NEON GENESIS EVANGELION: EVOLUTION

An Alternate Look

By Benjamin Donnelly

Based on Neon Genesis Evangelion be Hideaki Anno

And the World of Darkness Series by White Wolf Game Studio

AUTHOR NOTE: Might as well give a note of warning. This is a retelling of the Evangelion saga, and it does involve the addition of yet another Eva pilot. However, I will attempt to remain as true to the original as possible (within the boundaries of Riana Arashikaze's character and the addition of a horror element). If you are looking for a superwoman who will be worshiped by her peers, look elsewhere. If you're looking for a happy ending, well...you'll just have to see for yourself.

All characters save those of my own invention are property of Gainax and Hideaki Anno. No infringement of copyright is intended. Also a tip of the Banpei funny hat once more to Tim and the folks at Anime Central for inspiring me to write again, and to Renegade's fantastic "All's Right With the World" fanfic.

Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be finishing "Anime Vice Squad" anytime soon. I still want to do comedy fics, but after watching "End of Evangelion" all the way through, I don't think I can make too much funny stuff out of it.

I watch the children pray

While God just turns away

Out in the ruins they seek shelter

These streets were once my home

But those golden days are gone

Now I'm fighting to survive.

--Hammerfall, Stone Cold

PROLOGUE

The Ruins of the Geofront

Tokyo-3, Japan

15 April 2016

None of this is real.

You don't belong here.

The words echoed through Riana Arashikaze's mind as she ran EVA-03A up to full speed. Behind her were the obliterated ruins what had been six levels of the gigantic underground facility of NERV, and a mixed battalion of men and armor who had tried to stop her. They never had really stood a chance; the Evas were built to fight supernatural creatures, and sending conventional armor against one was like sending a Roman centurion against a main battle tank. Riana had not enjoyed killing the men and women who had manned the tanks she had destroyed, it was simply necessary. She knew that her opponents had shared that opinion when they had stormed NERV and begun systematically killing everyone in it. As one of the four pilots of the Evangelion Project, her picture was on the post office wall, as her grandmother would say.

Grandmother. I hope she all right.

She's fine, the reply came. You can feel her, if you concentrate.

"I don't have time," Riana replied out loud.

None of us do.

Riana knew that was true. She knew the mysterious organization known as SEELE was trying to eliminate NERV, the one organization in the world that could stop it from beginning Third Impact, the end of the world. Why they wanted to do such a thing, Riana did not know or care at the moment. If NERV really did want to prevent it. Pushing away a possible future, which seemed short and violent at the moment, was one of the things she had first learned when she came to Tokyo-3 six months previously.

"Maya, where is she?" Riana radioed. "I'm through the JSSDF lines!"

"She...moving to...ngaging... mass produc..." Maya Ibuki's voice broke up in static.

"We're being jammed," Riana snarled. She quickly switched frequencies. The bottom level of the Geofront was relatively flat; she should be able to use line of sight to communicate with EVA-02. "Asuka, this is Riana. Where are you?"

"Where the hell have you been?" Asuka Langely Soryu's voice came through loud and clear, meaning she was fairly close.

"Busy," Riana replied tightly.

There was a loud clang, a few growls in German from Asuka, then a burst of static. Asuka's voice came back online. "Damn, they're persistent! Of course that idiot Shinji is nowhere to be found! I'm west of the pyramid, over by the bridge." More growls and sounds of battle.

Riana changed course. "Okay, Asuka, work your way south. I'll support you."

"Screw that! I'm doing fine. Just two more of these bastards. Just bring me those extra power couplings!" Riana smiled in spite of herself. She and Asuka had never particularly got along from the day they had met, but the fiery German's recent descent into catatonia was not something Riana wished on anyone. Good to see she's back in form, super-bitch or not. Wonder what she's taking on?

She tried to raise Central Dogma, NERV's command center, once more and found the frequency clear. "Maya, what's going on?"

"Riana! Thank God; I thought we'd lost you too. Are you still moving towards Asuka?"

"Should be there in a minute or so." Riana easily leapt a chasm in the ground, tearing great clods of dirt as she did so. "Got the extra power cords."

"That's good," Maya Ibuki sighed. "Maybe we'll get out of this yet. Listen, Asuka's fighting the mass production Evas; you know, the ones with the dummy plugs? She's doing pretty good, but she'll be out of power in about a minute. You l have to cover her until we can get her power back online."

"On it," Riana replied. In EVA-03A's left hand were the spare power cords, trailing behind her in two meter thick cable. In its right was an assault rifle scaled to match the Eva's size, capable of firing fifty millimeter depleted uranium shells.

"Are you hurt? Maya asked.

"I'm okay," Riana lied. Her shoulder actually ached badly, and Riana suspected that she at the least had sprained it. Her right leg was tied off in a bloody bandage where a grenade fragment had wounded her, but she ignored the pain as best she could. That was something else she had learned quickly. The escape into her Eva had been very close; she had even had to kill a man to get to the bays.

That reminded her of something. "Where's Shinji?"

"He just got to 01's bay. He should be with you shortly...hopefully..." Maya's voice held a cautionary note. Which means that Shinji is still messed up, as usual.

"And Rei?"

"No news yet. We don't know if she even made it here before the attack began."

Damn. Then again, she might be safer in what's left of Tokyo-3. Come on, Shinji, get your act together. A brief pang of revulsion swept through Riana's body as she remembered what she had seen that morning. Once more, she stuffed those thoughts back into their dark corner. There would be time to deal with personal issues once the battle was over–if they survived, of course.

"This is the last one!" Asuka shouted over the open channel.

Riana opened her mouth to reply, but suddenly a vision flashed through her mind of a trio of helicopters coming up behind her. She ducked and slid to a halt, turning and seeing the three attack helicopters moving in. Their rockets passed harmlessly over her head, where they had been aimed a split-second before. The helicopters were hideous, looking like green vultures. They turned to reorient for another attack, but Riana already had the assault rifle up. She felt nothing as she swept the barrel across the sky, tearing the helicopters apart under a hail of shells.

"What's that?" she heard Asuka say.

"What's what? Riana radioed back.

"Lance of Longi–"

LEFT!

Riana did not question the warning, spinning around and firing. What had been a heavy transport loaded with a Thunderbolt missile exploded into a ball of flame, which then expanded into a gigantic fireball as the heavy missile touched off. Riana reflexively brought up 03A's arm to shield herself from the blast.

That was a bit close, the voice said. Burned us a little.

"Are you okay?"

Yeah, just some paint scorched. I think we're clear.

"Sorry, Asuka," Riana said as she brought her Eva back to its feet. "The JSSDF can't take a hint. Are you still in the same place?" There was no reply. "Asuka? Come in."

"Riana, she's been hurt and she's out of power...what the..." Maya paused.

"Talk to me, Maya," Riana said. She had dropped the power cord to fight, and picked it up again.

"The destroyed Eva series units...the Eva series have reactivated!"

"Shit!" Riana faced north and began running again. A few random missiles popped up from ground troops inside the Geofront, but she ignored them as they bounced off her Eva's thick armor. "Asuka, for all you bitch about Shinji, you could get one thing right..."

She stopped as suddenly nine angels lifted into the sky before her.

Riana realized that it was the Eva production units, but it was easy to see them as classical angels. They were a brillant white, with large, feathery wings. Some were missing limbs and one was even missing most of its head, the damage Asuka had done. They rose upwards, then dived as a flock on something hidden behind a wooded hill. Riana brought up the rifle to shoot, but the Eva's finger clicked on an empty magazine.

Those things aren't alive! the voice exclaimed in horror.

No wonder Asuka couldn't kill- Riana topped the hill as the Evas fell on the supine form of EVA-02 and began tearing it apart.

"Stop it, you bastards!" Riana shouted, knowing it was useless. "STOP IT!"

Deep below the Evas, Gendo Ikari looked down at the floating body of Ritsuko Akagi. Her eyes were still wide open, a look of complete surprise on her face. He briefly wondered why. She should have known how it would end. Gendo felt a pang of regret for Ritsuko; remembered the nights they had spent together, the feel of her body against his. He spared her a brief shake of his head. If it had been another time, and their situation different...but it was not. Gendo had his quest, and Ritsuko had had hers.

He glanced back at Rei, who looked at Ritsuko's body with only the faintest of expressions. Gendo could not quite read it. But that did not matter. Only one thing mattered now.

Yui.

"Let's go, Rei," he said softly. "Miles to go before we sleep."

"Make that a few meters, Ikari!"

Gendo turned, the pistol raised. A faint smile played on his lips. "You."

"Me."

"Strange, I thought the JSSDF killed you."

The woman smiled through a mask of blood. "Those reports were greatly exaggerated."

The white Evas rose into the sky again, eviscerating EVA-02, trailing purple organs and cables that looked distressingly like intestines. Hydraulic fluid and orange LCL fountained into the sky. Riana threw the now useless rifle at the white Evas, but it fell far short. It did get the white Evas attention; some turned in her direction as they circled the corpse of 02 like carrion. Riana crouched and drew from her back a long metal spear, tipped with a diamond-edged blade.

Asuka's still alive, the voice said sadly. She's still moving.

Riana looked. Impossibly, the disemboweled Eva jerked spasmodically and began rising to a sitting position, its one functional arm raising, clenching a fist in a final act of defiance. The radio clicked back on, and Riana heard Asuka: "I'll kill you...I'll kill you...I'll kill you..."

None of this is real.

Gendo took a step forward, placing himself between the woman and Rei. "You can't stop what's happening, Rissa."

"Why not? The prophecy? The Dead Sea Scrolls?" The woman laughed derisively. "Maybe you got hold of a bad copy, Gendo. Certainly there's been some things that have happened that weren't predicted. Your son not being a willing pawn, for instance."

Shinji. The thought of his son, lost somewhere in the vast NERV complex, hunted by the special forces troops, brought another pang of regret to Gendo. No. Shinji will understand. "I have to say I'm impressed, Rissa," Gendo said. "There must have been a full battalion of JSSDF men between you and me, and yet you came through."

Rissa grinned a smile laced with pure hatred. She was coated in a sheen of blood, one eye almost completely shut by dried blood, her left arm crudely bandaged and dripping blood. The older woman looked like a banshee rejected from hell, leaning on a sword whose blade was scarlet with gore. Gendo could see she was close to exhaustion, and knew there was only one thing that continued to drive the woman before him. Ritsuko had been driven by unrequited love and revenge for what might have been. Rissa Arashikaze was driven by hate and vengeance for what could be. "I admit, it wasn't easy," she said. "But I just had to see what you were hiding down here." She looked at Rei, beyond Gendo. "She's just a bit young for you, Gendo. Decide to go out with a bang before SEELE gets you?" She spat. "You disgusting piece of shit."

"You have no idea what's going on here, Rissa. You never did. I have more respect for your granddaughter than you."

"Nice words, considering you tried to kill her too. One more pawn in your game, like Shinji. Or Asuka. Or Akagi. Or Ryoji. Or even Rei there. I can go on, if you like."

"I don't think that's necessary. Riana always said she was a rook."

"I know. She's upstairs, fighting your war for you. Well, I'm kicking over the board, Gendo. Humanity needs a chance to start over, but I think it'll do better without you or Keel Lorenz."

Gendo shook his head. "Enough, Rissa. You don't understand. You can't understand."

"Does it matter?" Rissa drew herself up to her full height, shakily bringing up the sword. "You have a Beretta there, I think. That means you have seven shots left. Think you can kill me before I get close enough to take your head?"

Gendo sighed. Who will be the last to die? He centered the sight on Rissa's forehead. "I suppose we will have to find out."

"Asuka, stay down!" Riana yelled.

"I'll kill you...I'll kill you...I'll kill you all..." Asuka's voice was half a snarl of hatred, half a cry of despair, thick with pain.

"For God's sake, stay down!" Riana repeated. "I'm on my way!" The white Evas reared back on their haunches and raised their spears high. "NO!" Riana screamed. "Oh, God, NO!"

The spears fell, long javelins at a tiger in a pit. The first split 02 raised arm lengthwise, and the other eight ripped through the Eva and dug deep into the ground. Riana screamed in horror.

None of this is real.

Is she alive? Riana thought insistently. Allegra, is she alive?

There was a pause. No one could survive that, the voice sighed. She's...she's gone.

Riana felt the rage building and let it. She keyed the Eva's external speakers and turned the gain up as high as it would go, sending a wail across the battlefield. The white Evas turned to face her as one.

"You just killed my friend," Riana said clearly. "God damn you! You just killed my friend!" She raised the spear high and charged. "I'LL FUCKING TEAR YOU APART!"

My God, Riana, we can't kill them! They are not alive! The voice shrilled in her head.

Neither are we, Riana thought through a red haze of rage. We're dead already.

The Eva continued forward as the foremost white Eva pulled its spear from the motionless corpse of 02 and turned to face Riana. EVA-03A roared, baring its fangs, claws springing free from its fingers.

None of this is real.

EVA-03A smashed into the first white Eva with a crack of organic metal on metal.

CHAPTER ONE:

A CALL TO ARMS

Tokyo-3

11 October 2015

Kozou Futsuyuki paused before opening the door to the roof to catch his breath. There had only been three flights of stairs to go up from the elevator landing, but he was winded. He was getting truly too old for this sort of thing. "It's not the years," he chuckled to himself, "it's the mileage." Once he had recovered, he opened the door and stepped out.

It was raining–not a downpour, but a light drizzle, cooling the city from the day's heat. After being "downstairs" in the Geofront all day, it was refreshing to smell the rain and the fresh air. He tucked the manila folder he carried under one arm and walked towards the solitary figure at the far end of the roof.

As he did so, Futsuyuki regarded the slender man that stood unmoving, despite the fact that his jacket had to be soaked through, gloved hands clasped behind his back. Even when he had first met Gendo Ikari, Futsuyuki had known him to be somewhat odd, driven by his work. He could not recall if he had ever seen Gendo content with the present moment. Happy, certainly–with Yui, his wife, the only person on the planet who had ever seemed to quite understand him, even satisfied with the project. But never content. Futsuyuki had wondered, in the early years, if Project Evangelion was consuming the younger man. He knew for certain, now.

"Professor." Gendo's voice, quiet and yet commanding, interrupted Futsuyuki's reverie.

"Commander." Futsuyuki stopped three paces short of Gendo, a respectful distance, and waited.

A few silent moments went by, broken by the patter of the rain. "Yui always liked the rain," Gendo said wistfully, in as gentle of a tone as Futsuyuki heard him use these days.

Futsuyuki could find nothing to say in reply. Gendo half-turned, regarding his old college professor out of the corner of one eye. "You remember?"

"Yes. Keeping her attention on a rainy day was always a task." Futsuyuki smiled with the memory. "I must admit I was surprised you were up here."

"I don't spend all my time in my office. Contrary to popular belief." The drizzle began to slacken, with the first rays of sunlight beginning to penetrate the clouds over the distant mountains. Gendo sighed. "I suppose you didn't come up here to remember old times, Professor." Gendo's voice reacquired the cold edge it usually contained, and had since the day Yui Ikari had died.

"I'm afraid not, Commander. This just came in." He handed the folder to Gendo. The younger man scanned the address on the folder and raised an eyebrow. "The Pacific Northwest district of the United States government? Was it scanned for bombs?" Gendo smiled humorlessly.

"Should it have been?" Futsuyuki asked, in the same sardonic tone Gendo had used.

"No. The ruler of that district has often opposed NERV, but I would think that she would deliver such unpleasantness personally." Gendo opened the folder and withdrew the sheets of paper inside.

"You're referring to Representative Rissa Arashikaze?"

"Representative...are they still pretending that the United States is a republic?" Gendo chuckled. "I suppose they are entitled. After all, we're still pretending Japan is." Gendo scanned the sheets in silence for a few moments, then turned to face Futsuyuki. "Have you read this?"

"Yes."

"So what is your opinion?"

Futsuyuki looked at the clearing sky. "Riana Arashikaze would make an excellent candidate for an Eva pilot."

Gendo's eyebrows went up in surprise. "Explain."

"Look at her scores. Her physical statistics place her in the highest percentile–she's more athletic than the three children we have now, though there are some in the reserve pool who are as good."

"Not surprising, given her heritage. Go on."

"Her mental statistics are the equal of Shin–Pilot Ikari's, though below that of Pilots Ayanami and Soryu."

"In other words, she's in better shape than ninety percent of our pilot candidates and smarter than average. But as you say, we have others in the reserve who are equally as skilled."

Futsuyuki nodded. "True, but there is also the political dimension. Despite her last name, Riana Arashikaze is an American. They may have lost much in Second Impact, but the United States is still quite powerful, and influential in the United Nations. If an American was involved directly in the Evangelion Project, the political powers of the United States–namely, Riana's grandmother–would be more likely to support NERV rather than attempt to undermine it. They would have a personal and national stake in it, even if Riana's identity was not publicly known.

"There is also the aspect of her upbringing. Rissa Arashikaze came out of nowhere to become the dominant power in the Pacific Northwest–the only records NERV can find of her is that she was some sort of minor functionary in the Central Intelligence Agency. In any case, Rissa has been gone most of Riana's life, though she has made the effort to be with her granddaughter whenever she could." Futsuyuki noticed something cross Gendo's features for a moment, but continued. "Riana's father died in Second Impact. Her mother died in childbirth a few months later, as a result of injuries recieved during Second Impact. She was raised by her maternal aunt, Allegra, until she was five, when Allegra Arashikaze died in some sort of battle at Yucca Flats, Nevada. Since then, when Rissa is away in New Washington or elsewhere, which is often, Riana has been raised in a convent. That sort of upbringing tends to instill in someone a deep-rooted sense of duty."

"Yes, duty. Something our pilots have had trouble with from time to time. But duty to whom, Professor? NERV, or the United States? I have enough spies running around the Geofront as it is; we don't need to add another."

Fuyutsuki smiled ruefully. "There is an old saying, Commander: keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. Though I don't think spying is Riana or Rissa's aim. There are far more subtle ways to spy. Knowing what we do know about that family, and a long tradition of service, I believe that Riana Arashikaze genuinely wants to continue the family tradition. What better way to help humanity than by trying to help save the world?" Fuyutsuki shrugged. "It's your decision of course, Commander, but we could be squandering an opportunity. We certainly could use more pilots. Even with the Second Child coming here, that only leaves us with three pilots."

Gendo replaced the papers in the folder and handed them back to Fuyutsuki. "Very well, Professor. Bring Riana Arashikaze here. We'll test her and see how far she is willing to go."

The speed of Gendo's assent surprised the older man. Gendo Ikari was not the kind of person to quickly agree to anything, especially something so precious as the project. "Yes, sir."

"Inform Dr. Akagi when she returns from the Jet Alone christening that I would like to speak with her."

"Of course, Commander." Fuyutsuki paused. "Are you coming back down?"

"In a few minutes, Professor." Fuyutsuki knew he was being dismissed, so he gave a small bow and left. Gendo stared after him for a few moments, then looked back over Tokyo-3. He did not enjoy keeping secrets from his old mentor, but for now, Gendo decided to hold off on telling Fuyutsuki why he had been so eager to bring in Riana Arashikaze. The fact was, he had been considering it for months, after a few backchannel contacts in New Washington had informed him that Rissa Arashikaze had been strongly considering sending just such a request, reasons unknown. Gendo knew what had really happened at Yucca Flats, and who Riana's parents had been. He suddenly remembered a tune from his youth, and smiled.

"Yes," he said softly, "it is indeed a kind of magic."