From: "Jeffrey Hosmer" AUTHOR'S WARNING: A good chunk of this first episode is taken from episode 18 of Neon Genesis Evangelion. Everything that happened in the series before this point happened in my timeline, except that EVA Unit 04 was not lost. I apologize for the lack of creativity this implies, but I needed to set the stage. Future parts will diverge wildly from the series, so I must ask for your patience with this part. KAWORU'S CHOICE Part One: "The Outcry Against Sodom and Gomorrah Is So Great and Their Sin So Grievous That I Will Go Down and See If What They Have Done Is As Bad As the Outcry That Has Reached Me. If Not, I Will Know." (Genesis 18:20-21) By Jeffrey Hosmer ***** Matsushiro Testing Facility, Japan. The underground testing facility was a frantic hive of activity. In it's temporary cage, Evangelion Unit 03 sat silently, a black behemoth of unplumbed potential. Around it, the tiny humans it was built to serve continued their assigned tasks. "Unit Three activation test: T minus 30 minutes." "Primary power, standing by." "Apotheosis No.2, all clear." "Refrigeration systems in all sections functioning at standard levels." "Pressure lock on left arm secured in place." In the nexus of all this activity, the Activation Test Control Center, two women sit. One, a blonde wearing a white lab coat, was at a console, starting intently at the information it was feeding her. "Roger. Team B, start the operation," Dr. Akagi Ritsuko said into her mike before checking off another step on her clipboard. Behind her, the other woman, a striking beauty with long dark hair, looked bored. "Data link to Evangelion Unit Three established," said another voice over the intercom. Ritsuko, never looking up from her computer, said, "It's possible to use this in battle now." " Oh, good for you," said Katsuragi Misato, the dark haired woman. "You don't sound that eager," Ritsuko replied. "When this unit is delivered, it will be under your direct command." "Exclusive possession of four EVAs..." Misato narrowed her eyes sarcastically. "If we wanted to, we could destroy the world. And we'll have five once Unit Four arrives." "Did you talk to Shinji?" Ritsuko asked, a little hurriedly. "After this test." Misato looked away from her friend. She still felt guilty over not telling Shinji who the Fourth Child was, but it could wait, couldn't it? "Fourth Child has arrived. Squad Two, begin entry preparations immediately," blared the PA system. "Let's get this show on the road, then," Misato said. ***** Deep inside the quiescent Evangelion, something stirred. It was inhumanly patient, for its mind was not of mortal nature, but something alike to anticipation stirred within its soul as the Entry Plug was inserted within the body of the Evangelion. Soon. It would happen soon. ***** "Entry plug secured. Begin Phase-one connection. Transmitting pulses. Graph display within norms. List clear through 1-3-5-0," said an operator in the control center. "Roger. Transfer the operation to Phase-two," Ritsuko answered. Even Misato leaned forward to observe as the indicators surged to activation. "Full nerve link established. List clear through 2-5-5-0. Harmonics all reading standard. Approaching absolute threshold." The threshold was crossed. Suddenly, the black Unit gave a shudder. On the screen, the synchronization graph, which had been moving into unity, suddenly pulled apart. Sirens blared and emergency lighting lit the area with a red glow. "There's a huge power surge coming from inside the unit!" "Abort the test! Cut the circuits!" Ritsuko yelled, while trying to find what was going on within the giant. The power cable attached to the back of the black Evangelion detached, shooting away from its host. The Evangelion surged against the restraints on it, regardless. "Impossible! High energy response within the unit!" Misato and Ritsuko both stared in horrified disbelief as the skin of the Evangelion began to warp and twist. "It can't be... an Angel?" whispered Ritsuko. The Matsushiro Testing Facility exploded in a blast of pure white light. ***** Back at NERV Headquarters, the staff shifted into high gear. "Accident involving an explosion at Matsushiro," reported Aoba Shigeru, the NERV Communications Officer. The long-haired technician bent over his console, rapidly shifting mental gears from music to the information, sketchy as it was, that his computer was feeding him. "Status unknown," said Ibuki Maya, Ritsuko's assistant. Safely ensconced above the chaos, Fuyutsuki Kozo, Sub-commander of NERV, barked out an order. "Send Rescue and the 3rd Corps. Take care of everything before the Self Defense Force comes." "Roger," replied Hyuga Makoto, Assistant NERV Tactician, acting for the absent Misato. Fuyutsuki sat back and tried not to think of what could have gone wrong... and who was responsible. "Unidentified moving object detected at the site," reported Shigeru. "Pattern orange, cannot be confirmed as an Angel," chimed in Makoto. The Commander of NERV, Ikari Gendou, finally spoke. As unflappable as ever, he seemed unsurprised by the incident. "Class One combat alert," he ordered. "Class One combat alert for all personal," acknowledged Shigeru. "Prepare for ground combat," Makoto said into his mike. "All EVAs to be deployed, and to take positions at the counter attack point," Maya seconded. "Air transportation is scheduled to start in 20 minutes," confirmed a third operator. ***** Three very special young children were rushed out of school by NERV operatives as the very beginning of the alert. Men in black suits and shades seemed to almost melt out of the shadows to hurry their charges along to join their Evangelions at the counter attack point. One of them, however, a boy with brown hair, looked up before entering the government sedan. Across the street, a strange looking boy with gray hair, white skin, and red eyes met his gaze and smiled warmly. Then the brown-haired boy was pushed into the car by his keeper. When Ikari Shinji looked again, the pale-skinned boy was gone. "Come on, idiot!" Asuka Soryu Langley snapped to him as they roared off. "I can't believe a moron like you is actually supposed to have a higher synchronization ratio than me!" As usual, Ayanami Rei said nothing. ***** "We've got a visual from Nobeyama. Visual on the main screen," Shigeru said. The screen that took up the entire far wall of the NERV Command Center flickered to life. There, just coming around a hill, was Evangelion Unit 03. Everyone gasped. "Just as we thought," Fuyutsuki said to Gendou. "Transmit the termination signal. Execute forced ejection of the entry plug," Gendou ordered. ***** On the rogue Evangelion, the hostage Entry Plug tried futilely to escape, but a translucent webbing held it in place. ***** "Impossible," Maya replied. "It doesn't recognize either the termination signal or the plug ejection code." "How about the pilot?" Gendou asked. The question might have been asked by rote, however, for all the concern he showed. "We have his respiration and pulse... however--" Makoto began. "From this time, Evangelion Unit Three is expendable," Gendou interrupted, "and the target is recognized as the 13th Angel." "B-But, sir," Makoto stammered. "Develop the front at Nobeyama as planned, and destroy the target," Gendou ordered dispassionately. ***** The three Evangelions deployed to meet their rogue brother. Asuka took the lead, with Rei in a back up position. Shinji, was held back as the final line of defense. "The target is approaching," Shigeru announced over the comm net. "All units, stand by for ground battle," Makoto said, priming the Evangelions. Inside the Entry Plug of Unit 01, Shinji could only stare in horror at the figure on his monitor, silhouetted by the setting sun. The humanoid shape, the shoulder fins, the spindly torso flaring out into a wide chest. It was a shape he saw every time he entered Unit 01. "What? No way... an Angel? You mean that's an Angel?" he stuttered. "Yes. It's the target." His father, the usual distance in his voice amplified by the communications system. "The target? It's an EVA, isn't it?" Shinji couldn't believe it. The Evangelions, he had been told, were mankind's only defense against the Angels. And now he was to destroy one? "I can't believe it," he heard Asuka mutter, echoing his thoughts. "Was it taken over by an Angel?" Shinji couldn't take his eyes off the relayed image. "Is it piloted by a kid, just like the other units? A child my age?" he asked. Asuka's image appeared beside him on a comm screen. "Don't you know yet? In Unit Three--" Then static filled the screen. "Asuka?" Shinji asked. He could hear crashes and other loud sounds coming over the channel. "Aiiiieeeeee!" Asuka suddenly screamed... then the channel went blank. "Asuka!" ***** Just a few hills over, Evangelion Unit 03 walked unconcernedly past the crumpled body of Unit 02. The consciousness within it thought it should do something, but it was still too nebulous, its thinking too hazy, to follow through. The threat was eliminated. That was enough for now. Inside the trapped Entry Plug, Suzuhara Touji slept. The LCL that had filled the tube was changing, not to something toxic, but to something DIFFERENT. The first thing it had done was to knock him out, leaving him prey to what dreams lay beyond mortality. He was standing on a small island, a tiny rock of stability surrounded by a vast ocean of orange LCL fluid. Something was churning the sea, however, sending wave after wave to erode his perch. Behind that churning, he felt a sense of... something. No, someone. It was fuzzy, indistinct, like the someone was not aware of its individuality yet, but was learning of it as a baby learns to walk. "Who are you?" Touji yelled. "WHAT are you?!" BARDIEL It was an answer without voice, a fact without statement. Even as the someone said it, the sense of the Other firmed. The act of naming itself gave it power, direction. BARDIEL, A MESSENGER. ***** Back in NERV HQ, the frantic pace increased as the first defender fell. "Eva Unit Two was silenced completely!" Makoto shouted. "Pilot has ejected. Salvage crew is on the way!" Maya seconded. "The target is moving toward Unit Zero," Shigeru reported. "Rei, avoid close combat and stop the target," Gendou said calmly. "I'll send Unit One soon." "Roger," came the equally expressionless reply. ***** Unit 00 crouched in the lee of a hill, watching and waiting. Soon, the possessed Evangelion marched past Rei's position. As she watched the rogue Unit pass by, she stared at the barely visible Entry Plug through the sight of her weapon. "'He' is inside," she said softly, thinking of Touji Suzuhara. She had barely known him before he had been picked to be the Fourth Child. Then, like an explosion, he had burst into her life. She would miss him, she thought. She felt faintly sad at that. There was an echoing quality to it, a feeling of emptiness, a vague half-memory that she should feel more. Under that, buried deep, was another, darker, undercurrent at her lack of feeling. Suddenly, the black Evangelion contorted, its shoulders and arms twitched as if in an epileptic seizure. Then, before her amazed eyes, it used its AT field against the ground, propelling itself up and... BEHIND HER! Rei was, for one tragic moment, frozen in shock at the unexpected tactic, then Unit 03 was on top of her, pressing her unit into the ground. Then, to her horror, part of the Angel's arm began to drip onto her Unit. ***** "The Angel is invading the left arm of Unit Zero! The synapses are being attacked!" Maya cried. "Cut off the left arm," Gendou said calmly. "Now," he added as Maya turned to look at him in shock. "But we have to sever the neural connection--" she began. "Cut off the left arm." Gendou said, sounding only slightly irritated at being made to repeat himself. "Yes, sir," Maya said, turning back to her console. How could the Commander remain so calm about this? she thought. The shock to Rei would be as bad as if her own arm had been sliced off if they didn't sever the connection first. ***** The Angel continued to drip its ichor into Unit 00's arm. Where it came into contact with the Unit's artificial nerves, it attacked, burning out the synthetics and replacing them with its own substance. A network of veins appeared on the skin of the infected arm, showing how far the Angel- stuff had burrowed. Then, without warning to either Angel or Pilot, Unit 00 blew its own arm off on Maya's command. Rei screamed. Her shoulder felt like razor sharp chain had wrapped around it and then begun to spin while her joint exploded from the inside, riddling her with the shrapnel. But that was only part of it. The actual agony was indescribable. She clutched at her shoulder, her disbelieving mind trying to reconcile the whole, undamaged, arm she could see with the agony she felt. She was certain that HER arm had been severed, the agony was so intense. It made her want to lash out like an animal in a trap at her tormentors. For a moment, impossible images of Gendou, herself as a child, and an older version of herself with brown hair filled her pain- fogged mind. Rei felt herself losing control, being subsumed into Unit 00's agony, and fought back, stubbornly refusing to yield an inch to the wounded beast that now dwelled inside the artificial frame. Slowly, she regained ground. Then the pain died as NERV HQ finally cut the neural connection, leaving only the shock and faint echoes of the agony. This left Rei, who was clutching her shoulder in agony, helpless. She could only watch and see what the Angel would do next. Even amidst the pain, she felt intense relief when it moved away, no longer interested in her. Shuddering, she tried once more to convince herself that her arm was not damaged while a small part of her reveled in the feelings she could only find when piloting her Unit into battle. ***** Bardiel could feel no more life in the artificial being it had attacked. It had gone out like a switch. For a moment, it considered continuing its assimilation of the downed Evangelion, but what would be the point? It was lifeless and missing an arm even if it could be animated. Decision made, the Angel trudged onward toward its goal. Its mind was growing more and more sophisticated as it grew used to its new form. It remembered its Purpose now. It remembered the Source to which it must return. The Lilims had what it needed. It would find it. Then it would all end. ***** "Mid-level damage to Unit Zero, and the pilot has been injured," Shinji heard Maya say over the comm system. "No..." Shinji said, helplessly. At his station, Shinji could only listen in horror as Rei was defeated. When Asuka had gone silent, he hadn't been sure WHAT he had felt. A helpless anger, a fear of loss, something that defied easy answers. Rei's injury evoked equally indecipherable feelings. He shoved all that aside and tried to deal with the problem at hand. He would have to destroy an Evangelion. He would have to kill. It was easy with the Angels. They were the Enemy. He had been told that often enough and had seen the damage they had done, the careless disregard for human lives. Eliminating them was a good thing. But if Unit 03 had a human pilot on board.... His father's voice snapped him out of his fugue. "The target is approaching. You will contact it within 20. You will take care of it." Orders. They were almost the only things he ever heard from his father. Practically the first thing his father had said to him on their reunion was an order to pilot Unit 01. But his father had also praised him, told him he had done well. But how could he follow this order? "You say it's the target," Shinji said, slowly, "but isn't there a person inside? A kid my age." He looked more closely at the approaching Evangelion, zooming in on its back. There, trapped in some sort of webbing, was what he had feared to see. "An entry plug. There IS a person inside of it." He froze and at that moment, the Angel attacked. It charged, leaping at Unit 01 and smashing it back. Jumping away, it landed on all fours, growling ferally. Evangelion Unit 01 struggled to its feet. Without warning, the Angel whipped out its arms. The arms grew impossibly long, grabbing Unit 01 by its throat. Shinji felt as if the Angel's hands were throttling his own throat, he could feel its fingers digging into his skin. Then the Angel spun him around and slammed him into the side of a hill. All Shinji could see was the dark bulk of his attacker, looming over him. ***** "Trouble with life support!" Makoto cried. "The pilot is in danger!" Maya added, working frantically at her console and wishing Ritsuko was present. "Damn it!" Fuyutsuki said. "Cut the synchronization to 60 percent!" "Wait." Everyone turned in shock toward Gendou, who seemed as unperturbed by this as anything. "But if you maintain this condition, the pilot will die," Fuyutsuki said to him in a low voice. Ignoring NERV HQ, Gendou raised his voice to speak to his only son. "Shinji, why don't you fight?" "But there's a person inside, father," came Shinji's breathless reply. "It doesn't matter," Gendou dismissed the concern. "It's an Angel, our Enemy." "But I can't do it. I have to save him. I can't kill a person." "You will die." "I don't care. It's much better than killing someone." ***** Beside the hillside where the two giants struggled, the pale-skinned boy Shinji had seen earlier lounged unconcernedly on a grassy knoll, a stalk of grass in his mouth. He watched the black giant try to strangle the unresisting one and he shook his head. Then his red eyes narrowed and he stared at the Angel. Bardiel suddenly threw back its head and screamed. ***** Touji's small island of stability had been eaten away almost entirely by the ocean of LCL. He had long since run out of curses to throw at the Other he had felt. He wanted to DO something, fight back somehow. "I'm sorry, transfer. I had to hit you. I wouldn't have felt satisfied until I hit you." The words he had said to Shinji on that day echoed in his mind. Was this how Shinji had felt when his Evangelion had gone berserk? This helplessness? Suddenly the LCL sea stopped churning. It came so still, it resembled a polished floor rather than a liquid. NO! yes. Suddenly Touji opened his eyes. He was in the entry plug of Unit 03, surrounded by LCL. The LCL was no longer the clear orange fluid he remembered. Instead, it was cloudy, as if something else was suspended in it. Suddenly, he knew what he had to do. He closed his eyes and concentrated, reaching inside himself for that special something that let him pilot an Evangelion, and PUSHED with it. His head began to pound as he grappled with something he could not name, a resistance he could not define. Then there was a snapping sensation and his push became a shove. Opening his eyes, he saw the monitor flicker back to life. Looking down at his Unit, he saw some sort of goo streaming down from it. He would almost say that the Evangelion was sweating it out. Somehow, it... no HE... was rejecting the Angel. ***** "Change in target!" Makoto said, interrupting whatever Gendou might have said next to his recalcitrant son. Everyone looked up at the screen. Evangelion Unit 03 was positively dripping with the same stuff that it had tried to invade Unit 00 with. But unlike that incident, the stuff seemed to be fleeing the black Unit. "Unit Three is generating an INTERNAL AT Field!" Maya said incredulously. "Fourth Child telemetry back online! Synchronization at 70 percent and rising!" "What! How?" Fuyutsuki said. Gendou merely folded his hands together, covering the lower half of his face as he stared at the screen. ***** The amorphous blob that was Bardiel streamed out of its chosen host in agony and confusion. It didn't see how this could have happened. It needed a new host, but none was available. An attempt to invade Unit 01 would be suicide, it sensed. It flopped and surged helplessly on the ground. Unit 03's eyes flared and it began to move again. Its arms, once again back to a normal length, reached down and began to tear into the blob that had tormented it. Shinji, still gasping for breath, could only watch in amazement as the black Evangelion tore into the Angel. Bits and pieces of the Angel flew as it tore chunks of it away. As the mass of the Angel's goo was reduced, it moved less and less, until everything was still. Bits of it were splattered over roads and buildings, dripping into the river, covering everything in vast swathes, as if a demented painter had gone wild with a 50 foot brush. Then Evangelion Unit 03 turned to Unit 01. Shinji stared up at the face of the giant that had so recently been strangling him. Was it going to attack? Then, to his surprise, it offered him a hand up. A comm channel opened. "Hey, Shinji," Touji said. ***** The boy watched as Evangelion's 01 and 03 powered down. Already he could hear the sirens of approaching NERV vehicles. Time to go. But before he left he looked up at the two creations of man that might one day save the human race. "And so it begins," he said, almost sadly. Then he walked away, humming Beethoven's "Ode to Joy." TO BE CONTINUED Jeffrey Paul Hosmer jhosmer@ix.netcom.com http://www.tass.org/~jhosmer/