This is a NGE and Ranma Alternative universe crossover fic.

The characters from Neon Genesis Evangelion, and Ranma ½ are not mine.

Honour Thy Father

"We're taught unconditional love

"That love is thicker than water

"That a parent's world would revolve

"Always around their son or their daughter"

-- 'Honour Thy Father', by Dream Theatre

Chapter One

The soft, almost unnoticeable pitch of the electric mag-lift train faded as it slid to a stop inside the station. The train lowered to rest on the track once more, clamps locking its steal frame in place.  Shinji had vague memories from his childhood, back when his mother had still been alive, when trains had been big, noisy, dirty things, yet had somehow managed to seem filled with magic that the newer, smaller models couldn’t match.  Still, he had been a child then, and everything had been magical back when mother was alive.

As far as he could tell, Shinji had the train to himself for the entire trip.  The letter of invitation from his father had hinted that special attention was being given to getting him to Tokyo-3 at the correct time, but to have an entire train to himself was unbelievable.  In a way, Shinji would almost have preferred to travel in a packed train, even if it had of meant having to stand.  There was something terribly lonely about making the trip completely alone.  There wasn’t even a driver on board; the trains were completely automated these days.

The platform, Shinji noticed as he stepped out from the train, was empty too.  During the middle of the day, with the salary men off at work, the stations tended to be quite empty, but Shinji had never seen a station as deserted as this one.  Even the station staff seemed absent.  The arrival time signs flashed red, displaying that all Rail operations were cancelled for the day.

Of course, the platform wasn’t completely deserted.  His father had said he would meet him at the station, and for all his other flaws, his father never broke his word.  He sauntered over from where he had been standing beside one of the support posts with the easy yet controlled gait that Shinji had never been able to master, and came to stand before Shinji.

Their blue eyes met for a moment, and Shinji felt him self straightening, his shoulders pulling back, as he tried to match the taller stature and greater control and poise of his father.  He couldn’t match it, of course.  He knew he never would be able to, and he doubted his father would notice even if he did somehow manage to.  His father was strong and confident, his jet black hair lending additional strength to the already strong lines of his face.  His hands hung at his side, seemingly relaxed, but Shinji knew different; had he been someone his father was really happy to see, his arm would have been behind his head, tugging at the base of his long pigtail, while a nervous but happy smile pulled at the corners of his mouth.

Instead Shinji’s father’s expression was stern, as it always was when they met.  Later, Shinji knew, the mask would slip, and he would catch a glimpse of the sadness lurking beneath the façade his father portrayed.  Shinji’s hands hurt, his fingernails biting into his palms as he clenched them hard, the familiar bitter feeling of his anger towards his father filling him.

His father…

He wasn’t much of a father.  His Aunt was a better parent to him than his own father had ever managed to be.  He had been happy at his Aunt’s house.  She cared about him.  She wasn’t ashamed of him.  He had friends there too, despite his father’s weird reputation with some of the adults.  He probably shouldn’t have come, but it had been almost inevitable that he would.  Despite everything, Shinji couldn’t say no when his father called for him.  Somewhere inside him there was a 6 year old who still believed that he might somehow earn his fathers approval.

“Hello Shinji,” His father greeted him, “I’m glad you made it safely.”

“Yeah.”

They stood silent for a moment, his father looking away towards the clock that hung from the roof of the station, while Shinji shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot.

“The Lady you’ll be staying with is supposed to be picking us up out side in a few minutes,” his Father continued, “She’ll probably be late, but, well, you know…”  He gave an almost apologetic half shrug, and turned, leading Shinji out of the unfamiliar station and onto the streets of Tokyo-3.

A short flight of concrete steps took the two of them down the half a story to street level.  The light was considerably brighter out here than under the shade of the train station's steel shelters, and Shinji squinted against the light as he stepped onto the street.  Not too far from here the wreckages of homes affected by flood or earthquake when the effects of Second Impact had hit Japan still stood.  The train that had brought Shinji to Tokyo-3 had travelled over and around lakes and streams that had once been villages, towns and cities.  Scant minutes ago he had passed by the remnants of some of the skyscrapers of old Tokyo, their upper floors high enough to stand above the waters of one of the newer rivers.  One of the buildings had still had some of its mirrored windows intact, and Shinji had been able to briefly make out his reflection in it's decaying face.

Here inside Tokyo-3 proper things were vastly different.  The streets were clean stretches of ash-grey concrete, and black bitumen, well kept and well ordered.  The only similarity it had to the dead cities outside, was the deathly calm that pervaded it.  The streets here were empty, and cars seemed to have been abandoned, left alongside, or even in the middle of the streets; many of them had been left with their doors wide open.

A crackle of static briefly filled the air as public announcement came to life, and began to replay a recorded message to the deserted streets of Tokyo-3. 

"As of twelve minutes and thirty seconds past one PM today, a special state of emergency has been declared for the Kanto and Chubu regions surrounding the Tokai district have been declared to be under a state of emergency.  All residents must evacuate to their designated shelters immediately."

Shinji straightened as he absorbed the meaning of the message.  The Kanto and Chubu regions...  That was here.  Had one of the mountains resumed volcanic activity?  Was there another earthquake on the way?  Shinji looked around instinctively, wondering if perhaps he might catch sight of a plume of smoke, or perhaps some other sign of impending disaster.

Shinji's father ignored the public announcement entirely.  He seemed as calm, confident and resolute as always.  He stopped at the corner of the street, clasping one hand with his other behind his back, and settling into a relaxed stance, staring off down the intersecting road.

What was it about him, Shinji wondered.  What was that allowed him to be so confident in any situation?  Did he not care about what happened, or was he just so confident in his own abilities that nothing gave him cause to draw breath?  He had been calm when mother had died too.  Shinji's first memory of his father was from the hospital, after they had been told his mother was dead.  Shinji, his aunts, and his grandfather had all cried, but his father had stood calm and emotionless.  For all the things that his father had done since, Shinji still probably hated him the most for that.

Shinji breathed deeply, closing his eyes as he drew air into his lungs.  Now wasn't the time to start thinking about these things again.  Not right now.  Shinji wasn't the same iron man that his father was, able to run laps around the sports field without breaking a sweat, and so, despite having so recently got off a train, he sat down on the flat, blue-painted steel slats of a nearby bench.

There was a public phone booth across the street from them.  Its Perspex sheltering and lime green handset seemed inviting, compared to his father's cold exterior.  For a moment the urge to walk across to it, and hear the familiar friendly voices of one of his relatives or friends from his home nearly overwhelmed Shinji.  He pushed it down inside him.  He had come all this way, so he would at least wait to hear what his father had to say to him at least. 

Would his father use that phone, Shinji wondered, if the situation turned out to be as serious as the public announcement had made it sound, or would he continue on, even into death, confident in his ability to handle any situation?  Were there people his father called, when he felt sad or overwhelmed?  Maybe he never did.  Maybe he just didn't care enough to feel any of those things.  Maybe there was someone he called when Shinji had disappointed him again.

Shinji turned to look down the street again.  Standing motionless in the middle of the road, dressed in a school uniform, was a girl.  Her grey-blue hair was cropped fairly short, for a girl, cut so it followed the genera shape of her head; not plain exactly, but far from glamorous.  Shinji could have sworn she wasn't there moments ago.  What she was doing out here anyway?  Shouldn't she be wherever the rest of the city's people had disappeared to?  Shinji wondered if his father would talk to her, or try and take her with them.

Shinji's thoughts were interrupted by the roar of jet turbines.  A VTOL passed directly overhead, the down-thrust from its jet turbines whipping and tugging on Shinji's hair and clothes, and making the electricity and telecommunications cables dance between the posts from which they hung.  The noise was nearly deafening, and Shinji plugged his ears with his fingertips, his head sinking towards his rising shoulder blades, in an instinctive and irrational attempt to cover himself against the noise.

When the noise died down to a low roar, Shinji raised his head again.  Unsurprisingly his father stood seemingly unaffected.  The only move he seemed to have made was to track the passage of the VTOL with his head.  Shinji followed his gaze, and gasped aloud as he realized that there were at least a dozen of the VTOL, all military grade, and all converging on one point, out of Shinji's line of sight.

Shinji had never seen so many VTOL in one place out side an air show.  Was that what this was, some kind of air show?  Given the deserted state of the streets, Shinji doubted that was the case.

His question was answered when the VTOL began to belch white plumes of smoke from their underbellies.  Rockets, Shinji realized belatedly, they're firing rockets at something.  It seemed unreal.  This was Tokyo-3, heart of Japan, not some war zone in the Russian member states.

Then the scene got even more surreal.  The VTOL floated backwards, moving back towards Shinji's position, and from out behind a mountain stepped a huge hulking humanoid monstrosity.  It was primarily deep green, with massive greeny-grey shoulders, and a ibis-like head of the same colour that was sunk far below them.  Its arms and waist were spindly, a bit like one of the starving Russian children that they showed on the television adverts.  A large red orb took up primary position on its chest, beneath its head.  It stood behind a line of buildings, a seven story apartment complex hiding most of the... things legs.

Was he dreaming, Shinji briefly wondered?  He knew he wasn't though.  It was too vivid, too real.  The rumble of the VTOL was still to painfully uncomfortable for Shinji to be able to dismiss the sounds and sights he was receiving as dream or hallucination.

"What is it?" Shinji breathed aloud, barely realizing that he was speaking.

Fresh plumes of white smoke filled the air, as a swarm of rockets converged on the huge bi-pedal thing.  The sound of explosions filled the air, and the Thing rocked back on its heels as rockets made contact with it.  For a moment the Thing was obscured by the bright light, and then the smoke from the explosions, but the air cleared rapidly and the Thing was still standing there.  It didn't even look like it was scratched.

How?  How could it be unmarked?  The firepower that had just hit the Thing was probably enough to reduce an entire block to rubble.  What was this Thing?  Shinji realized he was on his feet now, the urge to move, to do something filling him as adrenaline coursed through his body.

A warm weight settled on Shinji's shoulder, and he turned to discover it was his father's hand.  Shinji hadn't heard his father move, but then he could always move quietly when he wanted to; cat-like almost, though his father never allowed people to describe him that way.  His father was standing just behind him now, his right hand resting heavily on Shinji's left shoulder. As was always the case in these rare moments of contact, Shinji didn't know whether to feel comforted or angry.  Conflicting emotions twisted within him.  On some level, the contact made him feel safer, but he hated knowing that his father felt he was so pathetic as to need the protection that he was offering.

Despite the contact, Shinji's father remained facing away, his head turned to watch the flying vehicles swarming around the bipedal Thing.  He was always turned away, both figuratively and literally.  He remained turned thus as he began to speak, answering the question that Shinji had barely registered making.

"It is an Angel, a judge in our trial by fire.  Perhaps it will be our executioner too."

The sound of an explosion drew Shinji's attention back to the skies in time to see a long glowing spike retract from the wreckage of one of the VTOL and back into the palm of the Thing's hand.  The damaged VTOL listed sideways in the air, heading towards Shinji and his father before seeming to just drop out of the air, crashing to the street close to Shinji and his father, bouncing until it collided with one of the nearby buildings

There was a larger explosion originating from directly behind the bi-pedal Thing, and it was propelled upwards and forwards in an impromptu leap.  It seemed, to Shinji, to hang in air for longer than should have been possible, menacing and almost directly above before if fell back to earth, one of its huge green feet landing on the VTOL it had just destroyed, crushing it, and causing a blinding explosion that sent twisted fragments of the VTOL carapace bouncing out across the bitumen.

A squeal of tires joined the cacophony of noise filling the air, and Shinji looked up, lowering the arm that he had been shielding his eyes with, to see a bright blue sports car pull up alongside him and his father.  The driver-side door swung open to reveal a woman in her late twenties, with long dark blue hair and wearing a short skirted black dress and a pair of sunglasses. 

"I'm Sorry!  Were you waiting long?"

It seemed to Shinji like a hopelessly silly thing to say when there was a gargantuan monster standing barely a hundred meters away.  Shinji's father snorted in response, before taking hold of Shinji's upper arm and leading him around the front of the car to the passenger side door.  His father stooped for a moment, and the seat leant forward with a clunk, leaving barely enough room for Shinji to squeeze past, at his father's urging, onto the cramped back seat.

Shinji had barely managed to squeeze his feet into the cramped foot-well and fastened his seatbelt when the woman behind the steering wheel spun the car into reverse, craning her neck to look out the back window as the car shot backwards.  The Angel, under a fresh hail of missile fire, staggered backwards down the street, its movement bringing one of its huge feet perilously close to the car as the woman spun it around, stopping momentarily as she wrenched the gear-stick and set the car moving again, this time forwards, and considerably faster.

In the front passenger seat, Shinji's father sat perfectly still, his body apparently unaffected by the movement of the car as the driver swerved it wildly around chunks of falling masonry, and abandoned cars that littered the streets.  He stared out the side window, apparently unconcerned, even uninterested, by the destruction taking place mere meters from them.

The driver or the car seemed to relax once they had got a few blocks away from the Angel, her grip on the wheel loosening, and her manner becoming almost playful.  She turned to Shinji's father as she took a corner at speeds well outside the legal limit.

"Just like old times, right Ranma?"  The woman was almost shouting, perhaps because of the engine noise, or maybe just the effects of unspent adrenaline.

Shinji's father turned away from his study of the blurring images of the buildings that they passed, "No.  Not really."

"Aww, you're no fun."

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

The Angel had not remained within the limits of the city, its objective, if indeed it had had any clear goal, seemingly lying elsewhere.  Larger explosions had come from the Angel's location, but it had seemingly been immune to the affects of anything that the Japanese defence forces could find to throw at it.

Shinji and the two adults who sat in the front of the now battered sports car had left the city too.  The driver, whom Shinji's father had referred to as Misato, had taken them onto a highway that had led out across a dry and barren stretch of ground.  Misato had pulled the car up here, to watch the Angels Progress as it crossed the uneven ground with its slow almost waddling gait.

Misato was currently bent across Shinji's father to lean out of his window as she followed the movement of the Angel with a pair of military grade binoculars.  His father was squished up into the corner of his seat, studiously turned away from the lithe woman leaning centimetres away from his face.  He had made weak complaints when she had first moved over, but she had hushed him up quickly, telling him she was trying to concentrate.

It was strange, Shinji mused, the only thing that seemed to be able to phase his father in the slightest was women; that was behaviour more normal in someone of his age than of his father's.  What was it with the two of them anyway?  They were on a first name basis, and Misato was relaxed and informal, as if she had known him for years.  She also didn't seem to have any problem with thrusting herself into his personal space.  Even his father seemed more relaxed and warmer than he did around many women.  Were they just workmates, or something more like old friends, Shinji wondered.  After all, Misato had come all the way out here and into a war-zone to meet them.  Even if Misato and his father seemed pretty relaxed about the danger, that surely said something, right?

"Hey, wait a second," Misato said, her voice rising in octave as she lowered the binoculars from her eyes, "They're going to use an N2-Mine?!"

Shinji heard his father gurgle as Misato threw herself down onto him, but he didn't stop to watch.  The urgency in Misato's voice had been enough of a warning for him, and he bent over, lowering his as far towards his lap as he could, and covering his head with his arms.  There was a flash, light finding its way into Shinji's eyes despite his closed eyelids, then a deafening roar of sound as Shinji's world began to spin.  He jerked as gravity began to rearrange itself around him, the still fastened seatbelt biting hard into his waist and chest.  Shinji felt divorced from reality for a confused, sickening few seconds.  Dust filled his nostrils as he breathed in, and he had no concept of which direction was up. 

Even after the noise had stopped, and the car had stopped, it was a time until Shinji realized it.  His head still spun as he unbuckled his seatbelt and fell down to the ground, which was currently resting under the right side of the car.  Misato and his father might well have fared worse than him.  Neither of them had been buckled in when the shockwave from the blast had hit the car, and they were currently squashed together in an undignified pile of misplaced limbs.

Shinji ignored the pair of them, tuning out his father's muffled anxious complaints, and climbing up the cars upholstery to scramble out of the open window that opened up to the sky.  He jumped to the ground, landing in a crouch.  His mouth was full of the orange dust that now seemed to cover the landscape, and Shinji spat, clearing his mouth of as much of it as he could before he straightened and did his best to brush the loose dirt from his shirt and trousers.

His father and Misato joined him a minute later, his father pulling Misato up from inside the car, and jumping lightly down to the ground with her in his arms before setting her back on the ground.  Shinji had seen him performing similar feats with the members of his family for almost as long as he could remember, and the ease with which he managed to pull them off never ceased to amaze him.  If only his father had been willing to spend but a fraction of the time he spent training himself to train Shinji…

Ten impossible things before breakfast, Shinji mused to himself as his father reached up and began to pull the car back down to earth, managing its weight as easily as if he were moving an empty cardboard box.  Shinji switched his attention to Misato, who had stepped away from the car when his father had set her down, and like he had a few moments earlier, was trying to pat the dirt from her sleeveless dress.  As he watched, she bent slightly, and her shoulder-length hair slipped over her shoulders, cascading down in a wave to hide her face from Shinji while she brushed the dirt from her dress' short skirt.

Shinji was having trouble placing Misato into his world view.  From what little he had seen of her, she seemed to alternate fairly randomly between being very feminine, and being rambunctious, boisterous, and almost inappropriate.  He remembered his father had said that he would be staying with her, right after he got off the train.  Was she some sort of concierge?  A nanny?  Her attitude seemed wrong for that.  Misato was a bit strange, even to someone with Shinji's quite bizarre extended family, and he didn't think even his father would hire someone who acted as weird as Misato to look after him, unless he had good reason to trust her.  Aside from all that, they didn't really act like people who had just met, even accounting for Misato's strangely boisterous manner.  Did they work together then, or had she perhaps been trained by his father?  Either option seemed possible.  Misato did seem like the type of woman who might be involved in either the martial arts, or his father's line of work.  Shinji would almost have called her a tomboy, if it hadn't been from the feminine manner in which she dressed and spoke.

Caught up in his own thoughts, Shinji realised that Misato had already straightened and was now walking towards him, her expression mostly hidden by her sunglasses.  Behind her, Shinji's father stood silent and still, watching as Misato approached Shinji.  They must have noticed him looking at her, Shinji fretted.  Misato had probably already decided he was some sort of pervert now.

Misato turned her head to the side as she reached up with one hand, and pulled the sunglasses from her face to reveal a pair of beautiful, friendly brown eyes.  Shinji was totally unprepared for the warmth that he found within them.

"So you must be Shinji, right?"  Misato said.

Flustered and off centre, Shinji struggled from words, feeling clumsy and inept as the first few sounds that he managed to coax out turned out to be gibberish.

"Ahh, yes," Shinji finally managed, "Thank you, Ms…"

"Katsuragi.  But just call me Misato.  We’re going to be staying together, after all."

Shinji paused for a moment, his mouth suddenly feeling rather dry, before responding. "Okay…  Misato."

The older woman's smile grew across her face at Shinji's response, and the teen could feel his own lips turning upwards in response even as his heart gave a slight flutter in his chest.

"I'm glad we've met at last, Shinji Saotome.  I've heard a lot about you."

"Y..you have?" Shinji's tongue felt thick in his mouth.  Heard a lot about him?  From his father?  It was hard to imagine why his father might be talking about him, and if he had been it surely wouldn't have been anything to make Misato sound so happy.

"That's right," Misato continued, before turning back to look towards Shinji's father, her smile not diminishing in the slightest.  "We'd better start back now, don't you think?"

Shinji could only nod.

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Shinji hadn't been certain what would be waiting for him in Tokyo-3 when he had decided to join his father here.  His father was normally fairly blunt when it came to dealing with people, and though it didn't seem like he was trying to upset people, he could be almost rude, giving a fairly honest opinion freely, even if it insulted those he was talking to.  When it came to his dealings with Shinji though, it was a completely different story.  For Shinji, getting anything from his father, be it an opinion, or details, was like pulling hens teeth.

When Misato had tried to get them moving they had realised that the car was in far worse shape than its three occupants.  Its rolling passage across the rough terrain seemed to have dented nearly all the panel work of the car, as well as having torn several pieces of the trim from the bodywork.  The power supply of the car had also become damaged, although Shinji couldn't understand how, and was slowly bleeding power off.  They managed to limp to where the road ran past the outskirts of the city, and Misato had managed to scavenge spare batteries from somewhere, and had jury-rigged them into the car's circuitry.  Shinji was fairly sure that she hadn't obtained them legally, and he would probably have said something about that, had it not been for his father's presence.

With the batteries installed, Misato's can seemed to run smoothly, aside from rattling a deal more than earlier.  Misato's driving style was a lot calmer now that the three of them were away from danger; either that or she was trying to ensure her damaged car was put under as little strain as possible.

The road took them away from barren ground, and up and along steep hills that were teeming with lush green grass and other vegetation.  The hills had calmed Shinji.  They were normal, boring, and a lot more similar to the lands around his hometown than anything else he had seen since he had stepped off of the train that morning.  It seemed a world away from the narrow streets of Tokyo-3, and as the road rushed along beneath them, it had become easier and easier to believe that the massive Angel was but a dream. 

The trip through the hills hadn't lasted long enough for Shinji's liking.  Too soon the road dipped down, taking them into a large rectangular tunnel, and Shinji was in an alien world again; a cave world composed of massive concrete slabs, and lit by orange fluorescent lighting.  The concrete gave way to steel as Misato navigated them though a short network of tunnels, and then through a massive set of automated steel doors and onto a berth, parked sideways on what must have been some sort of underground cargo train system.

Misato was relaxed again, seeming to have forgotten about the damage to the car for at least the time being, and seemed happy to continue chatting despite the threadbare responses from his father.  Misato had also handed Shinji a booklet, its cover marked 'Welcome to NERV' and 'For your eyes only'.  It was a shock to Shinji; his father had always tried to stop Shinji from knowing anything about the organisations that he worked for, and most of what he knew about his fathers work was from what his Aunt had told him.

A bigger surprise had come minutes later.  Shinji had been staring at the pages of the booklet, not really taking any of it in, just seeing the flickering of the soft blue light on its pages as the train rushed past regularly placed lights, and feeling the book vibrate slightly in his hands with the train's movement.  He hadn't noticed the square of light ahead of them until they had passed through it, the track heading out into open air, the tops of trees hundreds of metres below him.  Shinji had had his first sight of the Geo Front.

It was a huge cavern, lit by shafts of orange light, coming from what Shinji assumed were massive skylights.  The floor of the cavern was carpeted by forestlands and a huge, bright lake.  A pyramid of steel nestled amongst the forest, its skirts sheltered by the foliage, its tip rising far above the tree tops.  Between the train they rode upon and the cavern's floor were other lower train rails; from this height they looked more like glistening strands of silver thread, or spider webbing perhaps, than the huge and intricate feat of engineering that they actually were.  All this as beautiful as it was, was not the most amazing part of the Geo Front, for just above their train had been buildings; massive skyscrapers, hanging from the ceiling like enormous, man-made stalactites.

They had descended to the floor of the Geo Front now, and through a network of steel corridors, but the sight of the Geo Front from the train still dominated Shinji's mind.  The sight of the buildings, seeming to hang only just out of arms reach, their nearest, shadowed, sides taking on a purple cast, so different from the almost glowing orange of the sides nearest to the skylights.  It was a marvel like little that Shinji had seen before, and he could still hear Misato's words on the subject.

'It is the key to rebuilding our world.  A fortress for all mankind.' 

It was something that Shinji could believe after that sight.  For once he felt that for all of mankind's flaws, for all of their mistakes and wars, that there was hope for them.  How could a race who could achieve something like that not succeed in the long term?

Now that they were inside the centre of the NERV complex, the sight was less beautiful, but still very impressive.  Shinji's father had led them through a maze of corridors, and onto moving walkways that took them deeper still inside the complex, through hexagonally configured passages, panelled in steel and carbon-fibres.  The walkways carried them out across massive shafts, which climbed high above, and dropped down beyond Shinji's ability to see.  Looking over the railing as they crossed over one such abyss, Shinji wondered whether, if he should fall, he ever hit the bottom.  Perhaps he would fall until he got so deep into the earth that the heat from its core reduced him to ash and vapours.  It wasn't a thought that Shinji had particularly enjoyed, and he had torn his gaze from the drop below, and buried his head in the booklet that Misato had given him earlier.

The building must have been immense, and it felt to Shinji at times as if he were lost in a metal and plastic version of an old hedge maze.  If he were to loose the others then he doubted he'd ever be able to find his way back.  In fact, Shinji suspected that Misato was almost as lost as he was.  In contrast, his father was as calm and collected as ever; he led them as unerringly as a compass needle, not once pausing to check the signs painted on the walls nor to consult a map. 

The walkways took them to more corridors, and elevators which carried the three of them further down bellow the earth's surface.  They stepped from one such lift to find a blond woman in a lab coat waiting for them.  Her short hair was wet, looking as if she had just stepped from the shower.  Her eyes were green, and although not hard, were somehow lacking in true warmth, and her mouth was turned up into a smile that was not quite a smirk.  Her lab coat hung open to reveal that beneath it she was clad in a blue top, that closed at the front with a zipper, and a black mini skirt.  Shinji Idly wondered if short skirts were part of the dress code for the female staff; both Misato and the blonde were dressed quite flatteringly.  It certainly wasn't type of look that he had expected from his father's co-workers; more provocative than he had imagined. 

The blond woman stepped forwards, towards Misato and Shinji's father.  "So then Misato, I see that Ranma managed to keep you from getting lost this time."  Misato gave a short, nervous laugh and the blonde woman turned to look briefly at Shinji before addressing Misato again.

"Is this the boy?"

To Shinji's surprise it was his father who responded to the question, his voice betraying the irritation he must have been feeling since having to pick Shinji up this afternoon.

"That's right, Ritsuko.  This Is Shinji."  There was more to his father's voice than just irritation; a warning note to it, perhaps.   The same warning tone his father used when he thought someone was going to talk about his work, or Shinji's mother, in front of him.  Shinji wondered what they were supposed to keep from him this time.

"According to the Marduk report, he is the third Child."  In comparison to Shinji's father's voice, Misato's voice seemed even m ore cheerful than it had earlier in the afternoon.  She continued talking, seemingly trying to smooth over the tension, but obviously having very little idea of how to go about doing that.

"He's just like his dad," Misato began to say, but stopped when His father turned sharply and glared at her.

"Don't say that, Misato.  He isn't like me."

That was something that Shinji had always known his father thought, but even so the words, the absolute certainty behind them, was more than Shinji was prepared for.  He felt like someone had punched him in the stomach.  He felt physically ill, and was suddenly glad that he had eaten his packed lunch early on the train ride in.  Shinji had to remember to breathe, had to force himself since his body seemed to have forgotten how to perform such a simple task of its volition.

Misato lifted her hand from her side slightly, as if she was going to reach out to him, but it listed, stopped partway in its ascent.  Even Ritsuko had lost her smirk, her face now sombre; the coldness Shinji had noted in her thawed for the time being as she watched on.  No, the words had not come as a surprise, but Shinji wished his father had not said them before these two women.

"Ranma…"  Whatever words Misato had been about to say died upon her lips as Ranma turned and began to walk away.

"He is nothing like me."

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They continued further into the base, what Ritsuko termed 'Central Dogma', through yet more tunnels, but Shinji was scarcely aware of his surroundings, his gaze locked on the floor at his feet.  Several times already Misato had had to pull Shinji gently in the right direction.  Shinji had looked up at her, expecting to find scorn written on her features, but instead finding only sympathy and concern.

Why was she concerned for him, Shinji wondered?  What possible reason for one of his father's friends to worry about him.  Still, he was grateful for the concern that she showed, and for a moment he was reminded of his Aunt.  It was strange really, for his Aunt was nothing like Misato at all.  His aunt was quiet, gentle and traditional, whereas Misato was loud brazen and seemingly unconcerned with traditional mores and values.  But it made sense, Shinji supposed.  When he thought of his Auntie, it wasn't her old fashioned housedress or her superb cooking which he thought of first, but her compassion, and the way she had loved and cared for him since he was a very young boy.  For all that Shinji found Misato a confusing and confronting woman, she shared that same compassion with his Aunt.  Shinji wondered if he was imagining it, or if she could possibly understand something of what he was feeling.

Misato pulled Shinji close to her, and he looked up as the floor beneath them shuddered and began to move upwards and sideways, carrying them away from the floor, and past massive supporting struts and girders.  A metal banister surrounded them on three sides, but that was all that separated their group from an increasingly high drop on all sides.  Too one side of the lift, if you could call it that, a transparent wall separated them from a tank of a strange pink substance that reminded Shinji of the cough syrup that his Auntie had used to feed him when he was younger.  He assumed the stuff was a liquid of some sorts, for beyond the transparent barrier, dark indistinct shapes were visible through the murky liquid.

The lift finally brought them to a halt at a walkway that ran alongside the top of the transparent wall.  Shinji had been right, the pink substance was a liquid, although what type of liquid Shinji was far from being certain.  The transparent wall formed one perimeter of a massive tank that was far larger than any indoor swimming pool that Shinji had ever seen before, and that was stories deep.  It was more like an indoor ocean, Shinji felt, than an indoor pool.

A small, rigid inflatable launch was moored along the ledge, and Ritsuko, or Doctor Akagi, as Shinji had now noticed her name badge declared her, motioned towards it.  It seated the four of them easily, if not comfortably, and Shinji watched as his father took the controls and sent the boat skimming out across the pink surface of the tank. 

Shinji sat near the centre of the boat.  Had they been travelling along a stretch of river or ocean, then Shinji would have sat with one hand over the edge of the boat, his hand trailing alongside the boat, enjoying the feeling of the water rushing between his fingers.  This pink, slightly cloudy liquid, however, Shinji shied away from; something about it sent apprehensive tingles racing through the body, and images of sinking down through more viscous fluid, to remain trapped on the bottom, dozens of metres from fresh air kept on surfacing within his mind.

For the moment he was glad that his father had always skipped out on the fishing trips that Shinji and his Grandfather had used to take together.  This way there was no reason for him to suspect Shinji's irrational fears.  It was the smell, Shinji thought, the liquid had a very unsettling smell; not nasty, nor particularly strong, just unsettling.  Shinji couldn't even describe it.  It was unlike anything he had smelt before.  The one thing he could say about it was that it carried a tang that vaguely reminded him of the metallic taste of an old, metal teaspoon.

The boat ride was not a long one, despite the enormous length of the tank, and in short order they had moored themselves to the opposite sides.  A short flight of stairs took them to a set of steel doors, which rumbled open, spilling a shaft of light into an otherwise entirely dark room.  They walked along the lit section of the floor, and Shinji had the feeling that centimetres from the path of light the floor fell away.  In the darkness he could hear the gentle lapping of water, and the pervasive smell of the pink liquid filled this room to the brim too.

The doors ground shut again, and suddenly Shinji was blind and disoriented.  A dim red light glowed above the door, but it revealed nothing except its own existence.  Shinji stood still, worried that if he tried to move he would fall, off the walkway, down into an unseen abyss.  In the pitch darkness Shinji was acutely aware of the sound of his own breathing, glad of the affirmation it offered him of his own existence.

Lights bloomed in the darkness, and suddenly the room went from pitch black to being too bright for Shinji's eyes to handle.  He squinted for a moment, then opened his eyes fully again as he registered the sight in front of him. 

It was predominantly purple; a giant face of scowling steel, painted a mellow, not quite pastel, purple – like something from a psychedelic dream.  The head was six, maybe seven, times Shinji's height alone.  Yellow, evil looking, slanted eyes were recessed in a shadowed gap between the purple plating, seeming to glare out at the world; glare out at Shinji.

"A face?"  Shinji wondered, not truly aware that he was speaking aloud, "A giant Robot?"

This couldn't be real.  He brought up the NERV manual Misato had given him earlier, somehow feeling that the sight before him might feel more real, more sane, if it was recorded on pen and paper in a bold, non-cursive font.

"You won't find this in the manual."  Doctor Akagi's voice was calm and collected, and suddenly Shinji realised this was real.  As fantastic and strange as the sight before him seemed to him, it was just part of the working life of the three adults who stood with him.  For them, the idea of a giant robot was common place.

Shinji turned to his father, who stood, as calm and statuesque as ever, his eyes keenly regarding Shinji, not revealing whatever opinions or judgements that were forming behind the mask of his face.  His father had known about this, was involved with this.  He had never told Shinji a thing to reveal that to Shinji that his work was so secret, so important, and Shinji was not surprised.  Even if he had been allowed to, Shinji doubted his father would have trusted him with any secret, let alone one of this magnitude.

Doctor Akagi and Misato continued to talk, but Shinji payed little attention to them, their words slipping through his mind and leaving nothing behind.  What did his father want from him, Shinji wondered?  It was a hard question to answer, he could barely grasp what it was that he wanted from his father.

Something that Doctor Akagi was saying finally penetrated Shinji's awareness, and he turned to face her as she spoke.  "A pilot has just been delivered.  Shinji Saotome."

Shinji stepped back, caught off guard by the doctor's words, a response coming instinctively to his lips without the need for consideration.  "I can't pilot this!"

Misato seemed less than pleased by the prospect, and she and Doctor Akagi debated it, Misato's voice seeming more and more heated as the seconds went by.  Their words were meaningless, madness from the strangest dream or nightmare.  Shinji shook his head silently, well and truly out of his depth.  He felt as if he had fallen off the inflatable boat a few minutes ago, and was struggling lost down in the pink liquid, his lungs bursting with the desire for oxygen.  He couldn't breathe. 

Footsteps sounded off the walkway, and Shinji looked up to see his father moving to stand by him, a frown furrowing his brow as he began to speak.

"You have to pilot it Shinji.  If I could I would, but this is one thing I cannot do for you."

One thing he could not do for Shinji?  What had he ever done for Shinji, except ignore him, patronise him, and doubt him?  Misato didn't want him piloting either, but at least her concerns seemed to be for Shinji,  even though she had known him such a short time, she seemed to care at least a little for him.  His father's disapproval, though, Shinji was sure, would be motivated by the certainty that Shinji was unable to do whatever they asked of him.  Hatred boiled within Shinji's stomach, accompanied as always by the pang of failure.  He wanted to lash out, to strike his father, to scream at him; yet he knew not what to say, nor did he hold any illusions that he might be able to hit his martial-arts-god of a father.

"I can't pilot this."  Shinji repeated, his head drooping to stare down at his feet again.

A brief crackle of static sounded; like a trumpet heralding the voice that came after it, booming into the large room from hidden speakers.  "If He is unusable, then Rei will pilot it."

Shinji looked up again, to see that anger was written clearly on his face now.  What did he expect?  Did he think that he could just summon Shinji and have him turn up and attempt any impossible task that his father presented him with?  What right did he have, what right to this anger?  If he had shown the slightest care for Shinji - the slightest trust or confidence in his abilities – then Shinji might have accepted it.  As it was though, Shinji would be damned if he would allow it.  His father had no fucking right.

A growl, quiet and ragged, emanated deep in Shinji's throat, and he turned from the adults, moving back a ways towards the door from through which they had entered.  Shinji feared that, should he look at his father for a moment longer, that he would try to strike him.  For all his anger, Shinji didn't want that.  Not in front of these people.

A hand brushed against Shinji's upper arm, and he turned to see Misato standing slightly behind him, her half-smile strained and her eyes worried.  Shinji was glad for the company and silent support, though he had no idea why this woman would chose to give it to him.

They stood there thus for several minutes - Shinji fuming, trying to reel in the anger and the pain, and Misato hovering nervously behind him.  Explosions large enough to be felt even this far down beneath the earths surface began at some stage, and Shinji felt rather than heard the change in the mood of the adults' moods; their tenseness.  It made no difference to Shinji however.  Maybe if the explosions got closer they would sweep through the room, reducing his father to component atoms.  He could but hope.

The light above the door flashed from to green, and the doors began to slide open.  A man in a lab coat and two women in the very pale blue uniform of nurses came through the door, flanking a long, waist-height, rectangular object.  It took a moment for Shinji to realise what he was seeing.

It was a hospital gurney.

Shinji drew in breath as it passed by him, for upon it was a girl who could be no more than his own age.  Short, light grey-blue hair framed her face, and one of her red coloured eyes stared blankly upwards towards the ceiling.  Her other eye was covered by an eye patch that was held in place by bandages that wrapped around her forehead beneath her fringe.  Other bandages were visible on her arms, and around her chest beneath the strange, skin hugging, white costume that she wore.

Shinji recognised her.  This girl, surely she was the one who had been watching him earlier, in the streets of Tokyo-3?

The gurney passed by Shinji.  The girl tried to sit, and concern for her filled Shinji as it became apparent how painful it was for her to do so.  Anger quickly replaced concern as Shinji thought of his father.  This was what he was being replaced by; this wreckage of a girl?  Shinji doubted that she was in fit enough state to pilot a paperback book, let alone a giant robot, yet his father trusted her, while he only scorned Shinji's every effort. 

The room filled with the rumbling of another large explosion, and the walkway moved beneath Shinji's feet; jarring, irregular, vibrations that sent Shinji spilling to the ground.  Others fared equally badly, finding it just as difficult to keep their feet under them.  One of the nurses stumbled, falling heavily against the gurney, helping topple it and send the injured girl sliding of it and onto the round with a scream of pain.

Shinji saw all this, but had little time to consider it.  An urgent cry from Misato drew his attention to the ceiling above him, and he looked up in time to see a cluster of long, heavy looking halogen light fittings falling down towards him.  Shinji closed his eyes tight shut and threw his arms above his head, but he doubted it would be enough to save him.  His father had already started moving, Shinji noted before his eyes fully closed, but Shinji doubted that even his father would be able to reach him in time.

Shinji heard the clatter of the fittings colliding, but could not feel them.  A purple, low dome was the first thing that Shinji saw as he opened his eyes.  His hands were trembling slightly as unspent adrenaline coursed through his body.  It was not a dome he realised, but an enormous purple hand, that was now spread protectively over Shinji's head.  Surprised cries from Doctor Akagi and Mitsuko – cries declaring that it had moved to protect him, and that it was impossible – filled Shinji's head but made little sense.  It was just a robot, wasn't it?  A profound sense of gratefulness filled Shinji, a respect and affecxtion for the machine had just possibly saved his life.  Shinji didn't understand it, but he felt it.  On some level he loved the purple monstrosity, just as he loved the old wreckage of a car that one of his Aunts had taught him the basics of driving in.

Shinji remembered the injured girl, and abruptly staggered to his feet to go and help her.  His father had beaten him to her, and he sat on the walkway his back to Shinji, cradling the girls form protectively in his lap.  Sparing the massive purple hand and arm of the giant robot a final glance, and drawing in two deep, shuddering breaths, Shinji walked over slowly to them.

There was blood on his father's hands, Shinji realised, and staining the bandages that wrapped themselves around the girl.  The girls breathing was ragged; accompanied by quiet, uncontrollable, pain-filled whimpering noises.  Pity and compassion twisted at Shinji's heart, but they were pushed back by the anger that always seemed to flow so easily around his father.

Shinji's father looked down at the girl in his lap with more concern than Shinji remembered receiving from him in a lifetime.  His father had abandoned him only to come and play nursemaid and maybe loving father-figure for this girl.  His father trusted her to pilot this massive, purple machine; this bleeding, broken girl.  What had Shinji ever done to not deserve that same trust?

Shinji turned and walked away.  There was nothing that he could do for the girl that his father wasn't doing already.

If Shinji did not pilot the robot, then the wreckage of a girl in his father's lap would have to.  Allowing that to happen would make Shinji every bit as monstrous as the creature they wanted to send him out to fight, and it would prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that his father had always been right about him.  Shinji would show his father, show him that he wasn't useless to be thrown aside.  He would prove that he was every bit as worthwhile as the father who had thrown him away. 

"I'll do it.  I'll pilot your robot."

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

The room was not dark, merely dimly lit.  The open curtains allowed ambient light, from the stars, and the hundreds of street lights around the city, to enter the room, casting it in the light blue colour of near darkness.  Noise from the city streets filtered up through the glass of the window too.  By the standards of most major cities, Tokyo-3 was fairly subdued by nightfall, but even the noise from the light traffic was loud by comparison to that from Shinji's hometown.  The noise had bothered Shinji little, for he drifted off to sleep to the accompaniment of classical music from his portable music player; besides he had greater worries than the noise level.

This was the fourth night since Shinji had moved in.  Sleep found him relatively easily now that the room was not quite so unfamiliar.  Staying asleep was another matter entirely.

Shinji's futon lay against the wall, beneath the window and opposite the sliding door.  Empty cardboard boxes, their former contents now stowed neatly in closets, were staked in piles against the wall, past the foot of the futon.  Shinji hadn't been in the room long enough to make much of a mess, and truth be told, he was fairly organised anyway.  His school texts, books, and manga were staked neatly on the desk and small bookshelf that Misato had helped him buy.

The weather was warm, and the sheets were pulled down to the foot of the futon, so that they only covered Shinji's feet.  They moved, pulled by twitching feet; folds reforming into a new rises and valleys.  More that just Shinji's feet moved, his body twitching, head tossing back and forth on the low pillow.  The sound of his breathing was louder now, short ragged sounding breaths that drowned out the street noise.  With a final shudder Shinji's eyes snapped open, and he was carried from the world of his nightmares to the small room.  He lay there, unsure for a moment where he was, his heart beating wildly as he stared up at the large rectangular light fitting above his bed.

His arm still hurt.

The doctors had said he had just pulled a muscle, and not very badly at that.  It felt nothing like that to Shinji.  He stared down at his trembling hand.

When Shinji had agreed to pilot the giant robot, the Eva, he had expected that he might well die, but he could never have expected what had happened.  The Eva was more than a robot.  In order to pilot it, Shinji had to synchronise with it, interface his mind to whatever passed for the massive robot's muscle and nerve systems.  He had been able to feel every slightest thing the robot had done, as if it were his body, as if had been his own bare feet that had slowly stepped down on to the streets of Tokyo-3.  He had been able to feel everything that his Eva unit did.

He had felt the Angel break his arm; snap his bones in two beneath his bruised flesh.

His mind was reconciled with the fact that it wasn't his arm that had been broken, but his body, his nerves, didn't seem to have picked up on it yet.  When he thought about it, he knew his arm was fine, but whenever his mind strayed his arm would ache.  He could feel his hand twitching beside him even now.

The white of the ceiling and the light fitting didn't seem real, not in this half-light, and Shinji considered standing to turn the light on.  The apartment always felt more solid, more real, when it was lit.

Since he had been sent out to fight the Angel, Shinji's dreams were filled with little other than it.  In his sleep he recalled every smallest detail, every movement he had made, every marking on the body of the angel.

His waking mind recalled little more than impressions.  He couldn't remember everything that had happened, and sometimes he had trouble remembering in what order things had happened.  He remembered the sickening, squelching, crack of the Eva's arm being snapped.  He remembered the Eva's hands hammering against the red sphere in the Angel's chest, its core, with part of the beasts own body.  He remembered looking up at the exposed head of the Eva unit after the fight, and he remembered its green, inhuman eye, staring deeply into his own.  Mostly, Shinji remembered the blood; the blood and the pain.  Had that been him in the Evangellion?  Could he really have done that?  Shinji still had trouble believing it.

He needed a drink.  He needed a glass of water.

The door slid easily on its tracks, but Shinji paused when he had hardly opened it a fraction.  The adults in the house were still up, and their voices carried down the corridor to his ears.  It wasn't Misato's voice that stopped him, but the other, soprano, and obviously female voice.

The curse that sometimes transformed Shinji's father into a woman was as much a part of the man as his irritating confidence.  It was supernatural, and hard to believe for most, but to Shinji it was just part of who his father was.  He did wonder about it though.  There was hot water in the kitchen, which his father could use to deactivate the curse, and he usually tried to avoid staying female.

Shinji bent his head to the door, listening at the gap between the door and the wall, catching the last part of his father's sentence.

"…so I should leave."

"You know I like having you around Ranma.  It's no trouble at all.  Its not like I need to use that room for anything.  You're welcome to stay there as long as you like or you could…"

Misato lapsed into silence, and it was almost thirty seconds before Shinji heard his father start to speak again.

"You know I have responsibilities, Misato."

It was odd hearing him speak.  The words were stern, but the tone was anything but.  When Shinji wasn't around, he realised, his father was every bit as relaxed with Misato as he was with Shinji's Aunts.  Despite knowing that they'd worked together, Shinji hadn't expected that.

"But they could wait couldn't they?  Just a couple more days?  I've enjoyed seeing you again."

The pause was shorter this time, but when he spoke, Shinji's fathers voice was firmer, if no less friendly.

"I can't put this off any longer, Misato.  I have to go."  Relief at the thought of not having to share a cramped apartment with his father warred with the anger and bitterness that any reminder of his fathers rejection caused within him.

Shinji heard one last sentence from his father, before the heavy sound of the front door closing sent him out of Shinji's life for another several weeks. 

"Take good care of Shinji for me."

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A cup of steaming tea sat on the table before Shinji.  He probably should have been sleeping again, but sleep was far from his mind.  Besides, the aroma, and heat from the tea was a badly needed connection to the real and mundane world.  Across from the table Misato sat nursing her own drink, a can of beer.  It was a strange thing to be drinking so late at night in the company of a minor, Shinji thought, but he made no complaints.  It was none of his business, and besides, Misato was acting far more  serious than seemed to be normal for her.

Shinji wondered if Misato suspected that he had overheard her conversation with his father.  Whether or not she did, it didn't matter much he supposed.  When he come through for a glass of water a few minutes after his father's departure, Misato had merely offered to make him a cup of tea, and then suggested that they talk for a few minutes.  Shinji had accepted, although he probably would have been able to make a nicer cup of tea himself; his Aunt had taught him not to reject other people's kindnesses.

Shinji looked around cradling the hot drink in his hands.  The apartment had been a quite messy when he first arrived, but now it practically sparkled.  The transformation had occurred while Shinji, still weary from the earlier battle, had slept.  Misato was fairly obviously a bit of a slob, and he wondered if his father had cleaned the apartment, or if Misato had been trying to make a good impression.

On Shinji's first night at the apartment, Misato had suggested that they assign the chores by playing 'Paper, Rock, Scissors' over them, but after a single pronounced frown from Ranma, she had dropped the suggestion.  At his father's suggestion, Shinji was responsible for most of the cooking.  Shinji hadn't been sure if it was because he trusted the cooking skills that Shinji had learnt from his master chef aunt, or if his father distrusted Misato's abilities in the kitchen.  A single taste of Misato's cooking had convinced him that it was probably the later.

Misato set her beer down on the table and leant forward, her expression serious, but her eyes warm.

"I know what it's like Shinji," Misato confided.  Shinji wasn't entirely sure what she was talking about at first, but she quickly clarified herself, "I didn't get along with my father either."

Misato slumped backwards into her chair again, staring up at the ceiling, her eyes distant now.

"It was the same with me, Shinji.  I never thought he cared for me when he was alive.  Now I don't know."

Shinji hand no idea how to respond to that, or even why she was telling him these things.  He found it uncomfortable, both the reminder of his relationship with his own father, and having his older guardian open up to him so unexpectedly.  He couldn't help feel a twinge of kinship with the older woman, however.  There weren't too many people who could understand his relationship with his father.

Misato sat back forward again, her hand clasping around her beer, and taking it up to her lips for a long drink.  When she sat the can down, empty, her smile was back on her face, and Shinji found his own lips lifting in a timid, answering, smile. 

"Ahh, well we shouldn't worry about that!  We'll have fun, won't we Shinji?"

For all her immaturities, Shinji couldn't help but like Misato.  She was nice, if a bit irresponsible, and Shinji felt that she was trying, and maybe that she even cared a little about him.  Looking up at her easy grin, Shinji thought that he was probably going to enjoy living with Misato.

It wasn't perfect, but the little apartment was beginning to feel more and more like home.

-_-_-(To Be Continued…)-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Author's notes:

I asked a couple of friends for suggestions on the name of this fic.  I received two comments:  'I don't know'; and 'Swamp Monster'.  I'm not sure that either were particularly appropriate, so for now it is called 'honour thy father', in tribute to the massive amounts of Dream Theatre I listened to during its writing.  I have a sneaking suspicion, however, that the name may already have been used.  I checked the fic archives I could think of, and saw nothing.  If it has, let me know would you; and suggest another name.

This story is primarily supposed to be about Shinji and his relationship with his father.  This means I do not plan to spend large amounts of time documenting battles with different Angels.  That is tangential to what I wish to explore, and you have presumably have already seen it.  Other characters will come into the foreground a little more in subsequent chapters. 

The next chapter, when I write it, should be fairly short.  The events in episodes 3 through 6 of evangelion have little of major, major import to the changes in this universe, so I hope to be able to cover them without having to lead everybody step by step back through those episodes.

This chapter, from start to finish, took about 4 weeks and 3 hours.  This leads me to think I may, for once, actually produce subsequent chapters in a vaguely timely manner.

Is it just me, or does Misato drive an automatic in the anime?  What is that lady thinking?

One very important last note:

Throughout work on this fic I have come to a firmer realisation about what is needed to ensure that progress is continued on a fanfiction project.  A very approximate formulae is provided below:

Sleep deprivation + Dream Theatre + inspiration + motivation + !Laziness (or not laziness for you non programmers)  = fanfiction

Its probably fairly obvious to anyone who has done any writing whatsoever, that there are a whole sleuth of factors involved in how easy you will find it to continue progress on your work.  What I had not realised - and I believe there are many others similarly afflicted – Is that Dream Theatre was one of these factors. 

It all seems so obvious now.  Output is obviously directly proportional to the amount of Dream Theatre listened to during the writing of the story.

I totally recommend that all you writers go out and grab a copy of Scenes From a Memory.  It’s a tranfastic album(or fantastic if you wish to be picky about it), well worth the exceedingly small amount of money you will have to pay for it.