Chapter Text
Welcome to the Redux Version of Neon Metathesis Evangelion. Basically, this is a way to get NME on track and continued again. The old version of NME will stay up and be considered abandoned, but I do hope I can continue and eventually finish the story here.
So, here is how it will be done: I will upload the first 27 chapters (up to the end of the Leliel fight) in one go, as nearly nothing has been changed in those – I do hope I can manage that without either ffn or ao3 causing problems. Then I will publish the material that reached up to the old chapter 34 (up to the end of the Arael fight) relatively rapidly – about half of those chapters will be new content. And there will also be more stuff in general, since there won’t be any side-fic or the like now, as there was originally, so that content has to be covered in the main fic. After that, it will be mostly or eventually fully new stuff, and a regular upload pattern. Well, hopefully regular.
For people who already have read NME, and only want to skip to the new material, the only things changed in the first 27 chapters are slight alterations to a scene in chapter 14 (the celebration after Israfel), one in chapter 17 (the talk before the cross-synch during the Okinawa week), one in chapter 20 (the Mana/Shinji scene in the city), and one in chapter 26 (Ritsuko taking over the Leliel operation), plus a fully new scene in chapter 24 between Ritsuko and Kaji.
Oh, and I thought hey, a rewrite, you know, that is the chance to finally alter what I always found silly anyway: The ranks. Rebuild had at least one correct idea, to make Misato’s rank more appropriate to commanding three weapons of mass destruction. So, for what it’s worth, here Misato starts out as a Lieutenant Colonel as well and will be promoted to full Colonel. This also drags up the bridge bunnies, since Makoto Hyuga is after all second in command of Operations, so he is a Major here, and Maya Ibuki is second of Science, so she is a Captain here (Shigeru Aoba is a pure bridge bunny and hence remains a Lieutenant).
And, since I made a wordy foreword anyway, might as well introduce some info here which I so far had only posted on the Sufficient Velocity forum: Canon birthdays, based somewhat arbitrarily on the birthdays of characters’ voice actors, make Asuka 13 for most of the series, which is ah, a bit young. So I switched some birthday around:
KAWORU: Officially 13.09.2000 (as in canon: Second Impact)
KENSUKE: 14.09.2000 (as opposed to 12.09.2001, the change in date was necessary to have it still happen after 2I)
ASUKA: 04.12.2000 (as opposed to 2001)
TOUJI: 26.12.2000 (as opposed to, you guessed it, 2001)
HIKARI: 18.02.2001 (as opposed to 2002 - Hikari is ridiculously young in the series)
SHINJI: 06.03.2001 (as opposed to 06.06., so that he already is 14 when he arrives at Tokyo-3. This makes Asuka older than Shinji, different to canon)
MANA: Officially 30.04.2001 (should be 30.03. as per the voice actress' birthday, but that voice actress is Megumi Hayashibara, and well, see below. Besides, the birthdays cluster too much already as is.)
REI: Officially 31.05.2001 (as per her voice actress, Megumi Hayashibara, it would be 30.03., but since she also voices Yui, this is already Yui's birthday and Gendo would not be so obvious to register the exact same date as Rei's birthday.)
Siblings of the classmates
Kodama Horaki: 01.10.1997 (01.10. is the date the Kodama Shinkansen line began service)
Sakura Suzuhara: 02.06.2009 (using Rebuild and Rebuild VA date)
Nozomi Horaki: 14.03.2010 (14.03. is the date the Nozomi Shinkansen line began service)
Adults
Shigeru Aoba: 05.05.1987 (year not specified in canon. Of the three bridge bunnies he kinda looks the oldest to me)
Makoto Hyuga: 13.02.1989 (year not specified in canon)
Maya Ibuki: 11.07.1991 (canon, just for comparison's sake)
(the birthdays of the other adults all remain unchanged)
As a final note, the story begins about 4 weeks after Shinji has arrived in Tokyo-3, during which time he has already defeated Sachiel and Shamshel.
Now, have fun with Neon Metathesis Evangelion Redux!