Hey you bastar-I mean, comrades...What's going on!? This is my shot at a Third Impact fic...I know there are SOOOO many, and you're probably groaning and saying, "Not another Third Impact fic, that Evincar is so lame, I'm going back to perusing my soft core gay porn". But don't leave! Eehehhe...

For this Third Impact fic, I've decided to start around the middle of EoE, so don't get too confused, this will just start with Shinji already enveloped in the madness that is Third Impact...

Also, I'm going to possibly utilize on of the Alternate Endings to End of Evangelion (Anno had two alternate endings in the script that he never used)...The Severed Hand ending, to be precise...BWAHAHAAH! Those who know what I'm talking about are probably cringing right now, and for good reason....Ehehehe...But I might not use it all the way, we'll see, just stick with me...Ehehehe....

And by the way, don't worry, I'm DEFINITELY not abandoning NGE: Madness...That fic is my main priority, I just began this because I was bored writing the angel battle for Chapter Nine of Madness (Which will be uploaded soon, I guarantee...Ehehhehe)

Well, let's start the show!

Disclaimer: I don't own Evangelion or its characters. Gainax does, and they rock. Who else could create both Evangelion and FLCL?!

"Can I dream alone?"

"That would not be a dream. It would just be a projection of reality."

"Then... where is my dream?"

"That is the extension of reality."

"My... where is my reality?"

"That is at the end of the dream."

Shinji Ikari woke up with a start, sweat dripping off his brow, to find himself laying in the hospital bed, his entire body aching.

He stared at the ceiling, muttering under his breath.

"This unfamiliar ceiling again...perhaps I have grown accustomed to it?

He turned to see a familiar blue-haired girl standing to the side of his bed, her red eyes flashing with unreadable emotions.

"Where am I?"

"Move, move, move, move, move, move, move, move, move, move, move, move, please move! If it doesn't move now, if I don't do it now, everyone's going to die! I can't stand it anymore! It'll all be for nothing if you don't move!"

"Eva Unit 01? No, I'm not there..."

Rei turned to Shinji, her crimson eyes glistening.

"This is the sea of LCL... The primordial soup of life. A world without AT Fields... Without your own shape. An ambiguous world where it is impossible to tell where you end and other people start. A fragile world where you exist everywhere, and thus exist nowhere. You must recover you lost self on your own. When you'll be back on Earth, if you succeed to imagine yourself, everybody will be able to recover"

"Back on Earth?!"

"Yes, you must go back on Earth..."

"Why?!"

Asuka appeared beside Shinji's bed, startling him with her voice, a voice he had grown to love and at times abhor.

"If you don't try to imagine any evolution yourself, nothing will ever change. It is the hearts of people that create their appearance. "

Misato Katsuragi appeared at the foot of the bed, still as she had been before the SEELE invasion, her soft voice piercing into Shinji's very essence.

"And new images will change peoples' hearts and appearances. The power of humans is the power of imagination."

A new commanding voice rose over the others, Shinji craned his head to see a tall man with a cold stare and glistening glasses.

"Father..."

"Shinji, all living things have the ability to return to their original form."

Beside him was a woman with soft brown hair that resembled Rei. Shinji knew very well who she was.

"Mother..."

"As long as the Sun, the Moon and the Earth exist, everything will be all right."

Then there was a flash of light, Shinji let out a shriek, clutching his head.

"What is wrong, Shinji?"

The Third Child raised his head and locked eyes with the warm red eyes of a familiar gray-haired boy.

Shinji stared at Rei and Kawuro as they floated in front of him, images of Tokyo 3 flashing behind them.

A slight smile danced across Rei's face.

"Only Angels can break the walls of an Angel heart."

"And only humans can break the walls of a human heart", said Kawuro

"This is a possibility.", Rei said in her soft voice.

"The possibility that people can understand each other, sometimes.", spoke Kawuro

"Don't try to think we can understand each other. For some reason people think that they can do that. Remember that they can't. Never completely. Never enough."

Gendo Ikari looked his son in the eye, showing almost no emotion.

"People are such sad creatures..."

Rei stared at Shinji, her soft voice interrupting his memory.

"The possibility that they can understand each other without relying on words."

Shinji clutched his head once more, staring at them with wild eyes.

"But that's just make-believe! A wish! A prayer! I can't continue like that forever. Finally, one day, I will be betrayed. They...will...will leave me..."

"But that instant is sincere."

Shinji let out a shriek as he saw limbs protrude from Rei's soft white skin, a leg forming out of her back, an arm here, a face there, she seemed to be seething with humanity, or at least human forms. Rei smiled, speaking even as an arm protruded from her left cheek.

"Do you want to be, even if it may hurt somebody?"

"I'll get hurt too...But...But, I can't do a thing if all I do is fear...I can't live..."

"You protect yourself by hurting others, don't you?"

Misato stared into his eyes as he shivered, tears running down his face.

"You hate yourself, right? That's why you can hurt other people, because you know hurting people is more painful than hurting yourself."

"Maybe. But I'll hurt them in order to be myself. And I'll apologize as well...For being alive...But I find it harder to hurt others...I'm just realizing this again. And I'll keep doing this over and over."

Shinji's eyes bulged out and he let out a scream of rage as the Lance of Longinus cracked in the grasp of Evangelion Unit 01.

He stared at the two Reis in front of him, and he felt tears running down his face.

He gazed at the Rei to his left, and she spoke.

"Why are you crying?"
"Because you're alive, Ayanami. Because you're here and you're safe."
"I'm sorry. I don't know what to do at times like this."

The second Rei turned to the speaking one and an odd look danced across its countenance as it spoke.

"You should smile..."

Shinji grimaced as the Rei's spoke, his voice a hoarse whisper.

"I just felt like I finally understood. I can't. I and the others aren't the same. I'm nothing but one. Even why I pilot Eva, even when I don't, I'm nothing but I. That's all."

The Rei-Faced Evangelions began to petrify, above, as they removed their Lances. Their pieces turned a dark black and they began to disintegrate.

Shinji grit his teeth, pulling on the manual lever to eject his entry plug.

Kouzou Fuyutsuki stood beneath the shade of the lone tree, gazing with a mixture of empathy and sadness at Yui Ikari as she nursed a babe to her bare breast.

"Humans copy the appearance of God to create the Evangelion. Is this the real goal?"

"Yes, professor. Humans can only live mortally on this planet. But, EVA can live forever with the human soul that lives within its body. Even after 500 billion years have past, the earth, moon, and even the sun have disappeared, it will still exist as long as one person is alive. Although it will be very lonely, as long as that person still lives..."

"That will be the sign that humans existed, and they will be preserved forever..."

Evangelion Unit 01 drifted off into outer space, cold and dark, without a soul, without a pilot.

Yui Ikari's hand brushed off her son's face as he floated farther and farther from her touch.

"You'll be okay now, my Shinji..."

"Yes...Goodbye...Mother"

The cold metal entry plug splashed into the ocean of red, bringing up a tumult of crimson waves in its wake.

Great pale white limbs rained upon the earth, as millions of red orbs were strewn onto the planet.

"As somewhere that is unknown to reality, a dream is within reality."

"And reality is in your heart."

"Because it is the human heart that creates your appearance".

"And new thoughts will change peoples' hearts. Imagination... the power of creation. Open your own future, create it." "

Then humans can complement themselves."

"So you have to use your own strength to get your lost self back. Even if you lose your own language, you have to import other peoples' languages. As long as your heart can imagine your own shape, everyone can return to the human form. "

Shinji Ikari lay on the cold beach sand as crimson waves lapped up and down close by. He craned his head, and the giant head of Rei seemed to stare back at him, blaming him for everything.

The Third Child smiled as he stared up at the sky, an odd grin dancing across his face.

There was white hand in his right hand and squeezed it for strength, speaking aloud.

"I'll never see them again..."

The world seemed silent except for his voice.

"It's better to think of it this way..."

He squeezed her hand again, smiling grimly.

"I'm still alive, so I'll keep on living..."

He cocked his head over to his left side, and in the distance he could see the glimmering specter of the First Child hovering over the water, exactly as she had been when he had first met her.

"There's nothing left for me...is there, Ayanami? I failed..."

Rei simply floated over the water for a few more seconds and blinked out of existence.

Shinji sighed and turned his head to the right side where he held a disembodied white hand.

"I'll live, I'll continue on..."

That was a REALLY short chapter...I know...I usually write 10-page chapters, but this was like only four pages long...Ehehhee...

But I felt I just HAD to cut it there, it seemed appropriate to cut it there before I went too far...

Next chapter, things will happen, you can be sure of that. Eehehhe....

Please friggin' review!