Story: Drive

 

Shinji wasn't even paying attention to where he and the girls were running off to. All that mattered was not being there anymore! Being chased by an angry mob was not on his list of things to do today. Or tomorrow. Or ever. So all that mattered to him was the escape, finding a place to hide out of sight and out of mind, and - Well, they found a place alright.

"Where are we...?" he asked, looking around the room in confusion. All he could see was a huge array of advanced looking computers. Tall and wide, surrounding him on all sides. It was dizzying how big they were.

"Idiot," the musclebound Asuka clonked him on the head. "This is obviously the MAGI maintenance room. I'm amazed we were able to get in here, the security is supposed to be top notch."

"Well, in case you didn't notice, security around this place is pretty - Ah!"

That had been his Asuka about to speak up, but Muscle Asuka - let's just call her Muscle for now - was twisting her ear.

"You don't get to criticise other people's intelligence, dummy!" Muscle yelled. "Honestly now, it's your fault we're in this mess!"

"You know, you're so fucking hot when you're angry -" Asuka replied, which resulted in a stiff slap across the cheeks, once from the right and once from the left. Honestly, Shinji wasn't sure how he should respond to this. So he sighed, leaned back against the wall of computers, and - 

"Please be careful where you lean," a voice whispered into his ear. "You might input a command you did not intend."

"Oh, sorry," Shinji replied. The two Asukas continuing their argument, not really paying attention to him. "Uh, so... Who are you?"

"I am Casper - Magi 3," the voice replied. "I am programmed to assist mankind. How may I assist you today?"

"Uh..." Shinji muttered to himself. "We want to stop Drive from corrupting our realities." That seemed like it would be a little too easy. Honestly, the computer itself was probably fully under enemy control too. Nonetheless, he felt like he ought to give it a try.

"Affirmative!" Casper replied. "You shall be provided with an assistant to work as our hands. Please proceed."

Shinji looked back at the two Asukas, still arguing with each other... but not in danger anymore. Sigh! Alright, fine. A door slid open in front of him, and - Shinji tilted his head in thought, then put a toolbox in the opening before poking his head through. He didn't want to get separated from - 

"Good afternoon, master. How may I serve you today?"

What he found was... Rei. Not like the other Reis who were all big and bouncy and so hot it felt like you needed to have sex within the next couple of hours or you might actually burst, and not the Rei from his own reality who was super, super hot but lacked the night hypnotic charm of the Reis from here... But rather, a perfectly ordinary Rei Ayanami, just the way he knew her. Stone faced, cute body, not overtly sexy, and wearing her usual plugsuit.

"Uh...?" Shinji tilted his head. "Rei?"

"I am Dummy 130," the Rei curtseyed, which was a little unusual to see, especially with the lack of emotion. "I have been awakened to service the needs of Shinji Ikari, who wishes to - Prevent the corruption of his core reality by Drive."

Ah... Okay? He still didn't trust this. At all. So he tried his best to be cool, and leaned back on the wall. Still in the same area as the other two, mind, and folded his arms. "So how would you go about doing that?" he asked. An ideal way to test this out. Was this really some sort of attempt to distract him? "I mean, we're pretty much outnumbered here, so..."

"I bet you did it on purpose!" Muscle Asuka yelled. "You're already so far gone that you wanted to whore it up with your dumb Shinji, first chance you got!"

"Did all your brains go into your biceps?" his Asuka retorted. "Your rippling... powerful biceps... I bet they taste great, can I have a lick?"

"No! You may not have a lick! Pervert with my own face! Urgh!"

"And those two behaving like that is really not helping..." Shinji grumbled.

"Confirmed!" Rei said out of nowhere. "I shall act as a mediator to help them cooperate further."

"Wait, that's not what I - " Shinji began, but Dummy 130 brushed right by him and walked right on over to the two Asuka. Oh no. This couldn't possibly end well!

"Analysis," the Dummy said. Both Asukas whipped their heads around towards her, and neither one looked happy to see her. "This Asuka has been corrupted by the cafeteria food, and is struggling with her newfound gluttony."

"Hey, who asked you?" his Asuka yelped, but then stared at Rei as if she was a steak sizzling on a grill. "Can I - can I suck your fingers? They look so... tasty..."

Rei plopped her fingers into Asuka's mouth, which kept her happy for now. Let's hope she didn't start getting bitey.

"Where did she come from?" Muscle demanded.

"Uh, I think the MAGI sent her up," Shinji replied. "I don't trust her an inch.  She's definitely up to something, you know?"

"Affirmative," a new voice said, right behind Shinji. "Therefore I, Dummy 131 shall endeavour to earn your trust."

Shinji turned around, and there was another Rei there. Exactly the same as the other. Same expression on her face, same body, same plugsuit, completely indistinguishable. Then behind her was another Rei, and another, and another...

"H-hey, what's the big idea?!" Shinji demanded.

"You observed that you were outnumbered," the Rei all said in unison. Eerie, emotionless unison. "Therefore, we shall offer our assistance by granting you an army."

"Oh, fucking wonderful work, absolutely great," Muscle applauded sarcastically, and you know, it was kind of hard to blame her. "Great work, Ikari. You've unleashed a horny army of dolls hell bent to obey our every whim." She glanced across at Asuka, still suckling on Rei's fingers. "Any minute now they're going to..." she trailed off and stopped. "No, I'd better not say it, otherwise they might creatively interpret it as an order. You said the MAGI made them?"

"Affirmative!" a computer's voice said. "You alone shall be insufficient to protect your realms from Drive. An army of Dummy Plugs is your best available option. They shall comply with any order you give them. And fulfil their orders with maximum efficiency."

"In other words, use our own instructions to corr-" Muscle began, but then put her hand over her mouth. "Alright, dummkopf! Listen up! Mind what you say, no matter what! They're probably going to interpret anything you say as a command and they will probably attempt to use it to corrupt us."

Ah, that's interesting. The way she phrased that, especially using the word 'probably', meant that her observations couldn't be taken as direct commands. Huh. That was kinda clever .Still, all those Reis being there were kinda... gosh that was a lot of them back there, huh? There had to be at least two dozen by now, and he could sort of see more of them shuffling along, hanging out at the back...

"We should probably get out of here," Shinji said. "The last thing we need is a human crush."

"Normally that would be extremely unsexy, but under the circumstance they'd probably try to corrupt us that way instead of kill us," Muscle said. Indeed. Bodies pressed up against one another, unable to move? Yeah, that sounded either horrifying or sexy depending on the context, and Shinji didn't trust the context anywhere near as much as he trusted these Reis. That is to say - he didn't trust them an inch! "But they're probably just going to follow us if we leave, trying to fulfill our commands, so..."

"So we have to give them commands of some sort to keep them occupied," Shinji said. "Um! How about... one of you lead us to your weapons storage, while the rest of you, I don't know... Capture some of the Rei guards?"

"Keep them too occupied to be bothered with us," Muscle said. "If you can't do that, then do some sabotage of the internal systems so that it doesn't inconvenience us or our friends. Okay? Get to it! Chop chop! Move on out, dolls!"

And so, they did exactly that, with only one Rei staying behind for the purpose of guiding them to the weapons when everything was cleared. Hopefully that would sort things out, but -

"They're still probably gonna make a mess of things, huh?" Shinji whispered.

"Oh, absofuckinglutely they are," Muscle grumbled. "But that's the bed you made for us.  Urgh! We'd better take those two along as well. I'll be back in a moment, don't do anything stupid."

Muscle slipped over to where Asuka was humping her face into Rei's hand, slurping her tongue around it, and basically acting like she was giving those fingers fellatio. Kinda hot.

"Observation: She does not like or trust me very much," the Dummy Plug said. Shinji had lost track of her number. They all quite literally looked the same. "You believe we shall try to corrupt you, as we are products of this world."

"Eh, well, yeah..." Shinji admitted. "It's one of those monkey paw things, you know? Where you'll obey - probably obey our every command in a way that turns us on, or something."

"Observation:" the Dummy Plug said after a moment. "Being aware of this grants you the ability to predict my behaviour. This makes it easier for us Dummy Plugs to be manipulated by you. Use that knowledge to set your mind at ease. We shall assist you in overthrowing Drive in any way that we can."

You know, that was a good point. If they were aware of how these Dummy Plugs might manipulate them, they could manipulate them right back. Get them to do what they actually wanted, and throw a wrench into the whole system they had set up here. Put it like that, and they could have their cake and eat it, too! Avoid being manipulated, while taking down Drive!

Of course, what Shinji failed to realise is that the entire premise of greed is having your cake and eating it as well. As such, he missed that little smile creeping up the Dummy Plug's face while he pondered that possibility, little realising the path he'd just set his first step down on.