I can't help but be reminded, every time I get behind the controls of this thing, of when my father used to take us out sailing on the red ocean and let little old me get behind the wheel. "The sea may be a different color from when I started to steer," he said one time, "but the way the sea works remains the same. You have to work with the wind, and trust yourself once you know what you're doing."
I doubt he'd be able to say that of the vessel I'm going to be at the helm of for only a few months now. Simply learning how this maneuvers in two dimensions was complex enough. When we finally lift this into the air…
Even still, he'd tell me to trust myself. In this world… that seems to be the only sure thing. Everyone else…
- From the personal journal of Sumire Nagara
The Arctic, January 30th, 2028
The young Shinji Ikari's eyes snapped open as he took a quick breath, feeling like he was waking from a dream… or a nightmare.
He was in an enclosed space, a deep red light suffusing the almost coffin-like, suffocating box he was situated in. He thought he had a window, but it seemed to be tinged red as well. The space smelled like grease and machinery, almost clogging his nose with the stench as he heard a quiet, steady thrum.
"He… hello?" he said, looking around himself. It was all he could really do. There was no space to move, to reach out or stretch his legs, or… was there something around his neck?
"Hello?" he said again, louder this time. As the word finished ringing in his ears, the thrum built in intensity.
"Hold still." a cool, almost cold voice said. "This won't take long."
Shinji froze as the thrum continued to climb, starting to become a whir that drilled into his very bones. The voice sounded… familiar, somehow. But…
He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to remember. After saving Ayanami, after drifting off, there was… something. Something that had felt cold and hard against his back after so long without. And… something, some
one, warm. Kind. It felt so… strange, after everything that had happened.
The whir settled back down to the quiet thrumming that it had been, and, it seemed at least, Shinji was left to his own devices again.
Time was nearly meaningless in the coffin. Eventually, whether it was his own tiredness or something else, he slowly drifted to sleep.
He slowly came to again as he felt the pull of movement, hearing the clattering of gurney wheels in an echoing hallway. A familiar sound. One that went with a familiar face.
'Where is Ayanami? Where am I?'
He heard voices surrounding him. Unfamiliar ones that went with the unfamiliar ceiling, along with what he thought were the barrels of guns flashing into and out of the corners of his vision.
"No tremors in the extremities."
"Eye movements are normal."
"EKG reading is within an acceptable range."
Then, a young woman, with brown hair and blue eyes, leaned over to look at him. "Do you understand what I'm saying to you?" she asked, the professionalism in her voice tinged with… concern.
"Yes?" he said uncertainly.
"Good. He's responsive." another woman's voice, a little older, said as the woman went out of sight before it paused for a moment. "What's the last thing you remember?" the voice asked.
Shinji's brow furrowed slightly. "Saving Ayanami," he replied. "Where is she?"
"She's safe." the voice replied, and Shinji heaved a sigh of relief as she continued speaking to… someone. "His memories do seem to have continuity."
The voices paused as a hand put a mirror in front of his face, and he saw the black band around his neck, a square of red right under his Adam's apple. "Do you recognize this face?" the woman's voice asked again.
"Uh… yes? That's me." Shinji said slowly.
The mirror retreated. "He's self-aware as well." the woman from before said. "Ma'am, for all intents and purposes, this is Shinji Ikari."
'What is this thing?' Shinji wondered. The collar around his neck, beyond simply physically resting around his neck, felt like… a noose, almost.
They passed through a set of doors, slowing to a stop. "Ma'am," a gruffer man's voice said, "the boy is in your custody now."
"Understood. Remove his restraints."
Shinji's eyes went wide as he heard the voice that said that, achingly familiar and yet… so cold. "You may go now."
He looked behind him, somewhat shocked to see four men in combat armor and carrying rifles walking out of the room. The two who remained were the two women who seemed to have spoken to him. But for now, all he gave them was a glance as his eyes swept the room around him.
It was an almost circular space, the wall in front of the room dotted regularly with windows into a view that was tinted red. In the center of the room, a platform on a diagonal rail took up most of its space, and several smaller platforms connected to it with metal struts branched out from it. As he entered, callouts and reports washed over him like a wave of words. The words slowly grew silent as he came into view.
On the platform and branches were several people he didn't recognize. And one who, regardless of her appearance, he did. "Ms. Misato?"
The woman who looked down on him, her eyes covered by dark purple shades, said nothing for a moment. "And you say that he's Shinji Ikari?" she asked… someone.
"Yes, ma'am." one of the women, the somewhat older one of the pair as Shinji looked back at them, said. "As far as we can tell, this is the same Shinji Ikari that entered the core of Unit-01 14 years ago."
Shinji blinked, then his eyes went wide. "What?" he said numbly. He looked back up at Misato. "What's going on?"
Misato simply turned to the woman beside her, a woman Shinji now realized was Doctor Akagi, her hair now cut almost boyishly short. "And the DSS Choker is activated?" Misato asked.
Doctor Akagi nodded as she handed something to Misato. "Yes. The collar has been linked to the controller, and encoded to your personal password."
Misato nodded silently as Shinji continued to look around in increasing desperation. "Ms. Misato… what's going on? Where's Ayanami? Where's Unit-01?"
He reached up towards the collar, a move that made Doctor Akagi visibly tense as he struggled with it somewhat. "What is this thing?" he said, beginning to breathe heavily. "Can I take it off?"
"That choker is never coming off," Misato said, a hard edge to her voice that Shinji had never heard before making him stop in his tracks as he looked up at her.
The two regarded each other silently, and Shinji wished he could see behind the glasses Misato wore. Something he wished he could have done with… his father.
Misato then turned away. "We're done here. Take him into quarantine."
Before Shinji could protest, several alarms went off on one of the consoles. "We've lost Tripwires 1, 5, 18, and 35." a woman's voice said from one of the floating chairs. "We're picking up a Pattern."
A pause. "What is this one again…"
Another voice, older, a little harsher now, but one Shinji distantly recognized, rang out. "It's a Pattern Blue!"
The voice continued. "Targets have been identified. It's the Mark.04C. Codename: Nemesis Series. No readings on their core blocks, so they're likely using stealth sheathes."
"They're caging us in from all sides." Doctor Akagi said. "They want to make sure we don't activate the ship."
"They should know we're going to anyway," Misato replied. "I want priority placed on main engine activation and crew boarding procedures. Everything else can come after."
"All hands, Battle Stations level 2!" Misato said authoritatively. "Target lock the Nemesis Marks as soon as you can."
Again, a flurry of callouts rose from the people in the seats, ones that washed over him with how utterly meaningless it felt to his understanding, what little of it there was, as a deep, powerful thrum of energy pulsed through the floor and walls like a slow heartbeat. "Securing bulkheads!"
"Integrating weapon defense systems, main guns coming online."
"Power flow nominal. Links to Engineering Bay are green across the board."
"Fleet is at full readiness, Captain."
As the chatter ebbed on the bridge, one of the women with him, the younger one, stowing away the gurney he rolled in on, stretched as she looked at him. "Going right now is probably dangerous. We should probably stay here."
"After all," the young lady continued, "this is probably the safest place to be during battle stations."
"Close, Ms. Suzuhara. You're in the same room, at least. That honor goes to the Hirnstamm module here." a voice said from the far side of the bridge assembly.
Shinji blinked. That voice was familiar too… somehow. Shinji walked forward, revealing that there were six arms flanking up and away from a central seventh, the left seat nearest the center of which held…
Shinji narrowed his eyes at the man that looked back at him. "Have I… seen you before?" he asked slowly.
The man smiled slightly. "Briefly, after we extracted you and Ms. Ayanami from the core of Unit-01."
Shinji's eyes widened in shock as the man paused, listening to a headset for a moment before looking over at Misato. "Roger. Captain, Unit-02 has been deployed to cover the Engineering Bay. Unit-08 will be following shortly after it's finished refitting. Their diagnostics are showing up clearly on my screens."
"Good." Doctor Akagi replied. "Protecting Unit-01 is our top priority."
Shinji's eyes widened still further as he looked out the window, watching the familiar form of Unit-02 float past.
'Thank goodness. Asuka's okay.' he thought with no small amount of relief, releasing a quiet sigh.
"Unit-01?" he said quietly as he looked back up at the bridge. "Ms. Misato, is Unit-01 ready? I can go out and help!"
Before anyone could reply, a powerful boom rippled through the ship's structure. "Pillars of Light, ma'am!" one of the bridge crew, a woman with terribly pink hair, shouted. "At our compass points!"
"Captain," Doctor Akagi said, a slight concern in her tone, "I'm not sure we'll be able to activate the ship in time before these Nemesis Marks are on top of us. I recommend we make a hole by targeting one of these Pillars and scattering the fleet."
"Not an option," Misato replied. "We have to get airborne. Otherwise, everything leading up to this point will have been for nothing."
"What about me, Misato?" Shinji asked almost desperately, drawing all eyes to him. "I could get in Unit-01 and go help Asuka, couldn't I? What can I do?"
Nearly everyone in the room tensed as he said this, and more than a few almost angry glares were tossed his way. But Misato finally looked at him, her lips pressed into a thin line as she took off her glasses, her eyes cold and almost… condemning. "You will do nothing, Shinji Ikari," she said, and the words plunged into Shinji's heart like a dagger.
The man who had spoken to him before dispelled the brief silence that followed. "Unit-01 is what's powering the ship, kiddo. It's what's hopefully going to allow us to get airborne. So right now, all you need to do is sit tight and enjoy the show until we get to safety."
He paused for a moment. "Maybe you could even be here on the bridge and have front row seats if you keep out of the way and let us work."
"And…" he paused for a moment as he looked up at Misato. "If the Captain allows it."
Shinji looked back at Misato, catching her jaw clenching as she regarded the man for a silent moment, then looked over at Shinji. Shinji couldn't decipher what she was thinking, her face level even as he watched her jaw unclench. "Very well, Mr. Theisman." she finally said, looking back out towards the windows as she put her glasses back on. "Ms. Aanderson, Ms. Suzuhara, remain on the bridge until we stand down from battle stations."
The name of the second woman finally clicked for Shinji as he looked over at her incredulously. "Suzuhara? Are you related to Toji?"
"Yes." Ms. Suzuhara said. "Go! I'll explain later."
Shinji nodded, scrabbling up the ladders and platforms as Misato looked back out over the bridge. "Battle Stations level 1! Activate the Hirnstamm as soon as Ikari's on the bridge."
Shinji made it to the platform that Misato and Doctor Akagi stood on just before it began moving, several displays and control boards folding out of the platform as it slowly moved up the track away from Ms. Suzuhara and Ms. Aanderson.
Once again, the bridge was a flurry of activity as a dome, like the petals of a massive flower, closed in on them, and a faint tinge of dried blood began to waft in.
"LCL Gas is at nominal density." one of the men on the bridge said.
"Initiate startup sequence," Misato replied.
The interior, striped with twin crimson warning bars, flashed with a brilliant, prismatic light, flashing through colors until a white circle wiped away the color and left only blackness for a large program window to appear.
"Starting integrated processor systems. No problems with initial contact with the Achiral System."
"All personnel on board, ma'am."
"Bulkheads confirmed secure."
"Gyrocompass coming online. S
2 Engines confirmed online. Starting gravity nullification process."
On and on the words rushed over Shinji's head as he watched the people below them working almost frantically.
"Tennison reports 75% power generation achieved. Liftoff in 5 minutes."
"Main monitor coming online."
The view finally flashed to one that showed a cold, white line, starting at the edge of a fleet of ships and stretching into the horizon, the ocean below a familiar red of LCL. In the distance, pillars of baleful, flame-like light, like the erupting of half a dozen volcanoes, spread before their forward view.
"Targets are still on approach." the pink-haired woman said.
"Unit-08 is now on standby with Unit-02." Mr. Theisman said. "AT Fields are reading at maximum intensity."
Then, in front of them, near the tops of the pillars, the lights distended, like opening eyes, a staring, almost evil orb in their centers. More and more eyes opened up upon the surfaces of the pillars, the tops growing in height to allow for more.
"Pillars are changing rapidly!" one of the men on the bridge, one with long black hair, said as the pillars grew branch-like arms, connecting to their companions to form a true cage.
Their energy is also increasing rapidly!" the woman with the pink hair rejoined.
"Allied destroyer has been vaporized!" the long-haired man called out.
Regardless, Misato watched the pillars creeping ever closer, silently waiting for some moment only she seemed to be able to see. Shinji glanced between her and the screen, waiting for her to pull out whatever miracle she always seemed to be able to take out of nowhere.
"I'm getting
new signatures on the outside of the Pillar's perimeter!"
All eyes were drawn to the pink-haired woman as she scanned the screen in front of her. "4 of them, situated at the cardinal directions around the fleet. System is reading a Pattern… Near-Blue?" she said, her head tilting in confusion.
"Can we get any visual contact on them?" Doctor Akagi asked, her brow furrowed in stark confusion.
"Establishing visual feeds now." one of the men on the branches, the one with short hair and glasses, said, four screens appearing before all of them in short order, showing something… impossible.
"Are those…" Shinji said quietly, his eyes as wide as everyone else's were. "Evangelions?"
They certainly looked like them, for the most part. All were the same lanky, whipcord-like build, many of the pieces of armor looking much the same but… the similarities seemed to end there. Their pylons either glowed with AT Fields or seemed to be composed completely of them, and none of the Evas were in any way recognizable to Shinji.
One of them was an almost brilliant white, nearly blending in with the snow and standing stark against the blue sky. On its helmet, two birdlike wings swooped away from its brow, forming a crescent. Another was blue on blue, deep navy offset by a near cyan, the Eva's head crested with a wicked, blade-like fin. Another was, perhaps, the most ostentatious of the lot, gleaming like a brilliant golden flame, devilish horns sweeping over its head.
And the last one, directly in front of them, was a white and gold affair, streaked in blue, the pattern of the colors giving it a regal bearing. Two wings on the sides of its helmet swept up like stylized raptor wings, the broad, patterned profiles showing briefly as it looked around itself.
They wasted no time getting to work, the golden one's arms becoming encased in frost as it spread them wide, a deep crackling, rippling sound echoing out from all around them.
"What's going on?" Misato asked.
"Sonar is picking up a massive buildup of… what I'm guessing is ice all around us." the woman at the sensor station replied.
Shinji's eyes widened, and he looked up at Doctor Akagi to see she had similarly wide eyes. "The amount of power that they'd need to flash freeze all of that…" she said quietly.
Then, a quiet gasp went up around them as the cages seemed to grow darker and darker, all light and color seeming to fade away, the 'eyes' in the cage looking around wildly as they wailed. Their screens showed that the white Evangelion-like Unit had its arms stretched out towards the cage, the light of the cage seeming to be flowing across its forearms.
Then, as the last of the color drained away, the Eva lookalike clenched its fists as a circle of lights appeared between them, similar points of brilliant white light flashing into existence at the top of the cage before tearing down the main bars, shredding them as they tore into the ice with a series of mighty cracks, dull roars tearing out from under the ice.
"The cage has been dispersed! We're getting locks on the Nemesis series' core blocks! " one of the men shouted in utter disbelief, looking up at the main viewscreen as massive, cloth-like arms, terribly familiar to many in the bridge, crashed out from underneath the ice, flashing towards their apparent foes, whipping madly in the air as they flashed towards the lookalikes, and most importantly, away from the fleet.
The Eva-lookalikes burst into action, two of them calling up massive tentacles of pure, blue water that sliced through the arms, the golden one simply freezing them with bursts of what must have been utterly cold wind and shattering them as they drew near to it. The pure white one produced laser-like beams of prismatic light, lancing up from the ground and stabbing through the oncoming arms, stopping them in their tracks as they tore themselves to shreds trying to press on.
"Captain!" the radio in front of Misato crackled, a woman's voice, melodious and deep, "We're now ready to begin getting airborne!"
"
Begin ascent!" Misato said firmly.
The thrum that Shinji had felt in his feet earlier now reached the pod that he found himself in as he watched the rest of the bridge crew frantically working, the pink-haired woman pulling out
sticky notes, of all things, while a young man to his left flipped through several different books.
The thrumming continued to grow as callouts and reports reached a fever pitch, and Shinji flinched as he heard a low, almost mournful keening sound coming from… seemingly everywhere, as a prismatic light raced out across the surface of the LCL sea.
Across the gathered fleet, Shinji watched strings of light, centered on each of the ships, slowly begin pulling them into the air as hexagons of prismatic light faded away underneath them. His eyes widened as he watched the ships around them, along with them, lifting slowly from the surface of the sea, massive twin halos of light encircling the ship they stood on.
'Are we… riding on an Angel?' he wondered as they continued to rise into the sky.
Regardless of his thoughts, the battle that was now beneath them continued to rage, the white and golden one gathering water into a massive, two-handed battle ax that slammed into the ice, sending pieces of it flying as what must have been a massive amount of glittering water gushed up and brought one of their foes to the surface for the first time.
The Nemesis turned out to be a large, disk-like thing, easily half again the height across its circumference as an Evangelion, rows of pylons on the top and bottom of its edges looking like gaping maws of teeth. The tentacles it struck out with continued to sweep across the surface around them, the lookalikes slicing and shattering the tentacles regardless.
"3D control established! Ship's gravity has been locked!" the woman at what Shinji guessed was the helm shouted.
"Put us on our bow!" Misato said. "Present the guns!"
Shinji found himself surprised that he felt nothing as he saw the world seemed to tilt smoothly, the sea coming to a stop in front of them as the fleet began to move away.
"Setting guns for automatic fire! Feed systems updated!"
"Targeting systems are online!" the pink-haired woman said as the screen flashed to a saturated orange, the cores of these Nemesis Series things a deep red, almost black as circles eerily reminiscent of the targeting reticle of the sniper rifle he'd used to take down Ramiel darted across the screen.
"We'll use the Anti AT-Field rounds and take these things one at a time, rotating as we go," Misato said, "and these lookalike Evangelions better know when to get out of the way."
The world began to tilt slightly as the targeting reticles zeroed in on the Mark.04C in front of them. As they locked on together, a tone sounding, Misato wasted no time. "Fire!"
Streams of brilliant purple light thundered from the ship's four guns, the lookalike in front of their target dancing back as the Mark took the full brunt of the barrage, AT Field swept aside as it went up in a brilliant, almost blinding explosion.
"Rotate to port!" Misato said.
"Rotate to port, aye." the helmswoman replied, the world slowly rotating as the blast faded, the white and gold lookalike working with the entirely blue one to bring the next Mark to the surface. Again, the guns roared, the lookalikes dashing away as the Nemesis tore apart the ice around it with its death throes.
Turning and firing, turning and firing, and twice again, as the lookalikes restrained them, the last of the Nemesis Series went up in a series of thunderous, nearly blinding explosions.
"Alright, bring us about and link us up with the fleet," Misato said, the world beginning to turn the right way up again. "Hyuga, contact the lookalikes if you can."
"Yes, ma-" Hyuga began.
"They just vanished off my screens." the pink-haired woman interjected.
"What?" Doctor Akagi said incredulously as gasps and flurries of whispered incredulous statements flew about the space. "And you're sure they didn't cloak themselves?"
Mr. Theisman nodded. "Yes, ma'am. I can confirm that. There was a very large power surge around each of the lookalikes just before they vanished from my sensors. I don't think they just hid."
An older, bald man leaned back in his seat, a console covered in gauges and switches arrayed before him. "I wonder who they're with." he mused aloud.
"I don't care to guess." Mr. Theisman replied as the screen went black, the hemisphere blooming apart again as they slowly began to descend to the bridge area. "But I'm glad they seemed to be on our side, at least."
The bridge slowed to a stop, and Misato turned to look at Shinji again, her gaze still cold in a way that unsettled him. "You have now overstayed your welcome, Shinji Ikari. Return to Ms. Aanderson and Suzuhara. They will escort you to quarantine."
Shinji opened his mouth again, shocked that she could sound so much like his father. Then, he closed it, nodding slowly. "Yes, Misato," he said quietly.
. . .
Daniel looked up at the young Shinji as he clambered down towards Katara and the young Sakura Suzuhara. They were now flanked by a pair of guards, rifles at their side. Shinji paused for a moment, looked back up at Captain Katsuragi looking utterly lost, then turned away, following the guards, Katara and Sakura off of the bridge.
He turned back to his station with a quiet sigh. He had an idea. It would likely have to wait until after they'd gotten off duty, but… if it worked, then…
"So, dear, how did I do for my maiden voyage?"
Daniel smiled slightly as Eleanor connected herself to his soul, likely back at their shared bunk room due to her 'off shift' period.
"You certainly used your simulator time well. You and Unit=10 really wowed everyone here at the bridge. I'll have to give my regards to Mana, Mayumi, and Hikari for their performances too, once I get out of here."
"So, why were you so friendly to him?"
Daniel blinked as he looked over at Midori, who looked back at him with a surprisingly condemning look in her eyes. "You know what he did to this world. All the lives he ended. We don't even know if it's really him. Why aren't you angry at him?"
Daniel sighed quietly. "Until someone can prove conclusively otherwise, that
is Shinji Ikari. His soul went into the core of Unit-01. And unless I'm wrong, it was his soul that came out when we ran the activation trial."
Daniel looked back at Doctor Akagi, who looked down at him incredulously. "Can it be assumed I am correct, Doctor?" he asked cooly. "The Evangelion is a creature tied to human souls, after all, powered by them. Why couldn't Shinji Ikari's soul join the one in the core?"
Akagi regarded him for a moment before nodding slowly. "It can be assumed, yes, that Shinji Ikari's soul entered the core. But he has changed fundamentally from what he was when he entered it. He is no longer fully human. And until we can pin down what he has become, I will not draw any conclusions."
"That still doesn't answer Kitakami's question, though." Shigeru Aoba said. "Why are you so chummy with the guy that made this world what it is?"
"We all lost something when Near-Third Impact occurred, kid," Daniel replied as he looked up at the man. "But it took until now to see what I've seen in my own eyes every time I looked in the mirror for a long time."
Midori's brow furrowed in confusion. "What do you mean?" she asked, and Daniel turned his gaze back to her.
"He, like I was, is lost, confused, afraid, alone, all in a world that, if it knows his actions, puts their distance from him at best, or actively hates him at worst," Daniel said quietly.
"But the fact of the matter is, he's hardly military material, let alone pilot material," Daniel said, a hard edge to his voice as he shifted in his seat, sitting sideways to face Midori more fully.
Then, he looked back up at Captain Katsuragi. "So, the question arises. Why did we let a broken teenager sit at the controls for as long as we did?"
Misato said nothing, and Daniel continued in the silence. "Though Shinji Ikari may have triggered the near end of the world, we're the ones that gave him the tools to do so, left him in the dark as to his Evangelion's capabilities, and cheered him on to get to that point."
Misato's jaw clenched again, and Doctor Akagi looked down at him with narrowed eyes. The rest of the bridge crew was, to one extent or another, hesitant in their expressions.
"The blame is in our hands just as much as it is in his. To lay everything at his feet is to be lying to ourselves, those who are left, and those who have left us." Daniel said firmly.
He shifted in his seat to face his console. "I'm beginning coordination for Unit-02 and Unit-08's return to their gantries now, Captain."
As he began his work, those on the struts with him glanced at each other, and their Captain, with no small amount of wondering and concern. Captain Katsuragi regarded them all coolly, saying nothing.
- - -
Deep within the ruined Geofront, Commander Gendo Ikari of NERV, along with Deputy Commander Fuyutsuki, regarded the capture of the skeletal Vessel flying away. And the new, powerful combatants that had presented themselves.
"There's no feasible way that this WILLE organization could have produced so many new Evangelions, trained pilots to this level of skill, without our noticing it, Ikari." Fuyutsuki began after a long silence.
"Indeed," Ikari replied. "Thus, they are the bared arm of a new threat."
"Should we undergo any greater preparations for this development?" Fuyutsuki asked.
"The construction of the Mass-Production plant in Hokkaido shall be accelerated. The Mark.06H design will be utilized there. These will be used to guard against such threats." Ikari said levelly as he stood, coming around his far more weathered desk to regard the floating holographic picture in front of them.
"And what of the Vessel, Ikari?" Fuyutsuki asked. "It is more than likely the activation process has spurned young Shinji out of the core. Shall we send the Mark.09 to retrieve him?"
Ikari was silent for a moment, a slight tilting of his head the only thing that gave away his focus on the form of the ship. "Not yet."
Fuyutsuki looked over at him, his brows raised. "Why not, Ikari?" he asked almost incredulously.
"If Shinji Ikari has, indeed, returned, he will see the state of this world. See the desperation with which those he is surrounded by work to forestall the inevitable. We will leave him for a time among them, scrabbling in the darkness of this world."
He paused and turned, walking back towards his desk and sitting back down. "Then, when the time is right, we will extend our hand to him, and offer to have him help shine a light on this world. To make it as it should be. So desperate will he be to win my approval, and to fix his mistake, he will jump at the chance to assist us."
He said this without a scrap of emotion, barely a twitching of his lips up or down. "It is simply how the mind of Shinji Ikari operates."
- - -
Shinji Ikari found that 'quarantine' was a cell, little more than three solid metal walls, an outward-facing wall of similarly metal bars, a ledge across the back wall the only thing he could sit or lay on. He'd been given clothes that were familiar to the ones he'd worn before, but they, along with everything else, felt… alien, now.
For now, he faced away from the bars, lying on the bunk with his knees hugged to his chest. His SDAT player, his only true escape from the world around him before, was gone, now. Likely broken. The silence left him alone with his thoughts. Just like everyone else did.
Nothing made sense anymore. Misato had become the part of his father that he had hated. The world seemed to hate him in turn. And apparently, he'd missed a lifetime of events saving Ayanami from the Angel.
'What did I do? I don't even really know what happened while I was trying to save Ayanami.' he thought, the idea seeming to plod through his brain at a depressing pace. He wracked his brain, desperately trying to remember if there was something he had perceived outside of the mind-bending landscape that he'd saved Ayanami from.
"Go for it, Shinji!"
Distant words, seeming to echo through the space before he fully plunged into it. Words from Misato.
"Don't do this for anyone else! Do it for you!"
'Do you regret saying that, Misato?' Shinji asked the wall in front of him. The wall offered no answer, unsurprisingly. He doubted she would, either.
"Shinji?"
Shinji blinked, rolling over to look at Mr. Theisman and Doctor Akagi standing on the other side of the bars. Mr. Theisman had a sympathetic expression, his eyes glittering with pity and… kindness. How odd.
Doctor Akagi's expression was far more in line with what he expected, devoid of any sort of light, looking at him as if he were a lab specimen in a petri dish.
"The XO here and I would like to talk to you. Fill you in about what's happened." Mr. Theisman said as Shinji sat up.
Doctor Akagi said nothing for a moment, simply glancing over at the wall for a moment before the bars slid down. "You are to walk with us," she said. It was a command.
Shinji obeyed, standing up and walking out, the two adults flanking him as they walked down the long hallway out of… what was it called on a ship again?
'The brig. That's right.'
"So…" he began uncertainly, looking up at Mr. Theisman and hoping he'd be the more talkative of the two. "Has it really been 14 years, Mr. Theisman?"
Mr. Theisman sighed quietly. "Sadly, Shinji… yes," he said quietly. "It is now the year 2028. And a lot has happened in those 14 years you've been away."
Shinji's eyes widened for a moment, then closed as he sighed. "Well… thank you, I guess, Mr. Theisman."
Again the man sighed quietly, looking over at him with a slight smile. "I've been called that more than enough times over my lifetime by those who aren't in command of me. Please, just call me Daniel."
"O… kay, Mr. Daniel," Shinji said, taken aback by how at ease the man was.
Daniel chuckled softly. "You can drop the Mr. too, Shinji."
Shinji blushed slightly, looking away from Daniel. "Sorry," he muttered softly.
"There's nothing you said that needs to be apologized for, Shinji. You're just… getting used to things, is all." Daniel said, the last words coming quietly.
He felt he would be doing a lot of that over the next while.
They continued to walk in silence for a long while before the doors in front of them opened, and Shinji's eyes went wide as he studied the utterly massive space around them.
"This is the Engineering Bay of the Autonomous Assault Ark
Wunder," Daniel said with no small amount of pride. "The beating heart of the ship that you now stand in, the flagship of WILLE."
Shinji blinked before his brow furrowed slightly. "WILLE?"
"Yes." Doctor Akagi finally said. "The Anti-Evangelion Group WILLE. Dedicated to stopping NERV, and eventually ridding the world of the Evangelion entirely."
They came to a stop in front of a massive sphere that sat halfway into the floor, a part of it open like a slice taken out of a fruit revealing the familiar form of the upper half of Unit-01.
"And this is how our ship is able to do what it does." Doctor Akagi said. "Thanks to Unit-01, this ship is able to work as it was intended to. All without the need for a pilot."
"So…" Shinji said quietly. "I'm not needed anymore." there was a falling tone to the words.
"Even if you were to somehow enter the Evangelion, it's likely that you wouldn't be able to start it anyway," Akagi replied. "We've received the results of your sync testing from before the Nemesis series attacks. We were not able to get any readings. Most likely, that means that you no longer have a sync score."
The news hit Shinji like a punch to the gut, his knees beginning to wobble slightly. "How…" he said weakly.
"However," Akagi continued on regardless, "this has been something of a detour, as requested by Mr. Theisman." she almost leered at the man as she said the last words.
"I simply wanted to get him to walk some," Daniel replied as he put up his hands. "Sitting around stewing for too long does terrible things to a man."
"Regardless, we'll be making our way to the reinforced examination rooms now," Akagi said, turning and beginning to walk away.
Daniel looked down at Shinji. "Come on. I'll answer whatever questions you have along the way."
Questions, for as much as they swirled in Shinji's mind, seemed unwilling to present themselves to Daniel as they walked. So, the silence was their companion as they entered another room, white and bright, a stark contrast to the rest of the ship's dull grays. Within, Doctor Akagi took a seat across from Misato, Asuka standing next to her, and Ms. Aanderson, the other woman who had been with him on the bridge.
Shinji found himself escorted to the other side of a thick pane of what could have been glass, Ms. Suzuhara waiting for him on the other side as the door hissed shut.
"Now," Akagi said, "as I've stated, your synch score is, if not completely null, then likely close enough to not matter."
Shinji took in the idea again for a moment before Akagi continued. "However, the fact of the matter is that you were awakened during the operation to retrieve Unit-01 for 12 seconds. That you could have initiated another Impact-"
"Wait." Shinji interrupted. "
Another Impact?"
"Yes," Misato said, not even moving. "14 years ago, when you faced the 10th Angel, Evangelion Unit-01 awakened in response to your extreme emotions getting the better of you. As it awakened, it vanquished the Angel… at the cost of initiating Near-Third Impact."
Shinji's eyes widened, and Akagi took the chance to continue into the silence. "Thus, we have fitted the DSS Choker to you."
"What does that do?" Shinji asked, glancing down at his reflection at the black band around his neck.
"It monitors your emotions. If you allow them to overwhelm you whenever you might be in an Evangelion, and the risk of an awakening is greatest, the Choker activates, taking your life to shut down the Evangelion." Akagi said emotionlessly.
Shinji's heart nearly seemed to stop. "I'll… die." he nearly whispered. He looked around the room that was on the other side of the glass. Doctor Akagi, Misato, and Asuka, who he noticed sported a sports jacket over her Plugsuit and an eyepatch over her right eye, simply stared at him. Daniel and Ms. Aanderson, on the other hand, seemed outright horrified.
"You strapped a
bomb to my patient?" Ms. Aanderson said incredulously. "I want it off. Now."
"It's on there by my orders, Aanderson," Misato said, standing from leaning against the wall, Aanderson clenching her fists as she turned to look at the Captain. "And as long as he remains in our custody, it will remain there."
"And what's to stop you from detonating it prematurely?" Daniel asked, looking intently at Misato. "What metric is he being measured against to ensure his survival?"
"What's it to you?" Asuka finally said, her eye narrowing as she stepped towards the man. "Why should you care what the Captain does or doesn't do?"
"Because I've had a long string of commanding officers
just like that, Ms. Shikinami," Daniel replied, the words dripping with an unexpected venom as he looked back at Misato. "Commanding officers who have told me, to my face, that our performance in battle was the only thing that kept his finger off the button that would detonate the collars
in our necks. We had to be the best. Or we were dead. It was as simple as that."
Shinji couldn't interpret the emotion that flashed across Asuka's face as she looked up at him, but Misato simply stared at him. "Should he not pilot an Evangelion," Misato said, "then the collar will not be activated. Think of it as an insurance policy."
"Insurance policy." Daniel spat, turning away. "You could fill a keg with the number of shots I could take from hearing that before."
The room went silent for a moment, and Shinji looked up at Ms. Suzuhara. "So…" he said quietly, the young woman looking back at him. "You're related to Toji?"
Suzuhara smiled, bowing slightly. "Yes. I'm sorry I'm so late in making a formal introduction, but I'm Lieutenant Sakura Suzuhara, your supervising medical officer under Doctor Kiana Aanderson."
She paused for a moment. "Thank you for looking out for my big brother."
Shinji's eyes went wide. "Wait. Are you sure he's not your…"
Then he paused. "Oh, right. 14 years and all that," he muttered, looking down for a moment.
"Hey, it's okay," Sakura said, drawing Shinji's gaze back up to her. "Toji's always had good things to say about you. I think…"
She glanced out for a moment, most of the adult's backs turned from the window as they continued to converse quietly. Asuka alone still looked at them.
She looked back to Shinji. "I think you mean well. It's just…" her smile disappeared. "Your actions had bigger consequences than you meant them to have."
Shinji nodded. "Yeah," he said, barely above a whisper.
Then, he looked up and saw that the adults had all left the room, Misato and Aanderson standing at the doorway as Asuka continued to look at them.
Shinji gathered his courage, standing and walking over to the edge of the room, Asuka not moving as he looked at her and wondered for a moment what to say.
"You…" he trailed off for a moment, clearly embarrassed. "You make the eyepatch look cool," he said, uncertainly.
"I got it because of you," Asuka replied coolly, tersely, her eye narrowing as he saw her jaw clench slightly, her hand becoming a fist and trembling slightly.
Shinji looked down for a moment. "I'm sorry," he said quietly.
"You really must be idiot Shinji, then. Because you keep saying that, every single stupid time." Asuka grated.
"I thought…" he paused and swallowed, looking back up at her. "Asuka, I thought I killed you. It's why I quit NERV. I… I hated my father for making the Dummy System do that to you."
"That's a nice excuse. But it still doesn't change what happened." Asuka shook her head. "You really never changed," she said, seeming sure of herself.
"Why didn't you? Change, I mean." Shinji asked.
"It's the curse of piloting an Evangelion, it seems. We never get to grow up physically." Asuka spat out.
Asuka's eye widened suddenly, and her hand flashed up. Shinji stepped back on instinct, his eyes widening as her fist hit the window, what was likely inches of glass rippling before it cracked, causing Misato to look toward them for a moment.
Asuka said as she kept her fist pressed to the glass for a moment, the room seeming frozen in time.
"14 years I've been waiting to throw that punch. 14 years of anger, all for you. You'd better count yourself lucky that the glass was in the way."
She nodded over to a table. "Your stupid music player's over there, by the way. It doesn't work, so don't ask."
With that, she lowered her fist, turning and walking back towards Misato. "I'm ready to go now,
Colonel."
Misato said nothing as the two of them walked out, the door sliding shut, leaving Shinji and Sakura alone as Aanderson came back into the room.
They both looked at the cracked glass with no small amount of shock for a moment before Sakura looked over at Shinji. "Can… can
you do that?" she asked quietly.
Shinji looked down at his hands, seemingly so thin and fragile. Then again, Asuka's weren't much bigger than his. "I… don't know."
