Evangelion: Rebuild a Legend - Chapter 1

Again.

2015 A.D., NERV HQ

Gendo Ikari surveyed the stillness below him with the detached, analytical eye he had honed over his lifetime as an academic turned paramilitary leader. The enormous head of Evangelion Unit-01, the synthetic humanoid he and his compatriots had sweated their blood and very souls to build, jutted up stoically from the reservoir submerging the rest of its reinforced steel shell.

75 meters of incomprehensible terror waiting quietly, patiently, for her pilot.

The lights around him died in a series of audible clicks. Sharp cracks of disengaging electrical connectors echoed from wall to wall, their fading sound broken by the gentle ripples in the reservoir beneath him. Emergency signage, glowing in bright but small bursts around the vast cavern, feebly pushed back against the all-encompassing darkness.

Gendo noted his sudden discomfort.

That was new.

He concentrated on breathing, his senses straining: in, out. Repeat. Listen.

The muffled sound of a distant motor grew closer.

Gendo knew exactly who was being ferried across the lake of dense liquid surrounding the Eva cages, and why. The boat would dock at any moment on the other side of the enormous walls bracing the behemoth's shoulders. Events would play out according to plan. According to his scenario.

He would soon see his son, at last. After all this... time.

With a last thrum of power the watercraft's gas engine died and he could suddenly make out voices on the other side of the entrance. A door quickly opened, admitting three silhouetted figures walking carefully along the barely lit walkway below.

He could just make out Ritsuko stopping in place and reaching into her lab coat. He squeezed his eyes shut just in time for her to palm a hand-held switch.

The sheer brightness of the reengaged floodlights managed to blind him through his eyelids, but he carefully forced them open and caught sight of Shinji's reaction just as the boy yelped, stunned by Evangelion Unit-01's faceplate right in front of him.

Gendo admired Ritsuko's sense for the theatrical: throwing Shinji into the deep-end without warning was a powerful psychological weapon. He chuckled slightly, appreciating that Shinji didn't feint outright at the astonishing sight the Project-E director had just unveiled. Knowing Ritsuko she was probably disappointed she hadn't managed to get a bigger scream out of him.

In fact, what was that look on his face? Gendo wondered. It was inscrutable - not fear - but something. He couldn't tell from his high-up vantage point. He had chosen the spot carefully, knowing his voice would be amplified by the surface of the liquid below, and from the platform up and off to the side he could watch unseen for a little while.

He had originally considered using the protected service shaft directly above the beast's head, but had dismissed the idea. The corrugated steel stairs next to him allowed for closing the distance to the group below if he so chose; that same distance, on the other hand, would maximize his established image as the illusive, commanding presence he had so carefully cultivated among the rank and file.

Ritsuko and Captain Katsuragi flanked the young boy on either side. He adjusted his tinted glasses with a gloved hand, listening to the doctor's matter-of-fact explanation of the "synthetic humanoid."

The conversation was reaching the point in the script where he was supposed to step in and crush his son's blossoming hope for any sort of meaningful reunion; another blow to a broken Shinji Ikari. Another step to becoming an involuntary extension of Gendo's will.

A puppet of a puppet. SEELE's plaything.

A wind-up toy soldier carefully crafted to initiate Third Impact and sweep humanity into a new age; born again into an afterlife of unity and singular consciousness - a new godhead, a new gospel. Old men turned into the masters of humanity's collective consciousness.

Fools.

Ritsuko's voice lifted up in pride as she finished introducing the cyborg: "This is Evangelion Unit-01. Humanity's last hope for survival."

"Is this part of my father's work?" Shinji asked, timidly, but not yet fully overwhelmed.

It was time.

"Yes," Gendo said firmly, his voice resonating from above the trio. Blue eyes locked on blue as he looked down at his son. "I've missed you, Shinji." His voice trailed off, perhaps more gently than he had intended.

The boy gasped softly, recognizing the faraway figure, "Dad…"

Gendo nodded, hand gripping the railing and his gaze sharply flicking between Captain Katsuragi and Dr. Akagi: "We're moving out!"

"Moving out?!" Misato exclaimed, looking to Ritsuko for confirmation, "Unit-00's still in cryo-stasis, isn't it?"

Shinji could only continue looking up at his father, still confused by the earlier words of acknowledgement. A long-buried hope had rekindled, causing him to partially miss the beginning of Captain Katsuragi's worried questioning.

"Wait a second, you're planning to use Unit-01?"

Gendo watched Shinji's eyes rip themselves back over to the purple, metal-plated monstrosity in front of him at Misato's question. He sighed inwardly, thankful that he could still read his son's emotions like a book, and that the good captain still maintained fairly predictable responses.

Not that he could count on that for too long, but it was, in this moment at least, comforting.

"There isn't any other way," Ritsuko replied, the conversation between the two adult women now being carried on over the adolescent Shinji's head. Gendo could already see how Ritsuko was setting up to deliver the news about Shinji's new role. Her well-trained professionalism. The sense of detachment she stiffly held to. Inspired, no doubt, by the way he himself dealt with her in public.

"Rei can't do it, can she? We don't have a pilot!" Misato exclaimed, and that's when Gendo found his second cue.

"Yes, we do," Gendo interrupted.

They all looked up at him.

"I will be the pilot."

Year Indeterminate - Post-Third Impact.

Emptiness, without form. Neither dark, nor light – absence. No thoughts, no feelings. No action. No reaction.

Light. Whiteness, all encompassing, omnipresent, everywhere, filling, within, without. A sense of separation, of being apart.

Confusion/Wrongness/Incorrectness/Problem/Error.

Something wrong.

Something is wrong, with me.

I…

I am…

אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה.

Gendo Ikari's consciousness began to return.

To his surprise, and partially the surprise was being able to even comprehend that he was surprised, he was also aware of both states: being unaware and aware at the same time. He recognized that the transitionary effect was much like watching one color fade into another. The latter gradually overpowering the former without the ability to mark the moment where one actually became the other.

The feeling of detached curiosity grew to a studious inquiry as he inventoried how his consciousness was layering more complex behaviors and emotions together in a gestalt rebuild of his baseline mentality. A matrix of some sort had come into being, resembling the biological construct of a human brain, though intangible.

It was a mathematical object meant to be mapped into the physical realm. As a student of metaphysics he knew he was uniquely equipped to understand what was happening and a pulse of external warmth/agreement/acceptance welcomed his self-confident analysis.

The sense of externality was the clue he had needed to identify his own self as a separate independence. But in order to even notice that he was coming to exist in such a state, that meant he must be borrowing the equivalent of processing power from the collective consciousness of a post-Third Impact humanity to view, from an outside perspective, the recreation of his "self" even as his actual mind was bound to the internal perspective.

Another pulse of agreement/reward greeted his observation even as the external view began binding to the internal view, blurring the boundaries. Memories of his own post-doctoral thesis, particularly a set of postulates about the behavior of consciousness arising from vacuum-state quantum probability synthesis, arranged themselves neatly in ordered conclusions he was now able to access.

He was, to be vulgar, currently a "brain-in-a-jar." In an infinite vacuum with infinite time eventually all manner of possible events would occur, thanks to quantum mechanics, including the coming-into-existence of the mind of a person who had existed at some point in the universe's timeline. Or who hadn't.

Gendo recognized that his current "rebuild" was likely one of infinitely many such combinatorial events that had occurred since Third Impact. The issue with the theory, of course, is that all possible derivatives of Gendo Ikari would eventually spawn themselves, including ones that had mild or vast differences: a multiverse of possible Gendo Ikaris.

However, post-Third Impact humanity had the advantage of existing in the equivalent of quantum-soup: a sea of potential on top of a foundation of shared memory. It emulated the spontaneous-vacuum theory perfectly except that recreations would be bound to whatever was stored in the substrate of Instrumentality.

If something even close to Gendo Ikari appeared it would instantly map itself onto the essence of the actual Gendo Ikari that had been preserved in the so-called Human Instrumentality Project. This was the core idea of the Doors of Guf.

Thus, unlike the many human minds that had undoubtedly come before, Gendo Ikari knew exactly what to do with his newly reborn consciousness. The entire framework for managing a self-identifying existence had been his thesis, after all.

The uneducated called it a soul.

And with the full resources of Instrumentality at his disposal - given his mind being the only one currently organized in a persistent state - he guided the rebuild process to recreate a physical form to store the newborn matrix holding his reorganized soul.

Gendo Ikari suddenly: was.

His first corporeal thought was the memory of a monster's green eyes and sharp teeth biting into him. Shinji's judgment. Or was it Yui's?

Yui.

He cast out in the infinite expanse looking for her, prepared to reassemble her from the ocean of memory and bring about her resurrection at long last.

He was dismayed to be unable to find her amidst the vast Host. He surged through the extra-dimensional space seeking out compatible memories or constructs that might explain the discrepancy in his expectations.

Where was she, and why?

Time passed, but time was meaningless.

Gendo had recreated and integrated approximately 144,000 tangentially related humans in his search, aggregating their memories and experiences into a queryable state before releasing the majority back into the mindless collective. Twelve remained to help him collate the amassed data - to look for answers.

And the answers he found were unsatisfying: disturbing, even.

Yui had never intended to be part of Third Impact. She was still in the standard space-time continuum encased within Eva Unit-01, by her own design. Some sort of martyred eternal testament to humanity's existence.

She had chosen to drift through the ether, alone.

Her rejection stung.

Shinji was missing as well. And the pilot of Eva Unit-02.

He doubted Yui had intended that, however. After all, what about the new world she had promised Shinji she would make for him? Had she somehow taken them both with her into Unit-01?

Doubtful.

An Adam and Eve scenario, perhaps? It matched her sense of grand gestures and humanistic romanticism.

But surely she wouldn't be so cruel? Their old world was barren. Poisoned. Dead.

In the back of his mind an itch had developed, growing ever stronger in passing from moment to moment. Since discovering Yui's fate it had only grown more distracting. He attempted to cut it off repeatedly only for it to redevelop stubbornly, a lingering desire festering like a growing boil beneath his skin despite all attempts to ignore it.

The collective mind of humanity was not as entirely mindless as he had supposed. Some sort of low-level group-thought was still occurring between the billions of stored souls.

"It" had taken notice of his individuality.

"It" approved/was jealous/lusted-after him.

Humanity, in this state, was miserable - worse - it was conscious of its own torturous existence.

He could predict the eventual outcome of the souls trapped in Instrumentality; the ennui giving way to exhaustion and eventual homogenization. Rather than all people becoming united in one mind and becoming a new sort of god they had simply... canceled the majority out, absorbing the mundane into a dwindling pool of entropy while the creative remnants mentally starved their way to madness.

It was their own heat-death. All the information would be lost. They would be immortal, yes, but without meaning. They would be one. Then zero.

Gendo understood it then, that humanity desired to reject Instrumentality but it was far too late: the key, his son, was gone.

Just as that last despondent thought made itself obvious he received a visitor.

"Hello, Gendo Ikari," the grey-haired Angel greeted, politely.

"Tabris?" he asked, unsure of what to say or do in such an unlikely situation.

The angel shook its head and held out its arm, vaguely gesturing towards the substrata that made up the remains of humanity. "Would you save them? If you had the power?"

They stood together in the void, looking upon the sins of a dying race.

"I would."

2015 A.D., NERV HQ

"I will be the pilot."

Ritsuko's lips were frozen mid-part, she had just been about to proclaim Shinji as Rei's replacement pilot. Misato's attention was suddenly fully focused on their leader: "Sir?"

Shinji joined her, gawking. "Father?"

Gendo took a step down the maintenance stairs, keeping a level gaze as he made his way towards them.

"Captain, begin preparations to launch Eva Unit-01 with myself as its pilot, is that understood?"

Dr. Akagi's lips began working again. "But Commander, that isn't what we…"

"Captain Katsuragi, do you understand?" he queried, more forcefully, daring the young purple-haired woman to defy him and shutting Ritsuko down at the same time.

"Sir, yes sir!" Misato's response was suddenly crisp, though she dared a side-glance at a gob-smacked Dr. Akagi.

Gendo paid the errant glance to his confidant no heed. "Good. Repelling the Angel is our first priority," he said, easily stealing a line from a memory long past. His footsteps continued clacking atop the metal as he descended.

"But Commander, the Eva isn't designed for pilots not chosen by the Marduk Institute!"

Ritsuko had finally managed to arrange a logical argument and given voice to it. She couldn't outright defy the Commander, especially in public, but her extraordinary confusion about his direction, coupled with the feeling of being left-out of his decision-making, let alone the knowledge that his command was utter nonsense had sent her spiraling out of what little comfort-zone she had managed to insulate herself in.

She knew Evas only worked for children born after Second Impact. And Eva-01 would only work for Shinji. She even knew why, no matter how much she hated knowing.

Misato wisely kept her mouth shut and Shinji was too shocked to contribute. Gendo could see the boy was nearly shutting down in the manner his so-called "teacher" had documented in his annual status updates.

"Dr. Akagi, I acknowledge your concern," he was already at the bottom of the stairs and moving towards her, "We both understand how the Marduk Institute operates. I will explain soon." He paused, searching her face as they were now only a meter apart. "Trust me." It was a command, but she heard the question in it and nodded despite herself.

Shinji, meanwhile, had his head fully tucked down now and was desperately tracing the shapes of each bolt in the steel plates rather than look up at his father who was, physically, closer to him than he had ever been since he was a child. Gendo understood the intimidating affect he was having and wisely paused next to Ritsuko while Misato barked orders into her walkie-talkie further back.

The young boy stood, isolated, in front of the Eva, trying to cope with his inner expectations and hopes. His entire day had been filled, save the brief moments of terror above-ground when the Angel had nearly killed him, with nothing but thoughts of what would happen when he met his father again. The thousands of different things he could say, wanted to say, were all desperate to come out.

The intercoms came to life as technicians relayed Misato's orders, almost obscuring Shinji's quiet voice.

"Father…" Shinji murmured, "Why did you send for me?"

Gendo hadn't been sure that Shinji would ask that question, given how things were already changing from their first encounter in the original timeline. So in front of Unit-01, in front of her, he reached out a hand and rested it on Shinji's shoulder as he bent down in front of him, waiting for his son to look up at him.

Ritsuko couldn't believe what was happening. Gendo could tell. Her whole body had gone rigid in shock right next to him, but he kept his concentration on Shinji.

"Son."

Shinji looked up.

"Son," he tasted the words carefully as he said them, "Shinji. I don't know if I'm coming back. There isn't time to explain, but I wanted to give you a chance to see." His hand left Shinji's shoulder and swept out to the stony visage of Eva Unit-01.

"I wanted you to see what I had to do. What your mother had to do." His words ground out of his mouth, frustration and loathing crumbling like gravel across his lips. "We built this to protect you."

Shinji stared at him, unable to speak. Misato's hand had drifted to her side, the walkie-talkie still thumbed on, as she considered the commander's words. Ritsuko, for her part, had taken a few steps back, unable to handle the utterly uncharacteristic actions of the man who had warmed her bed for more than a year.

She thought she knew the man, Gendo Ikari, but this emotion-showing impostor - openly comforting his son - was an impossibility.

"Protect... all of you." Gendo had just completed his spoken half-thought when an explosion roiled the underground cavern. "Damn," he bit out, "It's here."

The lights flickered briefly before another explosion, much closer, sent a shockwave across the ceiling that crumpled steel plates and broke support beams loose.

Misato managed a warning yell: "Watch out!"

Gendo reacted instinctively, shoving Shinji forward into Misato's arms, her walkie-talking sent flying into the pool while behind him Ritsuko fell on her back, watching in mute horror as heavy debris rained down on the commander's prone position. She squeezed her eyes shut, certain she knew how the nightmare would end.

Liquid splashed on her face and a rushing sound filled the air briefly before the sharp clangs of metal striking metal reverberated through the Eva's cage.

She opened her eyes, catching a flash of orange light.

Gendo sat on his haunches awkwardly but calmly, his eyes centered on Unit-01's impassive face. A giant metal hand was frozen in place above his head, shielding him from the fallen steel columns that had heavily dented the walkway after their brief free-fall. He mouthed something silently.

In the background technicians were hurriedly speaking over the intercoms:

"The Eva Moved! What's going on?" the first yelled.

"It broke the left arm restraint!" the second responded with a voice steeped in disbelief.

Gendo carefully came to his feet, ducking under the frozen hand of the giant, and moved to pull Ritsuko up. Shinji's head was buried, somewhat comically he noted, into Captain Katsuragi's ample chest. The moment passed and the two shifted as Shinji craned around to see what had happened.

Ritsuko desperately wanted to understand. "This is impossible, Gendo…" forgetting her station for a moment she pulled herself into him, "It didn't even have an entry plug inserted!"

Misato loosened her grip on Shinji and stared at the Eva. "It worked without an interface… or was it, was it protecting him?"

She looked between her friend Ritsuko and the stoic elder Ikari. Her belief in the mission, and their leader, surging.

"We can do it." Her determination was renewed.

Shinji heard Misato's words and pushed himself free, still shaken, but at least able to stand.

Gendo straightened, maintaining one arm around Ritsuko's waist as he pushed his glasses back into place with a finger of his other hand.

"Ready the Eva, we launch at once."