Obligatory comments, as per fanfic regulations:

This is my first ever attempt at an Evangelion fic, so do *not* go easy 
on me.  I want flames, insults, questions regarding my parentage, etc.

Warning, warning, warning.  I am breaking my own rules on this one.  
While I like to think that I'm fairly knowledgeable about Sailor Moon, I 
realize that I have seen exactly 4 episodes of NGE, and the rest of what 
I know comes from fanfics and FAQs.  With that in mind, I'm going to 
give continuity a break.  I don't know *exactly* how things proceeded in 
the original story, and I don't care, because I'm ignoring it.  Purists 
may howl at this.  I don't blame them.

Sailor Moon characters belong to Naoko Takeuchi, Toei, Kodansha, the 
works.  Evangelion characters belong to Gainax, Anno Hideki, and others.  
Pretty much everything in here is used without permission, but I'd 
rather not be sued as I'm in enough debt as it is.  Spoiler warning for
anyone who hasn't seen past episode 10, to be safe.

There, that should be enough preamble.  Let's begin, shall we?


==============================================================
For Unto Us a Child is Born
A Sailor Moon / Neon Genesis Evangelion fanfic by LeVar Bouyer
==============================================================


	"For unto us a child is born, unto us a daughter is given."

	-Isaiah 9:6, with liberties by the author.

***

	Tokyo-3
	2015 AD

	Asuka walked moodily down the street.  Just her luck, she thought, 
to be saddled with a bunch of amateurs.  She'd shown them how to take 
care of an angel on the way over, and they *still* doted on that idiot 
Shinji.

	She was rather wrapped up in these matters, and didn't notice when 
she came to a curb.  Unprepared for the sudden change in ground level, 
she stumbled and flailed wildly to maintain her balance.  She managed to 
do so, and stared for a moment at the spot her head had been about to 
hit.

	"Phew, that was lucky."

	If she hadn't spent so much time congratulating herself, she 
probably would have noticed the large supply truck that was bearing down 
on her.  But she didn't.  Such, as they say, is life.

***

	"Masaka."

	"It's been confirmed," said Fuyutsuki grimly.  "The Second Child 
has been killed in an automobile accident.  She was rushed to our 
medical facilities, but it was too late."

	"I see," said Gendou pensively, looking at a random spot on the 
ceiling of his office.  "Her remains?"

	"Taken care of."

	"Who has been informed?"

	"Not too many, I think.  We managed to keep things relatively 
under wraps.  Only a few know, but they'll keep quiet."

	"Ah."  There was a pause.  "You realize, Fuyutsuki, that we have 
to have a pilot for Unit-02."

	"But who?  The Fourth is still unknown."

	"We will have to find one."

	"Where?"

	Gendou grinned.

***

	"Okay now, just relax.  The fluid now surrounding you is 
oxygenated.  It'll take some getting used to, but you'll be fine."

	The girl in the plug scowled.  "Yeah, I can get used to drowning 
real fast," she snorted, but she obediently took in a gulp of the LCL.  
It had an odd taste to it that she could never place.  Not wholly 
unpleasant, but hardly tasty, either.

	"Good, you're doing fine," encouraged Ritsuko Akagi, looking at a 
monitor and reading the girl's life signs.  Everything about this girl 
stunk to high heaven, frankly.  There was no way she could be an 
adequate replacement for Asuka.  But all the reports said she was good.  
That didn't mean she couldn't worry, though....

	Then an entire bank of lights turned green, and she breathed a 
sigh of relief.  The plug was now completely filled with LCL, and the 
girl was breathing normally.

	Behind Ritsuko, Gendou Ikari watched as well.  "She seems to be 
adapting well," said the commander softly.

	"Hai.  She'll probably be ready to make her first trial in the Eva 
by next week."  She paused.  "Are you still going to use Eva-02?"

	"That is the plan."

	"Hm."  She punched another button, and on the console before her a 
closed-circuit TV picture of Eva-02's holding bay appeared.  The 
enigmatic machine stood silent, supported by braces.

	They both watched the screen silently.  "She's only fourteen."

	Both knew the answer to that statement.

***

	The girl stood in the shower, trying to rinse the LCL from her 
long ponytails.  They reached all the way down to her knees, and met her 
head in a curious junction that wasn't described easily.  It had taken a 
lot of arguing for her to keep her hair that way when she entered the 
plug, but now, as she tried to get the stuff out of her hair, she had to 
admit that perhaps the techs had had a point.

	She never heard the footsteps approaching.  "Tsukino-san."

	"Call me Usagi, please."  She turned around and saw her.  The blue 
haired girl...Rei, wasn't it?  The one with about as much personality as 
a wristwatch?

	She stood in her school uniform, unheeding of Usagi's nudity.  
"Usagi-san...you are to pilot Evangelion Unit Oh-Two."  Rei then turned 
and left, leaving Usagi standing shocked.

	"Um, congratulations, I guess."  She continued to shower, towel 
off, and dress, all in silence.  It took a bit of work to do up her 
odango without the usual hair implements, but she managed.

	Coming out of the locker room and turning a corner, Usagi ran into 
a boy.  Literally: they met forehead to forehead, sending both reeling 
back.

	"OW!"

	"Itaaa!"

	Usagi rocked back, clutching her forehead.  The other boy did the 
same.

	"Uh, gomen nasai...Tsukino-san?"

	Usagi sighed.  "Call me Usagi."

	"Bunny?"

	Usagi groaned.  "No, Usagi.  Look, I didn't pick my name, okay?" 
Is this what being the new girl in town is going to be like? she asked 
herself.  It wasn't as if she'd asked to join NERV, after all.  Given 
how anti-military her mother had been, if she had still been alive Usagi 
would probably be safe somewhere else.

	Then again, that was the point, wasn't it?  As long as the angels 
were around, there *was* no safe place, not anywhere on the world.  It 
was up to the Evas to defend Earth, and she was now apparently an Eva 
pilot, through whatever crazy system they'd come up with to pick them.  
Sometimes she wished she were queen, just to tell them how things should 
be run....

	"Gomen," said Shinji, breaking in on Usagi's thoughts.  "Well, I 
should be going," he said by way of apology, "I have some tests to 
perform in my Eva, and...."

	"Oh, of course," said Usagi, stepping out of the boy's way.  "Ja," 
she said, waving and going on her way.  As Shinji walked by, however, he 
couldn't help but notice her eyes.  Just like Ayanami Rei's, they were a 
shade of red...but he had to admit that they looked sort of cute with 
her pink hair.

***

	Usagi lay slouched in a couch in a waiting room in the most well-
defended and technologically advanced rabbit warren the world had ever 
known.  She was idly flipping through a manga put out by Kodansha, 
called Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon.  She had to admit that the title 
character looked a lot like her mother...or at least her memories of her 
mother.  She'd died in childbirth, nine months after the Second Impact, 
when the world was still picking up the pieces.

	She put down the manga.  While Sailor Moon was entertaining, she 
had other things to attend to, like the massive NERV employees' manual.  
It definitely wasn't light reading, but with another hour to wait until 
Major Katsuragi got off, there wasn't much else to do.  She read it 
aloud.

	"'Section 4: Appearance and Conduct.  All NERV personnel shall at 
all times present themselves in a professional and dignified manner.  
NERV uniforms are to be considered required at all times unless 
otherwise ordered.

	"'Subsection i: Uniform.  The uniform shirt will be tucked into 
the uniform pants at all times...' kami-sama, can this be *any* more 
boring?"  She tossed the manual on the floor, where it landed with a 
satisfying thud.  "I hate studying," she whined.

	She looked up at the clock.  The hands read six hours and forty-
five minutes.  Another fifteen minutes to wait until Katsuragi showed 
up.

	She got up and looked at the books that lined the walls.  Most of 
them were rather technical: Jane's Fighting Ships, a few bound volumes 
of psychiatric journals...actually, there were a *lot* of journals, 
about everything from nanotechnology to artificial intelligence to 
theology to extraterrestrial life to...theology?  She walked back.  Yes, 
an entire section of the bookshelf devoted entirely to treatises of 
Christianity and Judaism.  Not a scrap of Shinto or Buddhism...except 
there, a tiny volume of a comparative studies textbook that had probably 
been snuck in by someone who had close ties to Shinto.

	-her eyes flashed violet as her long black hair blew in the wind-

	Usagi blinked.  "Nani?" she asked softly.  But there was no-one 
else in the room.  It had seemed so real...but what had it been?  Where?  
Calm down Usagi, she thought, you're just getting jitters.  Just because 
you will be getting into a giant biomechanical robot which is the last 
hope of humanity is no reason to be nervous, ne?

	She decided to sit down.  Very comfy chair.  Almost as comfy as 
the one back in-

	"KONBANWA!  Anou...did I frighten you?"

	Usagi looked up from behind the couch, which she had leapt behind.  
"No," said the pink haired girl acidly, "not at all."

	"Oh, good," said the woman who had just walked in.  She wore a 
rather tight uniform with a bright red jacket thrown on top.  Her hair 
seemed to be very close to purple, and she looked like the type of woman 
who liked to have fun.  She also seemed to be the type of woman with a 
deranged sense of fun.

	"Hi!  I'm Misato Katsuragi, and you're...Usagi Tsukino, ne?"

	"Um, hai," said Usagi reluctantly.

	"Oi, oi, lighten up!  We're going to have fun, okay?"

	Usagi gave Misato a look much like one would give an overenthused 
camp director (or, rather, a camp director).  The kind of look that said 
"Look, I don't want to be here in the first place, so take your cheery 
crap somewhere else."  Misato either knew that look and chose to ignore 
it, or genuinely didn't know it and plowed right ahead.  With Misato, it 
was often hard to tell which was which.

	-brandishing the crystal, her clumsy personality being cast aside-

	Usagi blinked.

	"Hm?  What's wrong?"  Misato bent down in front of Usagi, giving 
the pink-haired girl a view that most men would have given a large sum 
of their weekly paycheck for, but which Usagi merely glanced over.

	"Nothing much," said Usagi.  And it wasn't anything, really, she 
told herself.  Two brief flashes of...something...wasn't anything to be 
concerned about at all, was it?  "I suppose you're taking me to a place 
where I can sleep?  It's been a long day, you know."

	Behind the shining eyes, Misato frowned slightly.  A long day, 
huh? she thought.  My dear second child, you haven't known the meaning 
of a long day until you've stayed here awhile.  "Is that so?  Well, 
we'll have to get you to my apartment right away, won't we?"

	"Your apartment?"  Surely Usagi was old enough to survive on her 
own, wasn't she?

	"Hai!  You'll be with Shinji and I.  Oh, and Pen-pen, too."

	"Pen-pen?"

	"You'll see."

	Usagi sighed.

***

	After a few minutes, Usagi was forced to admit that the Katsuragi 
household was perhaps the strangest place she had ever visited.  And 
given that she was been at NERV for the past several hours, that was 
quite a trick.

	For one thing, she had never known anyone to have a need for so 
much alcohol.  It seemed like one side of her refrigerator was 
completely occupied with cans of beer.  The other side, she'd found, was 
occupied by a penguin.

	"So this is Pen-pen, ne?"

	"Hai," said Shinji in a resigned tone.  Then again, thought Usagi, 
have I ever heard him use anything other than a resigned tone?  "Oh, I 
guess we'll have to work out another arrangement for the chores, won't 
we?"

	"Chores?"

	"Oh, you have to have done chores before!"

	"Not really.  You see, back at-"

	"Never mind, never mind.  We'll get to that.  First," she said, 
heading for the refrigerator, "we get you settled in.  And then," she 
added, pulling out a beer, "it's liquid refreshment time!"

	Usagi facefaulted.  This would be an interesting dinner.

***

	School.  This one was different from her last one, a bit south of 
Tokyo-3.  It had been decided that Usagi should go to the same school 
and class as Shinji and Rei did.  And so she sat in class 2-A, pointedly 
ignoring the glances thrown her way by some of the males in the class.

	Across the room, Touji and Kensuke watched the newcomer sit next 
to Shinji and Rei.  "Ne, you know what that means," said Kensuke.  He 
gestured at the group.  "Another pilot."

	"That makes what, three?" asked Touji.

	"Hai.  And this one's sort of cute, you know?"

	"She has red eyes like Rei does.  Not that I'm complaining," Touji 
added.

	"Hai, hai.  You think everyone's cute, don't you?"

	A few desks away, Usagi was chatting with her fellow pilots.  Or 
rather, trying to.  Rei was being her usual taciturn self, and Shinji 
didn't know nearly enough about the latest anime and manga that Usagi 
liked.  So it came down to Usagi talking to a wall and an echo chamber.  
Not her idea of fun.

	All things considered, it was probably for the best when three 
cellular phones rang simultaneously.

***

	Misato walked into the control room briskly, still shaking off 
last night's sleep (and boozing).  "Angels make a crummy breakfast," she 
muttered to herself.  Then she forced herself into a professional 
manner.  "What do we have this morning?"

	"Appeared out of nowhere, sir," said one of the techs.

	"They always do," she muttered.

	The tech hadn't heard her.  "Coming from the northwest...we have 
visual confirm.  Putting it up now."

	Gendou walked in as the image appeared.  He looked up at the 
screen.  Yep, something that looked like an object from a child's 
demented coloring book.  It had to be an angel, even if the MAGI hadn't 
agreed upon it.  Its destination was rather clear: the Geo-Front.

	For a moment the two watched as the taller skyscrapers of Tokyo-3 
retracted into the ground.

	"Target is designated the seventh angel, named Israfel.  Are the 
Children ready?"

	"On their way," said Misato tightly.  "You aren't sending Usagi 
out, are you?"

	"We didn't give her Unit Two to use as a playtoy."

	"Hai."  There was no getting around it; they'd sent out Shinji 
with far less training than Usagi had now.

	"Children arriving."

***

	Usagi fought to keep her heart rate steady.  Her hands fumbled 
several times as she pulled the zipper on the plugsuit, which hung 
around her in its baggy state.  Rei carried on mechanically with taking 
off her uniform and putting on the suit, almost as if changing to take a 
swim.

	"Aren't...aren't you nervous?"

	Rei looked up at the pink-haired child in the white and pink 
plugsuit.  "No."

	Usagi stood silently and watched as Rei finished changing.  "I 
see.  Nothing fazes you a lot, does it?"

	Rei didn't answer.

***

	Once more down the hallway, once more through the gantry, once 
more into the plug.  Once more she felt the LCL fill the plug, oozing up 
from her feet to her head.  Once more she fought the fear of drowning, 
breathed in the gulp of warm liquid, marveled at the fact that she 
didn't die.  Once more she felt the neural connection, and once again 
she felt herself become part of the entity known as Evangelion Unit 
Zero-Two.

	But this time, she was going to be fighting for real.

	"Usagi-chan, are you there?"

	"Um, hai," said Usagi to Ritsuko, trying to calm herself.  Dammit, 
they had her vital signs in the control room, they could tell if she was 
nervous or not....

***

	"She's nervous," said Ritsuko.  "but she'll be fine."  She had to 
be.  There was no hope for any of them if the pilots decided to get cold 
feet.

	"Ah," said Gendou.  He merely glanced over at Misato.  Time for 
her to get to work.

	"Very well."  Misato looked at the status board again; the angel 
was closing in on the city.  "Units 00 and 01 will move in for the kill 
from different axes, north and south.  02 will hang back here," pointing 
to a spot on the map, "and assist *only* if necessary.  I don't think 
she's quite ready to go all out her first time."  Past events at NERV 
seemed to indicate that whatever could be done only as a last resort 
turned out to be what in fact was necessary at the earliest possible 
time.  For Usagi's sake, she hoped the pink-haired girl had a 
satisfyingly boring first day in the field.

***

	I'm going to die.

	She repeated that to herself again and again as the techs 
completed their final checks of the Evangelion.  Inside the plug she 
could hear a dozen voices on a dozen channels, completing the 
preparation of the most expensive and most advanced weapon on Earth.

	I'm going to die.

	"Usagi-chan, you'll be launching in 90 seconds.  Are you ready?"

	"An-n-n-nou...."

	"Usagi-chan, this is Misato.  Just relax, okay?"  Please, don't 
fold up on me now, Usagi-chan.  She knew that at this point Gendou would 
be perfectly willing to launch 02 even with a shell-shocked pilot.

	"Relax?  RELAX?!?  Kami-sama, I'm in a bloody machine that I've 
never piloted before, off to-"

	"Usagi, calm down.  You've done more simulator time than any of 
your partners, you've got more experience than either of them had 
*their* first time.  Just take some deep breaths and think about the 
training exercises."  And don't think about the marauding Angel out 
there that's ready and willing to kill us all.

	"Hai.  Hai."

***

	In the control room, Misato watched the big board.  Usagi's vitals 
were slowly dropping back to acceptable levels.  Good.

	"30 seconds to launch," sang out Maya from her console.

	"Eva Unit Zero reports ready."

	"Eva Unit One reports ready."

	"Eva Unit Two reports ready."

	Misato looked over it all, silently absorbing, fully aware of 
Gendou's stare bearing down on her.  Twenty seconds, and once again the 
dance would be played out.

	She hated waiting.

***

	"Jugo.  Jushi.  Jusan.  Juni.  Juichi.  Juu."

	Usagi listened to the countdown to commence.  Despite her outward 
appearance, inside she was all butterflies.  She felt like she was going 
to faint and throw up and laugh all at the same time.  At the moment she 
was a billion nerves all firing at once.

	-in a white dress, she turned her head, her face the picture of 
serenity-

	Serenity.  Somewhere that struck a chord in her.  It reminded her 
of her parents: her father, who she had only seen pictures of, dead 
since a couple weeks after Second Impact.  Her mother, dead from 
complications during Usagi's birth, but who had managed one word upon 
seeing her daughter for the first and last time.

	"Chibiusa...."

	Her mother, Usagi Tsukino.  Her father, Mamoru Chiba.  Her 
surrogate aunts: Ami-san, Rei-san, Makoto-san, Minako-san.

	She remembered her birthright.

	"I'm ready."

***

	"Shi.  San.  Ni.  Ichi.  Zero!"

	"HASSIN!" cried Misato.

***

	Eva-02 rocketed through the maze of launch tunnels that lead from 
the Geo-Front to the surface.  It and Usagi emerged a few kilometers 
distant from the approaching Angel.  The other two units were already 
closing in.

	Inside the plug, Usagi watched, and smiled.  Sure, she hadn't 
asked to be a pilot, but damned if she was going to die her first day on 
the job.

	It was the least a Messiah could do.

***

	"Synchronization on Zero-One now at 50% and holding.  Zero-Zero at 
45% and climbing slightly.  33% on Zero-Three."

	"Better than expected," said Ritsuko, hovering over Maya Ibuki.  
"Perhaps this wasn't as haphazard a choice as I thought."

	It was, of course, at that point that everything went to hell.


================================

	Some time ago on #moonscribe, I noted that by the time Second 
Impact came around, Mamoru and Usagi would be just old enough to have a 
socially acceptable child.  And I'd already written a story with a grown 
up Chibiusa, so it wasn't terribly hard to do that part.  After that, 
things just fell into place.

	I realize that this story is a mess continuity-wise.  I've twisted 
the Eva storyline to a degree that even I can't recognize.  But seeing 
as how I was writing this on a near-continuous basis in a single night, 
I don't really mind.

	SM haters will flame me for this.  I don't mind; I can use the 
amusement.   Cliffhanger haters will also flame me for leaving this 
unfinished.  I've left it unfinished for one good reason: I don't know 
enough about the series to give any future parts the attention to detail 
that they deserve.  If anyone wants to pick up where I've left off, 
you're more than welcome.  I doubt I'll ever write another Eva fic 
anyway.

	Thank yous to Victor Naqvi, who told me to go ahead with this even 
though I didn't have enough time, and to Sailor Alpha, who put up with 
my newbie questions about things any real fan should have known by now.


--
LeVar Bouyer -
Finger l_bouyer@csunix1.lvc.edu for URLs and such | Libertas per veritatem
Moonie code (0.11.11) SM:5+F:sMe++[+]In>+[++]D:sUr>--[-]Ne>--[-]O:d+o+
P:a19:s6:w-:eBKg:hBk-:y-:r+|+                cs01a on Undernet #sailormoon