Neon Genesis: EVANGELION

Eva Wasn't Built in A Day.
v1.0 (final 'net release)

By Jared Waddell  :  rick_spiff@yahoo.com

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters in this work except for Goku
Takagi and James Rahn.

This story takes place post-episode 18.

******* WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING *******

    This fanfic contains  S P O I L E R S ! ! !

    This fanfic contains material that may be offensive to some
    readers, including material of a type never covered in the Eva
    series. This is not a nice story; it's Eva material, so if you
    didn't like some of the issues present in the series, don't
    even think about reading this!

******* WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING *******

Chapter 7:

---

The red rage that had clouded her vision finally lifted and Asuka found
herself standing in the smoldering crater in the middle of the Angel's
remains. For a moment, Asuka's mind was unwilling to recall any recent
events. In her mind's eye, Asuka saw the first time she met Toji and
Kensuke and Shinji and Misato. Then she saw the Angel attacking the UN
fleet. Finding out her new home was with Misato and Shinji. Pen Pen's
antics one fine Saturday morning.

Image after image flashed in her mind, some of the best and many of the
worst, recounting everything from her first meeting Shinji up to meeting

   (Goku)

that engineer for the first time. What was

   (Goku Takagi)

his name?

She gazed about the Angel-blood strewn battlefield. _Must've been some
fight._ Asuka thought. She looked down in her Eva's hand, which felt
oddly heavy. In it, she clasped her spear,

   (Pain)

and suddenly

   (kill)

everything came back all at once.

   (kill KILL KILL!!!)

They were unable to neutralize it's AT-Field no matter what they did. No
time to attack effectively. A power drain lowered the field the instant
it attacked. She was right there

   (Dead, Asuka.)

when the Angel turned to her, ready to fire, Unit-03 rising from the
ground like an ascending God, then everything went black - or white.

   (He's dead.)

And she came to and grabbed her weapon,

   (gone. He's gone forever.)

cursing all the world for it's unfairness. Cursing all the world for
pain she had been put through,

   (Revenge!)

for taking away Goku,

   (REVENGE!)

for taking away her mother.

   (KILL!!!)

And she knew. She remembered.

The Angel was charging up for another shot. The AT-Field lowered when it
prepared to fire. Asuka was ready to attack, Goku was unarmed. It was
aiming for her.

It was aiming for her, and for them all.

Then Goku took his stand, already having saved Rei, he stepped into the
line of fire. Preparing to use Unit-03 as a shield. Preparing to save
Tokyo-3. Preparing to save her, despite all she had done to him.
Selflessly, without shame or recourse. Taking her chance to kill the
Angel?

Just saving her hide?

The Angel fired. Ka-Boom. The Angel

   (DIE!!!)

fired and she blacked out. She came to, grabbed her spear, and ordered
Rei to neutralize it's remaining AT-Field so she could

   (KILL!!!)

kill it. It was injured, helpless, ready to go, but not without a bang.

She remembered asking headquarters what had happened to Unit-03 while
she helped Rei put down the Angel's field.

   (It killed him!)

Headquarters radioed back to say that Unit-03 was gone.

   (Bastard!)

Completely, totally, gone.

Eva, Unit-03 had been vaporized by the Angel's blast.

   (I'll get you!!!)

Goku was dead.

   (KILL!!!)

Then all hell broke loose.

Most of the Angel was missing as the blast had removed a rather large
portion of it. It's core lay exposed in the sun that penetrated the dust
cloud around them.

She lost it then.

Screaming like a banshee, Asuka launched herself through the
non-existent AT-Field, and slashed the core neatly in two. Not content
to just see it die, Asuka wanted the Angel gone. Gone worse than Goku.
Wiped completely from existence. She would not rest until there was
nothing left of that... that... that abomination.

   (Goku... how could you?)

After nearly hundred slashes of her spear, Asuka snapped out of her
blind rage to see what she had done.

The Angel was dead.

Totally dead.

Deader than anything else...

   (Except for...)

The remaining pieces of the Angel - very small pieces - lay strewn about
the almost lunar landscape as Asuka remembered - no, heard those word's
Goku had spoken to her only a few days ago...

   (Holding it in doesn't help it go away... sometimes you just have to
let go...)

And he was right.

She didn't hold it in this time. Right now she didn't feel like she
could hold anything in.

Then Asuka Langly Sohryu did something strange. Asuka Langly Sohryu did
something she promised herself she would never do again.

Asuka Langly Sohryu cried.

She heard Rei weeping too, so quietly across the radio. She was so
drained. A weak 'Shut up' was all she could manage.

---

End.
2/17/00


Neon Genesis: Evangelion

Eva Wasn't Built in A Day. v0.9

by Jared Waddell  :  rick_spiff@yahoo.com

Disclaimer:  (I hate doing this, but it is for good, not evil)
characters and such are copyright Gainix/EVA. And no, the Goku in this
story is NOT Goku from DBZ, it's just an easy name to remember.

Here things are finally laid to rest, questions silenced forever.

*WARNING:Not much. If you've survived so far, this should be a piece of
cake. But then again, it is sooo EVA right now...*

And please, please, don't kill me...

Chapter 7: Kamikazi?/We Bury Our Dead...

---

Misato looked out the window of the main command vehicle, eyeing the
wreckage that was once a stretch of peaceful forest at the edge of
Tokyo-3. From the explosion's center, a massive crater had been formed
in the ground, one large enough to almost be a small lake (like NERV
needed another one of those). Strangely enough, apart from that mess and
a certain missing portion of Mt. Fuji, nothing else was damaged.

Good on one hand, because damage was a bad thing unless it happened
exclusively to the Angels, bad on the other hand because Units 02 and 00
had sustained no damage. Zero. Nada. Nothing.

Not one scratch.

Oh, there was minor wear and tear from landing on the ground repeatedly,
and Asuka's power cable had been severed just before... before the
explosion. But even though Unit-03 had been all but totally vaporized,
there weren't even scorch marks on the other two Evas.

Good, because Rei and Asuka were okay, physically.

But bad, because Goku was not okay.

Misato's had tightened on chair she was leaning against, her knuckles
turning white from the strain of trying to tear the cushion out while
forcing back her tears. First Shinji had come so close to this, then
Toji had barely survived being crushed in the entry plug of the very
same black Evangelion.

Now...

Now they had a dead pilot.

That was the odd thing. Despite all that the pilots had been through,
they were okay - in some sense. Goku Takagi would forever be marked as
their first loss.

And what a loss. Against the most powerful Angel they had faced thus
far, he had made the ultimate sacrifice for victory, laying down his own
life to save Asuka and grace her with the opening necessary to finish
off the Angel.

_Why?_

_Why did this have to happen?_

_Commander Ikari will have an explanation. The bastard always does._

Misato continued staring out the window, no emotion on her face, as she
let her thoughts flow unhindered for a moment. Considering the
possibilities...

_Did he know this was going to happen?_

_And where the hell is Shinji?_

_Commander..._

Her eyes started the glisten with the wetness of emotions long kept at
bay, the stark fear of losing another friend, the dull thud of another
comrade going to far, the painful ping of another soul lost in the
fight. She had to keep telling herself it wasn't senseless. Wasn't
senseless. Had to save the world.

Had to save the world.

Had to.

Didn't have any other choice.

_Why?_

_Why must these children do it?_

_Why must those so young bear the greatest burden?_

The roasted plains gave no answer.

---

Asuka slid Unit-02 back into its containment cage with a small sigh.
Things were quiet around her, too quiet. Her Unit-02 had hardly
sustained any damage at all, and the Angel had been completely defeated,
but she felt empty inside. It was the only thing she _could_ feel that
made any sense.

Was this death? An image of non-being, only thought observing action?
Nothing seemed real, it all just ran together like water colors. The red
of Unit-02, the red of her plugsuit. The off-orange of LCL and matching
jumpsuits of the technical crew. All just colors without meaning,
sliding and skimming around her, liquid on liquid, only flashes of light
in her spirit.

Was she sad?

Was she truly upset at what had happened?

He was dead, and all she could feel was a blank nothingness, like
someone had thrown a switch and turned reality into a colorless,
pointless play were nothing anyone did made any sense.

She pressed the disengage button for the cockpit door after the plug
came to a spot and paused to cough up the LCL that lay resident in her
lungs. When she brought her reddened eyes up, she saw Rei standing on
the catwalk, staring at her.

Red eyes, blue hair, staring.

Blue plugsuit, pale skin, staring.

Emotionless face, expressionless, not angry and not serene, staring.

Red eyes without color, staring.

Eyes without emotion, without caring.

Staring and staring and staring and staring and staring.

Did she even care?

Did she even care about what happened?

Did she?

_Do you care, you doll? Do you understand what happened to him? He's
gone! Don't you understand?! Do you?!! DO YOU?!!_

Before she knew what was happening, her slender hands were wrapped
around Rei's throat, her blood thundering in her ears with her voice
screaming madness. The words roared against her uncaring ears, with Rei
just staring back serenely, her chin held delicately over Asuka's
strangling hands, wrapped around her neck.

"YOU BITCH!!! THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT! HE'S GONE! HE'S GONE AND HE'S
NEVER COMING BACK! DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND YOU WORTHLESS _DOLL_?!!"

"Asuka."

"He's _DEAD_! HE'S DEAD! HE'S DEEEAAAD!!! HE'S NOT COMING BACK AND HE'S
DEAD AND GONE AND GONE AND DEAD FOREVER AND NEVER COMING BACK AND-"

"Asuka."

Wrong.

Rei didn't call her Asuka. Never talked to her like a friend. Never
talked to anyone like a friend. Always aloof and like a doll, uncaring.
Rei didn't look happy or sad or angry.

And didn't have friends, did she?

Rei also never cried. Never opened her eyes and stared back, looking for
forgiveness.

Never looked sad.

Asuka let go suddenly, as if her hands might suddenly catch fire from an
unseen source, an anger so great it was hidden perfectly from Rei's face
as the vast ocean hides death right in front of man's face.

Perfect, perfect Red eyes locked on blue.

"You're heavy."

Asuka jumped up, a blush hinting her face, her breathing returning to
normal bit by bit. Around them, the technicians who did... well, all
sorts of important stuff, were going about their business as though
nothing unusual had happened. Asuka felt embarrassed about that
emotional display, especially in public, and against Rei, just staring
at her, helpless-

_Helpless?_

Asuka blinked. Her mind was, for the moment, firmly locked away from any
realization that Goku was gone, and she stopped to concentrate on what
it was that she sensed from Rei. After all, if she could feel it, it had
to be important. Rei wasn't easy to read. Hell, she'd give a stone
Buddha a run for its money.

_She is helpless? Strong, stoic wondergirl who's so perfect and pure and
protected the commander and practically all of NERV? She's helpless and
afraid?_

And lo, among the steel plating of the Eva cages, still wet with LCL,
cold from the evaporating fluid and shaking from adrenaline shock, the
only two remaining Eva pilots found a common ground.

They knew they were afraid.

With Goku dead, it could happen to anyone now. Furthermore, they were
all expendable. All of them.

Even the precious little doll.

"I'm going to clean off. Coming, Wondergirl?"

Rei nodded. Whatever Asuka had seen was now burned into her mind.
Pretending it never happened wouldn't help anything, so she left it
there, for a day when she could look back on it and make sense.

A picture given words.

---

A young boy stood at the deck of the Tokyo-3 rail, looking up at the
electronic signs that pointed out what box of metal was going where.

He remembered a time not so long in the past when he stood here for the
first time, in wonder, in fear, watching the vacant platform like a
wounded animal and wondering what was to become of him. Time had passed,
and Shinji had admitted that time had indeed changed him. Perhaps it had
changed him even more than he was admitting, but he couldn't draw the
strength to argue with himself.

Goku Takagi.

Unit-03.

_Why is there so much death here?_

A lone bird made a noise in the distance. Not a song, but a cry of sound
barely heard over the moving bodies on the busy train platform.

Shinji stood in mute salute to the sad, waning cry.

_Why did I come back?_

And with a slump of his shoulders, Shinji Ikari turned and headed back
into the heart of a town he once called home.

Tokyo-3.

---

The Commander put down the phone as Dr. Akagi walked into his office,
the voice at the other end lost in a silent electronic click.

"Yes?"

"The pilot of Unit-03 left these in his apartment." She held aloft a
this sheaf of plain looking documents. She was back in her lab coat
after 42 hours of non-stop work trying to find a trace of Unit-03 under
the huge amount of Angel bits spread over the countryside. Her eyes were
ringed with dark circles from lack of sleep, burning like a pair of hot
embers as she gazed at the commander.

"What are they?"

"A Will and a personal request relating to funeral arrangements." She
came forward with the clicking high-heeled shoes and dropped the papers
at Ikari's desk formally.

He poured over them for a minute, not even mindful of the scientist
nearly falling asleep on her feet. "I take it you came to request
clearance for this?"

"It was asked of me, Sir."

"Very well, have Fuyutsuki check them off. The service will be held
tomorrow. I will be in New Yokosuka harbor tomorrow."

"Understood." The doctor left quickly, with the papers bound for
Kozouu's signature.

Ikari picked up the phone again.

"That's bullshit." Came the voice from the other end. "Are you going to
send an android in your place?"

"Appearance being what they are, have to kept up." The commander replied
smoothly.

"So it seems. I'll be at the funeral."

There was a final click.

The commander never figured out how the hell that man monopolized the
electronics of the base like he was dealing with three-year-olds, but he
did help plug security leaks. At least he was useful for now, as NERV's
most secretive officer, a man not even SEELE had the full scoop on.

A necessary evil.

---

The weather had chilled for the day, under a light cloud cover. Under
his black suit and combat armor and necessary weapons, James Rahn
thought it was rather pleasant.

Only a handful of NERV personnel had shown up for the funeral, not even
the media knowing the exact details of the service. It was American, but
an oddity that could be granted, given the circumstances.

Such as the pilot being vaporized while protecting his friends and the
rest of the world.

He stood at the back, hidden behind a brutally short haircut and a set
of mirror-reflective shooter's sunglasses. He fit the part of an
expensive bodyguard to perfection, though he was not hired to protect
the gathering people from assassin's bullets. He was just watching,
partially for his own amusement, partially because something deep inside
told him that it would important for to witness this.

Just as it was important to see his son off the continent.

Whatever was going to happen had finally been set in motion by the death
of one fourteen year old boy. But Gendo Ikari was holding all the keys
to this mystery. James intended to find out just what the hell was going
on, as he felt he was being left in the dark (again).

Only the Reverend spoke, rendering Japanese words that James knew like
the back of his hand and had heard far too many times. As the silence
settled in around the small crowd, James took a moment to reflect on
what had brought him here, the path he had walked and fought down for
most of his life. At the age of 43, the purpose of such a life still
evaded him and here he was playing secret agent out in the middle of the
world's third largest graveyard.

Paying his respects to a boy he hardly knew.

A Goku Takagi.

An engineer, once like he was.

_Time to stop running, James. Time to stop hiding. Maybe, just maybe,
this is the last time._

Maybe.

"Amen." The group chorused.

_Isn't that the truth._

---

End.

The end? REALLY?

Yes, this is the end of Eva Wasn't Built in A Day. Feel it's a
cliffhanger? That's because it is, in a way. A sequel is in the works,
an even more demeaning and violent look at the world of Evangelion -
this time during the end days.

This whole story will be undergoing a very detailed re-write in a year
or so, about the time its sequel is released. Until then, enjoy this
work, feel free to distribut free of charge in all electronic formats,
and watch making hardcopies, it's pretty long.

Of course, all characters save for Goku Takagi and James Rahn are
copyrighted by Gainix studio and no copyright infringement is intended.
James Rahn is from the novel-in-progress, Sidestep, copyright Jared
Waddell.

Oh, and happy new mellenium.

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