Neon Genesis Evangelion Fan Fiction ❯ Practice ❯ Pilots and Parkour ( Chapter 7 )

“So how'd you start doing parcore?” Shinji asked, stumbling over the unfamiliar word.

“`Parkour'.” Motowa corrected automatically. “It's a French word. Anyway, like I said, my friends do it. I saw it as a good supplement to my gymnastics training, and it kind of snowballed from there. Aha, here's something I can demonstrate on.” She said suddenly.

Shinji blinked. “Where?” He stopped and looked around to locate what Motowa was talking about, his eyes coming to rest on the railing that Motowa had grabbed with both hands.

“Here.” Motowa said, slapping the metal once. “In addition to simply jumping off of things, parkour uses railings extensively. You can vault over them...”

Motowa swung sideways over the railing with a seemingly unnatural ease, landing without a sound facing the opposite direction. “Or jump on top of them and walk...”

Motowa used some leverage technique to curl into a ball and land on the railing, still holding onto it with her hands. “I'm not going to show you now, but I'm not too bad at walking around on railings. These shoes really don't work for parkour, you need cross-trainers. Like the ones you have on.”

Shinji looked down at his well-worn running shoes. “Anyway, that's most of the stuff I can show you on railings without risking injury.” She said, popping up like a spring and jumping backwards, doing a one-eighty in the air and landing almost soundlessly.

“That was very graceful.” Shinji complimented as they resumed their walk towards the above-ground entry point to NERV.

“Thank you, I try to be.” Motowa replied as they stopped at a traffic light.

Shinji looked across the street and saw that Rei was standing at the other side of the street. “Hey, there's Rei-chan.” Motowa said.

Shinji blinked. Nobody had used that honorific with Rei's name, as far as he knew. He watched the light change, then walked across the street. “Hello, Ikari, Shimano.”

Both teens were familiar with Rei's somewhat impersonal demeanor, and knew that her greeting was the equivalent of someone else's tackle-glomp. “Ohayo, Rei-chan!” Motowa said.

“Ohayo, Ayanami.” Shinji followed.

Rei blinked at Shinji as she fell into step beside him, keeping him in the middle between her and Motowa. “If you wish, you may call me `Rei-chan'.” Rei said in her usual quiet tone.

“Oh. Um, thank you, Rei-chan.” Shinji replied.

He wondered idly if he would have gotten the opportunity to call Rei that if he hadn't known Motowa, who seemed to be closer to Rei than most. She hasn't had any friends that I know of, unless I count myself and Asuka. Shinji thought. I wonder how Motowa came to know Rei so well. I'll ask her later.

“Have a good day?” Motowa asked Rei.

To Shinji's surprise, Rei answered. “It was agreeable. I believe I scored 100 on the Trigonometry test.” Rei said with a barely-noticeable hint of warmth in her voice.

“Wow, that's amazing Rei-chan!” Shinji said.

Rei turned to look at Shinji, who gulped at the sudden attention. He tried to read the impassive look on Rei's face, but couldn't. She spoke after looking at Shinji for a few more seconds. “It was not unexpected. Trigonometry is my best subject.”

Rei looked ahead again, and Shinji wondered whether the First Child had simply informed Shinji of the facts, or whether she was offended by what Shinji said. I never saw her mad... except when I insulted Gendo in front of her. After a while, Shinji finally decided that Rei was just informing Shinji of the facts. She wasn't annoyed at him.

Motowa noticed how Shinji fell into an uncomfortable silence when Rei set her bottomless red eyes on him. Don't worry, Shinji, Motowa thought with a mental smirk, You'll get used to her eventually. “There it is.” Shinji said as the large white building bearing NERV's logo came into view.

“Aha, so there's where it is. It's actually not far from my house.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I live just over there. You see that bluish-colored apartment building over there?” Motowa pointed to a tall, thin building several blocks to the left of the NERV structure. “I live just a couple of houses down from that, in one of the bungalows surrounding it.”

“`Bungalow'?” Shinji asked, unsure of the meaning of the word.

“It's a term for a one-story house.” Motowa explained.

“Ah.”

They reached the entrance to NERV headquarters and the two pilots automatically reached for their access cards. “I'll see you both at school tomorrow.” Motowa said, stopping at the sidewalk while Rei and Shinji continued to walk towards the swipe stations.

“Bye, Motowa! See you tomorrow! Shinji turned around and waved, walking backwards for a few steps before turning around again.

“Goodbye, Motowa.” Rei said simply without turning around.

Both pilots swiped their access cards at two of the stations in unison, and the doors hissed open to admit them into the building. Ibuki Maya was leaning against the wall, and when she saw who is was gaining entry to the building she pushed off of the wall and walked towards them. “Hello, Ibuki-san.” Shinji said automatically.

“Hi, Shinji. I'm here to brief you a little on what to expect from this test you're about to take part in.”

Shinji blinked. “It's not a simple harmonics test?”

Maya shook her head. “No. I would give you the lecture about how Eva technology needs to keep changing to better fight the angels, but Sempai will probably tell that to you herself.”

“So what's different about this test?”

“It's-- oh, good timing, Asuka, you're just in time for the mini-briefing.”

“Good, I wouldn't want to be left in the dark.” Asuka said, striding confidently up to the two pilots and NERV technician.

The group started to walk to the long escalator that took them down to Central Dogma. “Anyway, like I was saying, this isn't a normal synch test. We're going to be monitoring all of the readings we normally do without the plugsuits giving us interference in the process. Also, you'll be testing a new autopilot system in the Pribnow Box, which will require an extensive decontamination process.”

“Just what I wanted to do today, run around butt-naked after going through the wash cycle seventeen times...” Asuka said dryly as they continued their descent into the operating centre of NERV.

---

Yes, this is the “Liliputian Hitcher” episode. This is a bit of a turning point, as I've now intertwined Practice with the actual storyline. All it really means is that I now have to tiptoe around the plot of NGE a bit, but considering that I have around nine months to play with (according to Death and Rebirth, anyway) I should be fine for cramming a whole lot of Shinji/Motowa plot development into the series.

There may be changes in the Angel battles from now on, some of them may go exactly like they go in the anime, I'm not sure, but you can assume anything I haven't explicitly changed, hasn't changed.

Oh, and I'd like to thank the readers for making this my most popular fic of any I've published on FanFiction.net or MediaMiner.org. Guess that means I'm doing something right.