She was here again, trapped in the dark crimson depths of the sea of souls. How many more times must she come here? How much more can she endure as they grabbed at her, trying to rend her flesh? Silently screaming as they try to bite her. They tried to kill her in any way they could, tearing each other apart in an attempt to reach her. Billions of them. Demons shaped like human. Or perhaps humans shaped as demons. It was hard to say.
Her lungs struggled to gasp for air that wasn't there; her throat ached as she too screamed without voice. The only sound that filled this place was laughter. A deep, booming, twisted cacophony of hearty laughs that made her blood run cold. They echoed into eternity. The laughter of a true and terrible demon.
She spotted the small form of a girl through the whirling chaos, watching her, unnoticed by the souls seeking to do Yui harm. She floated impassively, as if in the eye of a storm. You need to flee this place, Yui thought. They will hurt you like they are hurting me! You must leave!
The laughter fell silent as a reverberating growl shook the cosmos. It resonated in each and every soul here, eliciting a response so intrinsic it transcended explanation. A fear without limit.
They fled. They had nowhere to go, but they fled in any direction they could because they could do nothing else.
It came from beyond the surface of the crimson ocean. At first a dark shape forming in the space between the sun and the moon, both hardly visible through the throngs of chaotic souls. It quickly gained in both form and speed. The enormous head of Evangelion Unit 01 broke through the watery planescape, the boundary of life and death. It delved into the sea like a voracious predator. Its jaw opened wide revealing jagged and corrupted biomechanical teeth. It swallowed souls by the thousands and ground them to nothing in several huge bites.
There the little girl was again, right in front of the Eva's face this time. Unlike the souls of the departed here which paid her no mind, 01 looked directly at her. And it did not appear pleased. Yui tried to reach out to her, to warn of the danger behind the girl. It will get you here! Her mind screamed. With every ounce of her being she willed the young girl to move. You'll be devoured too!
The young god's right hand broke through the red waters. It swept far, swatting away vast multitudes of souls, sweeping them away by the millions like they were insects. The Eva reached across the indeterminate expanse of the sea into the dark depths where Yui was dragged down into. With as much care and caress as a creature such as the Evangelion can muster, it grabbed Yui. She felt the rush of water and the release of pressure from all around her as she broke out from the sea in Unit 01's hand.
The feeling of up and down faded. Within the grasp Yui could not tell which way she now faced. Slowly the hand opened, finger by finger, as if intentionally prolonging the moment. She floated above the Eva's palm, gazing up and taking in the presence of her would-be saviour.
Unit 01 was more monster than divine. The lines which marked the boundary of its shape were sharp and jagged. Its features were indistinct yet concise, every facet of the god's face radiated contradiction; a cragged smile of bemused contempt, eyes filled with infinite loving hatred.
Said eyes were not set upon Yui, but to the space beyond her. Following its gaze, she steeled herself for what she was about to bear witness to. No matter how many times she was forced to endure the coming view, no amount of preparation could ready her for it.
Before her the galaxy died. Countless planets upon which untold billions inhabited were beset upon by annihilation. Blood saturated the great distances between worlds, the death screams of so many reaching her ears from across the expanse of space. Extinction on a level she scarcely imagined, terror on a scale so vast her psyche could ill comprehend it.
Yui's mind struggled to restore what sanity it could manage. What is this? Anger clouded her vision. Why are you always showing me this!? She turned back to the enormous creature that had both saved her, and yet had tried to devour her not so long ago. She needed to formulate the question to satisfy her confusion. Why is there so much death!?
If the Eva was attentive to her emotions, it gave no outward indication. Its full attention was upon the scene before them. It was clearly waiting for something. She looked back, and as in all times before she had been in this dream, she expected to awaken. Not this time. The dream continued, and she watched as life as she could understand it died out en masse, flooding the sea of souls below.
From the chaos five distinct forms approached. Five giants of light. Gods in their own right, incomplete as they were. Each holding the red double-helix shaped lance. The remaining progenitors? The seeds of life? This raised further questions in her mind, but the larger picture began to come into focus.
The monstrous clawed hand of the Eva grasped her again, breaking her concentration. She turned back to find its green speckled eyes staring down at her. They bled red energy which quickly filled the eye sockets of its armored mask, giving it a truly demonic appearance. Looking up to the coming Angels, it began to bare its teeth in an unrestrained manner. It growled. Yui felt the same fear as before sweep over her.
But then there appeared the girl again, between Yui and the face of 01. At the sight of the girl the young god became infuriated, possessed with a rage that would end worlds. With a roar that shook creation, opening its maw wide 01 tried to crush the source of its ire.
"Wake up," the little girl said in a voice so small it was hardly a whisper, but with those words the dreamscape around Yui collapsed into nothingness.
She woke with a start. Still locked in partial sleep paralysis, her eyes opened but her body would not respond. She lay upon her back, sprawled out in a ratherun-lady-like fashion across the circular bed. Black silken sheets and pillows lay tossed and strewn around, the result of her frantic resistance to the demons in her sleep. The ambient lighting in the room rose from a dim blue to crisp white, revealing crystalline walls and ceiling with a luminous sparkle of rainbow colours.
Looking down upon Yui was a young girl, the one from her dream. Her features were sharp but delicate, with long limbs and a lithe body. She wore a pink decorated night gown. The girl possessed brilliantly light blue irises and long shaggy golden hair which complimented her bronze skin. For all intensive purposes she was a beautiful pre-teen girl. She was no human though. The prominent distinguishing feature lay hidden behind her hair.
Yui could hear the girls voice in her mind. "He was reaching out to you again," the quiet but clear voice said, "he is trying to tell you something."
While her voice had not come to her yet, Yui expanded the limits of her ego to reach the girl just as she had been taught. Speaking without words, she communicated with her companion. "Thank you Saitara, I don't know how much more I could have taken."
Saitara flashed an angelic toothy smile full of childhood exuberance. "You're welcome!"
She lay her head on her hands at the edge of the bed. She looked concerned. The girl questioned without moving her lips. "Why was the dream different this time? What were those giants of light?"
Control over her appendages began coming back to her. Slowly Yui dragged herself up to a sitting position, grabbing a heavy blanket to wrap around her shoulders, hugging her arms around her legs. She considered the all too real dream. The reoccurring nightmare she was forced to endure night after night. She had progressed further in the vision than before, and the message couldn't be clearer to her.
Five. Five beings the same as Adam and Lilith. Five of the seven Fruits of Life and Knowledge spread across the galaxy to seed life among the stars, each with the Lance as a safeguard. Just as written in the Dead Sea Scrolls. There was little doubt in Yui's mind this was what she saw.
But why was the Eva showing her this? A vision of the future perhaps? Could it even do that? She knew nothing of the Evangelions new found powers since inheriting from the Tree of Life and Tree of Wisdom. Still far from the supreme being described in the religions of old, Unit 01 was the closest being in creation to a true god there was. Powers of precognition were not outside the realm of possibility. But why share them with her? Because of the link they had with each other?
She fidgeted around and long streams of blue hair fell over her neck and shoulders down her chest. She looked at the hair bizarrely, questioning where it came from, but her brain quickly caught up with what she was seeing. Looking past the hair, she looked at her pale and youthful skin. It has to be something to do with this body, she thought grimly.
After awaking in the infirmary prison of the star ship, she was raised up within her gravity controlled cage to meet with the five attendees. The ship's Captain, Chief Scientist, two guards and the translator, Athkim Ingan.
Athkim was a genius in the ways of language. Within minutes of guided converse, he learned to speak Japanese fluently with her with relative ease. He apologized personally for the attack on the monstrous creature she rode within, but explained that the captain had reason to make a preemptive attack against her. She was aboard the Dynalt, a military and exploration vessel of the Yndoni Collective. She was not a prisoner, if she should prove trustworthy.
Yui was extremely thankful for the straight forward and polite nature of the Yndoni. Wrestling with the reality of other sentient and extremely advanced extraterrestrial life was stressful enough as it is, but to engage in an actual conversation with one was on a whole other level. And this was from a woman who lived inside a forty meter tall man-made monstrosity and fought immensely powerful alien beings vying to destroy humanity. Normally a rational and level headed person who can handle a great deal, Yui's newly reformed psyche was still rather fragile.
It was a simple thing that broke her: her reflection. As they were to release her from her levitating prison, Yui caught a glimpse of someone familiar in the gleaming surface of the walls. Floating where she should have been was a young pale girl with chest length blue hair. She looked into the girls red eyes, unable to comprehend how she was looking at Rei Ayanami, her clone and the planet spanning giant she left falling apart on Earth.
The realization that she was not in her own body raised a hundred simultaneous questions in her mind. Uncertainty of who she really was and trepidation replaced the elation she felt from earlier for being reconstituted. Combined with the her racing thoughts and the mounting mental tension from her current situation, something within Yui snapped. A primal energy surged forth; the reaction of the id to the damage to her ego.
The room began to shake. The crystalline structures which composed much of the ships interior seemed to react to Yui's distress. She fell to the ground as the gravity control systems of her restraints failed. Her body, still so unfamiliar to her, was unable to hold her now unsupported weight. She crumpled on the floor.
The guards reaction was instant. Dressed in lavish crystalline armor, they put themselves between their Captain and the threat before them. Raising singled tipped lances capable as deadly melee weapons but also as beam rifles of sorts, both guards unleashed a torrent of blue plasma upon Yui. Sensing the immediate threat she instinctively attempted to shield herself with her hands.
Such instinct saved her as the deadly plasma bolts collided upon the hexagonal shaped distortion of reality caused by an A.T. field. Yui's Absolute Territory Field. Recognizing that she was source of such a power quelled her instincts instantly, and so the field fell. The guards were stunned, unfamiliar with the phenomena of the A.T. Field. They looked to their Captain for orders. Captain Issnt was similarly stunned, but after a short pause impulsively ordered them to attack again. Fortunately Athkim and Chief Scientist Iona did not suffer such a slow recovery. They put themselves between the guards and Yui, pleading with the captain to rescind the order, to do her no harm. After a heated and tense standoff Issnt complied with their request, with the condition that caring for the girl was their responsibility. Should the alien do anything to endanger his ship and crew, he would see her terminated immediately.
Coming to grips with her near destruction, Yui put all her efforts into maintaining control of her emotions. She could not risk another such event, even if it meant enduring severe strain.
The next few weeks were a time of treasured memories. Of discovery and sharing between Yui and her Yndoni caretakers. She learned much of the Collective from Athkim and Iona, and about her new found powers from their daughter Saitara.
The Yndoni Collective was formed of specie made up by several differing races which developed on distant worlds.
All Yndoni were relatively the same physically speaking. A semi-aquatic species, they were slim and powerfully built humanoids. They possessed very streamlined and sharp features with a great deal more symmetry than your average human. Skin colour ranged from pale white to dark brown. Eye and hair colour variety was seemingly limitless, ranging from human typical pigments to more exotic prismatic spectrums.
If Yui had to put a word to it, she would say the Yndoni were a very handsome species, and could easily be mistaken for tall attractive humans at a distance. In terms of defining characteristics they were hardly distinct from people except for one glaring difference: they all possessed long and pointed ears.
What separated the multiple races of the Yndoni was that they evolved along slightly different paths depending on their world and how old their particular race was.
The eldest race was known as the Tai'lore before the formation of the Yndoni Collective. They are a race of incredible telepathy, able to communicate non-verbally with one another over great distances. This ability allowed them to all but eliminate misunderstanding and progress rapidly as a race, both socially and technologically. The Tai'lore primarily made up the leadership, communications and strike forces of the Collective because of their ability to effortlessly unite mentally. Iona was one of the greatest minds of the Tai'lore lineage.
The Tai'lore travelled the stars first, and discovered the Verald upon the nearest habitable planet to their own. The Verald race, which Athkim belonged to, were the second oldest of the Yndoni Collective. While they had not developed powers of telepathy, they possessed empathetic powers; they were able to sense and project emotions. While not as bridging as the powers of the Tai'lore, these abilities of empathy made them natural born diplomats. In almost every level of Yndoni society, the Verald were the middle men between the Tai'lore and the younger races.
The thirty seven younger races all came from different worlds as well, but did not possess such distinguishing powers as the two eldest. Together these thirty nine races formed the Yndoni collective within the fortuitous star cluster their species had emerged the dominant power of.
The mission of the Dynalt and its support fleet was to travel to the next nearest habitable world in hopes of discovering another race to bring into the fold. Radio signals detected from the nearby star system indicated they were on the correct path.
Yui was not the first alien race the Yndoni Collective had encountered, but they were not forthcoming with details. Athkim explained it was a matter of interstellar security that they could not share with her, but he assured her that she was the first member of her race for the Yndoni to encounter. As such she was of great interest to the Collective, and had captured the imagination of all onboard the Dynalt.
The daughter of Athkim and Iona was Saitara Ingan, the first documented child of a Tai'lore and a Verald. She was also the most powerful telepath in history of her race, and she was only ten years old according to their stellar calendar.
It was Saitara who realized Yui's potential for the same ability as her own, and so trained the older woman in the use of telepathy. The young girl was ecstatic to find a friend in Yui, and was ever pushing her alien guest to use the powers which defended her from certain death. While Yui greatly appreciated the young girls encouragement and cherished her friendship, she could not allow her self control to slip again. She knew nothing of what she was capable of. Telepathy and an A.T. Field barrier may only be the tip of the iceberg.
Through Saitara's training Yui determined the telepathic and empathic powers of their respective species were actually subtle manipulations of individual A.T. Fields.
While all beings with defined forms possessed an A.T. Field, in the races born from a Fruit of Knowledge progenitor such as humanity from Lilith, that is all the A.T. Field was.
Beings born from a Fruit of Life progenitor, such as the Angels from Adam, were capable of utilizing their A.T. fields on the scale of manipulating the physical domain. And in the case of poor Soryu's daughter Asuka, the mental domain of others as well.
The eldest races of the Yndoni were certainly the former progeny, but had evolved to such a state that they were capable of bridging the proverbial and literal gap presented by individuality and the A.T. Field.
Yui was of course the only one to understand the full scope of all of this. Despite all their technological marvels the Yndoni had no method of detecting the A.T. Field. They had no concept of it. For them the powers of their eldest species were still rooted in mysticism rather than science. For Yui's sake, and perhaps the Collective's too, she kept that a closely guarded secret.
Given her new found form in the body of Rei Ayanami, Yui had to wonder where she lay on the scale between humanity and the Angels now. In a sense she was more like the Evangelions than anything, which too were clones of the First and Second Angels spliced with human DNA.
Still, why did she reconstitute as Rei and not in her own body? According to Iona she was recovered from a rear compartment in the Evangelions entry plug, covered in LCL. The Yndoni had never encountered such a substance before. Their scientists marveled at the liquids ability to impart oxygen directly to the pilot, bridge the connection from pilot to Eva, and defend the pilot by absorbing shock as well as providing direct life support. LCL was a miracle substance, and they had no idea how to create more.
Though not allowed to see the plug herself, based on the knowledge she gleamed from Iona's explanation and where in the entry plug she was found, Yui deduced that the entry plug had contained a dummy plug component. Because the dummy plug was meant to simulate a soul to 'trick' the Evangelion into activating, there was the possibility a soulless Ayanami clone was used in the plug to bridge the neural connections. Having been the soul of Unit 01 for so long, and slumbering for longer still, when she reconstituted in the entry plug her soul possessed the soulless body of the Ayanami clone within because she had long since forgotten her human form.
This was entirely conjecture on Yui's part though. While the theory of the dummy plug system was proposed while she was still human, it was only achieved by Gendo years later whilst she was within 01. The exact details of the system were long lost to her.
The decomposition of the clones body also had to be called into question given the time it would have taken the Eva to move so far between solar systems. The possibility of unknown stellar phenomenon notwithstanding. She did not even know how far she had been taken from the Earth, but given how Unit 01 was discovered in the vast distances between stars, she could only assume it was an astronomical amount. Could LCL preserve a body for such an extent of time?
Unless suddenly given access to study the Evangelion so that she could determine its age, she would simply have to accept who and what she is now. For better or worse.
Her reflection on recent events was interrupted by Iona's telepathic message. "Breakfast is ready. Come to the dining room when you are ready."
Saitara, who had fallen asleep on the bedside while Yui introspected, abruptly jerked up. Drool dripped down her sagging mouth, sleep and confusion apparent in her otherwise vacant expression.
Yui couldn't help but laugh. The girls youthful innocence swelled happiness in her heart. She got out of the bed. Concentrating, she focused her mental energies on retrieving the clothing provided to her by the Ingan family. The prismatic crystal lattice of the room responded to her will, and a dresser of sorts emerged from the wall.
While dressing Yui could not help but marvel at the technological wonder which the room was composed of. The crystal lattice known as Mos'lore was a rare compound found on the home world of the Tai'lore and to a lesser degree on the Verald's. The colourful crystal responded to the A.T. Field manipulation of the Tai'lore, physically manifesting their will. Because of this attribute the eldest race of the Yndoni could mentally transmute the crystals physical properties, hardening it to withstand great pressures, or to interface it with electrical and mechanical conduits.
Useful applications for such a material were nearly endless. They made up the superstructure of all Tai'lore star ships, from the interstellar space fighters to flag ships like the Dyanlt. The bridge, the brig which Yui first found herself in, the armor of Captain's Tai'lore guards, and the rooms of particularly powerful Tai'lore descendants such as Saitara were made entirely of the stuff.
Fully dressed in the conservative Yndoni fashion, she picked up the sleepy young girl which swayed back and forth on the verge of collapsing back on the bed. With a thought the wall of the room furthest from the bed receded with a crackling chime, creating a door way to the 'living room' of the Ingan family's accommodations aboard the Dynalt.
Yui was looking forward to Iona's cooking. That was until the alarms aboard the ship sounded. Announcements in the Collectives universal language followed. Enemy ships were on an intercept course with the fleet.
A sense of foreboding washed away Yui's enthusiasm. The relative peace she knew with the Ingan family was about to come to a tragic end.
Authors Comments: Thank you to those who messaged me about the sudden change of focus from Yui to the new characters in chapter 3. While I maintain that Yui is the main character of this story, to ensure the full scope of the plot is realized I will have chapters entirely dedicated to other original characters. As the story progresses their part in the broader narrative will become more clear. Expect much more action in coming chapters as alien forces collide. The War in Heaven has just begun, and Yui will be right in the middle of it.
