Begun on October 29, 2004
Written by Miguel A. L. Esquivel
All characters created and owned by Gainax and Evangelion Project, except those created specifically for this story. Please read and review.
Taken from Neon Genesis Evangelion episode 20- "Weaving a Story: Oral Stage." Just to refresh your memories, Shinji has just been absorbed into Evangelion Unit One after achieving 400 synchronization.
-DATE UNKNOWN, 2016 AD-
COMMAND CENTER, NERV HEADQUARTERS
TOKYO-3, JAPAN
Maya Ibuki's fingers blurred over her keyboard, cranking out line after line of computer programming. Her eyes alternated scanning the holographic screen before her and referring to the clipboard with sheets upon sheets of test data on Evangelion Unit-One. Her brow wrinkled slightly, however, as she hit the "Enter" button and the overhead monitors flashed a "REJECTION" sign in bold orange letters.
Maya sighed and slumped a little further into her seat, frustrated. "It's hopeless, after all," she sighed, and rubbed at her eyes. "The signal for ejecting the entry plug isn't accepted."
She looked over her shoulder at her sempai, her mentor and boss, Dr. Ritsuko Akagi, standing behind her.
She picked up Maya's clipboard and casually flipped through the pages, her eyes and face drained of all readable emotion. Just like the rest of us, Maya thought.
"How about the backup and the dummy signal?"
Maya gave a start, but her sempai gave no notice of having noticed, if she did. She chided herself for losing her head over such a trivial matter. "They are also rejected. Even the direct circuit is disconnected," she said, recovering a little.
"The video circuit is connected," Makoto called out from his station. "I'll transfer it to the main monitor."
There was a pregnant pause as everyone within the command center stopped working and looked up at the huge holo-grid. Suddenly, there appeared an immense image from within the entry plug, hovering thirty feet in the air.
"Aaahhh!" Everyone inhaled sharply, shocked or alarmed, or both, at what they saw.
It was the entry plug, true, but there was something seriously wrong. Where Shinji was supposed to be, there was nothing but his plug suit, floating limply in a sea of orange LCL. Bubbles were starting to form inside the liquid, a sign of contaminants within the plug; Shinji had been inside the once-berserker, now-dormant Eva for nearly two days now.
Misato Katsuragi, the Chief Tactical Officer, stared wide-eyed in horror at the image. Her left cheek twitched. "What...is...this?" she said slowly, afraid she'd scream.
Dr. Akagi bent over Maya's keyboard, typing in a few things with her left hand while consulting the clipboard. "This is the true nature of 400 synchronization."
Misato turned and leaned against a nearby desk, picking up her coffee mug, which long ago had turned cold. If she left her hands to do nothing, she was desperately afraid they'd shake uncontrollably. Either that, or they'd fly towards Ritsuko's neck, which she really wanted to do right now. "I can't believe it! What the hell happened to Shinji-kun?"
"He has been taken into Eva-01," Ritsuko replied.
"What do you mean? What is Eva!"
Ritsuko straightened from her work and regarded Misato with level, penetrating eyes behind her glasses. "That which was created by humans in the human image. I can't say it in any other way."
"Created by humans? You only copied what you found in Antarctica back then...right?" She paused and bit on her lower lip. "Or is it the original? I don't understand."
"It isn't just a copy. A human will is within it."
Behind her, Misato's eyes narrowed at the corners. "Do you mean that this was because of someone's will?
"Or Eva's," Ritsuko said simply.
Misato slammed the mug onto the desk, not caring how it splashed over the various documents strewn across the desk, or how it stained her dress. "Do something! You created it, didn't you? Take responsibility!"
Ritsuko said nothing to her pleading, emotionally wrecked only friend, but simply averted her eyes, unable to meet her desperate gaze.