Ooog… After re-reading chapter 2, I realise that, yes… I need proofreaders… ugh. This chapters been through development hell, firstly my computer crashed so I lost what little work I had after February, then all that remained was me to pick at it until it got finished.
As per request I've done my damnedest to try and tone down Tenshi's X-TREME MARY SUE-NEES, although I'm really going to have to crank up the main plot a notch, and start introducing subplots before I put all seven of you to sleep.
Disclaimer: I don't own NGE, and if I did, I wouldn't have used quite so many Jewish references, It would've ended up with a lot more Chinese and Japanese reference, and the mecha would have been smaller and easier to produce, and there would have been kabuki dances and the main character would be an adult with a whiny sister who… oh damn, that's Gasakari isn't it….
Damn…
Proper Disclaimer: I don't own NGE, I don't own its character, but I do own Tenshi, much as it appals me.
NGE – Gospel of the Serpent
By Flash69
Chapter 03
The room was dark, a warm amber light shone through the closed slits that concealed the room to the world. There was smoke in the air and the only sounds were that of rapid typing, and the gentle yet ominous hum of gigantic supercomputers that made the two person room barely big enough for one. The monolithic computers were powered with equipment and power lines gained through an 'agreement' with the local authorities.
"The end indeed… While he gets to be cryptic and enigmatic, I have to try and hack into top level security systems looking for a name. I'd like to see him sidestep Magi and Pleiades computers…"
She continued to mutter as she worked, chipping away at the security levels, bypassing proxy monitors, disabling firewalls and generally being the super hacker she had styled herself as for the last eight years. Since the Third Impact the woman's online avatar had been known as KuroNeko666, a hacker, known the world over, responsible for numerous deep governmental penetrations, many of which had been thought impossible before. The handle was known to Computer Law Enforcers around the world and was known to be responsible for 156 high profile hacks, and those were just the ones they knew about. Her hands flew over the keyboard less like a computer operator and more like a passionate composer, the harsh staccato of her typing almost had a hard to discern rhythm to it, making her seem like the white haired pianists of olden times, like Mozart or Beethoven.
In another time zone, Kensuke Aida sat at his computer terminal, with the power of the Section R's Pleiades Supercomputer System behind him. The seven monolithic engines hummed quietly. He was whiling the late hours away, indulging in his first and only real hobby, by hacking into the EDF mainframe. It was between the bypassing of proxy servers and firewalls just for the sheer hell of it that he noticed he wasn't alone on the system.
Once she breached the outer defences the woman took a quick scan of the mainframe. The personnel files she was looking for were heavily encrypted and armoured with several layers of firewalls and proxy servers. She also noted that there was someone else already on the system. A further system check revealed that he had already disabled some of the firewalls for her. She raised one of her eyebrows "Well, never let it be said that I look a gift horse in the mouth…" she said as she resumed typing.
Whoever this mystery hacker was, he was good. He'd already taken down the other three firewalls that covered the personnel files (which he had always thought were a little overly protected, it was easier to hack into the weapons research program than it was to get at those files.) he took out four of the proxy monitors and even disabled an automatic alarm that Kensuke didn't even know he'd tripped. Kensuke was suitably awed; he began to wonder if he should be taking notes. Instead he started the most discreet user tracker program he had, a home-grown program he liked to call the Kensuke Special Mk IV (never mind that there wasn't a mark 1 to 3) shunted a lot of the processing power of the Pleiades System into it, and shot it on it's way down this mystery hackers pipeline. In less than a second it quietly tore through 3000 separate sites neatly spaced all over the world. Kensuke whistled, this guy was good.
She barely had time to react before she realized that a trace signal had been latched onto her, she didn't recognize the program but assumed that it was new tracker program for the JDF. She promptly hit the subroutine that sent it on a wild goose chase around America continuously before redirecting herself back to the task at hand. The last of the defences on the site fell and she quickly began to download the data onto the Fourteen Terabyte hard drive she'd made especially. The data flowed like a waterfall onto the system.
Kensuke swore as he saw what he did to the Kensuke Special. He disabled the program and saw that he was downloading the entire file system, seeing no reason not to do like wise, he helped himself.
With the data silently downloaded, she restored the security systems as she left the system and shut off her connection. The extra hacker had been unexpected, but not too troublesome, and in any case, she had bigger things to do. She opened up the data file and began to sort through it looking for the data she wanted.
" An expansion of the earlier MAGI system used before the Third Impact, the Pleiades system works in roughly the same manner, but instead of linking three, it cross links seven supercomputers. The increase in power and speed makes it far superior to the Magi system pioneered by Dr Akagi..."
- Pleiades System presentation to JDF representatives, by Kensuke Aida.
When I finally awoke, it was probably morning, in the inky blackness of space it was hard to tell. I had a mild headache and felt overly warm, like I had been sunbathing for too long, not quite sunburned, but still a little frazzled. I looked down and realized that I'd gone to sleep at my desk; bad posture was quickly becoming a sleeping habit it seemed. My computer was still on, this was strange as I didn't remember turning it on, but then again, I didn't remember much of last night at all. It was a small mercy that I'd managed to get home at all. I was going to turn it off when a passage of what I wrote caught my eye.
"In Gaf I wandered to long, and retained only my body and soul" my eyes widened and my pulse quickened, what was this? What was this I had written? I sat back down and began to read.
The passages were elliptical, alluded to things but failed to properly describe. Of Kethers and Yesods, of Tiphareths and Hods; of the halls of the dead and the place of the living. The more I read the more certain I became, these were my lost memories. Of course it would have been much easier if my brain had not decided to have a pique of Judaism whilst writing them. But of this was the beginning at last to the long road of recovery.
The space fortress Gilgamesh is huge, easily the size of Tokyo IV, yet it always felt cramped upon itself, as if it were trying to cram too much into too small a space. Getting to where he was supposed to be on time had proved difficult. The transport trains and lifts snaked around and in on themselves like a maze and Tenshi was sure that it was designed that way for the sole purpose of making novices late.
He arrived ten minutes late, what was worse; Commander Yaezaki had waited for him. So he'd had to make his excuses to an annoyed crowd of people before Yaezaki waved it off and led them deeper into the research compound. Which only served to make the crowd even more annoyed at him, and the last thing he wanted was to alienate the people he was supposed to be working with.
"This facility was constructed five years ago mostly by the funding of the JDF and other concerned parties…"
SEELE, the words jumped into his forebrain instantly, along with some select imagery and a bad taste in his mouth. No proto-Judaic references, no scriptures, just words, images and sensations, he almost faltered at the rush of memories but he quickly hid and tried to concentrate on what Yaezaki was saying.
"Originally the fortress was designed as a weapons testing ground for equipment a little to controversial for home testing, but over the years we've managed to take our personal research to higher priority than those other projects."
"Which is?" a man from the back asked.
Yaezaki turned his head to cast a lopsided glance at the group he was leading, accompanied by a similarly lopsided grin. Tenshi began to get a sick feeling in his stomach that he wasn't going to like this.
"It began almost four years ago, when we found drifting into space, something…remarkable." His voice had a quiet tone, almost filled with wonder and joy.
This really began to worry Tenshi, and a sinking sensation formed in the bottom of his gut.
There was a snap hiss as thick double doors with blunt serrated teeth separated sideways from each other, to reveal a hanger, large and gunmetal grey. Filled with technicians and scientists, and, in the middle, stood a Golem.
"My God." Was all Tenshi said, without a trace of irony or emotion.
EVA Unit 01 (Experiment type)
"As you can see…" Yaezaki said with gentle mirth "…rumours of the Evangelions death have been greatly exaggerated…"
""In the end, humanity's worst enemy is humanity itself."
- Gendo Ikari
Shinji found himself wide awake and sweating, as if he'd had a bad dream, his hands were shaking and it took him a few moments to realize that he had been crying. The tears had streaked paths across his face and he realized that it was wet. He was shivering and he wrapped his covers around himself and curled into a ball, horribly afraid of something he couldn't identify. Asuka didn't notice, a couple of sleeping pills and a glass of water to keep her own nightmares at bay had seen to that. There was an ugly taste in the back of Shinji's mouth and before he knew it he was rushing to the bathroom.
The surge of vomit hit him and he emptied his dinner into the porcelain basin of the toilet.
He wanted to put this whole experience off as a bad Chinese, but he owed his instincts too much to disregard them like that, in truth he didn't really have much of a choice. Something bad was going to happen soon. Once again it all boiled down to the illusion of choice, for a brief moments that stretched to eternity eight years ago, he'd known everything, it was like all of the earth and all it ever was, was a part of him, filling him with luminescence. He'd known everything, felt everything, gods how he'd felt everything! Then, just like that, he'd made two simple changes in the fabric of reality no more complex than a surgeon making a routine appendix operation and he'd just given the majority of his powers away, just like that. At least he thought he did.
He made a ragged gasp as he sank down further as he remembered what his nightmare was about, what if he hadn't given away his powers, what if he was still in heaven or wherever god lives creating and dictating the lives of this human he had made in his perfect image. He'd felt hollow and empty, like an spent shell, and he dimly wondered if this is what a dummy plug felt like. He was an image, not a real person, a simulacrum a fake, he wasn't even Shinji Ikari, just a lump of meat in its place.
The sorrow and angst clawed at him from the ground up and tried to drag him down into nothingness, offered him the bliss of ignorance and oblivion, it would be so easy it whispered to take one too many sleeping pills and never wake up. All too easy…
Shinji made to stand and walk into the bedroom and end his life, too cowardly to risk the pain of hanging or slit wrists. Then he saw his face in the mirror, that was when the usually carefully sealed divine powers of understanding began to flare, not a lot, just enough to make him hold a little. He stood at indecision, between dark comfort and the harsh path, and from his lips sprung words he had not said in a long time…
"I must not run away…"
This time however it was different, he didn't say the words as a scared unsure boy, he said them with conviction, that no matter what else was true or false in this world, this was his principle. He said it firmly and with conviction, and as he did so he felt the seal of divine understanding open fully, and the tide of information and energy flushed through him and he felt his soul, his soul, and he knew for certain as the nightmare dissipated fully, that he was Shinji Ikari and he will not run away. Ever. Again.
Asuka had woken up shortly after he had gone to the bathroom, this was annoying as she had taken enough sleeping pills to keep her asleep for days, lord knows she'd had to wrangle enough with her doctor to get a prescription. The psychiatrist had wanted to get them both into a small room and talk for god sake, as if talking to Shinji ever made a difference! She thought of Shinji and groggily rose her head, she felt that something was wrong, it was like a cold shaft of ice had replaced her spine and the hairs on the back of her neck had suddenly sprung upwards. It wasn't a sensation that had anything to do with the first five senses, but nevertheless it screamed that she had to get in that bathroom, right now. She rose unsteadily from the bed, her light blue nightshirt covering her as she made a slightly erratic path towards the door. Inside she head something being whispered and then a wash of relief seemed to wash over her, like a bubble bursting drawing the air in around the empty vacuum in its wake. As a result she stumbled forward and clumsily grasped the handle, turned and tried to see the light through her still drugged hazy vision. She began to sink to the floor just as Shinji noticed her. She wasn't even conscious when he caught her before she hit the tiled floor.
Shinji still felt a little weak from throwing up and with the excess weight he staggered and his legs buckled and the two of them ended up on the floor. He couldn't understand why or even how she'd gotten up like that, she'd taken enough pills to put a horse to sleep. But then, again, she probably would have intercepted him on the way to her tablet. He sighed.
"You were just trying to stop me from doing something stupid again weren't you, Asuka?"
He hugged the redhead from behind and thought back to four years ago.
-A3I 04- [A/N: Woohoo! Flashback!]
He understood everything, except Asuka, he understood Trans-dimensional physics, but he didn't understand Asuka. The one thing he did understand about Asuka was how she made him feel. The way that her hair seemed to flow gracefully as she moved, the sparkle of her eyes, the way she made everything seem so much fuller of life than it had been, hell, even things so primary as colours seemed to glow with an inner glory whenever she was around. He loved Asuka, and it really scared him. Mostly because he didn't think she loved him, she seemed to think of him as more of a brother, a pest tied to her by bonds of family, not forged by blood but family all the same. He was terrified of rejection, of the mocking, of constantly having to see her afterwards. He'd tried saying out loud once, just to himself in front of a mirror, he'd been utterly terrified and he'd stuttered out a quick "I love Asuka" before running away, from his reflection.
'Heh, no wonder Asuka says I'm pathetic…' he thought.
It was a Sunday and he was in his apartment watching her now, quietly delighting in how she made the place seem to come alive. Man, he had it bad.
He felt trapped and uncomfortable, he just wanted to reach out and touch her, to kiss her and stroke whoa whoa whoa! Shinji shook the hentai thoughts from his heads for what seemed like the hundredth time today. Unfortunately Asuka noticed, and growled in frustration.
"Dammit Ikari! What the hell is wrong with you, that gotta be the hundredth time to day you've shook your head like that looking like it's the end of the world…again."
Briefly, the thought of just how incredibly attractive she sounded when she growled like that flashed through his mind before being quashed by the rest of his brain as it furiously tried to come a quick and satisfying answer for a red haired goddess that demanded an immediate answer . His brain jumped at the first thing that came to mind.
"It's Kensuke!"
"Why!? What has that stooge done now!"
"Nothing! He's just having some problems!"
"Such as!?"
Her tone was rapid and insisted it was heated and her face close, dangerously close. Without having time to think his brain leapt to the first thing that came to his mind.
"Girl problems!"
"That idiot!? With a woman!?" she seemed almost visibly disgusted with the concept.
"No! That's the problem! You see…"
He should have stopped there, he should have found a way to diffuse the situation and make up a believable excuse, should have but didn't.
"There's this girl he likes, I mean really likes, his little eyes just light up whenever she's in the room. But the really strange thing is that she kind of tolerates him as well. Well I say tolerates, she kind of treats him like an annoying little brother, but he really wants to confess to her but he finds it really hard, and he really scared he'll ruin what he already has and he's my friend so I don't want him to be unhappy…"
She rolled her eyes, which certain parts of Shinji's brain found adorable, while the rest just yelled at him to shut up.
"So you're saying that that stupid Stooge is so scared of ruining what he's got that he's going to end up more depressed than before he even met her!"
"No way! He's way more happier than when he was alone!"
"Bah! That Dumpkopf should just tell her, maybe he'll get lucky."
Shinji was a little emotionally charged at this point, he realised he was talking about himself (I've got this friend who likes this girl… that's gotta be the most unoriginal line in the book) but nevertheless he felt the need to defend himself through Kensuke.
"So your saying he should just blurt it out!? In the off chance that she doesn't think of him as an annoying kid brother? Despite all the evidence to the contrary!? The way she teases him, the way she hits him when she thinks she's out of line? The way she messes with his shower by turning on all the cold water taps in the apartment! The way she sets him up on dates!? Would she set him up on dates if she was remotely interested in him Asuka!? Would She!?" He didn't realise how pent up he was getting about this, how much pressure had been built up over the years.
"She would! If she thought…" she trailed off to mumblings and she looked to the floor.
Large parts of his brains screamed at him to shut up and finish the conversation, unfortunately these parts hadn't been in control since the conversation started.
"If she thought what?" He calmly asked, his curiosity piqued.
Asuka continued her head still facing the apartment floor.
"If she thought that he felt that she was just his big sister." Came the quiet reply.
Oh. My. God.
Dear lord who art in heaven, please tell me that were both talking about ourselves in an elliptical manner.
Shinji didn't pray often, but he when he did, he did so with zeal.
"Ah…" he said at a loss for words.
Asuka seemed to use this moment to recover slightly.
"Of course the very idea of that Stooge getting his hands on a women is a rather disturbing image."
"I don't suppose you'd know how he'd find something like that out would you? Other than asking I mean."
"No! I don't! And what girl are you talking about anyway?"
"Oh, you wouldn't have met Kensukes girl, she works outside of your division."
This was true, Asuka probably didn't know who Kensukes girl was, in fact, Shinji didn't know who Kensukes girlfriend was.
"Well, if that's what's bothering you, then I suggest you stop letting it bug you, it's nothing to do with you."
The conversation was beginning to disperse and a part of him was happy and a part of him was sad. He felt that he had been very close to something important and had let it slip through his fingers.
"So you think he should just out and out tell her?"
"Sure! I mean, if she really views him as her little brother she'll just bash him on the noggin, tell him how she feels and go help him a find someone else. I mean that's what I'd do with you."
With those words his heart seemed to become heavy and leaden and began to sink into the pit of his stomach and beyond.
"Yeah, I figured." Was all he said.
"Cos' I know you think of me as your big sister Shinji!" she seemed almost pleased with herself at the declaration.
"No I don't."
To this day he never really understood why he ever said that out loud. In fact it wasn't until he saw just the smallest hint of hurt in Asuka's eyes did he even realize he'd spoken.
"Yes, you do, you, you just don't realize it…" he voice almost seemed unsure, this was deeply abnormal for Asuka.
"No, I've got a sister, I know what that feels like."
"…I know what that feels like." The words hit her like a freight train. She'd tried so hard to finally fit in, to stop being so isolated, to finally have a family. She knew she'd done to much to Shinji for him to ever think of her in the way she thought of him, so she'd tried so hard to find his love another way. To become a sister to him, to lend him a helping hand when he was down, to kick his ass when it needed kicking, and grow old together. But now she realised he couldn't even view her as that, as the position was already filled, no vacancies at the inn. One applicant chosen, first come first serve to be Shinji Ikari's brother, and Rei Ayanami Ikari had beaten her to it. She'd never hated Ayanami, maybe was annoyed by or felt jealous to, but she never hated until now.
She didn't now how it had begun, perhaps it was just the little things, the helping her through her non-existence nightmares, the tucking her in at night. Maybe so simple a thing as seeing him smile in the mornings while he cooked them breakfast. Then one day she'd woken up, brushed her teeth, combed her hair, and realized that she was in love with Shinji Ikari.
She'd dropped her brush for a start.
"Then I'm just… Then it was…"
She fumbled for words, it was like her chest had been physically pierced and rendered asunder, tearing her apart piece by piece. It was like she was back in EVA-02 again and the production types were killing her all over again. She could feel her heart beat against her chest, and it hurt.
She calmly walked away from him even though inside she felt as if she'd just been hollowed out with an ice cream scooper. Then she said
"Well, since I'm apparently little more than a drain on your hospitality, I think I'd better leave."
She meant it, Shinji knew by now when Asuka was bluffing and when she wasn't.
Every part of Shinji's brain screamed "idiot!" at him and unlike before he listened.
"You don't have too! Really! It's okay!"
Purely by instinct he resorted to the old standby he hadn't used in a while and would instantly regret.
"…I'm Sorry!"
Asuka spun round with pure fury in her eyes, her eyes shimmered and she wondered if she was as close to tears as he was.
"Sorry! I thought I told you that I never wanted to hear you say that to me again! I hate it when you say that! You spineless wimp!"
The old Shinji would have backed away, turned his head to the ground and stayed silent, but the new Shinji didn't.
"Dammit Asuka! I love you!"
The words 'Oh Shit' flashed through his mind before his chest erupted in a Technicolor smorgasbord of varying emotions and a warmness spread throughout his entire body.
The emotional rollercoaster that she was on hit her for a loop and as the force of Shinji's confession slammed into her like tsunami. It was like she had dived on her front into a pool and it had smashed into her before leaving her weightless. He legs felt weak, she seemed to tip forwards and she grabbed Shinji with her hands and hugged him hoping to never let go, and she finally burst into tears. So did Shinji and they both sank to the floor exhausted by their emotional exchange. Asuka felt something, in the bottom of her soul, something she'd not felt in along time. Hope, and it was a warm feeling that she welcomed.
She woke up a few minutes later on the couch leaning next to him. She looked up at his face without him realizing, he looked guilty, like he was a little schoolboy waiting for his punishment. Dear lord he was cute when he did that, kinda sad though to see him so depressed. He must have seen that she was awake and suddenly found something very interesting in the floor as he spoke.
"I'm not saying it, but you know I want to right?" he said.
Apologize!? He wanted to Apologize!? That stupid little asshole! You don't just tantalize someone with something like that and then pull it away the next minute!
"I shouldn't have just blurted it out like… Well maybe not quite like… Ugh, I just don't know what to say here."
"Just don't tell me you wont take it back." She didn't even know if she'd said that out loud or not, her heart felt as if it was about to be crushed again.
He looked at her, and realized that she was just as terrified as he was, he could see it in her eyes.
"Please Asuka, just tell me how you really feel." Was all he said, he wanted this to end, the glances , the hoping, the misinterpretations, the jumped to conclusions, he just wanted to finally know how she really felt about him, because she finally knew how he felt about her.
So she did.
This was the only chance she was going to have, she knew this, and she wasn't going to back down from a challenge so important. She went to speak, but her mouth was empty, she couldn't find anything to say, it was as if her voice had jammed, this was the only chance that she was going to get and she couldn't say a word! She opened her mouth again but still nothing would come out.
Shinji looked even sadder than he was before and began to turn his head away, she was losing him!
She was not going to lose this chance! If she couldn't say how she felt then she was going to have to show him! She only thought he didn't think badly of her because of it, because she was Asuka Sohryu Langley, and she didn't throw herself at just anyone!
As a result, she practically glomped him before mashing her lips onto his, the kiss was fierce and desperate, the last gamble of a person close to losing everything in her life that had meaning. To say the least Shinji was pleasantly surprised, which was probably why he fell of the end of the couch.
A moment of silence passed as Asuka looked at the spectacle before and her face bloomed into a grin, and then Asuka just burst out laughing and as her face, which was as red as her hair, with her puffy eyes from crying earlier, seemed to burst into life, like the birth of a sun, Shinji just watched in awe at her beauty. He then cupped her cheek in the palm of his hands brought their faces close and showed her how he felt himself.
- End of Flashback [A/N: Woohoo! …Erk…Ahem]
He remembered quite clearly that he'd been smiling like an idiot for the entirety of the next week, but he didn't care, he was in love, and she loved him back, and all was right in the world.
As he dragged her surprisingly heavy (not that he would ever tell her this, after eight years his survival instincts were pretty well honed) form back to bed and gently placed her back in bed, he tenderly stroked her hair and quietly said into her ear. "Don't worry, I'm still smiling Asuka, don't ever worry about that."
She mumbled something he couldn't quite hear and seemed to settle back into a regular sleep. Shinji hugged her again and drew her close as sleep took him as well.
End of Chap 3
I honestly thought that this fic was never going to get finished, I'd gotten to the part where Shinji woke up and there was this big blank spot where all my ideas used to live. It was really freaky. So I left it for a couple of weeks, let university, deadlines, parents and a really nasty cold take priority. Then one day, I decided to start up on it again, I figured I'd write for about half an hour and then go to bed so I could make my 9:00 the next morning.
I didn't stop typing until 2:40 in the freaking morning.
I feel so proud.
Anyways, in one really mad dash of typing I made about three thousand words, and pretty much finished the fic in one night. Incidentally, does anyone think that I got Asuka out of character? Or Shinji for that matter, I have to admit it's been a while since I watched any EVA (especially since it was Death and Rebirth that kicked me off with the first chapter in the beginning) and getting research material isn't easy with a cheap University 56K connection. Of course there are several really huge plot points that I'm not looking forward to having to explain.
Oh, and by the way, what did you guys think of my WaFF? Too much? Not enough? How could I have improved it?
(Enough comments and I may just take your suggestions and revise the scene, depending on how good the ideas are.)
Please review, I need them.