CHAPTER 1 - INTERFERENCE
"I think were lost." I kept reading the booklet about operational procedures.
"Jeez, could they have made this place more complicated!?" My guide groaned and scratched her head.
I sighed, and put a hand to the wall, under the guise of supporting myself. Ignoring the terrible feeling on my insides and the hideous blood fog permeating the place on my senses, I used analysis on the building. I had to agree with her. Such overly complicated structures, secret passages and all, makes this place like a dungeon. High-tech dungeon, alright, but a dungeon nonetheless. I felt a human prana signature too, coming from…
"Misato-san? I think we should go this way." I walked without waiting for her. Really, if my father's reason to bring me here is protection, that would take a weight off his shoulders. If not, well delaying the inevitable wouldn't help, so let's get this over and just blame Zelrech.
"Hey, Shin- no Shirou! Wait, this way leads to the-"
I push the unlabeled door's button to open it. A hangar? I reinforced my eyes trying to discern anything from the almost unnatural darkness. My insides twisted once more, but amidst the blood, a sweet, strangely comforting and kind of milky scent of made itself known and my stomach settled.
"Main cages? I swear the map said-"
"If I believed in god, I'd say this was a blessing from him." A blonde woman entered from another door in a skintight diver suit.
The lights turned on, making me face the metal monstrosity's head a few feet from me. An ugly purple giant robot most would think. I knew better. That thing was alive, even if not whole, and it was the same type (maybe a TYPE even), of the one out there.
"This is the humanity's last resort, the Evangelion." The blonde get between me and the alien (machine?), and stared at me so closely that I thought she was trying to structurally analyze me.
"I think you're scaring him, Ritsuko." Misato joked.
"Let me guess: You guys want me to pilot it and kill that thing out there?" I tried not to sigh. Zelrech, I hate you.
The blonde looked up for a moment, but asked, and even the speaker commands to an unseen crew failed to hide her amusement. "What makes you think that?"
Misato strained to keep a straight face.
"Many things, but the Manual was kind of an obvious." I stared at the thing for a moment, trying to remain nonchalant. "If I was brought here for my safety, you wouldn't give me this," I shook the folder, "And if I was to work elsewhere, you would have taken me there already."
And another voice was heard.
"Yes, you are to pilot it." My eyes focused a bit higher of the metal railings, and in a room up in the wall.
Father. My other self nearly cried. I grimaced as my reinforced eyes caught his near contemptuous look at me. I might be dense, but I've saw similar expressions before: Shinji, Caster, Gilgamesh.
You are not important. Refuse, is too dangerous! You're but a pawn. There must be someone else more capable! Insignificant. How are you going to fight a thing YOU can barely hurt! Useless. My memories and cries from my just awakened local persona rose inside of me, calling for others long ago buried in my subconscious.
He didn't want to protect me. He didn't care about me.
I was but a pawn to him, probably called here for political reasons or as (useless) leverage against him.
Shut up! There are people dying out there, I will do something! "How do I do it?" I looked up once more.
My progenitor's (a person like that doesn't deserve be called father) eyes narrowed in response to mine, but his expression remained eerily blank.
"Ok, This is not bad, but shouldn't this thing have a seatbelt?" I asked no one in particular.
"Don't worry, once we flood the plug, physical shocks will be the last of your worries." The voice from that blonde I met earlier, answered me on the speakers.
"Flood?" I couldn't help but worry, and my younger and high-pitched voice cracked one octave higher.
"Don't worry kid, we're not going to drown you," her voice sounded almost amused "Once the LCL fills your lungs, it will supply oxygen to your lungs more effectively than air could." As she spoke, a reddish liquid started to fill the place and I did my best not to squirm.
Ristuko pressed the communicator once more. "Ok kid, now listen to me: The machine responds to both your mental commands and your physical ones. You should be getting visual now. Concentrate on simple things first, like walking."
"His synchro levels are stabilizing on 35,9%, wait, unknown interference detected, mental corruption registering negative values!" Maya's voice cried in alarm. "What!?" Ritsuko nearly fell over the girl trying to get a better look.
I woke up in the familiar visage of that Hill of Swords. The endless dawn was recomfortingly familiar, but some things were… off. Different. Large patches of grass over the place, many tall rocks rising from the ground and a cliff to the south, the reflex of the sun on the water on the distance, and a sweet smell on the previously inexistent wind…
I summed it up in one nice phrase: "What the hell?!" Are these dimensional shifts were seriously messing up with my soul?! Why I'm even here?
Then I saw it. Appearing from head to feet, like a twisted reverse from a form rising from the ground. An existence so utterly wrong to my soul that it hurt. So human like, yet so Alien. It looked like one of those featureless anatomic models of science class, except for the hemispheric hole on its chest.
It roared, a distant parody of a human voice.
I answered. "Trace on." Kanshou and Bakuya were on my hands and primed to strike, I dashed aiming at its face.
Some light blocked my strike, and I kicked it, then taking advantage of one of the rocks to get solid footing.
Its eyes shone with unearthly light, and a slow moving (at least for light standards) blast seared the grounds forming a cross.
Avoiding the blast I circled to its left flank. Kanshou was shot, angled to hit its spine and I dashed with Bakuya, but the barrier shone again deflecting both attacks, despite the fact the creature never turned its head.
I could see when muscles contracted, for it was much skin-less as it was faceless. It turned to me, and swiped its hands, forcing me to dodge back. Two copies of my faithful swords impaled the ground after bouncing on the shining barrier, and an idea came to me.
I notched Durandal on my just made bow. "Destroy that barrier!" And shot.
Immediately dismissing the bow, Kanshou and Bakuya again in my hands I struck again, and the thing moved weirdly, avoiding a slash that would have severed its arm off. I spun, retreating once more out of its immediate range, not without bringing the other blade to cut its leg deeply, red blood pouring of the wound and soaking the ground. Then with a crying sound, it manifested a spear that pierced trough my arm and the ground.
It was not normal pain. Normal pain I could take. That damned thing seared my very soul.
I moved, despite the damage of my mangled arm. Calling one weapon I was sure to be effective even on my nearly dis-armed state, I struck forward aiming for its center of mass, ignoring the shivers the red spear brought to my body (soul?).
"Gaé Bolg!"
It roared as the strike pierced its chest, and advanced forward. The spear tip perforated its back, and one of its hands grabbed me by the shirt.
I dashed back, regardless of the surprise resistance offered by my shirt being ripped, avoiding a second impalement by light spears by scant centimeters. Kanshou was made and thrown, Bakuya in my hands a moment later.
A loose rock and a patch of grass, and I was on the floor.
It lunged, and I positioned the blade to rip its throat off. Bakuya's twin pierced its back, but and instead of ripping me off, it embraced me with surprising strength.
Pressure build up, I was sure my ears were bleeding.
Then there was light. Light and searing pain.
…main control room, a few moments before the battle…
"What do you mean unknown interference!? Is the Eva rejecting him?!"
"Magi are detecting and isolating the phenomenon, the pilot was assigned as Pattern Orange. Eva Pattern still marked as Blue." Another technician's voice called from a terminal.
"What?! Pattern Orange?! This is ridiculous! Humans can't get a pattern other than Red!"
"Shut you mouths, turn off the sound alerts, and put the battle surveillance on the main screen." Gendo Ikari's unmistakable voice silenced all protests.
The screen shifted to a view from one of the mountainside observation cameras. The Eva stood immobile for an instant, and the angel didn't react to its presence.
Then the very world changed.
The AT field measuring patterns shot through the roof, and the air shimmered with its ethereal light. It spread out and molded, forming ghost-like silhouettes of hills, rocks and blades.
Innumerable, uncountable, Unlimited Blades.
The Eva awoke as if surprised with something, looking around confused by a moment. So did the angel. It's AT field spread too, trying to counter the projected field of the machine. The hills shimmered, but stood in their fragile, ethereal-like solidity.
Misato's voice summed it up nicely: "What the hell is that!"
Hell indeed. Hell broke loose and the Eva slowly moved, as if a movie was played in slow motion, fought and defeated the Angel that also moved as if underwater, conjuring weapons little more solid than the shimmering scenario.
The screen turned off. Not the command center one, but the one showing me the high definition surveillance video…
Ritsuko looked at my face and raised an eyebrow. I don't blame her. If half of my surprise is showing right now, I must be rivaling a corpse in my pallor.
"I suppose you don't have an explanation for that?"
"Not really, well, you said yourself I was unconscious." Not exactly a lie. I didn't think I'd be capable of doing something like that. I am not able to fully materialize my Reality Marble in it's external form, and I wasn't exactly conscious at the time…
"I never saw an unconscious person pilot like that." She shot a pointed look at the screen.
"…"
"What was that?!"
"Zelrech's fault." I repeated. Not like she would understand anyway.
"The guy of the overlapping realities theory?" She made a sour face. "How so?"
I fell out of the bed. She kept waiting for an answer.
"I just blamed a weird name I read up in the library." I shot out.
"Stop wasting my time."
"Okay…"I propped myself into a sitting position again, and took a deep breath: "All that I remember is dreaming of a these hills with lots of weapons and some sort of cross between a badly proportioned anatomic model and a corpse. Apparently all I did there transferred to the purple robot, if not that well." I summed it up, keeping a few key points to myself. If she know Zelrech she might know what a Reality Marble is, and I'm not touching the subject with a hundred feet pole if at all.
"The Evangelion is not a robot. Robots only do what you command them to. Push a lever it moves a leg, and so on so forth. You synchronize with an Eva, which is why we have certain safeties in place, like mental contamination filters. Without then Eva mind and soul would override or even overwrite the pilot's. That is one of the reasons not anyone can do it." She pointed a finger up, and I found myself overlapping her image with Rin for a moment. "With me so far?"
"Somewhat." I tried to break the information down in smaller bits. "What was that shimmering thing?"
"The AT Field? Basically is the capability of using one's own soul to alter the world around. The Angel you fought used a negation field to resist a N2 mine dropped point blank."
It took me a few seconds to process that information, and when I did I blanched again. "Okay, so you're saying these things are using Reality Marbles against us?!" Okay, maybe I am touching the subject after all...
"So you did read his book." She smiled at me for the first time of the day. "Is a tad outdated and uses obsolete terms but is a good start."
"I don't remember most of it though…" I still felt most horrified at the notion of giant, savage aliens weaponizing primitive if powerful Reality Marbles back and forth.
"Well, I'd lend you a few books later… Ask Misato to drop my lab before you leave." With that she left and a few technicians collected the screen.
"Smart, quite a fighter if you can dish a thrashing like that while half conscious, but still polite and gentle… If you're a good cook I'd marry you!" Misato chirped from the door.
I made a point to keep my face blank. Root no. Not again. "Sorry, I didn't hear you, I was still processing what she told me."
"Ah, Ritz does that to you. Never mind, come with me."
"Where exactly we're going?"
"I want to show you something." She flashed me a dazzling smile. "And to thank you. You might not know, but you saved the city today, maybe the entire world." She stopped in front of one patient's windows and motioned for me to look.
She was a pale, albino young girl, and the only indication of her living state was her light breathing. One arm in a cast, bandages on her head and the visible eye, others on her neck disappearing below the covers.
"Her name is Rei." Misato said softly. "She is the first pilot, and had you refused to sortie, we would have been forced to send her… She might have won, she is quite a determined girl, but I fear she would have not survived…"
I saved her. I really did. The very idea brought tears of happiness to my eyes, and I felt that on this small moment, I could once more grasp a tiny part of what father felt on that day long ago.
"Let's go home." She put a soft hand on my face to clean the tears.
"Okay."
"Misato-san?"
"Hnm? Just Misato is fine." She didn't looked at me, but frankly, considering our current speed I felt that is for the better.
"Where are we going?"
"Home. I got permission for you to live with me."
"What do you mean living with you?" My voice was a bit higher pitched that I intended. Maybe it was because my voice was still cracking from my current age changes, but I think it was mostly my nervousness.
"Well, Ritz said you needed surveillance, and you have said yourself: You're only well behaved when there are people watching." The voluptuous black-haired woman chucked. "Besides, If wasn't me, it would be a bunch of Section 2 agents, so I thought this would be for the best."
"Why me?"
"What do you mean?"
"Nothing." Zelrech, I HATE you.