Hey Baby [AsuShin]

by moritheil

Summary:

Shinji blinked, unused parts of his brain rapidly coming online. His sleepy grin receded, replaced by mounting panic. All of him was awake now, including parts he hadn’t thought would wake up. He squirmed in his uniform-standard trousers.

Asuka fidgeted rapidly. “I — I — I — “ she hyperventilated. She was clutching her skirts. Did she have a similar crisis?

A twist on GForce4's sweet and romantic AsuShin fic in two parts. Any errors, misspellings, etc. are mine.

Notes:

• Inspired by Emergency Lodging by GForce4

Chapter 1: Emergency Mode

“Hey Baby, let’s fuck.”

The vulgar rejoinder, once unthinkable in modern Japan, was plastered everywhere. Abe Shinzo’s campaign to increase the Japanese birth rate after the Second Impact was relentless. On TV, models sold bananas for grocery stores while mouthing the slogan as if it were a catchy meme, and host clubs had started greeting office ladies with the line. It certainly helped set the mood they were aiming for, and its ubiquity in government communications meant they couldn’t be formally charged with obscenity.

As far as memes went, Shinji much preferred Pen-Pineapple-Apple-Pen. Not that anyone asked him. He was still musing on this with the glacial intensity of a cow chewing its ruminant when Kensuke and Touji started babbling about checking out some card store. He was saved from having to think up a reply when Kensuke cut his friend off with “Maybe next time,” and they beat a hasty retreat.

Odd. I didn’t think my social battery was that low. A social battery? When had he started calling it that? Was piloting the Evangelion, with its reliance on a power cable and short internal battery life, making him think of his whole life in those terms?

His feet kept moving as he devised a simple plan. Leave school. Go home. Sleep. Really, this was the best way to deal with a low battery, or, he was beginning to suspect, most of life’s problems. He stepped forward, into the jelly-like haze of summer. On the Internet, some said that Japan was not tropical, but he believed those people had never had to endure a full Japanese summer. His eyes slid over the ubiquitous Hey Baby posters, which lined any and all approaches to the train station.

“Hey, don’t leave me behind, idiot!”

That voice was familiar. Shinji shivered involuntarily. That voice haunted both his darkest nightmares and deepest fantasies. In fact, he had awoken that morning, sticky, and — and he should probably say something.

“What was that about? Are you trying to ditch me? Don’t get me wrong; watching you blow off the stooges was fun. It means you have something in that dense head of yours… What do you have to say about all this?”

Say something.

His lips moved on autopilot. “Hey Baby, let’s fuck,” he managed, a sleepy grin coming over his face.

Asuka turned bright scarlet.

“I — I — I was going to take us on a date first!” she blurted, then cringed. Clearly, she hadn’t meant to say that so openly.

Shinji blinked, unused parts of his brain rapidly coming online. Wait, for real? His sleepy grin receded, replaced by mounting panic. All of him was awake now, including parts he hadn’t thought would wake up. He squirmed in his uniform-standard trousers.

Asuka fidgeted rapidly. “I — I — I — “ she hyperventilated. She was clutching her skirts. Did she have a similar crisis? Did Asuka, teen genius, bombastic know-it-all, fiery redhead… want him?

Shinji quickly attempted to recall his emergency training. In case of fire, stop, drop, and roll. In case of flood, seek higher ground. In case of earthquake, take cover in a secure location and hold on until the shaking stops. In case of Asuka… well, maybe one of those would work? She was scarier than any force of nature.

Right! He should take stock of his inventory. Shinji reached inside his pockets, turning out his school ID card, his NERV ID, and his wallet. A quick fumbling in his backpack, and his fingers brushed the NERV-issued emergency pilot kit.

Shinji gulped. Well, this was an emergency. He tore open the kit.

He was rewarded with a high calorie ration bar, a mini compass, a pack of waterproof matches, two condoms, and a NERV Black Card. The Black Card would be accepted anywhere that had the card readers to accept credit cards. They weren’t supposed to be used, except in emergencies, but he had overheard Lieutenant Aoba talking to someone about how Misato had accidentally swiped the Black Card once on a night out drinking, and she was let off with a verbal reprimand and the cost coming out of her next paycheck. Shinji didn’t even use his paychecks.

Asuka looked at Shinji. “Is that…”

Shinji looked at Asuka. He firmly grasped the card, repacking the contents of the kit in his backpack. The condoms, he stuffed in his wallet. Asuka blushed again, but she had been blushing for minutes now. She had just watched Shinji strip down the NERV emergency field kit like he meant it, and loot it for all the items that could be used to have a good night out on the town. With her. He, who wouldn’t so much as season his meals with MSG if he was told it was unhealthy, had just defied NERV regulations. For her.

He reached for her. Tentatively, she reached back. Their first contact was electric, and both of them jerked their hands back.

Taking a deep breath, Shinji firmly reached out again, grasping Asuka’s hand near the wrist. Gently, he pulled her towards him, towards the station. She stumbled at first, then took increasing steps until she caught up to him, and pressed her body into his. She was warm, but strangely, he didn’t mind. They walked forward together, his arm around her. The corridor of Hey Baby posters watched them silently, waving like wheat in the summer wind.

He didn’t mind at all.

Notes:

After a pleasant exchange with GForce4, I was encouraged to post more in the AsuShin Fanfic Shuffle event. I thought I would try my hand at this work of theirs. I needed to rewrite the first chapter before adding one on, to make the pieces fit.

Chapter 2: Dance Like It's the End of the World

The production-series EVAs had been completed.

Black gliders circled overhead, cruel birds of prey that had briefly overlapped like a nine-eyed Angel of Death.

In NERV HQ, Fuyutsuki slammed his fist on the table. “All are equipped with the S2 engine! Isn’t that too much? Could it be… they want to initiate it here?” He spoke as if he knew exactly what the old men of SEELE planned. How much was he sure of? How much was conjecture? What had he heard from Kaji, near the end?

With a mighty beating of wings, the mass production EVAs landed. Trees, light poles, and road safety rails were crushed beneath their feet. The beings shed their wings, like angels condemned to walk the earth, and hefted their swords.

The mass production EVAs approached Asuka as a group, circling her. It was a nine-on-one matchup, and they leered at her like dirty old men. Shinji’s heart wrenched at he stared up at the screen. He had seen this before, in a very different screen. In videos Toji had offered him. A lone girl sitting on a couch, and four or five big, strong men…

“Mom,” he whispered under his breath, low enough not to be picked up by the audio channels. “I know you’re in there. I’ve never asked you for anything in my life. But Asuka — Asuka is — “

“Destroy them to the last!” yelled Misato.

“They’ve got S2 Engines?” asked Asuka. “All of them?” In her heart, she already knew the answer. This was a plot by SEELE, who already knew all their capabilities and had planned accordingly. They weren’t meant to win.

With a primal roar, Unit-01 flexed, shattering the Bakelite it was encased in. The massive Evangelion knelt, its entry plug ejecting without being externally commanded. It lifted a hand, and Shinji scrambled up.

An unexpected voice cut into NERV comms. “Unit 01: Standby.”

Asuka blinked. She knew that voice. “Shinji!” she yelled, a note of fondness coloring the word.

“I can’t let you fight alone,” said Shinji tensely.

“Of — of course not, dummy. Hurry up! I’ve been waiting on you!”

In the command center, Misato gave orders to launch the purple and green Evangelion, then clenched her fist. “Things are improving,” she muttered. “Unit-01 being online as well improves our odds, but against nine…”

“… It’s not enough,” Ritsuko finished for her. She, too, looked up at the giant monitors, carefully awaiting news of their salvation or damnation.

With a loud crash, a humanoid robot — a mecha, not an Evangelion — entered the battlefield. The orange and black robot boasted no rifle or progressive knife, but carried a massive hammer that looked as if it outweighed a car or truck. It had no power lines, but a giant cooling tank was prominent on its back.

Yet another voice cut into NERV comms. “Jet Alone 2: Standby.” Was that Professor Tokita of Japan Heavy Chemicals?

“Our program was rejected, but I persisted in improving the Jet Alone,” added Tokita, unable to resist explaining himself to the others.

“Excellent timing,” said Misato. “We’ll take you up on your offer of help! Configure the Jet Alone 2 Interface!” NERV techs scrambled to obey her orders.

“We won’t run away!” proclaimed Asuka. “There’s no way we can lose!” She reached for a weapon. There was one here she had trained with, at Euro-NERV…

Shinji, and the EVA-01, trailed her by a significant gap. Bits of bakelite stuck to the sides of the Evangelion. The EVA-01 hefted its pallet rifle, firing a long burst into the nearest mass production model, which reflexively lifted its arms to shield its face.

Yelling, Asuka ran forward, both hands of her EVA unit gripping a double-handled anti-material saw, bracing the weight against its body like a character in Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Her sudden charge, taking advantage of the instant Shinji stopped firing, took the mass production unit by surprise, and the buzzing blade punched through its torso. EVA-02 tilted, driving the blade down. Fragments of red crystal spilled out. Two halves of a mass-production EVA unit, joined only by a thin strip of material, fell to the ground. LCL splashed everywhere.

“One down,” observed Ritsuko.

A second burst of gunfire came, oversized bullets thudding into a unit that had approached EVA-02 from behind while it had been fighting. The bullets were unable to score decisive damage, but they did slow the enemy down enough for Asuka to wheel around with her blade in a wide, sweeping strike that was easily parried by the white mass production unit. Was that a grin on its face?

The grin was wiped out a second later, as Asuka dropped one of her EVA’s hands and came up with a nasty uppercut under the mass production unit’s guard. It staggered backwards, losing its sword, and she dropped the anti-material saw entirely, opting for a leaping knee that crushed the white EVA unit’s skull. The unit fell heavily, bleeding, its neck at an odd angle. In the command center, the display silently updated to 7 HOSTILES REMAINING.

“Misato!” yelled Asuka, as she picked up one of the heavy blades, then used it to sever the downed unit’s neck. “Play music!” Gritting her teeth, she reached a hand down the neck and inside the body, rooting around like a girl playing a particularly grisly carnival game. This was gross, but necessary. Time with Shinji had taught her to pay attention to details.

“Music?” asked the purple-haired commander incredulously. “Why?”

“Shinji and I need to coordinate! You can feed the Jet Alone Training Program Nine! Hurry!” EVA-02 brought a bloodied hand to its mouth. Ritsuko gasped, one hand over her own mouth in unconscious imitation. Perhaps not everyone was clear on what the gesture meant, but she knew.

“Well, the speaker feeds are still there,” muttered Misato, half to herself, before her voice returned to normal volume. “Fine; why not. All hands, patch Jet Alone 2 in, and broadcast music.”

“Are we using the Israfel fight music?” asked Maya.

“No; it’s a different fight. We just need something with an obvious beat. The pilots will improvise the rest.”

“I have music on my computer,” offered Aoba, and both Ritsuko and Misato held their tongues about violation of NERV regulations while he patched it in.

The thumping bass sounds of a rock song began to shake the air over Tokyo-3. Asuka smiled, memories of Shinji's battered old SDAT surfacing briefly. Good. This was one they both knew.

---

The thing with using giant outdoor loudspeakers meant to announce air-raids was, they had no real sound quality. Thus, while the beat was clear and the music was identifiable, it was heavily distorted.

“STEVE WALKS WARILY DOWN THE STREET WITH THE BRIM PULLED WAY DOWN LOW.”

Two mass production units closed on Jet Alone 2, while the remaining five lumbered towards the two Evangelion prototypes.

“AIN'T NO SOUND BUT THE SOUND OF HIS FEET; MACHINE GUNS READY TO GO”

Shinji fired another long burst, emptying his magazine into the head of the leading mass production unit. Asuka tried to follow up with a strike, but two other mass production units leapt forward, crossing their swords to block her downward blow. The first unit rallied, shaking its head in a humanlike gesture, and together the three units drove Asuka backwards.

Jet Alone 2 pounded away at the closest mass production unit. The mass production unit used its sword to deflect the first two strikes, but as the sheer mass of the hammer began to dent and warp the blade, it switched to projecting an AT field. Jet Alone, entirely robotic, had no capacity to generate an anti-AT field to challenge this. Its strikes began to slide off the barrier, doing no damage whatsoever. Misato couldn’t even say with any certainty that it was draining the unit of energy, as according to Fuyutsuki, it had an S2 engine. On the other hand, at least the unit was wholly tied up in defending.

“ARE YOU READY? HEY, ARE YOU READY FOR THIS? ARE YOU HANGING ON THE EDGE OF YOUR SEAT?”

Shinji discarded the Pallet Rifle smoothly, as a nearby building split apart to reveal a far more sophisticated giant rifle, bound by heavy power cables to the earth.

“OUT OF THE DOORWAY, THE BULLETS RIP, TO THE SOUND OF THE BEAT, YEAH”

He aimed and fired. The positron beam, a blinding blue-white stream of energy, cooked two of the three advancing units. Even their swords were ruined, dissolving into LCL.

“ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST! ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST!”

Asuka decapitated the third mass production unit of the trio before the blinding light fully faded. Oh yeah. Shinji hadn’t been sure about this choice of music at first, but he was into it now.

---

Keel Lorenz was perhaps the most powerful man in the world. As head of SEELE, and secret puppetmaster of the UN High Council, he regularly approved of expenditures that rivaled the budget of nations. Sometimes what he approved were the actual budgets of nations.

Naturally, as a very important man, Lorenz had a very nice fountain pen. The Mountblanc Stella Nova? The de Bethune? Please. Those were for commoners. Lorenz signed documents with a pen used by King Louis XIV, made by a French master craftsman’s shop that had been producing ink and pens since the 1600s. That pen was now broken, turned into expensive shards of gold and ivory.

“Nein!” he yelled, smashing his hands repeatedly on the table in front of him. That he had plans that were ruined was sometimes unavoidable. That a countryman of his, a redheaded half-German, heir to Aryan blood, was the pilot fighting off his mass-produced EVA units, was simply one of the ironies of working with a multinational conspiracy in an age of international cooperation.

But that they were killing his plans for the future to music by Queen? By that pathice Freddy Mercury? He had lost the data tap into NERV itself, but he still had access to the JSDF cameras, and they were recording the entire fight complete with hard rock musical accompaniment. Keel hated the fad of rock, which had risen from the darker races, and what it represented. He had not been this angry since the Ides of March claimed Gaius Julius Caesar.

“NEIN!” he screamed, with all his soul.

Keel’s microphone was off. His guards were not permitted in this room, the secret room in which he pretended to be a black stone monolith communicating with other black stone monoliths, meticulously planning the future of the world.

Keel screamed into the void. His temper tantrum had no audience but himself. He kept smashing bits of history into unrecognizable pieces, but he just couldn’t stop. And on the screen, fake Angels kept dying, and the beat rolled on.

---

The two remaining mass production EVAs facing the NERV Evangelions seemed less confident, somehow. Before, contemplating a 9-on-1 victory, they were grinning; Asuka would even have said they were leering, like excited predators. Now they seemed wary. Shinji had disengaged from the positron sniper rifle; it was only capable of one shot, and then its capacitor bank had to recharge. The two EVAs had not even taken any damage yet, and in less than a minute, the gory wreckage of five mass production units was strewn across the countryside.

Together, Asuka and Shinji crossed blades with the mass production units, driving them back against each other. The units faltered — they were not able to account for each other’s actions, having no experience of working as a group — and each of the two Evangelion pilots darted forward, driving a heavy blade into each of the mass production units.

Meanwhile, the second mass production EVA finally caught up with Jet Alone 2. Not waiting for the robot to stop hammering its partner, it delivered a heavy, overhanded blow with its blade that the Jet Alone was forced to turn to block. The first mass production unit wasted no time in lowering its field and stabbing the Jet Alone in its now-exposed arm. Sparks flew as metal sheared. The Jet Alone fought valiantly, but it was soon overwhelmed and disarmed.

A flying blade impaled one of the mass production units from behind, causing it to stagger and drop its weapon. Evangelion Units 01 and 02 dashed over at a full sprint, untethered to any cables. The resulting fight was swift, and brutal. The last mass production unit fought desperately, but it was no match for a coordinated attack by the two Evangelions that had already killed its brethren. Soon, it lay disemboweled, its core smashed.

Panting, Shinji looked around the battlefield. The Jet Alone was disabled, but as long as its N2 reactor was intact, the rest could easily be rebuilt. Strange, that Ritsuko — who had argued that the thing was ultimately useless without an AT field — and its creator, Professor Tokita, had both been right. It had managed to help save the world, despite not even having the means to harm an Angel.

“What’s next?” he asked over comms.

“We have to work on your stamina. When you get back home, I’m training you,” came Asuka’s voice.

"More training?" Shinji was tired. She was implying something, but what? "Can I at least know the kind?"

"Hey baby, let's fuck," quoted Asuka ironically.

Shinji flushed. “A-Asuka, everyone can hear you!”

She was silent for a moment. Then: “So what? We just saved the world, and more personally, we saved everyone at NERV from being killed by a bunch of cloned Angels. They won’t care if we celebrate.”

“Take as much time as you need,” confirmed Misato over the snickering of various NERV officers. “You’ve earned it.”

Shinji slumped in the entry plug. With how draining the fight had been, he wasn’t sure he could take being drained a second time… but he would be lying if he said he wasn’t looking forward to it.

---

Many things in life came in twos, Shinji reflected. There were two desserts on the counter. There were two used plates. Two sets of silverware, and two drinking glasses, sat on the table. A strawberry cheesecake sat in an open gift box, two slices missing. Two small rings, inset with red crystals, glittered in two presentation boxes.

Had it been two years since they started dating? He had lost count. Time spent working for NERV was counted in Angels, more than it was in calendar days or months.

Asuka lifted up his hand, sliding the ring on his second-to-last finger. “Sure you don’t want the collar, instead?” she asked with a lilt to her voice. “It would make you look different, and cool.”

“It would make me look like a fetish freak, you mean,” rejoined Shinji. “This is a perfectly good and traditional thing to wear. Even if the guy doesn’t usually wear an engagement ring, it makes sense for us.”

“Of course,” said Asuka. “We’re equals. Both Evangelion pilots; both heroes of humanity. Be proud, Shinji. No other man is qualified to call himself my equal.”

“I am proud,” he agreed, coming up behind her for a hug. His fingers interlaced with hers, and he slid the other ring over her finger, watching as it fit snugly in place. “I’m also really impressed you managed to convince the higher-ups to let us take some of the core shards.”

“Oh, there was so much chaos with the dissolution of SEELE and the arrest of the UN High Command for treason against humanity,” said Asuka, stretching. “I just figured they wouldn’t miss a few.”

“Hahaha, what?” said Shinji. Asuka smiled up at him. The old Shinji would have been scandalized about her breaking the rules, and maybe even attempted to argue or lecture her. They were changing.

Shinji snuggled in around her. “This is great. Is there anything else you want?”

Asuka paused. “Well, it’s not something additional you need to do, but there is something I want to share with you.”

“What is it?” Yes, they were changing. He wasn’t anxious or tense to hear that she had information he was missing. He was simply curious.

In answer, she produced a pink plastic stick. Two parallel lines were visible in a small, clear window near the end. Shinji gasped. Then he bent down, and kissed her.

Many things in life came in twos. There were two of them, man and woman, Unit 01 and Unit 02, water and fire.

And now, there would be another.

Notes:

Thank you for reading.

A few notes: pathice is an ancient, derogatory Latin term. Keel reverts to 2000-year-old slang when stressed. I thought him having some kind of personal animosity with Freddy Mercury would be funny, and round out his character.

Shinji is more confident and better socialised. This enables him to make friends with some of the Jet Alone crew. He figures out more of the secrets of the EVAs. This gives Yui a reason to break out of the bakelite sooner. Misato doesn't die saving Shinji because he saves himself. I included a strawberry cheesecake as a nod to GForce4, who has a Strawberry Cake fic collection.

Writing this combat out reminded me that I have to rewrite a combat scene in Ikaros Protocol.