Neon Genesis Evangelion Fan Fiction / Vandread Fan Fiction ❯ VANEVA v2 ❯ CONFUSION ( Chapter 2 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Disclaimer: I don't own Evangelion or Vandread.

VANEVAv2

By Northridge

Chapter 2

CONFUSION

o o o

Shinji's eyes continued to gaze over the room filled with unfamiliar faces. Everyone was quiet as they stared back at him with equally curious eyes. To the women, Shinji seemed different from the men they have before. To the men, Shinji's clothing signaled he wasn't from Tarak. This strange male was an enigma to the group.

His body began to tremble as it continued to emerge from the effects of deep sleep. Subsequently, Duero gently draped a blanket over his cold body in the stasis pod.

'Where am I?' Shinji thought as the doctor placed a blanket over his wiry body, still in a white and blue plugsuit.

"Thank you." Shinji weakly said to Duero.

"You're welcome." Duero replied as he began to take scans of Shinji's body. "My name is Duero McFile. I'm a doctor."

"Where am I?" Shinji asked as he tried to get up, but gave up as his body gave out from weakness.

"Don't move. Your body needs rest right now." Duero told Shinji with a doctor's firmness.

Shinji restated his question. "Where am I?"

The captain stepped in to answer his question. "Young man, you're on my ship, the Nirvana."

Shinji turned his head over to the old lady he noticed earlier.

"I'm Captain Magno Vivan. What's your name, young man?"

He left his gaze on her for a few seconds before replying with a coarse voice.

"Shinji."

"Well Shinji, we found you on a derelict cargo ship in this stasis pod. Can you tell me how you got in there?"

Shinji shifted his head to stare at the ceiling. A tear began to slide down his cheek.

"Misato." he stated with quiet detachment.

"Misato?"

"She placed me in this."

Duero stopped the conversation between the captain and Shinji. "I'm sorry captain, but he needs rest right now."

Magno nodded in agreement and addressed everyone else. "Alright everyone, leave the room."

Their unsatisfied curiosities caused more than a few women to groan.

As they began to shift out of the infirmary, Magno stayed momentarily to observe Shinji staring at the ceiling with dead eyes. She soon left the room with BC.

Shinji continued to stare at the ceiling, while Duero took some more readings with his scanner. The young doctor told Shinji to get some rest. Duero then dimmed the lights to near darkness and left the infirmary to give Shinji some privacy.

"Unfamiliar ceiling." Shinji whispered before falling into slumber.

o o o

"Is he going to be alright doctor?" The captain asked Duero.

Outside the infirmary, Duero began to discuss his findings with the captain, the sub-commander BC, and the chief engineer.

"The scans showed slight cellular decay atypical with stasis as we know it, but with some rest and nourishment, he should be able to recover fully."

BC directed a question at the doctor. “What do you mean by atypical cellular decay?”

Duero began to explain. “All cells have a lifespan. Stasis cannot totally stop such a life process. When men were revived from stasis to colonize Tarak, some of them came out of the pods with vastly deteriorated bodies. Hair. Bone. Skin. Nearly all of such cases ended with euthanasia. However in Shinji's case, there is the presence of cellular deterioration, but some force seems to have retarded it. Basically, he is more healthy than he should be.”

Duero stopped for a second to look towards the infirmary. “In addition, he is remarkably active considering he just awoke from stasis. Every past case occurs with such individuals having to wait a week before being able to even move.”

"How long was he in there?" BC asked Parfet.

Parfet adjusted her glasses as she answered the sub-commander's question.

"From the information I've gathered from the stasis pod...he's been in there over 750 years."

The other three in the conversation were hit with surprise.

"So he's been in stasis long before colonization." The captain stated with wonder.

"It appears that way." Parfet confirmed.

"But how did his pod continue stasis while the other ones failed?" BC asked, "If it is true that his pod is several centuries old, then its technology should be inferior to the colonial pods."

Parfet scratched her head with interest.

"The technology is certainly more primitive, but while the other pods were connected to a central power source, his pod was independent of it and thus self-powered. His stasis pod also has several back up systems...and a pexis crystal."

Surprise again hit everyone else in the conversation.

"This is an interesting young man indeed. I wonder where he came from." The captain mulled.

"But the strangest thing about it...is that it's a totally different kind of pexis from the one we use."

o o o

Shinji's was dreaming a nightmare from the past.

He was battling the enemy with Asuka.

The MP Evas of SEELE had the advantageas they always didof attacking in larger numbers.This left NERV little choice but to keep their EVA force together most of the time to counteract this tactic.

But not today.

The flight capability of the MP Evas didn't help NERV at all.Nor did their copies of the Lance of Longinus, which could inflict physical wounds on the pilots themselves.

The engagement was to defend the NERVbase stationed atBeijing.A losing battle.

All nine of SEELE's Evas attacked, while NERV had only two Evas on handto defend.

Shinji was fending off four, while Asuka was handling the rest.The enemy were like predatorson the offensive. Each circling their targets looking for openings.

It was a difficult situation for the two Eva pilots. Every other time, they managed to stalemate the situation; however,this time was different.

One of the MP Evas managed to pierce Asuka's Eva-02 with a lance into the right leg. Her Eva immediately went down and the five surrounded it like vultures. Shinji couldn't come to her aid. His own fighting kept Shinji from Asuka.

After a minute of fighting, Shinji managed to scatter thepack and went to assist his fallen comrade. He too scattered them,like flies from a carcass, which wasn't far from the truth. The entrails of Eva-02 wereexposed to the open air. A lance pinned it to the ground by the torso area. Shinji had his Eva quickly remove it and took up a defensive posture over Asuka's Eva.

Shinji shoutfranticallyover the comm."Asuka! Asuka!"

She didn't respond.

The MP Evas circled up above,getting ready for their attack.He had to do something quick.Shinji took an N2 grenade from his Eva'sbelt area and threw it high into the air. Shinji had only a few seconds before it detonated; so he had his Eva pick up Unit-02 over his shoulders and ran to try and escape the blast radius. Eva-01's AT field extended over it's comrade. As his Eva ran, Shinji continued to screamAsuka's nameover the comm.“Asuka! Asuka! Dammit! Answer me!”

He didn't get far before the blast hit his AT field.Aftereverything settled,Eva-01 got back up with Eva-02 still on it's shoulders and continued running.

The purpose of the N2 grenade was to buy time to get away. While the MP Evas regenerated, Shinji and Asuka escaped.

ButNERVBeijing fell.

o o o

Shinji awoke from his nightmare with sweat covering his forehead. He slowly sat up in the stasis pod. He ran his fingers through his soaked dark hair and looked around in the room. It was as he surmised a hospital room. Shinji draped the blanket over his shoulders and got out of the stasis pod. He fell to the floor, due to his legs' disuse from centuries of cold sleep. After regaining his balance, Shinji staggered through the infirmary doors to explore the ship.

o o o

Meia silently walked back to her quarters, carrying her shoulder armor in her left hand, and her mind still occupied by that strange dream she and the others shared.

'What can this message mean.' She wondered with slight fear for the future. 'In the dream, we were all destroyed by that red light.Will it happen?'

Earlier, Meia had met up in the hangar bay with Jura, Dita, and Hibiki to find that they all shared a dream that ended with them and the Nirvana destroyed by the Earth fleet. Their shared dream was permeated with dark redness that couldn't be fought nor defeated. It is a helpless situation that Meia hoped never to find herself in.

She shook herself out of her wonderment and continued her journey back to get some more rest before starting the morning. But Meia stopped in her tracks when she spotted that strange male from the stasis pod. He was staring out into space at a view-port. She began to walk over towards him.

"Hey, what are you doing up?" Meia asked commandingly to Shinji, who was still staring out into space.

"Well?" she questioned him again when she stood right next to him.

Shinji's blanket had slid from his shoulders as he pressed his hands against the glass that separated him from the void. It was then that Meia saw astonishment in his eyes.

"We're in space." He whispered in awe.

Meia was puzzled by Shinji's ignorance to his surroundings. "Yes, the Nirvana's a space ship."

Shinji turned his head to look at Meia. His eyes were still wide from the shock of seeing outer space for the first time in his life.

"Sorry, but this is the first time I've been in space. I didn't know humanity has progressed this far," Shinji turned his head to stare back into space. "I thought humanity would have destroyed itself before ever getting into space."

Meia continued to stare at Shinji in silence. Who is this person who was brought onto her ship in mysterious circumstances? What secrets does he hold?

"How long..." Shinji began. "How long have I been asleep?"

"It's been several hours since..."

Shinji stopped her mid-sentence. "Sorry, I mean how long have I been in the cryo-chamber?" Shinji asked again, as he turned his head again towards the puzzled blue-haired Dread pilot.

Meia shook her head slightly. "I don't know."

Shinji hung his head to rest it against the view-port. His hands slid off the glass surface to go limp. "Sorry."

"For what?"

Shinji chuckled a soft laugh. "I don't know."

Her question still unsolved, Meia shifted the conversation. She came slightly closer to Shinji and leaned her back against the view-port. "Your name is Shinji, right?"

He lifted his head. "That's right.” Shinji said as he took a look at this stranger up close. He stood a few inches taller than her. Her aquamarine hair reminded him of the past. Her cold stare reminded Shinji of someone he loved. But her cerulean eyes reminded Shinji that she was someone else. In a more formal tone, Shinji asked, “You seem to know my name, but I don't know yours."

"Meia. I'm the chief Dread pilot on the Nirvana."

Shinji looked at her with continued curiosity. "Is this a military ship?"

Meia shook her head.

"No, the Nirvana is a Mejare pirate ship."

Pirate ship? "Huh?"

Meia tried to reassure him. "Don't worry, at the moment, we have dispensed with pirating in order to get home.” She then remembered that strange myth that men typically have about women. “We're not going to `eat' you.”

`HUH?.' Her statement didn't comfort Shinji that much. His stomach growled in hunger at that moment.

Shinji grinned. His left hand went up to scratch the back of his head. "Sorry, but is there a place to eat on this ship?"

Meia tilted her head in further puzzlement at this strange male who apologizes like a reflex. 'Well, I don't think I can sleep now.' Meia thought in acceptance.

"I'll take you to the mess hall."

o o o

Meia and Shinji entered the mess hall, which was empty at this time of the morning, except for Parfet, who was sitting at an empty table going over schematics with an insomniac's edge. There were three empty coffee cups on the table.

The Dread pilot led Shinji over to the food conveyor to get breakfast. "You should eat plenty of protein and fat right now." Meia told Shinji as she handed him a plate of bacon and eggs."

"Thank you," Shinji said as Meia took her own plate.

The two walked to over where Parfet was sitting. The engineer was still engrossed over her schematics, which were of Shinji's stasis pod.

"Parfet. Can we sit here?" Meia asked.

"Sure Meia. You know this pexis from-" Parfet stopped her statement when she looked up at Shinji, "Oh, it's you. Shinji, right?"

'Does everyone already know my name?' Shinji thought as he replied to the woman in the orange jumpsuit. "Yes, and your name?"

Her reply was punctuated by the large amount of caffeine in her body. "Parfet, chief engineer! Nice to meet you! Please have a seat."

Shinji and Meia both sat down on opposite ends, with Shinji facing the two women.

"This is a nice ship, Parfet." Shinji began as he forked his food into his mouth.

"Thanks, say, can you tell me about the stasis pod you were in, Shinji?" Parfet inquired with zeal.

Shinji shook his head. "Sorry, but I don't really know anything about the cryo-chamber. I'm not much of a technician."

"Well regardless," Parfet continued, "it's an amazing piece of technology, considering how long you were in there."

Shinji stopped eating. "You know how long I was in there?"

Parfet nodded, but spoke in a hesitant voice. "You've been in there over seven hundred years.”

Shinji dropped his fork and looked at his plate. Parfet face was now filled with concern. "Sorry...I shouldn't have laid it directly like that."

Shinji continued looking at his plate. "It's alright. It's not your fault. It's…just the reality of everyone I know is already dead...I have to accept it now."

Silence filled the table.

Shinji then picked up his fork and took a mouthful of scrambled eggs.

"So, what were you before you were put into stasis?" Meia asked as she began eating her own food.

Shinji thought about all his experiences back on earth. The carnage he witnessed...and created. Asuka. Misato. Touji. Hikari. Kensuke. Rei. . .

"I was just a soldier. No one important." he quietly stated and continued eating his breakfast. He didn't invite any further question on the matter.

Meia looked at him to study his quiet reaction to her question. She knew there was more to it than that, but didn't press on her inquiry.

The three sat there in continued silence.

o o o

TO BE CONTINUED....