NEON GENESIS EVANGELION: REDEMPTION
Stage X: Lost in Hell
With a screech of protesting metal, the broken end of the destroyer dislodged and splashed into the bay. Unit 01 casually tossed the other end into another destroyer, and then sliced deep into the last one with her sword, opening its deck wide like a gutted fish. In the water, men splashed and struggled as they tried to escape from the massive vortexes of water that Unit 01 created as she strode through the bay. Most failed, and drowned, bloated bodies littered the Eva's wake.
In the Entry Plug, Asuka flexed her body, stiff from the boredom of the last three years. The Eva that she was using now still seemed creaky and slow, but her indomitable spirit was satisfied.
"That was good exercise, Misato." She commented. The older woman sighed in resignation.
"Asuka, if you don't learn to act more ladylike, then all the good men will run away from you, and you'll never get married."
"MISATO!" Asuka screeched. Misato smiled evilly.
"And Shinji will be too scared to kiss you again-"
Asuka exploded into an outraged torrent of German, out of which Shinji could distinctly make out the word "dummkoph" used in half a dozen different places.
Maya leaned back and observed the scene with general satisfaction.
'The wounds are healing; they're a family again.'
Suddenly, one of the sensors blared out an alarm. Almost immediately, Unit 01 pitched forwards as an orange ball of flame erupted from her back. A moment later, the thundering shockwave sent a thundering clap through everyone's eardrums.
"What the-ASUKA!" Misato yelled as Unit 01 fell to one knee and collapsed into the murky waters.
"The A.T. Field just went down!" Maya warned. "We're losing contact with the Eva's systems; I think it's a rejection!"
"But what was that explosion?" Misato demanded.
"Armor-piercing high explosive shell; it hit right after the A.T. Field failed!" Hyuga shouted.
"Asuka!" Shinji yelled. On the screen, Unit 01 remained inert. The comm. system was deafeningly silent.
"Heavy damage to mechanical components on Eva's back. Communications are down; and…" Aoba stopped suddenly.
"Oh shit! Neither Plug Ejection nor motor control is responding to my system sweep!"
"What does that mean?" Shinji demanded.
"It's probably too damaged; in addition, power management is functioning at 41.5% of normal output due to a hit on the Umbilical Cable's power transfer system. Eva Unit 01's power supply has been reduced by 52.4% to account for the damaged components. The Magi are unanimously suggesting immediate withdraw of the Eva and replacement of the control unit block."
"Object approaching!" Hyuga snapped. "It's a-"
He stopped in amazement.
"What?" Misato demanded.
"Jet Alone…?" Hyuga sounded puzzled. "There's no radiation or any sign of nuclear fission within the core, though…wait a moment…let me try another scan…"
Misato glanced at the monitor.
'Asuka, get the hell up already!'
'It hurts…'
Asuka felt like there was a red-hot iron pressing down on her back. She hugged her knees and gasped in pain. All around her, Eva's cockpit displays crackled and hissed with static, and her body was strangely heavy, as if she didn't have enough energy to move it.
"Mama, help me." She implored to the dead metal all around her. "I'm scared."
She tried again to move the Eva. The controls were frozen. Overhead, a myriad of error messages blinked ominously at her.
'Error in the operation system…life support has been reduced to 10% of normal power…Eva set in Gain mode…auto-ejection error…unable to operate the comm. system, 98.2% chance of hardware failure…what's going on?'
Asuka winced as a fresh wave of discomfort raked her body.
'This damn heap of junk's broken…'
Asuka reached for the system log.
'Please; not the central computer, too…'
To her relief, a small screen appeared in front of her, logging the actions of Unit 01. Asuka quickly scanned down the list of fatal system failures and located the problem.
'Heavy impact on the control unit block; TNT explosion, recorded shrapnel damage, massive overload, power supply failure…'
Something wasn't adding up.
"I've been hit with a humongous armor-piercing shell." She thought aloud. "But then, what happened to the A.T. Field?"
"Critical A-10 Nerve Connection failure; rejection has occurred in bio-blocks D-25 through D-51; checklist unable to clear Absolute Borderline; synapses disconnected; motor neurons unable to receive instruction; pilot-machine link is unable to regain Phase-III. System Reset commencing; estimated time remaining: 00:05:30:00" The screen read.
Suddenly, the Eva jolted, and Asuka saw that something was lifting it off of the ground. Terror seized her mind.
'Whatever just disabled my A.T. Field's got me; an Angel? Mama, help me! Shinji? Misato? What the hell's wrong with this thing? Why can't I fight back?'
Shinji felt his palms moisten with sweat as the hulking Jet Alone picked up a completely limp Unit 01. Besides him, the technicians tapped away furiously at their consoles.
"The Eva is completely silent, ma'am." Aoba reported. It'll take another five minutes at the very least to reset the system and restore minimal operational capabilities.
Misato slammed her hand onto the console.
"GOD DAMN IT!" she roared. "What kind of artillery shell can do this to an Eva?"
"A damn good shot," Hyuga said. "It hit right after the A.T. Field went down, and scythed through all of the most important systems. It's too good a shot…"
"You're suspecting an information leak?"
"Yes, ma'am. The Magi were perfectly functional when we found them, but there's no guarantee that nobody's tempered with them before we got in."
Misato gritted her teeth.
"And would Asuka be safe?"
"I don't know; life support's down, and if she's captured…the Plug's cap and the Plug itself ought to hold out against most conventional cutters-"
"No, they won't," Shinji said suddenly. "The emergency exit on the Plug is manually opened from the outside."
Everyone's heads snapped up.
"So-" Aoba began.
"We can't let that thing get away with Unit 01." Misato said grimly. "So I guess I'll have to put away mine and Nerv's pride."
She picked up the phone and dialed JSSDF.
Never in his life had the JSSDF's commander been so pleased.
"Boys, Nerv's begging for help!" he yelled, to wild jeering and cheers on the part of the soldiers in the command center. "So let's show them that you don't need no Eva nor no A.T. Field to win; all you need is hot blood! Deploy the VTOL squadrons into two teams and rescue Nerv's little princess!"
Onboard the second super carrier, the renegade general let out a genuinely amused laugh.
"Such amateurs; haven't they even considered that such a massive weapon as the Jet Alone II might have AA capabilities? Not counting the fact that they divided their little squadron into two separate teams. Nerv did so much better in destroying my entire beachhead fleet."
He plopped a cigar into his mouth.
"No matter; I'll have a little fun with that Eva pilot, that…Soil or something, whatever her name was, and then we'll see who's boss 'round here. Deploy EMP for the entire Tokyo-3 area."
"Aye aye, sir," his first lieutenant said. "Contact the support carrier Lieh Dian; EMP is to be deployed across the entire Tokyo-3 area!"
Across from the super carrier, the Lieh Dian coasted forwards while the super carrier and her maintenance ships fell back. The Lieh Dian's entire flight deck had been cleared and replaced with a gargantuan electromagnetic coil, which was tipped with a large dish. Energy crackled over the coil, and nodes on the dish's edge began to glow as sinister blue sparks raced over the entire apparatus. The skeleton crew of the ship quickly evacuated, rowing with fanatical strength, until they were behind the invisible boundary of the EMP beam's area of effect. Closing his eyes and vainly trying to calm his racing heart, the captain pushed the remote firing button.
The JSSDF's squad leader was surprised when the Jet Alone suddenly crouched down, pulled the Eva out of the water, and wrapped her with its long arms, its pentagonal retracting into the torso, along with the tediously annoying AA batteries. A strange gel oozed from spouts that lifted free of the JA's armor and soon covered both machines.
"Hey, what the hell's going-"
A blinding beam of stark blue energy filled the air, and the man felt crackling plasma tendrils snake through him.
"AH…AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH…AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
In a moment, the world shrunk to a darkness of pain as his overheated eyeballs burst apart, showering the VTOL's controls with liquid that instantly evaporated. Mercifully, the fuel tank and ammunition onboard exploded in an orange fireball tinged with violet electricity.
Maya leapt back from the consol with a terrified scream as its surface came to life with an indeterminable number of coiled sparks. The giant screen flickered and shut down, and everyone's hair stood on end, crackling with static.
"It's EMP!" Aoba exclaimed as his hair buzzed into a gigantic afro. Misato hissed in pain as sparks raced across her metal cross, and Shinji tumbled to the ground. For what seemed like forever, tendrils of energy wormed their way into every nook and crevice, hissing like a bed of vipers. When the EMP field finally subsided, the entirety of Nerv's central command center was on the floor, writhing and twitching in the aftereffects of electrocution.
A single bolt of that strange energy sliced straight through Asuka's heart, and she felt it go entirely haywire. A jagged scream tore out of her mouth, but when she breathed the LCL again, her lungs felt as if they'd been set ablaze by the electricity-laden, highly conductive fluid. Vainly, she tried to beat away the snaking tentacles, but they latched on to every part of her body, encircling her in a venomous embrace and burning her skin. She could not breathe as her long hair shot up and about like arrows, getting into her eyes, her nose, and conducting more of the damned electricity into her A-10 Nerve clips and straight into her brain.
"OH SCHEIßE, IT HURTS!" she howled, bubbles gurgling from her parched throat. Her eyes were wide, their pupils dilated until they were only tiny dots, as she clawed at herself. The entire LCL-flooded Plug was a superconductor for waves after waves of power that sizzled away at the girl's body.
"Somebody, please, just make it stop!"
As if by magic, it did stop. Asuka slumped forwards, unconscious, striking her forehead against the controls. Dark blood stained the faintly phosphorescent LCL, and Asuka thought that she could just make out a delicate hand reaching for her, before everything went blank.
End Stage X