Lucretius and Essel Present: NGE: The Cutting Room Floor

esselfortium · Last edited by esselfortium on Mon Jun 07, 2010 5:08 pm; edited 1 time in total

It has recently come to our attention that Evangelion’s tumultuous production actually resulted in a last-minute rewriting process far more encompassing than previously thought.

Under time, censorship, and budget considerations, nearly an entire season’s worth of planned and scripted material was scrapped entirely, with a selection of segments deemed most important to the story hastily being rearranged and composited into the final 26 episodes we are familiar with today. It is rather surprising that viewers never noticed the missing episodes, as the characters' interpersonal relationships and even the revised ending itself make very little sense without them.

Hoping to benefit the larger fan community, we have taken the liberty of separating out the new and interesting material from this collection of scripts. For readability’s sake, the resulting scenes have been arranged into the order that seemed most logical and translated into a digestible English prose form. Here, these striking lost episodes are presented in a complete form for the first time ever to an English-speaking audience. We hope this rare look into the production process of Evangelion will provide readers with a new understanding of what the series very nearly became.

***

Evangelion: The Cutting Room Floor

Episode 35: Mr. Lobster’s Important Adventure, Part II
Or, The Mystery of the Copper Keeper Clapper Caper

***

Rei Ayanami was awoken from her dreamless sleep by a buzzing and whirring sound. She checked her arms to see if she had become a giant insect, but it was not so. Red eyes snapping open to glance out of her apartment window, she observed a large industrial crane and a man with a yellow hardhat drilling on the roof of the apartment complex next door. The neighborhood she lived in was replete with construction projects and men with facial hair offering her strange powders and syringes which, following Commander Ikari's advice, she did not take.

Rei stepped down from the bed. The cold linoleum floor led her to consider the prospect of procuring slippers someday.

Many who knew Rei Ayanami would think that she dressed herself without a great deal of deliberation or effort, but this was decidedly not the case. In reality it was a long, arduous, and thought-intensive task that the pale-faced girl had made appear easy via long years of practice and the possession of an iron will.
Pulling open the doors to her wardrobe, Rei's eyes followed across its interior from left to right and found its contents to be just as she had last left them. She counted seven school uniforms, each of them an identical white with a turquoise skirt and vest, and at the end of the row was a frilly seven-layer purple dress of the finest Turkish polyester, extravagantly decked out in yellow polka-dots and topped with a Carmen Miranda fruit-hat upon which were precariously balanced an orange, an apple, three bananas, a pineapple, and a multitude of grapes.

Rei was fully aware of the importance of the choice that lay before her; in fact, she believed it would be one of the most potentially life-altering decisions she would make today.

An avid reader for much of her young life, she had at one point entertained the possibility that her wardrobe contained a hidden passage to Narnia. I have since moved beyond such childish frivolities, decided Rei as she stared thoughtfully into the mirror, examining the Carmen Miranda hat and placing it atop her head. Perhaps today would be appropriate for such attire.

The day on which she was to wear her fruit-hat must be absolutely perfect, neither too hot nor too cold. She opened the window, determined to ask the construction worker outside if it was too humid.

"Is the humidity today conducive to the wearing of fruit hats?" Rei asked the man on the adjacent building, raising her voice so that he might hear her adequately. The man did not look up from his drill; sweat stood out on his forehead, and his body shook from the machine's vibrations. Taking the man's silence as indicative of a response in the negative, Rei placed the hat back in its familiar place on the top shelf of her wardrobe and turned with a crestfallen frown.

Someday I shall proudly display my fruit-hat before my coevals, Rei reassured herself.

***

Morning preparations were also underway in another apartment elsewhere in Tokyo-3, where one Asuka Langley Soryu sat at the kitchen table picking at the eggs and sausages her roommate had prepared for breakfast while absorbing herself in the latest issue of GameWang magazine, idly flipping through pages to avoid any attempts at conversation. She was still irritated with stupid Shinji over the sandwich incident at school several days earlier, and quite frankly didn't want to hear about it. Shinji attempted to make eye contact with her from time to time, but she was careful to ignore it. He was sitting next to her, still wearing his white apron, which she had to admit looked kind of cute. Idiot.

A two-page spread in the magazine caught her eye. Brushing her red bangs out of her line of vision, she gawked at an image of a twelve-year-old boy hurtling through space while wearing goggles and holding the controller of a game console. He was grinning like he had never experienced such ecstasy in his life, and beams of light were shooting out from all around him; apparently the console made you a space deity or something! Wow! She had to get one of these, even though her genius intuition told her that it was probably false advertising.

Having decided she had eaten enough, Asuka picked up the magazine from her lap and set it on the table next to her plate before standing up wordlessly and running off to go brush her teeth.

Shinji followed her lead, standing up as well to take care of the dishes. As he reached over to pick up her plate, though, he noticed the colorful advertisement. Super Megason IV? He had never heard of Super Megasons I through III, truth be told, but he had never paid much attention to game consoles and supposed that it must be an established brand if there were four of them already.

Shinji shrugged and took his and Asuka's dishes over to the sink, pouring out the remaining bits of food into the garbage and then squirting out a bit of soap from the dispenser, beginning to scrub while holding one of the plates under running water.

"Hey! I wasn't done eating yet!" Asuka called out from behind him.

Without turning around, Shinji sighed and immediately began apologizing profusely, his scrubbing motions over the plate becoming progressively less and less emphatic as he spoke, before giving up and setting it down in the sink to deal with later as he tried to explain that, really, he thought she had finished already and that that's why she had gotten up--

"Anyway," she interrupted, "Forget it. I'm all ready to leave. You'd better hurry up and finish getting ready so I'm not late! What's taking you so long?!"

He bashfully turned to face her. "S-sorry. I was looking at your magazine; what's that Super Megason thing?"

"Uhm..nothing! It's stupid!" Asuka hastily defended as she contorted her face and quickly looked away, all too aware that her face was most probably matching the color of her hair. "Just some game console. I don't care about that junk; it's kids' stuff!"

"Huh?" Shinji scratched his head. Wasn't she just ogling it a minute ago, though? "But it looks kind of cool..."

Asuka shot him a sideways glance, her eyes still narrowed in suspicion as she slowly turned to face him again. "Y-you..really think so?"

"Well yeah...I guess," Shinji replied, looking at the floor and shuffling his feet.

Asuka glanced back over at the Megason spread. "Well, here, it's all yours." She picked the magazine up, tossing it over to Shinji, who flinched ever so slightly before quickly regaining his composure and skimming across the large, blocky text that had been presented to him, noticing something about a contest.

"Huh...apparently they're giving them away?" He looked up at her for a second as if expecting validation, but she just rolled her eyes, so he continued reading. "According to this, they've got a contest going on where if anyone can answer a bunch of questions and complete some tasks, they'll give one to them."

"Just shut up and get ready, jerkface. Last time you made me late, the teacher kept me after class and rambled about Second Impact for fifteen minutes." Asuka continued to look away from her roommate, her face feeling hot.

Shinji stammered out an apology and tossed the magazine back on the table, quickly untying his apron and throwing it into the laundry hamper as he hurried to his room to get his socks and backpack. The half-washed plates remained in the sink, covered in soap suds.

Asuka stepped over to the table where the magazine had been carelessly left, looking back over the contest guidelines for herself. Answering some stupid quiz questions? Pfft, I could do that in my sleep.

She heard Shinji calling from down the hall and quickly grabbed her backpack, stuffing the magazine into it and slinging it over her shoulder before scrambling to the front door while shouting after him. "Oh, sure, now you're in a hurry!" The last thing she wanted this morning was to be the cause of her and Shinji's lateness after having just gotten done berating him about it.

***

On their way out, a loud slam of the door jostled their sleeping guardian into the beginnings of a hungover lucidity. Misato Katsuragi blinked drowsily at her clock, rolled over, and considered going back to sleep. Shinji had already tried waking her up before breakfast, but she hadn't been in any state of mind to take that suggestion. She had things to do today, though, and she was already running late.

Groaning audibly as she sat up in her futon, Misato brushed a mess of purple strands out from in front of her eyes, squinting from sunlight that had leaked into the room through the venetian blinds. She pulled a shirt down over her head and figured that she could probably still make it to Nerv on time, or close enough to it.

But first she was going to head over to the kitchen for a beer.

***

Rei Ayanami was walking to school.

She sighed; once again she had opted against the unique combination of elegance and pragmatic functionality provided by the fruit-hat and its accompanying dress. With her in their stead was her backpack, which weighed heavily on her shoulders. She could see her breath assuming a visible form in front of her in the cold morning air, as she continued on her usual route.

School was the place where she was supposed to learn things. It was distinct from both trouts and bicycles, but was in some ways comparable to broom closets, which had confused her in the past. Mostly it was the place where she stared out the window and thought of Commander Ikari.

Rei heard a loud, feminine voice, and turned her head to see Second grumbling at Ikari-kun. They were dressed in their school attire and walking behind her several feet away to her right, their rapid footfalls hitting the sidewalk almost in unison. Second and Ikari-kun worked at Nerv. That was the place Rei Ayanami worked as well. Ikari-kun made her feel warm and fuzzy; she did not know why. Second, on the other hand, made her feel like the time her hand had been caught in the garbage disposal and Dr. Akagi had needed to give her a new finger.

Second was gesticulating wildly with her hands and talking excitedly to Ikari-kun, who was looking away from her, his shoulders hunched; she was gritting her teeth and pressing her face so closely to his that she was in danger of gouging out Ikari-kun's eye with her nose. Rei did not hear the whole of the conversation, but it seemed to involve the word "pastrami" and the future state of Ikari-kun's testicles should he ever mention it again.

Shinji glanced in Rei's direction and waved enthusiastically at her as Asuka sputtered to a halt.

"Hi, Ayanami!"

Ikari-kun sometimes said things to her. This was most perplexing, as for years she had spoken primarily to the Nerv staff and a potted plant which she referred to as "Steve."

"Greetings, Ikari-kun," she replied. She had recently ascertained that one was expected to reply to a salutation when directly addressed.

Asuka stepped forwards to put herself between Shinji and Rei. "Look, Wondergirl; it's great and all of you to come by and talk, but Third and I were kind of in the middle of something here. We've got some important business to work out here, so if you'd kindly--"

"What..sort of business?"

Shinji and Asuka both blushed at that, Shinji suddenly finding the appearance of the sidewalk very interesting and Asuka managing to eventually blurt out a response.

"W-well, we were, uh..the..the contest! It's for the new Super Megason, and I'm going to win one!"

"Mega...son? This concept has been absent from all of my genealogy reading."

"It's a console, Rei. You play games with it. You do know what those are, right?"

The blue-haired girl stopped short. "I.."

"Forget it! Come on, Shinji." Asuka got a devious gleam in her eye and grabbed the boy's arm, pulling him along. "You and I are going to talk about video games."

Shinji responded with a slight tilt of his head. "But I thought we were talking about pas--"

"I told you not to mention that!"

"O..okay, sorry...you're entering that contest, then..? Can I help?"

"Help? As if I would need help from someone like you. It's just a bunch of quiz questions; it'd probably all be way over your head anyway. I guess you can play too, though, if it'll make you feel better."

***

Rei Ayanami was jolted out of her musings on the nature of peanut butter when she realized that Ikari-kun and Second were no longer in sight; furthermore, she was standing on the same square of sidewalk that she had been standing on fifteen minutes previously. Although she rather doubted the existence of linear time, she did not wish to be reprimanded for lateness and decided to proceed as quickly as possible.

As she trotted along the pavement, her foot protection units clicking rhythmically against the hard surface, it occurred to Rei that she was not quite certain where the school was located. Her mnemonic functions were often impaired for several days after her recent memories had been uploaded onto the Dummy System.

Wrinkling her forehead, Rei finally recollected her usual route involved traveling along Josei Street for about a mile, before turning onto Mishima Avenue. But what guarantee did she have that Josei Street would always lead to the school? It had always done so in the past, but that was no assurance that it would continue to do so in the future. In all probability, it would lead to a completely different building today. After all, it had no incentive to remain always in the same location. She decided to go down Tokugawa Street instead.

***

Misato sped along the road, narrowly squeezing past a school bus at ninety miles an hour. I'm gonna be late! The Commander would probably bust her down to private if she was lucky. If she wasn't lucky, well, she had heard rumors of the Subcommander's proclivity for making his personal secretaries wear French maid outfits. Stomping on the gas pedal with all her might, Misato weaved in and out of the left lane and ignored the angry honks directed at her. Since Nerv broke the laws of God on a daily basis, she figured she could be forgiven for breaking the laws of traffic.

As Misato tossed an empty beer can out of her open window, she noticed two blue mops crossing the road at an intersection. Misato squinted through her alcoholic haze until she had forced the mops to congeal into the familiar form of Rei Ayanami...too late. She was jolted forward in her seat and saw a backpack go flying though the air. Oh God. I killed the Commander's autistic underage concubine. Ritsuko will never let me hear the end of it.

Well, the only thing for it is to keep driving and hope that there's no witnesses.

She fidgeted nervously with her sunglasses and looked into the rear view mirror. Wait, is that...yes! Rei was alive, lying on her back next to the sidewalk and rubbing her forehead. A few feet from her was a very flat squirrel. Well, Rei's fine, right? Yep, no need to stop. Misato sped forward, bobbed into the left lane, and flipped on the radio with a relieved sigh.

***

The bell rang shrilly as Asuka half-dragged Shinji along the school corridor, both of them them sweating as they sprinted along.

Asuka stopped abruptly at the sound, nearly knocking Shinji off his feet. "Jeez, not again! We ran all this way for nothing. This is all your fault, Third. I told you to get ready!"

Shinji looked at her in frightened bewilderment. He was never sure which of her tantrums were meant in earnest; it was safest to assume that they all were.

"Me? You're the one who wanted to stop at the Slushy stand!"

"It's comfort food, dorkwad. Geniuses are entitled to their quirks," said Asuka, winking and brushing back a strand of hair from her forehead, eliciting an audible groan from Shinji. "Anyway, if Nebukawa keeps me after class, I'm setting up your cello and Mrs. Garbage Disposal for a blind date!"

Still retaining possession of Shinji's arm, Asuka tugged him into class with a high-pitched "Hmph!"

Nebukawa was completely absorbed in his lecture about the bloody, post-Second Impact North Korean Turtle War and did not look up when they arrived. The other students were openly chatting with each other, listening to their iPods, or playing handheld video games. It was evidently not one of the teacher's rare lucid days.

"And the conflict came to an abrupt and shocking conclusion when David Bowie wrestled the emperor of the sea turtles for possession of the One Ring, which brings us to World War II."

Class Representative Hikari Horaki briefly let down her typical authoritarian air to wave at Asuka, who returned the gesture and greeted her, while Shinji was greeted by a sleeping Kensuke Aida and Toji Suzuhara.

Asuka took her usual seat across from Shinji, and snapped open her laptop. Humming cheerfully to herself, she loaded up the GameWang website and registered for the contest, instant-messaging Shinji with the sign-up URL.

> Here, idiot. Try to keep up, alright? :P

> It's just a stupid game. Why does everything have to be a competition?

> Because it's fun. Shut up :P

The two exchanged a glance of anticipation for a few moments before the first quiz question appeared in both their inboxes.

> Oh, that one's too easy...I should have known they'd dumb it down so any dork could play.

> ..the answer's "a house," right?

Asuka turned to Shinji exasperatedly. "Don't you know anything about competition?! If I just told you all the answers, it'd--"

"The next one's 'Boris Batanov,' I think."

Growling, Asuka turned back to her computer, sinking a bit in her seat at the realization that the correct answer was, in fact, Boris Batanov.

"Hey Hikari, you remember anything Nebukawa taught us about great white sharks?"

"Aren't those extinct?"

"Y-yeah, it's..do you remember how many fingers he said they had?"

Hikari considered this for a moment before confidently informing Asuka that great white sharks, in fact, had six fingers, prior to their extinction fifteen years ago.

***

Shinji, meanwhile, wasn't faring much better. "Kensuke, wake up! What was the last thing Carrot Top said before he died? Help!"

"Huh?" Rubbing his eyes, Kensuke tried to filter through bits of lessons long forgotten. "What'd you need something like that for? I can't remember, maybe Toji knows." The bespectacled boy lightly jostled the tracksuit-wearing jock sleeping at the desk in front of him, who awoke with a start.

"What? No, Class Rep, I didn't do i--"

"Earth to Toji! Come in, Toji. It's me, Kensuke! Shinji wants to draw on your surprisingly broad knowledge of 1990s pop-culture abortions! I don't know...you tell him, Shinji."

Toji crossed his arms defensively, tightening his face. "Shut up! I only know about all those Hanson albums 'cause of my kid sister!"

"N-no, Toji, it's..I just needed to know, uhm.. do you remember anything about what Carrot Top said before he died? It's for a contest."

Reaching his arm back around his head and looking up slightly in thought, Toji considered this for a moment. "'I've wasted my life,' wasn't it?"

Shinji hastily entered the answer on his laptop, validated by the now-familiar 'ding' signifying a correct response. His eyes narrowed in concentration as he read the following question, turning briefly to Asuka who regarded him with a similar expression before they each turned back to their respective computers.

Somewhere in the midst of this, Toji had somehow crept up behind Shinji to read the riddle from his laptop display. "It's 'shawl,' right? The answer has got to be a shawl."

Hearing the suggestion, Shinji and Asuka both frantically typed every variant of it they could think of into the answer box, turning to glare at each other as they typed, each becoming increasingly frustrated with every 'bzzt' of a wrong answer before suddenly their eyes widened and the solution became clear as day.

Two 'ding's sounded in near-unison before Shinji and Asuka read through the following challenge and realized that they would need to leave the school premises to complete it.

Two hands shot up in unison. "Teacher, I've got to go to the bathroom!"

Glaring at each other for a moment before eventually realizing that their teacher was completely deaf to their plea and would also, in all likelihood, not even notice their absence, Shinji and Asuka closed their laptops, stood up from their seats, and rushed out the door.

"Hey, where you going?! It was a shawl, right?!" Toji made his way back to his desk, dejected. "Now I'll probably never find out.."

***

Dusting herself off and picking up her backpack, Rei continued her trek, finding herself in an increasingly depopulated section of town consisting primarily of clapboard shacks with the windows boarded up. Urban areas such as these were colloquially known as "Nervilles," for reasons which she did not fully comprehend; perhaps it was related to the Commander's personal museum of ice sculptures, which the Secretary General of the UN had been none too pleased to learn about.

The shacks became increasingly sparse and eventually disappeared altogether, and the sidewalk gave way to a dirt road. The dirt road eventually led up to a rocky cliff face, from which there was a drop of eighty feet or so.

Rei could not remember if this was what a "school" looked like or not. The syllables humans had assigned to various objects were completely arbitrary, and thus very onerous to remember. For this reason, the Commander had helped her to compile a handy guidebook which was meant to tie together signifiers and their referents; he had found this necessary after she had confused the words "trout" and "bicycle," which had caused many embarrassing difficulties. For every important word, the guidebook contained a crude pictogram indicating which real-world object was meant.

She removed the guidebook from her backpack and searched for the entry for "school," bypassing the pictogram for "Ikari-kun," which was a stick figure with pencil lines on its cheeks to indicate a blush, and the pictogram for "Second," which was a long-haired stick figure with eyebrows knit angrily together over pointed fangs.

At last she arrived at the entry for "school," but was unable to distinguish it from the cliff face before her. She looked from cliff to guidebook, guidebook to cliff, but could not resolve her dilemma.

She remained in this position for several hours.

***

(More to come soon!)

_________________
A Terrible Flood - Cumulonimbus antagonistic debut album (2007)
Seventeen More Times - Followup album coming someday

NGE: The Cutting Room Floor, a fanfic by Lucretius and myself about the inevitable insanity of the off-days we didn't get to see.

The EGF version is more like "Shinji, an evil transsexual rapist who is incapable of love, learned nothing from his experiences and died as soon as the credits rolled." - Lucretius

Seele00TextOnly · Posted: Mon May 17, 2010 4:21 pm Post subject:

BRILLIANT

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esselfortium: Anno was Smugleaf and now we banned him. There's a metaphor in there somewhere.
Eric Blair: Anyway, this has nothing to do with the FFS review, just wanted to bring a whole new context of subtext to the intext and leave...text...

Legendary · Seed Joined: 11 Jun 2008 Age: 91 Gender: Male

BIZARRE

To be honest, some of the jokes are either not funny or at the least hit or miss, but there are definitely points where I lol'd. Yay, fruit hats!

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GasmaskAvenger · Posted: Mon May 17, 2010 10:14 pm Post subject:

pretty interesting

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**Sailor Star Dust** · Posted: Tue May 18, 2010 6:48 am Post subject:

The humor is an aqurried (typo, half-asleep) taste, but I do like this fic anyway. Keep it up! :3

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Eric Blair · Evangelion Joined: 25 Mar 2008 Age: 26 Gender: Male

Legendary wrote:

To be honest, some of the jokes are either not funny or at the least hit or miss

Sailor Star Dust wrote:

The humor is an acquired taste,

Speaking form humor perspective, yes, a lot of the jokes are either hit, or miss, but the story in itself is wacky and bizarre so I think that for a quick laugh, I'll read it.

My favorite joke is Gendo calling Asuka "the red one" though a bit more of an actual chain of events leading to a story and less jokes used as a connection thread for the actions would be a nicer thing.

Keep it up in anyway.

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esselfortium · Posted: Wed May 19, 2010 12:39 am Post subject:

Eric Blair wrote:

Speaking form humor perspective, yes, a lot of the jokes are either hit, or miss, but the story in itself is wacky and bizarre so I think that for a quick laugh, I'll read it.

I think humor writing in general is hit or miss. We write what makes us laugh, and some variable percentage of it is also found funny by other readers depending on how shameful-- er, like-minded they are.

Quote:

My favorite joke is Gendo calling Asuka "the red one" though a bit more of an actual chain of events leading to a story and less jokes used as a connection thread for the actions would be a nicer thing.

Keep it up in anyway.

H-hey, we haven't posted that part yet >>

_________________
A Terrible Flood - Cumulonimbus antagonistic debut album (2007)
Seventeen More Times - Followup album coming someday

NGE: The Cutting Room Floor, a fanfic by Lucretius and myself about the inevitable insanity of the off-days we didn't get to see.

The EGF version is more like "Shinji, an evil transsexual rapist who is incapable of love, learned nothing from his experiences and died as soon as the credits rolled." - Lucretius

esselfortium · Posted: Mon Jun 07, 2010 4:44 pm Post subject:

Somewhat shorter update this time, but we decided it'd be better than waiting any longer, so you fine folks don't forget we exist. Still quite a bit more of this chapter is left to go.

***

"What do you mean you're not open for business on Fridays?!"

At the entrance gate of the newly-erected Museum of Pre-Impact Life, a lone guard shook his head stoically. "It's great that you kids are so gung-ho to Witness The Wonders Of Yesterday, but you'll have to come back on Monday," he sighed, unenthusiastically reciting the slogan engraved on a large plaque above the entryway. "They're setting up a new exhibit on guinea pigs, Terrors Of The Deep; it'll be worth the wait."

Shinji opened his mouth to attempt a diplomatic solution. "We're not here for that, really--"

"We don't care about the stupid guinea pigs, we have to get in today! It's for a contest! We're Nerv employees, doesn't that mean anything anymore?!" Asuka persisted, attempting unsuccessfully to push her way past the man, who just stood in place, looking at her apologetically.

"Really, I'd love to be able to make an exception for you kids, but this is out of my hands--"

"Fine! C'mon, idiot; it's obvious we're not wanted around here." Asuka nudged Shinji along as he followed her wordlessly down the sidewalk, taking in the sights of the overblown promotional banners hanging all around them and idly wondering how anyone managed to survive before Second Impact.

Sitting on a bench and looking at him with conviction, Asuka announced, "Alright, Third. I don't like you, and you don't like me--"

"Huh? I like you."

"Y-- you what?" Asuka blushed, shaking her head to clear her thoughts. "That's not important right now, stop interrupting me!"

"Sorry."

"What I'm saying is, if we're going to win this game, we'll have to put aside our differences and work together. This is obviously just a test of our dedication and ingenuity."

Shinji shrugged, taking a seat next to her and taking his phone from his pocket to dial their guardian. "Maybe Misato could help us get in?"

"Yeah, maybe. I mean, if she just had to flash her badge to get you and the other two stooges allowed on board the Over the Rainbow, this should be nothing, right?"

Shinji shook his head and closed his phone, pocketing it. "She's not picking up."

"It's just like her to leave us on our own at a time like this," Asuka bemoaned, biting her lip. "I guess I'll just have to do everything myself, like always. Sit still and I'll think of a plan."

Shinji groaned again. He did a great deal of groaning when he was with Asuka.

After a moment of frowning and humming to herself, Asuka jumped to her feet and stood in front of Shinji, balancing one foot on the bench beside him. He tried not to look at her breasts, which were level with his eyes.

"What if we disguise ourselves as time travelers from before Second Impact? They'll be sure to let us into the exhibit then."

Shinji blinked. "Time..travelers? Wouldn't it be easier if we went in as janitors or something?"

"Idiot! All we need to make this convincing are some bowler hats and handlebar mustaches from the costume shop. C'mon!" said Asuka, grabbing Shinji by the hand and pulling him across the street to Crazy Steve's Party Outlet.

***

Asuka sighed, peeling off her handlebar mustache and stomping it into the pavement. The guard had almost let them in before he had remembered that bowler hats hadn't been invented until 2005.

"We should've gone as janitors," Asuka muttered.

Shinji sighed. "So now what do we do?"

"We could try sneaking in through the air vents, I guess. It usually works in the movies."

The two began to idly wonder if they had, in fact, come to the right part of town, but suppressed their doubts and circled the museum exterior together, looking for a ventilation shaft of a sufficient size. As Shinji stepped over a fallen banner depicting a squirrel menacing two pre-Second Impact women in corsets, he heard Asuka emit a happy-sounding squeak.

"Hey stupid! I think I found a clue!" she said, holding up a yellow post-it note and grinning broadly.

Shinji glanced over her shoulder. "From the Megason contest?"

"What else, dummy?" she rhetorically asked, squinting at the kanji. "I..think it says something about fish sticks?"

Shinji chuckled a little, drawing a death glare from Asuka. "No, Asuka. It says 'If you want to find the next note/check the garbage chute'."

Asuka wrinkled her nose. "Is that supposed to rhyme? That's pretty stupid."

She pulled Shinji behind the building to the dumpster, which was stamped with a red Nerv logo. Shinji peeled another sticky note off the side and read the doggerel verse scrawled on it in kanji, appearing to have been written in a hurry.

"'You have only just begun/to find the Super Megason! The entrance that you seek/is on the bench facing the street!' I'm not reading the rest of this, it's just giggling and smiley faces."

"It's on the... damn it, we were just there a second ago! What the hell?!" Asuka tugged Shinji back in the direction of the bench, both of them panting.

Upon reaching the bench, the two of them stared in shocked silence at what had seemingly been left for them. On top of the bench, where they had been sitting only a few minutes earlier, were what appeared to be six canisters of nitroglycerin. Attached to one canister was a sticky note with a smiley printed face on it.

"Is that...?" Shinji stammered out after a few moments, his eyes wide. "Are we supposed to..?"

Asuka exchanged a nervous glance with him, attempting to maintain her confidence.

"Y-you idiot, of.. of course they wouldn't really have us blow up a public building with nitroglycerin. It's..this is obviously..just another part of the contest," she finally managed, acutely aware that neither herself nor Shinji were entirely convinced.

"..I mean...I guess it looks as official as anything else we've found today." Shinji tilted his head to the side slightly. "And they wouldn't give us real explosives...would they? If this is just another part of the game, I..guess we shouldn't stop now."

Shinji stared numbly as Asuka picked up three canisters and cradled them in her arms.

"After we've come this far? Y-you're right..it's, this couldn't be for real. This is all just a big game," Asuka chuckled nervously. "These things are supposed to look real; it's..it's obviously just how they keep the amateurs out! C'mon, dorkface, help me carry these to the museum!" she commanded.

Shinji nodded shakily and obeyed without another word, grabbing the remaining three canisters and suppressing his misgivings as the two anxiously began their brief trek back to the Museum of Pre-Impact Life.

***

At Nerv, Misato swung lazily back and forth on her swivel chair, grinning vacantly. On the way to work, she had managed to get drunk enough to temporarily suppress her hangover.

A few feet away, Ritsuko was scowling at her over her coffee mug, droning on about something that seemed to involve the words "urgent" and "Third Impact," but the surrounding phrases seemed blurry and meaningless.

Misato glanced idly at the TV screen attached to the ceiling, ignoring Ritsuko. The news was on. Twisting and turning in her chair, she read through the news ticker at the bottom of the screen. Pope condemns sentient diet soda... Experts question existence of Finland... Kamikaze submarines devastate Tel Aviv... Explosion in Hakone region...

Explosion in Hakone region?!

Misato's eyes widened as she stared at the screen, the display changing to an overhead map view, followed by a live feed of a familiar-looking area. Isn't that where the kids go to school?

"Damn it!"

Ritsuko walked away with a shrug and a sigh as Misato yanked her cell phone out of her purse, mashing buttons and hastily dialing Asuka's number. She would never forgive herself if anything happened to her kids, and besides, Ritsuko had bet her ten thousand yen that Shinji wouldn't survive under her charge for a year, and she'd be damned if she was going to pay up.

Misato held the receiver to her ear before immediately pulling it away a few inches upon hearing Asuka's shrill whine.

"AaaAAAaah! Stupid Shinji blew up a building, Misato!"

_________________
A Terrible Flood - Cumulonimbus antagonistic debut album (2007)
Seventeen More Times - Followup album coming someday

NGE: The Cutting Room Floor, a fanfic by Lucretius and myself about the inevitable insanity of the off-days we didn't get to see.

The EGF version is more like "Shinji, an evil transsexual rapist who is incapable of love, learned nothing from his experiences and died as soon as the credits rolled." - Lucretius

Seele00TextOnly · Posted: Mon Jun 07, 2010 5:17 pm Post subject:

Gotta love Asuka. 'It's all Shinji's fault!!~~'. This is great, love the note and Misato's state of mind.

_________________
NAveryW: This thread is horrible. I don't like Eva anymore.
esselfortium: Anno was Smugleaf and now we banned him. There's a metaphor in there somewhere.
Eric Blair: Anyway, this has nothing to do with the FFS review, just wanted to bring a whole new context of subtext to the intext and leave...text...

Legendary · Seed Joined: 11 Jun 2008 Age: 91 Gender: Male

The humor here is slightly less hit or miss, which is a good thing. What really made me laugh was the actual plot, though, not the aside details (ie, the "We don't like each other" conversation vs. Experts question existence of Finland). I think this could become better if you guys would focus on it more, and flesh out things that happened instead of cutting straight to the punchline (like showing the convo where the guard says that bowler hats weren't invented until 2005).

I definitely lol'd a few times, though.

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esselfortium · Posted: Mon Jun 07, 2010 9:08 pm Post subject:

Thanks. We've got quite a few more things in store for the plot of this chapter, so hopefully it'll continue to please It's a smile.

Legendary wrote:

I think this could become better if you guys would focus on it more, and flesh out things that happened instead of cutting straight to the punchline (like showing the convo where the guard says that bowler hats weren't invented until 2005).

Well, I think there are some things that aren't really worth fleshing out.

The bowler-hat thing was intentionally done as a side joke, because the concept of it is where the actual humor comes from. Glossing over it like we did allows for better timing of the joke than there would be if we turned it into an actual conversation, particularly since the conversation in question didn't serve any other purpose in the story beyond what was described. Really, we originally weren't even going to have them get to the costume shop to try that plan before finding the explosives.

I feel like if we had done too much more with it and similar side-jokes, the storytelling and comedic pacing would get bogged down a bit with scenes that don't really need to exist. There's a lot of other stuff to cover in this story arc that takes precedence, and plenty of full conversations that advance the plot meaningfully without outstaying their welcome.

Er. This probably sounded more defensive than it was intended to; I was just trying to be thorough. Carry on. ._.

edit: See? This is what happens when I flesh out a post into something longer than it needs to be!

_________________
A Terrible Flood - Cumulonimbus antagonistic debut album (2007)
Seventeen More Times - Followup album coming someday

NGE: The Cutting Room Floor, a fanfic by Lucretius and myself about the inevitable insanity of the off-days we didn't get to see.

The EGF version is more like "Shinji, an evil transsexual rapist who is incapable of love, learned nothing from his experiences and died as soon as the credits rolled." - Lucretius

Legendary · Seed Joined: 11 Jun 2008 Age: 91 Gender: Male

Hey, you're allowed to pick the pacing. I'm just pointing it out. I do hope you take my advice about more humor being based in the plot, it's where your best stuff has been.

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**Sailor Star Dust** · Posted: Thu Jun 10, 2010 1:09 am Post subject:

I loled at the Finland and Bowler hat jokes.

Not that it's a bad thing (and TV always recycles jokes), but isn't the "I don't like you; you don't like me" a Simpsons joke? It rings a bell.

Keep this up. It's good for some laughs.

_________________
~Take care of yourself, I need you~
[FGP Profile | A/S English doujin | FF.net & DarkScribes | MAL | Youtube]
"I don't want to talk about this again. I don't care about your opinions. I don't care about my own opinions. But at least I'll save Ayanami! For sure!"~NaveryW
SSD wonders why she's been wasting her life on EGF for the past 4 years. Then again, this IS Eva.~08/13/2010

esselfortium · Posted: Thu Jun 10, 2010 1:12 am Post subject:

Sailor Star Dust wrote:

I loled at the Finland and Bowler hat jokes.

Not that it's a bad thing (and TV always recycles jokes), but isn't the "I don't like you; you don't like me" a Simpsons joke? It rings a bell.

Keep this up. It's good for some laughs.

Thanks

And I'm not sure. I'm sure it's the sort of joke that could be applied to a lot of character pairs, and almost certainly has, but this wasn't inspired by any specific instances of it. It just felt natural to use here :P

_________________
A Terrible Flood - Cumulonimbus antagonistic debut album (2007)
Seventeen More Times - Followup album coming someday

NGE: The Cutting Room Floor, a fanfic by Lucretius and myself about the inevitable insanity of the off-days we didn't get to see.

The EGF version is more like "Shinji, an evil transsexual rapist who is incapable of love, learned nothing from his experiences and died as soon as the credits rolled." - Lucretius

esselfortium · Posted: Sat Jun 12, 2010 1:36 am Post subject:

"I can't even put into words how disappointed I am in both of you. What on earth were you two thinking?!"

Misato looked incredulously at her two charges from across her cluttered desk. The pilots had been picked up by a Section 2 escort and transported to Nerv headquarters. Rei had been called for as well, as part of Nerv's attempt to secure their human assets in the aftermath of the incident downtown, but was thus far conspicuously absent.

"What do you mean 'us two'?! I told you, Shinji did it!"

"Asuka..."

"Right, sorry. Um.." The redhead turned to Misato, attempting to determine how to best explain what happened in a way that wouldn't make her any more angry. Failing that, she turned to Shinji, her face taking on the same expectant stare as their purple-haired guardian.

Sighing, Shinji reluctantly began his testimony. "We..honestly didn't mean for this to happen, Misato."

"How could you have not known?! Shinji, Asuka..do you have any idea how much money this is going to cost Nerv?"

Shinji looked at the floor uncomfortably. "I'm sorry, Misato. We thought it was just..part of a game."

"A game?! You're lucky no one was killed! We're supposed to be keeping this city safe, not..terrorizing it!"

Asuka snorted at Misato's accusation. "It's a promotional game, Misato! The idiot and I have been working hard to support Tokyo-3's bustling industry. This is only a minor setback! Right, Third?"

***

As Rei stared in consternation across the face of the cliff, she felt her cellphone vibrate in her backpack. She knelt down and pulled out the vibrating black box, wondering who the caller might be. It was not yet time for the Commander to remind her to take her anti-leprosy medication.

"Greetings."

"Rei?" A female voice answered her.

"Yes."

"There's been a bombing downtown. All pilots are to report to headquarters for their own protection."

Rei frowned. The Commander is not a woman.

"Identify yourself."

"Huh? This is Lt. Maya Ibuki, Rei. You know me..."

Rei paused for a moment, thinking. "Yes. You are the younger Dr. Akagi. I recall your existence."

The female voice laughed nervously. "Uh...yeah. So you'll come to headquarters on your own, right? Or do I need to come pick you up?"

"Affirmative," said Rei, hanging up the phone.

Rei stared over the cliff face thoughtfully, resting her hand on her chin.

She had no fear for her own safety, as she could be replaced, but Ikari-kun...Ikari-kun was different. Before she had met Ikari-kun, her insides had felt like straw; she had tried to fill up the empty spaces left by the straw by thinking of the Commander. Ikari-kun had made her feel less empty. He had made her smile and given her soup on one occasion. Her insides now felt like something of slightly greater density, packing peanuts perhaps. If Ikari-kun were to die, she would feel like straw once more, and there would be no more soup. This was not desirable. I must find Ikari-kun.

Clenching her jaw tightly, Rei slung her backpack over her shoulders and walked away from the precipice.

***

Asuka's phone interrupted the ongoing brow-beating, chirping happily from her pocket. She pulled it out, reading a text message that had been sent from an unfamiliar number.

"Asuka! Are you even listening to me?!" Misato reached across her desk, snatching the phone out of Asuka's hands. Scowling at its display, her eyes widened as she took in the contents of the text message.

Your pyrotechnics display cracked the museum open like an egg.
What's big, looks like a marshmallow, and has lots of legs?

"Give it back, Misato! We need it for the contest!" Grumbling, she turned to her roommate. "Shinji, can you think of anything that looks like a marshmallow and has lots of legs?"

Shinji looked at her, shrugging. "Uhm.. Aoba, maybe?"

***

Rei walked through the shopping district, her eyes darting through the crowd. Occasionally she would stop to ask a passer-by if they were Ikari-kun, as one could never be entirely sure. Half an hour ago she had thought she had found him, but her guidebook had identified the object before her as a "fire hydrant." She wondered absently why a device which releases fire would be located on such a busy street.

Rei felt a slight stab of pain as a short stocky man with glasses elbowed her aside. That was very rude. Perhaps he is a friend of Second. Rubbing her arm, she turned her head to see a storefront which immediately caught her attention, a shop identified by bold red letters as Piazzo Breads and Bakery. She had once seen Ikari-kun inside that very establishment, so it was logical to assume that he would be there now.

She opened the glass door, hearing the clatter of a bell above her as she entered the building. She disliked bells. They were useless.

A bewildering array of sights, sounds, and smells greeted her. Salarymen in business suits sipped unidentifiable green liquid; a young freckled man in a white apron and puffy hat mumbled at customers; and a variety strangely appealing circular objects beckoned to her from behind a glass case near the cash register. She squinted at the objects and found one of them strangely familiar. Could this be Ikari-kun? She consulted the appropriate guidebook entry.

_________________
A Terrible Flood - Cumulonimbus antagonistic debut album (2007)
Seventeen More Times - Followup album coming someday

NGE: The Cutting Room Floor, a fanfic by Lucretius and myself about the inevitable insanity of the off-days we didn't get to see.

The EGF version is more like "Shinji, an evil transsexual rapist who is incapable of love, learned nothing from his experiences and died as soon as the credits rolled." - Lucretius

**Sailor Star Dust** · Posted: Sat Jun 12, 2010 2:41 am Post subject:

This fic gets a few chuckles out of me, but not necessarily anything laugh out loud funny so far. The reference to Puchi-Eva with the guidebook ("cliff" versus "school" I think it was) is amusing though.

_________________
~Take care of yourself, I need you~
[FGP Profile | A/S English doujin | FF.net & DarkScribes | MAL | Youtube]
"I don't want to talk about this again. I don't care about your opinions. I don't care about my own opinions. But at least I'll save Ayanami! For sure!"~NaveryW
SSD wonders why she's been wasting her life on EGF for the past 4 years. Then again, this IS Eva.~08/13/2010

Seele00TextOnly · Posted: Sat Jun 12, 2010 11:35 am Post subject:

I like the kind of humor this has. I think it's the kind that's not supposed to make you laugh out loud; more like the kind that makes you suppress a chuckle in your throat. I'm really enjoying it; just one joke a passage would be fine for me, I like the goofball situations and characterizations.

"He had made her smile and given her soup on one occasion. [...] If Ikari-kun were to die, she would feel like straw once more, and there would be no more soup." If this story needs anything, it's more soup.

Love it, looking forward to the next part.

_________________
NAveryW: This thread is horrible. I don't like Eva anymore.
esselfortium: Anno was Smugleaf and now we banned him. There's a metaphor in there somewhere.
Eric Blair: Anyway, this has nothing to do with the FFS review, just wanted to bring a whole new context of subtext to the intext and leave...text...

esselfortium · Posted: Mon Jun 14, 2010 12:30 am Post subject:

"Shinji, Asuka, listen to me! I-- I think there's something more than meets the eye with this contest.. Nerv could be in danger, and you two are not helping! For all we know, this could all be a plot against you and Rei-- and call Rei! She still isn't here!"

Misato jumped up from her desk and shoved both Shinji and Asuka out of the room as Asuka whined indignantly. Slamming the door shut, she sank onto her swivel chair, an earnest expression on her face.

This is bad. Apparently whoever was behind the contest knew about Adam, and worse yet, she couldn't tell the higher-ups because she herself wasn't supposed to know about Adam in the first place. Should I call Kaji? No, I probably shouldn't be seen around him at work anymore. Things got uncomfortable once the Commander had found out about Kaji's second job. Besides, he was probably just waiting for the first excuse to sleep with her again. That asshole.

The only thing she could do now was find out who left the text message on Asuka's phone, call them up, and do some investigation of her own. If worst came to worst, she figured, maybe she could offer them a bribe; she already used the children's Nerv salaries to buy booze every week, anyway. She picked up Asuka's cell phone off her desk and scrolled through the caller ID to redial the appropriate number, putting the receiver to her ear anxiously.

A gruff voice with an Chinese accent greeted her at the other end of the line.

"Eh?" After a moment, the man bumbled out "What may I hope you?" in broken Japanese.

"Who are you, and who are you working with?" Misato demanded.

"This Huang, from Mintendo Corp! What your problem is, lady?"

"How much do you know about Nerv?" asked Misato, attempting to make her voice sound as authoritative as possible.

"Nerf? You mean giant robot people everyone hate? Very scary robot!" Misato heard a flapping noise on the line, but could not see the man thousands of miles away flail his arms in pantomime.

"What do you know about the Angels?" she said, almost shouting by now.

"Angels? Lady, we make video games where Mario head backwards and hamster wheels that no more work after week. I no see Angels here."

Misato groaned in frustration. "Six minutes ago you sent a text message to one of my pilots about something big with 'lots of legs'. Don't try to play dumb, sir."

"That? That no mean anything. It part of contest. Centipede have lot of leg too, yes? I no time to talk have. Capos cut off thumb if I no sell consoles. Very bad."

Misato opened her mouth to talk, but was cut off by a click on the line as the man hung up. She briefly reconsidered bringing Kaji or perhaps even Hyuga in on the situation, but thought better of it. She was already on thin ice, and didn't need this false alarm to reveal her knowledge of Nerv's secrets. This was nothing but a harmless contest run by the Chinese mafia, she reassured herself.

With that crisis averted, there was only the matter of how to deal with the kids and the aftermath of the mess they made downtown. Misato stood up from her desk and poked her head out the door, spotting Shinji and Asuka in the middle of one of their trademark arguments.

"It said 'lots of legs'! Not two of them, dummy!"

"Okay, so if the answer's not the Michelin Man, what is it? I'm tired of fighting about this, Asuka; why can't we just try that if you don't have any better ideas?!"

Misato cleared her throat, causing the kids to jolt forward a little and bump into each other. "You two will have to finish your lovers' quarrel later," she said, smirking. "I'm not finished yelling at you."

Ignoring their groans and protests, Misato ushered them back into her office. She turned her back on them in order to seem more gruff and intimidating, a tactic she'd learned from the Commander. This parenting stuff was really pretty easy.

As they reluctantly followed her to their seats, Shinji and Asuka both noticed something unusual on the back of Misato's jacket, glancing at each other for a moment before Asuka removed the yellow post-it note to get a closer look. It looks like the other ones from the contest, even down to the stupid rhyming phrases, but..how'd it even get here?

"Misato, you've got a--" Shinji spoke up, interrupting her thoughts.

"Shh! Shinji, let's go!"

Asuka dragged Shinji through the door by his shirt collar, as Misato shouted after them before sighing and slumping back into her seat. Fine then, she thought. I'll take care of this public relations nightmare sooner rather than later, and I can punish them afterward. They can't possibly make more of a mess, can they?

***

"Ugh, what a dump. You sure this is the right spot?"

Shinji looked around the apparently abandoned field, unfolding the small sheet of paper from his pocket as he and his redheaded companion approached what appeared to be an old toolshed, and began reading off the clue that had been printed on it. "Well, let me see, uhm.. 'True, blue, dribble, dreven; pick up this pay-phone at a quarter to--"

"Shut up and let me see that!" Asuka scowled as she ripped the page out of his hands, stopping in her tracks to take a closer look at it. Narrowing her eyes in concentration, the girl pushed a few buttons on her cell phone, which chirped along happily as she checked their GPS coordinates before deciding that they were, in fact, in the right place. "Yep, this is the spot alrigh-- Wait, be quiet for a second.." She turned her attention to a man's voice nearby.

It sounded familiar. Suave and mysterious, and adorned with a certain resignation—perhaps even a sadness—that seemed somehow out of place from what she had come to expect in it.

"..truth is with you; don't hesitate. If I can see you again, I will say the words that I could not say eight years ago..."

Turning the corner around the shed, Asuka gasped audibly as she saw the long-haired 30-year-old standing inside an open phone booth, a phone held to his ear. The man's eyes widened as he looked back at the girl, for a moment allowing his eyes to show an absolute horror he knew she could never understand, before attempting to brace himself for the inevitable running leap into his arms.

"Kaaaji!"

The pay phone dropped from his hand, suspended inches above the ground by its cord, as Ryoji Kaji flinched from the sudden contact. This was the last place he expected anyone to find him. Not now..not like this. This phone message would almost certainly be his last; how could he face the girl who had looked up to him as a guardian? The girl who he knew he was leaving behind?

She looked up at him pleadingly. "Kaji, we've got to use this phone! It's for the Super Megason!"

As Shinji approached, having watched the scene from afar, Kaji set Asuka gently back down and attempted to put on a casual mask, stepping outside the booth to greet them. "H-hey kids...the super-who? What are you two doing out in an old place like this?"

"We, uh..we didn't exactly expect to run into you here, either, Kaji.. Asuka and I wer--"

"We're..um, we're playing a game! I'm winning, of cours--"

"What? Asuka, I th..I thought we were working together now--"

Kaji held out his palms, in hopes of slowing them down for for an actual, coherent explanation. "Kids, kids, wait..what are you actually doing here?"

Asuka fished around in her pocket for the paper containing the clue, unfolding it and holding it out for the ponytailed man to read. "We're expecting a phone call, Kaji...see?"

Kaji squinted at the poorly-written rhyme. "You're really doing this, Asuka? It seems kind of childish, don't you think? 'True, blue, dribbl--"

"Fff-- jus..just forget about the stupid note," she groaned, stuffing the page back into her pocket. "They could be calling us any second! We might already be too late, even! We need to use the phone! Pleeease, Kaji?"

Kaji pulled the phone up by its cord and set it back on the hook, sighing in resignation before he gestured to the phone booth, stepping away from its door. "Alright, alright. It's all yours."

Taking the cue, Asuka stepped into the tiny phone booth and was followed closely by Shinji, who shortly became the recipient of a few choice words regarding the propriety of the location of several of his limbs and even, in one case, an internal organ. The phone rang just as the boy finished contorting himself into what Kaji figured must have been an incredibly uncomfortable position, and Asuka put the receiver to her ear while Shinji attempted to listen in.

After a few moments of quiet crackling, a deep, electronically-altered voice came over the line, enunciating its words slowly and intently as though the speaker was attempting to communicate through a bucket of molasses.

"You have come far, but there are many more stops... Your next clue lies at Ted's Ice Cream Shoppe. Ted's Ice Cream Shoppe is a registered trademark of Hormel Foods, distributor of the official cheese-filled snack of Nascar. All rights reserved. This has been an automated call performed by GameWang Magazine on behalf of The Super Megason Corporation. The Super Megason Corporation is not associated with Hormel Foods, the Standard Oil Trust, Major League Baseball, or the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea. Fun to play with, not to eat. Game pieces do not actually talk. Ask a parent before--"

Asuka clicked off the receiver and dropped the phone to the ground, shoving Shinji out of the doorway as she turned to Kaji, stepping out of the booth. "Well, that settles it! Shinji and I are going for ice cream."

"You two going for a date?" Kaji smirked, raising an eyebrow, eliciting a squeak and a blush from the girl.

"N-no, of course we're not!" she hastily denied, forcing a laugh, "Like I'd ever go on a date with that idiot...even if he is kind of c-- You know, Kaji, why don't you come along?"

The man shook his head sadly, trying to put on a smile for Asuka's sake. "I'm sorry, I couldn't possibly.. I've got important things I need to be attending to."

Mustering up her best pouty face, Asuka continued, "Come on, Kaji! It'll be great, you can do that stuff some other time... I mean, I uh..I need someone strong like you around to keep Shinji from trying to rape me!"

"You needing protection from him? Really, Asuka? That doesn't sound like the strong, self-sufficient girl I know at all!"

"I'd sooner attempt raping an electrical socket," Shinji quietly offered.

"You wha-- wait a..." Shaking her head, she continued her cries of protest. "Come on, please, Kaji? We haven't gotten to spend nearly enough time together recently..."

Kaji sighed, realizing that in all likelihood there was no way he would be getting out of this. "...fine, I'll tag along if it'll keep you kids from killing each other."

***

"Lousy kids these days, with their i-Pods and Gamerstations and their...becoming God," Subcommander Kozo Fuyutsuki muttered to himself as the imposing Seele monoliths vanished from their positions around him with a metallic thud. The room he was in was cold and drafty, and the hard metal folding chair he was seated on hurt his posterior. Having rarely sat down since becoming Ikari's Subcommander, he had forgotten just how uncomfortable a poorly-manufactured chair could be.

Fuyutsuki wasn't worried...well, not a great deal, anyhow. After all, Ikari surely would not let his second-in-command disappear without a trace. Agent Kaji was probably on his way now. Then again, the Commander might not have have noticed his absence as of yet; Pilot Soryu had been living in Japan for six months, yet the Commander still referred to her as "the red one."

_________________
A Terrible Flood - Cumulonimbus antagonistic debut album (2007)
Seventeen More Times - Followup album coming someday

NGE: The Cutting Room Floor, a fanfic by Lucretius and myself about the inevitable insanity of the off-days we didn't get to see.

The EGF version is more like "Shinji, an evil transsexual rapist who is incapable of love, learned nothing from his experiences and died as soon as the credits rolled." - Lucretius

Seele00TextOnly · Posted: Mon Jun 14, 2010 12:40 am Post subject:

Awesome

_________________
NAveryW: This thread is horrible. I don't like Eva anymore.
esselfortium: Anno was Smugleaf and now we banned him. There's a metaphor in there somewhere.
Eric Blair: Anyway, this has nothing to do with the FFS review, just wanted to bring a whole new context of subtext to the intext and leave...text...

esselfortium · Posted: Thu Jun 17, 2010 11:34 pm Post subject:

Shinji shook his head at his redheaded roommate. She had welded herself to Kaji's side, skipping and singing a song to the effect that she was with Kaji-san. She can be really childish sometimes for a girl with an IQ of 250, Shinji mused.

Kaji ignored the loss of circulation in his right arm as Asuka clung to his side, pulling him along the sidewalk in the direction of Ted's Ice Cream Shoppe. A thought tickled in the back of his mind that there was someplace important he was supposed to be, but he couldn't quite recall what it was. It must be the stress getting to me.

The ponytailed man was jolted out of his thoughts by a squeal from Asuka. "We're here, Kaaaaji-saan! This is the ice cream shop!" Kaji turned to see a white storefront covered by a red and white striped awning. A large mechanical ice cream cone spun in front of the door; it was guarded on either side by two plastic candy canes standing sentry.

Kaji smirked at Asuka's enthusiasm. "Well, I hope you and Shinji-kun find what you're looking for."

"We still don't know what we're actually supposed to be looking for in here," Shinji noted.

"Huh? Shinji?" Asuka turned her head, loosening her grip on Kaji's forearm. "Oh, hey dorkface. Forgot you were there," she giggled.

Shinji rolled his eyes a little. "Thanks, Asuka."

"Oh, come on, Third." Asuka looked through the display window into the store interior, consisting of a circular ordering counter in the center of the room with several plastic cushioned red booths lining the walls around it. "It's not that big of a place; this should be an easy one."

Asuka tugged him into the ice cream shop while still remaining fused to Kaji's side, causing Shinji to stumble a little and grip a candy cane for support.

"C'mon, Third, help me scout the terrain," Asuka said, finally plying herself free from Kaji and shooting him a final, longing look.

Kaji pulled a cigarette out of his pocket, lighting it with a secret button located on his wristwatch and drawing yet another admiring squeak from Asuka. "I wouldn't mind buying you kids ice cream, you know, even though it looks like Katsuragi's been feeding you enough," he said, nodding at Shinji's stomach and winking, earning a confused look from the boy.

"Well, we should be looking for clues, but...ooh, ooh, I want the Swirly-Blasted Chocolate Cookieruption!" Asuka said, looking at the menu and grinning widely.

"Um...I guess I'll just have regular vanilla," Shinji mumbled uncertainly.

"Such a boring little boy," Asuka said, sticking out her tongue.

Shinji groaned. "Fine, I'll get the, uh..what's the one with..you know, the one with the dragon tattoo."

Asuka tilted her head sideways. "Shinji, I have no idea what you're talking about."

Kaji gave Asuka a condescending pat on the head and got in line to order their ice cream while Asuka and Shinji sat down at a booth by the window. "Okay, Third, we need a game plan," she said, tenting her fingers as a determined grin spread across her face. "You should do a dance or something to distract the cashier while I check the ice cream machines for clues."

"What? I'm not doing that. Besides, we don't even know where the clue is."

"Yeah, I know. I was just seeing if I could actually get you to do it," she giggled, playfully poking the tip of Shinji's nose with a plastic spoon taken from the table.

Kaji found their booth a minute later and sat down next to Shinji, handing the children their respective ice cream choices, a plain vanilla cone for Shinji and a bowl of ice cream for Asuka that resembled a violent industrial accident at a firework factory. Asuka eagerly began engulfing the mounds of sprinkles and golfball-sized chunks of cookie dough, while Shinji licked his cone demurely. Kaji took a drag on his cigarette and considered reciting a cynical-yet-cool aphorism, but then thought better of it.

Lifting another spoonful of sprinkles into her mouth, Asuka looked up to see Shinji widen his eyes and emit a pained rasping, heaving noise from across the table.

"Can't...breathe," Shinji choked out, dropping his ice cream cone onto the table. Kaji immediately pulled Shinji from his seat into a standing postion, put his arms around Shinji's stomach and pushed until a hard, round, phlegm-covered object flew from Shinji's mouth onto the table.

Asuka curled her lip. "That's revolting, Third."

Shinji slid back into the booth, holding his chest and panting heavily, nodding as Kaji asked him if he was alright. Asuka glanced briefly in Shinji's direction before renewing her commitment to her gigantic sundae.

Glancing across the table and narrowing his eyes at the metallic pog Shinji had choked on, Kaji considered the possibility of an attempt on the pilots' lives before looking more closely and recognizing that there appeared to be some sort of text printed on it, recalling the contest the children had mentioned. These prizes are really getting absurd.

Wiping the object down with a napkin, Kaji picked it up and read aloud, "Your quest continues after this delicious treat; the following clue awaits at the corner of Third and Tokugawa Street. This what you were looking for, kids?"

Asuka's face lit up. "It's the clue! Great job, Third!" she exclaimed, smiling.

Shinji blushed. "Well, I mean...I didn't really...er...never mind." It was nice to get approval from Asuka for once, even if it was for nearly choking to death on a pog.

Asuka finished her bowl a short while later, and the group exited the ice cream shop.

Standing with them on the sidewalk in front of the shop, Kaji smiled at the two. It's good to see them getting out and being able to act like kids for once. "I should get home and let you two go on your way," he said, much to Asuka's protests. "Try not to make too much trouble," he grinned, as he turned to leave.

"Kaji-san's so cute!" chirped Asuka, once the older man was out of earshot. "Why can't he see that Misato's all wrong for him?" she sighed, before bringing her attention back to the task at hand and nudging Shinji along in the direction of the Tokugawa-Third intersection.

***

Fuyutsuki squinted through his blindfold, but could make nothing out except a dim yellow light emanating from above. He thought he could smell baked dough..perhaps marinara sauce, but of course Seele had drugged him several hours earlier and his senses were unreliable. He scratched his chin in frustration. In the old days when he was always surrounded by a posse of unkempt graduate students, this could never have happened. Wait...had he just scratched his chin? Fuyutsuki suddenly realized that his hands were not tied, and furthermore, there was nothing holding him to the chair. He stood up and tore off his blindfold with a contemptuous grumble about the declining quality of cult membership. Fuyutsuki took a moment to straighten his collar and adjust his shirt sleeves; as Nerv's Subcommander, he was obligated to keep up appearances.

Glancing at his surroundings, the Subcommander saw stacks of cardboard boxes, a row of metal folding-chairs atop a push-cart, and a short man with a Roman nose holding a pepperoni pizza the size of his head.

"Herr Lorenz, I presume?" said Fuyutsuki in an even tone. After teaching biology for decades, living through Second Impact, and sending adolescents in fetish gear to fight aliens shaped like clocks and dildos, not much fazed the Subcommander anymore; still, there was a hint of fear in his voice that embarrassed him. "You look shorter than I remember. Did you always wear a chef's hat?" A horrifying thought struck Fuyutsuki: Was this Seele's infamous human-pizza fusion laboratory? He had hoped and prayed that it was only an urban legend.

Fuyutsuki frowned upon realizing that there had been no reply from Seele's Chairman. Come to think of it, he didn't seem to breathing, either. He poked Lorenz gently with his forefinger, narrowing his eyes as the German Chairman fell backwards and hit the floor with a hollow sound. Kneeling, Fuyutsuki saw that the man he had been talking to was a cardboard cutout with the words "Luigi's Pizza" emblazoned on his chest, and did not greatly resemble Herr Lorenz, either.

Unable to make sense of this new data, Fuyutsuki staggered to the door, clutching his forehead and trying to ignore his splitting headache. Surprisingly, the door was unlocked. Peering through the doorway, he saw only a halo of white light, his eyes reeling from the contrast to the darkness within the storeroom. Fuyutsuki heard a rough, gravelly voice calling to him from the other side and stopped in his tracks, his blood turning to icicles in his veins. Seele had caught him after all.

"Stop right there! Where do you think you're going?" the voice snarled.

"Ah! I was just..um..."

"Where are you going without trying Luigi's Delicious Pizza?"

His eyes having finally adjusted to the fluorescent lights, the Subcommander saw that he was standing in the middle of a perfectly ordinary pizza parlor. The man addressing him with the voice of a hardened serial killer was a store mascot wearing a plush pepperoni costume. All around him, scantily-clad teenagers were chatting at booths or playing on one of the ancient arcade machines that lined the wall. Damn youngsters...

"I said, where are you going without trying Luigi's Delicious Pizza, sir?" the mascot continued to growl.

"Oh! I uh...I'll take a whole pie to go, please," said Fuyutsuki, not quite unconvinced that the man was a Seele agent. After all, they must use this place as a front...

The pepperoni man slipped behind the cash register and handed Kozo a pizza box made semitransparent with grease. Unwilling to tempt fate any further, Kozo pulled out all the money in his wallet, plunked it down on the counter, and sprinted to the door, still cradling the pizza box.

Outside, Fuyutsuki ran until he was clear of the restaurant, not daring to look back. He found himself in a dirty, smoke-colored alley between two garbage bins and stopped to catch his breath, clutching his chest with one hand and balancing the pizza box in the other. He was far, far too old for this.

Just when his lungs had ceased to burn, Kozo heard a voice like sandpaper coming from the other side of the alley. He turned his head and saw the pepperoni mascot, half-concealed in shadows from an adjoining apartment high rise and flanked by two men wearing black suits and dark sunglasses.

"Sir, you forgot your change," said the pepperoni man, chuckling hoarsely. The two men in black cracked their knuckles and pumped their fists.

Kozo sighed wearily; it was probably time to think about retirement.

_________________
A Terrible Flood - Cumulonimbus antagonistic debut album (2007)
Seventeen More Times - Followup album coming someday

NGE: The Cutting Room Floor, a fanfic by Lucretius and myself about the inevitable insanity of the off-days we didn't get to see.

The EGF version is more like "Shinji, an evil transsexual rapist who is incapable of love, learned nothing from his experiences and died as soon as the credits rolled." - Lucretius