yay! Here's another part.
Neon Genesis Evangelion:
The Bond
By Rob Barba
Series initiated by James Lee
Neon Genesis Evangelion is copyright Gainax and ADV
Part Four:
Communion
Dear Diary,
I'm home, now, finally. Kamisama, I was so afraid that they were
going
to kill me. Fu-chan's still in the hospital, and the doctors don't know
if
she'll be able to walk again, unless she gets those new cyborg legs.
Tomorrow I'll have to attend the funeral of several of my friends who were
killed in the blast.
I see a lot has happened since the last dairy entry we've seen.
Then, as soon as that's over, I have to talk to the
lawyers about preparing for the upcoming trial. I'm afraid to do this.
I'm
afraid to face Lorenz again.
Keele's still alive?
I know that I wouldn't even be alive if it wasn't for Aunt Rei. I
never
knew that she could be like how I saw her when she came in. Dressed in
cammies, holding her AT beam rifle and flanked by both Colonel Suzuhara
Hikari and Aunt Rei's entire team of EVAs, she came in on foot and
demanded
that the Equinox group release me or she'd raze the entire compound, then
start hunting everything that was dear to them...which what I figure,
wasn't
much. To prove her point, she shot and killed the two guards holding me,
without even so much as blinking, then trained her gun on Lorenz, Dr,
Akagi,
and that man who...ugh, I still shiver when I think about it.
I see a lot happened in the past. My only complaint is you might be giving
too much away here.
operation,
putting the Government Criminal Investigations Directorate in their place.
Additionally, when Admiral Chapel found out what was going on in her area
of
operations, she placed every military unit on alert, scouring high and
low...and intentionally looking inept.
Of course.
"Don't think you can browbeat me into submission. *You* may be in charge
of
NERV, but *I* am in charge of US involvement in the project. If you so
much
as give me any crap, I'll pull the plug on this and scrap those precious
EVAs of yours. DOD is still well ahead on our TCM project, and it won't
take much to switch to that." Her eyes radiated sharp anger as she said
in
a hiss, "You are to leave the unit alone, do you hear me?"
I'm sure he does, but it won't stop him if he decides he needs it anyway.
^_^
Gendo knew she was bluffing; his information had indicated that the
American Transformable Combat Mecha project--jokingly labeled by the media
as the "Robotech defense system"--was like the French Lancelot mecha
project. That is, it was an over-budgeted disaster and as slow and
plodding
as any American government project was.
True.
Still, Gendo knew that when
cornered, the US military historically had a bad habit of pulling rabbits
out of their hat.
True too.
to ensure that something like this wasn't going to occur, and that had
blown
up in her face. Well, she'd just have to switch tactics. Bad enough that
she didn't really trust Ikari or his right hand man,
What? And she trusts Keele and SEELE, or is her contact with them limited.
was Raven, and Ayers hadn't given her much choice in what she wanted out
of
her own life. ((After this war is over,)) Ayers vowed, ((I'm going to
support whatever Raven wants for her future. I don't care what it is.
Raven: Mom. I want to be a prostitute.
Ayers: Then again...
"Okay," Toji said, setting down his cards. His steely gave never
wavered as he took two cards from the dealer, but he relented for a second
or two as he added, "I just don't get it, Shinji old pal. You're supposed
to be lousy at this, man! The last time we played poker, you couldn't win
to save your life, and now you've won the past two out of four hands!
What
the hell happened?"
Shinji: I learned to cheat.
Misato yawned, then looked around for a beer. When realizing one was
not available on the military flight, she muttered, "Don't look at me. I
haven't taught him anything." Her own glance unreadable, she simply
looked
at her cards and said, "I'm out." She dropped her hand down, a rather
anemic one at that.
After all, what could one really do with a straight flush?
two
already been experimenting?"
*"NO!"* Shinji cried, a little more loudly than he intended to. *"No
way! I'd never!"*
Don't need the line break here.
On her end of the cabin, a young girl twitched in her passenger seat,
sleeping peacefully. Turning slightly, she half-murmured, half-cooed,
"Oh,
that feels *grrrrreeeaaat*, Shinji-kun...." and crawled into a fetal ball.
Heh. Very cute.
Misato gave Shinji a knowing look, while Toji merely snickered.
Shinji,
on the other hand, went pale as a sheet, the card game forgotten. If the
trio could have seen Asuka's face, they would have seen a mischievous grin
on the face of the sleeping young woman.
no need for a line break again.
Shinji, his composure lost, grunted, "Aw hell. I fold. You win,
Toji."
Shinji tossed down his hand in disgust, his set of cards far better than
what Toji held. As the newer EVA pilot scooped up the pot, Shinji
commented, "We should call this game quits, anyway. We should get some
sleep before we arrive in Canada tomorrow."
"Personally, I can't sleep--I'm just too primed for what we're about
to
do," Toji said. "I mean, getting to visit another country an' all...."
Toji: And getting the opportunity to demolish lotsa stuff. It's going to be
great.
Misato retorted softly, "Sometimes visiting other places doesn't work
out
the way you want it to...." Her voice was distant, and the look in her
eyes
hinted that she was looking at a horizon beyond the metal confines of the
aircraft hull. Unconsciously, her hand crept up to her chest and the
cross
that she wore around her neck. "No, sometimes it doesn't...."
Nice touch.
Eventually, she too, nodded in understanding.
"All right then. Now don't forget that tomorrow morning I want you
two
prepped and ready to meet your Japanese counterparts. And please, try not
to embarrass the entire U.S. military this time?"
It's already too late.
Nothing more to add,
With nothing....
Kendra shut the door and went back to whatever she'd been doing.
Carter looked at Raven, his face still filled with an unforgiving
look,
and now added with this latest insult. Saying nothing more, he headed
back
to his own room.
Raven stood alone in the middle of the hall, unable to vent whatever
emotions were roiling inside her. Grunting an epithet, she declared, "The
hell with them--you'd think they'd rather see me dead than the Mouse."
Well, yes.
Well, the time of Revelations was at hand, and here they were, reading
the scrolls, which had turned out to be frighteningly accurate. From the
point of the Second Impact, straight through to the defeat of the Sixth
Angel, things had been alarmingly real, as though the documents were
nothing
but a script to a play already written.
That changed with the appearance of the seventh Angel, the one
code-named Maruiel.
Yes. We still need to see the why of the change.
Lorenz looked across the table at Ikari, and noticed that for once,
something was different about him. Although his face was the usual
stoicism
of complete control, for once there also seemed to be an aura of chaos
around him, an element that hinted that something was no longer in
control.
Loss of some control, yes.
Lorenz wondered what that might be, and decided he would take action on it
later. Perhaps it might be the key to controlling the uncontrollable
Ikari
Gendo.
<(*)>
RCAF Cotter's Pond, BC, Canada
Runway 01
Standing in the shelter of a nearby hangar, the members of the US
Joint
Mechanized Strike Force, awaiting their counterparts from NERV HQ. It was
a
dour-looking day, and though it wasn't likely to rain today, the iron
color
of the overcast sky made things uncomfortably chilly for this time of
year;
enough so to require the three to wear jackets today.
Argh! Three uses of 'day/today' in the sentence. I'd drop the first
'today'. That should work.
Only five minutes late, the C-145D Galaxy IV came in for a landing
with
all the grace of a beached whale.
Heh.
The two groups met in the middle. Misato spoke first, her English
being
better than the others, and to assure the Americans there would hopefully
be
no language problems.
"Where's the nearest beer?" Misato asked in flawless English.
"LT Chapel, I presume?" Misato didn't bother to
salute; the less protocol on the ground at the moment, the better, and
from
what she read of the briefing of this officer, she was pretty much
accustomed to ignoring the rules as well.
"That's correct, major. LT Kendra Chapel, USN, OPS Officer for US
JMECHSTKFOR and NERV-2. And these are my pilots, Ensign Kaoru C. Nagisa,
pilot for Unit 05--"
"Just call me Carter," the boy said, offering his hand.
O_O
I didn't see that one coming.
A girl that, with the exception of the long hair, was a complete match
for Rei, in terms of looks.
O_O
Okay. That's even more disturbing. Congratulations on getting that one past
me too.
"Well, they definitely seem to work well together," Kendra added,
noting
that the two were holding hands.
Heh.
"That they do," Misato added, perspiration coming to her brow, her
hand
waving frantically while she held it down, trying to signal for them to
quit
it; she didn't dare turn around to tell them.
Hehehehehe.
Unit 00 simply stood there and watched as the girl who looked exactly like
her walked into a nearby building. ((strange...she looked exactly like
me.
but she acted differently than i do. could she be another me?)) She had
to
admit it was possible. It also had another effect on her: the curiosity
that if it was true, was she really capable of acting like that?
Possibly.
Asuka shook her head in dismay while Shinji snarled, "Okay, then I'll
just have to forget about that little incident with Major Hamayata last
week, right?"
What? She's being 'unfaithful' to Kaji?
Asuka smirked. "Misato, I think that we pilots would like some time
to
relax and look around the base before we get settled in. Please be a dear
guardian and let us?"
The older woman wasn't expecting the change in tone. "Er, Why?"
"Because you think dearly of me and Shinji-kun, and you think well of
Toji and Rei, too." Her tones clipped back to catty
Now that's Asuka.
In a saccharine-sweet voice, Asuka said, "Thanks, Misato!" while
Shinji
had the same self-satisfied smirk on his face that seemed to say, "You're
the greatest, Misato!" The NERV officer merely looked at them with an
ashen
glance before wandering off, muttering, "I really could use a beer right
now...."
Several, in fact.
As she walked off, Toji looked at the pair, who merely gave each other
knowing looks of satisfaction. "I'd really like to know how you two know
about things like that. It might come in handy someday."
Asuka smiled cattily. "It's called being a total bitch, Suzuhara.
You
should try it sometime."
"Make me some waffles!" Toji started to say, but then realized that that
line was in a different EVA fic and dropped the idea altogether.
*"OR ELSE YOU'LL DO WHAT, RAVEN?!?!?!"* Carter, unable to hold in his
anger, exploded with a fury that no one had ever seen in him before.
Getting right up to her face, he roared, *"WHAT, YOU'LL GET ME KILLED TOO,
JUST LIKE WENDY? GOOD FUCKING GOING THAT'LL BE, YOU GODDAMN SCREWUP!!!!!
MAYBE THAT'S WHY THE JAPANESE ARE BUILDING BETTER YOUS!!!!! SO WE CAN GET
A
COPY THAT'S NOT SOME MENTALLY DERANGED LOOSE CANNON!!!"*
Ohh. Nasty.
"please, do not punch him," a nearly whispered, very soft voice said
in
accented, halting English.
Ah. Rei is there to save the day.
Carter noticed it, too. Putting aside his hatred of her for the
concern
of a teammate, he asked, "Hey, Ayers, you okay?"
Raven never answered, as she was too busy trying to control herself
from
what she saw in the other's eyes. ((I saw death in her eyes. Countless
deaths. All of them hers.
((All of them, mine.))
Interesting.
Leaning over her twelfth beer (having settled on twelve as a nice,
reasonable number after she passed the twenties), Kendra slurred, "So...ya
zink we shud haf tha tu gruups of pi-pi...jockeys sit down amongst
themselves?"
Misato dizzily nodded. "Haaaiiiiiiiiiii!" she said, her voice
slurred.
"Hi t' yu to," Karen replied.
Heh.
"Soooooooooooo...we star' t'mrrow?"
Misato nodded, unsure of how to answer that. In turn, Kendra bobbed
her
head vigorously in a reasonable attempt at a nod, but instead ended up
banging her head on the table, knocking herself out.
S'got no tolerance for alcohol, I see. ^_^
The officer, resplendent in her class "C" uniform, gave Ritsuko a
sharp
military salute. "Reporting as ordered, Major Akagi." She then slipped
into parade rest, her seabag standing also at military height.
Looking at the briefing sheet, Ritsuko said, "Dr. Akagi is fine--I
rarely use my rank." Ritsuko tore her eyes away from the file, and looked
at the American pilot. Despite having spent all those hours in transit,
you'd never
'one would' works better than 'you'd' for me.
"Okay, then, Lieutenant, you've been issued an apartment on this address.
You'll be living next door to the other pilot, so it might behoove you to
get to know each other."
Kensuke. Almost surely him. It'll be love at first sight.
Asuka stepped out of the shower, heading towards the bed that she and
Shinji shared, grabbing only a towel to wrap around herself. She didn't
bother to throw on clothing or anything of the sort. It didn't matter
anymore, after all; he'd seen inside the deepest depths of her mind
already,
so what good was modesty going to do? Besides, maybe tonight, she began
her
thoughts.
Without looking up from reading a book from where he lay on top of the
bed, Shinji said, "I thought we wanted to hold off on that, Asuka."
((I was just teasing you, Shinji-kun,))
Ah, but was she really?
Moving to his side, she took the book out of his hands, leaned against him
and kissed him with all the passion she could give that was hers to give.
As she breathlessly broke away, she sighed, "Everything for you,
Shinji-kun.
Everything for you." As if by some silent cue, she slipped away the
towel,
letting him see her as she was. Exposed to him in a way she'd never
offered
him before, until now.
Hmm. Things are moving right along, I see. ^_^
"Then I won't take it," he insisted with firmness. "I don't want
anything that'll separate us, Asuka. I don't want to be alone anymore. I
don't want *you* to be alone anymore."
How sweet.
She swelled at pride at the boy she loved, and knew that if he could
control
his longings, so could she. But with that, there was a new fear in the
back
of her mind, one she tamped down immediately. "If we're going to wait
that
long, then we can wait until I'm Ikari Asuka."
Proposing. Now that's more along Asuka's line.
Being here...in your arms...." Unconsciously, neither of them was
realizing
that she was already unbuttoning his shirt, her control slipping.
again I'd forego this line break.
look, she went back into the bathroom.
The male half of them went to the door and opened it to find the
American (what was his name again?) and Toji standing there, both dressed
in
civvies and looking rather casual; while Toji was wearing his usual
jogging
gear, the other boy wore a crew-neck jersey and faded jeans.
Ah. So Karou is going to have to hit on Toji in this timeline. Now it all
makes sense. ^_^
Running his
fingers through his long gray hair, he said, "Hey, man, Toji and I were
going to head over to the base movie theatre and wanted to know if you
wanted to go. You know, that 'getting to know each other' stuff we gotta
do."
"Just getting out of your uniform, Shinji?" Toji asked.
"Um, yeah. Been reading a book for the past couple of hours, just
trying to kill the time."
time,"
with
it. Part of her personality had slipped into Shinji and he was no longer
the passive male that he used to be. But the bond went both ways, and the
passiveness that was part of Shinji's old persona, now was a part of hers,
and gradually becoming more dominant. They were slowly becoming what the
other was, and if it wasn't for the fact that they'd fallen in love, she
knew that he would have left. After all, she knew that if things hadn't
happened the way they did, she never would have stuck with such a person
as
he'd been.
nice insights into her thoughts. Nicely done.
the guys. Would you care for something to drink?" ((Don't ask for
40-weight, 'cause I'm fresh out, robogirl!))
"water, please." She sat down on one of the chairs, and as Asuka came
back from the kitchen, she began to speak. "i need to talk to someone.
about what happened today." There was an almost human look in the Wonder
Girl's eyes, Asuka noted. "that american girl...ayers. she looked just
like me. when i looked into her eyes, i realized she *was* me."
Oh? This should be enlightening.
realized. Acting on spontaneity, Asuka went up and hugged the albino,
saying, "Don't worry, Rei. Your friends are here for you." ((Did I mean
what I just said?))
Heh. A mix of Shinij's compassion and Asuka's forwardness.
she wondered before realizing, yes. She was at a
pointing
point in
tease you a lot, Wonder Girl, but...ah, nevermind. Let's just say that
you're a friend." Rei, unsure of what was transpiring, merely nodded.
Asuka, in the meanwhile, had another brainstorm and said, "Hey, I'm tired
of
sitting around here. Wanna go out for a bit?"
"where?"
"Strip bar for gals. Let's see if they got a Chippendale's around here."
Asuka went for a phonebook.
"I dunno. The mall, maybe? Or possibly a movie. I wish Hikari were
here--she'd have some ideas." Reaching for her shoes, she said, "But
anything's gotta be better 'n sitting around here, right?" Opening up her
mind, she called out to Shinji, and said, ((Shinji-kun, I'm gonna go out
with Rei for a while, okay?))
It took a while, likely due to distance, but there was a response.
((Wonder Girl?
Heh. Even he thinks of her in those terms now.
looked at Rei, gave her a smile, and said, "Let's go hit the mall and get
you some new clothing, Rei."
"is something wrong with what i am wearing? i did not notice...."
"Rei, lesson number one: you can't wear nothing but NERV and school
uniforms all your life. You have to relax sometime. Now c'mon. We're
going out, and when I'm done with you, you'll be a new person!"
"i don't need to be a new person. i am fine with my current body."
heh. For some reason, I can't seem to nail the deadpan humor Rei would be
so nice to use with.
A question came to her-((Who'll be the next one to pay for your
mistakes?))--and just as quickly, the answer came to her. She smiled and
turned the rifle to her head, pulling the trigger.
FINAL LIFE EXTINGUISHED. GAME OVER.
Oh now that's as ominous as it gets.
The doorbell sounded, and she went over to answer it. Standing there
was another of those NERV types. A girl, about the same age as herself,
her
Asian face framed by expressive brown eyes and somewhat long brown hair.
Her cheeks, lightly dusted with a spray of freckles, gave her an
appearance
that made her seem like a modern-day Pollyana...whatever the hell that
meant.
Heh. I never thought of that, but I guess it's accurate.
She was dressed in gray, which meant she was part of the pilot's
corps. Bowing slightly, the girl smiled once and rattled off a few quick
Oh. So it's Hikari. boy. Kensuke is going to be so dissapointed.
Hikari was only sure of half of what the other girl was saying.
Although, she did find it odd that a Japanese girl didn't speak a single
word of it. Then again, she was born in America, so who knows? ((They
all
can't be like that Sohryu girl.))
Thankfully.
have made one with Asuka, but she turned out to really want nothing more
than to spend most of her time with her boyfriend, Shinji. The other
girls
in the class weren't that interesting, and if Mana was a typical
Amerikajin,
Hikari's spare time would be a lot more interesting.
And so a new friendship might be borne.
It was when he began to read through the personnel rosters that his
attention was sparked. Ayanami was in close proximity to Raven Ayers.
That
was by no mean a good idea, and something would have to be done about it.
He only now thought about the two meeting? That's unlike him.
Damn that sentimental bitch Ayers. He should have followed up on it when
she said disposed of the dummy plug, but he believed her and this was the
result. Well, he wouldn't make a second mistake like that again.
Oh. That makes better sense.
to
he
fail, there would be no backup. SEELE had invested in quite a bit finding
an agent who was willing to bend in more than one direction. Ironic, in a
sense, that the one to do so would be from the Japan Security Service, and
not one of the other spook farms all over the world. ((But then,)) he
reasoned, ((they were probably counting on my connections with Misato and
Ritsuko.))
Oh, come one. Everyone there knows Kajo was sent there to be a spy. ^_^
"Not in the least, Pat. The only reason he can get away with what he
does get away with is, well, we're at war. Even still
'so' instead of 'still' works better.
Nice work. Very enjoyable. Already can't wait to see more.
D.B. Sommer