No Need for Rei Ayanami

To put it lightly, it stunk. The reeking stench of the rotting skeleton radiate for miles, it had become so foul that even starving beasts that used to gnaw on the remnants of its flesh had even been warded off. Now all that was left was a few hundred flies that feasted on the bounty of this dead creature remained, the mixture of blood, bone, and metal all formed together to emit a putrid odor that only insects could find appetizing. The remains of EVA Unit-02 lay in pieces scattered over Rei's destination, a mile below this once god-like creature slept the body of a false Rei, and a abomination conceived only from Gendo Ikari's mind: The deadened mind of his cloned wife.

Rei Ayanami lay in Shinji's bed, the sweet smell of his condition that lay stamped on his pillow almost made up for the fact that he was keeping the young girl awake with his gentle snoring. The two had decided to sleep together under unconventional means, at first the thought of 'spooning' with Rei enticed Shinji's senses, but while clamoring into bed he noticed in the dim light of the moon that her eyes were still puffy, and her cheeks slightly red he could only think of her well being and not of his teenage lust. After her confession of the source of her misery, a one Gendo Ikari, Rei had once again gone silent, and Shinji renewed in his affection for the girl by her tears, wanted to give her all the time she needed to feel better.

Rei breathed in deeply the scent of the young boy's hair, she was letting her emotions take hold and the hate she had for both Rei-04 and Gendo Ikari seemed to almost heat up her body, a small fire of hate had been burning inside the First Child for a very long time, up until recently she had seen no purpose for anger but after being given emotions and seeing the horrible acts that Gendo was capable of, she was quickly defining the word 'hate'.

Knowing she should sleep for the day that was coming Rei closed her eyes and once again tried to push everything from her mind. But after another half hour of nothingness she wondered if she had simply forgotten how to fall asleep, not sleeping in the past 2 days trying to figure out the password might have caused the body to lose the ability of sleep. Worrying slightly she turned to face Shinji, and upon seeing his gentle face Rei felt her eyelids grow heavy and she began to create a story that only entailed her and her love.

Smiling, she was back in her EVA, the entire cockpit was on fire, the very liquid that surrounded her, her only means of survival was practically boiling! The looked back and forth, a smile still shone though on her lips as her melted EVA shook slightly as something outside caused the ground to vibrate. A few footsteps pattered outside, then Rei was blinded by her ejection plug door being pried open, the silent hiss of her hero's hands burning on the red hot metal echoed throughout her downed machine. Shinji burst in, his eyes full of tears, begging the young girl never to say 'goodbye' at the beginning of a mission, then asking her to smile. Doing as she was commanded Rei smiled, even outside of her dream, the young girl was smiling.

Rei's peaceful dream did not last long, awaking only six hours later, the digital clock bled 5 AM and sadly, the young girl knew she would have to leave before Shinji awoke, this was something his psyche simply could not take. This was also something Rei knew she had to do on her own, something that needed to be finished by her hands…why? Because it was her body, her mind, her heart, her DNA…but not her soul. It was an abomination, they both were, and had to be destroyed.

Slipping as quietly as she could out of the heavenly warm bed Rei entered the cold empty morning air, and walked toward the door. The only light in the room was that of the clock, which reflected of Shinji's face, the early morning sun had not yet peaked over the high mountaintops of Tokyo-3 and for a moment, Rei thought to herself poetically, she was leaving the light, the warm, and entering the dark and cold world of something which simply had to be done. Giving in one last time to her emotions, her heart, the only part of her she believed not to be synthetic, she returned to the warmth, and gently kissed him on his forehead. He murmured in his sleep and shifted his position, muttering the word,

"Mother." And all the light and warmth Rei had felt disappeared.

The last sound heard was the squeaking of an open door, and Rei's footsteps across the hall.

Rei noticed an odd odor in the air, a slight stench that made her tiny nose crinkle in displeasure, the 8 metric tons of rotting EVA flesh that lay 5 miles away cast a stench throughout her tiny Adam and Eve world. The young girl continued to walk, the laptop encased in a small khaki mailman bag that was slung over her shoulder. A long-sleeved deep red undershirt balanced the dirty blue punk color of her ripped over shirt that had Japanese punk rocker words inscribed all over it. Her ripped dusty jeans let a bit too much brisk morning air onto her legs, and Rei shivered slightly in discomfort. After a few moments she could no longer stand the silence and in a very Dr. Akagi manner opened the laptop and began typing with one hand, letting the other hand gently to its side. After a few moments she found what she was looking for, and hit play.

"Information journal direct for the Ikari-B project. The necessity for a purer sample is greatly desired, but thanks to the hand in hand complementation of Dr. Akagi and the newly developed MAGI system, a body is theoretically possible…"

Rei knew all this; she clicked the mouse a few times and skipped forward.

"The final compiling of the Ikari-B's mind took, 2 minutes and 34 seconds. The average time taken to compile a full human mind is 49 days, 2 hours, 34 minutes and 15 seconds. This speed confirms what has been expected. The lack of a 'soul' as senior director Dr. Akagi puts it, prevents the creature from having memories, feelings, normal reading brain waves, or even simple breathing abilities. The first being only lasted 3 minutes and 45 seconds before a lack of a heartbeat, brain waves, or breathing abilities ceased the creature's life."

Rei stopped, she once again could not believe her ears, and the Ikari-B project had been similar to that of the EVAs? How many had failed, how many creatures died before the final copy was given the ability to live. Rei paused the laptop and looked around, a nearby bistro sat nearby and Rei walked over to one of the outdoor tables, gently pushing the long since dried empty closes of the deceased onto the floor, Rei sat down and ran a new program, one that would allow her to pick and choose the answers she would receive, the questions she wanted to ask.

A half asleep Shinji Ikari rolled over, subconsciously flipping his drool stained pillow over to a dryer side, the young boy rolled over onto the cold end of the bed where Rei once slept. Muttering an apology to Rei's former space, Shinji rolled back onto his side, and returned to his pleasant dream.

With a shaky voice Rei asked the question she did not truly want to know the answer to,
"How many versions of the experiment Ikari-B were there?"
"231." The emotionless female voice from the computer spoke; her voice seemed to echo from every part of the empty city, every wall, glass, car, tree, and even air particle, being disgusted by the number. Would the Commander stop at nothing to get his wife back? Rei once again felt the taste of vomit in her throat, but knew there were more questions to be answered.

"How is the final Ikari-B able to sustain life?"

The computer spun for a moment, the little bottlenecked clock flip over and over until an answer came.
"Through fragment memories of the creature named Rei Ayanami."

Rei was still confused,

"Explain."

"The same technology used to create the 'empty' plug for the Evangelion Units. The technology that gives the Commander the power to grant any EVA the ability to override it's pilot's commands and go into a more 'machine' mode is used in…"
Rei shuddered remembering Shinji's screams after nearly killing his best friend inside an EVA that had been taken over by an Angel; the merciless REI false entry plug took over the EVA and destroyed the Angel/EVA without second thought, ripping it to pieces. The coldness of the air shook Rei once more and she continued to listen,

"Thanks to Dr. Akagi (junior), the program to map out Rei Ayanami's brain patterns were a success, and the primal abilities that sustain a normal creatures life were implemented in the 231st version of Ikari-B. Thus, she was giving a perpetual life. Because of the atmosphere in which the creature is sustained, birth to approximate age 36 only took 14 days, and now the creature is frozen at that exact age."

Rei shook her head. If all the Commander needed was a soul for this lifeless creature why didn't he just give it the soul that Rei had held?

"Why was the soul of Rei Ayanami given to the Ikari-B project?"

"The soul was only a fragment, not truly alive or dead. Identification on circumstances of this matter are a near mathematical equation and the ability to register and map a soul or for the system to even begin to understand the soul would be near impossible. The probability for all MAGI working together to map out a human soul before time of the human extinction is .00000000000000000000012. A number that could not be tolerated by the Commander. Dr. Akagi (Senior) theorized that with only half of the soul, the creature would not be given memories, feelings, emotions, or true life; she would be nothing more than a bio-android. This would not be permitted by the Commander, thus Rei Ayanami was born, another tool in which to permit Gendo Ikari access to the former Yui Ikari if the other fragment of the soul could not be recovered."

"And if the other half of the soul was recovered?" Rei asked, worrying slightly about what never came.

"The creature and all other versions of it would be immediately destroyed, Rei Ayanami would cease to be, and because this creature is less than human, there would be no complications involving murder. The girl known as Rei Ayanami is merely a tool. Nothing more."

In a fit of anger Rei slammed the laptops screen down, nearly shattering it, and continued on her path toward NERV headquarters, she would bring down the entire God damn building if she had to. Her emotions were on fire, and for the first time, they were working with her analytical mind, she was no longer the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde that had been for so long breaking her mind into two separate entities, for the first time in the 14 years of substantial life, Rei Ayanami was thinking like a perfect human.

Shinji would have loved to sleep until nine, ten, or even as far as noon. He had actually flipped his alarm clock off for just that reason, awaking lazily, and rolling over to see a dosing beautiful blue haired girl would have definitely started his day off on the right foot. Unfortunately at just before seven AM, as said blue haired girl was letting herself into the umbilical cable entrance to NERV, Shinji stomach began to rumble and he painfully rolled out of bed. Not eating anything since lunch, the two had skipped dinner and had practically gone straight to bed. Now, still dead from exhaustion the young boy stumbled barely conscious into the kitchen and threw in two pieces of toast, as his toes cringed on the cool linoleum floor, Shinji pulled out the butter and knife and patiently waited for the toaster to eject his meal. It's colder than usual in here, Shinji's mind thought suddenly, it felt as though a thick fog was cluttering up his thoughts, a fog that was usually caused by sleep, but this cool air was penetrating it, and causing it to shift and begin to deteriorate. The buttered cooked bread tasted like heaven as Shinji's stomach lurched, begging for more, after the young boy was halfway through his second piece he felt a cool air blow in from his left side, glaring angrily at its point of origin the brunette's mind awoke a bit more at the sight of an open door. Walking toward it, a piece of paper blew gently past his line of sight, reaching for it and missing the young boy reached down and plucked it up. A few moments later, the toast fell from his mouth and once again a child ran through the outside door, leaving only the padding of footsteps behind. The tiny little piece of paper fell on top of itself, and only Rei's perfect signature shone through.

Clang!

The access elevator hit it's destination of the lower level, Rei walked down the main hall toward where the laptop had told her to go glancing around as an explosion above caused the entire hallway to reverberate, and the lights to flicker.

Walking toward room 1129 Rei glanced up at its description: Emergency Nurse Station. She swiped her card key in and the lock dropped, releasing the door, and Rei walked in. Glancing around everything appeared as though it was an actual Nurse's Quarters, but that was the motif about NERV: nothing was ever as it seemed. Glancing around broadly the young girl found what she was looking for, a heart monitor with a NERV seal on it, to the normal eye this would have meant nothing, but the small red leaf had always represented something different. Kind of like an alert stamp that only people of certain stature knew about. Hitting the light Rei would have smiled inwardly if she still weren't so damn pissed off as she saw what looked like an input keyboard and entered the word

Patience.

Then stood back to wait patiently. She waited, and waited, then groaning slightly with great frustration she remember the new password:
HeavenIsEmpty.

Beep Beep.

The machine sprang to life and what had been a heart monitor's screen changed to that of a computer, and after a door opened she once again was told to memorize the password. Ignoring it, she walked through the door and into another large service elevator. Surprised that the elevator was not plush and well kempt like the many of the Commander's other possessions, Rei remember how powerful these service elevators were, and even in case of a full power shut down they would simply switch over to gas operation, and continue to work. The Commander had chosen efficiency over pleasure, as he often had.

Entering the cargo lift, Rei hit the bottom button and the elevator lurched gently, moving downward. There would be no more security features after this point, Rei had shook her head gently remember the two armed guards that had always been continuously posted outside the office, she had never once questioned this, believing someone of significance was stationed inside and the guards were placed to keep people out, or the patient in. Before Third Impact Rei had never questioned anything the Commander had said, done, or acted upon…everything had a meaning, everything was correct, everything was law. She never questioned, simply obeyed his rules, believing them to be the highest word. But now things had changed, everything had a double meaning; every action was not just simply done but was thoroughly thought out, nothing with the Commander, just like NERV, had only one purpose.

Shinji felt as though he had just eaten a whole chocolate bar, his mouth was full of spit that he couldn't get rid of and his side felt as though someone was stabbing a knife into it. He slowed at a small café leaning against a close wall and spitting onto the ground, he was so unbelievably out of shape for a kid, let alone a pilot. Breathing heavily it was almost as though he was heaving, his lungs felt contracted, begging for more air even though there were so full they could have burst, taking one more deep intake of the putrid air that surrounded him, he wondered if that smell was coming from the food at the small restaurant nearby as he once again began to sprint.

For whatever reason his stomach felt as though it was eating itself, it burned painfully with nervousness as his sprint quickly turned into a jog. He felt as though Rei's disappearance had something to do with why she had been so quiet lately, and if she had indeed returned to NERV, there had to be something wrong, as of late the young girl seemed to hate his father with as much burning rage as Shinji did. The two had been wronged by a man of such power so many times, but even though they had been to Hell and back, they still remained, and the young boy, in his immaturish mind, thought the world was still a game, he though falling in love with Rei, and her with him was sort of his prize, and his heart and mind worked together as he picked up the pace once more, he would not let his love disappear after such a short time, there was no way in Hell he would lose her.

On the more obvious part of his mind he knew it was because he loved her with all that a 14 year old boy could, the lower recesses of his mind, hidden away in the darkness, something that he would never admit to, wanted Rei around…so Shinji would not have to be alone. The young boy sighed, thinking how much Rei had changed him.

She was aware…

The silence of the room was not broken by the continuous sounds of beeping from the nearby machines, the hum of generators, or the clicking of reports being printed out…no these continuous sounds simply were cancelled out by Rei's hearing, the only sound was the sickening soft wiping sounds as Rei-04 moved around her tube, watching the real Rei with an half alive, half dead smile. The assorted instruments that lay scattered all across the mammoth sized room were peculiar, they seemed to be mostly tools that were used to work on the EVAs and a very large collection of needles and drugs that rested glistening from the large, bright, white overhead light that spotlighted the entire room. This place truly looked like Frankenstein's laboratory, it was frightening that these tools would be used on a living creature.
Rei looked fully around the room. It reminded the young girl of where she would rest after helping create the dummy plugs. The floor was an icy clean cement, which the light happily bounces away from; the two large tubes laid slightly back and glowed with a disturbing orangish-green color that reminded her of LCL. That what it had to be, with no masks over their faces, they were fed, aired, and kept alive by a special type of LCL. There were multiple mainframes that were feeding hundreds of large cables into the two girls, monitoring everything about them. The only tables were a mess, one had a laptop and a dozen other gadgets and tools scattered across with paperwork messily strewn everywhere, and the other had a number of large multicolored tubes, each with a scientific name on them…drugs. The smell of a hospital filled Rei's lungs and everything just had an industrial strengthed 'clean' smell to it. It was just like home, Rei thought, quickly shaking her head and dismissing the obvious reminiscent properties of this place to the place where she used to rest her head.

Walking over Rei first simply stared with uneasy calmness at her mirror-self. The unreal Rei exhaled, and gently floated downward, leaving herself just a head taller than the real Rei, smiling sweetly and watching her with the utmost attention. Rei swallowed hard, tasting the sour vomit in the back of her throat, and continued to stare at her. The metal and glass tube melded together seamlessly the eerie orange glow from the LCL bounced off the true Rei's face, and the gentle green glow of the heart monitor integrated into the lower portion of the metal casing gleamed pleasantly. There was only one part of the casing that seemed out of place: a shiny titanium rectangle that was bolted on just below where the metal met the glass, the words, 'Control Rei' were inscribed onto it. Glancing over Rei noticed the same "sign" on the Ikari-b's glass prison, 'Yui' was written onto it. Looking up Rei noticed that the older woman still stared complacently into the wall, not really noticing any of the events taking place around her…she truly was soulless.

Suddenly the silence was broken. The false Rei began to laugh, such a chime-like giggle that echoed inside the tube and radiated off the walls, the real Rei turned with horror to look at her unreal self and noticed that she was no longer staring at her, but looking just above the elevator. The girl was laughing because of the what the past Rei's had left her, memories, unreal feelings, these hollow thoughts and emotions bounced inside of her mind, and she continued to smile and giggle, for he was coming.

Following the trail of lights Rei had left for Shinji in a nearly breadcrumb-esque manner, Shinji would have enjoyed toying with the thought that he was just like a detective, following his suspect, if his mind had not been completely engulfed in his search for Rei. He was worried about her and wanted nothing more than to hold her and tell her what had been boiling in his mind for quite some time now, that he was falling in love with everything about her.

Finally reaching what appeared to be a mini hospital Shinji noticed that beyond the door, all the hallway lights were off, and the only other light was inside this room. Entering he glanced around and quickly realized that he had hit a dead end, this was nothing more than what it appeared to be: a nurse's station. Sighing heavily, the Third Child wondered if Rei had already come and gone, if he had simply missed her on this way toward NERV, perhaps passing her on the street. Ugh, his mind whined, this was so typical! Why was it, even when he was a God, he still managed to screw everything up! Why was he worthless, why was he such and idiot, a baka, why had he chased off the only person he had ever truly felt comfortable around, that he was not scared of? How could he have chased off his love, and the only other human in the world?

The system was definitely not a GUI based OS, the text-based commands were reminiscent of what Dr. Akagi used to type in directly into the MAGI system. Rei squinted at the red on yellow text of the screen, her nose scrunching up slightly, and tried to remember anything that she had learned from her computer class. Unfortunately her mind was a blank, had her mind simply forgotten? Something that the Commander had warned her when transforming her into a human, or was it because she couldn't get the horrid taste of vomit to leave the back of her throat, or the sound of the other girl's giggling from her mind.

Shaking her head from side to side, the young blue haired albino closed her eyes and held them closed as tight as she could, blocking everything else from her mind. Thinking back to her classroom lessons, the girl remembered one thing, and quickly she typed the command into the humming machine, her back to the two tubes.

/dir

A list of commands quickly filled the screen, hundreds of thousands of words and numbers came streaming past, and at then came to a sudden halt, and wait for their next command. Quickly finding what she was looking for, Rei typed in her second command,

/executables

A short five hundred stream of numbers appeared before her and Rei read through them quickly, she had to work fast, Shinji was fast approaching and she could not let him see his mother, his mind would not be able to bear it. Rei read fast,

/light1…no

/medicine.morphine2…no

/bloodsamp1…no

/eject1…no

/screen1…maybe.

Looking down the Rei typed in the command, and looked over at the her former self's tube, the LCL began thickening an a cloud of deep red that emitted upward from the bottom. The false Rei looked around feverishly, delighted by this new occurrence, and kept smiling until she disappeared behind the cloud that was the same color as her eyes.

Smiling inwardly to herself in relief to no longer be forced to look at her false self, Rei still cringed slightly as the echoes of laughter continued to radiate from the walls. Glancing down toward the terminal Rei was about to cloud the other tube when a question came through her mind, and she walked with almost a fearful step toward her 'mother'. Staring up at her, the living, breathing creature barely seemed to be alive, her unblinking nature made her almost appear to be created out of wax but the subtle movement of her chest caused by an inhumanly slow inhale and exhale of oxygen proved that she was truly alive. Rei quickly analyzed the woman's face, trying to quickly answer her question: How close were the two girls similar?

The chin and soft features of the face were instantly obvious, the notable white skin, as well as the red eyes, matched Rei's. Both qualities of which were not that of the original Yui Ikari but caused by the cloning process. The bone structure was different, comparatively speaking, as was the color of her hair and the shape of her nose and mouth. Rei's lips were much thicker as were her eyebrows, the older woman's eyes had more of an oval shape wherein the First child's had more of a circular shape.

This woman was as close to a mother as Rei could imagine and just for a moment, let her childlike tenderness take hold of her psyche and a soft seed of love was planted between the girl and the shell.

Still unblinking, Rei walked over to the terminal, knowing what had to be done. Even though the new feeling of compassion inside of her towards this woman was growing powerful, the clone still had to be destroyed. She was not human, nearly an abomination of life, just like her previous self, and the thought of Shinji seeing his mother in this vegetable-like state was not going to happen. The terminal had a new line of text on it, embroidered in red it flashed, warning the young girl that there had been an error in the screening of the false Rei and that particular system was jammed. Ignoring it, the First Child entered the command to screen the other tube, she could not stand watching her 'mother' being destroyed. The error emerged again yet the tube still filled with the cloudy mist, Yui ignoring it and still starting forward until it engulfed her being. At the last moment she seemed to understand what was about to happen and inhaled deeply, causing the mist to swirl around her pin line lips for a moment, then stop.

Rei was looking toward the terminal, seeking a certain command, and when finding what she was looking for, typed it in.

/medicine.neuropan1.2

The computer was surprised at this request and questioned the young girls motives,

This will cause severe brain damage and perhaps death, are you sure you want to continue?

/Yes

Enter number of CCs:

/600

There was no need to make the suffer, Rei thought. This would instantly shut down all motor skills and stop the heart, with this amount of medicine, the two would die before their nerve endings felt the prick of the needle.

/Please insert medicine into containment tubes.

A small containment door opened and waited for the admission of the liquid drug. Rei hurried over, and inserted a large amount of the drug found on the table next to her and closed each door. Upon her return to the terminal it once again asked her to confirm her decision. As she typed in her reply, she heard a loud clunking sound, and a young boy's voice.

"Rei!" Shinji Ikari finally had found an open door with a control panel, bringing the elevator back up to him, the young boy rode it down while Rei had been busying herself with the test tubes and medicine, completely oblivious to the beeping sound of a retracting elevator a sound which had been lost in the other various beeping and humming of machines.

Running over the brunette's heart swelled and his excited voice silenced the giggling of the false Rei.

"Rei Ican'tbelieve I found you! I was looking all over NERV for you and now we can go back home and I saw this nice café where…" Shinji's eyes narrowed at Rei's nearly fearful expression. "Wh-what is it?"

Rei looked over at the tubes, the shadows of the two women could only be barely made out, and Rei hit enter. Instantly the laughter stopped and a soft rubbing noise could be heard…Yui's dead hand was sliding down the glass. That's when it happened…

Shinji had been standing about twenty feet from Rei as she walked over to mentally say goodbye to her 'mother', oblivious to the hundreds of emergency messages that quickly filled the screen. Two miles up, the explosion caused my the twin tubes caused Asuka's Eva's corpse to shudder and below sent glass shards gliding across the room like dagger in all directions. As Shinji brought his hands up to his face, the brilliant light that hit every part of his body blinded him. The shadow which Rei's body casted onto the floor only lasted a moment a she was thrown backwards, her fragile body slammed against the wall and the disgusting crunching sound of shattering bones erupted from her chest. She fell face down onto the floor, her head hitting her and splitting her forehead open, blood leaking out profusely. The fire quickly dissipated because of the emergency sections, but the alarm blocked out Shinji's cries for his love. When his sight returned he looked with a horrified expression at his arm, a two inch piece of glass had embedded itself into it, being red hot because of the explosion the shard had skimmed across his flesh cauterizing it instantly, and the large scar it left trailing up to where it now laid caused Shinji to shudder uncontrollably.

He ignore it, his eyes triple their normal size, and cried out again for his Rei, coughing heavily in the clouds of smoke that had not yet dissipated. He stepped forward, but quickly stopped when another sharp pain erupted from his leg, a larger curved piece of glass jutted out, cutting deeply into his flesh. Almost throwing up by this sight and by the thought of his muscle being cut into Shinji's mind focused on the only thing that mattered: Rei.

She was breathing through blood when Shinji reached her, turning her over he knew instantly that this was bad. Her beautiful face had been hit hard, her forehead was gushing blood and one of the veins in her eye had popped, causing her entire eye to become crimson. Her chest looked like empty can of soda, it was apparent in the deformed shape of her chest that her ribcage was shattered. Her right leg was bent awkwardly, and her left arm was bent back behind her. Her good eye looked up toward the now bawling Shinji, and for a moment…nothing mattered. As the sweeping pain quickly dissipated and was consumed by a cold numbness, Rei simply stared at her boyfriend. Smiling gently, which radiated off her beautiful face, Rei spoke just before she fell limp.

"I…I love you….Shin…ji…Ikariiiiii….." Rei's eyes gently closed, and she fell heavily into the young boys arms.

Shinji at her, then involuntarily whipped his head skyward and with a primal howl…screamed.

Portland, Maine.

The gentle sound of water crashing against the soft-sanded beach made the oncoming evening of the cool New England night nearly picturesque. This scenic sleepy town was awoken by a sputtering sound, a old man, in his late 80s came coughing as he stepped onto the sand, collapsing with exhaustion.

Mr. Robert Stevenson was now the third living person in existence.