Here
is the second of the two ideas, and the second Neon Genesis Evangelion
work I've ever worked on. There may be others later. It may not surprise
anyone that's remotely familiar with the series if they were to learn
that it has tickled my muse a bit.
Two
figures stood side by side at the edge of a sea of endless red. In the
middle lay a giant head, staring up at the heavens as though believing
fervently that she would be able to reach it. One day. Somehow. For now
it rested atop hell itself, for there was no other way to describe the
state of the world as it currently lay.
"Are you sure about this?" the boy nervously asked the girl. "I mean, will it even work?"
"Hmph!" the girl declared, rolling her unbandaged eye. "Even now you still have no spine! Yes, it will work."
Though she did not share the sentiment she harboured, lest it somehow be proven false. Even if it did fail, she believed the consequences could not possibly be worse than this. The very notion of worse than this went beyond impossibility and into the place where gods and devils themselves have nightmares. According to game theory there was no reason not to engage in this action. The possible gains compared to the possible losses made it clear, but to put it in layman’s terms: All to gain. Naught to lose.
The two of them stepped forwards and listened. Before long they heard the chattering fo a hundred thousand voices. Only then did they begin their work in earnest. Their plan for a better world. Where some had engaged in monstrous actions to ensure their vision of a better world, these two would engage in the greatest act of compassion imaginable. They would give up the greatest right of themselves. Not their lives. They would give their very existence. All for the sake of a better world, knowing all too well that any world would have to be better than this.
=======================================
Chatter. Noisy chatter. Nothing worse than it when trying to sleep. It's sort of like how you can't help but pay attention to someone on the phone, hearing only one half of the conversation. Your brain tries to fill in the gaps, but it can't because context is everything right? Why did they laugh? What are they reacting to? You want to know because it might affect you, and that paranoid instinct compels attention and tricks the brain into paying attention to a conversation where it's none of your damn business so quit eavesdropping already!
Same deal when you can just about barely hear voices chattering away, but not what they're talking about. Sure she knew that on an intellectual level it was almost certainly sailor talk about things she didn't particularly care about. Something mundane. Nothing to do with her. Nothing she could help with even if there was something wrong with the ship, and if there was something wrong then they'd come get her and have her on a lifeboat faster than she could even think the word "sinking".
Intellectually aware that the voices didn't interest her? Hell yeah. Instinctually aware? Nope. Intelligence could be reasoned with. Instinct not so much. For that reason, Asuka Langley Soryu kicked her covers off her bed and scowled at the wall with very nearly enough intensity to melt right through it. Whoever was talking outside her cabin was about to get an earful of their own. Wake her up with their inane chatter, would they? Well! We'll soon see about that!
"Keep the noise down out here!" she yelled as she threw open the door. "Some of us... are... trying to sleep?" Weird. Where the hell were they? Asuka looked around from left to right, scratching her head in mild confusion. She could still hear the voices and - now that she thought about it couldn't identify where they were coming from. It was like they were all around her. That was... odd. Screw it! She could adjust to something as simple as this. If they did so insist on talking like that, well she'd just have to have a word with the captain. Later. Asuka stifled a yawn and slammed her door closed. Even half asleep she'd still be smarter and more awake than everyone else aboard put together.
As she crawled back into bed, the sound of chatter slowed down quite a lot. "Quiet down!" a familiar sounding female voice insisted. "I'll talk to her. Obviously, I am best suited to do so, wouldn't you agree?" Okay, good. You've come to an agreement. So go away already and let -
Except there were no female sailors on this ship. Not one crew member was female. Who the hell was that? Asuka rolled over to face the door, and in spite of herself let her eyes go wild as a gasp escaped her lips. Facing away from her was a very familiar figure floating in the air. Same red hair. Same style of hair. In a bright red plugsuit. And then there were the bandages all around her body, around her arm, around her head...
"Definitely dreaming," Asuka mumbled in German. Her head hit the pillow and seconds later she was out like a light.
=======================================
Oh, what a wonderful day it was for a date with Kaji! They had gone on a lovely stroll along the beach, dined in an expensive restaurant and now they were curled up in front of a fireplace telling jokes about those stupid Angels that she'd so effortlessly crushed thanks to her superior skills. They both deserved only the best, and of course that simply had to be one another! Kaji opened his mouth to say another sweet nothing...
"Hey!" came out, and Kaji's face metamorphosed into a grisly reflection of her own. "Wake up! This is important! We need to have a talk!"
"Sorry, but I don't think she can hear you," the wine glass interjected. "We should probably wait until she wakes up."
"Are you kidding?" her reflection yelled, and just then Asuka realised that the chicken must have been bad. Oh! But that restaurant was going to catch sooo many kinds of hell for this! You don't give a pilot food poisoning and get away with it, never mind giving her hallucinations! "We need all the time we have to figure this shit out!"
"Ah?" the mounted deer head on the wall interjected with a familiar sounding woman's voice. "But what could she do between now and tomorrow? Let her rest. She has a busy day tomorrow, remember? Besides which, she looks so cute like that!"
"Misato! Be serious for a second! Though you may be right about how adorable I was, this is hardly the time..."
The voices began to fade as though they were never there. Something else had Asuka's attention now. A door and a window she hadn't noticed earlier. It looked familiar somehow, and she couldn't help but be drawn towards it. Inside was a hospital bed and a woman lovingly stroking something bundled in her arms, whispering soothing words which soon became very nasty indeed...
The rest of the sleep she got that night was not remotely restful.
=======================================
At first she thought that someone had left a mirror next to her bed. Then she felt her face and realised that there was no bandage covering her eye and she certainly wasn't wearing her plugsuit. Asuka wiped the sleep from her eyes and blinked really hard to try and make the image go away. Didn't work. She reached out, and wasn't particularly surprised when her hand went right through.
"Awake at last, are we?" the other her said. "Good. Listen, this is important."
"Go away," she interrupted, and then stood up from her bed while pointedly ignoring that - whatever that was. She didn't have time for such nonsense. It wasn't real, and that was all that mattered. The last thing she needed was to be caught talking to herself right before the very point of her training came to a head!
"Wait, what?! No! You listen to me! This is important!" the other her blustered, screaming right in her face. Like it would be that easy to provoke a reaction out of her!
A knocking came at the door, and the hallucination rapidly went silent. "Asuka, I thought you'd want to know," Kaji called through the door. "We'll be meeting with the Third Child and Misato in about two hours, so get yourself ready!"
About time. A smirk crawled across her face, and she knew she was ready for anything. She picked out a dress sure to make a great first impression, because above all other things the first impression was the most important one to make for anyone.
"Listen, we don't have a lot of time -" the hallucination said, to which Asuka slammed her wardrobe door closed. "Will you stop that! Lieber Gott im Himmel, was I really this stubborn? I'm here to warn you -" ah, but the rest was drowned out when Asuka started to hum the Ride of the Valkyries. Whatever was making her see and hear things, she wasn't going to let it get any further into her head than it already had. The iron will she possessed would be more than enough to deter this brief flirtation with psychosis! She wasn't the best pilot for nothing, after all!
=======================================
There they were, arriving at last. It seemed as though there were more of them arriving than she had first expected. Three boys accompanying Misato for whatever reason. One of them had to be the Third Child. Whichever one it was, it didn't matter. She'd make such an overpowering first impression that he'd surely recognise her inherent superiority on the spot! It was best to establish the pecking order immediately, and it should be obvious to everyone who should be right on the very top!
"Hello Misato!" she called, confident that her pose and tone would leave a first impression they'd never, ever forget. "How are you?"
"As well as ever," she replied. "You've grown tall, haven't you?"
"Yeah! And not just taller--my figure has filled out, too." Asuka stared at the three of them. Which of those boys was it? The wind caught the hat one of them was wearing, and he chased after it towards her. She crushed it underfoot without a second's thought and smirked down at him down there trying to catch it just as surely as she was at his two friends. The only thing spoiling her mood right now was that fake her that only proved how completely fake she was by being completely ignored by everyone else.
"Let me introduce you," Misato said to the boys accompanying her. "This is the exclusive pilot of Evangelion Unit Two, the Second Child, Soryu Asuka Langley."
"Mind the wind," the fake her said. Even had the warning been heeded it would have come seconds too late. Her dress billowed up, and the very next second the three boys all had bright red slap marks embedded in their cheeks. Well deserved marks as well. Not the first impression she had been hoping for, not even remotely. And her fake self could stop with the weary sigh already! It was annoying! Cut it out!
"What did you hit me for?!" the boy at her feet had the cheek to ask.
"Payment for the view. You don't think it's cheap?"
"Huh? Then I'll show you the same thing!"
"And... close your eyes right about now," the fake her insisted. "No really!"
Again, just a little too late with that advice, and by god in heaven did she wish she'd taken it. Ugh! "What are you doing!" she yelled, flooring him with another well deserved - if not even more so smack. No way was he a pilot, no way was an idiot like that the much talked of Third Child! Which left the other two, but somehow she had a faint inkling that her subconscious had already figured out which one given that an exact duplicate of him had materialised out of nothing right next to the fake her.
"What are you staring at?" the fake her asked the fake boy. "Can't believe how much of a wuss you look?"
"Eh? No, nothing like that. I just... I feel kinda bad for what he's about to go through. He thinks he has it bad now..."
"Found a new way to feel sorry for yourself, Third Child? That's just like you!"
Well. That was a new wrinkle. Her hallucinations were having a conversation with one another. Isn't that grand? Maybe now they'll pester one another and let her be!
"So, which one is the much-discussed Third Child?" she asked, again pointedly ignoring the two hallucinations. Perhaps she shouldn't be enjoying the frustrations of a figment of her own imagination quite so much? Heavens above know what that would say about her mental state. Bad enough she could see them at all, but...
"That would be Shinji, here." Misato was pointing at the one she'd sort of guessed at. Hah! Of course she knew that! Just as she thought, her subconscious had already picked out the real Third Child from these three losers, no doubt from cues that her conscious mind hadn't caught up on yet. There wasn't much point in speculating what those would be either since the historian's fallacy rendered such activity pointless. All that mattered was that she knew who he was and much more importantly, that he knew who she was.
"Hmm... He seems rather dull..."Asuka rolled her eyes.
"You have no idea," the fake her replied, rolling her one visible eye. Then she took great amusement in the fake Shinji's frustrated look at her, grinning a wicked smile. Hard to argue, it was a pretty funny reaction. Ugh. And here came the captain of the ship bitching and moaning once again about his position, not realising how much of a privilege it was to be carrying such important, priceless and irreplaceable cargo! And the was before we even got to Unit 02! She'd overheard it from him and the other crew before even boarding, and it was quite simply boring to her now. Stubborn idiot needed to better learn his place, and words didn't seem likely to reach him. If anything, the bickering between the voices in her head were far more interesting to pay attention to.
"Shouldn't we be trying to talk to her or something?"
"Not until she is alone, dummkopf! If she starts responding to us, people will think I - she's seeing things!"
"Uh... But she is seeing things. She's seeing us."
"Not the point! Try to keep up!"
"You won't get through to her that way," another voice interrupted, a new one that lifted her spirits. "Once Asuka has made up her mind about something, she won't change it so easily."
"Kaji!" she cooed, spinning around to greet the man she knew she was destined to be with. Except, right over his shoulder she could see... No! Impossible! Him as well? Two Kaji! The real one and the one in her mind! No, no, no! Don't let that distract, don't let those stupid fakes rule your thoughts! Especially not in front of him! Never in front of him! She'd make him see her as an adult if it killed her!
"To think, I thought this behaviour was mature," the fake her sighed. And then she faded away, as did the others. Asuka knew they would be back. They hadn't actually gone anywhere. They were just staying quiet and right now that was for the best.
=======================================
"What do you think about Shinji Ikari?" Kaji asked her at the first opportunity they had alone together. The Third Child! Hah! What a joke! He was supposed to be a big deal?
"He's dull! That's the great Third Child? I'm disappointed!"
"Asuka, are you feeling alright?" Misato asked. For just a moment, she very nearly whirled around to reply to that strange question... until she noticed that Misato was levitating slightly off the ground and staring at the fake bandaged Asuka. Well. Screw her, then. A fake Misato, was it? Fine!
"It's just... it's weird seeing him again. After he disappeared like that."
"I know," Misato said, stroking her fake self's hair in a comforting manner. "But it's something we're going to have to get used to, if we're going to make a difference."
"Asuka, are you feeling alright?" Kaji asked. "You've been zoning in and out all day. Is anything wrong?" Oh, look at him! So worried about her, paying such attention to her! He was so handsome like this, but then again he was handsome in any light! But... even he would not understand. Even he would think that there was something wrong with her. Even he would step in and deny her the chance to prove herself, recommending psychiatric evaluation when she was more than capable of handling a few minor annoying hallucinations...
"N-nothing's wrong! Really!" there are definitely not hallucinations of people she's met flickering across her vision. Nope. Not there. Not at all. Everything was just fine and perfect and dandy! Perhaps that denial was too adamant? Well, too late now. Just roll with it and smile cutely, let him drown in her natural charm as she drowned in his.
"Well, if you say so!" Kaji shrugged, and then he gave her that smile that melted her heart. "But if you do want to talk, I'm all ears."
"So about the Third child!" Asuka declared in a rather desperate and blatant attempt to change the subject. "Don't you think he's boring?" Which was kind of amusing considering that he was the only thing she could think about right now to even change the subject to.
"Hm, not sure about that," Kaji scratched his stubbled chin in deep thought. "Without training, in actual combat his synchro-rate still easily exceeds Forty percent."
Forty percent?! No way! An untrained pilot could reach forty percent? "That can't be true! It's unbelievable! Don't lie to me! A lie!" Asuka stormed off, making a point to walk right through her fake self as she went. Forty percent? Well then! Maybe she had to work a little bit harder to impress him than she first thought! With an untrained forty percent synch rating, she'd need to pull out the big guns to drive home her superiority, no question of that!
"And so it begins," sighed the fake Shinji. Just on the edge of her peripheral vision, Asuka could see her fake self shaking her head as if disappointed by what she was seeing. Ignore them. Stomp off. Find the Third Child. Prove who was the best. Nothing else mattered right now.
=======================================
She stood at the very top of it. Her pride. Her joy. Her life. Her livelihood. Everything that she'd worked for as long as she could remember. The giant red colossus that she and she alone had the right to pilot. Evangelion Unit 02! And down there, beneath her where he belonged stood the Third Child. A nobody with no training that got lucky, beating an Angel with no prior experience. Hah! If he could do it so easily, then the others couldn't be the remotest threat, could they? With her natural talent and his backup, those other Angels were already toast and didn't even know it!
"After all, Units Zero and One are prototypes!" she declared. "Test models in the development process. The fact that it synchronized with you, an untrained boy, is good proof of that!"
"A fair assumption given what you know," her fake self interjected. "But ultimately wrong."
Her hands clenched into fists. No! She was not wrong! He had merely synchronized with an inferior model! She was the best! He was a loser! "Unit Two is not the same. This is a true Evangelion, the first on Earth built for actual combat-"
"Which you're about to deal with in a moment, given the Angel that's about to attack."
"The official model," she finished, pointedly ignoring the fake. An Angel attack? Where had that thought come from? There was no way that an Angel would attack now, of all times. Obviously her hallucination was rather more paranoid than she first - And then the boat shook violently, indicating a tremendous shock wave in the water. No way!
"Ah, what's happening?" Shinji cried out, trying to steady himself on the deck.
"Something exploded nearby!"
The two rushed to the side of the ship in the blink of an eye, Asuka not even remembering climbing down from Unit 02 as she did so. There it was, swimming through the water. A monster. An Angel. A chance to prove herself as the superior pilot.
"Maybe now you'll listen, eh?" the fake her said, staring at her with a piercing gaze from that one eye. She was floating over the ocean, obstructing Asuka's view of the Angel while smirking like a demon. "It's core is in its mouth. The two of you had better hurry!"
Without another word, she tugged the Third Child into a more private area. She'd show him the fruits of her training. She'd show them all that she was the best. Most importantly, she'd show those stupid voices in her head that they were not the boss of her! That she was the boss of them!
"Are you sure about this?" the boy nervously asked the girl. "I mean, will it even work?"
"Hmph!" the girl declared, rolling her unbandaged eye. "Even now you still have no spine! Yes, it will work."
Though she did not share the sentiment she harboured, lest it somehow be proven false. Even if it did fail, she believed the consequences could not possibly be worse than this. The very notion of worse than this went beyond impossibility and into the place where gods and devils themselves have nightmares. According to game theory there was no reason not to engage in this action. The possible gains compared to the possible losses made it clear, but to put it in layman’s terms: All to gain. Naught to lose.
The two of them stepped forwards and listened. Before long they heard the chattering fo a hundred thousand voices. Only then did they begin their work in earnest. Their plan for a better world. Where some had engaged in monstrous actions to ensure their vision of a better world, these two would engage in the greatest act of compassion imaginable. They would give up the greatest right of themselves. Not their lives. They would give their very existence. All for the sake of a better world, knowing all too well that any world would have to be better than this.
=======================================
Chatter. Noisy chatter. Nothing worse than it when trying to sleep. It's sort of like how you can't help but pay attention to someone on the phone, hearing only one half of the conversation. Your brain tries to fill in the gaps, but it can't because context is everything right? Why did they laugh? What are they reacting to? You want to know because it might affect you, and that paranoid instinct compels attention and tricks the brain into paying attention to a conversation where it's none of your damn business so quit eavesdropping already!
Same deal when you can just about barely hear voices chattering away, but not what they're talking about. Sure she knew that on an intellectual level it was almost certainly sailor talk about things she didn't particularly care about. Something mundane. Nothing to do with her. Nothing she could help with even if there was something wrong with the ship, and if there was something wrong then they'd come get her and have her on a lifeboat faster than she could even think the word "sinking".
Intellectually aware that the voices didn't interest her? Hell yeah. Instinctually aware? Nope. Intelligence could be reasoned with. Instinct not so much. For that reason, Asuka Langley Soryu kicked her covers off her bed and scowled at the wall with very nearly enough intensity to melt right through it. Whoever was talking outside her cabin was about to get an earful of their own. Wake her up with their inane chatter, would they? Well! We'll soon see about that!
"Keep the noise down out here!" she yelled as she threw open the door. "Some of us... are... trying to sleep?" Weird. Where the hell were they? Asuka looked around from left to right, scratching her head in mild confusion. She could still hear the voices and - now that she thought about it couldn't identify where they were coming from. It was like they were all around her. That was... odd. Screw it! She could adjust to something as simple as this. If they did so insist on talking like that, well she'd just have to have a word with the captain. Later. Asuka stifled a yawn and slammed her door closed. Even half asleep she'd still be smarter and more awake than everyone else aboard put together.
As she crawled back into bed, the sound of chatter slowed down quite a lot. "Quiet down!" a familiar sounding female voice insisted. "I'll talk to her. Obviously, I am best suited to do so, wouldn't you agree?" Okay, good. You've come to an agreement. So go away already and let -
Except there were no female sailors on this ship. Not one crew member was female. Who the hell was that? Asuka rolled over to face the door, and in spite of herself let her eyes go wild as a gasp escaped her lips. Facing away from her was a very familiar figure floating in the air. Same red hair. Same style of hair. In a bright red plugsuit. And then there were the bandages all around her body, around her arm, around her head...
"Definitely dreaming," Asuka mumbled in German. Her head hit the pillow and seconds later she was out like a light.
=======================================
Oh, what a wonderful day it was for a date with Kaji! They had gone on a lovely stroll along the beach, dined in an expensive restaurant and now they were curled up in front of a fireplace telling jokes about those stupid Angels that she'd so effortlessly crushed thanks to her superior skills. They both deserved only the best, and of course that simply had to be one another! Kaji opened his mouth to say another sweet nothing...
"Hey!" came out, and Kaji's face metamorphosed into a grisly reflection of her own. "Wake up! This is important! We need to have a talk!"
"Sorry, but I don't think she can hear you," the wine glass interjected. "We should probably wait until she wakes up."
"Are you kidding?" her reflection yelled, and just then Asuka realised that the chicken must have been bad. Oh! But that restaurant was going to catch sooo many kinds of hell for this! You don't give a pilot food poisoning and get away with it, never mind giving her hallucinations! "We need all the time we have to figure this shit out!"
"Ah?" the mounted deer head on the wall interjected with a familiar sounding woman's voice. "But what could she do between now and tomorrow? Let her rest. She has a busy day tomorrow, remember? Besides which, she looks so cute like that!"
"Misato! Be serious for a second! Though you may be right about how adorable I was, this is hardly the time..."
The voices began to fade as though they were never there. Something else had Asuka's attention now. A door and a window she hadn't noticed earlier. It looked familiar somehow, and she couldn't help but be drawn towards it. Inside was a hospital bed and a woman lovingly stroking something bundled in her arms, whispering soothing words which soon became very nasty indeed...
The rest of the sleep she got that night was not remotely restful.
=======================================
At first she thought that someone had left a mirror next to her bed. Then she felt her face and realised that there was no bandage covering her eye and she certainly wasn't wearing her plugsuit. Asuka wiped the sleep from her eyes and blinked really hard to try and make the image go away. Didn't work. She reached out, and wasn't particularly surprised when her hand went right through.
"Awake at last, are we?" the other her said. "Good. Listen, this is important."
"Go away," she interrupted, and then stood up from her bed while pointedly ignoring that - whatever that was. She didn't have time for such nonsense. It wasn't real, and that was all that mattered. The last thing she needed was to be caught talking to herself right before the very point of her training came to a head!
"Wait, what?! No! You listen to me! This is important!" the other her blustered, screaming right in her face. Like it would be that easy to provoke a reaction out of her!
A knocking came at the door, and the hallucination rapidly went silent. "Asuka, I thought you'd want to know," Kaji called through the door. "We'll be meeting with the Third Child and Misato in about two hours, so get yourself ready!"
About time. A smirk crawled across her face, and she knew she was ready for anything. She picked out a dress sure to make a great first impression, because above all other things the first impression was the most important one to make for anyone.
"Listen, we don't have a lot of time -" the hallucination said, to which Asuka slammed her wardrobe door closed. "Will you stop that! Lieber Gott im Himmel, was I really this stubborn? I'm here to warn you -" ah, but the rest was drowned out when Asuka started to hum the Ride of the Valkyries. Whatever was making her see and hear things, she wasn't going to let it get any further into her head than it already had. The iron will she possessed would be more than enough to deter this brief flirtation with psychosis! She wasn't the best pilot for nothing, after all!
=======================================
There they were, arriving at last. It seemed as though there were more of them arriving than she had first expected. Three boys accompanying Misato for whatever reason. One of them had to be the Third Child. Whichever one it was, it didn't matter. She'd make such an overpowering first impression that he'd surely recognise her inherent superiority on the spot! It was best to establish the pecking order immediately, and it should be obvious to everyone who should be right on the very top!
"Hello Misato!" she called, confident that her pose and tone would leave a first impression they'd never, ever forget. "How are you?"
"As well as ever," she replied. "You've grown tall, haven't you?"
"Yeah! And not just taller--my figure has filled out, too." Asuka stared at the three of them. Which of those boys was it? The wind caught the hat one of them was wearing, and he chased after it towards her. She crushed it underfoot without a second's thought and smirked down at him down there trying to catch it just as surely as she was at his two friends. The only thing spoiling her mood right now was that fake her that only proved how completely fake she was by being completely ignored by everyone else.
"Let me introduce you," Misato said to the boys accompanying her. "This is the exclusive pilot of Evangelion Unit Two, the Second Child, Soryu Asuka Langley."
"Mind the wind," the fake her said. Even had the warning been heeded it would have come seconds too late. Her dress billowed up, and the very next second the three boys all had bright red slap marks embedded in their cheeks. Well deserved marks as well. Not the first impression she had been hoping for, not even remotely. And her fake self could stop with the weary sigh already! It was annoying! Cut it out!
"What did you hit me for?!" the boy at her feet had the cheek to ask.
"Payment for the view. You don't think it's cheap?"
"Huh? Then I'll show you the same thing!"
"And... close your eyes right about now," the fake her insisted. "No really!"
Again, just a little too late with that advice, and by god in heaven did she wish she'd taken it. Ugh! "What are you doing!" she yelled, flooring him with another well deserved - if not even more so smack. No way was he a pilot, no way was an idiot like that the much talked of Third Child! Which left the other two, but somehow she had a faint inkling that her subconscious had already figured out which one given that an exact duplicate of him had materialised out of nothing right next to the fake her.
"What are you staring at?" the fake her asked the fake boy. "Can't believe how much of a wuss you look?"
"Eh? No, nothing like that. I just... I feel kinda bad for what he's about to go through. He thinks he has it bad now..."
"Found a new way to feel sorry for yourself, Third Child? That's just like you!"
Well. That was a new wrinkle. Her hallucinations were having a conversation with one another. Isn't that grand? Maybe now they'll pester one another and let her be!
"So, which one is the much-discussed Third Child?" she asked, again pointedly ignoring the two hallucinations. Perhaps she shouldn't be enjoying the frustrations of a figment of her own imagination quite so much? Heavens above know what that would say about her mental state. Bad enough she could see them at all, but...
"That would be Shinji, here." Misato was pointing at the one she'd sort of guessed at. Hah! Of course she knew that! Just as she thought, her subconscious had already picked out the real Third Child from these three losers, no doubt from cues that her conscious mind hadn't caught up on yet. There wasn't much point in speculating what those would be either since the historian's fallacy rendered such activity pointless. All that mattered was that she knew who he was and much more importantly, that he knew who she was.
"Hmm... He seems rather dull..."Asuka rolled her eyes.
"You have no idea," the fake her replied, rolling her one visible eye. Then she took great amusement in the fake Shinji's frustrated look at her, grinning a wicked smile. Hard to argue, it was a pretty funny reaction. Ugh. And here came the captain of the ship bitching and moaning once again about his position, not realising how much of a privilege it was to be carrying such important, priceless and irreplaceable cargo! And the was before we even got to Unit 02! She'd overheard it from him and the other crew before even boarding, and it was quite simply boring to her now. Stubborn idiot needed to better learn his place, and words didn't seem likely to reach him. If anything, the bickering between the voices in her head were far more interesting to pay attention to.
"Shouldn't we be trying to talk to her or something?"
"Not until she is alone, dummkopf! If she starts responding to us, people will think I - she's seeing things!"
"Uh... But she is seeing things. She's seeing us."
"Not the point! Try to keep up!"
"You won't get through to her that way," another voice interrupted, a new one that lifted her spirits. "Once Asuka has made up her mind about something, she won't change it so easily."
"Kaji!" she cooed, spinning around to greet the man she knew she was destined to be with. Except, right over his shoulder she could see... No! Impossible! Him as well? Two Kaji! The real one and the one in her mind! No, no, no! Don't let that distract, don't let those stupid fakes rule your thoughts! Especially not in front of him! Never in front of him! She'd make him see her as an adult if it killed her!
"To think, I thought this behaviour was mature," the fake her sighed. And then she faded away, as did the others. Asuka knew they would be back. They hadn't actually gone anywhere. They were just staying quiet and right now that was for the best.
=======================================
"What do you think about Shinji Ikari?" Kaji asked her at the first opportunity they had alone together. The Third Child! Hah! What a joke! He was supposed to be a big deal?
"He's dull! That's the great Third Child? I'm disappointed!"
"Asuka, are you feeling alright?" Misato asked. For just a moment, she very nearly whirled around to reply to that strange question... until she noticed that Misato was levitating slightly off the ground and staring at the fake bandaged Asuka. Well. Screw her, then. A fake Misato, was it? Fine!
"It's just... it's weird seeing him again. After he disappeared like that."
"I know," Misato said, stroking her fake self's hair in a comforting manner. "But it's something we're going to have to get used to, if we're going to make a difference."
"Asuka, are you feeling alright?" Kaji asked. "You've been zoning in and out all day. Is anything wrong?" Oh, look at him! So worried about her, paying such attention to her! He was so handsome like this, but then again he was handsome in any light! But... even he would not understand. Even he would think that there was something wrong with her. Even he would step in and deny her the chance to prove herself, recommending psychiatric evaluation when she was more than capable of handling a few minor annoying hallucinations...
"N-nothing's wrong! Really!" there are definitely not hallucinations of people she's met flickering across her vision. Nope. Not there. Not at all. Everything was just fine and perfect and dandy! Perhaps that denial was too adamant? Well, too late now. Just roll with it and smile cutely, let him drown in her natural charm as she drowned in his.
"Well, if you say so!" Kaji shrugged, and then he gave her that smile that melted her heart. "But if you do want to talk, I'm all ears."
"So about the Third child!" Asuka declared in a rather desperate and blatant attempt to change the subject. "Don't you think he's boring?" Which was kind of amusing considering that he was the only thing she could think about right now to even change the subject to.
"Hm, not sure about that," Kaji scratched his stubbled chin in deep thought. "Without training, in actual combat his synchro-rate still easily exceeds Forty percent."
Forty percent?! No way! An untrained pilot could reach forty percent? "That can't be true! It's unbelievable! Don't lie to me! A lie!" Asuka stormed off, making a point to walk right through her fake self as she went. Forty percent? Well then! Maybe she had to work a little bit harder to impress him than she first thought! With an untrained forty percent synch rating, she'd need to pull out the big guns to drive home her superiority, no question of that!
"And so it begins," sighed the fake Shinji. Just on the edge of her peripheral vision, Asuka could see her fake self shaking her head as if disappointed by what she was seeing. Ignore them. Stomp off. Find the Third Child. Prove who was the best. Nothing else mattered right now.
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She stood at the very top of it. Her pride. Her joy. Her life. Her livelihood. Everything that she'd worked for as long as she could remember. The giant red colossus that she and she alone had the right to pilot. Evangelion Unit 02! And down there, beneath her where he belonged stood the Third Child. A nobody with no training that got lucky, beating an Angel with no prior experience. Hah! If he could do it so easily, then the others couldn't be the remotest threat, could they? With her natural talent and his backup, those other Angels were already toast and didn't even know it!
"After all, Units Zero and One are prototypes!" she declared. "Test models in the development process. The fact that it synchronized with you, an untrained boy, is good proof of that!"
"A fair assumption given what you know," her fake self interjected. "But ultimately wrong."
Her hands clenched into fists. No! She was not wrong! He had merely synchronized with an inferior model! She was the best! He was a loser! "Unit Two is not the same. This is a true Evangelion, the first on Earth built for actual combat-"
"Which you're about to deal with in a moment, given the Angel that's about to attack."
"The official model," she finished, pointedly ignoring the fake. An Angel attack? Where had that thought come from? There was no way that an Angel would attack now, of all times. Obviously her hallucination was rather more paranoid than she first - And then the boat shook violently, indicating a tremendous shock wave in the water. No way!
"Ah, what's happening?" Shinji cried out, trying to steady himself on the deck.
"Something exploded nearby!"
The two rushed to the side of the ship in the blink of an eye, Asuka not even remembering climbing down from Unit 02 as she did so. There it was, swimming through the water. A monster. An Angel. A chance to prove herself as the superior pilot.
"Maybe now you'll listen, eh?" the fake her said, staring at her with a piercing gaze from that one eye. She was floating over the ocean, obstructing Asuka's view of the Angel while smirking like a demon. "It's core is in its mouth. The two of you had better hurry!"
Without another word, she tugged the Third Child into a more private area. She'd show him the fruits of her training. She'd show them all that she was the best. Most importantly, she'd show those stupid voices in her head that they were not the boss of her! That she was the boss of them!
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