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: 22 The changing face of Evil.
Takes place after 1st season, and the End of Evangelion Movie.
Presumed date is June 5th, 2019
Asuka sat in the cafeteria, eating a very large plate of sushi, and scowled at the man who was sweeping the floor.
"Pardon me Miss Soryu, can I get you anything else?" the man asked.
"No, I'm quite alright, you may go," she said.
The man nodded and moonwalked out of the room. Asuka didn't think this was odd.
She looked back at her food, and watched as it changed color, and texture until it was a nice big plate of Inari with pickled Ginger, which she attacked with her chopstick shaped fingers.
"Hello," said a little voice behind her.
"Mmm. Eating. Go away."
"Make us," said another little voice.
How impertinent. She spun on her heals, devil horns sprang from her head, and she prepared to breathe fire on the person who wasn't doing as she demanded of them.
A little boy and a little girl stood there holding hands, looking up at her, with oversized eyes, like those of some cute little anime character.
"Hello," they said in unison.
"Kawaii," Asuka screamed in Japanese, and lunged at them.
They didn't resist as she hefted them into her arms, and squeezed both of them. She set them back down and looked at them closely. They were both clad in Kimono, the little boy in a purple one, the little girl in a red one. His hair was black, his eyes light blue, and he wore a perpetual grin. The little girl was even cuter, she had dark blue eyes, that seemed to shift to gray if one looked at them long enough, and bright read hair, but her complexion was not as dark as you'd normally expect of someone with that hair color.
"And what can I do for the two of you?" she asked them both.
"You need to come with us," said the little boy.
"Yeah. We're supposed to show you something," said the little girl.
"And what would that be?" Asuka asked.
"It's a secret," the little girl whispered.
She looked at them both, carefully, before, standing up and taking their hands. "All right, she said, "Lead the way."
The each took her by an arm and led her from the cafeteria. They walked around for quite a while, before finally entering an elevator at the far end of the base. They took it down to the lowest level there was, and, when the door opened, the two children ran out of the lift, laughing and tugging on her arms. She followed them, really wanting to see what game they were playing.
They walked down a long corridor, and she could see the red painted signs on the wall proclaiming this as Sub Level Section E-42. Soon they stood at the end of the corridor, blocked by a white wall, which was also marked with the same logo.
"Where to now?" she asked them.
"We're supposed to show you," the boy said.
"Show me what?"
"Show you that," said the little girl, pointing. She was pointing up at a spot high on the wall.
"Very nice, but am I supposed to be looking at the dirt, or the peeling paint?"
"No silly," said the little boy, "THAT!" He stomped his foot.
"She can't see it," the little girl whispered to him.
"Then why doesn't she say she can't?" he asked.
"Because she doesn't know she can't," she answered him.
"Oh."
"Daddy said we have to show her," the little girl said.
"Okay."
They turned to look at her.
"Ready?" the little girl asked.
"For what?" Asuka said.
"Well, this silly," the boy said, and started to walk through the wall.
Asuka goggled at him. Then the little girl did it too. Asuka stood there as they disappeared into the wall, and she felt herself drawn in behind them. Then she was through, and on the other side the two children were standing on a catwalk, about 20 feet away, still holding her arms.
"Oops," said the little boy, turning and starting to roll up her arms.
Asuka waited until he got back to her before shaking her arms out, returning them to normal.
"Lookee Lookee," the little girl was shouting pointing up ahead of them.
Then Asuka looked and saw what was there.
Two EVA's.
The first one was Dark Green with white highlights. The second one, was a spitting image of Asuka's Unit-02, except for the large pulsing S2 Unit at its heart.
"Wow," said Asuka.
"Daddy said you should have found these a long time ago, so he asked us to come here to make sure you knew where to go," the little boy said, taking the little girls hand, and beginning to walk toward the far end of the catwalk.
"Wait, who are you?" Asuka asked, standing before the two EVA's.
"I'm Rei, and he's Kaoru," the little girl said.
"Hey, that's the names of two other EVA pilots," Asuka said, remembering Rei, and the fifth pilot, who Shinji had once told her about.
"We know, our daddy named us for them, so he could remember," the little boy said.
As they neared the end of the catwalk, a glowing light could be seen coming from the wall. The little girl turned and waved, as the boy urged her forward.
"Goodbye Mommy," she said, as she vanished into the light.
"WAIT!" Asuka shouted, sitting up in her bed. She felt like crying and her heart was throbbing in her chest. The dream. It was just a dream. But it was so vivid. So REAL.
She lay back down in the bed, panting, clutching her chest. The dream was fading now, and she had a hard time remembering some of the details, but others stood out in her mind. The janitor had looked like Gendo Ikari. The children, she wasn't sure about them, they were quickly fading from her mind.
She turned on the light, and grabbed a paper and pencil from her night table. She quickly wrote down some numbers that were stuck in her mind, and tried to remember if there was anything else.
Nothing, the dream was gone. If there was anything else, she had missed her opportunity.
She looked at the clock on the bedside table, it said that it was 6:15 am. She punched the button on top, and disabled the alarm before it could go off, and then flipped a switch, so it would display the date.
June 5th, it said, before she flipped it back to normal clock setting.
'Tomorrow is Shinji's 18th birthday. I wish I could be with him,' she thought.
She got up, showered and changed into the light duty uniform that she'd been given by the supply sergeant. As the Official Japanese Branch Representative she'd been doing very little since her arrival. She'd done a lot of poking and investigating, but had found nothing. She'd been over every square inch of the base, and had found nothing. And, until they figured out a way to communicate with the NERV base in Japan, she was worth... nothing.
But something about that dream had sparked a memory; something that had lain dormant within her mind for nearly a decade. Something she remembered from when she was ten years old, and the dream had tapped into.
She grabbed a couple things off her table, and shoved them into her pockets, not knowing what she'd need.
She was soon out the door, and headed for the elevators. She got into one, and looked at all the buttons. The floor she wanted wasn't on this elevator. She got out, and one by one, checked all the elevators in this area. None of them went to the level she wanted.
She remembered a bank of emergency elevators at the back end of the base, and decided to go check them out. Sure enough, the last elevator in the row had the level she was looking for on it's list of buttons. She stepped in and pressed it, closing the doors, and dropping into the depths of the base.
She emerged into a darkened corridor, that was dimly lit, but she could see a faded paint splash identifying this as Sub Level Section E-42. She turned and walked down the corridor before coming to its end. There the wall stood, blocking her way. It looked like it was part of the original construction, but the paint here was not as faded, and Asuka could see cracks in the mortar joints around the wall.
She pushed on the wall, and felt a slight give. She pushed harder, and a large crack appeared in the center. She backed up, and ran at it at full speed, striking the wall with her shoulder. Her shoulder screamed in agony, but the large cinder blocks that made up the wall caved in. She stood back and kicked at them until the first one caved in. Beyond was only darkness.
She reached into her pocket and extracted a flashlight, turning it on, and stuffing it into the hole. Whatever lay beyond, was not visible. The space was simply too large. She began kicking in earnest, stopping to pull at the occasional block, freeing up a space for her to crawl through. She managed to squeeze through into the space beyond. It was lit by the dull glow of emergency lights, but they were high up and far away, so that only the barest amount of illumination was visible from them. She turned toward the wall knowing what she would see.
Two EVA's stood there waiting. The S2 Unit of both EVA's was pulsing, picking up speed as she neared them. The light given off by the flashes, allowed her to read the marking on the sides of their arms.
The Red one was EVA Production Unit 05. The Green was EVA Production Unit 06.
She sat there and stared at them in awe.
"I knew you'd eventually find them if you stayed here long enough," came a voice from behind her.
Asuka jumped, and turned to the side, drawing her knife as she did so.
"Rotmal," she said, holding him at knifepoint.
"Soryu. You have been nothing but a thorn in my side since the day you arrived here, with your endless questions and constant investigating. Time to pluck that thorn," he said, walking towards her, hands clenching.
"Stay back, Rotmal, I don't want to, but I'll kill you if I have to."
"Only one of us leaves here alive, Soryu, I thought you'd have guessed that by now. This is a secret I cannot allow to escape this tomb. While this base was uninhabited I hid these units from prying eyes, never figuring that someone with intimate knowledge would return to discover my secret," he finished lunging to grab her by her hair.
Asuka jerked her head to the side, out of Rotmal's grip, and slashed at him with her knife. It penetrated his left side, just below his last rib.
He drew back, dabbed his fingers at the wound, and examined the blood.
Then he grinned at her.
The grin scared Asuka more than anything had in years.
He lunged again, and this time Asuka swept his hands to the side, and plunged the knife upwards into his chest cavity, slicing through his lung, and into his heart. He staggered back and fell to the ground, blood spilling onto the ground.
"Bastard," she spat, "I never did like you, you creep. You freaked me out."
She turned and looked back at the EVA's trying to figure out what to do next. This had to be what Shinji had wanted her to find. And those children in her dream had led her here. Remarkable.
She stood there looking at them until she heard a faint buzzing, it was coming from Rotmal's body. She reached over him, and unclipped his cellphone from his belt.
"Yes," she said, answering his phone.
"This is Operations for Commander Rotmal," said the voice.
"Rotmal's in the shower, what do you need?" she said, in as sexy a voice as possible.
"Oh, yes Ma'am. We're picking up an anomalous energy reading on our sensors. 50 kilometers out. High energy readings."
Asuka held the phone away from he face for a moment and swore. She held it back to her face and said sweetly, "He wants to know if you've done a spectral analysis of the waveform."
"Standbye. Pattern is Orange. Angel confirmed Ma'am. Variation from normal stands at 0.999; other wise it's a perfect match."
A Legionnaire, one of those new Angels that Shinji was fighting. Rotmal had to have known this day would come. He had to be in league with them.
"Ma'am, what are his instructions?" the voice asked.
"He says to prepare the base for combat, and clear the surface. If he's not there to take command in 5 minutes, get the sub-Commander to take over for him," she said, and hung up the phone.
She turned back to the red EVA, and watched as the S2 unit pulsed, slowly gaining speed. She could almost feel it somehow reaching out to her, calling her. From within herself she could feel a heat rising, building, until a soft orange glow burst from her, and splashed toward the S2 Unit. When the glow contacted the Unit, she felt a surge of energy, and a slight disorientation.
She stood overlooking the catwalk, and could see Rotmals body clearly. EVA Unit-06 was beside her. Then it hit her. What Shinji had said. He was the EVA.
'Only now, I am the EVA,' she thought.
'Oh, Shinji is this how you felt the first time you joined to your EVA like this? It's incredible."
She raised her hand and clenched the fist. The red armor gleamed within the dull light. She concentrated, and found she could control the optics mode that she used, just by thought, she switched to starlight, and the room became instantly clear. On the other side of the room were several EVA sized auto-cannon rifles, a missile launcher gun, a Progressive knife, a longer hilt that looked like it should also be a Progressive knife, and a thing that looked like an EVA sized mini-gun. There was a long cable leading from it into a plug unit, like that used by the EVA's for power feeds.
'Only if this unit has a fully functional S2 Unit, it doesn't need it, so maybe it plugs into my socket, and gets its power from there,' she thought with a grin.
She reached over the catwalk and grabbed for it. It fit well in her EVA sized hands, and she plugged it into the socket in her back.
"Standby," came a signal from the device. "EVAOS 2014 loading, loading, System operational. Unit TPG-402, ready. Energy Reserves at 100%."
'What is a TPG-402,' Asuka thought.
"Tactical Proton Gatling," came a new signal in response, "Developed for use in Angel combat by NERV Berlin in conjunction with Berlin Partikel Forschung."
'So, NERV and Berlin Particle Research had finished these little toys before Third Impact, but didn't manage to ship them to Japan. Interesting. I wonder if they were holding them in reserve for something they had planned for after the defeat of the last Angel. Maybe a little Nation Building of their own.'
She grabbed the Progressive knife and slid it into it's sheath, and then concentrated on opening a communications channel to the base's Operations Department.
"Operations," came the reply.
"This is Pilot Soryu. What's the status?"
"Pilot Soryu, thank goodness. We can't find the commander, and Sub- Commander Berg has assumed control. The Angel is less than 10 kilometers away. We haven't been able to slow it down. Sub-Commander Berg has authorized the use of our remaining N2 mines. Are you clear of the blast wave?"
"Negative, do not deploy the N2. I think I can handle this on my own, stand by."
Asuka heard the man explaining to his new commander, and heard some angry shouts on the other end before Berg took the phone.
"Soryu, what the hell are you doing, the Angel's going to be here in 30 seconds, I don't have time for foolishness."
"Do you want to blow up Berlin, or let the EVA kill that thing?"
"You have an EVA?" Berg asked, incredulous, "well why the hell didn't you say so. Affirmative Soryu, N2 detonation standing by. Holding at 15 seconds. Is there anything we can do?"
"Roger, call up the launch protocols on the Magi, and initiate an EVA launch on Catapult number seven."
She didn't have to wait long. When they figured out what to do, and engaged the system, the EVA leapt out of it's cradle, and headed toward the surface, and the first combat Asuka had seen since the Mass Production Angels had ripped her apart.
Below her, in the EVA hangar, something stirred.
Asuka vaulted to the surface, and as she was slammed to a stop the door opened on the hidden exit she was within, and she stepped out into the dawn light of a new day.
The thing was close, barely a kilometer from her, and looked ready for a fight. Standing there like some sort of parody of man and machine in one, tubes and wires snaking out across its' dull black body. She raised the mini-gun, but before she could squeeze the trigger the thing fired. Twin beams of read streaked from it's eyes toward her neck, and Asuka was saved only by the instantaneous reaction of her AT field in it's attempt to block the beams and save her life. Still she rocked with the impact.
She finished raising the gun, and pulled the trigger, the gun immediately began to cycle, and it seemed that a solid stream of light connected her to the creature for a moment. Then the light began to pulse, and Asuka could sense that the Mini-Gun was pulsing to keep the electronics from overheating, and melting down. Smart, that way she didn't end up blowing this thing up. Who knew what would happen if a pulsed anti-particle weapon exploded. She might take out half a continent.
The beams of light weren't powerful enough to penetrate the things AT field at first, but after a few moments, she could see it beginning to waver. She poured on the fire, and worked the beam across the things body, still encountering the AT field, but wearing it down.
The thing fired again, hitting Asuka's AT field. Then it started a continual stream of shots, always aimed at the same point on Asukas field. The spot just above her armored S2 Unit.
'It's just a waiting game, which one of us cracks the other first,' she thought.
She could sense her AT field weakening, as was the creatures, and suddenly the blasts were connecting, and great gouts of black flesh and gore were splattering the city behind it.
"DIE YOU BASTARD," she screamed at it, as she washed the fire back and forth. Suddenly the beam was deflected a little, and it's perverted S2 Unit splashed into view. Asuka concentrated her fire on it, and watched as the unit cracked, and began to glow.
"Aw, hell," she said, as the unit overloaded and blew. Energy hurtled skyward in the shape of an upside down cross, and thirty square blocks of Berlin were leveled by the blast.
"YEAH!" she screamed in triumph, and then something banged into her right arm, knocking the TPG unit to the ground, severing the power cable. Asuka jumped back and looked. Something big green and nasty was holding what looked like an energy whip, and crawling out of the same exit that she'd used to leave the base.
It was EVA Unit 06.
"Not so easy to kill me Soryu," gasped the other EVA. "I have watched your kind since you first appeared on this Earth, and you're pitiful species will breath it's last long before I lie down to die."
"Rotmal," she guessed, "I should have known. You're one of them aren't you?"
"Yes, I am a servant of my master, the Morning Star. His glory will shine upon me for bringing him your head."
"Only if you can take me, monster, and I don't think you can. I may not have killed you last time, but I'm going to make sure you're dead this time," she said, jumping forward, prog knife ready.
His AT field was ready, and the blade crashed against it. He drew back his whip, and lashed out at her. The tip penetrated her AT field and wrapped around her left arm, scalding her.
Asuka screamed.
"Yes, Soryu, scream, let me pleasure myself in your agony. It will be sweet suffering to hear you breath your last."
She stabbed at the energy whip with her prog knife, but the blade simply bounced off. He walked forward, reeling her in with the whip. When he had a loop of extra length built up, he expertly flipped the whip, and the extra length snapped around her neck, and began to choke her.
"Ah, so easy. Maybe Ikari will put up more of a fight," he said, taunting.
"SHINJI NO!!!" she screamed, and grabbed the whip before the creature could yank on it. It burned her, but she didn't let go. She pulled on it fiercely, dragging the other EVA in closer to her. When it was so close it was almost touching her, she let out a bestial growl and plunged the prog knife into it's S2 Unit.
"Die Rotmal. No one is ever going to lay a finger on my Shinji," she said, as Rotmal's EVA howled in pain, and died.
Unit 6 dropped to the ground, it's S2 crushed and broken.
Asuka relaxed, then, and looked down at it. Rotmal must have been a sleeper agent of some kind. Sent to monitor mankind. He'd organized them, but not killed them. She wondered at that. He'd hidden the EVA's but not destroyed them, or taken them, until now. Either something was preventing him from doing so, or he'd been ordered not to, until now. She didn't care, she had a shiny new EVA again, and she was happy. This unit only had two eyes, but that didn't bother her.
"If this unit is like Shinji's Unit-01 in the way we inhabit them, I wonder if it can do the same things his can? Only one way to find out," Asuka said, bending over to pick up the broken TPG unit, and the Energy whip. She clipped the whip to a bracket on her hip, and examined the Gun. She could probably salvage it, with a lot of help.
"Pilot Soryu that was incredible, but where did the EVA's come from, and why did that other unit attack you?" came Bergs voice over her comm.
"They were hidden here by Rotmal, he was an Angel in human form, serving another master. He's dead now. You're in charge. Commander Berg."
"What are you going to do now Pilot Soryu?"
"Me, I'm going to go home, Commander, I'm going back to Japan," she said.
"I thought Germany was your home," Berg said.
"So did I, once, but I realized that the only home I've ever needed is waiting for me in Japan. Goodbye Commander. I'll try to send help back to you, or I'll return myself, if I can't," she lowered her head, and tried to concentrate, wondering how hard this was going to be. She'd been practicing the manipulation of her AT field ever since she'd figured out she had one 6 months ago. Now to put that practice to the test.
"How are you going to get there?" Berg asked, as the energy began to surge through her body.
"I'm going to fly there," she said, as six great crimson wings exploded out of her back, stretching toward the sky.
"I have a promise to keep."
Next on Episode 2:23 of Neon Genesis Evangelion It's the first of our two part Season Finale. Shinji's birthday arrives in Japan, but not very many people seemed to have noticed. None of his friends seem very excited about it, Shinji least of all, and some of them aren't even around. He's in for the shock of his life when an unexpected gift is brought through the door. But will this gift remain unwrapped, untouched, as he wallows in denial.
It's Evangelion Episode 2:23 Blow out your Candles
Episode 2: 22 The changing face of Evil.
Takes place after 1st season, and the End of Evangelion Movie.
Presumed date is June 5th, 2019
Asuka sat in the cafeteria, eating a very large plate of sushi, and scowled at the man who was sweeping the floor.
"Pardon me Miss Soryu, can I get you anything else?" the man asked.
"No, I'm quite alright, you may go," she said.
The man nodded and moonwalked out of the room. Asuka didn't think this was odd.
She looked back at her food, and watched as it changed color, and texture until it was a nice big plate of Inari with pickled Ginger, which she attacked with her chopstick shaped fingers.
"Hello," said a little voice behind her.
"Mmm. Eating. Go away."
"Make us," said another little voice.
How impertinent. She spun on her heals, devil horns sprang from her head, and she prepared to breathe fire on the person who wasn't doing as she demanded of them.
A little boy and a little girl stood there holding hands, looking up at her, with oversized eyes, like those of some cute little anime character.
"Hello," they said in unison.
"Kawaii," Asuka screamed in Japanese, and lunged at them.
They didn't resist as she hefted them into her arms, and squeezed both of them. She set them back down and looked at them closely. They were both clad in Kimono, the little boy in a purple one, the little girl in a red one. His hair was black, his eyes light blue, and he wore a perpetual grin. The little girl was even cuter, she had dark blue eyes, that seemed to shift to gray if one looked at them long enough, and bright read hair, but her complexion was not as dark as you'd normally expect of someone with that hair color.
"And what can I do for the two of you?" she asked them both.
"You need to come with us," said the little boy.
"Yeah. We're supposed to show you something," said the little girl.
"And what would that be?" Asuka asked.
"It's a secret," the little girl whispered.
She looked at them both, carefully, before, standing up and taking their hands. "All right, she said, "Lead the way."
The each took her by an arm and led her from the cafeteria. They walked around for quite a while, before finally entering an elevator at the far end of the base. They took it down to the lowest level there was, and, when the door opened, the two children ran out of the lift, laughing and tugging on her arms. She followed them, really wanting to see what game they were playing.
They walked down a long corridor, and she could see the red painted signs on the wall proclaiming this as Sub Level Section E-42. Soon they stood at the end of the corridor, blocked by a white wall, which was also marked with the same logo.
"Where to now?" she asked them.
"We're supposed to show you," the boy said.
"Show me what?"
"Show you that," said the little girl, pointing. She was pointing up at a spot high on the wall.
"Very nice, but am I supposed to be looking at the dirt, or the peeling paint?"
"No silly," said the little boy, "THAT!" He stomped his foot.
"She can't see it," the little girl whispered to him.
"Then why doesn't she say she can't?" he asked.
"Because she doesn't know she can't," she answered him.
"Oh."
"Daddy said we have to show her," the little girl said.
"Okay."
They turned to look at her.
"Ready?" the little girl asked.
"For what?" Asuka said.
"Well, this silly," the boy said, and started to walk through the wall.
Asuka goggled at him. Then the little girl did it too. Asuka stood there as they disappeared into the wall, and she felt herself drawn in behind them. Then she was through, and on the other side the two children were standing on a catwalk, about 20 feet away, still holding her arms.
"Oops," said the little boy, turning and starting to roll up her arms.
Asuka waited until he got back to her before shaking her arms out, returning them to normal.
"Lookee Lookee," the little girl was shouting pointing up ahead of them.
Then Asuka looked and saw what was there.
Two EVA's.
The first one was Dark Green with white highlights. The second one, was a spitting image of Asuka's Unit-02, except for the large pulsing S2 Unit at its heart.
"Wow," said Asuka.
"Daddy said you should have found these a long time ago, so he asked us to come here to make sure you knew where to go," the little boy said, taking the little girls hand, and beginning to walk toward the far end of the catwalk.
"Wait, who are you?" Asuka asked, standing before the two EVA's.
"I'm Rei, and he's Kaoru," the little girl said.
"Hey, that's the names of two other EVA pilots," Asuka said, remembering Rei, and the fifth pilot, who Shinji had once told her about.
"We know, our daddy named us for them, so he could remember," the little boy said.
As they neared the end of the catwalk, a glowing light could be seen coming from the wall. The little girl turned and waved, as the boy urged her forward.
"Goodbye Mommy," she said, as she vanished into the light.
"WAIT!" Asuka shouted, sitting up in her bed. She felt like crying and her heart was throbbing in her chest. The dream. It was just a dream. But it was so vivid. So REAL.
She lay back down in the bed, panting, clutching her chest. The dream was fading now, and she had a hard time remembering some of the details, but others stood out in her mind. The janitor had looked like Gendo Ikari. The children, she wasn't sure about them, they were quickly fading from her mind.
She turned on the light, and grabbed a paper and pencil from her night table. She quickly wrote down some numbers that were stuck in her mind, and tried to remember if there was anything else.
Nothing, the dream was gone. If there was anything else, she had missed her opportunity.
She looked at the clock on the bedside table, it said that it was 6:15 am. She punched the button on top, and disabled the alarm before it could go off, and then flipped a switch, so it would display the date.
June 5th, it said, before she flipped it back to normal clock setting.
'Tomorrow is Shinji's 18th birthday. I wish I could be with him,' she thought.
She got up, showered and changed into the light duty uniform that she'd been given by the supply sergeant. As the Official Japanese Branch Representative she'd been doing very little since her arrival. She'd done a lot of poking and investigating, but had found nothing. She'd been over every square inch of the base, and had found nothing. And, until they figured out a way to communicate with the NERV base in Japan, she was worth... nothing.
But something about that dream had sparked a memory; something that had lain dormant within her mind for nearly a decade. Something she remembered from when she was ten years old, and the dream had tapped into.
She grabbed a couple things off her table, and shoved them into her pockets, not knowing what she'd need.
She was soon out the door, and headed for the elevators. She got into one, and looked at all the buttons. The floor she wanted wasn't on this elevator. She got out, and one by one, checked all the elevators in this area. None of them went to the level she wanted.
She remembered a bank of emergency elevators at the back end of the base, and decided to go check them out. Sure enough, the last elevator in the row had the level she was looking for on it's list of buttons. She stepped in and pressed it, closing the doors, and dropping into the depths of the base.
She emerged into a darkened corridor, that was dimly lit, but she could see a faded paint splash identifying this as Sub Level Section E-42. She turned and walked down the corridor before coming to its end. There the wall stood, blocking her way. It looked like it was part of the original construction, but the paint here was not as faded, and Asuka could see cracks in the mortar joints around the wall.
She pushed on the wall, and felt a slight give. She pushed harder, and a large crack appeared in the center. She backed up, and ran at it at full speed, striking the wall with her shoulder. Her shoulder screamed in agony, but the large cinder blocks that made up the wall caved in. She stood back and kicked at them until the first one caved in. Beyond was only darkness.
She reached into her pocket and extracted a flashlight, turning it on, and stuffing it into the hole. Whatever lay beyond, was not visible. The space was simply too large. She began kicking in earnest, stopping to pull at the occasional block, freeing up a space for her to crawl through. She managed to squeeze through into the space beyond. It was lit by the dull glow of emergency lights, but they were high up and far away, so that only the barest amount of illumination was visible from them. She turned toward the wall knowing what she would see.
Two EVA's stood there waiting. The S2 Unit of both EVA's was pulsing, picking up speed as she neared them. The light given off by the flashes, allowed her to read the marking on the sides of their arms.
The Red one was EVA Production Unit 05. The Green was EVA Production Unit 06.
She sat there and stared at them in awe.
"I knew you'd eventually find them if you stayed here long enough," came a voice from behind her.
Asuka jumped, and turned to the side, drawing her knife as she did so.
"Rotmal," she said, holding him at knifepoint.
"Soryu. You have been nothing but a thorn in my side since the day you arrived here, with your endless questions and constant investigating. Time to pluck that thorn," he said, walking towards her, hands clenching.
"Stay back, Rotmal, I don't want to, but I'll kill you if I have to."
"Only one of us leaves here alive, Soryu, I thought you'd have guessed that by now. This is a secret I cannot allow to escape this tomb. While this base was uninhabited I hid these units from prying eyes, never figuring that someone with intimate knowledge would return to discover my secret," he finished lunging to grab her by her hair.
Asuka jerked her head to the side, out of Rotmal's grip, and slashed at him with her knife. It penetrated his left side, just below his last rib.
He drew back, dabbed his fingers at the wound, and examined the blood.
Then he grinned at her.
The grin scared Asuka more than anything had in years.
He lunged again, and this time Asuka swept his hands to the side, and plunged the knife upwards into his chest cavity, slicing through his lung, and into his heart. He staggered back and fell to the ground, blood spilling onto the ground.
"Bastard," she spat, "I never did like you, you creep. You freaked me out."
She turned and looked back at the EVA's trying to figure out what to do next. This had to be what Shinji had wanted her to find. And those children in her dream had led her here. Remarkable.
She stood there looking at them until she heard a faint buzzing, it was coming from Rotmal's body. She reached over him, and unclipped his cellphone from his belt.
"Yes," she said, answering his phone.
"This is Operations for Commander Rotmal," said the voice.
"Rotmal's in the shower, what do you need?" she said, in as sexy a voice as possible.
"Oh, yes Ma'am. We're picking up an anomalous energy reading on our sensors. 50 kilometers out. High energy readings."
Asuka held the phone away from he face for a moment and swore. She held it back to her face and said sweetly, "He wants to know if you've done a spectral analysis of the waveform."
"Standbye. Pattern is Orange. Angel confirmed Ma'am. Variation from normal stands at 0.999; other wise it's a perfect match."
A Legionnaire, one of those new Angels that Shinji was fighting. Rotmal had to have known this day would come. He had to be in league with them.
"Ma'am, what are his instructions?" the voice asked.
"He says to prepare the base for combat, and clear the surface. If he's not there to take command in 5 minutes, get the sub-Commander to take over for him," she said, and hung up the phone.
She turned back to the red EVA, and watched as the S2 unit pulsed, slowly gaining speed. She could almost feel it somehow reaching out to her, calling her. From within herself she could feel a heat rising, building, until a soft orange glow burst from her, and splashed toward the S2 Unit. When the glow contacted the Unit, she felt a surge of energy, and a slight disorientation.
She stood overlooking the catwalk, and could see Rotmals body clearly. EVA Unit-06 was beside her. Then it hit her. What Shinji had said. He was the EVA.
'Only now, I am the EVA,' she thought.
'Oh, Shinji is this how you felt the first time you joined to your EVA like this? It's incredible."
She raised her hand and clenched the fist. The red armor gleamed within the dull light. She concentrated, and found she could control the optics mode that she used, just by thought, she switched to starlight, and the room became instantly clear. On the other side of the room were several EVA sized auto-cannon rifles, a missile launcher gun, a Progressive knife, a longer hilt that looked like it should also be a Progressive knife, and a thing that looked like an EVA sized mini-gun. There was a long cable leading from it into a plug unit, like that used by the EVA's for power feeds.
'Only if this unit has a fully functional S2 Unit, it doesn't need it, so maybe it plugs into my socket, and gets its power from there,' she thought with a grin.
She reached over the catwalk and grabbed for it. It fit well in her EVA sized hands, and she plugged it into the socket in her back.
"Standby," came a signal from the device. "EVAOS 2014 loading, loading, System operational. Unit TPG-402, ready. Energy Reserves at 100%."
'What is a TPG-402,' Asuka thought.
"Tactical Proton Gatling," came a new signal in response, "Developed for use in Angel combat by NERV Berlin in conjunction with Berlin Partikel Forschung."
'So, NERV and Berlin Particle Research had finished these little toys before Third Impact, but didn't manage to ship them to Japan. Interesting. I wonder if they were holding them in reserve for something they had planned for after the defeat of the last Angel. Maybe a little Nation Building of their own.'
She grabbed the Progressive knife and slid it into it's sheath, and then concentrated on opening a communications channel to the base's Operations Department.
"Operations," came the reply.
"This is Pilot Soryu. What's the status?"
"Pilot Soryu, thank goodness. We can't find the commander, and Sub- Commander Berg has assumed control. The Angel is less than 10 kilometers away. We haven't been able to slow it down. Sub-Commander Berg has authorized the use of our remaining N2 mines. Are you clear of the blast wave?"
"Negative, do not deploy the N2. I think I can handle this on my own, stand by."
Asuka heard the man explaining to his new commander, and heard some angry shouts on the other end before Berg took the phone.
"Soryu, what the hell are you doing, the Angel's going to be here in 30 seconds, I don't have time for foolishness."
"Do you want to blow up Berlin, or let the EVA kill that thing?"
"You have an EVA?" Berg asked, incredulous, "well why the hell didn't you say so. Affirmative Soryu, N2 detonation standing by. Holding at 15 seconds. Is there anything we can do?"
"Roger, call up the launch protocols on the Magi, and initiate an EVA launch on Catapult number seven."
She didn't have to wait long. When they figured out what to do, and engaged the system, the EVA leapt out of it's cradle, and headed toward the surface, and the first combat Asuka had seen since the Mass Production Angels had ripped her apart.
Below her, in the EVA hangar, something stirred.
Asuka vaulted to the surface, and as she was slammed to a stop the door opened on the hidden exit she was within, and she stepped out into the dawn light of a new day.
The thing was close, barely a kilometer from her, and looked ready for a fight. Standing there like some sort of parody of man and machine in one, tubes and wires snaking out across its' dull black body. She raised the mini-gun, but before she could squeeze the trigger the thing fired. Twin beams of read streaked from it's eyes toward her neck, and Asuka was saved only by the instantaneous reaction of her AT field in it's attempt to block the beams and save her life. Still she rocked with the impact.
She finished raising the gun, and pulled the trigger, the gun immediately began to cycle, and it seemed that a solid stream of light connected her to the creature for a moment. Then the light began to pulse, and Asuka could sense that the Mini-Gun was pulsing to keep the electronics from overheating, and melting down. Smart, that way she didn't end up blowing this thing up. Who knew what would happen if a pulsed anti-particle weapon exploded. She might take out half a continent.
The beams of light weren't powerful enough to penetrate the things AT field at first, but after a few moments, she could see it beginning to waver. She poured on the fire, and worked the beam across the things body, still encountering the AT field, but wearing it down.
The thing fired again, hitting Asuka's AT field. Then it started a continual stream of shots, always aimed at the same point on Asukas field. The spot just above her armored S2 Unit.
'It's just a waiting game, which one of us cracks the other first,' she thought.
She could sense her AT field weakening, as was the creatures, and suddenly the blasts were connecting, and great gouts of black flesh and gore were splattering the city behind it.
"DIE YOU BASTARD," she screamed at it, as she washed the fire back and forth. Suddenly the beam was deflected a little, and it's perverted S2 Unit splashed into view. Asuka concentrated her fire on it, and watched as the unit cracked, and began to glow.
"Aw, hell," she said, as the unit overloaded and blew. Energy hurtled skyward in the shape of an upside down cross, and thirty square blocks of Berlin were leveled by the blast.
"YEAH!" she screamed in triumph, and then something banged into her right arm, knocking the TPG unit to the ground, severing the power cable. Asuka jumped back and looked. Something big green and nasty was holding what looked like an energy whip, and crawling out of the same exit that she'd used to leave the base.
It was EVA Unit 06.
"Not so easy to kill me Soryu," gasped the other EVA. "I have watched your kind since you first appeared on this Earth, and you're pitiful species will breath it's last long before I lie down to die."
"Rotmal," she guessed, "I should have known. You're one of them aren't you?"
"Yes, I am a servant of my master, the Morning Star. His glory will shine upon me for bringing him your head."
"Only if you can take me, monster, and I don't think you can. I may not have killed you last time, but I'm going to make sure you're dead this time," she said, jumping forward, prog knife ready.
His AT field was ready, and the blade crashed against it. He drew back his whip, and lashed out at her. The tip penetrated her AT field and wrapped around her left arm, scalding her.
Asuka screamed.
"Yes, Soryu, scream, let me pleasure myself in your agony. It will be sweet suffering to hear you breath your last."
She stabbed at the energy whip with her prog knife, but the blade simply bounced off. He walked forward, reeling her in with the whip. When he had a loop of extra length built up, he expertly flipped the whip, and the extra length snapped around her neck, and began to choke her.
"Ah, so easy. Maybe Ikari will put up more of a fight," he said, taunting.
"SHINJI NO!!!" she screamed, and grabbed the whip before the creature could yank on it. It burned her, but she didn't let go. She pulled on it fiercely, dragging the other EVA in closer to her. When it was so close it was almost touching her, she let out a bestial growl and plunged the prog knife into it's S2 Unit.
"Die Rotmal. No one is ever going to lay a finger on my Shinji," she said, as Rotmal's EVA howled in pain, and died.
Unit 6 dropped to the ground, it's S2 crushed and broken.
Asuka relaxed, then, and looked down at it. Rotmal must have been a sleeper agent of some kind. Sent to monitor mankind. He'd organized them, but not killed them. She wondered at that. He'd hidden the EVA's but not destroyed them, or taken them, until now. Either something was preventing him from doing so, or he'd been ordered not to, until now. She didn't care, she had a shiny new EVA again, and she was happy. This unit only had two eyes, but that didn't bother her.
"If this unit is like Shinji's Unit-01 in the way we inhabit them, I wonder if it can do the same things his can? Only one way to find out," Asuka said, bending over to pick up the broken TPG unit, and the Energy whip. She clipped the whip to a bracket on her hip, and examined the Gun. She could probably salvage it, with a lot of help.
"Pilot Soryu that was incredible, but where did the EVA's come from, and why did that other unit attack you?" came Bergs voice over her comm.
"They were hidden here by Rotmal, he was an Angel in human form, serving another master. He's dead now. You're in charge. Commander Berg."
"What are you going to do now Pilot Soryu?"
"Me, I'm going to go home, Commander, I'm going back to Japan," she said.
"I thought Germany was your home," Berg said.
"So did I, once, but I realized that the only home I've ever needed is waiting for me in Japan. Goodbye Commander. I'll try to send help back to you, or I'll return myself, if I can't," she lowered her head, and tried to concentrate, wondering how hard this was going to be. She'd been practicing the manipulation of her AT field ever since she'd figured out she had one 6 months ago. Now to put that practice to the test.
"How are you going to get there?" Berg asked, as the energy began to surge through her body.
"I'm going to fly there," she said, as six great crimson wings exploded out of her back, stretching toward the sky.
"I have a promise to keep."
Next on Episode 2:23 of Neon Genesis Evangelion It's the first of our two part Season Finale. Shinji's birthday arrives in Japan, but not very many people seemed to have noticed. None of his friends seem very excited about it, Shinji least of all, and some of them aren't even around. He's in for the shock of his life when an unexpected gift is brought through the door. But will this gift remain unwrapped, untouched, as he wallows in denial.
It's Evangelion Episode 2:23 Blow out your Candles