Neon Genesis Evangelion:
The End is the Beginning.

Chapter 3: Engagement, a Battle!

An EDF Production.

Written by Helix and Rune.
aka Travis Carr and Jonathan Lloyd.

"After the beginning of the Second War, it soon became apparent that the
Evangelion class 1 series was completely outdated, outgunned, and simply
outclassed by our opponents. Thus, the proposal to construct the Evangelion
Class 2 and 3 was placed before the UN Security Council..."

Excerpt from: An Overview of the Evangelion Defence Force, c. 30 AR

"That had to be one of the most embarrassing experiences of my life!" Ryan
muttered to himself as he stepped out of the shower. Snagging the large
towel draped on the rack, he began to vigorously dry his hair, hoping that
he had gotten the last of the LCL out during his shower. "Of all the stunts
that they pulled, they just HAD to introduce us to the LCL that way..."

Ryan pulled on a talk top, snagging a pair of pants off the wall as he
stepped out of the bathroom. There was a clatter, and Ryan dove behind the
door with a hoarse cry. "Just what in the HELL are you doing in my room???"

Rei Ikari was just setting down a suitcase next to the bunk bed on the
other side of the room. Upon seeing Ryan, she turned to the door and
shouted "IS THIS THE PERSON WHO YOU'RE MAKING MY ROOMMATE????"

"Commanders orders." the gruff voice of Sargent Stickily replied. "Your
to be treated the same as the rest of the cadets, and the same goes for your
brother. We'll find a fourth roommate for you sooner or later, so be
prepared to live with the fact that this is your company for the next
portion of your training." Another boy walked into the room before the door
was slammed shut behind them.

"What do you think your doing???" Rei shouted as she pounded on the locked
door. "Let me out of here!!! How can you expect me to live with these
ravening barbarian men..."

"Ravening barbarian men?" Ryan muttered to himself. "I've been called
some bad stuff in my time, but never something as... pointless." He
finished pulling on his pants, and stepped out into the room. Rei was now
rather pointlessly ranting at the door, but her brother was going about the
business of getting his gear packed away.

Ryan picked up one of his bags, walking over to his new room mate. "Do you
mind if I lend a hand?"

The boy looked at Ryan out of the corner of his eye. "No, I don't mind."

Ryan set down the bag, pulling a few articles of clothing out. "What's
your name?"

"Kaoru." Kaoru went back to unpacking his clothing and putting in in his
dresser, moving with a carefully measured pace.

"Not the talkative type, eh?" Ryan murmured. "Ah well." Ryan pulled
another article of clothing out, handing it to Karou. They continued like
this without words for a few minutes, with only Rei's shouting still going
on in the background. Finally, Ryan turned and walked away as his roommate
put the last of his things away.

"Damn it..." Rei swore as she turned back into the room. Stalking over to
her bed, she rounded. "Just what are you looking at???" she shouted at Ryan.

"I'm apparently looking at a spoiled little brat who hasn't gotten her way.
Is that what I'm supposed to be looking at?" Ryan responded a little
testily. He was quite frankly getting sick of Rei's shouting, demands, and
threats, and wanted to be able to get some sleep tonight.

He regretted that comment almost immediately, and had he had the time or
inclination, he would have compared Rei's explosion of temper to one of the
volcanoes that he had seen a few years ago...

...

Later that night, a lone figure crept along the cadets wall, moving towards
the exit. It paused as it passed the main lounging area, looking at the few
cadets who had fallen asleep in front of the TV. Ryan paused and looked at
Keith, who was holding a young girl with rather pretty blond hair, both of
them fast asleep. "Lucky bastard." Ryan muttered as he walked out to the
exit to the cadets quarters.

Ryan put his ear to the door, listening for any movement outside. Not
hearing any, he slowly opened the door, glancing outside the moment that he
had opened it a crack. Sargent Stickily was sleeping on a chair outside,
oblivious to the world around him. Ryan tiptoed past him just in case,
finally reaching the door to the outside of the base.

Ryan wandered the base for a moment, looking for a map around. The halls
high arched ceilings were lost in the shadow of the bases reduced light
mode, giving a gloomy effect to the passages. Ryan wandered the dark halls
for a half an hour, looking for one specific area of the base. Finally,
Ryan found it. A sign on the wall marked the area as "Pilots Quarters".

"Jenkins... Cummings... Johnson. Here we are." Ryan paused at the door,
listening quietly. He heard someone talking, to themselves perhaps, and no
one was answering them. Ryan put his ear to the door, listening.

"Hmmm... we had three cadets drop out after the incident with the LCL.
That leaves 42 cadets left. Not too bad for my first time as a teacher...
but I shouldn't have lost any of them..." A sigh. Ryan pulled his ear away
from the door, and then rapped soundly on it.

"Who can that be?" Ryan heard as someone stood up and walked towards the
door. "It better not be Jenny again..." The door slip open with a snap,
and a rather tired looking Sam Johnson looked out at Ryan. "Yes, who are
you, what do want?"

"Um, Sam, don't you remember me?" Ryan looked at his brother, up close,
for the first time in several years. The resemblance between the two was
uncanny, enough so that if Ryan were a few years older, they could use each
other as shaving mirrors.

Sam's eyes narrowed as he looked at Ryan. "That's right, your one of the
cadets. Look, if your hear to complain about the LCL procedure, you can
take it up with the commander and the security council. I don't make the
training procedures, I just implement them." With that Sam slammed the door
shut.

Ryan swore quietly, and then shouted at the door. "SAMUEL JOHNSON FUSHA, I
NEED TO TALK TO YOU!!!!!!"

There was a clatter, and the door opened again as Sam grabbed Ryan by his
collar and lifted him into the air. "Who the HELL are you??? How did you
know that name?"

"You don't remember me, do you Sam? Figures, you were always out in the
fields, never coming back inside, vanishing for days at a time. Mom just
figured that you just ran off one day, not really caring about you." As
Ryan spoke, Sam slowly lowered him to the ground, an expression of
incredulity spreading across his face.

"Ryan...? My little brother Ryan?" Sam looked at him for a moment, before
pulling him into a tight embrace.

...

Ryan looked at the mug of coffee that Sam had handed to him, staring
blankly into the liquid within. He glanced up as Sam sat in the chair
opposite to him, with his own mug in hand.

"Sam, what happened? One day you had just... vanished. Mom and Dad went
nuts looking for you, looking everywhere. They checked the entire farm, and
asked almost everyone within a ten mile radius if they had seen you or heard
from you." Ryan leaned back and sipped his coffee has he watched Sam digest
this piece of news.

"That's surprising... I didn't think that either of them cared about me
enough to look for me." Sam sipped at his coffee a bit before continuing.
"You know how they though about us... as field hands, not their children.
I just couldn't stand it anymore. Then, there was an attack. An Angel
landed about a mile off to the west, and an Evangelion was dispatched to
battle it. They fought for a while, and I watched the entire thing from a
tree nearby. Finally, the Eva destroyed the Angel, but it was heavily
damaged in the process."

Ryan cut in at this point. "Yeah, there was a huge clamor in town about
how the hell demon had destroyed on of God's Messengers, and the EDF
removing both of the bodies. But I didn't hear anything about you relating
to that."

Sam chuckled. "Of course you didn't. The pilot of the Eva ejected,
landing close to me. I pulled his out of the entry plug, right before the
damn thing exploded." Sam rubbed his arm as if remembering an old wound.
"I took him to the nearest base as fast as I could. You know I couldn't
stop at the town, because of what those fanatics would do to the pilot. And
once I got here... I stayed. It turned out that I had a better sync ratio
than most of the cadets who had been in training for six months. So I
joined."

Ryan leaned back, the mystery of his brothers disappearance solved at last.
At least partially. "So you joined the EDF. Well, I know why you never
told anyone. Mom would have broken down, and Dad would have gone ballistic
and hunted you down. So how did you get promoted to team commander?"

"The same way as everyone else. You see when I passed my graduation exam,
I was assigned to Lance Squadron..."

...

At the same time, Shinji Ikari was sitting in his study, staring with an
expression of disgust at the terminal screen. Finally he swore sharply and
stabbed at the power button, terminating the link. "Sorry to inform you
my..." he said as he stood up, stretching his legs after his four hour
conference call. "Those idiots... they can't actually expect us to operate
like this..."

"Honey, what's wrong? Why are you still up?" A sleep Asuka asked from the
study doorway. "You weren't arguing with the UN Security Council again,
were you?"

Shinji looked over at Asuka, who was dressed only in her usual red night
dress, before he started pacing. "Those idiots on the Security Council
refused our requests for improved conditions, a bigger budget, and even for
more improved medical supplies. Most of the equipment that's currently in
the med stations is at least 50 years out of date, and if it wasn't for the
number of pilots that are killed, we wouldn't be able to provide habitable
accommodations for our pilots, let alone the cadets."

"What about our main request?" Asuka asked.

"That's the worst part!!! They said that under no circumstances are the
training methods to be changed, no matter what the casualty and dropout
rates are!" Shinji walked out into the kitchen of he and Asuka's apartment,
now much emptier now that the kids were gone. "I just don't know why I keep
doing this sometimes..."

Asuka wrapped her arm around Shinji. "We do this because there is no one
else who can. We tried to stay out of this... and neither of us could
handle it. Come on, Shinji. Lets get back to bed..." A mischievous grin
crossed Asuka's face. "After all, I know something I can do to cheer you
up.."

Shinji grinned, but his reply was cut off by an alarm siren, followed by
the arrival of a call to their apartments emergency line. Asuka swore
profusely as she slapped the receive call button. "What is it??? Why the
hell is the alarm going off?"

The tech on the other end of the line swallowed, members of the control
room night shift had rarely seen Mrs. Ikari's formidable temper in action,
and then continued. "We have four contacts sighted about 50 miles off
shore, heading our way. Estimated time of arrival... 2 hours."

"Damnit, not again!" Asuka shouted as she bolted back into her bedroom.

"Thanks, we'll be there as soon as we can."  Shinji replied.  "Another
Angel attack?  So soon?"  he thought as the screen flipped off, and Shinji
too ran into the bedroom.

...

Five minutes later, both Shinji and Asuka arrived at the Evangelion Defense
Force Strategic Command Bunker, located near the bottom of the EDF base.
Techs were still scrambling to get everything to full combat readiness as
Asuka assumed her usually position of breathing down their necks at the
front of the command center. "Status Report!" she shouted as she tied her
last ponytail in place.

"The contacts appeared about twenty minutes ago off the North Carolina
coast. Their moving our direction, and we've revised the time of arrival to
1 hour 32 minutes." The tech looked at his display, punching a few buttons.
Asuka watched as the main display at the front of the room change to show
the targets current locations as well as their projected path.

Shinji took his seat at the primary command desk, fastening his collar as
he sat down. "Alright, who do we have on standby?"

Asuka checked one of the nearby displays, scanning for the correct date and
names. "Lance Team is on call. Should I contact Lieutenant Commander
Johnson?"

Shinji nodded. "Contact him and move the Lance Teams Eva's to the launch
bay. Prepare three F-55 transports for immediate launch, and inform base 23
that their about to have company. What's Lance Team's composition?" The
last question was directed at one of the techs.

"Two close combat Evas and one sniper." The tech shot the information out
as soon as it passed over his display.

"Then inform base 23 to prepare their power substations for sniper support.
And get a hold of Johnson." Shinji leaned back in his chair, a slight
expression of regret on his face. Now there was nothing to do but wait.

...

"Lance Team, Lance Team. Will Lance Team please report to the launch bay
at once. We have targets incoming, I repeat, targets incoming." the
announcement blared over the loudspeaker in Sam's quarters, as well as the
rest of the Lance teams accommodations as well, utterly destroying any
chance for sleep that their occupants may have had. Sam turned to Ryan as
he got up from his chair. "You should get back to your room, Ryan. They
usually put the cadets under lock down during a battle."

Ryan nodded his head. "Damn Angels. Get in touch with me, K Sam?"

"Count on it." Sam replied as Ryan slipped out of the room.

...

"EDF Lance Team, in position mamn." Lt. Commander Samuel Johnson
announced from inside his entry plug. He checked the last of the
connections to his Eva for the third time, to ensure that nothing had come
loose during the drop."

"Good Lt, take this group out as quick as possible. Your targets should be
in your visual range in three min. Targets are 3 class 3 angels and 1 class
5 angel. Good luck Alpha squad, take one of them down for us." There was a
click as Asuka cut the link from the Command Station.

"Its only been a week since the last probe.  Do you think their up to
something?"  Asuka turned to Shinji as the display in the command center
showed Lance Team settling into positions in the entrance to a narrow
valley.

"It is a possibility."  Shinji replied from his command chair, perched atop
the central command area.  The command center had been patterned off of the
old NERV command center, and in the last few years it had become like home
to
its operating staff.  Shinjistood from his chair and pace.  "Tac, do we have
any confirmation on the Angels location?"

"Negative sir.  They dropped off of scanners a few minuites ago.  Must be
the
new jamming they put into use on the Asia theater."  Shinji nodded,
seemingly
expecting this.

"Damn, he acts so cool under fire."  one of the techs muttered near Asuka.

Yeah, but we didn't expect the Angels to begin to deploy new technologies on
multiple fronts at once.  "It usually takes a month or two for the Angels to
intoduce a new ability, and this one was sighted in Asia only last week."

"TARGET SIGHTING!!!" another tech shouted.

"Show me."  Shinji replied as he sat back into his seat.  The view screen
flashed to show the glittering shape of a class 5 fort and the bent,
humaniod
shapes of the class 3 scouts.

"Just like old times, eh?"  Shinji muttered.  "Commander Ikari, give Johnson
permission to attack."

Asuka nodded, and pressed the mike activate button. "Lieutenent, you have
permission to engage."

"Affirmitive.  Lance team engaging."

...

"I wonder if this is what Misato and my father felt 15 years ago..."

"Shinji, you have to let the past go.  We certainly arn't deceving the
public
to the threat of the Angels."  Asuka sat in a folding chair that she had
pulled
over next to Shinji.

"Arn't we?  To the public, the Angels are simply an alien invasion, bent on
conquoring the planet.  But we're still hiding things."  Shinji sipped at a
cup
of coffee as he watched the engagement upfold on the viewscreen.

"People dont understand the angels... certainly not to the extent that we
do."
Asuka replied as one of Sam's teammate blew the class 5 apart with a
particle rifle.
"And the accellerated project has to be concealed, but only for security
reasons,
not because of sinister intent."

The angels and Eva's spat energy bolts and bullets, missles and plasma
blasts,
at each other.  Asuka watched for a moment with Shinji, and then turned as
he
started speaking again.  "I remember, before Misato died and NERV was
destoyed,
that she said that 'with four Evas, Ikari could rule the world'.  We have
over
400 Evas worldwide.  How much of the security councils training methods and
campaigns are meant to help defeat the angels, and how many are meant to
simply
keep us in check?"

Asuka remained silent as the Evas and Angels engaged in viscious hand to
hand
combat, finally turning away from the screen.  "That sounds like something
wonder
girl..." Asuka trailed off as Shinji's expression hardened.  "Sorry."

Shinji waved it off.  "Can you handle this love?  I have to make a report on
this
to the Security Council.  And another argument."

"Of course I can count on it.  Leave it to ol Asuka, and let Shinji the hero
go
handle that nasty UN."  Asuka smiled and kissed Shinji on the cheek.  "Quite
frankly,
you couldn't pay me enough to take your job.

Shinji smiled as he stood up.  "Let me know when Sam's finished playing
around."

Asuka nodded, and turned her attention back to the view screen.

...

"This is Unit 22 pilot Sam Johnson to base. Successful completion of
mission, though
my Eva
has incurred some damage. Request pickup at coordinates."

"I hear you, Unit 22, air pickup will be there in 20. Good to see your all
still alive." The voice that replied over the con was not Commander Langley
Ikari's, but one of the techs manning the Command Center.

"It's good to be alive base"

...

"Shinji, Sam made it back in one piece."

"Thanks Asuka."

"He wanted to talk to you."

Silence.

"Shinji?"

"We've been requestd to accellerate the current class in preperation for a
new campaign.
Tell Sam that they are going to be interfaced into the Eva's the day after
tomorrow."


Jonathan Lloyd,
Rune, Master of Confusion and Being Lost in Time
Korin, Extreemly Confused Seiryuu Seishi