Control

A Neon Genesis Evangelion short piece

By: Patrick Nguyen Huu aka claihm solais

Disclaimer: I don't own NGE, o anything associated with it!

Summary: A short piece set during episode 18, "A Man to Man Fight". What would have happened if Shinji hadn't been stopped by increasing the LCL pressure?

Autho's Note: I realize the Shinji in here may be a little OOC, but that is intended. He is intended to snap, go hysterical.

Control

It all came down to control. NERV was using them to control the EVAs. NERV was using the EVAs to control them. They were just tools. Expendable. He understood it now. They had never, in any operation, put the survival of the pilot as highest priority, Shinji realized as he struggled to contain his anger. To say the Third Child was pissed was saying the sun was luke warm. He had just witnessed as the EVA he was supposed to control had been used to decimate its brother...another human being, in the most gruesome of ways.

He had been forced to watch as his unit, against his will, against his begging and screaming, had been used to kill an innocent human being. An innocent child. Shinji swallowed the tears as he announced, "There's still 185 seconds of operational time. That should be enough to destroy half of headquarters at least, wouldn't you say?"

The inside of NERV heaadquarters was dead silent at the proclamation, realizing that they had just pushed the Third Child too far. The one fourteen-year old child who had more than enough reason to hate NERV, hate his duty as an EVA pilot, and hate the person in control of this whole mess. His own father. "Stop it, if we hadn't done that-" Maya attempted to placate the hysteric child, only to be interrupted by a near-insane laugh.

"You what? The world could have ended? If it comes to this, the world doesn't deserve to continue existing! Once we start killing each other, with no regard for their lives, we become no better than the Angels!" The boy's voice suddenly took a deathly calm tone. "You are using us. All of us. Me, Asuka, Ayanami. We're only tools to you, not human beings. This has gone far enough!"

With a shock, all of the people in the control room turned towards the display, watching in horrid fascination as Unit-01 approached them, each of them praying the timer would run out before it reached them.

"Terminate nerve connections. Increase LCL pressure. If necessary, terminate the pilot." Ikari Gendo steepled his fingers. This was merely a minor setback. His primary concern was the safety of Unit-01 and Terminal Dogma.

Shinji cackled madly as Unit-01 began a mad sprint across the landscape, hurling through the streets of Tokyo-3. He never even watched as the timer on the panel on his plugsuit's forearm reached zero. He never even noticed the EVA kept going even after it's power supply had supposedly run out. The only thing he did notice was the red creeping into his vision and the hatred he felt for NERV – and his father.

He had killed. He had been forced to watch as he had slain a human being, a child his age, in a way that was too brutal to comprehend. There was blood on his hands, literally, and he knew he would never be able to wash it off. Never wanted to wash it off, as a reminder of what he had been forced to do. As a reminder that he would never again be forced to do something against his will.

He would teach his father the folly of entrusting him with the most powerful weapon system in the world, and then pushing him this far. He'd make him regret the day he had ever chosen him as a pilot for Unit-01.

The Evangelion opened its mouth in an unearthly scream as it tore through the streets, then ripping the hydraulic doors off an elevator shaft and dropping down into GeoFront. He couldn't forgive him. Not now, not ever. He wouldn't run away from reality anymore, and it was time to show his father what that reality meant. Reality sucked, his father would soon realize.

Everyone assembled gasped in surprise when the timer reached zero and Unit-01 failed to cease to function. Then they paled as they realized the implications. The unit had gone beserk. "Pattern blue detected!" Maya shouted. "How is that possible..." she whispered.

"It appears Unit-01 has been contaminated," Fuyusuki noted. Gendo nodded. "It seems it has produced an S2 organ." NERV's second-in-command arched an eyebrow. "What do we do now?"

Gendo steepled his fingers. "Prepare internal defenses. Arm the nuclear warheads. We'll trap Unit-01 in section 8 and flood it with radiation."

Heavy safety doors slammed shut all around Unit-01, trapping it in the corridor. Shinji howled in frustration, the EVA mimicking his motions, before a red glow sprang up around the EVA's hands, punching easily through the armored steel plates. Shinji's face contorted in a mad grin. It was time to pay back his father for all he had done. To him, to his mother, to Toji.

"Unit-01 has breached the containment section! It's heading straight for us!" Maya exclaimed, her voice holding more than a little terror at the prospect of having to face the thing that had just so viciously torn into one of its own kind.

Shinji grinned as he punched through the last wall and reached the open part of GeoFront. The pyramid that was NERV headquarters lay just before him, tiny, but steadily growing as Unit-01 dashed towards it, completely ignoring the small arms fire that sprang up around it.

He was finally free. He was the one in control of Unit-01. He was the one in control of his actions. He would never, never be forced again. Control was his own.

The control room shuddered violently. "Breaches on levels nine through sixteen! Unit-01 is tearing into the structure!" Gendo stoically watched as his own creation turned upon them. There was nothing more he could do. He had no last-minute plan to pull out of his sleeves, no reserves to throw at the threat that had penetraded to the heart of their operation. He was out of options.

"You'll...never...hurt...anyone...ever...again!" Shinji shouted as Unit-01 pounded and ripped through NERV headquarters. He didn't care how much collateral damage he caused, he didn't care if he was destroying mankind's last line of defense against the Angels that were to come. He only saw the destruction of his tormentor.

The EVA's fist plunged into the core of the pyramid, into the control room. With a scream of anguish, Shinji collapsed, his breathing labored and unsteady, mental exhaustion taking effect. I'm in control. My life is my own.

"Power overload detected in Unit-01!" Maya shouted, staring fearfully at the blood-stained face of the EVA unit visible through the hole it had punched into the control room. Its angular shape, the horn on its forehead, the blood splattered over it, all combined to make it look like the herald of the apocalypse itself, deadlier than any Angel before. For this one, was controlled by one of their own.

Controlled by one they had attempted to control.

"It's going into self-destruct mode!"

Gendo closed his eyes, still not showing a trace of emotion. "Do you think we went too far?" He asked Fuyusuki.

The answer was lost as the complex was envenloped in a brilliant white, the explosive blast tearing up through the ceiling of GeoFront, incinerating most of the buildings above and below the surface instantly. The blast continued all the way into the heavens, blasting through the atmosphere, utterly annihilating what was left of Tokyo-3.