AN at end. Seriously, this opening is pretty cool I think, I've been sitting on it for months now just waiting to get the rest of the chapter done.
There was a time, long ago, when Mankind lived in fear of their gods. They would bow and scrape to YHWH, fearful of his wrath; sailors would sacrifice animals to Poseidon, mindful of his oceans; holy men would gouge out another man's heart in tribute to Huitzilpochtli, hoping for the next sunrise.
But not even a god may live forever; as swiftly and Humanity can raise one god atop a pedestal, it is torn down in service to the next. Sometimes the gods chosen for worship existed entirely within one man's mind, other times they held their own power of the Heavens against us, but always the cycle goes on and new gods are brought forth into the light. As is the tendency of Mankind, the cycle born from their fickle hearts is just as susceptible to capriciousness as Humanity itself.
But one day, the cruel world's cycle had to end.
One day, the world ended.
15 years later, as Mankind was building a new world from the ashes of the old one, the gods within Heaven returned. These gods were not born to serve the cycle, and as Mankind turned away, their retribution was swift. As these gods visited Armageddon upon them, Humanity refused to pass silently into the night, for on that day 15 years ago they had seen the truth of these new gods.
Humanity is arrogant. They knew their enemy, their powers, and when they next strike at us, the fury of Mankind shall strike back.
In the new world of Mankind, we need no other gods than those we make for ourselves, from ourselves.
That is the promise of Humanity.
That is the promise of Evangelion.
You Thought This Was by a Decent Author? Too Bad! It's Just Me, Mairy!
Every month, Shinji's father would call.
Every month, his father would ask how he'd been going at school.
Every month, Shinji was reminded that his father genuinely cared for him, even though his work meant he couldn't be there for him.
His father hadn't called this month. It was because of this, that when he was sent to the front desk in the middle of the school day, he hadn't expected to see his father waiting for him, a small armada of black cars outside the school gates.
Even though summer break had just ended the men standing by the cars were dressed almost entirely in black suits; even his father was wearing a strange black jacket with gold trim over a red turtleneck. Taking the initiative, Gendo Ikari was succinct and to the point.
"I know this is sudden Shinji, and I know you may not like me very much, but I need your help." He said, pushing his glasses slightly higher up his nose.
Gendo Ikari is a very succinct man.
"Is there a reason you need me Father? Wouldn't someone else be better for a job involving NERV?" Shinji glanced around the room, there were several other men standing at each entryway, all of them wearing the same 'black jacket with black tie and white shirt' ensemble that was all the rage with the salary-men these days. And most days, it was just about the only thing they wore to work.
"I have my reasons."
Shinji looked down at the floor, he'd never been able to meet his father's gaze for too long. "Do I have a choice?"
"In some things, but not others. I can let you make the choice in your own time, but no matter what happens, you're coming with me to Tokyo-3."
"I should tell my uncle; do I get to pack my things?"
"I stopped by in the morning, he's already packed your things."
...
There was silence in the cavalcade of cars as they wove their way across the Japanese countryside. Shinji's father had taken the lead car, saying he would need to make many private calls on the way. Shinji understood this; his father was the head of NERV and answered directly to the United Nations. Shinji took the second car in the convoy, leaving the third to serve as a pack horse for nearly all of Shinji's clothes and personal effects.
Opening his school bag and retrieving his father's old SDAT player, Shinji stared out the window and watched the road go by.
...
Tokyo-3 was not a city used to cars. There were roads, certainly, and cars to drive on them, but not many did. With many of the city's inhabitants working down in the Geofront or the offices above it, almost everyone took the train. Thus it was that the three black sedans driving through the city were well remarked by the 300 or so students attending the Tokyo-3 Municipal District Middle and Senior School. Shinji looked about in wonder as they passed through the streets filled with retractable buildings and diverted course to one of the Geofront's many vehicle entrances.
They left the cars in a small area just away from the massive set of tracks that ferried the cars down this far, opting to walk the rest of the way on foot. When they passed into one of the better lit areas of the massive underground structure, a blonde woman in a doctor's coat started approaching them from the other end of the very long corridor, a strangely blue-haired girl in tow.
When the two groups met, Shinji began to notice some things about the two women. For one thing, the older woman didn't seem to be naturally blonde, given the brown strands cut short at her ears. For another, the younger one was pale, almost unnaturally so. In fact, Shinji would say that she was an albino given her-she's seen you looking at her she has red eyes that's creepy oh shit oh shit!
"Commander, the tests on Unit-00 are complete, we should be ready for activation any day now." The woman said.
"That's good."
"We could swap Commander." The woman replied, casting her gaze over Shinji. "You take Rei and do your thing, I'll take Shinji off and do some testing."
"Not right now Doctor Akagi, Shinji hasn't made his decision yet." Shinji's father didn't let so much as an errant hair twitch out of place when he spoke to this woman, which spoke a great deal of his ability to handle under pressure and not give into grief and clone his wi-nevermind.
"You brought him all the way down here and he hasn't even made a choice? You may be going soft in your old age Commander."
"I'm simply allowing him to make a more informed decision Doctor. In fact, I'll take Rei with me; we're going to the Cages."
"You're the Commander, you don't need my permission." The woman smiled and gave a small push to the blue-haired girl at her side, urging her to walk to Shinji's father. "And of course, where are my manners; hello there Shinji, I'm Doctor Akagi. Pleased to meet you."
"P-pleased to meet you too Doctor." Shinji said, extending a quick 'hello' to the blue-haired girl that was now at his father's other side. The woman walked around the enlarged group and made her exit, giving Shinji a quick warning.
"When you get to the Cages, don't fall in."
...
It wasn't hard to avoid the red pool in the Cages, Shinji found it harder avoiding the red eyes of the girl that had joined them. It was also pretty hard to not notice the giant robot.
"This is why I no longer keep pictures of your mother; she left this behind as her legacy." Shinji's father said, never taking his eyes off the purple and green giant standing shoulders-deep in red liquid.
"It's certainly a big legacy." Shinji noted, entirely tautologous with what his father was about to say.
"When you're creating something to stop the kind of being capable of Second Impact, you tend to build big."
"I get the feeling that's something you should have said after you revealed a big truth about Second Impact." Shinji pointed out. That earned him a chuckle from his father.
"I suppose I should have. Starting at the beginning then; Second Impact was actually caused by a being so powerful we called it an Angel. We also found that it wasn't alone. In some uncertain amount of time after Second Impact, more would be coming. NERV was created so that humanity would be ready and the Evangelion Units were created so that we could survive." When his father was finished Shinji became acutely aware of several sets of eyes bearing down on him. His father was expecting a question or two, the girl he guessed was Rei had been staring at him the entire time and he was fairly certain the giant robot was looking at him.
"Why me? Just because I'm your son doesn't mean I should be the one to do all these things."
"The Evangelion operates by overlaying the consciousness of a human pilot over its own, the fickle nature of the human brain means very few are actually capable. Rei here is one of those, and if you agree to it, so will you."
So that was it.
"I really am nothing to you. You didn't come to see me because you wanted to, you just needed to use me. You don't want me in Tokyo-3 for my own sake, you just want me nearby in case I change my mind. Is that it?"
"If that is what you choose to believe, then I will not stop you. You can leave here and forget everything you saw, you'll go to a school here in Tokyo-3 and live in an apartment away from anyone that works here. Just remember this: nearly three billion people died as a result of Second Impact and now you're condemning the rest of humanity to death just because you think I'm using you."
...
"Settle down class, I have someone to introduce." With a wave of the teacher's hand, Shinji was summoned into the class. "This is your new classmate, Shinji Rokubungi. Play nice now."
The class had never settled; it was only the second day of school after summer break, meaning many students still had the wrong sleep pattern, even the teacher. As soon as Shinji had written his name on the board just about everyone went back to sleep, save the blue-haired girl from yesterday. One of the few people still awake was a boy wearing glasses waving a camera about. This strange boy began to eagerly point at the seat in front of him, which judging by his actions was empty for a reason.
"Sit next to Aida I guess." The teacher mumbled sleepily. "Whatever floats your goat."
...
When the lunch period rolled around Shinji approached the girl, intending to gain some insight into the workings of NERV's Child Labour Department.
"I uh, didn't catch your name yesterday, but I think you got mine." He said, bending down near the girl's desk to put his eyes closer to her level.
"I did. My name is Rei Ayanami." The girl kept looking out the window, not turning to face him at all.
"Di-did my father say anything after I left? He didn't seem too happy, though he never really does." That much was true; his phone calls were never the most cheery of occasions, but his father had never seemed outright angry or displeased.
"He said that I am not to speak to you unless you change your mind." Ayanami said.
An arm came around Shinji's shoulder from both sides, one from Aida and the other from someone Shinji would guess was Aida's best and only friend in the class. "You need to learn something about Tokyo-3, new kid. First rule: If a man in a black suit says to get in his van, you get in. Second rule: That man works for NERV and has ten other guys like him somewhere nearby. Third rule: Ayanami has those guys following her everywhere she goes, so she's not to be messed with."
"I suppose I should just go then."
...
It went on like this for three weeks: every day at school he would look at Ayanami with guilty eyes and every day Toji and Kensuke would make fun of him for what they thought was 'young love'. The woman living in the apartment next door revealed herself to be NERV staff the second day after he had moved in, citing her authority as his possible superior.
The only change in the new routine was a call bounced to his apartment by NERV's communications line.
"Is this Lord Dumbass?" the voice on the other end said in slightly-accented Japanese.
"I don't know what you mean. My name is Shinji Ik-uh, Rokubungi, I'm no one special." Shinji replied, obviously ill-at-ease about the person calling.
"Don't give me that crap, I know you're the Commander's son and I know you chickened out."
"H-how do you know that?"
"Because I'm with NERV too, and I hope for your sake that by the time my Eva is sent to Japan you've gone and gotten yourself crushed by falling debris when you were running away!"
The person on the other end of the line hung up. Hearing the laughter of the woman next door through the thin walls of their apartments, Shinji realised that probably was just a ruse to get him to agree to his father's terms; parade enough damsels that may end up in distress and the hero should react.
...
Just over one month after having come to Tokyo-3 his father came to see him personally.
"I need to you to see something, you don't have a choice in this matter." The moment his father turned to leave, two men in dark suits grabbed Shinji by the arms and dragged him along to the car waiting on the street.
The walk through the Geofront was surprisingly swift, his father swiping his card in several elevators to access floors lower than most NERV staff thought existed. Ayanami was waiting for them, laying in a wheeled bed almost mummified by bandages.
"There are two secrets that NERV keeps from the entire world, even most of the United Nations. The first is the secret of Rei Ayanami's birth, the second is why exactly Tokyo-3 was built here and why we are so sure the Angels will come to us. I won't show you the second until I think you're ready, but I feel it's better for you to see the first now." Shinji's father didn't turn to speak to him, he just walked out of the elevator and dismissed his escort.
Followed by the single doctor pushing Ayanami's bed, his father led Shinji to a large, circular room dominated by a mass of tubes funnelling into a single glass pipe in the centre. Shooing away the doctor and making sure the door was locked tight, Gendo began to explain the purpose of the room.
"This place was constructed in secret on the order of your mother, less than a year before her death. It can be considered her side project to leading the team that made Evangelion Unit-01. In the early days of Project E, one of the first things we realised was the difficulties in creating an adequate control system. After much deliberation, we settled on the system currently in effect: a pilot synchronising themselves with the mind of the Eva. Your mother, however, was not convinced that a single human could create a imprint on the Eva to effectively pilot without suffering mental burnout. So she began to work on a way to manufacture pilots able to synchronise with the Eva with very little chance of mental contamination. By combining her own DNA with the harvested flesh of the same Angel being used to augment Unit-01, she aimed to produce a batch of cloned humans ideal for a harmonious personality imprint with the Eva. I won't bore you with the details of how she accelerated the first four years of growth, you just need to know the ending of the story. Shortly before her death, your mother told her old teacher, Professor Fuyutsuki, about this room. When he first came here, he found all of her notes and a single live specimen. Within a year, that specimen had died of organ failure, but enough modifications were made based on the notes we found that successive generations of clones would live as long as a human could. What you see on that bed is the result of your mother's literal blood, sweat and tears; the second Rei Ayanami, the perfect Evangelion Pilot."
With just a wave of his arm, the lights in the room came on, revealing the circular walls to be a giant aquarium filled with naked copies of the Rei Ayanami currently laying on the bed. Averting his gaze to look at the floor and only the floor, Shinji tried to question his father.
"If you've got this many clones that can be the perfect pilot, why did you need me?"
His father kept his gaze resolutely on Shinji's head, even though it was now bowed. "We were able to improve on your mother's work in the creation of the clones, but the ability to create a proper personality was lost with your mother. The only thing we could do is transfer the mind of the first live specimen to a new body when the first decayed. What you see in that 'aquarium' is just useless meat; the second generation of Ayanami bodies that we didn't give a soul to. We're just keeping them in case on spontaneously develops an individual mind that can be of use to us."
"Then why are you showing me all this?" Shinji lifted his head for an instant, then remembered where he was
"I didn't need to show you, I could have just told you. By refusing to pilot Evangelion Unit-01, you're condemning your own sister to death."
"Aren't you condemning your son or daughter either way?"
"Rei contains none of my genetic material, I only consider her something to be used against Mankind's enemies."
Hearing his father's callous disregard for a human life, Shinji began to leave, but his sleeve was caught as he passed by Ayanami's bed. "You don't have to do this alone." She said.
"I can't." Shinji whispered. "I can't do this for you, I can't do keep running away. What should I do?" He couldn't just get into a giant monster robot and fight Angels, that wasn't what humans were supposed to do. He couldn't do it alone. But this girl, Rei, she was human, she felt pain, she knew how to live. She was human, she was supposed to fight Angels on her own.
"Fight alongside her." His father said, for once moving from his spot right next to the tube to place a hand on Shinji's shoulder. "You don't ever have to fight alone. You don't ever have to run away."
"I'll do it, alright." Shinji said, knowing somewhere in his heart that he'd been manipulated into doing what he wanted to do all along. "I'll pilot the Eva."
AN: This is it, my magnum opus. Not really a sequel, I just find the title to fit very well with the idea of the series. When I told a friend about this being the biggest clusterfuck crossover I could actually produce and be coherent he took that as a challenge. Now, at some point in time, he'll be writing a crossover story so utterly terrible I'm a character in it. I just helped him edit the prologue a few hours ago, half decent at least. Now back to more serious business.
The crossing over won't happen until Shamshel, Angel of Dildo-whips, but I like to set the scene. Until that time, your required reading is:
The warnings gone now, no one can save you. Only I remain, and I won't show mercy like she did.
I think that's enough, don't you? I myself will be taking hiatuses on writing this to re-read/watch source materials, then a larger hiatus before I get to Gaghiel. Gaghiel is the big one, it's when I think this really kicks into gear, and I want to finish up EVERY other story I'm writing except 'Because a Short Title is too Boring'. Until that time, I'll be dropping hints as to the reveal all over the place. If you can figure it out and you AREN'T one of the three people that know already, goddamn you're good.