Disclaimer: I don't own Neon Genesis Evangelion either
"Goddamn Rubel, making me come all the way out to this god forsaken ruin because he had a suspicion that something might be here, and goddamn myself for sensing something!" Renee screamed to the heavens, cursing her poor luck in assignments. It had been two weeks since she, (and everything else that could sense yoma energy) had felt the massive explosion of foul youki that originated around the western area, which had promptly fled south.
What she had noticed that most others wouldn't have was the secondary flare of youki that occurred in the same area not two hours after the first. Compared to the massive sledgehammer of power that had previously assaulted her senses, the second reading had been smaller, nearly minuscule, in fact it hadn't even really felt like youki at all.
It was closer to that skin crawling feeling whenever she got too near the Organizations new "toys."
Now that was a scary thought, having one of those Abyssal Feeders be so powerful it could trip her senses from that far away.
But unlike those abominations, this one felt different, almost like it was more of a vision. For two nights she suffered constant nightmares.
Nightmares of a young boy forced from his home after he lost the last of his family. How the boy had been rescued by a beautiful woman with silver eyes. The fear as he held her, trying desperately to bring her back to humanity, willing to die with her if he could not. The sorrow he felt when she forced him to leave her, as he stood cut up and bleeding. A crippling loneliness.
Then companions once more, a white haired man and his brown haired daughter. Training with the man in the art of the sword for years. The terror when the man was attacked by monsters more terrifying than any he'd encountered before. The fear of his companion when she could no longer contain her hunger...
The little girl and her teddy bear.
The shadows, the voices. "Beast," they cried, "Monster!"
Her confusion over what this new presence felt like gave her a constant migraine.
The visions haunting her sleep kept her from resting for nights on end.
She had reported her findings to her handler, a man who hid his true nature behind round sunglasses and a black fedora, and he bade her to go to the west, where she had felt this "Feeling" and if she could, bring back whatever the hell it was.
Yeah, right. She was feeling really confident about that option as she strode into the demolished town square. It had taken her two days to get to this back water town, whatever was here probably left days ago.
Renee shook her head in disgust as she walked past the dried bloodstains on the ground and the walls. Apparently that Awakened had had quite the party before she decided to hit the road.
Something crunched behind her, and she whirled around, bringing her massive sword to bear.
And was stopped by the sight of the two black clad warrior women standing behind her, impassive expressions on their identically beautiful faces.
...
Holy flippin' monkey bastards, what the hell were they doing here!?!
"Hello numbers one and two, what brings you here?" the corn rowed Claymore inquired to her comrades, trying to sound indifferent and not as close to soiling herself as she really was.
"We have been ordered to accompany you in finding the awakened," Alicia responded mechanically, her voice devoid of any semblance of emotion. Renee shivered.
"So the higher ups think I can't handle this on my own?"
"Nonsense," and oily voice came from behind the twins, "We just want to make sure nothing goes awry." Renee did a double take as she looked past Beth's right shoulder to the sunglasses hidden in the shadows just beyond her.
"Rubel," Renee dead panned, she should have known. That snake wasn't often far from a new bit of information, "But wait a moment, you weren't Alicia and Beth's handler, last I checked," Rene stated, crossing her arms over her breasts.
"True enough, but Rimuto felt the situation warranted their use, so he sent them as well. Just think of them as back up."
"Great..." Renee groaned as she about faced and continued walking in the direction she was heading before their arrival, "Follow me, it should be up ahead."
Rubel nodded and the foursome made their way through a broken down arch into a cracked and gutted courtyard.
A cracked and gutted courtyard with many, many graves.
Row after row, aisle after aisle of planks and stones dotted the courtyard, a silent testament to the men women and children who lay buried beneath the soil.
And at the far end was a hunched figure wrapped in what appeared to be a ragged dirty blanket. He shoveled dirt from a mound just beyond him into hole with a simple wooden board marking it; his ragged, light brown hair matted with dirt and sweat as he used a broken broadsword to pile dirt on top of what had to have been a corpse.
The man stiffened and stopped his work, and slowly turned to regard the four... companions. His face, though partially covered by his light brown hair, had a firm jaw and a strong countenance, despite it's relative youth. He couldn't have been older than twenty winters, and yet his single brown eye spoke to Rene of a lifetime of suffering.
Lightening coursed up and down Renee's spine. The man's face... it was so familiar. But it couldn't be...
"What happened here?" Renee asked the haggard stranger, but he just stared at her, his sole eye boring into her, as if he were scrutinizing her very soul. He then cocked his head to the right, seemed to sniff the air, and promptly turned on his heels and walked off into the ruins.
"Hey! Wait!" Renee called after him, giving chase and leaving her three companions behind. Rubel exchanged a nod with Alicia and beth, and the Black Twins followed suit, bounding over the graves to reach their comrade.
Rene looked left, and then she looked right, but she saw no sign of the man. It was as if he had just... vanished.
But that's impossible, humans can't just up and disappear. Not even Warriors can accomplish such a feat. He must be hiding, that's it! He's probably holed up in one of these crumbling, ruined buildings, the fool.
Renee never did credit men with much intelligence, even when she was human.
She followed the nearest building until it formed an alley with a hollowed out shell of what was once a church.
And the sight she came upon was hideous enough to give her pause.
The ground, the walls, everything was covered in drying dark ichor, stuff that looked like pulped flesh. It was as if someone had taken the unfortunate victims and squeezed them through a juicer. Partial corpses littered the ground, missing heads and torsos, limbs having been removed.
And the stench, oh goddesses, the stench was horrific enough to make Renee, the organization's number six, a seasoned veteran to gag.
Wait a second. This smell, it wasn't a human smell. No... human ichor smells like pain and iron.
This filth smells of rot.
"These are yoma," came a voice behind her, causing her to whirl around in shock. Alicia and Beth were standing behind her, silent until now, their twin faces seemingly unperturbed by the hideous sight.
Renee turned back to the alley, "But what could have done this?" She took a hesitant step forward, drawing her claymore as the wet ground squelched beneath her foot. "You two cover me."
"Roger," came the monotonous response.
Renee slowly inched her way into the alley, keeping her gaze constantly shifting between the alley's end, and the crumbling rooftops, wary for any for of danger that could possibly spring on her. The horrible stench of the fetid meat and the disgusting squelching noise of the blood-wet dirt didn't help her nerves.
Something felt to the ground with a loud crash, and Renee spun around, swinging her blade wildly, cutting long gashes through the stonework with the ease of a hot knife through butter.
"That was merely some rock number six," came Beth's beautiful monotone. Rene blinked, and as the dust cleared saw that it truly was nothing more than a loose, though rather large, stone that had fallen off from the crumbling structures.
"Tch," Renee made to put away her blade in frustration when her silver eyes beheld a faint trail of red dripping of it's point, "What in the-"
"RAAAGGGH!"
The wall to her left flew apart with a clap of thunder and a blurry figure rushed forward, connecting a perfect right cross to her jaw. The punch's force actually lifted her off her feet and blasted her through the alley's opposite side.
The stranger followed after her, and coming down from above to drive his fist through her face. Fortunately, Renee rolled to the side and managed to avoid the hit, which demolished the pave stones instead, literally rendering them unto dust and leaving a small crater in the ground.
Renee staggered to her feet, and then dropped to a knee to avoid the man's blistering straight, and was unable then to dodge the kick he aimed as her chin, which snapped her head up, and lifted her once more off her feet and sent her skipping across the cobble stone road as a stone would in water.
Coughing, the organization's number six tried to raise her body with all of her might, desperate to get onto her feet before whatever the hell that was took another shot at her, as her lower jaw now dangled bonelessly, a bloody mess held onto her face by a thread of muscle and tissue.
As a defensive type warrior, she forwent having a body that was geared towards special attack techniques and instead received one with an advanced form of regeneration. She could regrow lost chunks of flesh, and could re-attach any lost limb. But healing a shattered jaw was a bit much even for her.
Seriously, what the fuck! How could something hit her so hard that it rendered her bones to dust. Her entire lower jaw was gone, powdered into a bloody pulp of burning agony that was slowly, painfully knitting itself back together.
Then a strong hand grabbed her braids, and pulled her up to her feet as his other hand formed a vice grip around her throat, slamming her into yet another wall with enough force to sending a spiderweb of cracks arching out from her body.
Pain flared all along her back as she hung limply in her assailants grasp. This was it, this was the end of her. Four bloody long years of training, fighting and suffering, finally attaining a single digit status, only to have it ripped from her not one week later. The gods were truly cruel indeed.
"... chance to leave, but you had to... want with me?"
Huh? Wait a second, the man was saying something. Her captor slammed her roughly against the wall, cracking it even further and snapping at least three of her ribs like dry twigs. Renee coughed blood.
"I said, 'WHAT DO YOU WANT WITH ME?!'"
Renee could only blink in shock. This mysterious man had a voice that sounded something akin to a wolf's dying growl, as his entire face seemed to contort with righteous fury, as if she were the one who had attacked him. The feeling from before had returned in full force, hammering into her sensibilities from the proximity, driving her mind into a panic as sheer liquid terror seemed to course it's way through her veins.
"You're blood may be red, but you smell just like the others. WHY ARE YOU HERE!?"
"Guhhhg," she gurgled, her splintered jaw still not up to the challenge of actually forming words quite yet.
The man seemed puzzled for a second , before he grunted in annoyance and with his free hand, shifted the hair from the left side of his face, and Renee had to choke down a wet gasp.
While the man's face was contorted into the very aspect of fury, the right side of his face could still be seen as handsome, what with his strong chin and comely dimples, had he not been baring his fangs at you.
The entire left side of his face was an hideous, angry red scarred mess that was bordered by what appeared to be black taint underneath his skin, as if something had flayed the flesh from his scalp and slapped on a fresh patch of flesh, forgoing the ideals of esthetics in place of a crippling need for skin, any shade and texture available.
But the part of him that drew her attention like the youki of an Abyssal One at close range was his eye.
The white of his eye was replaced by a black that seemed as deep and as dark as a starless night, his cornea was a fetid yellow, and his pupil was elongated and narrowed resembling that of a cat... or a yoma.
"NO!" he cried as he leapt in front of the girl, swinging his great sword with all his might at Priscilla's once pretty face, but she was the quicker. And her hand darted forward with a sickening back hand.
There was a flash of blinding light, and the sound of something cracking. And then nothing.
...
Oh goddesses, he was the one...
His left eye turned it's gazed at her ruined jaw, (moving independently of his right she noted with some dawning horror), and the cornea began to glow with a pale golden light...
...And she could feel her lower jaw start to reform.
She had always used her own youki energy as had every other warrior to heal their own wounds. Every time she grew back a limb or closed a wound with her monstrous powers she felt what could be best described as the entirety of the pain she would have felt during the time it took to heal naturally, condensed into the five seconds it took her to regenerate, as if her body was crying out at her, screaming, "THIS ISN'T RIGHT! WHAT THE FUCK!?"
While handy, regeneration was hardly a pleasant ability.
Which is why the gentle warmth that spread throughout her jaw, overlying and neutralizing the burning agony shocked her. Regeneration, cause she could feel the bones in her jaw reforming, was supposed to be a painful, exhausting experience. It was supposed to feel so horrible that the mere memory of it would be enough for you to avoid injury again.
But this man seemed to actually reach out to her with his...youki, ( It certainly felt like youki when the eye glowed, but there was no trace of it earlier, even when he sent her flying through that wall,) and not only quicken the healing process, but relive her of her pain as well.
What in god's name was he?
"Your jaw should be healed by now, so I'll ask you one last time," was that his voice? His lips were moving, but his voice was so scratchy earlier, not this deeply delicious baritone.
...
Deeply delicious baritone? What the fuck was wrong with her?
The man removed his left hand from her throat and instead placed it on her shoulder to keep her upright on the wall. Suddenly she could here a tearing noise, followed by what sounded like a blade being sharpened. She then felt an edge press against the flesh of her throat, and looked down to see a green blade extending from the man's right forearm held against her throat.
"Why are you after me?"
"I believe I can answer that better than her even with her jaw in working order," a smooth voice played out to their right. Both man and warrior turned to regard the black clothed form of Rubel as he stood there flanked by the two most powerful weapons the organization ever created.
The man turned to regard Rubel fully, letting go of Renee who then slid down the wall limply, coughing.
Rubel's grin turned into a victorious smirk, "Alicia, attack."
A happy fire roared in the small cave the seven survivors of the Northern Campaign rested in, casting a dull orange glow to nearly everything in the room, present company included. The seven ghosts sat solemnly staring into the roaring blaze, it's heat warming their faces and it's orange hues reflected in their silver eyes.
"Say..."
"What Helen?"
Helen winced, Miria's tone had been a little too harsh, and the former number six promptly apologized not moments later. Seriously though, what was with all of this tension. You could cut it with a claymore.
...
Then again you could cut pretty much anything with that oversized butter knife, as the Clare and the late Flora proved with their Windcutter techniques.
"What do you think that was? That massive energy..." Uma was the first to speak, nearly visibly shaking from the memory.
"Hopefully something we'll never have to encounter," Deneve responded, sounding aloof as usual.
"Hopefully..." Cynthia agreed, hugging her knees to her chest.
Silence reigned in the cavern for several moments afterwards, broken only by the crackling of the firewood as it's essence was converted to heat and comfort for the weary warriors. Each of them feeling too awkward to do anything to break the silence, or at least waiting for Helen to get fed up enough to raise hell as per usual.
She was nice and predictable that way.
"Something's been bothering me though," Tabitha began, "We all felt that massive surge, right?"
"I think all the deaf, blind, retarded yoma babies in the world felt that," Helen responded.
"..." Six pairs of silver eyes blinked at her.
"What?"
They blinked again, simultaneously.
"Deaf, blind, retarded yoma babies?"
"..."
"..."
"It's just a figure of speech, fer chrissake!"
"Right~."
"Oh it is so on as soon as this blizzard dies down."
"What ever you say rubber arms."
"That's it 47! You, me, out side N-" the blizzard seemed to roar at least ten tens louder than before. The Ghosts could see grapefruit sized hail flying around, buffeted by the wind and crashing into anything and everything from the ground and rocks, to each other, while the swirling white-out of snow reduced visibility to record lows, "-not right now...But soon! You hear me 47! Soon!"
The other girls giggled at Helen's antics, but were mildly surprised that it was Clare who was prodding the fire spitter. Soon the cave was filled with jeers and insults, casually flung back and forth at one another in a manner that spoke of their years of comraderie; the unbreakable ties that their seven years of brutal training in the frigid north had forged between them.
They were sisters in battle, for better or for worst they would see each other through to the bloody finish.
But one battle sister was oddly quiet compared to the others, something there intrepid Captain couldn't help but notice.
Then again, only a "deaf, blind, retarded yoma baby" (insert stifled giggle here) wouldn't be able to recognize the looks of sheer adoration, (and lust) she gave Miria when she thought wasn't being watched.
Tabitha excused herself silently from the group and made her way to the mouth of the cave, leaning against the curving side to stare out into the swirling whiteness. Crossing her arms underneath her bosom, and letting out a white sigh, closing her eyes and turning her head to the south.
Okay, something was up.
"Tabitha?"
Tabitha squeaked and whirled around, to face a concerned, (and slightly amused) Miria, "C-C-Captain!"
Miria giggled softly and tilted her head to the side, a slightly cheesy grin stretching across her beautiful face, "Aw c'mon Tabby, we've been living together for seven years now, no need to be so formal."
"S-sorry Miria-san, it's just... You really shouldn't sneak up on people like that!" Tabitha stuttered at her leader, her face flushing at being caught off guard, and by Miria of all people.
"Heh, gomen, gomen. But you seemed a little down, is there anything you needed to talk about?"
Tabitha looked away from her crush to regard the raging blizzard outside, gazing firmly due south, "...No, it was nothing."
A delicate eyebrow quirked upwards, "Nothing? Sure didn't seem like nothing earlier."
"It was...It's just..." Tabitha sighed in defeat, "It's just something that's been bugging me for the past two days."
"You mean since we all felt that Awakened?"
"Yeah, but it wasn't the Awakened that bugged me."
"No? As I recall you collapsed from the sheer power of it."
Tabitha blushed again, not wanting to be reminded of that incident, "...Well, alright, that was some massive youki, but youki is youki and while that was a massive burst of it, it was still just youki."
Miria frowned, she didn't like where this was heading. "As opposed to... what?"
Tabitha didn't respond, she merely continued gazing towards the south. Miria grabbed her shoulder, and turned her subordinate to face her...
And was greeted by the sight of tears streaming down her comrade's face, "I...I don't... know," Tabitha blubbered out, "But I swear I could see him. I saw him get cut up and smashed. I saw how half his face was ripped off!"
"T-Tabitha?"
"And I saw the Awakened place her eye into his bloody socket. I saw the Awakened's blood flow into his veins, converting him, corrupting him, trying to turn him into some kind of monster, a beast the likes of which we've never seen before!"
If Miria was shocked by the normally timid warrior's outburst, she was struck dumb when the braided girl suddenly pitched forward, embracing the former Captain and burying her face into her shoulder.
Tabitha knew she was probably out of line, she knew it would be awkward and mortally embarrassing to be caught like this, but she couldn't help it, she had to let out the pain she had been suffering alongside this poor man. She sobbed to Miria about how she could feel his mind being raped for two days and nights as the monster within him strove to take control, slowly but surely chipping away at his sanity, eating his memories until he had nothing left to draw strength from.
"The last thing that left him was his name, oh god Miria, he doesn't even know who he is anymore!"
Miria had embraced the younger warrior, and was now rubbing soothing circles on her back, "Hey now, hey, Tabby, look at me," a pair of bloodshot silver eyes peeked up at her.
Miria smiled at the distraught girl, "Even if he's some monster that we've never encountered before, some horror so terrifying he can make Isley crap himself, he'll never get us, I won't let that happen."
Tabitha shook her head violently, "You don't get it, I'm not scared of him attacking us, I felt him beat back the monsters within him this morning."
"Then, what?"
Tabitha buried her head into the hollow of Miria's neck again, and spoke so softly the former number six had to strain her ears to hear her, "The last thing I saw, the thing that drove the shadows away from him, was a promise."
"A...promise?"
Tabitha nodded her head, "He was much younger, and all torn up from getting attack by a crazy warrior with braided hair and pointy ears-"
"Ophelia?" Miria gasped in shock.
"Mhmm, but she wasn't there at the the moment. He was in a forest, and this beautiful woman was telling him that he had to survive, because she was going to find him again finally he whispered out a name."
"Wh-who's name did he whisper?" Please god no, please god no.
Please, don't let it be who I think it is...
"...Clare."
"What did you say sister Latea?"
The shrouded nun turned her sightless eyes on the bald form of Father Vincent, and flashed a dazzling smile, "Oh, nothing father."
Vincent frowned, seven years ago they had found this unfortunate woman collapesed outside the wall of Rabona clothed just in a pile of rags, a bloddy gash marring her beautiful face, destroying what were once probably beautiful eyes. They had taken her in, cared for her, and eventually converted her to the Church of Rabona, where she served the city by caring for it's orphans.
For nearly seven years now, she had been a faithful warden for the little ones, constantly watching them, and they adored her. Crowds of children would come through the churches doors, wishing to play with "Sissy Latea" it really was a heart warming sight.
But for the past two days, she had been showing up to mass visibly shaken, with a slightly limp to her step as if she had been suffering from some unknown ailment.
When questioned she merely smiled her bewitching smile and said "It's nothing really, just not sleeping well."
To the children, whose heartfelt worry wracked her with feelings of guilt, she admitted a little more, saying how she had been suffering nightmares lately. When they asked what they were about, she replied that she had to watch a brave warrior get felled by a vicious monster.
The children offered to read her bed time stories, to "Chase out the monsters."
The blind woman shook her head ruefully, really now, who thought human's could be so...thoughtful.
But no amount of well wishers could lessen the fear in her heart. Something terrible had happened...
To a person who was important to that former comrade from so long ago.
"Whoever you are, whereever you may be," the former number 3, God-Eye Galatea said the the wind as she knelt by her bedside, "I pray that you survive. I pray that you lose no more than already have, for I'm sure she's waiting for you. And it would be a cruel fate indeed if she never found you again."
The man now monster rolled to the left as a blurring black arm slashed the building behind him in half, sending the second and third floors crashing ontop of the base, the stones shtattering with the impact.
He jumped high as two black whips tried to catch his legs and rip them off. Snarling he batted away the tendrils that chased after them with his arm blade, flipping in midair until he landed on a nearby roof.
And there she was, the Queen of Blades, Black Alicia in all her chitonous glory. Her black bodysuit cloaking her fresh armor plating from her extended neck all down to her her clawed feet. Her neck had extendedby a good to feet and had hardened, reinforcing a formerly vulnerable area, while her hair had fanned out, forming a collar of blades. Her thighs had swollen to the size of a sapling tree.
Her arms had become enormous scythe-like blades that curved inwards slightly inwards, with three smaller blades scything in the opposite direction.
She turned her head towards the scarred beast, and shook her head slightly, causing her crown of blades to extend out from her body and scream towards her opponent.
Scar roared in challenge and extended a second arm blade and whipped them into an elaborate parry, jumping to the right and falling off the the building he was on adn rolling out on to the street. The blades followed him unerringly and he swept his arms outwards, sweeping his bladesto knock all of them away from him.
And then Alicia was in front of him.
With one slash, she chopped off his arms. With a seoncd she bisected him, dropping his severed torso to the ground, where he lay bleeding.
"Alicia, I didn't want you to kill him."
The monstrous woman turned to regard her...current handler, 'Then you should have said something,' she hissed silently.
'Sister, be careful. This man is dangerous,' Beth's soothing presence slid into her conciousness. Contrary to the Organizations belief, the identical twins DID have a higher intellect than just what what was needed for fighting. However when you could communicate solely by thought, it doesn't get rejected much.
'I realize, but he's so damn irritating, they all are.'
Alicia stomped back towards her sister, who was getting ready to convert her back, when they both twitched...
As they felt an icy touch slide through their minds.
'Ow.'
Which was replaced by a storming wall of searing anger, causing Beth to fall to her hands and knees, gasping in agony, nearly losing the soul link form the sheer anger that was assaulting her psyche.
'Wha-?'
'PAIN!'
Alicia placed herself between her sister and the anger and whilred about in search of it's source.
There was nothing save for the pieces of the thing on the ground that was getting up and putting it self back togeth-
Wait, what?
The thing she killed stood up fully now, his body having completely reformed. Suddenly his entire form seemed to twitch, and the very air around Alicia seemed to condense as his body started to enlarge and deform. His abdomen narrowed while his shoulders broadened. His skin hadened and darkened to a night black which was then plated over with a chitonous purple shell. Black Pylons burst from his shoulders and rose to just above his head, while purple struts extended from the edge of his forearms.
'I FEEL PAIN!'
Orange plating covered his exposed throat, and a purple helm formed over his head, giving it narrower eyeslots, and a large horn protuding from it's fore head, as a lighter purple plating covered his jaws.
'MAKE IT STOP! KILL!'
The beast extended two green armblades from the purple struts and threw it's head back in a roar of challenge.
Well there it is, the second chapter is now done.
If you want a better look at the "unknown male character's" new form, (If you can't guess by now you should be shot) check out .com/art/Evangelion-Unit-01-3886206