From: eltf@hotmail.com (Eliot Lefebvre) Subject: [Eva][FanFic] Neon Epoch Evangelion: Episode 1 X-Moderation-Queue-Date: 6 May 2002 11:14:13 -0700 Before we begin: FAIR WARNING! This fanfic is an original take on GAINAX's "Shin Seiki Evangelion." It contains alternative characters, plots, and a different overriding internal logic. It is intended, from the beginning, to be different. This includes different Children and different histories. In short: if you're expecting this to be a story of Shinji and Rei making passionate love on their wedding night, you're in the wrong place. If you're expecting a rehash of NGE, you're in the wrong place. If the mere thought of someone other than Shinji in the cockpit of EVA-01 makes you queasy, you are in -entirely- the wrong place. Any and all flames stemming from this alteration will be mocked mercilessly. You have been warned. ]++[ ]+ ELECTRONIC TRANSCENDENCE PRODUCTIONS +[ presents ]+ NEON EPOCH +[ ]+ E V A N G E L I O N +[ ]+ EPISODE 1: IN LORDLESS TIMES +[ By Eliot "Lostfactor" Lefebvre Based off of "Shin Seiki Evangelion" by GAINAX ]++[ Restore us, O Lord God Almighty, make your face shine upon us, that we may be saved. - PSALM 80:19 ]++[ Gendou Ikari, from his seat high above the city, sat and watched mankind's best and only defense against the end of the world come under siege with a bemused expression on his face. The massive, vaguely-humanoid thing that was pulling itself out of the ocean and swatting away aerodrones clumsily had been detected hours earlier, advance radar picking up an unusual energy spike. It was precisely what everyone in Tokyo-3 had been waiting for, and the first few stages of the defense system had worked flawlessly. The UN remote- controlled drones had acted first as advance scouts, then in their designed role as an intercept system, firing madly at the beast as it swam towards Tokyo-3. By the official UN estimation, the target should have been neutralized well before it made landfall, before it even made it to the sunken remains of Japanese cities submerged by the Second Impact. Dr. Ikari, however, knew better. He had advised against the UN's interception plan, but had been ignored, his own project discarded in favor of conventional weaponry. Unsurprisingly, he was relegated to the status of the contingency plan, with the obvious implication being that there would be no need to actually trust his project with the safety of humanity. The United Nations preferred to throw all of their conventional firepower at the target, expecting that it would fall just like any other threat in human history. Ikari knew better, and as he watched the drones fail to even dent the dripping black monster he couldn't help but smile. "They should be contacting NERV any moment now," he said contentedly, folding his hands together after adjusting his glasses. "It's ironic," noted his companion, not bothering to look out the observation window of the helicopter. Gendou stared out the window for a moment longer, then turned to face the other man, satisfied that there would be no unusual developments from the battle. "When I was younger, I remember how Americans would make jokes about Tokyo being attacked by monsters. They would laugh and say that the city was constantly being crushed by Godzilla, that anything that went wrong in Japan was because of all the monsters attacking it." He chuckled. "I suppose those of them that are still alive are finally being proven right." "More likely they're expecting us to take care of them," replied Gendou, glancing out the window again. Part of it was the eye of a commander having a chance to study his opponent before the battle, but there was another element to his examination beyond simple academic interest. He had poured immense amounts of effort into the project, and now that effort was going to be made visible to the world. "I was told that the boy was contacted. Is he in Japan yet?" "His flight should have already landed," replied the other man, adjusting the tight brown fabric of his uniform and finally taking a look out the window himself. The beast was still drawing itself up to its full height, seeming to no longer be concerned by the drones swarming around it. "Katsuragi was given the responsibility of making sure that he arrives at Central Dogma safely; he should be there by the time the Angel reaches Tokyo-3." He paused, a small frown appearing on his face. "Gendou... in all honesty, are you certain about this boy?" "The Third Child. There can be no doubt in the matter." Gendou stared out the window a moment longer, then leaned back against his seat. He took a deep breath, seeming somewhere between excited and nervous - at least, to the extent that he gave off the sensation of any emotion. "Half of the equation had to be moved into place by human hands... it seems only fitting that we have less control over the second half." Gendou's fellow passenger opened his mouth to speak, but before he could get a word out the door to the cockpit of the helicopter opened, and the pilot leaned his head towards the pair of scientists. "Dr. Ikari, Dr. Fuyutsuki? The UN council is requesting the presence of NERV's commanders, sir. I've been ordered to return to Tokyo-3." Both of the passengers nodded, and the pilot swung the door shut again, then banked the helicopter away from the ensuing battle. Outside, the beast was beginning to tear away at the drones wholeheartedly, taking slow steps towards Tokyo-3 as weapons exploded against it to no effect whatsoever. ]++[ Neil Richelieu was extremely confused, a little scared, and naggingly hungry. The hunger, he'd determined, was the deciding factor, the element of everything that made him the most uncomfortable. He'd been confused about what was going on since long before he'd gotten on the plane, and like any sane person he was scared of going to a country where he didn't speak the first word of the language. That was nothing new - they were problems he was accustomed to. It was the hunger gnawing at his gut that made him painfully aware of how disoriented the situation really was, how badly he just wanted to go home and forget that he'd ever received the letter. Sighing, he scuffed his sneakers against the curbside dirt, brushing back his blonde hair with one hand and unzipping his backpack with the other. Reaching in, he rummaged around for a moment, then removed the letter itself, complete with the photo. The letter itself was fairly bland and uninteresting - an invitation to join the International United Nations School for Exceptional Children in Tokyo-3. It was the photo that made the whole thing seem at once more alluring and more suspicious, part of what at once made him want to get on the plane and fly to Japan and at the same time part of what made him uneasy about the situation. Looking at the photo again, Neil could still recall the odd sensation he'd gotten from it the first time he'd seen it, the same hints of subtext that he'd still not quite figured out. The woman in the photo didn't look like she was a day over 22, slender, shapely, and leaning just far forward enough for Neil to give a view halfway down her shirt. She was wearing a yellow tank top and short cut-off jean shorts, making a "V" with her fingers and smiling at the photographer - and, by all appearances, at Neil as well. Her purple hair draped itself over her shoulders, and her brown eyes stared at him with a sort of subtle intelligence. It was an attractive photo by iteslf, but the scribbling handwriting on the photo made it all the more intruiging - "I'LL MEET YOU AT THE AIRPORT. HOPE THE FLIGHT IS COMFORTABLE!" Underneath the text was a lipstick smear and a signature that Neil couldn't make out - it might have started with a "K," but after that first letter he was utterly lost. The text itself lended the photo a human touch, the sense that it was just a communication of a woman to her lover. It seemed like too much of a personal touch for an academic institution, but the woman in the photo was nobody that Neil had ever met before, nor did his mother claim any knowledge of what was going on. "And so you get on a plane and fly halfway across the world. Idiot." Neil shook his head at himself, tucking the letter and photo back into his bag, then standing and slinging the duffel over his shoulder, brushing back his hair once again and adjusting his light blue shirt. It was a long-sleeved shirt, and combined with his black jeans normally gave the impression of professionality without the air of snobbishness, something Neil liked about it. He'd rolled the sleeves up, however, the unseasonal heat of Japan almost requiring it of him. Taking one last look around, he resolved to pick a direction and walk in it, to get down to the city instead of simply sitting and waiting. Then he heard the roar of jet engines, and he turned his head towards the airport, expecting to see another plane taking off or landing. The runway, however, remained completely silent, none of the planes having moved since Neil's landing. Glancing skyward, Neil looked around for a moment before noticing the moving shapes off to one side, the slowly rising group of objects that took him a moment to parse. He'd never been much of a fan of the military, but he recognized the oddly flat body with two rotating thrusters on either side from the news. "The UN aerodrones," he muttered, watching as their thrusters shifted and sent them flying forward. "What the hell is going on in this city?" Something tickled at the back of Neil's mind, watching the drones fly past the city in swarms, focusing his light green eyes on the other groups of drones that were now raising around the airport. He remembered how insistent the pilot seemed to have been about getting off the airstrip and to a shelter, how he seemed to think that Neil was insane for staying and waiting. Neil wanted very badly to know what was going on in the city, and he was feeling horribly exposed where he was. Whoever the woman in the photo was, she would just have to understand. Gauging the slope of the hill the airstrip stood atop of quickly, Neil hopped over the guardrail, then began half-jogging and half-jumping down the grassy earth, headed into Tokyo-3. ]++[ "All weapons are being repulsed by the target! Heavier artillery will be ready for usage within two minutes!" "Current estimated drone duration less than 300 seconds!" "Northwestern tank battalion has launched a salvo! They're reporting no reactions from the target!" Much as he was trying not to betray any emotion, Gendou couldn't help but smile as the alarm messages rang through Central Dogma. The facility's main monitor was providing a constantly-changing video stream, showing the beast as it tore through the drones that came at it, storming across the tanks thrown desperately in its path, continued on despite all efforts of the armed forces to at least slow it down. "Your weapons can't harm it," Gendou said idly, watching the scene with the air of a man surveying a particularly amusing evening show. "That's an Angel. Conventional weaponry is useless against it." "We're well aware of your theories, Dr. Ikari!" snapped the American representative, scowling at the huge display monitor. Gendou let the point drop, and the UN representative glanced at the report sitting before him for a second before looking back to the screen. "Prepare to hit the target with all heavy ordnance as soon as it enters the seventh circle. Keep the drones moving after it. It can't be invincible - all we have to do is find its weak point!" "Fire prepared for concentration on target in seventh circle. All artillery being re-calibrated." There came a pause as the camera displayed the huge beast lumbering into the killing zone, looking almost curious. "Commencing firing! Missile launching, all fire being adjusted for the target's movement! Remaining tank battalion units have already plotted their attack paths!" The explosions of artillery shells and heavy missiles obscured the beast for a moment, and there was an audible tension in the air as the technicians waited to see if the beast had finally fallen. Gendou was expecting no such result, and was entirely unsurprised when the Angel raised a hand and thrust forth a beam of energy, tearing through two of the missile drones that were trying to fall back for reloading. The UN members behind him gave a startled gasp, shocked as the beast continued to move forward, ignoring the artillery fire entirely, and the panicked shouts of failure echoed through the control center. "Dr. Fuyutsuki, you may wish to being getting the crews prepared for operations," noted Gendou, pushing his glasses up on his nose nonchalantly. "NERV doesn't have command yet, and we can defeat this thing without your assistance!" The American representative was obviously becoming aware of the fact that his statement carried little actual weight with it, and he swallowed hard as Gendou looked at him almost mockingly. "Contact the ground crews. Tell them that they're authorized to use any means necessary to neutralize the target before it reaches the city, including..." All eyes were on the representative as he paused, smoothing back his hair. "Including N2 devices. We must stop the creature at any and all costs." "They're serious about the Evas as a last resort," muttered Fuyutsuki, examining the screen with a worried expression. He sighed, shook his head, then glanced down at Gendou, his expression unreadable. "You're not going to raise any objections?" "Unless they see the beast's power for themselves, they will not learn to fear it," replied Gendou, almost unnervingly still as the beast walked his way through a line of soldiers. "If they do not learn to fear it, they will not be willing to provide NERV with all that we need to defeat them. I'm providing for the future." He paused, then turned towards Fuyutsuki almost as an afterthought. "Has Katsuragi managed to pick up the boy yet?" "We haven't received any communications," replied Fuyutsuki. "He might have been evacuated into one of the shelters, which would mean that she's looking for him. Hopefully, it won't be too much longer." "Indeed." Gendou turned back towards the main monitor, then glanced down towards the lower levels of the control center, the technicians running around in tan uniforms with red shoulders and doing their best to remain efficient despite the crisis. "It would be a shame for NERV's first entry on the world stage to be a failure." ]++[ Panting, Neil leaned up against the closest wall he could find, exhausted from the dash down the hill. It had been steeper than he'd expected, and not wanting to get his entire outfit filthy with dirt he'd had to move faster than he'd thought himself capable of. He'd been moving through the outskirts of the city as quickly as he could, but he needed to stop before he wore himself out completely, something that seemed entirely possible in the cloying heat. Rubbing his nose to get the scent of overheated asphalt out of his nostrils, Neil kept walking, glancing around the streets for any signs of people. He hadn't realized, until he was going into the city, exactly how strange the situation was. Despite the fact that he'd been told that the school boasted a large population, the flight he'd come in on had been a privately chartered jet, and it had landed on the absolute outskirts of Tokyo-3, leaving Neil to move through the smaller portions of town on the edge. It defied any logical conclusion other than the letter being somehow falsified, but that seemed equally unusual - who would go to such lengths to get Neil into Japan? Combined with the fact that he'd still seen no evidence of any other human being around him, he was feeling more than a little perplexed. Glancing around, Neil resolved to look for a telephone, hoping that he might be able to get in touch with the number listed on the letter. He spotted something a little down the street, further towards the outskirts of town from what he could gather, and he walked over to it briskly, past the perfectly square white buildings and between the posters of Japanese writing that lent the otherwise bland area some color. Reaching the phone, Neil noticed the sounds of gunfire getting louder in the background, but tried to push it out of his mind as he picked up the telephone in his right hand, trying to rummage through his bag with his left. The gunfire grew louder, and then Neil heard a series of crashes accompanying it. The fact wouldn't have attracted his attention except for the fact that it seemed to be headed in his direction, giving him good cause to look in the direction of the source, then proceed to drop the phone in absolute shock. The aerodrones were circling overhead, spitting bullets at something huge and black lumbering through the city, and Neil could do nothing but stand and stare as it came into view. It had a sickly look to it, with painfully thin arms and legs, but the jutting bone-white spikes off its arms and back made it look far more dangerous. The only spot of color on the thing was a massive red orb set in what seemed to be its chest, encircled by spines of bones that looked like an exterior ribcage. By any standards, it was frightening, but it was made even worse by sheer size - the beast was at least a hundred feet tall, and Neil couldn't tell if it seemed bigger out of fear or if it really was even larger. It took Neil a moment of staring at the massive beast to even realize that it was still moving towards him, another moment or two before his brain fully registered the fact and reminded him that he needed to move. He took a step back from the thing, and the motion seemed to draw its attention, as it turned more fully towards him. Its head was situated between two huge bone-white shoulders, and it looked almost like a bird skull laid flat against the thing's body. Neil froze once again, and the beast took a step towards him, the massive black foot slamming into the pavement nearby almost tenatively. Forcing his legs to work again, Neil turned and began running away from the thing, knowing that it could probably cover more distance but also knowing that standing in place wasn't helping. The beast seemed to watch him for a moment, then turned back towards the aerodrones, swatting them out of the air as if they were children's toys. "The hell is going -on- in this city?" Neil shouted to nobody, skidding to a halt and staring after the huge black monster. Hearing the screeching of tires behind him, Neil whirled around to see a low-slung blue sportscar lurching towards him as if it were in a stock race. The car nearly tilted as the driver turned it hard to the left, skidding to a halt inches away from Neil in the middle of the intersection, and the left-hand door flew open a second later. Neil glanced inside the car, still confused as to what was going on. The woman who smiled at him and waved was clearly the same woman in the photo that Neil had been sent, although she now wore a more formal black high-necked sleeveless dress with white piping around it. Though he felt slightly bad about it, Neil couldn't help but notice that the dress would have been short on anyone, and the woman was tall enough that it magnified that aspect significantly. "Ohayo! Haite kudasai." Neil simply stared at the woman in the car for a moment, and she stared back, seemingly put off by his immobility. "Haite kudasai," she repeated, cocking her head to one side. Neil, still confused, did nothing, and the woman's expression darkened. "IMA, IMA!" "I'm sorry, I really haven't the vagues idea what you want me to do," offered Neil. "I don't speak any Japanese." A shocked expression passed over the woman's face, then darkened to disapproval as she smacked herself in the forehead. Then she turned back towards Neil, smiling once again as though nothing had happened. "Hello. Get in the car, please." Realizing that he really should have figured things out from context without any need for explanation, Neil got in the passenger's side of the car, only barely having time to close the door before the car took off, pulling a U-turn and heading in the direction of the firefight with the monster for a moment before streaking off parallel to the beast's path. "Sorry about the quick introduction there," offered the woman, seemingly unfazed by the gigantic crashing noises behind her. "My name's Misato Katsuragi. Glad to finally meet you, Neil." "This day just keeps getting weirder," muttered Neil, glancing out the car's rear window towards the firefight, drones falling in droves out of the sky. "Do you know what the hell that thing is? It almost stepped on me out there." "Official classification hasn't come in yet, but as soon as the UN gets tired of blowing themselves up it'll be classified as the Third Angel," replied Misato, grabbing a small but thick booklet from the dashboard and handing it to Neil. "Here, read this - it might answer a few questions. You'll need it once we get to Central Dogma." "Central Dogma?" Neil shook his head, willing to write off almost any oddity at the moment, and glanced down at the handbook. The volume proclaimed itself as the "Personnel Procedures & Information Manual," with the only indication of the source organization being a red logo that consisted of half of a fig leaf imposed over a single word - NERV. "What the heck is this? I was told that I was -" "We haven't got time to keep up the act right now, Neil," replied Misato, steering the car hard to one side as an aerodrone collapsed to the ground nearby. "There is no International Tokyo School for Advanced Children, or whatever it was that the letter talked about. It's a front." She smirked at him, then winked and flashed a victory sign with her hand. "You've been recruited by the organization that I work for, NERV." "NERV?" asked Neil, shaking his head in disbelief. "You're telling me that some organization in Japan just randomly decided that they needed me to work for them? I'm barely sixteen!" "First of all, NERV isn't a Japanese organization. We're a special branch of the United Nations. Second, we didn't choose you randomly." Misato pressed down harder on the gas pedal, trying to pull further ahead of the Angel. "Remember in school, when you underwent the Marduk Tests?" Trying to breathe regularly, forcing himself to remain calm about the increasing surreality of the situation, Neil nodded, thoroughly confused. "Back in sixth grade, yeah. Everyone born right after the Second Impact. They said they were testing for residual radiation sickness, if we had any defects that were emerging as a result." "You were being tested for a little more than that," replied Misato, pulling onto a low road running between a pair of mountains. "It's not important what right now. Just know that you're here for a reason, and we didn't just randomly drag you out here." "It's starting to feel like that," replied Neil, watching as they approached the two mountains, then glancing back towards the Angel almost casually. He noticed that something was different, then suddenly realized what it was - the aerodrones were falling back, pulling away from the Angel in a single motion. "Misato? You know why the drones would stop attacking the Angel?" "Probably gave Commander Ikari the order to take command of the operation," replied Misato, driving for a moment longer before she slammed on the breaks and glanced towards the Angel herself. "Unless..." She stared at the Angel, watching the sky for something that Neil couldn't have guessed at. Then her expression widened into shock. "They're using an N2 mine! Neil, get down!" Neil had less than a second to react, but the various events of the day had already overloaded his ability to be fixed like a deer in headlights. Wasting no time, he flung himself down on the seats a moment before Misato flung herself on top of him. He had a second to contemplate the fact that an extremely attractive woman was lying on him before he heard an explosion that sounded like the world tearing itself apart, a bright flash of light rushing through the windows before the car picked itself up and went flying. ]++[ "Mine has been detonated. Interference prventing any confirmation of the target's status." Gendou glanced down at the lower level of the command center, watching with disinterest as the technicians moved about their stations. The area was set up almost like a set of stacking dolls, with the top level being a command post, then the primary monitor area being a level lower and slightly wider, and so on down until the center reached the floor about three layers further down. "Drones are still covering the area. Civilian casualties estimated to be zero. Severe damage to the Second Circle's northern district." "Confirmation is hardly necessary. Nothing could have survived that blast." The same representative from before smiled at Gendou, apparently quite pleased with himself. "Looks as though we're not going to be needing your assistance after all, Dr. Ikari." "Am I the only one who notes the fact that nothing is supposed to behave like this thing has so far?" asked Fuyutsuki, smirking slightly at the representative while Gendou continued to watch the monitor. "Nothing could be that huge. Nothing could have shrugged off the drones so easily. Nothing could have survived that blast. Nothing seems to be doing quite well today." The American's fist tightened, his face darkening into a scowl. "Why, you arrogant -" "Sir! Sensors are back on line, and a high-level energy spike is being detected within the crater! Signature is consistent with previous readings of the target!" "That's impossible," muttered the representative, turning away from Fuyutsuki and towards the main screen. "Somebody get a visual feed out there! If it's still alive, it has to be on its last legs! I want the drones ready for another salvo of fire!" "Visual feed in five... four... three... two... one... we are..." The technician's voice faltered as the smoke cleared from the display, revealing a haze over the crater of smoke and debris. In the center stood the Angel, the only significant damage to the thing appearing to be the large crack across its face. As the camera watched, the face shifted to one side, and another face of the same style emerged from the inky blackness of the thing's skin. "T...target is confirmed to still be active by visual confirmation. Damage inflicted by the N2 mine is negligible at best." Nobody spoke for a moment, simply watching as the beast began to step towards the heart of Tokyo-3 once again. "Conventional weaponry is useless against an Angel," announced Gendou after a moment of respectful silence, turning his chair to face the representative. "As I have said before, there is only one weapon that we possess capable of protecting the human race. I believe that you have exhausted your alternatives to your satisfaction?" "We don't have any choice left," sighed the American, looking like a broken man as he sat in his chair and prepared to exit the control room. "From this point forward, NERV is in official control of this operation. May God protect us if you can't deliver, Ikari." The elevator installed beneath the representative's observation post activated, and his chair slid down into the floor, leaving only Gendou and Fuyutsuki in the uppermost level of the command center. "File the target as the Third Angel. Prepare Unit 01 for launch as soon as the pilot arrives at Central Dogma. Until then, hold off the Angel as best as possible." Gendou stood, then looked at Fuyutsuki, his glasses reflecting the light at just the right angle to prevent Fuyutsuki from seeing the man's eyes. "I leave this portion of the operation to you. I will need to greet the Child." Fuyutsuki thought for a moment about offering the consolation that the activation couldn't possibly be any worse than the unit's first, but decided against it, instead turning towards the lower levels as Gendou descended on another elevator. "Start the Magi working on a full analysis of the target. Calculate a launch trajectory for 01, make sure that it can emerge in a fairly open area of the city." He closed his eyes for a moment, basking only momentarily in the sounds of the facility finally working to capacity. "This is NERV's day to shine. Let's start it off right." ]++[ "On the bright side, the car landed on its wheels, so we're saved the trouble of righting it," noted Misato, trying as best she could to see the positive aspects of the blast that had flung her car into the side of a mountain, sent it rolling along the road they'd initially been traveling on, and taken off both mirrors along with the antenna. Neil knew enough about cars to be impressed that a sportscar could survive through the blast, much less take the small amount of damage that it did. Misato, however, seemed much more concerned about the fact that she'd had it fixed only a few days earlier. Doing his best to keep his mind off the bizarre occurences of the past hour or so, Neil had found himself flipping through the handbook Misato had provided for him, though ultimately it seemed designed to answer questions that he wasn't asking. "Misato?" he asked, somewhat quietly as the car screeched through the streets of the city. "Why does NERV want anything to do with me? From everything this handbook is saying, it's a research organization devoted to studying the Second Impact - nothing that I'd be any good at. What use am I?" Misato swallowed hard, taking a turn off of the main road she'd been driving along and heading towards what looked like a tunnel underneath another mountain. "I can't tell you that right now, Neil," she replied, sounding more than a little guilty. "But you're needed, and I can assure you that we'll take care of you. Don't be afraid." "You don't honestly expect me not to be concerned?" asked Neil, incredulous as he stared out the back window around the skyline of Tokyo-3. Something about it just didn't seem right to him, as if there were something fundamentally wrong with the way the buildings were constructed. "You've already told me that you lied about why I was brought here, and that you're connected to those things that the drones were fighting before..." He paused, thinking on the manual in his hands for a moment. "What does NERV actually do, anyways?" "So you're not going to believe that it's just a facility for studying the Second Impact?" Misato asked, closing her eyes and smirking slightly for a second before paying attention to the road once again. "It's partially true. NERV is an organization devoted to the study of the Second Impact, but it's also responsible for another task - defending humanity against the Angels. We've been waiting for them to show up, but it looks like we finally got rewarded for our hard work." "And how were you planning on defending against them?" asked Neil, turning back towards the front of the car. He noticed that the tunnel they were driving towards was actually sloped down somewhat, and it looked as though a metal door was blocking access to most of the thing's length. "The UN forces didn't seem to fare very well against them. What makes you think that you can do any better?" "First of all, Neil, you're a part of NERV. It's not 'you,' it's 'we.'" She pulled to a stop in front of the metal door that Neil had noticed slightly inside the tunnel, the front of it decorated with the same fig-leaf logo that was on the front of the handbook. Rolling down her window, Misato grabbed what Neil assumed was an ID card from her purse, inserted it into a slot outside of the door, waited a moment, then removed it and tucked it into back into her purse. "As for the second part of the question... you'll see why very soon." The door in front of the car slid open horizontally after a moment, and Neil could see that there was light coming from further down the tunnel, something bright enough to rule out lights from further down the tunnel. Misato pressed on the gas once again, and the car swung down into the tunnel, descended down a gentle, curving slope for a minute or two before Neil began to see what seemed to be an entire landscape at the end of it. "Welcome to NERV's base, Neil," announced Misato as the tunnel finally straightened out, sending them into the light that Neil had seen before. "This is the Geo-Front." Neil's eyes took a moment to comprehend what he was seeing, another moment to actually believe it. Misato was driving along a highway suspended above what looked like an entire other world, a subterranean Eden by all appearances. The space was absolutely huge, and looking up Neil could see what looked like a city suspended from the top of it all. After a second of thinking, he realized that the turns they had taken in the tunnel had put them directly underneath the center of Tokyo-3, and he recalled the unusual appearance of the buildings up above. "There's... a city on the ceiling?" he asked, overcome less with fear and more with simple amazement. "Sort of," replied Misato, rolling her window down and letting the fresh air roll in from the outside. Neil was listening to her, but was still surveying the area in awe, taking in the concept of an underground forest next to a perfectly clear lake. "The buildings above are designed to retract down here in the event of an Angel attack. It's part of our defense system." The highway curved slightly, and Neil got a look at what appeared to be a pyramid set alongside an inverted pyramid. As he looked, he could see a red blob on the side that slowly came into focus as the same fig-leaf logo as before. "And that's the entrance to our headquarters - Central Dogma." ]++[ Central Dogma, Neil discovered, was designed specifically with the purpose of repulsing any invasions with psychological warfare - the layout of the structure was such that getting lost seemed to be a certainty rather than a likelihood. Largely featureless corridors blended together, with a uniform teal color only occasionally offset by numbers indicating what level of the facility they were passing through, usually only meaning that they were coming to another row of escalators. "I think I remember where we're going now," announced Misato as they rode downwards on another escalator, from the fifteenth to the sixteenth level. "Once we get to the bottom, we go left, then take a right, then another left..." "We've been here before," announced Neil as they stepped off the escalator, looking around the facility. "I'm almost certain of it. And I'm willing to bet that you said the same thing about where we should go the last time we came by here." Misato ruffled for a second, obviously annoyed by Neil's remark, then calmed slightly, shaking her head and sighing. "You're probably right. I still haven't gotten used to navigating this place." Rubbing the back of her head, she looked around for a second, then struck off straight down the corridor ahead of them. "This is the way, I think. Down here a little bit." "Says the woman who doesn't know where we are," noted Neil, saying it a little louder than he'd intended and catching Misato's attention. She stared at him, and he held up his hands in defense, smiling sheepishly. "Sorry. It's how I deal with stress." "Actually, I thought it was kind of funny," replied Misato, turning back towards the hall and walking down in for a moment. Her eyes widened, then she smiled broadly, picking up the pace of her steps as she headed towards the end of the hallway. Neil began following after her, almost slipping into a light jog behind her. "Yeah, this is the way! We take the elevator here to level 27, and then -" Halfway through Misato's sentence, the doors of the elevator at the opposite end of the hall slid open, revealing another tall woman at the end of the hall. Misato seemed slightly upset to see her, and Neil could see why - she looked attractive, but in a far more frigid manner than Misato. Her hair was short and bleached blonde, her eyes an icy grayish-blue, and the expression on her face was severe enough to shatter glass. Under her swinging white lab coat she wore a black miniskirt, dark stockings, and a dark blue top with a odd sort of pullring at the top of the high neckline. "You're late, Captain Katsuragi," she snapped, glancing at Neil almost as an afterthought. "He was supposed to be here some time ago." "We got a little lost," replied Misato, trying hard to maintain some semblance of dignity. "Neil, this is Dr. Ritsuko Akagi, head of the technical division here at NERV. Ritsuko, this is Neil Richelieu." Ritsuko didn't say anything to Neil immediately, simply looking at him with curiousity. Neil felt distinctly uneasy, as if he were being examined before being sold. "You're taller than I'd expected," she announced after a moment, turning on her heel back towards the elevator. "Come on, both of you. We don't have much time left to get you on the ground, Neil." Neil opened his mouth to ask what Ritsuko was talking about, then decided against it, shaking his head and walking after her and Misato into the elevator. The elevator doors slid shut behind him, and the elevator began to descend, moving faster than Neil had expected it to. "Dr. Akagi?" he asked after a moment, drawing the blonde woman's attention rather unexpectedly. "Can -you- tell me why NERV recruited me?" "You'll find out in a few moments," replied Ritsuko as the elevator lurched to a stop, dinging loudly before the doors slid open again and revealed another corridor, this one connected to a long catwalk. "Follow me." Misato and Ritsuko both stepped out without hesitation, walking down the corridor swiftly, and Neil hesitated for a second before sighing and heading after them. The corridor itself was no different than most of the various corridors in the facility, but the catwalk was somewhat disturbing, suspended above a large body of a purplish-orange liquid that Neil couldn't identify except for an oddly familiar scent. "Am I expected to clean this up?" he asked, smiling weakly at the attempt at the joke. Neither Misato nor Ritsuko took any notice, and he sighed. The catwalk led to a door, which Ritsuko slid open with a few button presses and then stepped inside. Misato followed, and so did Neil, trying as best he could to get a clear look around. The entire room was dark, and aside from slight glimpses of the sloshing liquid beneath them Neil couldn't see anything. The metaphorical implications were a bit much. "Will somebody -please- tell me why I'm here?" asked Neil of nobody in particular, intending to make it come out as a demand but having it wind up as more of a pleading request. On cue, the lights of the room snapped on, and out of the corner of his eye Neil was aware of something absolutely huge. Slowly, he turned his head to see a huge, demonic head staring directly back at him, giving him a bit of a start. Backing up, he could see that whatever he was looking at was at least vaguely humanoid above the shoulders, with purple armor broken occasionally by green highlights and an orange neck. The thing's head looked as though it were wearing a helmet over everything besides its gunmetal-gray mouth, all harsh lines and jagged teeth closed stoically. The helmet sported a large horn jutting out of its forehead, but what arrested Neil's gaze were the eyes, staring back at him with what seemed to be a malicious intelligence. "This... this is a giant robot?" asked Neil, absolutely stupified. "Incorrect," came a man's voice over a loudspeaker, causing Neil to look for the source. "It is the artificial life form Evangelion, Unit 01." Neil finally found the origin of the speech, a sort of skybox overlooking the machine where a man stood, dressed almost entirely in black except for a red shirt underneath his jacket, with messy black hair, a neatly trimmed beard, and disturbingly dark glasses. "I am Dr. Gendou Ikari, commander of NERV. You, Neil, will pilot EVA-01." Neil stared at the skybox for a second, then at the Evangelion. It was still staring back at him - it almost felt as though it were taking the measure of him as a pilot, the same sort of gaze that Ritsuko had used earlier. "You want me to pilot this," Neil said, meaning it as more of a question but winding up simply stating the fact. "I'm a teenager from America who hasn't even been in the Boy Scouts, and you want me to pilot a giant robot - or artificial life form, whatever - against the huge black monster out there." He looked up at Gendou, who was still staring down at him, unmoving. "That's it, isn't it?" "You are one of the only human beings capable of piloting the machine," replied Gendou, still speaking in an almost-monotone, a sort of voice that implied to Neil he wasn't expecting to be questioned about his declarations. "This machine is the only weapon capable of stopping the Angels, and if the Angel above us is not stopped you can imagine the danger the world will be in. You will pilot it now, or I will use someone less suitable to pilot the machine, and I assure you that the second option will result in failure." Almost on cue, the door at the opposite end of the catwalk slid open, and a stretcher was wheeled in by a trio of medical personnel. It took Neil a moment to see that someone was on the stretcher - another boy about his age, heavily bandaged and obviously in no shape to do much of anything. He was in an odd sort of skintight suit covering most of his body, with what looked like armor on his chest and simple spandex below. The stretcher was wheeled next to Neil, and he got a better look at the boy - the slight androgyny of his facial features, the bright red eyes that looked eerily inhuman, the light cyan hair limp against the pillow of the stretcher. Then the facility shuddered, presumably from some kind of impact, and the entire catwalk bucked just enough to send the boy on the stretcher falling towards the floor. Neil was the only person close enough to catch the boy, who said nothing as he fell, not even making a sound as Neil caught him. For a moment, he thought that the boy might be mostly healed, but then he felt warm blood seeping onto his hands, and he looked at the boy's face to see him grimacing in agony. "This is the alternative pilot?" asked Neil, smart enough to figure out what was going on. "Correct. Ryo Ayanami, meet Neil Richelieu." Neil helped Ryo back on to the stretcher, stared for a moment, then looked up at Gendou again. "I assure you, Neil, that if Ryo attempts to pilot the Evangelion in this condition, he will die. The choice is yours." "Not much of a choice, is it?" asked Neil, glancing back towards Ryo for a moment before dropping his duffel bag. "Tell me I've got the fate of the world and a half-dead Japanese boy on my hands, and then I get to choose whether or not I pilot the thing. Lovely." He glanced back at Misato. "You knew about this, didn't you?" "I'm sorry, Neil, but we couldn't tell you before," replied Misato, hiding her face and keeping her voice low enough that Neil couldn't tell if she was genuinely sorry or not. "You have to understand that there are no other options. You're one of the only people -" "Who can pilot them. Yes, I'd picked up on it." He sighed, shaking his head. "This has not been a good day for me, Dr. Ikari. I get flown here on false pretenses, nearly stepped on by something out of a bad Godzilla film, flung around like a baseball in a sportscar, and now I have to choose between my life and the lives of everyone else on Earth?" He stared at the man in the skybox, trying hard to feel angrier. "You couldn't have just explained things to me genuinely?" "This is childish," snapped Ritsuko, drawing Neil's attention towards her. "Neil, you need to pilot the Eva. We're not asking you to do anything other than get in it and do your best." "Wrong, Dr. Akagi," growled Neil, turning his head just enough so that he could see her out of the corner of his eye. "None of you are 'asking' me to do anything. This place, this... situation, none of it involves my choice. I couldn't look myself in the face ever again if I said no." He stared up at the skybox again, eyes narrowed. "Didn't you have enough faith in my humanity to give me a choice?" "You would have said no," replied Ikari, apparently unconcerned with Neil's mental state. "I have no intentions of dealing with such a scenario." Neil shook his head, clenching his fists in anger. "You have no idea what I would have said," he snapped, staring at Gendou for a moment before turning back to the Eva. "You don't know what I would have said if you'd just explained..." He sighed, hanging his head before staring at Gendou again. "All right. I'll pilot it." ]++[ "I feel dirty," muttered Misato as the command elevator brought her and Ritsuko up towards the second level of the control room, slightly below where Gendou would be sitting. She was putting on the red jacket that displayed her rank as Director of Operations, a melancholy expression on her face. "You should, too." Ritsuko didn't bother to look at Misato as the elevator made a dinging noise, the doors sliding open. "I see no reason to feel badly about myself. We needed Neil to pilot EVA-01. He's piloting it. This was the only way that we could be certain that he wouldn't back out of his responsibility." She strode towards the center of the elevated platform, the primary console operators at their seats and beginning to relay information from the Evangelion unit. "Why does that make you feel bad?" "What we did down there wasn't right, Ritsuko," replied Misato, stepping out after her a moment afterwards. "Maybe he would have piloted without that. Maybe we didn't have to -" "The possibility exists that he would have done so regardless of our actions, correct," noted Gendou, taking his seat on the highest tier of the command center. "NERV is not free to take risks on possibilities, however. We do not have the time for moral debates. Begin the launch procedure for EVA-01." Misato closed her eyes as the technicians began to finish setting up the communications circuit with Neil. She still felt uneasy, but as the director it was her job to oversee the operation. "Neil?" she asked, hoping that the area microphones were picking her voice up. "Can you hear me, Neil?" Far lower in the complex, sitting inside the Eva's cockpit, Neil perked up at the sound of Misato's voice. The cockpit itself, he'd found, was actually modular - a long white tubelike thing known as the entry plug. It was overly large, but at least it was comfortable, although he was curious as to how the two handles would help him control the machine, considering both only moved forwards and backwards a small range. "I can hear you," Neil replied, glancing around the darkened cockpit. "Am I just going to be sitting out here for the whole time?" "No," replied Misato, and no sooner had she replied did the cockpit lurch forward and down, seemingly sliding into something. "You're being inserted into the Evangelion unit now. Wait a moment for the chamber to seal, then the cockpit will flood with LCL." "LCL?" asked Neil, glancing around again as he heard mechanical noises above him. His question was answered a moment later as he felt a warm liquid around his ankles, and glancing down saw a watery, orange- colored liquid seeping up towards him, filling the cockpit with the distinct smell of blood. "Misato! How am I supposed to breathe!" "Don't worry. Just inhale the LCL, and it will oxygenate your blood directly." Neil was still wary, but as the liquid began to rush to his mouth he resolved that he didn't have much of a choice and took a deep breath just as the liquid reached him. He hacked for a moment as the liquid filled his lungs, and had the distinct sensation of smothering for a moment before he felt himself breathing again. "If you're ready, we're going to begin synchronization." "Suppose now is as good a time as any," muttered Neil, feeling like more and more of a guinea pig. His mouth tasted like he'd been chewing on a tissue, a sort of dry but offensive feeling. "Let's get this over with." Up in the command center, Misato nodded, flashing a quick gesture of approval to Ritsuko. "Begin synchronization of the pilot and the Eva," announced Ritsuko, sending the technicians into swift activity. "Be careful - according to the earlier readouts, we've got less than a one percent chance of synchronization." "Couldn't go any worse than the machine's first activation," noted Misato, leaning over the shoulder of Ritsuko and examining the monitors. "How's he doing?" "At 45% synch and holding," relied Ritsuko, looking on with approval at the various graphs of Neil's status. "We haven't even had a chance to load the pilot's data into the machine yet. That's an impressive ratio. I'd say the machine is ready for launch." Misato nodded, stepping away from the technicians and focusing her eyes on the central screen's display of Unit 01 lower in the facility. "All right, Neil, you've achieved a decent rate of synchronization. We're going to launch you to the surface now. Do you feel all right?" "Yeah, fine," replied Neil, although he left out the odd sensation that the Eva was giving him of being juxtaposed between two bodies at once. He could feel the limbs of the Evangelion as if they were his own, but it felt as though there were some kind of fuzzy barrier between the two. "I'm ready to go. What do I do once I get up there?" "We'll discuss that when we get there," replied Misato, nodding to Ritsuko. "All hands, disengage the safety locks on EVA-01 and move it to launch platform 5! Prepare to release the Eva as close to the Angel's position as possible!" There was another shudder sent through the base, and Misato felt a sinking feeling as she realized what it was - the Angel was trying to penetrate the Geo-Front's armor, to get down to Central Dogma. "Launch!" Neil heard Misato's shout of launch, but he didn't immediately understand what she meant, only hearing a few mechanical noises that he assumed were from the Eva. Then he suddenly felt his body accelerate far faster than his stomach as the machine lurched upwards at disorienting speeds, mercifully remaining straight but still making him feel as though he was going to lose what little contents his stomach could scrape together. Just as he was beginning to grow accustomed to the sense, the machine lurched back to a stop, and it took Neil a moment to realize where he was. The Angel was standing at what looked like a fairly close distance, just beginning to turn around to see Neil. Glancing to his right, he could see that he was standing next to a reflective glass building, tall enough to give him a picture of the rest of the Evangelion - slightly hunchbacked, spindly, covered in the same sort of ridged purple armor that he'd seen when he first viewed the thing's shoulders. Aside from the armor, it was almost shaped like a rather oddly-proportioned human. "I'm on the surface," shouted Neil, looking back towards the Angel. "What do I do now?" "First things first," replied Misato's voice, sounding somewhat reassured simply by Neil's presence on the surface. "Try to concentrate on walking. The Eva is controlled mostly by your thought processes - if you focus on making it walk, it will." "Gotcha," replied Neil, nodding for his own benefit. "All right... walk forward." He focused, trying to stretch his mind outwards to the extended limbs that he'd sensed before, the legs just slightly removed from his own legs, and moving them in familiar patterns. His efforts were rewarded as he felt the Eva move, hearing the sound of crunching pavement as it stepped forward. Maintaining his focus, Neil took another hesitant step, and again the Eva moved as he willed it, bolstering his confidence. "Right. Walking seems to be working fairly well. When do we move on to weapon systems?" Misato coughed, and Neil saw that the Angel had finished turning, simply observing him casually for a moment. "The Evas don't have any onboard weapon systems," Misato's voice offered, although Neil had already forgotten his question, trying to figure out what the Angel was going to do. "There are a few -" If Misato continued talking, Neil didn't hear her, his world suddenly turned upside-down as the Angel grabbed him with lightning speed, holding his upper arms tightly. Its arms seemed to surge for a moment, then it twisted and hurled the Eva into the side of the building that Neil had been admiring a moment earlier, sending the windows into shattering convulsions and Neil's back into a wave of searing pain. Neil screamed almost involuntarily, unprepared for the sensation of agony racing through his body. "Misato!" he shouted, struggling to regain control of the machine as the Angel advanced and he slid to the ground. "What the hell is going on?" "That's not really your body, Neil!" shouted Misato, growing slightly panicked at the fact that the Angel was attacking. "It's part of the process of synchronization! You've got to remember that it isn't you!" "Easy for you to say," grunted Neil, forcing himself to focus on the machine again as the Angel moved towards him. He knew that he couldn't force it back to its feet in time, so instead he focused on his arms and shoved himself sideways as hard as he could, sending the Eva tumbling backwards as the Angel shot some kind of energy lance into his position a few instants prior. Grabbing on to the nearest building, Neil forced himself back to his feet, then noticed that the Angel's eyes were starting to glow. "Gods, this was a stupid plan." A half-second later, energy exploded from the Angel's general direction, sending the Eva tumbling backwards head over heels and encasing Neil's body in agony. Forcing himself to remember that the pain wasn't real, he tried to dig in the machine's heels, make it come to a stop as he staggered back to his feet. "Neil!" shouted Misato, panicking in the control room as the technicians shouted warning about the machine's synchronization flow reversing itself. "Neil, what's the situation out there!" "I don't know - how do you say 'shit-poor' in Japanese?" Neil shouted back, struggling with the gigantic Eva to try and figure out some kind of plan to take care of his opponent. The Angel was already on him as he managed to stand erect again, and as it lunged at him he thrust his left arm up to block the thing, hoping that it would be deterred. The Angel gripped the forearm tightly, almost looking curious, then its arm seemed to ripple once again as it grabbed the Eva's forearm with the other hand as well and forced the limb in a direction that it didn't bend. Neil screamed in agony as the arm twisted and snapped, the knowledge that it wasn't real doing him no good. Misato shouted his name as he fell backwards, but it was all Neil could do to try and concentrate on the Eva's body again and try to stagger to his feet. The Angel stood over him for a moment, then grabbed the Eva's head and dragged it unceremoniously to its feet, leaving Neil momentarily curious as to what it was going to do. Then light flared from the palm of the Angel's hand, and Neil felt the incredible pain of something sharp being jabbed into his eye roughly. He screamed again, losing all connection with the Eva as he felt the blows to his eye come repeatedly, until finally the spear of light sheared through his eye and drove through his head. The agony was too intense as he felt the Eva hurtle backwards and hit the nearest building, and Neil felt himself withdrawing from the machine, trying desperately to feel his own eye again. The pain receded enough for him to think again, but the sense of another set of limbs grew more distant as well. Down in the control room, Misato shouted his name again and again, but Neil was beyond answering her, lost in a haze of pain and the knowledge that he had to pilot the machine. He found himself pushing desperately against the two handles of the cockpit, hoping against reason that they'd actually unlock the secret to piloting the Eva. He could see the Angel approaching, and he thrust at the controls furiously, knowing that the Angel was going to kill him as it picked him up by the head once again. Then it did something odd - it stared at Neil for just a moment, cocked its head to one side, and then dropped him, turning away and focusing the energy blast it had used on Neil on the ground. It took Neil only a second to realize that the Angel had discarded him, that it didn't think he was a threat any longer. Lying on the ground like so much discarded waste, Neil's mind began to pedal backwards, to remember a time earlier in his life... ]++[ "Aw, lookit him now, he's starting to cry." The older kid chuckled as if it were the most amusing thing in the world, then tossed Neil backwards, onto the dirt of the playground. "Go away, kid. You can't even touch us." "I..." Neil staggered to his feet, trying to ignore the fact that he knew he hadn't done well, brushing the fine sand off and trying to look impressive. "I won't let you hurt my friend." The older kid looked back at him, staring for a moment before laughing and turning away from Neil again. "Shut up, you little punk. When we get done over here, you'll be next, and you can't stop us." Neil felt anger surge through his body, and he jammed his hands in his pockets, wishing that he could find something to help. He rummaged around for a moment, then found his pencil, the point still amazingly intact. He stared at it for a moment, then looked at the older kid, and gripped the pencil firmly. "Leave him alone," he said, stepping forward. "Leave him alone!" Kicking Neil's friend, the kid didn't even bother to look back at him. "Oh, yeah? What are you gonna do about it, kid?" Breathing hard, Neil ran towards the older kid, pencil gripped firmly and his eyes narrowed. He knew that he just had to make them realize that they couldn't push him around that easily, that once he'd done that they wouldn't bother people any more. One of the older kid's friends shouted something to the kid, and he turned just as Neil lept at him, pencil rushing towards its destination before anyone could think to even slow it down... ]++[ "Synchronization is down to 30% and falling fast! We can't control it any longer!" "Pulse flow is reversing itself! The machine is starting to reject the connection with the pilot!" Ritsuko's eyes narrowed for only a second, her expression otherwise remaining completely professional. "Arrest the flow manually," she snapped, leaning over the central technician and surveying the display. "What's the pilot's status?" "We can't tell! There's no feed from the cockpit any longer!" shouted one of the other technicians, hammering madly on the buttons of their computer. "The machine is refusing all external influence! Synch ratio continuing to decrease!" Misato could only stare at the display on the main screen, EVA-01 slumped awkwardly against the nearest vertical surface, something that looked like blood seeping out of the wound in its head. "Neil!" she shouted, hoping against logic that the machine could still hear her. "Neil, snap out of it!" Then, as if spurred on by Misato's words, the unit's remaining eye flared a bright white, silencing the entire command center as it began to awkwardly climb back to its feet. It remained stationary for a moment, then held up its left arm, surveying the twisted mess for a second before the arm seemed to bubble and repair itself, pulling itself back into the proper position. "T-the unit has regenerated its forearm," announced one of the technicians, trying to remain professional as the Angel turned towards the revitalized Eva. "Synch ratio is back up to 45% and rising." Staring at the Eva, the Angel seemed curious for a moment, then lashed out with its energy lance towards the purple machine, regarding its sudden revival with an air of moderate curiousity at best. The Eva sprang sideways effortlessly, landing atop a nearby building that happened to have a radio tower. Grabbing the tower, the Eva ripped a section out of it, the jagged metal forming a makeshift spear as the machine jumped and lunged towards the Angel. EVA-01 drove the spear towards the red orb in the center of the Angel's chest, but the Angel shifted position just enough to send the shaft straight through its eye instead as the machine landed atop the Angel. There was a moment that the huge titans remained, then the Angel bucked forward and forced EVA- 01 to jump off and push the two of them apart. Staggering to a stop, the Eva stared for a moment, then with a great tearing noise the mouth opened and let out a great roar before rushing towards the Angel again. As EVA-01 rushed at the target, it suddenly slammed into a previously nonexistent barrier, a field of constantly expanding concentric octagons that Misato instantly recognized. "The Angel's fully manifesting its AT field!" she shouted, turning towards the technicians while hope for Neil's victory conflicted with what she knew to be the facts of the situation. "EVA-01 still hasn't manifested its own AT field! We've got to -" "Unit 01's field is unfolding!" shouted one of the technicians, prompting Misato to stare back up at the monitor. Unit 01 was pushing on the field as if it were plastic, and it was bending inwards, much to the Angel's apparent horror. The Eva's hands finally burst through, and it grabbed the Angel's forearms, yanking it forward until the machine stuck its foot out and forced the Angel to a stop. However, the Eva continued to pull on the arms, ripping the forearms clear out of their sockets before it kicked the Angel back and sent it stumbling to a stop. Discarding one of the forearms, the unit examined the spike at the end of the remaining one, then rushed towards the Angel, tackling it and knocking it down effortlessly. There were no words for what was happening as the team watched 01 drive the spiked elbow towards the red orb over and over again, watching as spiderweb cracks began to show on it. The Angel's remaining eye glowed for a second before EVA-01 stabbed its own arm through the eye, blinding it and stopping the energy blast as the Eva snapped off one of the beast's other bony protrusions and resumed its assault of the red orb. The cracks were beginning to appear more regularly now, and it seemed as though it would shatter under the stress. The Angel was thrashing like a wounded animal, but 01 gave it no notice, panting breaths coming from its terrible mouth. Ritsuko averted her eyes, no longer able to remain professional while staring at such savagery, and she saw a display that kicked the scene out of her mind entirely. "There's an energy buildup in the Angel!" she shouted, drawing everyone's attention back to the gauges and displays of the technicians. "It's going to self-destruct!" "Neil!" shouted Misato, feeling a worry for the pilot that she couldn't quite place. Her warning proved ill-timed, and before the Eva could even move out of the way the Angel seemed to shift over to pure energy and explode outwards, catching Neil directly in the center. The explosion was huge, towering high into the heavens and forming a pattern that looked very much like a cross, waves of energy seeping along the pattern as it slowly dissipated. Misato could only stare for a moment, unsure if Neil had been killed in the explosion. Her answer was given a moment later as the Eva slowly emerged from the red haze of the explosion, not in prime shape but certainly still functional. "Thank God. Can we get any kind of status on the pilot?" ]++[ Inside the cockpit, Neil breathed heavily, feeling the dull ache of a headache soaking through the back of his skull. He had only vague recollections of the last few moments, only the most distant awareness of what had happened. The scent of blood that he'd first caught when the LCL flooded the chamber was reeking in his nostrils, a thick scent that felt cloying and painful. Out of the corner of his mind he could hear Misato calling to him, and he tried to pull himself away from the Eva, to speak back to her, to let her know what he knew. Then, much to his shock, he felt the Eva pull back, and he suddenly felt as though he were leaving his body behind, being yanked away from himself. Memories began rushing through his brain of a bright, sunny day on a hill, holding his child in his arms, his mentor standing beside him, a scene Neil knew he'd never experienced. He found himself fighting to remain himself as he felt more memories, of a man that he loved, of giving birth to his son, of things that he had nothing to do with. "I'm not a mother," he snarled, pushing the memories out of his mind. "I'm a man! I'm not a mother!" As the memories of a woman seeped away from Neil's mind, he found himself experiencing more memories, more sensations that were not his own. Memories of a place of perfect, searing light filled his mind, of scientists staring at him within a glass tube, of human-like shapes with the red orbs of the Angel shambling across African plains, of hurtling into the Earth. "This isn't me," growled Neil, struggling to remember himself, to establish his own identity as he felt the Eva taking it away from him. "No! I have my own identity! What are you?" Neil felt the light from outside fading away, and he found the Eva moving as he willed it, standing and facing another reflective building. As the light slipped away, he saw the empty socket left by the Angel's stab through the Eva's head bubble for a moment, revealing a single green eye. The eye was human, normal - and, as Neil studied it as best he could, he realized that it looked exactly like his. Screaming, Neil thrashed against the metal of the cockpit for a moment before falling into blissful unconsciousness. ]++[ "Cockpit feed re-established," announced one of the technicians, her fingers dancing across the keyboard in front of her. "The pilot's life- signs are all normal. He's unconscious, but there don't appear to be any other abnormalities otherwise." She sighed, obviously relieved. "EVA-01 has shut itself down for retrieval." The tension that had permeated the control room seemed to almost physically relax itself, and Misato found herself leaning on the balcony of her level of the command center, a few feet away from the consoles. "Thank God," she breathed, brushing the few loose strands of her hair away from her face, only realizing as she touched her forehead that she'd been sweating. "Retrieve EVA-01 and eject the pilot. I want a damage assessment of the machine as soon as possible." One level higher, Gendou had already stepped back to the elevator down from the highest command post, Fuyutsuki stepping in behind him. The doors slid closed behind them, leaving the noise of the command room behind them. "He's done well," noted Fuyutsuki, rubbing his forehead out of relief. "I must admit, I was a little worried when the Angel did so much damage to EVA-01." "In the end, there was no question of the outcome," replied Gendou, the smile on his face making him look the part of the cat that had finally caught the canary. "Unit 01 has finally found the correct pilot, the one that will lead it to the true destiny of mankind." He chuckled to himself. "The old men wouldn't be happy about it if they knew." "You're certain that they won't?" asked Fuyutsuki, sounding a little concerned. "If they do find out, I'm certain it would be the end of our own work. Not just on the father - it'd mean the end of NERV completely. There's too much of you invested here for them to let it lie if -" "SEELE will not find out," replied Gendou, the smile fading from his face, the stoic demeanor that Fuyutsuki was accustomed to returning. "There is too much of import occuring to sacrifice everything. We will continue to operate on schedule, and we will make no special note of the Third Child." He turned away from Fuyutsuki, adjusting his glasses. "There are no alternatives, and there is no turning back." "And what about the moral implications?" asked Fuyutsuki, seeming almost like an attempt to get in the last word. "What we're doing... do you wonder about what it says about human beings?" "No," replied Gendou, stepping towards the elevator doors a moment before the ding announced their arrival at their destination. He paused a second, as if he were going to say something more, then stepped out of the elevator, turned to his left, and began to walk down the hallway, other matters occupying his mind. ]++[ Outro: Neon Epoch Evangelion is based off of -Shin Seiki Evangelion- by GAINAX and company. It is not intended to be a straightforward fanfic, but it is building off the work of others, and as such it is done with the utmost respect for the original works and their authors. Basically, even though this is an original work, it's based off the work of others, and if you read this, you should go to see the original. Special thanks to all of the real Children - you know who you are. Extra special thanks to Joe Augulis for his consultation on the Japanese portions of the story. He might not know much Japanese, but that's more than I know. Copyright 2002 Eliot Lefebvre.