EVA Ambivilence
Evangelion Fan Fiction by .Richard Flynn.

Chapter 7.

Shinji wandered for nearly a day around the geo-front. Every so often, hearing helpless cries from yet another victim. NERV was in chaos. With the Angel's arrival, all contact to the outside world had been completely severed. The car trains linking the geo-front to the surface were out of order. In some cases, completely derailed. Shinji was hoping to find help of some sort, from someone. However most of NERV's personnel had fled the area. But to where? He continued his search. Checking each building he came across with great seriousness. But many times he found nothing but corpses. People who were ruthlessly murdered laid everywhere he looked. One room was filled with them. Quite possible that it had dropped it's A.T. Field right on them, and wiped them all out in the blink of an eye. He lowered his head at the sight and held his nose as he walked past them. The stench was awful, and he had to make sure he didn't step on the bodies. He looked up as the lights flickered. Noting how much devastation had been caused by the Angel. Holes in walls, floors. Bullet marks left from those who had tried to defend themselves, littered the room. Major fighting had been done here. However it was all in vain. Nothing but an Evangelion could destroy an Angel. That was common knowledge. But fear could make people do stupid things. He continued walking until he came to a door. On it read: 'Evacuation Shelter 3'.
'Well I'll be dammed.' He thought to himself. People had evacuated there in hope of refuge, but to their horror, the Angel followed them. He gave an evil smirk as he pushed the door open. With a grind and a creak, it slowly wrenched open. It was dark inside. Cold, and haunting. He could make out a few empty boxes, crates, as well as the beginning of a hallway. But he couldn't shake off the feeling he felt. That something was watching him. Something in the darkness. He turned to walk back, but stopped. Something was alluring inside that dark space. So without another thought, he headed into the hallway. Using a lighter that he'd taken from a dead body earlier, he lit it to guide his way. As he'd suspected before. There was blood and bullet marks here and there. It had obviously been that way before. He continued down the hallway, before stopping for a moment. Just then he heard something. A slow heavy breathing. He froze for a second and cautiously stepped forward. He shone the lighter towards him, and a few meters ahead, he made out the shape of a figure. He inched closer to get a better look. He, or she, was clutching their stomach hard. "Umm, hello." Shinji said to the person. In an instant the figure looked up at him. And before he could move another step closer, a bullet cracked and flew straight his head. "Oh shit!" he shouted, and ducked himself behind an old box. Several more rounds followed as he stuck his head up to take a decent look at is attacker. After the seventh shot, he heard a clicking noise and a snap as the empty magazine cartridge fell from the handle and hit the floor. Shinji sprung up immediately and tackled him. After landing a few punches, the lights unexpectedly flickered on. To his surprise, it was no more than a boy. Not unlike who had seen before and unfortunately witnessed the demise of earlier. He slowly slipped in and out of consciousness, and Shinji was forced to slap him hard to get him back to reality. He looked the boy square in the eye as he came to. But on opening his eyes he sprang back in fear. He'd obviously had a bad experience, so Shinji didn't want to rush things. He placed a hand on the boy's forehead, and he slowly calmed down.
"Who are you?" he said softly to him, being sure to look as less threatening as possible.
Sitting there quietly, he tried to speak. "M, m, my name? David." he stuttered. He was no more than nine years old, and yet, here he was, in the most undesirable section of NERV, surrounded by death, attempting to defend himself with a gun, against a near immortal enemy.
"Where are your parents?" Shinji asked.
"Something took them away. They've been gone awhile." He answered.
"Hmm. Are there any more of you?" Shinji asked inquisitively.
"I haven't been able to find anyone else here." Quickly he pointed down a long dark cable shaft. The door on it had been somehow torn open, but fortunately there was ladder there to aid him.
"It'll be better if we find them then." He said, and he tried to hold the child's arm. He quickly shot back again, still afraid.
'Well fine then!' he thought. Just then they both heard a horrible shriek. And he hurriedly dragged the kid down the shaft with him.
"You know kid, I'm amazed you've lasted so long down here." He complemented. But the kid never said a word, so they continued scaling the ladder.

As they reached the bottom, they heard several voices echoing beyond a metal doorway. Shinji breathed a sigh of relief knowing that not everyone had been taken out. He stood at the door for a moment before knocking several times. He didn't notice it, but at that moment all the voices went silent. He knocked again, nothing. Finally, confused and irritated he barged into the door in an attempt to knock it down. With a crash it fell and he made his way to his feet, trying to relieve the dizziness inflicted apon him by cold steel. As he regained his composure, he stuck his hands in the air.
"Get on the floor now! And don't move an inch." Said a security guard who pointed a gun between his eyes. Several others joined in and took their weapons off the safety latch.
"It's him you know." One of the began.
"Trying to finish off the rest of us I reckon." Said another. Holding his hands over the back of his head he couldn't hide the level of disbelief that had about these people's claims.
"Please don't shoot him." Said the young boy. And he stuck his head around the corner of the wall. One of the guards looked up and stared at the boy astonished.
"David! Oh thank god you're alive. I thought I'd lost you as well. You know, after what happened to your mother and all." And he gave the boy a huge hug.
"And who is this?" the man asked him.
"I don't know. He just helped me when that thing was coming after me."
"Really! Well don't you worry, nothing's going to hurt you now. Hey, get him to his feet. He's innocent I spose." And two guards lifted a bruised Shinji from the ground.
"Wait a second!" one of them shouted. "That's one of the Eva pilots!" and everyone suddenly looked towards him. He briefly blushed as they all started giving him the respect he deserved, while complementing him on the battles he'd won. Despite the fact that many of these had been emotionally painful to him. This continued for another few hours before things began to settle down, and before to long, he knew the names and the past history of everyone there. Slowly but surely, the noise subsided, and was followed by a long unending silence as each one of them cleaned their guns while still remaining at the ready. Whether it was out of curiosity or just pure boredom, one of them spoke up.
"Why would you of all people be doing down here?" and looking up at a middle aged man, Shinji explained how he'd dropped the access cards into the fluid and was unable to gain way to the cage.
"Really! Well why don't you just take the service passage. Goes right to the cage you know." And he pointed down a long, dark hallway. But somehow, Shinji didn't buy it.
"What's the catch?" he asked him.
"Heh, hoping you'd ask that. There are automatic defenses lining every corridor to the cage. Auto machine guns, computerized laser snipers, trip mines, explosives, everything. I tell ya. They don't call this a high security installation for nothing. We've already sent out one guy through to see if we could establish some help. Supposed to return he was. Abooouuut... five hours ago, I think. Chances are he didn't make it, but then again, that's just my judgment. Personally I reckon you'd be mad to attempt it. And that's why we're all stuck down here. We can't go through there, and if we attempt to reach the surface, we'll all be killed by that creature from hell." Shinji sat there mesmerized.
"Well, after much consideration, I think I'll do it." Shinji said in a hurry, his mind made up.
"What?! The passage? You've gotta be kidding me!"
"Look, if we stay down here much longer we're gonna starve to death. Either that or the Angel's gonna hunt you down."
"No need to worry about that. It came by not long ago, but we faced it off with our guns. Quite easily to. No problem." But Shinji was skeptical.
"You know, bullets can't harm it!" he said to him. And with a blank face the man wiped the sweat condensing on his forehead.
"You've got much to learn of the Angels, I know it." Shinji said, and he left things at that.
"I need a bit more info on this tunnel. Are you sure it leads directly to the cage?"
"Positive! People used to use it during the year 2000. However, spies and other such undesirable people got in and out too quickly, so NERV was forced to rig the whole joint. However the keenest of people were still able to outrun the defenses, so the entire tunnel was shut down all together. You know it isn't too late to quit."
"The moment I quit is the moment we all die. Everything you've ever known, everything you've ever loved would be destroyed. I must do this. If not for you, then for everyone else." And he lifted himself to his feet and proceeded down the tunnel.

Meanwhile, at the cage, two security officers were patrolling the gangways leading to Eva's 01 and 02. They both seemed in high spirits despite the installation being under siege and the fact that both were drunk off their faces. Due to the sloppy evacuation of NERV, many things had been left behind. One of these being cage access keys. To the dismay of those in charge, two drunk and soon to be fired staff were wandering around aimlessly in the cage, causing destruction. As they both finished off their stolen bottles of whisky they walked past Unit-02. Laughing and joking to each other, they made fun of NERV's superior officers and commanders.
"I tell ya what Garry." One of them began. "If it were me running this joint, I swear there'd be some changes!"
"Like what Kev? More female staff!"
"No! Nothin like that."
"What? Why fucken not?! I'm well overdue for a bit of ass." And he sipped the last drop out his bottle before looking towards Unit-02.
"And what the fuck do ya think you're looking at!" and he threw the glass bottle at Unit-02's face. It quickly shattered and glass was strewn all over the red paint. Walking in a semi jagged line, he stumbled in front of the mechanical titan. Pointing his finger at it, he tried to insult the motionless face before him.
"That'll teach ya to fucken stare at us when we're having... er...an extremely mature conversation." And at that moment Unit-02 activated. Its four eyes beamed down on the two unruly pair as they backed away. A loud growl was heard as its jaws opened and long, razor sharp teeth became visible. Fearing for their lives, they desperately ran for the door at the other end of the cage, tripping over each other in their haste.
"Holy shit! What woke that thing up?! Hey get out of the fucken way, I'm more important than you." And he attempted to reach the door first, which was rapidly closing after the alarm bells began sounding. They clawed uselessly at the steel door as it shut itself tight, locking them in. They began crying as they continued to scratch, while Unit-02's breath became increasingly hotter on their necks.
"HELP! Is there somebody out there? HELP!!!" However what they didn't know was that there was someone. A small group of engineers who had escaped the panic of the lower levels, had heard shouts and come up to investigate. They placed their ears up to the door as the listened for sounds.
"Who's in there?" they shouted. But still there was only a soft scraping sound on the other side.
"Wait!" one of them said. "I think I can hear something." And they all pressed their ears hard against the cold steel.
"NO, NO, NOOOooooooo!" and then the voices stopped as a loud grinding and crushing sound penetrated the walls. A sudden splat was heard as well as heavy breathing and growling, while all the time, a slow trickle of blood seeped under the doorway. With Asuka dead, the Eva was free. And unknowingly, the Angel had made the already desperate situation, become lethally complicated.

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