Evangelion: Rebuild a Legend - Chapter 4
Launch!
2015 A.D., NERV HQ
Gendo was barraged by the incomprehensible vocalizations of the bridge staff as the temporary synchronization to Yui's mindscape snapped. He could tell he had, however brief it seemed in real-time, dived as deep into the Evangelion's core as a human possibly could without fully losing oneself. It explained why the rush of voices in the cockpit were difficult to parse, given he was hearing them as though he were the beast itself - Unit-01 - itself.
Thankfully, the extreme sense of disconnect began to fade as his baseline human mentality reasserted itself; Ritsuko set the language interface to Japanese. Since his mind had been so highly synced to Unit-01 only moments prior it was like suddenly handing him back a lifeline to his own thoughts. The A-10 driven language interface system was designed to translate his human thoughts and motor-responses to the beasts' instinctual ones. In his case, however, it was showing his mind the way back from beast to man.
"Synchronization rate: 68.8%!"
Good. The instruments hadn't recorded his fleeting foray towards 400% sync territory.
Better: Yui had listened to him, maybe purely out of shock and horror, but she had listened.
Securing her voluntary cooperation had been a boon; he had developed several contingencies should she be too far gone or simply too stubborn, but this made his new scenario far easier to implement. He had a lot of people to kill: she needn't be one of them.
Indeed, her newfound desire to eventually separate from the Eva's core was the second major victory of his return – the first being able to sync with her Evangelion at all.
Still, the emotional distance between them had grown vast; his fault, her fault, it didn't matter anymore – this deliberate manipulation of his wife's emotions, unthinkable in his first life, would hopefully bear fruit after so many uncountable years of planning.
He was glad.
It was the same feeling he had felt immediately after his soul had merged and rewritten this timeline's Gendo Ikari. When his future self, augmented by Instrumentality, had returned to this time and place, just as the Third Angel made its way towards Tokyo-3.
He had triumphed against time and heat and entropy. A success fueled by the mass sacrifice of all the future souls bound to Instrumentality. Those who had abided with him, those he had carefully restored from Instrumentality to help him craft a plan, had gladly given up their renewed existence so that their past selves might be salvaged from the dark fate that awaited them. Converted to the needful energies designed to rip apart the lower spacial and temporal dimensions as he traveled along the recursing strings of worldlines, searching for the path back to the here and now.
The Third Angel's A.T. field, announcing itself again and again with each futile defensive strike by an impotent U.N. military, had blazed like a flaring sun in the echoes of space-time. A beacon home.
In a way, he owed the Third Angel a favor, and he intended to repay.
He had smiled into his steepled hands.
In the present First Lieutenant Ibuki was verifying statuses along with the other technicians. "Harmonics are green. No disturbances."
"Commander Ikari, are you there?" Dr. Akagi asked directly into the main communication channel.
"Yes," he responded crisply, "Continue."
"Roger," Misato replied, "Begin launch preparations!"
He gripped the controls again. It helped to hold something physical. The entry plug had already turned transparent and the view outside of the Eva's flesh was dominated by the large steel plates and screens sliding themselves out of the way in preparation for Unit-01's move to the launching platform.
As a contributing designer to the Evangelion's systems Gendo couldn't help but feel a disrupted sense of placement. The view from within the entry plug was as if he were inside the Eva's gargantuan head, situated behind its eyes but able to see up and through the skull; yet, the entry plug itself was buried deep in its spine and angled towards the imitation-Angel's hidden core. He knew where he was physically in the Eva. Despite the synchronization offsetting his virtual position his simple meat-mind was having difficulty reconciling the physical placement of his body versus what his eyes were lying to him about.
Perhaps he should've considered the virtual-reality headsets that Bethany Base was experimenting with. He dismissed the thought: he knew from past history what would work for the pilots in this timeline, after all. Meanwhile, the support staff continued prepping the Evangelion's launch sequence.
"Disengage primary lock bolts!"
He felt his/Unit-01's shoulders slump down and forward, released from the restraints.
"Disengagement confirmed. Disengaging the umbilical bridge."
The metal walkway began sliding away in front of him.
"Disengage secondary lock bolts!"
The walls too began sliding away as additional bolts and restraints released themselves. He began ignoring the words, engrossed in the feeling of the gigantic armored body sheathing him as it responded to the physical movements around him.
Out of his left eye he could see technicians stationed behind protective barriers taking a moment to stare back in awe as Unit-01 began sliding up and backwards on the rail system leading to the ejector pad.
He smirked to himself as he slid to a halt, the ejector restraints latching firmly onto Unit-01's feet, priming for launch.
Showtime.
"Captain Katsuragi," he got her attention, "Tactical?"
She responded quickly over the mic. "Sir. Vice Commander Fuyutsuki and I have both run out the available tactical options. The Angel is almost directly above us in the heart of the city. We can either deploy through B-33 or D34 to bring you within a city block of its current location."
He considered Shinji's initial debut in the original timeline and how the boy had had virtually no time to react before the Angel was on top of him. His son had barely taken a step before falling and having Unit-01's head impaled by a vicious-looking energy lance.
"And the nearest weapons cache?" he asked.
"D36, sir. Maybe C35 depending on how fast we get you up there."
"No, too close," he decided. He felt an obligation not to leave everything up to Yui. Besides, he wasn't fully confident she even could go berserk if it were him piloting and not her beloved son in danger. "Mid to long range options?"
He could hear Fuyutsuki and Katsuragi going back and forth before they reached a new consensus.
"F12 is mid-range Commander, it puts you in the eastern district with an immediate weapons cache. One pallet rifle, multiple magazine stashes." She took a breath. "But sir, it's otherwise flat and exposed."
"Do it anyway," he commanded. Drawing the Angel out of the city-center would make the scenario he had prepared much simpler.
Voices erupted to fulfill his orders: "Launch path clear. All systems green!"
The iterative sound of steel doors sliding open in the shaft above him staccato'd through the Evangelion's frame. The surge of electricity on the ejector pad prickled his skin. The beast's skin. His synchronization rate must have risen a bit higher than its earlier value.
"Are you ready, sir?" Misato had taken charge on the bridge now that options evaluation had ended.
He nodded despite the cameras being disabled and answered clearly. "Of course. Ready for launch."
"We will deal with the angels at last, on our own terms," Fuyutsuki affirmed.
Gendo's lips parted with the barest hint of a Cheshire grin.
Misato completed the build up with the firm command: "Launch!"
Immediately the build-up of electrical energy terminated: the Eva rocketed up the ejection shaft in a wave of tunneling electromagnetism. Gendo was slammed into the back of his seat by the force of several G's, again ruing the fact that the smaller pilot seat couldn't fully cradle his neck. The upwards motion was punctuated by sharp shifts diagonally as he approached the outlying part of the city from below, twisting him hard against the seat's edges.
Abruptly the rocketing motion ended and the Evangelion's head snapped up into a ready position. The bolts at his feet released.
He looked around.
It was past dusk now and the dark encroached from the mountains and hills, dripping through the nearby valleys like black ichor. A smattering of light pollution from the few non-retractable portions of the city spread an uneven, yellowish sheen onto the battlefield.
On the plus side, however, the weapons cache to his right stood ready and open. The false building's height nearly a match for the Eva itself. He reached in and took a pallet rifle larger than a schoolbus, moving a finger over the trigger guard.
"My god!" Ritsuko's voice crackled over the radio. "It's more than working! Look at the control he has!"
Ah. Of course. He thought. I'm displaying too much fine-motor control.
Ibuki supplemented her, "Ma'am, he's holding at 72% sync rate! It's incredible!"
"Captain," he called.
"Yes sir, the Angel is at your 10 o' clock, about 500 meters away," Misato replied helpfully. Just as she finished speaking a dull red glow lit up in the indicated direction.
He took a step forward.
Cheers erupted on the other side of the channel, which turned to worried gasps as he purposefully allowed his control to slip enough to bring the Evangelion to a knee, bracing the ground with Unit-01's left hand as the right splayed out with the gun akimbo. Can't let them think I've actually done this before.
"Father!" he heard Shinji cry out.
"I'm fine," Gendo assured his listeners, bringing the Eva back up to its feet. He began walking, one step after another, letting his arms swing as he made his way towards the red blur of light shifting between the dark and distant structures.
The Third Angel turned past an upraised support building and came into full view. The red light was murkily drifting into the slight haze that had condensed below their knees. The Angel's body was as he remembered it, a headless humanoid padded in places by exoskeletal segments, its large upper frame flat at the neck and the head masks embedded atop the ribcage. The placement of its core was akin to Evangelion Unit-01's, but visible and shining with murderous intent.
It regarded him with eerie calm, squaring its shoulders to his approach and beginning to move away from the city center, up a partially lit highway, towards his position.
"Target sighted!" Misato said loudly, "Designation: Third Angel Sachiel!"
Gendo kept Unit-01 moving forward, ever so slight increasing his pace as he kept his gun trained downwards. Now both Angel and Eva were briskly pacing towards each other.
He smiled. "Engaging target."
The Eva broke into a run, then a sprint. He let the heavy pallet gun pull backwards on his right arm and shifted the Eva's shoulders down.
The Angel responded in kind, suddenly moving from a simple gait to a terrifying pounding as the street crumpled under each step.
400 meters.
"Captain," he ordered, now at 350 meters, "at 50 meters fire a single volley from a flanking GGM at the target." 300 meters.
"Understood!" she sharply responded; her orders were quickly relayed. 200 meters.
Now both of the Eva's arms were flung back as his speed increased, he flexed his left first, preparing himself.
An eldritch wail erupted at 100 meters from the alien's form just as a halo of un-light began to form above its head. Here it comes, Gendo had a moment to think before a volley of ground-to-ground missiles streaked from behind and slammed into the Angel's A.T. field just as it had begun an aerial jump at its now terrifying speed.
It stumbled. The minor interruption of the small-yield warheads, like a sudden mosquito bite, breaking its concentration just enough to cause its jump to fail.
But Gendo was already there, his left fist cracking into the Angel's face-mask as the Eva roared its approval and the Angel's cry shifted from aggression to anguish. The bony structure cracked, ever so slightly, and it rolled to Gendo's right, dipping its shoulder downwards as its legs shook.
His right arm had already swung upwards into the Angel's midriff, muzzle against silky black flesh. Round after round exploded through the Angel, blowing multiple holes through the abomination even as the Angel's left arm had grabbed Unit-01's head.
The howl shattered reinforced plate-glass windows dozens of meters away.
Gendo momentarily clutched his head as the painful scream pierced his skull. It was enough time for the Angel to power up its right arm's energy lance, which pulled back like a taut bow-string and then slammed into Unit-01's belly.
He gagged. The pain was incredible. He could already feel a gut-wide bruise forming as the sympathetic response from Unit-01 injured him as well. The gun was depleted and he pulled back, bringing it around to smash against the hold against his head. His left arm shot upwards to grip the Angel's left wrist, squeezing, desperate to get Unit-01's head free.
Two things happened simultaneously.
The Angel's left wrist cracked loudly and fluid spurted out of the Eva's fist, and the Angel's right arm sent another energy lance into his midsection again, forcing Gendo to give up his lunch into the LCL.
Even as his throat constricted and his gut burned Gendo threw himself backwards, getting himself out of range of the Angel's deadly ability. He waved away the disgusting chunks of partially digested food and brought the Eva up to a defensive posture.
The Angel, for its part, didn't immediately pursue, the second face-mask on its front, the uncracked one, twisting in a curious manner to evaluate the damage Unit-01 and the pallet rifle had done to its lower body.
Gendo stepped backwards, and it stepped forward at the same pace. He repeated the action, drawing the Angel forward from the buildings. It moved at a more sedate pace now, its new injuries showing, but he could already see the wounds beginning to seal themselves off.
"Commander!" the intercom shouted at him, it was Katsuragi, he noted. "Target showing damage to 25% of its body." He grunted. Ibuki's voice came on the line, "Sir, its healing factor has increased since our last measurements from the N2 strike. Estimated 45 seconds to full recovery."
That was fine. "Acknowledged. I'm drawing it out of the city."
"Sir!" Captain Katsuragi confirmed.
He continued his backpedal and the Angel warily kept mirroring his steps as they drew away from the city. He was moving towards the seaside, slowly, but 45 seconds seemed like enough time to reach it.
"Fuyutsuki, prepare for re-engagement."
The older man chuckled, "Just like the old days, then?"
Gendo smiled, enjoying the resurgence of his misspent youth. He had been quite a brawler before Yui had done her best to tame him, and for all of Fuyutsuki's disgust at having to bail him out of jail after more than one street-fight the stone-faced academic had always respected the younger man's instinct for how to end a fight.
Fuyutsuki's second star pupil knew how to put someone on the ground.
Gendo broadcast under his breath. "And three, two…" then he launched himself forwards at the Angel. It had been expecting an attack but still had the slower reaction time between the two behemoths due to its divided attention on healing and keeping pace with Unit-01. Fuyutsuki had already ordered a wave of ground-to-ground missiles and air-to-surface strikes to focus on the Angel's back and flank, allowing Gendo to land a series of fast punches against the Angel's core.
Renewed cheers and shouts filled his ears from the intercom. He realized, except Fuyutsuki, none of them were even aware their commander had any hand-to-hand combat training whatsoever. Good, let them watch. Good for his image.
The Eva brought up a leg and kneed the Angel as its closed fists descended on the Angel's shoulders in a quick hammer-blow. It stumbled back and Gendo weaved a bit left, moving in for another flurry of blows.
Then the energy lance slammed into him. Unlike the previous hits, though, this time the piercing beam of hard-light smashed into the side of Unit-01's head.
This is it.
Gendo pushed the jolt of pain aside and let Unit-01 go limp. Reaching inside his own A.T. field he cut the hardware-based monitoring equipment of the entry-plug. This can work, he assured himself. He had felt the Eva's approval during their fight: the core was responding.
"Oh God, no!" Ritsuko yelled on the command bridge, looking over the incoming data, "He's out cold!" Another beam smashed into Unit-01's headcase. "The Commander has been knocked unconscious!"
Fuyutsuki and Misato were already ordering another wave of all-out attacks even though they knew they couldn't penetrate the Angel's A.T. field. They were only hoping to distract it long enough for Commander Ikari to recover, or be recovered.
Meanwhile, Gendo had lowered his sync-rate to limit the painful feedback just as a beam of white-pink, glowing light erupted through the Eva's ear and exited its temple on the other side.
Your turn, Gendo sent to Yui through the Eva's core.
"FATHER!" Shinji screamed, held back by Misato who had clamped her arms around him protectively.
Unit-01 was kicked backwards to the ground, crumpling on its back as blood fountained from the gory ruins of its head. Gendo stared upwards at the giant Angel which was looking down at him, the face-masks twitching back and forth in sudden uncertainty.
"What is it doing?" Fuyutsuki demanded. Misato didn't have time to answer him.
"Hyuga!" She yelled across to the bespeckled man at his console, "Prioritize recovery of the Eva! We need to get Commander Ikari out of there!"
The Angel was still staring down at Unit-01, it seemed almost hesitant - as though ready to turn and leave the defeated enemy behind.
"Ma'am!" He jabbed at his keyboard, working on a course of action.
"Belay that." Fuyutsuki hadn't been talking about the Angel's strange reticence to continue its violence, no, he had noticed the energy surge in Unit-01 despite the trauma unleashed on its head. Maya and Ritsuko, too, were following the spikes on the psychograph. "What is…" Ritsuko had barely begun to ask before the crippled Eva suddenly broke open its steel-welded jaws and roared.
The Angel had just enough time to bring up its A.T. field before Unit-01 was moving. It had launched itself off the ground like a limber demon of metal and bone, pounding its fists against the expanding orange octagons barely saving the Angel from the renewed onslaught.
Yui Ikari, the soul at the core of Unit-01, had control.
"It's gone berserker…" Ritsuko breathed in awe.
Unlike the fully conscious Yui that Gendo had encountered in their shared mindscape, this was the animalistic, beastial amalgamation of Yui and Eva. No better instinctive master of weaponized A.T. fields existed. It transcended anything Gendo himself could do. It was this, the true form of Evangelion, that was one of Earth's greatest weapons.
"We've won." Kozo Fuyutsuki smiled.
Unit-01's hands shot forward into the center of the Angel's shield and Gendo could hear the stunned chatter of the bridge staff: "It's matching the Angel's A.T. field, harmonizing… no, eroding it!" Ritsuko shouted. "Enemy A.T. field disappearing!"
Gendo let Yui's master of terror-made-reality rip at the Angel's A.T. field while he reached out with his own A.T. field, moving along the bucking currents of overlapping souls as he stretched out his consciousness to the Angel, hijacking his wife's work.
Then it happened, just before the Eva could tear apart the enemy's A.T. field he felt a surge of emotion separate from his own and the Eva's.
Contact.
The Angel's face-masks went shock-still.
․⁚⁖⁙
⁙⁖⁚․ . . . ?
A moment of real-time passed, but it was enough.
The Angel reared back as Unit-01 grabbed its core and began to squeeze. But before any cracks could form it suddenly jumped on top of the Evangelion and morphed into a liquid sphere, crackling with energy.
"Commander!" Misato shouted.
Gendo's world erupted in unending light.