Evangelion: Redemption (Ch. 19 of 19)
Aug. 15th, 2009 06:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fanfic_mausoleum_n_grillNeon Genesis Evangelion
EVA-R Prime Extension
(c) Alex Voutsis
Writer's Notes:
Credit where credit is due to Gainax, etc etc. Evangelion is someone else's property, etc.
Additional Credits to the creators of EVA-R Illustrated Fan Fiction. Find it at http://www.eva-r.com - it is an absolutely brilliant fan fic and essential reading to understand this story. You should have read EVA-R up to episode 53 PRIME before reading this fan fiction.
The other fan fictions that are a part of this storyline are
Light of the Soul/Contact
Light of the Heart/At Last, a Reason
The Runaway
Stand By Me
Another's Touch
Thanks for Caring
House of Cards
In the Shadows
A Wish for Dreamless Sleep
Pandora's Box
Progeny / Second Child
Homeostasis/Transistasis
Faces in the Crowd
Meaningful Gestures
Best Foot Forward
No Answers / I want You to Stay
Killing Time
This fan-fiction is intended to continue the story begun in the above episodes.
The New Day Breaks
The events in this story follow on directly from Killing Time. As per the prologue, this episode is in prose format rather than screenplay.
Chapter One: Asuka Langley Sohryu
She didn’t think about it.
That wasn’t entirely true. Asuka Langley Sohryu tried not to think about it. But the absence couldn’t be ignored. The Katsuragi apartment was missing someone. The synch tests were one pilot short.
And for a variety of reasons, the Pilot of Evangelion Unit 02 just wasn’t equipped to shut down her brain and not think about it. That would have been too… Wondergirl. It would have been too Rei of her. And no matter how much she had changed, no matter how much she had grown to know the First Child and accept the little oddities and quirks and blank expressions, Asuka was sure of one thing – she wasn’t anything like Rei Ayanami.
Asuka wasn’t going to sleepwalk through life. She wasn’t going to switch off.
She wasn’t equipped for that. But the mind of Asuka Langley Sohryu was equipped with a far wider range of defenses. One of them rose up in her mind and offered a solution.
Stupid idea anyway, she thought. A little girl fantasy, finding a magical someone. As if Shinji could be that someone.
Lie about it. Lie about how much it hurt. Carry on, and pretend that you hadn’t really lost anything. Asuka was familiar with this trick. She’d used it before.
It wasn’t working. It hadn’t worked before either, now that she thought about it.
Shinji, she thought. Damn you Shinji, where ever the hell you got yourself to.
The delicate situation with the
There had to be at least some politicians in the
There would be no war. Instead there would be eloquent statements consisting mostly of ‘who put this base here?’ and ‘It may be true, but I didn’t know about it’. The problem would be ironed out with diplomacy. NERV could afford to look the other way now that MARI was history.
The metal doors slid shut behind Asuka as she stepped into the bunker, beginning the first stage of her descent into the Geofront. A security check, an escalator, a walk down a short corridor with cameras turning to track her advance. And then a lift.
The doors opened. Sohryu saw who her companion would be for the ride down.
“Hmmph,” the Second Child managed as she stepped into the elevator and turned, pressing the floor button.
“That’s not a sound ladies make,” Aoi Tamashii said.
Was that a joke? Did she just make a joke? Today?
Asuka watched the dark-haired girl out of the corner of her eye. Aoi Tamashii was standing beside her, leaning against the elevator wall with her eyes closed as the lift descended. It was probably unfair, but Asuka was quietly assembling the reasons why today Aoi Tamashii was not allowed to make jokes – and in fact, today she hated Aoi Tamashii.
Shinji was gone and she was making jokes. The usual thing you say on a day like this was ‘I’m sorry’. Of course Asuka wouldn’t have taken that well either – never one to accept sympathy of any sort – but at least it wasn’t making a joke.
“That’s a sound you make, Asuka,” Aoi continued, apparently completely unaware of the gears grinding and clicking in Sohryu’s mind. “And we’ll need the real Asuka today.” Blue eyes snapped open, locking onto the red-haired teenager’s face. “We’ll need you in true form. Today’s not a good day for anything less.”
Something in her words managed to get through the impressive barricades around Asuka’s thoughts. “What do you mean? What do you know?”
“Everything is going to be okay-” the girl began.
“-How the hell can you say that?” interrupted Asuka, turning on Tamashii. “Have you been paying attention? Have you noticed anything!? Shinji is gone! The goddamn Third Child vanished in a fireball on the other side of the world and you’re saying things are okay?”
Aoi gave the other young woman a calm, flat look. “That’s the Asuka we need today. I said going to be. I meant it was going to be sorted out soon. There’s a happy ending,” she added, her tone growing lighter and more girlish, almost hopeful. “Wrong word. Not ending. Beginning. But something important has to be done.”
“And I’m the one to do it?” Sohryu’s voice was not far from a snarl. “How about you just say whatever you wanted to say, plain and simple?”
“Okay. Good luck.”
A tiny tremor in the girl’s voice revealed fear. Asuka realized – halting her anger – that Tamashii was afraid.
Asuka could see that now. Aoi wasn’t afraid of Asuka – this was a general kind of fear, the inability to act in the face of a situation that demands action. It sparked off a real concern inside the Second Child; Sohryu began to rummage through her memory for the little things that Aoi had said – things she had only really been paying half-attention to while she had been imagining up reasons to dislike her.
“Need you to let it out,” Aoi said softly.
As the elevator doors opened Asuka heard the alarms begin to scream.
---------------------------------------------------
Asuka felt a flash of pain when she saw Misato Katsuragi. The Major gave her a nod, a slightly sad look in her eyes – eyes that had been open too long. Misato had been onboard the Delta wing that had carried Unit 01 out to the
The two women had the same burden, the same loss. Sohryu had refused to speak with Katsuragi about it, and only now – with no real time to spare – she regretted it.
“The target was detected eight minutes ago,” Misato explained, “Falling from high orbit. We’re scrambling all three units. We don’t have time to ready the positron cannon, so we’re going to have to engage the target down here.”
“That’s how we usually do it,” Asuka said blandly.
“Maybe we can get a few potshots off before it makes landfall.” Lyn Anouilh had already been in the base when the alarm had sounded. From where she stood Sohryu could smell cordite on him – gunpowder. He’d been in the firing range, very early in the morning. The thought was a little disturbing, more so because Lyn didn’t seem like a firearms ‘enthusiast’, a term that Asuka would replace with ‘freak’ in casual conversation. Kensuke Aida he was not.
It didn’t occur to Asuka that that Anouilh might also have been affected by the loss of Unit 01, and had his own ways of dealing with it.
“Anything that makes this easier,” agreed Major Katsuragi. “Unit Six will be positioned at the south armory station. Lyn, we’ll be sending you guns as each runs dry. Rei will be on the west station, and we can catch the thing in the crossfire. Asuka, you’ll be on the west ridge, prime real estate to see where this thing comes down. Wherever it lands, I want you right on top of it.”
The briefing room door hissed open and Rei Ayanami ran in, a slim figure all in white. She was slightly flushed, pinkness in her pale and perfect face – a reminder that she was human after all. Asuka found herself a little surprised by the sight. She knew that Rei could feel pain, feel tired, feel worn-out, but in defiance of common sense was a little part of Asuka that imagined the the First Child as a machine – a notion that was shattered by simple things like her being a little out of breath.
“Asuka, get her up to date,” Misato barked. “We’re out of time. Get to the cage, and good luck.”
---------------------------------------------------
The axe felt good in her hands.
The weapon rested in the massive fingers of Evangelion Unit 02. The sensation of weight and grip and heft was all a synchronized signal from Unit 02’s systems, linked to Asuka’s own nervous system. It was a comforting object, a simple solution to life’s problems.
For a little while Asuka could forget about everything, just concentrate on the axe. And hitting someone with it.
I’d use something heavier. Maybe chemistry.
Asuka remembered the mock threat – what book she would hit Shinji with. It had been just a joke, something to smile at. She never told Shinji she was joking when she said things like that; it was more interesting to half-mean them. Suddenly Asuka was thinking about all the times Shinji apologized, even for things he hadn’t really done. In that she had been his opposite.
Her fingers tightened around the axe’s handle.
“Target in sight,” came Anouilh’s voice over the radio. “Engage?”
Sohyru heard Misato give the order. “Units Zero and Six, fire as it comes into range!”
Evangelion Unit 02 stood on a ridge overlooking the fortress-city of Tokyo-3. From that vantage point Asuka watched as two streams of tracer fire tear into the sky. She knew that technically what Rei and Lyn were sending up was called a ‘crossfire’ but the angle was so steep they seemed to be going straight up.
The two trails of gunfire were visible only for a second. Then the rest of Tokyo-3’s defenses opened up. The blue sky disappeared behind streaks of white propellant as rockets shrieked upwards towards the incoming threat.
The armored crimson form of Unit 02 tipped its head upwards. High, high above was a tiny dark shape. Each trail of propellant reached it and flared – missiles striking the target and detonating. A trail of explosions traced the falling object as it hurtled towards the ground.
And as it fell a sound gradually intruded into Asuka’s consciousness. It was growing in the background, only half-heard through the cacophony of the Evangelions’ rifles firing and the rush and roar of missiles launching from the city’s many batteries. The sound was organic – something living, something enraged, something growing closer.
The falling thing was screaming. It fell carelessly through sheets of gunfire and missiles, the shots harmlessly impacting on the protection of its AT field. So far nothing had breached that defense and none of the Evas had been able to neutralize it – yet.
It was probably going to reach the ground. Asuka was not unhappy about this. She wanted something to fight. She wanted to bury her axe in something. That would make all of this more bearable, she was sure.
She blinked, tears appearing in her eyes. For a moment she lost synch balance and was again sharply aware of the interior of the entry plug. She forced the moment aside; she had to concentrate.
I’m not going to cry. Not over Shinji. Not over anyone. Not anymore. The massive fingers of Unit 02 shifted on the axe handle as she silently swore defiance. The real Asuka? This is the real Asuka, you bastard.
She was thinking about the world in general.
Asuka saw the faint twist in the falling Angel’s movement as it redirected its descent.
“Rei, it’s coming down on your position!” shouted Asuka. On her command Unit 02 surged forwards, powerful legs sending the armored giant sprinting down the ridgeline, heading for Ayanami’s position. The Angel’s scream was growing louder and nearer – there was no single word, just a long, drawn out roar.
“Can you hear the damn thing?” Anouilh’s voice was tight with tension.
“Hear what?” came Katsuragi’s reply.
“You don’t hear that Misato? It’s screaming.”
An AT field, Asuka thought. We can hear it because we feel the damn thing…
Sohryu couldn’t see Unit 00; a line of buildings obscured her view of the blue and white Evangelion. But Asuka could see the streams of firepower tearing upwards from her position. Each shot unerringly found its target – but had no effect.
The Angel did not hit the ground. It hit Unit 00.
Asuka heard the exact moment it made contact because its scream became a single word.
MINE!
She heard a short yelp over the radio and knew it was Rei. Asuka couldn’t get there in time – she was still twenty seconds away at full run. Unit 02 tore through Tokyo-3’s broad streets, ducking and weaving between buildings. She could hear the blows ringing out as the two monsters fought only a few streets away – sharp cracks as knuckle and armor plating struck together.
The buildings were slowing Asuka down. “Hell with this polite shit!” the Second Child screamed and simply ran through the nearest offending structure. Concrete and metal shattered, blasted aside by the tremendous mass ramming through, and Unit 02 lurched into the street where Unit 00 had met the invader.
Ayanami’s Eva was lying half-buried in rubble in the far end of the street. The sight sparked a memory sharply in Asuka – Rei wearing a set of pyjamas during the sleepover. Pain and anger spiked inside her.
The girl’s attacker was standing two hundred meters away – it had thrown Unit 00 into another building. The monster turned to look towards Unit 02.
The invader was a jagged, monstrous thing. It was humanoid but its body was all spikes and sharp lines in yellow and brown, with cracks spreading across its armored body. Its form was irregular, possessing none of the eery symmetry and beauty the other Angels had. This creature looked like a beast of torment, twisted and monstrous. One shoulder was grotesquely larger than the other, a veritable mountain of brown-black spikes, while the other was slim and yet somehow no less twisted with tiny points and jagged lines.
The creature roared. Unit 02 dropped into a crouch, ready to fight. Asuka grinned in the entry plug, blue eyes wide, wanting to feel her axe meet flesh.
But a burst of gunfire tore overhead and struck the Angel in the chest. The creature staggered back, snarling – the shots had come from the ridgeline. Lyn and Unit 06 had reached higher ground and was firing on the intruder, right over the head of Sohryu’s crimson Eva.
The Angel crouched and then leapt. Asuka swore and turned, watching the Angel become a small dark object in the sky again. “Was that a jump or is that bastard flying?”
White tracer fire streaked out to meet the monster as it hurtled through the sky. “It’s coming in my direction,” was Anouilh’s only message as he continued to fire, his tone tight with his concentration as he kept the stream of bullets on-target.
Meanwhile Asuka ducked her Unit 02 by the rubble that covered Ayanami’s Evangelion. Her axe became a crude shovel, sweeping aside enough debris until she could reach down and pull Unit 00 upwards.
“Come on Wondergirl,” Asuka muttered. “Misato, is she okay?”
“Lifesigns read stable.” The voice was Maya Ibuki’s, the woman watching over the systems of each Evangelion from the command centre in Central Dogma. “Unconscious. We’ll do what we can to revive her remotely.”
“Get back to work Asuka!” was Misato’s shouted order.
---------------------------------------------------
Concrete cracked under Unit 02’s feet as it raced back up the ridge. The surfaces of Tokyo-3 had been constructed to stand up to the punishment of being walked on by a forty-meter tall Evangelion – but the production-model Eva was not walking. Asuka was tearing up towards Lyn’s position with every ounce of speed she could force out of her Unit’s legs.
Again she couldn’t see the fight. Buildings and barriers blocked her view. But she heard the gunfire cease, knowing that Anouilh had either ran out of ammunition or gave up on ranged combat. Over the radio she heard the young man grunt and shout and gasp occasionally as he and his opponent fought hand-to-hand.
Again she heard the monster’s shout.
MINE.
The thought pulsed through Asuka’s head, so intense that it was almost painful. More than any battle she could remember the young woman could feel her enemy’s intent, its fervent desire to win. It had no hatred for its enemies, just this raw drive, this possession.
“Bastard wants something,” Sohryu panted as she ascended towards the ridge, axe in hand. “Well I got something for him!”
Unit 02 ran with its axe carried behind, its blade lifted while the Eva’s body hunched low. Asuka ached to fight something, anything. Between the building she saw a flash of her enemy’s form – it was enough for the Second Child to gauge the distance. She leapt.
The force of Unit 02’s feet ramming the ground on lift-off shattered concrete and sent meter-wide fragments of pavement rising up all across the street. Over buildings the Evangelion soared, rising, whistling through the air, its armored body arching back as it readied its axe above its head for a single terrible blow.
She saw Unit 06 fall just as her own Evangelion reached the peak of its climb. It was a monstrous hammering blow, the exaggerated right arm of the Angel ramming forwards, all spikes and power, and slamming into the yellow Eva’s chest. Bent double by the blow Lyn’s Evangelion tore backwards, ripping a small canyon through buildings and pavement and the road itself before coming to a halt more than half a kilometer across the ridgeline. Asuka might have felt a spark of sympathy for the Sixth Child but she was single-minded at the moment. Her axe filled her thoughts. The blow she was swinging filled her world.
The crimson Evangelion fell towards its enemy, axe lifted above its eye-studded head. All of the giant’s weight and speed and strength poured into that one blow, the axe tearing downwards through the air towards the Angel’s head.
It turned and caught the blade with its hand. Its fingers closed, crushing the metal.
MINE.
The punch it swung at Unit 02 was graceless but impossibly fast. Asuka tried to duck aside, to pull her Eva out of the path of that terrible blow, but was only able to edge aside enough so that the punch landed on Unit 02’s armored shoulder. The plating and the weapon hardpoint shattered and the giant was sent tumbling to the ground. The crimson-armored Eva rolled, its body tearing through a building and sending a massive cloud of dust and glass and powdered concrete into the sky, before Asuka brought her Unit back to its feet.
The monster was already there, following with another punch. This time Asuka was ready for it.
MINE. The blow swung in.
Unit 02’s left arm knocked it aside. The girl screamed wordlessly as she sent her Eva’s right fist into its head. The warped spiky exterior of the monster’s face cracked – but its head barely jerked from the blow.
Its head suddenly filled Asuka’s vision as the Angel head-butted her. Unit 02 reeled back and was not able to halt the heavy punch to the stomach that followed. Sohryu felt her wind rush out of her and the ground scrape her shoulder and side as her Evangelion hit the ground.
And the monster was following her. She twisted her head, gasping for air, to see the creature’s twisted form shambling after her. With the sunlight behind it the invader’s spike-covered form appeared as a dark mass of flames, a dozen slivers of black rising towards the sky that danced and shifted as the creature moved.
Its arms lifted, its pronged head tipping towards the fallen Evangelion. Asuka sucked in a breath, her teeth gritting as she tried to make one more move-
-that she didn’t have too. Armored hands wrapped around the Angel’s head and neck from behind. Those arms twisted hard – Asuka heard the crack as the creature’s spinal cord broke.
The Angel dropped to its knees, tipping backwards as if it were going to fall, but didn’t. It seemed wedged up by the stiffness of its own body, as if it had suddenly turned into a single solid mass. Behind the monster was Unit 06. Lyn’s Eva was battered, yellow armor bent and buckled and entirely missing across one half of the giant’s face, but it was standing.
“Old tricks are the best tricks,” Anouilh gasped, still trying to recover his breath from the blow that had grounded him. “At least this bastard had a neck. Most of these things don’t.”
“Not bad Six,” Asuka returned, struggling to force her Evangelion to rise and at the same time pretend that she hadn’t been having any trouble, really, honestly. “Remind me not to stand in front of you in line at the canteen.”
“Ha hah,” the Sixth Child said in a flat voice. “We’ve got to get Rei and Unit Zero back to base. Major,” the young man continued, evidently speaking into his radio system, “What’s Ayanami’s stat-“
MINE.
Unit 06 was suddenly pinned to the ground. The oversized right arm of the angel had driven into the Evangelion’s back like a hammer, slamming downwards. The yellow-armored giant’s back and shoulders were bent in a way that was only possible with many broken vertebrae. Lyn’s radio signal cut off.
The angel was hunched over the fallen Evangelion. Its monstrous head was still half-twisted about on its shoulders – but with a sickened series of cracks and pops it twisted back into place. The beast’s glowing eyes, little more than two red cracks in its twisted and deformed armor, fixed on Unit 02.
For just a split second Asuka could see Lyn and Aoi in her mind’s eye. The girl was so possessive of him, and so, so, so fake. She had a façade that she carried about, almost chirpy, that became only stronger whenever she was around Anouilh. She used it to hide what she was really thinking and feeling.
Because the boy could hurt her. He didn’t even know it, but her presence and his thoughts and his voice were that important to her. Tamashii had to protect herself when she was around him and so she made up an act. Not so different from Asuka and Shinji-
Unit 02 leapt forwards, its red-armored form twisting in mid air to kick both feet into the angel’s chest. The blow sent the monster tumbling and rolling across street and through building while to the Evangelion it was a kick-off, sending the giant up into a graceful flip.
Asuka landed, blue eyes intent and her mouth open in a slightly animal way, eager to fight. But she could see that the Angel was getting to its feet again, some two hundred meters away where it had ceased its tumble in the ruin of a destroyed building. The monster was a rock. Debris tumbled off its shoulders as it stood upright again.
The creature hunched forward, the spikes across its back and shoulders shifting, and it screamed at its enemy.
MINE.
The thing was charged at her. Asuka grinned madly in the entry plug, watching it heave towards her, waiting for the last second. Then Unit 02 dropped low and dove forwards, below the beast’s outstretched arms and into its legs. The two of them hit the ground and rolled – the Evangelion’s remaining shoulder hardpoint opened and extended the handle of the dagger contained within. Asuka grabbed it and stabbed.
One, two, three, four. The blade punched through the monster’s hardened outer carapace and found tissue beneath. The two combatants rolled gracelessly, Unit 02’s clenched fist rising and falling as it stabbed its enemy again and again. The weapon lodged in the monster’s oversized shoulder and Asuka swore – it wasn’t coming loose.
Then it kicked her. Unit 02 rolled away and both giants clambered to their feet.
Sohryu felt a surge of satisfaction at the sight of her enemy’s wounds. Dark red openings had been punched through its armor – nearly a dozen. But as she watched tissue bubbled up within those wounds, halting the flow of blood and restoring the shape of the tissue beneath.
“It’s healing itself – no you don’t you bastard!”
They met in a storm of punches and kicks. The armored hammers of the beast’s fists whistled past Unit 02’s face, left right and over as the crimson giant ducked and weaved in. Two blows fast into the creature’s chest – crack crack and its glossy, brittle armor was crumbling. Asuka caught its next blow at the wrist and pulled hard, hauling her enemy around. She kicked – once low in the knee, making her enemy lurch and nearly fall backwards, and a second kick high into the back of the monster’s head. The third kick when directly to the monsters spine, just above the hip. It was staggering and lurching and only barely keeping its balance.
And suddenly it found its footing. Its hands, twisted into malformed masses by the spiked armor that covered them, clenched around Unit 02’s wrist. The angel pulled and turned and suddenly Asuka felt her Eva’s feet leave the ground.
Unit 02 was thrown across the street. Its flying mass glanced off a building, scraping twenty floors of windows and balconies away with its passage, and then struck the ground with a graceless tumble and slide. Asuka shook her head and tried to stand only to feel a great weight pressing down on her back and an arm clench around her neck.
It was on top of her Evangelion. It was pulling at her, wrenching at her head, trying to break her spine.
Unit 02 worked one leg beneath itself and kicked off hard. The two combats rose and hurtled back into the building – the same building the Eva had recently redecorated one facing of – and shattered it. Somewhere in the collision the angel lost its hold on the Evangelion. Asuka turned and screamed, driving her fist at the creature. Blows hammered into the Angel. It jerked left and right, its body driven into the building, shattering concrete and steel and glass.
There was no warning. Its fist simply lashed out in a sharp uppercut and sent Unit 02 reeling. Asuka staggered, only barely keeping her balance and recovered in time to catch another blow to the jaw as the angel followed her, its fists swinging brutally. Every step she staggered back it advanced to hammer her again. The dagger in its shoulder did not slow its powerful blows.
Asuka’s sense of balance was gone. Her only thought was to trip the monster up. Another blow struck Unit 02 in the face, cracking the armor across its cheekbone, and the Evangelion fell – but its pilot guided its fall, turning, spinning, a leg lashing out. The monster was struck in the legs and fell. Sohryu rolled away, shaking her head and trying to clear the spots dancing in her vision. Her Eva got to its feet but continued its scrambling retreat, trying to create as much distance between itself and its enemy, buying Asuka a little more time to clear her head.
The monster was not pressing its attack. But Asuka could hear the sounds of struggle; someone was fighting the beast. The Second Child’s battered senses became aware of a new sound – over her radio, the sound of Rei Ayanami grunting and hissing with exertion. The First Child was back up again.
Asuka could barely see. Her vision faded in and out. The pilot could feel a doubled pain throbbing across the right side of her face, the peculiar sensation of having two damaged eyes where there should be only one. Her Evangelion grabbed at its damaged face plating, loosening it – some of the pressure faded and her vision began to return.
“Rei needs help!” Misato’s voice was a shout over the radio. “Forwards along that street and take a right! Get there now Asuka!”
She could hear a heavy hammering – slow and steady and loud enough to make the ground beneath Unit 02 shake. Now at least she could make out the sky and the streets and the buildings; Asuka ran forwards, her Evangelion moving with slightly uncertain steps. Her balance was still suffering.
She rounded the corner to find Unit 00 limp in the monster’s grip. It was headbutting the blue-armored Evangelion – that had been the hammer-like sound Asuka had heard. Unit 00’s faceplate was a cracked and broken mess, and a similar network of cracks spread out across the angel’s monstrous visage but it did not seem to care.
Ayanami was not resisting. Whatever fight had been left in her had been hammered into unconsciousness. Her Evangelion fell from the beast’s hold as it returned its attention to Asuka.
A little voice inside her told her to back off. She couldn’t take it alone. If Rei could recover then maybe they could take the monster down together.
“Come on you bastard,” Asuka panted as her Evangelion crouched, ready to run or to fight. “Come on. Just step on over here, that’s right.”
The beast took a step towards her.
MINE. Its voice was a hammer inside her thoughts.
“Yeah, I’ll give you yours. Misato – the closest missile battery is number seven, right?”
“We don’t have a shot Asuka.”
“Just wait a second,” she said as she saw the monster’s balance shift forwards. Unit 02 turned and began to run. The beast charged after her.
For a moment Asuka wasn’t sure if it would really chase her, and had considered moving at a slower pace to be sure it wasn’t left behind. But the monster was fully intent on running her down. It charged forwards, its twisted body lowering into a four-legged lope, glowing eyes fixed on her Evangelion as it sprinted down the street.
A sharp turn. Unit 02’s feet skidded on the concrete and knocked a parked car through a glass storefront, and the Eva was charging down another street. The beast pursued, having trouble shifting its momentum – it crashed shoulder-first into a building, demolishing the bulk of the structure before righting itself and continuing the chase.
Not far now. A map display in the corner of her vision flashed, showing the position of the weapon battery – undoubtedly a helpful highlight sent by the team in Central Dogma, monitoring the pursuit and helping however they could.
A glance over her shoulder told her the angel was too close. Its claws scraped chunks out of the concrete as it raced after her. “Can you slow him down a little Misato?” shouted Asuka.
“She’s on street fifty-eight.” Katsuragi’s voice came through the radio. “Ready the second barrier right after she crosses – now!”
Unit 02’s long strides carried it over a gray break in the concrete surface, a dividing strip of metal that separated one length of road from another. But it was far more than that. A command from Central Dogma activated the blockade – a slab of metal five meters thick rose up from the road directly between Unit 02 and the monster chasing it.
Claws tore through the metal. The beast charged into the barrier and ripped it from its foundations as if it were made from Styrofoam. But it had served its purpose – Asuka gained another three paces ahead of the beast. That was enough.
One more turn and she could see the missile battery. It was a broad metal block the size of the apartment building Katsuragi lived it, but mounted on an impressively broad rotary base. Dozens of tubes housed missiles primarily used for engaging airborne targets.
“We’re ready to blow the whole thing!” came Misato’s voice. “Do it Asuka!”
Unit 02 skidded to a halt and turned. The Angel barreled into her.
She met it with her shoulder, grabbing its deformed body and hauling the beast around. It roared, its body convulsing wildly. Asuka found another handhold – her dagger, still trapped in the monster’s shoulder. She grabbed at it as the two giants heaved at each other.
MINE.
“For you!” Asuka screamed, turning and shoving the monster into the missile battery. The dagger came free from the creature’s shoulder and remained in Unit 02’s hand. The angel’s terrible momentum carried it into the launcher with a wail of tortured metal; there was no way the weapon system could withstand that much weight. As they smashed together Unit 02 turned and leapt away.
Sohryu didn’t hear the explosion as much as she felt it. A sullen thump, force rushing out from the center of the blast, driving out all the air in a wave. The Angel was silhouetted against the light and flame. Buildings up and down the street shook and began to fall.
Unit 02 rolled and skidded, turning on one shoulder and looking back at the inferno, its reclaimed dagger held tightly in one fist.
The monster was still there, a dark shape in the flames.
“Why won’t the bastard just die!?” Asuka demanded, bringing her Evangelion back to its feet.
“Asuka – grab Rei and bring her back to the base.” Misato’s tone revealed no room for disagreements. “We’ll try to slow the target with a missile barrage. Unit 06 is out of it but we might be able to get Unit 00 combat worthy. Get her back here.”
Sohryu’s view of the angel was blotted out by missile strikes. Other batteries across the city had opened fire, sending a spread of missiles arcing to the invader’s position, all to buy Unit 02 time. Asuka checked her map – Rei’s position was already marked. She began to run.
She made two steps and the monster came out of the inferno and tackled her. Unit 02 rolled and kicked, knocking the thing away from her.
“It’s just ignoring the weaponfire.” The speaker was Hyuga. Asuka resisted the urge to swear at the man, to tell him that of course it’s ignoring the weaponfire, it can’t damn well hurt it. Slowing it down had been little more than a hope.
Her Evangelion crouched, dagger at the ready, and squared off against the enemy.
MINE.
It swung a fist at her. Asuka ducked aside and slashed, creating a deep sound in the creature’s arm – that it ignored. More blows hissed towards her and she ducked and weaved, her blade slipping left and right, gouging out wounds wherever Sohryu could reach.
Even as she struck it the creature was healing. Tissue bubbled up grotesquely, filling each wound with living flesh.
“Head or heart,” Asuka growled. “Cutting its arms isn’t doing much-“
She committed herself. Sohryu lunged forwards. The blade stabbed down hard, going for the creature’s left eye. It caught the blow, a hand tight around Unit 02’s wrist, and they fought for control of the dagger. The Second Child forced all of her Evangelion’s weight into the struggle, bearing the blade’s tip downwards, bringing it ever closer to its target. She gritted her teeth and snarled.
MINE. Its voice was not a blank thing. It was filled with rage and pain.
MINE. And loss – the feeling was acute, almost painful when she was this close to it.
In the struggle the spiky, crusted armor that covered the monster’s body had cracked here and there. Pieces were now falling away.
Beneath was purple armor.
He’s MINE.
And Asuka knew the truth.
---------------------------------------------------
The beast had always been part of Evangelion Unit 01. From Shinji’s first battle it had protected him. In the course of many battles it had saved them all. It was a monstrous fighter but it did not exist to fight. It existed for him.
Their AT fields crackled against each other. Asuka had felt this before – she and Shinji had been caught like this not so long before. Fighting over a blade, each trying to end the fight, neither knowing who it was they were fighting. The moment of recognition as their familiar AT fields touched had saved them.
But the beast was not guided by Shinji’s familiar presence. This was something else.
“He’s mine.” The woman’s voice was ragged, her head lowered. The hands around the dagger, and around Asuka’s wrist, had well-manicured fingernails.
“He’s mine, do you understand? No one can hurt him.”
Sohryu could only see a little of her face beneath her fringe; the woman’s face was down, her eyes shut. But what little the teenager saw was familiar to her.
“No. No. No no no no no no! He’s mine.”
Asuka leaned forward and whispered.
“No. He belongs to me.”
The woman’s face came up, eyes narrow and lips pulled back from her teeth. Raw anger and pain and loss stared at Asuka.
“And you’re not real anymore,” Asuka said. “I want to believe you are. I wanted my mother to be real. But you can’t find a happy family inside Eva. You can’t live a life like this.”
“He’s mine.” The woman’s voice was a whisper. “I love him.”
“So do I.” Now Asuka could sense the limits of the beast, feel out the borders of its awareness. She had been right; it wasn’t a person anymore. Maybe Yui Ikari had been real once, enough of her lingering within Eva to remain herself.. Maybe they could have brought her back, just as they had for Shinji.
But all that Asuka found here was a memory. It was a scream echoing back and forth forever, the mind behind it long since faded until all that was left was that raw intent.
“He’s mine,” the creature repeated. “I love him. More than you do. More than anyone.”
“You’re wrong.” A calm came over Asuka Langley Sohryu, a sudden silence in her thoughts as the last pieces fell together. The beast had saved them so many times, it had been unbeatable. It had been terrible. It had been driven by this presence, this scream, this last scrap of love.
It could not die as long as it had cause to live. As long as her child needed, the last scrap of Yui Ikari remained a flaming, beating heart in the core of the beast.
“You’re so wrong. And I can prove it.”
Asuka let the dagger sink into her chest. Pain and hot blood gushed out. The world sank out of the light and the ground rushed up to meet her.
And in the last instant she heard Shinji’s voice, but she couldn’t hear what he was saying.
Chapter Two: Rei Ayanami
“Ow.” Lyn Anouilh arched his back uncomfortably. “Ow, ow, ow. Don’t you ever feel it afterwards?”
Sedate calmness radiated around Rei Ayanami. “Feel what?”
“Everything. Injuries in the Evas. Afterwards, I mean. I think it’s like ghost pain, where an amputee can still feel the limb after it’s removed.”
They were waiting outside the debriefing room, deep below the surface of Tokyo-3. Repairs on the Evangelions sometimes required the pilots’ presence; sitting in the entry plug, the pilot’s nervous system was a template for the Eva’s own body to follow as it restored itself. It wasn’t a pleasant experience as the pain of the injury fed through the neural links back into the pilot, but it sped the Evangelions towards recovery. Those repairs might be beginning very soon.
The First Child considered Anouilh’s words. “Sometimes. Not today.”
Lyn tipped his head to the other side, lifting up with one hand to rub the back of his neck. “I’m feeling it today. I swear I I’ve got two spines. Damn Shinji. Maybe this is how Asuka feels all the time. And the damage to Unit Six is going to take a while to repair. Ow.”
“Unit One is relatively undamaged,” Ayanami noted. “Once they remove the trinitite, it will be functional again.”
“Trinitite, yeah. Trinity.” Anouilh’s expression grew slightly more somber. “That’s what they found at the Trinity bomb site, wasn’t it? The desert sand fused into the stuff.”
“And Unit One was in desert terrain when the MARI facility self-destructed,” Ayanami finished.
“Okay, that kind of explains why Shinji’s Eva looked like a spiky sand-demon,” allowed the Sixth Child, “And I don’t even want to think about what being in the middle of that kind of blast would be like for a person, so I suppose he could have gone berserk afterwards. But how did Unit One get into space? It didn’t just jump.”
“Perhaps it did.”
“Perhaps I’ve got two spines, too. Ow.”
Rei was not particularly interested in the Sixth Child’s questions. She wasn’t being rude, she was merely… preoccupied.
She could feel him coming closer. Ayanami could already imagine him in her mind’s eye. Small shoes. His shock of pale hair. Those eyes, eyes that understood her. That face, that smile, that joy.
“Let’s just accept that for a second – that the damn thing jumped. Hell I suppose it’s not that strange an idea. My old Unit Six could fly, and enough Angels managed it without propulsion that obeyed the normal laws of physics. AT field theory is really just a few years old and we can’t say what they can can’t do. But there’s still another question – that girl, she was in the entry plug with Shinji-“
When the door at the end of the corridor opened, Tenkei was exactly how Ayanami had imagined him. His small shoes hit the metal floor with a rapid tempo as he ran to her.
The First Child stood and endured a hugging – although at his height, Tenkei could only wrap his arms around Ayanami’s hips. A small almost appeared on her face but she noticed Lyn watching her; she directed a calm red-eyed gaze in his direction until the Sixth Child found something else to look at.
Once Tenkei had hugged himself out, about a minute later, Rei knelt down, gently took him by the shoulders and looked at him. An observer might have mistaken her attention for looking for injuries, smudges, signs that the boy had gotten himself into trouble. But Rei was just drinking in the sight of him.
A synthetic life form, Tenkei was younger than he appeared – but his thoughts were far older.
Ayanami’s eyes didn’t leave Tenkei’s face as she spoke. “Tenkei and Seyoko returned from the
Lyn sat up in his seat. “Seyoko’s back? Already?”
“I imagine you have many questions for her,” Rei said pointedly.
Anouilh got the hint, but was foolish enough to point it out. “You want me to leave, huh?”
Ayanami didn’t even look at him. Instead she was tipping her head, looking about Tenkei’s neck and shoulders.
“Okay, okay,” the Sixth Child relented. “And yeah, I do have a lot to talk to Seyoko about.”
Rei could see the shift in Tenkei’s eyes. The boy waited until Lyn was out of the corridor and the door closed behind him before he spoke.
“She is nothing like you,” he said. “You shouldn’t be afraid.”
“Where is she?”
“Maya is talking with her. Lots of people have questions for her. But she won’t co-operate until she’s ready. She wants-“ Tenkei looked at Rei, a sense of wonder in his eyes. “The world is so big to her. I was surprised to see everything when I got outside but the way she sees it-”
“I understand.”
“No. She wants more. She is nothing like you, or like me.” There was surprise in his expression but also a kind of wonder, a fondness.
It was exactly what Rei had not wanted to see.
As long as she could remember she had feared something like this. Her unique origins, the alien way in which she had come into being, had meant that Rei Ayanami had always known – on a bare, primal level of her consciousness – that she was worthless. There was another waiting to take her place, take her life, her clothes, her name, her duty…
…her Tenkei…
Tip toe through life. Don’t gain anything. Don’t aspire for anything, it may belong to another soon. There was no point in clutching to any object or person or feeling or joy. It was all so temporary and transitional. Stare out the window at the clouds moving.
But that had changed. It had changed in the myriad ways the other children had affected her life. Shinji’s small kindnesses and shy – and clumsy – attempts to bridge the gap between them to Asuka’s patented rage and aloofness in the face of the fact that she needed so badly, all had its effect on Rei.
And they were just a breeze compared to the tidal wave called Tenkei. With his arrival, Rei had started to truly fight for what was hers.
And this made the fear so much greater, because now she had so much to lose.
The door hissed open again, and the source of her fear stepped into the short length of corridor.
Her hair was cut shorter – the only barber on the MARI base usually worked on marines, although the haircut was far from a military shave. It was just more controlled, more trimmed. She wore a NERV technician’s uniform with the nametag removed – presumably it had been borrowed. But the uniform wrapped around a frame identical to Ayanami’s. Her hair, however it was cut, was the same pale shade. Her eyes were crimson, her skin alabaster.
Maya Ibuki was behind the girl, a slightly worried expression on her face. “She insisted on coming down…”
Rei stood silently, standing up to face the stranger. Her pale hands gripped Tenkei’s shoulders, holding the boy close to her.
Not long ago Ayanami had wanted to kill the other. The figure standing in the doorway, stepping forwards with Maya just behind, had been a source of fear and rage for her. When Rei had charged at MARI, neutering its exquisitely designed combat training with raw fury, it had been because she had imagined that this creature had been piloting it. She had thought this thing was going to take Tenkei away from her. She had fought it and killed it.
By chance it had not been the thing. MARI had discovered the clone and had been struggling to unravel her secrets. And now she had fallen into NERV’s hands.
And here she was. “Hello,” the girl said a trifle carefully. She took a few steps towards the teenager and the boy and halted when she saw Rei’s hands tighten in the folds of Tenkei’s shirt. Instead she ducked down, speaking just to the boy.
“Good to see you again. It worked – what you taught me worked.”
Tenkei nodded. His yellow eyes rose, as if trying to see what Rei was going to do.
The newcomer straightened, her crimson eyes settling on Rei. “I was… afraid of meeting you. Afraid of even thinking about you. That you exist.”
Ayanami felt herself swallow nervously, but she didn’t reply. An awkward silence spread out as the two sides faced off. The newcomer’s hands pressed against her hips, then held each other, then disappeared behind the girl’s back.
“I thought she could use a name,” Maya said, breaking the silence. “A different name, something to differentiate between the two of you. I mean, you are two different people.”
Are we? Rei did not voice the doubt.
“She asked me what your full name was. And what my name was, and everyone else’s names were…” Ibuki trailed off.
“I wanted to borrow part of yours,” the newcomer said. “Rei-A-Ya-Na-Mi. A little bit,” she said, lifting one hand with thumb and forefinger held almost together.
The First Child took a moment to respond to this. “Which part?” she asked, suspicion only the faintest tinge on her normally soft voice.
“Mi,” the girl answered promptly.
---------------------------------------------------
Rei and the newly christened Mi stood outside one of the many entrances to the Geofront cavern. They stood under a synthetic sky – the curved ceiling of the vast cave that NERV headquarters inhabited.
Someone had been cultivating melons here. Their tendrils had wrapped around the base of a nearby bench. At the moment the fruit were small and pale, far from fully grown.
“I won’t try to take him from you,” Mi said slowly.
Rei could feel the edges of her thoughts. Both shared the same synthetic origin, slightly more – or less – than human. She knew that Mi was telling the truth, and that it hurt. She concealed it just as well as Ayanami herself had concealed a dozen hurts.
“I wanted him before,” Mi continued. “I thought I could make him mine, and take him from you. I thought I had to, otherwise I would not be... that I would not be.”
It was there, standing with melon tendrils twisting between her white sneakers, that Rei Ayanami saw the thing that banished the fear from her. Mi – the creature who had eventually named herself Mi – had been every bit as terrified as Rei had been.
Ayanami had feared the dissolution that would come if people learned of her true nature. She had been terrified of losing Tenkei. But it had been worse for this creature, who didn’t even have him – or have anyone. Tenkei’s attempts to reach her had been a mercy, a light in the lonely darkness.
“But that was before.” The girl’s voice was suddenly calmer and more confident, her red eyes gazing into the distance. “Now I can understand – I can see it.”
This puzzled Ayanami slightly. “See what?”
Mi smiled a little, her pale face lowered. “All of it. All of this. I thought that Tenkei was…” Her thin eyebrows creased with a brief thought. “I made him the center of my world. But this is my world.”
The girl’s face lifted, looking over the interior of the geofront cavity. “When I woke up, they put me in a very small room. This place is bigger. But the world… the world is much bigger. And it’s full of people.” Mi looked sharply towards Rei. “Have you really looked?”
Ayanami could make no sense of what she was saying. “Looked for what?”
“People. What you find in Tenkei you might find in anyone. Have you looked?”
The thought had never occurred to her.
The Evangelion project had thrown a small group of people together. Shinji, Rei, Asuka, Lyn, Aoi, Misato and the rest of the command and technical staff. Those people had been Ayanami’s world. Even including the limited contact they had with other children at school, it was still a small, limited world.
What Mi spoke of was reaching beyond that world, into the much vaster realm beyond.
The newcomer was smiling. “You can have Tenkei. I think you need him – I think you are bound to him, and to this place. But… I can look and search and find… anything.”
Mi stood up. “I am free.”
Rei Ayanami watched as her clone walked to the nearest entrance to the NERV complex and stepped through the door, into her future.
---------------------------------------------------
The girl’s words were eating at Rei. A doubt had appeared where there had been no doubt before. What she felt for Tenkei was suddenly shrouded in uncertainty.
Does that explain it all? Ayanami wondered as she walked through the corridors of NERV headquarters. Could love be explained just by proximity? Did Tenkei and I turn to each other because our choices were so limited?
It was a quietly horrible thought. It turned something wonderful into leftovers. It turned her appeal to Tenkei into the best of a bad situation. It turned Tenkei’s appeal to her into desperation. A sad truth was the hollowness, the sense that the presence of another was needed – anyone could fill that presence if you were lonely enough.
No. That’s not true. It can’t be true. I know what I feel.
But the doubt continued to gnaw at her as she walked through NERV headquarters, heading for where Tenkei was waiting for her.
The sight of Tenkei banished the doubt from her thoughts. The sight of him – the feelings she had for him, and the dozen tiny little tells in the change of his posture and expression when he saw her – confirmed it.
It was love, whatever Mi said. Not the same kind of love she saw shared by other people, but it was real. It wasn’t a substitute. It wasn’t desperation. It was theirs.
Tenkei fell into step beside Rei, his small hand reaching up to find hers, and he smiled.
Chapter Three: Aoi Tamashii
Seyoko Okazaki looked up to where the Seventh Child sat. “It was you, wasn’t it?”
Her hands clasped in her lap and her feet idly kicking, Aoi looked down from the top of the half-demolished brick wall. “Could you be a little more specific?”
The battle with the intruder – the beserk Unit 01 – had torn fresh scars across the city of
A diner had used to stand here, a store-front place with coffee and buns and light meals. Now all that was left was a long trail of debris and the lone brick wall upon which Aoi Tamashii sat.
Seyoko directed a hand to her chest. “I was shot. Spent a lot of time in that hospital bed. I shouldn’t have woken up.”
Aoi’s blue eyes looked down on the woman. “What do you want me to say? I’m a miracle worker? You shouldn’t trust people who say they can solve all your problems. You shouldn’t trust one person to solve all the world’s problems.”
The red-haired woman watched the Seventh Child for a long moment. “SEELE is dead,” she said finally. “It’s not official – somehow I don’t think you’ll read about it in Time magazine. But I heard. Right about the time Ikari was trouncing over the MARI base, eleven very important men were killed.”
“I didn’t do it,” Tamashii said, looking up towards the horizon.
“I know that,”
“Trusting others to betray them,” Aoi said softly. It was still relatively early. The sun was climbing but it was not yet high enough to truly bake the city. Above Tamashii were no clouds, only endless blue sky. It was going to be another scorching day, she was sure of it.
“So when UNSynaps starts to think for themselves, SEELE stabs them in the back – with MARI. But now MARI knows what kind of people they’re dealing with. So they plan to betray SEELE. They learn who they are, where they live. Those men were very good at hiding but with enough time, contact and resources anything can be dug up. And when MARI was on the ropes, they gave the order.”
“And eleven men die.” Aoi shook her head. “The twelfth was already dead.”
“Kimio, I know,”
The Seventh Child directed a sharp look. “You’ll have to explain that one to me.”
“No bullshit,” Seyoko said in a flat voice. “I’ve got a pretty good idea of what you are – or at least what you’re not. You’re not a helpless little girl. You’re a creature – you’re a thing that can do things. I’m not trying to insult you, I just want an answer. You could have killed SEELE and ended this a long time ago.”
“No,” Tamashii answered. “They made me. There are some things I can’t do, can’t ever do. It was hard enough to stand against them. I wouldn’t have been able to kill them.”
“Why not?”
“You’re the spy,
Seyoko thought about this silently, looking out across the rubble.
“And if I could have done it,” Aoi added in a soft voice, “That would have made me a tyrant. All that power, and the willingness to kill people who stand in your way… could you, Seyoko, let someone like that live? Let alone go out with Lyn,” she added with an almost painful laugh.
“Good question,” the woman answered.
“So,” the Seventh Child added conversationally, “Is Fuyutsuki or Hayridge planning to have me killed?”
“They’d need an Eva to do it,”
At that, a wide smile spread across Aoi Tamashii’s face. “You bet I am,” the girl said. “The best kind of trouble.”
---------------------------------------------------
Aoi had hurried away from that little meeting. She had an appointment to keep. Not really as official as an appointment. More of a date.
Originally they had planned to meet at the cinemas but the attack had halted all life in Tokyo-3. Nothing was running except the most basic services. So instead Aoi was heading for Lyn Anouilh’s apartment.
By the time she got there the sun was hammering at the concrete, beginning its day-long assault on Tokyo-3. The entrance to the apartment block slid open. The cool air wrapped around Aoi as she stepped inside. She breathed it in, savoring the chill, feeling the air-conditioning slowly pushing the heat out of the fabric of her clothes.
The sensation was so nice, Aoi took a moment to duck down and remove her shoes. She walked across the tiled lobby – such cool tiles! – to the elevators with her shoes dangling from one hand.
A moment later she was at Lyn’s door. She pressed the bell. A few seconds passed before the door hissed open; the Sixth Child met Tamashii with a hurried grin and a cardboard box in his hands.
”Come in, hang on, got everything still to do. Tea’s on the table,” he said as he headed into another room, carrying the cardboard box.
Aoi dropped her shoes by the door and looked around. There was a particular feel to Anouilh’s apartment now – no, Anouilh and
During the relatively brief pitstop between the hospital and her mission in the
Aoi had overheard the discussion. Seyoko hadn’t been teasing or demanding or threatening. She was a woman with a job to do, who wanted to be at home but couldn’t. But when she got home, she wanted to be able to find the floor.
Anouilh was cleaning up. Things were placed in boxes – the least useful place for any usable object to be, Aoi observed silently – and categorized and stacked while everything was cleaned. Tamashii stepped over an extension cord for the vacuum cleaner, shuffled past the paper-covered tabletop in the kitchen and finally sat on a box crammed with books and CDs and old videos.
A sealed, thermally-insulated jug held the tea. It steamed as Aoi poured herself a cup. She knew that Lyn could at times be an old-school drinker, preferring to savor the original flavor of the brew without milk or sugar – at times. Aoi could understand the urge, but she understood sugar better.
It hissed as she poured herself a little too much and stirred it in. “Has Seyoko seen the place yet?” she asked as she lifted the cup to her lips.
“Kinda. She dropped by to grab some things, then – ow!”
Lyn Anouilh returned from the hallway, reaching over his shoulder to rub his back. “This is getting ridiculous,” he muttered. “I know there’s nothing wrong with me. The doctors at HQ said I was still. But it hurts-“
“Sit down,” Aoi said, shuffling over to create a little room beside her on the box. She patted the free cardboard. “Right here, back to me. Come on.”
The Sixth Child considered the girl with good-humored caution as he stepped over to where she indicated. He sat, asking “Why do I feel like a spaniel right now?”
“I’ll be asking you to beg and shake hands in a second.” Tamashii’s fingers tugged at the back of Lyn’s shirt collar, pulling and stretching the fabric enough to expose a bit of the young man’s back. “Right here?”
“Bit lower.”
The girl’s fingers rubbed at the tissue. “Here?”
“Yeah, around there.”
Aoi leaned forward, her eyes closed, letting her hands work against Anouilh’s back. “Things are looking up,” she murmured.
“I guess so,” Lyn said. “My Six is grounded for at least ten days, Ibuki said. Two and Zero will be running again inside of three. Unit One works, mostly it’s a matter of cutting all the crap off-”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.”
“I know. You’re talking about them. The bad guys. MARI.”
Tamashii leaned over, looking past Lyn’s other shoulder. “Fuyutsuki and NERV and everyone can’t be sure they got all of them. There could be another base out there somewhere. So they’re going to dig and pry and make new alliances. A lot of countries out there would have been quietly lining up behind MARI – not because they hate us, but because we couldn’t really protect them. Better to be at the devil’s shoulder than in front of him.”
“That probably changed when Shinji took his Eva over there and started kicking arse,” Lyn murmured as Aoi’s fingers worked magic on his back. “Suddenly we’re the devil. Suddenly they want to be back on our side, right?”
“Right. But we still won’t know for sure if all of MARI is gone. So the Eva project has a few more years before people start asking what’s it for?”
She felt the boy shift. He half-turned, looking back at her. “You mean NERV is going to be shut down? Eventually, but the Evas will be decommissioned?”
“Did I say that? I said people would want to know what good they were. No more Angels, no more SEELE, no more MARI. Nothing to defend against. So the Evas are only good for attacking…”
Anouilh shifted back, letting the girl resume her work on his spine. “Well if you can only choose one thing in the world to be afraid of, it’s a man with Evas at his command. Or worse, Major Katsuragi.” He reached out for the nearest teacup and took a sip. Immediately his face screwed up. “How much sugar did you put into this?” he asked, returning the cup to the table.
Tamashii ignored the question. “Do you know why this all started?”
“The tea?”
”Evangelion. It wasn’t about defense. Evas can fight, of course, but what SEELE imagined was something so much bigger. They wanted to escape the world.”
Lyn’s voice was serious. “Why?”
“Because it’s doomed. Or at least they thought so. It’s a common thread, really. We all grow old, we all die. Things rust. Love fades. Grand designs fall down. And people get hurt, and lies win over truth, and justice isn’t served, and we forget what we learned from our mistakes. The planet’s resources shrink, our biosphere is polluted, but we continue on our blunted, half-blinded little lives without a care. SEELE’s solution was Instrumentality.”
The Sixth Child didn’t speak. He just leaned back slightly, listening, knowing that Tamashii was driving towards something.
She leaned over his other shoulder. “Do you remember what I told you about them?”
Anouilh thought for a second. “They can’t trust others.”
”Bingo. Instrumentality would have used the Eva and AT fields to destroy the barriers between people. Trust wouldn’t have been a choice. Separation wouldn’t be possible. It would be like when you’re in the Eva, and you can feel the others, their AT fields. Now imagine swimming in that. Imagine that their thoughts and feelings are so raw they go through you, destroy you, break you up in a million pieces. You can be with someone utterly – that’s what Ikari and Sohryu found when they were lost in the Evas.”
“But they came back.”
Tamashii enjoyed a little laugh. “They did, didn’t they? That’s because they value the trust they have – well, try to have. Love is a balance between hope and fear and want and it’s tied up with trust.”
Aoi felt the young man’s ribs expand under her hands as he breathed in deep, thoughtful. “How does this tie back to NERV and us?”
“It’s the funniest part of all of this,” Tamashii smiled. She ceased rubbing the boy’s back and instead settled her arms around his shoulders, touching her cheek against his ear. “The best part. They made Eva to destroy the world so they could escape the pain. But in Eva is something that can change the world. We can make it better – you and me and Ikari and Asuka and Rei.”
“How?”
The Seventh Child nodded, directing Lyn’s attention downward. “Your back feels better now, doesn’t it?”
She felt his shoulders shift under her arms. “Yeah, actually.”
“It didn’t get better because I rubbed it, Mister Anouilh. I cheated a little.” She reached over his shoulder for her teacup – it was too far away for her to touch it. Lyn lifted a hand to grab it for her-
-the cup floated off the table into Aoi’s hand.
Lyn stared at it as it tilted, the girl taking a sip.
“Little things, Lyn,” Aoi said softly. “A hot cup of tea. A bit of pain relief. Or rain where there’s drought. Or sunshine where there’s a hurricane. Or crops growing in fields that can’t support them. We don’t have to fight.”
“My God,” Anouilh said softly, lapsing into English. “The AT fields. If you could-”
“I told you that SEELE couldn’t trust people with that sort of power,” the girl interrupted. “Very few people have touched an AT field. We almost didn’t see what they could really do. We only have this chance because of an accident – me. SEELE would never have seen it. If you want it, you can make it happen. You just have to learn.”
Aoi smiled. “That’s the good news.”
She could feel his breathing, faster now. “Is there bad news?”
Tamashii shrugged. “Kinda. You’ll have to use the Evas and their fields, and it will probably take the rest of your natural life to learn how to do it. But you’ll teach others. And they’ll teach others. And we’ll all change the world. It all starts here, Lyn. The Evangelions, the Angels, SEELE, MARI, this little flash of pain and suffering and fighting that we’ve lived is just the start of something beautiful, and it could last forever.”
His hands gently took hold of her wrists, unwrapping himself from the embrace. Lyn turned to look at the young woman behind him.
He grinned. “When do we start?”
Chapter Four: Shinji Ikari
White light poured around him. The heat was a endless wave, tearing forwards like a storm of razor blades, ripping and biting and gnawing.
His AT field was holding.
The ground beneath his feet softened, sanding melting into soft glass that sunk slightly under his weight. His feet and ankles made protected lees behind them, where the molten glass curled and twisted and formed bizarre shapes before a fresh gust of superheated air blasted them again.
Shinji Ikari narrowed his eyes against the firestorm. Unit 01 was holding off the worst of the blast. And it was so easy to deny the firestorm, to refuse it to hurt him. It was so simple the Third Child wondered how it had taken him so long to truly understand it.
For a moment he found himself wondering what else he could do.
There was no sign of the MARI units. The one that had carried the weapon up was gone. The entrance to the underground base was no more. The blue-black armored bodies that had been strewn about the sand had vanished in the heat and flame.
But there was something out there. Shinji could see it – he could feel it coming closer. It was familiar. The Third Child breathed in deeply, ignoring the intense heat and the blasted sand smell, focusing on that presence…
Tenkei was a tiny dark form emerging from the inferno. He was not real – for an instant the white light blazed around him and obscured his features, but as he approached Shinji could see the light passing through him. He was not walking on the melting soil but on the light itself, rising, coming towards Unit 01.
Behind him, clutching tightly onto his hand was a girl. Shinji could only make out her silhouette but where Tenkei’s small stature and shock of pale hair were distinctive, this girl was just… different. Her hair was short – not as short as Maya Ibuki’s but not the uncontrolled mess of Ayanami’s. Her steps were uncertain, trailing left and right on the path that Tenkei lead her on. She walked with one hand raised to shield her face, her head slightly lowered. Her hand pulled tightly on Tenkei’s, terrified of losing her hold on him.
“That’s impossible,” Shinji muttered, “You can’t be here!”
The girl could clearly see the inferno. She could feel the flames. But they did not touch her as long as she was with Tenkei.
The inferno around them turned its rage upwards, the fireball of the nuclear blast swelling towards the sky. Blazing hot sand was sucked upwards – Ikari could feel it wrapping around him, casing the armor of his Evangelion like a glazing, coating Unit 01’s exterior and spiking upwards like flames.
Tenkei was struggling – his small head bowing down, his free hand lifted to shield his face. He leaned forwards as if walking into a great wind, forcing himself through the firestorm towards Unit 01.
And the boy reached out towards Shinji. “Take hold of her!” His eyes were shut tight, his pale hair swept about his face as the inferno ate at his defenses and tried to touch him with its tremendous heat. He flickered – his entire image shifting and vanishing for a split second before becoming relatively solid again.
The beside behind him was hunched over, her free hand clutched against herself as she tried to hide from the terror around her.
“Grab her!” shouted Tenkei again, pulling the girl around him and pushing her towards Ikari.
Shinji could only obey. He reached out, wrapping his arms around the slim girl. She was shockingly thin in his arms – and in that instant of physical contact Shinji realized that she was now with him, in the entry plug.
“Get her away from this place!” Tenkei’s voice was a fading shout, “Please, get her away…” The boy disappeared into the storm.
The girl was holding onto him so tightly he thought she might squeeze the air out of his lungs. Her fingernails were biting through the material of his plugsuit. The distraction was making his concentration suffer; Shinji could feel Unit 01’s defenses weakening, the firestorm wrapping around his Eva’s AT field as the heat searched for a way to punch through.
Get her away, Shinji thought. Got to get us both away. Got to go home-
The AT field cracked. Suddenly Shinji could feel the great weight of the sand clinging to Unit 01’s armor, the terrible heat of it trying to burn through to the flesh and bone beneath. The Third Child clenched his teeth, forcing it back, bringing his AT field back to strength with an effort of will.
The girl was screaming. Her fear filled his world. In a flash Shinji remembered Rei’s cries of pain as she lay on the umbilical bridge in front of the dormant Unit 01; he felt the same helpless pain, the same outrage, the same inability to-
No, Shinji thought. I can do something. If anyone can I can now, in Eva.
He strained forwards in the plug seat, struggling to move his Evangelion. The world seemed to be pressing down on his shoulders, a hideous crushing weight that was trying to deny him what he needed to do. Ikari felt the AT field swell outwards, further than he had ever attempted before. The girl’s screaming reverberated through his body – he could feel the sound in his very bones. He poured his fear into the effort, one shift, one moment, one movement.
MOVE!
Shinji was slammed back into the plugseat as if he had been struck. Instantly he felt bruised and beaten, sore all over, all the energy sucked out of him. He slipped briefly into unconsciousness – the synch failed, the pilot disconnected from the Evangelion. Unit 01’s AT field faded.
But the firestorm did not consume them. There was no blast – no sand, no heat or rushing wind. It was all gone.
---------------------------------------------------
Something was pressing down on him. Shinji’s eyelids flickered. He drew in a deep breath, feeling the weight compressing his ribs. He struggled slightly, a sleepy movement that was meant to dislodge the mass on top of him but didn’t have the strength or direction.
Ikari’s lids lifted and he saw Rei’s crimson eyes watching him.
He jerked into full wakefulness. He was sitting in the entry plug and the girl was lying on him. There was no clothing on her – nothing separating the curves of her body from his form expect his plugsuit. He could feel everything.
She rested with her forearms on his chest. She pushed back, lifting herself slightly, giving him a little distance.
“You are Shinji Ikari,” the young woman observed.
“How did you get here, I mean-“ A second glance revealed that his was not Rei Ayanami. She had the same eyes and features but Shinji remembered who this was. She had been the marker that had guided them, and Tenkei had been the compass. They had known she would be there and if the Complement could feel her presence, it could lead NERV to the MARI base.
This isn’t Rei, he told himself. She’s the copy they had at the base. Tenkei wanted me to save her. He didn’t want her to die in the attack. But how-?
“Where are we?” Shinji muttered, trying to keep his eyes above the girl’s collarbone. It was difficult – there was so much down there that his body wanted to check out. The young man shut his eyes tightly for a second. “Can you just… slip over there, just for a second? Thank you.”
The girl slid off him, perching instead of the edge of the entry plug’s control seat. Free of her for a moment at least, Shinji reached out for one of the subsystem controls built into the ‘throne’. “Full shutdown,” he read. “I’d have to start from scratch to synchronize. Well, I guess I can do that if I have to. Radio… nothing. Antennae must be fried. The distress beacon isn’t working either. All of the external video feeds are out too – if I want to look around, I’m going to have to use the Eva’s eyes-“
The girl put a hand on Shinji’s shoulder. “Say my name.” Her voice was soft.
“I’m getting you back home,” Shinji replied instead, a little uncomfortably. “I don’t know how Tenkei got you into the entry plug but if he’s moving heaven and earth, I’ve got some idea of how important you must be-“
“I am Rei Ayanami.”
“No.” Ikari shut his eyes for a second. “Tenkei explained this to me. You’re not Rei Ayanami.” He risked a look at her. Her hair was shorter, cut in a more controlled fashion. Her eyes stayed on his. “You’re something else.”
Finally her eyes dropped, the disconcerting gaze no longer on him. But rather than feel relieved Shinji felt a surge of guilt. She was trembling. Her lower lip shook. The moment was brief; the girl’s pale face hardened and she glared at him.
“You won’t take him away from me.”
“Listen, we don’t have the time for this. Hang on.” Shinji scrambling out of the plugseat. In the base of the entry plug were shallow rung-like steps; he ascended to the miniature storage locker behind the ‘throne’ and opened it. A broad bubble of air escape, swelling upwards through the LCL as the air inside the locker exploded upwards. Once it cleared, Shinji reached down, searching.
”Here.” He pulled a heavy coat out of the locker – it was part of the survival gear he had been issued with. “Put this on. Please put this on,” he repeated, diverting his eyes from the girl’s nude form as he held the coat out for her.
With a small amount of scrabbling about in the entry plug’s confines, she donned the garment and covered herself. It was entirely too large for her small frame and covered her down to mid-thigh. Shinji returned to the entry plug chair and quietly sighed. I hope the rest of this is as easy to solve.
“You are protecting her,” the girl said from over his shoulder.
“What? I guess I am,” the Third Child said absently as he keyed in the reactivation sequence. I’ve got to see what’s out there. Maybe I can signal Misato and she can pick me up… “And what about Tenkei? He shouldn’t be forced to choose between two of you.”
“I am me. He is mine.”
“Rei used to think that to and it got both of them hurt. Can you wait a minute, please? The next bit is kind of tricky.” Ikari looked over the synchronization diagnostic and shook his head. He wasn’t an expert at this – he didn’t know what each individual connection actually did. But he knew that there should be more green lights and less red.
“She hurt him?” the young woman asked, her tone alarmed.
“She hurt herself. She said all the same things that you-“ The boy cut himself off. “When I first met Rei I really felt for her. She seemed so alone. She found something in Tenkei and that made things better for her. But the thing is we’re all there for her. Do you understand?”
She shook her head. “I just want to be with Tenkei. If I don’t have him…”
Again there was that flicker of pain and fear. Shinji felt himself torn between sympathy and annoyance. Unit 01’s present situation demanded attention but so did the girl. When he spoke next, he felt as if it were Asuka’s words coming out.
“Then what? You’ll be like me? I don’t have Tenkei. A lot of people out there don’t have Tenkei. They get on okay. People find things. Rei found Tenkei. You can find… anything, anyone.” He turned back to the synch display, regretting what he had said. In order to stave off having to apologize he spoke in a curt tone.
“Okay, I’m going to need about a minute of quiet right now. I’m starting up the Evangelion.”
The synchronization process had automatic processes programmed into the entry plug’s computer system. Activation could be achieved without the monitoring eyes of headquarters – although without them the Third Child had little hope of identifying or correcting errors that cropped up during the process. Power began to feed from system to system.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I suppose I was the same way once. My problem was my Dad, that I wanted to be needed. Now I don’t care. I found something else.”
Shinji didn’t notice the smile that flashed across his own face as he thought of Asuka. He didn’t see the girl watching his expression closely.
“Alright, power levels look good. First level connections…”
Slowly the Third Child guided Unit 01 into wakefulness. Synchronization connections were made, linking the pilot to the Evangelion. The last connection was established and the world unfolded in front of Shinji Ikari.
His vision blurred. More damage, he thought, It’s a miracle I can see anything. The plug computer’s systems gradually corrected for errors. The view shivered and tightened, a vast blackness emerging from the undefined gray. It was night time? He could see stars.
Ahead of him was a sheer wall of light, pale and endless, stretching out left and right and up and down. It shook as Ikari tried to clear his vision and focus. He became aware of the fact that there was no ground beneath him, just that pale surface. He squinted, making out colors and shapes - swirls of white above blue and green…
It was Earth. It was beautiful, but in context it was more accurately called terrifying.
“We’re in space!” the Third Child gasped, “We’re in space!”
He shut his eyes. One hand reached out and tapped commands into the entry plug control system. The synch link shut down, severing the pilot from his Evangelion.
“Oh God,” he said, “How did we get here? I wanted to get away, but I didn’t think… none of this is possible! We’ve never been able to do this before!”
Shinji knew from school that a lot of things weren’t possible. For one thing, it shouldn’t have been possible for an Evangelion to move as they do – its own weight was so great that mere bone and muscle could not possible support it standing, let alone running, leaping and fighting. In those times when he wondered how, Ikari had just chalked it up to the AT field.
The field was you – it was your belief of what you could do, what you could survive. And he had wanted to escape, to bear himself and the girl to anywhere else but the firestorm. He had imagined leaping clear, away from the sand and the wind and the fire.
Can Eva do this? His answer had to be yes. But the effort had claimed its toll, leaving Shinji exhausted, too tired to think, too tired to deal with the horror in front of him. He wanted to sleep, to curl up and let darkness wrap around him.
But the girl was there, watching with uneasy red eyes. She had not been synched and could not have seen what Ikari had seen through Unit 01’s eyes, but she could see the panic in his expression. Like a child watching a parent, she was ready to join in with that panic.
Her presence forced the Third Child into motion, even if it was useless motion. “Gotta eat,” he said. “We may be here a while. Behind the chair, there’s a container buckled in place. Can you bring it up here?”
The clone moved carefully. Looking over his shoulder to ensure that she knew what to look for, Ikari noticed with some embarrassment that the heavy jacket left a great deal of leg uncovered. He looked away quickly, only returning his eyes to the young woman as she handed him the container.
“Misato made sure we had supplies in case of a pilot being stranded again,” he said, concentrating on the container rather than on the girl’s legs. He flicked the case open and sorted through what they had. “Sorry, but everything is in liquid form. You put the valve-straw in your mouth and bite down, and squeeze to squirt the stuff in your mouth. There isn’t many other ways to eat when you’re breathing LCL.” He picked two out at random and handed one to the girl.
“Why this one?” she asked immediately.
Shinji blinked. “No reason. I just picked it up.”
“Could I choose another?”
When the Third Child nodded she leaned forwards a little, eyes looking into the case. Shinji had to shut his eyes again due to the not-entirely fastened front of her jacket. “What else is there?” she asked as she picked around.
“Take your time. I think we’ve got a couple of days worth, at least.” Anything to make her sit back again. Shinji sharply remembered the longing he had felt towards Rei in the early days, when she was all mystery – she was still all mystery. The feeling had never really gone away, but had transformed into protectiveness, empathy, and a sense that she didn’t deserve an injustice done on her. Oggling her was childish, he knew, and resolved to stop it. Or at least try. Once she stopped leaning forward like that. In the end he shut his eyes.
“We’ve probably got some trousers in the back too,” he suggested. The young woman continued to sort through the liquid meals with her slim, pale hands. “Rei doesn’t like eating meat,” Shinji said suddenly. “How do you feel about it?”
Her mouth opened as if to reply – and she stopped herself. She looked down at the meals again, and then gave a tiny shrug. That was her only answer. Just a moment before she had been on the edge of panic; now she was consumed by this relatively minor task.
Shinji found that he no longer had the stomach for his liquid meal. He set it aside and turned his attention to the Evangelion’s comm system. “All of our antennae systems are fried – everything on the outside is gone. But I’m pretty sure there’s an emergency transmitter built into the plug itself, for after we eject. If I open the outer armor I might be able to get a signal out…”
A few more keypresses and Ikari grimaced. “The flap’s not opening. Must be jammed by something – we’re covered with melted sand, probably solid by now. I could probably blow the flap off, if the charges are still working, but that could damage the entry plug and we don’t need that to happen in space-“
“Why are you talking to yourself?”
Ikari halted in mid-sentence. He looked towards the young woman, then back to his displays, and then down at his feet. “I guess I’m really talking to you. I want you to know that I’m trying to do something.”
“Tenkei sent us here,” the girl said, as if realizing something. “We will be alright.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, I guess.” But Shinji’s brain was already ticking away behind his mouth. Tenkei. Complementation. That’s what he was made for. Did he do this?
He remembered seeing him walk through the firestorm, an apparition, a ghostly figure who couldn’t possibly be there. And he remembering seeing Rei on the streets of Tokyo-3 during the Third Angel’s attack – standing in the heat rising off the sun-baked road when she should have been, by normal physical law, lying in a cast in a hospital bed the Geofront hospital.
It was all there, just beyond the butterfly handles, just beyond the synch set he wore on his head. It was in his Eva, the raw potential of what could be done. When Tenkei had chosen to find the other Rei – this young woman, still figuring herself out – he had opened the can of worms and revealed something of his real ability. There was more to Eva, so much that Ikari had only brushed against.
The young woman beside him broke the seal on one of the liquid meals. Rather than a straw it had a short tube ending with a valve; gripping it between one’s teeth the drinker would release the valve and drink.
She did so, with a strange leisurely way about her as if she were sipping on a milkshake. Ikari’s eyes made out the markings on the foil container – it was prawn flavoured.
Shinji wondered what would have happened to her if the MARI base had been found without Tenkei’s help. Escape would have been impossible. She would have died down there.
Her red eyes found his. “Do you love Rei?”
The direct question reached into Shinji’s brain and flicked the switch marked ‘stammer’. “Uh, that’s, well, um, you know. She’s Rei, I care about her,” he finished, rallying with a dexterity he had learned from living with Asuka Langley Sohryu. “Yes and no.”
The young woman thought about this. “Do you love me?” she tried.
The switch marked ‘speechless’ was flicked. Shinji floundered. As she struggled with useless vowels and consonants, the young woman perched on the armrest of the control seat took another sip from her meal.
Her eyes moved. It was a very deliberate, very slow shift in which she looked down at her own body, down the slightly rumpled heavy jacket to her bare legs. It was the kind of look that made it plain that she knew exactly how her near-nudity affected the young man. Her eyes returned to him.
Shinji had never received a look like that before. No matter how much Misato teased or how outrageous Asuka behaved – or how much Aoi tried to shake him up in idle moments – none of them had looked at him like that. It wasn’t just suggestive or a lewd invitation, it was a flat statement.
The Third Child’s answer was little more than a mumble. “I don’t know you.”
“That matters?”
It seemed like a childish question but it tugged at Shinji’s memory. Again he thought of Rei in her plaster cast, gasping in pain – the Third Child hadn’t been able to abandon her. He thought of Misato’s kindness in those early days when she had given him a place to live, and more than that a home. He remembered nearly kissing Asuka in her sleep.
He hadn’t known them then – not really. He knew now that he had only scratched the surface of who they were. Even Asuka, who seemed so direct, was such a complicated series of mental backflips and contortions that even now, even after the mental contact they had shared and the insight he had experienced, Shinji was still trying to figure her out.
Love isn’t truth, Shinji thought. Father loved mother. It got him nothing. Love is hope of what might be there.
He looked at the girl and hoped they’d be friends, hoped she’d be okay, hope they’d make it out of this okay. He hoped they’d talk about it years later and laugh.
The Third Child noticed that the young woman was smiling at him. For an instant he wondered how much of his inner thoughts she could see – and just how innocent and unknowing she really was.
“Tell me everything,” she said. “Start at the beginning.”
Shinji Ikari drew in a breath and began.
---------------------------------------------------
The pilot of Unit 01 had given up the chair. His pale passenger was half-curled up in the entry plug’s control chair, hands under her cheek and her knees tucked up beneath her.
She was dozing. She was beautiful with her eyes closed – she had been beautiful before but she had, like Rei, a gaze that could pin you. Now he could just watch her. Ikari thought maybe he was starting to see little differences between her and Rei – little things about her face, the set of her features that set her apart. He knew it was impossible but he felt as if he could see them.
I probably told you too much, he thought. A lot of that is classified. You must have known a lot of it already, but still…
She was a product of the Evangelions. She had been created, a living consequence of NERV and SEELE and everything that had come to this point. She deserved to know. Like Rei and Tenkei, she was helplessly caught up in the net and would have to live with it for the rest of her life. So would Shinji – he had long since passed the point where he could walk away from it. The rage that had made him nearly abandon Tokyo-3 after the Thirteenth Angel’s attack was gone.
Looking at the young woman’s face, Shinji knew there was too much to lose.
He remembered Asuka and felt a little guilty. He would have to explain this if they got back. Ikari knew that Rei was a sore spot for the Second Child; Sohryu treated Ayanami’s existence like a personal insult, competition against her in every field. To Asuka, Rei’s presence was as much the universe’s fault as Shinji’s – but it was easier to blame Shinji than the universe. For one thing she could hit him in the soft bits.
Shinji had spoken with his passenger for several hours. Mostly he had been retelling the story of how he had come to be here – being drawn into NERV, meeting Misato and Rei and Asuka and Lyn and Aoi, and why he had stayed.
The newcomer had carefully avoided asking any questions about Tenkei.
Over the course of those discussions, Shinji had quietly realized that this wasn’t Rei Ayanami in the entry plug with him. He had already known she was a different person – Tenkei had said that she deserved a chance to be her own, to make her own life. But speaking with her, listening to her voice and seeing the tiny cues in her posture and expression, Ikari could feel that she was something else. She was a stranger, entirely potential – she might turn out to be anything, aggressive or shy or somber or humorous, sharp or gentle, trusting or suspicious. He just didn’t know her well enough, except to know that this was not Rei.
“You’re going to surprise them when we get back home,” he murmured. “Not just who you look like. Who you are.” The Third Child turned, looking over the blank walls of the entry plug’s interior. “But first I’ve got to get you home.”
Taking a moment to check that his synch clips were in place, Shinji began Unit 01’s startup procedure. Once again the automated sequence ran its course, connecting the pilot to the Evangelion, feeding his intention into the giant and its senses into his mind.
Again he could see through its eyes. Shinji’s eyes were closed, trying to concentrate as much as possible on the flow of sense that was coming through the neural link. At the same time one hand shifted to tap controls on the side of the plugseat, trying to fine-tune the synchronization.
His ratio was poor – less than forty percent. Given the damage sustained and the time he had been trapped here Shinji wasn’t particularly surprised. He still hadn’t slept; the girl’s questioning had kept him up and afterwards, as the newcomer dozed, Ikari hadn’t really felt like sleeping. He knew he should have. He should have been rested, calm, and had a chance to stretch a bit. But it was pointless to hope for ideal circumstances; he just had to play the hand he had been dealt.
Unit 01 drifted above the atmosphere. The airless vacuum did not seem to cause Shinji any discomfort; after a moment he realized that his arms and legs were numb. The Evangelion’s armor had not been built for space travel – but at least the vacuum could not kill the creature. The experience reminded Shinji of the Twelfth Angel’s assault, and the time he had spent trapped within its form. The Eva had survived that void; it would survive this one.
But this experience was very different. He turned his Evangelion’s head, looking over his shoulder towards the stars.
They were beautiful – so much brighter now that he was free of the atmosphere. There were more than he had imagined; rather than a blackness pricked with the occasional speck of light, the night was filled with stars. The view alone was almost worth it.
And below the crescent of islands that was
I can do this. If Eva got me here, Eva can get me back down.
A small voice in the back of his thoughts added So can gravity. He ignored it. He had to return, to get home. There was nothing to push off against in space, nothing to move him but Eva – and its AT field.
It got me here. I can get back.
Seconds trickled by into minutes. Shinji tried to get comfortable perched on the edge of the entry plug seat, unwilling to dislodge the sleeping girl beside him. He poured himself into the task at hand.
Move.
A little part of him doubted, knowing it was impossible. But Shinji had seen a multi-story diamond float across a city; he had seen a spear thrown into orbit. He had seen a shadow consume buildings. Just a little bit of flight – more of a fall – seemed so simple in comparison.
Move, dammit.
Shinji didn’t notice the exact moment the girl woke up. From one moment to the next she was sitting up, brushing her pale hair back from her face, and was watching him.
A moment later she spoke. “I see what you are doing,” and reached out and touched one of the synch clips he wore on his head.
Suddenly they were moving.
No longer was Unit 01 drifting high above it atmosphere. The surface was growing, coming nearer at an alarming speed. The Eva fell at a shallow angle, its orbit suddenly bent into a descent. Shinji gasped in shock, for an instant linked with the girl as she urged the Evangelion to fall.
Unit 01 hit the atmosphere.
The world went white with fire. The air struck Shinji like a wall, pressing, crushing. He screamed, wrapping himself in the Eva’s AT field, bringing its defenses up to shield against the horrible heat and pressure as they fell into the atmosphere. Unit 01 was a fireball, tearing down towards the surface.
Shinji felt himself pushed back against the plug seat. He was on the verge of blacking out – the pressure and heat was tearing at him. His face was a rictus of pain and effort. He couldn’t breathe.
Though the fire and force he could feel her, grabbing at his shoulder. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry I’m sorry-“
As he passed out, sweet darkness wrapping around him and pulling him away from the pain, Shinji Ikari felt Unit 01 roar. Its awareness shifted, surging to protect its precious pilot. It was awake – the beast was moving.
---------------------------------------------------
Shinji Ikari had no recollection of the battle in the city.
Consciousness returned to him in fits and starts. He did not remember the entry plug hatch pop, or the LCL draining from the compartment. But he did hear a voice, one of the recovery crew personnel, calling out in disbelief.
“Ayanami?”
Her hand had stayed on his shoulder. He remembered that.
Ikari sank through light and darkness. He remembered the stretcher, jolting slightly as he was carried from the fallen Evangelion to an ambulance. He remembered seeing more crews around – surveying Unit 01, determining how to begin the recovery operation.
Unconsciousness wrapped around him again. When Shinji struggled back into the waking world he could feel the shift and rumble of the ambulance, navigating the torn roads and debris fields around the Evangelion as it headed for the nearest entry to the Geofront.
The Third Child managed to open his eyes and turn his head, looking over the interior of the vehicle. Lying just across the vehicle on another stretcher was Asuka Langley Sohryu.
The girl was turned away, her face concealed by a mass of red hair. Another ambulance operator was tending to her, checking her vital signs and radioing the information in so that NERV’s underground hospital would be best equipped to accept the new patient.
“Is she okay? Shinji only managed to mumble the question before he passed out again.
---------------------------------------------------
“Fine. Contact me as soon as he regains consciousness. Discharge him on your discretion, of course.”
The voice was Misato’s, speaking to someone – probably a doctor. Shinji shifted, eyes flickering. Sleep was warm and comforting. His body wanted to stay still, to just let the seconds creep by into minutes and rest. But he had so many questions, so much to worry about.
“Oh and one more thing – his friends are probably going to come and see him. I know at least one of them has good news. They’re third level candidates, beginning the training. They’ll have security clearance to come this far, at least.”
“Misato?” Shinji managed.
A few seconds later she was at the bedside. “Welcome back, dozy.” She turned long enough to mutter some instructions to the doctor and then looked back towards Shinji. “You’re going to have to grow out of these dramatic entrances.”
“Dramatic what?” The Third Child drew in a breath and rubbed his eyes, forcing himself to move. He had to wake up and stay awake. Shinji recognized the ceiling, one of many recovery rooms in the Geofront hospital. Misato was-
-Misato Katsuragi wore relief on her face. There were shadows under her eyes from a lack of sleep, and the smallest Mona Lisa smile on her lips. She was too tired to be overjoyed but it was there.
For a second Shinji shared her smile. Gladness and relief swelled up inside him; he was home. After the battle at the MARI base and the uncounted hours in orbit, the pain and pressure was all behind him and now others were organizing and acting, getting things done. Misato was back as the chief overseer taking care of everything, including the children in her protection.
“Good to see you again,” Shinji mumbled.
Katsuragi’s smile widened a little. She reached out and rumpled his hair. “You too, Shinji. Next you’ll have to learn to complement women on how good they look.”
He blushed slightly at the tease. “Misato - Where is she? The girl who came back with me?”
At the mention of the newcomer Major Katsuragi’s face clouded a little – one more complication, one more mystery to unravel. “In debriefing. Hayridge wants to know everything about the
The woman’s dark eyes watched the young man with an odd intensity. “No one thought you’d be bringing her back. No one thought you’d come back the way you did. What happened out there? We circled for three hours before heading back. How did you get back? How did she get into the entry plug?”
“It’s… complicated.” In truth Shinji didn’t have a real answer. “I think Tenkei wanted it. She mentioned – we spoke for a long while – she mentioned that Tenkei had been trying to teach her things.”
“Tenkei was never at their base…” Misato began and then trailed off. Ikari and Katsuragi both knew that there was more to the boy than he let on. “So it was him. He wanted to make sure she was safe.”
“If he hadn’t, she’d be dead,” Shinji added morosely. “Misato – you said I made a dramatic entrance?”
The woman sat down in the chair beside the bed. “Well, it’s like this.”
She explained. The sighting of the intruder, the creature that had dropped from orbit, its alien appearance –nothing more than Unit 01 coated with sand, heating and polished by a nuclear inferno and the fire of atmospheric re-entry. The Evangelion had been overcome by its beast, protecting its pilot – and when the other Evas had attacked, Unit 01 had turned its wrath on them.
“Rei was able to re-initialize contact with Unit 00,” Misato said. “She carried the other Evas back down into the Geofront. At least we’ll be able to start repairs immediately. Lyn and Asuka-“
Katsuragi was interrupted by the sound of rapid footsteps in the corridor. “Room seventeen, room seventeen – here!”
Three figures tried to get through the door in one go. With a short period of struggle the mass of arms and legs disgorged one Kensuke, one Touji and one Goro. “Shinji, you’re awake – Major Katsuragi!”
At the sight of the major Kensuke Aida was suddenly and forcefully at attention. Since being called to begin testing for pilot candidacy, the boy was making a point of trying entirely too hard. He saluted.
“Morning boys,” Misato said in a deliberately relaxed tone. She stood up slowly, took a moment to deliberately straighten her clothes – Shinji wondered if she enjoyed the attention she received from his friends – and gestured to the pilot in the hospital bed. “I’ll leave you all alone. Duty calls.” As she headed out the door she paused to make a passing comment.
“Good work on your initial testing, Mister Aida.”
“Yes sir thank you sir!”
“For future reference, ‘thanks Misato’ is enough.” Another look over her shoulder. “Get some rest, Shinji. After that fight, we’re probably going to have a lot of work to do.”
With the major gone, the three boys gathered around Ikari bed. “You ain’t dead,” Touji said, giving Shinji a light punch in the arm. “Guessing you did somethin’ right.”
“Shinji, we need your help,” Goro said, making an effort to deepen his voice and speak mock-seriously. “Kensuke – Mister Aida here – is getting on our tails about everything Eva related. As the only Eva pilot in the room, can you tell him to shut his face?”
Shinji grinned, surrounded by his friends.
---------------------------------------------------
There was no real breeze in the Geofront. It had grassland and trees and a small lake and synthetic sunlight but the environment was too small for actual weather conditions.
But the window was a welcome thing to find. Shinji slid the glass pane aside and settled his hands on the frame, looking out into the Geofront cavity. Down below, sitting on a bench, were two Rei Ayanamis.
From this distance Shinji could not hear what they were discussing. But at least they were discussing. “I guess it’s up to you two girls,” he whispered. The Third Child closed his eyes and inhaled. He could smell grass in the air.
He stepped back, away from the window, and turned to look at Asuka Langley Sohryu.
Entry plug records showed that Asuka’s heart had stopped for twelve seconds. Her own Evangelion’s blade had punched into Unit 02’s chest, sending pain and shock rippling through the neural link and into her. Her plugsuit’s monitoring systems had detected the arrest, Central Dogma crews confirmed the readouts, and a jolt of electricity from her suit had revived her.
She was sleeping now. Another hospital room, another hospital bed, another patient. Shinji watched her pale features for a moment, his eyes moving over her cheek and chin and lips and nose, to her eyelashes and brows and her red fringe.
He could, if so inclined, waste a great deal of time just looking at Asuka. At the moment Shinji Ikari was so inclined. He sat in the obligatory visitor’s chair beside the bed and settled in to wait for the young woman to wait.
He didn’t remember falling asleep, just that the chair was really, really comfortable. He still owed his body a great deal and it was calling in its debts. He slept.
Thus asleep, Shinji did not see Asuka wake. He did, however, feel her poke him in the face with a finger. The boy grunted and opened his eyes to see Sohryu’s face only a few inches from his own, her blue eyes on his.
“You,” Asuka began, her gaze locked on Shinji’s as she savored each word, “Owe me, sleepy head. You owe me big time.” To emphasize the point she poked him in the chest with an index finger. “We’re talking historical you-owe-me situation.”
“What’d I do?” Shinji asked, trying to shake off his sleep without shaking off Asuka. The girl was sitting essentially on him, trapping him in his chair and leaving him no avenues of escape. He noticed she had dressed, changing from a patient’s gown into jeans and a shirt. A tiny, aggressively male part of Shinji’s awareness bitterly regretted being asleep during that change.
“You did nothing. Typical.” Asuka paused to blow a lock of red hair out of her vision and then returned both blazing eyes to Ikari. “I had to do everything. Including stab myself. Not pleasant, and I don’t recommend the experience. And you didn’t even leave a note.”
“A note?”
“Next time you’re going to pull a disappearing act and then magically turn up a day later, tell someone. Hell, I have a phone. Leave a message!” The self-satisfied twist to her lips told Shinji that Asuka was enjoying her mock-tirade. Ikari decided that the best thing to do was to let her take her time.
“And let’s not forget the mystery arrival you turned up with. I had enough trouble with one Wondergirl. Now we’ve got two. God! Twice as many awkward silences, twice as many cryptic comments!”
At this Shinji felt he had to interrupt. “She’s actually nothing like Rei,” he said. “You should meet her. And she should meet a lot of people.”
Sohryu shifted gear down from low-level outrage, sinking slightly as she leaned against the young man. “Well, I guess we’ll blow up that bridge when we come to it. Meanwhile, we’ve got to talk about that huge debt you owe me. Hey, are you listening to me?”
Shinji’s eyes had closed, a tiny smile forming on his face. His eyes opened again. “I’m listening. I guess I’ve going to be on all fours for a while, or something?”
“Or something, yes. I’m thinking breakfast in bed – a continuing series. I’m thinking of bacon fried crisp and dripping oil. Toast buttered so thick you could swim in it. That sort of thing.” She smiled and turned her head, leaning in to rest one cheek on the boy’s shoulder.
“Good to see you too, Asuka.”
Shinji didn’t see tears. He didn’t hear sobs. But he felt the tremor go through the young woman’s body – only one, and she tightened up again, holding everything in. “You stupid, stupid boy,” she said, something slightly softer in her tone. “Don’t you ever do that again.”
He was unsure exactly what Asuka wanted. Ikari carefully put his arms around her, one at the shoulders at the other at the waist, and hoped he would still have both his arms a minute later. “Like you said, I owe you.”
“Damn right you do.” She straightened, sitting as tall as she could, and reached out to turn Shinji’s face towards her. “We won, you get it? One advantage of moping around the House is that Misato tells you all good news to cheer you up. Three more bases have turned up – one in the
The young woman let out a sigh. “Then you made me stab myself,” Asuka added in an annoyed tone. “I mentioned that you owe me, right?”
“A little.”
“Remind me to remind you later.”
“I guess I could do that.”
Asuka fell silent for a second and just watched Shinji. The moment lasted less than eight seconds; the young woman reached out to turn Ikari’s face slightly, checking him as if he might not be real. There was no sharpness, no anger, no mock-outrage, just a curious, gentle touch and those eyes. It didn’t last long – a brief glimpse past the façade Asuka Langley Sohryu had built around herself. But it didn’t have to last long, or be frequently seen. Shinji knew that it was there.
Then she stood up, pushing herself off Shinji – and pushing two palms into his chest in the process, making him huff out – and lifted her head. “Well, come on.”
“Where are we going?” Ikari said as he climbed to his feet.
The expression Asuka’s face wasn’t quite a smile. It was more of a look in her eye, an open challenge and an invitation at the same time. It was in her posture – a quicksilver sense so typical of her, as if she might be about to hit him, or hug him, or stride off unpredictably. “Outside, obviously,” Asuka was saying. “Why, you got something planned out Shinji, or are you just being difficult – as usual?”
Looking at that face, at her posture, Shinji realized that he didn’t really have a better idea, and didn’t need one.
Whatever he embarked on today would likely involve Asuka Langley Sohryu, as long as he found the courage to tell her he wanted to be near her. That knowledge was something Shinji Ikari found deeply warming and at the same time a little scary, because even then after knowing her through such times and ordeals Asuka was still a little scary. She always would be.
But the thought of being near her was enough to get him on his feet today. It would probably be enough to get him on his feet every day for the rest of his life.
All of this moved through his thoughts and he wanted to tell Asuka. But the words – as they often did, and would continue to – failed Shinji Ikari for a moment. The young man halted at the sight of the redhead before him, waiting, challenging with every bone and muscle in her body.
Without realizing it he was smiling at her. “Let’s just figure it out as we go,” said Shinji Ikari.
The End.
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