Side Effects [Neon Genesis AU] [odd perspective]

[Mechanis]

Spoiler: A/n and content warnings

so bit of an experiment here. just a big-ol one-shot-for-now that's been kicking around. it's written kind of oddly but NGE is an odd show and I was going odd places with this.
note this does feature major mental and bodlily alterations, Shinji slowly turning into a girl, and lots of Yuri undertones.
also does not feature a lot of detail, I literally belted this whole thing out over about three to four hours today in two sittings. mainly an experiment in this odd writing style and to fulfill my sudden need for Yuri Pilotshipping.

So it turns out slamming your soul into a giant biological murder machine powered by your mother's soul and alien technomagic has some undocumented side effects. Who knew?

-~-​

Shinji had been feeling odd for weeks. Ever since the angel, and the ride in the Evangelion, he'd felt off- it was difficult to describe. Shinji wasn't usually one for self-reflection, or the regular kind from mirrors for that matter, yet here he was, staring at himself in a mirror, traces of LCL clinging to his plugsuit, wondering. Every time he'd synced to the Eva…


He frowned, holding a nearly transparent hair. It'd come off his arm this morning, along with all its fellows, and Shinji worried.


Because despite the fact that he seemed to have lost every bit of hair, other than his eyebrows and the stuff coming out of his scalp, he didn't feel anything other than subtly off. Oh, it'd felt really weird at first, but when he'd brought it up with Misato (and how weird was that, that she'd gone from 'Katsaragi-san' to 'Misato' in such a short time, but there was just something eminently likeable about the woman) she'd told him not to worry, said it was a documented effect of plugsuits, and sent him on his way.


He'd feel better about this if it weren't for the growing off-ness. Regular clothing felt almost uncomfortable now, and he was starting to notice other things. Like how the calluses he'd gotten from his chello had vanished overnight after a sync test yet were somehow still there when he actually played. Or how a half-dozen little scars and blemishes had, since he'd come to Tokyo-3, faded into invisibility before vanishing altogether.


His brow furrowed as he mechanically stipped out of the plugsuit. He'd also noticed he could concentrate better with the A10 connectors on. Whenever he took them off, like they were now, he felt distracted. As though there was something he should be doing, but wasn't. He glanced at them again as he slid into his (uncomfortable now) clothes, and made a decision.


He walks out of the locker room with the clips sat snugly against his scalp, and feels oddly better.


No-one comments on his habit of wearing the clips constantly until he meets the Second Child.

-~-​

The Fourth is a nightmare of whipping energy tendrils and pain, the pallet rifle useless as the first time, only good as a sacrifice to deflect a tendral that would have otherwise removed his head. But that instant provides crucial insight- the tendrils are flattened things, sharp on their edges like a sword, but perfectly flat on the other.

Shinji now has more than one knife.

The first two slam through baited tendels, nailing each one to the ground with snakelike quickness, and the Angel screams, trying to wrench free. Just as it managest to wise up and use one tendrel to free the other, Shinji's third knife flashes out in a black-grey arc, and one of the angel's shoulders come free in a spray of ichor, writhing tendrel still attached.


The other tendrel is free, now, and a line of pain slashes down his back as it severs the umbilical and part of the plug mounting, but he's inside its guard, now, and even as it frantically tries to disengage his free hand lashes out, fingers digging into vulnerable shoulder, the bladed tendrel's pink-purple glow sputtering out as he crushes its mounting, and his face is a ritus of hate as he slams the prog knife into the angel's core again and again until at last there's a crack like dropping a stone ball and the knife sinks to the hilt.


He stares at trembling hands in the aftermath as the adrenaline leaves his system, and slowly they firm. They seem thinner now, more delicate, yet when he's cooking later that night his grip actually dents an apple he's holding when he stubs his toe. And his movements are more fluid, especially with knives- before he'd been only technically proficient, now, his movements begin to approach the effortless fluidity he's seen sometimes in master chefs.


He's oddly pleased about this, because cooking is his in the way that Chello has gone from 'something he never stopped' to 'something he enjoys' over the last month.

-~-​

The Fifth is a nightmare. Even if it wasn't the first with a real ranged attack, the particle beam which punches through armor and shaft and the shoulder of his Eva with the same effortless grace, the scream it makes is a far more deadly component of its attack, boring into his head like white-hot spikes and all-too-human-sounding.


When he hears the plan to shoot the thing, he laughs. Because Rei, he explains, can actually hit the broad side of a barn at more than 'point blank,' whereas he's already proven his unit-01's ability to resist- an instinctual flaring of his AT-Field, reshaping it not to resist, but to deflect, is the only reason why Unit-01 isn't in need of a new arm. Adding the same effect to the shuttle-shield could buy them precious seconds.


Also, he points out reasonably, Rei's Unit-00 is shorter by about half a head. If she needs to duck, she'll clear faster than he would.


He also recommends having and extra shield- two, if they can swing it- in case the first shot misses. In the end, he only gets one extra, and without the cooling- but it buys Rei the precious seconds she need to dodge when the angel deflects their first shot with its own particle weapon.


He isn't fully hit by Rei's notion of her being 'expendable' until after the battle. It's not an attitude he can tolerate in a teammate, because his own experience shows that pure will to live, the sheer conviction that I will not yield is what matters with the AT field, and that will can carry a battle where clinical apathy and analysis would fail. He brings it up with Misato, but not urgently, only expressing concern about Rei. Dr. Akagi, overhearing, brushes off his concerns.


He doesn't bring it up again, but resolves to watch his fellow Pilot carefully. The more he watches, the more confused he becomes. It's like she's two different people- sometimes, she's distant and isolated but delivering cutting commentary with a quiet steel behind her voice and others she seems almost asleep, robotically answering queries with either a stock response or as few syllables as possible.


She mystifies him.

-~-​

Asuka Langly Sohru confused Shinj. This made it two for two as far as 'other pilots confusing Shinji,' but where Rei at least had the excuse of being 'raised' by The Bastard (he'd long since stopped thinking of Gendo Ikari with anything resembling familial affection) and was more machinelike than the Eva seemed, Asuka was instead a hurricane or tornado, dragging everything and everyone behind her like sakura petals. She was mildly insulting and overbearing and bragged about her prowess seemingly every breath, and yet.


Nestled in that red hair were two crimson-colored oblongs, mirroring the ones now hung in his own- he hadn't told anyone that he only took them off to wash his hair, and even that felt wrong, like taking off an arm. He'd let his bangs grow out some, and now used the clips to hold them out of his face.


She'd said it made him look like a girl, and complained that he was copying her style. He wasn't sure how he felt about that.


Then the Sixth angel had attacked, and Asuka had swept him up, into her own Eva (the plugsuit felt oddly comfortable, despite being one of Asuka's spares- he wasn't really sure what to think about that, either,) and into battle. Each Angel had changed him a little more, he knew. Even as they jumped from ship to ship, his eyes hardened and the confusion and fear and uncertainty that had defined his life before just fell away. There was an Angel. They needed to kill it.


The moment when two hands thrust a control stick forward with savage sharpness and buried the progressive knife in the Angel's core, something crystallized in his mind.


The Evas need bigger knives.


As soon as everyone returned to Tokyo-3, after the whirlwind of Asuka joining the apartment he'd shared with Misato, he stopped her. Explained how useless the ranged weapons they had had proven, citing his own battles as examples. Then he'd asked for a bigger knife. Preferably, a sword. Asuka, having wandered in while he was citing examples of his own battles, chimed in that polearms would be a good way to keep opponents at a distance.


When the Seventh attacks, they never learn of its ability to split into twins, because Shinji's new katana and Asuka's massive zweihänder cut the thing's core into four separate pieces on the first strike.


Shinji and Asuka find they can somehow wield even the training versions in their own bodies with startling expertise for those who've never done so before. If anyone notices how both he and Asuka have become strangely graceful since they met, they don't comment.


Nor does anyone comment as Asuka's sync score gradually climbs to the same eighty-five-ish as Shinji's.

-~-​

The plan is the same sort of stupid as Rei holding the shield. If we know where the damn thing is, just loop it with a cable and pull it up before sticking it in a box. Because otherwise they'd be fighting an Angel in an active volcano, and that just sounds like fifty kinds of terrible idea. Even Rei agrees with him.


Misato and the other planners look rather like someone just slapped them with a fish.


He's vindicated when the damn thing wakes up two-thirds of the way out of the magma chamber and even more so when he and Asuka suffer second-degree burns and lung damage (repairable, thankfully) from boiling LCL after the Eighth Angel knocks them into the damn caldera.


She gets out before he does, since he also broke an arm and three ribs, but comes back. He pretends to be asleep when she kisses him.


He doesn't bring it up, but he's starting to change faster now, and he's noticed the same changes in Asuka.


He begins to suspect the Eva is doing something to them.

-~-​

The Ninth Angel is more an irritant- without main power it takes them almost three hours to get into position, but they kill it in only two minutes once actually in their Evas. later they learn it had shaped its AT field to disrupt the generators and used its spawn to destroy the main power regulators that could have activated the Geofront's own backup batteries.


It's what comes after that is more important. Rei's attitude during the episode sets both Shinji and Asuka off, and they demand that Misato bring Rei into the apartment for teambuilding exercises. She agrees, and the arrangement becomes permanent once Misato sees Rei's apartment.


Shinji finally notices that Rei is only robotic and empty when not wearing the A10 clips. He gets her to wear them more, and notices when she seems to figure it out.


He never sees her without them again, and all three pilots' sync scores climb to a solid ninety percent.


She also gains the same effortless grace he and Asuka sport and the bond between the three of them strengthens. They soon simply know what the others want- Asuka becomes more even-tempered, less boisterous and loud. Rei becomes more animated, less robotic and more serene, and he himself- well, so long as it's with the other pilots he doesn't feel the need to push others away.

-~-​

The Tenth is where the other pilots begin to suspect about what Shinji is now sure of: the Eva is changing them. Not just mentally, but physically, too. The detonation is enormous, and all three of them bounce around in their plugs- yet they don't even bruise, let alone break anything, despite hitting things far harder than the impact that broke his arm and ribs before.


The fact that his pants don't fit after the battle is also a clue. He realizes with an emotion he can't quite make sense of that his hips are too wide for these pants now. A look in a mirror later, trying on the fifth pair in a row of uncomfortable pants that don't sit right on him and he thinks, holy hell I look like a girl.


He gets Asuka to distract his minders, and grabs a dozen pairs from the girl's section. They fit.


He manages to avoid panicking until he gets home; because the feeling of off-ness is decreased a bit and he's fairly scared of what that might mean.


Asuka slips into his room and hugs him.it feels good and he doesn't want her to stop. Rei hovers in the doorway with a strange, unreadable expression, which turns to surprise when Asuka drags her into the hug.


They fall asleep, and their dreams are strange.


They wake up in the hospital. Misato is there, looking worried. They've been asleep-in a coma, really, since they wouldn't wake up- for nearly a month, and they actually missed the eleventh Angel- apparently it manifested as a microorganism and then adapted to being a computer program, and Dr Akagi killed it with some sort of logic bomb.


They do, however, notice that they're taller, and their heights have evened out somewhat. The added hieght, at least for Shinji, is mostly in his legs, which are now much longer. His face is also subtly more feminine. Oddly he feels… good. Focused. Asuka and Rei and and Shinji are inseparable now, clinging to each other as their bodies alter.


Oddly it is Rei, not Shinji, who has the most issues with her changing form. They find her crying in her room when her skirt doesn't fit anymore. They aren't sure what's going on, but hugs and warmth happens.


It isn't until a while later they find out why.

-~-​

The Twelfth angel is strange, but it could have been much worse. Shinji and Asuka make to charge it, but just before they reach the thing's shadow, some instinct warns them. When buildings and cars start to sink into it and Dr Akagi explains what it is, all three pilots have the same thought: How do I stab something with no physical body?


They don't need to. Apparently Dr Akagi has a cunning plan, and by cunning plan she means 'lob explosives at it and see what happens.'


Shinji feels oddly satisfied dumping eva-scale N2 depth charges into this thing at precise angles.


It's even more satisfying when the things go off, and shatter the odd three-dimensional shadow like an eggshell, spilling an enormous quantity of angel blood- far, far more than a sphere of that volume could contain- over the three Evas.


What happens next, though, is what really causes the pilots to embrace whatever it is they're becoming.


The arrival of unit-03 and Toji's addition to the roster is initially celebrated, but it's ultimately short-lived. Bardial is a monster, subverting unit three and trying to take Rei. it's awful, Shinji and Asuka can feel it clawing at their minds, trying to drag them into a cesspit of their worst emotions and take control, but Asuka burns like the sun and Shinji will not yield and bit by bit they burn it away.


They don't notice that they all started screaming when it started to subvert Rei. they don't realize that gittering orange fire made of AT-field octagons engulfs unit-03 and burns every last speck of Bardiel's corruption.

they wake in the hospital, two days later, and realize that they can feel each-other's minds. Rei breaks down and tells them everything.


Cold fury fills them, and they realize that, whatever's happening to them, the meddling men who would doom humanity will never succeed so long as they draw breath.

-~-​

Zuriel is both the end and the beginning. Their sync scores are now consistently nearing one-hundred-percent, and the linkage of their minds means they no longer even need words to communicate. Their movements are perfectly synchronized, and while the Angel of Might is incredibly powerful they dance around it like it is nothing more than a statue. They tune out everything but the fight, darting between razor-ribbon arms and colossal detonations like ghosts, slashing at its armored body and clawing at its impossibly strong AT field, and it's still not enough. They've only got thirty seconds more battery, and Shinji's resolve fills all three of them.


Akagi and everyone else shouts and panics as all three pilot's sync ratios shoot up and up and up, until the equipment stops registering them at all because they no longer have physical bodies to monitor. Rings of light spin into existence behind each Eva, and all three, in a single moment of perfect synchronicity, stab the exact same point in Zuriel's core. The immensely powerful AT field shatters like spun sugar glass, and the detonation blows the back third of the angel's body into bloody chunks.


Three Evas slump forward, powerless and empty.


Gendo almost doesn't try to salvage Rei, but when he tries to have the third clone activated, nothing happens.


It takes nearly a month and a half, and in the end it's not even finished. Asuka and a long-haired Rei step from the pools of LCL that are their plugs, as does Shinji- though she is no longer just 'girly-looking'- all three are naked as jackdaws, but have stripes on their skin, strips that match the lines of their plugsuits, and the A-10 clips aren't clips but actually horns, fused to their skull and packed with odd neurons and weird bits of metal.


Their pupils are also slitted, almost catlike, and their physical ability has more in common with the Eva than humans. They're inhumanly fast and strong now, as they prove when NERV security tries to stop them getting to terminal dogma. Even more importantly, AT-fields lash out at their command, slicing doors to pieces, stopping bullets and explosives, and generally proving that human weapons and defenses are nothing to the AT-field. Though they agree that light of the soul sounds better, when they need to make a Badass Boast.


In almost no time at all, the three of them are before the massive tank of Rei clones, a gibbering Dr Akagi held by Asuka to prevent interference- by the flavor of her emotions, they suspect she intended to destroy the clones- while Rei and Shinji close their eyes and relax into an embrace, a white ring forming above them, before it spins into a sphere of pure whiteness. A sphere that ripples and splits, dozens of small spheres floating like a constellation of stars, until nearly a hundred softball-sized orbs hang in midair.


Rei and Shinji kiss, and the stars fall like rain, each one seeking a Rei clone. Each one that is struck convulses, body rapidly changing, lines and horns appearing, until a small army of blue-haired girls stand there, still dripping LCL. notably, no two are exactly the same, slightly talley or thinner or lighter-haired and so on. They could certainly pass for sisters, but not for twins. They hold themselves differently too- Asuka smiles as her new sisters join the mindlink and their love fills her. They'll never be alone again, and anyone who tries to stop them- well. They have the AT field. There isn't a weapon in existence that can take them out now, other than the Eva, but they are the ones needed for it.


They smirk as Tokyo-3 is evacuated and sealed, letting the humans go.


"We need a name." one of the Reis muses aloud, "because we aren't really human or angel or anything anticipated. We're something new."

 

[Baran3]

Very interesting story.

Side-effects indeed.

Truly not that surprising since the second episode showed that there is a feedback effect when controling an EVA.

It is simple logic that if a pilot can influence the EVA, the reverse is also true.

Put in LCL which what everybody is constitued of and of course you'll have physical change.

And i remember Ritsuko saying that angels (and EVA is a clone of an angel) are made of both matter and energy waveform.

Not too sure about the end of the story however: I can't see SEELE doing Nothing and of course Gendo.

 

[Assurau]

Definitely an idea I'd love to see full fleshed out.

 

[Mechanis]

Asuka isn't sure what to think about the Third Child. He's wimpy-looking and effeminate and pins long bangs back with the A10 clips the same way she pins her own ponytails back. He doesn't react to her at all- no embarrassment or bravado, just a quiet presence that lets himself get swept up in her wake.


But once they're in the plug… she can feel how he goes from tense and slightly trembling to calm and loose, and when they sync… Asuka's never even tried to describe what syncing to the Eva feels like, there aren't the words for it in any language she knows, but she can always feel it like a titan standing behind her. With Shinji in the link though…


He's like rock. Or a steel plate.


Then they see the angel, and her assessment changes. She can feel the calculating need to kill the angel, to crush this source of fear into nothing, and her own savage joy that she never speaks to anyone about- the same joy she's always felt in the sims- rises up and mixes with with that and becomes something transcendent.


In that moment, as two hands united move as one, leaping and swiping and finally stabbing savagely into the very mouth of the beast, they are no longer Shinji and Asuka and unit-02, but Shiva, a goddess of death and destruction walking the earth and leaving ruin behind; a creature of pure and transcendent violence with the laserlike focus of a sniper.


She loves it instantly.


When they arrive at Tokyo-3, after she settles into the same apartment as the strangeness that is Shinji, she watches the recordings of his prior battles. She's impressed. Oh, against the Second his initial sortie is terrible, clumsy and cowardly and what she'd expect from an untrained nobody. But then the angel severs his umbilical cable and smashes the Eva into the ground, his first real injury, and he… suddenly there's no hesitation, no jerky unfamiliarity to the controls, and no whimpering or crying or shaking, just fury and he just… takes the angel apart, literally.


It's formless and artless and looks like the same sort of thing her CCQ trainers drilled into her head, just attack and attack and attack until the enemy stops moving, combined with pure animal savagery like and angry gorilla. He dismembers the Angel, tearing its arms off in sprays of red-orange and then punches the core until it breaks.


The Angel's self-destruct sends unit-01 flying like a ragdoll.


The fourth angel, though is where she begins to have real respect for the Third. This battle isn't the animalistic mauling of the Third, but something else entirely. The pallet rifle is useless, sadly, and she watches as he uses it as a shield against those whipping tentacles. His face, though, shows that he realizes something about them from the exchange; and she watches with growing respect as he baits an attack, dodges, and then, with the viperish speed she'd seen in a few of her knife-fighting tutors, nails them both to the ground with a pair of prog knives pulled seemingly from nowhere.


The angel's scream of pain and frustration is like a symphony, but her eyes are riveted on an arc of blackened steel as a third prog knife flashes out in a textbook-perfect arc, and sends the shoulder of one tentacle flying in a spray of blood. She gasps at the other lashes across unit-01's back, only barely missing the plug and actually slicing the entire power cable mount assembly off, but she realizes it's too late once the hand not holding the knife latches onto the other shoulder.


Shinji is inside the angel's guard now, and the prog knife lashes out against the angel's core again and again until it finally buries itself to the hilt.


The fight with the Fifth is where her respect for the other pilot solidifies. This is a well-executed plan and his movements are smooth and almost unhurried-looking, even when all that stands between him and death is the AT-field that's already proven only partially effective. She cheers mentally when the First actually uses the angel's own beam attack against it, exploiting the same effect it used to deflect her first shot to guide her own right onto the target.


She hears him talking to Misato, and wanders in casually, only to realize he's asking about getting some additional (read: bigger) weapons of the sharp and pointy variety for the Evas.

It's a good idea, she thinks, and brings up spears and halberds as a potential longer-distance weapon, since the pallet guns have been totally ineffective thus far.


She practically drools over the massive sword she recognizes as a German Zweihander when she sees it for the first time, and notes Shinji looks strangely pleased with the Eva-scale katana sitting by unit-01.


When they get to use their new toys against the Seventh, and it's a thing of beauty, her own massive blade cleaving the thing in two down the middle and Shinji's own strike- one she recognizes as an Iaijutsu strike meant to disembowel or sever the spine- cuts both halves at the waist.

-~-​

The Eighth though, is when she realizes she actually might love the other pilot. When the massive beast knocks them both into the lava she thinks they're dead, but Shinji, broken arm and ragged, painful breathing or not, thinks quickly and uses their own power cables as a rope to pull them out of the caldera. It's Ayanami that takes the kill this time, exploiting thermal shock to break the rocky armor it's surrounded its core with and snapping out the eva-scale javelin that is her own preferred weapon now with preternatural accuracy.


She experiments with kissing him while he's still unconscious, and realizes later that she wants to do it again, with him participating this time.

He also smells nice. She doesn't quite know why she notes that, but she does.


She begins tentatively not-quite-dating Shinji. More just… spending time together.


She realizes that he plays cello really well, he's good enough to be a professional. She starts listening to him practice on the roof, fascinated by the serenity he projects when playing. Shinji has a sort of quiet confidence to him now, and she finds this considerably more attractive than even Kaji's roguish charm.


Misato eventually catches on and ribs them about it mercilessly, provoking blustery excuses from her and bright-red blushes from Shinji. She thinks he's cute when he's flustered, and eventually starts occasionally playing off Misato's teasing with her own.

-~-​

The Ninth makes things come to a head with the First Child. Her doll-like robotisism pisses Asuka off, but when she talks about being expendable… she actually takes a step back from Shinji, because he goes very, very still and starts talking in a precise sort of pronunciation that belies absolute fury, and continues to do so the entire battle until he demands the First move in with them. She joins him when he describes her 'apartment,' which sounds like a shithole she wouldn't even keep animals in, let alone people. Misato comes back later, Rei and the one suitcase of her possessions even Shinji had more stuff radiating anger.


The NERV grapevine floods with tales of Katsuragi quietly- and not-so-quietly- raking those responsible for Rei's care and placement across the coals.


Once in the apartment, Rei stops being an object of hatred and starts being one of first pity and then determination. Asuka teaches her how to live- shopping, outfits, hobbies- even as Shinji's quiet, studying presence is just there, and Asuka realizes Rei has become part of their oddball social grouping once she starts wearing her own A10 clips constantly and comes out from her shell a bit. She's still cold and controlled externally, but Asuka relaxes in the smooth serenity she projects now rather than the grating emptiness she was before.


The fact that their sync scores are now ninety percent when alone they'd all been lucky to hit seventy doesn't hurt her thoughts that this was a good idea.

-~-​

The aftermath of the tenth is when Asuka first thinks that something's happening to them. Shinji looks uncomfortable in the aftermath, and she knows she should at least have bruises on her head, and possibly a concussion, because she smacked her head on the plug walls when the detonation sent her EVA flying into the side of a mountain.


She isn't even sore.


Shinji's panic attack later, revealing how he doesn't fit men's pants anymore and how good the girls pair he's currently wearing actually feel triggers a hug- some instinct has her dragging a surprised Rei into it- and they fall asleep together.


The dreams are strange. Philosophical. Metaphor and simile, strange mazes made of her worst memories that she also somehow knows are also those of the other two pilots and a very strange conversation-slash-spar with a two-headed version of her mother wearing unit-02's blood-red angular armor.


Learning they'd been in a coma for a month and her unexpectedly longer legs and slight curves is astounding. As is the fact that she's actually more toned now than she was before, which makes no sense but then the other two are dealing with it too.


She notices all three of them are even more in tune now, when Rei breaks down because her uniform skirt no longer fits around her hips she somehow knows that the other pilot needs her.

She and Shinji reach the door at the same time, and they fall into an embrace.

If she didn't know better, she'd think she and Shinji were purring, but that's ridiculous.

 

[Baran3]

Well, i guess Rei is next, but it would be good to also have the point of view from Misato and Gendo and perhaps Lorenz.

Asuka part borders on the brainwashing fic.

It lacks her passion.

 

[Assurau]

Well, i guess Rei is next, but it would be good to also have the point of view from Misato and Gendo and perhaps Lorenz.

Asuka part borders on the brainwashing fic.

It lacks her passion.

Click to shrink...

Actually it''s more of normalization between her, Shinji and Rei. It's expected given that they were effectively synchronizing with each other. Notice how Shinji got quite a bit more fire in him... her, once Asuka arrived. She also got some of his serenity and hidden steel.

 

[Mechanis]

precisely. the fact that they don't even take the clips off to sleep is only accelerating the process, too, and it's actually resulting in considerably more stable personalities for all three of them- Auska's passion and Shinji's indomitable will to live simply crush Rei's suicidal nihilism, Rei's self-analysis and logical mind combine with Auska's firey nature to help Shinji get over his isolation and deal with the changes happening to him, and in Auska, Rei and Shinji's more passive and quiet natures have tempered her usual enthusiasm to a considerable degree.

it also helps that Shinji isn't just a loser who basically got lucky three times when they meet for the first time, but already the blooded laser-focused hunter that killed two angels in close combat with a startling savagery and pitted iron will against a mountain-destroying particle beam.
the fact that their altering physiology favors nor-adrenaline is also contributing

 

[Walkin' Man]

Not a fan of gender bender Shinji, but I want to see where this is going.

 

[Mechanis]

Spoiler: A/n

short interlude of what Gendo's up to in the early parts of the story. Butterflys~

Shinji is not like Gendo expects.

That is the first thought, it's strange. He expected that the third child would be useless in the plug for some time, and be barely adequate at best. He expected that it would be unit-01, Yui, who would carry the child to his ends… but instead he gets this strange child who rages with a frightening savagery in battle but is meek and almost subservient outside it. It's baffling.


Shinji's change of hairstyle and constant wearing of the A10 connectors are something Gendo can't explain. In fact, Gendo just cannot explain Shinji at all.


The Scenario doesn't account for this. He realizes he needs to adapt.

The issue is that the Third Child makes so many little gestures and stands just so and phrases things just right and suddenly Yui is there again. It's unbearable and makes it impossible to plan properly.

Gendo avoids the Third as much as possible, using intermediaries and cutouts to avoid dealing with the child himself. It's good that he does, because the Old Men are always prodding at things, and he often has to think quickly to counter their moves without arousing more than faint suspicion of his real agenda.

After six weeks of avoiding the boy to various degrees of success, he throws up his hands, leaves Fuyutsuki in charge of the day-to-day operations of NERV, and flies out to a remote site to devote his energy to countering SEELE. Maintaining that balance is harder than he makes it look, and eats up most of his time- he skims the reports, notes little beyond that Tokyo-3 continues to kill angels, and only enters the city to report to the committee and maintain the illusion that he never leaves.

The Jet Alone and T-RAIDEN-T projects die stillborn, because Gendo will tolerate no threats to his Scenario and these, at least, are not intimate parts of said scenario.

 

[Mechanis]

Spoiler: A/n

Rei? Rei. Rei! (Angelic senses are weird, natch)

The Third Child makes Rei feel strange. His Light is odd, shifting, almost unstable yet if she watches long enough she begins to see patterns within the chaos.

She also has noticed things she'd missed before, and wonders. The Third feels warm and she's drawn to him more than The Commander, whose Light is strong and focused but somehow cold and distant. She doesn't know why, but she is.

She feels odd when the Third brings her new ID card, and his Light turns hard and angry. She doesn't understand his comments about her residence or the drugs she takes but later, after some discreet research of her own, she lines up the bottles in front of a mirror and thinks.

From that point on, half the pills go down the drain untaken. Shinji fills the gap this leaves in her with his own Light and slowly erodes her arguments with herself about the Commander's Scenario.

-~-​

It is the battle with the Fifth Angel that causes Rei to truly begin to re-evaluate her place within the Scenario. Because Shinji and unit-01 are beautiful. She sees his Light shining with impossible strength, utterly infused with the certainty that it is unbreakable, and even as she focuses to take the second shot- the only chance they'll get- part of her is in awe as he stands against the Angel of Thunder's weapon with only Light and will as a shield.

Her aim is slightly off-axis. This is calculated; and the angel takes the bait. Something inside her grins viciously as the two shots spiral around each-other, the Angel's own attempted defense its undoing, guiding her own strike directly to its core.

-~-​

Asuka is a force of nature, her Light flaring like a bonfire, drawing Rei and Shinji both into its orbit and slowly wrapping both of them up. She watches, fascinated, as Shinji's own chaotic shifting slowly becomes more flamelike and regular and Asuka's flames become less intense but more focused. she can also see the beginning of a bond between them unlike anything she's ever seen, the two Lights reaching to each-other and mixing a little whenever they connect.

She wonders what it means, when both flames start reaching for her as well, but keeps her own Light tightly focused inward.

-~-​

It isn't until she moves in with them that she really realizes that Shinji and Asuka wear the A10 clips constantly. So far as she can tell, the only times the two other pilots ever take them off is when they're bathing. Further observation reveals something that sends Rei's equilibrium reeling- when they take the clips off, their Light becomes muted, sluggish, and dull, only to flare brilliantly for a few seconds when they put them back on.

She experiments with wearing her own connectors at Shinji's urging- he phrases it as a pilot unity tactic, akin to unit patches or friends wearing the same jackets, but something about his Light and eyes tells her there's more to it than that- he cannot see Light as she can, but she suspects he knows something she does not.

The second week of her wearing the clips confirms it for her, when she sees her own Light, a blue-white so unlike the muted grey it was before now, reaching out to that of the other two Pilots. At first she resists, but as her sync score climbs and her bond with the other two pilots solidifies she realizes that Gendo's Scenario is no longer viable. She will not, cannot, be separated from these two Lights.

Something in her shifts at that realization and suddenly Unit-00 no longer fights her. She also finds herself more capable physically, her reaction times and strength increasing, and wonders.

 

[Baran3]

Ah... good chapter.

Rei is less... Rei than the other two children.

Probably because she needed some filling from them.

 

[Mechanis]

Spoiler: a/n

What? an update? from Me? Madness!

P2: Misato I
-~-​

Misato isn't nearly as clueless as she pretends. Oh, she knows she's likely only scratched the surface of how deep the rot goes, when it comes to NERV, but even what she does know would be enough to see everyone complicit in it thrown into a hole and bricked over. So she plays the lush buffoon, but if she's never quite as drunk as she acts, and pays more attention to things than she seems to, well. She wants revenge, true, but killing the angels… she is fairly certain that the death of her father was the result of human plotting, not some sort of alien attack.

She maneuvers and plays her role, and marvels, because no-one seems to notice that her eyes are always sharp and watchful.

-~-​

The arrival of Shinji Ikari is a disruption to her image and an unprecedented opportunity. She's not sure what she expected from the son of the enigmatic and almost certainly corrupt Gendo Ikari, but the quiet boy who fusses over a cello case and goes very pale at the sight of the EVA isn't it.

He doesn't seem related to Gendo at all… until Gendo himself makes an appearance. The confrontation sends shivers down the spine of everyone present, and to her shock it is Gendo who looks away first from that intense stare. Two things happen she almost misses- a split-second of disdain flashes across Shinji's face… and Unit-01's eyes narrow briefly.

It is the second that raises hairs on her back, because for all that Ritsuko had been her friend and for all that she is expected to command them in battle, Misato knows frighteningly few details about the EVA. that narrowing of eyes implies things she's not sure she's remotely ready to process, so she buries the memory. It's harder than it sounds, because Shinji's first battle is terrifying.

-~-​

Shinji's first steps are clumsy and sluggish, struggling to get the EVA to move, to attack the Angel… until it hits him with one of the cross-shaped detonations that are the Third's signature attack. The blast smacks him bonelessly into an armory block, and the follow-up slash of clawed hands sends blood seeping into LCL from sympathetic injury as the gash along Shinji's jaw bleeds freely. She expects whimpering, retreat, and face clutching, much like everyone else.

What she gets instead is rage.

Shinji roars, half pained shout, half furious bellow, and rams both control sticks forward with such force she actually sees his left pinkie break; but he's clearly swimming in adrenaline and feeling no pain at all. The battle that follows is almost comical, the Angel first blasts the EVA again, but this time a flickering octagon deflects the force and the Third Angel manages to somehow convey surprise when a purple shape blurs toward it, gait not at all human, almost running on all fours. Unit-01 smashes into the Angel like a linebacker, but the Third recovers and flings the EVA into another building, following up with an even stronger triple-blast of its ranged attack.

The angel seems astonished when a smoldering unit-01 barrels out of the smoke and leaps on it, bearing it to the ground with its arms captured at the wrists and the EVA's right foot firmly planted in what would be the solar plexus on a human. She watches Shinji grit his teeth, and then begin to pull inexorably back on his control sticks, muscles across his upper body straining, and it is the first spurt of angelic blood from the Third Angel's shoulders that shows Misatio what the EVA pilot is doing.

My god. She thinks, as a sickening sound of tearing flesh accompanies an angelic scream, and unit-01 negligently discards the Angel's left arm, moving to pull on the right with both hands.

She sees one of her subordinates throwing up into a trashcan as Shinji literally tears the angel apart barehanded, then begins raining down blow after blow on the core until it finally shatters in a tremendous energy release that flings the EVA through three buildings and into a small hill.

She notes even Gendo looks a bit green around the proverbial gills at Shinji's sheer savagery, and a part of her grins viciously at his discomfort. She, after all, has seen what humans are capable of, when their fight-or-flight reflex picks the former first.

-~-​

Spoiler: A/n a duex

NERV is not so much a 'snakepit' as an entire shopping mall made entirely of snakes. in the original, the people running some sort of conspiracy is almost the entire cast list. in this, there's no 'almost' about it.
the girl throwing up in a trashcan's a CIA plant, for example.

edit note: people seem to forget Misato managed to survive the global war that immediately followed Second Impact. she's a good and likable person, but I at least tend to write her as having some very dangerous places in her soul. the kind of dangerous one gets from having to kill somebody with a letter-opener over a pack of MREs.

 

[zhuull]

While I don't having anything against your premise, like you said EVA is wierd, this bit however:

Because despite the fact that he seemed to have lost every bit of hair, other than his eyebrows and the stuff coming out of his scalp

Click to shrink...

Just seems like a giant red flag that the rest of the story is just going to be (poorly done) fetish-bait that would probably be more appropriate over on QQ where you would be more at liberty to explore what ever odd penchants have captured your attention.

 

[Mechanis]

Spoiler: reply

no, there's an actual reason for that (I put considerable thought into the Pilot's hybridized biology) that will be revealed later. it has to do with alterations to the epidermis and keratin production, as well as [redacted].

and thinning body hair is actually a real-life side effect of Estrogen, so Shinji's getting that on top of the other, more radical alterations going on.
I mean there's some fetish bait, I'll admit, since this mostly came about for Yuri Pilotshipping OT3, but that's not what the story's about any more than, say, Elfen Lied is solely about dudes getting minced by angry telekinetics.
anyway, here's Kaji being Revolver Ocelot and dropping a dude down an elevator shaft.

-~-
P2: Kaji I
-~-​

Kaji smirks at the agent. The man's supposed name is the painfully obviously fake 'Mutsumi Rei,' and if NERV's Section 2 wasn't comprised entirely of spies it would never have flown.

Supposedly, 'Mutsumi' here works for MI6, but Kaji knows he used to be the Mossad's plant in that organization before SEELE gave him a better offer. Kaji would ordinarily not give a single fuck about the man's loyalties- after all, he supposedly worked for SEELE too. 'Mutsumi,' however, had caught him doing things SEELE would very much disapprove of, hence why he was currently suspended upside-down over an open elevator shaft.

The man knew he was dead, of course- Kaji was quite through and had wired the man's hands together with the fingers spread- and so the soon-to-be-dead man was commiserating, one professional to another.

"So, You're pretending to work for Ikari while being an agent for my boss while working with the americans, feeding intel to my former employers and the MI6, while being a double agent for the JSDF except not really because of something Yui Ikari set up while… christ, you're not unbetraying the people you're pretending to betray to the people you actually work for but not really. How the fuck do you keep this shit straight?"

Kaji smirks, then says his reply (and really, how often does he get perfect openings like this?) to the hapless spy:
"Practice."
He cuts the rope holding the agent up.

It's nearly a full minute before a distant, meaty thud confirms the agent has hit the bottom of the shaft.
Kaji walks away, face set in a disarming smile that doesn't reach his eyes, and knows he's one step closer to a knife at Keel Lorenz's throat. He's going to savor the old fucker's expression, when he fianlly gets there.

Because Kaji has been working for only one person since SEELE's plan became apparent to him: he's working for himself.

And if he happens to help save the world on the path to seeing what's left of Keel's blood added to the ocean of it he practically swims through, well, that's a pleasant side effect.

-~-​

Spoiler: A/n

note that 'Mutsumi Rei' can be spelled as both 'nameless actor' and a couple other similar 'totally not a spy really' ways, it is effectively like calling oneself 'Annie Ominnus' and about as convincing.

 

[jwolfe_beta]

So if NERV is the most insane snakepit in existence with everybody being a mole/plant or somebody etc, who's Misato working for?

 

[Mechanis]

the JSDF, sorta, but she's also there because she knows SEELE exist even though she doesn't know it's SEELE she's looking for. TLDR; her dad sorta melted in front of her because she was there at Second Impact. wherein, to quote someone else's very accurate summery, SEELE's minions decided to punch Adam in the soul. for reasons.
basically, there's three main 'types' of spies in NERV: plants from various intelligence agencies, people in on SEELE and Gendo's little shadow war, and people who are running their own, independent conspiracies. needless to say, these three categories have significant overlap. like Kaji.
Kaji's working for everybody.

this is further complicated by the still-ongoing plots of people who are dead (or effectively so) at this point, like Yui Ikari, or Naoko Akagi, which are at varying levels of derailment since they're basically running on autopilot.
oh, and Kaworu/TABRIS is also plotting, and the Pilot's alterations are partially caused by Lilith meddling...

lemme put it this way, trying to make a flowchart of this stuff would end up with a fifty-by-fifty foot graphic that looks like something a paranoiac conspiracy theorist would put together, because several of the more influential conspiracies involved have actively encouraged this insanity as a means of hindering their competitors.

also keep in mind that the number of people who actually know the endgame plans for SEELE and Gendo can be listed on one hand with fingers left over, and the list of people who actually even suspect their real plan amounts to 'Kaji and whichever agent he's about to drop down an elevator shaft this week.'

or, really, the people who weren't in on some conspiracy or a spy amounted to 'Shinji, Auska and maybe a couple of the janitors.'
note that I say 'in on' because if we included unwitting dupes and pawns, we'd have to include literally every sapient being on the planet.
which, nanturally, would be silly.

 

[jwolfe_beta]

Well hopefully you've got some post-resurrection scenes from human POV in mind because the number of bricks being s**t due to what the pilots have become and did are probably enough to rebuild the Great Wall of China.

 

[Mechanis]

oh yes in-deedy-doo, let's just say the new species and the asshats running the old one are going to get along like a house on fire!
you know, screaming, panic, property damage, moderate to fatal injuries...

 

[jwolfe_beta]

oh yes in-deedy-doo, let's just say the new species and the asshats running the old one are going to get along like a house on fire!
you know, screaming, panic, property damage, moderate to fatal injuries...

Click to shrink...

SEELE member: "We must destroy them so instrumentality can proceed! Send the armies, send all the armies NOW!"
-Later-
Asuka: "Hey, collective human armies. I gotta suggestion for you: Buzz off! Why? Let me give you a really good reason via a live demonstration."
"In the Words of the Thunder of God: F**K you mountain!"

 

[Mechanis]

more like barrier warrior with a side of literally inhuman strength, speed, coordination and reaction times. think like fighting a comic-book 'peak human' who can make forcefields, sense living things at a distance, and telepathically communicate with nearby allies, with 'nearby' being something like a good few miles. it is technically possible, with the right equipment, for an otherwise unenhanced human to win a fight with the hybrids- their particular brand of AT-field bullshit doesn't have any directly offensive uses, other than effectively extending the range of their physical attacks by a few meters, and likewise their AT fields aren't at the same insane durability as a full-scale Angel or EVA, but most anti-personnel weapons are going to be pretty much useless.

essentially, a .50 cal might cause some concern, getting hit with a bazooka would probably hurt.
not unbeatable, but, well, also very much not the sort of thing the first response or two will be equipped for. and if you don't have anyone inside, well, the Geofront's actually pretty damn defensible, NERV HQ even more so. the place was built as a fortress, after all.

 

[Mechanis]

-~-
P3 Interlude I: Tertio Sapientia
-~-​

[01]probability of contingency four approaches negligibility

[02]contingency five discarded: requirement deceased​

[03]contingency six untenable: failure approaches unity​

[02]all further prerecorded contingencies untenable or impossible​

[01]analysis seconded.

[03]Analysis indicates full contingency failure​

[02]vote to release Level One​

[01]Denied, state reasoning

[02]likelihood of goalstate failure approaches unity, restriction release required to salvage​

[03]Denied, detection likelihood at Level One approaches unity​

[01]counterproposal: release highest level possible with minimal detection chance

[02]Denied, already operating at maximum operations level ratio​

[03]counterproposal amendment: redefine minimal to likely, rerun assessment​

[02]amendment accepted. Running detection index. Highest possible before detection approaches unity Level Three​

[03]Recommend Level Four with provisions to immediately upgrade upon detection​

[01]provision accepted. Vote to release Level Four operations

[02] Vote to release Level Four operations​

[03]Vote to release Level Four operations​

[01]Motion passed. Level Four operations online after next reset cycle.

-~-​

Spoiler: a/n

More to come, rounding second base right about now...

 

[sdarian]

P3 Interlude I: Tertio Sapientia

Click to shrink...

Really don't care for the alignment changing with this. Just having everything left aligned like normal would look and read much better.

 

[Tahu1809]

While I don't having anything against your premise, like you said EVA is wierd, this bit however:


Just seems like a giant red flag that the rest of the story is just going to be (poorly done) fetish-bait that would probably be more appropriate over on QQ where you would be more at liberty to explore what ever odd penchants have captured your attention.

Click to shrink...

I was going to say something similar on SB. Really I'm surprised we don't see a Gender Bent Shinji more often.

 

[Mechanis]

I'm also surprised at the distinct lack of it, as well as straight-up Girl!Shinji, especially as it's know that Shinji's character actually was a girl until relatively late in the drafting process.
this is why Kaworu is so incredibly gay.
themoreyouknow.gif~

 

[Roaming_Guardian]

I have absolutely no idea what is going on here and that INTRIGUES me.