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.

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        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 betn' 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