NGE Gospel of Serpents Chapter 2, an evangelion fanfic

Neon Genesis Evangelion characters and situations created and Copyright

by Gainax, Project Eva, ADV Films - Used without permission

Danger! Danger! A large portion of this fic was written whilst under the influence of just a little too much vodka. Including this part. That's my excuse for the first half anyway.

The second half, well… this is where I started acting out of character isn't it? Rei's fairly easy, (I mean, she barely says anything…) Shinji's difficult because this isn't entirely the uberwuss Ikari that were all used to but it is still Shinji. Asuka on the other hand is just murder to get right, getting her in character is like walking on a tightrope, you make her too much of a bitch and she becomes OC, you make her too mellow and she becomes OC… GAH! As for Tenshi, look, I don't see what your problem is, I SAID HE WAS MARY SUE! I warned you right from the start that this guy was a flaming MS! It's not my fault! That's just how he turned out, over a period of time I'm going to try and tone him down, or deliver him a healthy dose of EVA brand superangst ™, or both.

Again with the rambling and the time wasting… Oh well enjoy as best you can.

NGE-Gospel of the Serpent

By Flash69

Chapter 2

"Kether, who died and was reborn, a vengeful ghost, who wept his secrets."

Tenshi Yamamoto The Inverse Testament, S3phiroth 2:2

The space shuttle was packed with scientists. Tenshi couldn't swing without hitting a scientific calculator. This particular shuttle had been designed to ferry people to and from a space station. This told Tenshi a couple of things about what he what was going on, firstly was the apparent conclusion that he would be working for a period of time on a space station. Secondly it told him that this would be a research facility of some kind, possibly weapons developments. In any case most of his immediate questions would probably soon be answered and replaced by all new questions. Such, Tenshi felt, was the nature of the 'game'. His memory may be absent without leave, but his instincts were razor sharp.

They were all instructed to take their seats and strap themselves in, the passengers did so in good humour. After a few brief minutes, there came the roar of god behind them as the solid fuel thrusters ignited and propelled the small white metallic vessel in to the mid-afternoon sky.

The G force buffeted the passengers, some of the scientist threw up as a result, Tenshi merely grinned at their misfortune and endured.

When the thrusters finally died down and the scientists released their seatbelts and start playing in the anti-gravity like they were children discovering the wonder of balloons, Tenshi remained seated and looked through the window. It was because of this that it was Tenshi who saw it first.

It began a patch of darkness in the stars, a shadow where a shadow should not be, then as the shuttle continued in its elliptical approach, the shadow began to take shape. It was huge, like a pair of black plates left on top of each other. A large rough spire shot out of the bottom, its unsmooth and unsymmetrical construction at odds with the clean lines of what lay above it.

He quickly gestured for the rest of the scientists to come look out of the side and they rushed over (well as much as one can do in zero gravity.) There was a chorus of "oohs" and "aahs" as they observed the celestial structure.

"I was expecting a space station…" Tenshi quietly mused.

"But I didn't expect it to be this big!"

When the shuttle finally docked with the gargantuan construct and the airlock was extended (it was around about this time that the gravity generated by the stations orbit kicked it, much to the amusement of Tenshi, but less so to the scientists.) they were greeted at the other End by Yaezaki. He wore much the same as when Tenshi had seen him less than three hours ago, save the inclusion of a dark brown jacket.

"Greetings, Salutations and welcome!" he proclaimed in his delicate tones.

"This my learned underlings, is the Space Fortress Gilgamesh!"

"He called Gilgamesh the fortress, but we turned into a cradle of the serpent."

Tenshi Yamamoto The Inverse Testament, G3n3sis 5:2

After the introductions had been made, Yaezaki bade them farewell (exact words) and they dispersed in the general direction of the nearest bar.

Alcohol had a negative effect on Tenshi, spirits gave him a bad burn, but beer and wines weren't so bad. It also took him a while to get properly, or even comfortably drunk. This was one of the reasons that Tenshi rarely got drunk, the other was that he didn't like to lose control.

But the days events have left him with an unsettled feeling in his gut that he needed alcohol to remove.

He took a long draught of the beer he was drinking, it burned on the way down and settled in his gut, feeling like mild napalm.

There was another side affect to Tenshi drinking; he mumbled, about the past. Tenshi mumbled about the past he couldn't remember. This was why he always kept a Dictaphone on him whenever he went drinking (at the very least it made interesting listening in the morning.) Unfortunately, while he mumbled about the past, he also mumbled about a lot of other things as well, put simply, when he got drunk, he talked an awful lot. Very little of what he said however, was even remotely relevant.

"…burns, body can't stand the 'al-ki-hol', breaks the polywhotsits, polyesters, polyhedrons, wozzit… thingy? Breaks 'em down, dissolves 'em a little. But I'm bullet proof! Titanium devil I am. I miss my friends…"

This would go on for at least another few hours, as he steadily drunk more and more until he had enough. Unlike most people, Tenshi Yamamoto, knew when he he'd had enough. No matter how drunk, he knew; when he'd had enough.

At the moment however, he hadn't had enough.

"I remember what happened at the end… Red seas as far as you can see, see? Red Seas! Sea! See? No? Perfect world my arse! Nuffink' wrong with this place, just a couple of problems with the gaffer. You know, the Gaffer. You know? The well full o' shiny things. Crabs and what-not. What? Not. What? Not. That and the other thingy, infinite revolution or summink. I remember the purple one… The purple one! The purple one! Why'd you take the purple one! We called her Yui, but she's called Ritsuko now, always recycle ya' hear!"

In all honesty, listening to Tenshi's drunken ramblings should only be done in short bursts.

"Not supposed be here… Got lost running from Lu-see-faaah, nothing left but some crap on a quarter in my pants… Join the army! Be a man! Forgot to mention about devils didn't we! Buggerit… Millennium hand and shrimp! There! I said it! So Fnaar!

Fnaar! Fnaar! Fnaar! Weeble, weeble, schlup" *whumpf*

Tenshi fell off the bar stool. There was a brief five second pause. A hand shot up over the flat horizon of the bar and propelled the worse for wear JDF Captain upwards.

"I'M O-KAY!"

In a darkened room, illuminated by security monitors only, Commander Yaezaki watched with a mild frown.

"I wonder just how much of this is relevant and how much is meaningless…"

Tenshi finished off another beer, the burning was getting worse and he was nearly done. He leaned backwards and saluted a random direction with his middle finger. "Idiot! Don't'cha know?" He then fell of his bar stool again.

That was the point that a mysterious power surge caused one single particular monitor to fizz and crackle before smoke and flame billowed forth. Right in front of Yaezaki. The Commander gently moved his chair out of the way and picked up a fire extinguisher. As he doused the meagre flames before they became a hazard and started biting into the oxygen supply, he quietly mused…

"Now how on earth did that just happen?"

"The eyes of the unalive cannot catch me unawares…"

Tenshi Yamamoto The Inverse Testament, G3n3sis 2:4

If you ask anyone working in PIRO, even (in fact especially) the ones who used to work for NERV, they will tell you there is no such thing as 'Section R'.

They will tell you that there is no such thing as the JDF Reality Warping Warfare Division and that it certainly doesn't exist as a secret thirty level basement where Terminal Dogma once stood. Absolutely not, no way Jose.

But then again, people said the same things about Terminal Dogma, and a certain crucified angel didn't they? And once again, an Ikari was right in the middle of it.

The lift had been secretly fitted and disguised in his office. The small lift would cramp more than two people, or one big man, but it was sufficient to get him to where Shinji needed to be.

He finally reached floor B23 and the doors slid open with precise whoosh. He was greeted by his assistant Dr Kazuya Nobuichi, man of 29 with brown hair and an open mind with a flair for quantum physics.

Shinji rubbed the back of his head and grinned.

"I feel like batman or something whenever I do this." He said to Kazuya.

"What does that make me? Robin?" asked Kazuya as he handed Shinji a lab coat.

" I dunno, what did you need me for?"

"Well two things mainly, were getting readings we don't understand from the Sephiroth Device, we'd like you to take a look at it. Secondly, could you tell Kensuke to stop playing about with the Linear Macro gun?"

"Well he's never stopped when I've told him befo… Wait a second! The linear macro gun!? But that's the gun for…"

"Coring planets, yes. You can see why we're worried."

Shinji sweatdropped and noticeably quickened his pace.

After a short discourse to Kensuke about why planet buster weapons should not be tinkered around with, no, not even if they are cool. The two began a less urgent pace to the central hanger, where Lilith once hung.

"You realize of course, that the only reason we even keep him around is at your insistence. I mean sure, when it comes to computers the guy's one of the best I've seen, but he still way too much trouble for his own good."

"I know, I'm sorry, but he wouldn't do things like that if you gave him enough to do."

"Are you saying it's my fault now?"

"Why do people think that blame always lies solely on a single person? Just give him something complicated and challenging to do and he'll be busy all night. Trust me I understand him."

"We should ditch him."

"No, Toji plays soccer for living, Kensuke works for the military that was the deal."

"Pardon?"

"No."

"He'll get us all killed Shinji."

Shinji sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"Stop pushing this alright? I said no!"

There was an uncomfortable silence as they made their way to Sephiroth.

The Laboratory was huge, capable of storing four EVA's side by side and in it's centre was the device. The Sephiroth device was the jewel in the crown of Section R's achievements. Designed on the materials gathered in the last few seconds before Third Impact and with Shinji's understanding of how the universe worked, they had managed to create an artificial third impact field machine. Designed to recreate reality, it was a machine that could create and change anything with impunity, ignoring all the laws of science. It wasn't yet finished, they still were months, maybe even years from a successful test.

It hung in the middle of the chamber, a single golden eye, besieged by scaffolding and wires.

"What kind of signals were you getting?"

They promptly showed him the readout, the device had been receiving strange electrical signals. Shinji could feel that part of his brain that was all understanding, that was powered by force of all creation, the same source that the Sephiroth Device sought to harness, start to flare into action.

He grasped at the formerly meaningless statistics and readings as they began to form together, to make sense and cohesion.

The others in Section R knew about this ability of Shinji's, they had no idea as to the causes of it, but they all knew the signs of their Section Commander slowly unravelling the mysteries of reality.

Shinji hated it when he gathered a crowd, they always made him nervy, he felt like he was performing, like some kind of dancing bear on a leash.

Still, to be fair it wasn't really him that the crowd were waiting on, it was that part of his brain that could strip away the layers of deception, recover information from the elliptical and decipher the workings of the universe.

He blinked.

"It's code…" he finally commented.

"Of what?"

"The…universe…"

There was a collective pause until finally, inevitably came the expletive.

"Holy fuck!"

The irony was not lost on Shinji. The laugh started as in his gut, as an imperceptible movement of the shoulders, then as a quiet snicker that began to get louder and higher in pitch until he was laughing out loud. It took him thirty seconds to begin to wind down, he would have taken longer but he then noticed that the scientists were looking at him funny.

"Sorry… I.. Erm.. well…" he tried, but the words wouldn't come and he eventually hung his head downwards and to the right.

"Sorry."

The rest of the day in Section R felt awkward to Shinji and he was glad when he was finally able to take the lift and depart.

"I view that man as my brother and love him dearly"

Tenshi Yamamoto, The Inverse Testament S3phiroth 1:4

Havana really hadn't changed all that much. The country was underdeveloped and the cities were at least twenty years behind the time. But the beaches were golden and clear and they made damn fine cigars. This was two out three reasons why the man liked it, and two out of three reasons why the woman didn't. The man had long unkempt brown hair, and a poorly maintained beard, his overly bright Hawaiian shirt was garish and a tasteless contrast to the woman's sleek, orderly apparel. Who was clothed in a pale blue summer dress, curved sunglasses and pale straw sun hat, her short brown hair streaked with grey.

"Ugh, why is it my hair starts to go grey before yours?" she casually asked the man. He shrugged before replying equally casually.

"Well that's what Peroxide will do to your hair."

"Well, grey hairs can be concealed, but nothing can conceal your poor taste in clothes…"

"Hey! I like this shirt!"

To a casual observer one could be forgiven for thinking them a couple on holiday. A less casual observer would notice little contradictions, like the work papers that scattered their table or the non-alcoholic nature of the beverages present.

"What was so important that you had to wake me up at nine this morning anyway?" The woman asked.

The man told her.

"Oh come on!" she reacted incredulously, probably rolling her eyes underneath her sunglasses. "Don't you think if there was a space station of that size up their that someone would have noticed it by now?"

Papers were shuffled in the woman's general direction and she peered at them while the man continued.

"It's all there, the shuttle goes up once a week full of personnel and comes back with just the crew. If they haven't got a space station up there then were looking and most complex mass murder in history."

"Hmmm…"

"It gets better, look a the manifest for the last shuttle. Seat 9A."

The woman rifled through the papers again as she found the article, she scanned the list until she came to a name, she then gasped.

"Is it him?"

"If it is, I think we'd better find out."

"Right. I'll get the wise men working on it when I get back."

There was a pause as the two proceeded to sip their respective drinks.

"Well, after eight years of waiting, it's here at last." Said the man as he continued to nurse his Cola.

"What is?" queried his companion.

"The end of the story."

It was dark when Shinji got back to the apartment, the lights from the windows of his third story abode shining like a beacon to his weary self. When he got in Asuka was in middle of ordering a takeaway and Rei was nowhere to be found.

"I'll have a pizza." He called to Asuka. "Baka! Were having Chinese!" came the reply.

"Oh, umm… well I'll just have a curry then."

"What kind curry."

"I don't know, chicken?"

"Boooring!"

"Beef then!"

"Make up your mind Dumkopf!"

"I said Beef! With egg fried rice! And a spring roll!"

Asuka smirked at him, which made him think he'd just acted exactly as she'd predicted.

After she finished making the order she sat down next to him on the couch still smirking. Shinji sat back on the couch and tried to close his eyes to catch some rest, Asuka however had other plans.

"You are so predictable Shinji at times Shinji."

That was when Shinji pounced on her. In one swift movement he had her arms pinned to the cushions of the couch and for a brief moment they were both still, with Shinji on top of her, she feel his warm breath on her face, she blushed madly and her heart pumped furiously. Then reality re-asserted itself and she burst out laughing. The moment having irrevocably passed, Shinji got up slightly embarrassed.

Time passed.

Food arrived and was eaten.

"So where is Rei anyway?" Shinji asked as he finished off his rice.

"Oh she's in her room." Asuka said in a non-committal way.

"What!? Why didn't you get her any food!?"

"She said she wasn't hungry!" Asuka shot back.

He could see Asuka looking angrily at him and he shrank back, he could ask Rei if she'd had anything to eat later. Now was definitely not the time.

There was an uncomfortable silence for a few seconds before Shinji bravely tried to change conversation.

"So… How was work today?" it was about as unoriginal as "nice weather were getting" but it did the trick as Asuka launched herself in a diatribe about the kind of idiots she had to talk to as part of the Support line.

In her room Rei listened to Asuka rant about random idiots, she remembered how she had exploded on the phones earlier in the day. Apparently someone had been misinformed about the re-imbursement policies that PIRO offered, Asuka's responses had been, humorous. Yes, humorous was probably the correct term, although frightening was a close second. As she continued to talk in heated tones, Rei sat down and continued her drawing, she liked drawing, her medium was usually charcoal, but she was also a dab hand with inks as well. This particular drawing was one of faceless man, his black cloak billowing behind him, in the background was an image of purgatory and his face was a featureless blank save for a single eye in the middle.

"Binah was my mirror and as I did not know myself, I did not know her until I was whole."

Tenshi Yamamoto, The Inverse Testament S3phiroth 10:1

End of Part 02

Wooo. Now, how easy to spot was the part that was done whilst drunk? Yes, that easy.

Anyways, a big thanks to everyone who reviewed, I now have more reviews for this story than I have for all the other fics I have on FF.net combined! (All two of them.) Anyways, I hope this continues to deliver on the standards of the first chapter (or even heaven help us, improve somewhat.) Again, I'm pretty sure I told you what the pairings were at the beginning so I don't see why certain people are moaning about it now. I've tried to tone down the INCREDIBLE POWURZ thing that Shinji's got going, and I really should stress, that most of those powers really were a one time thing. It's unlikely he's going to use them again (barring the end of the world.) I've also tried to bring out the angsty dorkiness of Shinji more. Personally I'm more worried about whether I got Asuka right, as I mentioned before, getting her right is hard! Oh, word of warning, there will be giant robots in this, I'm probably making a big mistake here, as I can't do action scenes to save my life, but hey, I can try. Well anyways, you guys keep on reviewing, and I'll keep on writing. Adios!