penguins hanging around Tokyo Three? Like pigeons, only made of...penguins? One of the two penguins inside the garbage bin jumped out, as if it had been in water rather than human waste, and began to trot away with a half-eaten sandwich in its beak. The other one simply jumped atop the garbage, staring at Shinji from the higher ground he claimed.
"Wark!" the penguin said, flapping its wings by its sides as it looked straight at him. It looked old, and was perhaps the 'father' of the penguin that had guided him till there, and was now instead simply rummaging through another trashcan.
"Good evening," Shinji answered. "I am lost."
"Wark," the Venerable Penguin said with a knowing nod of its beak. Somehow, the thought that he was having a conversation with a penguin, and somehow could understand what he was saying, passed straight over Shinji's head. This was, perhaps, the jet lag speaking.
And if it wasn't the jet lag, then it was the cheap wine knocking at his brain from his stomach, since not even his stomach wanted such a thing inside of him.
"This...This is kind of silly, isn't it?" Shinji said hesitantly, his eyes scanning the alleyway. "I followed a penguin in an alleyway, and now I'm talking to an older penguin who's standing atop a garbage bin."
"Wark," the penguin said.
"Do you know where 'Nerv' is?" Shinji asked. "I'm kind of lost."
The old penguin did not 'wark' again, but simply looked at him with its gleaming eyes, before dropping down from the garbage bin not with a jump, but with a small hop. It then began to slowly walk away, and out of the alleyway.
"Is this how tourists are welcomed in Tokyo Three?" Shinji muttered. "With penguins?"
It was, honestly, a nice idea.
Although he wondered if they weren't afraid of thieves, or people who took joy in hurting animals. The 'change of the guide' simply forced Shinji to follow behind the new penguin, who seemed to know his way around the main streets.
The silence was still deafening.
"Do you know what's going on?" Shinji asked, only to receive no reply from the penguin, who had stopped to catch its breath. The penguin then turned, and eyed the trolley Shinji was pulling along.
Shinji did not need to know penguin-speak to know what he had to do.
"Wark!" it said after a short while, flapping its right wing. Shinji took a right.
"Wark!" it said again, flapping the left wing, and thus Shinji took a left.
"I really am letting a penguin guide me," Shinji mumbled. "Well, it's something funny to write home about."
Not that he had anyone waiting for him back home.
He had cut off the gas and electricity before leaving, hadn't he? The sales agency would find a buyer pretty soon, or so he hoped.
"Come to Tokyo, Shinji," Shinji said. "I have a job for you. Maybe I shouldn't have sold the house. This is all my father complex coming to the fore-my psychiatrist was right, I should have demanded a proper phone call in order to settle any issues before doing this." He sighed. "Do I sound desperate for parental affection, Mister Penguin?"
"Wark!" the penguin said.
"You're just an old penguin scavenging food from a garbage bin," Shinji said flatly. He didn't know if the penguin had said something nasty, or not. It was a penguin, in the name of God. It couldn't understand him, and yet here he was, talking to it. "Does that make you homeless?"
"Wark," the penguin said, looking kind-of sad if Shinji had to be honest.
"Well," Shinji looked uncomfortably to the side. "I don't know if the place I'm staying at allows animals. If it does, would you like to stay with me?"
"Wark."
Whether that was a 'yes' or a 'no', Shinji did not know.
His psychiatrist really was right on the spot. He was so desperate for recognition, he'd go as far as make an offer to an animal.
Was he mad? Hopefully not.
"Is this the place?" Shinji asked, looking up at the building in question that had been gestured by the penguin all along. The penguin managed to free itself from the trolley's zipper, and headed for a door nearby.
"Waaaarrrkkk!" it said, beating its beak against the metallic door.
The door, finally, opened up.
"Penpen-How many times does the Major have to tell you not to-" the man behind the door looked up from the penguin to Shinji, and then bristled. "Oi, what's a civilian doing outside? You haven't received the news on your phone? We're doing a mock evacuation of the city-show number and identification papers-"
"Uhm..." Shinji looked around, a bit lost. "Is this Nerv?"
The soldier looked at Shinji as if he had grown a second head. He carefully pushed the glasses on his nose further back, and then squinted his eyes a bit. "Is that...a cello?"
On Shinji's back, there was indeed a cello within its protective casket.
"Yes?" Shinji said, slightly embarrassed. "Is this Nerv?" he asked once more. "My father sent word-"
"Oh-" the soldier's eyes widened. "Oh!" he said next, "Just a moment!" he then closed the door swiftly, letting it clank and hit the poor old penguin straight in the beak, as the animal hadn't yet stepped inside.
"WARK!" the penguin said angrily, now known as 'Penpen'.
A few minutes later, and the door opened once more. "Right this way, sir!" the soldier said cheerfully, putting his body to the side to better allow Shinji entrance. "I called for a replacement-there you are, man," he waved at a fellow soldier, who returned the greeting with a stiff nod and took the post previously occupied.
"Come with me, sir," he said next, dutifully starting to guide Shinji down a long winded set of corridors. "Commander Ikari was waiting for you. Was it hard to find the place?"
"Waiting?" Shinji remarked. "I...I followed a penguin. Couldn't you have sent someone to pick me up?"
The soldier furrowed his brows for a brief instant, and then sighed, dejectedly too. "Major..." he whined. "At least not when the Commander orders you to do it directly," he whispered under his breath, still close enough for Shinji to hear him. "Well," he tried to smile. "All's well what ends well, right?"
Shinji smiled awkwardly back. He had no idea what the man was talking about, but he had a rifle, so the man with the rifle had to be nodded to. At least, that was what common sense told him to do.
A long elevator trip next, and the smell of blood and iron was replaced with that of fresh air. Air recycling with pine fresheners in the mix was the most apt answer to the disappearance of the 'normal' smell of sea breeze. The well lit corridors seemed to be mostly devoid of personnel, but every now and then a human face did appear from a half-closed door, or a random scientist walking by.
"Here we go," the bespectacled soldier said, standing in front of yet one more elevator, this time with a polished jet black exterior. It didn't inspire trust. It really didn't. "This should bring you right up to the Commander's office. Try not to get lost on the way up," the man chuckled, saluted, and then went on his way.
This was it.
Shinji swallowed nervously as he pushed the button to call for the elevator, which opened immediately -as if it had been waiting on the ground floor all this time- and once he stepped inside, and the doors hissed to a close, he didn't know whether his heart was beating fast due to elation, or if it was because of fear. Still, he was not going to run away from this confrontation.
It had taken years of therapy, but finally, he would do it.
When the doors opened up directly into the office, which felt as if a bond villain was about to turn around with a cat in his lap, Shinji Ikari looked straight ahead at the visor-covered face of his father, who had definitely aged since the last time they had met, and not even all that gracefully.
"Shinji," Gendo Ikari's voice came through firm, rough, and to the point.
"Father," Shinji Ikari answered in turn. He still had his trolley in his right hand, and the cello inside its case on his back.
Thick silence descended between the two men as they stared at one another. Neither seemed keen on saying anything, and neither seemed to wish to be the first one to break the silence.
"Did you have me fired from my job in Paris?" Shinji asked, finally breaking the silence.
"Yes," Gendo answered. "You were needed here."
"You could have phoned me before going through with choking the University's budget for the upcoming year."
"Their budget will be reinstated as is, if you accept my job offer."
Shinji blinked. "You want me to work for you so much? What's the catch? If you wanted to make up for the lost time, you could have sent me a postcard, invited me over for Christmas-perhaps phoned me for my birthday."
"I send you a gift each year."
"You paid an agency to send me a single bottle of wine once a year from the moment I turned twenty-one. They even have a copy of your signature, and print that on the happy birthday card. I have all of them neatly arranged on my fridge-well, had really. They're also kind of creepy. 'Twenty-One, Gendo Ikari' and 'Twenty-Two, Gendo Ikari', and 'Twenty-Three, Gendo Ikari' and so on. It's like you're counting up to one hundred."
The visor gave away nothing of Gendo Ikari's face.
"Do you want the truth?" Gendo Ikari spoke slowly, and as he did he stood up from his chair and began to move around his desk, using a walking cane as an aid, a noticeable limp in his right leg. "I do not need you. Mankind does."
Shinji quietly looked around, and then he gave one look at the ceiling.
"I'm not seeing the cameras."
"This isn't a joke!" Gendo's voice rose hotly, his hands both clutching firmly on his walking cane. "If I could go without you, boy-then I would! But it's not possible," he shook his head, his face definitely red from sheer frustration. "You can thank your mother for this."
"What does she have to do with...this? Leave the dead out of it," Shinji's voice rose by itself, and he took a step forward without even realizing it, moving his free left arm in front of him in a dismissive fashion.
"If she were completely dead," Gendo said quite calmly, in neat contrast to his previous outburst, "Then I would."
Shinji blinked. "...My Japanese must have become rustier than I thought-or did you just say that mom isn't completely dead?"
For the first time in perhaps all of Shinji's life, the man saw his father at an actual loss of words. It lasted only a brief second, and it was soon gone, to be replaced with the usual control and coldness typical of him, or at least, typical of Shinji's memories of him.
"Mankind's existence is at stake here," Gendo Ikari spoke. "If you want to know more...then you will have to work with Nerv."
"Why you-" Shinji dropped the trolley and clenched his right hand in a fist, "What makes you think I've come all the way here only to be made fun of?! Old man or not, I'm going to punch you in the-"
"We both know you won't do that," Gendo said firmly.
Shinji gritted his teeth, and slowly lowered his fist. "I don't hit people with glasses," he said in the end. "But what you just said-I can't just let it go. I'm sure if I do, you're just going to find another way and if this is your 'carrot', I don't want to think about the stick. Fine," Shinji said. "Whatever. I'm a bioengineer-I suppose you'll want me in a lab or something?"
"No," Gendo said. "I want you to pilot a biomechanical instrument of mass destruction for the sake of humanity's future."
Shinji, most aptly, did not answer at first.
He looked down at the penguin that was comfortably snuggled inside his trolley, only its head emerging.
He looked at his father, who had just told him he -a twenty-six years old university professor in Bioengineering- had to pilot a giant 'instrument of mass destruction' for 'humanity's future'.
He couldn't even muster a smudge of anger.
He was just...
"...what."
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actually I am going with under par here. Adult with mental issues who has a psychiatrist is a bit better off then canon. also Gendo answered questions sent a couple of gifts and hasn't yet resorted to blackmail using a very injured girl. just his entire career. definitely better than par. not by much but still.
Hyacinthium
Writing about sad cannibals as we speak.
- Location
- Bedroom
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Hot damn, Shinji did fucking well for himself! Go you Shinji! A freaking professor in bioengineering is seriously amazing at such a young age! Going to a psychiatrist too. And it seems Gendo is in a tight spot. He's even spilling the beans about Yui and the Evas!
Penpen made more penpens and that was the best part of this update no lie, he deserves his penguin family.
Penpen made more penpens and that was the best part of this update no lie, he deserves his penguin family.
Dragonskyt
Ashen one, hearest thou my voice, still?
- Location
- Kiln of the First Flame
Now the question remains...
Did he say that, or was it someone else?
Older-than-Time
[Eating My Muse]
- Location
- Somewhere in the Sol System
- Pronouns
- He/Him/ThatIdiot
I'm scared. And interested.
Chapter Two: "Suos cultores scientia coronat"
- Location
- https://discord.gg/z9tBvbh
Chapter Two: "Suos cultores scientia coronat"
Shinji looked up at the 'biomechanical instrument of mass destruction that was meant to be the savior of mankind' and then looked back at his father. "This isn't real," he said in the end. He didn't really know what to say. "This can't be real, you can't have built something like this, and I refuse to believe you created this sort of thing in a lab. It's too big-and why the humanoid shape? It's-"
"I am the Commander of Nerv. Direct your scientific inquiries to the Head of the Scientific Department," Gendo answered smoothly. "Professor Ritsuko will be better suited to answering your questions."
The giant humanoid robot was stored amidst iron supports with walkways all around it, thick and large armor covering most of its body. From the midriff down it stood within an orange substance that seemed similar to ocean water, but was, merely due to viscosity, another liquid entirely. The faint smell of blood remained the same.
"So...how does this...this bio-Gundam help with mankind's survival?" Shinji asked next.
"The Evangelion," Gendo said, "is a powerful tool, and perhaps our sole chance of survival against the foes known as Angels-"
"Seriously?" Shinji asked. He raised an eyebrow. "The penguin should have clued me in, but are you seriously telling me I have to face 'Angels' inside a giant biomechanical robot?"
"Angel is merely the designation given to an extra-terrestrial species of unknown origin that has been instrumental to mankind in order for it to exist," Gendo said flatly. "It is not a designation I am fond of either, Shinji. It is the designation the Magi System deemed fit to assign to them."
"So...Just to be on the same wavelength," Shinji spoke very slowly, "The Japanese's Magi System, renowned for being basically the sole reason Japan's government doesn't suck, is the one who decided to call the aliens who want to exterminate mankind 'Angels'? Couldn't it have called them...something else?"
"Are you doing this on purpose?" Gendo asked.
"No, I am simply curious," Shinji said. "I'm curious what kind of logical processing unit might have decided to sink deep into Christian symbolism when dealing with the extra-terrestrial. Something like calling them 'Planets' would have perhaps worked best, or alfa-numerical numbers-"
"Direct scientific inquiries to the head of the research department," Gendo said once more.
Shinji had a blank stare on his face for a while longer, and then he finally relented. "Assuming this is not an elaborated prank, and considering the sheer costs of creating such a giant studio, I doubt it, what am I supposed to do? I don't even know how to pilot this thing. Is there an instruction manual?"
"A more experienced pilot will show you the ropes. She has been waiting for your arrival with impatience," Gendo said.
Shinji looked around, "Shouldn't she be here then?"
"She has already launched on her own Evangelion. You will be guided to the changing rooms where you will change, and then follow instructions from there. The mock evacuation of the city has been done today to specifically tailor it to your arrival," Gendo said. "Now, go change."
Shinji followed a nearby soldier without a word. He felt like a kid being told to go to his room without dinner, but that wasn't the problem. The problem was that he still had his trolley, his cello and a penguin that definitely wasn't his in his hands. He was reasonably sure everyone around the base was having a good jolly laugh at his expenses, or perhaps they were so used to strangeness that they didn't even bat an eyelid?
He hoped for the latter, although he was sure he'd regret it if there were stranger things lurking around than giant robots and alien enemies.
...
"Wark." And penguins.
"Penpen seems to like you," the soldier said with an awkward smile. "I hope he's not being a hassle. The Major gives him a bit too much freedom, and he enjoys it."
"He's the only thing that makes sense," Shinji answered. "I know he's a penguin, so everything else has to make sense. Somehow." He smiled awkwardly. "It's just-I know how nature created him, thus I know he has to make sense. Biology gave him webbed feet for added propulsion in the water, he uses his plumage with a layer of air as insulation-"
The poor soldier had better things to do than hear Shinji explain about the natural evolution of the Sphenisciformes Spheniscidae, and thus the university professor was left alone to change, after being given something that could better be described as indescribable.
"This is not a prank," Shinji said as he walked out of the changing room with his cheeks burning from shame. "I am a twenty-six year old professor. I have seen students come in wearing swimsuits and have not batted an eyelid. I have seen people write 'Uncompetitive Enzyme' as a synonym for 'Non-Competitive Enzyme'. This is nothing."
The suit took that as the cue to make a strange 'squeak' sound. He had left his stuff, and the penguin, in the changing rooms. The penguin had been fast asleep anyway, and he had no intention of waking the animal up.
"Shinji," the two strange 'connectors' on his head were also, apparently, a communication device . "Do you copy?"
"No," Shinji replied quite calmly, "As a professor, I do not condone copying."
There was a brief and startled moment of silence. "Are you going to cooperate or not?" Gendo asked, and Shinji could see him from the command center, standing within a large room with thick windows and what appeared to be extremely tense officers and soldiers. "This is not a game. The head of the science department, Doctor Ritsuko, is now available for your inquiries."
"Can I ask scientific-related questions now?" Shinji asked as he stared at the strange capsule that was apparently the 'entrance' into the Evangelion itself. He had to enter it, and then it would be lifted and screwed tightly within the spine of the humanoid giant. "For example what specific connection there is between the cybernetic and the organic part of this Evangelion, why I was chosen to save 'mankind' if there is already another pilot available, and the most important question of them all...isn't it illegal for untrained civilians to drive military vehicles?"
"Technically the Evangelion is not a vehicle as much as a cybernetic organism, a cyborg so to speak," a smooth female voice spoke in place of Gendo. "The entry plug you are stepping into is the final connecting piece of the Evangelion's nervous system. Without it inserted, the Eva's lower body cannot move."
"Wait a moment." Shinji was midway through entering the plug when he stopped and looked ahead, at the still form of the Eva and at the circular entry hole the 'plug' would 'stuff'. "Are you telling me it's actually alive. This is a living creature and you removed part of its spine to keep it still?"
"Indeed," Doctor Ritsuko said with a hint of pride. "We also need to use signal termination plugs in order to keep it from regenerating the wound. I will explain more once the plug has been safely inserted."
"I don't know whether to be impressed or repulsed," Shinji said as he finished seating himself. "Uh, neat-joysticks? Handles? Three buttons?" he mumbled as his hands naturally moved to grab the controls.
There was a whirring sound, soon followed by the typical noise of metal being inserted into flesh. Having done his fair share of medical procedures -not really, but having watched and assisted at some of them- he recognized the sound. "This thing bleeds, doesn't it?" Shinji asked.
"Yes, it does," Ritsuko answered. "It is, after all, a living creature."
This made him feel queasy. There was something wrong about this, but he couldn't put his finger on it. "Does it feed on the strange liquid surrounding it? Is it some form of liquid nutrient?"
"Are you familiar with perfluorocarbons?" Ritsuko asked.
"Somehow, this question does nothing to ease my mind," Shinji replied. "Liquid breathing? Is that how this thing breathes?"
"No, that is how the pilot breathes and connects to the nervous system of the Evangelion. The Core that forms the center of such neural network is also where the entry plug ends up digging itself-"
"Wait-Wait-so I'm not replacing a random vertebrae, but the principal one? With the entry plug disconnected, there's literally no movement-Core? So these things have a central nervous system that is called 'Core' and-are you inserting me inside a living being's brain!?"
"Yes, we-"
"The ramification of this are potentially revolutionaries. Have you ever thought about recreating it as a mean to allow the substitution of shattered vertebrae within a human's broken spine? The 'saving mankind' ramifications aside, the scientific value of such a specimen would-"
Ritsuko turned from the video feed to her assistant and gave a curt nod, the LCL soon filling the capsule and, after a couple of choking noises, the electrifying of the liquid gave it transparency, as well as decreasing the pressure to the level of air.
The most stark difference was, however, the starry eyed look in Shinji's eyes as he watched with amazement his own oxygen bubbles escape his lips.
"Do remember why you are here, Shinji," Gendo said brusquely through the radio.
"Fine, fine, but this isn't over," Shinji answered, nervousness once more claiming his mind as he was left alone with his thoughts within the transparent sea of LCL. He tried to carefully move a handle, but nothing seemed to happen.
"We will begin transportation to the surface. Try not to move until you are given the order to," Doctor Ritsuko said. "You need to synchronize with the Eva. Try to relax-"
He was inside a living, breathing organism. He was inside a cyborg, and he was acting as the creature's brain. Telling him to 'relax' was not going to make him suddenly feel at ease, most certainly not-
He blinked. Why was he even worried to begin with?
"There is a small supply of painkillers within the Entry Plug system," Doctor Ritsuko's voice reached him, and of course it made sense. The delivery through the oxygenated liquid directly into his lungs and stomach made the effects of the drugs swift in taking hold.
"That...is quite the sensible solution," Shinji said. A video feed began to flicker to life, soon followed by more by his sides. This-this was the Eva's vision. It was opening its eyes, seeing the world under the form of an elevator ride to the surface, and in the end it saw the sky, the bright sky, the blue sky, the white clouds, the city itself now being something that Shinji could see as a bustling metropolis of...absolutely nothing.
"Wasn't there a city here?" Shinji asked.
"The buildings have been lowered inside the Geofront," Gendo said. Shinji then heard him flick a switch. "Rei. He is in position."
"Affirmative," a female voice -soft, familiar, kind, warm, but this was cold, really cold- spoke, and directly in front of him, if a hundred meters away, a second Evangelion emerged.
Now that he looked at it properly, it appeared to have a different coloration, and a different set of armor. "Wait, there's more than one Evangelion? Do they breed? How? Does it have reproductive organs or-"
"Silence," Gendo said harshly. "Rei, you are free to engage."
"Free to engage?" Shinji asked. "Free to engage what-"
Pain shot through Shinji's side as he suddenly felt his whole breakfast-dinner-lunch-whatever he had eaten depending on the timezone roll around his stomach as the Evangelion piloted by 'Rei' kicked his on the side, sending him to tumble out and fall face first on the concrete.
"What the-what the hell is this all about!?"
"You arrived late," Rei's voice came through. "I felt kicking you was appropriate."
"What? No! You don't just-how do I get this to move? Or stand up-"
"Shinji, you just need to think about it," Ritsuko's voice came through even as Shinji had already begun to push a few of the buttons near the handles. As a result, his shoulder-armor opened up to bring out some strange looking knife. "No, not that button. Ignore the buttons on the handles. They're designed for commands related to the armor, not the movement. You move with your mind-"
"Move with my mind?" Shinji said flatly. "Like...all right...seriously, the bio-engineering we could do with this stuff-I understand why mother was so smitten with it-"
"You...You know of your mother's research?" Doctor Ritsuko's voice came through slightly pained.
"Well-Not much, but that's why I took up bioengineering," Shinji answered as the Evangelion apparently managed to wobble back on its feet. "I just...I just wanted a connection with her-"
"This is not the time," Gendo said flatly.
There was a sigh, small and barely imperceptible. "We will talk about this later. For now, what Rei did was the best way to make you understand that while synchronized, and the higher the synchronization, the more pain will be felt. Synchronization is basically the level at which the Entry Plug is considered a part of the Core itself, and at what point it becomes a 'foreign object'. Too much or too little can mean the end of the pilot, thus an acceptable ratio should never exceed the one hundred-"
This, he could understand, like the strange woman known as 'Rei', of whom he hadn't even seen the face of.
However, he couldn't help but feel random spikes of dread whenever he realized just where he was, as if he was afraid the thing would suddenly eat him or something-
Wait for me here, I'll be back soon.
But she never came back, did she?
Shinji looked up at the 'biomechanical instrument of mass destruction that was meant to be the savior of mankind' and then looked back at his father. "This isn't real," he said in the end. He didn't really know what to say. "This can't be real, you can't have built something like this, and I refuse to believe you created this sort of thing in a lab. It's too big-and why the humanoid shape? It's-"
"I am the Commander of Nerv. Direct your scientific inquiries to the Head of the Scientific Department," Gendo answered smoothly. "Professor Ritsuko will be better suited to answering your questions."
The giant humanoid robot was stored amidst iron supports with walkways all around it, thick and large armor covering most of its body. From the midriff down it stood within an orange substance that seemed similar to ocean water, but was, merely due to viscosity, another liquid entirely. The faint smell of blood remained the same.
"So...how does this...this bio-Gundam help with mankind's survival?" Shinji asked next.
"The Evangelion," Gendo said, "is a powerful tool, and perhaps our sole chance of survival against the foes known as Angels-"
"Seriously?" Shinji asked. He raised an eyebrow. "The penguin should have clued me in, but are you seriously telling me I have to face 'Angels' inside a giant biomechanical robot?"
"Angel is merely the designation given to an extra-terrestrial species of unknown origin that has been instrumental to mankind in order for it to exist," Gendo said flatly. "It is not a designation I am fond of either, Shinji. It is the designation the Magi System deemed fit to assign to them."
"So...Just to be on the same wavelength," Shinji spoke very slowly, "The Japanese's Magi System, renowned for being basically the sole reason Japan's government doesn't suck, is the one who decided to call the aliens who want to exterminate mankind 'Angels'? Couldn't it have called them...something else?"
"Are you doing this on purpose?" Gendo asked.
"No, I am simply curious," Shinji said. "I'm curious what kind of logical processing unit might have decided to sink deep into Christian symbolism when dealing with the extra-terrestrial. Something like calling them 'Planets' would have perhaps worked best, or alfa-numerical numbers-"
"Direct scientific inquiries to the head of the research department," Gendo said once more.
Shinji had a blank stare on his face for a while longer, and then he finally relented. "Assuming this is not an elaborated prank, and considering the sheer costs of creating such a giant studio, I doubt it, what am I supposed to do? I don't even know how to pilot this thing. Is there an instruction manual?"
"A more experienced pilot will show you the ropes. She has been waiting for your arrival with impatience," Gendo said.
Shinji looked around, "Shouldn't she be here then?"
"She has already launched on her own Evangelion. You will be guided to the changing rooms where you will change, and then follow instructions from there. The mock evacuation of the city has been done today to specifically tailor it to your arrival," Gendo said. "Now, go change."
Shinji followed a nearby soldier without a word. He felt like a kid being told to go to his room without dinner, but that wasn't the problem. The problem was that he still had his trolley, his cello and a penguin that definitely wasn't his in his hands. He was reasonably sure everyone around the base was having a good jolly laugh at his expenses, or perhaps they were so used to strangeness that they didn't even bat an eyelid?
He hoped for the latter, although he was sure he'd regret it if there were stranger things lurking around than giant robots and alien enemies.
...
"Wark." And penguins.
"Penpen seems to like you," the soldier said with an awkward smile. "I hope he's not being a hassle. The Major gives him a bit too much freedom, and he enjoys it."
"He's the only thing that makes sense," Shinji answered. "I know he's a penguin, so everything else has to make sense. Somehow." He smiled awkwardly. "It's just-I know how nature created him, thus I know he has to make sense. Biology gave him webbed feet for added propulsion in the water, he uses his plumage with a layer of air as insulation-"
The poor soldier had better things to do than hear Shinji explain about the natural evolution of the Sphenisciformes Spheniscidae, and thus the university professor was left alone to change, after being given something that could better be described as indescribable.
"This is not a prank," Shinji said as he walked out of the changing room with his cheeks burning from shame. "I am a twenty-six year old professor. I have seen students come in wearing swimsuits and have not batted an eyelid. I have seen people write 'Uncompetitive Enzyme' as a synonym for 'Non-Competitive Enzyme'. This is nothing."
The suit took that as the cue to make a strange 'squeak' sound. He had left his stuff, and the penguin, in the changing rooms. The penguin had been fast asleep anyway, and he had no intention of waking the animal up.
"Shinji," the two strange 'connectors' on his head were also, apparently, a communication device . "Do you copy?"
"No," Shinji replied quite calmly, "As a professor, I do not condone copying."
There was a brief and startled moment of silence. "Are you going to cooperate or not?" Gendo asked, and Shinji could see him from the command center, standing within a large room with thick windows and what appeared to be extremely tense officers and soldiers. "This is not a game. The head of the science department, Doctor Ritsuko, is now available for your inquiries."
"Can I ask scientific-related questions now?" Shinji asked as he stared at the strange capsule that was apparently the 'entrance' into the Evangelion itself. He had to enter it, and then it would be lifted and screwed tightly within the spine of the humanoid giant. "For example what specific connection there is between the cybernetic and the organic part of this Evangelion, why I was chosen to save 'mankind' if there is already another pilot available, and the most important question of them all...isn't it illegal for untrained civilians to drive military vehicles?"
"Technically the Evangelion is not a vehicle as much as a cybernetic organism, a cyborg so to speak," a smooth female voice spoke in place of Gendo. "The entry plug you are stepping into is the final connecting piece of the Evangelion's nervous system. Without it inserted, the Eva's lower body cannot move."
"Wait a moment." Shinji was midway through entering the plug when he stopped and looked ahead, at the still form of the Eva and at the circular entry hole the 'plug' would 'stuff'. "Are you telling me it's actually alive. This is a living creature and you removed part of its spine to keep it still?"
"Indeed," Doctor Ritsuko said with a hint of pride. "We also need to use signal termination plugs in order to keep it from regenerating the wound. I will explain more once the plug has been safely inserted."
"I don't know whether to be impressed or repulsed," Shinji said as he finished seating himself. "Uh, neat-joysticks? Handles? Three buttons?" he mumbled as his hands naturally moved to grab the controls.
There was a whirring sound, soon followed by the typical noise of metal being inserted into flesh. Having done his fair share of medical procedures -not really, but having watched and assisted at some of them- he recognized the sound. "This thing bleeds, doesn't it?" Shinji asked.
"Yes, it does," Ritsuko answered. "It is, after all, a living creature."
This made him feel queasy. There was something wrong about this, but he couldn't put his finger on it. "Does it feed on the strange liquid surrounding it? Is it some form of liquid nutrient?"
"Are you familiar with perfluorocarbons?" Ritsuko asked.
"Somehow, this question does nothing to ease my mind," Shinji replied. "Liquid breathing? Is that how this thing breathes?"
"No, that is how the pilot breathes and connects to the nervous system of the Evangelion. The Core that forms the center of such neural network is also where the entry plug ends up digging itself-"
"Wait-Wait-so I'm not replacing a random vertebrae, but the principal one? With the entry plug disconnected, there's literally no movement-Core? So these things have a central nervous system that is called 'Core' and-are you inserting me inside a living being's brain!?"
"Yes, we-"
"The ramification of this are potentially revolutionaries. Have you ever thought about recreating it as a mean to allow the substitution of shattered vertebrae within a human's broken spine? The 'saving mankind' ramifications aside, the scientific value of such a specimen would-"
Ritsuko turned from the video feed to her assistant and gave a curt nod, the LCL soon filling the capsule and, after a couple of choking noises, the electrifying of the liquid gave it transparency, as well as decreasing the pressure to the level of air.
The most stark difference was, however, the starry eyed look in Shinji's eyes as he watched with amazement his own oxygen bubbles escape his lips.
"Do remember why you are here, Shinji," Gendo said brusquely through the radio.
"Fine, fine, but this isn't over," Shinji answered, nervousness once more claiming his mind as he was left alone with his thoughts within the transparent sea of LCL. He tried to carefully move a handle, but nothing seemed to happen.
"We will begin transportation to the surface. Try not to move until you are given the order to," Doctor Ritsuko said. "You need to synchronize with the Eva. Try to relax-"
He was inside a living, breathing organism. He was inside a cyborg, and he was acting as the creature's brain. Telling him to 'relax' was not going to make him suddenly feel at ease, most certainly not-
He blinked. Why was he even worried to begin with?
"There is a small supply of painkillers within the Entry Plug system," Doctor Ritsuko's voice reached him, and of course it made sense. The delivery through the oxygenated liquid directly into his lungs and stomach made the effects of the drugs swift in taking hold.
"That...is quite the sensible solution," Shinji said. A video feed began to flicker to life, soon followed by more by his sides. This-this was the Eva's vision. It was opening its eyes, seeing the world under the form of an elevator ride to the surface, and in the end it saw the sky, the bright sky, the blue sky, the white clouds, the city itself now being something that Shinji could see as a bustling metropolis of...absolutely nothing.
"Wasn't there a city here?" Shinji asked.
"The buildings have been lowered inside the Geofront," Gendo said. Shinji then heard him flick a switch. "Rei. He is in position."
"Affirmative," a female voice -soft, familiar, kind, warm, but this was cold, really cold- spoke, and directly in front of him, if a hundred meters away, a second Evangelion emerged.
Now that he looked at it properly, it appeared to have a different coloration, and a different set of armor. "Wait, there's more than one Evangelion? Do they breed? How? Does it have reproductive organs or-"
"Silence," Gendo said harshly. "Rei, you are free to engage."
"Free to engage?" Shinji asked. "Free to engage what-"
Pain shot through Shinji's side as he suddenly felt his whole breakfast-dinner-lunch-whatever he had eaten depending on the timezone roll around his stomach as the Evangelion piloted by 'Rei' kicked his on the side, sending him to tumble out and fall face first on the concrete.
"What the-what the hell is this all about!?"
"You arrived late," Rei's voice came through. "I felt kicking you was appropriate."
"What? No! You don't just-how do I get this to move? Or stand up-"
"Shinji, you just need to think about it," Ritsuko's voice came through even as Shinji had already begun to push a few of the buttons near the handles. As a result, his shoulder-armor opened up to bring out some strange looking knife. "No, not that button. Ignore the buttons on the handles. They're designed for commands related to the armor, not the movement. You move with your mind-"
"Move with my mind?" Shinji said flatly. "Like...all right...seriously, the bio-engineering we could do with this stuff-I understand why mother was so smitten with it-"
"You...You know of your mother's research?" Doctor Ritsuko's voice came through slightly pained.
"Well-Not much, but that's why I took up bioengineering," Shinji answered as the Evangelion apparently managed to wobble back on its feet. "I just...I just wanted a connection with her-"
"This is not the time," Gendo said flatly.
There was a sigh, small and barely imperceptible. "We will talk about this later. For now, what Rei did was the best way to make you understand that while synchronized, and the higher the synchronization, the more pain will be felt. Synchronization is basically the level at which the Entry Plug is considered a part of the Core itself, and at what point it becomes a 'foreign object'. Too much or too little can mean the end of the pilot, thus an acceptable ratio should never exceed the one hundred-"
This, he could understand, like the strange woman known as 'Rei', of whom he hadn't even seen the face of.
However, he couldn't help but feel random spikes of dread whenever he realized just where he was, as if he was afraid the thing would suddenly eat him or something-
Wait for me here, I'll be back soon.
But she never came back, did she?
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Mizu
Software Developer
- Location
- Victoria, Australia
Unless penguins
center of such a network is also where
This is interesting. Don't think I've seen adult Shinji before, and his constant queries on how stuff works is neat.
Cataphract
Denizen of Qliphoth
- Location
- UTC +8:00
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I chuckled.
Past that I'm enjoying your characterization of an adult Shinji who, while being more emotionally sound than his canon incarnation, still retains his... Shinjiness.
Ikaritude, p'raps?
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Hyacinthium
Writing about sad cannibals as we speak.
- Location
- Bedroom
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Professor Shinji is now best adult Shinji. The wide eyed wonder he has towards the Evas is just adorable. He's absolutely going to grill Ritsuko after this, and I see Rei is up and about as well. With attitude!
Mfw he mentioned his mother's research and gendo probably died even more on the inside. HAHAHA HAVE FUN WITH A GROW UP SHINJI WHO TAKES AFTER HIS MOTHER IN PROFESSION HAHA!
Mfw he mentioned his mother's research and gendo probably died even more on the inside. HAHAHA HAVE FUN WITH A GROW UP SHINJI WHO TAKES AFTER HIS MOTHER IN PROFESSION HAHA!
The Uninspired
Sir Terrier
- Location
- Australia, Queensland.
I'm not even gonna fucking lie. I learned more today, from reading this story than I did in school.
Ain't that fuckin' sad.
Also, I'm morbidly curious as to how this will end....... Chwoo Chwoo- on the Shade-Train?
Ain't that fuckin' sad.
Also, I'm morbidly curious as to how this will end....... Chwoo Chwoo- on the Shade-Train?
- Location
- Chile
Those tags are freaking me out.
Tags:
Tags:
Dragonskyt
Ashen one, hearest thou my voice, still?
- Location
- Kiln of the First Flame
Shh...
It's alright...
Don't worry...
Accept The Shade...
The Shade accepts you...
Malbutorius
C'est le bien qui fait mal
This is going to end horribly, I just know it.
- Location
- Poland
Hopefully for everyone but Shinji.
I never watched Neon Genesis Evangellion, but from the mocking commentary in Shade's fic it sounds absolutely stupid.
All out of a sudden the praise I've heard about NGE feels empty and makes no sense.
Why in the world would I want to watch something where the main characters act like insane idiots? The drama would be gone now that I've spoilered myself the reasons why Gendo is a dick (and it's not very impressive) and it would ruin everything really.
So yeah. I've been spoilered, but in a good way I think.
- Location
- Chile
You underestimate Shade, if there's one difference then there's bound to be more.
Everything you assume you know to be the same as the original work is another way Shade will sucker punch you.
ASSUME NOTHING.
BELIEVE NOTHING.
SHADE IS FLUFF.
SHADE IS ANGST.
ANGST IS FLUFF.
FLUFF IS HAPPINESS.
ANGST IS SADNESS.
TRUTH IS FALSEHOOD.
SHADE IS ALL.
- Location
- Poland
You forgot "Shade is love" unless you meant to include that in "Shade is all", though it sounds less impressive then.