Ere We Go!

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Shinji was doing well in class, even going so far as to be on the honor roll. His teachers could not say anything much about him, though. He was still small, he was still so slight of demeanor and stature that he was easy to ignore. He always seemed to stop just short of pushing himself or getting noticed. He did what exactly what was expected of him, and nothing more.

That didn't mean he wasn't noticed. His classmates saw his improving grades, how he devoured books that he saw, specially seeking out hard to read English books in the school's library. He always had a dictionary nearby. He was becoming a proto-nerd.

He was a weirdo that talks to himself, they saw that. He was weird. Not a cool sort of weird, no one good at class was ever cool at that age. They all felt as if Shinji was judging them somehow, intentionally setting himself apart. That was starting to piss them off.

And in some way, he really was doing. Shouts of "Geppie Robo! Combine!" and the frantic rushing about beating on space monsters did not appeal to him. It was the most popular game on the playground. Giant robots and boys naturally sought each other out.

Shinji never indulged in that play. He even refused any invites to play kaiju. He did not really know much about that sort of thing. He could never play along because in his dreams his robots never played.

They were epic.

Their stride was unstoppable, their will indomitable. They did not leap, they did not shout special attacks. They simply were. Their home was battlefield, and where they went they brought it along. They made it with every stride, every glance. The Giant Robo is a little boy's god. They that walked in the vistas of his mind were the [Titans] of their age, archetypical, the God-Machines.

Warhound.

Reaver.

Warlord.

Imperator.

The Titan Legions marched, and their walk was death. They were not mere giant robots, they were embodiments of the Machine-God, walking castles of faith, engines of purification. Their Void Shields crackled in the air, and their weapons cast down Hive cities that housed a billion strong. They called the immolation of the nuclear battlefield home.

Shinji liked the swings, trying to get himself soaring higher and higher, and the fall was the best part. He did not compete with the other children, nor shared any of the playground until he had to. To him, the seesaw remained unused. Those he could call 'friends' were all older than him, and their classes ended at different times and they'd find it annoying to have a brat tag along besides. He was academically advanced for his age and felt more comfortable talking with older kids and adults -perhaps as a side effect of being so attached to his uncle as a model for his behavior.

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One day Shinji got another perfect score on his English test. It was a required subject in the higher grade levels, as the world's devastation forced countries to become more and more interconnected as they shared and traded dwindling resources. His reading ability was nothing short of phenomenal, but his teacher said that his speech was not too good. Unfortunately, neither of them could actually pronounce proper English anyway.

It was likely that Shinji was further along with that. Where he acquired such an authentic accent, not even he could say.

They followed him that day, three boys skulking along the long deserted path back to Shinji's house. They saw him again talking to himself, his face full of animation absent when at school or speaking to another person.

"Hey!" shouted the token leader of the three. "Hey, you! Wait up!"

They ran up to him. They were all taller than him, and Shinji looked up at him with his customary bland gaze. "Oh, Kobayakawa-kun." He nodded to each. "Minato-kun, Yohta-kun." Inside Shinji was strangely expectant. No one had ever talked to him outside of school before.

"Shut up!" shouted the tallest, and roundest, who was Kobayakawa. "You likes talking down to us, huh?"

"Yeah! You think you're better than us!" put in Minato, a short boy only barely bigger than Shinji. "We don't like that."

"You're uncool, you're a kiss-up, and you're useless." piped up the third.

"So why don't ya say something?" Kobayakawa finished, his round face crumpled into a sneer. He poked at Shinji. "Say something in English."

"A-no sa…"

He poked Shinji again, harder.

"In English, I said!"

Shinji, bewildered, only said "/Wot?/"

The boys made blanching sounds of frustration. Shinji began to step backwards, preparing to run off away from the insanity, when the leader noticed him having his left hand stuck in his pockets. Kobayakawa grabbed it, keeping him from bolting for it.

"What's that you have there?"

Shinji tried to break free, but couldn't. The pudgy boy tried to get at whatever was in his pockets, but Shinji had enough leverage to keep the hand forced in. "Hey, help me out!" Kobayakawa told his buddies. They managed to pry it loose.

"Hey! Look at this!" said the boy. "It's a monster!" He held up an Orkish warboss to the light. "It's so ugly!"

"That's so cool…" breathed Yohta. He reached for it with his long, dirty fingers but Kobayakawa pulled it away. The boy scowled. "Where do you think he got it?"

"Probably stole it." Minato put in.

"Yeah. That sounds right. He probably stole it." A pathetic loser like Shinji didn't deserve a cool toy like this. Look at those teeth! Is that a machine gun for an arm? "If he stole it it's okay if we have it. That's okay, right? If we share it's all okay." He still planned on playing with it most, though.

"I didn't steal it!" Shinji said, his voice pitching up. "It's mine! Give it back."

"Bii-!" Minato stuck his tongue out at him. "Make us."

"Please give it back." Shinji begged. "I can pay you…"

"Ask it in English." Kobayakawa said haughtily. "Ask for it politely."

/"Kood you pleese gib it back to mi?"/ he ground out. Could you please give it back to me? He even bowed very low.

"Hm…" The boys laughed. "No!"

Slowly, ever so slowly, Shinji raised his head. /"Gib back da warboss."/

They laughed and began to ignore him. They waved it in the air and made growling noises.

/"Gibbet!"/ Shinji said sharply.

Kobayakawa turned to see the smaller boy standing there, half-crouched and eyes all wide. He laughed again. Someone so small and so mad. "No…" he said again, all so slow and deliberate. What could he do?

/"WwwwWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGH!"/ Shinji shouted and launched himself at them.

"AAAH! Get it off! Get it off!"

"He's biting my toes! Oh god why is he biting my toes?"

"The pain! I didn't know there could be such pain!"

Pain? What is this pain you speak of? Shinji had a busted lip, bruises all over, blood spattering his uniform, maybe even a hairline fracture in his left arm. Through it all he had this big, open-tooth, completely happy grin; total joy dancing across his face and out through his fists. The adrenalin, that total desperation to live that he only felt once before, he realized then that he didn't have to risk killing himself just to get that feeling again.

"Get away from me!" Kobayakawa managed to push him away, sending Shinji tumbling across the dusty street. He noticed that he still had the figurine in his hand. He looked from it to the small boy slowly rising from the ground, with all the languor of a hellcat.

He scowled and lifted his hand high, to throw the orkish figure down at the ground and stomp on it, winning that way.

Shinji said something low, heartfelt, and threatening. Then, realizing they couldn't understand it, repeated it in Japanese.

"I'll burns your houses, I'll choppas your cars, I'll stomps on yaz where I find yaz. I'll smacks your townz, I'll throws your pets, I'lls rips ya to pieces!" He got up and laughed, his jaw hanging down, in har-har-har manner. "GIMME BACK DA WARBOSS!"

"You're crazy!" Kobayakawa hoarsely shouted back.

"GIBBET, HUMMIE!"

"Here!" The boy threw the figurine at him. Shinji ignored it as it went sailing past his head.

He grinned some more and made a lunging motion at them. The boys screamed and fled.

Once they were out of sight, he dropped to his knees, drained and in blinding pain. He shuffled over to where the warboss lay face-down on the concrete. A drop of his blood fell on it as he bent down to pick it up.

"…good…" he whispered, his vision fading to black. "…not a scratch. I did good." He rolled over and lay there by the road. "…I didz gud, dident I, warboss…?"

He decided it was a good time to go to sleep.

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The galaxy did not belong to humanity.

It belonged to the Orks.

Remnants of a sixty-million-year-old war, they were the perfect biological weapons now runaway without anything to control them other than intercine strife. The greenskins plagued the galaxy from the end to end with their ceaseless warring and plundering. They were a race rooted so deeply in war that peace was utterly incomprehensible to them.

Ork 'kultur' was based entirely on the next conflict, in having fun killing worthy foes and enslaving the rest. They could not be bargained with or bought save with weapons that they will inevitable turn against those who tried to bribe them.

But in some ways theirs was also a very resilient culture. No Ork ever suffered angst or struggled for a reason for their existence. For the Orks, the great struggle was already won. As long as there was always someone to fight, they lived in an state of perfect satisfaction.

With their unconscious psychic might that grew stronger the more Orks were in vicinity, they forced ramshackle constructions that should not physically work into war machines that could rival even Imperium Titans. Gargants and Stompas trundled off to a glorious Waaaagh!, surrounded by greenskins in unlimited number.

The thunder of drums. The roar of wheels. The crack of guns. A million, a billion, a hundred billion, and more and more and more all roaring in joy. The Green Tide surges forth.

They were the original blob army, proving quantity was its own quality. Killing an Ork would only spread fungal spores on its death that would germinate in the ground and become more Orks later on.

Their technology was encoded directly into their genome, expressing itself in 'Mekboyz' and 'Maddoks' that got a burning urge to tinker and build and loot and repurpose the weapons and vehicles of other warring races. Feral Orks with little more than stone tools would, if left unchecked or pressured by war suddenly manifest the idea to dig for metals and build combustion engines. In a matter of weeks going from a manageable blight into a chaotic shooty mess.

You could never truly get rid of Orks. If ever they managed to get onto your planet, you had to commit to dealing with the nuisance for however long your descendants lived.

Fortunately, Orks found fighting each other as much fun as fighting other races. Indirectly they served as the galaxy's stress testing mechanism - inevitably every society grew up to be able to deal with Orks and how their populations were to be found almost everywhere in the galaxy. Civilizations were forced to grow strong, and united, for there would always be an external xeno threat that would punish stagnation and weakness. A xeno threat that could never truly be eradicated, for orks were as resilient as they were constantly underestimated; possessing raw cunning equal to their own blithe disregard for propriety or their own lives.

Shinji was a studious child and while he trusted the Space Marine and the ideals of the Imperium, he admired the Orks for their utter peace of mind. And they were never boring. They were proactive in ways others were reactive, and for strange reasons having the Warboss nearby helped to keep him focused as a study aid.

He didn't study because he had to. He studied because he /wanted/ to. Touching the Ork's figurine drained away the tedium of the classroom days, for though an Ork might not know patience or anything even close to temperance, he was always happy as a clam just /being/ an Ork.

The boy was so happy just to be in his own skin. There was no reason to worry about tomorrow, no reason to be afraid of any social nonsense.

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His guardians found him there passed out on the road, and in all panic rushed him to the hospital. They screamed at the police, they screamed at the school officials, and the parents of the boys who were telling such out and out lies! After all, there were three of them! And look at how they left Shinji! How dare they try and pass themselves off as the injured party here? Shinji would never, never, attack someone. He was so shy and well-behaved, everybody said so!

And so kind. Shinji actually insisted that the boys not be expelled. He was so firm about it. He didn't want anyone to be in trouble. They had to have learned their lesson.

No one would be able to prove otherwise. No one had any idea that Shinji actually liked that the boys escalated to physical bullying and was disappointed he couldn't get into another scrap.

The reputation of the three boys took a nosedive. No one wanted to play with them. In the end, it took Shinji to approach them. Over time as it seemed he'd forgiven them, they were accepted back into the community of kids. Even if they didn't call Shinji, poor little easily-embarrassed Shinji, anything but Boss. He called them 'da boyz' which, literally speaking, they still were.

Shinji smiled at them, jutting his lower teeth over his upper teeth and let out a ga-haha'ing sort of laugh. He wasn't afraid of them. /Wot ya beat is yers to boss around./

If they beat him once, then he'll just come back and try and try again until they're properly krumped and docile.

They would never be able to truly defeat him. Orks were annoyingly persistent that way. The boys, in their child logic, understood that perfectly. They were Da Boyz, he was Da Boss. He may be tiny in form but he was a Gargant in spirit.

There was something terrifyingly inspirational about that little tyke's complete self-satisfaction.

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School in post-Impact elementary schools were notable that they taught history up to, but just short of, Second Impact. The children might ask why the world was as it was, but they would have to know it from other sources. They would not be given official word until the next stage in education.

His final years were about rediscovering the finest stages in humanity's history. In another timeline this would have been when he discovered the more cultured eras, and classical music. He would have found its haunting patterns more to his liking, instruments uniting and falling, relics of a much more hopeful era. It was dead music suited for a dead world. The past was gone under the seas, with all its frenzied beauty. All that lay in the future for Shinji were ruins and damaged goods.

He would have known this, and was part of what would made him so depressed. He could not imagine in what possible way things could be better. How could it possibly compete to the sheer perfection of these concertos? How could it be anything but a tarnished, imperfect reflection of these long dead? It made him believe that the luckiest died in died at the most glorious portion of humanity's history. They would remain with it, and never know how ugly and uninspired the world could be.

A Shinji Ikari who saw Titans in the shadows of buildings and walking tombs in the trees, had a much longer view. Compared to the bleakness of the forty-first millennium, it was still so much the better. So very much! He had faith in humanity, he was told how it could rise and fall, burning anew like a phoenix from the ashes. History itself supported this. That a cathedral once gilded now lay moss-stained and ruined was nothing to be sad about. It was enough that the shape still remained. It was all the more impressive to him, that it could still be so defiant against the tide of history.

It was only right and proper that things should fall into ruin. The greater the fall, the farther to new heights they could reach, climbing upon the remains of those before.

TV was a rare pastime as he grew up, filled mainly with cheesy reruns and news reports. The radio was slightly more lively, but the most cheerful of music didn't find its way into the airwaves. J-pop, mind-melting, sugar-filled J-pop, this was a vanished piece of Japanese cultural heritage. Shinji still wasn't very interested in mass media.

This Shinji did not need the cello to chase away the silence of his bland hours, because his hours were spent in purposeful activity. He and his uncle played the game less and less, but they still shared in its ambiance. His aunt was no longer the remote specter she was, and the house never seemed so tomblike anymore. He had been to tombs, he knew what that felt like. The peace of the home was very different from the peace of the grave, and the walls were just singing with it.

His hobby, unsurprisingly, was sculpture. There was plenty of clay to be had and there was an old unused oven right there in the kitchen. It was a hit and miss process, and he wasn't really all that good with it. His creations had a tendency to fall apart, as no one had told him about frameworks and bracing. He acted as if it was one big secret, and his guardians were careful not to make too much notice of it even when it was obvious. It was certainly nothing to be ashamed of, but Shinji was embarrassed easily. They supposed he was ashamed his efforts looked very little like the miniatures.

"Shinji…" his uncle said finally. "The miniatures are made of plastic, not clay. Maybe instead of sculpting them /into/ something, you can sculpt them /out/ of something."

He gave the boy a bar of bathing soap and a utility knife. It was the best gift he could have given, and it was not even his birthday! In a different time, his uncle would simply have given over money as a token gift during birthdays, in thinking quite reasonably (if callously) that the boy could just go out and get what he wanted.

Affection proved a much better present.

Shinji did not actually improve in his sculpting efforts, but became the cleanest, sweetest smelling boy ever in his school.

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In another place, Shinji would have saved up his money to buy a cello, being so unwilling to present himself as a bother. Here he was comfortable enough with his guardians to ask them for the money to get one, and so unwilling to lie (it displeases the Emperor!) that he told them why. He was of course, red-faced and stuttering as he said it.

For it turns out, that there was this girl, in the school band…

His guardians shared a look. So, it was about that time, eh? His uncle looked like he had swallowed a prune, and ran out of the room. Shinji just supposed it was indigestion.

His uncle went right out the house, and collapsed there, completely unable to contain his mirth. Shinji had always been a serious boy, but now he was… GRIMLY serious. The man began to roll around trying to keep his giggling from being heard.

That left his wife to just shake her head and sigh. She motioned Shinji to take a seat by the table and explain. Her comforting, serious, motherly manner coaxed the information out of him. She didn't tease him, or give advice on any tricks to win affection. She made a mental note to make sure her useless husband didn't try anything. Instead she just told him to make friends and find a common interest.

"That's why I need a cello, auntie." he said, nodding and likewise calm. "It's the only position empty in the band. If I own an instrument, I can get in sure."

"Ah, Shin-chan, but music isn't so simple. If you don't love music for itself, you'll never succeed. And you would only dishonor yourself and the girl if you build your friendship on a lie."

Shinji nodded. He knew all about honor. It separated humanity from the foul xenos. One had to be ready to go to extraordinary lengths to defend it, even breaking a world was nothing, rather than let it fall into the chaos of falsehoods, broken oaths, sacrilege, dishonor.

Even the Orks had a crude honor of sorts. They would lie, cheat, and steal all they want, and spat at oaths, but once they made a promise they did all they could to meet it.

His uncle came in, breathless, and saw the two sitting there with their backs straight and hands folded over their laps, with faces placid and polite. All that was missing was for them to be sitting cross-legged, maybe throw a few big banners around, for it to be all out of some samurai drama. He gurgled something that sounded like "Bahah-!" and fled.

His wife shook her head again. Useless.

"Remember, Shinji, if you do go into practicing music, you need to see it through. No matter what happens, no matter how difficult it is, even if you don't make friends. Music is something that requires dedication all through your life."

The boy's eyes widened. She could not have phrased it any more attractively to him. "I won't fail!" he said, puffing his chest out. "I'll give my life if that's what's asked!"

Shinji's aunt couldn't resist anymore. She pinched both his cheeks and cooed. "Shinji's a good boy!"

Her husband finally managed to get back inside, saw Shinji's grotesquely pulled face, and continued to be useless. (Bahahahahaha.)

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