Hello folks.

I thinks it's time you should know in addition to my CSD (Crazy Ship Disorder) I am also a fanficcer. I know a few of you dislike fanfics with good reason. Most of them suck. However, I can't help but write this story. It begged to be told and put itself on paper. Really, that's how it was. So right now I would like to see if you can give me feedback on these two chapters. The story will not exactly be told in a linear fashion, so I'd like to know which chapter I should put in first when I upload it onto other sites. And for that matter, when you're done reading this, can any of you suggest a better title for the story? Or for the individual chapters?

The idea behind this story is very common in this fandom, but I think I've taken it a much greater extreme.

Let's begin, shall we? It may look familiar, but you'll know something's wrong...
***
In the year of 2004...

A woman sat in a dark office.

She looked down at the complex equations on her desk.

The figure of an enormous creature.

And a framed picture of a happy family of three.

She looked up, and for a brief moment, she saw blue hair and red eyes.

She blinked, and the image was gone.

Shaking, she picked up the phone and slowly dialed the number.

“Hallo?”

“…Kyoko?”

NEON GENESIS EVANGELION: FOR WANT OF A PHONE CALL


Eleven years later.

The station was deserted.

An automated train pulled to a stop, as a pair of passengers came out.

They looked around the station. The taller passenger blinked.

“It looks like no-one’s here.”

“WARK!”

The boy and his penguin left the station. Electric signs said not to panic and head to the shelters. There was only the buzzing of cicadas and the sounds of the wind.

The boy picked up a pay phone. He was answered only with a polite “Due to the emergency, this phone is out of services”.

The boy put the phone back and looked around again.

“This…“ said Shinji Ikari, “doesn’t look good.”

“WARK!” agreed Pen-Pen.

Shinji heard the flapping of wings.

And then the two of them nearly stumbled at the shockwave.

Shinji looked around and saw it.

Several planes…no, helicopters moving backwards.

Away from…

“Mein gott” Shinji whispered.

An Angel!

A real Angel!

Shinji instinctively picked Pen-Pen up. “Come on. We have to get out of here.”

“WAAARRRK!”

He quickly ran away just as the plane crashed into the ground.

The Angel’s enormous leap did knock Shinji to the ground, Pen-Pen flying out of his arms.

“WARK WARK WARK!”

“Sorry Pen-Pen.”

The sound of brakes as blue car pulled up to him.

A door opened. “Shinji-kun! Long time no see! How are you and Pen-Pen?”

Shinji and Pen-Pen quickly got in the car. “We’ll catch up later. Just drive!”

Misato Katsuragi grinned and floored it.

When they were a distance away. Shinji sighed. “For once…I am happy that you have such lousy driving skills.”

“Nice to see you too, Shinji.” said Misato as she scratched Pen-Pen’s head. “How’s everything going back at Germany?”

“Eh, things haven’t changed much since you left. Asuka’s mad that she couldn’t come with me.”

Misato chuckled “Same old Asuka. But what have you been up to?”

Shinji smiled. “Like I said, let’s talk later.”

Misato nodded in response.

The drive to the Geo-Front was uneventful, with the exception of the N2 mine flipping the car over and damaging the batteries. Pen-Pen was rather flustered after that.

The penguin got cheerier when he saw the inside of the Geo-Front from the moving car.

“They finished it” said Shinji.

“Yup” said Misato. “No more construction equipment…for now at any rate.” Misato sighed.

“The Angel…” Shinji muttered.

“You came right on time, Shinji, you know that?”

“…Where’s the First Child? Is Zerogouki not ready yet?”

Misato sighed again. “She’s kind of…injured. That‘s why there was such short notice.”

Shinji blinked. “Will she be okay?”

“Yeah. Don’t worry about it.”

****

“What have you been doing Captain Katsuragi? We’re short of hands and time!”

“Sorry”

They were in an elevator. The three passengers were just joined by a fourth.

The new occupant looked at Shinji. “Hello Dr. Akagi” he said. “It is nice to meet you again.” And he gave a polite bow.

Ritsuko Akagi smiled. “It is good to see you as well, Pilot Ikari. I’m sorry I can’t return your formalities; as you can see, I just came from the cooling station, and I’m not properly dressed.”

“Um…that’s okay. I really don’t mind.”

Silence for a few moments.

“Misato?” said Ritsuko.

“Yeah?”

“Why is there a penguin here?”

Shinji broke in. “It’s my penguin…er…I mean, it was Misato’s penguin, but she gave him to me, and when I was sent here I decided to bring him with me and…um…I‘m sorry”.

“Is that the genetically altered penguin you saved?” Ritsuko asked.

“Yup” replied Misato with a smile.

“Well, if it’s a NERV penguin, I guess I see no harm in it being here. And its not like we have a choice.”

They got out of an elevator and onto an escalator. Shinji looked around himself, and saw the faint outline of a hand, looking like it was reaching for something.

“Is that Zerogouki?”

Dr. Akagi nodded. “There were some…unforeseen complications.”

Despite all his training, Shinji felt a pit of fear in his stomach.

Unforeseen complications. The words bounced around in his head.

Finally, they entered a dark room.

This is it. Shinji thought.

The lights came on.

Unit-01. Shogouki.

The purple behemoth stared forward impassively, its eyes glowing white.

“Is it ready?” Shinji asked.

“To be honest, we still don’t know if it will work or not. But we don’t have much choice in the matter.”

Shinji nodded and looked forward at the Eva he spent five years training for, the Eva that he only saw once bef…

And then the world faded around him.

There was only himself, the purple Eva…

And the woman.

She looked at him smiling.

Shinji thought he forgot his mother’s face.

He was wrong.

***

In the ‘real world’ Shinji’s body was shaking rapidly. Misato said his name in concern.

Then he screamed.

“Shinji!”

He lost his balance and fell backwards, body twitching rapidly.

“Shinji, speak to me!”

“Is he having a seizure?”

All the other technicians stopped what they were doing and looked at the convulsing boy, being held from behind by one purple haired woman as a blond woman looked down, her face in concern.

“Dr. Akagi” said a cold voice. “What is going on?”

She looked up at the Commander, sealed in glass, and shrugged. “I don’t know”.

Misato shook the boy. “Shinji! Shinji! Get a hold of yourself!”

He slowly stopped shaking. “Don’t…don’t go” he muttered.

“Shinji, I’m here. Tell me what’s wrong”.

“Misato?” he blinked his eyes, and tried to get up.

She helped him. “Take it easy Shinji”

His eyes focused, and he looked again at Shogouki. He was filled with fear and revulsion.

“I can’t pilot this” Shinji muttered.

“What?” asked Misato quietly.

“I can’t pilot this!” Shinji said, louder.

“You have no choice” said the cold voice of the Commander.

Shinji looked up at his father, and felt no change in his emotions.

“You, of all people, should know why I can’t pilot that…monster.”

“Shinji…” breathed Misato, “what are you talking about?”

“It killed my mom” he whispered.

“What?”

“THAT THING KILLED MY MOM!”

Misato’s mouth slowly dropped open in dawning realization.

Ritsuko and Gendo shared a glance.

Shinji sat down and began to cry.

Pen-Pen waddled over to him.

Gendo pushed up his glasses. “Fuyutski” he said.

Misato was holding Shinji again, trying to comfort the boy, telling him that everything would be okay.

Shinji looked up as they wheeled a gurney over. Something dawned on him.

He shot up like a bolt out of Misato’s arms and stared into his mother‘s face.

His heart stopped.

This time he gave a shout of “NO!” as he grabbed the gurney away from the doctors and looked into red eyes.

Time stood still as the logical part of Shinji‘s mind (which always seemed to sound like Asuka) reasserted itself.

That’s is not your mother, Shinji. That is the First Child, Rei Ayanami, and you were just confused because…

“She looks just like you” he whispered.

He looked up and closed his eyes.

“I’ll do it” he said.

END CHAPTER I.

Sorry for the double post, here's chapter...2...or maybe negative something.

TIMES PAST: EINS

What is it like to be, for all intents and purposes, an orphaned child?

To have your mother and then your father disappear from your lives?

To live with a distant stranger?

To have to endure the agony of watching every other child enjoy a happiness you could never share?

And what is it like, when after all those things, a hand of friendship reaches out to you and doesn’t let go?
-----------------------------------

Four year old Shinji Ikari was a sad child.

Most of his time was spent hiding from the world, holding his hands over his knees and curled up in a sitting ball.

A sad look was always perpetually on his face.

The cruel thing was that people noticed, and never did anything about it.

Poor kid, people would think, and then go back to their happier lives.

Even his guardian didn’t do anything. Not out of malice or even unkindness, but a sense of fear.

What can I do? Shinji’s guardian always thought. I’m not cut out to be a parent.

Today was particularly bad day. Shinji was playing in a sandbox in the park.

And he noticed that he was the only child by himself.

The mind of a child is not necessarily logical.

It’s all my fault, Shinji thought.

And since he never vocalized his thoughts, no one ever bothered to correct.

He was sitting in his darkened room, door closed, just existing.

And then it opened.

Shinji turned and blinked.
A voice muttered gibberish.

The light flicked on.
-------------------------------------

Asuka Langley Soryu always listened to her mother.

“I want you to be nice to him, okay? He might be living with us someday.”

So while her mom talked to the other man, Asuka asked if she could see him.

“So I can be nice to him! Like you told me to!”

A child’s mind was not necessarily logical. Even for an as yet untapped prodigy.

Kyoko looked at Shinji’s guardian, who shrugged.

“Okay licheben. Go find him and introduce yourself.”

“His room’s upstairs. Second door from the right.”

She ran upstairs, eager to please her mother.

She opened the left, door, found it was a bathroom, and then opened the right.

“Why is it so dark in here?” she muttered in German as she turned on the light.

The boy looked at her.

“Guten tag!” she said.

The boy blinked.

“That means hello, silly! You’re supposed to say hello back!” Fortunately, she said that in Japanese.

“Um…hello.”

“You must be Shinji! My name’s Asuka! My mom’s come to visit you! Let’s be good friends!”

She held out her hand.

For a moment, the boy‘s eyes filled with something that seemed to be hope. Then it faded and he looked downward.
“You must mean some other Shinji”.

Asuka lowered her hand and blinked herself. “Huh?”

“No-one would want to visit me. No-one would want to be my friend.”

“But…but you’re Shin…Ikari Shinji, right?”

“…yes?”

“Then you ARE the right Shinji! And my mom DOES want to visit you and I DO want to be your friend! So let’s be friends!”

She held out her hand again.

The boy got up, his face filled with wonder.

He took her hand.

“Okay.”

------

Throughout the day, at certain intervals, Kyoko Zeppelin Soryu replayed the phone call through her mind.

Did you know Yui? Did you know all this was going to happen?

The moment she found out that Gendou Roku… Gendou Ikari was no longer taking care of her son, Kyoko knew she would have to see Shinji Ikari.

She took Asuka along, because she figured that at the very least, would get some more Japanese practice. At most…well…

The guardian was appreciative of everything, but also claimed that he couldn’t do much.

“You’d have to talk to Ikari Gendou about that.”

Kyoko nodded. “May I see him?”

The guardian shrugged. She went upstairs and heard her daughter’s voice.

“…Germany is sooooo far away, that it’s six o’clock in the morning!”

“Um…aren’t you tired.”
“No.”

Kyoko smiled. “Asuka” she said.

“Mama!” The little red head grabbed the boy by the hand and lead him to the woman.

“This is my mama! She’s the one who wants to visit you!”

Kyoko bowed. “It is nice to meet you, Ikari Shinji. My name is Soryu Kyoko Zeppelin.”

Shinji bowed back. “Um…hello Soryu-san.” His eyes remained on the ground.

Kyoko turned to her daughter. For a second she thought this should be private, then thought against it. “Asuka, can I talk to Shinji for a few moments? You can wait here and listen quietly until I’m done.”

“Yes Mama!” Asuka smiled an enormous smile.

Kyoko turned to the boy and kneeled down. The boy slowly raised his eyes to meet hers.

“Ikari-kun. Do you know why I am here?”

The boy shook his head.

“I was a friend of your mother.”

The boys eyes widened.

“You…you knew my mother? You…were her friend?”

“Yes…no wait. I still am her friend.”

“But…but…”

“I am still her friend. Even though she’s gone. Even though I will never see her again.”

Asuka blinked, but kept quiet.

Shinji started to shudder a little.

“Your mother loved you very much” Kyoko continued. “She always wanted to see you smile. She always wanted to make you happy. But she was worried…” Kyoko stopped as she saw the boy was looking down again.

“She” he whispered. “She loved me? She wanted to make me happy?”
“Of course. You were the world to her Shinji.”

“Then…why did she leave? Why did she…?” He looked up and his eyes were filled with tears.

She placed her hands on his shoulders. “Sometimes, bad things happen. And sometimes there just are no reasons. Your mother knew that.”

“But…but…”

“She was worried that something would happen to her. Something that would keep her away from you. That would stop her from taking care of you. So she asked me, her friend, to do something.”

Kyoko took a deep breath.

“She asked me that if anything happened to her, if anything happened to your father, if anything happened that would leave you all alone, I would take care of you. I would do my best to make you happy.”

The boy was trying to hold in his tears. “You…you don’t want to…take care of me.”

“I do.”

“But…but…it’s all my fault!” And then he began to sob. “My fault.”

You poor boy. She slowly pulled him into a hug. “It is not your fault, Shinji. It was never your fault.”

“But…Father…”

“It still wasn’t your fault”. It was his. But Kyoko knew he wouldn’t understand.

How dare you even keep the name Ikari, Gendou!

“I’m going to make you a promise. The same promise I made your mother. I am going to take care of you as best as I can. If you don’t want to stay here, just tell me, and I will do everything I can, everything in my power to take you where you want to go.”

“I want…” the boy’s choked back a sob. “I want to be with my parents”.

“I…” Kyoko breathed. “I do too, Shinji.”

Throughout the whole conversation, Asuka looked on in total shock, and hurt.

She was a smart girl. She remembered asking her mother about Death, and being told that nothing lasts forever, and to enjoy what you have.

But she looked at that crying boy in her mother’s arm, and knew that what happened to him just wasn’t fair.

Her mother was done talking, so she hugged the boy from behind, just as her mother was doing.

The mind of a child was not necessarily illogical.

The three of them stayed that way for quite some time.

---------

The next morning, Shinji woke up.

He dreamed a girl and her mother had visited his house, both of them with flaming red hair. They came from a faraway land where the time was always eight hours behind.

The girl asked to be his friend. Her mother said she would take care of him as best she could.

He was told that it wasn’t his fault his parents were gone.

That day he played with the girl while her mother looked on. He had ice cream and ran around and built a sandcastle and he was no longer alone.

And then they had to leave, but they told him that he could always talk to them, and they left their phone number, address, and something called an ‘e-mail’.

It was a good dream. The best he ever had.

And then he looked at his dresser and saw the red SDAT that they gave to him in the dream.

And Shinji cried and cried but he was smiling while he did it, because he knew it wasn’t a dream.

It was real.

------------------------


PREVIEW!
In our next episode, our changed Shinji Ikari defeats the Third Angel. But even then, Shinji must still deal with living in Tokyo-3 with only Misato. Not to mention the mystery of Ayanami Rei. And then of course, the Foruth Angel shows up. Kid just can’t catch a break, can’t he? All this and more, on the next episode of Eva!

Oh, and unfortunately all service has stopped. Gomen.

Yours is not the only rean and review on this board.

You are taking an interesting re-mix of the material.

There are a lot of paragraphs that are one short sentence, the longer ones being, unusually, dialog. The effect of lots of one-line paragraphs is to make it all look like a wall of text, just double-spaced, without the paragraph breaks being of much use as texture to guide the eyes.