Some of you will remember the first version of this being posted a while back.  Frankly, I'd been up far too long when I wrote it, and it's not as consistent or well-written as it could have been.

Here, then, is my second attempt.

If this has been done before, I can't find any evidence of it.  Shinji, Misato, Ritsuko, Gendo, Rei, et cetera belong to whoever they belong to, and the Chinese guy and the Jusenkyo curse belong to Rumiko Takahashi; don't worry, folks, I'll wash the stains out.

This is the first fiction I've sent to this list.  Or any list.  If it goes over well - and if I can figure out what else I want to do with it - and if I have the time - there might be more.

C&C is, of course, welcome.

Evangelion 1/2
an NGE/Ranma 1/2 crossover fic
by EDG


Shinji Ikari looked around him.  The street was empty, except for a flock of birds sitting on the power lines far above him.  He glanced down at the picture in his hand - an attractive woman in a provocative pose, with the note that she'd be the one to pick him up - and back up at the street.  He had yet to see anyone who looked anyone like her, and he'd been standing there for an hour.

"It's getting late," he muttered to himself.  "I guess I'll have to go to a shelter."  The 14-year-old shivered slightly and lowered his gaze once more.

A flicker at the edge of his vision caught his attention, and Shinji whipped his head around.  A girl, about his age and in a school uniform, was standing on the street a few hundred feet away; he couldn't make out her expression, but he got the distinct impression that she was watching him.

The birds overhead fluttered quietly, then burst off the power lines in a frenzy of wings and beaks, and when Shinji's attention returned to the street, the girl was gone, and he wondered for a moment where she'd gotten to.

Then the ground started shaking.

Shinji watched as military helicopters backed out from behind a mountain, followed by what he could only describe as a giant monster.  Huge and green, with exposed ribs, bony shoulderpads, and a beaked face in the center of its chest, the beast lumbered after the helicopters, shrugging off their
combined firepower as if they had been shooting pieces of cereal.

Suddenly a second giant monster leapt from somewhere within the city, toward the first creature.  It was considerably more anthropomorphic, and seemed to be tethered to something within the maze of buildings.  As it landed, a blue sports car pulled up in front of Shinji, its brakes screaming against its
axles, and the woman in the picture popped her head out of the driver's side window.  "Shinji, get in!" she shouted, and opened the passenger-side door.

The boy wasted no time in getting himself and his bag into the car, and she gunned the engine, speeding off before he'd even fully shut his door. Shinji didn't pay attention to what she was trying to tell him as she drove; his eyes were glued to the battle going on outside.  "What's that?" he asked
after a few minutes, interrupting her.

She made an irritated sound.  "The Third Angel."

"Angel?"  Shinji knew of the Angels who had attacked fifteen years ago, but he'd thought that they were long gone.  He watched the battle for another few seconds, then asked,  "Which one?  And what's the other one?"

"The big green ugly one is the Angel," the woman replied, her brow furrowing in frustration.  She had tried to tell him what was going on - again -  but he'd interrupted her - again - before she'd even really gotten started. "The big orange ugly one is ..."  She paused, obviously waging a battle of her
own in her head.  It never got a chance to finish, though; an artillery unit on a nearby mountainside had fired off an N2 missile once its commander judged that the combatants were far enough apart. Although the Angel did manage to catch the missile, sheet-metal casing sliding down over the monster's arm, the warhead was undamaged, and exploded post-haste.  The sports car was flung from the road, flipping side-over-side across an expanse of dirt and settling on its side as the dust from the explosion started to fall gently over the city.

"I can't believe they fired an N2 mine at the /city/... Are you okay?"  The woman looked over at Shinji, who was spitting out dirt and trying unsuccessfully to get out of his seat.  She smiled wryly and pushed her door open, then climbed out and helped Shinji do the same. Together they pushed the car back to its wheels, and with a little prodding the engine came back to life.

Before Shinji could speak, the woman interrupted him.  "We didn't really get a chance to get introduced back there.  I assume you're Shinji Ikari?"  Shinji nodded.  "I'm Misato Katsuragi.  It's nice to meet you."

"Somehow I'd gathered that," said Shinji quietly, uncrumpling the photograph that was still clenched in his hand and comparing features with the woman in front of him.  "Ah," he said a little more audibly, "nice to meet you."

Misato smiled.  It was cute, the way the kid was uncomfortable.  She opened her mouth to make conversation, and the words died in her throat as Shinji continued his earlier line of questioning.  "So what was the other... thing?"

Misato sighed.  "Your partner, Rei Ayanami.  Sorry 'bout that."

"Huh?"  My partner is a giant monster?, he didn't add.

"Here," she said, tossing a spiral-bound booklet into his lap.  The logo on the front read "NERV".  "This won't tell you anything about that, but it's a start."  Shinji gave her a strange look, then shrugged and started to read.

**

Thirty minutes later, the car had pulled up in front of what looked like a garage - not that Shinji noticed, as his nose was buried in the NERV manual. He was about a quarter of the way through the booklet - on his second read-through, Misato noted - and seemed to have no interest in the outside
world.  The garage door opened; Misato drove in and put the car in park, and in a moment the vehicle had dropped onto another platform, which was starting to move.  The heavy bass rumble as the train started up caused Shinji to look over at Misato questioningly.  "Where are we?" he asked, then
"There's no information on Rei in here," before she could answer the first question.

"We're headed toward headquarters," she said, and mentally chided herself for sounding so inane.  "You won't find information on ..."  She paused again.  "You won't find information on Rei in that handbook.  It's just a starter guide, rules and regs for the organization.  We don't /have/ printed
documentation on ... on her."  That we can give out, she added silently.

Shinji nodded, apparently satisfied with this answer.  "Will I find out when we get to headquarters?" he asked.

Misato nodded.  "Definitely when you get to headquarters."  She stopped herself before she told Shinji what exactly they'd had planned for him before Rei had agreed to fight the Angel.  "You'll be seeing a lot of her from now on."

"Why?"

The woman sighed.  "She's your partner, Shinji."

"So my partner is.."

Misato coughed.  "She takes a little getting used to."

"No kidding."  Shinji smiled - the first time Misato had seen him do that - and went back to reading through the NERV handbook.

Misato closed her eyes.  The train would take another few minutes to get to its destination, and she figured she'd use the time to nap.

Shinji's strangled cry roused her just as Kaji was taking his shirt off.  "PARTNER?"

**

"I think we've been here before," said Shinji as he and Misato rode yet another moving walkway across a vast expanse.  "I remember the mural on the wall."

Misato scowled.  "Don't get smart with me, Shinji."  He shrunk a little further into his uniform, and she scowled more - this time at herself.  What was it about this boy that made her regret nearly everything she said?  Her tone turned cheery as she tried to lighten the mood.  "At least this way
you'll get used to the walkways."

Shinji nodded glumly.  Misato had to refrain from hitting herself in the forehead with the heel of her palm.

**

EVA-00 settled down in the docking bay and glanced at the window of the control room, where Gendo Ikari and Ritsuko Akagi stood, watching.  "You did well, Rei," said Ritsuko, a smile on her face.  "Your first real test against an Angel, and you were barely scratched.  Good work."  Gendo nodded.  Despite the N2 missile taking out a chunk of the city, and the Angel changing form and self-destructing - they hadn't really been expecting that - Rei had managed to pull through nearly unharmed, and Gendo was secretly glad that they had installed the unit's new armor only two weeks ago.

The ponderous head of the giant beast nodded slowly in return, and a young woman's voice crackled over the intercom.  "Can I come out now?"

Ritsuko sighed.  "Whenever you're ready," she said, and nodded to the control staff, who in turn started instructing the technicians on the floor to begin their work.  As a team of workers unhooked EVA-00's umbilical power supply, another started up the hoses designed to wash off the enormous
living weapon.

Another voice came over the intercom.  "Dr. Akagi, Major Katsuragi needs your help."

Ritsuko shook her head sadly.  "She got lost again, didn't she?"

"Discretion forbids my saying so, Dr. Akagi."

"Very well.  I'll find her as soon as possible."

**

"I know we're on the right track now."  Misato tapped the pad by the door, and it slid open with a *whoosh* that Shinji was finding typified the doors in the building.  It wasn't loud enough to be disturbing, but neither was it quiet enough to be ignored, and it got on his nerves.

"I think we've been here before too," he said quietly.  Misato merely gave him a look to freeze a volcano, and proceeded through the door.

She was about to open the next one when it slid open for her, revealing a blonde woman about her own age, dressed in a lab coat and an outfit that looked, to Shinji, like it perhaps belonged in one of the "goth clubs" of the late 20th century that he'd read about.  "Major Katsuragi, I'm glad I
found you.  Is this the Child?"

Misato nodded.  "Shinji Ikari, I'd like you to meet Ritsuko.  She's in charge of - "

The other woman interrupted.  "Doctor Ritsuko Akagi, if you please, Major Katsuragi.  You got lost again, I see?"  Misato blushed furiously, and Ritsuko smiled at Shinji.  "Come on, Shinji, I'll take you to your quarters. You'll be sharing them with your partner.  Call me Ritsuko."

Shinji blinked.  Hadn't she just insisted on being called...?  He paid it no more mind as he was hustled along a corridor, pulled along by Ritsuko with Misato about twenty feet behind him.

**

Rei Ayanami stepped out of the locker room, feeling cleaner than she had in days.  Something about the fight with the Angel had felt... purifying to her, and for once she didn't feel like her skin was crawling.  She hadn't felt right since that trip with Dr. Ikari, the one where they'd had her training at a special installation they'd set up.  Involuntarily she thought back to that dreadful day.

**

The development team had selected the most out-of-the-way place they could find to complete testing.  This had been a marshy section of China, once a training ground for martial artists but now just a tourist attraction.  The caretaker was an older Chinese man who spoke only a bit of Japanese, and none of the development team spoke /any/ Chinese.  From what Gendo could understand, the man was concerned that they were testing their "giant robot" on these sacred grounds - actually he hadn't quite understood that second-to-last word, and had promised himself he'd look it up when he got back to NERV headquarters - but grateful that a large chunk of NERV's budget was being diverted to pay him for his trouble.

EVA-00 stood ready, its monstrous feet planted firmly on either side of one of the springs that dotted the land.  Gendo was walking over to the newly-completed testing platform, Rei beside him, resplendent in her new plug suit; he looked up to make certain that the technicians had properly connected the unit's power feed, and when he looked back, Rei was gone.

Ikari's shout did not go unnoticed by the crew; it was just that they were more occupied with the Ayanami child's having fallen into a large, deep pool of water, and more, really, with the fact that she wasn't surfacing.  It occurred to one technician that he didn't remember the ten-year-old ever having swum before, and, with a look of sheer terror on his face, he bolted for the pond.

By the time he got there, the Chinese caretaker was there as well, physically restraining Gendo.  "No go near there!" he shouted.  "Spring full " something something "too much!"  The technician shook his head - "I don't understand you!" - and started trying to pull the caretaker off of Dr. Ikari.

At about the time that Ikari freed himself from the caretaker, and the caretaker freed himself of the tech, a small black piglet floated to the surface of the water; its limp body and glazed eyes indicated that it was quite drowned.  The caretaker paled further.  "Now is spring of " something something "girl," he whispered, and began moaning softly.

Gendo turned to the Chinese man, furious.  "Where is Rei Ayanami?" he shouted.  "Where is she?"  The caretaker pointed at the pond, where the technician was pulling the dead piglet out of the water.  "Yes," said Gendo sharply, "I know she fell in there, but where did she go?"

In response, the caretaker started back to his hut.  Gendo followed, angrily berating the man, following him every step of the way as he got a hot teakettle and went back to the pond.  As the hot water splashed over the piglet, it twisted in a way that was not consistent with Gendo's reality, expanded, and became Rei, obviously drowned.  Ikari shut up at that point, and as he looked on numbly, the medical team stepped in and began to cut open the ten-year-old's plug suit and perform CPR.

**
Rei shook her head violently to clear the images out, and immediately regretted it; her brain was now complaining of bruises in several different places, and she decided to head back to her bedroom to get some well-deserved rest.

**

Shinji yawned and leaned against his door.  Finally Ritsuko and Misato had left him alone so that he could get some rest.  After a large argument between Ritsuko and Misato, it had finally been agreed that he would share living quarters with his partner, and /not/ his commanding officer.  Shinji
remembered wondering why Misato had been so vehement, but not a lot else; his brain had been starting to shut down for a nice, long nap.  In fact, it had been pondering the old American tale about Rip van - Wrinkle?  Tinkle?  whoever, and thinking that that sort of thing might not be such a horrible idea after all.

His bed was made, and for that he was grateful.  He started to slump toward it when he heard the hiss of a door opening, and his brain - already half-asleep, and fully paranoid - prompted him to find out just who the hell was in his apartment, so that they could kill him already and let
him get some decent rest.

Shinji crept into the hallway.  A light was on in the kitchen, and he heard the sound of someone going through the refrigerator.  Peering around the corner, he came face-to-face with the girl he'd seen on the street earlier.

She blinked.

He screamed and ran.

It was lucky for him, he thought later, that Misato's apartment was directly next to his own.  NERV probably didn't appreciate its personnel running down its halls, screaming and waving their arms.  Misato looked up, startled, as Shinji nearly took the door down trying to get in.  "M-M-M-Misato!" he
cried.  "Who - what - there was someone in my room!"

Misato laughed as Rei stepped into the doorway.  "Relax," she said, "it's your partner, Rei."

Shinji hadn't thought his eyes could grow any wider, but then he was learning many new things that day.  When his pupils were roughly the size of saucers, he managed to stammer, "B-b-but she's a j-j-giant robot!  Isn't she?"  He turned to look at Misato, who pointed back at the door.

Rei stepped into the room.  "I am Rei Ayanami."  She paused.  "I am sorry about this."