Story based on characters created by and copyright to GAINAX. I don't owe Neon Genesis Evangelion, I never will. If asked, I'll delete everything. I'm not making money by my writing.
Version 01.01.02He placed the ice pack over his black eye, shivering at the contact with his swollen flesh. He surely wouldn't have expected a punch from her. He wasn't pretending to be welcomed with open arms, but a punch?
He knew she had a short fuse, so he expected a slap and after all he deserved a slap for having acted like a... let's face it, he acted like a bastard. But it was for the greater good or at least it was what he thought at the moment. He didn't regret his actions.
But... a punch?
She hit him straight in the face, and then luckily the nurses restrained her. She calmed down then she proceeded to tell him exactly what she thought about him. Her words weren't just harsh: they were abrasive.
He listened patiently, trying to counter her reasons, but he was only able to worsen the conversation. She explained that he shouldn't try to show his face around her, unless he wanted more than a black eye. He tended to believe her, as he never saw her so pissed off.
He sighed deeply, leaning on his back and studying the ceiling with his left eye. Maybe he had really chosen a bad moment... but it wasn't his fault if the researches are still ongoing. And it wasn't his fault that he was still alive: he did everything he could to die, but his lucky star kept an eye on his back.
"She simply didn't want to face the possibility that he was dead," he said to the ceiling that didn't give him any answer.
He never thought that things would have gone that way
Chapter one:
Incoming enemy
Special Agency Nerv was a huge organization under the control of U.N. but few people knew about it, and even who knew its existence had serious doubts about its real duty and importance. The only thing evident was that Nerv had a lot of money, and was swallowing it like a black hole since its creation in 2010, and even before considering that it was organized by transferring GEHIRN... they changed the name, but what was under the name was the same.
Many people who discussed the utility of Nerv were simply envious of its founds and its power, not to say its secrets. Others thought that Nerv was a waste of money that of course would be better spent financing their own organization...
Others feared Nerv and its Commander... they were the majority.
The menace Nerv was ready to face was likely only a dream, or better a nightmare, as was thought by many until the first angel came.
Its apparition was sudden and subtle. When the instruments caught its signature, they cannot say from where it had come. It seemengly appeared from nowhere. The only thing sure was that it was big and moving fast under the sea, faster than any submergible could muster, faster than anything of its mass could possibly move.
The firsts who caught its traces were the scientists over an oceanographic research ship, the 'Explorer', which duty was study the migrations of the whales around the oceans.
They were following the big mammals with their sonar, when something started to disturb their researches: apparently, a big body under the water, but it was too big and too fast to exist.
They thought that it was an error, so they controlled their equipment, but the body didn't disappear.
So, they called the nearer country: Japan.
The notice wasn't taken too seriously, but when also a military ship discovered the monster, the war machine started to work.
The course of the object was soon calculated: there were no mistakes; the object was pointing directly towards Japan with unbelievable speed...
Someone studied better the course: it was pointing straight to a singular city: Neo Tokyo 3.
Nerv had expected this, since its creation and its men even before... fourteen years of preparation, study and construction. Neo Tokyo 3 owed its existence only to Nerv: an entire, huge city built entirely by a single organization, with a single purpose.
The city had been finished just in time and the moment when everybody would discover if a good job was done was coming.
But the Japanese Strategic Self Defense Force didn't want to leave the fight to Nerv.
Plans prepared long time ago for an unlikely possibility were put in practice, the army started to move to the coastline, ready to challenge an unknown enemy. Entire divisions of tanks were placed near the water, their turrets aiming towards the sea, waiting the approaching target.
Inside the HQ of Nerv, the activity had become frantic after the signal about the possible presence of an angel.
The generals of JSSDF were guests and they were watching the line of tanks on the coastline, satisfied by the amount of armored vehicles lined. They were smirking, knowing that against such firepower any enemy couldn't have any possibility.
Silence reigned in the room, except for the service communications and even them were kept to the minimum.
Higher, the commander of Nerv, Gendou Ikari, was sitting behind a desk, empty except for one gray telephone. Standing next to him was the sub-commander, a tall man with grizzled man, older than commander Ikari. He frowned, looking at the displacement of vehicles.
"What a waste of resources..." he muttered under his breath. The last time he asked found, they objected that Nerv swallowed billions of yens like a bottomless pit, and now they were wasting not only money, but probably also lives.
"Indeed," Gendou agreed without turning to face his sub-commander, his face a mask of stone, his fingers intertwined under his nose, waiting the expected development of the situation. He knew that without proof of their uselessness the generals wouldn't retreat. He knew also that it was fundamental that the angel was stopped from none other than Nerv, otherwise, his game would came to an abrupt end.
On the main screen, two torpedo-boat destroyers were on the path of the object: they tried to bomb it with depth charges which unaffected the object in the slightest... soon, the torpedo-boat destroyers were left behind.
The first line of defense had been overcame without problems by the target, but no one really thought that two ships would be sufficient to stop it: no one was prone to wishful thinking.
Now, near to the coastline, the thing slowed down, sailing between the ruins of a submerged city, a sad mark of Second Impact. The thing was elegant in the water, like a dolphin, moving swiftly between the sunken towers without touching them...
The men inside the tank number 521 were bored. No one told them why they had to go, or why they had to place in that position. They only knew that it wasn't a drill and that a real enemy was expected to attack from the sea. The intentions of the enemy were unknown, and they had to stop it before it could reach the mainland.
That didn't stop the men from being bored: five hours in a tank, looking a flat sea, the waves playing on the beach, could do that...
The commander of the tank let the others cheat because that would relive some of the stress of the long wait, but he preferred to look at the sea, searching for the enemy.
What will be the enemy? A ship? Or is it another surprise drill? he thought idly, scanning the horizon back and forth.
If it's a ship, why had they called an armored division like us? It's very unlikely that a ship would came in the range of our cannons... it couldn't be another black ship, could it? But if it isn't a ship, what is? An invasion? A landing? No, Colonel Saeba would have told us if there is a invasion in act... And if someone wants to land, where is the air superiority? The more I think about this, the more I'm sure it's a drill... and a stupid drill, in addition: what kind of idiot would line tank so near each other, on a road?
He was lost in his thoughts so much that he failed to notice that just in front of his tank a large black spot had appeared beneath the water surface, becoming larger and larger.
When he noticed it, the angel had started to surface, dripping water from what could be called its 'head'.
Too shocked to speak, he looked at the emerging giant walking towards him, each step now making a low vibration, a little storm developing between the legs of the angel.
The hell for fifth tank division had just started.
The commander of the tank number 521 survived and so did his crew, with almost all of their comrades: only who was so unlucky to be in the way of the monster died.
But that day would have been forever branded in his memory: he wasn't easily impressed, because he faced Second Impact, being ten years old when it happened, enough old to remember it, but this time it was different.
He learnt what an ant would feel in front of a human being and he knew that he survived only because, like a human being, that thing didn't pass its time stomping over the ants instead of going on its path...
Still, he didn't believed his eyes when, after it was ordered to open the fire, he had seen the shots hit the angel, directly, without evident damage. A direct hit made by a 155 mm cannon that didn't do a scratch over the monster. The unarmed angel ignored all the efforts made by fifth division to stop it.
The tank commander could only watch the monster walking away, too fast to be pursued. Soon, he heard the noise of jet fighters over his head. The only thing left to do for him was pray that they would be able to stop that thing, hoping that someone would be better prepared and equipped to deal with that menace than him.
And someone as a matter of fact was ready to face that enemy.
For the first time from its creations, Nerv was going to use its instruments for what they a were made for.
They had followed the angel until it exited from the water, and then they had monitored the battle.
Everyone in the control room was trained in prevision of an angel attack. Few people, mostly high level personal who knew much more than the average personal, had thought that the drill would become useful someday. They were the ones who worked at Project E, and had seen the final result of that project. They were also the ones who knew the fate of Katsuragi expedition.
Lieutenant Shigeru Aoba was one of them. He was oddly calm, collecting the data from what was previously designed as a target and feeding it to Magi, like he did so many times in the drills. However, this time is mouth was dry and his eyes manifested the tendency to glue in awe towards the main monitor, which was showing the angel in all its power.
A beep from his screen told him that Magi had finished its examination. What he read on the monitor was evident: what else could be a giant like that?
Indeed, he read twice the answer that the supercomputer Magi gave him before speaking, knowing that he would only confirm what everyone in the room already knew yet feeling the importance of the moment, maybe the most important moment in his life.
"Analysis of the target, completed. Pattern..." he couldn't help but stop a moment, swallowing hard to wet his dry throat "... blue. It's an angel" he finished. Done.
Nobody flinched because everyone expected that.
The generals of JSSDF were silent: they had just watched three entire armored division being simple ignored by the target and the failure of the initial air strike.
From high above, only Commander Gendou Ikari and his Sub Commander, Kouzou Fuyutsuki, spoke.
"They are returned, after fourteen years," Fuyutsuki said in an even voice. He had hoped that maybe the Scrolls weren't right.
"It was expected: this time we are ready," Gendou replied coldly, looking down with contempt to the Generals discussing about the next attack.
Are we really? Kouzou mused, looking thoughtfully the battle going on the monitor in front of him.
On the main screen, missiles over missiles hit the angel, without causing much trouble to his walk. A bigger missile was caught by its right hand and crushed: the explosion enveloped the arm of the angel, but it reemerged without damages.
Military VTOL were firing at it... the angel simply moved its left arm, projecting from its hand what seemed to be a luminescent spear, and with that it destroyed some aircraft by simply shoving them away from its path, not differently from what a man would do against a swarm of bees that possessed no effective stings. But the attacks didn't stopped, even if the power difference was evident: the men piloting the jets and the men fighting on the ground weren't going to give way to the enemy.
But their efforts were pointless, and the sacrifice of their life futile, being them not able to even slow down the monster, not to say to distract it from its target.
Will they understand that's only a waste of time? Kouzou mused again as another aircraft crashed.
As responding to his thoughts, the army and the aviation started to retire, the attacks ceasing and the fighters fleeing away, leaving the angel alone.
Murmurs could be heard from the generals that were discussing something.
"They want to use their best weapon" Gendou commented dryly.
"It will be useless" Fuyutsuki replied, "No man made weapons can defeat it"
Silence fell between them, waiting while a countdown had started. Fuyutsuki comment was accurate, even if pessimistic.
No human weapons could work against the angel, otherwise it wouldn't be an angel: it was common knowledge between the men involved in Project E.
"Operation double N in ten seconds" another lieutenant, Makoto Hyuuga, said, while red numbers reflected over his glasses.
He started to read them in a calm voice, even if he wasn't calm, knowing what was going to happen. His words echoed a now utterly silent control room.
"Situation: all green. Final countdown: five"
"Four"
"Three"
"Two"
"One..."
"... Zero"The main screen flickered with electrostatic charges.
"She doesn't want to collaborate."
The man behind the desk just raised his eyes from the papers he was reading, squaring the younger one, then he sighed.
"It was expected. There is nothing else we can do."
The younger seemed outraged.
"Why cannot we handle her directly? I'm sure our experts could extract all the information we need from her brain"
The older gave a cold smile to his young assistant.
"She's the one that developed the technology on which our mental probes are based. Those methods won't work with her."
The younger seemed to digest that bit of information before speaking again.
"We could use other forms to..."
The older cut him off.
"No. The informations she knows are too precious for us. We cannot risk to damage them."
"but if she doesn't cooperate, those informations are useless," the young objected.
"We have time. We just need to find her weak point then use it. She cannot pretend to be insane forever. Sooner or later, she will contact someone, she will do something. We will be ready for that moment"
With those words, he dismissed his young and inadequate aid. Indeed, the fact that her had decided to play that way had surprised him. She seemed to know what medic was theirs, and every time he went to visit him, she discussed the strangets subjects. Sometime he wondered if she was really gone, but his superiors assured him she was faking. That closed the question.