Remove ads

New Century 2318 [NGE]

Reader mode
Hmm, a 'Future!' take on NGE, with the pilots also being older. + Sex-change Shinji/Natsu. I wonder how the the 3rd Impact scenario would play out, with humanity apparently colonizing the Solar System. Sachiel did attack Tokyo 3, so it seems that factor remains the same (thus far), but would something like the canonical 3rd Impact truly cover the Solar System? I guess only time (and the author) will tell.

I found Natsu's fugue upon meeting Gendo and Rei so soon after her experience in synching with Unit 01 to be quite interesting. I wonder, is that due to a lingering "impression" of Yui's soul, or a kind of persistent 'entanglement' due to her being female in mind and to some extent, body, being caused by her neural implants... I was also surprised at how Gendo apparently didn't try to draw away or avoid contact with Natsu when she was practically grasping for "something to hold onto". Just surprise? Actual empathy? Maybe he had a bit of a fugue as well, if Natsu looks much like her mother (as Rei apparently does).
 
So far so good! It seemed to me that Rei really didn't like Touji. I wonder how much of that is "you scared my fellow pilot and almost got her killed," and how much is pre-existing?

Also intriguing: does Rei like Kensuke? Because Kensuke likes Rei and, more importantly, Rei knows it. She wasn't willing to tell Touji, though...
 
JennyDracos said:
So far so good! It seemed to me that Rei really didn't like Touji. I wonder how much of that is "you scared my fellow pilot and almost got her killed," and how much is pre-existing?

Also intriguing: does Rei like Kensuke? Because Kensuke likes Rei and, more importantly, Rei knows it. She wasn't willing to tell Touji, though...
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Well, Touji and Kensuke are probably the closest thing Rei has to friends, if only because Touji is immune to her dismissal and Kensuke wants to hold her hand.

Her feelings on Kensuke are not romantic
 
Just caught up and really liking what you've done here for the past few chapters. Really like how you've developed Natsu so far and your take on Rei is very good. Looking forward to more :)
 
Remove ads
Chapter 7
  • Threadmarks
    • Chapter 7:

    Duet​





    Even holding myself up was, at times, a challenge. I couldn't keep living that way, not with what was at stake and certainly not with what my life had become. I had to be more than a girl collapsing under her own weight and being saved by strapping young lads in athletic armor.

    Even if they did put a flutter into my heart and a spring into my step.

    The problem was my strength, not my durability. Years of hormone therapy and low gravity living would have fried my skeleton if not for the years I also spent receiving bone density therapy. I could have opted, as well, for strength therapy, if I'd ever actually planned on returning to the Earth.

    I had not. Maybe Mars, but Earth was... not what it used to be.

    Running shoes, elastic shorts, and a tank top that fit. I could do this, with dignity even. One foot in front of the other, push off, then switch and repeat. I'd been doing it my entire life, I just wasn't as heavy back then.

    I could force myself to do it, through the pain, and so I would. One step, two steps, three, four, five. My muscles started to burn almost immediately but I forced myself to speed up. The track was soft, reclaimed rubber. Low impact.

    Music, music helped, the earbuds were secured and blocked out everything except the upbeat guitar riffs of some rocker from the late nineteen hundreds. It was motivation and a distraction, something to point my mind at other than the not-quite-enough oxygen in my lungs and the too much weight on my thighs.

    One, two, three, four, five. Repeat. Faster this time. Fewer seconds between the beats. I could feel the air against my face, my hair fluttering gently behind me. Lean forward, head down some, one, two, three, four, five.

    Next song came on, more percussion, drums, fast tempo. I pushed off harder, added more speed. Lungs burning, legs burning, knees aching, body felt like it was going to fall apart but under it there was something pushing me along, keeping me going because I had to do this.

    Get my legs under me, for real. Keep them there, get faster, get stronger. Maybe I couldn't run the whole track, but there was no reason I couldn't run ten meters, and then the ten after that. Just ten more. One, two, three, four, five.

    To my left, I could catch a lock of blue hair drifting in and out of my peripheral vision. Rei Ayanami? It would make sense that she would use this track, given it's location at Nerv. I would have thought that she would be more interested in resting for recovery, but then maybe she had something to work for as well.

    I pushed myself harder, through the cramp that was threatening to crop up in my right leg. I tried to, anyway. One, two, three-- my leg locked up and I tumbled down and to the side, rolled and ended up face down on the rubberized circuit around the gym.

    I had enough time to feel the wind knocked from my lungs and then I was back on my feet, awkwardly hanging by the back of my shirt from someone's hand. A glance told me it was Rei's hand. Her grip relaxed as I found my footing. She was definitely stronger than she looked, but then I was lighter than I looked, too.

    "Th-thanks for that." I stuttered out.

    "It is not a problem. You will be more successful if you remain on your feet." She answered simply, directly, bluntly.

    She wasn't wrong. "Well... thanks all the same."

    I walked in a lazy circle, limping my way through the muscle cramp and the bruising from my fall onto the floor. I hadn't broken the skin, but that was only a small favor in light of the aches that started to make themselves known throughout my body.

    But I'd get over it, eventually. I had to, right?

    She nodded at me, though I still wasn't familiar enough with her to read the subtle expression on her face. At least, not at first. Soon enough her expression shifted to a slight frown.

    And then the alarms started.


    xxx​



    It wasn't that it felt old-hat, more that even in this short time it had come to feel familiar, comforting if not quite comfortable. It was a difficult sentiment to wrap my head around but it biased towards pleasant more than to the alternative.

    But, I had made the real decision a week before. Maybe not in the same words, but the same sentiment that I held as I sat once ahead in that entry plug, wearing that skin tight suit of rubberized something; I've lived my life as a coward. Now is the time to be brave.

    And I might have even believed it. I might not have believed it if I'd been given enough time to actually get properly scared. As it was, being inside of the entry plug and linked with the Evangelion through implants inside of my brain made me feel a sort of calm mania.

    Like I was in the warm, loving embrace of an armed nuclear warhead.

    I'd need that if I was going out alone.

    "Sync holding stable at seventy-five. Final crosschecks complete. Transferring Unit One to the linear accelerator."

    The plug jostled around me, a brief backwards jolt followed by the subtle rumbling of the whole carriage I was standing on rolling back on geared rails. It was one of those thing I hadn't had time to think about before; The facility they built to house and deploy the Evangelion was even more impressive a feat than the robot had been.

    All she'd said in the briefing was "There's an Angel, we need you to kill it." and some apology about wishing they'd had more time for training, they hadn't expected it to happen this quickly. A week, one that we'd spent cleaning out an apartment and not training in how to kill space monsters.

    But it would be nothing I couldn't handle with piss-poor boxing and a machine gun. If it was then I was in a lot worse trouble than I'd been last time, because I didn't have Rei to save me.

    Maybe I did have enough time to get myself scared, after all.

    The carriage rumbled to a halt against the back wall of one of the launch tubes, the 'linear accelerator', or so I assumed. I gripped the controls tight because it wouldn't be long now.

    "Natsu, we're firing the catapult, once you're on the surface a weapon will be provided. Get ready! Launch!"

    I might have gotten something that started out with 'wait' out before the g-forces hit me, but even that was soon lost to the roaring of the Evangelion tearing upwards along the launch rails. And then, maybe the roaring was my own panicked scream.

    Now was the time to be brave.

    The platform locked in place at the top of the accelerator rails and for a moment I was weightless in my seat. The controls loosened up, I was free.

    "Natsu, lock bolts are retracted. We're sending you an automatic rifle, look to your right."

    I looked down and to the right, the butt stock of a machine gun was sticking out of the street at around hip level and I reached for it. "Roger that, Misato. I've got it."

    "Good, the enemy is right in front of you, distance is two thousand meters, he'll be coming over the hill in just a minute."

    "Got it!" I yelled over the sound of the blood rushing to my ears. I snapped the machine gun up to my shoulder and lined the sights up on the rise in the hill at the far end of the street. Two kilometers, but from my vantage it looked more like two hundred meters.

    And the great slippery-looking tentacle monster that came over the rise looked the size of a man, but I knew better and that made me afraid. My finger slapped down on the trigger and the gun rocked against my shoulder, projectiles bigger than my entire body rocketed at supersonic velocity across the gap between us and threw up smoke and debris.

    "You hid it with your smoke! Move!"

    I twisted to my left and dropped the empty machine gun in the same movement. The electric-pink tentacle that cut through where I'd been standing took out the machine gun, but missed me. The section of building that came next struck true, however, and sent me reeling.

    I took a knee to stop my backslide and tried to get up to charge in close, put some of that terrible boxing to use. I was half way up when another tentacle lashed out to grab my left ankle and threw me through the air at high speed.

    I tried to right myself, but a cat I was not. I went shoulder first through a building and rolled through the air. A black speck dropped along with the grey concrete debris and I instinctively reached out to grab it from the air.

    A moment later I was on my back and my head bounced off the headrest, I'd crashed against a mountainside and leveled half the forest in my crash. The alarms screaming through the plug were less concerning than what was in my right hand: a human being.

    A human being wearing one of those hyperball suits like Touji had been wearing, though this one had a camera on the helmet. There was no safe place for him out here on this battlefield. He was lucky enough he'd been caught, but I couldn't even fathom what had possessed me to do that in the first place.

    "Crap. Natsu, let him into the entry plug. There's no time to get him to safety." Misato's voice had the calm resignation of someone who knew they had just made a decision they'd have to pay for later.

    Given the Angel's distance I guessed I had maybe fifteen seconds, it would have to be long enough. I tapped out the sequence into the left control stick, a command set that I'd learned before anything else. Not because I wanted to run away, or anything.

    The emergency lighting came up and the holographic projection shut down, the clunk behind me told me that the hatch was open. The muffled yelling through the loudspeakers told me he was being given commands.

    The splash told me he was behind me and inside the plug. A quick tap on the stick reversed the sequence and within moments the tickle in my brain was back and miss atomic bomb gave me her warm hug once again.

    There was something else tickling at my brain too, but I pushed it out of my mind, for the time being.

    "Thanks for grabbing me, would have really sucked to get splatted on the-- Natsu?" A male voice definitely. Younger, familiar. He knew my name.

    I spared a glance and, with his helmet retracted, I could see his face. "Touji!?" I asked incredulously. Of all the people I could have possibly run into--

    "You should probably do something about that."

    I snapped my head back around and reached out to grab the tentacle headed towards my face. The thing burned like fire and electricity and I could feel the skin on my left hand blistering under the assault. My right fist reached back and then drew forward, colliding with the rubbery surface of the monster's main body with a thunderous 'tump' that sent the creature flying back down the mountain.

    And that gave me the opportunity to roll forward and back onto my feet and charge down the mountain after it. Like he'd said, I should do something about that.

    The right hook was sloppy and wide but it was going to hit like an orbital drop. I twisted around, threw my weight behind the swing--

    Sky filled the front of the entry plug, then ground, then sky, then I hit the ground head first and flopped onto my back, slid, and rolled back onto my feet in a low crouch. The latter was more luck than any skill, but I'd take it.

    I felt a hand on my shoulder. "You're not real good at this. Do you know how to fight?"

    I shook my head. "I do not. I thought I could use piss-poor boxing and machine guns."

    He made a humming sound and then took a few steps forward, past my seat on the control sled. He climbed up onto the end of the sled and his feet clacked down against it, magnetic locks in his hyperball gear probably.

    "I can't drive this thing, but I do know how to win a fight. Get back into it and copy everything I do." His arms were loose at his sides, his feet shoulder width apart on the front of the sled. He'd been in a fight before, there wasn't a hyperballer who hadn't, but his stance was confident enough that I knew he'd won those fights.

    I'd take any help I could get.

    I slid the twin control sticks forward to the runner blocks and leaned forward; Unit One lurched into a sprint and Touji raised his fists. The 'something else' that had been tickling at my brain grew stronger and I embraced it on impulse.

    Left, right, duck, right, left. I mirrored his movements almost before he made them and we pushed closer in on our foe. Block with the left forearm, thrust with the right. Grab the tentacles, knee to the chest.

    It wasn't perfect, but it was more than I'd been doing on my own; I was holding my own ground. More than that, it felt easy. It felt like I'd been doing this for years.

    "Natsu, you have to break the core. There's a knife in the right shoulder compartment, use it!" Misato again. She sounded happier, letting Touji into the plug was apparently not a bad idea after all. At least, one she could probably defend.

    Touji's hand went up at the same time mine did and I drew across with my left hand and brought the blade up in front in a knife-fighter's stance. I had the feeling that it would be over very soon, one way or another.

    We dove under a swipe from the left tentacle and blocked the right with an upward swipe with our right arm. Thrust forward with our left, the tip of the knife sparked against the red sphere set into the monster's chest--

    Touji faltered an instant before I began to scream. My lungs were on fire, like I'd been stabbed through with a hot steel spike on both sides of my back. I couldn't push through, I felt the Evangelion slipping away from me, losing control--

    I felt hands wrap around my own, a shoulder against me and a voice in my ear. "Come on Natsu, we're almost there. Game point, let's do it!"

    Touji's voice started to bring me back, push that pain down. That wasn't me, that was Evangelion that had been wounded. The sensation of touch had to work even for the really nasty things. It still burned but it lost some of the reality.

    The tip of the knife was still sparking against the glassy red sphere. Both of the tentacles had impaled me from behind, so they were trapped, it couldn't stop me. I pushed on the control stick and my right arm wrapped around the monster and pulled it close.

    My left hand pushed the knife forward all the way to the hilt.

    There was a sudden and intense heat in my chest, and then a moment later it was gone and the tentacles had winked out of existence. The monster itself slumped down against me, like I was holding up a drunk friend on the way back to his apartment.

    But it was over, and nothing had exploded.

    "So," Touji started. "I have questions."

    "Imagine that, so do I." Misato's voice added from the link we had to the command center.

    I leaned back against the control seat and let go of the controls, let my eyes slide closed. The pain had lessened from what it was, but it was still there. Nothing worth staying awake for, with how very exhausted piloting for even that short period of time had left me feeling.

    Damn gravity.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • YAY MORE NATSU

    *cough* Good fun, though I do wonder what Hikaru's going to think about all this Natsu/Touji ship tease.
     
    Chapter 8
  • Threadmarks
    • Chapter 8:

    Natsu Fried Rice​





    The video was actually pretty high quality. I was able to watch Unit One, and by extension myself, fighting the Angel from the vantage point of the rooftops of some of the city's taller buildings. The frame of reference kept moving, bobbing and weaving and skipping from rooftop to rooftop.

    The whip crack that took me from my feet was deafening, but somehow when it had been happening I'd not noticed. Too much else to worry about, I supposed.

    Unit One flew through the air towards the point of view of the camera, and then the video went into slow motion, though I wasn't sure if that was something that had been part of the upload or just for effect now.

    The building below the camera's point of view exploded upwards as I crashed through it and the camera went airborne. A purple hand reached through the dust and electrical sparks and wrapped around the camera and everything went dark.

    I'd caught him, of course I had, but I hadn't really given much thought to the why. I couldn't have known it was a person, all I saw was a spec of black but I reached out for it and didn't crush it. Was it a simple whim or was it something else? In all of that confusion and debris I reached out for the one thing that was a human being.

    And it was one I knew.

    I realized I'd stopped paying attention and blinked in surprise at the image of my own face on the recording. It wasn't something I was used to seeing from the other side.

    "We pulled this stream right after the fight. Five billion views, and it's made it into the off-world network. Suffice to say the secret's out. Everyone knows who Natsu is." Misato let out a sigh that spoke volumes more than her tone about how she felt.

    "Woah five billion views? This is the best day of my life! Kensuke isn't goint to believe this." Touji was actually laughing to himself. Of course he was, he was that kind of guy, wasn't he?

    But then there was definitely more to him. When we were fighting I could feel that much.

    I looked down at the tablet in my hand. The video was there as well as on the projection, but I could see the comment feed. The usual banter dominated the feed but a few--

    "Oh come on there's nothing uneducated about the Ganymedian accent!" I yelled at the screen as I tossed it hard against the tabletop in front of me. My appetite for gossip evaporated in an instant.

    "I'm glad you both have such strong opinions on this massive breach in infosec, but we've got to fix this situation so as I see it we can kill two birds with one stone." Misato started with a hard edge to her voice. She clearly hadn't liked our reactions.

    But then, how was I supposed to react to it? This was all pretty new to me, near deaths and all, so it wasn't like I had a real benchmark for what was 'okay' as it pertained to Nerv and Evangelion. She'd been at this for years but this was my first job.

    As first jobs went, I felt like I could have done better.

    "Are you killing both of us?" Touji asked with a blank look and flat tone that I couldn't quite figure out the authenticity of. Either he was playing dumb or, well, I wasn't quite sure.

    The smirk that curled onto Misato's mouth was the thing of nightmares. The smug satisfaction that it bore was one that could never mean anything pleasant, at least nothing she thought would be pleasant. It was the smirk that someone put on right before they twisted the knife.

    "Touji Suzuhara," She began in an almost sing-song voice, "You work for us now, which means we own you now. Which means if anything else like this happens again you will not enjoy yourself. Clear? Good!"

    I found the courage to speak up when she stopped. "That's one bird, what's the second bird?"

    Touji seemed a bit less chill after the revelation of his involuntary employment. "That... is something I would like to know as well."

    Misato frowned and shrugged her shoulders. "You're going to have to teach Natsu how to throw a punch, because she's really bad at it."

    "You know, you're being awfully unpleasant about this when you're the one who told me to let him inside the plug in the first place. He didn't really do anything wrong," I found myself saying despite my every instinct to shut the hell up before it was too late.

    It wasn't the kind of thing that I did. It was the kind of thing that Touji would do.

    She shrugged dismissively at me and pointed towards the door. "Then you can probably imagine how bad of a dressing down I got for it. We're done here, get out."

    I shook my head in exasperation and pushed away from the desk and stood from my chair. The aggressive movement took a lot out of me but the fear, anger, and distrust was enough to keep me going.

    I didn't turn back until I was in the hallway, and even then just to see that Touji had followed me, still dressed in his movement rig. They were air tight, he was still probably clean inside, just as I was inside my plugsuit.

    A plugsuit I'd fortunately, at least, been able to take off. I would have liked to have had my own clothes, but borrowing that blue dress from Rei was the best I'd been able to do on absolutely zero notice at Nerv headquarters.

    "What a bitch." He muttered under his breath as he pulled the door shut behind him. She probably heard him, he didn't seem to care. If he did care, he wasn't showing it.

    "First time we met was on a transfer station in low orbit. Angel attacked it and Misato threw me into hard vacuum without a suit." I licked my lip then turned and smirked at him, "You got off easy, no?"

    "You crashed through a building I was standing on and I almost died. That's actually pretty even isn't it?"

    That was worth considering. On the one hand, he could still breath. On the other hand, he lacked the ability to fly.

    "That's fair."

    "Actually," he shrugged and cocked his head, "we could make it fair. You could make it up to me by letting me buy you a nice dinner. You might not have heard but I've got a job now."

    I rubbed my chin in mock thought, "You know, I think I heard about that. Your boss is kind of a bitch, right?"

    "Yeah! That's the one! So how about it? You don't even have to change your clothes."

    The grin was infectious, but his proposal was one I'd been thinking about for a while, if not actively waiting for. I would have said yes without the ultimatum, but I didn't need to let him know that.

    "You're going to have to change yours. Not going on a date with a guy in power armor."

    He frowned, "It's not power armor, it's a mobility enhancing athletic--"

    "Power tool." I narrowed my eyes at him in the kind of intimidating look that only someone ten and change centimeters shorter than him could accomplish.

    "Yeah, I'll change. I'll send you the address, give me... an hour and a half?"

    He didn't wait for a response, just turned and took off in the opposite direction at a half-run. He made it about twelve meters before he stopped and ran past me in the other direction.

    "Exit's this way. Hour and a half, be there, be cute!"


    ***​


    He'd just had to say it. 'Be cute.' A throwaway line, he probably thought he was being clever. What is insecurity? I think her name is Natsu.

    Subtle makeup, a little perfume. Leggings. Deoderant? Another shower, do it all over again. By the time I'd gotten ready to go I had forty minutes to get to the restaurant and I was fifty minutes away by foot.

    But that's what money was for, it was twenty minutes by auto-taxi and I could get one in fifteen minutes. Cutting it close, but I could make it. I did make it.

    Why did I care about making a good impression at a date I was basically guilted into going on?

    Right, I was actually looking forward to it. Maybe it was just the thrill of actually being asked.

    In any case, the fifty minutes of effort put into making my hair and my face and my scent just-so-perfect that they looked like I hadn't put effort into them had paid off. I hoped that it paid off.

    I'd been seated first, he hadn't arrived yet, but then he had five more minutes to go, right?

    And so I sipped at a glass of reverse osmosis filtered spring water and stared into a menu of more combinations and variations of sushi and sashimi than I even knew existed. Tuna, scalmon, shrimp, a different kind of tuna, swordfish? My mind evoked an image of a big blue fish with a fencing foil sticking out of its face.

    It wasn't that we didn't have restaurants on Ganymede, it was just that we didn't have fish on Ganymede. Actual real honest-to-goodness meat did happen, but it was dried or canned or salted or preserved in some way that didn't really convey a sense of freshness. Fish was right out, except for a can of tuna that I'd had as a child and that...

    Well I hoped that wasn't indicative of what I was in for. But then Touji was paying, wasn't he? He could foot the bill for a bad experience. There was nothing worse than paying good money for bad food.

    I heard the chime of the bells on the restaurant door and I fidgeted in my seat, clicked my shoes together nervously and agonized, briefly, over whether white had been the correct choice or if he would have preferred black leggings to go with my borrowed blue dress.

    To look at, not that he'd be taking them off of me, unless--

    "Natsu, you look... wow."

    He was wearing dress slacks, an untucked white button down shirt and a jacket. No Tie. The look suited him. His words suited me. Not to completely alleviate my anxiety but to temper it a little.

    I needed to say something. A smile and a blush was an answer but I could do better. "You look nice too."

    He sat down and while I was definitely still blushing his own cheeks had a tinge of their own. A diversion was in order. Small talk, right?

    "You know, I've never actually had sushi before. Not a lot of fish once you get past mars, you know?" It was a brilliant tactic; bore him with meaningless details.

    "I hadn't actually had sushi either until Ken told me about this place. I try to make it at least once a week for the lunch special. Lean healthy proteins. It tastes pretty good too."

    So maybe not that boring after all.

    "Do you have any suggestions? I think about the only fish I've had was canned tuna..." And like that, I felt the eyes boring into me. Glances from the staff, other patrons. If the accent hadn't given me away by itself, my inexperience sealed the deal.

    Outer system provincial space-hick.

    Not that Touji seemed to mind, and so I just let myself lose myself in his eyes, his mouth. The way his messy hair framed his face and somehow made it look like it was all on purpose and planned. Like there'd been a rhyme or a reason to it and it wasn't just lucky laziness.

    But it added to his charm.

    "Natsu?"

    I blinked and sat back in my chair a little. He was looking at me with concern, but I'd lost the interest of the other patrons. They'd probably found some other vapid indulgence--

    Right. "Sorry, I kinda lost track of myself for a second there. Did you order?"

    He nodded. "I thought that it was a special enough occasion, considering what we've gone through. Plus it's your first time having sushi so that's pretty special too. I thought that I'd spring for the chūtoro."

    I felt another blush creeping up and I was sure he already noticed it. "Is it that special of an occasion though?"

    Aside from him discovering that I piloted a giant robot, of course.

    "Well, to tell the truth I've wanted to ask you to come here with me since we met... this just seemed like the best opportunity to get you to say yes." Now, it seemed it was his turn to redden in the cheeks.

    "To tell you the truth I wish you'd asked me sooner."

    He coughed, quietly, and tilted his head. He hadn't been expecting that answer. I was surprised I'd been brave enough to say it.

    "I won't wait so long to ask you next time."

    Smooth.

    But then I couldn't say it didn't work.

    "Thinking about next time already? We're not even through with tonight yet."

    This time his lip curled into a smirk, because he knew he had me. Of course, I wanted him to have me, so it was easy for him.

    "The night isn't really over until the sun comes up. There's a lot we can do between now and then."
     
    Last edited:
  • Threadmarks
    • Well, if the Scenario wasn't derailed when Natsu showed up instead of Shinji, it sure as hell is now.
     
    There are some scenes you don't want to write, either for reasons of taste, not wanting to distract from the story, what have you.

    Things that are important to character development, to plot, to... plans must still happen.

    That having been said, and for the sake of levity while levity can be found, while the story is still on a high note.

    I'll leave you with this, and let you draw the conclusions you will



    See you next time:

     
    Reader mode
    You must login or register to reply here.
    Remove ads
    Back
    Top