Synesthesia

Summery: Misato Katsuragi points a finger at a party. Where that finger lands doesn't seem like much, but it turns out to have profound consequences for everyone in the EVA Universe, and some who aren't.

Disclaimer: Yeah, you saw the series listed in this fic's crossover listing, didn'tcha? Do you really think a big shot series writer would be putting their work here? With the answers to those two questions, I'm willing to bet you can figure out the rest.

Ahem, well, we've learned something today. MSTing episodes of Evangelion at twice normal speed, after watching Evangelion Abridged, is not healthy for one's sanity.

As exhibit A, we present this fanfic.

At least it isn't the original idea we had... *Shudder*

Prologue: That One.

"That one," Ritsuko Akagi looked up from the magazine she was reading, while lounging on a small couch in the corner of a large, bustling room to stare at her best friend Misato, the purple haired woman pointing unsteadily with one finger.

"Excuse me?" The brunette asked, trying to trace the path the other's finger made, and eventually figuring out that Misato was pointing to a dark haired guy who was sitting alone at a table on the other side of the room, writing on a pad of paper and attempting, as best he could, to ignore the barely controlled chaos of the party surrounding him. "Oh no, you're not doing that again," the computer major groaned, rubbing her nose with the hand that wasn't holding her reading material.

"Why not?" Misato asked, rolling her shoulders. "So it didn't work out too well last time, it's entirely possible that it could be different!"

"Last time," Ritsuko returned acidly, "you got both yourself and him stone drunk, and threw up all over my new sheets."

"Aw, you're no fun, Rits," Misato said, standing up. "I'm gunna go pick him up."

"Well, count me out of it," the less inebriated woman replied, going back to her magazine. Still, as Misato approached the black haired guy, she kept an eye out past the corner of the page, if only because the other woman needed some restraint, sometimes.

After five minutes, Misato had somehow convinced the black haired guy to buy her a drink, though the method had apparently involved some standing up and hard glares, and after ten, the brown haired college student was starting to worry for the poor guy, as three beers had apparently hit him like a small truck.

By the time both parties had hit five, and the guy's head was starting to dip to the tabletop, Ritsuko decided she should probably interfere, if for no other reason than to rescue the lightweight. Tucking her magazine in her purse, she stood and made her way across the room, dodging a drunken member of the college football team as she went. "Misato?" She called, as the purple haired woman slammed back another can of Yebisu, planting it on the table, and the black haired guy, who Ritsuko now recognized wore his hair in a pigtail running down his back, as well as an unusual red silk shirt, attempted to emulate her.

"What do ya want, Rits?" Misato demanded, irritably. "Can't you see I'm in the middle of something here?"

"Yes, but if you'll recall, you've got an economics paper due tomorrow that you haven't finished yet," the computer major said, patiently.

"Correction!" Misato shot back, "that I haven't started yet!"

"Right, that you haven't started yet, so shouldn't we get home and turn in early?" Ritsuko replied.

"Yeah, I guess you've got a point," the Katsuragi woman grudgingly agreed. Ritsuko was about to sigh in relief, when Misato's drinking partner abruptly shot to his feet.

"Hey, hey, um, wait a sec," the pigtailed man stuttered, trying to get his eyes to focus. "We're not done here, I haven't…. haven't… won, yet!"

"Won?" Ritsuko asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Only way I could get him to drink with me was to challenge him to a contest," Misato replied. "He's so cute, he actually thinks he can beat me."

"Hey, I can beat ya," the guy objected. "We just…. We… what was I supposed to be challenging you in, again?"

"Wow, he's really smashed," Ritsuko observed. "What'd you do, dope his drinks?"

"Nope, straight Yebisu," Misato replied, shrugging. "Just a really light weight."

"Well, you got him to buy you your booze, we should probably help the poor guy out," Ritsuko said, sighing. "Where do you live?"

The pigtailed man blinked at the brunette for a moment, and then scratched the back of his neck. "Um, Tendo Dojo, District 15, Tokyo-2?" He asked, hopefully.

"No way, I'm not driving him all the way out there," Misato objected. "I'd get pulled by a highway patrolmen for sure!"

"I doubt that's where he lives right now," Ritsuko shook her head. "Probably just too drunk to remember. Let's just take him to our place and let him sleep it off on the couch."

"Hey, sounds like a good idea to me," Misato said, with a lecherous grin.

"Misato…" Ritsuko groaned, but at this point, she didn't feel like arguing with her friend. She'd only come to this party because Misato wanted to, and wouldn't shut up about it, and after listening to about two hours of what the speakers were blasting out, laughingly called classic rock, she'd be willing to let the other get away with just about anything as long as it meant getting back home and into a nice, comfortable bed. "Let's just go."

"Sure thing, Rits!" The Katsuragi woman said, "C'mon, you."

"…right," The pigtailed man said, as Misato grabbed him by the wrist, pulling him after her as she followed Ritsuko out of the room. Several seconds later, a brown haired man entered from the washrooms near the table, fixing his collar and trying to look inconspicuous.

"Hey, Ranma?" He asked, looking down at the table where he'd left his roommate to the math problems he'd been trying to work out. Seeing the other's notepad still laying on the table, along with a pyramid of beer cans that topped at least a foot and a half, he whistled. "Wow, I thought he wasn't getting into the party, guess I was wrong." Saying this, Ryoji Kaji turned back from the table, deciding to let his roomie find whatever fun he could while he went girl hunting.

Strange, though, the cute purple haired girl he'd been scoping out before he'd left to have fun with another pretty girl had left the party. "Oh well, plenty more fish in the sea," he decided, offhand. It wasn't as though he was having a bad night, after all.

HR.

His head hurt. It hurt quite a lot, as a matter of fact, and about on a level that indicated that he'd either had a head-on collision with something large, bulky and fast moving or a few bottles of alcohol. As he tried to remember who'd hit him, he realized that for one of the few times in his life, it had actually been the latter that caused him so much pain.

The next question on his list was why the heck he'd indulged when he knew full well he couldn't hold his liquor, but that was lost in a haze of bad music and, most likely, worse ideas. He contemplated just rolling over and seeing if he could wait out the hangover, when he felt a jabbing sensation in the back, which had actually been what had woken him before.

Cracking his eyes slightly open, and preparing to roll over and face the jabber, Ranma' suddenly found himself looking into the sleeping face of a rather pretty purple haired girl, whose beauty was only slightly marred when her mouth opened wide, and she let off a loud snore.

"Oh damn it," he muttered, tilting his head downwards to note that yes, they were both naked, and yes, one of his arms was wrapped around her, crushing her body in close to his own.

"Well, I'm glad one of you's awake," a snide sounding woman's voice came from behind the pigtailed martial artist, and he braced to be walloped in the back of the head by a fiancee or something, before realizing that the voice he'd heard wasn't at all familiar, and that the Fiancees were back in district 15, a couple hundred miles from his current position.

Still, this was a very bad situation, even if he was pretty sure it wasn't what it looked like. After all, Kaji had gotten one of the girls he'd had over to crawl into his bed once as a joke, and he'd rather not repeat a rapid, down-corridor fleeing and apologizing session if he had no reason. "Okay, whoever that is, I'm guessing you're the one who poked me."

"Yup," the female voice came from behind him again.

"Just to clarify, anything happen last night?" He asked, crossing his fingers for luck on the hand that he was slowly trying to extricate from behind the purple haired girl's back without waking her.

"Well, from Misato's screams, I'm willing to bet on it, yeah," the woman replied. ""Plus, there's a condom in the trash over here."

Ranma abruptly stopped trying to escape, rolling backwards and letting out a long, low sigh. "Well, damn," he muttered. "Always thought Shampoo'd pull something like this, or something."

"What do hair products have to do with anything?" The female voice, which Ranma could now see from his new position belonged to a brown haired woman holding a broom handle and wearing a pair of blue slacks and a white shirt, asked.

"Wrong kinda shampoo," Ranma said, just as Misato rolled over, pulling herself close to his chest and muttering something about penguins in her sleep. Looking uncomfortably down at her head laying on his chest, he asked, "Um, a little help here?"

Ritsuko rolled her eyes, before smacking Misato on the back of the head with her broom handle. "Wha, huh?" The Katsuragi woman grumbled, looking up into Ranma's eyes. "Oh, hello," she said, in the closest approximation to cheerfulness she could get out before her morning shot of beer.

"You both act like this is normal," Ranma observed uncomfortably, as it looked as though Misato wasn't going to move off of him.

"It's not, but I've been expecting it to happen any day now," Ritsuko returned. "Misato, get up, you've got class in twenty minutes."

"I wha?" Misato articulated, artfully, before the other's statement processed, and her eyes widened. "Oh my god! I've got to get ready, and find my books, and then get over there before it starts, and…"

Ritsuko rolled her eyes, pointing over to a door leading out of the room, where a stack of books were piled, along with a set of folded clothes.

"Thanks Rits, you're the best!" Misato said, rolling off of Ranma and to the floor, before snatching the clothes and entering the small bathroom on one side of the room.

"This isn't how I figured it'd go," Ranma muttered, sliding partially off of the bed, before realizing that Ritsuko was still there, looking at him, and all he had for modesty was the sheet that he and Misato had been under, which she'd dragged part of the way off when she got up, and which he was sending the rest of the way with his movements. Gulping, he grabbed the edge of the blanket and made sure everything important was covered, before looking for his clothes.

"Um, where're my…" he started, before Ritsuko pointed to a computer across the room, where his red shirt hung off of one corner of the screen and his pants were thrown haphazardly over the chair.

Yeah, Ranma decided, this was probably going to be one of those days.

HR - Tokyo 3 - 2014.

"I couldn't get through again?" Shinji Ikari sighed, hanging up the phone and pulling the picture that had the number on it out of his pocket again, just to check the number, of course, and not to look at the rather pretty woman on it, who had an arrow pointing at her chest with a smiley face, even if someone had scribbled it out.

He was about to pick up the phone and try the number again, when a loud buzzing sound reverberated between the buildings, and he looked up to see several United Nations helicopters flying backwards over a mountain nearby, firing rapidly at something the brown haired boy couldn't see.

He wasn't actually able to tell what it was, as half a second later, he heard something impact with the ground behind him, and turned, ending up face to face with the woman from the picture.

"You Shinji Ikari?" She asked, gruffly.

"Um, yes?" He asked, unsure of precisely how the other had gotten behind him so quickly. His question was answered seconds later, as he found himself scooped off of his feet and into her arms, before her legs coiled beneath them and she leapt onto the roof of the train station.

"Sorry about this, kid, but I don't actually have a car," she apologized, as Shinji clutched her for dear life, not even particularly noticing that his knuckles were turning white. As he finally wrenched his view away from the top of the building they were heading towards, he firmly thought he would regret it. When he noted a huge, skeletal black and white monstrosity destroying the helicopters he'd seen earlier, he absolutely knew it.

At the moment, he wasn't really sure if he should be screaming due to his method of transportation, or the monster which he could see was heading roughly in the same direction he was. One thing was for sure, though, he probably should be screaming. Five seconds later, the screaming began.

HR.

"What in the world did you do to him?" Dr. Ritsuko Akagi asked, as she stood in front of an elevator, looking at the trembling form of the Third Child.

"Well, I don't think it was all me," Ranma Saotome said, as she looked sheepishly down at the boy herself. "Riding the shock wave of the N2 mine into the car tunnel probably did most of it, and I only had to do it because someone didn't think to give me the keys to the car."

Ritsuko momentarily contemplated Ranma's last encounter with a car, a tree, and two guard rails. "For a very, very good reason," she opined, grasping Shinji by the shoulder. "Come on now. We have to go see your father."

"M... my father?" The Ikari boy asked, and Ritsuko nodded, rather suspecting that mentioning him would work.

"That's right," Ranma continued. "We're at NERV Headquarters. I was supposed to give you a packet to read while we came here, but didn't think it was a good idea, so here you go." Saying this, she produced a slightly water drenched envelope from apparently nowhere, giving it to Shinji.

"Good thing that thing was waterproofed," Ritsuko muttered, as the elevator arrived.

"So," Shinji asked, as the three stepped into it, "my father asked me here because of NERV?"

"Sort of," Ranma said, nervously tugging on her pigtail.

"I thought so," Shinji muttered. "He never contacts me unless he wants something."

Both of the women looked at each other, neither particularly willing to stick up for Gendo, especially since Shinji was completely correct. "So," Ranma said, attempting to change the subject slightly. "Does the commander have any idea how we're supposed to fight off this Angel? Unit 00's not fully repaired yet."

"Other than throwing you at it?" Ritsuko said with a half smirk. "He's ordered us to prepare Unit 01 for activation."

"But Unit 01's never activated before, has it?" Ranma asked, and as the two NERV employees continued talking, Shinji, who had calmed down slightly from the state he'd been in when he first arrived, began thinking.

At the moment, he wanted nothing more than to run away, as quickly as he possibly could, and find a nice rock, preferably somewhere in Canada, to hide under. As he was debating between Vancouver and Toronto, the elevator's doors slid open, and he followed the others out without thinking. This turned out to be a bad idea, as when they entered a completely dark room and the door slammed behind them, he was rather confused.

When the lights flickered on, and he found himself staring into a giant, purple, metallic face, his confusion turned quickly to terror. "What... what is that?" He squawked, fearfully.

"That," Ritsuko announced proudly, "is the artificial lifeform, Evangelion."

Shinji abruptly raised the NERV information booklet he'd been given, trying to find the machine in it, as well as shielding his face from its creepy white stare, before Ranma interrupted, chuckling. "Sorry, but Unit 01's not going to be listed in there... or if it is, I've got a subordinate ta fire."

"Well then, why are you showing me?" Shinji asked, confused.

"Because you're going to pilot it." This wasn't Ranma or Ritsuko's response, but a new person, a man in a dark jacket who stood in an observation room above Unit 01's head.

"Oh great, it's the fearless leader," Ranma mumbled, sourly, as Ritsuko gave her a warning look.

"Father?" Shinji stuttered, looking up into the older man's glasses.

"Are you nuts, Commander? This kid's never even been in an EVA before, we can't deploy him." Ranma continued, apparently having missed Ritsuko's warning glance completely, or deliberately ignored it.

"Well, Pilot Ayanami isn't on the base, so it appears we have no choice," Gendo Ikari replied acidly, leveling a death glare at the Saotome.

Ranma sighed. The hell of it was that the commander had a point. Unfortunately, Shinji apparently agreed with her about being unwilling to pilot Unit 01, because he was clenching his eyes shut, and if the pigtailed operations officer was reading his expression right, about to start yelling.

"So the only reason you asked me here was to pilot this thing?" He demanded, loudly. "Well, I'm not going to do it! I don't see why I should help you, when you..." His voice had been trailing off through the second half of his statement, and at the end he just stared at the ground.

"All right, then we'll have to try and retrieve Rei," Gendo ordered, about to turn around, when the room abruptly rumbled and a voice crackled over an intercom system.

"Commander, the Angel is attempting to breach the Geofront!"

Wincing at the feeling of an obvious impact, Ranma bent down to Shinji's eye level. "Sorry, kid, but your dad's not the only one in danger here," she said. "The angel's not just after the city. When it busts through, it's gunna use what's down here to cause a disaster like Second Impact... somehow."

"Well, get someone else to do it, then," Shinji said, bitterly.

"We would, but everyone else's in the shelters, and we don't have time to get 'em out," Ranma explained. "About now, the only thing I can think of to do other than send you up's to go myself while they retrieve Rei, and I'm pretty sure my wife'd kill me if I let an angel kill me."

Ritsuko couldn't help but snort, even with the seriousness of the situation. "Yeah, I hear she's vicious," she said, with a half smile.

"So, you wanna keep me from having to sleep on the couch for all eternity?" Ranma asked, before the Geofront shook again, and there was a loud crashing sound nearby as a beam impacted with one end of the catwalk. "We don't got much time."

"Well, I..." Shinji stuttered, unsure. It was true, he didn't want to cave to what his father wanted, but the way Ranma described it, there was a lot on the line, here. "I'll do it," he finally muttered, barely loudly enough for the martial artist's keen senses to hear it.

This meant, of course, that it came as a complete shock to Ritsuko when Ranma straightened up, nodded, and said "Get the kid to the entry plug, and prepare Unit 01 for launch. Also, could someone put some hot water on for after this is over?"

END.

Well, that's it, folks. The first chapter of an Evangelion collaberation. Before you ask, next chapter of (Favorite fic of ours here) is coming... just as soon as we get up the motivation... which will probably be Thursday, when the Vogon constructor fleet takes up standard orbit around our planet.