Chapter 02: Invisible Creed

"Due to the state of special emergency, no lines are currently available. This is a recording."

"It's no use, this is dumb." He said as he slammed the phone back onto the receiver. He then groaned a bit and picked up his only piece of luggage. Looking at his watch, he said, "Maybe I should find a shelter, it's obvious she isn't going to get here very soon." He said, looking at the picture of the purple haired woman, an arrow pointing to her cleavage, which she had drawn on the picture. He looked up from his watch and saw what looked like the Rei girl in the picture Kensuke had shown him. He blinked and she was gone.

'Must be my over active imagination. Besides, at last report, Ayanami was injured, she couldn't have been here.' He shook his head quickly to clear his thoughts before he looked around a bit. Then, the ground shook, and he recoiled a bit to keep his footing, and then he looked up to see helicopters moving in the not-so-far-off distance. Behind them was a big, upright, almost human thing that Shinji didn't know what to describe it as at first.

'That must be an Angel, the first one in fifteen years' Shinji had read part of the Dead Sea Scrolls that Kensuke had given him, and he found out that it said when the Angels were expected and what powers they had, and a slight description on the appearance. He read enough to know that he was going in for a very dangerous mission, not that he hadn't had dangerous missions before this one.

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NERV Headquarters

As the image of the Angel came on screen, Gendo Ikari and his second in command, Kouzou Fuyutski, were talking while watching the Angel progress.

"It's been fifteen years."

"Yes. Well, now we know for sure: the Angels are back." Gendo said he remained in his usual position, hands in front of his face.

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Shinji was standing by the phone still, having decided to give this Misato woman a few more minutes, when suddenly some debris from the building around him started being thrown in different directions as the Angel just happened to be near him, and passed in front of him.

Suddenly, a blue Renault A310 pulled up by him and stopped with a screech of the tires, and the passenger door opened.

:"I take it you're Shinji? Well, come on, I don't think you'd like to be stepped on by the Angel."

He looked up briefly to see the Angel lifting its foot up as if to step on them before he quickly scrambled to pick himself up off the ground and run to the car as fast as he could and threw his stuff into the backseat before plopping down into the passenger seat and slamming the door shut so they could take off.

Being one to be used to driving a car rather fast himself, he was not overly stunned at her driving, especially with the Angel almost stepping on the car before they finally left the train station behind.

'So that was an Angel after all… looks like it's as dangerous as intelligence said it would be. Good thing I'll know when the Angels are coming; at least I'll be ready for their attacks, unlike Ikari… father.'

Misato then tried to break the obvious tension between them. "Not very talkative, are you?" she asked, continuing to keep her eyes on the road.

"Not really. Doesn't help that my life was flashing before my eyes." 'What little I've actually had of a life.' He finished in his head.

"Yeah, I know what you mean, but that's probably going to be happening a lot from now on, so you might want to have it flash now, because there won't be time later." She said as they pulled into a train car that was made for transporting cars into the Geofront.

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"Damn!" one of the UN board Generals exclaimed as he hit the desk the other UN Officials were sitting at as the attack on the Angel continued to go poorly. Gendo and Fuyutski continued to watch on in morbid fascination as the UN's repeated attacks did little or nothing to the Angel. Suddenly, the screen showed static; a result from their dropping an N2 charge on the Angel.

"Yes! We've got him now!" said one of the Generals.

"Sorry, Ikari. Looks like you won't be needed after all." Said one of the generals to Gendo. Gendo said nothing, but continued to sit in his usual position, smirking behind his gloved hands.

'Fools… only an Evangelion can destroy an Angel' thought Gendo.

"Do we have visual conformation that it's been destroyed yet?"

"Receiving visual now" said one of the computer techs. A moment later, an image of an immobile Angel showed on the screen.

"Status of the Angel?" Fuyutski asked.

"Only 18 percent damage, sir." Said Makoto.

"Just scratching the surface." Mumbled Fuyutski.

"Very well, Ikari, looks like you get to try your little toy out after all." Said the head member of the UN board as their platform receded into the ground. "You better not fail." The UN member said before he disappeared. Gendo only smirked slightly in response but the smirked died a quick death once the members were gone.

Gendo turned to Fuyutski and said, "It's time."

"I understand" Fuyutski said. And with that, Gendo walked off into a central part of NERV.

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"So, what is it that I'm supposed to pilot?" Shinji asked Ritsuko, the genius doctor that he was supposed to kill in secrecy, not that anyone here at NERV knew that. Once the blonde doctor had helped him and Misato with finding their way, and even escorting them, they found their way into a dark room with a boat that they were now on, heading across some sort of extremely dark water that gave off the faint smell of blood.

"You'll see in minute." Was all that he got in response until they stood about a minute later on a metal floor that could almost be called a catwalk. Since intelligence had little information on Evangelions, it helped his disguise, though he would have to rely on his acting ability to pass it off as the first time he saw the face of one.

Suddenly, the two beautiful women in front of him stopped, and the lights suddenly turned on.

"What the hell is that?" Shinji asked, falling on his ass in surprise at the face that was suddenly in front of him.

"That is an Evangelion." A voice said from above. A voice that he remembered very well, and hated very much.

"Father." He said, looking up defiantly at him, standing up in the process.

"It has been a very long time, Shinji." Gendo said, his voice never changing its harsh tone.

"Why did you send for me?"

"I have a purpose for you: Pilot the Evangelion and save humanity."

"Why should I?" Shinji asked defiantly again.

Gendo killed the sound to the Evangelion cages and brought up a small screen to talk to his second in command.

"Bring in Rei."

"Are you sure, she still-"

"She's not dead yet." Gendo said, referring to the blue haired girl that was still injured.

"Very well, sir."

He closed that screen and brought up another one, talking to Rei this time.

"Rei, our spare is unusable. You will do it again."

"I understand, sir." Rei said in her calm, quiet voice. He then reopened the sound to the cages.

"If you refuse to pilot, then we will use another."

"But I thought-" Misato started to say.

"You thought wrong then."

Just as Gendo said those words, a doctor and a nurse were pushing in a gurney with a blue haired girl on it, an IV hooked into her arm.

"Will you pilot, or won't you?" Gendo asked. After a minute of silence, Gendo said, "Very well, Rei, get in Unit 01."

"Reset the parameters pf Unit 01 for Rei!" Ritsuko said.

The girl called Rei said nothing, but screamed out in pain as she tried to sit up. Just then a blast rocked the underground fortress, knocking Rei off the stretcher. Shinji ran forward and caught her before she fell into the "lake" of stuff surrounding the catwalk they were on.

Suddenly, part of the ceiling decided to fall, right over Shinji and Rei. He looked up, and knew that there would not be enough time for him to move, and save them both. Out of nowhere, Unit 01 moved its hand above Shinji and saved them from the falling debris, sending it towards Gendo and cracking the glass wall in front of him, leaving him smirking slightly.

"I'll… I'll do it!" he yelled. "I'll pilot the Evangelion!"

"Very good, I knew you'd make the right choice." He said, turning around to head back to Central Dogma.

"Alright, prep the Eva for Ikari!" Ritsuko and Misato yelled out to the receiving speakers that were in the cages.

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Misato and Ritsuko back on the bridge, they took command while the commander watched.

"Alright Shinji, you might feel some strange sensations, but it should be something that you should be able to get used to."

"A-alright" he stuttered. 'That's not all I'd like to get used to.' He thoughtas he briefly glanced at Ritsuko before shaking his head slightly so he could concentrate on the task at hand: make the Evangelion move and defeat the Angel.

"What his ratio with the Eva?" Ritsuko asked as she walked towards the computer station, watching as the ratio result came in.

"43 percent? How is that possible?"

"Alright, everything ready commander!" Misato said loud enough for Gendo to hear.

"Proceed, Captain." He said, sitting in his usual position behind a desk above the rest of Central Dogma which overlooks all operations.

"Eva launch!"

The catapult Unit 01 was standing on moved upward, at a very fast velocity. The Evangelion reached the surface very quickly, snapping the head up slightly once the catapult stopped, the purple demonic looking Eva just standing there.

"What am I supposed to do?" Shinji asked, curious as how he was supposed to get it moving.

"Just think about taking a step."

'Just think about taking a step? Sounds too easy.' He thought. Then the Evangelion started to raise its foot as if it were going to actually take a step. However, the Eva had other plans and fell face forward.

He face palmed. 'Kensuke's not going to let me live this down if he finds out.'

Then it came: the Angels attack.

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AN: Yes I cut this chapter short, but for good reason, as always. I was supposedly going to post this chapter a week or two ago, but got rather side-tracked. Hopefully, I will have the next chapter up soon. Also, I thank 'Kawaii Tenshi no Shi' for catching one of my mistakes.