I will say these things in advance: I have absolutely no rights at NGE, but you should have already known that.

The story itself is basically a re-telling of the original storyline, but twisted into my way. While at the beginning there seem to be only few divigances, it will become more with each episode. The people, their motivations and the backgrounds are while holding true to the basic layout, changed at my imagination in many details, so canon-purists now are allowed to flame me.

NOTE: I hate both, the ending of the TV series, and how End of Evangelion turned out. So don't expect any of those outcomes.

This will be Shinji/Rei.

For all the work I put into this, I would like to get reviews. I will always try to respond to every review I get.

Note that this is the REVIVAL-Edition. Compared to the original from 2010, significant changes have been made, though the basic story is still the same. More about that at the end of the chapter.

Also note that a special PDF-version of this story (completely illustrated) is available. That one is available on request.

NGE

Going another Way

REVIVAL-Edition

Prologue

I look around and see no one. They are all gone and will never return...

I'm all alone. I dislike loneliness.

This is not what I desired. I saw what he did to her. There was nothing left of him; only madness in his eyes.

What was I thinking? I've had the power to mend it all, and in my stupidity it instead resulted in it all being destroyed.

My own end is slowly approaching...

Too late... Too late...

NO!

It is not too late to make the right choices!

Regardless the cost...

...GEHIRN, city of Hakone, 2004 AD...

"Ohhh... big mecha!"

That was all what three-year young Shinji Ikari could say when seeing the prototype EVA his mother had been working on since his birth through the big viewing window in the command stand. He was too young to really understand what they were planning to test today; he only knew his mother was doing it.

He did not know as well that he merely was present due the woman who was usually responsible for him when both his parents were at work having fallen sick and they had been unable to find a replacement on such a short notice. Not that he would have cared at this age. His parents had made sure to keep him far away from the disturbing sights present on this level, not wanting to give their son nightmares of huge skeletons.

"Yes, Shinji, it is a big mecha. Your father, me and many others worked very hard to create it," his mother, Yui Ikari, told her son while walking into the control room in the experimental plugsuit.

She couldn't help but feel naked in it due to how much it was hugging her skin in order to force out all air and seal correctly on her neck. She had seen Gendo giving threatening looks to several men who'd dared to look at her ass. She would be all too glad once this was over and they could refine the suit to be less exposing.

Shinji laughed when seeing her. "Squeaky rubber!"

Yui had to admit the suit was squeaking. After all, it was in the experimental stage and they still had to refine it to remove all the quirks in it, although they were making good progress - which meant they could also get rid of the revolting orange color it was right now. It was one of the many things they still had to finish in this huge project. Her colleagues Naoko Akagi and Kyoko Zeppelin Soryu were reporting progress on their fronts as well.

Naoko Akagi was close on making a breakthrough with their experimental computer systems and even promised a prototype very soon. She was proud that her daughter Ritsuko was slowly becoming a good help for her, despite still being in school. Yui couldn't help but to note that the young woman seemed to be uncomfortable with all the attention she got.

Well, a little humility can never hurt. After all, her mother could use it, she thought.

Speaking of Naoko Akagi... She quickly gave the woman, who was present for the experiment, a hard look that spelled: 'hands of the merchandise'. She hoped the message, that she would not tolerate her continued interest in Gendo, was clear.

Soryu meanwhile was, while being busy with rising her daughter all on her own - no thanks to her worthless excuse of a husband using his time to chase other women instead of helping her - also making good progress with her own project. It was an advanced version of EVA, which could prove to be a significant improvement over the two models they'd built up to now, and thus could be a big help. However, the project still was in its early stages and needed more refinement, therefore she didn't expect any results there until a year or two.

"Be nice to your mother, son. She is going to do something big today," Gendo Ikari told his son while getting up from his desk.

He hoped that Yui was right in her assumption and that she would be safe from what she was planning to do. If something would happen to her... No, he wouldn't survive it. It would be like pushing a stake through his heart. She HAD to make it! He could not go on without her.

Professor Fuyutsuki, who also was present, sighed. "I wish your son wouldn't be present. After all, this is no daycare."

However, it was quite obvious his annoyance was faked; he seemed more amused than anything at seeing the enthusiasm of the young boy. His own children were all adults by now and he was sure to become a grandfather very soon. Thus seeing such innocence in the middle of his current work helped to lighten his mood.

Yui knelt in front of her son. "Will you be a good boy, Shinji, and wish me good luck?"

"Good luck, Mom!" Shinji said honestly .

With a smile she left the control room, walking up the catwalk to the entry plug. She hoped that she was right. At first everything had made it clear that only children born after Second Impact could use an EVA; something about a taint that allowed them to connect to an EVA in a strange way. Yui didn't want to believe that. She and Gendo had no desire to send children in such danger. The idea alone was disgusting and wrong on many levels. It would be like turning them into child-soldiers.

She didn't want to force Shinji to a life where he would be more a soldier than a child, losing his innocence in the process. So she had brooded over the problem and probably found the solution: since she had been pregnant with Shinji, a potential pilot, she now should be able to pilot the EVA as well, since Shinji must have shared what made him able to pilot while he had still been inside her.

Gods, she hoped she was right. Otherwise her son would lose his mother and Gendo... No, she didn't even want to think about how devastated he would be. He had always been a little emotionally fragile and losing her would destroy him on the inside.

She HAD to be right!

Getting into the plug, she heard it shut and then it filled with LCL. She had to suppress a very strong gag reflex. The first few times she had been in there in order to get used to the stuff, she had thrown up at least four times. Even now it almost made her sick, but she managed to keep it down. Despite the many advancements they had managed to accomplish, they had been unable to give the LCL a different, better taste. It still tasted like blood, which it essentially was.

No, she wouldn't think of that beast Lilith right now, cursing that too much knowledge was a burden.

In the control room meanwhile, everything up to now had went according to plan. Every indicator was green and her life signs were stable and calm. "Ready to start, Yui?" Gendo asked her, the inside of the plug shown on the big screen.

"Yes, start the procedure... Now we will see if I was right."

"All right...start synchronization process," one technician said. "Careful... Doctor, you will reach the borderline in 0.5... 0.4... 0.3... 0.2... 0.1... Borderline reached!"

"Stable for the moment! We get a reading of around 19 percent so far!"

Yui was just relaxing, thinking that that her experiment had been a success, when suddenly her whole body cramped and pain shot down her spine. She let out a scream of pure pain. "AAAAAAAARRRRRGHHH!"

"YUI!"

"MOM!"

"Alert! Alert! The synchronization is getting out of control!" Alarm klaxons blared and the technicians tried hectically to do something.

"ABORT!" Gendo screamed.

"We can't! System blocked!" "Oh God! 150... 170... 250!"

Yui screamed in agony while her body felt aflame. Shinji! Gendo! Oh Gods, what have I done!

Then suddenly, to the horror of everyone, as soon as the instruments reached 400 percent she simply dissolved, fading away until only her empty orange plugsuit was drifting in the LCL. Everyone was silent while all instruments turned back to zero. Shinji looked with tear-filled eyes at the empty plugsuit. He had no way to understand what had just happened, only that something had taken away his mother.

"Mom..."

Gendo had collapsed in shock beside him, something inside him breaking at this very moment.

...deep within the EVA...

Yui felt like she was shot naked and with high speed through a water pipe, which essentially was what her dark surroundings felt like. However, despite this she neither felt pain, nor did she feel like she was drowning. Further and further she went, until it all stopped. She was disoriented. Where was she? It was dark and she couldn't hear a thing. She could only feel her surroundings and it felt like she was floating in warm water, surrounded by flesh walls.

It was... Yes, it was like she was back in her mother's womb, not born yet.

She tried to gather her thoughts. My God, what happened? I heard 400... then nothing. Am I dead? No...it felt almost like I was taken apart. She swallowed quite some water when she realized what had happened. It absorbed me. We had speculated that the core could do this... and now I'm in the EVA!

She wondered why she was feeling so calm despite this dire situation. After all, her body now surely was just a collection of cells stored inside the EVA and her mind was... well, wherever it was right now. The worst was that she had no one to blame but herself for this disaster.

Is this the punishment for my arrogance? she wondered.

Yui felt so weak, the passing into the EVA had really exhausted her spirit. She had no strength at all to reach out to whatever she was surrounded of, thus the womb to protect her, since she was as weak as a baby. She would have no choice but to wait until she was "born" into whatever awaited her.

Gendo... He will be heartbroken... And Shinji... My little Shinji. Please forgive me that you have to grow up without me. It was my own foolishness that took me away from you. I beg you to forgive me my son... I failed you. I wish there were another way for me to say it. I can only hope... someday... someplace... where your hand waits for mine.

Curling into a ball, she slowly cried herself into a deep sleep.

to be continued...

Next Chapter: Sachiel

Notes

When I wrote this very first chapter, I really hadn't had much of a clue where I wanted to take the story. After all, I had been barely 25 years old and most of my motivation to write the story was just me being pissed at how poorly the canon story had been handled. I had watched Evangelion in early April 2007 and was at the end pretty much pissed with how much potential was wasted by the creator by using the series to show off to the world how bad he thinks we and the whole world are. It had made me think how the story would have gone without the characters going all emo or psycho.

Thus the prologue was rather short and also at parts didn't fit well with the later story. In retrospect, writing mainly out of frustration was a bad idea.

There are numerous changes made to this chapter for the Revival-Edtion, mainly to give the Prologue more continuity with the rest of the story and also to add many details that were missing. The monologue at the beginning and the much greater emphasis on detail are the main work done on this chapter.