LILITH'S CHIMERA
a dark angel/shin seiki evangelion crossover
SPOILERS: DARK ANGEL PILOT, FLUSHED, ..AND JESUS BROUGHT A CASSEROLE, MEOW, POLLO LOCO; I.E., ANY AND ALL
DARK ANGEL EPISODES THAT INCLUDED THOSE DARLING MANTICORE KIDS. EVANGELION
SERIES LEADING UP TO EPISODE 24. TAKES PLACE BEFORE NAGISA KAWORU [TABRIS, THE 17TH ANGEL AND FIFTH CHILDREN] WAS
DELIVERED TO NERV BY SEELE.
SUMMARY: IT'S 2015. THE FIFTH CHILD HAS BEEN FOUND. BUT SHE HAS A BARCODE ON HER NECK?!
PROJECT MANTICORE WAS STARTED IN THE MID 1980'S SHORTLY AFTER RECOBINANT DNA STRATAGIES
WERE MADE AVAILABLE TO THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. THE PERFECT SOLDIER WAS TO BE MANUFACTURED BY
COMBINING HUMAN DNA AND OTHER ANIMAL DNA TO MAKE THE MOST POWERFUL CHIMERA SOLDIER EVER BORN. BUT
WAS THERE ANOTHER PURPOSE? DID DONALD MICHAEL LYDECKER AND RENFRO KNOW ABOUT SEELE AND THEIR
DEAD SEA SCROLLS, AND THE GEHIRN COMMITTEE? THE X5 CROP OF MANTICORE WAS BORN IN THE YEARS 1999 AND 2000--
YEARS BEFORE AND DURING SECOND IMPACT, BUT PROTECTED FROM IT. WERE THE MANTICORE KIDS REALLY FOR JUST THE PURPOSE OF INFANTRY SOLDIERY?
12 GENERATION X5 CHILDREN ESCAPED FROM THE MANTICORE BASE IN GILETTE, WYOMING IN 2009. WHERE DID THEY GO?
A SORT OF ALTERNATE UNIVERSE DARK ANGEL CROSSOVER. MAX GUEVARA, X5-452, NEVER WENT TO SEATTLE. NEVER MET ORIGINAL CINDY,
SKETCHY, OR EVEN LOGAN CALE. INSTEAD, SHE DECIDED TO GO TO TOKYO-3 TO ESCAPE MANTICORE'S WATCHFUL EYE...BUT WHAT
WAS SHE GETTING HERSELF, AND HER SIBLINGS UP TO? WILL MANTICORE HUNT HER DOWN ONCE MORE?
1. stille nacht [the still night]
max guevara had just arrived in tokyo-3. she was fifteen, and fresh out of running from manticore in the US. she'd been tired of running.
she hadn't found zack, or tinga or the others--hell, she never even knew who had made it. her heart hurt whenever she thought of her siblings;
mischeivous-eyed krit, grinning jondy, serious zack, ever-joking ben...she never knew who made it. now she was
dressed in a fuku, and going to the local school. she had to blend in, after all. she'd been growing her hair out since the escape to
hide her barcode. no one could know. it was enemy territory, she had to keep moving.
luckily, she'd taken a crash course in japanese on the way over. since she was a manticore girl she
absorbed everything quickly. she was prepared to start her new life in tokyo-3.
she never had been really exposed to second impact. manticore, like most G-8 government structures, had
been reinforced through that sorta thing. but they'd been shown slides in their recon classes, and told about
the destruction. and about cities like tokyo-2 and tokyo-3. there were such cities in los angeles, new york,
and washington DC. she knew. the lab techs sometimes had made small talk during routine breath-holding activities
about what had really happened.
she sighed, and brushed her hair out of her face. that was the past. now, for the future.
she walked into the school, ready for a new day.
+++
akagi ritsuko slammed down the phone. they were doing syncrotests with shinji, and rei, and now coming
to the end of the experiments. asuka's mind had been too badly damaged with the last angel attack, and now
they had to overwrite the pilot for unit 02.
"katsuragi-ichi", ritsuko called, "the fifth child has arrived."
"yes, the marduk reports said that she would be the one." misato said, as ritsuko was handing her
the marduk institute's reports.
"go to the school and get her, take her here." gendo ikari said from behind his hands at his desk,
"we can't waste any time in intigrating her into unit 02. no time at all."
"yes sir." misato said, and picked up the phone. "get me NERV intelligence. yes? this is katsuragi-ichi
from project E. go get the fifth child. over and out."
+++
"class, this is max guevara, and she is from wyoming, USA. she will be joining us from today foreward.
i expect you all to help her get integrated into our class."
"hai, hai." the class mumbled, and a girl with brown hair in pigtails bounced up and offered max her hand.
"irrashaimasu! i'm the class representative, hikari." she said.
"max." max smiled cautiously.
"i will help you get caught up with everything."
"arigato." max's tongue rolled over the words, and she smiled. she might like it here.
a few minutes later, a few men in black suits showed up. max felt panic rising within her. she got up from the
seat she'd just sat down in. she had to leave, and now. were these more men from manticore to take her back?
"guevara max-kun, please come with us."
"why should i?" she asked defiantly, and everyone around them gasped. no one talked to NERV guys like that!
"we're from NERV. please come with us and we will explain on the way." they took her by the arms and led her into the
hallway. once away from prying eyes, max easily got out of their grip. she formed her fighting position, looking them
up and down.
"who are you?" she asked in an angry voice, "are you lydecker's men?"
the men looked at her blankly.
"no. we are from NERV, the UN agency. please come with us."
"are you from manticore?"
"no."
"fine. i'll go with you." she said, whipping a knife from her shoe, "but if you're lying, which you probably are,
you'll be dead."
the men turned their backs and whispered to each other, then turned back around and nodded.
"that will be fine. we did not expect it would be easy for you to cooperate, guevara-kun."
+++
as max rode in the car, she was slowly amazed at the scenery in the desending tokyo-3. they were heading
straight to geo-front to meet gendo ikari and the rest of the project E committee.
"it's beautiful." she said softly, "the US was so bad after both the pulse and second impact. a double whammy..."
but she remained on guard. she felt a sinking in her stomach as she was taken down into the depths of the earth,
the valley of the tokai region before second impact, to the geo-front. she was going to go to manticore after all.
was she? she would have to see what happened before she made a move.
"this is your ID card." they handed her a small ID card with the words "NERV", a barcode [NOT HERS!] and her name
emblazened across its white surface.
"can't you tell me what this is about? i mean, if i'm going back to manticore, i'd be told. i know that for a fact."
"you're not." one of the men said, and they turned into the lot. they descended further into the bowels of NERV,
into central dogma.
"what is this place?"
"surely, you know. from your childhood."
max went cold.
"so you know." she said calmly, "does lydecker know?"
"do you think we want to slit our own throats? of course not. japanese-US relations have been bad since the
whole fiasco with unit 03 and the fourth child."
"you mean..the accident near here? the plane crash?"
"guevara-kun, you surprise me! surely, surely you know that was a coverup. it was an angel."
max flashed back on her childhood.
[max is eight years old, in the classroom. slides of gehirn HQ flashed across the screen. second impact.
adam, the first angel. lilith, the second angel, hidden in japan. pictures of the then-new MAGI supercomputers and
a proud, ALIVE, akagi naoko standing close to her achievements. the evangelion experiments.
"you have been created not to be just soldiers, but also, to serve as backups to help humanity. currently,
in tokyo-2, the evangelion project has been going on for quite sometime. we're hot on creating a bio-humanoid,
not unlike yourselves, to defend ourselves from any future attacks from these so-called 'angels'." here, lydecker
used quotation marks in his sarcasm. then he turned serious once more. "but yes, these truly are angels. not the nice
sweet kind perpetuated by modern christianity. adam, who you see here, also known as the giant of light, wiped out half of humanity
in the second impact--which happened while all of you were being born. you will help us defend not only this country, but
this world from further interruptions..."]
when she flashed back to reality, the door was opening to the control panel to central dogma. shinji and
rei were just climbing out of the simulated entry plugs and gendo ikari stood face to face with her.
another flash from her childhood. lydecker talking with the man in front of her.
"YOU!" she gasped, and took a step back, "what are YOU doing here?!"
"x5-452, wasn't it?" he asked coldly, "or max? you remember me, don't you?"
"you talked with lydecker when i was a child. i was told you haven't talked to him about this."
"of course not. the US has been on information freeze since unit 03 was sent in--we suspect they may have been with SEELE
on sending us a previously infected evangelion unit." gendo turned to watch the screen of the retreating children.
"what's going on here?"
"we needed you. and you had escaped, and looked for solace here." gendo wore a half smile.
"you can help us. you are the fifth child."
"what?"
"you heard me. you will help us defend our world from further destruction." gendo echoed lydecker's words seven years before.
"hate to cut this short, but what does all of this have to do with me?"
"your barcode. your intended purpose."
"i am NOT to be used as a toy soldier!" she yelled at him, tackling him with ease and holding her
knife to his throat. "i may have been raised that way, but i'm NOT the way you want me to be."
there was a collective gasp when max leaped upon gendo. he waved everyone off who were worriedly advancing.
"you going to kill me, max? wouldn't that be satisfying manticore's original intentions for you?"
she got up off of him and composed herself.
"help us and we'll throw manticore off your tracks. we're ready to compose a dummy plug of you and make a big
deal of 'killing you off'."
"what about my siblings?"
"we'll find a way to notify all twelve of them."
"twelve?" max's voice cracked, "only twelve?"
"you never knew how many made it, did you?" he smiled, "we can help. help us, and we'll help you."
max thought a second.
"if i find out that you're lying, which is not assured, and you turn me in, i WILL kill you." she said, narrowing her eyes.
"if you leak about me, i'll leak about you."
"done." gendo stuck out his hand to shake. max hesitantly looked at it.
"make eleven more dummy plugs and you got a deal." she said, "otherwise, i won't do this."
"akagi-sensei?"
"hai?" ritsuko came running.
"show guevara-kun a live camera shot of the lab. she wants assurance that her siblings' dummy dupes will be
manufactured."
maya called up a live camera of the dummy plug factory. twelve womb-substitute tanks on standby.
"we were ready for you to make a deal like this." gendo commented calmly, "you x5 kids are very terratorial
about your siblings."
"it runs in the family", max quipped nastily. she took gendo's hand. "you have a deal. for now."
gendo just smiled.
"show guevara-kun to the cages, then get her a plug suit. indoctrination will begin immediately."
+++
"this..." max said quietly, looking up at the three big evangelion figures, "i remember this..."
"these are evas." misato said, gesturing to the robots, "units 00, 01..." they stopped
in front of the large red one, "and yours. unit 02..."