To Sleep and Perchance to Dream. . . .

THAT should be an interesting experience for her... and it was!

"What WAS that last night?" Reika asked her older sister, puzzled in the extreme still by the . . . images that were all jumbled together. "Are dreams supposed to be like that?"

Sometimes she would be in her old apartment, speaking with Shinji and next, she'd be IN her Evangelion. No explanation or reason, it just jumped from place to place. But all in all, while it was not what she would call coherent, it WAS her first dream. And a rather NICE dream it had been.

And because of a special unbreakable bond of some kind that lingered on after their brief contact with the original bloated monstrosity that had been Lilith's old body (re: 62203) allowed glimpses into the minds of each sister. Only flashing glimpses during waking hours, these glimpses that were allowed by their bond. Over time this bond will bind the heart of the young woman named Lilith together as closely as the feelings spawned by the "doppleganger reaction" had between Reika and Rei, but in the meantime Lilith found herself very . . . . fond of her new sisters. So much so that she feels comfortable enough with her new found relationship to be able to share a few rather . . . off color observations of dreams that Rei had of some boys she was . . . interested in.

Being comfortable enough she made the joke and being close enough the sisters were able to laugh about it (albeit a bit embarrassed laughter on Rei's part) Dr. Ritsuko Akagi and the other Children come into.

Dr. Akagi blinks at the sight of "her" Rei (now "Reika") laughing and acting so . . . human. She is realizing anew just how badly she had misjudged the young teenager. How her Turing Tests (given discretely) had failed to turn up the young girl's potential for being an actual human being instead of a clever mock up with only the appearance of being truly alive. If the tests had proven positive then Akagi wouldn't have agreed to a tenth of what the Commander had demanded in . . .bringing the young girl up.

Somehow the doctor here knew that the answer to why her tests had failed lay in part at "her" Gendo Akari's feet. Maybe in the end Gendo had twisted Reika's personality in such a way that Turing tests would automatically fail? Maybe it was just as simple as Gendo having anticipated her moral qualms and ordered Reika to give the answers she gave. Whatever the case, it was of a moot point.

Reika had undergone a sea change and was NOT the apparently emotionless, doll like girl who Dr. Akagi had fished out of the "Rei Aquarium" and reinstated the (highly edited) memories from her prior incarnation. Some of it surly had happened because of the physiological changes done to her body (the wings being the least of it), but how in the name of a god that Dr. Akagi really didn't believe in did this "magic" manage to pull back EVERY memory Reika had from her prior incarnations? Yes, perhaps this magic water somehow reached out over from across town and into NERV's databanks to pluck all the unedited memories of Rei's prior incarnations, but then again it did not go about explaining just how she should remember getting blown sky high in her Rei 2 incarnation. Much less getting strangled by someone who'd looked like Ritsuko's mother while in her Rei 1 incarnation. THOSE times hadn't been recorded into the databanks, you know!

There's more to this magic than they're letting on here, Ritsuko Akagi thought to herself, still not willing to let go of the Metabiology theory that whatever exactly the thing which "science" had called the soul should be anything more than something of an animating force.

The idea that it could/should be something MORE (like those yahoos from various religions would have it) did not sit well with Ritsuko. The idea that this soul should somehow be a repository of everything that makes a person a person. . . . that magic had been able to draw forth memories "stored" in Reika's spirit and be restored in life . . . That didn't sit too well for the woman.

Author's Note: But being that this is, ultimately, a fantasy story then one cannot fault the author for bringing in metaphysical, religious concepts, eh?

But then again, it would appear that the universe at large didn't give a solid damn about tightly held worldviews...

Then, sighing slighlty, she turns back to look at the others and . . .

Meanwhile, the OTHER people are having their own worldviews somewhat messed with as well here. Those who hadn't already known about some of the weirder things that had been happening here with Reika.

Still, even THEY find themselves asking (if only to themselves): "Who is this person who replaced that ghostly, silent girl from class?"

The small girl who called herself Asuka Langley Soryu just blinks and shakes her head, now being unable to understand the rather adult humor of the jokes she'd overheard while walking with her new "sister" here. Sighing, she then tugs on her old, red headed sister's arm!

Honestly, why is she hanging all over that boy, Shinji? It was like she'd forgotten everything about wanting to say goodbye to her newest friend's big sister! She keeps stopping every five minutes and kisses and hugs that-that icky boy, Shinji!

Honestly, what's up with that? And what is she trying to do with Shinji's tonsils NOW?

"Sis!" the youngster nearly whines, causing the elder sister to sigh slightly in exasperation . . . and then blink in embarrassment as something . . . dawns upon her as she looks into the face of her new husband.

"Ah, I see that you both got over the are over your Hedgehog dilemmas ," drawls Tabris, smiling slightly. "Ah, young dragons in love!"

Ritsuko raises an eyebrow slightly towards the unrepentant ex-Angel. While perhaps looking somewhat as his files, except for a certain regal bearing from time to time this young man . . . sure wasn't much at all like what they had unearthed on him in the files.

While Tabris was solicitous enough around the other Pilots of this world (the one he had originally haled from before getting transported elsewhere . . . and transformed), sometimes he couldn't help himself.

"SHUT UP!" both former dragons shout into the former Angel of Free Will's face, embarrassed to death that their out of whack hormones had gotten the best of them, again!

It would be a while yet before their hormone levels returned to something approaching human normal. In the meantime, due to upswings in certain centers of their human brains left over from their time as dragons . . . sometimes they lost themselves in each other. An emotional bond had form between the two EVA pilots when they, in their altered states, had actually mated. While it hadn't been quiet like Eye Meets Eye, things had been close enough. One shall never leave the other. Cannot leave the other. Cannot outlive the other for when one shuffles off their mortal coils . . . the other shall follow.

Oh, but in the meantime what was meant by hormones being out of whack? Why, while they are human again their . . . drives are still dragon sized. Annoying at best and embarrassing at worse. They were going to be kept under tight surveillance in the meantime here inside the Geofront until they got back to something normal.

. . .

At least this time the newlyweds this time didn't try to jump each other's bones in front of the young ones....

That said, the young teenage man known as Toji Suzuhara soon gets swatted by his older counterpart (from The Dawntreader) for making off colored jokes about it anyway.

Goodbyes are said and all that, then some turn and ask Dr. Akagi why she had gone and done. Not only in the past, but NOW. Why had she used what was LEFT of the authority afforded her in these final days of NERV to circumvent the red tape (and second guessing) Section 2 seemed to want to throw up in order to protect their "guests" from further harmful encounters.

1. Section 2! Ritsuko swears to herself. Mostly because of THOSE idiots the Newcomers here have been on egde almost since coming here!

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