Neon Genesis Evangelion Fan Fiction / Fan Fiction ❯ Stacy Rowe, Evangelion Pilot ❯ Chapter 5
Anime/Manga: Neon Genesis Evangelion Fan Fiction / Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Comedy / Drama / Mecha / Romance | Type: Crossover | Uploaded On: 11.06.2002 | Pages: 3 | Words: 3.5K | Visits: 526 | Status: Completed
Chapter 5:
Leaders and Followers
Bardiel, the Thirteenth Angel, had assumed a form that was common to the world of the Lillan. It was a brown reptilian shape with a giant shell on its back, four stumpy legs, and a horn on its head. Is this form adequate, Eldest? he asked his leader through his telepathic bond, the bond which had never been enough.
More than adequate, Dread Messenger, came Kaworu's reply. Where our brothers have failed you will succeed. If Adam is anywhere in this earthly realm, you will find Him.
Adam is here, Eldest. I can assure you. And I swear by all that is holy that I will return to Adam so that our people may be as one, Bardiel affirmed.
May God go with you, Dread Messenger, and beware our dark sisters.
May God be with us all, Eldest. With that, Bardiel commenced his attack.
"Pattern analysis confirmed," reported Maya. "It's an Angel."
Misato sighed. With Commander Ikari and Vice Commander Fuyutski on another expedition to the South Pole, Misato once again found herself as the acting Commander-in-Chief during an Angel attack. This time, the enemy had taken on the form of a giant turtle. If turtles had a huge horn jutting out of their foreheads and a core in their underbellies. "Initiate accommodation of the central block and notify all ministries. Prepare all Evangelions for launch," she ordered from her seat on the command balcony.
Five minutes later, the ceiling echoed overhead as the skyscrapers of Tokyo-3's central district finished their descent into the Geofront. "Accommodation of the central block is complete. Evacuation progressing in the first through fourth districts," reported Misato's aide, Lieutenant Makoto Hyuga.
"Notification of the government and all related ministries complete," added Senior Lieutenant Shigeru Aoba.
At Misato's side, Ritsuko looked on with satisfaction. "Well, everything's ready. But who's going to lead this operation?" she asked.
Misato smiled knowledgeably. "Roll out all Evas for launch," she ordered.
Strange, thought Stacy as she entered the plug. I'm not scared. I'm not even nervous. I'm just anxious. She didn't even flinch as the LCL filled the entry plug, nor did it register on her tongue. She jerked the door open and passed easily through the mirror. Then she felt herself being lifted onto the catapult.
Meanwhile, Asuka was in the middle of a hissy fit. "No! Whose lame-brain idea was it to make her leader? She's nothing but a dumb rookie!"
"It was mine, Asuka," shouted Misato. "We don't have time for this!"
"No way! I'm not going to be led around by some mama's girl!" With that, she manually launched herself toward the surface.
"Asuka!" barked Ritsuko.
Misato rested a comforting hand on Ritsuko's shoulder. "That's okay. Let her take the point if she really wants. After all, she'll probably have it from now on, anyway. Eva launch!" she cried.
Below them, Hyuga studied the Angel. "Gamera?" he remarked incredulously.
"Will you get your head out of that manga for just two seconds?" Aoba yelled at him. "There's no one around here that sounds even remotely like Tiffany Grant!"
Asuka shot up toward the enemy. Damn them for wanting that dork Sailor Scout to lead! It wasn't like she was more qualified or anything. Sure Stacy had a higher synch ratio, but Asuka'd had more experience. You couldn't lead a drunk to a bar, Stacy! she thought.
She saw the Angel dead ahead. Quickly, she grabbed two guns from a nearby armament building-a structure that held weapons in it for the Evas-and began to fire wildly at it. First neutralize the AT Field by firing a volley, she thought to herself.
But then the bullets simply vaporized as they reached the phase space. Asuka watched in horror as she could almost see the Angel laughing at her through the AT Field.
Stacy tried not to scream as the Eva shot toward the surface. Was this tearing her face off or what? Not since the rotor at the amusement park had she felt this kind of centrifugal force. The elevator ride abruptly stopped as a door slid open to reveal the combat zone that was now Tokyo-3. Soon she was flanked by Units 00 and 01, and the threesome watched as Unit 02 fired her guns again and again at the giant turtle that was their target.
"I'm neutralizing its AT Field, aren't I?" asked Asuka frantically. The Angel reared up on its hind legs and shot its forelegs out toward the Eva, aiming just under her arms. It then jerked its legs upward through the sockets, severing the arms along with the pesky, irksome weapons that she held in them.
Asuka screamed in agony as blood-red coolant sprayed from her sockets. My arms! My arms! Dear God, my arms! No! They aren't my arms! The Eva's arms. Aren't they? This can't be happening! This can't be happening to me! Kill it! Kill it, kill it, kill it! With that, the armless Eva began to run toward the Angel.
Omigod! thought Stacy. What's she doing? She'll kill herself! "Misato, quick! Break the nerve connection! Now!"
"Hyuga, do it!" cried Misato.
Ten seconds later, the four-eyed head of Unit 02 was sent flying through the air by a thrust from the Angel's horn. It sailed directly toward the other three Evangelions. "Duck!" ordered Stacy. The threesome stooped as the head crashed into the building behind them.
Maya covered her eyes and jerked her head away from the monitor. Both Aoba and Hyuga's eyes were wide as their mouth's hung open, paralyzed with the sight they'd just witnessed. Meanwhile, Ritsuko broke into a cold sweat.
"Pilot status?" inquired Misato.
The three lieutenants still stared at the monitor in shock.
"Pilot status?" Misato's voice was anxious. We had to have broken the connection!
Maya tore her hands away from her eyes and reluctantly looked at Asuka's cardiac monitor and brainwaves. "Pilot's life signs…confirmed." Her face lit up.
Misato breathed a sigh of relief as the tension let out of room at once. Unit 02 was heavily damaged, but at least Asuka was alive.
Asuka sat at her controls in her entry plug, angrily wishing she had something to smash. I lost again! I can't believe it! Now those two idiot twins and Wonder Girl will get all the glory. Why couldn't they just let me die? Her thoughts formed words. "At least death wouldn't have been this humiliating," she said morbidly.
Well, now we know why they painted it red, thought Stacy wryly as she looked at the corpse of Unit 02. She gazed across at the advancing Angel. Guns were definitely out. They needed to get in close and use their close range weapons to penetrate the field and pierce the core.
"It would appear that this Angel is beyond our capabilities," noted Rei.
"But…we can't just give up!" cried Stacy. "That thing has to have a weakness."
"Okay, but what?" asked Shinji. "I mean, it's a giant turtle. Can you think of a way?"
An idea suddenly formed in Stacy's head. "Simple. We flip it on its back."
"But how do we get close enough to do it?" protested Shinji.
"We surround it," replied Stacy.
"We surround it?" repeated Shinji incredulously.
"Yeah. One of us will charge directly at it as a distraction while the other two circle around in a wide arc around the buildings. They will approach the Angel at the front from either side. Meanwhile, the distraction will attempt to break through the AT Field. The flank's job will be to assist if needed. Once that's finished, we'll all grab its horn and flip it up and over. Understood?"
"I will take the spearhead," volunteered Rei.
"No," said Stacy. "I'm the one who thought up this crazy idea. It's only fair that I get the riskiest part. Rei, you take the left. Shinji, you take the right. Everyone ready?"
"Roger," acknowledged Rei.
"Right," came Shinji's reply.
"Okay then, move out!" ordered Stacy. I've always wanted to say that.
As Shinji and Rei moved away from her on either side, Stacy began to charge directly toward the Angel. The Angel's left foreleg shot out at her, catching her in side of the abdomen. Stacy clutched her stomach in pain at the deep gash, but then doggedly ran on, dodging the giant turtle's attacks. Stacy jumped up into the air and flipped toward the Angel, and struck the AT Field that was her first target with a martial arts kick.
Stacy recoiled from the impact and began to claw at the barrier with her fingers, expanding her own AT Field and trying to pull it apart like a potato chip bag. It was the only was to neutralize the phase space. But it's no good. This field's too strong. But then her efforts were suddenly reinforced.
Stacy looked around and saw that Shinji and Rei had joined her on either side and were now expanding their fields to help Stacy. With a loud snap, Stacy tore the force field open. "Yes!" she exulted, grabbing the horn.
Rei and Shinji quickly formed up behind her. "Everybody, heave!" ordered Stacy, spreading her legs for balance. Even with the combined help of Shinji, and Rei, Stacy felt her face turning red with exertion. Every muscle in her body ached with the effort. White light began to flash in front of her eyes as her adrenal glands struggled to block out the fatigue. Then, just as she thought she could lift no more, they suddenly lifted the Angel and threw him down on his back into the armament buildings in the form of a giant wrestler's suplex.
Stacy took out her progressive knife as she ran on top of the turtle's underbelly toward the core. Once I destroy that, this thing's history! Stacy remembered. She found the glowing red sphere in the direct center of the Angel's stomach and drove her prog knife in.
In the command center, Misato braced herself as she saw the core's glow change from deep red to bright white. She knew what that meant. "It's going to self-destruct!" she cried.
Five heartbeats later, the Angel exploded upward in a five hundred foot tower of fire. Then, toward the top, the flaming pillar spread outward in two opposite directions, forming a gigantic cross.
Unit 03 walked out of the center of the explosion, flanked on either side by Units 00 and 01.
They had done it.
Major Misato Katsuragi and Doctor Ritsuko Akagi both stood inside the cages as the three pilots emerged from their entry-plugs. "Good work, everybody," congratulated Misato. "Commander Ikari will be pleased with how you all handled it."
"Yes. You defeated the Angel, and you kept the property damage to a minimum this time," added Ritsuko. "Especially you, Stacy. I didn't think you were capable of taking charge of that kind of a situation."
Stacy pointed at herself. "M-me?" In the midst of the battle, she hadn't even noticed herself giving orders. But it was just that the job needed to be done and…
Ritsuko continued. "In fact, I'd say we've found our field commander. Right, Misato?"
Misato smiled. "Sound's good to me."
Stacy's gaze went from Misato, and then to Ritsuko, and then back to Misato. "Field commander? Me? Field commander?" Her eyes rolled back into her head as she collapsed to the floor.
"Stacy!" cried Shinji and rushed to her side.
Ritsuko shrugged. "Don't worry, Shinji. It's just battle fatigue. You were doing some heavy lifting out there, after all. I'll go get the smelling salts." Ritsuko turned and then stopped. "You know, I get the feeling that I forgot something." She laughed. "Oh well, I'm sure it'll come to me eventually." With that, she walked out of the cages.
As the sun set over the buildings of Tokyo-3, from the decapitated and dismembered Unit 02 there came a muffled whine. "Will someone please let me out of here? Come on, the rescue teams should have been here by now! Misato? Ritsuko? This isn't funny anymore! What's that smell? Mein Gott, the purification systems are breaking down! What's that thing floating by me? EEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWW! Somebody let me out, now! Please? I'll be good from now on, I swear! Can anybody hear me? Misato…"
Asuka's whining continued long into the night.
Next Episode:
Ending theme: Mystik Spiral does an all meat/no filler cover of Frank Sinatra's Fly Me to the Moon.
SREP Daria Alter-egos:
Stacy as a kick boxer (from episode two)
Misato as a clown
Shinji as a maid (and there's actually a picture of this one on the net, somewhere, folks.)
Asuka as Daria
Ritsuko as a nun
Hikari as a headbanger
Rei as a Martin Yan (With apologies to Jackson Ferrel)
Touji and Kensuke as Beavis and Butthead
Bardiel as a ninja turtle (bet you didn't see that one coming)
Pen-Pen as Woodstock
Maya as Stay-Puft the Marshmallow (Wo)Man
Hyuga as Fred the Donut Guy
Shigeru as a Simpson
Stacy in normal garb (hey, she doesn't wear it in this fic, so it counts.)
Afterword
I was going to do an extremely long afterword, but to tell you the truth, I don't think I have the disk space. So, I'll just list all of the in-jokes 50% of you probably didn't get, but the other 50% of you did.Fanfic Reference
Okay, I mentioned earlier that I quoted John Berry's My Quinn's Delayed Reaction. Specifically, it was the "The bigger the better/The tighter the sweater" line, which an excerpt from The Fashion Club's official anthem.
Stacy's Dream
Stacy's "bloody chainsaw dream" was taken from the official Fashion Club homepage on http://daria.mtv.com. I thought it would make a good plot device for this fanfic.
"Where's Kaworu Nagisa when you really need him?"/"That Eva Pilot is popular…"
In episode 102 of Daria, there's a blonde girl who compares the popularity of everybody in the room. She's only made one speaking appearance to date, so I use her in my Daria fanfics under the name of Tori Jericho. Since people like that are fairly generic anyway, Tokyo-3 must have some kind of equivalent. Kaworu Nagisa is the Fifth Child, so naturally she wishes he were there when she runs out of Eva Pilots to compare.
Invasion of the Idiotic Anime Characters!
I can't stand Sailor Moon. That dumb blond annoys me. The only time I'm even remotely interested in Sailor Moon is when someone attempts ye olde SM/Daria crossover. "Ah-ha! Now the whiney little snot is going to get hers! Yes!" I think. (I plan to have Asuka beat up Sailor Moon and Luna in my NGE humor fics as a running gag, but I digress.) That's why for the purposes of this fic, Kevin and Brittany make a cameo as Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask.
Asuka puns and pronunciation
I used to always pronounce to silent "u" in Asuka's name until my third viewing of "Asuka Strikes". From then on, it always irked me when my non-anime friends would talk about my fanfic series "The Ah-soo-ka Versus Trilogy" (blatant plug). But when you think about the fact that it almost sounds like "Oscar" when you pronounce it properly, you can have a lot of fun with her name. Besides the Sesame Street reference, there's also a funny yet tasteless tie-in to Rei's infamous line in the last episode. You figure it out.
Sick Sad World and the Jet Alone
Sick Sad World is a show that Daria and Jane watch, depicting weirdos, morons, and otherwise pathetic people. IMHO, in Evangelion, there isn't anything more pathetic than that stupid Jet Alone robot from Episode 7. I decide for a Sick Sad World gag that they were going back to the drawing board with the Jet Alone, only this time it runs on beer farts. How appropriate.
Asuka and Quinn
Another fellow mutual fan once speculated that Asuka and Quinn would have a rather interesting conversation if they met. I couldn't do that with the storyline I used, so I did the next best thing: an open display of snottiness from Quinn right after denouncing Asuka.
"Good Grief. Why can't I have a normal penguin like everyone else?"
Has any Eva fan besides me noticed the similarities between Shinji and Charlie Brown? Both of them are wishy-washy, both of them have weird pets, both of them have extremely round heads, and both of them have a crush on a little red-headed girl. Scary, huh?
Embarrassing Moments
Stacy and Shinji's most embarrassing moments are from Episode 5 of Eva and Episode 111 of Daria.
Gundams? We don't need no stinking Gundams!
Everyone always compares Eva to Gundam. To me, the only similarity is the mecha. I like Gundam, but I think Eva is better, and that might explain Kensuke's reaction.
Tiffany #1: Tiffany Blum-Deckler
Tiffany is The Fashion Club's resident yes-man, who keeps Sandi and Quinn at each others throats. I thought it would be funny to have her do the same thing with Asuka and Stacy here.
Rei going into the greeting card business
In episode 203, Stacy reveals that she writes poetry and sends it to greeting card corporations. Since this takes place between seasons one and two, she's still doing it. Evidently, something Rei said struck a chord with her.
Bardiel/Gamera
I had to think up another form for the Thirteenth Angel, so I ripped off the giant turtle that A-ko kills in Project A-ko 5. Then saw a promo for this Japanese monster movie ADV puts out called Gamera. It's like Godzilla, only with a giant turtle. I thought, "Oh crap, someone's going to make a comparison somewhere!" So I beat them to the punch. (Also, see Tiffany #2)
Tiffany #2: Tiffany Grant
Tiffany Grant is a dub voice actress for ADV Videos, the distributor of Evangelion. She does the dubbed voice of Dr. Nagamine in Gamera and Asuka Langley Soryu in Evangelion. Most dub-hating Otaku will hate my saying this, but you have not truly experienced Asuka until you've seen the dubbed version. She speaks German much better than the original voice actress, wrote some additional German dialogue for Asuka, and sounds extremely bitchy and whiny when playing her.
Why Asuka's Eva is painted red
Red is Asuka's favorite color. On the Rei versus Asuka site, many people attempt to invoke what the color symbolizes. Rei fans say it's a symbol of hatred and rage, while Asuka fans go with the Chinese symbolism of love. Myself? I say that it's symbolic of the guys in the red shirts on Star Trek, considering how often she gets her butt kicked.
In all fairness to Asuka: She isn't as nasty as I make her out to be in this fanfic. Sometimes she's actually very nice to Shinji and Rei. But the thing is, we're getting this from Stacy's point of view, and she isn't used to being teased. I like Asuka (although not nearly as much as Rei). In fact, if it weren't for Asuka, A Day in the Life of Stacy probably wouldn't have existed.
Next Episode?
No, this doesn't mean I'm writing a sequel. At the end of every episode of Evangelion, they have a blurb on the next episode, done by Misato's voice actress (it's Allison Keith in the dubbed version). However, I thought it would be funny to have Stacy do it in this one.
Ending Theme
The regular ending Evangelion theme is a covered version of "Fly me to the Moon" by Frank Sinatra. They've done all sort of things with this song, including a great four-beat version at the end of episode 17. I thought it would be cool if Trent's band did a cover of it as the ending theme.
Alter-Egos
During the credits of Daria, the animators role the characters beside the dressed in other costumes. The costumes usually are either indicative to the characters true nature (such as Sandi as Satan). Other times, they're extremely ironic. I decided to do this for Stacy and the Evangelion cast. The Rei alter-ego is a reference to Jackson Ferrel's parody series, Shin Slurpee Evangelion, where Rei has a thing for Yan Can Cook.
If I left anything out, please e-mail me, and I'll try to explain it. Thanks for reading!