This will be in "parts" rather than "chapters" since I'm going
to skip over the bits that are just like regular Eva.
PREVIOUSLY: Ranma and Akane got married and had children; Souun
died; Gendou's brother refused to take in Shinji; Genma convinced
Gendou to let him take care of Shinji.
COULD BE WORSE
by Scott K. Jamison
Ranma 1/2 and its associated characters created by Rumiko Takahashi;
Neo Genesis Evangelion and its associated characters owned by Gainax.
Part One: Ticket to Ride
The slim boy with a detached look on his face swiped his
calling card through the telephone reader. "Yo, Auntie N! I'm
here in Tokyo-3, but no one else is. The place is deserted.
You sure this is where I was supposed to go?"
He nodded. "Okay. Uncle Genma there now?" Suddenly, the
boy stiffened. He felt someone watching him. "Gotta go!"
The boy hung up as he whirled around. Nearly two blocks
down the deserted street, there was a figure that was likely
female (though the boy's experience told him that appearances
were deceptive) given it was wearing a blue dress. He couldn't
make out any facial features from this distance, but she looked
to have short blue hair and pale skin.
"Hey! Are you here for me? Where is everybody?"
The figure showed no sign of having heard.
The boy started running towards the figure, but he'd got no
further than ten yards than he heard the sound of a poorly-tuned
engine, and a loud honking behind him.
He turned to see a late-model car, somewhat battered-looking,
with a woman stepping out of it, who he instantly recognized as the
one he was supposed to meet.
"Hi, Shinji Ikari? I'm Captain Misato Kitsuragi, of NERV.
Why were you running away from the rendezvous point?"
"I was going to meet that girl," Shinji replied, pointing
in the direction he'd been running.
"What girl?"
Sure enough, when Shinji looked, the girl was gone. He
wasn't overly surprised; quite a few people he knew were good at
disappearing. He shrugged.
"Shouldn't be anyone out, there's an alert on," commented
Misato. "I'm only here because you were called in before the
alert started."
"Alert? For what? And do you know why the old man called
me in?"
"Commander Ikari is your father, shouldn't you be a little
more respectful?" There was a shaking in the ground. "And I
think you'll see what the alert was about if you look left. No,
my left."
"Wow."
* * *
"Neat! Upside-down buildings!"
Misato smiled. The boy was a good bit more insolent than
she would have liked, but at least he was still a little impressible.
"This is where the buildings of Tokyo-3 retract to
during an Angel attack. I'm glad to see it actually works; a
drill isn't always a good test."
"Okay." Shinji paused. "Hey, this is Tokyo-3, right, and
the original city was pretty much Tokyo-1. So what happened to
Tokyo-2?"
"That's classi--" replied Misato automatically. "No, you're in
NERV now, you should be cleared for this. They built Tokyo-2, it was
completed--and then the whole thing vanished without a trace.
Buildings, vehicles, equipment and all. Good thing only Commander
Sinclair was in there. He was in charge of NERV before your father."
"Oh, yeah, my old man. So, why's he bothering to admit I
exist?"
Misato shook her head. Little brat. "You'll see when we
get there, Shinji. It's not easily explainable."
"...Right."
* * *
"Are you sure you're not related to the Hibikis?" asked
Shinji, as Misato finally realized they'd passed the same
corridor intersection three times.
"Hold that thought," said Misato, hitting a quick-dial button on
her cell phone. "Hello, Ritsuko? We're a little lost, and--"
There was a whooshing sound as a door opened behind them.
Shinji turned to see a blonde woman in a lab coat, carrying a cell
phone. He noted that she smelled of chlorinated water, and her coat
was a little damp.
"Honestly, Misato, you'd lose your head if it wasn't
attached." The woman turned to Shinji and gave a polite smile.
"You must be the Commander's son. I'm Doctor Akagi, and I'm
very pleased to meet you."
"Yo, Doc. You can call me Shinji."
"Shinji, then. This way to the hangar."
* * *
The room was dominated by a huge purple parody of an
armored man, festooned with hoses. Ritsuko pointed proudly to
it.
"Evangelion Unit-01, mankind's weapon against the invading
Angels!"
"...Angels?"
"The big monster that shrugged off an N2 mine," explained
Misato, "we call it an Angel."
"Okay, so you built a big robot to fight off invading
aliens, like one of those TV cartoons. Why isn't it out there
doing its job?"
Ritsuko said, "We were just waiting for the pilot to arrive."
Shinji got a sinking feeling in the pit of his abdomen.
"And this pilot would be?"
"You, Shinji," said a voice only slightly warmer than liquid
helium. "You will pilot Unit-01."
Shinji looked up. On the far side of the hangar bay from
Unit-01, the wall was glass about 3 meters up, allowing a view
from some sort of control center. Visible in that window was a
forbidding-looking man in tinted glasses. Fortunately, Shinji
had seen pictures of the man, or he would never have recognized
his father.
"You're telling me you want *me* to control that monstrosity,
old man?"
Gendou's expression didn't change. "Yes."
Shinji dashed across the intervening space, leapt two meters up,
then scrambled the rest of the way so that his face was level with
his father's through the window. Ritsuko and Misato gasped; Gendou
might have blinked, but it was hard to tell behind the tinting.
"Yo, old man, if you wanted me to be a giant robot pilot,
wouldn't it have been a good idea to have someone *train* me in
mecha piloting first?!"
There was silence for a short time, as father and son stared at
each other. Shinji turned away first, with a slight shudder.
"All right, I'll pilot your stupid robot. But only 'cause
you really need me."
Ritsuko sighed in relief. She'd been afraid they would have to
resort to threatening Rei to get Shinji into that cockpit.
* * *
Dressed in a silly pilot suit, funky hair ornaments on his
head, and breathing something that looked like kiwi juice, Shinji was
launched to the surface.
It took him a few moments to get his bearings, as he wasn't
used to seeing things from this height. A viewscreen popped on,
revealing Misato's face.
"Okay, Shinji, the telemetry says everything is working
within acceptable parameters. Are you ready?"
Shinji flexed the fingers of Unit-01. "Ready as I guess I'm
going to be, Auntie."
"That's 'Big Sis--', er, you should call me 'Captain' when
we're on the job."
"Aye aye, Cap'n."
"The Angel should be coming into view now."
Shinji looked around, and sure enough, the bulky monster was
indeed lumbering in his general direction.
"All right, time to open up a can of whoop-ass," said the
boy as he ran toward the Angel. He decided that a quick punch
to the gut would give him some idea of his opponent's
capabilities.
To Shinji's surprise, his punch missed entirely. "Huh. Faster
than I thought. Okay, let's see you dodge this!" He launched into a
spin kick. Moments later, Unit-01 was flat on what passed for its
butt.
"Shinji, are you all right?"
"Fine, Cap'n. Just learned that mad martial arts skills
don't translate as well to this big purple galoot as I'd hoped.
So, how do I summon the big flaming sword?"
Misato blinked. "Big...flaming...sword?"
"All the giant robots in the cartoons have big flaming swords!
It's a tradition."
"Uh, hold on a moment..." Misato hit the 'mute' button,
and was talking to someone offscreen as Shinji got up.
The sound came back on. "Sorry, Shinji, no flaming sword,
but there's a rifle scaled for you about 200 meters to your left."
Shinji started running for the indicated area, wishing he
knew a ch'i attack. If that would work in this thing.
The Angel caught up to him just as Shinji reached the
storehouse, grabbed Unit-01 and ripped its arm off.
Shinji screamed, and everything went black.
TO BE CONTINUED
Comments, questions?
SKJAM!
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