Summary: During Third Impact, Shinji briefly experienced a completely alternate life: one far less hopeless and alienating than his technically "real" one, and equally real besides. Hence, what if there was also a third major alternate life for the Evangelion characters among countless others out there in the endless parallel universes: one as eerily similar to their default existence as it is also radically different.
Ratings and Warnings: R/M for violence in general, war in particular, angst, cussing, lime-grade sexual situations, and the sake of healthy caution. Be prepared for AU, CI, and POV elements ahead. Standard disclaimers apply since I do not own Neon Genesis Evangelion (GAINAX), Ace Combat (Bandai/Namco) or any other franchise referenced; nor shall I profit from this story in any way, save possibly catharsis.
General A/N: Standard Pairings apply (Shinji/Asuka, Misato/Kaji &c.), with the possible exceptions of Nagase/Genette, Rei/Kaworu and Kensuke/Mana. The Ace Combat universe is the setting, so the Evangelion characters' lives are accordingly AU. However, I chose the Ace universe for this story because it has certain coincidences with the Evangelion timeline that should keep the OOC potential to a minimum. Careful comments and critique would be most helpful and appreciated because of these issues. This is also technically a springboard to several other Eva crossovers I'll (eventually) turn to, but can be read as a stand-alone story if so desired.
Chapter A/N: Mostly based on the original Episodes 25-26 of Evangelion, but references are made to specific parts of End of Evangelion for dramatic effect. Since my preliminary opinion after watching the series is that Shinji followed two different particular endings to the same general end: rejection of Instrumentality, certain (few) fundamental events (e.g. Rei/Lilith fusion) can be seen as occurring in both TV and movie versions. Readers do not have to agree with this judgment, but it informs the plot of this story nonetheless, so let the reader beware. This entire chapter occurs within the world the subjects imagined while undergoing Third Impact, now a subtle and vicious hell in which only the form of a folding chair and an LCL colored spotlight from nowhere exist.
Chapter 1: Alpha from out of Omega
It was finished. And therefore, in theory, so was she. The young man she had desired to be her friend, family and… more… had finally accepted himself. He'd lived the life of another self who was an equal reflection of him, and thus came to know his own truth. In so doing, this unlikely legend of a boy cast away a lifetime's worth of self-loathing and rose up to seize a way out of the final prison that was Third Impact for all, wielding as both banner and weapon the sheer power Rei had (inadvertently) given him to choose to live on as himself; not as a disembodied soul suspended within a planetary ocean of LCL or merged into some interstellar demigoddess. Oh yes, Rei showed Shinji a way out of Third Impact for all, but one she was unsure she possessed strength of spirit to travel; which is why she ambled blankly on across the void even as she continued to marvel at his triumph from the realm of death.
"They are returning now; all but those who choose remain complemented in a state of eternal rest. But where am I to go now that my purpose… my final incarnation… has ended in abject failure and brutal death. I am Shinji's 'necessary loss,' the price for his victory which I too hold splendid in my sight; but still, I wish I were not so…" The lost soul clinging pragmatically to the obsolete name Rei Ayanami saw no evident path she could travel to follow Shinji back, nor any suitable remnant soul to remain complemented unto even if that choice meant surrendering to a contrived heaven spun from the brass thread of her basest fantasies; a consummation devoutly to be wished, perhaps, considering the alternative she was still trapped in.
Sensing no options, for she had to do something or face gradual absorption into the abyss in this realm of nothingness, Rei moved towards her one remaining lodestar in a last bid for liberation. And she felt, vaguely off in the immeasurable distance, that "Space of Absolute Freedom" that she among others had helped Shinji navigate, the (mis) step that had begun her coming to this point.
She felt this space, of course, but soon realized had neither the bearings to reorient her back home even if she traveled it, nor the wherewithal to survive the process if she did. Yes, Rei regarded, this was like so much else in her life: a forlorn and wasted hope. Sighing, she took the time to return to the same chair she'd left before, the one imagined during complementation, and arranged her imaginary skirts while seeking at least a modicum of dignity before she surrendered to the nothingness around and within. "Curse you… Commander Ikari… Father…(!) Because you used me instead of loving me, just like everyone else in your life, I am indeed forsaken… I am utterly forsaken…(!)"
Just as Rei's whimper of dereliction echoed across the void in this place of neither space nor time, but only of mind, a smart-alecky voice from the darkness begged to differ with her. "No! No! No! No! NO! Do NOT give up on yourself just because your asshole dad had some major grief and coping skill issues. If you do that, then those who hurt you every chance they got will have won; and I know Shinji didn't politely deny the Reaper to his face just to walk off and leave you hanging in this two-bit hell, no damned way!"
Rei was as much startled as slightly heartened by this stranger's impassioned rallying cry, and she just dared to inquire to the void in that eerie pseudo-monotone her voice took on when asking a profound question. "Who are you? What are you doing in this place? I do not remember feeling your body and mind complement onto my own or vice versa during the Instrumentality, but you are welcome to do so if you choose." Rei tenuously prepared to drop the faded remnants of her AT Field and join with this stranger should he agree to mutually terminate their separate existences.
"Uh… that's real nice of you and all, but I'd rather pass if you don't mind. Sure, seeing both sides of the coin by melting it down and sticking your head in the slag is a path to salvation/enlightenment/rapture/whatever, but first you've got to survive the ultimate 'bad trip' to get there. I do know some who might go for it though…" The voice pondered as it searched its own memories. "Yes, Major Hamilton! That whole 'rebirth through death' thing is just the kind of nihilistic scheme for salvation his vibes screamed about wanting to try sometime!"
Rei was becoming irritated, but remained too shaken by her misfortune to show it outside her phrasing. "Excuse me, but although your commentary is… interesting… you have not answered me at all. Perhaps you should reveal the form of your mind so I may know who is speaking up for me?"
"NO problem, little lady! Whew…" The voice sighed in relief. "I was beginning to worry you'd never ask and just banish me or something."
With that, a tall, yet puckish and dapper looking man in what was clearly a flight suit appeared before Rei as if some existential spotlight had simply conjured him into being; which in point of fact, it had, and precisely where Commander Ikari had stood while Rei had recalled his picking her up to go and begin the Instrumentality. The stranger promptly moved to shake her hand at first as she stood, but then recalled his first meeting both Nagase and Blaze back in training, and pulled back to bow instead. He introduced himself, smartly saluting but languidly intoning, indicative of his distaste for protocol, as "Lieutenant Colonel (posthumous) Alvin H. Davenport, Serial Number… ah screw it, Killed in Action; Osean Air Defense Force 108th Tactical Fighter Squadron 'Wardog', Sand Island Detachment; callsign 'Wardog 3,' but that's 'Chopper' to you, miss; my tactical handle is way cooler than the one AWACS Thunder-block-head keeps calling me." Chopper smirked in silent laughter at his insult to a superior officer entire dimensions away from where he stood (?) now, i.e. the ideal place for such insubordination if one wishes to escape summary punishment and/or a general courts martial.
"Greetings, Lieutenant Colonel Davenport; I am Rei Ayanami, the First Child selected by the Marduk Report and designated pilot of the General Purpose Decisive Battle Weapon (Android) Evangelion Unit 00. I regret your fall in the line of duty, a fate you unfortunately share with one of this being's prior host bodies, and thus with myself as well. My humblest condolences as a fellow combat pilot…" Rei bowed even deeper than she had to start with in a gesture of respect both due, and felt for, the warrior she saw before her. Standing again, hands clasped before her waist formally, Rei continued "Forgive me, but I have many questions, since I am familiar with neither the country nor armed forces of Osea; and I do not understand why or how you are here exactly. Were you unable to complement onto other variations of yourself in parallel worlds more similar to your own?"
Chopper pulled up a chair identical to Rei's from the nothingness around, and slouched down next to her as he began. "Well… kind of. You see, I'd loitered around versions of your particular Earth, weirdo alternate geography compared to mine notwithstanding, ever since accepting my death; and I wanted to try out another me first before starting any full-on reincarnations. As a matter of fact, I'd picked a version of me that joined this badass secret organization and was perfecting a wicked cool giant robot. But then some bizarre… thing… happened and that particular me got cut off from any reality at all, parallel or otherwise! Figuring to myself, 'What the hell! Bummer, man…' my soul went back to body-shopping for a while until somebody decided they just had to go and attempt an Instrumentality; one loud enough to be heard three whole first-order parallel-universes away too!" Chopper signaled his exasperation at Third Impact; clearly its 'psychic boom,' as it were, had seriously startled and disturbed him.
"I see," Rei murmured. "You felt from afar the confusion and pain that many of my world's souls experienced during Third Impact. I did not wish that particular aspect to be so, but it was part of the chosen process and unavoidable. In any case, they may resume their prior forms now that Instrumentality has failed; and are doing so as we speak, thanks to Shinji's example." Rei began to shudder as she contemplated Shinji's triumph, and its equal corollary. "If only I could… do so as… well…" Rei's downcast glance resumed, betraying more than her few tears and imperceptible sobs did.
"Yeah, and you might want to consider asking the people you want to squish together into one 'superbeing' if it's okay before off and doing it next time! I don't know much, but I do recall that any soul who's wandered this particular 'Twilight Zone' long enough knows that Instrumentality events aren't to be thrown casually like so many birthday parties. It's bad luck and all, you know…" His flippant lecture concluding, Chopper remembered Rei's distress and relented of his monologue. "Aww… come on Rei. What's there to cry about? You heard about it; 'they can all return' right? What the woman, who looks way too much like you for comfort now that I think about it, said? Well so can you!"
"No." Rei's deathlike tone indicated her frustration with Chopper was reaching the breaking point, a phenomenon she only recalled twice before in her existence, both of those incidents revolving around Shinji in their own ways. "No, Chopper, it is not so. They can all return, but I seem unable to follow them back. I believe it is due to my role as instigator of the Instrumentality, as well as my… nature… more broadly speaking." Rei tiptoed around the reason precisely why she looked so much like the late Yui Ikari with her typical reserve, since she had no illusions about just how abhorrent most people found the very idea of human cloning, as both of the Akagi women had made excruciatingly clear to her.
"Oh no, Rei… Do NOT go there! I saw all that in the backwash from your Instrumentality when it hit me. So what if you're a clone! You have to have a soul to even be here, so that shoots down most people's first mistaken idea about clones right in the merge, as we fighter jocks like to say. The fact that your creator barred more than one of you at a time from accessing that soul by spiking the others' LCL tank with selectively mind inhibiting drugs, profoundly disturbing though it is, has no bearing on that soul's legitimacy or otherwise. That's just one damned lie both the late Doctors Akagi told you that you've been repeating to yourself, and one of the only things keeping you here to boot!"
Rei opened her mouth in a muted gasp of surprise. She thought, "Could it really be that simple? Might the same truth I revealed to Shinji apply equally to myself?" She still didn't dare to hope so yet, and queried Chopper for his honest opinion. "If my being is not false, then… what am I to you Chopper?"
"Beautiful, Rei. That's the long and short of it. And I know from experience too; even if I still can't quite decide if you're Shinji's bizarrely young aunt or some strange sort of twin sister instead; not that it's my place to of course!" Chopper quickly adopted his standard sheepish manner as he distanced himself from that particular and persistent can of worms. He'd made his point though, and that was all that mattered. The rest was smooth sailing from now on. "But don't take my word for it, obliged though I might be if you did. Why not take a look for yourself to see why."
"How?" Rei was intrigued now, equally indicated by her deceptively slight smile as her simple joy at having the sincere respect of someone other than Shinji, for once.
"See that door over yonder?" Chopper waved broadly to his right side as an innocuous doorframe suspiciously like the one to Rei's former apartment in New Tokyo-3 appeared out of the blackness at his speaking of it. "I think that's what you were looking for before I showed up. Just think of me as you step in and you'll get to check out my world for a change."
Rei decided after a short beat of consideration. "Very well. Thank you, Chopper; inadequately as that expression may fit this one's gratitude for your… perspective." She bowed her deepest yet in thanks, an emotion itself expressed by Rei only once prior, before she opened the door and stepped through into an endless expanse of white.
That "Space of Absolute Freedom," the equal and yet opposite of the nothingness she had languished in prior, consumed her as she floated on. "What is this? I am nearing it… Yes… It is upon me…(!)" Rei fell into a being equal parts a stranger and at once intimately familiar with a jarring psychic crash of two minds merging upon impact before jolting awake as one.