NEON GENESIS EVANGLION: TO THE VICTOR
Vol: 1 Dark Messenger

Chapter Six
Fear

Washington D.C. Metropolitan area just outside of Capital Heights
6:52PM EST

As the Angel began to advanced on the city it's behavior began to change.

It would periodically stop and fire great lances of light at the city, some of the shots would fly random and others would strike at the armored layers that covered NERV HQ slowly opening a path to the Geofront below. It would then pace back and forth almost like an agitated cat and then it would begin it's walk again towards the city for a bit and start this pattern over again.

No one was sure why it was acting like this, all they new was that it despite it's odd behavior it was still approaching the city much faster then anyone cared.

Staging Cage 03
6:53PM EST

Meanwhile two thousands meters below the city hundreds of NERV technicians swarmed into action having locked the Eva's arm back down checking and double checking every single one of the Evagelion's systems, equipment and operational software trying their best to not only making sure that whatever that earlier "incident was" wouldn't pose any problems but to get this weapon ready in time as well as making sure that it'll be at one hundred percent operational capacity when they send it into it's first combat duty as the drainage bulge pumps are stressed near their bursting point trying to drain the coolant from the Eva's cage as fast as possible.

It was now a race against time.

Main Pilot Boarding Platform, Staging Cage 03
6:56 PM EST

William stood on a platform that over looked the back end of this thing he had reluctantly agreed to pilot with an open shirt with a bunch of electrodes attached to his chest leading to a device strapped to his pants that he found himself fiddling with while that Dr. Rachel Ammadon person explained how this Evangelion thing worked... or was trying, William mostly stood there nodding with a blank look on his face as the incredible technicalities of how this thing worked mostly washed over him.

Behind the doctor were two NERV technical personal in red jump suits while behind him was a large chair like thing that reminded him more like of some kind of torture device that was attached to some kind of robot like crane arm and behind that just off from the platform was a large white cylindrical tube marked with various warning and danger labels that he was told was called an "entry plug" which seemed to be it's cockpit and to his left was a rimmed basin on the floor with a drain in the center of it that he hadn't the slightest clue as to what it's purpose was.

He also finally got a good look at the Eva since they now had drained most of that pool of strange liquid which thankfully brought the temperature up a bit making it a bit more bearable to have his shirt open. It was massive, that was for sure; possibly as big as that thing he had to fight... 40 meters tall from what he was told which if he remember how metric converted into imperial made it about 132 feet. It was also a surprisingly human looking machine, well sort of. From what he could tell it seemed to have a strangely thin waist and extremely broad shoulders, not as extreme as the Angel's but still outside the human norm. It's whole body was covered in purple colored armor like it's head with a few dash of green highlights here and there and it had a large heavily armored shell like compartment on it's back but all this did little to wilt the fear that clawed at him, it was pretty impressive to be sure but William still wasn't convinced that it could stand against the Angel.

"You know, you really shouldn't be fiddling with those wires, we kinda need them to keep track of your vitals." Dr. Ammadon warned him trying to get his attention back to what she was explaining.

"Oh.. sorry..." William apologized as he tried to regain his focus.

"Don't worry, later we'll have a proper plug suit for you. They do the same thing as that mess of wires as well as offer you some basic protection and life support functions." she reassured him, "Now remember William, you don't control this thing like car or any other vehicle you would be familiar with. Instead it uses an extremely advance mind machine interface to let you control it like it was your body, you pilot it like you pilot yourself. Alright, any questions?"

Those he did, more then he could ever hope to ask about all this but he new his time was short so he thought about it and reasonably asked,"Ummmm... why.. why is it that you need me to pilot it? Or that girl Rei? I mean why not some, you know, trained soldiers or something?"

"Well the short answer is we don't know fully... You see in order to get the precision we needed to make the Eva practical we had to invent brand new ways to get the human mind to interface with a machine and well... there's still a few quirks we haven't worked out, namely that they're not only extremely picky with WHO they synchronize with but what age group they do. We were hoping to have this worked out before the angels attacked buut... consideration doesn't seem to be one of their strong points. Ok, we've got time for one more question but then we need to get you out there."

"They're sending me out in a weapon that still has "quirks"?" Part of him wanted his next question to be, "Are you all crazy?" but... he thought better of it and instead asked about something that was nagging him about it since he first saw it's "face".

"Why... why is it... purple?"

That question earned a laugh from the doctor, "Well you see the Eva's are suppose to draw the angels away from the city and to make sure they stand out enough for them to do that we felt colors that clashed with the city scape would work best, think of it like how male birds use bright flashy colors to draw predators away from their mates."

"To draw predators away from their mates." William repeated in his mind. Her answers to his questions didn't make the idea of this any easier... but... it was to late to turn back now... it was time to get things moving.

"Alright, let's get you boarded." The doctor told the young pilot as she walked closer to him pulling an odd hair band like device with two grayish horn like protrusions upper top corners and then handed it to him saying, "Here, put this on sliding the bends there around your ears. It might look goofy but it'll boost your brains connection with the Eva. Think of it like a cell phone antenna for your brain."

William nodded and then put it on running his hand over one of the protrusions.

Then the two NERV techs walked him over to the pilot seat, helping him up onto it while the tech to his right told him, "Don't worry son, you're in good hands."

They then strapped him in holding down his chest and limbs and closed a cover that encased all of his body but his face giving the impression he was inside of a metal sarcophagus.

The right hand tech then asked him, "How do you feel? Anything too tight?"

He didn't know how to really answer him but replied, "Umm no... I'm.. fine."

"That a boy." The tech said trying to comfort him, "I know your scared but you'll pull through this; you got all of us watching your back ok.?"

Strangely enough his words did make him feel slightly better...

The tech then double checked all the locks and restraints and then warned him, "Alright, I got to lock in the final piece now, it's going to cover your face and it's going to be dark for a little bit so hang in there."

William nodded and the final cover was slide into place turning his world to darkness and now the weight of this was now starting to come down on him, he stated to breath heavier, panicking and then felt himself moving. It stopped for a second and then he felt himself being lowered, the chair came in contact with something metallic and then he heard lock bolts click into place.

Over an internal intercom he heard a females voice announce, "Throne has been inserted, removing termination plug... Plug removed, lowering entry plug."

He then felt himself being tilted forward at an angle and then lowered again until he felt the plug made contact with something.

The same announcer then said, "Inserting entry plug." and suddenly he felt himself begin spun around four times ending with the announcer exclaiming, "Plug inserted, all lights are green."

Command Center
7:00PM EST

Megan was standing at her spot on the Ops. station deck between Lieutenants Illich and Haynes carefully watching William being loaded into the Eva while the commander and vice-commander watch from their tower above, a door opened on the other side of the deck as Rachel made her way from the staging cage taking her position opposite of the captains.

"Plug inserted, all lights are green." Lt. Illich informed everyone as the entry plug finished twisting and locking into place. A large armored hatch then closed and locked over area securing the plug.

She then announced, "Attaching umbilical cable." A large cable was lowered and hooked up to plug just under the armored "shell" that covered the entry plug, "Voltage is nominal, moving onto LCL insertion; filling the throne."

Entry Plug
7:01PM EST

"Filling the throne? " William thought to himself... "With what? "

Suddenly he felt water seep into his shoes and then up his pants leg and then to his waist...

Flooding! This thing he was locked into was flooding!

"Help me! I'm going to drown! Why the hell is there water filling this thing?" William yelled in terror and confusion as he tried to move momentarily forgetting that his limbs were strapped down.

"Well if you paid attention to what I was telling you-you would of known this was going to happen." Rachel scolded him over the line, "Once your lungs fill with LCL you'll be oxygenated directly, you can breath this stuff. It also acts as a medium to transmit your mental waves to the Eva. Don't worry just breath it in."

You can what? He had never heard of a liquid you could breath before but as he was thinking about it the liquid was now up to his chin and even though he knew that he could breath it instinctively it didn't feel right and fought against it as much as possible trying to keep his noise above the water line and then holding breath once the whole compartment was filled but he was never good at holding his breath and he had to let go and exhale and all he could inhale was that liquid and he panicked, he felt the liquid fill his lungs and once again tried to move his bounded limbs in a desperate, instinctive bid to free himself while Megan cringed as she watched his vitals spike all over the place, she could only imagine how terrifying it had to be to go through this the first time...

He knew it, he could feel it. He was drowning... but... he wasn't it.

William slowly regained control of himself as realized he WAS breathing... only without actually breathing... it was just like the doctor said... but knowing something and going through it were two very different things.

He now felt slightly calmer, feeling the liquid surround his body was comforting... somehow it felt safe here now... somehow familiar.

The only thing that bothered him was the smell, it had the smell of blood.

William then reared back in shock as his mind's eye exploded in white light followed by electric patterns of neural circuitry printed in surging geometric shapes...

Command Center
7:02PM EST

The air in the command center took on a tense tone as they moved into the next part of the activation, a sequence that need the captains or the commanders permission to begin.

"Begin synchronization." Megan ordered followed by Lt. Illich acknowledging, "Understood, beginning synchronization."

Rachel Leaned in over Lt. Mary Illich's shoulder watching her display carefully as the lieutenant began a countdown, "Passing C one-twenty, C one-thirty, C one-forty, approaching the absolute boarder line..."

At that everyone on the deck eye's were on that screen...

..."C-one fifty." Lt. Illich continued, "C-one sixty, C-one-seventy, the boarder line has been reached..."

The chart on her screen held there struggling to climb to the next number and then...

"C-one eighty! We are passed the absolute boarder line!" She informed everyone with exuberance returning to her tone.

The tension was lifted from the command center as it's personal sighed a collective sight of relief.

Lt. Illich then announced, "The pilot is now synchronized with the Eva. Synchronization rate is... my god! It's 44.3%!"

"44%!" Rachel repeated in amazement, this kid might have potential after all!

Entry Plug
7:03PM EST

The young Eva pilot had no idea how to express what he was going through right now.

As he looked on various pieces of equipment around the area would suddenly become highlighted as a box would appear within his vision with a list of details on said object.

He looked down and saw the Eva's body... and his own at the same time, like they were somehow super imposed over one another...

He looked to his left and he could see the Eva's shoulder enclosed by the wall of the cage as well as his own.

He could feel the metal of the Eva's armor and he could feel his own skin at the same time... as well as something else.

He felt so disorientingly huge and yet so insignificantly small at the same time.

Another box appeared in his vision, this time it was an image of Megan, needless to say he found seeing her now reassuring.

"Hey William, how are you? You hanging in there?" He heard her say to him as if she was speaking right into his head.

"I... I feel... weird... it's like I have two bodies at one time." He replied trying to find a way to describe this.

"I bet. Now don't worry, this is only since you're new at this. It'll feel more natural as you build up your synchronization with the Eva."Megan reassured him, "Oh, and hey. Guess what?"

"Hum? What is it?"

"You've just broke our first time synchronization record, by a long shot!" Megan told him hoping that would boost his confidence. "Ok now, William, see if you can move your hands." Megan then instructed him.

While they felt odd he did so with no problems, the hands of the Eva following his movement.

"Umm... yeah... I can."He replied, "They still feel kinda odd but I can move them.. and... yeah the Eva is following my movement... this... this is kinda neat."

"Ok, that's very good. Now listen up, we're running out of time here and... and I know how scary this is going to be for you but... I need you to keep your cool out there and listen to what me, Rachel and... and your father tell you..."

"Father... father is there?" William asked in both anticipation and foreboding.

"Yeah, your father is overseeing the whole thing William. Now like I said we all will guide you through this, just follow what we say and you will get through this ok?"

"I... I'll try." he answered nervously.

Command Center
7:05PM EST

Megan stared at the screen with reluctance at what she now had to do, it was time to send him up there... to send this poor kid with zero training against an enemy who just single handedly brought the greatest military power this planet had to offer to it's knees. But the only other choice there was to just hit it with enough nukes to just disintegrate it...

Life is just to good at giving you two devils out of a situation.

Capt Megan Kelling took a deep breath and put all of that out of her, clearing her head, it was now time to be professional. She looked dead on at the image of the Eva on the main screen and ordered, "Begin launch procedure!" and at her command thousands of the lock bolts that held down the Eva released, the side walls of the cage that enclosed the Eva's arms opened and moved forward leaving the Eva standing on a platform mounted on a rail way with the only restraint left being one to hold it in place while the platform moved.

Megan then leaned back in looking into the camera mounted to the control panel and open up her comlink to William again, "Ok William, now we're gonna to equip you an assault cannon..."

"A what? I... I don't know how to use a gun... or anything like that!" He shot back over the line in protest.

"Don't worry, just follow our lead and shoot when we tell you to shoot. You can do this, I believe in you."

Entry Plug
7:06PM EST

I believe in you.

He had never heard anyone say that to him before... not even from father...

"Al.. alright Megan... Yeah... I can do this."

A large crane arm then carried over to him a large sleek looking weapon that looked like a giant machine gun and he grabbed onto it's grip holding tight, feeling it's weight in his hands.

"Might I add that you look like quite the bad ass with that rifle in your hands." Megan added causing Williams face to flush red. She then continued, "Ok William, now if you look to your left and right you'll that a pylon like structure on each of your shoulders, they'll be the black things you see on them."

William looked left and right noticing them, they covered his shoulders and most of his upper arm and had a rectangular"fin" like strutter on top of them. He did remember seeing them when he first looked at the Eva but at the time he just thought they were part of what was locking the giant in place.

"Ok... I see them"

"Good." Megan replied nodding, "Those pylons hold support equipment. Right now they hold secondary weapons. In the right side one is a special Eva sized knife called a progressive knife, prog knife for short. It uses progressive waves to cause the edge to vibrate at a super high frequency which makes the weapon extremely sharp. In your left side pylon is basically what amounts to an Eva sized version of pistol, it's got shorter range then the rifle but it's easier to use if you find yourself to close to the Angel. Now to activate them you'll just need to focus on opening them, just tell yourself "right pylon open" and it'll do so. Now while you probably won't need them try to keep this in mind."

She waited for him to nod and then told him, "I'm gonna switch over to Rachel now, she's got something very important to tell you." Megan's face then was replaced by the doctor's, needless to say he found seeing HER again less then reassuring.

"Need to make this quick so listen up since I know you didn't listen to me when I first explained all this. You know how that Angel took no damage from most of the weapons we hit it with, well that's because it had an A.T Field..."

"An AT what?" He asked in confusion.

"An A.T. Field." She repeated, "It's a type of force field, kinda like what you'd see on Star Trek only far more powerful. So long as the Angel has it up it's almost invincible but we got something that can beat it, the Eva can generate a A.T. Field as well and when two A.T. Fields meet they start to cancel each other out which weakens them and with it's A.T. Field weakened that Angel can be hurt but be careful, the weakening effect is a two way street; you're field will be weakened as well."

"Ok... Ummm how... how do I use it?" He asked, trying to take all of this in.

"When we tell you to unfold your field just start concentrating, it'll come naturally to you. You got all that?"

"Yeah, I got it." He replied wishing he had more time to go over this all, this was all just too much information to try and take in at one time when you had only a few minutes to absorb all it.

"Good, it's time to move you out."

Command Center
7:08PM EST

Megan waited for the all clear singling that no one was in the path of the Eva's transportation line before moving on to her next command.

"Move Eva Unit 01 catapult number zero seven one, let's give him some distance between him and the Angel." And the Eva began to roll backwards as the platform it was on followed the rails into the main catapult room, in it several launch tubes lined the walls providing the Eva with paths to the surface.

Eva Unit 01 moved into it's launch tube, a quick check was made to make sure the route was clear and in working order; it came back green.

Evangelion Unit 01 was ready for launch.

"Alright William, this is it. Are you ready?" Megan asked the young pilot.

"Ye.. yeah." He lied.

She then looked up at the commander and despite her better judgment asked, "Sir, can we really do this?"

The commander looked back down at her, his hand's folded over his mouth betraying no emotion as he replied, "We have little choice but to."

His answer gave her no solace but she wasn't really expecting it to. She took a long hard look at the massive Eva as it stood in it's launch bay seeing past it and to the small child it held within.

It was time.

"Launch Eva!"

Catapult Room 71
7:06PM EST

William winced as he found his body, both of them, instantly accelerated to 3 gees rocketing up the launch tube at impossible speeds as he was shot up to the surface.

He then felt himself decelerated almost as fast and with a heavy jerk he came to a rest standing in the middle of a large road in the middle of a city with warning lights going off around the spot the platform was now resting. It took a few seconds for him to calm himself, it would have been almost fun if he knew to expect it!

He took a look around as various buildings and other objects were highlighted just like in the cage. The city looked so empty, so desolate. The only thing breaking the stillness besides the smoke rising up from several fires started around it was the flashes of lighting and that aura that shun almost beautifully in the night sky.

The Angel however was no where to be seen.

Megan then popped back on screen asking him, "So... how was it?"

"Ummm... it... it was pretty intense." He told her with great understatement. He then asked her back, "Ummm so... where... where is it? Where is the Angel?"

"It's going to be heading your way, you should see it in a few more seconds. Figured I'd set up so you could get use to your new body first." She informed him and he replied with an "Oh."

She then said to him, "We're gonna set you lose now, you're gonna be standing for the first time under your own power like this so try not lose your balance."

He nodded in response as he braced himself.

He heard her order, "Release finally safety locks!" and felt the final clamps holding him down let go and for the first time he felt how truly massive he now was.

Rachel then came back over the line. "Ok William, very good. Now try walking, just do it like you wanted to move your own body; just take into account your now over a hundred feet tall."

Walk... I can do this... it shouldn't be that hard, he thought about walking and slowly lifted his leg, the Eva's followed and then he put it down.

The command room came alive in support, he was really doing this!

He then moved his next leg up just as he saw the Angel come from behind a group of buildings about a mile away... It was huge, at lest TWICE as big as his machine! He locked onto the monster's hollow eyes and the monster looked on back, tilting it's head almost as if it was intrigued by this new thing it saw and William lost it, the reality of this had finally and truly hit him and he brought his leg down wrong and he and the Eva toppled over falling face first into the ground like a bomb blast and William grabbed his face in pain, it had felt like HIS face had hit the ground.

The Angel watched on as the Eva fell. It then look as if it noticed something and then reared back letting out a displeased sounding wail as it began to charge towards the fallen Eva picking up speed as the aura above intensified.

William looked on at the charging titan and his mind went blank with fear, over the com line Megan and Rachel yelled for him to calm down and get up but he was beyond that now, pure instinct now drove his actions.

With a terrified yell William propped himself back up, raised his weapon and pulled the trigger feeling the cannon jar back under the force of it's recoil as burst of rounds exploded from it's barrel! Three of the rounds manged to make their way over to the Angel flashing into balls of smoke against it's A.T. Field., the rest missed entirely blasting gaping wholes from the sides of the surrounding buildings. He then dropped the weapon and turned to run but it was too late, the Angel was upon him, towering over the Eva as if it were a child.

With one hand it grabbed the Eva's head and forced it back around while lifting the Eva's great weight as if it was a doll and William flailed his arms around in desperation, the Angel grabbed his left one. A surge of muscle shot down it's arm and it snapped the Eva's like a twig raining shards of metal down to the ground along with something else... a red fluid that looked almost like blood.

William exploded with pain, he could feel it, he could the Eva's arm break as if it was his own!

Over the com Rachel yelled, "Relax! That's not really your arm!"

Little did that do to calm him, the pain told him otherwise.

"Your field William! Try unfolding your A.T. Field! Concentrate! You need to do this now!" She continued to yell in desperation but William was locked in panic... this was far too much for him...

A sharp pain to his right eye then snapped him back to reality and he looked out at the Angel standing in front of him. He saw a glow formed around the Angel's elbow spike and it shot out from it's palm slamming into the visor covering the Eva's right "eye".

William clenched in pain, frozen with the shock of it as the spike shot out again and again and again.

Finally the visor's armor gave way and the spike impaled it's way through the Eva's head erupting out the back of it in a shower of red fluid.

All singles were cut off from the Eva and William's vitals dropped to zero.

Some other place, some other time

"Oh. Come in William, it's alright, I don't mind an audience."

"Yes... yes sir." William meekly replied to his guardian, staring in interest at the strange instrument he was playing. Despite now living with this man for over a year now he still found him to be somewhat intimidating.

"Do you know what this is?"

The boy shook his head looking at the instrument he was playing, he had never seen one before. It looked like a giant guitar to him.

"It's a cello... You know your father used to be quite the violin player, he wasn't bad with the guitar either. Sadly he never went anywhere with it."

Daddy...

"Would you like to learn to play the cello, I could teach you."

William thought about it and nodded.

"That's good... Hmmmmmm I... I think I still have my first one from when I was a lad stashed up in the attic. I'll retrieve it for you tomorrow and I can begin giving you lessons."

William nodded again with a faint smile. Maybe if I learned to play it I would be special and if I was special maybe my daddy would love me again and then he would take me home.

I just want my daddy to love me again.