Neon Echo Evangelion

Episode 1: Code Blue

	Claude heard his alarm go off and groped around to find it while he rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He jumped down off his bunk, banging his head on the ceiling as he always did, and pulled his uniform on. He had served as captain for the UN submarine valiant for the past three years, and throughout that whole time he had never got a decent nights sleep. He strolled along the submarine corridors to the bridge, ducking his head to avoid the bulkheads; it wasn’t easy being 6’5 on a submarine.
	“Good Morning Al,” he said to his second in command, it was actually 5:30pm but he didn’t feel right saying “Good Afternoon” when he’d just woken up.
“Anything interesting happened while I was asleep?” he inquired.
	“No, but we did spot some Dolphins about 2 hours ago.” Al replied.
	“Lovely,” Claude said sarcastically, and proceeded to yawn and stretch when he sat in his chair on the bridge.
	“Have a nice rest?” Al asked, seeing the bags under the captain’s eyes.
	“God awful, as always.” Claude replied. Well another 18 hours of nothing to look forward to, he thought. When Claude was promoted to Captain he was ecstatic but is was after his first month as Captain that he realised that being a Captain was just like being second in command, except with more paper work. He pulled out his Diary and began to write in yesterday’s entry. Today was uneventful, as always… he began, one of these I’m going to go insane and shoot myself out of the torpedo tube. He then quickly flicked to today’s entry and wrote, Things to do: Shoot self out of Torpedo tube. He laughed to himself and put his Diary back in his pocket.
	“Captain I’ve got something on Sonar!” said Pierre, the Sub’s Sonar operator, he sounded panicky.
	“What is it?” Claude asked, uninterested, it was probably a Whale, Pierre was notoriously jumpy.
	“I don’t know but its heading right for us.” Claude perked up at this, it was the first time this has happened. He walked over to Pierre and looked over his shoulder, his eyes widened in horror.
	“My God! Its huge!” His amazement grew as the object proceeded to fill the top of the Sonar screen, and keep growing. “Run a diagnostic check!” he shouted “This has to be a malfunction.”
	“No sir, the Sonar’s working fine.”
	“Get Navy HQ on the line!” he ordered the communication officer. Dear God, they never trained us for this! He thought.
	“Vice Admiral Lochenko, sir.” The communication officer announced. Claude bounded over to the communication equipment and picked up a headset.
	“Vice Admiral, sir, we have a situation.”
	“What is it?” The old man asked.
	“We have an unidentified object headed straight for us, it is currently travelling…”
	“Accelerating to 12 knots sir!” Pierre shouted.
	“Travelling at 12 knots, by our estimate it is at least 300m wide and more than a kilometre long.” He heard the Vice Admiral gasp.

	Eve Cardinal listened to the tape play out.
	“Distance 5km and closing fast.” A voice shouted in French.
	“What are your recommendations?” Another voice asked, this was the captain’s voice.
	“Abandon ship right now!” She heard the Vice admiral shout.
	“2km’s sir, we’ll never make it!”
	“God have mercy on us.”
	“500m.” Eve heard the beeps on the Sonar get more and more frequent
	“200m.” 
	“50m.”
	“Its right on top of…” Eve heard the sound of metal tearing, and water roaring like a waterfall, the sound of people screaming, and then silence. The tape ended.
	Eve sat back in her chair, sitting on the other side of her desk was her second in command Jan Kroeber. “So when did this happen?” she asked, her Australian accent masked through years of travelling from country to country, her voice now was a kind of level indeterminate plain voice.
	“Yesterday, at 5:32pm.” Jan replied, he looked visibly shaken, even though he had already heard the tape once before.
	“And why have we been notified of this?”
	“Before contact with the submarine was lost they were able to send back information from their sensors.”
	“And?”
	“Our Data Analysts have been able to examine the information, and…” Jan paused taking a deep breath, “Its Code Blue.” Jan expected Eve to gasp in amazement but she sat there, her elbows resting on the desk and her head resting in her hands, and kept staring straight at him.
	“I see.” She said coolly. “Does any other organisation know this?”
	Jan shook his head, “We were the first group this data was sent to, they expected this result.”
	“Good, make sure nobody else finds out about this.” Jan stared at her, a shocked look spread across his face.
	“What are you going to do then?” He asked.
	“I shall consult the council.”
	“And?”
	“That is none of your concern.” Eve answered flatly. “Leave now.” She ordered.
	“Very well.” Jan said, he got up and walked out of the long office, trying not to show how nervous he was. When he had left Eve pressed a button on her desk and five tall glass panes rose up out of the floor. Each of these slowly flickered into life with images of various UN top brass on each.
	“Yes Director Cardinal?” One of them asked. “What is the result.”
	“It is Code Blue.” She said nonchalantly. The five UN members gave out a cry of dismay.
	“In that case then we must contact NERV.” An elderly woman said, her name was Maria Folstein.
	“We may not need to.” Eve said.
	“What else do you propose?” Gerhard Wenger asked.
	“Why do we not use SIN?” Eve said.
	“Don’t be ridiculous.” The first speaker, Alphonse Tomay, said. “SIN was not set up to fight Angels.”
	“But we do have access to EVA’s do we not?” Eve replied
	“Yes, but they were supposed to be used only in emergencies.”
	“You mean this is not an Emergency?” Eve replied, Alphonse struggled to make a reply but couldn’t think of one. “All we need is pilots, it will provide excellent experience for the pilots and we will see how our EVA’s perform compared to NERV’s.”
	“I see your point.” Said Sebastian Cole, the person who had come up with the Idea of SIN. “It would be a fitting baptism of fire for SIN.”
	“This is ridiculous.” Said the last member, Lisa Morgenson. “Our resources are strained as they are funding NERV without having to create another. And what Ms. Cardinal do you plan to do if these EVA’s are destroyed?”
	“Then you may call in NERV. You have nothing to lose with this plan.”
	“We have everything to lose. We will not be able to afford to keep funding NERV and pay for a new set of EVA’s for you.” Lisa replied.
	“Despite the financial aspects how exactly do you plan to minimise casualties?” asked Gerhard.
	“We will evacuate a city and use that to engage the Angel.”
	“Are you serious, how exactly will you keep all this damage secret? You’ve seen how much damage Angels can do.” Said Alphonse.
	“We can say it was a terrorist attack, people will connect this with the evacuation and it will make sense to them.”
	“And what happens if NERV finds out there are other EVA’s being produced?” Alphonse inquired.
	“That’s Enough Alphonse.” Sebastian said. “I trust Eve to carry out this plan, she has my support.”
	“Thank you sir.” Eve said.
	“Very well.” Gerhard said. “You have my support also.”
	“As well as mine.” Maria said.
	“That’s a vote of 3 to 2 Alphonse.” Sebastian said. “The plan goes ahead.”
	“But…” Alphonse tried to argue but Sebastian’s video link had already shut off. “This had better work.” He shot at Eve. And then all of their video links shut off.
	“Excellent.” Eve said, “I’ll show Gendo who is the most brilliant.”

Episode 1: Your Species needs you!

	Lily pulled her jumper tight round her as she stepped off the plane and felt the cold wind bite her skin. “So Eve is really gonna put the EVA’s into combat this early?”
	“That’s what she’s planning.” Jan replied as he strolled past her.
	“So what have we come to this God forsaken place for anyway?” she asked.
	“To find pilots of course, these EVA’s can’t just run on their own you know. And for your information I quite like England.”

	Lily stared out the window of the cab at the rolling green scenery, muted by the dark clouds overhead. “So how come all these pilots need to be born after Second Impact?” Lily asked, she had often wondered this but only now that they were actually looking for pilots had she been compelled to ask.
	“To be honest,” Jan said as he flicked through various sheets in his briefcase, “We don’t know, our operative in NERV has leaked that only children born after Second Impact could synchronise successfully with EVA’s, apparently previous attempts using adults led to mental instability in pilots and even death.”
	“For weapons that are the last hope of mankind they don’t sound very safe.” Lily looked out across the scenery again. “Is it true that the whole bottom half of this country was flooded in Second Impact?”
	“Yes, this country has had its population cut by 65% after second impact, however its northern neighbour, Scotland, got away relatively unscathed, due to its high mountainous areas. Since then massive cities have been constructed to house the rapidly growing population, we are going to New Newcastle.”
	“What a stupid name, couldn’t they have called it Newcastle 2 or something?”
	“I suppose so.” Jan said, he continued rifling through his papers. “Ah, here we are,” he said pulling a file out of his briefcase, “This is who we are going to collect.”
	Lily took the file off him and flicked through, she looked at the picture of a girl with short brown hair, and quite a thin face that accentuated her brown eyes. “So her names Emma…”

	“…Harwood?” Jan asked, as the girl from the photograph sat down in front of him. It was a pokey little office, but it was only an army cadet house they were in anyway.
	“Yes sir.” She said rigidly.
	“Now we have received word that you are a promising Marksman?”
	“Markswoman.” Lily whispered.
	“I mean, er…”
	“Yes sir,” Emma interrupted, “This year I won the Gold medal for Marksmanship at the National cadet Championships and International cadet championship.”
	“Yes, it says here in your file.” Lily said, “Your obviously very talented.”
	“Now Emma, what we are about to tell you is classified under the UN secrets act and as such you are liable to prosecution should you mention it to anybody else. Do you understand?”
	“Yes,” Emma replied awkwardly. He could see that last bit had unnerved her quite a bit.
	“Good, now my name is Jan Kroeber, I am assistant Director at SIN, and this is Lily Alvara, Operations Director at SIN.”
	“Hi there.” Lily gave a little wave at Emma across the desk.
	“Hello.” She replied nervously.
	“Now you will have heard of SIN.”
	“Yes, it’s an attempt to create a computer network all over Europe.” Emma replied, remembering a newspaper article she had read about it, criticising the need for such an expensive venture in such bad times.
	“Correct, however that is not all SIN does. We were also set up to provide leverage over another group called NERV, now you will not have heard of this group.”
	“No I haven’t.” Emma replied, she was getting more and more intrigued by this every minute.
	“Now what I am about to say will sound far fetched, but bear with me. NERV are responsible for protecting mankind from lifeforms classified as Angels. Angels are very powerful and can only be defeated using weapons known as Evangelion’s, these are effectively large fighting machines.”
	“You mean like a Mech?” Emma asked, she had seen some Anime and knew about Mecha.
	“Yes, you could say that.” Jan said. “Anyway, despite their importance the UN doesn’t fully trust NERV, there are various rumours regarding illegal actions taken by NERV. As such the UN started creating their own group of Evangelion’s to rival NERV’s should they try and abuse their power, under the guise of the Social Interface Network, SIN. Do you understand.”
	“Um, yeah I suppose so.” Emma had lost nearly all her composure since hearing this tale. “And all this is real?” she asked sceptically.
	“As real as you or me.” Lily said, as the 22 year old brushed some of her long black hair from her face. “We have came here today to offer you a position in SIN.”
	“Doing what?” Emma asked nervously.
	“An Evangelion pilot.” Jan said.
	“What?” Emma exclaimed, she stared at the brown haired Assistant Director. “Your serious?”
	“We will be willing to pay you a large salary, and provide accommodation for you.”
	“Well I don’t know. I… I… I’ll have to think about it.”
	“Please Emma, you’re the best Sniper your age.” Lily pleaded
	“Really?” Emma asked, shocked by a sudden boost to her ego.
	“Yes. And just think, you’ll be saving the world.”
	“Well, when you put it that way I suppose I can’t refuse.” Emma looked visibly excited at the premise of saving the world. And anyway, Emma thought, I can always quit if I want to.
	“Excellent. We’ll give you a day to get your stuff together and we’ll be leaving for France tomorrow.” Jan announced, standing up.
	“France?” Emma asked.
	“Yes that’s where SIN’s headquarters are located.”
	“Wow,” she said, “I’ve never been to France before.”
	“Well I’ll be looking forward to having you work for us.” Lily said, she smiled sweetly at the girl.
	Jan walked over to the door and began to open it. “We’ll meet you outside here tomorrow at…” he opened the door to see somebody crouching next to it as if they were listening through the door. His Instincts took over and he grabbed the person and slammed them down on the desk, he drew his gun and pushed it into the side of the person’s face. 
	“Please don’t kill me!” The person shouted, it was a young boy, he looked about 14, with short light brown hair.
	“Hey leave him alone!” Emma shouted.
	“What were you doing listening in on us boy?” Jan barked at him.
	“I didn’t mean anything, I just heard you mention NERV and I wanted to find out more about them.” He replied as fast as he could.
	“You know about NERV?” He leaned closer to the boy, pressing his gun further into his cheek.
	“Yes my Mother worked for them.” He replied, his eyes were watering, he was terrified by his current situation.
	“Your Mother?”
	“Yes she died in an accident and I think they killed her.”
	“Do you have any proof?” Lily asked, shocked at this revelation.
	“No but it looked suspicious.” The boy said warming to this other stranger, mainly because she wasn’t pointing a gun at him, but also because she was quite attractive.
	“What are we going to do about him?” Jan asked.
	“I don’t know.” Lily thought for a minute, the boy was sweating profusely, expecting her to say “Kill him.” “Emma?” Lily asked, “How is he in combat?”
	“Well he’s quite reliable, he follows orders well.” She glanced across at him, and he nodded his head, urging her to continue. “He’s always cool under pressure.”
	“Hmm…” Lily pondered this for a second. “Maybe he could make a good EVA pilot.”
	“You think so?” Jan questioned.
	“Well we’ve only got 3 pilots so far, and we need a fourth.”
	“You got lucky kid.” Jan said to him as he released his grip on his neck and holstered his gun.
	“Thank you, sir.” The boy said as he got up and rubbed the back of his neck.
	“What’s your name?” Lily asked
	“Brian. Brian Robertson.” Lily noticed he had a slight Scottish accent.
	“Well then Brian, welcome to SIN.”

	Brian looked about the Elevator. Next to him was Emma wearing a denim jacket and jeans, and standing in the middle of the Elevator was Jan wearing the same blue suit as the last time he saw him. On the opposite side of the elevator were two other teenagers that looked about the same age as him, they must be the other EVA pilots, he thought. One was quite tall with jet black hair and tanned skin, he was wearing a Grey hooded jacket and blue baggy jeans, there was something familiar about him, but he couldn’t say what. Next to him was a slightly shorter boy, although still taller than Brian’s 5’6, wearing a blue long sleeve T-shirt and black jeans.
	The Elevator jerked to a halt and the large double doors opened. “Lily!” The tanned boy cried and ran out and hugged Lily, who was waiting outside the Elevator.
	“Hey Tony, how you doing?” Lily said happily as she hugged him, “You’ve grown over the past year.” She playfully ruffled up his hair.
	“Hey!” he cried, trying to preserve his gelled spiky hair.
	“Settle down.” Jan said. “Now, as has been explained to you all, all of you have been brought here to pilot EVA’s. Now I had better introduce you all. This…” he said pointing at the boy who had hugged Lily, “Is Tony Alvara from Italy, and Lily’s brother. This is Jacques Martier from France.” He indicated the boy in the blue T-shirt, who nodded. “And this is Emma Harwood and Brian Robertson from England.”
	“Hi There.” Brian said, but nobody replied.
	“I am Jan Kroeber, Assistant Director of SIN, and this is Lily Alvara, Operations Director at SIN, she’s your boss.” The door on the left of the small Lobby opened and an older woman walked through, she looked about 40 and had short black hair, she was wearing a dark red business suit. “And this is Director of SIN, Eve Cardinal.”
	“Welcome,” she said as she stopped in front of the pilots to address them. “Now as you all know the work we here at SIN do is very important. But I’m afraid we have little time to explain everything about SIN and you will soon be needed. 3 days ago an Angel destroyed a submarine off the north coast of France.” A shocked gasp rippled through the pilots. “As such you will soon be entering into combat with an Angel. Lily and Jan will supervise your training. That is all.” Eve turned and walked out of the Lobby. The pilots stood in stunned silence.
	Brian opened his mouth and said: “What the F-“

Ending Theme: The Hives – Die All Right!