lavanya_six (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lavanya_six) wrote2009-09-02 11:47 am
lavanya_six) wrote2009-09-02 11:47 am
Abandoned Fic -- The Third Lot
More dead fanfic projects.
Title: Decay of the Daleks
Summary: AU. As the Thousand Year War draws to its exhausted close, an insane but brilliant scientist prepares to unleash his newest creation on Skaro. But no one, not even Davros, could have foreseen the impossible enemy that will come from the stars to stop the genesis of the Daleks.
Notes: An AU where the Time Lords lose the Great War against the Vampires.
"Now," rasped Davros, "exterminate."
The beam weapon flashed again and again, illuminating the dark firing range each time it destroyed a paper target.
"Ex-cellent, the weaponry is perfect. Now we can begin..."
Neither Davros nor his aide Gharman was aware of the keen red eyes that watched them from the darkness.
-=-=-=3-=-=-=-=-=
"Your brilliance saved us all, Davros."
"No, Nyder. The only reason we are alive at this very moment is simple, random chance. Luck," he spat, voice overrun with loathsomeness. "If the frequency and wavelength of the Dalek's beam had been off in the slightest from the comparable light of Skaro's sun...."
Nyder rescued the crippled scientist from his own musings. "You said some of these infected creatures were aliens. How long would it take to modify the beam weapons of the Daleks to be able to exterminate them?"
"The Daleks are already capable of modulating their own weaponry, however at present it would take them several minutes – far too long for battle conditions." Davros pivoted his travel machine around. "However, I have already formulated a design for an adaptive auto-cycling upgrade to the Dalek weaponry."
"Could it be adopted to our own beam weaponry?"
"With additional time and resources, yes."
* * * *
"Not even the Time Lords could stand against my Masters. They, for all their power and mastery of time and space, ended their existence as mere cattle, good for only their blood."
* * * *
"THIS IS NOT THE END! THIS. IS. ONLY. THE BEGINNING!!"
Davros flipped the bomb's switch.
* * * *
Ronson eyed the sedate Dalek. Its eyestalk and gun hung limp, without power. The loathsome creature inside was restrained. For now. "Davros was right about one thing. The Dalek is our future, one way or another. But he was wrong about the need for emotions. There has to be more to the universe than hate." Or hunger. Ronson turned to his fellow Scientific Elite. "First we will repair the damage we have all done to the souls of these creatures, and then we will prepare."
"For what?" asked someone.
"To grow stronger," answer Ronson. "The Great Vampires will ignore us for now, but their servants will return one day. They will never stop. They cannot be negotiated with – we know that now." He steeled himself. "We cannot sit on our hands and wait for extinction, for extermination! When the time is right, the Daleks will emerge from this poisoned world and take the fight to the stars."
The room fell quiet.
...
Ronson leaned back against the console. "Now we can begin..."
END
TITLE: Lily's Daughter
SUMMARY: Genderswap of Harry as a girl. I'm not really sure what I was thinking here, characterization-wise.
By the time she was ten, Jamie Potter woke up each morning in her cupboard under the stair with the comfort that she understood exactly how the world worked. Simply:
There were Rules and if you broke the Rules you were punished.
Fairness never entered into the matter – that's why they were called Rules. When she was younger and stupider, Jamie sometimes thought the Rules were enforced by strange unseen forces like Father Christmas or the Principal.
Her Aunt Petunia had rules about how the garden should be weeded (by hand, using ratty old gloves that didn't keep out the prickles). But the Rules said that no matter how good a job Jamie did, Aunt Petunia would never compliment her.
That was the best thing about the Rules. They still applied to pigs like to Dudley.
"Alice Longbottom was yer mother's closest friend," explained Hagrid. He sighed, but when with his lungs it sounded to Jamie like a rockslide rumbling down a mountain. "Alice... she an' Frank didn' make it."
The teacup in Jamie's hands started to rattle. She glared at her fingers and settled the old, chipped china down. "Didn't my mother have other friends?"
"Oh sure, sure," said Hagrid, perking up. "Blimey, everyone knew Lily Evans! It's jus'," he paused here and glanced aside, "well, it's jus' the War, Jamie. They all—"
"Died?"
"Most of them," he said quietly, "yeah. Mary McDonald, Susan Ritter. Samantha Smith jus' plain disappeared that last summer." Hagrid pulled out a handkerchief of almost picnic blanket proportions and dabbed the tears welling up in his eyes. "Those were dark days, Jamie. Sometimes I w'nder how any of us made it out in one pieces. Or several, if yer talkin' about ol' Mad Eye."
"So there's no one who can tell me about them?"
"Of course there are, Jamie! There's me, after all. An' yer teachers! Ask McGonagall an' Dumbledore an' they'll tell you yer mum was the best Gryffindor they ever did see! Lily Evans made Prefect an' Head Girl! There wasn' nobody who didn' like yer mum, Jamie." He laughed. "Hell, even Snape got along with yer mum, at least before—
Jamie's eyes widened in a rare display of honest surprise. "Professor Snape knew my mum?"
Hagrid froze up. "I shouldn' have told you that."
"Why not?"
The Groundskeeper stood up. "
"Miss Potter, you foolish girl, how could you think of tackling a mountain troll on your own? Five points from Gryffindor." She turned to Ron. "You were lucky, but not many first years could have taken on a full-grown mountain troll. Five points to Gryffindor."
"What?!" snapped Jamie. "But I—"
"Miss Potter, that's quite enough."
"—was defending myself! But Ron—"
"Miss Potter!"
"—gets rewarded and I get punished?!"
"Don't you feel badly about how we lost points?"
Jamie chopped up the dried toad tongue. "I'm upset we got caught, not that we did it."
"You don't look upset."
"Maybe I'm just too surprised McGonagall didn't reward Ron again for breaking the same rules I did," she replied flatly. Jamie glanced out of the corner of her eye as Snape began to glid down the aisles, commenting on the inefficency and ineptitude of his students' efforts. "At least *try* to look busy, Hermione."
"But you're old!" she said, then immediately cringed at how that sounded. The Rules were clear how a student talked to a teacher. Quickly, she added, "I'm sorry. That was wrong."
Snape glared at her; at least, more so than usual. When he spoke, his voice was frosty, "Despite my decrepit appearance and unseemly wrinkles, Miss Potter, I would like to think that I have escaped the ravages of time just yet. Ten points from Gryffindor."
"Everything has rules," she said. "Can you break them in Wizard's Chess?"
"Not unless you're a cheating git."
Jamie mulled over that comment. "Okay," she said after a moment. "Teach me."
Ron waved his wand over the board and the game pieces picked themselves up and trotted back to what Jamie assumed were their starting positions. "Just so you know, I'm not going to go easy on you just because you're a girl."
An older, more cynical of fourteen or fifteen might have said something along the lines of "Well, if you did, then you'd be the first." Instead, eleven year-old Jamie Alice Potter simply stated, "That's okay. I never go easy on anyone."
"Brilliant!" said Ron-the-Chess-Player. "Now these little things are called 'pawns'..."
The holiday week of Christmas passed more quickly once Ronald Weasley took Jamie under his wing in the matters of Wizard's Chess. Whilst the Girl-Who-Lived was nowhere near her new friend's level, Jamie found the game a nice distraction from the quiet boredom of the school break.
Chess, once you got beyond the tricks like Castling, was a straightforward game with clear rules. There were two sides laid out in black and white. Bishops moved diagonally. Pawns could move two spaces forward on their first turn if they wanted. Queens could move however far they wanted in whatever direction the player desired.
On Christmas Eve, just after lunch, Jamie scored her first and only victory of the week – if one could call it such a thing.
"I don't see how I can win," she said, surveying the board.
"It's a bloody stalemate is what it is," said Ron.
Jamie frowned. "What's a stalemate?"
"Um," said Ron, quickly glancing down at the board, "it's when you're stuck. See,
"Quidditch is stupid," countered Jamie.
Ron's jaw dropped. "You take that back!"
"It is! All those rules and the only one that counts is 'catch the Snitch first'. I mean, why even have Beaters? It's not like they matter."
TITLE: Ghost of a Chance
SUMMARY: After the 15th Angel's attack, Asuka begins to lose her mind and starts to see dead people. But is she really going crazy? Or is there another force at work?
NOTES: A lot of these scenes are out of order, as the fic was intended to have a very scattered chronology, mirroring Asuka's growing madness. The truth was Asuka was seeing ghosts, especially Kaji's, but she was also imagining a lot of things as she lost touch with reality. I have in my outline notes that Asuka ends up beating Unit-01 to death, and that Rei and Nagisa were going to have an Angel-on-Angel brawl in Central Dogma after he finds out that ADAM is in Commander Ikari's right hand.
* * * *
Klaxons screamed over Central Dogma as NERV was plunged into a terrible, unexpected attack.
"Unit-02 is breaking through the armored bulkheads!" screamed Aoba.
Makoto, reading off his stations at Operations, was more collected, "Target passing into the second level."
Above the fray, Commander Ikari and Vice-Commander Fuyutsuki studied the descending figure of Unit-02 on the holographic display spread before them. Both men shared the same icy pit of fear in their guts. "Eva Unit One will pursue!" ordered the Commander.
Misato's tone of voice was strictly professional. "Yes, Sir."
"Use whatever means necessary," barked Gendo. "Do not allow the target to reach Terminal Dogma."
Major Misato Katsuragi stared anxiously at the same holographic display. Unit-02 had just broken through the fourth armored bulkhead and was showing no sign of slowing down. In a fit of emotion she flicked her headset on, attempting to make contact again with the errant Eva. Unlike NERV's pervious attempts, this time the enemy attacker replied.
A half-story tall display popped open along the eastern wall of the Central Dogma control complex. The angry, determined figure in the transmission feed loomed over Misato, Ritsuko, and the rest of the technicians of Central Dogma.
"What?" sneered Asuka Langley Soryu.
"ASUKA! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!"
The Second Child rolled her eyes. Though the gesture was childish Misato knew her well enough to know that Asuka was doing it deliberately. "What does it look like I'm doing, Misato? I'm saving the world."
"ASUKA! PLEASE, STOP! YOU'RE SICK! YOU NEED HELP!"
"I'm perfectly sane, Misato."
Aoba announced, "Unit-02 has broken through the fourth armored barrier!"
"I'm saving the world," repeated Asuka. "I'm going to get to the bottom of this fucking shaft and I'm going to kill ADAM. Then I'm going to haul my ass back upside and I'm going to kill that old bastard." She leaned forward in her Entry Plug's seat and squinted into the on-board camera. "You there, Gendo-fucking-Ikari? Because I'm going to fuck you up. You and all your SEELE buddies." She smiled wolfishly. "But first I'm going to crush all your hopes and dreams of Human Instrumentality. Isn't payback a bitch?"
"ASUKA!"
The Second Child terminated her transmission.
Misato stared at the now dark screen, her expression grim.
"Unit-01 is descending into the Main Shaft," said Hyuga Makoto. "Intercept in two minutes, twenty seconds at the nineteenth armored plate."
Major Katsuragi brought up Unit-01's display. "Shinji?"
"Misato!" shouted the Third Child, his panic clearly coming through over the video feed. "What am I supposed to do?! What am I going t-"
"Shinji," the Major said flatly, "stop Unit-02 from reaching Terminal Dogma. Do whatever it takes."
"M-MISATO! YOU CAN'T MEAN TH-"
"Use of lethal force," she said, clenching her fists, "is authorized."
* * * *
The dreary quiet of Central Dogma was shattered by a familiar alarm. Technicians scrambled to their workstations as the whole base on alert. For once, the entire senior staff was present for the outbreak of battle.
"Eva Unit-02 has activated!" shouted Aoba.
Misato swore. "What the hell! Is Asuka-"
"MAGI register the Second Child in Unit-02's Entry Plug! It's her!"
She hailed Unit-02. "Asuka! Asuka, report!"
No reply.
Gendo Ikari's voice boomed over the command center. "Increase the Entry Plug's LCL pressure to maximum!"
"We can't! She's locked us out!"
"What?" Misato looked to Maya. "How is that even possible?"
"I don't know!" she cried. "But she's running in Maximium Gain mode! Her battery power will give out in fifteen seconds!"
"Then where the HELL is it getting power from?!"
"I don't know!" shouted back Maya. "This isn't supposed to be possible!"
Misato's eyes widened. "Is Asuka going berserker?"
"No!" cried Maya. "The pilot is still in control! And her synch ratio is nearly two hundred percent!"
"What?!"
"Unit-02 has entered the Main Shaft and is descending!"
Misato paled. Her voice a whisper, "She isn't…"
"Confirmed! Target is headed for Terminal Dogma!"
* * * *
Karowu Nagisa hummed a tune as he prepared to meet his destiny.
The Eva Cages – such an apt name, he thought – were deserted at this time of day. The employees of NERV were still adjusting to the disruption caused by the loss of their city above. Karowu wasn't particular concerned with the human cost of taking control of Unit-02 and tearing through NERV. They would all die once he returned to ADAM, after all. He just didn't want them to suffer unnecessarily before The End.
"What will you choose, Shinji?" he mused to himself. The Third Child had proved so interesting… it pained him to think of his death. Perhaps…
No, He will decide that.
Still… even the Second had been intriguing in her own peculiar way. If only her emotions hadn't overwhelmed her… what music she would have made!
"A pity," he said to himself, turning the corner to bring the red Eva into view. "But at least she will have a sort of role to pl-"
Unit-02 exploded out of its restraints.
Pink coolant and shrapnel rained down on the walkway Karowu had been standing on. The teen scrambled backwards, surprised for the first time in his life. "WHAT?!?"
Is Gendo Ikari making a preemptive strike? But Keel said he wou-
An instant before Karowu Nagisa was about to throw up his AT-Field the public announcement system crackled to life as the Second's voice – steeled, joyful, alive – boomed around him.
"Clear the way, bitches!" The few workers present hurried out of the Cage as Unit-02 tore through the complex, the giant mecha striding away from Karowu.
The 17th and Final Angel stared at the trail of destruction before him.
"Huh," was all he could manage.
* * * *
"My truth is thus: I trusted you, Shinji. I loved you. And you betrayed me."
"Yours was the existence that should have survived. I gave myself to you to ensure that humanity had a chance to inherit the future." Nagisa frowned. "Instead, you, in your weakness, decided the human race deserved death."
"I've been taking sights, charting my new destiny, and I've at last come to a decision:
"Tonight – the Lilium perish. Starting with you."
* * * *
He ignored her.
"Ryouko says she had a crush on you but you never noticed!"
Fuyutsuki froze in the doorway. "W-what?"
"That's why she wanted to have a drink with you down by the river."
He turned back to face the Second Child. She was no longer struggling against her restraints. In fact, she had gone limp. The girl now stared up dead straight at the ceiling.
"What did you say?"
"…"
"Asuka, how do you know that name?"
"…"
The Vice-Commander walked back over to the Second Child's bedside. A quick inspection of the girl's glassy eyes confirmed she had stepped out, so to speak.
"Asuka?" He snapped his fingers an inch above her nose. "Pilot Soryu! Wake up!"
"…"
The old man frowned. "Damn it."
* * * *
Title: Scenes from a Boy's Life
Summary: What if Bella Swan had been born 'Billy'?
Scenes from a Boy's Life
(or, Twilight as Bromance)
-=-=3-=-=-=-=
Edward steeled himself, and then walked into the warm light of day.
Oh.
My.
God.
"You sparkle!"
He scrutinized me. "I don't scare you?"
"You sparkle!"
Edward flashed me a smile.
"Do you mind?" I asked, curiosity already moving my hand to his glittering skin.
"No," he exhaled, eyes still closed. "You can't imagine how that feels."
I jerked my hand away. "Dude! Not frosty!"
Edward opened his amber eyes and frowned at me. "Sorry," he said. "It's too easy to be myself with you."
Oh.
Oh!
Inwardly, I cursed myself. Here Edward was, trying to be honest with me about everything, and I was being rude just because I felt so very awkward about the truth. It'd be best to be honest and straightforward myself.
"Look, I, uh, like you too Edward, but as a friend."
"...as opposed to?"
I understood. Being a vampire was probably one hell of a burden, but to have to lie about two big secrets for a century? "Um..." Shit.
"Tell me what you're thinking. It's still strange for me, not knowing."
"You know," I said, chagrined, trying to buy time, "the rest of us feel that way all the time."
-=-=3-=-=-==--=
James sniffed the air like it was a woman. "Ahhhhh. You brought a snack."
Behind me, Billy Swan choked. We all glanced at him and found he had stuffed a fist into his mouth. "Heh a -- ah... aha..."
"Mmmm," moaned James, "I wonder how his laughter will taste on the way down."
This comment only brought fresh giggles from Billy.
"Shut up!" hissed Rosalie.
-==--=3=--=-==-
Edward said, "You know, she's only interested in you for your body."
"Really?" There are times I love my gay vampire best friend.
"Her thoughts are so dark and mundane. She doesn't care for your feelings at all. She sees you as a means to an end."
This was getting better and better!
"You would do better with Angela Weber. Her thoughts are always kind-hearted and pure. She has a rare character."
"Yeah. I caught her purity ring."
Edward shot me a withering look. "You know, Billy, there are times when I suspect I don't need to read you mind at all to know what you're thinking."
I grinned. "Eddie, I'm sure there's a nice, uh, someone out there for you."
"I doubt it," he sighed. "A century of solitude has
"Well," I said, patting him reassuringly on the back, "don't give up hope. Maybe you just haven't been looking in the, erm, right place. I mean, there might be a whole field out there you haven't explored."
"Hm? Whatever do you mean?"
Ugh. "Never mind."
Title: Decay of the Daleks
Summary: AU. As the Thousand Year War draws to its exhausted close, an insane but brilliant scientist prepares to unleash his newest creation on Skaro. But no one, not even Davros, could have foreseen the impossible enemy that will come from the stars to stop the genesis of the Daleks.
Notes: An AU where the Time Lords lose the Great War against the Vampires.
"Now," rasped Davros, "exterminate."
The beam weapon flashed again and again, illuminating the dark firing range each time it destroyed a paper target.
"Ex-cellent, the weaponry is perfect. Now we can begin..."
Neither Davros nor his aide Gharman was aware of the keen red eyes that watched them from the darkness.
-=-=-=3-=-=-=-=-=
"Your brilliance saved us all, Davros."
"No, Nyder. The only reason we are alive at this very moment is simple, random chance. Luck," he spat, voice overrun with loathsomeness. "If the frequency and wavelength of the Dalek's beam had been off in the slightest from the comparable light of Skaro's sun...."
Nyder rescued the crippled scientist from his own musings. "You said some of these infected creatures were aliens. How long would it take to modify the beam weapons of the Daleks to be able to exterminate them?"
"The Daleks are already capable of modulating their own weaponry, however at present it would take them several minutes – far too long for battle conditions." Davros pivoted his travel machine around. "However, I have already formulated a design for an adaptive auto-cycling upgrade to the Dalek weaponry."
"Could it be adopted to our own beam weaponry?"
"With additional time and resources, yes."
* * * *
"Not even the Time Lords could stand against my Masters. They, for all their power and mastery of time and space, ended their existence as mere cattle, good for only their blood."
* * * *
"THIS IS NOT THE END! THIS. IS. ONLY. THE BEGINNING!!"
Davros flipped the bomb's switch.
* * * *
Ronson eyed the sedate Dalek. Its eyestalk and gun hung limp, without power. The loathsome creature inside was restrained. For now. "Davros was right about one thing. The Dalek is our future, one way or another. But he was wrong about the need for emotions. There has to be more to the universe than hate." Or hunger. Ronson turned to his fellow Scientific Elite. "First we will repair the damage we have all done to the souls of these creatures, and then we will prepare."
"For what?" asked someone.
"To grow stronger," answer Ronson. "The Great Vampires will ignore us for now, but their servants will return one day. They will never stop. They cannot be negotiated with – we know that now." He steeled himself. "We cannot sit on our hands and wait for extinction, for extermination! When the time is right, the Daleks will emerge from this poisoned world and take the fight to the stars."
The room fell quiet.
...
Ronson leaned back against the console. "Now we can begin..."
END
TITLE: Lily's Daughter
SUMMARY: Genderswap of Harry as a girl. I'm not really sure what I was thinking here, characterization-wise.
By the time she was ten, Jamie Potter woke up each morning in her cupboard under the stair with the comfort that she understood exactly how the world worked. Simply:
There were Rules and if you broke the Rules you were punished.
Fairness never entered into the matter – that's why they were called Rules. When she was younger and stupider, Jamie sometimes thought the Rules were enforced by strange unseen forces like Father Christmas or the Principal.
Her Aunt Petunia had rules about how the garden should be weeded (by hand, using ratty old gloves that didn't keep out the prickles). But the Rules said that no matter how good a job Jamie did, Aunt Petunia would never compliment her.
That was the best thing about the Rules. They still applied to pigs like to Dudley.
"Alice Longbottom was yer mother's closest friend," explained Hagrid. He sighed, but when with his lungs it sounded to Jamie like a rockslide rumbling down a mountain. "Alice... she an' Frank didn' make it."
The teacup in Jamie's hands started to rattle. She glared at her fingers and settled the old, chipped china down. "Didn't my mother have other friends?"
"Oh sure, sure," said Hagrid, perking up. "Blimey, everyone knew Lily Evans! It's jus'," he paused here and glanced aside, "well, it's jus' the War, Jamie. They all—"
"Died?"
"Most of them," he said quietly, "yeah. Mary McDonald, Susan Ritter. Samantha Smith jus' plain disappeared that last summer." Hagrid pulled out a handkerchief of almost picnic blanket proportions and dabbed the tears welling up in his eyes. "Those were dark days, Jamie. Sometimes I w'nder how any of us made it out in one pieces. Or several, if yer talkin' about ol' Mad Eye."
"So there's no one who can tell me about them?"
"Of course there are, Jamie! There's me, after all. An' yer teachers! Ask McGonagall an' Dumbledore an' they'll tell you yer mum was the best Gryffindor they ever did see! Lily Evans made Prefect an' Head Girl! There wasn' nobody who didn' like yer mum, Jamie." He laughed. "Hell, even Snape got along with yer mum, at least before—
Jamie's eyes widened in a rare display of honest surprise. "Professor Snape knew my mum?"
Hagrid froze up. "I shouldn' have told you that."
"Why not?"
The Groundskeeper stood up. "
"Miss Potter, you foolish girl, how could you think of tackling a mountain troll on your own? Five points from Gryffindor." She turned to Ron. "You were lucky, but not many first years could have taken on a full-grown mountain troll. Five points to Gryffindor."
"What?!" snapped Jamie. "But I—"
"Miss Potter, that's quite enough."
"—was defending myself! But Ron—"
"Miss Potter!"
"—gets rewarded and I get punished?!"
"Don't you feel badly about how we lost points?"
Jamie chopped up the dried toad tongue. "I'm upset we got caught, not that we did it."
"You don't look upset."
"Maybe I'm just too surprised McGonagall didn't reward Ron again for breaking the same rules I did," she replied flatly. Jamie glanced out of the corner of her eye as Snape began to glid down the aisles, commenting on the inefficency and ineptitude of his students' efforts. "At least *try* to look busy, Hermione."
"But you're old!" she said, then immediately cringed at how that sounded. The Rules were clear how a student talked to a teacher. Quickly, she added, "I'm sorry. That was wrong."
Snape glared at her; at least, more so than usual. When he spoke, his voice was frosty, "Despite my decrepit appearance and unseemly wrinkles, Miss Potter, I would like to think that I have escaped the ravages of time just yet. Ten points from Gryffindor."
"Everything has rules," she said. "Can you break them in Wizard's Chess?"
"Not unless you're a cheating git."
Jamie mulled over that comment. "Okay," she said after a moment. "Teach me."
Ron waved his wand over the board and the game pieces picked themselves up and trotted back to what Jamie assumed were their starting positions. "Just so you know, I'm not going to go easy on you just because you're a girl."
An older, more cynical of fourteen or fifteen might have said something along the lines of "Well, if you did, then you'd be the first." Instead, eleven year-old Jamie Alice Potter simply stated, "That's okay. I never go easy on anyone."
"Brilliant!" said Ron-the-Chess-Player. "Now these little things are called 'pawns'..."
The holiday week of Christmas passed more quickly once Ronald Weasley took Jamie under his wing in the matters of Wizard's Chess. Whilst the Girl-Who-Lived was nowhere near her new friend's level, Jamie found the game a nice distraction from the quiet boredom of the school break.
Chess, once you got beyond the tricks like Castling, was a straightforward game with clear rules. There were two sides laid out in black and white. Bishops moved diagonally. Pawns could move two spaces forward on their first turn if they wanted. Queens could move however far they wanted in whatever direction the player desired.
On Christmas Eve, just after lunch, Jamie scored her first and only victory of the week – if one could call it such a thing.
"I don't see how I can win," she said, surveying the board.
"It's a bloody stalemate is what it is," said Ron.
Jamie frowned. "What's a stalemate?"
"Um," said Ron, quickly glancing down at the board, "it's when you're stuck. See,
"Quidditch is stupid," countered Jamie.
Ron's jaw dropped. "You take that back!"
"It is! All those rules and the only one that counts is 'catch the Snitch first'. I mean, why even have Beaters? It's not like they matter."
TITLE: Ghost of a Chance
SUMMARY: After the 15th Angel's attack, Asuka begins to lose her mind and starts to see dead people. But is she really going crazy? Or is there another force at work?
NOTES: A lot of these scenes are out of order, as the fic was intended to have a very scattered chronology, mirroring Asuka's growing madness. The truth was Asuka was seeing ghosts, especially Kaji's, but she was also imagining a lot of things as she lost touch with reality. I have in my outline notes that Asuka ends up beating Unit-01 to death, and that Rei and Nagisa were going to have an Angel-on-Angel brawl in Central Dogma after he finds out that ADAM is in Commander Ikari's right hand.
* * * *
Klaxons screamed over Central Dogma as NERV was plunged into a terrible, unexpected attack.
"Unit-02 is breaking through the armored bulkheads!" screamed Aoba.
Makoto, reading off his stations at Operations, was more collected, "Target passing into the second level."
Above the fray, Commander Ikari and Vice-Commander Fuyutsuki studied the descending figure of Unit-02 on the holographic display spread before them. Both men shared the same icy pit of fear in their guts. "Eva Unit One will pursue!" ordered the Commander.
Misato's tone of voice was strictly professional. "Yes, Sir."
"Use whatever means necessary," barked Gendo. "Do not allow the target to reach Terminal Dogma."
Major Misato Katsuragi stared anxiously at the same holographic display. Unit-02 had just broken through the fourth armored bulkhead and was showing no sign of slowing down. In a fit of emotion she flicked her headset on, attempting to make contact again with the errant Eva. Unlike NERV's pervious attempts, this time the enemy attacker replied.
A half-story tall display popped open along the eastern wall of the Central Dogma control complex. The angry, determined figure in the transmission feed loomed over Misato, Ritsuko, and the rest of the technicians of Central Dogma.
"What?" sneered Asuka Langley Soryu.
"ASUKA! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!"
The Second Child rolled her eyes. Though the gesture was childish Misato knew her well enough to know that Asuka was doing it deliberately. "What does it look like I'm doing, Misato? I'm saving the world."
"ASUKA! PLEASE, STOP! YOU'RE SICK! YOU NEED HELP!"
"I'm perfectly sane, Misato."
Aoba announced, "Unit-02 has broken through the fourth armored barrier!"
"I'm saving the world," repeated Asuka. "I'm going to get to the bottom of this fucking shaft and I'm going to kill ADAM. Then I'm going to haul my ass back upside and I'm going to kill that old bastard." She leaned forward in her Entry Plug's seat and squinted into the on-board camera. "You there, Gendo-fucking-Ikari? Because I'm going to fuck you up. You and all your SEELE buddies." She smiled wolfishly. "But first I'm going to crush all your hopes and dreams of Human Instrumentality. Isn't payback a bitch?"
"ASUKA!"
The Second Child terminated her transmission.
Misato stared at the now dark screen, her expression grim.
"Unit-01 is descending into the Main Shaft," said Hyuga Makoto. "Intercept in two minutes, twenty seconds at the nineteenth armored plate."
Major Katsuragi brought up Unit-01's display. "Shinji?"
"Misato!" shouted the Third Child, his panic clearly coming through over the video feed. "What am I supposed to do?! What am I going t-"
"Shinji," the Major said flatly, "stop Unit-02 from reaching Terminal Dogma. Do whatever it takes."
"M-MISATO! YOU CAN'T MEAN TH-"
"Use of lethal force," she said, clenching her fists, "is authorized."
* * * *
The dreary quiet of Central Dogma was shattered by a familiar alarm. Technicians scrambled to their workstations as the whole base on alert. For once, the entire senior staff was present for the outbreak of battle.
"Eva Unit-02 has activated!" shouted Aoba.
Misato swore. "What the hell! Is Asuka-"
"MAGI register the Second Child in Unit-02's Entry Plug! It's her!"
She hailed Unit-02. "Asuka! Asuka, report!"
No reply.
Gendo Ikari's voice boomed over the command center. "Increase the Entry Plug's LCL pressure to maximum!"
"We can't! She's locked us out!"
"What?" Misato looked to Maya. "How is that even possible?"
"I don't know!" she cried. "But she's running in Maximium Gain mode! Her battery power will give out in fifteen seconds!"
"Then where the HELL is it getting power from?!"
"I don't know!" shouted back Maya. "This isn't supposed to be possible!"
Misato's eyes widened. "Is Asuka going berserker?"
"No!" cried Maya. "The pilot is still in control! And her synch ratio is nearly two hundred percent!"
"What?!"
"Unit-02 has entered the Main Shaft and is descending!"
Misato paled. Her voice a whisper, "She isn't…"
"Confirmed! Target is headed for Terminal Dogma!"
* * * *
Karowu Nagisa hummed a tune as he prepared to meet his destiny.
The Eva Cages – such an apt name, he thought – were deserted at this time of day. The employees of NERV were still adjusting to the disruption caused by the loss of their city above. Karowu wasn't particular concerned with the human cost of taking control of Unit-02 and tearing through NERV. They would all die once he returned to ADAM, after all. He just didn't want them to suffer unnecessarily before The End.
"What will you choose, Shinji?" he mused to himself. The Third Child had proved so interesting… it pained him to think of his death. Perhaps…
No, He will decide that.
Still… even the Second had been intriguing in her own peculiar way. If only her emotions hadn't overwhelmed her… what music she would have made!
"A pity," he said to himself, turning the corner to bring the red Eva into view. "But at least she will have a sort of role to pl-"
Unit-02 exploded out of its restraints.
Pink coolant and shrapnel rained down on the walkway Karowu had been standing on. The teen scrambled backwards, surprised for the first time in his life. "WHAT?!?"
Is Gendo Ikari making a preemptive strike? But Keel said he wou-
An instant before Karowu Nagisa was about to throw up his AT-Field the public announcement system crackled to life as the Second's voice – steeled, joyful, alive – boomed around him.
"Clear the way, bitches!" The few workers present hurried out of the Cage as Unit-02 tore through the complex, the giant mecha striding away from Karowu.
The 17th and Final Angel stared at the trail of destruction before him.
"Huh," was all he could manage.
* * * *
"My truth is thus: I trusted you, Shinji. I loved you. And you betrayed me."
"Yours was the existence that should have survived. I gave myself to you to ensure that humanity had a chance to inherit the future." Nagisa frowned. "Instead, you, in your weakness, decided the human race deserved death."
"I've been taking sights, charting my new destiny, and I've at last come to a decision:
"Tonight – the Lilium perish. Starting with you."
* * * *
He ignored her.
"Ryouko says she had a crush on you but you never noticed!"
Fuyutsuki froze in the doorway. "W-what?"
"That's why she wanted to have a drink with you down by the river."
He turned back to face the Second Child. She was no longer struggling against her restraints. In fact, she had gone limp. The girl now stared up dead straight at the ceiling.
"What did you say?"
"…"
"Asuka, how do you know that name?"
"…"
The Vice-Commander walked back over to the Second Child's bedside. A quick inspection of the girl's glassy eyes confirmed she had stepped out, so to speak.
"Asuka?" He snapped his fingers an inch above her nose. "Pilot Soryu! Wake up!"
"…"
The old man frowned. "Damn it."
* * * *