Wow! First an amazing turnout for the Pre-Kon Bash, a huge number of Heretics at the con, and plenty of recognition, too! We got some new plugs, and a LOT of photos & video. Several autographs, too, but las, no celebrity interviews this year (too hard to track them down in a 1-on-1 environment. We had some newbies this year, and I hope they had a good time.

Special thanks to our dedicated camera crew this year, who gave up some of their time to tape stuff so the rest of you wouldn't miss it: Karsten, Nagasaki, and yes, you too Adol...after all, you did give up some time to be the obligatory Heretic in the audience for the camera :)

Not much to say for this month's introduction, since the newsletter itself should easily be long enough to satisfy. We're up to Part 5 of Scott Frazier's autobiography (remember, the whole thing is at http://www.sockfairy.com/mystory/). Hotwire's Eva fic, Together We Stand, continues this month with Chapter 1. (Remember, if you don't want spoilers, you probably don't want to read it for now) We've got 2 con journals, an inside look at con ops, and Karsten gives us tips on archiving conventions. No puzzles this month, but look for them again in our next issue. This month's issue will be sprinkled liberally with Project A-kon's quotes (we had almost 20 this year!) Yes, we have another Chuck & Charles cartoon for you. We also have a new feature -- Review/Counterreview, in which Chuck & Charles write about anime we've watched. I think you'll enjoy it.

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WHOO-HOO! CON GOODIES!

Story by Throkda Jones
Artwork by Hotwire

Great Quotes from Project A-kon 12

A Look Back at Fifteen Years of Madness and Adventure

by Scott Frazier

"Two roads diverged in a wood, I took the one less traveled by, and that made all the difference." -- Frost

Last month, Scott got his first anime industry job, even if it wasn't exactly for pay. Too bad he didn't get along with all his co-workers... And now, the continuation....

Tokyo is the most expensive city in the world to live in and my money reserves were soon depleted. I borrowed a lot of money from my family to stay alive but even then was only on a subsistence level. I ate little but instant ramen and bread for a three month period and ended up with a severe vitamin deficiency. (My skin started to turn gray.) At one point I was so broke and so hungry that I went to an area that I normally didn’t go near and cased a supermarket, found that the afternoon sun was very bright in the front windows and that it was almost impossible to see the outside of the store, then stole a bag of rice. I was really scared that somebody would catch me but nobody seemed to notice.

Dishwasher’s Guide to the Galaxy

The school helped me get a part time job washing dishes at a restaurant with the unlikely name of Samurai Steak. Actually, I washed in the yakitoria above the steak place but did the dishes for both. This was really nice because they fed me dinner (well, sort of a dinner) and I didn’t have to worry about not getting enough good food. Often, it wasn’t all that busy and I had a lot of slack time to write incredibly long letters to friends. The guy who ran the dining room upstairs was an OK guy but he was lazy and hardheaded. Any chance he could get he would offload work onto the kitchen staff—mostly me. He was a big believer in busy work so when he didn’t think I was doing something he would find something—usually annoying—for me to do. He was a real chauvinist too. When he would put in a drink order he would tell me to cut the women's’ drinks with water or only put half as much alcohol in them. I would wait until he wasn’t looking and mix them the right way. I figured that they should get what they ordered and paid for. There were little roaches all over the place and after months I finally discovered where they had a nest—under some shelf paper under the beer glasses. I told the dining room guy but he said not to worry about it. I wanted to get some bug spray but he refused to buy it with the company money. Eventually, I just pulled back the paper and let the roaches run to spite him but he just covered them up again. (Nobody ever sprayed it while I was there.) Eventually, there were three foreigners working there—three of the four in the animation/manga school. (One had a real job. I guess the manager there liked tormenting the staff by making them work with us.

The Great War of the Peeling Implements

One of the arguments I had with the dining room guy was about kitchen appliances. He and the main cook believed that labor saving devices like food processors, mixers and even potato peelers damaged the quality of the food. This was an utterly stupid concept to me. (It still is.) What difference there could be between sesame seeds ground in a power mill for 3 minutes and ones ground with a mortar and pestle (which takes an hour) by me is probably infinitesimal. (I’m guessing that this had something to do with that busy work.) I got really sick of peeling potatoes with a knife, which I’m terribly bad at, and asked for a peeler. The dining room guy refused and said that a knife gets better results. I challenged him to a peeler versus knife contest but he wouldn’t go for it. I did the contest myself and found that the peeler (which I ended up buying myself) leaves up to 25% more potato per bucket. Eventually he gave in and they would buy a new peeler when the old one would break. They never did buy a garlic masher though so I had to mince garlic cloves on a hand shredder thingee the whole time I was there. I still have the scars on my fingertips.

If nothing else good can be said about the experience, it was a good way to see Japanese society in action. It wasn’t a particularly large place and it would fill with salarimen after their companies closed for the day. They would smoke and drink and yell and laugh. Common belief, particularly among the writers of books about Japan, is that the Japanese get drunk and act crazy because this is the only way they can blow off steam due to the stress of rigid working conditions. There is some truth to this but it's more ignorance of knowing any other way to let off steam and because they just plain like to get drunk because it feels good. Peer pressure has a lot to do with it and group drinking is the norm. (For those in the US, it's a lot like high school and college—where you weren't cool if you didn't drink. Except there's no growing out of this.) Times are different than when there was nothing to do but booze it up or sit in the fields watching the moon. I find that Japanese people who don’t drink tend to have less problems with stress than those who do. My way of looking that things is that if you are forced to do something which you hate: QUIT! Go do something else! You make your life. Everything bad that happens to you happens because you want it to, because you set yourself up for it. (You don't see certain things as "bad" if you have the right mental attitude.) There are always multiple approaches to solving a problem. If you can't find a solution to a problem it's not because there isn't one but because you haven't looked in the right place for it or refuse to accept the alternatives that seem strange or "wrong" to you. You are the only one who can solve your problems! I hear people moan and groan about being in dead-end jobs and living in lousy apartments and such and such and I often say, "Then why don't you quit and move to a different city or get a better job?" "I can't! I don't have enough education/ money/ energy/ intelligence/ whatever to do that!" My response? "Well, I guess you're already most of the way to being dead so why don't you just kill yourself and finish it?" Mean? Unfeeling? Nasty? Cynical? Maybe. If you aren't willing to apply radical solutions to your problems then you have been beaten.

(to be continued....)

Through the Eyes of a Con Newbie

Narr's Project A-kon 12 Journal

Thursday- May 31, 2001

OH MY GOD!!! What the HELL was I thinking? Oh wait, no, that comes later, like around 2:00 on Saturday when I realized I was parodying my daughter's fave anime character talking about pussy. But I jump ahead too quickly. It all began.(dramatic creepy music)...at Jacob and Angela's house....

OK, so I'm dramatic, but hey! I had a blast! Thursday was the Pre-Akon party, and it was soooooo fun. I got there a little late, because Angela and I got our nails done (woohoo, girlie!!) Grabbed a burger and sat back on the stool to catch up with Eric (the Bitch Heretic) whom I hadn't seen in ages. Glad to see he's as cool as ever. The party continued, I met everyone from Austin who trekked up (or is it over) for this awesome event known simply as "A-kon", and Danny, and C-ko. Woohoo!! What a crew! You all ROCK!!!!! (But more on that later)

Somehow all of the females at the Pre-Akon party got duped into this voice acting gig. I don't know what's more surprising, the fact that I did it, or that I had fun and would like to do it again. Ya know, REALITY! Anyway, the voice acting thing was a blast, and so was the party. I just wish I hadn't been so damn tired.

Friday, June 1, 2001

I slept for the most part once Adam and I got to the Kon. I was so zonked. Then I got up and we went down to the Dealer Room. WOW! All that cool stuff!! I wore half my Black Queen costume, (didn't have a chance to get the opera gloves, and quite frankly, it was too hot for the cape)Walked around for a bit, not that really interested at the time. I was getting used to wearing my corset. Guys, do NOT try this at home. Unless, of course, I A) get to help you get it on, or B) get to take the incriminating photos used later as blackmail. I was both ecstatic and yet depressed in the Dealer Room. Ecstatic because there was ALL KINDS of transformer and Sailor Moon (for Shiloh) stuff, depressed because it was all at import prices. *note to self**ALWAYS BRING LOOOOOOOOOOOOTS OF CASH TO KONS* Met up with Jacob and Angela, and headed up to their room, then headed over to the Opening Ceremony. We were the first ones in line...wooohooooo!!! Well, actually, I guess that would be Marcia, Andrew and Adol, but hey! You know what I'm saying. :) We're all Heretics here, so it's cool. :) That was where we got one of our memorable quotes. Being on the corner is awesome, people come around it and you can yell, "Hey you! Up against the wall!" Course this was to take the pictures of the costumes. So much thought people put into these things. I will now say that I am a HUUUUUUUUUUGE Miotismon fan (duh, I know I spelled it wrong) after seeing the one at Akon. WOWZERS!! I think the costumes are what bowled me over the most. That and my "Most embarassing kon moment", but that comes later. Although, (insert evil laugh here) this is where we got ANGELA'S most embarrassing kon moment. I needed to be retied/tightened in the corset, so Adam needed Angela's help getting the sides together. Jacob, ever the opportunist, just HAD to snap that shot. (This picture also figures into my most embarrassing moment as well, a little later)

Anyway, the opening ceremony was cool. I am a huge Vampire Princess Miyu fan, so the ballet performance was really fascinating to me. How the heck did they figure Miyu into a ballet? But I digress. The only thing that really bothered me was the translator the the Japanese guests. Hello, can we all say EGO? It was one of those deals where I wanted to just shoot the guy and listen to Oobari ramble in Japanese. The translator kept interrupting the hostess...grrrrrrrrrrrr. I have to admit that I was jealous at one point. Someone got to spank Steve Bennett for his birthday. Stevie, I gotcha next year, baby. (that's where we got another quote, but more on that later...that was a Saturday thing) The mentioning of the auction pieces went on FOREVER, and a lot of people left. Personally, I think the organizers should have let the Taiko drummers perform first. WOW. I mean...WOW. I could listen to that forever. Then again, my fave song off the Macross Plus soundtrack starts with the drums and chanting, so I guess it's not that surprising. After the opening ceremony, Adam and I were walking back to the Westin when we saw Steve Bennett getting into a car. I yelled," Happy Birthday Steve." and the next thing I know, he's over talking to me and Adam, making the people with him wait. We told him about where the parties were supposed to be, and he made a comment about my chest. Not a derogatory comment, just something about hanging out later. (This all ties into Angela and My's visit with him Saturday morning, stick with me here). I must say, that I really like Steve. He's a riot. And I like his style of drawing too. (somewhere in here I bought a knife to go with my Artemis Jones character, but boy, is THAT a long story) So anyway, Adam and I caught up with Jacob, Angela, Adol, and Nagasaki, and we all decided to go party-hopping. woohoo!!! (or so we thought) We went to Danny and Eric's party first, and quite frankly, we shoulda stayed there. No one was dancing anywhere else. It seemed kinda dead. Cool music at the one party, but it just didn't do anything for me. So we all eventually ended up back at Danny and Eric's room. (Is giggling) I'm telling you, there are some Heretics that are just so cuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuute when they're drunk. Eventually, Adam and I went back to our room and crashed. (what, you want THOSE details? Keep dreamin!!)

Saturday- June 2, 2001

Well, we got up, ate breakfast, and headed down to the Dealer Room. Angela and I decided to go shopping while Adam and Jacob went to do some manly guy thing. We stopped by the Ironcat table and said "Hi" to Steve. The conversation steadily digressed from there. I asked if he remembered me, and he said, "Ohhhhh yeah." I laughed and tried to make a joke about the corset haunting him, and his return was that," Honey, haunting me was the LAST thing that corset did." There ya have it Akon fans, MY most embarrassing moment of the kon. I just kinda blushed and shuffled off, rather embarrassed. Kept hoping a giant hole would suddenly appear so I could just DISAPPEAR. I found my Genma with a blank sign and took it back to Steve to sign as a momento (yes, I* have my masochistic moments). For those of you that don't know, Genma is Ranma's dad in Ranma 1/2. He turns into a panda when hit with cold water, and had to use signs to communicate. Steve put "I (heart) Steve" on the front and on the back, he wrote "I (heart) Narn (was my name tag really that hard to see???) and drew me as an anime character, with orders to email him ANYTIME. lol And no, I still haven't yet. Then I got a kiss goodbye. On the lips even. I wasn't expecting that. Affectionate guy. yeesh. Well, after that, I bought Shi a little Ryo-ohki bag, so Angela and I matched for most of the Kon. Oh, I REMEMBER!!! The guys were at the anime match game. Angela and I went back and caught up with them. I got Cory Gagne's autograph. For those of you that don't know, Cory was part of the the production team for the English dub of Nadia. He does a great drunk impersonation. We got another of our quotes from him. Someone answered a question with a comment about underwear, and the host told Cory that soon we would be looking for his. I don't know if I liked Cory's "You won't find them!" comment or his waggling eyebrows that accompanied it. After the anime match game we all went back for lunch, then went back to the Sheraton for the CDS Productions presentation of the dub that we did, plus the other ones we got a sneak peak of Thursday. Definitely an experience to see your daughter's idol on the screen, and yet it's YOUR voice that's coming out of the television as a contestant on "Who Wants to be an Anime Fan?, talking about eating cats as one of the rounds. It was fun though, I'd like to do it again sometime. Just NOT SAILOR MOON!!! lol

Then that afternoon we just kinda hung out and relaxed in our rooms, and then headed back to the Sheraton to get in line for the CosPlay, and DAMN!! We were an hour and a half early, and we were numbers 50-60!! So we stayed there for a couple hours, got in, and watched the CosPlay. The costumes were unreal!! I was so impressed. The best performance though was of Zidane (from Final Fantasy 9) and Silent Alex. It makes me laugh just thinking about it. And guess what?? He has a tail! (another one of our quotes) it was a great performance, but the best costume did go to Miotismon. Totally awesome. After the Cosplay, we tried to think of something to do, and we ended up on the third floor of the Westin, since Angela needed to get her foot wrapped, and I headed outside for some air. Damn, it was hot in the hotel. Well, then out came Adol, and then Adam, and before ya know it, Jacob and Angela, and then Adol, Adam and I were in the hot tub. Did I mention Adam and I were in our underthings? Everyone who was present remember the comment by the 10 year old regarding Adam's departure? the irony of that comment still humors me. Apparently Adol was the only one smart enought to be wearing his trunks under his jeans. (insert teasing growl here) wait a minute, that doesn't quite read right. Anyway!!!! Well, after that, we ended up running into our (My and Adam's friend) Clinton, and he hung out with us in our room for a bit afterward. Clinton, by the way, is a kickass hentai artist. Somehow he blends innocence with the art (especially the bestiality-type ones). Fascinating to me. How something so blatantly primal can still somehow have an innocent element. So, blatant plug for Clinton!!!! Well, Clinton finally left and about 2 secs later I was out like a light.

Sunday- June 3, 2001

Woke up this morning, got up, loaded the car, had an easy checkout, and had breakfast with Jacob, Angela, and Adol. Adol showed us the adorable matching Ryo-ohki he bought for his lady (collective "awwwwwwwwwwwww") and we reflected at the breakfast table about the weekend. (insert fave Heretic quote here) Then I ate too much and went to a really bad "how to promote your club" panel that sucked. No wonder I thought I was going to puke up all my breakfast. The only thing the guy talked about was a club on a college property. No independent ideas for independent clubs. Needless to say I fell asleep at one point, then we all bailed and continued to look around. At this juncture, I would just like to say that "Dance Dance Revolution" SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Compare that to "Bust-a-Move" (Bust-a-Groove in the States) and you'll see what I mean. Y-U-C-K-O!!!!! Personally, I was itching for a chance to play Bust a Move and shred some tail (not Zidane's) One of the vendor's had the soundtrack playing and she and I got into the discussion. So next year, con-organizers, if you're going to have a dance game, have either Bust a Move, or Sabado De Amigo. (Did I spell that right?) Two kickass games, if I say so. :)

So, finally we all decided to depart. We waved a tearful farewell to Adol, who had proved himself a worthy Heretic with his rapier wit, and ready camera abilities. (insert Sailor Moon wail here)

Adam and I ended up back at Jacob and Angela's with Karsten, Nagasaki, Marcia, and Andrew, where we decided to watch The Blue Seed, an awesome anime. Again, my allergies have kicked up and I need to get going, but I had some thank yous I wanted to say:

Thanks to Adam, for putting up with my PMSing self all weekend, and for loving me in spite of my shortcomings. I love you!!!

Thanks to Jacob, for hosting the Heretics, creating the Heretics, and recording the quotes of the Heretics. "Ya know, REALITY!!!" *see below*

Thanks to Angela, for listening to me, laughing with me, shopping with me, and going, "Ooooo, think we could take that home with us?" with me.

Thanks to Eric for making me laugh, and being his sweet adorable self. I swear, you ARE Captain Tylor!!!!

Thanks to Danny, for being such a sweetie, and taking care of me and Angela with the rum. wooohooo!!! Remember my name yet?

TO THE AUSTIN HERETICS I MET:

Thanks to Adol, for all the humor, wonderful laughter, and true rapier wit. Hey you taped some stuff too, didntcha? How long til the next Kon again?

Thanks to Karsten for taping as much as you did. I know that you did a lot of stuff behind the scenes, and that you still are. YOU ROCK!!
Hey wait, none of that is me, is it???????

Thanks to Nagasaki for all the taping he did as well, and all the laughter. Hey, we made it through our first kon...WOOOOHOOO!!!!!!

Thanks to Marcia and Andrew for their hard work and a great time!!

AND MOST OF ALL.....

Thanks to Steve Bennett, for an adorable Panda. I've been animized!!!

And in parting, I'd just like to say, "Steve Bennett is God!"- overheard at Akon.
"I wanna SPANK God."- Narr's response to overheard comment.

thanks for a wonderful time EVERYONE, and see ya all again soon!!!
ANIME HERETICS ROOOOOOOOOOOOCK!!!!!!

Behind the Scenes at Con Ops

Qeorita's Con Experience

Okay, I was only in there for about 20 minutes while I was getting medical attention, but I can now honestly say that I have a new apprieciation for the con staff.

While I was sitting in Con Ops, I learned a great deal. First off, it seems that some fan boy prankster stole a potted plant and a couch from the Sheraton hotel. I wonder if the plant in question was the one that was spotted taking a ride in the Westin elevator the following day!

Then there was the issue of finding the culprits who were putting up the posters announcing the streak through the lobby of the Westin hotel. They apparently caught someone putting up a flyer at the Sheraton, but I left Con Ops before I learned their fate.

Another neat thing that I learned is that have A-kon at 2 hotels was not Meri's ideal choice, but she did the best she could with what she had available. What people generally don't realize is, the price of the con tickets are largely based off of what the hotel charges to rent out all the rooms for the dealer room, the main programming room, video rooms, and panel rooms. Also, not all hotels are willing to give price breaks on rooms just because a convention is being held there. So I think that under the circumstances, Meri did an outstanding job in putting this year's A-Kon together.

Then, there was the issue of the dance. There was some serious miscommunication between the con staff and the Sheraton staff about who could attend. First the hotel staff insisted that everyone at the dance must have a con badge. The con staff said no, it was an event open to the public, and that the dance participants needed only a driver's license, or other proof of age. That mess finally got straigtened out. The dance was opened to the public in the end.

That's pretty much it for my little behind the scenes at Con Ops. Not many of the regular con goers get to see this. But now I know why the con staff always seems so stressed out. Give them a break and a hand in the future.

Tips for Archiving a Convention

by Karsten Sethre
ksethre@io.com

I'm going to focus on videotape, but several of these apply to still photos as well.

Plan what you will be archiving

As soon as the schedules are made available, get one, and plan what you will be taping. Also, check back at the info desk frequently to see if anything has been rescheduled. If there's more than one info desk, check all of them.

Leave some time between events

Unless two events are in the same room, allow at LEAST an hour between events.

Bring a tripod

Not having a tripod *SUCKS*, trust me. Get a relatively light one and carry it around in a backpack or something.

Bring at least two microphones

Sure, the camcorder has one built in, but if you want to be able to understand someone in a noisy room or more than a couple feet away, you'll want a shotgun mic, or a directional interview-style mic.

Bring headphones

Speaking of sound equipment, at least once during the con, the mic will get accidentally switched off or disconnected, and without headphones you may not notice until you're reviewing the footage later, far too late to do anything about it. With headphones, you'll always know if the camera is or isn't picking up what it should be.

Don't talk when you're holding the camera

Unless you're using an external mic that isn't mounted to the camera, it's guaranteed that whatever you're saying will be a lot louder than anything else, standing out far more than it should.

Have plenty of power for the camcorder

Few things suck as much as the camera suddenly turning off during a good pard due to lack of power. Be sure to have not just a long life battery, but also carry the AC adapter and a power strip to anything you'll be taping.

Have plenty of tapes

Get tapes, and get them in the longest time you can find. Switching tapes in the middle of an event sucks, and running out of tapes in the middle of an event sucks worse.

Get a wide-angle lens and know when to use it

These things are great, but you shouldn't use it all the time. They add distortion and sometimes cause some areas of the picture to lose focus, so don't use it unless you need to. When needed, though, they can save you a lot of trouble.

Get to events early, and don't wait in line

You won't get a good spot to tape if you get someplace late. However, you usually don't have to wait in line (for example, for the welcoming ceremony or the cosplay) if you have a camera or a tripod, so don't; go up to the front of the line, let them know you'll be taping it and ask nicely if you can go in early to set up. Remember to be nice, and be sure to ask where you can set up so you won't be in their way.

Never rely on auto-exposure

Know where the exposure control is on your camera, and be able to adjust it while looking through the viewfinder and in the dark. Lots of things will throw the exposure control off, for example white backgrounds, dark backgrounds, open windows, odd-colored lights, etc. Adjusting this manually means you will be able to see someone clearly, even if it makes most of the background pure white because they're standing in front of a window in the daytime.

Know when to use manual focus

Unlike auto-expose, auto-focus does work most of the time. However, when taping a video that is projected on a screen or shown on a notebook computer (don't bother trying to tape a TV screen, but projectors usually work), use manual focus, otherwise the focus will drift if the screen goes black, then spend a second or so out of focus when an image reappears.

Label your tapes as you record them

If you don't, you WILL regret it.

Throkda's A-kon 12 Journal

Whew! What a weekend! I had friends fly up on Memorial Day, stick around through the week, then the Pre-Kon Bash, the convention itself, then Show & Tell Sunday back at my place, and still guests on Monday while the tapes were recording. All in all, it was quite a social week for me -- I was so excited when people kept recognizing either the club or me at the convention...it seems our reputation precedes us. Well, where to start...how about...Thursday night.

THURSDAY 5/31/01

I skipped lunch so I could get home around 4pm instead of 5, and found that Karsten, Adol, and some guy in a black hat had made it up. I was introduced to Nagasaki, but couldn't stick around very long, as I had to take Aryanun and Andrew to the store for their weekend food.

When we got back, I saw a fighting game tourney going on in my livingroom, and opted to try once (I suck), before changing clothes, coming back downstairs, and convincing them to try Worms Armageddon. I'm happy to say that fighting games have their place, but a good 4-player game of Worms will beat any fighting game out as a party game, partly because the learning curve to doing cool stuff is a lot shorter, and there's always entertainment when an attack doesn't go off quite right, and you still get a cool explosion!

Around 6:00, Qeorita & Narr went off to get their nails done for the con, but the Worms game continued until around 7:30, when some more guests arrived, and I deemed it time to go ahead and start making the food....then I roped someone else into doing the cooking for me while I showed a couple newbies some prior A-kon footage (Sorry, Frank! :)

Delays here and there for some people, but the party seemed to kick into gear around 8:30, when most of the people arrived, ate, and started interacting with each other...but where was C-ko, our guest of honor? He finally showed up around 9:00, and in no time, he had several volunteers to do some voice acting for "Who Wants to be an Anime Fan?" Sure, I had to volunteer the first girl involuntarily, but after that, they all figured it looked like fun. (poor Narr, getting stuck with the long -- and embarassing! -- lines) I kept getting asked to read the lines for the girls to show them what kind of tone and attitude to use in their lines. At one point, C-ko actually lamented aloud that I wasn't a girl!

The night dragged on, people came and went, and we watched a bunch of C-ko's stuff, then some Excel Saga. Around 2:15, I went to bed, warning people that we'd be getting up in 3 hours, so we could get going by 6:30 and catch the free parking area while there were still spaces.

FRIDAY 6/1/01

Whoo-hoo! Con Day! Okay, I didn't quite spring out of bed, but once I took a shower, I was wide awake and ready to go. We took care of the last-minute packing, loaded the cars, and headed out. I had called for people's attention so I could tell them the basic route we'd be taking in case we got separated, and I tried to get them to pass out the walkie-talkies so we could make sure not to lose each other. All that, and I was still accused of trying to lose them on purpose! I wasn't even going the speed limit, and I only changed lanes a couple times...even then, I got stuck in traffic when we caught up to it. Overall, it was a pretty smooth trip, though. Of course, we did lose a couple people, but a quick cell-phone call took care of that, and we had a 5-car line of Anime Heretics vehicles in the parking lot. We decided that next year, we need some of that window paint stuff to just put "Anime Heretics" spread across the rear windshields of all the cars next year.

We get checked in just fine and find out my surprise was spoiled -- I had tried to get Karsten and I connecting rooms so we could have a 2-room Heretics suite. Oh well, maybe next year. After we get up to the rooms, I tried hooking up the VCR, only to discover that I had forgotten the A/V cables. As I found out later, that didn't matter -- up in the Austin room, they hooked it up and found there was no way to turn the TV to AUX. Luckily, they brought their own TVs.

We headed down to Registration and got ourselves setup, then started rounding people up to plan our first day of camerawork. After that, we got moving to join the con! By 10:30am, I already had one disk full. I still hadn't caught on to what the whole Bring Your Own Monkey thing was all about, but I did find out you could go to the A-kon T-shirt table, show them your monkey and get a free t-shirt. I think we passed that monkey through 8 Heretics by the end of the con... :) Wandering up to Con Ops, we found out we could use Channel 13 on our radios. Unfortunately, there was another group using it too, and judging by how they kept cutting each other off, they didn't quite know how to use their radios. I got tired of listening to the thing beeping and turned it off....wonder if I missed any calls?

We hit the dealer room -- within 30 minutes, I was down from $150 to $13. While there, we ran into Amy Howard-Wilson, then over to the Ironcat table to say hello to Steve Bennett. By 12:00, we were back in our room to take a brief lunch before heading out for our first panel, the Live Action Acting vs. Voice Acting panel. At the same time, Nagasaki and Adol were supposed to cover the Sushi Panel. Unfortunately, the Sushi Panel was cancelled (something about the fish being left out and they weren't sure if it was still good), so we turned him loose, and Adol joined us for the panel we were covering.

It was great! Richard Biggs took the microphone, said something about how he always dreamed of being like Jerry Springer, and went out into the audience to ask questions. This worked out much better than other panels I've seen recorded, where you can hear the panelists okay, but they're answering inaudible questions. After the panel, we caught Crispen Freeman, and I got his autograph, then told him about the "Anime Heretics Rock" plug we always tried to get. As it turns out, he had not only heard of the Anime Heretics, he had DOWNLOADED the other plugs we'd gotten before! He already knew the quote! I love our reputation...*grin* Lisa Ortiz remembered us (sorta) from the Ultra Lounge at A-kon 11 when I reminded her about the "Ya!" quote.

We opted not to do the "How to Draw Manga" panel (though we later heard it was really funny), and figured the Voice Acting panel would likely be much the same as the panel we just finished, so we took off. On the way back to the Westin, we passed a great Kamidake costume (one of Ayeka's logs in Tenchi Muyo) and had to snap a picture. We met up with Karsten (okay, we beat him there, but he made it just in time) at the Music Video Contest. Karsten asked if he could hook up for a direct feed, but Tonbo said to just e-mail him and he'd send us a copy. So we went, browsed the dealer room briefly, grabbed something to eat and dropped off the camera equipment, then headed over to the Welcoming Ceremony.

As it turns out, Adol, Marcia, and Andrew were already in line, and the only ones there so far. Turns out this was a good thing as the hall this year supposedly could only legally hold 250 people. I got Karsten in and setting up, helped Chuck out by trying to get the projector image correct, then called a hotel A/V engineer to help out. After this, I went back in line to find out we had 10 reserved spots (kick ass!) so other members could arrive later and have a good spot. We hassled so many people for pictures as they went around the corner, and I got a great blackmail photo (see Narr's con report for more details)

We got seated, and I discovered I was sitting next to Auntie Evil (whom I'd posted disagreeing opinions to on the A-kon BBS :)...she was pretty cool, though. I finally found out what the monkey thing was, though...a reference to the beginning of the movie 2001. *smacks self on forehead* DUH!

The Millermuller Ballet was back this year. Now, at previous A-kons, I didn't really enjoy the ballet, since to my eye, it just looked vaguely random, and not keeping with the music. This year, however, was a great improvement! They dressed up as characters from Vampire Princess Miyu, then danced to a song that had enough of a beat to it to influence their movements and as a result, showed excellent choreography.

The guests were introduced, with a pretty cool animated intro for A-kon. After Mr. Oobari was thanked, a series of his opening animations were shown. Unfortunately, they put just a few too many on the tape. Don't get me wrong -- they were all cool, but that many strung together all at once was just a little draining. When afterward they started talking about auction stuff, you could see that the energy was just sucked right out of the audience. People started leaving because they figured the good stuff was over.

Too bad they didn't stick it out -- Kobushi Taiko was excellent! I loved the improvised piece, with the battling drums...their new drummer had the funniest facial expressions, almost like the whole thing was a theatrical act rather than a musical number. After they were done, we went up...Hotwire got a copy of their CD, while I got Kobushi's autograph. Afterward, I got them to do an "Anime Heretics Rock" plug, but that's not all! I talked Meri Hazlewood (head of Phoenix Entertainment, who runs A-kon) to do one too!

Since by now it was like 11:30, we opted to skip the Show & Tell for the time being, and stopped in at Danny & Eric's, where the 2nd Annual Anime Heretics Room Party was happening. Great party....Danny kissed my forehead, I kissed Danny's forehead...though later when he tried again, I leaned forward, then sat on him to stop him....that was funny :) I know the Tempest Productions documentary crew stopped by, and the party's already had several good reviews on the A-kon BBS. We hit a couple more parties, but none quite measured up to the AH party. No luck finding any guests, though...

Around 2:30am, we heard something about the party getting shut down, and we went back up to check on the guys, but nobody answered the door. Concerned, we went to bed.

SATURDAY 6/2/01

First thing we did upon waking up & showering (around 7:30) was to call Danny & Eric's room. They were okay! Good...I was worried they'd been kicked out of the hotel or something...we had a quick breakfast, and called the Austin room to meet up and coordinate cameras for the day. Afterward, we called Adam & Cindy and opted to head for Anime Match Game. Greggo! had been specifically asking me to show up for like the past 3 A-kons :)

Geez, there were a lot of people in costume today! Between snapping pictures and getting stopped by people who recognized me, it took us 30 minutes to walk across the street between hotels!

Anime Match Game was a lot more fun than I guessed...I didn't manage to get on as a contestant, but enjoyed watching. "PAINT!" (You had to be there). It was while here that one of our good quotes was gotten, from Cory Gagne, who worked on the most recent dub of Nadia. The question was in honor of Doc Fraga as thanks for an incident at Akon 11. "I wanted to do something special for you, so when I heard this year's theme was monkeys, I went out and bought ______" The contestant answer was erotic underwear. Nobody was really sure where that one came from, but Greggo! was going from contestant to contestant making underwear jokes. He got to Cory -- "Cory, we're looking for your underwear." "You won't find any!" Cory replied, waggling his eyebrows.

We stopped by the Dealer Room, since we'd heard Steve Bennett wanted to see the blackmail photo from Friday night. He wasn't there at the time...he was at a panel, so we stopped by the room, got something to eat, and relaxed a while before heading over to CDS Production's showing of the video we helped dub. While we were up there, Nagasaki stopped by, and we reminded him that Adol was waiting on him to film the 2nd half of the Biggs-Carter Experience. We also found out there were two people looking for me, but I never did have any luck tracking them down.

On the way back to the Sheraton, we ran into Angie, dressed up as the main character in Hana Yori Dango...while Adol & I were lining up the cameras to take a picture, the wind surprised poor Angie. No, we didn't get a picture of it...and even if we had, it wouldn't go online anyway. Trying to make Angie feel better (and I confess a little of seeing if I could make her blush more deeply :), I told her to think of it as a white swimsuit.

Anyway, at C-ko's showing, I started nodding off -- did I need sleep? Nah...more likely it was because I've found that what keeps me going at a con is doing active things...sitting still and watching something is just passive enough that my energy starts slumping. We got up and hit the dealer room again, where we found Steve, and showed him "The Picture." He complimented Narr, and it was just a couple minutes later when I noticed my battery had only 7 minutes left on it! This instigated a mad dash around the dealer room, catching as many costumes as I could before the battery died. We started heading for the room so I could put it on the charger.

Qeorita stopped to get a short massage, while I got to deal with the Revenge of Elevator Hell -- one of the elevators showed that it was going down, and like many people on the 2nd floor who were getting tired of elevators packed with people, I got on, figuring to go down 1 floor and then back up. The doors shut..........and opened. Strange...we pushed the button again. The doors shut...............and opened. This happened several times -- we figured the people still waiting were pushing the call button while the doors were shutting. Eventually, the elevator made it down to the 1st floor. The doors then shut fine and we went back up, stopping at the 2nd floor again. People changed places, and we pushed the button to go up. The doors shut..............and opened. After 5 or six times, we were all yelling at people to quit pushing the button. Finally some people got out, and when the elevator did it again, they reported that nobody had pushed anything. It seems the doors were broken on the 2nd floor. *sigh* We squeezed out, and I caught another elevator up.

Up in the room, we had some much-needed down time. Adol met up with us before we were going to head to the Cosplay, saying he'd talked to Richard Biggs & Jason Carter, and that they'd agreed to do an "Anime Heretics Rock" plug for us. We headed down to where their autograph session was wrapping up, but no luck. Oh well. By now, it was after 5:00...time to get in line for the Cosplay. The thing wasn't due to start for 2 hours, and we were already number 50 in line! We got 10 spaces reserved for us (isn't it amazing what you can get if you just ask nicely?), and I got Karsten setting up inside the hall. Unfortunately, from his position, he was going to miss a small corner in the rear right side of the stage. Oh well.

The Cosplay this year was excellent! Good acts, and even some geniune talent (I loved the baton-twirling Sailor Moon!) Even when the fire alarm went off, the actors on stage played along with it to such a degree that they won a special award from Steve Bennett. During the break, they showed the behind the scenes featurettes for Tomb Raider and Planet of the Apes, as well as the full Final Fantasy movie trailer. I confess I didn't really like the Millermuller Ballet's first performance at the Cosplay, but the second one was great.

After the Cosplay, we caught up with Brad, and found out he was out of DVD copies of his videos (sorry Adam) However, it was from him that we found out Da Bar was in fact happening again this year. We ended up not going, but I know at least one of the Heretics made it there (waves at John Steele). Qeorita hassled me into agreeing to go to the Dance, but her ankle started hurting pretty badly, and when we had Doc Fraga check it out, he said it was a stress fracture. So much for the dance.

While I was waiting for Qeorita to get out of Con Ops, I ran into Patty! She had only made it to one meeting, but that one time, we ended up staying up and talking until 5:30 in the morning, becoming pretty good friends. I got a picture of her in the kimono, but not in the outfit she said she was going to wear the next day. (Patty, if you're reading this, send me a picture!) After Qeorita got out, we hung out in the pool area, where there was a bit of a hot tub adventure (see Narr's report for details there)...afterward, since Qeorita wasn't really in a condition to go party hopping, and we didn't really feel like staying up and chatting, we opted to just go ahead and get a reasonable night's sleep, turning in around 1:45am.

SUNDAY 6/3/01

Having set the alarm, we woke up around 6:30, in order to shower and get our stuff packed, so we could load the car and get checked out before the rush started. On my way down with the first load, I actually had an elevator all to myself. On the way ack, I shared it with a potted plant. This was so bizarre, I actually ran to the room, then came back out with the camera and pushed the call button just so I could catch a picture of it on its way back down :)

Checkout was a snap, and then we met up for breakfast with Adam, Narr, and Adol. The sausage was great, the eggs a bit on the runny side, and the orange juice was terrific! After some good conversation, we decided to make our way for a last run of the dealer's room.

Alas, it wasn't open yet, and there was a rumor going around that it wouldn't open until 2:00. (It opened 30 minutes later). So we split up, Qeorita & Narr going off to do girly things while Adam and I checked out the video game room. Not too bad, I guess...though there was a funny moment when we saw some neat piece of techie cool stuff, and we said "Oooooo......aaahhhhh....." Interestingly enough, this was followed immediately by something happening in a video game somewhere in the room that went "Oohhhhhh......" Hm...I guess you had to be there.

We browsed the Comic Market and tried to hunt down Clint, who I'd heard was looking for me earlier. He's the guy that tried to setup the Houston Anime Heretics. Never found him, but I did run into Jun-Jun, who was also somewhat involved in the attempt. I didn't realize until 3 days later that I'd taken her picture in costume before :) According to the A-kon BBS, she now knows a fair number of people in her area who are into anime....I think she should try to form AH-Houston again!

We hit the dealer room one last time, even though we were out of money, to see what freebies we could leech. I got a cool pen, and some posters and postcards, and an excellent Astroboy lapel pin. Afterward, we made our way to the room for the next panel we wanted to cover, and Qeorita's ankle started acting up again, so we got Doc Fraga to make a repeat appearance. Thanks, Doc!

Now, there apparently wasn't a free-form Fanclub Summit this year, which is too bad, since we had a great time at A-kon 11's Summit. So we went to the next closest thing, "How to Promote Your Fanclub." I was NOT happy with the format of this panel. He asked who in the room headed a fanclub, and we each introduced ourselves. I specifically said we were an independent club, and that our goal was to be the largest club NOT associated with a school. Then the guy spends his entire panel talking about ways to promote a fan club IN A COLLEGE ENVIRONMENT! This drove me nuts! We numbered some two-thirds of his audience, and we don't have officers, we don't have dues, we don't have to worry about trying to get the college to give us money (hell, the only use of that money he mentioned was to buy pizza for the club one night, which seemed a bit of a waste, personally), and we don't have a school paper! Not one thing the guy said related to obtaining members if you were a club that met at someone's house. He kinda blew us off when we mentioned we occasionally heckle anime. Apparently that's some kind of sin to him, since he pretty much ignored us (all 10 of us) after that, focusing his attention on the other 5 people in the room. Then he'd say he was nearly done, and keep rambling. He didn't finish up until we all agreed to say the hell with it and get out of there....when the majority of his audience stood up and started walking out, he finally wrapped up and ended the panel.

Whew....now that I've got my one rant off my chest, I feel better. :)

After that, since Doc had ordered Qeorita to stay off her foot as much as possible, we opted to head on out instead of looking for more to do....so with many goodbyes, we got on the road to head home. Karsten stuck around to tape the Anime Music Videos 201 with Lee Thompson & Brad DeMoss. By the way, guys, I've finally seen some of Kevin Caldwell's videos, and it looks like you have some serious competition for the "Master of Timing" title :)

Braving the heat (alas, my A/C appeared to be broken), we watched some Blue Seed & Nadesco, and Nagasaki & Karsten opted to stay the night and tape some VHS masters (thanks, guys!)

MONDAY 6/4/01

Well, I had to get to work (and get the money that would cover my rent check :) Karsten was generous enough to see Aryanun & Andrew to their flight, and then stick around recording until late that evening. Pretty much the only footage not recorded by the time Karsten left was the Pre-Kon Bash & the Welcoming Ceremonies.

All in all, a busy week, and a great con. Thanks so much to everyone who donated their time to help out the club -- The Anime Heretics has always been a labor of love, and I sincerely appreciate people who are willing to put forth this kind of effort to benefit our other members. Until the next con!

Chain Lightning Studios Presents

Project A-Kon XII Or Three days of animehem
by Hotwire

[]======================================[]
Entry One: Post Pre kon party
[]======================================[]
Thursday May 31-- the not so calm before the storm
[]======================================[]

It's a little odd writing this with everyone sleeping a dozen feet away in the next room. Its about three fifteen in the morning, and while this technically isn't May thirty first-- bite me ^_^ that's when the party started. ^_^

I guess working the night shift has its good points and it bad. As much as I love the night, being the only one awake kinda sucks. I was hoping that at least one of the others would tough it out with me, but nooooo ^_^ these lightweights konked out about two forty five or so. So here I am, typing away, listening to my new Ramones Anthology (rest in peace Joey) I don't know when I'll be hitting the hay, personally... probably later in the afternoon or, hell, I might just sleep human hours ^_^

Anyway, enough of my bitching, y'all want to know about the party! I got there around eight, and most of the people had arrived already. I met a bunch of cool Otaku (no that is _NOT_ an oxymoron arse-for-brains!) And got to watch several hilarious fan produced anime parodies. Cko arrived soon after me and set up his gear-- quickly drafting several of the lovely Heretic ladies to do voices. This produced many giggle when Cindy got to the "cat eating" bit. I can't really do the piece justice in text, so I'll let it alone. I do, however, want to say that I'll never look at Usagi the same way again ^_^ poor Luna!

I spent most of the night talking to some of the others about everything from the Kon guests to music tastes, and generally had a good time. My hot sauce was a big hit, and I'm starting to think about bottling this stuff and selling it at the kon next year ^_^

After watching several fan parodies, we ended up watching a show called Excel Saga.... that was some seriously effed up stuff, my friend. And this is coming from someone who thinks Evangelion makes perfect sense. The show seems to have been written by someone who was smoking crack laced with brown acid. I must have this series-- truly it's insanity is genius! Heh-heh-heh. I don't think I can properly articulate a description

Morphius: unfortunately no one can be told what the Excel Saga is, you must experience it for yourself.

Shadap mo! This is my show ^_^ anyway, its a weird show, and if you have an obscure sense of humor you ought to check it out-- hope your weird tolerance is high though ^_^

[]=====================================[]
Entry Two: and on the first day...
there was anime, and it was good
[]=====================================[]
Friday June 1'st-- I smile because I have no idea what
is going on. ^_^
[]=====================================[]

Well, once again, its the wee hours of the morning and here I am typing away-- probably gonna be a habit, so deal ^_^

We got to the kon with no real incidents to speak of-- save a jackass on a cell phone nearly killing me *grrrr* but anyway, we got all checked in, and met up at the Weston as planned. I dint meet the others till just after I got my Kon Badge.

While standing in line for the badge, I talked with a few people-- four of which I continued to run into again and again throughout the day. I've counted four encounters so far and this is at both hotels! If this happens again tomorrow I'm gonna have to start worrying that they might be stalkers ^_^ (right, like anyone would stalk my dull arse *lol*)

After milling around for awhile taking pictures of cute girls in costume (okay, there were guys too, but they were nowhere nearly as cute ^_^) the dealers room finally opened *yay*

I managed to find all but one thing I was looking for-- the Der Mond Art book. I suppose I'll have to order it off the net once I get all my credit card bills paid off... but anyway, the dealer rooms were packed-- and after about an hour I decided that I needed sleep. This was my fault for not catching shut eye when I had the chance at the pre-kon party.

Anyway, when I got up, I met the others for the Opening ceremonies. Other than a monkeyload of technical difficulties,(and the ballet dancers) the show was pretty good. They showed a bunch of interesting opening segments from various series that the gentleman who did Fatal Fury the movie directed. Steve Bennet got spanked (that's not a joke, he literally got spanked by a chick dressed as Xena)

then a group called Kobushi did a drum concert--which about blew my mind! If you _ever_ have an opportunity to see these people perform-- DO NOT HESITATE! They are amazing! They perform at the state fair of Texas (or at least they did last year) so check them out in 2001!

From there we went to the Austin Heretic's party, which--while fun-- was apparently a bigger hit than I realized at the time. I'm not saying I didnt have fun, or that the party wasnt a blast...This is just my opinion, but a party should have MUSIC! Next year I'm bringing a CD player-- just in case ^_^

As I write this after a quick nap, I think that I need to mention that you need to keep track of your eating and sleeping. Make sure you get enough of both. My biological clock is so screwed right now it's unreal, but that's mostly due to my job.

Anyway, I'm off to the movie rooms-- see y'all later

[]=======================================[]
Entry Three:
[]=======================================[]
Saturday June 2nd-- keeping your cool UNDER FIRE!
[]=======================================[]

Weee! What a day! This has, without a doubt been the most interesting day of the kon for me. (Mostly because I was awake for it ^_^) I got up bright and early to attend to fanfic panel-- only to discover that when they changed the time the night before, they screwed up! When nine o'clock rolled around no one knew where to go for the panel. The reshuffling of events placed the watercolor demo in the room where us fanfic people were s'posed to be.

After much adu, they A-kon people closed us off a section and we got to actually get talking! It was interesting to hear that some of the people I've been conversing with so casually are major players in the fanfic community.

After the panel was over, I wandered down to the Weston to find the others. No luck there. So I dropped in on the "y'wanna be an author' (I know, its not spelled like that ^_^) interesting stuff. I'm glad to know that I probably won't have to give up fanfiction when and if I finally go pro.

After that I looked for the others for an hour or so before going back to the dealer's room. After an extensive search I came to the sad conclusion that I probably won't be able to get the last two items I wanted... oh well, more money for later in the week ^_^

I kicked back to the Sheraton after that to see Trigun-- and found another scheduling conflict. It was cool though, I got to see the music video showcase (brad DeMoss's Star Wars/Eva one kicked all ass btw) side note-- when they announced they were finally getting around to Trigun, I got the whole room chanting Love and Peace ^_^ great moment ^_^

When I left the Trigun show, I stumbled right into the Cosplay line. Finally finding the other heretics there, I joined them in the wait, and proceeded to annoy many, many people with my inane banter (sorry, I was half asleep ^_^)

After a hour and a half, we went in to the cosplay, and lemme tell you, that was a blast. Funny thing happened-- the hotel had a fire alarm just as the show was getting started. Fortunately this was a false alarm, and we didn't have to evacuate.

The cosplay ended a little before ten, and that brings me to now where I'm typing away. I plan on grabbing some dinner and turning in here in a bit-- I need to be up bright and early so I can pack.

Well, I'm off for food, more incoherent babbling tomorrow! ^_^

[]========================================[]
Third Entry:
[]========================================[]
Sunday, June 3rd--
[]========================================[]
a premature departure
[]========================================[]

Well, a personal emergency came up, and I ended up missing both the banquet and the other panels. I'm a little disappointed, but it's not all that bad. I got all but one item I was looking for-- got to sit in on several interesting panels, got to meet Tiffany Grant ^_^ AND spent a good chunk of my time talking to fellow otaku.

All in all I'd say it was the most fun I've had in a long time, and I can't wait till next year.

Until then, I'm Hotwire, your faithful crazyperson from Texas
*takes a bow*

Chapter 1 of Together We Stand starts now....last chance to avoid spoilers!

Neon Genesis Evangelion and all characters from therein are 
the property of Gainax. They are used without permission 
and we beg the kind and benevolent creators of the glorious 
show not to sue us. ^_^


       Chain lightning Studios Presents
               Together We Stand
                 By T. L. Webb



     Did you see the frightened ones? 
     Did you hear the falling bombs?
     The flames are all long gone
     But the pain lingers on
          Goodbye blue sky
       Pink Floyd, The Wall



[]================[]
  Book 1 Part 1 
[]================[]


     With a heavy heart, Shinji Ikari walked to school alone. 

     It wasn't entirely by choice-- if asked he would say that 
he would prefer to walk with someone else. The problem was that 
he didn't really know anyone at his new school. Another part of 
said problem was that he hadn't been able to make any friends 
since he had started attending two weeks before. 
   
     It was not as if he didn't _want_ to have friends; he did, 
so badly it hurt. He just didn't know how to behave around 
people. Growing up with his uncle, he hadn't had contact with 
people his own age often. Interacting with so many people at 
once had put his head in a spin the first day; he had almost ran 
back to the apartment a dozen times just to get away from it 
all.  

     He had often heard the phrase 'alone in a crowd' but until 
that first day he hadn't understood it. He sat there day after 
day and listened to the others talk, and as much as he wanted-- 
needed to join in, he couldn't relate to anything they were 
saying. They would talk about TV show and movies he had never 
seen, people he had never met and events he had never witnessed. 
It constantly drove home how different he was from everyone 
else.

     He even felt isolated from Misato. True, he had grown 
closer to her over the past few days. However the woman seemed 
to be out of her mind half of the time, and he still didn't 
understand how she could be so different at home than she was at 
work. 

     Work... Nerv... the Eva... his father...

     It all was so far beyond him, he couldn't really say he 
understood the war even in part. Why was he fighting? They 
wouldn't tell him. What was he fighting? They didn't know. What 
was he fighting _in_? That was classified. Why had the Eva 
reactivated during the fight? Just thinking about that was 
classified. 

     Nerv and Eva were also part of the problem-- he couldn't 
really just walk up and say 'hi I pilot that big robot that 
trashed downtown a couple of weeks ago'. No one would ever 
believe him. To make matters more complicated; he wasn't 
particularly fond of doing it in the first place.

     How could he possibly talk to anyone about it if he didn't 
understand it himself? If he started talking about the Eva, he 
would have to eventually talk about his father and that was just 
not something he was prepared to do. 

     As he walked into the classroom he nodded hello as the 
class representative said good morning. He wanted to say more, 
but as he tried to speak his throat locked up. He knew this 
reaction far too well. He just couldn't talk to people; he 
didn't know what to say. He would try to start talking then he 
would freeze up. Compounding this problem was that the class rep 
was a very attractive member of the opposite sex.

     He could hardly think straight when Misato was around, but 
at least she was easier to talk to. He knew she was only teasing 
him when she flirted. Sometimes she seemed to less mature than 
his peers. It was strange see her like that, and then remember 
how she was at work. 

     But school was a whole other world, and girls his age were 
like a force of nature. He had no way of holding a coherent 
conversation with one of them-- much less think straight when 
they were around. This had never been a problem back in 
elementary... back then he had only vaguely understood there 
_was_ a difference between the sexes. Now the differences were 
becoming painfully obvious ever time he turned around. It was 
hard enough just talking to someone else-- having his heart 
start to pound and his ears and cheeks begin to burn in a fierce 
blush every time a girl spoke to him made it almost impossible 
 
     He was so afraid that if he opened his mouth something 
stupid would come out. That he would embarrass himself and they 
would laugh. The easiest way to keep that from happening was to 
say nothing at all. 
   
     Which was why instead of trying to start a conversation 
with one of the other students-- Shinji Ikari went to his desk, 
pulled out his SDAT and tuned out the world like he had done 
every day for the past two weeks.


[]====[]
[]====[]


     Hikari Horaki was tired.
   
     This was mostly because she had been up half the night 
trying to catch up with her homework. Along with her general 
duties as class rep she also had been tutoring several students 
in her class. In addition to that she had her duties at home 
which included laundry, making meals for her sisters, and 
cleaning up the house. Things were adding up and she was 
beginning to feel the strain. She was beginning to think that 
she had bitten off more than she could chew.

     The worst part was that all the extra work was cutting in 
to what little social life she had. Other than the students she 
was tutoring she really hadn't spoken with anyone other than 
Kensuke in the past couple of weeks. She had no idea how Touji 
was, and that was starting to worry her. No one was returning 
calls from his house and she hadn't been able to make the time 
to go over in person. Having Kensuke assigned to drop off their 
friend's paperwork had been the only idea for checking on him 
that she had been able to come up with.

     The whole mess was getting to the point where she was 
either going to have to cut back on her extra work or drop class 
rep, and she wasn't about to do that. She wasn't about to back 
down yet. Even so she was beginning to feel the effects of her 
long hours. She hadn't even been able to make time to talk with 
Ayanami as she had intended. 

     Once she finished her morning update; she stretched and 
looked around the room. Shinji and Rei were tuned out as usual. 
Shinji was siting there with his music, and Rei was focused on 
something outside the window. If she hadn't known better she 
would have suspected the two were related. 

      She worried about those two-- particularly Shinji. He 
seemed to be holding something inside, something that was 
hurting him badly. She could see it in his eyes every time he 
looked around the class. The longing look in his eyes when he 
watched the others talk was painfully obvious, she had seen it 
before in other shy kids. 

      The others were milling around catching up one the latest 
gossip. Sadly there were about half as many students than there 
had been three weeks ago, and more were signing up to transfer 
out. 

     She hoped there wouldn't be any more attacks.

     
[]====[]
[]====[]

 
    Kensuke Aida was having fun. 
   
     He had just finished a model kit of one of the UN VTOL's 
the night before and he was amusing himself by making a 
documentary of its maiden voyage. Holding the model in one hand 
and his camcorder in the other he expertly maneuvered the craft 
through a series of complicated stunts. (Accompanied by sound 
effects courtesy of his own mouth.)  

     Just as he finished putting the VTOL through another barrel 
roll, someone stepped into the frame; effectively ruining his 
shot. Frowning slightly he lowered the camera to find Hikari 
Horaki standing in front of him with an annoyed look on her 
face.

     "What's up class rep?" he asked, deciding not to complain 
about his ruined footage.

     "Did you drop that printout off at Suzuhara's place like I 
asked you?" she asked sternly.

     Kensuke blinked and tried to keep his face neutral as he 
realized he had left the printout in question sitting in his 
desk all week. Reaching back quickly he made sure it was out of 
sight before stammering a weak excuse.

     "Um... well I went by... but there didn't seem to be anyone 
at his place." 
 
     This was true enough; he had simply left out the part about 
having the printouts with him. Touji was his friend, and he was 
starting to worry since he hadn't even heard from him since the 
war in the city. 

      Kensuke knew that wasn't so strange that neither of them 
had heard anything. Nerv was a large organization, and the 
secrecy surrounding it was phenomenal. Despite the fact that 
most of the kids in their school had parents who worked in or 
around Nerv related projects, few of them had parents who worked 
together. He had known Touji since first grade, and they had 
been friends almost from the beginning, but their dads worked in 
completely separate departments and learning what had happened 
to his friend was beyond even _his_ considerable information 
gathering talents.   

       "Kensuke," Hikari said-- her voice softening, "you're his 
best friend. Haven't you heard from him at all?"

     "No... and I'm starting to think he might have been hurt in 
that fight with the robot."

     Hikari's eyes widened at this. "But the news agencies all 
said no one was seriously injured!"
  
     Kensuke sighed. Sometimes Hikari could be really naive. He 
supposed it had to do with her position as class rep-- part of 
her job was to follow instructions from the school board. She 
just wasn't as used to questioning authority as he was.

     "Are you kidding?" he said, trying to break the reality of 
the situation to her as gently as he could, "you saw what was 
left after that explosion didn't you? And that's not counting 
all the other parts of town that were wrecked and the bomb they 
set off a few hours before the fight! They didn't just send in 
the troops from Iruma and Komatsu, but they even called in the 
reserves from Misawa and Kyusho. I bet several dozen people were 
injured and with blasts like that rocking the city there had to 
have been at least a couple of fatalities." 

     As he said that the door to the class opened and a tall boy 
with short black hair and a grim expression walked into the 
classroom. 
 
     Hikari and Kensuke both let out sighs of relief as they 
greeted their friend. 

     "Touji!" 

     "Suzuhara!"

     The taller boy nodded hello, and walked into the room. 
Kensuke noticed something right then-- his friend was in a foul 
mood. Touji didn't so much walk into the room as stormed in. 
When he finally reached his seat and sat down on top of his 
desk, it was as if he was restraining himself from throwing the 
table across the room. 

      Kensuke was just about to start filling his friend in on 
the latest news when Touji spoke up.

     "Last time I checked we had a lot more people in the 
class," he said with a frown, "what happened to everyone?"

     "It's was the fight," Kensuke explained "a lot of people 
just packed up and ran. I'm not really surprised though, I mean 
its not like most people are going to hang around with a war 
going on in the middle of downtown."

     "I guess... then again unlike you not everyone wants to 
watch a real war going on from the front row."

     "True..." Kensuke said with a shrug. He knew he was a 
military nut, he'd never tried to hide it, and wasn't the type 
of person to be ashamed of it. "How have you been? We haven't 
seen or heard from you since the incident, did you get involved 
in the fighting?"

     Touji's eyes darkened and his frown turned to a scowl. For 
a moment Kensuke thought he wasn't going to say anything at all 
but finally he started speaking a low, harsh voice. It seemed as 
if it was all Touji could do to keep from yelling.

     "No I didn't get involved... but my sister wasn't as lucky. 
She--she was crushed... under a pile of debris. She survived, 
but she's been in the hospital ever since." He paused for a 
moment and his eyes softened "my father and grandfather's 
departments are working around the clock since the fight and 
they can't make it to visit... so unless I'm there she's all 
alone."

     Touji closed his eyes and his entire body seemed to tense 
up as his earlier anger returned in full force.  "That Robot's 
pilot has to be some kind of moron!  It just pisses me off... I 
mean, he's supposed to be protecting us and then he goes and 
trashes half the city? What the hell was he thinking?"

     Kensuke was so caught up with Touji's news he had almost 
forgotten to tell him about his theory on the new student. 

     "Hey on that note, did you hear the rumors yet?"

     "No... what about?"

     "The new transfer student."

     Touji looked around the room until he spotted the 
unfamiliar face in the room. The boy was sitting alone listening 
to something on SDAT. 

     "Who? Him?"

     "Yeah, he transferred in while you were gone." Kensuke 
paused for effect then let out the interesting part "do you 
realize that he came in just after the big incident? And that 
there are twice as many of those creepy security guys around the 
school now? Awful big coincidence don't you think?"

     For a moment Kensuke thought he might have slipped up 
because his friend shot such a fierce look of anger at the new 
kid that Kensuke would not have been surprised to see the boy 
spontaneously combust under the glare. 

     Fortunately for all of them the teacher picked that moment 
to arrive and Hikari started into her duties as class rep. 


[]====[]
[]====[]


     An hour before lunch, the teacher set down his lesson plan 
and the moment the students dreaded arrived. It was time for the 
teacher's lecture.

     As the teacher began to drone on Kensuke let out a sigh. 
The same thing... again. Every morning and again at the end of 
the day, the same boring speech over and over. It was getting to 
the point that most of the class was using the time to catch up 
on sleep. So with nothing better to do he decided to see what 
was going on in the classroom chat. He would have to thank 
Hikari someday for letting them use it during class; it was a 
small escape but a necessary one when you had to listen to the 
old guy drone on day after day. He had been afraid at the start 
of they year when they had appointed her-- the stories of her 
older sister's reign of terror as class rep were legendary. 

     The main chat room was full of the usual inane banter. Some 
of it was the same gossip about the new student that had been 
going on for weeks. He was rather disappointed-- nothing new on 
that front. One would think that in two weeks someone would have 
found _something_ out. Amateurs-- all of them.

     Other than that the only thing of note was the occasional 
dare for one of the guys to go talk to Rei. Kensuke grinned at 
that. Rei was undeniably attractive, but if any of the guys 
actually got up the nerve to talk to her he would eat his 
camera. On the rare occasions when she actually paid attention 
to something other than the window, it had unnerved even the 
teacher himself. 

     Not finding anything overly interesting in the main room's 
conversation, he activated a program he had 'borrowed' and 
started flipping through the private messages. Unfortunately 
other than useless gossip and other mindless chatter there was 
nothing going on.

     He was about to shut it down and take a nap, when he 
noticed that the new kid had just received a message. 

     Intrigued he opened the file and watched the exchange.

     [Are you the pilot? Y / N]

     Well, well, well, it seemed that he wasn't the only one who 
thought that the kid worked for Nerv. Out of the corner of his 
eye he saw the boy looking around with what might have been 
panic. As he turned back to his screen, Kensuke saw that he had 
received another message.

     [Its true isn't it? Y / N]

     Kensuke turned all his attention to his monitor. This was 
it, the moment of truth; his suspicions were about to be either 
confirmed or dashed. Sure enough after a brief pause, he heard 
the clicking sounds of the boy's keyboard and the message went 
out. 

     [Yes.]

     Kensuke had never considered himself much of a hacker-- his 
skills were nowhere near the level that he felt would earn that 
title. He had, however, taken a great deal of pride in figuring 
out how to program his laptop to read private messages that were 
sent around the room. It had been a great accomplishment in his 
book.

    As the entire class went nuts upon Shinji's reply, however, 
Kensuke let out a sigh of disappointment-- apparently he wasn't 
the only one who had figured that little trick out. 


[]====[]
[]====[]


     "Thank you for making our teacher deaf as a brick wall." 
Hikari muttered quietly as she watched the entire class rush 
Shinji Ikari.  

     It was ridiculous-- everyone was clustered around the poor 
kid shouting questions at him and demanding answers right away. 
To make matters worse the teacher was still in the middle of his 
speech. 

      She had known of course that someone had opened a dialogue 
with him. Her laptop had a program that allowed her to monitor 
all private messages if she so chose. Generally she didn't do 
that-- she felt she owed the class a little privacy during the 
teacher's monologues. 

     She would have to crack down now and she hated doing that. 
Standing and turning she frowned and shouted over the din.

     "Hey you guys, you're still in class you know! Sit down and 
keep quiet! Show some respect!"

     This didn't faze the mob in the least. One girl did 
apparently hear her, as she turned and spoke up

     "Oh get off it, you're always trying to boss us!" 
 
     "Just ignore us," another student tossed in her direction.
 
     Hikari recoiled at that and frowned "I wont ignore it, 
this is my job!" she said, a little hurt at the sheer disrespect 
that her friends were showing not only her, but the teacher as 
well. 

     Her attempt at reason wasn't working and the questions 
continued despite her protests. 

     "How were you selected?"

     "Did they put you through any tests?"

     "What's the cockpit like?"

     "Were you scared?"

     Shinji didn't seem to be enjoying the attention in the 
least; actually he seemed to be trying to disappear into his 
desk. Hikari felt sorry for him-- even a person who enjoyed 
being the center of attention would have been unnerved by that 
mob.

     "I-I-I'm not supposed to talk about classified stuff like 
that," he said weakly.

     His protests were paid roughly as much attention as 
Hikari's and the questions continued.

     "What do they call it? Does it have a name?"

     Trying to keep up with the barrage of questions Shinji 
stammered an answer, "I-I'm not sure... but everyone calls it 
Eva or-or U-Unit One"

     "Eva huh? What's its best attack?"

     A glance over at Kensuke showed that he was listening with 
rapt interest as Shinji tried to explain about some type of 
vibrating knife. At least a couple of students were still in 
their desks she noted with a sigh.

     "That's amazing! We are so proud of you!"

     "Awesome!"

     The bell finally rang and the teacher turned from the 
window to find the class clustered around Ikari. He looked up at 
her with a helpless expression, but all she could do was shrug 
weakly and hope he understood that it was out of her hands.

      The whole thing was humiliating-- she had been doing so 
well with the class and now this. Where had she gone wrong? Her 
sister had never let anything like this happen. Had she been too 
lax with them? Was it because she had gone too far the other way 
rather than following her sister's example?

     "Well... that's all for this morning" the teacher said as 
Hikari tried to at least get the class to bow like respectable 
people. She didn't have much more luck.

     "Where do you live Ikari?"

     "Is it near the old section of the city?"

     As she shouted a final time for the class to bow, she 
noticed two things. 

     The first was that Rei hadn't even moved during the entire 
incident, she sat in her seat and looked out the window as she 
had every day since Hikari had known her.

     The second was that Touji was watching Shinji with an 
expression not unlike a predator preparing to strike its prey.


[]====[]
[]====[]


     As Hikari picked through her lunch a little later, she 
tried to get her mind off the incident in class. 

      They had embarrassed her. That was pretty much the long 
and short of it. To make matters worse-- not only had they 
disrespected her, but they had also insulted the teacher. It 
wasn't something that he was going to overlook-- no mater what 
the circumstances. She was going to have to work hard to make it 
up to him. 
    
     Pushing the shameful outburst of her classmates from her 
mind, she soon found herself trying to figure why a meek boy 
like Shinji was the pilot of the robot. She just couldn't 
picture it somehow. She had heard the stories about the fight, 
and from the descriptions after a rough start the thing had 
fought like a wild beast. She didn't see that kind of violence 
in Ikari. 
 
     As she was pondering these things, she heard a shout from 
outside the window. Taking a quick look, she could see Touji 
walking toward Ikari, who apparently had been sitting in the 
shade of the building with his music. He had been sitting in the 
same spot for two weeks and she had been considering joining 
him-- she was getting tired of the classroom. 

     As Touji drew closer she remembered the glare that had 
given the new student mere minutes before... and suddenly she 
was very worried for Ikari. Touji was not a mean person, but he 
had a short temper and was very, very protective of those he 
cared for. If he believed that Shinji was responsible for his 
sister's injuries then the encounter that was about to take 
place was not going to pleasant. 

     Opening the window, she watched as Suzuhara hauled Shinji 
to his feet and-- to her shock-- he punched him in the face. 

     "Touji?" she whispered. She hadn't expected him to hit the 
kid, shake him around a bit maybe, but not a full-on punch to 
the face.

     As the smaller boy lay on the ground rubbing his cheek, she 
could hear the voices drift up from below as she watched on, too 
surprised to even move. 

     "Sorry new kid, but I had to hit you. Wouldn't have been 
satisfied till I hit you."

     Even though she couldn't believe that her friend had just 
said that, she couldn't completely bring herself to be angry 
with Touji. She knew how much his sister meant to him. She was 
however very disappointed in him. She would have to rake him 
over the coals for this. 
   
     Down below Kensuke was making a rather feeble attempt to 
explain what had just happened to a very confused Shinji Ikari
 
     "His sister was hurt pretty bad last time you and your 
robot fought, well that's his excuse anyway." He said as he 
shrugged and began walking away with Touji following.

     She was about to run down to see if Shinji was alright and 
make an attempt to apologize more tactfully than Kensuke had 
when she heard Shinji almost growl a response. 

     Had the acoustics between the buildings not been what they 
were she would have completely missed his words.

     "I didn't have a choice, they made me pilot the damn 
thing."

     Hikari bit her lower lip lightly as another piece of the 
puzzle that was Shinji Ikari fell into place. She didn't have 
long to consider it however as she saw Touji tense up at that 
and turn. He stormed back over to where Shinji lay on the ground 
and lifted him back up so they were face to face. Shinji didn't 
even look him in the eye as Touji pulled back and hit the 
smaller boy a second time. 

     "Oh that does it." Hikari muttered as she ran out the door-
- fully intent on knocking some sense into Touji. There was no 
call for any of that, especially the last part. She was going to 
have a long talk with her friend followed by several hard smacks 
on the head, then he was going to apologize to Shinji. As she 
ran down the stairs, however, those plans were put on hold. 
   
     The emergency sirens chose that moment to begin ringing 
out.

     There was another attack beginning. 
 

[]====[]
[]====[]


     Ever since Tokyo 3 had finished its first stages of 
construction the population had been required to train for rapid 
evacuation to the closest shelters. Hikari wasn't sure just how 
well protected the others were, but she knew that in the 
school's case the walls were more than five feet thick. Added to 
that was the fact that they were fairly deep in a hillside with 
several meters of rock and dirt covering them and three blast 
doors between them and the outside. Inside most of the shelters 
there was room for a couple hundred people without being 
cramped. 

     As she tried to organize the class, she kept an eye on Aida 
and Suzuhara. She would have to talk with them soon or she would 
be too angry with them to think straight. The more she thought 
back to what had happened she angrier she became. Both of them 
had been her friends for years and she didn't want to lose that, 
but something had to be said and done about this.  

     Thinking back to what Shinji had said as he lay there on 
the ground she realized that while it explained some things 
about the boy, it raised many new questions. 
    
     Obviously he didn't want to do it-- he had said as much by 
implying they had forced him into it. But why did they do that 
in the first place? Why not just find someone who was willing? 
And for that matter, why a fourteen year old kid? Wouldn't it 
have made more sense to use a professional soldier? 

     She understood more of why he seemed so hurt and afraid 
now. She had heard stories from her uncle about the wars that 
followed Second Impact. Her uncle had been involved in the 
fighting, and she knew from his tales of battle how horrifying 
combat could be. Kensuke's military obsession notwithstanding, a 
person her age would be hard pressed to deal with the stress of 
a war. 

     As she was thinking of this, she heard Touji hollering her 
name from where he and Kensuke were sitting. 

    "Hey class rep, we both gotta go to the can!"

     As much as she appreciated them letting her know where they 
were going, she really wished that Touji had selected a quieter 
method of informing her. Touji never had been very strong in the 
tact department. She let out a sigh of annoyance, and yelled 
back.

     "Is there some reason you didn't go before like you're 
supposed to?"

     "Aww comeon! We gotta goooooo"

     "OK already!" she yelled, "but hurry, we need to follow procedure, 
this isn't a drill"

     The two boys got up and ambled off to the restrooms, and 
she turned back to try to keep the class together. As the 
military began opening fire on the surface, she shuddered. 

     This was for real. 

     "Be careful Shinji," she thought as the ground shook 
slightly.


[]====[]
[]====[]


     Meanwhile Shinji Ikari was sitting in the entry plug of 
Unit One failing at an attempt to fight off a powerful wave of 
depression. 

     Shinji knew it was his fault. If he had just gotten into 
this damn thing from the beginning and not tried to run then the 
other boy's sister wouldn't have been hurt. If he had _tried_ to 
pilot the damn thing instead of quaking in fear no one would 
have been hurt. 

     He wouldn't have been hit.

     "Its my fault... all my fault." He thought as the Eva was 
prepared for launch. "What if I do it again? What if someone 
else gets hurt this time?"

     "Why am I doing this again?" he muttered aloud, "even after 
I was hit..."

     He was almost as afraid as he had been the first time.

     He didn't want the guilt; he didn't want the 
responsibility. He didn't want to be depended on for all of 
this, but he didn't have a choice. If he didn't do it then they 
would make Ayanami do it, and she was nowhere near ready. If he 
stayed he would be hurt, and through his actions others would 
likely be hurt. If he left then she would be hurt and more 
people would die if she failed because of her injuries. 

     He had no choice. He had to focus; he had to pay attention. 
He had to do this right.

     "Target the center, pull the switch," He chanted over and 
over, trying to pretend he wasn't afraid.


[]====[]
[]====[]


     Hikari frowned as she took another glance at the restrooms.  
Those two had been in there for awhile now. Much too long 
actually. Sighing in annoyance, she turned to one of the other 
girls and asked her to look after things while she went to check 
on the idiot duo. 

     Making her way across the floor an unpleasant suspicion 
entered her mind. This was followed by a series of even more 
unpleasant realizations. 

     Kensuke was a military nut. 

     He had his camera with him. 

     There was a war going on outside right that moment. 

     Two plus two equals four.

     "Oh hell..." She whispered as she doubled her pace and ran 
down the hall that contained the restrooms. As she rounded a 
corner she saw the thin slant of sunlight, and her heart leapt 
into her throat. The little twerps had gone out to see the 
fight! She ran to the large door and looked outside-- sure 
enough she could see the two making their way up the stairs to a 
hillside shrine that overlooked the city. 

     "Y-you-you _morons_!" she yelled, despite the fact they 
were well out of earshot. She realized that if she went back for 
someone older or in authority she might lose them, so against 
her better judgement she made her way up the path after the two.

     They had been much further along up the stairs than she had 
expected, and it took awhile for her to reach the top. When she 
did she found them standing by a bush watching as a giant red 
and maroon shape reared back in the middle of the city. It was 
hundreds of feet tall and had two glowing tendrils lashing at 
its sides. It looked a bit like a snake, but the resemblance was 
merely a passing one.

     Suddenly there was a loud booming crash, and then the side 
of a building nearby the monster began to open. As a shimmering 
heat distortion faded, she was left speechless as an enormous 
shape began moving inside the shadow of the skyscraper. 

     It was almost as tall as the cobra-like monster, and easily 
as frightening. She was too far away to make out many details 
other than the horn on its forehead, the wing-like extensions on 
its shoulder, and its green, purple and black color scheme.

     As she watched, the Eva quickly whipped around the side of 
its building--opening fire on the monster with an enormous 
rifle. She had never seen anything like it, and for a moment she 
fully understood Kensuke's total fascination with such things. 
She couldn't believe how _fast_ it moved! And so fluid too-- not 
at all like she would picture a robot's movements. As the 
thunderous sound of the gun finally reached them, she covered 
her ears and watched on in awe. 

     Kensuke meanwhile was shouting in rapture at the footage he 
was getting.

     "Oh wow, " he said in with tears in his eyes, "I've been 
waiting for this moment all my life!"
 
     He would have been nowhere nearly as excited had he known 
that this phrase had snapped Hikari back to reality and reminded 
her of why she was out there in the first place. Scowling she 
began stalking towards the two.

     Meanwhile the monster was making its counterattack on what 
she remembered Shinji refering to as Unit One. The robot had 
leapt out of the way as the whip like arms of the monster shot 
out, cutting through everything in their path. Unit One was now 
lying on the ground as if frozen in place. 

     "He's losing already?" Touji said as Hikari made it to 
where the boys stood.

     "It's not a problem," Kensuke replied, not knowing that 
Hikari had just grabbed Touji by his ear.

     "Ow ow ow owowowow!" Touji yelped as Hikari pulled him face 
to face with herself.

     "Eep!" was his only reply to her furious glare.

     "I'm telling you its gonna be..." Kensuke trailed off as he 
turned to find Hikari standing next to him with one hand on her 
hip and the other wrapped around Touji's ear.

     "Just what the _hell_ do you two think you're doing?" she 
yelled as Touji squirmed under her grip. "Listen up you idiots-- 
You two come with me right _now_ or else I am going to have to 
get violent. You know I _hate_ being violent so that should give 
you an idea how angry I am."

     "But it's an important..." Kensuke began; not yet realizing 
that Hikari was in no mood to debate the issue. She actually 
grabbed him by the hair and hauled him to his feet as the fight 
rumbled on in the distance.

     "Shut up and follow me Aida! I don't care if it's your 
last, your first, or only chance to see one of these fights, you 
are going back to the shelter NOW!" she screamed at him, having 
reached the end of her patience with the two. "I'm not going to 
tell you again!"

     As Hikari continued to chew them out-- Touji was leaning 
his head back to lessen the pressure on his ear. Having done 
this, he was in a unique angle-- and a perfect one to see the 
giant purple robot sailing through the air.

     Right towards them.

     The pain in his ear was forgotten as he let out a scream of 
pure, unrestrained terror.

     Hikari had let go of Touji as soon as he started to scream, 
but before she could ask what was wrong an enormous shadow 
passed over them. Looking up she saw what Touji had and she 
released a similar shriek of terror. The three of them were 
frozen in horror as Evangelion Unit One slammed into the 
mountainside. 

Their inability to move probably saved their lives.

     As the huge robot crashed into the hill, the shockwave 
threw the three of them off their feet. When the earth finally 
stopped shaking, Hikari realized that she was still alive and 
let out a deep breath. This breath stopped midway out of her 
lungs as she opened her eyes. Less than two feet from her face 
there was a large purple wall. 

     Shaking her head and trying to clear her thoughts she took 
another look and realized that it was part of the giant robot's 
hand. Another look around revealed that they were between the 
enormous fingers of said hand.  

       It wasn't until the red monster began to float towards 
them that she and her friends broke from their shock, and 
started to scream again.


[]====[]
[]====[]


     As the Eva smashed into the hillside, Shinji tried to 
remain in control. He was seconds from freaking out and he knew 
it. He had to concentrate! Shaking off the last of his 
disorientation-- he looked around to get his bearings. 

     That was when he saw the frightened figures huddled 
together mere feet from the Eva's hands. Shocked that he had 
almost killed someone, he flipped the magnification up and 
received yet another surprise. He knew the three; they were in 
his class. One of them was the boy who had hit him.

     Fighting back the urge to panic-- he looked back to see the 
Angel floating towards him. It was obviously intending to 
continue their battle. 


[]====[]
[]====[]


     In the Command center of Central Dogma, Misato Katsuragi 
was in total control. People who knew her well were always 
surprised to see this side of her; it was a sharp contrast to 
the way she behaved off duty. 

     Barking orders left and right, she was like a master 
conductor in an orchestra. It was an inspiring sight to see her 
like this, to see her at her best.

     Bringing her headset up to her ear she tried to get 
Shinji's attention. The boy was under a great deal of stress, 
and she knew that there was only so much more of this he could 
take in his current state. She also knew that they had little 
choice but to use him for the time being. 

     "Shinji! Are you ok? Respond!"

     Seeing that the pilot was still disoriented she turned to 
the three technicians nearby.

     "What's his status? Any damage?"

     "Negative" Makoto quickly replied "it's still operational"

     Then, just as Shinji was increasing the magnification on 
his screens, the computers displayed three photos and sets of 
information.

     "Shinji's classmates?" Misato said in slight confusion. She 
didn't have time to figure out the 'why' of the kids being 
there. She simply accepted it and factored it into her battle 
plans.

     Ritsuko didn't think like Misato, so in contrast to 
coworker's cool reaction-- her mouth fell open as she yelled, 
"What the hell are they doing out there?"


[]====[]
[]====[]


     Meanwhile, Shinji was doing his best to simultaneously fend 
off another attack and prevent the Eva from crushing his 
schoolmates

     As he grabbed one of the glowing tentacle whips the Angel 
was lashing at him-- he could hear shouting from his external 
pickups.

     "Why isn't he fighting back?" the tall boy who had hit him 
yelled as the girl he now recognized as the class representative 
tried to pull the two away from the fight. He gritted his teeth, 
steeling himself against the synthetic pain he felt as the whips 
were beginning to burn into the Eva's hands.

     "He can't because we're here!" the kid with glasses yelled 
back over the crackling sound of the Evas burning hands, "he's 
trying not to fall on us"

     'Come on Horaki,' Shinji thought, 'get em away before I 
lose power!'

     Over his communication link he heard one of the bridge crew 
announce that he only had three minutes of time left. 

      Suddenly, to his relief, Misato opened a channel and 
informed him of the new plan.

     "Shinji! Let them into the entry plug with you. After 
they're safe retreat... we'll try this again with full power."

     In the background he could hear doctor Akagi yell at his 
guardian. "Just what makes you think that unauthorized civilians 
can be allowed into the _entry plug_?"

     "I'm authorizing it" Misato said coolly 

     "You're exceeding your authority _captain_" Ritsuko 
replied. He could hear the annoyance in the doctor's voice as 
she put an extra emphasis on Misato's rank, and wondered what it 
was about the plan was so upsetting to her. 
 
     As the technician announced the remaining time again Misato 
came back across the channel with his orders.

     "Lock in the Eva's current commands and eject the 
Entryplug, and hurry, we don't have much time!"


[]====[]
[]====[]


    "Look!" Kensuke shouted as Hikari tried to pull them away 
from the dueling titans.

     Despite the fact that she was trying to get her friends as 
far away from what was going on behind her, she risked a glance 
back and was just in time to see the Eva's head lean forward as 
its back opened up. A white cylinder spun out of the body and a 
loud, commanding female voice came over a speaker somewhere on 
the machine.

     "You three get inside now!" the voice shouted over the din.

     Not knowing what else to do the three raced up to the now 
open hatch on the cylinder. To his credit Touji helped her up 
and over into the hatch where she suddenly found herself neck 
deep in some type of liquid. She didn't even have time to scream 
because as Touji jumped in, the hatch closed and the liquid rose 
to the top, covering her entirely. 

     Trying to hold her breath and keep from screaming in 
terror, she was a bit surprised to hear Kensuke scream quite 
clearly. 
 
     "My camera, my camera!"

     What was this stuff? 

     "What is this? Water?" Touji yelled, completely confused as 
to how he was able to breathe.

     Hikari looked down and saw Shinji Ikari looking up at a 
display screen with a grim look on his face. Realizing that he 
was breathing the liquid stuff, she closed her eyes and took her 
first breath. For the first few seconds it felt like someone had 
poured ice water into her lungs, and she had to fight not to 
vomit. The second breath went better, and by the third she found 
that while the stuff was unpleasant to smell and taste-- it 
didn't seem to be hurting her

     She began to hear shouts of panic over a radio as someone 
said something about loosing nerve connections and too much 
thought noise.
  
     The Eva reactivated and Shinji's shoulders tensed up as the 
Eva threw the Angel down the hill. His eyes looked more than 
haunted now; they looked completely hollow. He was chanting 
something under his breath that she couldn't make out.

     The woman who had ordered them in the cylinder shouted for 
Shinji to retreat and began giving directions. Shinji just 
looked out at the Angel as the Eva stood with a look on his face 
that she realized she had seen before. It had been weeks ago 
after his first day in school, and he had been watching the city 
transform to battle formation. That same lost look...  

     "New kid, hey new kid! She said retreat! You gotta run!" Touji 
shouted, lost in panic.

     For the moment she was in total agreement with Touji-- her 
top priority was getting her friends away from the giant red 
monster.
 
      "Shinji, you gotta go, hurry, please..." she started, but 
suddenly trailed off as she heard Shinji' voice.  

     She could hear him much clearer now that she was used to 
the liquid, and could just make out the words as he chanted them 
like a mantra growing louder and louder with each repetition.

    "I mustn't run away, I mustn't run away, I mustn't run away."

     "Shinji?" she said hesitantly. This was, to say the least, odd 
behavior for a combat pilot.

     Something moved on the Eva, and as strange as it seemed, 
she could almost feel it. At the same time a display that said 
'progressive knife engaged' lit up in the corner of the screen.

     Over the radio the woman was shouting for Shinji to retreat 
over and over, but Shinji seemed to ignore this. From one of the 
screens she could see the Eva reach up and pulled the blade from 
somewhere on its shoulder.

     A timer in another corner went red and displayed a 
countdown, and Shinji's chant reached its peak. Suddenly, with a 
wild look taking hold of his face, he launched his body forward, 
gripping his controls and letting out a blood-curdling scream.

      As the three passengers backed away from the front of the 
cockpit in fear, the Eva leapt down the slope, its knife at 
ready as the monster attacked with its tentacles. The woman in 
charge screamed for him to stop as the tentacles struck the Eva 
in the abdomen. Other than a small grimace of pain, this didn't 
even seem to faze Shinji-- who put everything he had into 
driving the knife into a red sphere in the center of the 
monster's 'chest'.

     His screams driving him forward, Shinji pushed the knife 
deeper into the monster as Hikari and the two boys cowered to 
the back of the cockpit, almost as afraid of the enraged pilot 
as of the monster he was attacking. 

     Finally just as the timer hit zero, the monster seemed to 
slump forward. The Eva did likewise and the two giants stood 
there, locked into place, each bracing the other.

     After what felt like an eternity, Hikari pulled herself 
away from the other two and climbed up to the front where she 
found Shinji sobbing against the controls of the robot. He 
seemed to have lost whatever had possessed him moments before. 
As she watched him, she thought of the look in his eyes as he 
had attacked at that last moment. She had never in her life seen 
anything close to that level of anger and rage. It frightened 
her, and she couldn't think of anything to do or say. Feeling 
something move beside her, she turned and found Kensuke and 
Touji had joined her at the edge of the pilot's seat. The guilty 
look on Touji's face gave her a touch of relief-- but it didn't 
get him off the hook. He was going to make up for what he had 
done... or else.
 

[]====[]
[]====[]


     With a heavy heart Hikari Horaki walked to school in the 
rain.

     It had been three days. Three days since they had climbed 
into that thing and watched Shinji fight. She still felt angry 
with herself for not trying to comfort him afterwards-- he had 
needed someone to help him at that moment and she had backed 
away. What about it had frightened her so much? The actual 
fight? Or was it seeing the quiet boy she had met a few days 
before change so dramatically in the heat of battle? That might 
have been it-- it was never pleasant to see the kind of anger 
people kept locked away be released. 
   
     They hadn't been left in the plug very long. Once the thing 
that Shinji called an Angel had been confirmed dead-- a 
helicopter had been sent out to pick them up. Shinji had been 
little more than a ghost during that ride back. Even when 
Kensuke tried to talk with him the boy simply didn't respond. 
When they landed a woman in a red jacket had spirited him away 
as the rest of them waited in a small office. Eventually a blond 
woman in a lab coat had come to see them, but why she was there 
Hikari never found out. She had taken a blood sample from each 
of them and left just as quickly as she came.
     
     When the woman with the red jacket finally returned she 
identified herself as Captain Misato Katsuragi of Nerv. Hikari 
recognized the name immediately; the woman was Shinji's 
guardian. After going over each of their stories fifteen times, 
she began to chew the boys out. Kensuke looked absolutely 
heartbroken to find that she was considering placing the 
incident in his permanent record. If that happened then all his 
dreams of military schools would be dashed. 

 The woman had yelled at them for another hour, but the people 
from Nerv hadn't punished them. That was going to come when the 
school board called her in for a review in a few weeks. She was 
fairly certain that she would be stripped of her position. Touji 
and Kensuke felt terrible about it, and had promised to make it 
up to her somehow-- but she had told them in very sharp angry 
words that it wasn't her that they should make anything up to. 
Touji had promised to apologize to Shinji, but he was going to 
have to wait. Ever since the fight Shinji had been absent from 
class. 

     As she walked into the classroom she checked her mail and 
rested her head in her hands. An indefinite amount of time later 
she was awakened from her nap by the sound of Touji and Kensuke 
talking. 

     "Three days counting today..." Touji said in a voice that 
reflected the day's weather: gloomy.

     "Since we got chewed out?"

     "No... since he came to class."

     She was a little surprised-- Touji was a very stubborn 
person, and despite his promises to apologize to Shinji-- for 
him to drop his ego so quickly and be concerned was a little 
unusual for him.

     "So you're worried?"

     "Well I wouldn't exactly say worried..."

     Then again, maybe not.
 
     "Look Touji..." Kensuke said reaching into his bag and 
removing a slip of paper, "for someone who makes such a habit of 
being as tactless as you tend to be, you're being pretty hesitant
 here, aren't you? If you had just apologized after the fight 
you wouldn't be moping around like this."

     Hikari smiled-- Kensuke had come through after all. He 
might be a pain, but she had to admit, he knew his way around a 
computer. 

     "Look... this is the new kid's number. Why don't you call 
and ask if he's OK? Then you won't have to be worried about the 
whole thing, and you won't drive me crazy by pretending you 
aren't."

     Touji took the slip of paper and looked at it for a moment 
before standing and heading to the door. As he passed Hikari she 
gave him a smile and a nod, letting him know she was proud of 
him. 

     "I'll call him after lunch" Touji said dismissavly. 

     Hikari frowned at that. She knew the boy too well-- he was 
going to put it off and forget about it. Kensuke was just as 
bad; he still had half of Touji's paperwork in his desk. She 
decided that she was through playing around with these two and 
stood up. 

     "Suzuhara, you are going to go right out to that phone and 
call Shinji this moment or your going to be on cleanup for the 
rest of the year! Or do you need _another_ dozen knots on that 
head of yours?" 

     Touji flinched at that. We and Kensuke were already 
sentenced to a month of cleaning duty for their little screwup, 
and the only reason Hikari hadn't made it for longer is that she 
didn't think she would be around to enforce it after the review. 
Of course, that hadn't stopped her from punishing them in other 
ways.
  
     As Touji stepped outside to make his call, she turned to 
Kensuke.

     "And as for you..." she said sternly, as Kensuke shrunk 
back into his desk, "when Shinji comes back I want you to try 
and be nicer to him, your little 'that's his excuse' bit was the 
lamest thing I've ever heard you say. I don't care if you just 
do it because he's the pilot, but try to be his friend. You and 
Touji have known one another since you were kids, but in his 
case I don't think he's had a friend like that before."

     "You're kidding?" Kensuke said with no small measure of 
surprise, "come to think of it that would explain a lot... don't 
worry class rep, I accept my mission"

     "Don't salute me again-- I still haven't let you off the 
hook. What are you doing this weekend? Still going out to the 
rice fields?"

     "You know me too well Hikari," Kensuke said with a grin.

     "If you see Shinji, invite him along. It might do him some 
good."

     Well that solved one problem. She didn't like ordering 
people around like that but if she didn't do something then the 
idiot duo would find a thousand reasons to avoid their 
responsibilities. Hopefully Shinji wasn't too disgusted by them 
to accept their friendship. Hopefully somehow this would help 
her feel better for shrinking away from him when he had needed 
her help. Hopefully he was going to come back.

     Looking out at Touji standing by the phone in the hall, she 
hoped he made good on his promise to make up with Shinji, she 
had never met anyone in such desperate need of friendship.


[]====[]
[]====[]


     Several blocks away in the apartment of Misato Katsuragi, a 
cellular phone sat on a desk beside a note and an ID card. The 
phone began to ring, but there was no one there to answer. 


[]=====================[]
  To be Continued...
[]=====================[]




Authors incoherent babbling:

     Well there's part one. 

     Yes, yes I _know_ this is mostly a novelization of episode 
three with a few changes. I'm afraid that it had to be that way 
in order to set up the rest of the story. What I am trying to do 
here is to start slowly and build as I go. The changes will 
begin to add up as the story progresses. Be patient grasshopper. 

     So what is to be expected in this new timeline? Well I'll 
give ya a hint; some events are far too huge for this to have 
any effect, other events will be dramatically altered due to the 
changes. I don't see anything here stopping Angel attacks, but 
personal stuff? That's all free game. Shinji and Hikari... a shy 
quiet young man and a sweet cheerful young lady. What effects 
will her friendship have on Shinji? Will their growing 
relationship be the tiny element that makes a difference in the 
scheme of things? Could something so simple as this alter the 
fate of the world? 

     Let's find out shall we?
  
     For those who are wondering, the exact moment I'm breaking 
the timeline is when Hikari sees Touji hit Shinji. It's a subtle 
thing... but I felt it was an appropriate catalyst for the 
story. From this point all bets are off for domestic and school 
scenes. Some will still follow the same path, such as Asuka's 
introduction. Only after time will the changes in Shinji's 
behavior begin to affect even Der Redhead. As the story 
progresses the changes will grow. Hopefully we can give a ray of 
light and hope to some kids trapped in a no-win scenario  

     
Hotwire 
Chain Lightning Studios