Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is Owned by Gainax. Buy the DVD's of
the Series and the Movies from them. I did, and it was worth every dime.
I don't own anything except my DVD's, and this is done for my own
satisfaction.
Episode 2:12 On the Lone Prairie.
Takes place after 1st season, and the End of Evangelion Movie.
Presumed date is Monday June 27th, 2016
Asuka brought the horse up off the grassland and onto the road she'd been traveling toward for the last few hours. She looked north and south, surveying the road for any sign of recent travel. The dirt and gravel road had grass growing out of it everywhere, and, Asuka suspected, was on it's way to being reclaimed by the Steppe grass. She got off of him, and took up his reins, leading him off the road on foot. She promised herself she wouldn't wear him out today. He'd been a good horse.
The first couple days of her journey she'd thought that maybe she could find a car or something that she could drive, but decided, after examining a few of the cars in this desolate and deserted part of eastern Russian, that she was better off on horseback. The horse, which she'd taken to calling 'Liebchen,' was a sturdy animal, and appeared strong and healthy.
She'd loved the feeling of exhilaration she felt as the two of them had raced across the Russian steppes. Sometimes traveling almost sixty miles in a single day, and other times traveling only a few miles, and often getting off the horse and walking him, as she lingered in the grass.
It gave her a lot of time to think. She'd had that dream about Shinji dying while she was unconscious after her assault. She still remembered that dream vividly, despite all the time that passed. She normally forgot dreams within a day or two, even vivid ones, but not this one. She suspected that it was because it was the last dream she'd ever have about him, so it was special. She wished that she could call NERV and find out if he'd survived the collision with her plane, but she knew better. There was no way he could have lived through that. The impact was so severe it had thrown her up into the air, and she'd felt the whole plane shake with the impact.
She shook her head, dismissing the growing wave of sorrow that threatened to overwhelm her. She'd had enough crying fits lately, always for Shinji, and she decided it wasn't getting her anywhere. Instead she spent her days riding, walking, and remembering.
Happy moments.
The three stooges, hunched together over their lunch, looking at Kensuke's most recent pictures. Discussing some new weapons system he'd found on the internet, or trying to pick Shinji's brain for classified information.
She smiled.
Her and Hikari sitting at their table, commenting on how dumb the three were to be wasting their time on that silliness. Commenting that they couldn't wait until they grew up, and became 'real' men.
Never realizing that their real men were right there, just waiting for their chance.
Well, Hikari had finally done it, she'd gotten her 'real' man, and even though he didn't act much different around the other stooges, Hikari had told her all about the changes that Toji had really gone through. He was romantic and caring. Who would have thought.
Well Shinji had been romantic and caring too, she realized, and not just since the Awakening. He'd been like that before. She'd just never noticed it, and every time she'd thought about softening towards him he'd start apologizing for something that wasn't his fault. That was so infuriating, she couldn't stand it. A real man should be strong enough to stand on his own, without making excuses for anything. Shinji had a case of what Hikari called 'Terminal Shyness,' and they'd both often commented that for Shinji to show a real emotion would kill him.
And it had.
'No, enough of that, you don't know for sure he's dead,' she scolded herself.
'Yeah, hitting people at 200 miles an hour with a fighter jet isn't always fatal,' some sarcastic part of her replied.
'Stop it, just stop it, leave me alone, I don't want to think about that any more,' she thought shaking her head.
'That's why you came out here. You knew they wouldn't forgive you for killing him. He was so innocent, so sweet, so in love, and you killed him,' it said.
"NO! SHUT UP LEAVEMEALONE!" she shouted, holding her hands to her ears, trying to silence the inner voice.
Liebchen picked his ears up and looked around, snorting. She kept yelling odd things, and, even though he couldn't understand her, he sensed something was wrong with his partner. He nickered and nudged her with his nose. She sniffed and patted him on the head, scratching behind his ears absently the way he liked it best.
She started walking again, looking around for a stream or something, where she could water Liebchen, and refill her canteens. She pulled out a map that she'd taken from a building in the last town she'd come across, four or five days ago, and tried to figure out where she was. Okay, if this was the town, and that road was the one she just crossed, the next sizable stream or river should be ten or eleven miles ahead. So three hours walking, or an hour of riding, and she'd be there. She decided to walk for now.
If the last coordinate fix she'd gotten in the F-22 had been accurate, she had over four thousand miles to go. A long way by jet, but even farther on foot. Well, she had Liebchen, and that was enough.
She hadn't seen much more than a light misting of rain since she'd landed in Russia, and figured the weather would hold for a while anyway. If it did turn nasty, she could always find a town to hold up in until it got better. It's not like this was the Russia from Pre-Second Impact. He'd heard that that was really a hellish place. Constant snow and ice, dark much of the winter.
Brrr. She shivered just thinking of it. She'd only seen snow a couple times in her life, mostly in the highest mountains in Germany, and then pictures of Mt. Everest and a couple others. She didn't think she could have survived a Russian winter in the old days, but now, with the weather patterns changed, and the climate now much warmer it was wonderful.
She laughed to think about the tales her teachers had told her about mankind causing global warming, and worrying about ozone holes and rising seas. Well second impact had solved that. The seas overnight had risen almost eighty meters, and drowned most costal communities. As far as she could see, global warming wasn't so bad. Oh sure there had been famine and outbreaks of plagues and virulent disease, but it was just the Earths way of adjusting to it's new environment, it made sense that some had to die that others might live.
She decided to go ahead and ride Liebchen again, figuring he'd had enough rest, and pulled herself up into the stirrup. She set him at an easy trot, and within the hour had arrived at the stream on the map. It wasn't that big a stream, but the water was cool and crisp. She filled her canteen, and decided to camp here for the night.
She got her pack off of Liebchen, and set up her tent. Using her folding shovel she cleared a space of all brush and burnable material before starting her fire. No sense torching the Russian steps, just because she wanted something warm to eat.
She started her small fire, and warmed the rations she'd found. When they were ready she ate them with relish while Liebchen strayed nearby eating the fresh grass, and some leaves of low lying shrubs. She'd discovered that he was a very well behaved horse, and would stay nearby, even if she didn't tie him up at night. She went ahead and took his gear off of him, and brushed down his coat.
After that she sat down and opened the map again. She hadn't really kept up on her language studies since she'd gone to Japan, but a little practice was doing her wonders. She could understand the Cyrillic characters of the map, and had picked up a couple books at the last library she'd seen, so she could read out loud from them, brushing up on her Russian.
If she read this map correctly, some time tomorrow she'd make Omsk. That wasn't too bad, even with some foraging, and a fair amount of walking she'd come almost 400 miles in the last two weeks. Not exactly a sprint, but she wasn't in that much of a hurry either. She didn't know what she'd find in Germany, but hoped it would be something like Japan, and not like Novosibirsk.
She put the map up, banked her fire, and drifted off into sleep.
She rode into Omsk late the next day, casually looking around. She wasn't sure what she was looking for, but she was sure she'd know it if she found it. Omsk wasn't a real high tech city, like Berlin, or most of Japan, instead it was a rustic city, composed mostly of small, single family houses, and a few mills and factories. Still, it was a fair sized city, and was probably a busy metropolis in it's heyday.
She rode down one of the main roads into the town and realized that she'd found what she was looking for. The main roads were clear of cars.
This didn't seem like something very important at first, but she'd realized, even in an isolated city like this, that there would be cars scattered on the roadways, when Third Impact had occurred. Only people could have moved the cars, and if they had moved them, maybe they'd be friendly. Novosibirsk was full of cars and bad people.
She decided to ride around to see if she could find anyone.
The old man looked down on the young fiery haired woman as she traveled into the town. Except for a couple troublemakers, she was the first outsider that had made the journey over the steppes since Third Impact. She didn't seem like much trouble, so he put his rifle down and walked over to the church bell, and began ringing it.
Asuka nearly jumped out of the saddle, and Liebchen gave a start when the church bell began to ring. She could see an older man, mostly hidden by shadow, up there ringing the bell. Soon she heard the galloping of horses, and four riders on sturdy looking steppe horses came up. They slowed to a stop before the church, and the bell stopped ringing.
Asuka noted that they were all armed with rifles, and handguns.
'Like some kind of old western,' she thought, looking at them.
They sized her up, sitting there in the saddle, then one of them trotted his horse over to her.
"We don't receive many strangers in town these days," he said.
Time to try out her Russian.
"I'm traveling from the East to the West, and hoped I'd find a place to rest and resupply," she said.
The man laughed, "If you've come far, you should know, as big as Mother Russia is, it might have been easier to go East until you arrived in the West."
Asuka smiled. "I've begun to notice that. I started out in a plane, but I've been on horse back since I had to set down in Novosibirsk."
"That was a bad place to set down," the man said, his voice going grim, "We've heard about it from people who fled there several months ago. Apparently a gang has taken the city over, and keeps the few residents that stay in constant fear."
"I know, I met up with them."
The man looked amazed. "One so young and pretty as you? I would not have thought they would allow such a one to go free un..." he stopped seeing the crushed and fearful look on her face. "I see, they did not let you go so easily did they. Come child, we will take you to the Hotel where we are all living, and there you can relax, and have a meal."
Asuka smiled at him, "That would be greatly appreciated, I've been living off of canned goods I found at a military base."
"Ugh, canned rations, we can do better. Come, child, my Sophia will be glad to have the company of another her own age," he said, backing up his horse and motioning her to follow.
He and the other riders escorted her to a large hotel, probably the largest building in town, where they dismounted, and tied their horses in a large square before the hotel. Asuka did the same, and was soon mounting the steps. When she walked inside she saw that the room was lit by electric lights, but she hadn't noticed power in any of the other buildings outside.
"You notice the lights eh? There is a large generator in the basement that provides our power, but it is not so much to run the city. The coal fired plant outside of town broke down shortly after we tried to turn it on, and so we've had to depend on this for our power. Truly it was not so much of an inconvenience. We took all of the cars in town, and parked them in a field on the outskirts. We drained their fuel, and put it in the large tanks at the fuel depots. Now when we need fuel for the generator, we pump it out of the tanks, taking only what we need."
"Papa, who is this you are boring with your talk?" said a pretty young blonde girl about Asuka's age.
"Ah, and here is my Sophia. My dear, this is who the bell called us to meet. This is... oh dear," he said, looking worriedly between his daughter and Asuka.
"Langley," Asuka said, not batting an eye, it was her name after all, just not all of it.
"Papa, for shame, you have not told her your name. Langley, this is my father, Piotr Akedi, and I am Sophia. Welcome to Omsk. Have you traveled far?"
"Yes. Your father was telling me that I might have had an easier journey if I'd traveled into the East instead."
"Oh, no, to the east of here is Novosibirsk, and you..." she was suddenly quite, noticing her father put a finger to his lips and shake his head.
"Well anyhow, we were preparing to make dinner. Would you like to help?"
"Certainly, I have had no good food for weeks, and would like a good meal," Asuka said.
"Then come, an extra pair of hands is always welcome, and these men are terrible in the kitchen."
Twenty minutes later she was up to her elbows in flower, and was helping Sophia make the dough for the biscuits.
"So how many people live here?" she asked.
"Oh there are about a hundred people here right now. A few more are out on the plains tending the cattle, or hunting for game. Since the, what did you call it, 'The Awakening,' we've all been living here, and contributing to everyone's survival."
"A hold over from the Old Soviet?"
"No, a hold over from the days when this city was covered in snow and ice for five months of the year. We are hardy here, but in order to survive a Russian winter, neighbors had to help neighbors."
Sophia held out a pan, which Asuka deposited her last biscuit onto, and then placed it into the large wood fired oven.
'Truthfully, we lack for little here, except word of the outside world."
"Well having come from the outside world, I can tell you that, for the most part, it's getting better. Where I was, there was a central organization, and everyone within hundreds of kilometers was rescued and brought to the city. There we found jobs for them, and tried to continue on with our lives as best we could."
"And you? What made you decide to leave that wonderful place and attempt a journey such as this?"
"I had a misunderstanding with someone. I couldn't stay. So I took an airplane, and started flying. I ended up landing in Novosibirsk, and you know the rest."
"You know how to fly a plane? Oh how exciting."
"Yeah, it really was, but I think all that is behind me, now," Asuka said.
"So, how long do you think you'll be staying before you continue your journey?" Sophia asked.
"I don't know Sophia. After I landed, I started west, but I don't really have any firm plans. So much is undecided."
"Langley, why don't you stay with us for a while. Life here is not so bad. We have plenty of food, and the residents are nice," the girl said, smiling.
"And you don't have another friend your own age to talk to?" Asuka guessed, smiling to ease her words.
"Ivan is the only one even close to my age, and he's a boy."
Asuka laughed, "And they never understand anything, and never want to talk."
"Exactly. It would be nice to have a friend."
"Sophia, I think that right now, having a friend is about the most important thing in the world to me. If it's alright with your father and the others, I'd love to stay."
"I'll go ask him right now. Don't let the biscuits burn," the girl called after her, running out of the kitchen to see her father.
'Yes, I think right now, having a friend I can talk to would be wonderful. Maybe I can finally relax and learn to be Langley, instead of Asuka Langley Soryu,' she thought to herself.
Next on Episode 2:13 of Neon Genesis Evangelion a month has passed since Shinji's fight with the Legion, and construction plans for the badly needed improvements to the base are underway, and Shinji's first lessons with the Martial Arts master have begun. After a workout with his Sensei, he enters the EVA and does something that will surprise almost everyone.
It's Evangelion Episode 2:13 Playing in the Sandbox
Episode 2:12 On the Lone Prairie.
Takes place after 1st season, and the End of Evangelion Movie.
Presumed date is Monday June 27th, 2016
Asuka brought the horse up off the grassland and onto the road she'd been traveling toward for the last few hours. She looked north and south, surveying the road for any sign of recent travel. The dirt and gravel road had grass growing out of it everywhere, and, Asuka suspected, was on it's way to being reclaimed by the Steppe grass. She got off of him, and took up his reins, leading him off the road on foot. She promised herself she wouldn't wear him out today. He'd been a good horse.
The first couple days of her journey she'd thought that maybe she could find a car or something that she could drive, but decided, after examining a few of the cars in this desolate and deserted part of eastern Russian, that she was better off on horseback. The horse, which she'd taken to calling 'Liebchen,' was a sturdy animal, and appeared strong and healthy.
She'd loved the feeling of exhilaration she felt as the two of them had raced across the Russian steppes. Sometimes traveling almost sixty miles in a single day, and other times traveling only a few miles, and often getting off the horse and walking him, as she lingered in the grass.
It gave her a lot of time to think. She'd had that dream about Shinji dying while she was unconscious after her assault. She still remembered that dream vividly, despite all the time that passed. She normally forgot dreams within a day or two, even vivid ones, but not this one. She suspected that it was because it was the last dream she'd ever have about him, so it was special. She wished that she could call NERV and find out if he'd survived the collision with her plane, but she knew better. There was no way he could have lived through that. The impact was so severe it had thrown her up into the air, and she'd felt the whole plane shake with the impact.
She shook her head, dismissing the growing wave of sorrow that threatened to overwhelm her. She'd had enough crying fits lately, always for Shinji, and she decided it wasn't getting her anywhere. Instead she spent her days riding, walking, and remembering.
Happy moments.
The three stooges, hunched together over their lunch, looking at Kensuke's most recent pictures. Discussing some new weapons system he'd found on the internet, or trying to pick Shinji's brain for classified information.
She smiled.
Her and Hikari sitting at their table, commenting on how dumb the three were to be wasting their time on that silliness. Commenting that they couldn't wait until they grew up, and became 'real' men.
Never realizing that their real men were right there, just waiting for their chance.
Well, Hikari had finally done it, she'd gotten her 'real' man, and even though he didn't act much different around the other stooges, Hikari had told her all about the changes that Toji had really gone through. He was romantic and caring. Who would have thought.
Well Shinji had been romantic and caring too, she realized, and not just since the Awakening. He'd been like that before. She'd just never noticed it, and every time she'd thought about softening towards him he'd start apologizing for something that wasn't his fault. That was so infuriating, she couldn't stand it. A real man should be strong enough to stand on his own, without making excuses for anything. Shinji had a case of what Hikari called 'Terminal Shyness,' and they'd both often commented that for Shinji to show a real emotion would kill him.
And it had.
'No, enough of that, you don't know for sure he's dead,' she scolded herself.
'Yeah, hitting people at 200 miles an hour with a fighter jet isn't always fatal,' some sarcastic part of her replied.
'Stop it, just stop it, leave me alone, I don't want to think about that any more,' she thought shaking her head.
'That's why you came out here. You knew they wouldn't forgive you for killing him. He was so innocent, so sweet, so in love, and you killed him,' it said.
"NO! SHUT UP LEAVEMEALONE!" she shouted, holding her hands to her ears, trying to silence the inner voice.
Liebchen picked his ears up and looked around, snorting. She kept yelling odd things, and, even though he couldn't understand her, he sensed something was wrong with his partner. He nickered and nudged her with his nose. She sniffed and patted him on the head, scratching behind his ears absently the way he liked it best.
She started walking again, looking around for a stream or something, where she could water Liebchen, and refill her canteens. She pulled out a map that she'd taken from a building in the last town she'd come across, four or five days ago, and tried to figure out where she was. Okay, if this was the town, and that road was the one she just crossed, the next sizable stream or river should be ten or eleven miles ahead. So three hours walking, or an hour of riding, and she'd be there. She decided to walk for now.
If the last coordinate fix she'd gotten in the F-22 had been accurate, she had over four thousand miles to go. A long way by jet, but even farther on foot. Well, she had Liebchen, and that was enough.
She hadn't seen much more than a light misting of rain since she'd landed in Russia, and figured the weather would hold for a while anyway. If it did turn nasty, she could always find a town to hold up in until it got better. It's not like this was the Russia from Pre-Second Impact. He'd heard that that was really a hellish place. Constant snow and ice, dark much of the winter.
Brrr. She shivered just thinking of it. She'd only seen snow a couple times in her life, mostly in the highest mountains in Germany, and then pictures of Mt. Everest and a couple others. She didn't think she could have survived a Russian winter in the old days, but now, with the weather patterns changed, and the climate now much warmer it was wonderful.
She laughed to think about the tales her teachers had told her about mankind causing global warming, and worrying about ozone holes and rising seas. Well second impact had solved that. The seas overnight had risen almost eighty meters, and drowned most costal communities. As far as she could see, global warming wasn't so bad. Oh sure there had been famine and outbreaks of plagues and virulent disease, but it was just the Earths way of adjusting to it's new environment, it made sense that some had to die that others might live.
She decided to go ahead and ride Liebchen again, figuring he'd had enough rest, and pulled herself up into the stirrup. She set him at an easy trot, and within the hour had arrived at the stream on the map. It wasn't that big a stream, but the water was cool and crisp. She filled her canteen, and decided to camp here for the night.
She got her pack off of Liebchen, and set up her tent. Using her folding shovel she cleared a space of all brush and burnable material before starting her fire. No sense torching the Russian steps, just because she wanted something warm to eat.
She started her small fire, and warmed the rations she'd found. When they were ready she ate them with relish while Liebchen strayed nearby eating the fresh grass, and some leaves of low lying shrubs. She'd discovered that he was a very well behaved horse, and would stay nearby, even if she didn't tie him up at night. She went ahead and took his gear off of him, and brushed down his coat.
After that she sat down and opened the map again. She hadn't really kept up on her language studies since she'd gone to Japan, but a little practice was doing her wonders. She could understand the Cyrillic characters of the map, and had picked up a couple books at the last library she'd seen, so she could read out loud from them, brushing up on her Russian.
If she read this map correctly, some time tomorrow she'd make Omsk. That wasn't too bad, even with some foraging, and a fair amount of walking she'd come almost 400 miles in the last two weeks. Not exactly a sprint, but she wasn't in that much of a hurry either. She didn't know what she'd find in Germany, but hoped it would be something like Japan, and not like Novosibirsk.
She put the map up, banked her fire, and drifted off into sleep.
She rode into Omsk late the next day, casually looking around. She wasn't sure what she was looking for, but she was sure she'd know it if she found it. Omsk wasn't a real high tech city, like Berlin, or most of Japan, instead it was a rustic city, composed mostly of small, single family houses, and a few mills and factories. Still, it was a fair sized city, and was probably a busy metropolis in it's heyday.
She rode down one of the main roads into the town and realized that she'd found what she was looking for. The main roads were clear of cars.
This didn't seem like something very important at first, but she'd realized, even in an isolated city like this, that there would be cars scattered on the roadways, when Third Impact had occurred. Only people could have moved the cars, and if they had moved them, maybe they'd be friendly. Novosibirsk was full of cars and bad people.
She decided to ride around to see if she could find anyone.
The old man looked down on the young fiery haired woman as she traveled into the town. Except for a couple troublemakers, she was the first outsider that had made the journey over the steppes since Third Impact. She didn't seem like much trouble, so he put his rifle down and walked over to the church bell, and began ringing it.
Asuka nearly jumped out of the saddle, and Liebchen gave a start when the church bell began to ring. She could see an older man, mostly hidden by shadow, up there ringing the bell. Soon she heard the galloping of horses, and four riders on sturdy looking steppe horses came up. They slowed to a stop before the church, and the bell stopped ringing.
Asuka noted that they were all armed with rifles, and handguns.
'Like some kind of old western,' she thought, looking at them.
They sized her up, sitting there in the saddle, then one of them trotted his horse over to her.
"We don't receive many strangers in town these days," he said.
Time to try out her Russian.
"I'm traveling from the East to the West, and hoped I'd find a place to rest and resupply," she said.
The man laughed, "If you've come far, you should know, as big as Mother Russia is, it might have been easier to go East until you arrived in the West."
Asuka smiled. "I've begun to notice that. I started out in a plane, but I've been on horse back since I had to set down in Novosibirsk."
"That was a bad place to set down," the man said, his voice going grim, "We've heard about it from people who fled there several months ago. Apparently a gang has taken the city over, and keeps the few residents that stay in constant fear."
"I know, I met up with them."
The man looked amazed. "One so young and pretty as you? I would not have thought they would allow such a one to go free un..." he stopped seeing the crushed and fearful look on her face. "I see, they did not let you go so easily did they. Come child, we will take you to the Hotel where we are all living, and there you can relax, and have a meal."
Asuka smiled at him, "That would be greatly appreciated, I've been living off of canned goods I found at a military base."
"Ugh, canned rations, we can do better. Come, child, my Sophia will be glad to have the company of another her own age," he said, backing up his horse and motioning her to follow.
He and the other riders escorted her to a large hotel, probably the largest building in town, where they dismounted, and tied their horses in a large square before the hotel. Asuka did the same, and was soon mounting the steps. When she walked inside she saw that the room was lit by electric lights, but she hadn't noticed power in any of the other buildings outside.
"You notice the lights eh? There is a large generator in the basement that provides our power, but it is not so much to run the city. The coal fired plant outside of town broke down shortly after we tried to turn it on, and so we've had to depend on this for our power. Truly it was not so much of an inconvenience. We took all of the cars in town, and parked them in a field on the outskirts. We drained their fuel, and put it in the large tanks at the fuel depots. Now when we need fuel for the generator, we pump it out of the tanks, taking only what we need."
"Papa, who is this you are boring with your talk?" said a pretty young blonde girl about Asuka's age.
"Ah, and here is my Sophia. My dear, this is who the bell called us to meet. This is... oh dear," he said, looking worriedly between his daughter and Asuka.
"Langley," Asuka said, not batting an eye, it was her name after all, just not all of it.
"Papa, for shame, you have not told her your name. Langley, this is my father, Piotr Akedi, and I am Sophia. Welcome to Omsk. Have you traveled far?"
"Yes. Your father was telling me that I might have had an easier journey if I'd traveled into the East instead."
"Oh, no, to the east of here is Novosibirsk, and you..." she was suddenly quite, noticing her father put a finger to his lips and shake his head.
"Well anyhow, we were preparing to make dinner. Would you like to help?"
"Certainly, I have had no good food for weeks, and would like a good meal," Asuka said.
"Then come, an extra pair of hands is always welcome, and these men are terrible in the kitchen."
Twenty minutes later she was up to her elbows in flower, and was helping Sophia make the dough for the biscuits.
"So how many people live here?" she asked.
"Oh there are about a hundred people here right now. A few more are out on the plains tending the cattle, or hunting for game. Since the, what did you call it, 'The Awakening,' we've all been living here, and contributing to everyone's survival."
"A hold over from the Old Soviet?"
"No, a hold over from the days when this city was covered in snow and ice for five months of the year. We are hardy here, but in order to survive a Russian winter, neighbors had to help neighbors."
Sophia held out a pan, which Asuka deposited her last biscuit onto, and then placed it into the large wood fired oven.
'Truthfully, we lack for little here, except word of the outside world."
"Well having come from the outside world, I can tell you that, for the most part, it's getting better. Where I was, there was a central organization, and everyone within hundreds of kilometers was rescued and brought to the city. There we found jobs for them, and tried to continue on with our lives as best we could."
"And you? What made you decide to leave that wonderful place and attempt a journey such as this?"
"I had a misunderstanding with someone. I couldn't stay. So I took an airplane, and started flying. I ended up landing in Novosibirsk, and you know the rest."
"You know how to fly a plane? Oh how exciting."
"Yeah, it really was, but I think all that is behind me, now," Asuka said.
"So, how long do you think you'll be staying before you continue your journey?" Sophia asked.
"I don't know Sophia. After I landed, I started west, but I don't really have any firm plans. So much is undecided."
"Langley, why don't you stay with us for a while. Life here is not so bad. We have plenty of food, and the residents are nice," the girl said, smiling.
"And you don't have another friend your own age to talk to?" Asuka guessed, smiling to ease her words.
"Ivan is the only one even close to my age, and he's a boy."
Asuka laughed, "And they never understand anything, and never want to talk."
"Exactly. It would be nice to have a friend."
"Sophia, I think that right now, having a friend is about the most important thing in the world to me. If it's alright with your father and the others, I'd love to stay."
"I'll go ask him right now. Don't let the biscuits burn," the girl called after her, running out of the kitchen to see her father.
'Yes, I think right now, having a friend I can talk to would be wonderful. Maybe I can finally relax and learn to be Langley, instead of Asuka Langley Soryu,' she thought to herself.
Next on Episode 2:13 of Neon Genesis Evangelion a month has passed since Shinji's fight with the Legion, and construction plans for the badly needed improvements to the base are underway, and Shinji's first lessons with the Martial Arts master have begun. After a workout with his Sensei, he enters the EVA and does something that will surprise almost everyone.
It's Evangelion Episode 2:13 Playing in the Sandbox