Obligatory comments, as per fanfic regulations:
This fic violates continuity of both series severely. Deal with it.
Sailor Moon characters belong to Naoko Takeuchi, Toei, Kodansha, the works.
Evangelion characters belong to Gainax, Anno Hideki, and others. Pretty
much everything in here is used without permission, but I'd rather not be
sued as I'm in enough debt as it is.
There, that should be enough preamble. Let's begin, shall we?
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For Unto Us a Child is Born
A Sailor Moon / Neon Genesis Evangelion fusion-type fanfic by LeVar Bouyer
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"For unto us a child is born, unto us a daughter is given."
--Isaiah 9:6, with liberties by the author.
***
First Act: With Her Stripes We Are Healed.
Tokyo-3
2015 AD
Asuka Soryu Langley walked moodily down the street. Just her luck
to be saddled with a bunch of amateurs. She'd shown them how to take care
of an angel on the way over, and they still doted on that idiot Shinji.
Why, his synch ratios didn't even compare to her own. How could anyone
prefer that wishy-washy numbskull to her?
She was rather wrapped up in these matters, and didn't notice when
she came to the edge of the sidewalk and curb. Unprepared for the sudden
change in ground level, she stumbled and flailed her arms wildly to maintain
her balance. She managed to do so, and stared for a moment at the spot on
the gray road her head had been about to hit.
"Phew, that was lucky."
If she hadn't spent so much time giving herself congratulations, she
probably would have noticed the large supply truck that was bearing down
on her, but she didn't. Such, as they say, is life.
***
"You're certain?" The large office was filled with the few, rather
quiet words.
"It's been confirmed," said Kozou Fuyutsuki grimly. "The Second
Child has been killed in an automobile accident. She was rushed to our
medical facilities, but it was too late to save her life."
"I see," said Commander Gendou Ikari pensively, continuing
to look at the same featureless spot before his steepled fingers. "Her
remains?"
"Taken care of." Dr. Akagi would have another project to work on
for awhile. Granted, she wasn't her mother, but it would still be
preferable to salvage something from this disaster.
"Who has been informed?"
"We managed to keep things relatively under wraps. Only six people
know, but they'll keep quiet." NERV's security personnel were very good at
enforcing the keeping of secrets.
"Ah." There was a pause. "You realize, that we have to have a
pilot for Unit-Two."
"But who? The Fourth Child is still not chosen."
"We will have to find one."
"Where?"
Behind his folded hands, Gendou smiled ever so slightly.
***
"Okay now, just relax. The fluid now surrounding you is oxygenated.
It'll take some getting used to, but you'll be fine."
The fourteen year old girl in the plug scowled. "Yeah, I can get
used to drowning real fast," she snorted, but she obediently took in a gulp
of the LCL. It had an odd taste to it that she couldn't place. Not
wholly unpleasant, but hardly tasty either She mentally added it to her
long list of complaints about NERV and its doings.
"Good, you're doing fine," said Ritsuko Akagi without any real
reassurance, looking at a monitor and reading the girl's life signs while
Maya looked at similar displays at her side. Everything about this girl
stunk to high heaven, frankly. There was no way she could be an adequate
replacement for Asuka, especially considering the rather special nature of
Unit-Two. All the reports said she was good; that didn't mean she couldn't
worry, though.
An entire bank of lights turned green, and she breathed a sigh of
relief. The plug was now completely filled with LCL, and the girl was
breathing normally. Behind Ritsuko, Gendou Ikari watched as well. "She
seems to be adapting well," said the commander.
"Yes. She'll probably be ready to make her first trial in the Eva
by next week." She paused. "Are you still going to use Unit-Two?"
"That is the plan."
"Hm." She punched another button, and on the console before her a
closed-circuit TV picture of Unit-Two's holding bay appeared. The enigmatic
machine stood silent, the braces holding it to the walls painfully obvious.
They both watched the screen silently. "She's only fourteen."
Both knew the answer to that statement.
***
The girl stood in the shower, trying to rinse the LCL from her long
ponytails. They reached all the way down to her knees and met her head in a
curious junction that wasn't described easily. It had taken a lot of
arguing for her to keep her hair that way when she entered the plug, but as
she tried to get the stuff out of her hair she had to admit that perhaps the
techs had a point. She never heard the footsteps approaching. "Tsukino."
"Call me Usagi, please." Usagi turned around and saw her. The blue
haired girl . . . Rei, wasn't it? The one with about as much personality as
a wristwatch.
She stood in her school uniform, unheeding of Usagi's nudity, her
hands perfectly relaxed at her sides. "You are to pilot Evangelion Unit
Two." Rei then turned and left, leaving a shocked Usagi standing in the
spray of hot water.
"Um, congratulations, I guess." She continued to shower, towel
off, and dress, all in silence. It took a bit of work to do up her
odango without the usual hair implements, but she managed.
Coming out of the locker room and turning a corner to head for home,
Usagi ran into an average looking boy with slightly unkempt black hair and
mournful blue eyes. They literally met forehead to forehead, sending both
reeling back. "OW!"
"Ouch!"
Usagi rocked back, clutching her forehead. The other boy did the
same. "Uh, sorry . . . Miss Tsukino?"
Usagi sighed. "Call me Usagi."
"Bunny?" Shinji Ikari had had enough trouble dealing with the death
of Asuka; meeting a bunny child was leading to more confusion. He hadn't
been informed of the arrival of the new pilot until that morning.
Usagi groaned. "No, Usagi. Look, I didn't pick my name, okay?" 'Is
this what being the new girl in town is going to be like?' she asked
herself. It wasn't as if she'd asked to join NERV, after all. Given how
anti-military her mother had been, if she had still been alive Usagi would
probably be safe somewhere else.
Then again, that was the point, wasn't it? As long as the angels
were around, there was no safe place, not anywhere on the world. It was up
to the Evangelions to defend Earth, and she was now apparently an Eva pilot,
through whatever crazy system they'd come up with to pick them. Sometimes
she wished she were queen, just to tell them how things should be run, but
the Emperor had gone away with the old world before Second Impact, and the
United Nations would entertain no thoughts of monarchies. Everyone had to
remain united in the face of the angel threat.
"Sorry," said Shinji again, breaking in on Usagi's thoughts. "I,
um, should be going," he said by way of apology, "I have somewhere to be,
and, um . . . ."
"Oh, of course," said Usagi, stepping out of the boy's way. "Bye."
She waved and went on her way. As Shinji walked by, he couldn't help but
notice her eyes. Just like Ayanami Rei's, they were a shade of red, but he
had to admit they looked sort of cute with her pink hair. The mere thought
brought a blush to his face.
***
Usagi lay slouched in a couch in a waiting room in the most
well-defended and technologically advanced rabbit warren the world had ever
known. She was idly flipping through a manga produced by Kodansha called
Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon. She had to admit the title character looked a
lot like her mother, or at least the memories of her. She died in
childbirth nine months after the Second Impact, when the world was still
picking up the pieces.
She put down the manga. While Sailor Moon was entertaining, she had
other things to attend to, like the NERV employees' manual. It definitely
wasn't easy reading, but with another hour to wait until Captain Katsuragi
got
off from duty there wasn't much else to do. She read it aloud.
"'Section 4: Appearance and Conduct. All NERV personnel shall at
all times present themselves in a professional and dignified manner. NERV
uniforms are to be considered required at all times unless otherwise
ordered. Subsection i: Evangelion pilots are considered exempt from this
section under general order 1-146-18-B. Subsection ii: Uniform, male. The
uniform shirt will consist of a one-piece gray durapolythene . . . ,' can
this be any more boring?" She tossed the manual on the floor, where it
landed with a satisfying smack.
"I hate studying." She looked up at the red digital clock.
18:45:23.5. Another fifteen minutes to wait until Katsuragi showed up. Odd
that they would count tenths of a second, but there must be some military
reason for it.
She got up and looked at the books that lined the walls. Most of
them were rather technical: Jane's Fighting Ships and a few bound volumes of
psychiatric journals. Actually, there were quite a few journals about
everything: nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, theology,
extraterrestrial life, theology? She walked back to make sure. Yes, an
entire section of the bookshelf devoted entirely to treatises of
Christianity and Judaism. Not a scrap of Shinto or Buddhism . . . except
there, a tiny volume of a comparative studies textbook that had probably
been snuck in by someone who had close ties to Shinto.
-her eyes flashed violet as her long black hair blew in the wind-
Usagi blinked away the after-image. "Huh?" But there was no-one
else in the room. It had seemed so real, but what had it been? Where?
'Calm down Usagi,' she thought, 'you're just getting jitters. Just because
you'll be getting into a giant biomechanical robot which is the last hope of
humanity is no reason to be nervous.' She decided to sit down. It was a
very comfortable chair; almost as comfy as the one back in-
"HI THERE! Um . . . did I frighten you?"
Usagi looked up from behind the couch which she had leapt behind.
"No," said the pink haired girl acidly, "not at all," Her pink eyebrows knit
themselves together.
"Oh, good," said the woman who had just walked in. She wore a pale
yellow t-shirt and gray-green shorts, with a bright red jacket thrown on
top. Her hair seemed to be very close to purple, and she looked like the
type of woman who liked to have fun. She also seemed to be the type of
woman with a deranged sense of such fun. "I'm Misato Katsuragi, and you're
Usagi Tsukino, right?"
"Um, yes," said Usagi reluctantly.
"Hey, hey, lighten up! We're going to have fun, okay?"
Usagi gave Misato a look much like one would give an over enthused
camp director, the kind of look that said "Look, I don't want to be here in
the first place, so take your cheery crap somewhere else." Misato either
knew that look and chose to ignore it, or genuinely didn't know it and
plowed right ahead. With Misato, it was often hard to tell which was which.
-brandishing the crystal, her clumsy personality being cast aside-
Usagi blinked.
"Hm? What's wrong?" Misato bent down in front of Usagi, giving the
pink-haired teenager a view that most men would have given a large sum of
their weekly paycheck for, but which Usagi merely glanced over
dispassionately.
"Nothing much," said Usagi. 'And it isn't anything, really,' she
told herself. Two brief flashes of . . . something . . . wasn't anything to
be concerned about at all, was it? "I suppose you're taking me to a place
where I can sleep? It's been a long day, you know."
Behind the shining eyes, Misato frowned slightly. 'A long day, huh?
My dear Fourth Child, you haven't known the meaning of a long day until
you've stayed here awhile. Asuka never had a chance to learn that.' Her
voice betrayed nothing of her feelings, however. "Is that so? Well, we'll
have to get you to my apartment right away, won't we?"
"Your apartment? I can live on my own!"
"Yes, well you'll have some company! You'll be with Shinji and I.
Oh, and Pen-pen, too."
"Pen-pen?"
"You'll see."
***
After a few minutes, Usagi was forced to admit that the Katsuragi
household was perhaps the strangest place she had ever visited. Given that
she had been inside Central Dogma at NERV for the past several hours, that
was quite a trick. For one thing, she had never known anyone to have a need
for so much alcohol. It seemed like one entire refrigerator was completely
occupied with cans of beer. The other refrigerator, she'd found, was
completely occupied by a penguin.
"So this is Pen-pen?"
"Yes," said Shinji in a resigned tone that she rapidly learned was
normal for him. The two sat at the kitchen table, killing time until dinner
was served. A meal prepared by Misato was one that Shinji seemed to view
with curious fearfulness. "Oh, I guess we'll have to work out another
arrangement for the chores, won't we?"
"Chores?"
"Oh, you have to have done chores before!" interjected Misato,
bouncing into the room in a tank-top and shorts. Shinji's face became rosy
red, and Usagi rolled her eyes. Boys.
"Not really. You see, back at-"
"Never mind, never mind. We'll get to that. First," she said,
heading for the refrigerator, "we get you settled in. And then," she added,
pulling out a beer, "it's liquid refreshment time!"
Usagi face faulted. This would be an interesting dinner.
***
School. This one was different from her last one in Hokkaido. It
had been decided that Usagi should go to the same school and class as
Shinji and Rei did. She sat in class 2-A, pointedly ignoring the lecherous
glances thrown her way by some of the males in the class. She was rather
used to them; after all, it wasn't easy being as cute as she was.
Across the room, Touji and Kensuke watched the newcomer sit behind
and to the right of Hikari, close to both Shinji and Rei. "You know what
that means," said Kensuke. He gestured at the new girl. "Another pilot.
Probably the one to replace Asuka that died in the accident."
"That makes what, three?" asked Touji.
"Yes. And this one's sort of cute, you know?"
"You said that about the last one. Anyway, she has red eyes like
Rei does. Not that I'm complaining," Touji added.
"Right, right. You think everyone's cute, don't you?"
"Just the girls."
A few desks away, Usagi was chatting with her fellow pilots, or at
least trying to. Rei was being her usual taciturn self, and Shinji didn't
know nearly enough about the latest anime and manga that Usagi liked. So it
came down to Usagi talking to a wall and an echo chamber. It was not the
gregarious teenager's idea of fun. All things considered, it was probably
for the best when three cellular phones rang simultaneously.
***
Misato walked into the control room of Central Dogma briskly, still
shaking off last night's sleeping and boozing. Red lights flashed as
personnel scurried to their posts under the encouragement of the alarm
sirens. "Angels make a crummy breakfast," she muttered to herself. Then
she forced herself into a professional manner and crossed her arms on her
chest. "What do we have this morning?"
"Appeared out of nowhere, ma'am," said Makoto. "It's right off Kii
Peninsula."
"They always come out of nowhere," she muttered.
He hadn't heard her. "We have visual confirmation. Putting it up
now. Pattern blue confirmed."
Fuyutsuki entered in as the image appeared. He looked up at the
screen, his usually dour face ever so slightly bent into a frown. The MAGI
had confirmed a blue pattern, and its destination was rather clear: the
Geo-Front. And Supreme Commander Ikari was out of town on business.
For a moment the two watched as the taller skyscrapers of Tokyo-3
retracted into the ground. "Target is designated the seventh angel, named
Israfel. Are the Children ready?"
"On their way," said Misato tightly. "Our defenses are still
understrength from the last battle, so we'll have to intercept before it
reaches the city. You aren't sending Usagi out already, are you?"
"We didn't give her Unit-Two to use as a play toy, Captain
Katsuragi.
Besides, Unit-Zero is still being repaired from the last battle."
"Yeah. We'll have One and Two team up on it." There was no getting
around it; they'd sent out Shinji with far less training than Usagi had now.
"Children arriving."
***
The room was simply called Locker Room 8H. Located deep in the
heart of Central Dogma, about thirty meters from the cages holding the three
Evas, it was where the first and fourth children prepared for battle.
Shinji had 7H to himself, across the hall.
Usagi fought to keep her heart rate steady. Her hands fumbled
several times as she pulled the zipper on the plugsuit, which hung around
her in its baggy state. Rei carried on mechanically with taking off her
uniform and putting on the suit, almost as if changing to take a swim.
"Aren't you nervous?" asked Usagi. Perhaps she wasn't; after all, she was
essentially mere backup for this mission, if for some reason Usagi was
unable to perform in the Eva.
Rei looked up at the pink-haired child in the white and pink
plugsuit. "No."
Usagi stood silently and watched as Rei finished changing. "I see.
Nothing fazes you a lot, does it?"
Rei didn't answer. After a pause, Usagi smiled slightly and pressed
the button on her wrist. The baggy rubberish pink fabric immediately
constricted around her body. Once again she wondered what sorts of perverts
had designed the plug suits to leave almost nothing to the imagination. 'At
least I'm not overweight,' she thought. She attached the nodes to her
head. Funny little things, but like so many things Dr. Akagi and her team
told her to do, she didn't question them. At least they weren't as painful
as the plumbing connections on her suit. Finished, she tapped her foot,
waiting for Rei to finish suiting up.
She didn't want to have to walk to the cage alone.
***
Once more down the hallway, once more through the gantry, once more
into the plug. Once more she felt the LCL fill the plug, oozing up from her
feet to her head. Once more she fought the fear of drowning, breathed in
the gulp of warm liquid, marveled at the fact that she didn't die. Once
more she felt the neural connection, and once again she felt herself become
part of the entity known as Evangelion Unit Zero-Two. This time, she was
going to be fighting for real.
"Usagi, are you there?"
"Um, yes," said Usagi to Misato, trying to calm herself. Dammit,
they had her vital signs in the control room, they could tell if she was
nervous or not.
***
"She's nervous," said Ritsuko.
"She'll be fine," said Misato more confidently than she felt. She
had to be. There was no hope for any of them if the pilots decided to get
cold feet. Besides, who knew? Perhaps the children would prove more
resilient than she thought.
"Mm," said Fuyutsuki. He merely glanced down at Misato. Time for
her to get to work.
"Very well." Misato looked at the status board again; the angel was
closing in. "Units One and Two will move in towards the bay and intercept
the angel before it gets to the city. The UN will be waiting in reserve in
case you fail . . . which won't happen." She forced herself to smile. Have
to build the children's confidence, even if the odds once more seemed
stacked against them.
***
'I'm going to die, 'she repeated to herself again and again as the
techs completed their final checks of the Evangelion. Inside the plug she
could hear a dozen voices on a dozen channels, completing the preparation of
the most expensive and most advanced weapon on Earth. 'I'm going to die.'
"Usagi, launch is in ninety seconds. Are you ready?" asked Ritsuko.
"U-u-u-uh . . . ." She began to hyperventilate.
"Usagi, this is Misato. Just relax, okay?" Please don't fold up on
me now, Usagi!"
"Relax? RELAX?!? Kami-sama, I'm in a bloody machine that I've
never piloted before, off to-"
"Calm down. You've done more simulator time than any of your
partners, you've got more experience than either of them had *their* first
time. Just take some deep breaths and think about the training exercises."
Don't think about the marauding angel out there that's ready and willing to
kill us all.
"Okay." She took a deep breath. "Okay."
***
In the control room, Misato watched the main display boards.
Usagi's vitals were slowly dropping back to acceptable levels. She was far
from relaxed, but she wasn't in the throes of a stress attack anymore.
"Thirty seconds to launch," sang out Maya from her console.
"Eva Unit One reports ready," said Makoto.
"Eva Unit Two reports ready," answered Shigeru.
Misato looked over the control room, silently absorbing. Twenty
seconds until the dance was played out once more, with children putting
their lives at stake to defend the world. It was an idea she had grown
accustomed to for the most part, though there were still times that she had
to stop and wonder just how she had gotten to this position. For now, for
twenty seconds more, there was nothing to do but wait.
She hated waiting.
***
"Fifteen. Fourteen. Thirteen. Twelve. Eleven. Ten."
Usagi listened to the countdown continue. Despite her outward
appearance, inside she was all butterflies. She felt like she was going to
faint and throw up and laugh all at the same time. At the moment she was a
billion nerves all firing at once.
-in a white dress, she turned her head, her face the picture of
serenity-
Serenity. Somewhere that struck a chord in her. It reminded her of
her parents: her father, who she had only seen pictures of, dead since a
couple weeks after Second Impact. Her mother, dead from complications
during Usagi's birth, but who had managed one word upon seeing her daughter
for the first and last time, words related to her by her surrogates years
later.
"Chibiusa . . . ."
Her mother, Usagi Tsukino. Her father, Mamoru Chiba. Her surrogate
aunts: Ami-san, Rei-san, Makoto-san, Minako-san. She remembered her
birthright.
"I'm ready."
***
"Four. Three. Two. One. Zero!"
"LAUNCH!" cried Misato.
***
Second Act: A Step Forward into Terror.
Unit Two rocketed through the maze of launch tunnels that led from
the Geofront to the surface. It and Usagi emerged a few kilometers distant
from the approaching Angel, stopping with a shock that shook Usagi's bones.
The creature trudged through the waters of Tokyo Bay, occasionally hidden by
the ruins of the coastal city. On Unit Two's right flank was the
purple-armored Unit One. It too looked to the east with caution, not
knowing what to expect from their newest adversary.
Inside the plug, Usagi watched and smiled. Sure, she hadn't asked
to be a pilot, but damned if she was going to die her first day on the job.
It was the least a Messiah could do.
***
"Synchronization on Unit One now at fifty percent and holding.
Thirty-three percent on Unit Two."
"Better than expected," said Ritsuko as she hovered over Maya Ibuki.
"Perhaps this wasn't as haphazard a choice as I thought."
Misato decided to gamble. If it worked Usagi's confidence would be
enormously bolstered, and she could use the boost. "Usagi, I want you
to take the point on this. Proceed forward and take out the angel with your
halberd. Shinji will cover you."
***
In her Eva, Usagi blinked. She was thrilled enough that she'd
figured out how to walk in the field, and was just getting used to the way
the machine responded to the steps it took. She had to shake her head to
get the thoughts out, the thoughts of just what she was capable of in the
seat of the plug. "Um, my what?"
"Halberd. We're sending one up now."
Usagi briefly considered the possibility that her radio was
malfunctioning, then decided that they were serious. But just what did they
expect her to do with one of those? "Um, okay."
"Building L14, coming up." Usagi turned, and Unit-Two turned with
her. As promised, one of the outlying buildings of Tokyo-3 opened up to
reveal a polearm with a slightly curved blade at its top. Other than its
being a few dozen meters tall, it looked perfectly normal, which was what
worried Usagi.
"You want me to kill the angel with *that*? You're joking!" She
glared at the tiny floating hologram of Misato to her left.
***
In Central Dogma, Misato put her hands to her hips. "Usagi, we
don't have time to argue about this. Take the halberd and go!"
"But you never trained me with this! I used the cannons all the
time, and-"
"We don't have any close enough for you to use. Just do it!"
***
"All right then, dammit!" yelled Usagi. Angrily she grabbed the
controls and moved to take her weapon. "Idiots," she murmured under her
breath, all fear having yielded to annoyance at her superiors. Taking the
halberd in the hands of her Evangelion, she took quick steps to intercept
the angel. 'One quick swipe down the middle,' she thought to herself.
'That'll show them.' With a short cry of encouragement, she rushed towards
the target.
***
The command room staff looked up at the big screen. Misato's red
jacket was a noticeable splotch of color amid the many tan uniforms of the
lower techs. From the observation galleries that lined the room, one's eye
was immediately drawn to her.
"She has great courage," remarked Maya, her attention split between
the big screen and her own computer.
Shigeru nodded in agreement. "She might not leave anything for
Shinji to do."
"Really?" Makoto looked over at the other two curiously. "None of
the last four angels have been so easy to defeat." Their conversation was
cut short by a battle cry from Usagi.
***
"DIE!" screamed Usagi with a ferocity she had never felt again and
would never feel again. The power she had first realized was at her
fingertips moments ago was now put to full use, her Evangelion bringing the
massive halberd down in a long, sweeping, almost graceful arc. Shinji and
Unit-One could only stand by and watch as the weapon cleanly sliced the
angel in twain.
"Cool," whispered the boy. At least he hadn't had to go through the
torture of fighting in the Evangelion. Perhaps the new girl would be able
to relieve him in the future, and perhaps he wouldn't have to pilot again.
***
"Impressive," murmured Fuyutsuki. By far the easiest victory they
had had over the angels. Gendou hadn't even been there to supervise.
"Anomalous readings from the target!" called out Makoto. "Pattern
blue is increasing . . . doubling!"
"What?" asked the professor. He strode to the railing of his
platform and leaned over to look down at the three top staff. "Doubling?"
"The only conclusion to draw is that it's, well . . . regenerating!"
Maya spun in her chair to face Ritsuko. "That means . . . ."
***
"Um, Misato?" Unit-Two began to backpedal slowly. Before it, the
two halves of the supposedly vanquished angel were beginning to swell and
reconfigure and slide into two copies of the original, doing so with
frightening rapidity. "Misato, is this supposed to happen?" The silence
that followed on the communications channels wasn't encouraging at all.
"Misato?" asked Usagi again.
"Misato?" chimed in Shinji.
"MISATO!" they both yelled, as the two regenerated angels leapt
forward, grabbed the Evangelions, and began to fling them about like very
expensive and very large toys.
***
Maya began the meeting right on time. "This morning at 10:58,
Unit-One was attacked by one half of the angel, designated Alpha, and sank
two kilometers from Surugawan Bay. Five seconds later, Unit-Two was
similarly attacked and neutralized." Pictures on the display screen of the
briefing room showed two purple legs emerging from the water, and two red
legs sticking up from the ground. "Comments?"
At the other end of the conference table, Shinji and Usagi sat with
sheepish expressions on their faces. They had been rushed to the conference
room as soon as their Evangelions were excavated; both still wore their
plugsuits. Usagi could feel the LCL drying and itching in her hair. She
yearned to scratch it, but forced herself to stay still.
"Pretty poor showing," said Ritsuko.
"Yes. At 11:03 NERV, lacking any additional assets, relinquished
control of the operation to conventional UN forces."
"How humiliating," muttered Fuyutsuki.
"At 11:05," continued Maya, "UN conventional forces used an N2 bomb
on the angel."
"Another new lake," commented the oldest man in the room, rubbing
his chin thoughtfully. "Have to update the map again, and give it a name."
The crater from the blast was already filling with water; he suspected that
by the time it was all over Tokyo-3 would be completely underwater.
"UN forces destroyed twenty-eight percent of the angel."
Usagi brightened and leaned forward. "So it's dead?"
"No," said Fuyutsuki sternly, "it is not. The UN merely kept it
from marching straight to us. It's only a matter of time until the next
attack.
Kaji stretched casually and interlaced his fingers. "At least we
have some time to prepare for the next assault."
"Yes," echoed Fuyutsuki. Captain Katsuragi and Dr. Akagi will be
working with you. Remember, this will undoubtedly be our last opportunity
to eliminate the angels before they come to the city proper. We must make
this count. Dismissed."
***
Night was falling over Tokyo-3 as the two trudged along the
sidewalk. Shinji's head hung on his neck, lost in the world of his thoughts
and his SDAT player. Life had dealt him another bad hand, and now he again
had to live with the consequences, the greatest of which would be the pain
of disappointing his father yet again.
Usagi sighed. "It wasn't *our* fault it split in two, was it? Why
should we get blamed?" Her eyes flashed in the cool white glow of the
streetlamps as they waited at an intersection whose edges were marked with
yellow and black caution stripes.
"Um, Usagi, it *was* our fault." He briefly considered his
options before continuing. "Your fault, since if you hadn't sliced-"
"Shut up!" The sign changed from don't walk to walk, and they
started across the street. "Sorry," she muttered.
Shinji blinked in surprise and slid the headphones down from his
ears. "Um, okay." So few of the people who yelled at him apologized; it
wasn't something he was accustomed to, especially after his brief experience
with Asuka.
"How is Misato? At planning, I mean. Is she any good?"
"I don't know, really . . . ."
"What do you mean you don't know? You've been fighting angels for
weeks and months, haven't you? You must know if she's any good!"
Shinji slipped his hands into the comforting pockets of his
trousers. "Not really . . . usually things just happen. We don't have much
of a plan." He looked up at the sky, but most of the stars were washed out
by the lights of the city, and only the full moon was visible. He
remembered a night not too long ago when the city lights were out, though,
and the Milky Way stretched like an arch in the sky. "Well, once we had a
plan . . . but it almost didn't work."
Usagi shrugged and clasped her hands behind her back. She, like
Shinji, was in her school uniform, and this particular skirt was a new one.
It was still slightly stiff, since she had just put it on after leaving
Central Dogma. "What was it?"
"Misato found a," he paused over the words, "a positronic rifle, and
used it against an angel."
"Positronic? And it can get past an AT field?"
"I guess so. It was the only thing we had left, the angel would
attack anything that came within range of itself."
"Uh-huh." Usagi yearned for a stick of gum. "Why didn't they tell
me about it when they were listing all the available weapons?"
"It's a bit large, and it needed lots of power."
"How much? We've got umbilical cables for our Evas, they should
work out fine."
"It blacked out all of Japan."
"Oh . . . oh! Is that what that was about?" She pursed her lips in
amazement; the government authorities had simply said that there would be a
planned blackout at midnight, and for everyone to stay inside. Not wanting
to cause trouble, she had obediently sat with the others in candlelight,
listening to the younger children sing songs as she caught up on her
homework. There had been no explanation, though the inevitable rumors came
from the south that it had something to do with the angels. "What happened
to it?"
"I don't know, the recovery crews took care of it."
Usagi nodded; the recovery crews that picked up the pieces after
angel battles were little of their concern. "I guess it's there if we need
it again. Hey, why don't we use it all the time?"
Shinji shrugged. "I don't know, you could ask Misato."
"If she's sober, you mean." Usagi scowled; she had no tolerance for
alcoholism, especially not in someone who was supposed to be her guardian.
She'd known plenty of kids in Hokkaido who were there specifically because
their parents were drunkards.
"Misato isn't that bad," he said defensively. "She's just a bit
different."
Usagi sighed as they reached the apartment complex. "Everyone in
this whole damn city is different. It makes me sick."
***
Misato greeted the two at the door with a smile, hands out and
bracing herself against the doorframe. "Hi kids!" Usagi muttered something
noncommittal and ducked under Misato's outstretched arm. "Not so fast,
Usagi. We have some things to talk about."
Usagi kicked off her shoes and went to the refrigerator, frowning
mightily. "Misato, you forgot to buy groceries again, didn't you?"
"Um, well . . . that's not important." She closed the door as
Shinji trudged inside, then leaned against the wall and folded her arms on
her ample chest, feeling the comfortably smooth red fabric of her jacket.
"I have a plan."
Shinji cringed. Misato's plans generally involved his being beaten
within an inch of his life. "Plan?"
"Well, of course we have to have a plan to defeat the angel."
Usagi grinned and bounced on her heels, her red eyes brimming with
excitement. "What's the plan, Misato?"
Misato smiled, went to the refrigerator, and pulled out a nice cold
Yebisu beer. She closed the door and leaned against the appliance, pulling
open the tab with a snap and fizz, then guzzling down half the can. Shinji
didn't react to this, but Usagi still wrinkled her nose at the sight of her
erstwhile guardian poisoning her liver. "This angel has one weakness we've
determined so far: it's vulnerable to a coordinated two-pronged attack on
its core when the two halves separate."
"Makes sense," said Usagi. "So we'll attack it from two directions
at once?"
"Not that simple. You and Shinji will have to be *completely*
synchronized."
"How completely?" asked the pink-haired girl.
"Totally. You'll live together, sleep together, everything."
"NO!" shouted Shinji and Usagi at once.
"That's not allowed," protested Usagi, stamping her foot. "I'm not
going to sleep with some guy!"
Misato placed her beer on the counter and put her hands on her hips,
looking down sternly at the two pilots. "Right now that angel is
regenerating itself, and it'll be coming back at us in less than a week.
There's no time to argue about this, okay?"
"Madness," muttered Usagi. She turned her back and walked a few
steps away, shaking her head.
"Whether or not it's madness, you'll do it, and here's how." She
pulled a small minidisc from her jacket pocket and flipped it to Shinji, who
nearly dropped it before managing to hold on. "The attack will be
choreographed to the music on this disk. We have six days to prepare!"
Shinji considered his options, then decided that protesting would
accomplish nothing. "I guess it's okay, then."
"Hmph!"
***
Touji and Kensuke straightened their hair and made sure they were
presentable before arriving at the door of Misato Katsuragi's apartment.
Touji paused just before knocking on the door. "I hope he's okay. I'm
pretty worried about how Shinji's been doing."
"Yeah, he hasn't been to school in . . . three days or so." Kensuke
blinked and turned at the sound of another pair of shoes clicking on the
metal floor. Touji turned with him and smiled with a mix of anticipation of
derision. "Hey, it's our good old class rep."
"Two of the Three Stooges," replied Hikari with a curt bow. She
tossed one of her two ponytails back over her shoulder.
"Why are you here?" asked Touji, shoving his hands into his pockets
and rolling on the balls of his feet.
"*I* am here to ask how Usagi is feeling; she's been absent several
days. And what might you be doing here?"
"Asking what's up with Shinji," Kensuke replied. He knocked, and
all three blinked when the door slid open.
Shinji and Usagi stood shoulder to shoulder, Shinji's hair
disheveled and Usagi's ponytails slightly frayed. Both were in exercise
clothes, and Usagi had a towel draped over her shoulder. "Hi!" they said in
unison.
Hikari stared. Kensuke stared. Touji made a noise of disgust.
"Betrayal!"
"They look like they're married," said Kensuke, rubbing his
forehead. "Must be the heat . . . ."
Usagi and Shinji continued to speak as one, without the slightest
deviation. The three were thoroughly frightened by it. "This is Misato's
plan for synchronization."
"This isn't natural!" Hikari was aghast.
"No, it's not what you think!" said the duo.
"It bloody well *is* what I think!"
The situation was prevented from further deterioration by the
appearance of Misato, wearing scandalously short shorts and a white cotton
t-shirt, a stopwatch slung around her neck and hanging just below the cross
she always wore. "Oh, hi there."
For once, Touji didn't drool on sight of the purple-haired
bombshell. "What's going on, Misato?"
***
Four days before D-Day
Usagi stepped off the bus, slipping the earbuds of her SDAT player
around her neck as she did so. After seeing Shinji listen to his almost
constantly, she had bitten the bullet and bought one herself. It was mildly
irritating to her that the children were entrusted with the survival of the
human race, and yet made little more than the attendants at one of Tokyo-3's
fast-food restaurants.
As the bus silently pulled away on battery power, Usagi walked
across the concrete surface of the observation overlook, its whiteness
turned orange in the light of the setting sun. She walked to the railing at
the edge of the area and leaned on it with her elbows.
"Tokyo-3." The third Tokyo city, so named because two had come
before it. She had visited Tokyo-2 several times, most recently the
previous year for a custody hearing. The pink-haired teen sighed, mentally
comparing the traditional sprawl and general messiness of Japan's capital
with the neat, orderly, and above all scientific layout of Tokyo-3.
Both were better than the original Tokyo, though. She had visited
it only once, during a trip for her school's history class. It was the city
in which her mother and father were born and raised, but the ruins the N2
bombs left held no interest for young Usagi Tsukino. The First Tokyo City
was a city of death, and she had hated it.
In contrast, the Third Tokyo City that she now overlooked was
vibrant and full of life. It was like a technological wonderland to her,
and knowing what lay beneath it was even more exciting. For now, the tall
spires of the central city were withdrawn into defensive position. That
morning she had ridden the train down to the floor of the Geofront, and as
always ogled the inverted city that hung from its roof. It was truly a
modern city of the twenty-first century. It was worth defending.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" came a melodious voice behind her,
unknowingly agreeing with her thoughts, and Usagi spun around to face its
voice. "The city, that is."
"Oh, hi Misato," said Usagi, more annoyed than anything at having
her solitude disrupted. "Do you come here often?"
"A few times." Misato stretched and yawned, then wandered over to
the railing and leaned out against it, letting the slight updraft from the
city tousle her purple hair. "Shinji comes here quite a bit as well."
"I didn't know he ever left his room."
Misato blinked at the harsh tone of her voice. "Is having to synch
with him getting to you?"
"No, of course not." Usagi sat on one of the benches. It was still
warm from the perpetual summer sun. "Well, maybe a bit."
"Then what?"
Usagi sighed. "You wouldn't understand."
"Try me. I'm your guardian, aren't I? That means your welfare is
my responsibility, and if there's something bothering you I'll try my best
to solve it. So, what's wrong?"
The pink-haired child remained silent for a long moment that
stretched into several. "What's wrong with Shinji?"
"What do you mean?" Misato knew exactly what she meant, but she
hadn't had the time to have a nice long talk with the girl. She hated to
admit that she knew so much less about her than she had Asuka, seeing as how
she only had the Marduk reports to go on where Usagi was concerned. At
least
she'd had the opportunity to travel to Germany and meet Asuka. Her first
encounter with Usagi had been that day at Central Dogma.
"He's always so depressed. What happened to him, really? Did he
get hurt in the Eva or something?"
"Shinji is . . . a lot like you, in some ways." Usagi perked up at
this, and Misato smiled. "He's different in a lot of ways, too, but still.
He had a . . . well, his mother is dead, and he doesn't get along well with
his father."
"His father? Who's that?"
Misato blinked and turned around, now leaning her hips against the
rail with her arms folded just below her chest. "You don't know?"
"Why would I . . . no way!" She shook her head against the
possibility.
"Sorry, but it's no coincidence that Commander Ikari shares a name
with Shinji."
"What the hell happened there?" asked Usagi in surprise.
Misato shrugged. "I wouldn't guess," she lied. It was easy for her
to see that Gendou Ikari was far too involved in running NERV to give his
son more than the most cursory of attention, pushing Misato into a parental
role. There was no need to give Usagi such a lesson in human nature so
early. It was already bad enough that she'd been pressed into service to
pilot the giant Evangelion.
"Hm. So is that why he's always weirded out? His dad, um,
Commander Ikari must be awful to him."
You have no idea. "I think he cares for him quite a bit."
"Yeah, I guess you're right." Usagi looked down at her knees. "At
least he has a father." She sighed, knowing what Misato must be ready to
ask next. "Yes, I do miss him a bit. I feel like I know him just because
of what my aunts told me."
"I didn't know you had any other relatives."
"Oh . . . well, I call them aunts, but they aren't really related.
They're, well they were friends of my parents. Aunt Ami, Aunt Rei, Aunt
Makoto, Aunt Minako."
Misato shifted slightly, narrowing her eyes against the last few
rays of sunlight stabbing between the mountains. The disk of the sun was
almost completely gone. "You must have been close to them, then."
"Very close. After Mother died they were all I had, really. The
people at the orphanage were nice, but they had lots of other kids to worry
about."
'There's an understatement,' mused Misato. Second Impact had left
behind thousands of orphans--including herself, she thought with only a
trace of bitterness. Reflexively a hand snaked down to brush her stomach.
"Where are they now?"
"Gone. They, um, they went on a vacation. A typhoon struck, and
they couldn't get out in time." Usagi gripped the bench tightly, a slight
motion Misato did not fail to notice.
"I'm sure they'd be proud of what you're doing now. You're doing a
great service to humanity."
"Misato?"
"Hm?"
Usagi lightened her grip and looked up at the sky. The last sliver
of the sun had finally slipped behind the mountains, and the sky was
darkening rapidly. "Just what *are* the Angels? Why do they fight us?
What do they want? How . . . how many are there?"
Misato smiled sadly. "In order: we don't know, we don't know, we
don't know, and we don't know. There's a lot that's a mystery about them,
though we do know that at least one was genetically almost identical to us
humans."
Usagi turned around at that, her ponytails whipping around. "What?"
"Ask Ritsuko some time. She can probably explain it better than I
can, but Shinji killed the fourth angel while keeping it intact." Usagi
shivered at the thought of Shinji as a killer; the fact that she was
expected to be one as well hadn't quite sunk in. With luck it never would.
"I think the formal report still isn't out yet, though." Misato frowned at
that; she would have to ask Ritsuko about it. She was usually much quicker
about such things, though perhaps the repairs to Unit-Zero were delaying
matters.
"Okay." Usagi glanced at her watch, clicking on the button to
illuminate the digital display. "Whoa, it's later than I thought. Um,
who's turn is it to fix dinner?"
The dark-haired woman hmmed to herself, a finger to her chin. "I
think it's Shinji's turn, actually." Usagi breathed a sigh of relief; she
wasn't at all sure her gastrointestinal system could handle more of Misato's
supposed cooking. Misato noticed the sigh, but chose to ignore it; she knew
she was a bad cook, but her wards didn't have to keep rubbing it in. "Come
on, I'll drive you home." Usagi nodded as Misato pulled the car keys from
the pocket of her jacket.
***
T-minus eight hours, fifty-three minutes, twenty-two seconds
The train clicked softly as the carriage hit the slight offset
of the tracks. Usagi tore her eyes away from the panorama of the Geofront
that lay before and below her. Despite the fact that she'd come this way
many times during her stay in Tokyo-3, the sight of what was beneath all of
it never wore old. In particular, the trees that grew on the slopes of the
Geofront, as well the buildings that hung from the cavern's ceiling, were
enough to hold her attention for hours. Normally, at least.
Today she had other things on her mind, and she looked at the other
two occupants of the car. Shinji and Rei sat opposite her, Rei looking
straight ahead, Shinji looking straight down at the dull gray floor. Usagi
wondered what he found so fascinating about the occasional white streaks on
the rubberized surface.
"Hey, Shinji?"
The boy looked up sharply and slipped off his headphones. "Yes?"
"Nervous? You were tapping your foot there."
Shinji looked down and away, and Usagi throttled the urge to sigh at
his antics. Couldn't the boy ever look someone in the eyes? "I suppose,
but it's not something I think about anymore."
"Really?"
He nodded slowly. "Being afraid doesn't change anything. It just
has to be done."
Usagi wrinkled her nose. "How fatalistic. You could at least try
to be enthusiastic about it."
"What's there to be enthusiastic about? I don't like piloting Eva,
and it doesn't come naturally. But I have to do it, don't I."
"Doesn't come naturally? I thought you had a really high sync rate,
Shinji? At least, higher than mine."
"I guess. It doesn't change things."
"Yes it *does*. Shinji, we're going into a battle, and you have to
give your best!" Usagi was quite irritated at this point. She was the
rookie, if anyone should need a pep talk at this point it should have been
her. She shouldn't have to give encouragement to Shinji, who was the
veteran of several battles against the angels.
"Sorry."
"Quit saying you're sorry, too. It doesn't make things any better."
Her eyes narrowed. "Rei, tell him how it is!"
Rei's expression didn't show a flicker of change. "He is correct.
We do as we are ordered."
Usagi blinked twice. "Right. You two are no help." The train
flashed into a tunnel, and the open vista of the Geofront was replaced by
the steady yellow blur of passing lights. "At least tell me you're ready
for the operation."
"Um, yes," said Shinji.
"Yes," said Rei, the short clipped syllable like a bang in the car.
While she would have no active role, her Evangelion would be pressed back
into service if the worst occurred and Shinji and Usagi failed.
Usagi tried not to think about that. "Okay." She glanced at the
position indicator at the front of the train as the blinking white dot of
the train neared the appropriate station. "I wish we could just get this
over with already." She looked at Shinji levelly. "Remember, ninety-two
seconds and it'll all be over."
"Right." The train slowed to a stop.
***
Central Dogma Control Room
T-minus three minutes, twenty-eight seconds
"Target is now passing the second defensive perimeter."
The staff in the command center watched the seventh angel stalk
closer to Tokyo-3. It walked through a mountain pass, ignoring the air
platforms which surrounded it, and stomped through a rice paddy.
Misato gave the main viewing screen a long look. Their quarry was
gray, with large arms that seemed to extend directly from its head without
need of shoulders. Another screen showed it on the map of Tokyo-3 and the
surrounding area. It crossed a yellow circle outline, and its indicator
light turned red.
She turned to another screen. This split cockpit-view pictures of
Shinji and Usagi in their respectively blue and pink plug suits. "Guys, are
you ready?"
"Roger!" they said in unison.
"Remember, when the music starts, you'll proceed with the attack as
choreographed. You'll have exactly one hundred seconds of battery power, so
there's no margin for error, and remember that I believe in you."
"Crossing final perimeter!" cried out Makoto. The angel now stood
in
the center of Tokyo-3.
Misato gave a quick look around the command deck. Makoto, Shigeru,
and Maya sat at their seats; Ritsuko and Kaji were at her left and right.
She squashed the momentary flash of irritation at the thought of Kaji's
presence; the operation took supreme priority. "Detach umbilical cords!"
***
In the cages, the two Evangelions stood waiting and ready on the
launch platforms. Usagi struggled to control her breathing in the LCL,
feeling the pressure and fear of failure. This had to work, otherwise
mankind was finished. Biting her lower lip, she summoned up the courage
which had served her well in her first sortie. Almost unconsciously, she
gripped the manual controls tightly.
Two floors below her, the umbilical cord that supplied power to her
red Unit Two detached itself as the cord connected to Unit One did the same.
***
Misato nodded briefly as the power indicators for the Evangelions
switched from external feed to internal batteries. The digital displays
shone bright yellow and informed all observers the Evangelions could operate
for one minute and forty seconds. Allowing eight seconds to pass the
order . . . . "Ready for launch!"
"Ready, ma'am!" replied Maya.
"LAUNCH!"
The clocks ticked over to 1:32.00.
***
Dong. Dong. Dong. Then silence, during which the two children
could hear the slight rattling of their Evangelions rocketing up through the
tunnel system and above the surface.
The first guitar riff came just as they cleared the launch doors,
both set in neighboring traffic intersections. The sudden flash of sunlight
came as a very brief shock to the pilots, but they were quick to brush it
off.
An arpeggio led into a brief synthesizer lead as the Evangelions
soared through the air on the momentum imparted to them by the launch
elevators. As they flew, both pilots could see the angel far below them as
it turned to view this most recent threat, which it had thought was disposed
with. Both Evangelions lifted the spears they had launched with and threw
them down at the angel, splitting it.
1:05 left, and then the words began as the angel reformed into its
twin parts.
1:04 Gomen ne sunao janakute
Both Evangelions landed.
1:01 Yume no naka nara ieru
Their impacts shook the ground as they as one reached for the
weapons storage buildings which were already sliding open.
0:58 Shikou kairo wa shooto sunzen
They opened fire on the angel.
0:54 Ima sugu aitai yo
Their fire had no noticeable effect on the angel, however, except
perhaps to irritate it severely.
0:51 Nakitaku naru you na moonlight
They kept up their fire, both simultaneously moving away from the
targets on opposite vectors. As a result, the angel's parts were drawn
further and further apart as the street fight continued.
0:47 Denwa mo dekinai midnight
The path of the Evangelions was carefully planned, though.
0:44 Datte junjou doushiyou
It brought them around in an oval pattern. The two were soon side
by side, facing the angel as it bore down on them in a wall of red and blue
death.
0:40 Haato wa mangekyou
The Evangelions tossed aside their weapons and began to dance.
0:37 Tsuki no hikari ni michibikare
Its choreography was superb. As the angel's parts sent forth bolts
of plasma, blasting the ground at the Evangelions' feet, the two
biomechanical robots leapt and somersaulted with a grace and agility that
few
could have anticipated or even dreamed of.
0:30 Nando mo meguriau
Each jump, each landing, each flip came in perfect time, and the
Evangelions did so in perfect unison. Their combined thunder shook the
city, sending slight streamers of dust down to the floor of the Geofront.
0:24 Seiza no matataki kazoe uranau koi no yukue
Their dance ended as a reinforced steel blast plate sprang up behind
them at the conclusion of another somersault. The plasma bolt heavily
dented and damaged the plate, but it bought the Evangelions enough time to
leap out of the way and run.
0:17 Onaji kuni ni umareta no
By now the angel's constituent parts were becoming weak, both from
the fighting and the attack. In the control room, Misato pressed the
offensive, ordering artillery and missile fire from the buildings and
surrounding hills.
0:14 Mirakuru romansu
The two Evangelions charged, seeing the angel's cores exposed at
last by the continuous conventional barrage. Grins of joy crossed the faces
of the pilots as they leapt as one to seize their opportunity.
0:10 Shinjite iru no mirakuru romansu
At the last syllable of the last word, the heavily armored feet of
two Evangelions slammed into the unprotected cores of the angel. The feet
were perhaps the strongest on Earth, and were reinforced by the nearly
impenetrable force of an AT field. The cores didn't stand a chance.
The angel slid back along the ground, propelled by the momentum of
the Evangelions. As they smashed into one of the hills overlooking Tokyo-3,
the strain proved too much for the seventh angel. Its cores cracked, bled,
and finally glowed with a bright flash of light, milliseconds before a
final, titanic detonation which obliterated the hill and was visible for
kilometers around.
The power indicators for the two Evangelion units read 0:00.
***
All was quiet in the control room, save for the soft hum of the air
conditioning systems and the occasional beep of a computer berating its
human operator. Finally, the smoke cleared from the crater of what would
become the newest Ashino lake, and NERV's cameras gained a lock on the
debris.
"Both Evas are functional," reported Maya. All could see them,
laying side by side in the crater, battered and bruised, but not beaten.
***
Darkness. With no power, the visual displays were dead, and all was
black in Usagi's plug, save the slight red glow from an emergency light
whose placement she couldn't quite see.
Her eyes were wide open in her personal LCL sea, and her hands shook
with the adrenaline which had flooded her veins in the last one hundred
seconds. The fluid filling her lungs kept her rapid breathing from rasping
in the dark, silent entry plug. Her thumb hovered over the switch which
would eject her plug.
She couldn't push it, though. She could do nothing but tremble,
shiver, and try to fight back the panic of having faced death and survived.
"Mama . . . what have I done?"
---to be continued?
===============================
It's been a year since I actually finished a story. Actually, this
may not count, since it's really a rewrite of something I did a couple years
back, but after a drought this long I'm not inclined to be picky. I'll
quite definitely take what I can get.
The "to be continued" is mainly a small play on the TBC which
follows each Evangelion episode. I have no real intention of continuing on
to the next logical course, which would be Episode 10, "Magmadiver." The
main concept of the story is the impact Chibiusa would have on the
Evangelion world, after all. As such, there really wouldn't be much of a
difference in the progression of the story until the coming fo the ninth
angel. After that, probably not until the fourteenth (fifteenth? I've lost
track, and it's late).
Anyway, I hope you liked it. Comments of any sort are welcome at
[email protected].
First draft: 23:59 20 March 2001
First edit: 21:09 22 March 2001
Second edit: 20:28 13 April 2001
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