There are many ways to measure a man. The three dimensions: Height, width, breadth. You can measure him by weight, you can measure him by age. Ambition, morals, ethics, wealth, power, what he does with wealth and power when he has it, what he does when he does not and so many more and more and more.
The one we are interested in on this particular day is to answer one particular question: How does that man treat his offspring?
Gendo Ikari was the kind of man who would win father of the year awards. Oh, yes. He could wins such competitions quite easily. All it would take is sitting down with the judges for such a competition and calmly, concisely offering them some family pictures, perhaps a home movie or two. Not of his own family, keep in mind. Theirs.
This was a man without ruth - or more accurately, a man without Yui. In his youth Gendo spent a great deal of his spare time either getting drunk, getting punched, getting his own kicks in on the bastard that punched him, being held down by same bastard’s mates, getting kicked in the ribs a couple of times for good measure or somehow managing to walk out of the pub with his head held high knowing that in the end of it all <i>they</i> got the worst of the exchange.
In his not-so-spare hours he was performing acts of science with such natural talent that he received the attention of certain nameless organisations that elevated him through their nameless ranks and shadowy esteem until one day, one fateful day he was put in charge of the most important project in humanity’s entire history.
To all outside appearances this project would assist the survival of humankind. The dark truth of the matter was that these plots and schemes would guarantee nothing less than extermination under the guise of attaining godhood.
While this man became numbered among the most influential and important men on the planet he became numbered among the most important and influential man on the planet to two other people: His wife Yui being the first. Their son Shinji would be the second.
Yui was brilliant. There are no other words necessary to describe her. She dazzled those around her with intelligence, charm and beauty unsurpassed by her peers. Her insights were inspired. Her reasoning more solid than the ground beneath our feet. Her resolve was like steel, while her compassion was like a hug. She rose to the top like a rocket to the surprise of absolutely nobody.
And married Gendo Rokubungi (now Ikari) to the surprise of absolutely everyone.
It is a little cliche to say that opposites attract. This may be a truth within physics and chemistry, certainly. Regarding magnets: North pole attracts south pole. Regarding molecules: Positive charge attracts negative charge. They are opposites and attract one another, simple enough, but applying the notion to romantic entanglements doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Nor does much else about romantic relationships, but even so! Nobody that knew these two (a number that could likely be counted upon two hands) could possibly have imagined them becoming a romantic couple. Surely not! That Gendo fellow showed all the warmth and compassion of a damp sponge and all the detachment necessary to be a really good scientist… or a fucking amazing politician.
Even so. Yui saw something in him, and he definitely saw something in her beyond the rather brilliant qualities already mentioned. This was no marriage of convenience, nor was it based on lustful desires. Gendo loved her. Do not doubt that for a moment. Not when he would damn the whole human race for the chance to be with her again. Not when he would choose her genetic template to create a series of clones. Not when he discarded his son because the boy was too much of a reminder of that which he had lost.
Ah, yes. That last point. Very handy for highlighting how much of a bastard this man really was. Was. Was. Used to be. In the way that this reality <i>used</i> to exist. In a moment of fascinating serendipity the owner of this world’s cube had very much the same sort of desire as that of one Ranma Saotome: My father is the cause of my suffering, and I wish he would be less of a dick. Fascinating that their names both begin with “Gen”. It’s almost the sort of thing that makes one wonder what other coincidental similarities serendipitously exist between these two very different, very selfish men?
In a moment of blinding light the world around Shinji Ikari was altered, molecules scattered and, most crucially of all, memories altered to suit the new reality….
<hr>
The normally bustling command room had fallen silent save for the noise of a crying child. Ignore him. Ignore him. You can still save her. She’s not completely gone. Not yet. With a single look over his shoulder the rest of the staff clamoured back into operation, but they were still clearly stunned by what had occurred. Gendo Ikari rested a reassuring hand upon his sobbing son’s head and stared out at the monster trying to consume his wife.
“Come on, Yui…” he whispered. “Fight this! You can do it! Get out of there!”
“Sir, it’s not working! Synchronisation is climbing towards 500%! If she crosses that -”
“I know,” he said. Yui had done the numbers herself. They both knew what would happen if synchronisation crossed 400%, but if it reached 500? There would be no chance. Less than no chance.
It would not reach 500. It <i>could</i> not. Doesn’t she hear that? The sound of their son’s tears! Does she not know that he <i>saw the whole thing?</i> Does she not know that this will destroy the boy? That their son still needed her?
That he still needed her as well?
In one sense Gendo felt a little jealous of the little ball of unrestrained anguish. He could show the world what he was feeling with no sense of shame. No hard edges holding back the tears. No guilt over the pain, ignorance of the real horror of what had just happened… And certainly young enough to repress the horrible mental image so that it would only keep him up at night for a little while. Right now Gendo doubted that even if they did save Yui any of the adults would ever sleep still again.
Once they saved her. Not if. Once they saved her. She would be here, she would be safe and by the end of the week she would be out of the hospital and joking about it with their superiors. Then they would strip this beast apart to find out what went so catastrophically wrong and be so much more careful next time they did this test. They’d joke about it, and -
“Sir… that’s five hundred percent.”
And the world seemed just a little bit bleaker all of a sudden, as though it had lost some magnificent quality. In that moment and to his own surprise Gendo felt a damp trail forming down his cheek.
<hr>
This was his office. A dark and imposing room. Large and empty with naught but a single desk facing the door. Were he a particularly tragic poet, Gendo might have described the room as a dark reflection of what lay within his heart. Or perhaps not. It was rather an over-the-top and trite metaphor. The fact that it even crossed his mind told him that he desperately needed a little perspective.
The door opened, and Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki stepped inside. The man had taken the news almost as poorly as Gendo himself. Not difficult to understand. Yui was his finest student, and it was plain to see that the man held some considerable affection for her. That was just the way the woman was. Were she to step in a darkened room it would be flooded with light.
Gendo’s hand hid his wince. He <i>really</i> needed to do something about that. Thoughts along these lines were Not Healthy for the mind. Speaking of Not Healthy…
“How is my son?” Gendo asked. How does one comfort a grieving boy when one is too lost in their own? It was surely better for them both if someone else were to help him through this pain and misery.
“I don’t think he fully understands what happened,” Fuyutsuki replied. “Then again, neither does the scientific team. But first, your son. We have found a psychiatrist we can trust, as instructed, and ensured she understands the secretive nature of our project. The two of them are currently in a session discussing how they feel about what has transpired.”
“Very well. Keep me informed on any relevant developments. Now. Tell me what our crack team of scientists and engineers <i>can</i> tell me about the… about the accident?”
“To be blunt? They don’t know. They don’t even know where to begin looking for a problem. All systems operated as they were intended. However! There was one anomaly detected shortly after the incident occurred.”
Fuyutsuki slid a folder across the desk and tapped it thrice before returning to his normal alert position. How very curious. For him to react in this manner indicated that he simply did not know how to begin describing this mysterious anomaly, which rather left Gendo’s considerable imagination reeling. He flipped it open, leafed through the pages, scanned the readings…
“An energy release of some sort,” he finally concluded. “Though the frequency and the form is unfamiliar.”
“There is nothing similar to it on record. They all checked, and so did I. What do you intend to do with this information?”
A good question even in the most simple of times. What should he do with this mysterious data? Options danced around before his eyes, each with their own pros and cons. Keep it secret. Bury it. Investigate it. Do so in secret. Do so with backing. Similar thoughts had danced before him during the bargaining stage of grief. Plans that could return him to Yui, or even the other way around. Climb into the machine himself and switch it on. Subvert the old fools’ plans for Third Impact to his own end. Use his son as an unwitting pawn. Use Yui’s DNA for that cloning project Akagi was cooking up. He could do any of these or a dozen others, but rather than concentrate on the solution, then as now his mind went back to one of the last things Yui said to him.
“When a man does what is right over what is easy, that is how you measure the man.”
“We shall set up an independent department within the scientific block of the organisation,” Gendo decided. “Their purpose is to analyse this energy release. Determine its connection to the incident, should any exist. It could potentially be a cause, an after-effect, both or neither.”
“Very well. But what will you tell the old men?”
Ah yes, the old men that held their leashes. The real puppet masters. Kingmakers. Ruiners of men, and schemers for godhood. In all honesty Gendo had already considered them in his plans. Let the bastards stew in their own paranoia. Let that guide them down the scenario Gendo was laying out for them. It might even serve as a good distraction for whatever real plans he developed down the line.
“The truth,” he said. “This unexpected energy release is a potential danger to the scenario, and must therefore be accounted after. In the event that it is not related, we might still learn a great deal that could be put to other use. However. I personally doubt there is no connection. It is too much of a coincidence for this release of energy to occur near the incident in terms of both space and time.
“On that note. I fail to see a specific indicator of the location this was detected.”
“All that the readings can tell at the moment is that it was in the control room. Further analysis may yield more precise results, but for now this is all that we know. Now, regarding your order. Consider that the old men have already taken this energy release into account. What then?”
“In that case, there are two possible situations. Either they admit the truth, or they permit the research to commence under heavy scrutiny. In the case of the latter, it will not be as difficult as they might believe to find the rats they try to plant within our nest. Especially since we can be reasonably certain they will have spies on the staff either way.”
Fuyutsuki gave a curt nod to acknowledge his understanding. Very good, old friend. Now for the less pressing, more important task.
“I want you to have Shinji sent away. Don’t look so shocked. If I am to assume the duties expected of me, and fill in my wi- Fill in Yui Ikari’s responsibilities, my own workload will undergo a significant improvement. Saving the world is a task that leaves no time for anything else. He will grow to hate me for this, he may never understand why I sent him away, but it is for his own good.
“If I have my way, the only manner he shall hear of Angels and Evangelions shall be through information we allow into the public consciousness. If I have my way, he shall never know the taste of LCL. If I have my way, he shall live a happy life while never guessing at even half of what must be done to keep the people safe. If I have my way, he shall have a better chance of sleeping at night than either of us ever will again.
“Send him away somewhere he will be happy. Send him to the best schools in the world. Give him unseen security and the best medical care - physical and mental - that money <i>cannot</i> buy, but power can.
“It’s the very least we could do after letting him witness his mother’s death.”
<hr>
Time did what it did best. It passed by. For some it flew. For others it crawled. For Gendo Ikari it simply progressed towards the day of destiny. The last decade or so of his life had been… difficult. Yes. That might be the best word for it. But that was rather the point, was it not? When he met Yui in whatever came next, how would she think he measured up?
His first great accomplishment was Rei. An artificial life form in every meaningful sense. Constructed from the genetic material of a volunteer spliced with that of the Second Angel: Lilith. That pale white monster pinned to a cross, bleeding the substance referenced as LCL.
The only quality in common between girl and Angel was their complexion. Pristine like snow. The girl had blue hair and red eyes that perceived the world in a way that Gendo doubted anyone properly understood. Even the girl herself. The psychological reports indicated she thought of herself as an outsider looking in, but anyone could tell that after a brief conversation. She would be polite. She would say all the right things. But it was the emotional equivalent of the uncanny valley. So very close, yet wrong enough to feel off putting and alien in a way that was difficult to pinpoint.
He had tried a variety of approaches to making her open up a little more. She was intended to serve as a pilot, after all, and a connection to humanity would only serve to help her serve better in the role. Rei had been sent to school with others her own age, and made no friends there. In point of fact, aside from a few confessions from boys drawn to her apparently alluring, mysterious aura very few of her classmates interacted with her unless directly forced by the teachers. If there were an alteration, any sort of alteration at all then even NERV didn’t have the equipment necessary to measure it.
The problem was a thorny one. What we have here is a young girl that has closed herself off to the rest of the world, and he was trying to make her open up a little. Unfortunately his mind was rather wandering. Something like that sounded vaguely familiar for some reason, and he kept finding himself distracted from trying to remember where from. A specific person who had once been much worse off than Rei, emotionally dead, and come back to life with a stark vengeance…
“Commander, here is the list of personnel being considered for the role of tactical officer. Do any of them meet your requirements?”
Gendo allowed his gaze to flicker down towards the desk. Before him lay a list of names, compiled by his request by the sub-commander. Yes, perhaps consciously solving one problem would permit his unconscious to work upon those other two, unfiltered by irrational thoughts leading him down the wrong path. This third problem would not be difficult to solve, and might well let his mental wheels spin around in new directions without him even noticing. Whom exactly should he bring to Tokyo-3 as their tactical officer?
And then he knew the answer to all three of his questions with the reading of a single name.
<hr>
A few months passed, and Gendo found Fuyutsuki chuckling to himself while reading a report. This was quite the rare event - particularly recently given how close they were getting to the estimated time that the proverbial shit would hit the fan - that happened to be rare enough that Gendo had to question for a moment exactly what he was seeing.
“Ah, Commander! The latest report regarding your son. It would appear that his apple has fallen rather a lot closer to the tree than we might first have realised.”
“Please elaborate, Sub-Commander. My youth was filled to the brim with hell raising the likes of which Satan found envious.”
“I wasn’t quite talking about your barroom brawls, Commander. I was more referencing the time you spent sowing some particularly wild oats.”
Gendo nodded his head very slowly and very deliberately. Oh dear. He remembered that time of his life rather vividly, but only in the same sense that he remembered with exacting detail the dreams he had last Thursday night. The same way that a fish likes to smoke. As in… not even remotely.
But there were a few blurry images here and there. He remembered those dalliances being natural setups to some of his more energetic brawls. He remembered that there were a lot of women, but their faces and names were lost to the mists of time. He remembered being just that immature. He remembered all too well.
To repeat: Oh dear.
“My goodness, a threesome! With twins older than him, no less!” Fuyutsuki chuckled. “It’s amazing, really. If he has half of your way with women, and half of his mother’s natural charm, I doubt there’s a woman alive that would say no to him.”
“I’m glad that you find my son’s sexual adventures so amusing.”
The Sub-Commander shook his head and handed over the full report. “No. I don’t think you quite understand, Gendo. I only find it amusing as part of the bigger picture over your son’s development. He’s turning into you.
“He’s been elected class president three years in a row, but it’s not just some token position. Apparently, his suggestions have improved the efficiency and overall test scores of the school by ten percent. What, don’t you see? <i>He’s all but running the damned place from behind the scenes.</i>
“One particularly poor member of his class was being picked on by a wealthier member. After the Sohryu girl finished stomping the bully and his friends -”
Gendo winced a little at the reminder of that particularly bad idea. “Let him befriend the Second Child. After all, the poor girl just lost her mother. Surely the two of them will be a tremendous asset to each other!”
And then the two of them became rather fast friends. Asuka loved showing off how smart and strong she was, and Shinji would come up with such amazing ideas to help her do just that. Mischief seemed inevitable. They even pranked their security teams.
“- The bullies all coincidentally fell just short of the required passing grades for the school in their next test, dragging down their average enough that they were seriously considered for expulsion.” Fuyutsuki chuckled once again and shook his head in amusement. “There were accusations made by the bullies, but not even their parents believed them.
“The interesting thing is: His psychiatrist believes he’s acting this way because he hates you just that much. It’s an unconscious trick, apparently. He’s latched on to this idea that he completely despises you, while thinking of himself as worthless… And quite without realising it started to emulate the one thing he despises the most as a coping mechanism.”
“I don’t find that particularly amusing, Sub-Commander. Ironic, certainly, but no more than that. My son’s psychological disorders are not a subject that would typically have me laughing. Regardless. My son’s report can wait for the time being, unless there is something more vital that you have withheld. The scheduled activation for Unit 00 is within the hour. While I attend it, you are in command.”
<hr>
That had been a bit of a disaster, all things considered. It was an hour after the test, and Gendo found himself looking in through the window of a ward in the Geofront’s medical wing thinking to himself that maybe, just maybe, he should not be here at all.
But he had to know the damage. He had to know the full extent of what their… his mistake had cost them. In time. In resources. In everything.
“Commander! I heard about the accident. What happened?”
He turned around to face a rather anxious tactical officer. Misato was acclimating well to her new position and had developed a rapport with Rei over the last several months. None of her other guardians had managed it in thrice the time. It was only natural she would be concerned. Misato looked past the Commander and in through the window.
“She’s in so much pain! Why isn’t she on morphine? Why is she still conscious?”
“It would not help,” Gendo replied, still not quite sure how best to explain this rather twisted turn of events. “You are aware that any given pilot will feel the pain of the Evangelion. I felt this would prove an unnecessary distraction in the heat of battle, and had research performed in nullifying it. The end result was installed within Unit 00.”
“You mean it amplified her pain?”
Gendo shook his head. “Quite the opposite. It worked. It worked rather too well. Upon activation, Rei Ayanami’s nervous system was overloaded with an intense, debilitating pleasure response.”
As if to punctuate the point somewhat, Rei’s hips jerked upwards and her hand trailed down her stomach towards a point between her legs.
And if she’d been human, by now she really would have been in pain. The human body can only take so much pleasure before it stops feeling good. It’s a response that makes sense, in a way. If the body is feeling that good for that long, something has quite clearly gone wrong. It may well be a chemical trick by a predator lulling the person into a false sense of security.
“Will she be alright?” Misato asked, suddenly looking a lot more dazed than concerned. “I mean… Goodness, how long has she been like that?”
“About an hour,” Dr Ritsuko Akagi replied. “And it doesn’t look like she’ll be stopping any time soon. It seems to have triggered a sort of feedback loop inside her system. The effect is weakening with time, but I can’t tell you how long it will be before she’s capable of anything again.”
This was his fault. All of it. His fault entirely. He’d tried to make a bad situation better, and only managed to make it worse. Now his only pilot was out of action, and the Angel attack could occur at any point during the week. The carelessness of Gendo Ikari had brought them to this. Without an active Evangelion with a pilot, they had no chance of survival. The human race would be doomed.
Germany was not finished with Unit 02 yet, and would not give her up until there was positive publicly releasable evidence that the Angels would only attack Tokyo-3. There was but a single Evangelion currently activatable within Tokyo-3 that could - maybe - save them from annihilation. But could he bring himself to make the order? Sacrifice his son to save the world?
Inside the room Rei leaped from the bed and, with eyes mad with lust, tackled an orderly to the floor.
Akagi turned towards a security device attached to the wall, and spoke into it. “… For pity’s sake, someone restrain that girl. I don’t care if she likes it! Right now, she’d be turned on by balloon animals! … What do you <i>mean</i> that’s a real fetish? Never mind that, just get her back on that bed before she does someone an injury!”
Through it all, Gendo scowled at his reflection. ‘If he had his way -’ Well, he didn’t have his way. Not anymore. So what was it, Yui? How do you measure a man when the only choices that lay before him are both hard and wrong?
<hr>
That was a monster up there. A giant, lumbering thing. Big as a skyscraper. Just sort of walking down the street as though it were picking up the morning newspaper. Each lumbering step felt like an earthquake. In at least one sense it was the most awesome thing Shinji had ever seen in his entire life. The sheer bold size of it seemed completely impossible in ways he could not quite correctly articulate: How could its body withstand the weight? Where did it come from? How did it grow to be that big completely unnoticed? What did it eat? How much did it have to eat?
<i>Probably something the size of a city. Like. The one it’s marching through like it owns the place. Like the one you’re standing in.</i>
“Aw… shit.”
Any further expletives he might have uttered were rather interrupted when two things happened at almost the same time. First, the army sent in a decidedly futile assault upon the monster. Second, a car screeched to a halt a little down the road he’d been waiting by.
“Shinji Ikari?” a woman yelled, and much like anyone that heard their name called he turned around to face where it had come from. In this case a rather familiar-looking purple-haired woman leaning out of the car window. “Get in!” she yelled, kicking the door on the passenger’s side open.
No further invitation was necessary and the reply was pretty damn quick. Shinji dove inside the vehicle and barely had the time to strap on his seatbelt before it was screeching off down the road at a fairly concerning level of acceleration. Though, honestly, if it put a little distance between them and that thing, hauling ass didn’t seem like such a bad idea.
“Hello, Shinji,” the woman said. Speaking of ass, it was nice to get a reminder that while a picture may say a thousand words, reality sang operas. Shinji had been expecting a beautiful woman from the picture but this heavenly creature far exceeded his expectations. Beauty was not just in looks, it was in body language. “I’m Misato Katsuragi, and I’m going to be taking you to see your father.”
“It’ll be good to see him again,” Shinji said, though he rolled his eyes while Misato wasn’t looking. Yeah. Sure. Good to get a chance to kick him in the balls. “Work usually keeps him too busy to come and visit. Though it’s weird that he wants me to visit him for once. Any idea why that is?”
“No clue! But he couldn’t have picked a worse day for it. Strap in tight and hold on to your lunch, this baby’s about to really go!”
<hr>
Such a waste. A tremendous futile waste. Wave after wave of men and machines were hurled against the lumbering beast and all they could do was slow its advance in terms only measurable in nanoseconds. Such a worthwhile sacrifice for these noble men! Why, it might afford their dear leaders the vital opportunity to blink one more time!
Gendo glowered at the Generals over his clasped hands. Fat men. Well fed. Warm. Safe. Secure behind the lines. Men who saw their subordinates and the losses thereof as little more than statistics. Casualties, tragic losses of resources and nothing more than that. At worst these losses meant little more than a new strategy being utilised.
Fools. Arrogant fools that thought themselves more important than the men and women they sent out to fight for them. Men and women trained to obey commands, trusting that everything they did mattered. Only to die. Pointlessly. Statistics and little more than that. Every human life mattered. Every human life had potential for greatness buried deep within. In the end only one sad truth remained, a sad and terrible truth. A rampaging monster attack did not change it even a single iota.
Man’s greatest enemy is his fellow man. It is a foe that uses complacency and pride as its sword and shield. Its favourite strategy? Dehumanisation. Pretend the life you take is not a life at all: Pretend that it is a wild beast gone rogue. The enemy combatant is not a human being. It is a thing that looks like a person, but feasts upon the flesh of dead prisoners. That is not a person. No matter what your senses tell you. It is an enemy. It is less than human. And in that moment man forgets that his fellow man too has a life, has loved ones, has dreams and hopes and aspirations. And above all else did not remotely deserve that bullet in the chest.
Or to be knocked out of the sky by an A.T. Field with all the same casualness as swatting a fly.
Planes crashed. Tanks were smashed. Bullets could be ignored as easily as dust. Perhaps they were hoping the creature had an exploitable allergy to gunpowder? A missile hit the creature right in the face and collapsed around itself. Then came the N2 mine, which did little more than dent the creature.
Their best weapon was shrugged off as if it were a slap in the face. If not for the lives lost there would be something deeply satisfying in watching these supposed military geniuses having their egos deflated.
“Commander Ikari, it would appear that we have no other alternative but to rely upon your method. Send your Evangelion, and send that thing to hell! Are you sure you can defeat it?”
Gendo rose to his feet with a triumphant smirk, adjusted his glasses and walked out of the room. “That is the very purpose for which NERV exists.” Anything else he might have said to point out their utter failure would serve only to discharge their wounded pride upon him. They would doubtless leap to the irrational conclusion that he had somehow sabotaged their effort. Hidden information from them that they could have used to defeat it. Let them be their own teacher, for he didn’t have the patience nor time to deal with them. Let them stew in their wounded pride, aim their recriminations upon one another and deal blows far more lasting, far more deep than anything he could hope to muster.
Because by the time they were out of his sight, Gendo Ikari simply didn’t give a damn about them anymore. As was usually the case, at the moment he had bigger fish to fry than some self-important, soulless soldiers. And he would start by saying hello to his son.
<hr>
An alarm blared throughout the Geofront, serving little further purpose than pissing off an already slightly stressed-out Ritsuko Akagi. Their only pilot was out of commission for an unknown amount of time. Their potential backup was late. The Angel had already arrived, and now the MAGI were desperately trying to remind her of a fact that she was rather blatantly already aware of!
“Busy now! Piss off!” she groused. Honestly, the backup had better arrive. Soon. The military would only slow that monster down by minutes at most, meaning that the fate of the world rested entirely on Misato’s sense of direction. Given that piece of information her current tense nature could be quite easily understandable.
“Sempai!” Maya called, crossing into the room with a rather wide-eyed expression on her face. “The alarm! What are we going to do about this?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea, Maya,” she replied. “I’ve already switched it off three times now, but for some reason the MAGI seems insistent on reminding us that the Angel is on its way.”
“Not that! It’s something else! Look, look at this!”
Well. Maya was never the sort to behave this way unless it really was something that demanded attention. She was always such a hard worker. Very eager to please. Alright. She took the offered papers -
And had to pick herself back up again after reading through the first half. “This kind of energy release… It’s impossible! Source?”
“Unknown. It was only there for a moment, and then it vanished before the MAGI could work out where it came from. But it did say that there was something similar recorded on file already, and that the Commander should be informed of it as soon as possible!”
Well, wasn’t that just the way? Life gives you lemons, you make lemonade… then you realise some asshole replaced the sugar with salt. Fine then. She’d tell the Commander later on, but only when the Angel was dealt with.
In comparison to that, the importance couldn’t possibly compare.
<hr>
There are times when a person learns something about himself. Times when, upon being put to the test, a given person will learn a fact about himself that he will carry with him unto the grave. Mortal terror is one of the greater educational tools and at this very moment it was behaving as Shinji Ikari’s very best tutor.
“It’s hard to believe the commander had such a cute kid. He hardly seems the sort,” Misato said from behind the wheel of the car, completely oblivious to Shinji’s silent swearing of an oath to never, ever try a rollercoaster ride in case it reminded him of… whatever this journey could be called. “Are you excited to see him again?”
Shinji squeaked his unintelligible response and gripped the seat tighter. Almost as if he were dangling over a dark, damp, spiky precipice and the only thing keeping him from tumbling over was the upholstery beneath him. Then again? Given the choice between the car and the fall he might well choose the fall.
“Don’t worry,” Misato said, smiling warmly at him. “We’re well away from the Angel. Almost in the base. Safest place in the city!”
Oh yeah. There was a giant monster back there. He’d honestly almost forgotten.
A large building loomed before them that seemed to ooze a military aura from the very core of its being. Was it a unconscious trick of the architecture? Angular design, sturdy walls, heavily defensive, heavily secret… Or maybe it was all the men in uniforms.
“Welcome to the Geofront,” Misato said. There was a brief exchange of paperwork, including a few things that had been sent to Shinji for this very purpose. And then they were inside. “Here. Read this. It should get you primed on all the basic information you should know before we get in too deep.”
A brochure, it seemed. Well. Reading at the moment seemed a little bit risky, but he took it anyway. Wouldn’t want to appear rude or anything. “Thank you,” he said. “This is all about Father’s work, then? Strange that he would call for me to meet him here like this. I wonder why?”
“Your father is a busy man, with tremendous expectations of his staff. Why, the day I first arrived he insisted that I memorise the facility backwards and forwards! Ah, but I’m sure he means well enough. It wouldn’t do for the tactical officer to get lost in the base she’s supposed to be defending. Right?”
Tactical officer? Her? It was hard to imagine someone like that barking orders, coming up with plans, being taken particularly seriously or - and this was rather a crucial point - failing to be completely drooled over by her male subordinates. She seemed a little flighty, too immature to be a proper leader in a crisis. How very strange. Why would father choose her for such an important-sounding position?
The two of them reached the bottom of the long slope, mercifully conveyed there by a moving platform rather than slaloming down at breakneck speeds. Shinji gingerly left the deathtrap - sorry, he meant coffin on wheels - no, no, that should have been car. It was a car. He inhaled deeply and started to follow Misato while reading the brochure.
It was actually a rather interesting read. NERV’s purpose was generally research and development into new technologies designed to help humanity survive a post-Second Impact world. Their primary goal was to do all that they could to prevent a potential Third Impact, which could theoretically happen at any time. Next year. A hundred years from now. NERV’s goal was to research such possibilities, prepare for them, and prepare humanity to survive similar cataclysms.
Yet it still didn’t answer two very important questions. What the flying hell was that monster out there (hadn’t Misato referred to it as an Angel?) and why did his father want to speak to him today of all days? More to the point, elaborating neatly on the previous question: Why did he want to speak to him at his place of work? NERV didn’t seem like the sort of organisation to encourage “Bring your son to work day”. Or casual Fridays, for that matter.
“There you are!” an unfamiliar voice said. “I was worried you might have gotten lost again.”
“Not this time, Ritsuko,” Misato replied. Shinji looked up to see the source of this new voice. A blonde woman in a lab coat. Beautiful, but every bit as stern as Misato seemed playful. “The Commander did insist I memorise that map, and you know how persuasive he can be when he’s insistent on something.”
For just a fraction of a moment the stern facade on Ritsuko’s face became much more wistful. “That man… Stern as a rock one minute, charming as a salesman the next.” A smile threatened to creep onto her face, but then she seemed to become aware of Shinji’s presence and was all business once again.
“So this is the Third Child? Commander Ikari’s very own son! I wonder how close the apple falls to the tree. After all, with a name like that we expect big things from him.”
“Third Child… He’s the Third Child? The Commander’s son? Are we sure about that, Ritsuko?”
What sort of big things did they mean? Third Child? What did that mean? So many questions, and somehow he doubted very much that the answer could be found within the brochure. The two women were staring at him now as if expecting a response, but Shinji hadn’t the faintest clue where even to begin. Nor would he find the opportunity to figure that out. There was a tremendous shudder, almost like an earthquake. The lights dimmed, alarms blared, and in all the excitement Shinji stumbled forward in the darkness, instinctively sensing that safety lay directly ahead.
”Red alert! All hands to battle stations! Prepare to intercept the Angel at ground level!”
At no point in his life had Shinji fully understood what it was that might drive a person to drink. The sudden realisation that directly above them was a rampaging monster that walked over the military’s best defenses and shrugged off a direct hit from an N2 mine gave him the necessary insight. Intercept it? What could they throw against that thing if an N2 mine didn’t slow it down?
And then the lights came on. Shinji found himself standing face to face with a giant robot. Now, this might afford the incorrect impression that Shinji himself was giant. No. He was, in fact, a little less than average height for his age. It would be much more accurate to describe this purple behemoth as standing within a pit, and Shinji was on a level used to assist maintenance at the higher levels. From here it was more than possible for him to stare this creature in the eyes without looking up even slightly. From here he could start to comprehend precisely how big this base must be and what its budget must look like. Those thoughts might occur to him later on. For now he had to steady himself lest he faint in shock.
“A gigantic robot…” he whispered in shock.
“You won’t find that in the manual,” Ritsuko remarked. “Behold the Multi-purpose Humanoid Fighting Machine Evangelion in all of its glory!”
“Incredible! Is this what Father has been working on all of this time?” Shinji wondered aloud.
“Yes.”
All eyes rose to the very top of the tall room to the source of the voice. He stood there overlooking the room like a lord surveying his land: The workers were his subjects, the Evangelion his mightiest and most reliable horse, and then there was his son, to whom he smiled warmly.
“How have you been, Shinji?” he asked. “It has been a bit longer than I had intended.”
“Father… I- I don’t understand. Why did you bring me here?”
The sight of Gendo Ikari adjusting his glasses always left a cold shudder down those that had been called to his office for - pretty much any reason. He was a hard man. He was a fair man. But when he wanted to put the fear of god into you, by god, god would fear god! “Because I have no choice. I did everything within my power to keep you out of this. I wanted you to live a life detached from this. You would only have heard about Angels on the news, only learned about them what we allowed the public to know. You would never have set foot on the ground that you have now, but it seems as though fate has its own cruel games to play. In keeping you out of this for as long as I have, I may have inadvertently doomed humanity. You are not ready for this choice, but circumstances demand that I ask you this question.
“Will you pilot Unit 01?”
“You can’t be serious!” Shinji yelled. “You want me to pilot that thing? Fight that monster? I don’t know the first thing about it! This is the reason you called me here? What even happened to the pilot you surely already have?”
“Commander, this isn’t working!” Ritsuko said. “Clearly, your son isn’t mentally capable of doing what we need. This may seem harsh, but we may not have a choice. We’ll have to use Rei.”
“Use Rei - Are you crazy?!” Misato yelled. “Have you seen the condition she’s in?! That girl can barely stand, never mind pilot!”
“Oh? So what do you suggest we do? Just let the Angel break in here and kill us all? Because that’s what will happen. Given the choice between fighting back or rolling over and letting the human race get wiped out, I know what my choice is any day of the week!”
<i>Listen to them. Arguing over whether to send out an injured girl in your place to fight to save the human race. How much of a coward must you be? How much of a craven little dipshit must you be?</i>
Shut up!
<i>Come on! It’s the perfect opportunity. Show off to the old man. Impress the girl too, I’d bet. Work in a little of that old Ikari charm, and she’ll be crawling all over you.</i>
Shut up!
<i>Well… Once she’s in enough of a condition to actually crawl without bleeding all over the place. Or maybe it’s all internal injuries? Ah, who cares. Right? Can’t get worse after that monster is done with her!</i>
Shut! Up!
<i>Come on. Don’t be stupid. You know you’re gonna do it. You’re just being difficult because you don’t like your old man. He makes token attempts at playing nice, but frankly he sucks at it. Doesn’t he? He could’ve warned you about this in case this eventuality transpired, but no. He had to play it dangerous. Risk everyone and everything on one pilot. Now he’s putting all of this on you, forcing you to make an impossible decision for the fate of the world.
And in chickening out, you become every bit as bad as he is. Listen to them. Arguing over whether to send out an injured girl in your place to fight to save the human race. Because they have no other choice. Because he had no other choice but to summon you. Oh? What’s this? We appear to have a visitor!</i>
A door to Shinji’s left opened up and a gurney rolled into the room. Barely able to walk? Misato had been generous. The frail figure lying on top of that thing could barely even breathe without gasping in pain! How could they expect her to fight in this condition? How could they -
“Take her back to the infirmary!” Gendo ordered. “She is clearly in no condition to fight. Shinji… Please. You are our only chance.”
Another shake hit the room, causing everyone to drastically lose their footing. A piece of debris from the ceiling clattered down, and for Shinji time seemed to come down to a crawl and nothing more. He moved faster across that floor than he’d thought he could possibly begin to, and in the blink of an eye reached for the girl and tried in vain to protect her from the crushing weight.
But to the surprise of everyone present, the rubble did not land upon the pair. Instead, a giant metal hand now lay over them like a tent protecting them from the rain.
“Impossible,” Ritsuko gasped. “It broke free of its restraints! It shouldn’t even be able to move without someone in the plug!”
“I’ll pilot,” Shinji declared. “I’ll do it! I’ll pilot!”
<hr>
Emotional blackmail to save the human race. Disgusting. What must his son think of him? What must his subordinates think of him? That he was a man determined to get what he wanted. That he did not care about the little people in exchange for protecting the large scale. That he did not see the loss of a few lives for the tragedies that they were.
Was that what he would see the next time he looked in the mirror? The reflection of a man who used to be a man, and was now becoming the monsters he was secretly battling?
Fuyutsuki cleared his throat. “The pilot has been given a crash course, so to speak. An emergency plugsuit has been provided, and within the next few minutes he will be sent up to fight the Angel. Are we quite certain this plan will work?”
“Yui will protect him. And in protecting him, so too are we safe.” Disgusting words. True words. But disgusting things often were true.
“This is going to get worse before it gets better. You’ve known that for years, Commander.”
“The mere fact that I accept a fact rationally does not mean I accept it emotionally. Whose idea was it to use Rei in such a manner? Who ordered her brought in there? It was not mine.”
“I’m not sure,” Fuyutsuki lied. The old man was good at lying, but by now Gendo knew all of his tells like the back of his own hand. “I’m sure it was someone with all of our best interests in mind. Someone that was willing to do what you could not.”
“Quite possibly the same person that asked Rei to play up her injuries?”
“Not necessarily. Perhaps Katsuragi’s influence has made her a little more playful than she might otherwise have been? Having the two of them live together has had quite the impact on them both, as our psychological profiles quite clearly indicate.”
Gendo fell silent and stared over his clasped hands. The battle would begin any moment now. Yui, do what he could not. Protect him. Protect your son!
<hr>
With a different development, it would appear as though Shinji has grown into quite a different person than he was without the cube. And yet, it would appear that its alterations have not gone entirely unnoticed by NERV. Even if they don’t quite know it, they appear to have picked up a trace of the Cube’s tainted presence. Will their investigations lead them towards the truth? Or will it lead them towards some erroneous conclusions with other consequences entirely?
And what of the others that have been indirectly affected by the alterations to Gendo Ikari? After all, he is perhaps the most influential and far-reaching member of the main cast. How has Misato affected Rei? How has Shinji and Asuka being friends from a young age changed the two of them? And then there are other characters, not yet introduced who have doubtless been similarly altered in some manner!
But alas, that will have to wait for another time. Instead we must take heed as the cube now absorbed into Shinji’s very being emits a faint signal that pierces dimensions and enacts an alteration on yet another world. But which of his desires has it decided to act upon, and how will it be carried out? We shall see, soon enough.
- I want to know what’s going on around here.
- I would really rather not be in danger right now, thanks.
- I wanna show off to the cute girl.
- I want the cute girl to be alright. I want to protect her.
- If only I knew how to pilot that giant robot.
- Something else
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