Neon Genesis Evangelion Fan Fiction ❯ Evangelion: Tribulations After ❯ Aftermath, part 2: There is no Spoon ( Chapter 2 )

"A fake?" Shinji asked, ignoring the piece of gum the boy had offered to him.

"Yes, Shinji Ikari. SEELE plugged you four, and Ritsuko and a few other NERV personnel, into a cybernetic web where you are all sharing the same dream-like experience. They've injected a large amount of psychotropic drugs into all of you, creating the illusions you see all around you. What they want is the secret behind creating third impact." The boy said, withdrawing the gum back into his pants pocket.

"But that doesn't make sense! We don't know how to cause third impact!" Asuka exclaims.

"They think you do, and you've just proven it. Thirty-six hours ago, each of you was taken from wherever you were at the time, and loaded into the cybernet. Within each of your minds held a small piece of creating the Third Impact. What they did not expect was that within your own minds, you three's psychological trauma would each be restored in different ways." The boy said, pointing to Shinji, Asuka, and Rei.

The boy walked over to Asuka. "You, Asuka Langley, were in a state of mental collapse after your mind-rape with the fifteenth angel, your fear of dolls, etc. However, the soul of EVA Unit 02, your mother's soul, reached out from it's cage in NERV and touched your mind, giving you the strength you needed."

Asuka snapped her fingers and pointed at him. "I knew I knew you! I've felt your presence before! When the Angel first mind-raped me, I wanted to surrender and have it collapse my mind, but there was something there, eating at the back of my mind, telling me to never lose faith! It was your voice!"

The boy took a bow and walked over to Rei. "Rei Ayanami, you are a unique being. You're a clone of both Shinji Ikari's mother's DNA and the DNA of Lillith, virtually making you half-angel. That is why Kaoru said you two were similar, he being the seventeenth angel. But you are unique for another reason: Your soul is transferable. Every time you died, first by the hands of Ritsuko's mother, then by self-destructing EVA 00, your soul would jump to the next clone processed. However, your soul was so unstable that every time you piloted Unit 00, your soul jumped into it to power it. Your soul, for the first time, did not realize what was happening, and that is why EVA Unit 00 went berserk on its first test. Also, without any soul to strengthen your willpower, you would only do what was commanded. With one stroke, I end this soul jumping."

The boy snapped his fingers, and Rei collapsed onto the ground, gasping for breath. Shinji ran over to her to help her.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

"Yes," she said, beginning to smile. "I've never felt better in my life!"

"I've just locked your soul into that body. It means you won't be able to pilot an EVA anymore, but your willpower has now increased by 78%. You can make conscious decisions, and your fear of failure has nearly been removed. Heck, you may even turn into Asuka!" the boy said.

"Hey!" Asuka shouted in resentment.

"You know what, I know you, too! Your presence is so familiar… Hey, when my EVA first went berserk, I was almost thrust clean out of the seat and into the front. The problem was the impact would've probably fractured my skull. But then, I felt a force holding me down, almost holding on to me. Was that you?" Rei asks, examining the boy closely.

The boy nodded and smiled. He turned to Shinji, who stood with a blank expression on his face at the boy. "And then there was one. You Shinji, are the most unique. You've had, on several occasions, the chance to move on and be happy, but your ties to your friends and loyalty to the human race have prevailed."

"I'm scum. That's all I am." Shinji said, staring at the ground.

The boy rolled his eyes and whacked Shinji on the side of the head. "Would you just get over it, Captain Pessimist? So life's not perfect, the world is a horrible place, and you were used once again. GET OVER IT ALREADY!"

"If life were fair, this wouldn't happen." Shinji said, looking at his hands now.

The boy thought for a moment, and then kneeled down to Shinji's level. "Can you imagine what life would be like, if it were fair? And all the terrible things that happened to us come because we deserved them?" he said.

Shinji examined with care what he had just said.

"I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe. You should too." The boy says.

"Well, not exactly the self-esteem build I wanted, but it's good. Hey, I know you, too! When I was absorbed by an Angel once, I could almost feel someone shaking me around, telling me to snap out of my delusions and save the world." Shinji replied.

"Ah, you remember me!" the boy said, smiling.

Both stood up, and shook hands. Misato walked over to the boy. "Well, kid, what words of divine wisdom do you have for me?" she asked.

The boy smiled and said, "Kaji was murdered by SEELE because he got too close to the truth of the Human Instrumentality Project."

Misato's face turned grim. "It was SEELE?" she asked.

"Well it's pretty obvious when you think about it." The boy says.

"And what is the truth of the Human Instrumentality Project, Mr. Wizard?" Asuka asks.

"To create a Third Impact which would evolve human beings to a next stage of life beyond the comprehension of the human mind and soul." The boy says.

"Well, isn't that a good thing? The human race would evolve as a whole, to create a unified future without war, death, or hatred!" Shinji suggests.

The boy was suddenly holding Shinji up then, without any notice of how he moved without anyone seeing it. He shoved Shinji into a wall and screamed, "CREATING AN ARTIFICIAL THIRD IMPACT IS THE LAST THING YOU WANT TO DO! THERE WERE SEVENTEEN ANGELS SENT TO JUDGE MANKIND, THE EIGHTEENTH, FOR THEIR RIGHT TO EVOLVE TO A HIGHER STATE OF BEING. YOU FAILED. You've proven yourselves to be a brutal, utterly hostile race, which will do nothing but destroy any living creature you encounter or possibly each other! The judgment of the Angels is that in a hundred thousand to a million years you will be ready. NOT A SECOND BEFORE. If SEELE initiates a Third Impact, the human race will be nothing but a puddle of LCL, and their souls will be brought to a Purgatory until their real time of evolution. However, no one has survived the Purgatory for more than two thousand years, usually begging Satan to bring them out of it after the first hundred years or so. So unless you want the human race to become a yellow, translucent goo on the floor of NERV HQ, I recommend you stop thinking the Third Impact is a good thing."

"I get the picture…" Shinji says. The boy let him down.

"Alright, but what do we plan to do about it? Unless you haven't noticed, we're standing here in our minds, with no clue as to how to escape." Misato reminds them.

"There's an old saying that comes to mind." The boy says.

"Every lock has a key?" Rei asks.

"Actually, the phrase is, `There is no spoon.'" The boy corrects.

The four of them gave him very confused looks. The boy rolled his eyes and explained, "Back in the good ol' days before the Second Impact, a movie came out called the Matrix. It said that the life we live in is actually a neuro-simulation called the Matrix. Machines we had created were draining our very life, and only a handful of people outside of the Matrix knew. A group of children within the Matrix had become aware, but were still connected. They learned of a way to bend a few parts of the Matrix for their own needs. Like, for example, becoming psychic or telekinetic. That whole thing with bending spoons is actually just someone in the Matrix realizing that it's only a simulation, and that there is no spoon. Realizing and understanding this, they bend and twist the spoon any way they wished. And so, we must know that this is a simulation," and then he held up a large spoon. "And that there is no spoon."

"And exactly what are we supposed to do when we wake up? We need a plan. They're not just going to give us some milk and cookies and a pat on the back for waking up and revealing the secret." Misato says.

"That's where Rei comes in. Rei, being part Angel, can generate an AT Field. The dummy plugs for the EVAs haven't been fully installed yet, so we have to move quickly. Rei, I want you to just keep thinking that this is not real. Wake up first, and show those SEELE troops the one thing about being human that makes people afraid of being human." The boy commands.

Rei nods, and closes her eyes. After fifteen seconds, she disappears from the group completely.

"And what is that?" Asuka asks.

"The ability to die." The boy scowls.

Rei opened her eyes and activated the AT field. The technology on her forehead and connected into her system disintegrated immediately, and all the scientists working suddenly had their lives flash before their eyes as the AT field rammed into them and annihilated them. Their bloody remains splattered against the walls, arranging patterns of red and white as their bones slammed into the walls and were crushed into powder. Rei slammed her fist through the glass covering around her and the LCL in the tank she was in leaked out as she kicked and punched the covering to let her out. She finally made an opening big enough, and she walked calmly out, evading pieces of broken glass on the ground. She saw Asuka, Shinji, and Misato in similar conditions in several other tanks.

Rei walked over to the console next to Shinji's tank, and looked at the system. She pressed some buttons to drain the LCL in the tank, and then opened the door to open the tank. Shinji slowly opened his eyes and felt the cybernetic wires plugged into his head. He yelped, and reached out to pull them out of his face, but Rei grabbed his hands and shushed him. She slowly pulled the wires out. Shinji calmed down and walked out of the tube. The two revived both Asuka and Misato, both still dripping from LCL fluids.

"Well, what are we supposed to do now? They're bound to know what we've done by now." Asuka says.

"We must strike back, hard and fast." Said the voice of the boy.

The four of them looked around to see the boy walking through a wall and approaching them.

"Who are you, anyway?" Misato asks.

"I've said it once and I'll say it again: the time is not right. There are still other NERV personnel plugged into these cyber-interface nets. They haven't been moved because they weren't deemed important enough as you were. Find them, disconnect them, and explain the situation to them. Now, do you want to take down SEELE or not?" the boy asks.

They all nod. "We'll contact my father, tell him to scramble-" Shinji starts to say.

"Your father," interrupts the boy, "has gone into hiding. The second reason SEELE did this to you was because they wanted to find out if you knew anything about your father's disappearance."

"So what are we going to do now?" Rei asks.

"SEELE will undoubtedly try to do as they did in your dream: create falsified records of NERV preparing to create Third Impact. We're going to beat them to the punch." The boy says with an evil grin.

"Meaning…?" Asuka asks.

"Just get everyone awake, and power up the EVAs. By the way, I've added some improvements to the three operating ones." The boy says.

"Three? Unit 00 exploded." Rei reminds him.

"Who says I was talking about Unit 00?" the boy grins evilly.

The scene is a dark and empty room. One by one, twelve lights shine down onto black monoliths, each one numbered SEELE 01-12. Through a holographic interface, they all now saw one another and a holographic view screen in the center, showing news scenes.

"We've just received conformation of this news report." SEELE 03 says.

The mute sound of the news report suddenly flared on, and a male reporter told of the situation, "This news footage leaked from NERV shows and tells of a plot behind a secret organization known as SEELE to initiate the Third Impact, which will render life on this planet to a so-called state of evolution higher than our current status. However, these have been interpreted as words of a fanatics group who believe the world must evolve through means of the Third Impact. JSSDF forces have been dispatched along with the somewhat-legendary EVA Units 01 and 02. It has been reported that SEELE attempted to use drugs and cybernetic techniques to torture the EVA pilots for information regarding the Third Impact, but fought back enough to stop the plot. All authorities in the area are headed for a location only known to NERV and military forces, where it is believed SEELE's meeting place and HQ is located. We will continue live coverage of this broadcast as it occurs."

"This is true. Long-range perimeter reports have confirmed the approach of the EVAs and a large armada of JSSDF troops, along with military troops from China, Germany, and air units from America and Great Britain." SEELE 12 reports.

"There is no more time left to analyze our findings. Release EVAs 05-13 to hold off the attack, and have them only disable Units 01 and 02. Both may prove to be useful in-"

SEELE 01 never finished that sentence, for the holographic view screen suddenly flickered and changed. The image of the mysterious boy now appeared on screen, and he looked as if he had been watching them this entire time.

"Well aren't you all just the party poopers. Papa spank!" he says with obvious glee.

The SEELE members did not recognize the boy, nor had any idea of what he was talking about. All of a sudden, the building around them began to shake and tremble.

"That'll be one of Uncle Sam's long range cruise missiles, disabling your weapons grid that is attached to your installation. All you have left is your precious Evangelions. And by the way, we have plenty of those, too. Ta!" he shouts, and the image blinks out.

Large, one foot-long bullets were loaded into auto-machine gun turrets outside of the SEELE HQ and fired in rapid quantities at two JSSDF bombers and EVA Unit 01. One of the bombers vaporized from a hit on their fuel line, and the other had its wing damaged, so it pulled back. The bullets bounced harmlessly off of Unit 01, and the gesture was returned with Unit 01 opening a barrage of bullets from it's giant automatic rifle in it's hands to the turret, slicing it into three pieces.

"So let me get this straight, you just plugged in an S2 engine into Asuka's EVA?" Shinji asks the boy on the intercom.

"Yes." The boy replies.

"You did this with no former training, no prior knowledge of how to install an S2 engine safely into an EVA?" Shinji asks.

"Yes." The boy confirms.

"How did you do that?"

"Do what?"

"How did you just do a procedure you didn't know how to do?"

"It's easy when you have 900 years experience."

"Hey, moron, in case you didn't realize it, we have their little EVA pets on their way up to attack us." Asuka says, opening up a vid-link.

Sure enough, Shinji looked to see eight holes in the ground opening up, and white EVAs with reptile heads and large wings came flying out of the holes and into the sky.

"Wait a second, there are only eight of them! Where's the ninth?" Rei asks from inside a troop carrier.

"It doesn't matter. We should be able to handle these things easily, right, Asuka? You took them out alone." Shinji says.

"That was when it was a dream, Shinji. This is the really real world, not some illusion brought on by drugs. Boy, kid, dream-guy, whatever you want to call yourself, we need you." Asuka says.

The boy tightened his grip on the control levers. He answered, "We are there."

The boy was piloting an EVA. It was white, and it was flying thanks to two large jetpacks on its shoulders. Its head was similarly shaped to Unit 02, but it only had two eyes. It had a few scorch marks on it, like it had been in an explosion, but it had markings on it, mostly saying "EVA Unit 04."

To Be Continued…