From: Ben Gaines Subject: [Eva][FanFic] Interlude Parts I & II *Interlude* A Neon Genesis Evangelion Fanfic by Ben Gaines Comments/Criticism greatly appreciated (boopythegreat@hotmail.com) *SPOILER ALERT* This fanfic may contain spoilers if you haven't seen the entire series. Legal Shtuff: Neon Genesis Evangelion is property of Gainex, as are the characters thus related. While I do claim Divine Power and Omniscence, as well as dominion over the vast majority of the known world, I have yet to aquire Gainex, and thus, these characters aren't mine. But then, I believe that's the whole point of a fanfic. Read, enjoy, gimme feedback or I'll eat your family. One more thing: This fanfic takes place in between the 14th and 15th angel attacks, after Shinji has reemerged from Unit 01, and while Asuka's synch rates are dropping. Kaji is still alive at this point, and Fuiyutski hasn't been taken. __________________________________________________________________________________ *INTERLUDE* Part I The Room Without Walls scene: White light fills the area, making all things indistinguishable save the prone form of Shinji Ikari. Shinji Ikari finds himself floating vaguely in water... a distant look crosses his face. Long, white luminescent hair is dangling down upon him, but the source remains unknown. "What is this feeling?" "It feels like... melting." "I feel as though my body is melting, but at the same time not. As though I'm uniting with another "being, a person." "That smell." "What is it? A human smell? Clean, and comforting." "Who?" "Mother?" Rei Ayanami stands before Shinji, her back to the entry plug, knee-deep in LCL fluid. Her eyes hold a cold, but sad, indifference. Her figure is silhouetted against the entry plug by a pale light from above and behind Shinji. Rei's pale skin takes on an almost porcelain complexion. The first children regards Shinji quietly but intently. "Rei!?" "......" "Rei Ayanami...?" "-what?" "Rei, where am I?" "......." "How did you get here Rei?" "I don't know." "What is this place Rei? How did we come to be here? Where is everyone?" ".... I don't understand..." ...... The lights fade dimly, and Rei's expression does not change as crimson tears well up in her eyes and slowly trickle down her cheeks. Rei echoes "-shinji.-" before all fades to an almost opaque blue.. His voice cracking and weak, Shinji Ikari cries out... "Hello?" "Anyone?" "MISATO!" "ASUKA!" "RITSIKO!" "KAJI!" "MOTH-" Gendo Ikari appears before the terrified Shinji, looking down. The commander's shadow falls upon Shinji as the room fades to red... "father....." "_What_ is it, Shinji?" Shinji cannot help but look away. His face down and to the left, Shinji's eyes drop into a woeful grimace. "......." "_WHAT_ do you want, Shinji?" w..w..wwhere is everybody? Rei was just here bu- Ice dripping from his words, the commander says, "Is that all? ... the others are where they always been.. as far as you are relevant." "a..as far as I'm... _relevant_?" With a metallic CLANK everything that is Gendo Ikari is gone within Shinji. LCL rises again to greet Shinji's legs. -Ikari..- "Ayanami?" Shinji finds himself in a room with no walls.. a slight mist gathers about his chest as his words echo back to him, carrying with them fear and desperation. The mist thickens into fog, and the LCL before him begins to glow in a human shape. "Where are you Ayanami? I can't see you!" -You are... relevant to me, Ikari-kun.- The form of light stands. It is slight of frame, small, delicate, feminine. Laminating a soft moonlight, the figure glides as it moves.. a sad, waning light trails ever so slightly after each shift. As it approaches Shinji, the lines become more distinct, the features more noticeable.. Rei. The figure nears Shinji. Shinji's arms and legs tighten.. his face quivers. Locked in a trance of fear, Shinji Ikari, the messiah of the future, the warrior-child whose name is known through the world, boils over in terror. A look of fear and wonder permeates Shinji's countenance as the shimmering form lays her hands upon his chest... Static. A blink, a flash. A flutter of light And everything within Shinji Ikari that is Rei, is gone. "Rei?" "Rei?!" "Rei where are you? Help me please someone help me I can't see anything there aren't any walls in this room how am I supposed to get out of here help me PLEASE JUST GET ME OUT OF 'HERE!!!!" And so, the child that is Shinji Ikari drops to his knees, collapsing in tears he can barely fathom. Part II The Price of Wisdom *two hours earlier* "STATUS REPORT NOW!!" Dr. Ritsuko Akagi is standing tensely over Maya, staring in disbelief as to what she's seeing. Humanoid figures, roughly forty feet in height, slight, almost nymph-like as they dance in the air above Tokyo-3. Long trails of light are left behind to mark their passing. "Maya, pattern color." "There must be some error. The magi can't explain, but the figures register as having no pattern whatsoever." "THAT'S NOT POSSIBLE. It must be an angel, some new use of an AT field: cloaking patterns. Perhaps they think that's how we see them." "The magi suggest we deploy an Eva to monitor at a distance." Ritsuko Akagi scowled.. she hated not knowing what was going on. She hated have to tell the commander she had no idea what this thing was. She hated how foolish it made her look. The commander's voice rolled down from above, "Launch Evangelion Units 0 and 2." Ritsuko frowned. She understood how the commander could be so conveniently cold, but still, Asuka shouldn't pilot until she's had a few more psychiatric sessions to ensure her mental stability... Ikari was being a fool.. the damage done by the stress of that terrible battle with the fourteenth angel.. and Asuka's dropping sync tests.. there was too much at risk.. "Commander, are you sure Asuka is fit to pilot?" "..her injuries have healed, correct?" -Ice, just like him... "Yes Sir." "..then she can pilot." * * * Asuka Langley Soyrou was cold. Her body temperature registered at just under 97.2, and her pulse was irregular, but that had nothing to do with it. The chill that filled her ran inside her marrow, within her heart, and weaved about her very soul. She didn't care anymore about saving humanity, or Shinji, or showing off to Kaji. She didn't care.. she was afraid. Afraid of losing Eva. Afraid of losing her worth. Afraid of losing the interest of others. "Mine gott in himmel.. what _are_ those things?" "Those are the targets, Asuka. Stay back and observe, we don't know if they're angels yet.." Misato's voice clicked on over the intercom. "Of course their angels! What else could they be? Okay wonder girl, you cover me, I'm going in." "ASUKA DON'T YOU DARE ENGAGE WITHOUT MY PERMISSION!" Rei Ayanami was, unlike her counterpart, warm. Her body temperature was, like her counterpart's, just below 97.2, 1.2 degrees higher than normal. She felt warmer than that, though. She felt an unfamiliar sensation creeping up her back, like fingers counting every nerve from her lowest ribs up. It gripped her chest, her shoulders, and at last her neck. The warmth spread down the muscles in her arms... first her biceps, then her forearms... out towards her fingers. It was about this time she realized that those waves had also washed down her legs, to the knee. Her tendons and muscles moaned a silent pain as her calves seemed to tighten and relax at the same time. She felt something quite odd, her skin felt sensitive beneath the plug suit, very sensitive. The suit almost hurt to wear.. as did the entry plug. Her hands felt moist, and fearful of contact with anything, as even the air stung her soft skin. She breathed a frightened sigh, shocked by the jittery sob that escaped her chest. She was... confused. One thought, a mere phantom image, traced the other boundaries of her consciousness... -Shinji.- Rei Ayanami's temperature increased 1.8 degrees. * * * The surreal visage of the "angelic" figures swirling about in the picturesque sky above Tokyo 3 was broken by the sounds of the Evas rising out of the ground. With an ear-shattering THUD the Evas came to a simultaneous stop. The metal shudders opened, revealing two of the race known as Evangelion. The evas lurched forward only a moment before animating in lithe, fluid motions; cutting of the angel's left and right flanks. Unit 02, ax in hand, sped toward one figure, while Unit 00 darted from building to building, watching, waiting. "Too late for that, Misato. I'm going in!" Asuka's ever-confident voice rang across the com. "Asuka, NO!!! Rei! Back her up if the target attacks." "Understood." "'DAMN HER!" Misato slammed her fist down on the desk. Unit 01 was not cleared to be let out of freeze, and Shinji hadn't been cleared to pilot it, even if it had. Too much was riding on this to let Asuka's pride interfere.. there _was_ no backup plan, no last line of defense. This was it, everything went into this fight. Misato looked back, seeing the commander, cool as ever, hands arched, the sub commander standing behind to the left as always. "Major" exuded Gendo Ikari, "We cannot have pilots who disregard orders at times like this." Misato looked to the floor, "y... yes sir. I'll handle it when she comes back.." -If she comes back- Misato thought to herself. "Ikari, this wasn't mentioned in the dead sea scrolls.. what are you doing?" "Relax, Fuyutski, this isn't my doing. Variations are inevitable.. Seele will learn to except that." "But then what-" Gendo Ikari grinned. * * * Unit 02 had engaged the enemy. Or, at least, the pilot thought it had. Strangely though, it seemed as though the fight was at a stalemate. The elegant, though rigid, attacks the enemy made on Unit 02 seemed, no matter how fast, just _barely_ out of range, while Unit 02's attempts upon the angel seemed to always slip away, as the target seem to shift and move just perfectly to avoid damage. The second "dancer" had continued its course undisturbed. "Rei, why aren't you backing her up?" shrieked Misato. Rei was, however, not connected to her senses enough to hear the major. Had Rei been conscious, she would have noticed the tall, creeping figure clad in shadows which, until that moment, had evaded the Magi's sensors. But it was too late for what could have been... "OBJECT DETECTED 50 METERS IN FRONT OF UNIT 00! PATTERN BLUE! I.D. confirmed... an angel." Maya Ibuki's brow was dotted with beads of sweat from the tension. "Object approaching Unit 00 at a speed of-" Shinji Ikari was sitting in Evangelion Unit 01. He was cold. His body temperature was maintained at 98.6 by his plug suit.. but what the sensors never registered was how it felt to synchronize with a frozen -thing-. -Cold.- -Why am I here? I don't want to pilot this stupid thing.. after all that's happened.. after Toji.. after the fight with the last angel. Why am I here when my father won't let me help... what use am I now? - Shinji voice, barely a whisper, drifted a soft, but hateful, "Damn you" which was lost in the stagnant LCL. Shinji heard a scream, on the boarders of pain and terror. His thoughts were lost as his mind raced and his muscles tightened... he felt his heart miss a beat. He felt the weight in his stomach.. the pressure in his veins.. his hands clenched. "Ayanami?" The angel had made it's move. The figure, only roughly humanoid, lanky and deformed, darted from out of the shadows towards Rei. It seemed to absorb, rather than cast, shadows. Indeed, the figure could hardly be called luminous, as light seemed to fall into it: a walking abyss. Caught off guard, Rei was unable to respond before if reached her. Rei screamed as the figure grappled her Eva. But rather than the pain of being crushed, or beaten, or lacerated, or any of the other sensations that Rei had known, she felt her body dissolving, wearing away wherever the angel touched her. Again, Rei matched her previous exclamation in volume and intensity. From without the sight was no less horrifying. Unit 00 seemed to be immersed, bound, and permeated by the tenebrous fluid figure which had now planted itself within her. * * * Rei Ayanami was no longer in her Eva. Or rather.. she was, but in being within herself, she was not. That which shaped her current reality was within herself, and in being, she was not within Eva. Before her lay a decimated Tokyo 3: a great crater, filled with water to lake-like proportions. Wreckage still protruded from the water's clear, passive surface. The sky... red. Clouds glowed orange as the buildings which remained took on a mercuric crimson. To her left, Rei heard a voice, soft and earnest, filled with sorrow and tenderness, break the silence of the moment. The voice was that of a boy, but unlike any Rei had heard before. A tint of dark, accepting inflection fused with understanding and care. "I traveled thro' a land of men. A land of man and women, too And her and saw such dreadful things As cold earth wanderers never knew." Rei turn to face him. The boy sat upon a rock twisted and shaped by the ages, hallowed and polished by the sacramental waves.. "For there the Babe is born in joy That was begotten in dire woe Just as we Reap in joy the fruit Which we in bitter tears did Sow" Rei squinted her eyes. Despite the tricks the light of the setting sun played upon her vision, Rei could begin to distinguish some of his features. His hair was soft brown, and seemed to protrude from his head oddly. His countenance was held gently, a soft smile spread across his face, but there seemed little joy in it. His hands seemed paler than the rest of him, and he was dressed simply, in a school uniform. An inviting aura surrounded him, soothing the water his words had disturbed, it seemed. "And if the babe is born a boy, He's given to a woman old. She nails him down upon a rock, And catches his shrieks in cups of gold." Rei could barely see something familiar beneith the layers of bangs which hid much of his face from her view. Something faintly red. Something glossed with tears. His eyes.. was he crying? Why would this boy be crying? "The poem, Rei, do you know it?" "No. How is it that you know my name?" "I know many things which are hidden to you Rei.. or rather that you've looked away from because they frighten you." "Like what?" "It doesn't matter..." the boy looked down for a moment. "You will still do this, you know." "Do what?" "This." With that the boy motioned outwards, towards the sea that had settled in the crater. Rei glanced across the water, observing the beauty of the serene area.. she felt calm, relaxed by the sound of the water moving in waves to touch the shore. The movement, water, agreeable. It was then that Rei heard sobs coming from the shore. A small figure leaned against a rock, legs curled up, facing across the water. The sobs grew in volume, until they echoed across the water and ignored the interference of the waves. Then, and only then, did Rei know who was crying. She'd heard it before, in her entry plug after the battle with the fifth angel. Those sobs... they were... his. "Shinji" "Yes.." the boy paused for a moment.. "the human heart feels pain so freely, this one especially, though I cannot say that his loss does not merit lamentation. love is something which his heart has trouble holding, like a broken vessel. in this, he can hold the loss even less..." "What do you mean?" "He is in pain. life, to him, has lost all meaning.. there is a feeling, a taste about him which leaks his very soul upon the ground.. his heart is filled with love and desire.. with thoughts of joy." "How can both those things be possibly true?" "Aren't you even going to ask why he's crying?" Rei's eyes led her face downwards.. but her eyes never settled upon the ground, as though she was looking at the air that separated the two.. "W..why is Ikari crying?" "Because he loved you. The pain was too great for him, and the numbness waits until his body had felt the enough of the cold.." "This pain, these tears, it is for me, then?" "Yes.. a wish against the impossible. he wishes for your presence, your touch. It will not come though... and so, he cries." "I can do nothing, then?" "You could always try..." Rei's eye's continued to look downward for several moments, as she pondered what had happened.. she considered her companion, and her feelings for Ikari. Her eyes widened. A sudden realization awoke within her.. a memory of a boy standing at a telephone, holding a piece of paper in his free hand. He looked across the street, towards her.. * * * Rei was back on the seashore, with the brown haired boy upon the rock, and Shinji at the water's edge, now standing and staring out to sea, tears in his eyes. "Ikari" Rei's voice called out, just loud enough that he should hear it, but no response came. "Ikari?" Slightly louder now. The figure began to move, not in response to what she said though, but rather towards the waves.. the water greeting his feet, his knees, his legs.. "IKARI!" And everything within Rei Ayanami that was Shinji, was gone. "I weep for you, Rei Ayanami. Because for you, that is all that can be done." Rei looked back, tears in her eyes, her face pale and calm, save for a slight quiver in her lips, toward the brown haired boy with the soft voice, but he was gone. After a moment, the boy's voice echoed in Rei's ears, barely perceptible. "And these are the gems of the Human Soul The rubies & pearls of a lovesick eye The countless gold of the akeing heart The martyrs groan & the lovers sigh" -Martyr... lover...- Rei's eyes fell again, toward the air that separated her from the soil by the sea. * * * Chaos had gripped Nerv central. Makoto shouted back and forth with Huga, comparing readouts, trying to find how what fifteen years of data collection had proven to be an impossible use of an AT Field had just been registered. Ikari and Fuyutski both waited patiently above, watching the technicians scurry like ants. "Ikari this angel wasn't predicted.. not even mentioned in the dead sea scrolls. This can't be Areal, Ikari." "I doubt it will have any effect on the schedule." "It doesn't matter, Ikari. A new angel, what does this mean?" "............ I don't know.." Had the sub commander been in visual range of anyone, and had anyone looked, they would have seen a look of horror cross the once professor's paling face. Maya Ibuki had worked at nerve for almost two years now.. when she joined, her motivation was two-fold. First, like most of the Nerv personnel, she wanted to contribute to the salvation of the human race. She wanted to do something good, something noble. But truly, that was all ideology, a concept too far removed from day to day life for her to grasp. Her second, and more pressing reason was the opportunity to study under Dr. Ritsuko Akagi, the foremost expert in her field. Maya had come to understand nearly everything possible about the Evas, about the Magi, and about how A.T. fields worked. And all that suddenly wasn't making any sense. Either the Magi were wrong, and they never were, or all she'd learned theorized about A.T. fields was wrong. It had taken a moment, but she began to see a pattern in the dancing lights' movement. The figure, the light itself didn't move, only the AT field did. It was almost as though the AT field was simply bending the light into a figure, and that the angel was in fact not laminating its own light.. at though it was all an illusion. And the it hit her... It was. But more importantly, the angel itself, the shadowy figure with the pattern, the thing which had since engulfed Unit 00 in a dark binding, had a pattern shift phase she knew she'd seen before. Then she realized why it was so familiar.. But it was too late. The portion of the AT field which still surrounded the shadowy figure began to decrease in value.. quickly.. too quickly for it to be the Eva neutralizing.. besides, Unit 00 for some reason wasn't registering an AT field... almost as though.. no... not that again.... Sea of Durak. A hole in space. "The Magi have detected an AT field being inverted around the target, frequency is..... THE FREQUENCY IS IDENTICLE TO THAT OF THE 11TH ANGEL! Pattern shifts also identical!" "THAT'S NOT POSSIBLE!!" Dr. Akagi spat out... feeling degraded already. "An inverted AT field is being detected around the target! A Sea of Durak is opening around Unit 00! The figures of light and the corresponding AT fields have vanished.." "EJECT THE ENTRY PLUG NOW!" "No response." * * * Outside, the sight was not a pretty one. Tormented beyond frustration by its inability to touch the targets, Asuka had destroyed three buildings in a mad rush to hit the luminescent "angels" before they vanished. That, however, was the lesser of two evils. Not 200 yards away an unearthly Unit 00 lay on the battlefield. The Eva wrenched in pain as shadows coalesqued about and penetrated into the armored frame. Tendrils of shadows oozed out the eyes as three giant tentacles of tenebrous fluid impaled the Eva's torso, giving the writhing Eva an appearance which was nothing short of demonic.. bones cracked audibly as the armor split and blood gushed out the wounds.. flowing upon the shattered land.. the shadow permeated the Eva's body, rooting itself in and flowing into the veins filled with fleeting blood.. Rei Ayanami was, briefly, in pain as she regained consciousness. She felt her bones bend, sheer, and shatter as something writhed within her, violating her. Beyond the pain of her flesh splitting, her lungs collapsing, and her heart itself being constricted, her felt something... different. The thing within her felt as though it had dimension without space. Her skin parted her muscle and bone where it moved, but she seemed to feel the very touch of oblivion as it writhed.. the feeling was, disturbing. she felt herself slipping away... loosing an attachment to her body.. Beyond the pain, beyond the feeling of violation, there was something else which gnawed at her mind. -What is this feeling? Why do I feel in my mind that which my body cannot?- The brown haired boy's voice warmly, gently touched her mind. "You are afraid." -Afraid? Is this the thing which is known as fear? What do I fear?- The voice offered no response.. instead, Rei's mind's eye grasped one last image before darkness overcame her. -Ikari- And then, Rei Ayanami's world faded to black.. nothing left for her to see.. sounds faded.. she lost feeling... the taste of blood left her nose and mouth... and before the darkness overcame her mind, she was granted one last message... "What do you want, Rei?" End Part II -To be Continued Notes: The poem used in Part II is an exerpt of William Blake's "The Mental Traveler" and in no way is my creation.