Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the property of Gainax. Event Horizon is the property of Paramount and Impact Pictures. I'm making no profit from using either license as the basis of this story, and although I understand that they were never intended to be mixed, the idea seemed too good to pass up.
Gateway – An Evangelion/Event Horizon fusion by Rubberchicken
Chapter 1: Rescue Mission
Shinji Ikari flattened himself against a skyscraper in a half-crouch, his muscles tense and ready to spring into action at any time. He felt the reassuring weight of the pistol in Evangelion Unit-01's hand and reflexively tightened his fingers around the grip. He knew he was a little edgy, but that was hardly a bad thing in this line of work. If he had learned one thing while fighting the Angels, it was that there was always some element that you didn't expect. Even though he'd last seen the target hovering above the city a good distance away, he wouldn't have been surprised to see the thing suddenly leap around the corner before him and attack.
Despite his excitement, Shinji was feeling better than he had in a long time. His sync tests that morning had seen to that. For the first time ever, his scores had been better than Asuka's. Let's see you throw this one in my face, he thought with an uncharacteristic touch of smugness.
Actually, she'd already tried. Asuka had shocked everybody by willingly giving up the point position in their offensive today, insisting instead that the "Number-one synchro-ratio-holder" should take the position instead. In an equally unexpected move, Shinji had accepted, getting a shot off at Asuka in the process. He could still remember the look of outrage on her face.
Shinji smiled. Although he didn't dislike the Second Child all that much, he couldn't deny that her arrogant, confrontational behavior was wearing on him. It was refreshing to be able to turn the tables once in a while.
Today might turn out to be better than he'd anticipated.
Shinji cautiously leaned forward and peered around the corner of the building. There was the target, right where he'd last seen it. The zebra-striped sphere floated serenely above the streets of the city, just barely clearing the tops of the structures. It was simply sitting there. Shinji would have felt better if it had tried to attack them; the constant waiting was wearing on his nerves.
He activated his commlink. "Are you two in position?" he asked with a touch of impatience.
Rei Ayanami's soft "Not yet," was quickly overshadowed by Asuka Langley Sohryu's angry outburst. "Of course not! How the hell can you expect us to be up there already? I can only move so fast, you know!"
Shinji's hand clenched reflexively. They were wasting time. There was no telling what this Angel was capable of; they couldn't take the risk of sitting around and waiting until it attacked them. They had to strike, and do it quickly.
"I'm going," he announced. Ignoring the protests of the others, he stepped out of cover and opened fire. The bullets streaked through the sky towards the Angel. Shinji braced himself, expecting an impact against the enemy's AT field.
There was none. Just as his shots reached the target, it vanished into thin air.
"What the…?" he exclaimed, looking around himself wildly. Where had it gone?
"Shinji, it's underneath you!" Misato yelled frantically.
The Third Child looked to his feet in shock. A black circle was swiftly expanding beneath his feet, spreading to engulf the city blocks around him.
This was the Angel? Without hesitation Shinji pointed the gun straight down and fired. There was no effect, not even an explosion. He fired again, and again. Something had to be able to hurt this thing. Ripples were spreading outward from the point of impact, like waves flowing across water.
That's when Shinji realized he was sinking into the black space, which he now realized was actually a substance that felt very much like liquid. He pulled the trigger once more, but the bullet only created more ripples.
"What the hell?" he cried. "What is this?"
On a hunch he immersed the pistol in the strange liquid and fired yet again. There was no answering report, no jolt from the discharge. It figured. Of all the horrible times for a gun to jam…
He tried to pull it clear of the black fluid. It wouldn't budge. Panicking slightly, he tried again. There was an answering tug from the other side. Something else was pulling on it.
All right. If the Angel wanted his gun, it could have it. Shinji was already up to his waist in the thing; he wasn't going to waste time fighting over a gun that wouldn't work. He released the gun and pulled back his hands.
Just as they were about to break the surface, something grabbed his arms and yanked them downwards. Shinji found himself dragged face-first into the black hole.
As he vanished into the Angel's body, Shinji yelled for help from those around him. "Misato! Asuka! Ayanami! Somebody help me!" Ignoring the distressed voices from his speakers, he abandoned his newfound pride and screamed unashamedly.
Please… help me…
It was the last sane thought that he would have.
---
"S2 testing will commence in T minus five minutes. All personnel, clear the cages immediately. Repeat, all personnel, clear the cages."
Beneath the calm, peaceful surface of the Nevada desert, the primary installation of NERV's Second American Branch was a frenzy of activity. Maintenance workers rushed to their positions. Scientists made last-minute calculations. Guards checked their weapons and prayed. The local director stood at the observation deck, her hands folded behind her back, and watched.
"T minus three minutes."
The crimson coolant flooded out through the drainage valves at the cage's base. As the level of liquid in the chamber fell, the silver-plated body of Evangelion Unit-04 was revealed. It glared at the little men running around on the bridge, its gaze seeming to communicate displeasure.
"T minus one minute."
As the countdown drew ever lower, the level of activity decreased as well. The cage became completely clear of maintenance staff, the sound of flowing coolant faded away, and the people on the bridge made their way to their positions one by one and stopped. Silence fell over the installation like a shroud. People seemed afraid even to breathe.
"T minus five… four… three… two… one… zero. Activating S2 core."
A low-pitched hum resonated throughout the cage as the EVA's core was activated. Unseen in the harsh lights of the facility, tiny arcs of violet energy danced across the Evangelion's chest.
"Activity levels are climbing. S2 unit will be fully active in three… two… one…"
As the word "zero" left the chief technician's mouth, there was a dull thump, not unlike a thunderclap. The Evangelion flared with white light; all those assembled covered their eyes to shield them from the unexpected glare.
It took a few seconds for their ears to stop ringing and for the spots to fade from their vision, but when their senses returned, the technicians saw that the light had faded. Also gone was Evangelion Unit-04. In its place was a wall of blackness, expanding outward from the cage's center with a sound like a rolling wave.
People opened their mouths to scream, but the rippling wall washed over them before they could make a sound.
---
"Commence operation," Dr. Ritsuko Akagi ordered. "Let's do this while there's a chance that Shinji's still alive."
It was the morning after Shinji's disappearance, although it certainly didn't feel like morning to any of those who gathered at the edge of the Sea of Dirac. They'd been awake throughout the night, working feverishly to find some way to extract the Third Child from the body of the Twelfth Angel. Only an hour ago, Ritsuko had come up with an extremely risky plan.
Misato Katsuragi had nearly leaped on the doctor in a rage after hearing its details. Dropping N2 mines into the Sea while Shinji was trapped inside sounded positively foolhardy. She had to be physically restrained when Ritsuko let slip that she didn't expect Shinji would survive, but that the operation would be considered a success if the Evangelion was recovered in working order. Misato had loudly wondered if the news of the Second Branch's disappearance might have had something to do with this, although her insinuations had little visible effect on the doctor.
In spite of Misato's vehement opposition to the attempt, no better proposal was given. That was how Rei Ayanami had ended up here, preparing for combat for the second time this day. Looking across the Sea, she could see EVA-02 standing at the opposite end. Rei thought back to the smug gloating she'd heard from the Second Child earlier. Ikari's life was in danger; why would she say such things about him now, when he couldn't hear her? She felt a faint sense of irritation at Pilot Sohryu's arrogance, but knew that ultimately it did no harm and was not worth troubling herself to stop.
"Alright. Asuka, Rei, expand your AT fields as far as they'll go." Misato's voice was tense and tightly controlled. She cares for Ikari, Rei realized. She fears what will happen if our attack does not succeed.
"Understood." Rei responded. A moment later, Asuka also gave her confirmation. Her voice was unusually subdued. She is concerned for Ikari as well, despite what she says.
"Preparing to begin N2 deployment," the VTOL commander informed them. "N2 drop in five… four… three… two… What the…?"
Rei's eyes narrowed even as the commander's confused exclamation reached her ears. She, too, had seen the activity within the Sea of Dirac. On the other side, EVA-02 dropped into a crouch. Evidently Asuka had seen it as well. The assembled forces watched in shock at what transpired next.
Waves were running across the surface of the Sea. They began only as small ripples, but quickly rose in height until they came up nearly to the Evangelions' waists. Fortunately, the waves fell back to the surface before reaching the Sea's edge, but that didn't stop the activity from increasing. Within a few seconds, the Angel's body was a roiling, churning mass of inky blackness.
"Dr. Akagi," Rei asked, taking a step back, "what is happening?"
Ritsuko's voice showed disbelief. "The Angel's AT field is… decomposing!"
"Is it Shinji?" Misato asked hopefully.
"Negative," Maya Ibuki answered. "There's only the one field, and it's fading fast."
"Then what the hell is doing this?" Asuka demanded. There was no response; nobody knew what was happening any more.
"Look, up above!" somebody yelled.
As Rei's gaze was drawn to the striped sphere, which had suddenly gone completely black, she became aware of a low rumbling, like the sound of an earthquake. With an earsplitting crack, tiny fractures began to run through the sphere's surface. The rumbling grew, and now there was another sound as well… some kind of indistinct shrieking. Rei's spine tingled at the sound. It wasn't natural.
Crimson fluid – blood – began to trickle from the cracks. At first it was just a slow drip, but as the cracks widened the dripping increased to a steady stream, and then to a flood. The sphere lost its smooth shape, rippled uncertainly, and finally burst.
The raining blood disappeared into the black void in the ground: as it did so, the raging waves abated, leaving only a steady series of concentric ripples emanating from its center. The strange shrieking, however, did not diminish; Rei had to fight the urge to cover her ears and yell to drown the noise out.
Something erupted from the Sea's center at high speed, soaring several hundred feet upward into the air. It was Evangelion Unit-01. Its purple armor was stained red with blood. The EVA's arms and legs hung limply below it as it flew, and the truncated umbilical cable flapped loosely behind its body like the tail on a kite.
Ikari is not in control of it, Rei realized with an unpleasant shock.
The rumbling rose in a final crescendo as the surface of the Sea itself fissured into jagged slabs and broke apart.
"The Sea has collapsed!" Ritsuko shouted. "EVA-01 isn't responding! Catch him!"
Rei was already running across the uneven surface, her feet kicking up loose fragments of pavement when they landed. Tensing her muscles beneath her, she jumped as EVA-01 fell, making contact with it a hundred feet up and catching it as best she could. A sharp pain rain through her shoulder, but she paid it no heed as she landed feet-first on the road in front of EVA-02. Evangelion Unit-01 slipped from her fingers and slumped to the earth.
"Ikari," Rei called, urgently. "Ikari!"
Recovering from her apparent shock, Asuka walked over as well. "Hey idiot, wake up, you had us worried! Jerk." Shinji gave no response. "Shinji?" she asked, her voice taking a note of uncertain fear.
Without hesitating further, Rei extracted the entry plug from the Evangelion's back and rushed to the command station. Dr. Akagi would know what to do. She always did.
Rei hoped Shinji was all right. Somehow, she knew that he wasn't.
---
"Shinji? Shinji, it's me. It's Misato. Wake up, Shinji. Everybody's here, we're waiting for you to wake up. Please, Shinji?" Misato's voice broke; she clenched her teeth, trying to hold back tears.
When they'd pulled Shinji from the entry plug, he'd proven completely unresponsive to any attempt at communication. They'd found him much as he was now, in a deep, comatose slumber from which nothing would wake him.
"Is there anything you haven't tried?" Misato asked with a hint of desperation.
Ritsuko shook her head. "Nothing that I would recommend. There are some drugs I could use to shock him into consciousness, but they'd probably cause permanent brain damage."
Misato sat down gently on the edge of Shinji's bed and took one of his hands in hers. It was warm. He certainly looked healthy. "You're sure there's nothing wrong with him?" she asked for the twelfth time.
Ritsuko bore her questioning with practiced patience. "I'm sure, Misato. We've checked all his vitals and given him every kind of scan imaginable. There is nothing physically wrong with him, inside or outside. Despite the blow he took after he was ejected from the Angel, he's in perfect condition."
Misato looked down. "So he's brain-dead."
"Not exactly," Ritsuko corrected. She walked over to stand in front of Misato, who looked up at her, surprised. "We've tried using mild electrical stimulus to awaken the conscious parts of his brain. Shinji's nerves react when stimulated, but they just don't wake up."
"What does that mean?"
"I'm not sure," Ritsuko said, scratching her head and staring at Shinji. "It's almost as though he's… resisting being awakened."
"But why would he do that?"
An annoyed snort made Misato turn to look over the bed. Asuka was glaring angrily at the Third Child. "Stupid idiot's just running away. The jerk can't face up to the challenge any more."
"Asuka!" Misato snapped. "That's enough!"
A brief staring match ensued, with Misato's narrowed eyes meeting Asuka's surprised gaze; evidently, the redhead hadn't expected Misato's angry reaction. It went on for several seconds. At last, Asuka broke eye contact. "Well, it's not like it makes any difference anyway," she growled. "If he wants to sit out, he can damn well do it! It's not like I need him to fight with me, or anything." With that, she stalked from the room, muttering something under her breath.
Rei watched the Second Child's departure with an unreadable expression. When the sound of Asuka's footfalls had faded, she stood and smoothed the skirt of her uniform. "I will go to get something to eat," she informed them. "Will I be allowed to return here later?"
"Of course," Misato answered, relieved that somebody would be watching Shinji. "Thank you, Rei."
"It is not necessary to thank me, Major Katsuragi," Rei replied.
Misato considered the girl as she walked to the infirmary door. She was a nice enough girl, if a little unsettling at times. Ever since the battle with the Fifth Angel, some kind of bond had existed between Rei and Shinji. In the time that she'd known the First Child, Misato had never known her to express herself in quite the same way as when she was around Shinji. Was there something between them?
Rei stopped at the door and took a last look back at her fellow pilot. Her expression, as before, gave away little. She seemed to be looking for something. Whether she'd found it by the time she turned away and stepped into the hallway was unclear.
Ritsuko sighed as the door closed. "So in short, no, there's nothing else we can do… except wait for him to wake up, that is."
"And on top of that, this also means we're down to two pilots again." Misato shook her head. "Things seemed like they were going so well yesterday morning…"
"This is war, Misato," her friend reminded her. "There are always casualties… and they're never the people who deserve to be." Misato nodded in reluctant agreement. "Anyway," the doctor continued, "the piloting issue will be resolved shortly. We've identified the Fourth Child."
"Who is it?" Misato asked, dreading the answer.
Ritsuko told her.
The major laughed ruefully. "I don't think he'll do it willingly… especially when he sees what's happened to Shinji."
"He has no choice, Misato." Ritsuko's tone made it clear that there was no question.
"No," Misato agreed, "he doesn't, does he? When are you going to-?"
The simultaneous chiming of their cell phones cut her off in mid-sentence. They answered in unison. "Hello?"
It was Fuyutsuki. "We need you ready to leave immediately. The Second Branch has returned."
---
"I have to admit, with what happened to Shinji, I'd completely forgotten about the Second Branch," Misato confessed as the long-range VTOL craft neared its target.
Ritsuko shrugged. "I suppose that's understandable."
Frowning, Misato looked about the cramped interior of the craft. The rest of the small task force NERV had assembled sat in silence, none of them looking up at the others. They had engaged in light conversation for much of the flight, but as their destination drew nearer, a pall of uneasiness had settled over them. The four security personnel they had brought with them checked their automatic weapons for the final time. Shigeru Aoba had kept up a more or less steady flow of witty repartee with Makoto Hyuga, in the cockpit, but he'd eventually quieted down and now stared fixedly at the floor in front of him. Ritsuko had spent the entire flight immersed in technical reports on the Second Branch's disappearance. For her part, Misato had spent the time sleeping. She figured she'd need it.
"You'll be traveling to Nevada immediately," Fuyutsuki had informed her.
"When did it happen?" she'd asked.
"About the same time that Shinji was recovered from the Angel. We immediately tried to open contact with them, but there's been no response. The American government is understandably reluctant to send anybody in there, but they'll allow us to go in ourselves."
"That's a rare show of deference."
"Right now they're running scared. They've already decided to send us EVA-03 ahead of schedule – after what happened yesterday, they can't get rid of it quickly enough. But the fact that they're scared now doesn't mean that greed won't get the better of them later. Right now the facility is more or less unmonitored. Any competent force could walk in there, as it stands… but there are matters we need to see to before that happens."
"Which is where we come in."
The Subcommander had nodded. "Yes. We need a small group to go to Nevada and investigate the facility. We need any information we can get about what happened during that activation test. Camera recordings, voice recordings, computer records… anything. The probability of survivors seems low, but if you should find any, you'll be expected to rescue them. Bring them back with you."
"Of course."
"One more thing." Fuyutsuki had looked at each of them in turn. "If Evangelion Unit-04 proves to be salvageable, your top priority is to recover it." He'd turned away with a wave of his hand. "That is all. You're dismissed."
"Major? We're here."
Aoba's voice brought Misato out of her reverie; she realized with some embarrassment that she was dozing off again. There was a slight jolt as the VTOL touched the ground, followed by a deepening whirr as its engines slowed.
"All right, people. Let's go." Misato shook her head to clear it, then stood and led the others out of the aircraft.
It was still early morning, and the sun thankfully hadn't risen high enough to raise the temperature. Their breath showed in tiny clouds as they walked quickly across the sandy desert basin to the primary enclosure.
As
they passed an electric fence bearing the warning PRIVATE PROPERTY – KEEP OUT,
Hyuga picked up a rock and tossed it at the wires. There was no sound, no flash of light or sparks; nothing but the
sound of stone striking metal.
"I guess the power's off,"
he observed.
That was true, Misato realized. There were lights mounted at regular intervals outside of the building, but none of them were turned on. The morning light barely provided enough illumination for them to see as they neared the main building. The power was off.
"Things aren't going to be much fun for the people in there, that's for sure," one of the security men grunted.
They stopped before the main entrance to the building. The door stood wide open. Misato was simultaneously thankful that they wouldn't need to find an alternate entrance and worried at the possibility of a security breach. Anybody could have walked in by now.
Beyond the door there was only darkness.
"Hello?" Misato called. "Can anybody hear me?" Her voice echoed back at them from within the entryway.
"I guess not," Ritsuko quipped. When Misato fixed her with a scathing glare, the doctor just gave a thin-lipped smile in response. "We'll need our flashlights," she said, unclipping the light from her belt and turning it on with a click. Without waiting for Misato's reply, she strode into the darkness, leaving the fuming major standing at the door.
"Alright," Misato sighed. "Let's get this over with, people."
Their footsteps reverberated loudly as they walked in. The tap-tap-tap of their feet was made all the more painfully obvious by the utter silence around them; but for the sounds they made, there was nothing else to indicate life or activity of any kind.
"All hope abandon, ye who enter," Aoba muttered.
He was trying to be funny, but Misato shivered nevertheless. For some reason, the quote seemed appropriate. Something had happened here, something that left nothing but echoes to answer those who came after. And here they were, striding willingly into the belly of the beast to find out what it was.
Her hand unconsciously fingering the pistol in her jacket, Misato quickened her pace to catch up with Ritsuko. Together, they worked their way into the depths of the Second Branch.
---
Author's Notes
Heya. To my knowledge this hasn't been attempted before, so I thought I'd try my hand at "breaking new ground," as it were. Fans of Event Horizon will probably already know quite a bit of what to expect, but I'll try to slip in a few surprises for you. To those who aren't familiar with the movie, don't worry; the story should remain within the EVA universe while borrowing a few of Event Horizon's concepts. Be warned, though, that there will be very little goodness, light, WAFF, and romance in the chapters to come.
No prereading assistance was used for this chapter, unless you count Shinji (the 6:00 assassin), who read the first three scenes and awarded the story a hearty "Fuckin' A!" Take that however you will.
Until next time…
