Neon Genesis Evangelion
Pilot's Table
By D.A.
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Title: 18th Choice
Prompt: Set 1 / Prompt 6 (Trust)
Word Count: 2771
Rating: T
Summary: "When you see what I am, will we still trust each other?"
Disclaimer: I do not own Neon Genesis Evangelion or anything connected to it.
Notes: Takes place at some point before events in "Dreams", "Chance", and "Prepare to Reset". Part 1 of 2
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"Free-will, right?" Asuka yelled at Kaworu, "Why are you doing this if you have free will when all the other Angels didn't? What about me?"
"You are the Eighteenth, the Angel of Choice. What good is my free will, if I never had a choice." Kaworu said in a matter-of-fact tone, "Each of us built upon the last. I am more than the sixteen who came before me, and you are more than me."
Misato stared, unable to reconcile the sight before her with what she had come to accept as true. Angels burned cities, they didn't take care of kids. They destroyed lives, not lived them.
But as Asuka floated in the air in front of the massive white form of what Misato now knew was Lilith, she realized that she would have to let go of her hatred if she wanted to avoid losing the young girl that was her daughter in all but name and blood.
Hikari couldn't believe it either. Sitting within her chariot, having beaten down the Kaworu-controlled and partially rebuilt Unit-03, she could do no more than Misato. That, and switch between hoping Touji got there in time, and hoping he never saw this.
In front of Asuka hovered Kaworu Nagisa, the boy who had just openly declared himself the Seventeenth and challenged her to stop him and accept her fate as the Eighteenth Angel as she kept him from Lilith.
000
Ten minutes prior:
"Pattern Blue detected in the Evangelion Regeneration Cages!" Makoto yelled, and in an instant the bridge became a scene of controlled chaos.
"Bring up a visual and deploy the Pilots!" Misato yelled as she ran into the bridge, closely followed by Ritsuko.
"Asuka isn't responding, and Touji is in the tram on the way down to the Geofront." Maya alerted the bridge, "Hikari is on her way from the Ready room to the Cages."
"Send Section 2 to find Asuka, track her Nerv cellphone!" Ritsuko said as she moved over to a station near Maya's.
"Video on screen!"
And then silence reigned, as the suddenly regenerated Unit-03 stood and began to break out of the lightly armored Regen. Cage. On its shoulder stood the Fourth Children: Kaworu Nagisa.
"Fourth Children is the source of the Pattern Blue, reclassifying as 17th Angel." Maya said shakily, "Magi confirms change of designation."
"Where is Asuka!" Misato yelled over to Makoto, who jerked away from his station just as the Angel alarms change tone.
"Second Pattern Blue detected!" Makoto yelled, face pale, "It just left the Regen Cage, and has passed the first Pattern enroute to Terminal Dogma!"
"What?" Misato yelled, "Get the pilots in their Evas NOW."
"I have a visual of the second pattern…" Makoto said, then pressed a key.
"No…" Misato murmured, watching in horror at the image now displayed on the massive holographic display, the double caption reading both First Children and 18th Angel, before turning and bolting for the door.
000
Present:
"So it's my choice." Asuka glanced down, frowning in thought, "MY choice, not your's, not the commander's, mine."
"Yes, the choice is your own." Kaworu smiled, and Hikari finally realized what he had been implying with his challenge. Both the Seventeenth and the Eighteenth turned when they heard the strangled gasp that came from Unit-04's external audio. Hikari had backed her unit into the wall beside Heaven's Gate, and dropped to the ground.
"My choice Kaworu. Things don't always go the way people want when I get my way." Asuka swung her gaze back around to Lilith, her eyes blank, as Hikari finally spoke.
"Please, not Kaworu." she choked, "There has to be some way…"
"Only my way." Asuka said tonelessly, and her eyes flashed.
"NO!" Kaworu cried, unable to stop the cross-blast that struck and vaporized the lower half of the Second Angel, and he froze as Asuka screamed, wrapping her arms around her waist as she fell to the ground.
It HURT when she did that. Why did it hurt though? Was she connected to Lilith instead of Adam? Maybe. Well, she was going to finish this if it killed her. She didn't want to die, she really didn't. But it was her CHOICE. Always her choice. She wasn't a DOLL!
Where did that come from?
Asuka groaned as she sat up and gingerly shook her head. Blinking, she cleared her vision and glared up at Kaworu.
"You can't have things both ways!" Asuka roared, eyes flashing as she fired another blast that knocked Kaworu out of the way, then a third blast that left behind only Lilith's hands nailed to the massive cross.
"You can't have free will and still be forced to merge with Adam!" she gasped, "Free will is being able to make a choice."
Kaworu sank to the ground, falling to his knees as he stared at where Lilith had hung, and watched the hands rapidly dissolve into LCL. The pipes that once were embedded into Lilith's back now hung scorched and useless.
They all heard the hydraulic hiss as Hikari ejected her entry plug.
Running across Lilith's chamber, Hikari flew past Misato, past the barely standing Asuka, and straight to Kaworu.
"Why?" Hikari asked quietly, lightly placing her hands on Kaworu's shoulders as she dropped to her knees in front of him, tears visible at the corners of her eyes, "Why did you try to get yourself killed?"
"Because if I died, The Council would lose. They need Adam, but after Kozo burned him with the Lilim's artificial sun, he became lost." Kaworu said tonelessly, "So they decided to use me, by making me bond with Lilith, because I was genetically the same as Adam."
"But why not just do what Asuka did?" Hikari demanded quietly, fiercely, tears slowly slipping past her rapidly blinking eyes.
"Because I am still an Angel, and Adam and Lilith are the first of us." he finally looked Hikari in the face, and smiled painfully, confusion and sorrow readily visible in his eyes, "Could you kill your parents, if all they did was ask you to come home?"
Hikari pulled Kaworu into a tight hug as tears slowly began falling down his face, realizing for the first time just how much Asuka's mother must have hurt the girl with her death.
"Are these… tears?" he asked, voice filled with a mix of wonder and sorrow, "Am I… crying?"
Hikari shushed him, gently rocking them both back and forth like she had done for her younger sister after their mother had died, tears falling from her own eyes.
As Hikari cradled Kaworu while he wept, Misato walked over to the barely standing Asuka. The redhead seemed to take no notice of Misato's approach, instead she looked out over the LCL lake with half glazed eyes. Before Misato could say anything Asuka half-turned towards her, looking at her from the corner of her eye.
"I don't know what to do." she said, "I couldn't kill Kaworu, and Nerv's job is to kill Angels."
"He's not a threat anymore." Misato said, "Asuka-"
"And me." Asuka cut in, her voice shaking ever so slightly, "I'm an Angel too."
"It doesn't matter."
Misato and Asuka spun in surprise at the voice, and turned to the deep shadows back behind them in the direction of the personnel door Misato had used.
Asuka's eyes widened when Touji stepped out from shadows and began walking towards them, slightly out of breath and still in his track pants and white, now sweat soaked, t-shirt.
000
Five minutes prior:
"D*** it!" Touji gasped, turning and running into the male pilots changing room, "Of all the days I take the long way, it had to be when a' Angel attacks the place! And not jus' one, 'cause that'd be too easy!"
Tearing open his locker, Touji yanks his track suit jacket off and tosses it behind him.
"The 18th Angel has been identified!" Maya's choked voice over the loudspeaker jerks Touji to a halt just as he pulled his plugsuit from the locker, "It's… It's Asuka! No! No, no, no-" ~SCREECH
"All Evangelions to Terminal Dogma, I repeat, All Evangelions to Terminal Dogma!" Makoto's voice replaced Maya's, "Hikari, Touji! Get down there and stop Unit Three and Kaworu! Worry about Asuka later!"
"Asuka…" Touji's mind was amazingly calm for someone how just found out he'd been living with the enemy. But then, he would admit, he was a rather simple person. Not simple as in simple minded, but simple in that his view of the world was relatively basic. Good guys help you, and bad guys hurt you. Good guys try to save the world, bad guys try to destroy it.
Asuka had always helped him and his little sister, and helped those twins she lived with before that. She always worked to the limits of her abilities to stop the Angels, and pushed Touji and Hikari to do the same.
"U-unit Four engaging rogue Unit Three!" Hikari's shaken voice announced, and Touji realized the bridge had hit the base-wide switch.
Bolting out of the changing room he ran straight to the elevator Misato-san had told him led down to Terminal Dogma.
"Please let me get there in time!" he prayed.
000
"Weren't ya listenin' to your own speech?" Touji glared, walking up to Asuka and standing stiffly in front of her, "Ya made a CHOICE, Asuka! Ya just took out half of the reason for this whole mess, and the other half was already gone!"
"I'm an ANGEL, Touji!" She cried and grabbed his collar viciously while screaming in his face, "I've spent the last year fighting them, and the four years before that training to fight them! And now I find out I AM one!"
"What's your point?" Touji yelled back, hurt tinged his voice, "Don't ya remember our promise?"
Asuka flinched and jerked back, but Touji grabbed her shoulders. Misato's eyebrows climbed as she listened to them. How did I miss this between them…
"The. Promise. Asuka." he ground out.
"I promise I'll help you…" she whispered, looking down.
"Tuh keep'em safe…" he continued, waiting for her to look back up.
"And I won't ever leave you…"
"Jus' don't leave me." He finished, "I said then you're too important to me for me tuh leave."
Asuka's shoulders shook slightly as Misato blinked at the revelation that the two had shared with each other the promise Asuka had made while Touji was trapped inside Unit-01. The promise she screamed at Unit-01 the night it released Touji onto the catwalk, right at the girl's feet.
"I wasn't kiddin'."
Asuka took a deep, shaky, breath, and reached up and took hold of his hands on her shoulders. Gently holding his hands, Asuka stepped up to him and leaned against him in a near mirror of that evening weeks ago. Misato simply stared in amazement as the self-proclaimed Asuka the Great, someone who claimed they would never need anyone, allowed her mask to slip.
"It hurt, Touji." she whispered into his chest, "Like some cross between when my Eva would be hit, and that feeling when I thought I was being forced to kill another Pilot."
"I got ya…" Touji whispered back, gently holding her, "It's done now."
"Ok." she murmured, determination filling her voice, "what now?"
"First," Misato said, carefully, almost gently, interrupting the moment between the two young teens, "We get out of here. Hikari, bring Kaworu. He can hide out at my place until Seele is dealt with."
"Ok," Hikari called over her shoulder, then gently got the boy Angel to stand, "Come on Kaworu, let's go."
"Misato-" Asuka started, only to be cut-off with a sharp wave of Misato's hand.
"Can it, Asuka." Misato snapped, then took a deep breath, "Yeah… The angels took my father away and hurt a LOT of people… but you two didn't."
"Misato, what'll we do 'bout Seele?" Touji spoke up as he and Asuka started walking back to the personnel door, while Hikari lead Kaworu to them before running back to her Eva.
"Rits said they might try a frontal assault using the Eva-series." she said, grim faced, "If they do, we'll need all of you at your best. We might have as little as twenty-four hours."
"But three to one?" Hikari asked over the external speakers, sounding doubtful, as she guided Unit-04 through Heaven's Gate, "And Makoto-san is trying to reach you. I'll tell him we're on the way up."
"You'll do fine." Misato said, then finished to herself, "Or it's all over."
000
Asuka and Touji walked into the apartment they shared with Shinji, Rei, and Mari. Stepping into the living room, they found all three kids sitting around the coffee table in the center of the room. Mari sat on one side, a concerned look on her face, and Shinji and Rei sat on the other side looking exhausted.
"Welcome back, Asuka." Rei said, exhaustion obvious in her voice, "I guess you fixed all of our problems."
Asuka's eyes widened, and she dropped to her knees next to Shinji and Rei, gathering both in a hug.
"I'm sorry, I didn't know it would hurt you." she apologized, "When I did it, it hurt, but I didn't think it would affect you."
"It's o-ok." Shinji said, "It didn't hurt that much. Rei thinks that's because we're more Adam than Lilith."
"And," Mari jumped in, "Adam only called, he wasn't connected with the other Angels or anything."
Mari then blinked, looking at Asuka funny, and tilted her head to the side a little.
"Did you say it hurt you too?" she asked, then grinned, "Are you an Angel like Rei-chan and Shinji-kun?"
"Mari…?" Touji looks at his sister with a mix of confusion and surprise, "Did they tell you that?"
"um… no." Mari murmured, looking off to the side, "It was a lady… she looked kinda like Rei-chan, but she was more grown-up."
"What? When?" Asuka looked around the apartment, nervous and no longer exhausted, "Is she still here?"
"No," Mari replied nervously, "It…It was a while ago… I guess the same time as the fight with the fifteenth…"
"What did she say, Mari?" Touji asked calmly, walking over and picking her up.
"Just that I had Angels for friends, and they would need me to help them adjust to being free." Mari smiled, "She said one day you would remove the bait, and be free. That must be today!"
Touji and Asuka shared a look of confusion, wondering if it had been Lilith, or the dream-Rei that had visited little Mari. Touji shrugged, and Asuka smiled back. It didn't matter which one had found Mari, she had made it so the little girl would be there for them and not fear them.
"Yeah," Asuka whispered, just loud enough for the kids and Touji to hear, "Must be…"
000
"Commander, I think you have some explaining to do." Misato said menacingly as she walked past the Section 2 guards at the door to Kozo's office, who saluted her, and marched across the massive room to face the man who thought he held most of NERV's cards.
For Misato, her forty-five Magnum was the ultimate trump card.
"Ah, Kasturagi. I was wondering when you'd arrive." Kozo turned his chair around, bringing the lighting in the room up to normal, "There is much planning to do before Seele plays its last three cards to begin Third Impact."
The simple and direct admission of guilt made her pause, but only for a moment. Snarling, she reached across the desk and grabbed the faintly grinning man by his uniform's jeweled collar.
"I want the truth, you b**tard." Misato drew her sidearm and removed the safety, "And I want it now, or we find out just how important you are to running Nerv."
Kozo paled slightly, but otherwise did not react. "I believe it is really quite simple, Katsuragi. The Children are the key to it all."
"Start from the top." releasing her grip on his collar, she shoved him back to his chair.
"The Children are Nephilium." he began.
"Toji and Hikari aren't." Misato interrupted.
"Would you like the answer or not?" Kozo snapped, "Even Toji and Hikari have some genetic tampering to make them more capable in synchronizing with the Evangelions. All the Children do."
Misato took a threatening step forward. She couldn't believe what Nerv had done, just to fight the Angels. Toying with childrens' genes-
"It was Yui's plan, and Kyoko's." Kozo said more quietly, freezing Misato in place as he looked down at the surface of the desk, "And Rokubungi went right along with her."
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A/N: This chapter, while almost directly connected to events in "Chance", is actually part one of two. Part one deals with I'm Needed's version of episode 23, while part 2 deals with I'm Needed's version of End of Evangelion. Thus, "Dreams", "Chance", and "Prepare to Reset" are three different points-of-view of the epilogue to I'm Needed.`