Neon Echo Evangelion

Episode 3: No rest for the wicked

	“Tony,” Tony heard a voice say, he could feel his body being rocked back and forwards. “Tony,” the voice said again, the rocking became more vigorous, he wished the voice would go away and leave him in peace, he’d saved the world for God’s sake, surely he deserved at least one lie-in in the morning. “TONY!” 
	Tony jerked upright, holding his ears. “Ow!” he cried, “You didn’t have to shout that loud.”
	“Would you have woken up otherwise?” Brian asked cynically.
	“Of course not,” Tony glanced across at his alarm clock, “Hey it’s Tuesday, it’s your day to take out the trash,” and he promptly curled back up in bed.
	“We’ve got school today Tony,” Brian reminded him.
	“Don’t be ridiculous, we haven’t got school until the eighth, and yesterday was only the sev… Oh, Sh-”
	“See? Now do you understand? And it’s 8:00, you got to be ready in 15 minutes.”
	“15 minutes, aw…”

	Tony clutched his stomach as the train rattled along on its way to their destination.
	“I said you shouldn’t have eaten all that toast,” Brian chided him.
	“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, you don’t want to start your day on an empty stomach,” Tony replied.
	“Your gonna have an empty stomach pretty soon,” Brian looked around the carriage, sitting opposite him were a few teenagers. They looked about 14, they were chatting amongst themselves, a boy who had an American accent, and two girls who had a South African accent and a Dutch accent made up their numbers. Maybe they’re going to our school, Brian thought.
	“Hi there,” he ventured, during a pause in their conversation, “You wouldn’t happen to be going to Chirac Comprehensive, would you?”
	“Sure are,” The American replied, “Say… you’re from Alpha Team right?” Brian panicked at hearing this, Jan’s words came back to haunt him.
	“Whatever you do,” he had said sternly, “Do not tell anybody about what you are really doing here, nobody must know of SIN’s real Agenda.”
	“No, what’s this Alpha team your talking about?” He feigned ignorance.
	“You know, took out that Angel 2 weeks back,” Brian fixed him with a blank expression, “Oh, sorry, you must think that we’re…” he motioned to the two girls by him, “Well we’re not, Okay?” Brian didn’t have a clue what he meant.
	“I’m sorry I don’t understand,” Brian fixed him with a genuine blank expression.
	“The Secret’s thing, you know,” He stared around at the other members of his group for help.
	“What he means to say,” said the South African, “Is that we are from SIN also.”
	“What!?” Tony piped up.
	“They didn’t tell you?” The American said.
	“Who tell us what?” Brian asked, puzzled.
	“SIN, that they were recruiting new pilots.”
	“New pilots? We haven’t even got our Eva’s yet.”
	“Yeah they’re bringing us in to start early training, we’re some of Bravo Team.”
	“Bravo Team, eh?” Tony said.
	“You bet,” The American replied. “I’m Arturo, by the way, Arturo Ripman, but you can call me Art.”
	“Hi Art, I’m Brian, Brian-”
	“-Robertson, yeah I know we’ve all watched the video of you taking on that Angel, that was crazy stuff.,” One of the girls elbowed him in the ribs, “Ow! Oh yeah, and this is Sarah Georges,” he motioned to the South African girl, “And Rebecca van der… er…”
	“Waesting, Rebecca van der Waesting, pleased to meet you,” The Dutch girl stuck her hand out and Brian shook it, “I must say, I admire Emma’s courage and skill,” She said.
	“Well, I’ve known her for a long time and she’s always been able to do the job,” He said, and suddenly Brian remembered that over the past 2 weeks he’d barely spoken to Emma.
	“So what’s it like piloting an Eva?” Art asked, it had become clear that he was the most outspoken member of the group.
	“It’s a bit strange,” Brian said, struggling to find the right words to describe the sensation, “It’s like being in two bodies at once, your body, and the Eva. And you also get this power craze when your in there,” Tony flashed him an odd look, “Well at least I do, It’s because the Eva’s are so powerful really.”
	“I see what you mean. It’ll be a while before we get to pilot an actual Eva,” Art replied sounding depressed.
	“Haven’t you tried a test Eva yet?” Brian asked puzzled.
	“No, apparently two of them were badly damaged fighting the Angel,” Brian remembered the awful pain shooting up his arm as his shield struck the Angel’s AT field. “SIN can’t get the funds to repair them, and the remaining two are for use exclusively by you guys,” he nodded towards Brian.
	“Hey, I’m sorry,” Brian apologised.
	“Don’t worry,” Art replied, “I’d rather us lose the chance to train than the whole world to get destroyed by that thing, right?”
	“Next stop, DeGaulle Station,” The Intercom announced.
	“I suppose so,” Brian said to Art, “Well, better get off here,” he stood up to disembark.

	Maybe I can talk to Emma before class starts, Brian thought. He was walking down a corridor to his first lesson, he’d learned from Art that all the SIN pilots had been put in the same class. The school wasn’t really as big as he thought, but a city as large as Nouveau Verdun was bound to have more than one school in it, he reasoned. Their was no set uniform, thankfully, as his last school had a very strict uniform with tie’s and blazers, he had hated having to wear a uniform and so took a moment to savour walking around school in his white combats and black T-shirt. He wandered into his class, he was the last to get his school timetable and only Art had stayed behind to walk to the classroom with him, immediately his hopes for speaking to Emma alone vanished.
	“Oh wow!” Art enthused, “It’s the Angel Slayer!” And he rushed over to join the crowd of people around Emma. Brian recognised two of Emma’s entourage as Rebecca and Sarah, there were others there to, two other girls and a boy. He spotted Tony over the other side of the classroom, talking to Jacques, and wandered over to him, relations between Brian and Jacques were still frosty so he sat on a desk near to Tony.
	“Hey.”
	“Hi Brian, you got your timetable?” Tony replied.
	“Yeah,” Brian jerked a thumb at the noisy throng on the other side of the room, “What’s up with them?”
	“They're the rest of the new pilots, they’ve been like that since I got here.”
	“Ever since we showed up they’ve asking a ton of dumb question,” Jacques interjected, he put on a high girly voice, “‘What’s it like to kill an Angel?’” he flapped his hand about imitating someone speaking, “Yak, yak, yak, that’s all they’ve been doing.”
	“Apparently they got a real kick out of the video of us beating up that Angel,” Tony said, “They all seem to look up to Emma because she’s the one that took it out.”
	“It’s not like she did it herself, if it weren’t for me she never could have taken that shot,” Jacques said dejectedly.
	“All right everybody, take a seat,” The Teacher said as he walked in the classroom.
	“So weren’t you nervous?” Brian heard Rebecca say.
	“Well yeah of course I was, but I expect every-”
	“Ahem!” The Teacher said loudly, “Will you all please take a seat.” The crowd dispersed, taking seats in their respective friendship groups. Brian sat between Tony and Emma, with Jacques on Emma’s other side.
	“Hi Emma,” Brian said as he sat down, “Sorry I haven’t had the chance to speak to you lately.”
	“It’s Okay,” she smiled back.
	“I’ve spent a lot of time training in the test Eva’s.”
	“And lets face it he needs it,” Jacques laughed.
	“Shut up!” Brian snapped back, he stood up out of his chair and thumped his hands on the desk.
	“Or what?” Jacques stared back at him, “Are you gonna go cry to your mommy?”
	“Why you…” Brian leaped across the desk’s and landed on Jacques, “Don’t you talk about my mom!” He struck Jacques on the side of the face.
	“You two break it up!” The teacher bawled, it was like trying to stop a whirlwind.

	“So you two have been fighting again?” Lily stared at them both, her hands planted firmly on her hips. The situation was very similar to when they were scolded by Jan, except this time Lily was the one doing the scolding, and they actually were in a headmasters office.
	“Sorry,” Brian said.
	“Yeah, sorry,” Jacques echoed.
	“Sorry? Is that all you have to say?” Lily gave them both an angry stare, “This is the second time this has happened, if this continues to happen your going to be off Alpha Team. Got it?”
	“Yes, ma’am,” they both said.
	“Okay then, no I’ve talked to your teacher and he’s willing to overlook this event, so long as it doesn’t happen again.”
	“Okay,” Brian said.
	“It won’t happen again,” Jacques reassured her.
	“All right then. I think it’s break now so get going,” Lily shook her head in despair as they left.
	
	“Why do you fight with Jacques so much?” Emma questioned him, they were sitting on a bench overlooking one of the gardens scattered around the school.
	“Because I hate him, because he’s a jerk, because he keeps insulting me for no reason,” Brian said, rubbing his sore knuckles, “Is that enough reason for you.”
	“You could just ignore him,” Emma said, “Insult him back, you don’t have to fight.”
	“He talked about my mom,” Brian said reluctantly.
	“Did your mom really get killed?” Emma asked, “You said she died in a car accident on the way home from work.”
	“I lied,” Brian said, he breathed out and leaned back on the seat, “She was working on some secret project for a company called Gehirn who had a lab complex by our home in Scotland. One night there was an explosion, a large section of the lab was destroyed, they said my mom was killed, that it was a lab accident, a gas explosion.” Brian paused and looked up at the blue sky overhead, “A few weeks before the accident I had asked my mom what she did, and she said it was secret, but that she was close to something, something big. We never got her body, the whole thing stank, but my dad couldn’t bear to be near the complex any more, so we moved down to England. My dad loved my mom, he never got over her death.”
	“That’s terrible,” Emma stared intently at the flowers in front of her, she watched them swaying in the wind, trying to keep the sadness from her mind, “And was that the last you heard of Gehirn?”
	“No, a few years back I got friendly with a hacker, I told him about Gehirn and he became intrigued, he had heard a ton of conspiracy theories involving that name. He was able to hack into various databases and found out that Gehirn had been disbanded, and replaced by a group called NERV, that basically performed the same tasks. What those tasks were I never found out, as soon as the hacker got close he started noticing that he was being followed everywhere by shady people. He left me a message saying he didn’t feel safe anymore, and he left the country.”
	“Wow,” Emma tried to take all the information in, “That does sound pretty weird, so are you sure that Gehirn killed your mother.”
	“I’m pretty sure, she must have found something they didn’t want her to, so they killed her, I want to find out what that is, what was so important they killed her for it.”
	“I hope you do find out what it is,” She said sincerely, “Nobody should die over such trivial things as information.” The school bell rang, to signal the start of a new lesson. “Better get back to lesson’s”

Episode 2: A long overdue celebration

	Brian slumped down on his bed, it had been an exhausting day, both mentally and physically. He just wanted to sleep, get some rest, he’d feel better in the morning. The phone rang.
	“Hello?” He heard Tony say. “Tonight? Yeah sure what time?” he paused “Okay. Your birthday? Holy crap, I totally forgot!” He said shocked, “Nah! Just kidding. Yeah sure, I’ll bring along Brian. See you then.” Tony hung up the phone.
	“Hey Brian!” He shouted through into Brian’s room, “Get your glad rags on, were going to a party!”
	“Do I have to?” He whined.
	“Yeah it’s my sisters 23rd today, you gotta go or I’ll sing very loudly all night,” He glared at Brian, “All right, you asked for it.” Tony took a deep breath and roared, “GIVE ME FUEL GIVE ME FIRE GIVE ME THAT WHICH I DESIRE, HUH!”
	“Okay, Okay!” Brian jerked up on his bed, clutching his ears, “Jesus, you sure know how to ruin a guys day don’t you?”
	“No way! you’ll love this, we’ll go out, get drunk, and have a good time, come on!”
	“I’m too young to drink,” Brian said.
	“Not in France my friend,” Tony said, “I hear they drink Wine instead of Milk when there babies.”
	“That’s a myth,” Brian said.
	“It doesn’t matter, now get ready we’re leaving in 10 minutes.”

	“Hi there Tony!” Lily shouted from over the other side of the Bar they were in. “Hiya Brian!” Brian could see a large section of the bar had been separated off for the party, Emma and Jacques were there, along with the new pilots, Lily and two other Adults he hadn’t seen before were there, and even Jan had showed up.
	“Lily!” Tony shouted, and bounded over to her table. Brian went and sat down on Jacques and Emma’s Table.
	“Hi guys,” He said tiredly.
	“Hi Brian,” Emma stared at him intently, “Are you Okay?”
	“Yeah, just a bit tired, it’s been a pretty hectic day.”
	“Sorry about that,” Jacques said, “Look I didn’t know about your mother, and well… I’m sorry, Okay?”
	Brian stared at Emma, “You told him?”
	“I thought it would stop it happening again,” Emma sounded hurt that se had offended Brian when she was trying to help him. Brian gave a dejected sigh, there was no point arguing now, may as well try to enjoy myself while I’m here, he thought.
	“Two pints for the classroom brawlers!” Art announced as he placed two pints of lager in front of Jacques and Brian.
	“Really, I can’t drink beer,” Brian said, making a deliberate display of not touching the glass with his hands.
	“Nonsense, Drink up! Oh hey, come over here Brian I’ll introduce you to the rest of the aspiring pilots,” Art grabbed Brian by the arm and dragged him over to his table, Brian picked up his pint, although he couldn’t figure out why. “Okay everybody this is Brian Robertson, Scotsman, fighter, and a prestigious pilot in Alpha Team, I’m sure you all remember his brush with Death fighting that Angel.”
	“Hi Brian!” The other pilots chorused.
	“Now Brian, you’ve already met Sarah and Rebecca,” He pointed at the two girls, ‘But the other member of Bravo is, from Germany, Liza Erikson,” he pointed at a blonde haired girl in the centre of the group. “And the two current members of Charlie Team, from Russia, Dmitri Rosenberg,” A brown haired wiry looking boy nodded, “and also from the great US of A, Alice Martinson,” a red headed girl gave Brian a small wave. “Just take a seat,” Art said. Brian sat down between Art and Alice.
	“So how long have you guys been here for?” Brian asked, taking a swig of his lager, it wasn’t that bad, he thought.
	“We’ve been here about 10 days,” Rebecca said, “But these two,” She motioned at Alice and Dmitri, “Only got here 3 days ago.”
	“I must say you are very brave, fighting the Angels,” Dmitri said. “I am frightened at the thought of having to fight one of those things, I don’t know how Emma plucked up the courage to pull that trigger, if she had missed then…” He trailed of. They all sat in silence for a minute, sipping their respective alcoholic drinks. 
	“Oh hey Emma’s, on her own I’m gonna see if I can talk to her,” Art said, and everyone promptly got up and left the table to talk to Emma.
	“Don’t mind me,” Brian said to himself, “It’s not like I’m important or anything.”

	“Hey that is really nice Tony, why didn’t you get me one?” Ana laughed, Ana was the chief technician at SIN, and also one of Lily’s closest friends.
	“Do you have any Idea how much that necklace cost me?” Tony retorted, Brian had now shifted to sitting with Tony, Lily and her friends. Lily was trying on a necklace Tony had bought her for her birthday, it was very thin, but glistened a blinding white in the light of the bar.
	“What do you think Brian?” Lily asked.
	“Oh, it’s lovely,” Brian said, he felt very uncomfortable talking casually to an older woman and so quickly tried to change the subject, “How did you afford it Tony?”
	“I used some money from my military account,” Tony answered, draining some beer from his glass.
	“But we haven’t been paid yet,” Brian said, sounding puzzled.
	“No, not the SIN account, my military account,” Brian looked at him questioningly. “Well when I was on the military base back in Italy I did work around the base to earn some cash and ended up saving up a lot of money, I took some out to buy Lily a present.”
	“Where’s your present Brian?” Lily asked.
	“My present?” Brian panicked, he didn’t know he had to buy her a present, “Well, er… the thing about that is, I looked today, but… all the shops were closed and…” Josh laughed out loud.
	“Relax kid,” Josh said, “Lily’s just joking with you, she knew you wouldn’t of known it was her birthday.” Brian had only met Josh, SIN’s head Data Analyst, half an hour ago but he already liked him, he was always cool and in control of the situation.
	“I still think he should do something for you tonight,” Ana said a wicked look on her face, Brian swallowed nervously.
	“Really? What did you have in mind?” Lily asked, Ana leaned over and whispered in her ear, “You think so?” Lily looked at Brian, “Okay Brian, seeing as how it’s my birthday and everything, I expect you wouldn’t mind doing something for me, right?”
	“I don’t know,” Brian answered nervously, “It depends what you want.”
	“I’ll tell you what I want after you promise to do something for me,” Lily stared intently at him, her brown eyes reflecting the lights.
	“Umm… Okay,” Brian said.
	“Hah! You moron,” Josh laughed, “Never agree to anything before you find out what it is.”
	“I want you to dance with me,” Lily said calmly.
	“What!? Er… Now wait a minute,” Brian tried quickly to wheedle himself out of this.
	“Too late,” Lily said, “You promised!” Lily grabbed his arm and dragged him up to the centre of the room, where a large area had been cleared. The music that had been playing softly in the background was increased in volume due to the frantic hand-signals of Ana and Josh to the Barman, The familiar voice of Frank Sinatra was amplified. “Just put your hand here,” she placed his hand on her side, “And just follow me,” she clasped hands with him, and they began dancing, jerkily, around the dance floor, serenaded by wolf whistles from the other Eva pilots.
	“This is so embarrassing,” Brian whined, he felt very uncomfortable being this close to a woman as attractive as Lily, especially since she was his friend’s sister.
	“I know isn’t this great,” she laughed.
	“Hey, this is just cruel,” Brian said.
	“This is my Birthday present from you.”
	“What, the dance?”
	“No, the look on your face,” Lily laughed out loud again.
	“Hmm…” Brian grumbled and screwed up his face. He turned his head away from the other pilots, partially to avoid aggravating them to start another chorus of, “Go on Brian, get in there Son!” and so on, but mostly to hide the fact that his face had went bright red from blushing.
	“So what’s Tony like to live with?”
	“He’s okay, a bit noisy but he’s a good friend. Why are you asking me this you’ve lived with him since birth.”
	“Huh?”
	“He said you took care of him, after… your parents died,” Brian said nervously, not knowing how she would react.
	“But our parents didn’t… Oh, I see.”
	“What?” Brian looked at Lily’s face, for a brief second he stared into her dark brown eyes, and then he blushed even more and quickly turned away.
	“No, that’s not what happened,” Lily paused, “He tells that story to everyone, because he can’t face the truth.”
	“The truth…” Brian sensed Lily didn’t want to speak about it either so he didn’t push for an answer.
	“So what’s it like being an Eva pilot?”
	“It’s… strange, when you’re in them you feel powerful and scared, all at the same time. Like you could crush the world if you made a mistake.”
	“That strange, eh?” Lily mused over this for a while. “They scare me to,” she confided, “If you see some of the things they have done, you would be terrified of them. That first fight…” Her voice trailed off. Brian swallowed nervously. He heard the song come to an end, he quickly stepped back from Lily.
	“Well, thanks for the dance, it was…” he struggled for words which didn’t reveal how he felt about her, “er, well… thanks.” He quickly took off back towards the rest of the group, jeered by catcalls and wolf whistles as he went.
	Lily watched as he returned, Josh and Ana began chatting with him. I wonder if I was right to choose him as a pilot, she thought, can he handle all the pressure of this?

	The party continued on for a few more hours. It was midnight when the SIN group spilled out of the bar into the street.
	“See you tomorrow,” Ana called at Lily.
	“Great party,” Josh slurred, he had quite obviously had too much to drink.
	“See you tomorrow guys,” Lily said to the pilots as she flagged down a cab.
	“Bye Lily!” “Happy Birthday!” came cries from the pilots.
	“Brian?” Brian heard a deep voice say.
	“Yeah?” He looked around.
	“Can I talk to you for a minute?” Jan asked, Brian was startled by the man’s appearance, he had been virtually silent throughout the party so Brian had completely forgotten he was there.
	“Uh, sure,” Brian looked round for Tony, “Just go on ahead,” he shouted, “I’ll catch you up!”
	“Gotcha!” Tony replied.
	“Can we walk?” Jan asked.
	“I suppose so,” they began slowly walking down the road in the opposite direction of the other revelers, “I’m sorry Brian.”
	“For what?” Brian looked extremely puzzled.
	“For forcing all this on you,” Jan said sincerely, “You have only had one fight with an Angel and already the cracks in you are beginning to show.”
	“Hey, what do you mean?” Brian asked.
	“You are becoming more violent, Your life was placed at a serious risk, and it was my fault.”
	“Hey, no it wasn’t.”
	“It was, I could have stood up to Eve, told her that the plan was suicide, but she is becoming more and more ambitious recently.”
	“How do you mean?”
	“The UN council wanted to use NERV to fight that Angel, however Eve insisted SIN was used. That is why when the Combat Eva’s weren’t available she refused to give up, she hates NERV you see.”
	“Hates it, why?” Brian thought that maybe she had lost a relative to NERV as well.
	“To be specific it is not NERV she hates,” Jan stopped walking, he turned to face Brian, they were standing on a street corner, a car flew by, the only one on the road at this time of night. “She hates the commander of NERV, Gendo Ikari.”
	“Gendo…” He whispered to himself, he was in charge of Gehirn when my mother died, he thought.
	“Gendo had a brief relationship with Eve while she was taking part in an exchange course with her university. She loved him, and she thought he loved her. One day Gendo just left her for another woman, she begged him to stay with her, but he insulted her, saying he only wanted her body, that she was stupid. Eve was deeply hurt, not because this insult had came from such a close person, but also because she prided herself on her Intelligence. From that day Eve was consumed with hate for Gendo, she wanted to crush him, like he had crushed her, everything Gendo did she did to, in an effort to best him at his own game, but she never managed it. And then Gendo got appointed to NERV, his greatest achievement to date, she didn’t know how to compete with that.”
	“That’s terrible, how can someone be so cruel.”
	“Eve fell into a deep depression after that, and her hatred of Gendo increased. When I was asked to join SIN I recommended Eve for the position of Director, I had met her several times before and she still remains the most intelligent person I have ever met. I had no Idea of her history with Gendo, but once she found out that SIN was supposed to rival NERV she accepted immediately. To her SIN is her last chance at revenge, at the minute I think hatred is the only thing keeping her going.” He looked at Brian, the young boy had a very worried look on his face, “I’m sorry,” he said again, “I think I’ve just added to your troubles tonight.”
	“No, thank you, I think I understand Eve a lot better now, why she ordered us to fight that Angel.”
	“Brian, I hate to have to say this but I don’t think you are mentally able to cope with the pressure of being an Eva pilot,” Brian looked shocked at Jan’s unrestricted thoughts. “I’ve talked with Eve and she says that when Alice Martinson from Charlie Team has finished being trained, she will take over your place in Alpha, that is if you want it.”
	“No, I have to find out more about NERV, you can’t take me off Alpha,” Brian pleaded.
	“If you want you can stay on at SIN, doing various tasks around the base, but even if you were a pilot I doubt you would get any information about NERV, not even I know everything about them.” Brian stared at him, mixed feelings struggling in his mind, part of him wanted to run, to get away from all of this, but another part told he should stay, to protect the world.
	“You mean all this time I’ve spent here was useless?”
	“Not useless, you helped defeat the Angel. You alone have done more to protect this world than entire countries have, if nothing else you have that.” Brian stared at him, Jan was only quite young, in his late 20’s Brian would say, but Brian could tell he was wise, somehow he made it sound as if giving up his quest to discover the truth about his mother, his entire life’s goal, wasn’t such a big thing. “I have to go,” Jan said, looking at his watch, “Remember what I said. I will support whichever decision you take, Good night Brian.”

	Brian lay in his bed, staring at his alarm clock, watching the digital display count the passing of time. Today has certainly been a strange day, he thought. Maybe I am mentally unsuitable, he remembered the feelings of uncontrollable rage as he struck Jacques earlier that day. He became scared at the prospect of leaving all this, sure he had friends back home, his Father waiting for him. But here, he felt like he had been born again. Here he could accomplish everything he only dreamed about, saving the world, I mean who wouldn’t want to do that? He thought. He shook these thoughts from his mind and tried to get some sleep. The memory of dancing with Lily came back to him, the feel of her skin through her blouse, those deep brown eyes that he only glanced at. I could stare into those eyes all night, he thought, but what would she want with me, I mean she’s beautiful. Again he tried to get to sleep, but the memory persisted. He smiled despite himself.

Ending Theme: Goo Goo Dolls - Iris