Chapter 02 - Larsen
Asuka looked at unit four where two techs had opened the slightly distorted hatch and the
pilot was leaving the entryplug.
She looked again, blinked, and looked for a third time.
No way... that can´t be an EVA-pilot...
The pilot wore a grey pilotkombination with the charakter ´Lt.Larsen´ in westeuropean letters
on the breast pocket, with black boots and gloves.
His shortcut hair was of deepblack colour, his face had a healthy colour.
And most definitly he wasn´t a teenager.
... he is at least as old as Kaji...
Larsen stretched and smoothed his uniform while looking around the hangar.
He saw the red EVA unit two and started moving, walking across the catwalk towards Asuka.
Is he walking up towards me?
She looked around, Shinji still was by Rei´s side, who seemed oblivious to the fact that he
stank of vomit ten miles against the wind, or maybe it didn´t interest her.
"I guess that you are the red EVA´s pilot who saved my back, aren´t you?" Larsen asked Asuka,
his voice the same she´d already heard from the radio.
"Ehm, yes, EVA-02 is mine."
Why am I blushing? Why?
Larsen smiled friendly and bowed.
"Then I have to thank you, since the EVA´s fields wouldn´t have withstood the explosion."
He offered her his hand.
"Wolf Larsen, Lieutenant of New Germany´s strikeforces."
Automatically she took the hand.
"Asuka... Asuka Soryu Langley."
"Nice to meet you."
His eyes were brown with a bit of redbrown.
Hm, t least his manners are good.
"And those are the other children?"
Damned. Now he will go to them and Wondergirl will somehow steal me the spotlight.
But she nodded, why denying the obvious?
Then doctor Akagi and Commander Ikari arrived.
"Welcome to Tokio-3, Larsen", Ikari greeted the newcomer with icecold voice.
"Commander Ikari." Larsen bowed slightly.
"Forget this nonsense and follow me."
"Yes, Sir."
When he passed Akagi she asked: "Did EVA-04 suffer any damages?"
"Nothing that woundn´t regenerate by itself."
"Good, come to me for a medical check after taking to the Commander."
"I was already checked before leaving. Here is my medical file."
He gave the scientist a file.
"... thanks."
"Is... is this truely the pilot of unit four?" Shinji stammered.
Rei didn´t say anything, just looked at Larsen until he had disappeared throught the door.
Something... familiar...
***
"Why did you ignore the orders to change course?" Gendo Ikari asked, his voice sharp
enough to cut through steel.
"Which orders, Sir?" Larsen answered with unmoving face. "When we arrived we only got
unclear messages, the only thing we managed to get to know was that an angel was moving
towards the town. Since I was send to Japan to fight the angels I decided to act immediatly."
While Ikari sat behind his desk doing his hand thing Larsen stood straightly, hands at
the sides of his trousers.
"You did not recieve the orders?"
"No, Sir."
At least it wasn´t recorded.
"Hm, good." The commander looked at the newcommer darkly across his hands. "I will believe
you - once. But you know, that you endangered the EVANGELION unit?!"
"Sir, if that is the big problem the EVAs shouldn´t be used against the angels at all,
with all due respect, Sir."
"Stop that, Larsen. You are with NERV now, not with the PALADIN-project anymore. Your
rank is insignificant. The only thing important is that you are able to pilot an EVA unit,
as strange as the circumstances are."
"Yes, Sir."
"You can go now, Major Katsuragi will give you further orders, you´ll find her at the
commandcenter."
"Thank you, Sir."
Larsen salutated and left the bureau.
***
Instead of commandcenter he entered the next bathroom, turned open the faucet and let the
water run.
A short time later another person entered the room, Ryoji Kaji, who grinned at Larsen.
"Nice to meet you again, Wolf. How was you flight?"
"Turbulent."
"Probably like your first meeting with commander, eh?"
Larsen rubbed his eyes, removed his contacts, looked into the mirror, where two red orbs
withous iris starred back at him, no human, but artifial eyes.
"With a little bit of luck he´ll deem me to be an arrogant officer and leaves me alone.
At least he will know that he´s not dealing with a teenager he can manipulate as he likes."
"A lot has happened since we met the last time at the german branch of NERV."
"That´s the reason I am here."
"Howmany Raven did ODIN send?"
"With you?"
"Why to I have the feeling that I won´t like the answer...?"
"Well, with the two of us we are three. We couldn´t send anymore agents without drawing
suspicions. Your report has made a lot of people quite nervous."
"So this must be enough... - How is your daughter?"
"Well... I fear that she will be alone this christmas."
He removed the left glove and splashed a handful of water into his face.
"Have her come here."
"No, too dangerous with all the angels around." he whispered the last words.
and she would be recognized, he added within his thoughts.
"Probably you are right. Take care, Lieutenant, in your own interests - and in hers."
"And you take care, too, Kaji. Maybe we will have to leave very fast."
He put in the contacts again, turned off the running water, put on the glove.
"We keep meeting at the strangest places."
"If I remember correctly you were climbing last time a half-finished EVA unit..."
"Yeah, and I nearly lost my balance. At least you had something to laugh."
"Yes..." Kaji shok Larsen´s hand. "Welcome to NERV, if nobody told you already."
"Thanks."
***
Misato´s kitchen, later that evening:
"Misato-san?"
"Hm, Asuka?"
"Why can he pilot an EVA?"
"Who?"
"The old man - Larsen."
"Eh, well, that´s such a thing..."
"I mean, they told us that only children born within the year after Second Impact were
able to synch with an EVA unit."
"And since he is older..."
"Misato, that man is ancient!"
Misato threw her a deadly look.
"He is only about a year older than I am."
I need a beer...
"Ahm, yes... So, why is he able to pilot an EVA?"
"Ask him yourself, it´s quite personal."
"Och."
Asuka stood up and went over to Shinji who did the wash up.
"And did you blame us today?"
"W-Why?"
"Well, jumping from that building, nice try, but in practice the stupidest thing I´ve
ever seen. To forget that you still had the cable in your EVAs back..."
"Gomen." Shinji didn´t meet her eyes but was still drying the dishes.
Somehow Asuka was unable to enjoy this, somehow she even felt sorry.
"It´s okay, I didn´t mean it that way." she whispered softly so that only he was able to
hear her and smiled at him.
Shinji blinked, waiting for the next explosion, that didn´t happen.
What´s up with her?
Then a timid smile appeared on his face.
***
Rei stood by the window of her untidy as ever apartment and looked up to the moon, humming
a melody she was unable to get out of her head anymore.
Fly me to the moon...
Again she remembered the fight against the last angel, remembered how they attacked it
from different angles and how it suddenly concentrated the fire at her. For a short time
her EVA hadn´t reacted, for a terribly long moment it had been completly dark inside the
plug and completly silent...
For this moment she had felt completly cut off from the world and all other human...
Then she had been able to sense her surroundings again using the EVA´s senses, had Shinji
heard screaming her name...
Shinji... he was afraid for me... I mean something for him...
... had been a witness to his attack without being able to move. Unit zero had only slowly
reacted, without the other EVAs the angel would have had no problems destroying it.
Finally EVA-04 had arrived and bought EVA-01 the necessary time for a second assault.
She had seen the new pilot only shortly at the hangar and only from behind, her heart to
busy with Shinji caring for her.
But there had been something familiar, like a reflection from an old mirror... like a
memory from another life...
She looked up to the moon.
How beautiful...
next: an unwilling EVA
Asuka looked at unit four where two techs had opened the slightly distorted hatch and the
pilot was leaving the entryplug.
She looked again, blinked, and looked for a third time.
No way... that can´t be an EVA-pilot...
The pilot wore a grey pilotkombination with the charakter ´Lt.Larsen´ in westeuropean letters
on the breast pocket, with black boots and gloves.
His shortcut hair was of deepblack colour, his face had a healthy colour.
And most definitly he wasn´t a teenager.
... he is at least as old as Kaji...
Larsen stretched and smoothed his uniform while looking around the hangar.
He saw the red EVA unit two and started moving, walking across the catwalk towards Asuka.
Is he walking up towards me?
She looked around, Shinji still was by Rei´s side, who seemed oblivious to the fact that he
stank of vomit ten miles against the wind, or maybe it didn´t interest her.
"I guess that you are the red EVA´s pilot who saved my back, aren´t you?" Larsen asked Asuka,
his voice the same she´d already heard from the radio.
"Ehm, yes, EVA-02 is mine."
Why am I blushing? Why?
Larsen smiled friendly and bowed.
"Then I have to thank you, since the EVA´s fields wouldn´t have withstood the explosion."
He offered her his hand.
"Wolf Larsen, Lieutenant of New Germany´s strikeforces."
Automatically she took the hand.
"Asuka... Asuka Soryu Langley."
"Nice to meet you."
His eyes were brown with a bit of redbrown.
Hm, t least his manners are good.
"And those are the other children?"
Damned. Now he will go to them and Wondergirl will somehow steal me the spotlight.
But she nodded, why denying the obvious?
Then doctor Akagi and Commander Ikari arrived.
"Welcome to Tokio-3, Larsen", Ikari greeted the newcomer with icecold voice.
"Commander Ikari." Larsen bowed slightly.
"Forget this nonsense and follow me."
"Yes, Sir."
When he passed Akagi she asked: "Did EVA-04 suffer any damages?"
"Nothing that woundn´t regenerate by itself."
"Good, come to me for a medical check after taking to the Commander."
"I was already checked before leaving. Here is my medical file."
He gave the scientist a file.
"... thanks."
"Is... is this truely the pilot of unit four?" Shinji stammered.
Rei didn´t say anything, just looked at Larsen until he had disappeared throught the door.
Something... familiar...
***
"Why did you ignore the orders to change course?" Gendo Ikari asked, his voice sharp
enough to cut through steel.
"Which orders, Sir?" Larsen answered with unmoving face. "When we arrived we only got
unclear messages, the only thing we managed to get to know was that an angel was moving
towards the town. Since I was send to Japan to fight the angels I decided to act immediatly."
While Ikari sat behind his desk doing his hand thing Larsen stood straightly, hands at
the sides of his trousers.
"You did not recieve the orders?"
"No, Sir."
At least it wasn´t recorded.
"Hm, good." The commander looked at the newcommer darkly across his hands. "I will believe
you - once. But you know, that you endangered the EVANGELION unit?!"
"Sir, if that is the big problem the EVAs shouldn´t be used against the angels at all,
with all due respect, Sir."
"Stop that, Larsen. You are with NERV now, not with the PALADIN-project anymore. Your
rank is insignificant. The only thing important is that you are able to pilot an EVA unit,
as strange as the circumstances are."
"Yes, Sir."
"You can go now, Major Katsuragi will give you further orders, you´ll find her at the
commandcenter."
"Thank you, Sir."
Larsen salutated and left the bureau.
***
Instead of commandcenter he entered the next bathroom, turned open the faucet and let the
water run.
A short time later another person entered the room, Ryoji Kaji, who grinned at Larsen.
"Nice to meet you again, Wolf. How was you flight?"
"Turbulent."
"Probably like your first meeting with commander, eh?"
Larsen rubbed his eyes, removed his contacts, looked into the mirror, where two red orbs
withous iris starred back at him, no human, but artifial eyes.
"With a little bit of luck he´ll deem me to be an arrogant officer and leaves me alone.
At least he will know that he´s not dealing with a teenager he can manipulate as he likes."
"A lot has happened since we met the last time at the german branch of NERV."
"That´s the reason I am here."
"Howmany Raven did ODIN send?"
"With you?"
"Why to I have the feeling that I won´t like the answer...?"
"Well, with the two of us we are three. We couldn´t send anymore agents without drawing
suspicions. Your report has made a lot of people quite nervous."
"So this must be enough... - How is your daughter?"
"Well... I fear that she will be alone this christmas."
He removed the left glove and splashed a handful of water into his face.
"Have her come here."
"No, too dangerous with all the angels around." he whispered the last words.
and she would be recognized, he added within his thoughts.
"Probably you are right. Take care, Lieutenant, in your own interests - and in hers."
"And you take care, too, Kaji. Maybe we will have to leave very fast."
He put in the contacts again, turned off the running water, put on the glove.
"We keep meeting at the strangest places."
"If I remember correctly you were climbing last time a half-finished EVA unit..."
"Yeah, and I nearly lost my balance. At least you had something to laugh."
"Yes..." Kaji shok Larsen´s hand. "Welcome to NERV, if nobody told you already."
"Thanks."
***
Misato´s kitchen, later that evening:
"Misato-san?"
"Hm, Asuka?"
"Why can he pilot an EVA?"
"Who?"
"The old man - Larsen."
"Eh, well, that´s such a thing..."
"I mean, they told us that only children born within the year after Second Impact were
able to synch with an EVA unit."
"And since he is older..."
"Misato, that man is ancient!"
Misato threw her a deadly look.
"He is only about a year older than I am."
I need a beer...
"Ahm, yes... So, why is he able to pilot an EVA?"
"Ask him yourself, it´s quite personal."
"Och."
Asuka stood up and went over to Shinji who did the wash up.
"And did you blame us today?"
"W-Why?"
"Well, jumping from that building, nice try, but in practice the stupidest thing I´ve
ever seen. To forget that you still had the cable in your EVAs back..."
"Gomen." Shinji didn´t meet her eyes but was still drying the dishes.
Somehow Asuka was unable to enjoy this, somehow she even felt sorry.
"It´s okay, I didn´t mean it that way." she whispered softly so that only he was able to
hear her and smiled at him.
Shinji blinked, waiting for the next explosion, that didn´t happen.
What´s up with her?
Then a timid smile appeared on his face.
***
Rei stood by the window of her untidy as ever apartment and looked up to the moon, humming
a melody she was unable to get out of her head anymore.
Fly me to the moon...
Again she remembered the fight against the last angel, remembered how they attacked it
from different angles and how it suddenly concentrated the fire at her. For a short time
her EVA hadn´t reacted, for a terribly long moment it had been completly dark inside the
plug and completly silent...
For this moment she had felt completly cut off from the world and all other human...
Then she had been able to sense her surroundings again using the EVA´s senses, had Shinji
heard screaming her name...
Shinji... he was afraid for me... I mean something for him...
... had been a witness to his attack without being able to move. Unit zero had only slowly
reacted, without the other EVAs the angel would have had no problems destroying it.
Finally EVA-04 had arrived and bought EVA-01 the necessary time for a second assault.
She had seen the new pilot only shortly at the hangar and only from behind, her heart to
busy with Shinji caring for her.
But there had been something familiar, like a reflection from an old mirror... like a
memory from another life...
She looked up to the moon.
How beautiful...
next: an unwilling EVA