"Neon Enoch Evangelion"

[MatrixRefugee]

This is one of my most ambitious fanfic projects yet, and it's been both daunting and fun to write.

The idea came to me last autumn when I was reading Storm Constantine's Grigori series and the apocryphal Book of Enoch, whilst I was rewatching NGE for the second time. Kaworu (one of my least favorite characters) grabbed my attention more than I wanted to, but this was probably one of those moments when "fate, it would seem, is not without a sense of irony". Something about his personality and behavior made me think a whole lot of the Grigori or Watcher angels, who left heaven out of love and desire for humanity and human freedom. I got to thinking, "What if there were a whole sub-race of Angels in Lilim form? What if they were behind the scenes pulling the strings of SEELE and they weren't aware of it?"

It was also about this time that I really started to develop a better appreciation of the Vice-Commander of NERV: poor guy needs some love, literally, and I started jotting ideas for a fic where he finds someone who eventually helps him quietly and gently quench that torch he's been carrying for Yui Ikari. Somehow, the two stories interconnected themselves into a tale of both intrigue and love that cross the lines of two species...

I started jotting ideas off and on for the better part of the year, but it wasn't until about a month ago that I felt the burning need to start writing this in earnest. Something told me I either needed to get serious with this project or else let it sit in my skull and either dry up or cause me to go mad. Finding a few odd volumes of Sadamoto's manga in a local comic shop was the torch that finally set my creativity on fire and I started writing. A few writing prompt communities on LiveJournal gave me even more fuel for the wildfire, and I'm almost now faced with my usual dilemma of more ideas than I have time to write them. But I'm keeping it at a reasonable size: one prompt a day when I find a prompt that fits.

It's not coming out in chronological order (trust me, I've tried: it seems like it's better to write what comes to mind than to either not write it at all or to get stuck while trying to write it from the top), and it's very much a work in progress, but I've created a master list of fic fragments here, in the order in which they should occur:

[url]http://matrixrefugee.livejournal.com/449913.html[/url]

I'm updating this roughly once a day, and I'll be posting links to future chapters as they become available. Comments and constructive critiques are very much welcome; feel free to post them either to the LJ entries or here, whichever is easier for you, dear readers.

[MatrixRefugee]

New installment (for those of you who've managed to get through all the chapters posted to the master list in the post above). This next bit is from the second installment in what wants to be a trilogy:

http://matrixrefugee.livejournal.com/462474.html

[Joseph the PRPD]

I'll check it out when I can. Just FYI.

[MatrixRefugee]

I'll check it out when I can. Just FYI.

Hee, take your time: there's about twenty-seven short chapters (each about maybe two to five pages long) posted, but it's not as much to get through as it might sound.

[Sailor Star Dust]

I'll be sure to read this when I find a moment.

[MatrixRefugee]

Finally wrote a chapter based on an actual Angel attack, and I had to start with Armisael. Gaaah, I need a stiff drink, and I don't even drink :: Takes off glasses, kneads forehead:: -.-

http://matrixrefugee.livejournal.com/464380.html

[NemZ]

When you have a plot lined up rather than just a pile of scenes I may be interested.

[MatrixRefugee]

When you have a plot lined up rather than just a pile of scenes I may be interested.

Oh, there's a plot: it's just not coming out sequentially...

[Sailor Star Dust]

When you have a plot lined up rather than just a pile of scenes I may be interested.

That's harsh.


Anyway, I read chapter 1 and I like it already. Poor Fuyu DOES need more fans.

[NemZ]

I didn't mean it to be. I just don't want to read it all out of order and whatnot.

[MatrixRefugee]

A quiet, somewhat introspective piece, set in the post-End of Evangelion installment of my magnum opus (and a bit of EvaGeeks lingo crept into the dialogue)

http://matrixrefugee.livejournal.com/465448.html

[MatrixRefugee]

Set during the month-long period covered in Episode 20 (This is actually the first part in a small story-arc I have set in that time-period):

http://matrixrefugee.livejournal.com/466361.html

[MatrixRefugee]

My attempt at Ritsuko/Kozou: it's as awkward and "Bzuh?" as it sounds...

http://matrixrefugee.livejournal.com/466843.html

[MatrixRefugee]

Post-EoE chapter, and it turned out a bit funnier than I expected (I just wonder what's going to happen when/if Asuka finds out that Shinji was checking out the goods on one of Kaworu's distant female cousins... And I'm also probably having a leetle too much fun finding clever ways to embarrass Fuyu-sensei)

http://matrixrefugee.livejournal.com/468468.html

[MatrixRefugee]

Another post EoE chapter, and the very beginning of Part Two: Under the Winter Moon (in which I offer one possible answer to the question: where did Asuka's bandages come from??)

http://matrixrefugee.livejournal.com/469259.html

[MatrixRefugee]

Yet another post-EoE chapter. I think the title "Love in the Ruins" tells all. I wanted it to be longer and more hot and heavy, but I couldn't get myself to get that far this time...

http://matrixrefugee.livejournal.com/469836.html

[MatrixRefugee]

Post EoE and a character returns from Instrumentality whom I originally didn't intend to bring back... till you folks convinced me otherwise:

http://matrixrefugee.livejournal.com/471182.html

[MatrixRefugee]

Back after a hiatus of several days: I lost a little faith in myself, but I'm getting back on track with... another post EoE chapter, in which Shinji asks a few questions of the only one who was closest to Gendo...

http://matrixrefugee.livejournal.com/473988.html

[MatrixRefugee]

A rather twisty chapter, introducing the council of Grigori elders.

http://matrixrefugee.livejournal.com/474569.html

[MatrixRefugee]

I've been absent due to writing NaNoWriMo, which I decided to devote to Part Three: The Nephillim Variation, which is set fifteen years after the events of NGE (and the first two parts of Neon Enoch Evangelion). And here's a long excerpt, in which Sabia Valiant tells a bedtime story to her now fifteen year old son, Asato Valiant-Fuyutsuki:

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“Hey Ma, I know it’s late, but could you tell me the story?” Asato asked.

“You’re a little old for a bedtime story, and I’m sure you can probably recite that one by heart now,” she said.

“I know, I just feel like hearing it,” he said, his violet eyes pleading innocently.

She knelt down beside his bed. When did our baby get to be so tall? she wondered to herself as she looked down at her son, lying stretched out before her, his toes sticking out from under his covers.

“Once, long ago," she began, "but not too long ago, there was an alchemist, an older man, who worked in a lab deep within a cave under a castle in the east. The alchemist had agreed to dwell here as he served the king, because a student of the alchemist had married the king and while the alchemist knew he could never be as close to the queen as they had been when he had served as her teacher, he knew he could remain close to her this way. Both the queen and the king, who had also studied alchemy, had set to work creating magical armor that would allow the wearer to slay the dragons which, it had been prophesied, would one day attack the castle and steal the treasure which lay hidden deep in the caverns beneath it.

“One day, the queen offered to test the first suit of armor which she and the king and their assistants had completed. The alchemist advised her not to attempt this, for he feared that she might not be able to remove the armor; some of the spells worked into it had not yet been tested, nor did they fully understand the properties of some of the materials used in it. But the queen persisted; she donned the armor, but once she did, something went terribly wrong. The queen’s body died, but her soul became bound to the armor, unable to speak with anyone outside it. The armor had been crafted for the king’s young son, that he might wear it one day when he was grown, but the king grieved for the loss of his queen and in so doing, he sent his son away, for the boy reminded him too much of the queen, the boy’s mother.

“In time, the prophesy came to pass: the first of the dragons attacked the castle; the king called his son from seclusion and ordered him to put on the armor and slay the dragon. At first, the king’s son refused; angered, the king ordered a girl knight to don the armor and go out to fight, but when the girl knight came forward, the king’s son could see she had been injured during a practice battle. He begged the king to allow him to go in her place. The king’s son went forth to slay the dragon; at first he was awkward and fearful and the dragon nearly slew him, but without him knowing it, his mother’s spirit inspired him to conquer it.

“During the battle, some of the king’s servants had thought they could hear the dragon speaking in a strange language; to better understand their enemy, the king and his army needed to know how they thought, and so the king asked his advisors if they knew of someone who could translate the dragons’ speech. The advisors told him they knew of a girl, the daughter of a wealthy merchant, who could help them, and so the king sent for the girl to come to the castle. The alchemist had his doubts about the matter, but being a wise man, he did not close his mind to the notion, as crazy as it might seem.

“Now the merchant, who was more than he seemed, had heard of one of the treasures hidden in the castle, including one small silver spearhead, which the king kept hidden in his sleeve at all times. He wanted the spearhead for himself, for the merchant was an angel, a cousin to the dragons, and he sought the spearhead since it contained a spell which would awaken his brother, who had fallen into a deep sleep. And so the merchant told his daughter to get as close to the king as she could and see where he kept the treasure hidden. The girl agreed, but for all her wisdom, her heart could as wayward as the wind, and she became a close friend to the alchemist. They shared much in common, for neither of them really preferred to dwell in the cave, and neither of them liked the king very much, and there were things which they would rather use their time and talents to discover. The alchemist would not admit it to anyone, but the merchant’s daughter reminded him of the queen, for she had a kind and friendly heart, and in time, she began to fill the space in his heart which the queen had left behind at her death.

“In time, the merchant grew impatient, for his daughter was taking her time in telling him where the silver spearhead had been hidden, and so he sent some of his warriors to claim it from the king. The alchemist managed to defend the king, though a small part of his heart wanted to see the king die for the things he had done to those around him. Angered that this had not succeeded, the merchant visited his daughter and warned her that she was in danger of being cut her off from her family. She told her father the little that she had learned. Her father’s anger abated, but he warned her that the time had come for their kind to seclude themselves from the human world. She told him, sadly, that she could not choose to follow their people, since she had found her happiness with the alchemist. And so her father left her, leaving her to wonder if they would ever see each other again.

"Now the king’s advisors had been plotting behind his back for some time now, for they did not approve, and once the last of the dragons had been slain, they planned to send in an army of their own to attack the castle. The alchemist suspected that this would happen, and so he brought the merchant’s daughter far away from the castle, to a small cabin in the mountains, promising, if all went well, he would return to find her. The army of men attacked, but as if to add insult to injury, the advisors sent in a second army made up of replica dragons of their own alchemy. The king’s general sent out a girl knight clad in the armor they had devised, and for a time, she fought back the false dragons, but they healed their injuries too quickly for her, and they soon defeated her.

“So one of the king’s generals beseeched the king’s son to don the armor which contained his mother’s soul and go out to defeat the false dragons; at first the boy refused, but nothing else could be done to save the castle and the caves below it. So he donned the armor, but no sooner had he gone out, when the false dragons pounced on him, and by way of strange spells, some created by the king, some by his advisors and some by the dragons, the caves below were opened and one of the hidden treasures was brought forth, an image of a giant woman in white, who drew into her being the king‘s son, still clad in his armor. And by her strange magic, she cast the souls of all that walked the earth into a deep sleep in which they all came forth from their bodies and were drawn together into a great black stone that had been hidden with her, those souls included the alchemist and the merchant‘s daughter, who now knew that she was not a human, but an angel, the kin of the dragons.

“But this did not last long: the king’s son realized that humans were not meant to dwell in a state like this, where all could hear each other’s inmost thoughts and feel each other’s inmost fear and pain and anger. It is one thing to be able to share each other’s strength, but it is something that must be given freely and not snatched from our hands. In the midst of all this, he met the soul of his mother once again and she showed him the way to break the spell and allow all the trapped souls to awaken once again and live as humans ought to live. The alchemist too, encountered the queen, and she told him how she had watched over him all those years, till the merchant’s wise daughter had come his way; only then did the alchemist admit to how he truly felt about the girl, the angel, and so the queen sent him forth to find his angel once again.

“The white giant soon died and fell to the earth, and the black stone collapsed into a great red sea. And the magic armor which bore the queen’s soul floated off into the night sky, where it became a violet star, to remind people of what had happened that night.

“The alchemist awakened on the shore of the red sea, where he soon found the king’s son and the girl knight whom the prince had loved, even though neither he nor the girl knight would that they felt this way about each other, and in time, the alchemist found his angel once again. The four of them set out, seeking others who had awakened from their deep sleep in the sea, and in time, they found more who had chosen to rise from the sea and live again. It was hard work and it took many trial spells to find what would coax the sleepers awake, but they soon found a means to lead the willing sleepers back into the light of day. In time, the alchemist asked the angel to be his wife and to live with him, helping him and some of the king’s more loyal advisors to continue the magic that would allow the sleepers in the sea to awaken. And in time, the angel gave him a son, who brightened the life which his parents had created for themselves. And so they lived, sometimes happily, sometimes not so happily, ever after…”

“The end,” Asato murmured.

“Which, as they say, is really another beginning,” Sabia said, rising.
“Now, go to sleep.”

“Hey, Ma?”

She had opened the door, but turned back to him. “Yes?”

“I know I’ve asked this before, but… the alchemist and the angel… that’s you and Dad,” he said, knowingly.

She smiled at him. “Yes, Asato, that’s your father and me.”

“Just… well… thanks… for choosing to live,” he said, awkwardly.

“You and your father make me thankful that I made that decision,” she said. And stepping through the door, she slid it shut.