Neon Echo Evangelion

Episode 9: The Fall of St. Julien

	“I’m going to protect you. I guarantee nothing is going to happen to either of us,” He had a confidence in his voice that made Emma believe in every word he said.
	“Promise?” she asked.
	“Promise.” She leaned across the table. Suddenly a huge chasm opened up in the ground between them, Jacques fell backwards and landed on the cold hard floor. “Emma!” He cried.
	“Help me Jacques!” She shouted, flames burst out of the chasm, wreathing Emma in fire.
	“No, Emma!” Jacques tried to get close to her but the flames pushed him back.
	“Help me Jacques!” She cried again, her skin charring and falling off her bones.
	“No!” He cried. Two skeletons appeared next to Emma.
	“Why didn’t you help us?” one said, it had his mothers voice.
	“You let us die, what kind of a son are you,” the other said, it had the voice of his father.
	“It was the Angel!” Jacques shouted, “He did it, I killed him!” Suddenly Jacques felt a hand on his shoulder, he looked round. It was that Angel, only this time it had huge horns and an evil grin on its face. It laughed. “No!” Jacques shouted, “Your dead, I killed you!”
	“Save me Jacques,” Emma said. Jacques looked back towards her, she was just a skeleton now, her bones blackening under the flames. “Please, save me Jacques,” She cried again, Jacques tried to run to her but the Angel held him back.
	“No, Emma!”
	“So what exactly happened to him?”

	“So what exactly happened to him?” Jacques opened his eyes, he could hear voices outside. He looked around the room he was in, the walls were padded, and there was only one window in the room, and that was on the door, he was sitting on a bed at the side of the room. He realised that he was hugging himself, confused by this he tried to move his arms, they wouldn’t budge. He looked down, a white jacket was wrapped tightly around him, holding his arms in place.
	“I’m afraid that were not at liberty to divulge that,” another voice said, Jacques looked towards the door, the voice sounded familiar, a woman.
	“I would be able to deal with him better if I knew what had triggered the mental collapse,” this voice was unfamiliar to Jacques, he didn’t like it.
	“You will have to do your best,” the woman said, “I’m really sorry we can’t help you any more doctor, but please do your best.” The door swung open, Jacques tried to stand up but some leather straps had him tied to the wall, he grunted in frustration.
	“Hello Jacques,” the unfamiliar voice said, Jacques turned his attention away from the restraining straps and looked up, a man in a white coat, carrying a clipboard, walked into the room. “My name is Jean-Claude Curoe,” the man said, sitting down on the chair in the corner of the room, “But you can call me Jean.” Jacques stared at the man intently. “Can you remember your name?” The man asked.
	“Am I Jacques?” He asked, remembering what the man had said when he came in.
	“Yes, very good,” the man scribbled something down on his clipboard, “And do you know where you are?” Jacques looked around the room again.
	“I’m in a room,” he said flatly.
	“Yes, but do you know what building this is?” The man asked, his voice remaining level, making sure he did not appear threatening. Jacques thought for a minute, but nothing came to mind, not just any old thing, but absolutely nothing came to mind. Jacques grunted in annoyance. “That’s okay,” the doctor said, making more notes on the clipboard, “We’ll take this slowly.”
	“What’s going on?” Jacques asked.
	“I’m trying to make you well again,” the doctor said, “You are sick.”
	“I don’t feel Ill,” Jacques said, becoming annoyed with the man, and the strange circumstances he was in.
	“You are not physically ill,” the man said, making further notes, “It is a illness of the mind.”
	“What do you mean?” Jacques asked, he was becoming incredibly confused with what was going on.
	“Well, what do you remember?” The doctor asked. Jacques thought, he tried to remember something, but again nothing came to mind, he couldn’t remember anything, anything at all.
	“I will help you remember Jacques, it’s-”
	“The Angels!” Jacques roared, the vision of that grey Angel came back to him, “The Angels!” He thrashed about, trying to get free of his restraints. The doctor looked very worried about this, the door opened and a UN soldier put his head round the door to see what was going on.
	“Nurse!” The soldier shouted, a nurse holding a syringe walked into the room.
	“No wait,” Jean-Claude said, he held his hand up at the nurse, signalling for her to wait, “What about the Angels?” Jean-Claude asked. Perhaps I will be able to find out something more about this boy, Jean-Claude asked.
	“The Angels,” Jacques said, calming down slightly. Flashes of pain and misery appeared in Jacques mind, but for what reasons he didn’t know. And then he remembered something, a thought, no it was stronger than that, it was a need, something he had to do. “The Angels,” he said again, forming this need into words in his head, “I have to kill them all!” He shouted, he thrashed about again, trying to get free. “All of them!” he shouted again, becoming more manic, “I have to kill them all!”
	“Hold him down,” the nurse said to the soldier, she walked towards Jacques with the syringe.

	“I’m sorry,” Emma said as she walked into the main room of the apartment, “For last night. It’s just that I needed someone to talk to, and you were the only person I could  turn to.”
	“It’s okay,” Brian said, he was sitting on the couch. He had woken up 10 minutes ago and was currently finishing off a slice of toast, he hadn’t wanted to disturb Emma so he hadn’t switched the TV on. She had spent most of the night crying, Brian was no good in emotional situations, such as last night, but he had tried his best to console her. Brian had learned that by studying footage from Jacques’ Eva they were able to link his sighting of his parents bodies to abnormal brain activity, that seemed to be the trigger that had unbalanced his mind. Brian had also learned a lot about Jacques from Emma, she had explained how he had bottled everything up inside himself, to ignore the pain of what had happened. Apparently his family had a military history, nearly every male in his family had served in the armed forces, and nearly every one of them had died in the process. He’d had to deal with the death of so many close family members that after a while he just blocked it out, locked up all the hurt deep inside of him. Brian guessed that seeing his parents die had let loose all the pain in Jacques, and it had tipped him over the edge. Brian didn’t want to think what losing all those family members would be like. She had eventually fell asleep, so Brian had put her in his bed, and he had slept on the couch, Tony’s room was still out of bounds. 
	“Oh no, I’ve overslept,” Emma said, worrying, as she sat down on the couch next to Brian.
	“Its okay,” Brian said as he stood up to put the dirty plate, he had eaten his toast on, in the sink, “I’ll tell the teacher that you’re Ill or something, just take the day off.” Brian turned to look at Emma, she looked incredibly tired, even though she had just woken up.
“But, that would be skipping school,” Emma said. 
Dear God, Brian thought, that’s always like Emma, the person she loves has just been wrenched out of her life, possibly forever, and all she’s worried about is breaking some rules. “You’ve had a rough time,” Brian said. That’s the understatement of the year, Brian thought, hell we’ve all had a really bad time these past few months. “It wouldn’t kill you to take a day off,” Brian said, “You can get yourself together, you’ll feel better for it, I guarantee you.”
“Thanks Brian,” Emma said, she smiled at him, and Brain was happy that she wasn’t too depressed to smile. 
She does have a lovely smile, Brian thought, but, no, I can’t make a move on her, her boyfriends gone mad, that would be a hell of a rebound. “Yeah, well, we have known each other the longest out of all of Alpha team,” Brian said, he smiled nervously, trying to get rid of those unwanted thoughts. “I just feel privileged that you thought to come to me,” Brian said.
“I’m sorry Brian,” she said, solemnly.
“About what?” Brian asked.
“About neglecting you all this time,” Emma said, “I mean, we’re childhood friends, but since I got here I’ve barely said a handful of words to you. I’m sorry about that.”
“Hey, it’s okay, I never really made that much effort to talk to you either, so just forget about it.”
“Well, thanks anyway, for hearing me out, and putting up with me last night,” She gave a short nervous laugh.
“It’s okay, I mean we are friends, we should be there for each other.”
“Yeah, last night when I was thinking of what to do, I remembered you, you confided in me about your mother, so I thought I could confide in you. Thanks again Brian.”
“Hey, stop thanking me, I’m getting embarrassed,” Brian and Emma both laughed, “And just remember I’m here if you ever need me.” Emma smiled at him again, and Brian smiled back. “I’ve got to get going,” Brian said, Emma’s mention of his mother brought back memories of the photograph, “I’ve go things to do.” Brian turned and walked out of the door.

Again, it was another uneventful day at school. However it was obvious that the members of Bravo team had their minds on other things. Due to Jacques present condition, which Bravo team was blissfully unaware of, they now had the chance to pilot an Eva. Which one of them got the chance was a mystery, they had been training for an awfully long time though, so the pilots were in agreement that SIN should know who they want to take an assault role. 
And now, standing in the control room, Bravo team had received their answer. 
“Wow this is so cool,” Rebecca said, “I’m inside an actual Eva!” The rest of Bravo team groaned, since being picked as Jacques replacement the Dutch girl hadn’t shut up about how ‘cool’ it was.
“Calm down Rebecca,” Lily said, staring at the picture of the Eva standing immobile on the edge of the training ground, “It isn’t even active yet.”
“I know hurry up, this is so cool.”
“This is such a rip,” Art exclaimed, “I should be Assault.” The picture of Rebecca in the entry plug showed her sticking her tongue out.
“Well tough luck,” Rebecca said, “I’m No.1 round here now!” She laughed, and Bravo team let out another groan.
“Are you ready Rebecca?” Lily asked.
“You bet!” she enthused.
“Okay, Josh, start up support systems.” The Data analyst punched several keys on the large keyboard in front of him.
“Whoa,” Rebecca said in awe, as the Technicolor’s swirled around her, and the image of the training ground appeared all round the entry plug.
“Okay, listen up Rebecca,” Rebecca heard Lily’s voice say, “Where about to try and synchronise, just clear your thoughts, and open your mind.”
“It sounds like some kind of new age cult thing,” Rebecca remarked.
“Just do it,” Lily replied impatiently.
“Okay,” Rebecca tried to clear her mind, not entirely sure if she was going about it the right way.
“Beginning synchronisation,” Josh announced, he pushed a couple more keys, a large display appeared on the main screen, showing a maze of blocky shapes, which started lighting up in order, “Synch 20% complete,” Josh said.
“Wow, this is all really high tech,” Art said, watching the power levels work their way through the various stages of synchronisation.
“Yeah,” Sarah remarked, “I can’t wait until we get our own Eva’s.”
“60%,” Josh informed everyone, “Reaching threshold,” suddenly a massive ‘Error’ sign appeared on the screen. “Huh?” Josh said, startled. “Attempting to fix problem.”
“What’s going on?” Rebecca asked, “Shouldn’t I have synch-” Suddenly she screamed. Memories rushed into her mind, death, destruction. And feelings, overwhelming emotions of rage, anger, and most of all, pain.
“Rebecca!?” Lily shouted.
“Something strange is happening!” Rebecca cried, clutching her head, it was throbbing with the feeling of deep pain, “Get me out, Get me out of-” She screamed again. The Eva’s eyes flashed, it raised its arms, and roared.

“So you lied to us then?” Alphonse Tomay, accused Eve.
“No, I merely said that he was undergoing a psychiatric evaluation,” Eve said calmly, “We had no Idea that he had become mentally unstable.”
“From what I have heard it appears that this boys condition is very serious, I am surprised it took you as long as you said it did to diagnose the boy,” Alphonse retorted.
“That is not important at the minute,” Sebastian Cole interrupted, “So what was your theory regarding this recent berserker activity by Eva-Assault?”
“Well, as I explained, when Eva-Assault was reactivated with a new pilot it went out of control and caused serious damage to the training ground, it only stopped when it ran out of power, which thankfully was low at the time of its activation. Upon debriefs with the new pilot she reported feeling emotions when in the entry plug.”
“Which emotions?” Gerhard Wenger asked.
“She claimed that she felt, pain and anger. Therefore I believe that somehow the Eva has been influenced by the Eva’s normal pilots unstable outburst and retained the strongest emotions it felt.”
“So your saying that the extent of the pilots emotional unbalance was so strong that it made the Eva itself go insane?” Gerhard asked in amazement.
“If you want to put it that way, then yes,” Eve conceded. The council let out a gasp of shock.
“I knew we shouldn’t have used NERV’s blueprints to construct the Eva’s,” Alphonse declared.
“We had no other choice,” Lisa Morgenson said, “If we were to construct our Eva’s from scratch it would have taken us years, and an unthinkable amount of money. We had no idea about the truth of the Eva’s until production of the test Eva’s was already under way, I’m just glad we decided not to use Unit-01’s designs for any of Bravo teams Eva’s.”
“Indeed,” Sebastian agreed, “Director Cardinal, is their any way to remedy this situation?”
“As far as I can see, no,” Eve admitted, “We tried wiping the Eva’s memory, but that didn’t work, if it did then the Eva would have been fixed when its personal data files were re-written for the new pilot. The only option I can think of is to scrap this Eva and replace it with a new one.”
“Absolutely preposterous,” Lisa said determinedly, “We cannot possibly afford another Eva, do you have any idea how much money it costs to build one of those things? It’s bad enough that we don’t know 100% about how they work, in fact we barely know 50% about how they work, so the production process takes much longer than anticipated. At the minute we’ll be lucky to scrape up enough funds to repair the training ground. The combined cost of SIN and NERV is putting a huge strain on the UN, not to mention the fact that we have to rebuild nearly half of Paris, and repairs are still going on in St. Julien.”
	“It seems we have bitten off more than we can chew by setting up SIN,” Sebastian said with a sigh. “However it has not all been for naught, NERV would have been hard pressed to deal with all the Angels encountered so far by themselves, we have done them a favour. What a Joke, SIN, which was set up to destroy NERV once all the angels were destroyed has ended up helping them, whilst weakening itself. Finances are becoming more and more strained with each encounter with an Angel, from now on we must ration our budget, unfortunately Director Cardinal most of it will probably go to NERV so they do not suspect anything.”
	“I understand Director Cole, and I agree, if SIN is discovered in its current weakened state we would be helpless to stop any kind of retaliation from NERV,” Eve said.
	“Bravo team’s Eva’s should be complete by the end of the month,” Lisa informed Eve, “Until then you will have to hold out with only two Eva’s. I just hope nothing happens until then,” she said solemnly. 

	Brian walked through the door of his apartment, slung his school bag on the couch, and slumped down next to it. It had been just over three weeks since the battle in Paris, and things had changed a lot from before the battle. Emma had become a virtual recluse now, whereas before Brian usually saw her talking to the other girls from the other teams, now she showed up late nearly every morning, and barely spoke for the whole day. And everyday she seemed to get worse and worse, she looked more tired and fragile as the days went on. Brian never really cared much for Jacques, but Brian was still shaken by what happened to him, and had just served to dredge up all those buried emotions regarding Tony. The other pilots had found out about what had happened to Jacques when an angry Art confronted Brian.
	“What the hells going on round here?” Art said, as he grabbed Brian by his collar, “Rebecca was nearly killed when that crazy monster went insane and started trashing the place. What the hell happened to Jacques, I sure as hell know that there not keeping him in for observation.”
	“You don’t want to know,” Brian said, “Trust me you don’t want to know.”
	“Of course I want to know,” Art growled, “why the hell would I ask you if I didn’t want to know? Now tell me, what the hell happened to Jacques?” Art stared straight at Brian.
	“Hey, Art calm down,” Liza said, “Your getting out of hand, we should ask Lily, she’ll know what’s going on.”
	“Yeah, Art, just let go of Brian,” Sarah repeated.
	“No, Rebecca’s in hospital because of him,” Art said defiantly, Brian hadn’t flinched the whole time, facing up to Art’s intimidation, “He knows what’s going on here, none of the SIN staff will tell us what’s going on, so I’m asking him.”
	“You really want to know what happened to Jacques?” Brian repeated, the other pilots looked worried, there was something ominous about the tone in Brian’s voice.
	“Yeah, I do,” Art sneered.
	“He’s gone insane,” Brian said calmly.
	“Huh?” Art let go of Brian, blinking in amazement, the other pilots gasped in shock. “What did you say?” Art asked in disbelief.
	“Jacques,” Brian paused for effect, “has gone insane. His family was killed in the battle in Paris, he completely lost it,” the pilots stared on in morbid fascination, disgusted by what they were hearing but unable to stop listening through curiosity. “Do you know what he did?” Brian said standing up from his chair in the classroom, were Art had ambushed him, “He pinned the Angel to the ground with his knives, ripped its core out with the Eva’s bare hands, and beat its skull in with its core.”
	“Oh God,” Art said, his face a picture of horror.
	“And he only stopped because his Eva ran out of power,” Brian continued, “And now SIN has him locked up somewhere with some second rate psychiatrist looking at him, who doesn’t have the faintest idea what Jacques has been through and the SIN staff can’t tell him because of ‘security reasons.’”
	“No, no, it… it can’t be true,” Sarah stammered.
	“I wish it wasn’t but that’s the truth,” Brian said, his voice devoid of emotion, “SIN doesn’t care about us, were just pawns in their game, look at Tony, he was tortured in front of my eyes, and what did Eve have to say on the matter?” Brian waited, staring round at the horrified faces fixed on him, “Nothing,” he announced, sitting down, “Not a thing, that’s how much SIN cares about us.”
	Since then the mood of all the pilots was very sombre, and Bravo team were far less excited about getting the chance to pilot an Eva. Rebecca’s injuries hadn’t been that serious, she had broken her left arm, but she was back at school within a day or two after the incident.
	Now Brian sat in his living room, staring at the slip of paper he had managed to steal while the UN soldiers were distracted by the rampaging Eva. On it was a short hand written letter, it read: Next Saints meeting, 7:00pm, 23rd, 365 Washington Rue, Nouveau Verdun. I have to do something, Brian thought, I have to find out the truth about that photograph, but how? He stared up at the clock on the wall, the date read, 24, and it was currently 4:05. I have a month to decide what to do, Brian thought, but even if I do go, what will I do there, what could I possibly do? The phone rang, and interrupted his thought.
	“Hello?” He said as he picked it up.
	“Brian,” Lily’s familiar voice said, “You have to get to SIN HQ as soon as possible.”
	“But I just got back,” Brian complained.
	“It doesn’t matter,” Lily said, a brief hint of panic sounding in her voice, “We might have another Angel on our hands.”
	“Wait, wait, wait,” Brian said hurriedly, “What do you mean ‘might’?”
	“Well,” Lily paused, “St. Julien has just been completely destroyed.”

	“When did we receive this footage?” Lily asked.
	“About 5 minutes ago,” Jan replied, “We were waiting for all the staff to arrive before we showed it, we received it from an orbital satellite.”
	“Okay,” Josh announced, the counter in the corner of the screen began to count down, “30 seconds,” Josh announced, the staff watched with baited breath. St. Julien was still pretty derelict from the N2 strike on the city, the centre of the city was still just a giant crater however most of the heavily damaged buildings had been torn down and new ones were in the middle of construction. “20 seconds,” Lily could see people walking down the streets, going about their daily business, shopping, chatting, going to work. “10 seconds,” Lily felt guilty, she was about to become privy to the death’s of all these people. “5… 4… 3… 2… 1…” Josh announced. Suddenly buildings, from a point just off the centre of the city, started collapsing, as if a huge invisible explosion had just taken place. The destruction spread out like ripples on a pond, buildings collapsed into streets, trees were flattened, and after a few more seconds the city was still, a cloud of dust rose from the ruined city, and nothing moved.

	“My God, it looks like some kind of massive earthquake has hit it,” Brian exclaimed, he looked out from his entry plug across the green plains to the ruins of the city in front of him.
	“Okay people, there’s only two of you now, so make sure you keep it together,” Lily told them, “We have good reason to believe that an Angel was responsible for doing this. We have no idea how powerful this thing could be, so if you encounter it, and things get a bit hairy, then pull out as soon as you can, we can’t risk losing another pilot,” Lily cautioned them.
	“I understand,” Emma said solemnly, her face was grim. Brian was worried about her, he didn’t know how she would react to being in an Eva so soon after the incident in Paris.
	“Okay, move out pilots, and good luck,” Lily added.
	Brian attached the power supply to his Eva and began moving forward, the generator truck chugging along after him. As he drew near to the derelict city Brian could just make out some movement. 
	“Wait,” he warned Emma, they both dropped down onto one knee and pointed their respective weapons in the direction of the city.
	“What is it?” She asked.
	“I saw something move, over there in the rubble.” Emma zoomed in on the area where the rubble had spilled into the streets.
	“I don’t see anything-” Emma paused, she could see a figure moving, she zoomed in further. A boy was walking out of the rubble, he was dressed in ragged blood-smeared clothes, his face was pale, and he was walking slowly and jerkily out into the grassy plains surrounding the city, looking like a zombie. “We’ve found a survivor.”
	“Emma, we can’t send recovery teams in until were sure there is no Angel still present, you’ll have to leave him,” Lily said.
	“What? He looks badly injured though,” Emma argued.
	“We still don’t want to risk losing recovery workers,” Lily said.
	“That’s crazy,” Emma remarked, she looked at the boy, and then across to Brian’s Eva, “Cover me Brian, I’m going in.”
	“You got it,” Brian replied.
	“Wait Emma, stay in your Eva, you can’t-” Lily tried to say, but Emma had already slid out her entry tube and hopped down the Eva to the ground. Brian stood his Eva up and began scanning the area for threats.
	“Hey! Hey!” Emma ran over to the boy waving her arms in the air, the boy didn’t seem to notice her. “Hey!” she cried he reached the boy and stopped in front of him, “Are you okay?”
	“Huh?” The boy looked up at her, he seemed to be about the same age as her, with short jet-black hair.
	“I said are you okay?” Emma looked at the boy, “Are you injured?”
	“Oh thank God you’re here,” The boy lurched forward and grabbed her, “Please help me, something awful has happened,” The boy said, he began shaking her, “You’ve got to help me, the city,” he looked back at the ruins, “All those people, they, Oh God,” he collapsed with his head on her shoulder, and he began to cry.

Episode 9: A Welcome Distraction

	After a sweep of the city it was determined that, if it was an Angel that caused the disaster, then by now it had left. Members of SIN and the Eva pilots were all spooked by the events that had taken place.
	“So then how’s the work going?” Lily asked as she walked into the control room sipping a cup of coffee.
	“Not good,” Josh said dejectedly, “It’s incredibly hard to study this imagery,” he said, “The quality is good on it and everything, its just that I don’t have a clue what I’m looking for, and once that dust cloud goes up you can’t see a damn thing.”
	“Have you learned anything new from it yet?” Lily asked hopefully.
	“Nope, we still haven’t been able to determine a code blue reading or not,” Josh sat back put his hands behind his head and rolled his eyes In despair, “For all we know it could just be a massive earthquake, the local geological station did report a very high Richter scale reading.”
	“But the devastation is too localised for it to be an earthquake,” Lily remarked, staring at the footage play itself out in slow motion on the screen in front of Josh.
	“I know,” Josh sighed, “How’s the interrogation of the survivor going?”
	“Not good, when we got back we took him to the city hospital, it looks like most of his injuries were superficial, probably just from crawling through the rubble. We’ve set him up in an apartment somewhere, we tried questioning him at the hospital, but he didn’t seem to know anything about himself, the only thing he could remember was that his name was Michael.”
	“So no luck on any fronts, eh?” Josh remarked.
	“No, but there’s one thing I don’t get,” Lily said.
	“What is it?” Josh asked.
	“Well, reports from clean up crew in St. Julien say that all the people seem to have died of the same cause.”
	“Really?” Josh asked intrigued.
	“Yes, all the bones in their body had been crushed,” Lily said.
	“Well, they were all flattened by collapsing buildings,” Josh said, skimming over the footage.
	“No, even the ones who died out in the open had every bone in their body crushed, it was as if somebody had dropped a giant weight on the whole city.”
	“Wow that is weird,” Josh remarked.
	“Yeah, but if everyone in the city, absolutely everyone, died exactly the same way, how come that boy got away completely unscathed?”
	“It’s a mystery,” Josh said, with little enthusiasm in his voice, “Personally I’m more worried about what caused that destruction, it’s unlike any weapon we’ve seen before. If it was an Angel, I’d be worried about where it is now.”
	“Maybe it was Saints,” Lily mused.
	“Huh? How do you mean?”
	“Well they haven’t done anything for a long while, maybe they were lulling us into a false sense of security. We know that they wouldn’t tell us they were responsible for it, they’re not your average terrorists. And we don’t know what kind of contacts they have, or how large a group they are, they could have been able to obtain some new weapon, some kind of gravity bomb perhaps?”
	“Well, its possible, your always hearing rumours about America or other countries developing new superweapons. I mean, look at the Eva’s, they were developed in complete secrecy, and I doubt that SIN is important enough to be informed about new breakthroughs in weapons technology, unless it could be used with the Eva’s.”
	“Having seen the Angels and all that they can do, it makes the development of superweapons seem pretty futile,” Lily said, “We didn’t have a clue about what we were getting ourselves into did we?” Lily asked.
	“Something on your mind?” Josh swivelled round in his chair to face Lily.
	“It’s just…” she paused, wondering whether or not to tell Josh what was on her mind, “I think we’ve made a big mistake.”
	“With what?” he asked concerned.
	“Everything, SIN, the Eva’s, our choice of pilots, all of it, I wish none of this had happened. Since I came here I’ve lost my best friend, my brother, and I’ve seen kids that I should have been protecting, torn apart, emotionally and physically, by those monsters. Whoever called those things Angels must have had a sick sense of humour.”
	“Hey, we’re all thinking the same thing,” Josh said, “Hey, I know, lets go out tonight, take your mind off things, huh?”
	“Are you asking me out?” Lily asked, mild shock showing in her voice, she had known Josh for a while and was pretty certain he hadn’t any feelings for her.
	“Oh, no, no,” Josh said hurriedly, “It sounded better in my head, what I meant was we should go out on the town, everyone, not just us.”
	“Who’s everyone?” Lily asked.
	“You know, all the people at SIN, the pilots, we can go out, have fun, it’ll help people take their mind off things. We’ve all had a bad time.”
	“That might not be so bad,” Lily said, “Maybe we could take Michael with us, it might do the boy some good.”
	“There you go,” Josh said cheerily, he turned back to his workstation. “Hmm, that’s odd,” he muttered.
	“What is it, have you found something in the footage?” Lily asked.
	“No, its data from when Alpha scouted out the city,” Josh pointed at various readouts on one of the screens, Lily couldn’t understand them.
	“What does that mean?” She asked.
	“Well… hang on,” Josh quickly typed in a command and a graph appeared on the screen, with a white line and a red line, the red line was slowly increasing in gradient, whereas the white line occasionally jumped up large amounts. “This graph compares the synch ratio’s of Brian and Emma, as you can see Brian’s synch has been slowly improving, his synch is currently at 37%, that isn’t great but it’s a big improvement. If you look at Emma’s synch levels she started at a high level and just kept getting higher, her synch is currently 82%.”
	“82%!” Lily exclaimed, “That’s amazing,” she gawped, “How can it be that good?”
	“I don’t know,” Josh admitted, “But it’s certainly got me worried, if you look at the graph every time she’s piloted her Eva the synch ratio goes up. You said she was born before second impact?”
	“That’s right,” Lily confirmed.
“Maybe this is some kind of atunement process by the Eva,” Josh theorised.
“Atunement?”
	“Yeah, the Eva is kind of changing Emma’s brainwaves to a frequency that is better suited to synching with the Eva. That could be why she’s getting so worn out and tired, because its putting a strain on her mentally, it could also be what caused the other pilots to go insane. Perhaps because she was born not too long before second impact she isn’t affected as badly as the others.”
	“Is that possible?” Lily asked.
	“Who knows?” Josh replied, “Does anybody here know everything about the Eva’s? I’d be very surprised if even NERV knew everything about them.”
	“It’s an interesting theory, but if it’s true then we don’t know what could happen when she reaches maximum synchronisation,” Lily pondered over the suggestion.
	“Hey, it’s just a theory,” Josh said defensively.
	“We’re living in weird times,” Lily announced.
	“You’re right there,” Josh concurred.

	Emma stood at the door of the apartment, feeling rather nervous. What can I say to him? She thought, I hardly even know him.
	“Hello?” Michael said as he opened the door. He was dressed in a white T-shirt and blue jeans, he looked a lot better than the last time Emma saw him.
	“Hi there Mike,” She said, hoping he wouldn’t take offence to her familiarity.
	“Oh, hi, your Emma right?” He said, looking puzzled. For someone who’s had his entire hometown wiped out he seems to be taking it pretty well, Emma thought.
	“Yeah,” she smiled at him, “I’ve just came round because, everyone at SIN is having a get together, and, well, we figured you might want to come along to,” she said nervously.
	“Umm, well…” he looked at his watch, and then scratched his head, “I suppose so, I mean I don’t really know too many people in SIN.”
	“That’s okay, you know me, I’ll introduce you to everybody,” Emma looked at her watch, “Hey, we’d better get going, we’ve got to be there in half an hour.”
	“Okay, I’ll get my coat.”

	“So here we are again,” Alphonse remarked, “And talking over something we know nothing about.”
	“If we do not explore all the options we will not be able to discover an answer,” Sebastian said, “Have you been able to get any information from the survivor?”
	“He appears to know nothing of the event, he may be suppressing memories, or he may have amnesia, brought on by a physical wound possibly,” Eve replied.
	“The report on the boy from the hospital indicates no serious injuries,” Gerhard added, “We must assume that he is suppressing memories.”
	“Or perhaps he is deliberately hiding information?” Alphonse proposed.
	“I doubt the boy would have any reason to hide anything,” Sebastian reasoned, “Has anyone been able to find any links between this incident and the incident with NERV second branch?”
	“No, it appears the two incidents are unrelated,” Alphonse said, “I’ve had analysts examine the footage of both, but it was obvious from the start that no link existed between the two events. St. Julien was the victim of some kind of localised tectonic disturbance, whereas NERV-02 simply vanished.”
	“Have any explanations been found for either events?” Sebastian asked.
	“As I said, we believe that St. Julien was hit by some kind of tectonic disturbance, a sort of concentrated earthquake if you will, and that is why nearby Geological stations were unable to detect any disturbance. This may have been caused by some kind of long term after effects from Second Impact.”
	“It is possible, we will work along those lines for now,” Sebastian said, “And any theories regarding NERV-02?”
	“From informants within NERV it appears that NERV was creating the latest Eva model, Eva-04, with an S2 engine,” there was a chorus of shocked gasps as Alphonse announced this.
	“You mean based on Dr. Katsuragi’s Super Solenoid theory?” Maria asked.
	“Yes, it appears that NERV were trying to create an S2 engine. Going on that information I can only assume that a malfunction with the engine caused a temporary space/time anomaly, possibly a black hole, which swallowed the entire area.”
	“This is pure conjecture,” Eve said, “We have no evidence to back up how S2 theory works in real conditions.”
	“Yet we have found organs which seem to produce energy through a method similar to Katsuragi’s S2 theory within recovered Angels,” Sebastian said.
	“You mean you have been studying the fallen Angels?” Maria asked.
	“Yes, if we are able to recreate the S2 engines it will allow us to recoup our losses several times over,” Lisa replied. “That technology is a gift to us, and if we can harness it we would be able to hold a monopoly on the greatest breakthrough in energy production ever.”
	“Any more news about Saints?” Sebastian asked.
	“No,” Eve replied, “Nothing concrete, we believe that they may have had something to do with the St. Julien catastrophe.”
	“In what way?” Sebastian asked.
	“Various theories regarding them have been circulated, however the most plausible seems to be that Saints acquired some kind of new weapons technology, and used it to destroy St. Julien.”
	“We have no information on a weapon that could cause that kind of damage,” Alphonse replied.
	“Also it does not seem to fit with Saints usual tactics,” Maria added, “Destroying St. Julien hasn’t achieved anything for them. They attacked the Eva’s because they were a threat to the Angels, however St. Julien has nothing to do with the Angels.”
	“It could be retaliation for the killing of that Angel there,” Gerhard proposed.
	“No, that battle was several months ago,” Sebastian argued, “They would have done it a long time ago if they had wanted that. It must be something else.”
	“Perhaps they are just getting desperate?” Gerhard offered, “We have clamped down on their operations quite well, maybe they are just resorting to blatant acts of destruction.”
	“It’s a possibility, but it still doesn’t explain there choice of target,” Sebastian said.
	“Well, whatever the reason we should find out soon enough,” Alphonse said, “We’ve received the time and location of their next meeting, we should be able to apprehend their leader and then we will be able to find out the truth.”
	“Very well, any further questions?” Sebastian asked, no one said anything, “In that case this meeting is adjourned.”

	“So… wait a minute, wait a minute, how do we score again?” Art slurred.
	“You can only score with a header or a volley,” Brian explained, “That’s why its called Heads or Volleys, okay?”
	“Right… and so what happens if we don’t score with a header or a volley?” Art asked.
	“Uh,” Brian slapped his forehead in dismay, which hurt a lot more than he intended it to, “If you don’t score properly then you go in goal.”
	“But I’m already in Goal,” Yu said.
	“Yes, but if he scores,” Brian stuck his arms out towards Art, trying not to spill any of the beer in the bottle he was holding, although inadvertently soaking his sleeves, “Then you get to come out of goal, and he goes into goal.”
	“So what’s so bad about being in goal?” Art asked, staggering around.
	“If you’re in goal then you can’t score, and it’s the last person to score 5 goals who goes out, okay?” The assembled people nodded, “Any more questions?”
	“What’s a volley?” Art asked. Brian screamed in frustration. He had known that it was going to be a bad idea. About halfway through the party Art had suggested that all the pilots go out and play drunken soccer, none of the girls wanted to, so currently on the field were hisself, Art, Yu, Rick, and Dmitri. Brian was glad that Dmitri had came along, he felt sorry for the young Russian, he seemed to be having a hard time fitting in, and so he was glad that he was making an effort to get more friendly with the other pilots. Unfortunately Dmitri wasn’t quite as good at football as the others and he was out in the first round, Brian was out next, mainly due to the fact that he was holding his bottle of beer in his hand while he was playing, which ruined his balance. Art was doing the same, but he seemed to have prior experience of playing football with a bottle in his hand.
	“Hey Dmitri,” Brian said, as he sat down next to him on the edge of the field, not too far from ‘The Blanc Corbeau,’ the bar that the current party, as well as Lily’s birthday party, was held at.
	“Hello,” he said cheerily, “How are you doing Brian?”
	“Hey, I’m okay, you know, staying cool, saving the world, that kinda stuff,” Brian realised he was drunk when he didn’t realise how incredibly stupid that sounded.
	“Yeah, I used to think being an Eva pilot would be cool, but after hearing about all the stuff that happened to you, I don’t really enjoy the idea anymore.”
	“Yeah, it’s pretty tough,” Brian said trying to sound macho, “You gotta have the right stuff to come through that kind of hell.”
	“Yeah.” They sat in silence for a while, watching the rest of the group play, Rick was currently in goal, with Art dominating the field against Yu, mainly because Yu hadn’t really understood the rules. “Hey Brian can I ask you a question?”
	“Yeah sure, go on.” Wow, Dmitri must look up to me, he thought, I always thought everyone went to Art for help.
	“I’m thinking of quitting SIN, do you think it’s the right thing to do?” Dmitri asked him.
	“Well, if you don’t want to be an Eva pilot, then I think quitting SIN would be best. It’s not all fun and games piloting an Eva, in fact its not any fun and games,” Brian said, hoping that Dmitri would understand what he meant, because he sure as hell didn’t.
	“Yeah, but I need my pay from SIN to support my family,” Dmitri said. Brian was unfortunately taking a swig from his bottle of beer at that moment, and promptly sprayed a mouthful of alcohol onto his lap. “You’ve got Kids!?” Brian exclaimed, trying to dry the embarrassingly placed wet patch.
	“No, no,” Dmitri hurriedly said, “That’s not what I meant.”
	“Oh thank God for that,” Brian sighed, and began furiously rubbing his trousers to dry them.
	“Hey! Stop jerking off!” Art shouted over and laughed.
	“Screw you!” Brian shouted back, “Anyway, you were saying.”
	“Yeah, well I only agreed to go to SIN so I could have the pay I got sent back to my family in Russia, my Father, my younger brother, and my grandma who lives with them.”
	“Oh right,” Brian was trying to think of why Dmitri’s family would need extra money, but his inebriated state, and the fact he wasn’t really an expert on international knowledge, prevented him from doing so. “Any reason why?” He asked.
	“Yes, Russia’s in the middle of a deep depression at the minute, the country was in a bad state when second impact happened, and it’s just got worse since then.”
	“That’s pretty bad,” Brian said, trying to make the pathetic gesture sound sincere.
	“After Second Impact there was a great famine, in east Russia, where I’m from, and my mother starved to death, she had just given birth to my younger brother, Vasilly, and she was too weak to make it through the famine.”
	“I’m really sorry,” Brian said, this time sounding sincere. Why is he telling me all this? He thought, he must just be after a friend, well I can be his friend, I’m a friendly guy. Anyway I guess this is my fault anyway, for spouting off about how SIN doesn’t care for us.	
“After that, my Father got involved with the Mafia, he was able to get extra money, but he got involved with some illegal stuff, and now he can’t get away from the Mafia. I wanted to give them some extra money, to get by on, I don’t want them to rely on illegal sources for money so much.”
	“I see,” Brian said, “You care about you dad, and so you want to give him a way of getting out of the Mafia,” Brian felt quite proud of himself for figuring that part out. Brian cared a lot about his dad and so he reasoned Dmitri must feel the same.
	“No, it’s not like that at all,” Dmitri said, a hint of anger in his voice, Brian was taken aback by this, “I just don’t trust my Father, he’s so reckless, he only got involved in the Mafia to get extra money for himself. I had to convince him to split any money he got between the family. One of these days he’s going to get killed working for the Mafia, and then I don’t want the rest of my family left penniless because of him. I just don’t want to rely on my Father for anything.”
	“Oh,” Brian was amazed by this insight into the boys life, he had never realised how hard Dmitri’s life had been. “Well if you put it that way, then I would stay with SIN, just for the moment. I hear they haven’t even received funding for Eva’s for Charlie team yet, you should just stay with SIN for the minute, get as much, money out of them as you can. And if they ever get round to making Eva’s for you guys then, if you still don’t want to be a pilot, you can leave. Lily’s said before that they can always get more pilots, but in a good way, if you see what I mean.”
	“Not really, but thanks anyway Brian, you’ve been a big help,” Dmitri said.
	“Hey, anytime,” Brian replied. They sat in silence again for a while, watching the continuing match, Yu was in goal at the minute, and Art, looking significantly more drunk than before, was getting badly beaten by Rick, who’d obviously played Heads or Volleys before.
	“Look at me, I’m Pele reincarnate, I’m the greatest football player in the world!” Art shouted as he managed to steal the ball from Rick.
	“Pele’s not dead you moron!” Brian shouted, secretly impressed that Art was able to pronounce reincarnate correctly in his drunken state.
	“Hey, shut up!” Art shouted back, and was promptly shoulder barged and knocked to the ground by Rick.
	“Art’s quite a character isn’t he?” Dmitri said, rhetorically.
	“Yeah,” Brian agreed, watching Art get up and argue with Rick over whether that was an illegal move. Brian’s thoughts wandered to the Saints meeting coming up in a few days. What should I do? He thought. “Hey Dmitri?” Brian said.
	“Yeah?”
	“Let’s just say, theoretiacly of course,” He said, completely mispronouncing the word, “That you found out your mother was alive, this is just theoretiacly,” he said trying not to offend him. 
	“Yeah,” Dmitri said suspiciously, not entirely sure where Brian was going with this line of thought.
	“If you found out she was alive, but that she was, I don’t know, let’s say some evil dictator, but you’re not sure whether she’s good or evil,” he said quickly, trying to set the scene, “ And you thought you could sneak into her next meeting, would you do it?”
	“I don’t understand this at all,” Dmitri said, incredibly puzzled by the gibberish Brian had just said.
	“Look, if you had the chance to see your mom again, but you think she might be evil, would you do it?”
	“I suppose so, I would want to know the truth,” Dmitri said, “My grandma always used to say, ‘you don’t get anywhere in life by missing opportunities.’”
	“Hey, your grandma’s got some good thinking,” Brian said, “Thanks a lot Dmitri,” Brian said slightly happier now that he had reached a decision, although slightly more nervous about it.
	“Hey, anytime,” Dmitri said, deliberately copying Brian.
	“Ah ha, I win!” Rick roared in his loud Australian voice. Brian looked up to see Rick jumping up and down.
	“You bastard!” Art shouted, “You bastard! You bastard! You bastard! I hate you! Another game?”
	“Why not?”

	“Hi! Can I get you ladies a drink?” Josh asked the collected female pilots.
	“Yeah, Sure Josh,” They all chorused.
	“Okay,” Josh said, and wandered over to the bar.
	“He’s so hot,” Rebecca said.
	“I know,” Alice agreed, “How come somebody as good looking as him doesn’t have a girlfriend?”
	“I hear he’s saving himself for his true love,” Liza said.
	“And who’s that?” Sarah asked.
	“Well I hear he’s had a crush on Lily since he came to SIN,” Liza said. The other girls groaned in dismay.
	“Here you go girls, some cocktails for all of you,” he placed down a tray of brightly coloured drinks in the middle of their table.
	“Thanks Josh,” The girls said.
	“He may be hot, but he certainly needs to wise up to modern times, does he honestly think that girls only drink cocktails?” Alice said, eyeing the disgusting looking green cocktail she had been left with
	“This ones pretty good,” Sarah said, slurping a purple liquid through a sparkly transparent straw.
	“So is he really in love with Lily?” Rebecca asked.
	“That’s what I heard,” Liza said.
	“He does seem to care for her,” Emma said, “He has known her for a long time, and they seem to get along well.”
	“Well, that’s just great, all of us get outdone by one woman,” Alice said.
	“Well she is beautiful,” Liza said.
	“That’s not the point!” Alice raged.
	“So Emma, how are you doing?” Sarah asked.
	“I’m okay,” Emma said, Sarah seemed to be the friendliest out of all the female pilots, and she got along with everyone she met too. Emma didn’t mind talking to her, despite the fact that Sarah practically worshipped the ground she walked on, unfortunately for Emma the prestige of being the first person to take down an Angel hadn’t died down.
	“You should really come out more with us,” Sarah said. Emma had noticed that a rift seemed to have been built up between the members of Alpha team, what was left of it, and the other pilots lately. It was mainly due to the fact that Emma and Brian had been pretty depressed of late. “I understand that your going to be pretty down because of, what happened…” Sarah said, preferring not to say what had happened, she was still pretty shocked at what Brian had revealed. “So you should come out with us more often, we all usually go out once a week, see a movie or something, have some fun. It’ll cheer you up.”
	“Thanks,” Emma said, “I’ll think about it.”
	“Hey, Emma,” Sarah said, “So what’s it like being a Sniper?”
	“Uh, well, I haven’t really done that much sniping, only really that shot against the first Angel,” Emma said.
	“Yeah, but that was a great shot,” Sarah said, “Did I tell you I was going to be Sniper for Bravo team?”
	“No you didn’t,” Emma said, happy for the girl, “Good for you.”
	“Yeah, well it isn’t really confirmed yet, but I’ve been working really hard to improve my accuracy, just so I can be a Sniper, just like you.”
	“Wow, I’m flattered,” Emma said. Oh no, she thought, not another way for her to look up to me.

	Eventually the night drew to a close, the boys piled back into the bar, drunk and covered in mud, and were quickly thrown off the premises, and soon after the rest of the party-goers left.
	“Hey Michael!” Emma said, rushing after him down the street, “Wait up.”
	“Oh, hi Emma,” he said as she ran up to him.
	“You didn’t seem to be doing much at the party,” she said, trying to get her breath back.
	“Well, like I said, I didn’t really know anybody,” he said.
	“But I introduced you to everybody, you could have went to play football with the boys if you wanted.”
	“They were a bit loud really,” Michael said.
	“Yeah, I see what you mean, and you probably would have got kicked out half an hour ago if you had went with them.”
	“Well, thanks for inviting me anyway,” he turned to return on his way down the street.
	“Hey wait up, I’ll walk back with you,” Emma rushed to meet up with him.
	“Oh, okay.”
	“You were talking to Lily and Josh though, weren’t you?”
	“Yeah, they’re nice people,” Michael said. “Is there something in particular you wanted to talk to me about?”
	“Yeah,” Emma admitted, “Look, I expect this is a sensitive issue, but you know, I’m going through the same thing. You probably lost your family in St. Julien, and I lost someone close to me a little while ago,” Emma said, trying not to think too much about what happened to Jacques.
	“I’m really sorry for you,” Michael said, as they both arrived at the bus stop where their respective buses home would arrive.
	“Hey, we’re talking about you now,” Emma said, “All I’m saying is that, I understand what your going through, if you need to talk to somebody then I’m here for you.”
	“That’s really nice of you,” Michael said, as his bus pulled up, “And I appreciate it,” he said as he stepped onto the bus. “But I’m afraid, you can’t help me, I don’t remember anything about my family, or anything about my life before I woke up in the ruins of St. Julien, but thanks anyway.” He smiled at her, and the bus pulled away.

	“Yeah, so I said, ‘I’ll show you who’s the screw up, Mr. I’ve just totaled my Eva!’ And he’s totally shaking in his boots,” Brian told Art proudly.
	“No way,” Art said.
	“Uh huh,” Brian said.
	“Hi guys,” Emma said.
	“Hey, how did you find us?” Brian asked. They were lying on the roof of Brian’s apartment block, staring up at the sky.
	“I just followed the loud noises,” Emma said, laughing to herself at the two drunken boys.
	“Oh yeah, that was our shouting match,” Brian said, as if recalling some fond memory, “Hey who was loudest?” Brian asked Emma, straining his neck back to see her.
	“Hey, I whooped your ass fair and square,” Art said.
	“Like hell you did,” Brian argued.
	“Don’t make me kick your ass,” Art threatened.
	“Rematch?”
	“You’re on!”
	“Whoa, whoa,” Emma said, putting her hands out to try and stop them, “I’d just like to speak to Brian if that’s alright.”
	“Yeah, I suppose so,” Art said, “It’s already…” He stared at his watch intently, “Little hand… Big hand… 11 past 10.”
	“No, it’s not, your holding it upside down,” Brian said.
	“I am not,” Art said, preparing for a large argument, which Emma realised could possibly go on into the early morning, or late morning in this case.
	“It’s upside down!” Brian insisted.
	“It isn’t!” Art replied.
	“Actually it’s a digital watch,” Emma pointed out.
	“So it is,” the two boys concurred.
	“What the hell was I looking at then?” Art asked.
	“You got me,” Brian said.
	“Anyway, it’s…” he tried staring at his watch again, but quickly gave up, “Too late,” he announced, “I’d better get going.” Art got up and staggered down the stairwell.
	“Is he okay?” Emma asked Brian.
	“Yes, why?” Brian asked, as if he had been completely oblivious to the fact that Art was totally drunk. A sound, a lot like what somebody falling down several flights of stairs might sound like, came from the stairwell.
	“No reason,” Emma said lying down next to him. “So what are you doing?”
	“Just looking at the stars,” Brian said, “Makes you think, really, how insignificant you are in the grand scheme of things.”
	“Well, we’re not that insignificant,” Emma said, “We have potentially saved the world several times.”
	“I suppose your right,” Brian said, “Ah ha, screw you grand scheme of things, I’m not that insignificant.”
	“I tried talking to Michael,” Emma said.
	“Really, what’s he like?”
	“He’s, strange really,” Emma said, “He doesn’t remember anything about St. Julien, not a thing, he doesn’t even know if he had family or not.”
	“Weird,” Brian agreed.
	“They announced what happened at St. Julien today, they said it was a massive earthquake on the news, apparently there’s going to be a minutes silence tomorrow for everyone who died, like what they did with Paris, when Jacques…”
	“Hey, I was there, I understand,” Brian said, trying not to say something stupid, he realised this was going to be a serious conversation.
	“I still can’t stop thinking about him,” Emma admitted, “I thought I would get over it, I hoped I would get over it, so the pain would go away, but I can’t stop thinking about him. I think I really did love him.”
	“Hey, I’m the same with Tony, apart from the bit that I loved him. The pain dies down after a while, but it never goes away, the same with my mother, I’ve been living nearly all my life with the pain of her death.”
	“I suppose your right, but there’s just something about what happened to him that’s got to me, it’s not like he’s dead, it’s just like he’s being tortured, all the time,” She wiped a tear away from her eye.
	“Hey,” he patted her arm to comfort her, “It’s okay, you don’t need to talk about this, if you don’t want.”
	“I just needed to get my feelings off my chest,” Emma said, “Thanks for listening.” 
	“Hey, I’m just glad that you come to me for help.” Wow, that’s two people I’ve helped out today, he thought. “So you came all the way out here to talk to me?”
	“Yeah,” Emma gave out a nervous laugh, “You helped a lot when Jacques, you know, and I figured I could confide in you again.”
	“Hey, we have known each other since we were, what eight?”
	“Yeah, I suppose you have been the person I’ve been friends with the longest, and I hardly paid any attention to you when I first came here.”
	“It’s okay, we’ve been over this before, and I don’t mind.”
	“Thanks Brian, for everything,” Emma said, a smile appearing on her face.
	“Man the stars sure are beautiful tonight,” Brian sighed, “It’s pretty late, do you want to sleep in my apartment tonight?”
	“If that’s alright with you,” Emma said.
	“Yeah, it’s fine,” Brian looked back up at the sky. “Do you want to go down now?”
	“No, lets stay up here a little bit longer.”

Ending Theme: David Gray – Say Hello, Wave Goodbye