While Unit 04 was normally stored up on the Thunder, for the time being, we'd decided (wisely, in retrospect) that with Zeruel's point of origin unknown, we'd be best off keeping the modified Eva down at Nerv. As such, instead of running to the surface to be teleported up and then ride the barge back down, I simply made myself to my rarely-used locker, splashed myself as I passed the sink, before I slipped into my plug suit, idly wondering about its design, and whether or not the designer ever had to try their creation on.
"I thought I was supposed to do this," Asuka growled as I stepped onto the platform that gave the pilots access to their Entry Plugs. Her glare grew even larger as Shinji and Rei arrived a moment later.
I turned and frowned at her, one leg already inside my Entry Plug. "You got a problem with a little assistance? Not that you really need to know, but your original fight with this one cost Unit 02 its arms and head. If, however, you'd prefer to go it alone…" I trailed off, leaning against the railing like I didn't have a care in the world.
The redhead scowled at me, "fine, but stay out of my way," she said, before disappearing into her Plug.
"Only because you asked so nicely," I muttered, climbing inside my own.
As the startup procedures commenced, I glanced at the numerous technicians bustling around outside, then opened a channel to the bridge of Nerv, "when we're up and running, we should evacuate. If it comes down to a fight in the geofront, I don't want to lose any more people."
Fuyutsuki nodded, while Misato started issuing deployment orders, "Shinji, you're on standby incase it manages to reach us here. Rei, you're deploying to the geofront in case it gets past Asuka and the Sub-Commander. Asuka, we're going to launch you as close as we can, and start running the program. Is your IV in place?"
"IV?" I asked, as I wondered briefly why there was no seatbelt in an Eva.
"It's the only way for us to induce the berserker. It's a soup of adrenaline, dopamine precursors, some short-lived psychotropics, and a couple other chemicals that should help with the process," Ritsuko chimed in, voice-only.
"Right," I mumbled, a moment before Asuka and I were launched to the surface. Tokyo-3 was a mess. Without the replacement radar coverage from the ship being built, the Angel had made it to the city before any warning could be raised. It had taken only a couple minutes to destroy most of the few Angel-defense weapon emplacements remaining within the city before it started its attack on the armor plates that made up the surface of the geofront. As I surveyed the skyline briefly, I sighed softly to myself and made a mental note to have the General take this new damage into consideration.
Zeruel, apparently unconcerned with the two Eva Units that had emerged, continued its assault, the Angel's eyes flashing moments before deceptively powerful explosions ripped into the armor. "How do they taper off like that?" I asked, watching the purple-and-white explosion plume skyward before branching off into a cross that only slowly faded away.
"Who cares?" Asuka said, pulling a pallet rifle from the building beside her and opening fire. The yellow rounds ate the distance between the two figures in the blink of an eye, before they exploded against the Angel's tough hide, no AT-Field visible. It ignored her initial assault, and after emptying an entire magazine into its backside, Asuka cursed in German before pulling a much larger weapon and letting loose with a missile only a touch larger than an AMRAAM. Unlike the ignored pallet bursts, Zeruel's AT-Field burst into existence, the missile having no visible effect as it exploded harmlessly against it.
Zeruel, interrupted in the middle of making an opening large enough to pass into the Geofront through, stopped the assault on the armor, which wasn't going anywhere, and turned, the empty eye-sockets flashing once before the area surrounding Asuka exploded, sending Unit 02 flying.
"Well, that was intelligent," I mumbled, before I fired off a couple blasts from my wrist lasers, all of which impacted the Angel's AT-Field without any visible effect.
"That's a VERY strong AT-Field," Ritsuko mumbled, as Unit 02 flopped to the ground beside me.
"Asuka! Are you alright?" Misato asked, the concern evident in her voice and expression.
"Stupid, piece of crap-" the redhead mumbled as the Red Eva crawled to its feet.
Before her grumbling could get too descriptive, I cut it off, "nothing hurt but her pride." Turning to the chat window I smirked at Asuka, "Well, princess, you got its attention, why don't we show it who owns these streets."
"Shut up," she snapped, rolling her eyes at me as she picked up the discarded missile-launcher and let loose another before rolling away, down an avenue that would bring her in closer to Zeruel. When she got close enough to reach out and slap the thing, she paused, leaning over a moment before her shoulder armor split, revealing a row of holes that launched a number of oversized spikes at the approaching Angel.
The AT-Field flickered into existence, but the spikes, shot from such a close proximity, tore through the field, and after a second of staring, I realized Asuka had managed to neutralize the field. The spikes impacted, sinking in to the leathery-looking exterior, but aside from a couple droplets of ichor, there was no real indication of incapacitating damage. Still, credit where credit is due, I thought, muttering a simple "nice" before a second burst showed the hostile AT-Field back in place.
"It brought it back that fast?" I hear Misato ask.
"No, the Scheißekopf dropped it," Asuka muttered, as she leapt back as another explosion tore apart the ground she'd just been assaulting it from.
"So it took the hit," I stated, before toggling the targeting computer. "Stay back a sec," I said, before I let loose with a concussion missile.
"Not within the city!" Fuyutsuki shouted, a moment before the missile exploded, the warhead inside designed to batter down shields and shake apart large starships. A number of nearby buildings collapsed, and I could see glass shards glittering as they fell from windows half a mile away. After the echoes of the blast subsided, I decided I should probably avoid doing that again unless I really needed to.
"Watch out!" Misato warned, as Zeruel's rather pathetic-looking torso-nubs sprouted arm-like protrusions which unfolded downward much further than arms had any right to do so. Moments later the paper-thin appendages reared up like snakes before shooting forward in an attempt to maim Unit 04.
Before it could hit me, however, I brought forth my own AT-Field, angled so that if would hopefully deflect the incoming weapon. When the arm impacted, the AT-Field actually rang out as it jarred the appendage off course, moments before it withdrew, and began to accelerate towards me again.
"Run out of tricks already?" I asked, as the weapon was deflected a second time. As the other arm shot towards me, I scowled, before I realized a moment too late that the Angel's eyes were glowing.
"Ohshit," I muttered, trying to dive away from the ground I was standing on a moment before it exploded upward. The blast threw Unit 04 further than my leap had meant to take me and an instant before hitting the ground I activated the repulsorlifts, coming to a hovering stop mere meters above the frightened faces of a couple of civilians running to the shelters nearby.
"Damn, this thing gave us no warning," I spat, as I reoriented myself and sped back, thinking on how the delayed Angel alert meant we were probably risking lives with every step we took. Rounding a surprisingly tall skyscraper that turned out to be only 2 of its once four walls, I spotted Asuka in Unit 02 doing her best to avoid the razor-like weapons Zeruel kept launching at her.
"You know, this thing isn't quite as bad as I thought it'd be," I muttered. As if it had heard me, the Angel glanced at me, its entire torso twisting, and suddenly the world outside disappeared in a flash, as the LCL around me transmitted to me a shockingly powerful compression wave, and my inner ear totally gave up trying to keep track of which direction up was.
I shouted something incoherent as warning panels indicated quite a few pieces of armor were shattered, and, had I been paying more attention, I'd have probably noticed a worrisome number weren't just broken, they'd been vaporized in the blast. As the world outside began to resolve itself out of the brilliant white occupying the screens, I realized Unit 04 was laying face down in a small lake in one of Tokyo-3s many parks.
"Look out!" Makoto shrieked, and I turned to look over at the Angel and Asuka just in time to see the Angel's eyes flash, Zeruel looking right at me as Asuka tried to fend off its arms. Again the world exploded into light around me.
"FUCK!" I shouted, as the Entry Plug spun around me, throwing me out of the seat. More warning lights were flashing now, and I hissed in pain as my head made contact with a sharp corner of metal, a moment before there was another flash, and the spinning accelerated again, tossing me back over the chair and down where the Dummy Plug System normally went. Since I'd pretty much destroyed the system, there was a gaping hole there, inside which I found myself crammed. With a wince, I held on to an exposed cross-beam, my left arm burning with either a fracture or a complete break as the spinning LCL tore at my hair and threatened to yank me from the corner I'd wedged myself in.
A loss of sensation gave me pause, and after a disorienting, twist-filled moment, I spotted my A-10 nerve clips sliding away across the floor, a moment before the screens around me flashed again, and I was suddenly wrenched hard to the right, my shoulder popping painfully as I kept a death grip on the metal bar I imagined I could feel bending under the stress, and on the other side of the huge chair, I heard a couple heavy 'thunk's as something big tore loose and began tumbling as well.
A second later there was a loud bang, and suddenly it felt like the whole world was pressing against me, cramming me further into my makeshift hidey-hole, before a final jarring impact shook me free and left the Entry Plug spinning around me before coming to a stop. While it was spinning, however, part of the chair had caught me in the side of the head, and even after the plug stopped rolling and the LCL stopped violently swirling around me, I still felt like I was swimming in stormy seas. It took a minute or two for that to clear before I bothered opening my eyes, realizing belatedly that I couldn't remember shutting them.
"whatthefuckjusthappened," I mumbled, pulling myself back towards the seat. A quick glance showed me that all data from the Eva was nonexistent, and a flashing red light indicated the transponder was happily alerting anyone who cared to know just where my entry plug had landed. Someone had ejected the plug. That, at least, explained the final rolling.
Some of the screens were broken, and the LCL, I realized with a frown, was suddenly beginning to taste funny. Dark tendrils of blood coming from a wound I couldn't see weaved their way through the fluid, and I had to concentrate for a moment before orienting myself to the new layout, as the targeting computer and part of the radar system was on the far side of the Plug, stripped bolts as big as my thumb reaching off towards their missing anchors like dead, silvery fingers.
Turning to the controls for the LCL-tank, I scowled at the Red light indicating a system error before blowing the hatch, the explosive bolts launching the chunk of steel away from the plug, and the LCL poured out onto the grass of the field I'd landed in, sucking me out the opening, and onto the moist ground where I groaned as I coughed up the remaining LCL in my lungs.
Crawling slowly to my feet, I winced at the pain in my right leg, but it didn't shift when I applied weight, so it was likely just a nasty bruise. The area around me lit up as an explosion behind me went off, and I spun, wincing again as my leg protested the movement, just in time to watch Unit 02 crash to the ground, its head wrapped inside the arms of the Angel as it was lifted from the new crater that had formed and slammed back into it, sending up clouds of dust. A moment later, Unit 02 was tossed in my direction, and just as I worried about whether or not I had the concentration to summon an AT-Field strong enough to keep it from squashing me flat, the world faded away, replaced with the Bridge of the Thunder. As I realized I was safe from flying bulkheads, broken glass, and falling Evangelions, my grip on consciousness fled, and I sank to the floor.
Waking up in an infirmary is never fun, and as I thought back to why I might find myself in one, I winced as the memories of being inside an Entry Plug caught in what felt like a category five tornado came rushing back.
Of course, at that moment Makoto and Nabiki came rushing in, the heavy metal doors barely getting out of Makoto's way as she barreled across the room to envelop me in a bone-crushing hug. I held back a yelp as multiple bruises protested at the sudden pressure, before feebly returning the hug.
"I was so worried when you stopped responding, don't you ever do that to me again!" she cried, unwilling to let me go. Considering how bad it felt from inside, I couldn't really blame her. From their point of view, it must have looked fairly nasty, if the bandages I was wearing had anything to say about it.
"You gave us quite a scare," Nabiki said, smiling at me, though she looked a little rough around the edges as well.
"You shoulda seen the other guy," I quipped, smirking back at her. When she didn't respond, my smile faltered, then fell away as Makoto squeezed me tighter again. "We did win, didn't we?" I asked, worried. If Zeruel had reached Central Dogma and started Third Impact while I was asleep…
"We won, in the sense that the Fourteenth was destroyed," Nabiki stated, totally serious.
"'But…'" I prompted, knowing I wasn't going to like what they were going to say. When no answer was forthcoming, and I felt cool tears beginning to soak my shirt, I sighed in resigned defeat. "Who'd we lose?" I asked, looking down at the sheets covering me.
"I think," Nabiki said after a moment of silence, "that we should head down for the debriefing. It's hard-"
"Who. Died." I growled, unhappy with the world right now. I didn't feel like playing the waiting game.
"Asuka," Makoto whispered, looking up at me with a trail of tears marching down her face, "we lost Asuka."
"Asuka," I said softly, somewhat surprised. Though I had assumed it was a pilot, I wouldn't have guessed the Redhead would have lost. Then I realized she had said "lost" and not that the Pilot had died.
"Lost inside Unit 02? Because we might be able to-" I started, before Nabiki shook her head and motioned to a set of clothes hung on a rack nearby.
"We have to get to the briefing, and avoid your doctors... You need to know… But we have to go now," she said, and I finally realized both Makoto and Nabiki were really dressed up, and I began to fear that maybe it was worse than I had thought.
Nodding wordlessly, I quickly changed in the corner of the room. Pulling on the shirts with Makoto's help because one arm was stuck in a sling, and a moment later, SHODAN transported us down to NERV, where we slowly made our way to the oversized meeting room.
As the doors shut, I looked around the table at the people present, all of whom seemed to be doing the same. I was wearing the blue-on-black outfit I preferred to wear when annoyed at the world, the dark cloth pressed and adorned by some well-meaning Tailor aboard the Thunder at some point so that it looked almost like a uniform. With almost everyone present dressed officially, I was glad for the modifications, and swept my gaze over the others as I sat down in one of the chairs that had apparently been reserved for me.
To my immediate right was Makoto, who held my hand tightly. She was wearing a green dress uniform and absently spun her henshin stick in her fingers as we waited to begin.
To her right sat Nabiki, dressed in her Imperial Intelligence Ubiqtorate uniform. The red tunic was a far cry from the casual t-shirts and jeans she typically wore around Nerv and the Thunder.
Next was Fuyutsuki, his Nerv uniform similar to Nabiki's, though the insignia and cut was different enough to notice after a glance.
Beside him sat Major Katsuragi, her uniform surprisingly well-pressed, though her eyes were red and puffy, indicating she'd had a rough night. Unsure how I should feel about that, I turned to look at Kaji, who's chair was moved right next to hers' as he gently patted her back. Surprised to see him back down on the ground, I shrugged it off, hoping to get an explanation during the briefing, before moving on to the next person.
After Kaji came Dr. Akagi, who -as always -was wearing her white lab coat over a blue dress shirt that looked hastily thrown on.
Lieutenant Ibuki was standing to her right, a cart loaded with folders and even a couple datapads occupying her attention as she pulled papers from various locations seemingly at random. Next to her was Lieutenant Aoba, looking dour as usual, and beside him sat Hyuuga, who was fidgeting restlessly as we continued to wait.
The three bridge crewmembers were wearing their usual uniforms, but unlike the pristine tan and whites they normally sported, the three looked like they'd been coated in dust, and a second, closer look revealed red eyes on all three as well as the Doctor, indicating a probable all-nighter. Thinking back to one of the detours we'd taken to get here, I wondered if that dust was more than just a night of hard work in a forgotten corner of the facility.
Finally, Shinji and Rei sat side-by side, as far away from everyone else as they could, and I suppressed a wince as I contemplated the implications there. If they were upset, I might very well have to wipe away a portion of Japan to resolve the conflicts, which would not endear me to anyone seated at the table. Like the doctor and me, the two pilots weren't wearing official uniforms, both instead opting to wear their school cloths, though even Rei's typically pressed dress looked a little crumpled.
"Now that we're all here, I suppose we ought to begin with the basics," Fuyutsuki intoned, drawing everyone's attention. When nobody spoke, he nodded once, before continuing, "yesterday morning, at approximately 1130, the Fourteenth Angel, Zeruel, appeared on Nerv's damaged Radar screen, and proceeded to assault Tokyo-3 with the intention of instigating Third Impact."
The large screens around the room showed some of the initial attack, Zeruel's explosive blasts laying waste to multiple weapon emplacements, much as I remembered. Finally, Units 02 and 04 emerged, and begun to attack.
"Unit's 02 and 04 closed in to sortie, while Unit 00 stayed in the Geofront to delay if the initial attack failed, and Unit 01 stayed within headquarters to serve as backup," the old man said, as the screens changed to display the deployed units in the damaged city, 00 waiting in a grassy field of the Geofront, and 01 still in its cage, waiting to be moved to a lift for deployment.
"The initial plan was to instigate a berserker state in Unit 02, which I'll let Dr. Akagi detail."
"While the details are rather technical, suffice it to say that the plan was plausible on paper, but proved harder to implement under the circumstances of the battle. Unit 02's pilot was having difficulty holding her concentration at a level capable of accepting the state, and Unit 02 was surprisingly unresponsive to some of the commands sent to it from here," the doctor explained. The Screens showed a mess of charts, finally stopping on a pair of squiggling lines that moved rapidly, like a seismometer.
"As you can see, the top line, representing Unit 02, rarely reached an impulse state consecutively with the pilot. The dips indicate the few instances it did, but note that only one of them corresponds with a rise in Asuka's mental state to the point of intersection."
"What does it mean," Misato growled, earning a glare from the Doctor before she continued, "only when the two lines overlap could we have performed the operation. The one time we got a chance, Unit 04 was being destroyed, and even the Magi had shifted its priorities to monitoring the Sub-Commander's status. I regret to say we all missed that window."
"Not that I'm ungrateful, but why would the Magi care about me, more than the mission?" I asked with a frown I hate to think it was my fault, and as the Doctor spoke, I realized with a cringe that, in a way, it had been.
"One of your first decisions after revising our plans was to place a priority on the lives of our Pilots. The Magi interpret that to mean you, as well."
"You make that sound like your accusing him of the failure!" Makoto spat at the doctor.
Ritsuko took it in stride, shaking her head as she elaborated, "the decision was made by almost everyone here, yourself included, if you recall. SHODAN helped me carry out the changes to the code, so I'd also have to accept responsibility."
"Getting back on track," Fuyutsuki interrupted, drawing everyone's attention, "how is Unit 04?" The question that would have earned the majority of my interest if I hadn't been busy staring at the screen as Zeruel brutally thrashed the Green-and-black-armored Evangelion, the cameras switching angles as dust clouds obscured the destruction, before finally a piece of armor exploded away, and a white object shot free, arcing across the sky before falling to the ground and rolling across a field in a nearby park.
When I realized the room was staring at me, I shook my head to drive the images as far from my mind as I could, "I'm sorry. What?"
"Unit 04 is heavily damaged. Because we're down parts, we've had to salvage what we could, and only with some of the medical technology you brought down did we manage to save the removed limb. I think you, the Pilot, should describe the fight from your viewpoint before I continue," Dr. Akagi repeated, looking at me.
"Yeah, I underestimated Zeruel's ability to attack in quick succession, or multiple targets at once. Until it began bouncing me around, the Angel had only shown the ability to do one thing at a time, with a relatively noticeable pause between each successive attack. The blast that hit me took me by surprise, and once I was hit, I couldn't do much more than hold on for my life," I explained.
A second later, the screen shifted to display the inside of my entry plug, which began shaking as it recorded me getting tossed out of the seat and into a console, then the shaking worsened, and the me on-screen screamed while the plug spun around her. Having experienced it all, I sighed at the video's inability to convey the confusion and disorientation of being flung around inside the Plug.
"As you can see, the Pilot was torn from his chair and incapable of doing much more than hold on and stay conscious before and after the ejection command had been issued," Ritsuko said as the playback continued. I winced as I watched the plug itself jolt hard, and pieces of equipment weighing a good hundred pounds or more were wrenched free from their mounts and flew off in seemingly random directions. Finally, Ritsuko nodded to herself as the screen showed me apparently spinning in the center of the plug as it rolled across the field after shooting away from the falling Eva at speed.
"Following the loss of Unit 04, Unit 02 was ordered to stand down, as 04's progressive knife, in a regrettable accident," she stressed this while staring directly at me, and I nodded, "fell, severing Unit 02's Umbilical cord," Dr. Akagi explained, as the screen showed the free-falling blade as it managed to sever most of the cord.
"Ah, fuck," I mumbled, as Makoto's squeezed my hand reassuringly.
"After the hostile actions of Unit 02 ceased, the Fourteenth renewed its assault on Nerv, blowing an opening into the Geofront, where it engaged Rei in Unit 00." As the Doctor continued, I tuned her out, watching the video taken after I'd collapsed and listening to the recordings of everyone's voices as the battle continued rolling.
"Zeruel is about to descend into the Geofront. Now that Units 02 and 04 are incapacitated, it has resumed its forced-entry, and is now lowering itself to the Geofront floor," SHODAN explained, the camera angle switching to one within the Geofront, where Zeruel dropped through the final layer of protective armor to be greeted with a missile to the face.
Below, Rei had a handful of weapons laid out around her, all within easy reach as she tossed the oversized missile-launcher away and picked up another weapon just a little too late. The missile's blast had been massive, but as the smoke and flame cleared, the familiar orange concentric hexagons were visible between Rei and the Angel, the protective screen absorbing all the power the missile had to offer.
"AT-Field has barely budged," Lieutenant Ibuki stated.
"Worry about Unit 02, not the fight!" Misato spat, a moment before Zeruel's arms shot forth. Like I had, Rei brought up her AT-Field, but instead of positioning it at an angle, she set it up perpendicular to the incoming arm's path. The arm rebounded off the Field, withdrawing for a moment before both arms sped forward together.
Unit 00's AT-Field held for a moment, before tearing, the visible Field shattering into nothingness as the arms rushed the Evangelion, which tried to dive aside at the last moment.
"Rei!" Misato shouted, as on of Unit 00's arms went flying in the opposite direction of the unit itself. Over the communications channel I heard the normally quiet girl scream, a moment before she clamped down on it, and straightened Unit 00 up to fight again.
Unfortunately, Zeruel had moved in, and by the time Rei was aware, those damnable arms were coming in again, and Rei didn't have time to do much of anything before the Blue unit was impaled through the stomach, the thin weapon emerging from Unit 00's back coated in the Eva's blood. The two stayed that way for a moment, before the Angel withdrew its weapon, sending Unit 00 limply tumbling to the ground.
"Cut the Nerve Link!" Misato shouted, as Zeruel raised its weapon-arms with obvious intent. A moment later, 00's signal went silent, and the Angel turned towards the Pyramid housing HQ as the decapitated form of Unit 00 lay beaten under the faux-sun of the geofront.
I winced as onscreen, a section of the structure exploded, and with another flash of its hollow eyes, a second explosion tore away multiple layers of the facility, exposing corridors leading off into darkness and twisting catwalks and ducts that the cameras had trouble picking up through the dust. A third explosion widened the hole considerably, and a forth occurred so deep within the facility that the only thing the camera was able to pick up was the rain of debris launched out into the lake Zeruel currently hovered over.
"Makoto? Katsuragi? Somebody talk to me," Nabiki growled, hearing the crashes and cries coming through the speakers from the bridge of Nerv. Apparently, she'd been watching everything like I was, from the video pickups, after I'd collapsed.
"Oh, god," I heard Ritsuko mumbled, as the Angel moved towards the opening it had made for itself. Suddenly, a purple figure shot out of the hole, tackling Zeruel before rearing back and delivering a powerful punch that sent the thing's upper torso deeper into the ground. Through the dust, I could just make out the multiple-tiered-layout of the Operational bridge of Nerv, an Eva-sized hole in the wall separating it from the outside indicating how close everyone in Nerv had come to being blown away.
"Get out of there; I have to get it to the lifts through the bridge!" Shinji shouted, Driving Unit 01's knee into the Angel once more before kicking free of the Angel and tossing Zeruel towards Nerv.
"How did you-" Misato started.
"No time!" Shinji said, cutting the Major off, "I don't have much power left!"
I nodded at the brush-off; the cordless Unit 01 onscreen going all out meant it had under a minute left of full operational power. A moment later both Unit 01 and the Angel had disappeared back into the hole Zeruel had blown into HQ, and I heard Shinji shout out "Katsuragi!"
Frowning at the usage of her last name, I watched as a separate display indicated one of the lifts had taken off, diverted to emerge somewhere near Asuka's Unit 02.
"Asuka! Listen to me, Misato… Misato lied to us… she… we're… Unit 02 is your mom," he finally said, ending as Eva and Angel emerged from the ground. Unlike a properly restrained Evangelion, the two were launched an additional 100 or so feet into the air before coming down hard, thankfully on a building that had already been destroyed earlier.
"Oh, crap," I whispered, as the recording continued. I suddenly began to understand everyone's haggard looks.
"I-" Asuka started, but Ritsuko interrupted her, "Asuka, now is not the time, you have to concentrate!"
"I can't! I just... is Shinji right?" She asked, sounding much more like the 14-year-old she was.
"It's not important right now," Misato shouted, sounding both worried and really pissed off. I frowned and shot the Major a glance, recognizing the look on her tear-streaked face as one of understanding. She'd just blown it with Asuka with that line, and as the recording continued, it proved damnably true.
"I didn't ask you, bitch!" Asuka snarled, harshly enough to make even the people who'd heard it occur live wince at the venom apparent in her voice.
"Asuka; Shinji is correct," A new voice said, one I didn't immediately recognize. The Pilot of Unit 02, however, did.
"Kaji? But… why? Why didn't she- Why didn't you- anybody tell me?" Asuka whispered, barely audible over the sounds of Unit 01 still trying to keep away from Zeruel's weapons. Tearing my gaze from the monitors to pin Kaji with a glance, he nodded towards Nabiki, who waved at me low over the table to indicate that it had been taken care of. Diverting my attention back to the screen, I watched as one of the few surviving cameras in Nerv picked up Misato's dust-covered form looking torn as she spoke.
"I knew… I thought… that you two didn't need to know," Misato replied in a voice barely as loud as Asuka's had been.
There was silence, punctuated only by the sounds of Shinji fighting, before Asuka said something too quiet for anyone to hear.
"Asuka?" Misato said, quietly.
"I hate you." Asuka said, in a voice dead of all emotion.
"Asuka!" Shinji shouted, drawing everyone's attention as Unit 01 came to a screeching halt. Warning whistles and that inevitably dreaded tone that indicated a dead battery reverberated around the meeting room as the speakers played back the final moments of Unit 01's activity, before all attention was diverted back to the pilot of Unit 02 when she spoke again.
"I hate you," the redhead said again, this time sounding surer of herself.
"Oh shit," I heard Ritsuko mumble, moments before Unit 02's eyes flared to life. Lieutenant Ibuki started to shout something, but camera showed Dr. Akagi wave her to silence with a glare, as Asuka continued.
"I hate Misato," the Second Children said as her EVA crawled to its feet, "for lying to me."
"I hate Kaji," she continued, pulling her progressive knife from a building it had gotten lodged into, "for abandoning me."
Turning to look at the Angel, who was currently slamming Unit 01 into the ground much like it had done with Asuka earlier, "I hate Shinji for never giving me…" She trailed off, before taking off at a sprint that literally tore up the ground beneath her.
"But most of all: I," she leaped, Progressive Knife held before her, "hate," with a crunch, she landed, the AT-Field of the Angel flaring, a moment before it was brutally torn away by the outstretched knife and Unit 02's counter-AT-Field, "MY LIFE!" She screamed, as Unit 02 finally reared back and let loose a clawed fist that tore into Zeruel's tough body like it was tissue paper.
"JUST DIE! I WANT YOU TO DIE!" she screeched, as she tore a chunk of the Angel free and flung it away before reaching in for more.
"Just die! I want you to die," she stated factually, as one of the Angel's arms shot towards Unit 02's head. Without even seeming to consciously acknowledge it, she backhanded the appendage, the limb turning black before falling free of the Angel and dissolving into nothingness in a matter of seconds.
"justdie, Iwantyoutodie," she repeated, softly, as she pulled free the bone-like mask that made up Zeruel's face and crushed it in her fist, before tossing it away like the other pieces she'd torn free.
"Just die… I want… to die," she whispered, the radio barely picking it up as she reached out and stroked the Angel's exposed core once, almost lovingly, before grasping it firmly and tearing it free.
"Momma," she said softly, clutching the deceased Angel's core to her chest as if it were the most precious thing in the world. "I'm so sorry, momma."
Unit 02 slowed its movements, and one arm fell slowly to its side a moment before the other followed, the blood red core falling to the ground with a dull thud as the Red Eva hunched forward, like a puppet with its strings cut.
"Goodbye, everyone," Asuka whispered, before all signs from her Entry plug died.
------
Yeah, that was tough to write. After I finsished the initial version, I had to go for a walk. Hopefully it's as emotional for you readers as it was for me to write. I hadn't really intended to do this originally, but then, stories have a way of growing in new directions as you write. Or they do for me, in any case.
Thanks to Parker for some last minute modifications that I definately needed to make, and to Nate for taking some heavy bounces when I threw ideas out him.
This chapter was short, but I couldn't really write more without feeling like I was trying to gloss over that ending... as such, I'll obviously be finishing off the debriefing next chapter, and we'll see what kind of ramifications everything that happened has had or is going to have on Nerv. Hopefully, I can punch out the next chapter by Wednesday, at the latest.