Hey.

Dorian Gray here. In case you guys didn't know, Seldon gave up on The Children's Crusade, and in his all-knowing benevolence (or, possibly, rampant arrogance and stupidity), he deemed I, Dorian Gray, worthy of continuing the fic, for reasons that elude the both of us to this day.

Anyway, this is really the first chapter of The Children's Crusade, Oceans of Darkness, that Seldon wrote. This was the second-last chapter that he wrote before giving it up; it is included with mine for continuity. These are also available in his FFN profile, as well as the notice saying he was giving it up.

So, seeya around chapter three, then.

Enjoy!

**********

Ah fook it. I got bored. So I'll post this chapter and next week the second chapter of the story...and then I've really, REALLY got to get back to work on it.

No, seriously.

Updates are going to start becoming hazy in the future: college looms across my horizion.

The Seldon Planner Presents:

An Etherworlds Production:

The Children's Crusade: Oceans of Darkness

~~~~

Gendo Ikari watched the medical crews gently worm their way past the amber hot edges of Unit 01's entry plug, carefully lifting their precious cargo over the sharp ends as they went. Below him, the emergency team was coiling and neatly disassembling their arc cutters into several piles.

"The preliminary reports say that he's going to live."

Gendo looked down at the snowy mane of his subordinate, then turned away from the docking bay and strolled smoothly towards the door. Kouzo quickly, if unprofessionally, wheeled his seat around and sped up to follow.

~~~~

"Chapter One: Setting the Stage"

~~~~

"He could have killed us all," Gendo's anger was boiling away the thick, icy exterior of calm he usually had. It was an impressive sight to behold. Kouzo signaled for one of the heavily armed Section 2 agents to follow behind and guide his chair. Gendo had not been happy about having a helping hand along for Kouzo, but since Ikari wasn't about to push his subordinate along. The presence of the guard had a calming effect on Gendo though, it made him forcibly calm himself and return to the icy, cold bastard he was. "What of the Sixth Child?"

Kouzo eyed the floor. It's never-ending rolling sea of blank, scratched surfaces that were always flat, always shining dull in the bright flourescent suns that perpetuated the only light of their existence. "The reports say that when he was extracted he started attacking the rescue team."

"Attacking them?" Gendo let his eye's fall into thin slits as he carefully listed what few contingents and planned uses he had for the Sixth Child, then curled his eyebrows in a brief uncontrolled moment of anger as he realized none of those were feasible now.

Kouzo nodded, even though he knew Gendo would never be looking in his direction. "Yes. The doctors report that Kensuke Aida suffered a mental breakdown. Apparently from what he saw before Shinji regained control."

The trio walked a distance in silence, coming shortly to a side branch that lead down a brief corridor to one of several banks of elevators. There they halted and waited for the express elevator that would send them to Ikari's office level.

"The Fourth?" Gendo asked, his eyes a perfect imitation of Rei as they stared blankly ahead.

Kouzo coughed, sinking wearily back into the thin cushions of his chair. "The medical autopsy should tell us exactly what he died of, but as of now..." The door pinged and slid aside on well-greased tracks. Gendo stepped in and the guard followed quickly with Kouzo. The door slid shut again. "For now, the medical examiner is fairly sure he died of massive internal trauma."

"From the infection?" The words were carefully selected, Gendo didn't trust this guard at all. Kouzo saw through the innuendo and subtly glanced to the empty holster at the agent's side. Gendo had required the man to remove his pistol before even entering his presence. 'A wise precaution? Or is he slipping into paranoia?' Kouzo thought quickly before answering in the same carefully worded manner.

"Unknown, the films suggest either."

The agent shifted, a bare few millimeters--but he gave away his nervousness. Gendo made a quick note of his ID badge and prepared a quickly worded message that he would send to someone he could trust enough to handle the job.

"He is being handled properly?" Gendo phrased next.

"As all of our previous samples were."

Gendo sharply nodded once, then started walking forward. The moment his foot neared the door the elevator pinged and halted. Gendo was out the doors with centimeters to spare on his shoulders. The guard waited a moment in stunned appreciation for his commander's acute sense of timing but started forward at Kouzo's reprehensive cough.

His duty done, the guard quick timed back to the elevator and left that massive room with the tangibly chilled tension behind. He fairly bounced from one foot to the other as the elevator plummeted through the expansive depths of the Headquarters building, anxious to make his report and then jump off duty to go bar hopping through the city. He hadn't had a decent drink since two last night, and he was really feeling the shakes now that it was nearing ten the night after.

The elevator slowed, then stopped. The doors sliding open with greasy efficiency.

The guard never felt his face explode.

Gendo impassively watched from the elevator camera as one of the janitors pocketed his silenced pistol and started to clean up the mess with a near- mechanized efficiency. Japanese were efficient if nothing else. The small screen wavered out of existence and he turned to where Kouzo was slowly guiding himself around one corner of his massive desk.

"About the Sixth...his psychiatric report should be placed into top priority. With the petulance the Third has shown I don't pretend to keep him in his position. The Sixth can pilot Unit 01, so I will use him." Kouzo parked his chair and watched Ikari with speculation written across his brow.

'If we can't use the Sixth, you'll still have Rei and Sohryu to work with though. But you already know that Sohryu won't pilot Unit 01. And you won't be able to use Rei if you have her assigned to your best defensive weapon.' Kouzo sighed, 'It's all a game. Just a game.'

He turned and watched Ikari silently activate the room's main holovid. The text, oft familiar with the grassy green words, floated evenly in the air as Ikari read them. And read them, and read them, and read them. Kouzo watched with tired resignation. He was getting tired of this game.

***

Asuka and Rei were as mis-matched a pair as robins were to silver trout.

Deep red hair to ice blue. Ice blue eyes to blood crimson. Olive tan skin to pale flesh. Flamboyance to silent meditation. Even their poises and where they decided to wait for the third of their group was strikingly different; one choosing to stand and wait with mild irritation and anxiety, the other patiently waiting with a practiced position on the nearby bench. So different, but with the same goals.

Neither of them looked especially well. Asuka having a small wind of medical gauze wrapped around her head; a precautionary measure they told her. 'Precaution for what?' was the thought running through her mind as they did the service. Another bandage patched across a small cut along her cheek. It wasn't deep, and it wouldn't scar but heal rather nicely up. She worried about it nonetheless however.

Rei was in bandages as well, but hers were more superficial than having any real benefit. The soft fabric of her sling was just for her arm to rest and relax enough for the nerves to calm down and re-orient themselves. The arm itself felt fine, apart from the sporadic feeling that it was no longer there; but the doctors told her not to strain it until a few days had passed by, and she trusted their judgement.

"He's really done it now...hasn't he?"

Rei reacted slowly to Asuka's question. Her mind delicately probing all possibilities for answering her query and then quickly narrowing down possibilities. The whole process took little more than a few nanoseconds, occurring so fast that she didn't even realize her acting it out until her mind had reached two possible conclusions and left it up to her decision. She chose and answered.

"Yes."

Asuka looked over briefly, a small glance of irritation at the brief answer. But she could only fault herself. Rei really wasn't the one to enjoy chatting about nothing and the world under the sky. "Did you see when they took him out?"

Rei had seen. She was still conscious enough to have even watched Shinji's angry expression and hear his sorrow scream out across the comm lines. She saw the blank, staring look that Kensuke Aida had adopted--how his lips moved ever so slowly in a constant cycle, repeating one word.

Touji.

"I saw," was her short response.

Asuka finally grew tired of waiting and flopped down into the bench farther up from Rei. "I wonder what they'll do to him now." She warily studied the two suited guards that so casually waited beside the only entrance or exit to the room that held a critically listed Shinji Ikari. Rei silently watched the guards as well, then turned aside to study a sudden motion nearby her foot, sheathed in the thin white material of her plugsuit.

The ladybug slowly crawled along, followed by a small white moth, and the smallest of grasshoppers. A silent chirruping scratched out from it's legs as it slowly hopped further along the steel halls. Soon it reached even with the gently fluttering moth and passed it by, easily sliding underneath as the frail creature struggled to rise in the air. Then it landed near the ladybug, the shock of it's landing and the brushing glance as it rose again into the air knocking the smaller creature askew; the ladybug struggled and thrashed as it rocked on the smooth shell covering its back.

Soon the grasshopper was far ahead of the two following bugs, the moth passing by the smaller red insect as it slowly shifted itself back to its natural position. Then the green grasshopper took a small rest, scritch- scratching his legs together to make the wonderful music he made.

The heavy shoe of the nearest guard quickly silenced that chirruping music. Rei would never forget that look of disgust and revulsion that crossed the guards face as he scraped his shoe across the smooth floors of NERV, vainly attempting to clean off the mess he made.

She would even have dreams about it.

***

The room was, as it always was and would ever be: a dark ocean of nothingness perpetuated by nothingness in itself. Only a thin desk that had seen better days in the light of day and the smallest of straight-backed chairs occupied this place of dark emptiness. And in that small chair at that thin desk in the ocean of darkness, one man sat and contemplated.

'The Sixth Child. That boy has much anger and hatred at the Angels for what Ikari told him. We could use that anger...shape it, control it. Direct it.' A small diode lit up on his thin desk, the light seeming strangely foreign amidst the endless sea of cool midnight. "Yes?" Keel imperiously said.

"The Council is ready."

The diode flashed once and then dimmed, while around the room thick blocks started thrumming to life. Soon all the members of his Council had appeared and were awaiting the first word from his own mouth. "The Sixth Child...an unexpected turn of events. And an unusual tactic for Ikari to suddenly employ."

One of the members spoke up, the numbered insignia of his holographic projection lighting up brighter than the others as he spoke out his thoughts. "It is a dangerous choice for Ikari. One of my men managed to transmit the actual Entry Plug footage from inside Evangelion Unit 03...the Thirteenth Angel. That pilot was most certainly alive at the time Ikari ordered the Sixth to destroy his target."

"And with such ferocity too!" another spoke up, "I've also learned of a secret funeral that Ikari ordered carried out two days before this latest Angel incident. From the reports I've received, and from certain friends we all know, the sister of Unit 03's pilot died and her brother was never made aware. In fact, the only reason he joined at all was because NERV gave him a medical deal to help heal his sister."

Keel smiled at that, 'Just another reason...'

Seele 04 spoke out, "Our own pilot is still undergoing duplication for the dummy plug systems developed by the good doctor. But indeed, I confess that the Fifth seems a pale comparison to what the Sixth showed us he could do."

"Never forget what he is though!" Keel very nearly shouted out, "No matter how peaceful a facade he presents to us; Never forget what he is!" The room was quiet for a moment, then the members continued. "What should we do about the Sixth?" Seele 09 asked with his old man's synthesized voice.

"Our mutual friend suggested to me that the Sixth's psychiatric analysis could be arranged," said the one who had so exclaimed over the Sixth Child's ferocity. "If we could convince Ikari that the child would be of no further help to him, our agents could easily find a way to 'liberate' him for our own uses."

'Excellent.' Keel stroked at his chin, a purely sentimental gesture as he knew the others could not see him do so. "Ikari would be suspicious if his cast-off suddenly went missing."

"Let him," came a brutal response from a thick, masculine voice. "Ikari will speculate what we are doing, and he will ask questions that we will deny. It is all part of the game we play. We ask him, he asks us, each knowing what the answers are. He will do nothing..."

"Because we will have our mutual friend make the Sixth worth nothing to Ikari."

'Perfect. Now we will have another piece to play in the final rounds,' Keel sat forward and rubbed his hands together, another gesture of no importance. "Then it is agreed. We will have our mutual friend handle the child until he is ready for delivery to our own men. We will discuss other matters after the Sixth Child has been safely delivered to our training facilities. Seele Nine, your part is still of the utmost importance. I expect to hear an excellent report of how your project is progressing."

Seele 09 had been silent to this point, but briefly broke that cautious quiet to acknowledge his master. Then they all faded back into the ocean, that sea of darkness that surrounded this chamber of secrets. This holy of unholies.

Keel quickly pushed a diode and spoke quickly.

***

"Yes? Yes. I understand. Goodbye."

"Who was that?" the Old Man asked as he set out the well-prepared but fairly sparse meal that Father Sanders had prepared for both himself and Kaji. Kaji looked up from the misting dish to study the Father's face but turned away before the middling priest could see his studious watching.

"Hmm? Oh, just a man from my church. Wondering if I could come back for a few days to handle a problem. No big deal." The Father bustled about, pulling out plates and silverware and glasses for the three friends as the Old Man gingerly slid into his seat by the head of the table. Soon the Father came back and passed around the accumulated dishes before sitting himself. "Um, alright..." The men took each other's hands and bowed their heads over their empty plates.

"Our Father, who art in Heaven--"