This is an AU of the quite good Evangelion fanfic "Nobody Dies," branching off from Chapter 75. In this work, Lilith did not give up those she had taken, but was eventually defeated. We start 20 years afterward, with Mana Kirishima.
Chapter 1 – Papillon
Mana sat on the wooden balcony, taking in the summer evening. Stretched out below her were the forests of Maine in the mature bloom of August; green seas broken here and there by clear lakes. From here one could see the far off Blue Mountains on a clear day. There was little sound, just the various noises of the woods around her. Once in a while could be heard deer leaping through the foliage. Behind her, through the screen door, she could hear the soft sound of the television, tuned to the local news. Maine, never very exciting before Second Impact, had become even more distant from the world around it. Just the way the locals liked it.
"Well the beautiful weather we've had so far looks like it's come to an end, as it's likely we'll be getting some major thunderstorms from the west in the next few days," informed the weather reporter, by her voice probably a young woman. "What a shame, let's hope Bangor doesn't get cut off by floods like last year. Thanks for that, Jill," replied one of the anchors, an older man. "Moving on, our top story tonight: Oxford Hills bribery scandal - Who Knew What?"
Mana tuned her attention out, and thought about what to do with herself. Her weekly dinner with the Frederickson couple was two days from then, on Friday. She wondered why the continued to bring her out every week. "Probably some sense of self-sacrificing duty - 'Oh, let's help the foreign woman make friends! It'll be such credit to us in our screwed-up Congregationalist church that we're reaching out to her at our cost, I mean how could she have friends-'" She stopped that train of thought, and realized she was being uncharitable to them. The Fredericksons were nice, if extraordinarily parochial. When Mana had found herself alone in Harrison, they had been the first to come and see her on a regular basis. Their way of checking up on her. With their children grown, married, and moved off to such distant locales as New Portland and Augusta, they had a lot of free time on their hands. Although Mana was certain there would never be a day when the operations of their puzzle company would ever interest her in the slightest, they were friendly, open, and at least made the pretense of listening to her.
Not that Mana spoke very much. Once she had been the most outspoken and vivacious in that most elite of groups - the Evangelion pilots. Well, barring one. If she had told her past self that one day she would spend days on end in rural America, young her probably would have punched her through a wall. But the years had mellowed her out somewhat. Of course, she still fondly remembered the day she had made a Lieutenant General in the American army fall apart in a quivering heap of piss and tears with a tirade that was still spoken of in the military as one spoke of famed Illium, but she found that it wasn't necessary to destroy everyone in the path of her objectives. Once you get to a certain point, she found, your reputation fights for you. And she had used that to great effect as the "Head JSSDF Representative to the Joint Chiefs of Staff."
The sound of a woodpecker ramming its face against a tree pulled her out of her memories. What to do with myself? she thought. There was a stack of papers with her name on it inside her office, but she decided not to deal with it that evening. Instead, she walked into the living room and headed for the bookcase. Novels, treatises, poetry, the smallest fraction of a library that took up a good portion of the basement. And only a fraction of it hers. She pulled a volume out at random, well-worn dark red leather with a coat of arms embossed on the front cover. She flicked to the end to see if it was worth reading:
"They, looking back, all the eastern side beheld
Of Paradise, so late their happy seat,
Waved over by that flaming brand, the gate
With dreadful faces thronged and fiery arms:
Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon;
The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide;
They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way."
Mana, her hands slightly shaking, closed the book, and placed it back on the shelf. She frowned, realizing her hands shouldn't be doing that. Maybe they were too well synced with her. She wondered if he might bring up the possibility of desynchronizing her limbs, an idea she wasn't fond of. She still wore the ring on her left hand for a reason, and she wanted to be sure she could feel it. She pulled out another volume, a Hemingway novella. With book in hand she opened up the closet that served as her bar, and poured herself a measure of whiskey. The restraint of not pulling straight from the bottle would have amazed her younger self.
She sat back down in the chair on the balcony, placing the glass on the wooden table, and cracked open the book, Over the River and Through the Woods.
"-and with the economy as it is, people just aren't buying puzzles like they used to. I mean, the last thousand-piece one we sold was almost 4 months ago. If this keeps up I'm worried we may have to lay off a worker or two," explained David Frederickson, aged owner of the Harrison Puzzle Company. Mana cut up the alfredo chicken in front of her, listening to her meal companions. "Oh, I don't even want to think about that," said David's wife Lisa, "I mean, they're all such good workers, and I'm just not sure there are any jobs as good as ours in town! I can't imagine turning someone like Cynthia out, or what about Jacob? Doesn't he have a new baby boy?" David sighed, "I know, sweetie. I don't like thinking about it either. But! we forget our manners with Miss Kirishima. I'm sure she's more than sick of hearing about our woes!" they both laughed, and Mana smiled. "It's not a problem, I swear," Mana said, "it's your livelihood. I'd be talking about my own, if it wouldn't get me shot," she laughed at the end, letting the other two know it was a joke.
Around them, The Old Factory bustled with diners and waitresses. On the main road through Harrison, it attracted a good number of customers from the surrounding towns and villages. Mana had been adverse to the idea at first, thinking that it would be lobster-this or lobster-that, but she had been pleasantly surprised the first time she had been taken there.
"So Miss Kirishima, how are you?" Lisa asked. Mana blinked, realizing she must have zoned out for a few moments. "Oh, I'm, uh, I'm alright. I've been able to throw most of my work onto my subordinates for a while - you know, the maintenance reports, requisition forms, all that shhiii-crud. All that crud." David began laughing and pounding his palm onto the table, while Lisa rolled her eyes. Wiping away a tear from his eye, David spoke "Please, Miss Kirishima, we're not that prudish. If you want to call it bureaucratic bullshit, you ought to! Too often people catch themselves from speaking what's on their minds, when they ought to let the truth come rushing out!" He laughed as he spoke. Mana chuckled with him and Lisa. "If I remember correctly, Mr. Fred-" Mana began, when Mr. Frederickson interjected with "David!" "-David, didn't you say that it was because you were a little too open with your opinion on your manager that you got fired from that IT company you started off in?"
David smiled. "You remember correctly, Mana my dear! 'Computer Systems Analysis' based in my old hometown of Bangor." David stopped for a moment, thinking. "Say Mana, I hope you don't mind me asking, but where *is* home for you?"
Mana stopped the fork at her mouth for a moment, then slowly bit the slice of chicken and chewed it. She looked at her glass of beer, the condensation on its surface slowly dripping down to darken the white tablecloth. After a moment Lisa said "It's alright if you don't-" "That's a good question," Mana finally said. She looked at the two, worried for a moment why they were asking, but tamped down her old habitual response of shutting herself off. "I'd have to say it was back in Japan. Tokyo-3. Haven't been back since I left."
"You know, it might do you some good to head back there," David ventured. Mana shifted her eyes to him and raised an eyebrow, "Says the man who hasn't left Harrison in 13 years?" She smiled at the two. "True, you have me there! But that's also because we make sure the kids come to us, rather than the other way around." "That's just because you're too lazy to leave town," Lisa said. "When did this become an interrogation about me?" David asked. The old couple bickered as most are wont to do.
After 2 hours or so, she bid them goodnight, and walked back to her home from the restaurant. As she walked up the road, she flipped up the nail of her right ring finger, revealing a flashlight. As she opened the door to the house, she sat down in front of her computer and began working on some forms. But her thoughts were turned to home.
From the moment Mana had first arrived in North Dakota, when she was barely considered a legal adult, and asked to train men and women with a decade on her how to pilot the descendants of the Jet Alone Prime and T-RIDEN-T series, she had hated the state. And hated it with the passion she could bring to bear that few could match. It was the worst of all possible landscapes - not the beautiful mountains of western Montana, or the now quickly-growing forests of Minnesota, instead just a flat expanse, with nary a tree or hill in sight to break up the horizon. For Mana, it had been, and still was, mind-numbingly boring.
As she stepped out of the courier jet she had taken from New Portland onto the landing pad at Trident Base (an attempt at a joking pun from a lowly staffer – a reference to the god of the sea, in a landlocked state! – no one had laughed, even if they had kept the name), Mana felt the emotions rise up again. The thought that at least she wouldn't be here forever kept her from openly scowling. There to meet her under the blinding stadium lights was Lieutenant William Petrosian, her latest assistant. And longest-lasting, as well, having dealt with the fabled "Japanese Demon" for 3 years. His eyes were bloodshot, face unshaved (leaving a dirty patchwork of blond scruff), and uniform slept-in. "Ma'am," he said. His sloppy salute was more sloppily returned. "Lieutenant, good to see you're keeping up your appearances." He grunted and mumbled against that, then took a PDA out, and handed it over to Mana. She took it, and began scanning the contents as they walked towards the base's train system. Around them milled the last workers of the night shift, finishing their work in the pre-dawn twilight.
As the two sat down in an otherwise empty car, it accelerated slightly, and began descending. William yawned, folded his arms, and closed his eyes. Mana tried to read the material, but her mind wouldn't focus on it. Unit Gamma, a 3rd-generation Jet-Alone Prime, was scheduled for an activation test at 0730 hours that bleary Monday morning. Mana was there to provide "supervision and experiential advice." That was about as much Mana could get out of the 30 page long report on the PDA William had given her.
Taking a deep breath, she looked over at William, snoring quietly in the seat across the aisle from her. He did what she asked him, and didn't try to come into her life any other way. She respected him for that. As she looked, behind him the view out the windows turned from the dark tunnel to the interior of the 2nd U.S. Geofront. An amazing sight to anyone who hadn't seen one, but one she had gotten used to long before.
After getting off the tram and making their way to the JA-P³ hangars, they arrived to find most of the necessary staff already there. Head technician Patrick Sizzo was checking through the various pre-activation tests, Chief Pilot Chester Jefferson sat holding his chin in his left palm, eyes glazed over, and Base Commander Paola Hernandez stood, back straight, keeping an imperious eye over the various underlings. As Hernandez heard the door open, she shot her glance over to Mana.
"Colonel Kirishima, nice to have you join us this morning," she said, then turning her eyes out the windows in front to Unit Gamma's bronze colored 'head'.
"Well good morning to you too, General," Mana said, then wandered over to the far side of the room and sat in a chair next to Chester.
"Morning, Krish," he said, handing her a cup of coffee. She took a long drink, and exhaled happy sounds. "Morning Jeff, and thank you."
"Not a problem," he replied.
"So," Mana said, "what exactly are we here for?"
Chester kicked out his legs, "I'm pretty sure we're here so that if anything goes wrong, Hernandez can blame us. This is her first activation test, and I'm not sure we've had any unit start off without some hitch. I think she's afraid there might be a repeat of Unit Zeta."
"Urgh," she said, shuddering, "don't remind me." She was about to ask Chester how he had been, when Sizzo called out that everything was ready. Mana looked at a clock, 0730 on the dot. Sizzo was many things, but one could not fault him for being late.
"Alright then," General Hernandez said, "let's begin the test. Captain Howard, are you ready?" she asked the viewscreen in front of her, showing the inside of Gamma's cockpit. The suited figure shot a thumbs up. "Let's start this up," he said. "Good. Sizzo, let's begin."
Sizzo stood behind one of the techs, and began calling out the stages of activation. He reached the penultimate portion, and Mana found her body tensing up. Usually tests had the screw up well before the end, except for Zeta, which had tried to eat the pilots mind with the first mental connection. She prayed this wouldn't go the same way.
"Full activation in 20 seconds!" cried Sizzo. Mana looked around the room, and saw the same tension in everyone else, people squeezing their cups of coffee, or fidgeting in their seats. All except William, who was nonchalantly biting off a sliver of one of his fingernails, and flicking it away from him.
"10 seconds! 9... 8... 7... 6... 5... 4... 3... 2... 1..-" Just as the countdown was about to end, the entire testing room and machine went dark. For a terrible moment, everyone sat there in the quiet black.
"What the HELL just happened?" cried Hernandez, and then everyone snapped back into work to get the power back online.
"Aw damn," said Mana. There went her easy week at Trident.
It had taken 2 hours for Mana and General Hernandez to stop yelling at each other. At the moment, Mana, Chester, Sizzo, and the Base Physician Emily Conn were all waiting around a small wooden conference table in the Trident headquarter pyramid. Unable to leave until Hernandez was back from reporting this to the Joint Chiefs, they whiled away the time, sleeping (Sizzo), brewing probably unhealthy amounts of coffee (Chester), or doodling in their notebook (Conn). Mana looked over at some of Conn's drawings, remarkably lifelike renditions of the other people in the room, including a sketch of the sleeping Sizzo.
"Wow, you even got the sliver of drool coming out of his mouth. I'm impressed," she said. Conn laughed, and was about to respond when Hernandez slid open the door and walked in. Without a word, she sat down at the head of the table.
"So what's the word?" asked Chester, giving Sizzo a forceful push to his head to wake him up.
Hernandez frowned. "All tests are to be put on hold indefinitely. Captain Howard is to be kept in medical until we know for sure how he's doing."
Conn frowned as well. "We know how he is, he's fine. Maybe a little rattled from all the adrenaline, but he's no worse for wear."
"The Joint Chiefs don't want to screw up anymore," Hernandez replied.
"So what are they thinking of now? This is the third time a JA-P³ unit has had a botched activation test," Mana said.
Hernandez looked straight at her. "That's apparently where you come in, Colonel Kirishima. The Joint Chiefs, for all the past enmity with them, have realized they need the help of Nerv. And they want you to go to Tokyo-3 and try and get it, if you accept."
All eyes moved to Mana. She leaned back in her chair, finished her cup of coffee, crumpled it and threw it into the trash can. She nodded her head.
"I'll do it."