Evangelion

(Never) Alone

Episode 2

Road To Nowhere

A/N: Just a quick clarification before we begin Chapter 2: I expect that when a lot of you were reading Chapter 1 that this was going to be a direct fan sequel to You Can (Not) Redo and I didn't think to mention that this isn't exactly that kind of story. This is more of an interquel, toying around with an interesting idea I had after watching 3.33 again recently.

Now before you click away, I do plan to write a sequel to 3.0, which will pick up where this fic leaves off so if you'd rather just see me follow up on the events of that movie, and you have a lot of patience, I'll provide a recap at the start of the next story so you can catch up. If you're still interested in seeing where this is going, just know that things will start to go in a different direction after this chapter. It won't go completely off rails; I just want you to know what I'm getting into. Either way I hope you all enjoy what I have in store for you.

"Dammit…" Asuka grumbled as she stared at the map on her comm device. "We're three days from the nearest WILLE Outpost." She put the device away and looked through her backpack. Just enough rations for three more meals. There was another settlement only a day or two away, but she wasn't too keen on going to them for help. They weren't hostile to WILLE but they weren't exactly known for their generosity. "We'll have to ration our food carefully over the next few days."

The others barely reacted, not that she expected any less. It was hard to tell which was worse, the robot or the zombie. On the one hand, the Ayanami Type had tried to kill just the other day; but at least she could follow orders and wouldn't break down in the middle of nowhere. Shinji, on the other hand, practically had to be shoved out of the cave they'd slept in and looked at all times like he was about to fall over and drown in his own tears. The two weighed her down like a pair of concrete shoes; but they'd both seen and learned things she hadn't: information that could be useful to WILLE.

"Alright," She said as she slung the pack over her shoulders. "We've sat around long enough. Time to get moving." The Ayanami Type followed the Captain, just as before. Shinji, however, just sat on his ass, trying to block out the world he had ruined. "Christ's sake…" Asuka muttered as she strode over to the boy, glaring down at him with her one good eye. "Move." The Third Child did nothing. Asuka felt the blood rush to her knuckles as her fists clenched. "I said move." She growled as she pulled the boy up by his wrist. "We don't have time to waste on pity parties Bratty Shinji!"

The boy couldn't bring himself to look her in the eye. "Just leave me." He whispered, his voice shaking. "I know you want to." Asuka gritted her teeth. He still had to make everything about himself and his pain, even if it put everyone else in danger. "Well I'm not going to." She spat back. "Because I have orders to bring you back aboard the Wunder alive; and I'll be damned if I let you run away from us again."

Shinji just turned away from her, as if she didn't exist. Asuka had just about had enough. "Look at me!" She snapped. No response. The Captain got a death grip on his head and wrenched it up until they were face to face. "Look at me!" She could almost hear his heartbeat quicken, as she looked the boy right in the eye. "Now listen to me, and listen real fucking close." Her voice was as cold as her gaze. "Nobody cares about what you want, or how you feel. All we want to do is survive, until we get back to the Wunder, so we can start work on cleaning up the mess you made!"

Shinji's breathing was panicked and erratic. She'd seen her get mad before, but never like this. Asuka looked long and hard into his eyes before, just for a moment, her expression softened. "Look," She said, loosening her grip a little. "I get it. I really get it. Right now you're lost, and frightened and you wish you could just curl up in a ball and die."

The boy nodded weakly. He was still reeling Asuka's little lecture but at the same time, he hadn't expected her to, at least try and understand him. "You know why I know that? Because we were all that way at some point. We've all wanted to just give up and let ourselves die out here." She let go off him and Shinji felt his legs buckle as he fell to the ground.

The Second Child stepped forward, standing over him, glaring down at him as if she were a teacher and he, a disobedient child. "We had to go through that, because of you." Shinji looked down at the ground in shame. "Look at me." He obeyed. "The world didn't stop to let us pity ourselves. The danger didn't magically go away because we were frightened or upset. We just had to suck it up and move on." The clone watched the two of them intently, as if studying them.

"Now it's your turn." Asuka said. "Whether you like it or not, what's happening to you is your own fault." Shinji felt his guilt well up inside him. He wanted to run, to hide, to disappear. But deep down he knew that if he ran, things were only going to get harder for him "I'm taking you back with me one way or the other. So, are you going to suck it up and walk on your own, or do I have to get you a leash?"

Asuka's cold, blue eye bore into him, judging his every action. The fool had caused her no end of trouble and she was running out of patience. She would give him one chance to convince him that she was right to pull him out of that entry plug, one single shot to prove he wasn't a lost cause. If he blew it now, she would just give up on him.

The Third Child still couldn't bring himself to carry on; but at the same time he knew Asuka well enough to know she wasn't going to budge on this. The choice had already been made for him, like always. He could either obey orders, or be forced to comply. Besides, he'd already given her enough grief over the past couple days, and he owed it to her to at least try and go on. Asuka watched as the boy pulled himself to his feet and resigned himself to keep going, for now.

"Better?" He grumbled.

"Better." Asuka said flatly as she turned away and led the other two Children on their way through the wasteland that had once been the home of millions.


The dull, red wastes of the post Impact world spread out into the distance like a sea of rust as the Children trekked through the ruins of countless shops and houses on the outskirts of what had once been Tokyo 3. What little resemblance it bared to the world of the past only served to make it more alien. In the distance they could see an endless field of hay rolls, preserved in core material like rolling waves of blood. In a way it was almost beautiful. But for Shinji, it was just another reminder of his greatest mistake.

In every familiar building he saw a memory of a better time: a time that would never come back. In every cracked window he saw the reflection of one of his old friends. Toji, Kensuke, Rei, Misato, Kaworu, all of them stared back at him, judging him for his foolish pride, for the actions that had ruined their lives.

It was all he could do to choke back the tears and bury his pain, deep down inside of him. It didn't help but he had a feeling Asuka would yell at him if he broke down again.

It was almost evening by the time they reached the main road. It was surprisingly empty. Most of the vehicles had been thrown from the road in the maelstrom of the Fourth Impact. The boys felt like he was walking on sandpaper as they followed the path towards the Lilin Outpost. They had been walking for hours and his legs felt like they were going to buckle but Asuka insisted they keep walking. "We're not stopping until night and I'm not sleeping out in the open. We can evade the Nemesis Series while we're awake, but if they find us while we're sleeping we're dead."

The boy shivered as the evening closed in, unable to go any further. To Asuka it looked as if he was crying. "Oh for- What is it now Bratty Shinji!?" The Third Child couldn't stop shaking. "C-c-cold." He said as he wrapped his arms around his chest, desperate to get warm. "S- so cold…" Ever since Second Impact the planets climate had changed dramatically, and the world had existed in a state of never-ending summer. But the Third Impact had thrown the world into utter chaos, and the weather could shift almost on a dime now.

Asuka sighed as she took off her backpack and stuck her hand in. Even she had to admit it was getting surprisingly cold, and she'd had fourteen years to get used to a more changeable climate. She couldn't imagine what it must have been like for him. "You should have a blanket in your pack. Put it on before you freeze to death. It's probably gonna get worse as the night goes on but you'll just have to deal with it." She turned to the clone as she pulled blanket around her red plugsuit. "That goes for you too alright? I'm not dragging a pair of icebergs back to WILLE."

Shinji felt the Ayami Type watching him as he wrapped his own blanket around himself. It was thin and did little to stop him from shivering, but it was enough to make the cold at least bearable. He looked away as Rei's copy drew closer, reluctant to even look at her. He felt something warm wrap around his hand and looked down to see her holding hands with him. "What are you doing?" He said, still refusing to look her in the eye. "I have heard," The clone explained, "That people can warm each other by exchanging body heat." He pulled away from her. "I'm fine." He said, the frustration clear in his voice. She looked down at her empty hand, disappointed. "But… thank you…"

Shinji felt Asukas hand on his back. "Get. Moving!" She grunted as she shoved them forward. "You two will have plenty of time to work out your issues when we find somewhere to camp."

Things only got worse as the sun went down and the night grew darker and colder. The flashlights had a pretty mediocre range to them and made them stand out like a sore thumb but they were blind without them. The blankets had absorbed some of their body heat by now but it was still freezing and their suits weren't made to protect them from extreme temperature. Their packs weren't super heavy but Shinji still felt the weight on his shoulders as they crawled onwards, towards an uncertain future. "It's like we're on some fucked up camping trip." Asuka mused, laughing bitterly. "I always wanted to go camping as a kid. Don't know what I thought I was missing."

Shinji could see the steam leaving his mouth as he spoke. "We- we should have stayed in one of those buildings b- back in the city." "I know that you idiot!" She spat back. "But it's too late to turn back now. If we do we'll die out here." Shinji shook his head as he rubbed desperately against his chest. "We're going to die anyway-" "NO WE'RE NOT!" The Captains cheeks were red with anger as she wheeled around on him. "I have a mission to complete! I've survived the fall of civilization, and I've won against impossible odds for the past fourteen years and I am not going to die out here for nothing!"

For the first time, perhaps in his entire life, Shinji caught a glimpse of fear in Asuka's eye. It can't have been the first time she'd been afraid, nobody could live through two Impacts and say they'd never felt fear, but it was the first time he'd seen it for himself and it chilled him to the bone. If Asuka lost it, they really were doomed. "Come on!" She snarled as she forced herself to go faster. Shinji followed close behind, his legs aching as he did his best not to stumble and fall. "Asuka wait!" "No!" She screamed. "We've waited long enough! I'm getting us to shelter if it's the last thing I- Scheisse!"

Without warning the pilot of Unit 02 ducked behind a van and covered her nose and mouth with her hand. Shinji looked stared out into the darkness as Asuka turned off her flashlight. Off in the distance he saw the silhouette of a human figure, illuminated by a beam of light that put their flashlights to shame. "What's the problem?" He asked as the Rei clone sat next to Asuka. "It looks like just an ordinary…" The humanoid turned slowly and a chill ran down Shinji's spine as he realized what had lit up the night. It wasn't a flashlight.

It was its eyes.

Asuka managed to pull him behind cover just before the creature got him in its sights. "What the he-" Asuka clamped her hand around his mouth. "Quiet," She hissed, "or we're dead!" The three of them sat there, frozen on the spot as the lights hovered over the ground, drawing closer and closer. With every step the monster took, Shinji felt his heart beat a little faster. He held his breath for longer than he even thought possible as he heard the sound of metal against metal and a lank, grey face peered over the vehicle.

Asuka held her finger to her lips as she pulled out her combat knife and slowly crept around the van. She had one shot at this and if she blew it, it was over for them. Her heart skipped a beat as the creature slowly craned its neck downwards. Now if she remembered right, its alarm device should've been just below the ribcage…

Shinji covered his ears as Asuka plunged the knife into its side with all her might, and the beast let out a garbled, electrical scream that cut right through him. Pitch-black fluid poured out as Asuka dragged the blade along its belly, spilling circuits and wires everywhere, but the creature was not done yet. The Second Child dropped her knife as it lunged towards her, reaching for her neck.

Asuka just barely managed to hold the freak back, clinging desperately to its thin, bony wrists. Shinji looked on in horror as the girl who saved his life wrestled with the mechanical horror. He knew he was all but useless in a fight and his pack contained no weapons but he couldn't just sit there and do nothing. "Get off of her!" He yelled, grabbing a rock and bashing it against the monsters head.

The beast turned its head a full 180 degrees to face the boy. Its eyes flickered in the darkness, blinding Shinji and leaving him completely helpless as it pounced on top of him and wrapped it's hands around his neck. He did his best to push back while Asuka tried to pull the creature off but it had a death grip on him and would not budge. And as Shinji lay there, gasping for air, he remembered the day of the Unit 03 incident, lying on the ground with the Angel strangling him to death, while he did nothing to help Asuka. 'A fitting death…' He thought as the light faded from his eyes.

Far off in the darkness he saw two lights, shining like diamonds. It wasn't like the lights from the monster's eyes but it was still eerily familiar. 'Is this it?' He thought as he felt himself being pulled towards the light. 'Is this death?' And then, he heard another voice, one that was, again, oddly familiar. 'No.' it said as the lights flew into his eyes, and the boy felt a burst of life.

Suddenly, he was back on the road, his hands wrapped around the monster's wrists and slowly pulling its hands from his neck; but the creature was nothing if not persistent, pushing back at him and slashing at his face. Its claws came a mere inch from his face before the boy let out a desperate, feral scream and squeezed hard, crushing its metal bones like two brittle pencils. Seizing the opportunity, Asuka grabbed hold of the beast and threw it off the side. It shrieked all the way down as it plummeted into darkness. "You are going to be the death of me…" She growled.

Shinji was still trying to process what had happened. Even for a fourteen year old his strength was average at best. And yet, despite being cold, starving and exhausted, he'd just broken through solid iron like it was nothing. And that near death experience he'd had just a moment ago, what was that? His mind was full of questions as he stood there, trying to make sense of the last couple minutes. "Asuka what- what was that thing?" She told him nothing, she just grabbed his hand and went back to drag him down the road. "No time." She whispered, "I'll explain later. Now come on, and keep your mouth shut; there might be more of them out here."

White flakes began to fall from the sky as Asuka pulled him down the road. He'd never seen it before but he recognised it from one of his textbooks. There was no time to stop and admire it though; the nigh was far from over and the snow was just a sign that things were about to get a lot colder. Finally his legs gave out, and he collapsed on the roadside. "I- I'm ok!" He lied as he did his best to pull himself back up and his light shone on what looked like a massive, rust colored leg.

He let out a terrified shriek as he fell back to the ground. "What? What is it!?" Asuka said as she looked up to see the giant red husk. "It's- it's just an Eva Unit…" The boy grumbled, blushing from the embarrassment. "That's no Eva." Asuka said grimly as she pulled him back to his feet. "That is one of the victims of Third Impact." Shinji couldn't believe what he was hearing. "You mean… that thing used to be a human?"

"I'm afraid so." Asuka whispered. "But, if there's one of them all the way out here then we should be able to find shelter " The three of them explored the cliffside, shining their lights every which way until finally the clone's light shone on a small house, without a scratch on it. "Well," Asuka said, half-grinning-half-wincing. "Seems our Lady Luck's finally on our side. Took her long enough…"


The three pilots huddled around the stove as a bowlful of water bubbled atop it. "Emergency rations." She said as she took out what looked like three small slabs of chalk and passed them around, before pouring a sachet of light green powder into the water. "They won't fill our bellies but they'll keep us from starving to death." She took a bite of the bland, tasteless biscuit and shuddered as she washed it down with a swig of hot water that tasted almost exactly nothing like tea. "We'll have some more nutrient paste in the morning." She passed the bowl to Shinji. "Try not to spill it."

Shinji had to force himself not to spit the stuff back out. He didn't know what it tasted like but it sure as hell didn't taste like green tea. The best description he could think of was that it tasted… green. "Never thought I'd miss Four Eyes" Asuka grumbled as she thought back to Mari's private stash of tea.

"Asuka?" Shinji muttered, a little less afraid to speak up now that she was… less pissed off. "What was that back there?" "Nemesis Series." She said through a mouthful of biscuit. "Type D: another one of NERV's little toys designed as scouts for the main Nemesis Series." That didn't mean much to Shinji, as he barely knew what the Nemesis series was. Luckily, the Captain seemed to pick up on that. "The Nemesis Series," she explained, "Are basically an unmanned Evangelion, stripped of any unnecessary features to save resources and programmed to follow a set stratestrategy in battle, the imend result is more like a man-made Angel than an Eva Unit. The Type D is different though; it's a humanoid robot with no Core or A.T Field. They leave them out in the wasteland to look for signs of life. If they find a human they'll send out a signal, attracting any Nemesis within a fifty mile radius and potentially leading them to any nearby civilization." Shinji trembled at the implications of that. "You can relax though, I destroyed its beacon so we should be safe here, at least for tonight." Shinji had a hard time believing that, but he kept it to himself.

The snow was coming down hard now, and by the morning the red wastes would be buried under a sheet of pure white. "All we need now is a tree." Asuka quipped as Rei passed the bowl back to her. "What is that?" The clone asked as she stared out the window at the snowflakes, falling to the earth like little pieces of cotton. Asuka snorted in disbelief. "What, you've never seen snow before?" "No, I have." The blue haired girl replied. "I just don't know what it is." The Second Child rolled her eyes. She and the boy didn't exactly make for compelling conversation but at least they distracted her subpar meal (if she could even call chalky biscuits and a shared bowl of fake tea a meal).

"It's rain." She said simply, "Frozen into little ice crystals. I don't know exactly how it works, meteorology was never my strong suit." The Ayanami type got up from her seat to take a closer look. "It's beautiful…" "Yeah, when you're not freezing your ass off." Asuka sniggered before she stuffed the last of her biscuit in her mouth, ground it to dust and forced it down her throat. She let Shinji have the last mouthful of "tea". Of the three of them, he had handled the cold worst of all and the less she had to listen to him whine about it the better.

"Right, lights out." Asuka said as she tucked herself into her sleeping bag and pulled her blanket over herself. "We've got an early start tomorrow and we'll need all the sleep we can get."

The clone fell drifted off without a fuss and Asuka followed shortly after. But Shinji would get no sleep that night. It was a miracle he'd gotten any sleep the night before. He was just too distracted by the cold. Across from him lay the Second Child, his former friend. With Rei and Kaworu gone and Misato miles away, Asuka Shikinami was all he had left to remember his past, before everything went to hell. She was the one thing that kept him going, even if it was by force. Desperate for some kind of affection, the boy reached out and put his hand on her shoulder, only for her to roll over in her sleep and turn her back to him.

Tears streamed from Shinji's eyes as the night wore on, seemingly forever. Unable to get any sleep, Shinji was left alone with his own imagination, an imagination that ran wild with images of pain, misery and death.


Asuka woke up at 6:30 AM the next morning with her bones aching from the cold. "God that was a rough night…" She mumbled as she shook herself awake. "Oh well, who wants rations?" She said with all the enthusiasm of a child on their way to school on Christmas Day. The Ayanami Type sat up slowly. She too had grown used to waking up at the crack of dawn. "Where is Shinji?" Asuka searched the building but he was nowhere to be found. "I swear to God, if he's run off again…"

She opened the front door and there he was, standing at the edge of the cliff, staring down at the river below. "You're up early…" She said cautiously. "I didn't sleep." His voice was frighteningly calm. Asuka had seen this many times before, and fear gripped her heart as she realized what was about to happen.

"Shinji…" Asuka said as she felt her heart race. "Don't even think about it…"

Next Episode: Goodbye Cruel World