It's been about a month since I last posted the teasers about Redemption of
Rei Ayanamai fic that I had tentatively planned to write. Since I had received
positive feedback on my idea, I decided to write the fic. While it's assured
that I am going to write the fanfic, it's going to be pretty long one, and
therefore a sort of side-project. I'll occasionally work the fic now and then.
For now, I thought you might enjoy what I've written so far. Granted, it's not
much but at least it's a start.
C&C and Suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Neon Genesis Evangelion and the assoicated characters belongs to Gainax and
Hideaki Anno, and I do not own them. I am only hiring the characters for a
fixed budget that would put Gainax to shame- ZERO cost and ZERO profit! Ain't
it wonderful? ^_^


Enjoy,

Dark Alpha <AlphSailor@aol.com>

----------------------------------------------


A Neon Genesis Evangelion fanfic,

Featuring the all-engamic Rei Ayanami...


*****

DAY 01 00:00:00


"What is it?" Ayanami gradually slowed to halt so the unknown man could catch
up to her, though momentarily puzzled about the events. She studied the
person, who was obviously a foreigner, wearing a long trenchcoat, but lacking
a hat to complete the mysterious figure the Americans had been rather fond of.

The man smiled slightly as he came to halt in front of the albino girl,
grateful that she had done likewise. He was certain that this girl was the one
he had been looking for. "I'm sorry," he apologized in almost perfect Japanese
accent, bowing slightly.

Rei did not return his formal greeting, having lacked training in proper
greeting manners, and replied simply, "What do you want?"

"I apologize if I may seem rude, but I just wanted to know your name."

"Rei Ayanami." 

The mysterious man cocked his eyebrows slightly at the mention of her name.
Just perhaps she was the one he had been looking, but he needed to be certain,
a sort of physical evidence. "Ah, so your name is Rei Ayanami. The pilot of
Unit 00, right?"

The girl nodded, but he wasn't satisfied. "How do I know it's really you? Do
you have a sort of physical identification? An ID card, perhaps?"

Rei inclined her head at the request. Strange one, indeed. But she decided to
comply as she pulled out her NERV identification card and handed it over to
the man. "Is this satisfactory?"

The gajin carefully kept his emotions in check as he inspected the ID, but
inside he was estastic. After weeks of intensive search and attempts to catch
out Rei well out of the security of NERV, he had finally done it! Now, he
would be able to begin his mission. But first things first...

"Yes, it was." He returned the card to Rei and put his hands inside the
pockets of his coat. "Tell me something, how would you feel if someone was
going to kidnap you?" With that, he pulled out a M9 pistol equipped with
silencer, gleaming brightly in the sunlight, but taking care not to make his
weapon too visible to others except Rei.

Rei wasn't even fazed. "Just as I thought. I'd rather make this easier on us,
if you don't mind. So while I doubt you would be inclined to resist, please
don't try. We have lot to discuss, and about how to deal with you. I have a
place where we won't be disturbed, and I'm sure you will feel comfortable
there."

Rei's abductor gestured with his semiautomatic pistol slightly, "Shall we go?"


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

Dark Alpha's G3 Fanfic Studios presents,
A Neon Genesis Evangelion fanfic,

The Redemption of Ayanami Rei


Written by Dark Alpha

"The mind is the prisoner of its body, but the soul cannot be imprisoned or
manipulated, unless it wishes to be so."
	-Dark Alpha (yes, I came up with a quote)

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

DAY 01 00:17:38


"What?" Ritsuko jerked her head up from her papers, "What do you mean that Rei
hasn't returned?"

Maya put her hands on Ritsuko's desk, upset. "Just exactly that! She's late
for her scheduled synchronization experiment with Unit 00 at one-six-hundred
hours. That was twelve minutes ago, and she still hasn't appeared yet."

Ritsuko put down her papers and swiveled around in her to face Maya, suspicion
evident on her face. "This doesn't make any sense - she haven't been late to
her tests, never. Something must have happened..."

"Do you think so?"

The doctor mulled for a moment, then shrugged for a moment. "There's probably
an accident, and she was forced to make a detour. Tokyo-3 still haven't
recovered completely from Leliel's attack last week, so I'm sure she's bit
delayed, that's all."

Ritsuko's response seemed to relax Maya, but something was nagging at her
subconscious mind. She had been trained by her superior for so long that she
practically had inherited her mentor's knack at spotting even the smallest
potential problems or distractions during their workload. And that knack was
trying to make itself aware, to tell Maya that something wasn't right.

"Hey! This vending machine's out of Coke!" Aoba cried out in dismay.

Maya face-faulted.


* * * * *

DAY 01 00:48:06


"Watch that step," The foreigner warned he opened the door to the room, and
followed Rei in, removing her blindfolds. "Ah, here we are."

Rei blinked once to let her eyes adjust to the light and observed the room.
Despite sunlight streaming through two large windows, the room seemed gloomy
and oppressive with only two three chairs and a table in the center of the
room. She also noticed two doors, but she had no idea where they led to, so
she didn't dwell much on that.

"Here, take a seat, Rei." He gestured to a seat beside the table. Rei
obediently seated herself, not taking her eyes off him. "Thanks, now shall we
get started?" Plucking out something out of his shirt pocket, he placed it
upon the table. Glancing up to the girl, he questioned her, "Can you identify
this person?"

Rei leaned over slightly so she could see what it was as Mike removed his hand
from the paper. It was a picture, obviously a recent photo, taken not long
after Ramirel's assault. The girl inside the frame was smiling slightly, and
she had pale skin, and light blue hair. Rei recognized the girl. It was her.

She identified the girl, "That is Rei Ayanami."

Her abductor shook her head. "No, that's wrong answer. You know who she is, so
tell me."

"Ayanami."

"No. Try again."

"The First Children."

"No!" The foreigner leaned closer to Rei's face, emphasizing his words. "You
*know* who this girl is! Tell me who she is!"

"Ayanami, Rei. Also known as the First Children."

Groaning, he lowered his head in exasperation. After a moment, he resumed his
normal height and stepped back, quiet once more again. Still regarding his
prisoner, he smiled slightly. "Well, you're a tough gal to crack all right.
I'm looking forward to the day I break you."

"We're going to have lots of fun together."


 * * * * *

DAY 01 00:59:20
INTERLUDE ONE


The phone rang in darkness three times before a hand picked up the handle. A
voice growled in response to the unexpected interruption.

"What? I know I'm not supposed to call you, but it's urgent! One of our
contacts has disappeared!"

"What are you talking about? Make it short - this line isn't secure."

"Right. I haven't gotten all the details yet, but it appears that we've lost
contact with JANUS, who hasn't responded since he broke off our last
transmission yesterday. We're checking it out right now, but it seems that he
isn't at his pre-agissined uncover position."

The recipient frowned slightly, "This is not good. Is it possible that NERV is
on to us?"

"Too early to tell. There's not much activity right now, but something's
certainly stirring up the nest." The line went silent for a moment, then
feminine voice returned, "I don't think the lack of contact with JANUS is
unintentional."

His eyebrows frowned slightly as his voice took on a harder edge to it, "Are
you implying that JANUS has gone rogue?"

"Hey, hey hold on! I'm not saying that. It's just that something's going on
with this guy. It could be a malfunction, but why haven't he tried to make a
physical contact, or at least signal us?" There was a rushing sound of air as
the person on the other end sighed, "Look, I can't tell you what's happening
right now, but if something goes wrong, our cover could be blown."

"I know, but it's too early to make any assumptions. For all we could know, he
might be dining with Rei at saloon right now and making passes at her." He
replied scarscatically, then became serious again. "Find out all you can and
wait for me - don't call me, I'll contact you. Is this understood?"

"Yes sir, I'll do that. I'm telling you - something funny's going on at NERV -
be careful, Kaji." With that, the line went dead. Kaji frowned slightly as he
replaced the phone on its cradle. He was deeply disturbed by JANUS puzzling
behavior.

If his contact was telling truth, he had to find JANUS - and fast.


* * * * *

DAY 01 01:03:32


Aoba stretched his arms, leaning backwards to relieve the cramps that had been
developing in his muscles after being confined to his chair for hours. He was
about to resume his duties when there was urgent beeping sound at his console.
As he discarded his favorite music magazine, he quickly investigated the
source of the problem.

A preliminary search revealed that someone had registered into Rei's personal
database using her identification code. After few moments, he was about to
dismiss it as Rei checking her reports, he quickly realized that several
portions of the data were being uploaded to MAGI, replacing few lines of code
implemented in the supercomputer.

Immediately, he suspected something was going on. While he wasn't familiar
with Rei, he knew that she didn't have experience handling the complex codes
designed to run computers, let alone be able to replace codes in MAGI itself.
It was probably one of those inexperienced hackers who got lucky break through
one of non-crictal areas of MAGI mainframe.

As the intruder departed, cleverly masking his presence in the mainframe, he
debated internally about what to do. The protocols required that he inform his
superiors and Ritsuko about this incident. Unfortunately, at this moment
Ritsuko had been recalled to Commander's office over urgent details pertaining
to Rei. Maya wasn't here either. What should he do?

When he made his decision, he quickly went to work. Few moments later, all
evidence of the mysterious individual vanished from the MAGI records, and
reflagged it as normal. Afterwards, he 'neglected' to mention this particular
record. Why bother waste his time replacing a line of code when he had better
things to do like taking full advantage of his break in the shift?

Surely, whatever this code was, it wouldn't do any harm to the mighty MAGI,
would it?


* * * * *

DAY 01 01:06:02


Having completed his last phone call, he turned to his task at the hand.
Opening a nearby fridge, he pulled out a bottle of beer, and inclined his head
at Rei, "Hey, wanna a beer?" Rei stared at him blankly, motionless. Shrugged
and pulled out another bottle and slammed the door shut. He walked over to the
table and popped the caps off both of the bottles and set one in front of Rei.

"Why don't you take a sip? A bit of alcohol should help loosen your tongue."
He drawled as he took a swig from his bottle.

"I have no use for alcohol. They impair my bodily functions."

The man stopped drinking, bottle still in air as he blinked at her, then
suddenly spew out the brownish liquid out of his mouth as he burst into
laughter. It took him several minutes to get his nerves under control, then
managed out, "Well, I should've known. All right, Let's introduce ourselves. I
think it should make things bit easier, don't you think?" The foreigner
flashed out his photo ID, "My name's Michael Grounds, of Secret Informations
Division of NERV Bureau, as well as operative for Central Combat Operation
Command Department of NERV. You can call me Mike if you want. I don't mind."

"That would mean you are a spy, correct?" Rei questioned him.

There was a short chuckle as Mike replied, amused, "Oh no, not really. Think
of me more like an... independent operative." Mike paused to drink a bit of
his beer, then continued, "As you undoubtedly may have noticed by now, I'm not
originally born here. I was born in United States, and enlisted into CIA and
FBI for short period of time, but was later discharged. Shortly after the
Second Impact, I decided to transfer to here. With my experience at my former
position, I was easily hired."

His voice dropped its' friendly demeanor and Mike turned to regard Rei coolly,
"Now, enough about me. What about you?"

Rei answered monotonously, "Rei Ayanami. The First Children, and designated as
the pilot of Unit 00."

"Come on, you can do better than that. That's not you talking- I've seen you
talk better than this! You sound like a goddamned robot!"

Rei used same reply she had used moments ago.


----------------------------------------------------
End Section A of Part One

I know it's not much of ending to section A. Sorry.


Dark Alpha <AlphSailor@aol.com> formerly Sailor Alpha
Dark Alpha's G3 Fanfic Studio- Fanfics produced monthly!
	http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Bay/7233/
-Rebuilding of MAGI Archives is behind schedule, due to unfortunate
	circumstances. Opening date delayed to March.