Experimentality Chapter 6, an evangelion fanfic

I don't own Evangelion, however cool it would be.

Experimentality Chapter 6

The tiny little dot that was the Angel was just barely visible in the targeting system of the positron rifle. The Angel, this time a giant winged creature, had lifted from the air just above Tokyo-3 and ascended into the heavens, where it currently lay in wait. Asuka fidgeted with the rifle. She had been waiting here for almost an hour, keeping the Angel in sight while Magi supercomputers in the headquarters below the city ran diagnostic tests on it.

"Dammit! This is so boring!" Asuka said. "Why are we waiting here?"

"Because we're down a pilot." Misato answered. "Remember the last time there was an Angel in orbit? If this one tries to pull the same stunt, we have to be ready to catch it." Misato turned from the communications screen down to Lieutenant Ibuki. "Lieutenant, when will those tests be done?"

"I don't know, Major. The Angel caught us at a bad time, we were working on the mainframe of the Magi, so different parts and programs aren't working at full operational power right now. Sempai's down there trying to get updates completed." Maya replied.

"Can you give me a rough idea of when the tests will be finished?" Misato asked again. She wasn't going to get lost in the technobabble of a subordinate, not today.

"Er…at the current computational speed, about three hours. But I think Ritsuko will be finishing any moment now, so it may be about fifteen more minutes. I'm not entirely sure."

Misato sighed. There wasn't much more she was going to get out of the lieutenant. She was about to back to her office when Lieutenant Hyuga spoke up.

"Ma'am, energy readings have changed slightly on the target. The Magi aren't able to tell me if they rose or fell, but they have changed by about 10."

Misato opened up communications with Unit-02 again. "Asuka, we've got a change in energy readings. You see anything different?"

"No, the stupid gray dot is the stupid gray dot it was a half-hour ago, and a half-hour before that, and a ha-"

"Cut it out Asuka. Its about your break time, Rei will take over in about ten minutes. Just hang in there for a few more minutes." Misato said. Meh, I guess the proverb about no rest for the weary was just a myth.

Makoto spoke up again. "Energy readings are still changing. The pattern the Magi are showing me makes me think it's a rising amount of energy in the target."

"Okay. Asuka, you hear that? The Angel looks like it may be about to do something, so be careful out there." I don't think I could keep going if I lost another one.

"Yeah, yeah, this'll be a piece of cake." Asuka said. Misato couldn't help a smile. At least she's gotten a bit of her edge back. Maybe she was just sick or something. A nagging voice kept going in the back of her head. Yeah, sick in the head. Everybody here is like that somehow, but these kids, I'm not sure how they keep operating like they do. Its almost a superhuman action.

"Major! Energy fluctuations becoming critical!" Makoto said as Misato's eyes grew large.

"Asuka! Get out of there!" A slight beam of light cracked the clouds open, then, the crack grew and light flooded in. At first nothing happened, there was no melting of armor, or no large explosions as a piece of the Angel rammed the ground. It was nothing more ominous than the sun coming through a hole in the clouds. Suddenly though, the communications link between Central Dogma and Unit-02 cut out. There was no fuzz to give warning, just a simple blackout of the line.

"Asuka? Can you hear me? We lost visual. Answer if you can hear us." Misato said. The room waited for a response. There was none.

"Rei, contact Asuka, and tell her to switch to channel 2." Misato ordered..

"Yes ma'am." Rei answered. It was quiet for a moment. "Major, the channel is blocked. It is impossible to get through."

Misato thought a moment. "Hyuga, make a communications switch to channel 2. See if its just interference." Nothing happened for a second, then the channel came online, then flickered off. Unit-02 sat on the surface, standing in the center of the beam.

Shigeru spoke up. "This is surreal. It just seems like something's gonna hap-"

A long, bloodcurdling scream through the loudspeaker, followed by shorter inhuman squeals. "Major, psychograph readings going haywire!"

"Quick, retract the Eva! It's still on the platform, right?" Misato yelled.

"No good! All signals that cross the beam are getting flooded out."

Unit-02 began staggering, and the positron rifle fired several times, demolishing whole city blocks at a time. The last shot fired into the camera that was providing the live feed into Central Dogma, cutting off visuals from the surface temporarily.

"Cut off the power to the rifle from this end, we can't afford to have it keep shooting. Rei, fall back until we can come up with a plan, you're all we've got to use at the moment." Misato ordered. Things were bad and rapidly getting worse.

Another shriek came through the loud speaker, but this time Asuka was screaming. "Get out! Get out of my mind!" She screamed again, but that scream was cut short by the communications line going dead.

A fiery look glowed in Shinji's eye. "Damn you Asuka! You're no better than me! You cry for your mother in your sleep! You can't stand it when people ignore you! You complain about how others act while you don't give a damn about how you do! You….ARGH!" He reached up and wrapped his hands around Asuka's neck. "Damn you to Hell! You deserve no better!"

A twisted version of personal hell appeared before her. Visions of her past streamed through her mind. Hanging dolls. Her step-mother. Her father. Visiting her mother in the hospital. A railroad crossing bell shrieked as it approach and quickly passed in review.

"Stop it! I don't want to remember this!" Asuka said.

"Not your decision, I'm afraid." A grotesque version of someone familiar to her stepped out. He was tall, thin, and had long pitch black hair.

"Who are you?" Asuka asked, genuinely afraid.

"Ah, me, you ask? Its someone you know very closely. For all you know, I could be your past, present, and future, or perhaps just your past and present. I haven't really decided at this point."

Asuka walked a step up to the man, and grabbed him by the tie he was wearing and pulled his face down close to hers. She was recovering from the shock, and she was going to show who was boss. "I asked you what your name is."

"I'm sorry, but I'll leave that to you to figure out." He said from behind her. Asuka did a quick blink. All she held was the man's tie. The man walked up, and snatched it from her. "Such a rude little girl. I suppose that will never change."

"But…but how! You were just!" She pointed to the spot where the man had been standing before.

"Anything is possible in the world of the mind." The train car faded away into a hallway. Asuka felt goosebumps begin to creep up her arms and legs. She knew where she was.

"Momma, momma! They made me an elite pilot! I'm not supposed to tell anyone, but I'll only tell you momma!" The real Asuka shuddered. She knew what was coming next. She would open the door….

"Stop it! I don't want to see this! Stop it!"

"A tender memory, I see. I'll make sure you get the time enjoy it thoroughly."

Child Asuka's hand reached up slowly for the door. "Don't open it, don't open it, don't open it!" Asuka screamed. The little hand wrapped itself around the doorknob, and began to turn it. "NOOOO! NO! Stop it! Stop it!" The door slowly opened, revealing only the man standing there.

"Surprise!" The dark man said, enjoying the look of shock and horror on Asuka's face. He stood in an open room. It looked exactly like her mother's hospital room, except he was the only person in it.

"Who are you? Please, just go away…I'm sorry! Please just leave me alone!"

The man walked towards Asuka. He radiated an air of unbelievable coldness. He began to morph, his body becoming shorter, his long hair shrinking, and the sharp features of his face softening. "Asuka, I believe we've met before," said the unmistakable form of Shinji. Asuka took a step back out of pure fear. His hands extended, and his icy grip tightened around her throat.

"Shinji! Stop! Stop! I'm sorry for it all! I'll be nicer from now on! I promise!" Asuka begged. Instead, his hands tightened even harder around her neck.

Shinji cracked his neck. "I believe it's a little late for apologies, but I'll take it into consideration. Perhaps I'll let you live a little longer?" He faded from view.

"The psychograph is going way out of the safety zone! She's not going to last much longer!" Makoto said, spinning around to face Misato.

"Unit-02 is shutting down! All the neural connections are staying connected, but most machine aided functions are deconnecting! There's a risk of major damage to both the Evangelion and the pilot!" Maya shouted.

Misato started to panic, grasping for some possible operation to help Asuka. "Send Rei up another rifle. See if she can snipe it out of orbit. NOW!" Furious keyboarding could be heard as the rifle was scrambled up to the surface.

"Dammit! Who did that?!? It was sent up the wrong shaft! Its been frozen by the beam in the storehouse right beside Asuka!" Maya said. "Send the order to retract, try and get it back down!" she continued, already typing furiously to get the command through.

"Forget it! Send up Shinji's rifle through port A7, its far enough away from the affected area that it shouldn't have any problems." Misato ordered.

"Ma'am, its configured for Shinji's Eva, not Rei's! She might not be able to fire it!" Maya protested. "Give me a minute, and we should ha-"

"We don't have a goddamn minute! We've got a pilot dying out there, and we're going to do something about it." Misato growled. "I'm not going to risk a second or a third life today, understood?"

Maya was terrified by the Major's alternate personality. Her voice trembled as she spoke back. "Y-yes m-m-ma'am." She turned around and started typing again.

Asuka was a little girl. She carried the stuffed bear her grandmother had given her tightly by her side. She walked up to the glass, the window into her mother's room. She could hear her talking inside. "And if you don't eat, Asuka, that little girl will laugh and laugh at you. You don't want that now, do you?"

Of course, it was that stupid doll. That stupid doll that had replaced Asuka. She began to cry softly. "Don't you want me? Doesn't anyone want me?"

Her teddy bear's neck began to spin around. Its beady eyes made contact with hers. "Of course not, little girl. Dolls are much quieter than you. They'd rather have me instead…" The bear's head morphed into a mixture of Rei and the Raggedy Ann.

"They'd rather have me instead…"

The voice continued echoing through her head.

"But I don't want to be a doll! I want to think and have emotions for myself!" Asuka said, screaming at the people who had their backs turned to her. "Doesn't anybody like me?"

A face appeared in the darkness. It multiplied until that was all that surrounded her. It was the face of Shinji Ikari. There were several different emotions, concern, sadness, happiness, but all rapidly turned into anger.

"There was one, once upon a time…."

"Once upon a time…"

It was Asuka, first learning to read. "O-once up-on a time…there was a princ-ess." Little Asuka sat in her mothers' lap, pointing to the words and laughing at the pictures. She looked up. Her father was reclining in his chair, with a grin as he smoked his pipe.

She looked up at her mother. "Am I a princess mommy?"

"Yes, darling, you're our little princess."

Teenage Asuka stood by the fireside, tears streaming down her face. "No I'm not! I'm not your princess! You went and replaced me with a rag doll and another woman! You never loved me! No one's ever loved me!"

Shinji's voice echoed over it all. "Are you sure no one's ever loved you, or is it that you've never let anybody love you."

"Shut up! Just shut up! You'd never know what love is! You never touch me! You never hold me! You're goddamn clueless about love!" Asuka screamed at him.

"Or is it you that is clueless about love? Love isn't always blatant, you know." Shinji replied.

Asuka felt surrounded by flames. Her plugsuit felt like it would start melting any second, and she felt scalding liquid making contact with her face. It took every bit of self-control she had to keep from screaming in pain. What felt like forever past before the sensation was gone, replaced by a tingling feeling.

"But I suppose you wouldn't know that now, would you Asuka?" Shinji said.

"Rei! This rifle is outfitted for Unit-01, so be careful. Use a building if you need something to stabilize it. Fire two shots in rapid succession, we're going to try to blast our way through the AT Field, got it?" Misato ordered.

"Understood." Rei said quietly. Although she wasn't the personality to worry, especially over someone like Asuka, she was becoming concerned over the silence of Unit-02. She picked up the rifle, then nearly dropped it. The Major had been right, it had been outfitted for Evangelion that was slightly bulkier than hers. She wrestled the gun onto a building, then waited for the targeting system to align on the target. The HUD flashed TARGET ACQUIRED, and Rei stabilized herself for the shot. She was going to need every last bit of her training to pull the shot off, placing two unstable beams of energy on the same point hundreds of kilometers away.

She fired once, but the gun's recoil heavily damaged the building, leaving Rei to drag the gun over to a sturdier building. She leveled the gun again. As soon as the display flashed the target acquired signal, she pulled the trigger twice as fast as she could, then rolled over and started running to prevent an easy counterattack from the Angel. Whatever was happening to Asuka, Rei sure as hell didn't want to have happen to her.

Meanwhile, the ground crew watched as the beam arced across the heavens. "Both hits confirmed, no damage to the Angel. Most of the energy was dissipated into space." Makoto read as the results were coming in.

Ritsuko finished climbing the ladder from the Magi up to the central control center. She looked up at the screen and saw the Angel. "How big is that thing?" She asked. "It must be 3-4 kilometers long! How did that thing get up there without being noticed?"

"We don't know, even though it originated just above our heads, we didn't get a visual until it reached that altitude. Both pilots couldn't confirm a visual even when it was within the GeoFront." Maya said.

"Where?" asked Ritsuko. "We've had an embryonic Angel within a kilometer of us?"

"Yes. It seemed to originate within the hospital building between the 10th and 12th armor layers. That may not be the embryo's starting place, though." Shigeru stated.

"Are you suggesting someone smuggled it into the hospital?" Ritsuko asked.

"It is a definite possibility." Maya finished.

"Major! The psychograph, it had begun to stabilize, but its starting to go haywire again! Asuka may not last much longer!" Makoto said.

Misato weighed her options, but couldn't come up with an idea. She turned to face the Commander. "What do you suggest we do, Commander?"

Gendo turned to Fuyutski, who bent down to listen. Both whispered to each other weighing their options, with Fuyutski starting to become visibly upset. Finally, Fuyutski stood back up, while Gendo turned to face the room, which was awaiting his word. "Rei?"

"Yes, Commander?" Rei answered quietly.

"Descend to Terminal Dogma and retrieve the Lance of Longinus." Gendo said firmly.

"Yes, Commander." Rei said in the same flat tone.

Asuka's hands, struggling to pull Shinji's away from her throat, began to lessen their resistance. The last gasps for breath escaped her throat. She hung there as Shinji continued to press tightly on around her neck. Finally, convinced she was dead, Shinji laid her down as his breathing became more erratic. Tears formed in his eyes as his anger began to subside and the realization of what he had just done sunk in.

He kneeled down beside her, sobbing quietly. He wrapped his arms around her lifeless form. "I'm sorry Asuka. Asuka! I'm sorry!" He quieted, but continued to hold Asuka tightly against him. The anger which had taken hold over his soul was gone, replaced by a deep feeling of regret.

"Ma'am! The psychograph's gone dead!" Makoto said.

"Rei! Get back up to the surface! Asuka's almost dead!" Misato screamed into the communications box. She was starting to cry. "Kill the Angel. Kill it…kill…" She said, collapsing into the floor as a total emotional wreck.

Ritsuko stepped forward and whispered into Shigeru's ear. "Get a medical crew with tranquilizers up here. Misato doesn't need to see any more of this." She looked back sympathetically at the sobbing woman.

"Unit-00 has reached the surface." Maya said.

Gendo had started to sweat slightly around the forehead. SEELE was not going to like the news that a pilot had died. "Rei, throw it now!" Rei took a running start, then hurled the Lance like a javelin. It shot through the air, ripping through the Angel like air, then continued off into space.

"The lance has destroyed the target and has entered lunar orbit." Maya said.

Gendo stood up. "Get a medical team out to Unit-02. Withdraw Unit-00 from the battlefield. Get crews on the damaged weapons, and retrieve the rifle that was sent up by mistake." He turned around and walked out of the room, followed closely by Fuyutski.

The stretcher pulled was pulled into the room by several attendants, one of which produced a long needle, which he stuck into Misato's arm. She was loaded up onto the stretcher and wheeled out of the room.

Ritsuko took command of the situation. "Get Pilot Soryu out and into the medical ward. There might be a trace of brain activity that the sensors can't pick up. Get Shinji back to the medical ward. I want that entire wing scanned for any blue patterns. I want to know why the Angel escaped detection at that close of a range."

Dammit, thought Ritsuko, I hate Thursdays.

End Experimentality Chapter 6

A/N: Wow, I guess when you have ideas, the story does come out a lot faster. I've got a couple other story ideas bouncing around in my head, so I'll probably write on those for a little while to clear my thoughts a little, but I have a definite idea of where I want this one to go at least for another chapter or two. After that, it goes past my original plan from when I first started writing this, so I don't know where it will go from there. I might finish the story off in another few chapters, or I might keep going. It depends on if I feel I can continue with the story past that point I guess. I'm also planning to go back and rework a few of the older chapters and see what I can do with them, I was reading them last week and they felt awfully short to me.

You may have noticed the chapters are getting longer. I have been working hard on trying to fit more story into one chapter, but if it starts getting tedious or boring, please tell me, I'll know I've reached a plateau where my chapter size tops out. As always, please R&R, I look forward to your comments. Hope to see all my regular readers back in the next chapter, and hopefully a few new ones. Til next time, happy reading, you all.