Doctor Who: The Evangelion Error (Book One)

E2 Part 3: The Oncoming Storm

Mount Futagoyama. Outside of Tokyo-3.

He could feel the pain in his own arms. The heat rising from what remained of the mountain the enemy had burned through to reach him. Inside of the entry plug within Eva Unit 1, Shinji hugged himself tightly. He could hear Misato and his father arguing about something over the radio. He wasn't really listening.

I'm probably going to have those flashback things about this, aren't I, he thought. If I live through this.

He couldn't take this anymore. He just couldn't -

There was a burst of static from the radio. The chatter in the background went silent. A soft voice said: "Shinji? Shinji, can you hear me?"

Shinji raised his head. "Doctor?" he asked in surprise.

***

City Sewers, Tokyo-3

"Shinji, listen to me." The Doctor finished wiring the power line from the TARDIS into the main transformer. He held the screwdriver up to the connection, radio gripped in between his shoulder and the side of his face. "Your friend's very clever, but her plan isn't going to work. It's seen you coming - it's generating a hypercompressed positively-charged electric field around its heart. Those positrons are going to bounce right off unless we do something!"

"Do what?" Shinji sounded a bit dazed.

The Doctor scrambled back up the sewer ladder, out the open manhole cover and back onto the street, where he sprinted for the TARDIS back in the alleyway. "I'm going to send you some rift energy through the city power grid. If your" - he really didn't want to say gun - "emitter works the way I think it does, it should reverse the polarity on the ions long enough for you to get through. But that's not the important thing."

"It isn't?"

The Doctor ran back into the TARDIS. He gripped the edge of the console, trying to catch his breath. "The important thing is," he gasped out, "is that I spent most of today trying to talk to it. To get it to leave on its own. Tried everything I could think of - radio waves, psychic broadcast, mauve semaphore flags. Either it's not listening or it's too alien for even me to communicate with right now. It's left you with no choice."

"Wh - why does that matter?"

"Because you're a human being, not a weapon!" The Doctor threw the switch.

***

NERV Monitor Satellite 18, Low-Earth Orbit, Over the East China Sea

There were many different eyes watching Japan from above. This particular satellite had an excellent wide-angle view of the islands. The cameras watched as, for the briefest of moments, the lights of Japan flickered back on, as the excess power jumped the switches...

***

The TARDIS, Tokyo-3

The lights in the control room dimmed. "I'm sorry!" the Doctor shouted. "This is the best I can do right now! It's all up to you! If you can think of just one person in this city that's worth saving - just one - take the shot!"

***

Outside Tokyo-3

Shinji thought of Toji, and Kensuke, and Misato, and even Ayanami. He thought about the candy bar.

He reached out and took the controls.

The Eva started to crawl forward, towards the half-melted rifle. There was a burst of static. The NERV command channel came back on. Shinji tried to wipe the tears out of his eyes. "One more shot," he said, his teeth chattering. "Please. Just let me take one more shot."

***

Tokyo-3 First Municipal Middle School. Late August 2015.

It was strange how the world worked, Shinji thought.

He stared out the window of his classroom at the corpse of the Angel in the distance, nestled amid the cranes and skyscrapers, where it had fallen. Less than a week before, he'd been sitting in the Eva, waiting for the targeting system to align, almost certain that he was about to die. Misato had let him sleep in the next day. After that, everything had gone back to normal.

He guessed that he had sort of expected everything to end, like in a movie. Something big and dramatic happens, the characters walk off into the sunset, fade to black. Instead, life just... went on. He supposed that that really shouldn't have surprised him, but there it was.

"Class, stand!" Hikari, the class representative, snapped. The other students rose from their seats. Shinji, late to react, stumbled to his feet.

"There's been a change in plans." Mr. Koike, the literature teacher, addressed them from the front of the room. "I'm happy to say that we've finally managed to find a second-year English teacher. He comes highly recommended from the university at Cambridge, so I expect that he will receive your full respect and attention."

A sudden sense of dread swept over Shinji. Somehow, he knew exactly where this was going. "Oh, no," he whispered under his breath.

"Lessons will commence during this next period daily for the foreseeable future, until a permanent schedule has been devised," Mr. Koike continued. "That said, it is my honor to introduce you to Mr. John Smith. Mr. Smith?"

"Good morning, class." The Doctor grinned. "Are we sitting comfortably?"