NERV: Evangelion Pilot Academy
Author's Note: Along with this story the cadets and some of the faculty of NERV Academy are on twitter for "communication" and for recreational blogging. If you want to follow these postings, navigate to the twitter account of NERVAcademy. Every member of NERV's accounts are linked there so you can follow them individually or they are also on lists for easy following. (There's a list for everyone and separate lists that include just the faculty and just the cadets, depending on preferences). It's not necessary for you to follow these postings, they're just extra characterization and background story. I'll put links to the NERVAcademy page and my personal twitter on my author profile. As I said, if you have no interest in following them, that's fine. Anyway, please read and review!
Chapter 1: Introduction and Prologue
Introduction
First and foremost, this story is an alternate universe story. It can be considered one of the potential alternate realities that Shinji experienced during the events of Third Impact, but it is not one that was shown in the sequences, however.
It could be considered a slight merging of the Evangelion and Gunbuster universes. So the differences are, of course, important to understand before the story can proceed.
First, the world of this story: Second Impact occurred, but on a slightly later date (13th September 2004, instead of 2000). Adam was defeated by an Evangelion unit that was developed using Lilith's cells and the projected shape of Adam. Unit 00 was piloted by two pilots, Ikari Yui and Soryu Kyoko Zeppelin. They were both killed, but were able to defeat Adam.
Angels are predicted to return, but nobody knows when. Also unknown is how the scientists at Gehirn's Project E got their hands on Lilith or know of Adam before he even appeared, or how exactly the idea for the Evangelions was conceived to begin with (though the reasons are relatively unchanged from the series).
The Evangelions: They have been modified from the original prototype. Originally, two pilots were necessary and they had to remain as synchronized with each other as possible. However, now the Evas have their own digital souls. The more synchronized a pilot becomes with an Evangelion, the more their own AT field is amplified through the Eva, which of course means the more powerful it becomes. If a pilot were ever to reach a 100% sync ratio, then the pilot and the Eva would essentially be one, and the pilot's AT field would be projected around the Eva at full strength. However, since the Evas have their own minds, they at times become the dominant mind in the pairing and berserk. This is of course different from the series in that the AT fields there were generated by the souls of the Evas themselves (as Asuka says in End of Evangelion, the AT field was her mother protecting her). Evangelion production is very slow and a pilot is only assigned to an Eva when there is no reasonable doubt that they can both synchronize well and maintain control over the unit.
NERV academy: It is both a military training academy and a regular school. The students all receive a full curriculum of normal subjects, but also receive Eva specific training, both in how to operate them and also in how the systems work and other subjects related to them.
Cast of characters:
NERV personnel (in alphabetical order)
Cpl. Agano Kaede: Facilities manager at NERV Academy. She's in charge of maintenance coordination at the academy. Everything and everyone involved with maintenance, from repairing the Eva units and systems to changing the lightbulbs is under her supervision. She's energetic and upbeat, and generally friendly unless she's focused and stressed.
Dr. Akagi Naoko (Deceased?): She was the project leader of the Project E in Gehirn after Yui's death and the head developer of both the MAGI supercomputer and the retooled Evangelions. She was one of the most brilliant minds in history, but she went insane and committed suicide around the time that NERV was being founded to start training pilots for Evas. There is a rumor that she is actually still alive and is receiving treatment for her psychosis, but there is no actual proof of that.
Dr. Akagi Ritsuko: The brilliant daughter of Naoko (though she isn't quite as brilliant as her mother was and consequently lives under her shadow), Ritsuko is both the head physician and the head technician for the MAGI computers. It is often she, with the help of the MAGI, who develop theories on what forms the Angels might take as they attack and developing the virtual training programs the pilots use. She is also most responsible for the improvements on the modern design of the Evangelions and she also oversees their repair and maintenance. It was she who fine-tuned the Soul Pattern Copy system so that the resultant copies weren't completely psychotic. Though she is basically friendly with the pilots, she is very business-like and serious most of the time.
2Lt. Aoba Shigeru: He is the arts teacher. He teaches the students music and music theory, as well as visual arts such as painting, photography, and video. He also offers a philosophy class as an elective, which is one of the more popular classes at the academy. Professor Aoba is one of the most popular teachers at the school because of his laid back, liberal attitude.
Prof. Fuyutsuki Kozo: Deputy Head of NERV academy. Professor Fuyutsuki often acts as a counselor for young pilots, almost always making time to talk to them when they need help. Though he is just as driven as Ikari, he is much more compassionate. He also teaches the pilots the sciences, both the normal science classes as well as the Eva-specific sciences.
2Lt. Hyuga Makoto: The linguistics and literature teacher for the pilots. He teaches them both Japanese and world literature and language skills. He also offers classes in Latin, Greek and English, as well as literature-specific related courses as electives.
Lt. Ibuki Maya: She is the math and computer science teacher for the pilots and also assists Dr. Akagi when upgrading the MAGI system. She also teaches them Eva related computer operational procedures and theories. She is friendly with the pilots, but is considered something of a prude, rather unjustly. She doesn't really mind the pilots blowing off steam, but she just doesn't want them doing it while she's trying to teach them things that will keep them alive. Outside of the classroom, she is rather friendly with the pilots and often enjoys playing networked computer games with them.
HM Ikari Gendo: Not much different. Still Shinji's father. Still a cold, driven son of a bitch. He acts both as headmaster of NERV pilot academy and supreme commander of the Evangelion force if and when Angels attack. He seems to know more about what is going on then he lets on. He was, of course, Yui's husband and he has been involved in one way or another in the development and use of the Evangelions from the beginning. He was, through Yui, one of the most influential members of SEELE, the overseers of Gehirn and Project E, before founding the NERV academy.
Dr. Ikari Yui (Deceased): The daughter of one of the founding members of SEELE, she was one of the driving forces behind the development of the Eva units. She was the first to realize that two souls attempting to merge into one would be required to project an AT field in an Eva unit, a feat that she showed natural talent at. Thus she volunteered, or more accurately, strong-armed her status as one of the pilots of Unit 00. She had a fairly passionate love for her husband Gendo, an exceptionally loving and protective relationship with Shinji, and deep affection for and trust in both Kozo and Kyoko. She, along with her co-pilot Kyoko, gave her life to defeat Adam and end the devastation of Second Impact.
Mr. Kaji Ryoji: He is one of the most eclectic teachers. He officially teaches physical education, but it goes far beyond that. He teaches them the martial arts and hand to hand combat that is most effective in Eva-Angel combat, but he also teaches such things as archery (Kyudo), meditation, tai chi, fitness and stealth. Kaji's class seems to be one of the most effective at helping young pilots develop the skills necessary to both synchronize with an Evangelion, as well as to maintain control over it in the most stressful situations. It is rumored that he was once a spy or an assassin and it is also rumored that he is romantically involved with Professor Katsuragi. Given the large number of female students that have a crush on him and the large number of male students that have a crush on Misato, this rumor tends to start a lot of fights among those that repeat it around those that don't want to hear it.
Maj. Katsuragi Misato: One of the most popular teachers due to her friendliness and beauty, she is in charge of teaching the pilots both military tactics and Eva combat. When the students pilot the virtual Evas, it is Misato overseeing them. She is also the most responsible for choosing pilots for completed Evangelions and is the most accountable should problems occur.
SSgt. Mogami Aoi: Chief supply and procurement officer at NERV Academy. She's ultimately responsible for maintaining the supplies of everything from paperclips to Eva weaponry. She tends to be polite but a bit aloof, almost always remaining serious and focused on the task at hand.
Sgt. Oi Satsuki: Head cook at NERV Academy. She's in charge of planning and cooking the meals. She takes great pride in her cooking and is always pleased to see people enjoying her meals. She's also in charge of maintaining supplies of food, so if someone wanted anything special, it's a good idea for them to be on Satsuki's good side.
Dr. Soryu Kyoko Zeppelin (Deceased): Another brilliant scientist working on the Gehirn Project E, she was the originator of the Soul Pattern Copy system, but it wasn't anywhere close to being finished when Adam attacked. She produced rough copies of the souls of many of the Project E scientists that Ritsuko was able to fine-tune into viable Eva souls, however. She was also the one to do the most test-piloting of Unit 00 and was the natural choice of combat pilot. She had an extremely close friendship with Yui, and they hoped their children might one day marry.
Prof. Yamamoto Arashi: He teaches history. Japanese history, military history, and cultural history are his specialties. He also teaches students Modern Cultural Anthropology in a Post-Second Impact World. He is considered the most boring and forgettable teacher in the academy. In fact, students often forget his name, leading them to just refer to him as "professor".
NERV Students/Pilots-in-training (In alphabetical order)
OCdt. Aida Kensuke: A geek and military buff, he comes from a long line of soldiers. Though he studies and works the hardest at Eva training out of all the pilots, he still consistently achieves the lowest sync ratio out of all the trainees, a source of constant frustration for him. He also has an insatiable curiosity and seems to always carry a camcorder.
Plt. Off. Ayanami Rei: The first pilot selected to pilot an Eva, in this case the rebuilt Unit 00. She is quiet, shy, and many consider her to be anti-social. But the truth is she just doesn't have very good social skills and has a hard time relating to people or even to herself emotionally. She has been at the school since its founding and is in fact a legal ward of the school itself. It should be noted that in this story, Rei did have parents but they died when she was still fairly young (I'll say 7-8ish). She is, then, not a clone of Lilith or Yui. Sorry. ;)
OCdt. Horaki Hikari: Though she is one of the hardest working pilot trainees, she is actually deathly afraid of being chosen to be a pilot. She enjoys all the other classes, since NERV has the highest quality education program in the post-Second Impact world, but she has no interest in actually being a pilot. Her fear and lack of a fighting spirit gives her the second lowest sync ratio of all the pilots, which suits her just fine.
OCdt. Ikari Shinji: The troubled hero, of course. I've based him more on the manga version of Shinji rather than the anime version in this story, so rather than being constantly withdrawn and meek, he's angrier over his father's abandonment but still rather shy and occasionally mopey. Though he is naturally talented at piloting the Evas, he is reluctant to do so, not so much out of fear, but out of resentment towards his father. He was raised by an extremely strict uncle after his mother's death when he was a child, rather than by Gendo himself. He now lives under the constant shadow of following in his mother's footsteps and living up to his father's impossibly high expectations. He has an intense rivalry with Asuka and they constantly try to show up one another in Eva training. It is believed that either he or Asuka will be the next pilot to be assigned to an Eva unit. He also has a natural affinity with Rei and he is constantly teased over how interested in her he seems to be. The ease at which they work together, coupled with the boy's natural talent might just edge out Asuka to be selected as the next pilot of an Evangelion.
OCdt. Kirishima Mana: She was originally going to pilot an Eva-alternative robot similar to the Jet Alone (that nuclear-powered robot that nearly melted down) called the Trident, but it was deemed a failure due to its inability to project the pilot's AT field thus rendering it useless to battle angels. So she was reassigned to the NERV academy, where she remains an average student. She has a friendly or even bubbly personality but is occasionally shy and indecisive. She is also rather inquisitive (read: nosey) and tends to lead the more shy students (like Rei and Shinji) to lots of cute blushing, and the more assertive students (like Asuka and Toji) to various states of annoyance.
OCdt. Makinami Mari Illustrious: Adventurous, determined, quirky, a little clumsy, but always with a friendly smile on her lips. She, like Asuka, is of mixed heritage, in her case British and Japanese. She speaks both English and Japanese fluently. She is not as naturally gifted as Rei, Shinji and Kaoru, but like Asuka and Aida, she works hard at making up for her lack of natural talent with hard work and skill. On the negative side, however, she has a troubling tendency to rush into combat alone and gets "in the zone" and often fails to communicate with command, so she is lower in priority selection than she would otherwise be. She also has an odd LCL fetish and is the only pilot who actually likes the smell of the fluid. She is also, as stated by Asuka, "blind as a mole rat" without her glasses on, and her bouts of clumsiness often lead to her dropping her glasses and having to try to find them again.
OCdt. Nagisa Kaoru: Another pilot-trainee who seems to have a natural talent with piloting the Evas, he also seems to be the least interested. His true interests lie more in music and art. His tendency to question every order and instruction he receives keep him low on the pilot selection list, despite his talents. He is not one of the angels in this story, but his personality remains relatively unchanged. He is considered a slacker by his fellow pilots, due to his laid back attitude and poetic soul. He's the type of person who seems to consider himself everyone's best friend and tends to be a lot more informal and friendly with people than they are normally comfortable with.
OCdt. Soryu Asuka Langley: Though she is not as naturally talented as Rei, Shinji, and Kaoru at piloting the Evas, she is the hardest working among them. She is the most gifted intellectually among all the pilots and also the most tactically-minded. She's also a natural leader, despite her overly-aggressive personality. Her sync ratios, despite having less natural talent than the other cadets, are consistently amongst the highest, so it is believed she will likely be assigned to pilot Unit 01 when it is approved for piloting. Unlike most of the other pilots, who are Japanese born and raised, she was born and raised in Germany where she was the test subject for the pilot training and her improving synchronization ratio showed that the training at NERV Academy would be effective, thus earning the Academy the green light from the United Nations to open and begin training cadets.
OCdt. Suzahara Toji: The most physically gifted of the pilots, though he is only a mediocre at best pilot. He has a strong sense of duty and obligation, however, and is rather high up on the list of potential pilots as a result. He doesn't seem to take his classes very seriously, but in fact it's really only that he has a lot on his mind because his little sister is terminally ill. Being in the pilot program entitles the girl, as his only surviving family, to receive the best care possible in the NERV ward of the Tokyo-3 hospital, but her condition is still terminal. Toji tries to visit her at least twice a week and he tries not to let the matter depress him.
Evangelions
Unit 00 Mark I - Orange: Originally set to have two pilots, one support pilot to maintain and control the AT field and prepare weapons, and one combat pilot to do the actual piloting, the pilots were Ikari Yui and Soryu Kyoko Zeppelin. In their fateful battle with the angel dubbed Adam, they destroyed the angel but lost their own lives as well. The Evangelion was heavily damaged and had to be almost completely rebuilt. The primary difficulty found in the Eva Mark I unit, they discovered, was in having to use two human pilots. Despite living and training together and their best efforts to synchronize successfully, dissonance caused simply by two different independent minds proved too unstable. Thus, a change had to be made.
Unit 00 Mark II – Blue: Rebuilt utilizing the new one pilot system with updated armaments, this unit is otherwise similar to the former Eva used by the two pilots in design and looks, except for being blue in color as per Ayanami's preference. The prototype digital soul in this unit has proven to be borderline psychotic, however, and improvements to future models were made using the personality patterns of former Gehirn pilots and employees rather than a completely manufactured digital soul. Thus, Unit 00 (or Eva Blue) has been known to rampage on rare occasions.
Future units will be introduced as the story progresses. There will be differences.
--
Prologue
September 2004 – Hokone, Japan
Soryu Kyoko Zeppelin sat watching her daughter Asuka and her best friend Yui's son Shinji playing together. An amused smile formed on her lips when her daughter started bossing the boy around, directing him on what toys he was to play with and how his toys were to interact with her toys. Shinji was verbally protesting, but eagerly following her directions regardless. She thought about how well they got along and had bright hopes for their future together. She looked up as Yui walked in, a hitch in her walk making it apparent what had kept her busy for the last half hour or so. "Don't tell me… on the washing machine again?"
Yui giggled and shrugged in a feigned innocent gesture. "What can I say, folding laundry drives Gendo crazy."
Kyoko smirked and shook her head. "More like watching you bend over and shake your hips as you iron and fold the laundry is what gets him going. There's a reason he follows you in to watch, you know."
"There's a reason I make sure to announce when I'm going to do laundry, as well. Shinji doesn't go down there so it's one of the only places we don't have to worry about him walking in on us." Yui remarked. She shook her head as she looked at her son, nothing but adoration in her eyes despite the exasperated tone in her voice. "It only took two times of that little rascal climbing into bed with us while Gendo and I were being affectionate for us to come up with alternatives."
The half-German scientist sighed and shook her head. "I envy you, my dear Yui. At least your husband still touches you."
Yui rested her head on Kyoko's shoulder. "If that was what you really wanted, you'd touch him instead."
Kyoko smiled wistfully, knowing her friend was right. "Well, be that as it may…" She coughed, discretely changing the subject. "Did the Soul Copy hurt? It stung like hell when I did mine and gave me a migraine."
"It wasn't too bad. I've gotten worse headaches talking to my father." Ikari remarked. She glanced at the door, overhearing Gendo arguing with someone on the telephone. She rolled her eyes dramatically. "Speaking of my father…" She laughed softly, letting the sentiment go unspoken. She made sure to remain the apple of her father's eye, which was difficult because she considered the man a blithering idiot.
"Same argument, different day. Unit 00 is complete but it still needs two pilots to make it work. And I'm nowhere near figuring out how to use the Soul Patterns as a viable alternative to a second pilot." Soryu remarked. "They make it sound like I've been lazy. We didn't even know that one soul wasn't enough to create an AT field until two years ago. I'm not a miracle-worker." She grumbled.
Yui smiled playfully. "I could argue with that." She remarked.
"Hold on, I've got another call. I'll call you back later and we can discuss this further." After a brief pause he started talking to his new caller. "Hello? Fuyutsuki, what's… Antarctica?! You're sure? Those arrogant bastards… we warned them something like this might happen. Damn… no there's no helping it, we'll have to transport Unit 00 there. I'll take care of it." Gendo stated grimly, hanging up the phone. He stepped into the room where the people who meant the most to him in the world waited. The apprehensive expressions on their face made it clear they had overheard him and understood the significance of his words. "We have to get Unit 00 to Antarctica immediately. It's Adam… he's waking up. Katsuragi was performing some kind of test and now there're energy readings that are off the scale."
A sense of dread settled over their hearts. Kyoko shook her head in disbelief. "The digital souls aren't ready. We'll have to use a support pilot."
"You have one." Yui stated firmly, dropping her hand onto her friend's.
"No! You'll be needed here to direct Kyoko and her co-pilot from Control." Gendo stated in a desperate tone.
Yui shook her head sadly, looking over at Shinji. He had stopped playing and was staring at her, feeling the tension in the air but not understanding what the cause was. He didn't even notice when Asuka flicked his ear in an attempt to regain his attention. "No one knows more about the Eva than I do. No one is as close to Kyoko as I am. There is no one else, Gendo. I have to do this. For Shinji's sake, if you won't let me do it for yours."
"What about the Spear? We're going to have to have it back to reseal Adam." Kyoko remarked worriedly as she started gathering her things to leave.
"SEELE will simply have to hand it over. They know as well as we do what will happen when Adam wakes up fully. All the knowledge in the universe won't mean a damned thing if we're wiped from existence." Gendo remarked grimly. He cast his gaze on to his wife.
Yui smacked her hand into her face and let out a weary sigh. "I'll call him." She grumbled. She turned away from the other two so that she wouldn't have to see the looks of sympathy, or worse, pity on their faces. "Dad. Adam is waking up, we need that Spear. No! You can't have it for another damn week, we need it now! Adam will kill everything and you know it! Yes, we're leaving immediately. Yes, of course Soryu is piloting it." She paused and glanced over her shoulder at her husband as she winced at the next question. "No, of course not. It'll be… ah… Aida I think. I'll ask Kyoko… yes sir… I… love you too, dad. Bye."
Hope started lighting up Gendo's face. "So, Shiori will be support pilot?"
"No, Gendo. I just told my dad that so he'd hand over the Spear of Longinus. I can't allow his over-protectiveness to doom humanity." Yui paused and fixed her husband with a determined look. "Or yours." Seeing the hope diminish from his eyes, however, made her expression soften in sympathy. "Shiori is a competent enough soldier, but she doesn't know the first thing about attuning her soul to someone else's. It would be little better than sending Kyoko out there alone."
Gendo held his beloved wife close and whispered into her ear, "I don't want to let you go, my darling. I don't know what I would do without you."
Yui kissed her husband's neck as she returned the embrace and whispered back, "I'll come back to you. I promise."
--
13th September 2004 – Mt. Markham, Antarctica
Tremors shook the ice, causing a multitude of cracks to form in the thick ice that covered the White Moon of Adam. The Katsuragi research station above it started to collapse as the quakes rose in intensity. Standing before the site of the wreckage was Evangelion Unit 00, its monstrous orange armor glowing in the Antarctic sun. Inside the bio-mechanoid, Soryu Kyoko Zeppelin, the combat pilot, shivered in anxiety. "It's coming. The beast draws near." She hissed.
"I'm here with you, Kyoko. Stay focused." Ikari Yui stated, reaching down from the support seat to rest her hand on her dearest friend's shoulder. She glanced down, worriedly keeping an eye on the supply truck that had their power source upon it. If the umbilical power cord got severed or they got out of the reach of the truck in the battle, they'd have at most a minute of active power before they, and the hopes of all life on earth, were finished.
A hand, glowing with crackling white energy, burst out of the ice and an unearthly sound that seemed to radiate straight up from hell filled the air. Kyoko choked on her fear and let her eyes shut for a moment. "The lord is my shepherd… I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures… he leadeth me beside the still waters." She murmured.
"Left!" Yui cried suddenly.
Kyoko immediately ducked Unit 00 to the left, narrowly missing taking a massive ice boulder to the face. "My head… my god Yui, it's in my head!" She gasped out.
They both looked up fearfully as the gargantuan Seed of Life tore free of the ice imprisoning it. It let out a roar that would send a chill up the devil's spine as it tasted freedom for the first time in three billion years. Yui gritted her teeth in sudden pain as an energy wave hit them, seeming to tear at their very souls. "Anti… AT field! Don't let it… Kyoko! I'm with you… focus… on me! Have to keep… field up!"
Kyoko coughed as blood trickled from her mouth, but she managed to keep her thoughts focused on her co-pilot enough to maintain their AT fields. "Initiating attack plan!" She announced through clenched teeth, sending Unit 00 into a run straight for the first angel.
Adam fixed its eyes on them seemed to give them a grin born of pure wickedness. A moment later the energy field surrounding it enlarged at an exponential rate. Unit 00 collapsed as what could only be called anti-life struck them full force. It tore at their minds, just as it sought to pry apart the very bonds that kept their bodies whole.
Kyoko screamed in agony as the mouth of madness opened up around her. She stared into the horrifying visage of the monster before her and her mind simply couldn't process what she was seeing and remain intact. "It's… horrible. But also… beautiful. God in heaven… I can't…"
Yui was faring little better, she clutched at her temples as the sheer horror of the godlike being before them washed over them. The energy it released had already melted away the bodies of the Katsuragi research team and the soldiers who had accompanied them and they could see the souls of those fallen people floating into the air. The energy field was expanding ever faster, forcing the bodies of all those it touched into inert primal ooze and sending their souls back into the Black Moon of Lilith where they had originated from. If Adam wasn't stopped quickly, all life on Earth, even down to the bacteria, would vanish, to make room for the Angels who were the rightful inheritors of Earth. The thought of Gendo, Shinji and Kozo came to her then, of their bodies turning into sludge and their souls vanishing into uncreation. "No… Kyoko. Kyoko! Look at me, goddamnit!" She pulled herself down until she was in Kyoko's lap and she placed her hands behind her dearest friend's ears and looked into her maddened eyes. "Asuka and Shinji." She stated firmly.
Kyoko blinked a few times as a spark of reason resurfaced in her mind. "It's going to kill them." She stated in a whisper of realization.
"Shut everything else out, Kyoko. Think only of our children and me. You got that? Just Asuka, Shinji, and me. We're stopping Adam." Yui stated in a hiss, summoning up every scrap of willpower in her body to make her mind as one with Kyoko's.
Soryu's eyes closed for a moment, the sparkling blue eyes and fiery red hair of her precious daughter came to her mind. Holding her hand was the ever compassionate and loving Shinji. "For our children…" She opened her eyes and forced Unit 00 to stand. A step towards Adam and the power cable snapped. Sparing none of her thoughts over the active power countdown that had popped up on the displays, she ran the orange-armored behemoth towards Adam, ready to thrust the Spear of Longinus into the giant of light's core and deactivate him and his anti-AT field. With a cry of rage, she stabbed the Spear forward.
Adam caught the Spear at the last moment and stared at them as they fought over the weapon. Unit 00 pressing forward trying to impale the beast, and the Angel holding it back. Every second that passed meant thousands of more people's souls were released, their lives suddenly and senselessly ended.
Yui put her hands on the hand control also, lending her strength to the battle. "Die… just die, damn it!" She gasped out desperately. She could feel her body start to lose cohesion, the strength of their AT field not quite enough to block out the angel's energy anymore.
"I've always… loved you… Yui. I'm sorry if that made you feel…" Kyoko gasped out, her last thoughts of confessing the passion in her heart.
Yui looked up and gave her friend a kind smile and placed a gentle kiss on her lips. "I know. I cherish you and accept you. I love Gendo but… there's room in my heart for you too."
Tears fell from Kyoko's eyes. "For Asuka and Shinji then."
Yui nodded and they both cried out in fierce determination, finally forcing the Spear of Longinus into Adam's body and rendering him inert. Unit 00 fell silent as the souls of Ikari Yui and Soryu Kyoko Zeppelin were released, the last act of their dissolving bodies being delivering the death blow to Adam.
--
"Reports are coming in. My god… millions of people are dissolving! An Anti-AT field is expanding from the south pole!" A technician reported.
"Are there any visuals on Unit 00 and Adam? What's going on?" Gendo Ikari demanded, ignoring the reports on the holocaust happening in the southern hemisphere.
"There's a lot of interference but…" A violent shockwave hit the headquarters a few moments later. Reports of massive devastation all over the planet started to come in. Buildings all over the world were reduced to rubble as the entire planet shook and shifted. Megatons of ice and dust were thrown into the atmosphere. In short, Second Impact had occurred.
Sometime later, after they had all picked themselves back up and gotten the computers running again, the reports came in. "Initial estimates show that well over a billion people were killed by the Anti-AT field. It looks like… my god… the southern hemisphere is completely dead! Up to two billion people, gone." A technician reported, staring at the readouts in horror.
"Reports are coming in that the quakes we felt were all over the world. They think the whole rotational axis of the planet was shifted!" Another technician reported.
"My god…" Fuyutsuki murmured, pressing his hand to his face as he contemplated the calamity that had befallen humanity. "What's the status of Adam?" He inquired.
All was silent for several minutes as they tried to process the results. "Initial reports indicate… Adam is dormant once again. Unit 00 succeeded."
"Thank god… we're saved." The professor remarked in wonder bordering on disbelief.
"What of Unit 00? How soon can we send a transport vehicle to collect the pilots?" Gendo inquired anxiously.
The head technician turned to look at the commander with a grim expression on his face. "I'm sorry sir. There are no life signs at all in the southern hemisphere. Including the pilots of Unit 00. They're killed in action, sir."
"Check again!" Gendo yelled in fury.
"Reports indicate that the pilots AT fields collapsed at the last moment. They received the full force of the Anti-AT field as Unit 00 made its final attack. No chance of survival was possible, sir." Another technician confirmed.
Gendo stared down at the technicians, obviously in shock. Kozo stepped forward to speak on his behalf. "Start casualty assessment and assistance. Find a way to retrieve Unit 00 as well."
"Sir, there's something else. Reports show energy readings leaving Adam before he was rendered inert. We think… we think he released seeds." A technician reported.
"What does that mean?" Professor Fuyutsuki inquired.
"Offspring, sir. Adam had offspring." The head technician responded.
Kozo's eyes closed in a moment of silent prayer. "God in heaven…" He let out a weary sigh. "How many?"
"Unable to determine that, sir. But estimates show at least a dozen." Came the answer.
"So it's not over yet. We'll have to be ready when they come. If there are any way to track them, find it. In the mean time, you have your orders." He deactivated the communication systems from the command deck and turned to face Gendo Ikari. "It looks like Yui will have her hands full with producing more Evangelions." He stated.
Gendo raised his gaze to stare at the man before him, grim and silent.
Kozo's eyes narrowed in confusion. "Ikari? What's… where's Yui?"
"She was the support pilot, Fuyutsuki." Gendo responded, his voice choking with grief.
Professor Fuyutsuki had to lean back against the consoles behind him as shock numbed his body. "Oh god…" He shook his head at the sheer insanity of the day. "What did Katsuragi do to awaken that beast?" He frowned as he looked over the final reports by the Katsuragi research team. "They introduced human DNA to Adam's body to see what would happen. I guess they got their answer." His eyes narrowed as he looked at the initial reports on the energy readings. "My god this is…"
Commander Ikari looked up, recognizing the man's tone. "What is it?" There had been a glimmer of hope in the other man's voice.
Kozo pulled off a printout of the readings and handed it over other man. Gendo looked it over, seeing what could potentially have happened with the combination of Adam's and Lilim DNA if it had been controlled. "SEELE will make this realization too." Gendo stated. He had the feeling their actions involving the results would be different from his own, however. "We have some plans to make."
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End of Chapter 1
