All characters copyrighted by Gainax, not me.

SPOILERS AHEAD!

In this fic, Yui Ikari is NOT part of Unit 1. If you have a problem

with this, don't read.

Home

Ritsuko took a break in her work to pick up the phone. It was

Shinji's first day of school, and she knew that Misato couldn't handle

it.

Not having Shinji in her house was going to be a blow. He stayed the

night before, but there wasn't much sleeping going on, it was all 

talking.

Tonight'll be even worse than when he left because she'll know where

he is, but can do nothing to see him. Commander's orders. When the 

other end was picked up, Ritsuko started outlining her plan for that 

night.

"Why me?" the other person asked, after hearing her plan.

"Because you're the only one on the whole base who can match her in

that department," she said, slightly annoyed that the other person

asked a question.

"Hmm, you're right there. All right, I'm in," the person said,

then hung up. Hours later, she had her hand between the two

combatants.

She looked to the person on her right.

"Are you ready?" she asked. When she got an affirmative, she

looked to her left, and got a nod. "Begin!" she said, dropping her

hand.

"You might as well give up now! You know you'll never beat me!"

Misato said, draining the shot glass in one gulp.

"We'll just see about that, Katsuragi!" Kaji said, draining his

own. They each grabbed another glass and drained it. The three were in

Misato's apartment, at the kitchen table. There were two lines of shot

glasses, about twenty glasses deep. Ritsuko was refilling the empty

glasses with beer, and placing them at the end of the lines. She and

Kaji had sprung for the extra alcohol, figuring to run Misato's 

apartment dry.

There was about four times as much beer in that small home than there

usually was, but in the event that it seemed they would run out, the

local liquor store had an unlimited amount available for delivery,

if needed.

Misato had a special understanding with the owner. Ritsuko looked

around at the boxes and boxes of beer. 'There's no way we'll run 

out!' 

Two hours later, the delivery man had already been there three

times, with no end in sight...

The next morning, Shinji was alone again. After the incident at

the school yesterday, no one wanted to even be near him. Of course,

swimming in PE made this difficult to do, but Shinji simply had no

interest in swimming. He was sitting on the edge of the pool at the 

deep end, in his school uniform. He was so lost in thought about 

being back, that he didn't notice the glances the girls kept giving 

him. Even though nobody wanted to be close, that didn't stop them 

from looking. Finally, Toji could stand it no longer.

"Hey, Shinji! Come on in!" Shinji shook his head wordlessly.

'Why did I attack him? Is this what I've become? A monster? A

friend-murdering monster? Is that all I am?' he thought, depression

setting in. 'No! I'm a pilot!' he thought. 'Pilot, that's the same as

'tool'. A tool for father!'

"Shinji! Come in, now!" Hikari yelled, in her 'I'm the class rep'

voice. She was helping the kindergartners learning to swim, and Toji

was suckered into helping her. Shinji shook is head, silently. The

children started to beg for him to come join them. Seeing this, a _

very_ evil thought crossed Asuka's mind. She swam to the kids in the 

shallow end.

"You kids wanna see something funny?" Her response was a lot of

little heads nodding furiously. She swam over to her class, and told

them to watch. "I'll get him in the water."

"It can't be done!"

"He won't come in!"

"Are you sure it's safe to do that? Remember yesterday!"

"The men who say it can't be done shouldn't interrupt the woman

doing it!" she shot back, angry that they didn't think she could do

it.

"I'll even make a bet with you, I won't pull his legs."

"Prove it!" they shouted back. So she did. Shinji didn't hear any

of this, so he was unaware of what was going on.

She swam to him, to where his legs were. They dangled, almost in

the water, but true to her bet, she didn't pull them. She swam right

up next to him, pushed off the wall a little, and dived down to the

bottom.

It was a fair distance, so she turned around, and pushed off the

bottom with her legs. She kicked all the way to the top, so she had a 

lot of velocity when she broke the water. She flew up in the air for 

a while, then gravity took over.

On her way back down, she grabbed Shinji's shirt lapels, and hauled

him with her into the water! He could only manage a brief

"AAUUGGHH!!!!" before he hit the water full force. They both 

disappeared for a moment, and then his head burst up through the 

water, followed shortly by hers.

She had a huge grin on her face, and it got even larger when he

muttered darkly, "I'll get you for this!"

"Your more than welcome to try, Idiot Boy! In fact, I'd look

forward to that!" Shinji only looked at her, quietly, and then swam

over to the side and climbed out. All the girls in and around the pool

watched with interest as his muscles moved. Then he climbed out, and 

all the girls, Asuka included, sucked in a breath. Shinji had 

forgotten that white shirts and water don't mix all that well.

His shirt had turned translucent; it hinted, it teased, it begged

for attention; but it never showed. While his trousers had stayed

opaque, the water made them skin-tight. Every girl in that building 

was positively drooling.

One of the girls walking into the room saw him, turned her head,

and walked into the wall she didn't see. Rei, too, was watching him,

although just with her eyes. She couldn't understand the surfacing of

her emotions. She wanted to talk to him. She wanted to sit with him. 

She wanted to be with with him. What was wrong with her? These 

feelings had never come before, and she couldn't stop them! So, rather 

than stop them, she just watched him, and let them run their course. 

She wondered if it was her friendship with the young man that caused 

her to feel so. 'Is this what having a friend feels like?' she thought.

He put his hand on the door that led out, when he got a strange

feeling, like someone was watching him. He froze, and the girls held

their collective breath when he stopped moving. Then he pushed the 

door open, and left. Rei, regaining control, was highly amused at 

their antics.

Someone said one word, and half of the pool population heaved a sigh.

"Damn...". All female eyes were locked onto the moving posterior. All

male eyes could only lance out vehemence. In two days, he'd

practically taken all the women. Later in the locker room, they could

only agree on one thing: Shinji was a jerk.

"That jerk, I'll bet he does that on purpose!"

"Yeah! He probably gets off on it!" Toji stepped forward.

"That's it! Knock it off, or I'll knock your head off!" They all

knew he had a temper, and wanted nothing to do with it, but after what

Shinji did, they were more scared of _him_ than they would ever be of

Toji!

"You don't get it, do you?! He doesn't do it purposely! I'm willing to

bet he doesn't even know what he does to them! I'm sure of it!"

"Yeah, that's easy for you to say, your girlfriend wasn't drooling

at him!"

"Yes, she was. But Hikari doesn't feel for him. Neither do the

other girls. It's like you guys looking at models in magazines, it's

there for a moment, and then it's gone."

"Why are you sticking up for him? He watched you get your arm and

leg chopped off!"

"Because friendship goes far beyond that! If any of you had a

brain instead of tapioca, you'd see that! And besides, that was an

accident." The students fell silent, but Toji didn't think this

discussion was over. Not by a long shot. In the girls room, the 

conversation was going on much the same line.

"Did you see what Asuka did to him!" a girl shouted out. Asuka was

out of the room. Rei was not.

"She didn't pull his legs, like she promised!"

"God, what I wouldn't give to see him like that again!"

"You know, I wonder why he does that? I mean, why does he act like

he's doing nothing? Is he leading us on?"

"He doesn't know what he's doing," Rei said quietly. The other

girls looked at her. Never before has she involved herself in the

conversations of others. "He doesn't consider how others see him," Rei

continued, not noticing the sudden silence in the room. Then she

noticed it, but assumed it was because there was nothing more to talk 

about.

She quickly finished getting changed, and walked out quietly. The 

silence lasted until she was gone, because that was when Asuka walked 

in.

"Hey! Why is everyone so quiet? What's going on?" It was a few

minutes before she got an answer.

Shinji was sitting in the waiting room for the other pilots when

the male half of the class walked out. "Hey, there he is!"

"Huh?" Shinji got out before he was surrounded by the boys, and all

were shouting at him. They were yelling about what happened when he

climbed out. When they told him about he clothes, he blushed a nice

shade of red. Then they were yelling at him to stop it. "Stop what?"

"We want you to stop leading the girls on!"

"You want me to stop _what_?" Shinji had no idea what they were

asking.

"Save some for us!" Asuka was listening in from the girls change

room. 'Typical males; always thinking with their hormones!' The crowd

didn't stop shouting at him. Shinji simply couldn't take any more of

this, so he just stared at them. He was debating what to do. His mind

then made itself up, and he spun on his heel, and started walking 

away. He got two steps when his head exploded in a shower of pain. 

Toji and Asuka ran to him when he lurched forward. By the time they 

got to him, he collapsed to the ground, unconscious. 

About that time, Misato and Kaji were waking up. Ritsuko herself 

passed out. When Misato and Kaji couldn't take anymore, she decided to

have some of the leftover beer. Then she had some more. And more.

Having a high tolerance for alcohol herself, but nothing compared to 

Misato or Kaji, she made about ten cans before she put her head down 

to rest.

"Uhhhh," Kaji moaned as all the pain receptors in his body woke up.

"Uhhhh, yourself," Misato replied. She looked around for a wall

clock. What time was it? "Kaji, what's the time?" He looked down at

his watch.

"Tuesday."

"That's the best you can do?" If he was that out of it, he had to

be _drunk_!

"There are some numbers beside them, but they could be anything,"

and Misato had to agree. She looked beside her to see her sleeping

friend.

'Idiot, she was supposed to tell us what happened.' Then her attention

was diverted elsewhere.

"Misato, what's that?" Kaji asked, pointing to a large mass of

white foam.

"I don't know... maybe we can figure it out. Kaji, what happened

last night?"

"Can't remember?" he asked and put his hand to his head, trying to

remember. "I remember beatin' you I could climb the wall usin' only my

lips," and the strain of remembering was making itself apparent.

"And then..." Misato was trying to remember, "I remember something

about the fire extinguisher..." and the implications set in. "Oh, my

god! PEN PEN!" The hungover humans rushed to mass and started 

scraping it away.

They saw a beak, a metal name plate, and fur. The beak looked strange.

Pen Pen was not happy.

end part 6

Cory Holmes

gholmes@rodeo.sd27.bc.ca