This is an odd idea I had a little while ago, that *might* make a
good fic set in the Evangelion universe, or it might not. I don't
know. In any case, it was just too...twisted...to leave alone. I'll
let you folks decide what to make of this. Flush it? Write it? Pass
it off to someone else to write? Let me know what I should do with
it. 

Oh, and there's spoilers...well, sort of. Put it this way: it helps
to know what happened in End of Evangelion to understand this...


Pre-notes: the following assumes that the...ahem, 'ultimate form' of
the human race possesses at least a small portion of the power it was
intended to in the first place...and probably takes more liberties
than I should be able to get away with. ^_^;;;

	********

	No response came from the semi-artificial life form. 
	Puzzling. Most species encountered reacted in terror, or in threats
of violence.
	Not that such threats were of any concern.
	Terror, after all, is irrelevant.
	Threats are irrelevant. 

	Something was disturbing about this new discovery. Something
markedly different from anything previously encountered.
	For one thing, the electromagnetic signature which clung to its
endostructure was nearly as powerful as a subspace field.
	Intriguing. 
	The...object, bore markings, symbols. With a little effort, the
markings were decipherable.
	Evangelion 2014. Unit-01. NERV. 
	The computer systems it possessed were primitive at best, easy to
crack.
	Would it be as easy if that electromagnetic signature was active? 
	This...object, called Evangelion, appeared to be half-organic,
half-machine. 
	The organic portions were...unusual. Composed of...
	Impossible. Organic tissue could not be composed of such particles.
	This, however, was.
	Whoever built this...creature...
	Indeed, technology and biology worth investigating.
	And assimilating.
	Data banks scanned. Strange...no star charts or references to
interstellar travel. What was this doing in deep space?
	Probable origin projected. Assimilate the Evangelion, and move on.

	********

	Ikari Yuuichi Langley sighed wearily as the device he was struggling
with whirred and hummed to life.
	"Been busy, Yuu-chan?" a female voice behind him teased lightly. He
turned, and smiled at the red-headed woman approaching him. "Hello,
Misato," he said.
	Souryuu Misato squatted next to him, and peered intently at the
device he'd been working on. "Finally got this thing rebuilt?" she
asked.
	He nodded. "I think so," he said. Grumbling, he said, "The bigger
question is, can we wake up the Three? Without the Three, most of
this...this...*junk*," he snorted, waving his hands disgustedly at
the ruins surrounding him, "is completely useless."
	Misato smiled. "I'm sure if anyone can do it, you can. You've
managed to do more here in the last few years than anyone's done in
six hundred years."
	He sighed, idly scratching his bearded chin. "Not really. I've just
been rebuilding the interfaces, and figuring out how all this crap is
supposed to work. If the last generation hadn't managed to figure out
how to put the power grid back together, I wouldn't have accomplished
this much."
	"Well, I admit, things have been hectic. Especially considering that
all anyone's really been able to focus on for the last six hundred
years is making Eden City habitable. We're lucky, in a way," she
said.
	Yuuichi nodded. "Yeah...the ruins of Eden City make for great
building material..." They shared a laugh.
	"I wonder what our ancestors did here?" Misato mused, looking around
at the vast expanse of technological ruin. Yuuichi shrugged.
	Something beeped insistently on the console in front of him.
Frowning, Yuuichi extracted a small, worn-looking black box from his
pocket, and fumbled with a panel on one of the systems he'd been
working on. With a sharp tug, followed by a snap which sent up
sparks, he extracted a live wire from the panel, and fumbled it into
a slot on the exposed circuitboard of the box. Pressing a button on
its side, he said, "Eden Base here."
	"Yuuichi," crackled a voice from the tiny speaker on the box, "This
is Kenji at Watcher Point."
	"Go ahead, Kenji," Yuuichi said, sharing a worried glance with
Misato. Kenji *never* checked in with Eden Base without first being
threatened with cleanup duty in the Sea...
	"We're picking up something at the perimeter with the orbitals.
We're not sure what to make of it, but it's approaching fast."
	"Do you think it's hostile?"
	"We don't even know for sure what it is. It doesn't look like a
natural space phenomenon."
	"Wonder what it is?" Misato asked.
	Yuuichi shrugged. "Could be anything...let's just hope it's
friendly. Kenji, keep an eye on that thing."
	"Yokai. Watcher Point out."
	Yuuichi set the receiver on the panel, not bothering to disconnect
it. "Well," he said, "looks like we have something to relieve the
tedium now."
	Misato raised her eyebrow. "You call all this *tedium*?" she said,
gesturing expansively.
	Yuuichi shrugged. Suddenly, a young woman with intense eyes and
shoulder-length dark hair ran up to them, pausing to gather her
breath. The pair frowned. "Rei? Is something wrong?"
	The young woman nodded, still gasping for air. People were somewhat
uneasy around her...for six centuries, ever since the founding of
Eden City, a girl appeared once every generation, who resembled the
fabled Ascending Angel. It was customary that when such a girl
appeared, her true name was stripped from her, and she was given the
name of the legend, Ayanami Rei. The girl named Ayanami Rei was
always given one specific duty, the task which made most ill to think
about...Keeper of the Sephirotic Sea.
	Now, the Keeper of the Sea stood before them, thoroughly flustered,
in a state of near-shock. "The Sea..." she said. "It's...it's awake."
	Yuuichi and Misato gasped. "Let's go," Yuuichi said. Rei groaned as
she ran after the two, at a much slower pace.
	
	The Sephirotic Sea...contained in a tank of the strongest materials
their ancestors were able to salvage after the Third Impact. It had
taken two hundred years to seal the sickening red mass of fluid,
especially since it had a habit of awakening every so often, and
killing off the workers. Then, it would return to its slumber, and
the work would resume. 
	For the last four centuries, the Sea had slept peacefully, never
awakening. Now, however, it was extremely awake. Yuuichi and Misato
paled as they watched the body of red liquid seethe and roil in its
vast tank. Bubbles rose and burst in the mass, sending small streams
of it skyward, only to have them return to the Sea itself,
occassionally letting loose a hiss of steam.
	"What's it...doing?" Misato asked.
	Rei shook her head. "I'm not sure. It's been unsettled for a few
hours now, but only started behaving in this manner in the last
fifteen minutes."
	Yuuichi was about to speak, when the sky darkened. Everyone looked
up. The sun was no longer visible, blocked out by a massive object.
Enough light was reaching the Earth past the imposing shadow for
Yuuichi to make out the shape of a cube.
	"What...what *is* that?" Misato gasped.
	"It's trouble," Yuuichi said. "I can feel it."
	The Sephirotic Sea churned more angrily.
	The comm panel on Rei's monitoring station crackled to life. Rei
blinked at it, and started to press the respond button...
	"WE ARE THE BORG."
	The voice was deep, sinister, and resonant, as though a chorus were
speaking. A shape descended from the cube rapidly. It looked to be
about forty stories tall, and humanoid. Something about it looked
very familiar...
	Yuuichi gasped. "Th--impossible! Tha--that's an...."
	"An Evangelion," Misato breathed. "Like the ones in the legend."
	"There shouldn't be any more of them!" Yuuichi said.
	The Sephirotic Sea began to glow.
	"WE DISCOVERED YOUR TECHNOLOGY ADRIFT IN DEEP SPACE. IT INTERESTS
US. WE HAVE COME TO YOUR WORLD TO ASSIMILATE YOUR SPECIES AND YOUR
TECHNOLOGY. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE."
	The Evangelion took a step forward, the ground shaking beneath it.
Its eyes glowed with menace...
	As a beam from the cube illuminated the golem, Yuuichi noted that it
had been augmented with mechanisms which he couldn't remember from
the legends. "I think these Borg, whatever they are, did something to
that Eva," he mused. "It doesn't look right."
	The Evangelion raised its arm, and a lightning bolt streaked out,
raking the surface of the Sephirotic Sea. Rei, Misato, and Yuuichi
scrambled for cover.
	The lightning never hit. It arced harmlessly across a barrier which
had appeared over the Sea. The Sea was now glowing with a fiery
orange light, as it roiled and churned in its artificial basin. A
tsunami wave of red fluid rose up, and a wall of white-hot flame
roared out of it, racing across the ground towards the Evangelion. As
it struck, the Eva was completely incinerated. 
	A beam lanced down from the Borg cube at the Sephirotic Sea, but was
easily repulsed by the force barrier protecting it. The barrier
seemed to be straining, however, to hold back the beam. 
	Then, the Sea settled, appearing calm, though its glow had become
yellow. Without warning, a pillar of light erupted from the Sea,
smashing into the massive cube. There was a soundless explosion, and
a hiss of white noise from the comm panel as the incoming
transmission was severed. The pillar of light thinned, and winked
out, and the Sea ceased its glow, becoming tranquil once more. 
	Yuuichi stood, looking from the Sephirotic Sea to the sky and back
again. "What...what *was* that?"
	Rei frowned. "The Sea...how did it generate that kind of power?"
	Misato looked worried. "Those Borg...do you think we've seen the
last of them?"
	Yuuichi sighed. "I hope so...but I think we'd best prepare a
defense, just in case. The Sea might not decide to protect us the
next time."

--------------------------------------------------------------------
You know you're eating at a bad Italian restaurant 
when there's something Roman in your meal.
---
The Eternal Lost Lurker
EternalLostLurker@worldnet.att.net
http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Garden/9502

Cogita ergo suck. 
-------------------------------------------------------------------