Unit-00 peeked its rifle around the next corner and patiently waited for a few moments of no movement to fully step into the next hallway. The arena Major Katsuragi had chosen for the duels was filled with similar long and intersecting corridors and had a large area of open space in the middle that Rei had been making her way towards, slowly and carefully so as to not leave herself exposed to any attacks. Her choice of armaments had been the most versatile she could think of from among the myriad of options, with a pallet rifle for general combat and a progressive naginata for close quarters, and although the First Child rued the fact that the flat nature of the battlefield left her no choice but to forego her preference for sniper tactics, the bluenette had not dwelled on that problem too long.
"Sector I-7," Rei whispered to herself, moving forward to start her methodical sweep of the next area. "No contact yet."
And just as she was turning around from one of the corners...
...she caught a glimpse of a large rocket heading her way.
Unit-00 extended its AT-Field and the warhead harmlessly detonated on contact, releasing a ball of fire and filling the hallway with black smoke. Rei fired a retaliatory barrage through the dark wall and began a steady retreat for breathing room, watching and listening for any signs of enemy movement indicated by her instruments. She made sure to stay far from any intersections, so that the only venues of approach would be either in front or behind her, and then she waited.
Rei Ayanami was nothing if not patient, she would lie in wait for her opponent to make a mistake, rather than risk one of her own. She was confident about her chances of getting the upper hand on either of her more impatient teammates that way.
It took minutes, but finally her sensors caught the sound of movement to her eleven o'clock, running towards her. Getting ready on the trigger, the First Child listened closely, the heavy steps coming closer and closer until they veered into a different direction and began to run through the hallway to her left.
'I see, she plans to circle around and strike at my back,' the First Child deduced, shifting the EVA around to set her weapon's sights in the other direction. 'That won't-'
The steps suddenly stopped, Unit-00's sensors informing its pilot that their last known position was just to her right. Rei turned her eyes to look at the wall...
...and then, without warning, the demonic visage of Unit-01 burst from the surface.
'Through the wall?!'
"There you are! I've been looking for you, Bluebird!" Mari happily shouted, charging through the hole and missing with her progressive knife by a hair's breadth. "I was starting to get bored, you know!"
Rei's unspoken response was another retreating barrage that met Unit-01's AT-Field, keeping it pinned for the second she needed to holster the pallet rifle and reach for her naginata. Not a moment too soon, sparks beginning to fly as Mari charged again and the two weapons clashed against one another.
"I'm getting the hang of this!" the Fifth Child cheered, deflecting a thrust and weaving past the following slash to answer with a strike of her own, cutting through Unit-00's wrist armour.
But Rei didn't allow the small sting in her left arm to deter her. Continuing to step back against her opponent's furious charges and making the most of her weapon's range advantage, the First Child maintained the naginata between them until the number of wounds she inflicted started to outnumber those she received. It was enough to eventually give the gleeful Fifth Child pause, her titan's armour cracked and torn open in many places even if no critical damage had yet been inflicted.
And then, Unit-01 took out a detonator.
"Hehe..." Mari grinned, pushing the button in the device. "Gotcha!"
A high-pitched beeping noise brought Rei's attention to the wall an instant before it exploded, the explosive charge that had been planted there doing minimal damage to her EVA but blinding the First Child and making her shield her face on instinct for just a few moments.
But a second's opening was all the time that Mari needed. In a flash, she had rushed over, snapped the shaft of Rei's naginata in half and punched the disoriented Unit-00 in the face.
"ATATATATATATATATATATA!" Mari yelled as Unit-01 continued its onslaught, tens of punches striking the blue titan all over its body. "HIYA!"
A powerful kick to the chest sent Unit-00 flying into the centre of the arena. It hit the ground with a heavy crash and slid to a full stop, but its pilot pushed through her daze and regained her bearings with surprising efficiency.
Off in the distance, about two hundred metres away and through all the warning screens clogging her HUD, Rei saw Unit-01 slowly making its way towards her. The Fifth Child was taking her time, probably thinking that with all the damage it had sustained there was little, if anything, that the blue cyclops could do to oppose her. And she wasn't wrong, for the most part.
But Rei Ayanami still had a pallet rifle, a working targeting computer and an iron will. Unit-00 held its weapon in a one-handed grip and aimed the barrel at the purple Evangelion...
...and it was then she noticed a second detonator in its other hand.
"Nice fight, Bluebird, but..." Mari's face suddenly appeared in Rei's vision, her voice then turning dramatically deep. "...You're already dead."
With a final push, a hundred more beeps went off all around Unit-00.
-O]|[O-
"...Ouch," Asuka winced as she watched the smoke disappear, the training arena rebuilding for the second round. "Good thing the damage feedback is dampened."
"Hm? You said something, Asuka?"
"I was... wondering why Wondergirl didn't push up faster," Asuka quickly covered up her words with a shake of her head. "I mean, she has the better synch-ratio and far more combat experience!"
"Rei has always been the cautious type. It's not in her nature to charge forward."
"I know that, but she gave Glasses all the time in the world to get ready! She even set up a bed of explosives and came up with a way to bring Unit-00 to it, for God's sake!" the Second Child exclaimed, throwing her arms in the air. "What's the use in being careful if you're going to throw every other advantage away?"
"Agreed," Misato nodded, making Asuka blink in surprise. She wasn't used to having her criticisms of her teammates taken into account. "Guess someone will have to teach Rei about what she's doing wrong, right?"
"I suppose I-" Asuka began to concur, before she caught herself with a frown. "...Wait, isn't that your job?"
"Not since I grabbed myself a cute assistant!" Misato cheerfully replied, adding a wink for good measure. A report from her side then caught her attention. "Speaking of, Rei's signalling that she's ready for round two. What about you, Asuka?"
The Second Child grinned at the unnecessary question, she had been itching to get into the fight herself and the First Child being her first opponent only made things better. She would make sure to make Ayanami pay for wasting the better part of her last thirty minutes.
Yes, Wondergirl would be easy. If anything, it was Makinami's newfound resourcefulness that could perhaps prove a challenge.
Asuka wasn't worried, though. She didn't plan on giving the Fifth Child half an hour to prepare, after all.
"Let's rock."
-O]|[O-
Just as the Second Child had expected, Rei Ayanami didn't prove to be much of a test of her abilities. The First Child had learned from her previous skirmish, admittedly, complementing her fancy for ambushes and long range combat with some of the explosive surprises that Mari had used against her, but the duel had been as good as over the moment Asuka managed to figure out a route through Rei's traps and engage her in hand to hand combat, her superior experience and synch-ratio carrying her through everything else.
Even when hopelessly outmatched, however, the First had fought to the bitter end against her, just as she had against Mari. Asuka could respect that. While she was feeling generous the Second Child would also mention that Shinji's extra eyes had maybe helped a little bit during the duel too.
Not too much, though; Asuka was sure she would have noticed the final trap Rei had set up for her before rushing into it, after all.
"Gee, thanks."
'Shut it, Third. I need to focus here.'
Asuka heard a slightly miffed grunt come out of her 'co-pilot' but resolved to ignore it, preferring to keep her attention on the many corners of the arena. Her duel with Mari had barely started and the Fifth Child had already surprised her with an open communication telling her to meet in the middle of the arena to fight, no strings attached, probably knowing that Asuka wouldn't be willing to back down from an official challenge.
Of course, she had accepted. Nevertheless, Asuka wasn't foolish enough to take the girl at her word and leave her back exposed to a likely ambush, hence her caution as she made her way to the centre. It paid to be careful in the face of a possible trap, even if, admittedly, it wouldn't have been nearly as elaborate as the one Makinami had pulled off on Rei.
But Asuka's prudence proved ultimately pointless when she reached the clearing without incident: as promised, Unit-01 was there, in the middle of the central area, arms crossed and almost begging to be shot. She was making herself such an easy target, in fact, that the thought of teaching a lesson to the Fifth Child right then and there with a well-placed strike briefly passed through Asuka's mind. Let Mari know in no uncertain terms that, while in the battlefield, her usual bullshit would have no place in her squad.
In the end, however, Asuka's pride as a Pilot triumphed over her still wanting leadership and the redhead stepped out into the open.
"Hey there, Princess!" the purple robot happily waved in Unit-02's direction once she spotted her. "Took your sweet time getting here, didn't you?"
Asuka's finger itched over the trigger a second time.
"Excuse me for not being as blindly trusting as some others I could mention," she shot back with a tired groan. "Where does this come from, anyway?"
"Eeeh? I thought you didn't want to waste any time. You don't like my idea?"
"Well, I am not against it, but..." Asuka opened up a second channel, Major Katsuragi's serious face floating in the LCL. "You okay with this, Misato? We're probably breaking a lot of unspoken rules, aren't we?"
"I won't say I'm happy with this approach, but it's true that I didn't say anything about what you could or couldn't do in this exercise, so..." Misato shook her head with a sigh. "I guess it should still serve some of its purpose, anyway. You can have some fun if you want to."
"Great!" Mari's cheer came from the other side of the HUD. "Thanks, Boss!"
Asuka saw Misato raise an eyebrow at the last remark before she muttered something that sounded very much like 'disciplinary actions', her face vanishing from the entry-plug soon after.
"Alright! You ready, Princess?" the Fifth Child's mouth twisted into a feral grin, unsuspecting of what would likely befall her in the future. "My moves are still a bit on the sluggish side, but I think I can make this fun for the both of us!"
"I sure hope you can back all that talk," the Second shot back, switching her pistol for a far more menacing progressive axe. "Where is your weapon, for starters?"
"Didn't bring any."
"Say what?" Asuka's eyes narrowed at the implication. "You think you can take me with just a prog-knife?"
"Nope!" Mari proudly replied, dropping into a fighting stance. "I'm going to fight you with my fists!"
Asuka found herself blinking in surprise at the outrageous claim. Frowning, she looked at the massive axe in her grip, then at Unit-01, then at her weapon again.
"...And here I thought you couldn't be any more stupid."
"Hey! I'll have you know that my martial arts trainer back in Beijing said I was his most prized and talented pupil!" Mari protested with a childish pout. "And you don't get praise that easily from someone that's been a cook, a detective and a race driver! He was a funny guy to boot!"
"You know what? Let's just get this over with," Asuka concluded, getting her weapon ready. "You're giving me a headache."
-O]|[O-
"You can say that again," Ace grumbled, focusing on the screen. Clearly, she wanted to be at the helm for the fight. "Would it kill her to shut up for two minutes?"
Shinji, wisely deciding to keep his remark about pots and kettles to himself, inclined his head in a manner that could have been taken as agreement but that truly served to conceal the roll of his eyes.
"What's the plan?"
"Plan, what plan?" the Pilot replied with a scoff. "I've got a massive axe, she doesn't. I'm going to have her on her back in five seconds flat!"
And so Unit-02's weapon soared through the air into an overhead swing, Unit-01 easily sidestepping the strike only to find itself needing to dodge a thrust of the axe's edge. A combination of slashes and strikes followed, Asuka dancing with the momentum of her weapon as she tried to land a solid hit on her opponent. But Mari always seemed to step away or parry at the last moment, turning what could have been a bloody mess of a strike into a glancing blow at best and even managing to fight back against Unit-02 at times, albeit with as lacking success as the crimson titan.
A well-timed kick from Unit-01 forced Ace to step back and reassess the situation.
"...Ten seconds."
But ten seconds turned into thirty, then into a minute and so on, until the duel had continued for the better part of five minutes. Several blows were exchanged but none proved decisive, even if Unit-01 certainly suffered the worst part of the damage throughout the skirmish. Nevertheless, its movements remained almost as fluid as they had been at the beginning.
Much to the frustration of a certain Pilot.
"How the hell is she moving like that with her synch-ratio?!"
Shinji winced at the words. Having both Ace and Asuka roar the same question at the same time was far too much for his poor ears to take.
"I can help too, if you want?" he asked once the ringing had stopped.
"Pfft, as if I could need your help," the Pilot growled through gritted teeth. "Fine, no more games! Watch and learn from a true professional, Third!"
Without warning, Unit-02 charged forward and shoulder tackled her opponent, Mari proving just a second too late on the controls to dodge. Taking the chance offered by the unbalanced Unit-01, Asuka spun her EVA around and caught the purple giant's feet on the edge of her axe, lopping off the left and severely damaging the right. Without support, Unit-01 crashed on its back, the edge of Asuka's axe following it until it came to rest harmlessly just on top of its chest.
Unit-01 raised its hand in surrender and one of Mari's disappointed quips reached their ears. Just as she had claimed, Ace's last move had indeed won the duel in five seconds flat, even if it had come a few minutes later than she had initially envisioned.
"You did it!" Shinji exclaimed, failing to hide his shock. He was quick to realise his mistake, though, and braced himself for one of Ace's usual tirades.
But it didn't come. Shinji turned to find the Pilot frowning at the screen, something clearly on her mind.
"Is something the matter?" Maisie asked her from the other side, faster than the young man could.
"Yeah…" the Aspect crossed her arms and closed her eyes, deep in thought. "…That shouldn't have been so easy."
"What do you mean?"
"I wasn't planning on the tackle to connect. I mean, she's been dodging harder stuff than that all this time so..." Ace trailed off, trying to find a reason one last time before she asked the obvious question. "Why didn't she dodge that?"
"Perhaps the amount of damage she had already sustained made evading your strike harder than you imagine?"
Ace looked sideways at Maisie, her mouth a thin line. She was clearly not convinced.
"...Maybe," she ultimately shrugged with a sigh. "Well, whatever, it's probably not worth worrying about.
"So, what did you think of that?!" Ace quickly turned to Shinji. "Told you I would beat her without breaking a sweat!"
The young man didn't know what to make of her grin. Ace was obviously ecstatic about her victory and willing to share it, but that very same person had also not given him the time of day during the entire morning, so Shinji felt his confusion was more than justified enough.
"Sure... you did?"
"'Sure you did...', he says. Wrong!" Ace mocked the Third Child's answer before she corrected him with her usual method: a flick against Shinji's forehead. "It's 'of course I did!'. Don't forget who you're talking to, Third! The one and only best damn EVA Pilot in the world! One that maybe will even let you help at some point, if she's feeling generous! I mean, we don't want you getting rusty yourself and-"
It was at that point that Ace appeared to remember that she was still supposed to be angry at him. Or rather, not at him, but at Asuka. Shinji was just getting the silent treatment by association.
"Actually, forget that," the Pilot sat back down and turned away from him with a scoff. "You'll just screw up somehow."
And so, Ace continued to busy herself with her console, getting ready for the big event of the day. She summoned records of the disastrous large scale simulation from the day before, the one that had been designed to improve the teamwork of the three Pilots, and began to avidly analyse them in search of even the slightest mistake. Or so she made it appear, since Shinji knew that the reality of it was that he had been designated 'persona non grata' once more.
The Third Child turned towards Asuka for support, but his assistant merely offered a careless shrug. It was so, then, with a deep and tired groan, that Shinji Ikari resolved to try his hand at getting Asuka to speak with Doctor Akagi about his condition at some point during the day.
'Here's to hoping I'll catch her in a good mood if Misato's test goes well today.'
-O]|[O-
"Asuka! Another one coming from the left!"
'I saw it already, Third!' the Second Child growled as she cleaved the designated enemy in half. 'Why don't you just sit tight in there and stop back seating me?'
"Because four eyes are better than two?" Shinji replied with a faint hint of irritation. "Besides, I've been 'just watching' for two hours straight. It's starting to get boring."
'Boring, eh? Not good enough for you, so you thought you'd lend a hand?' Asuka growled back, checking the area for her next target. 'Thank God the Invincible Shinji-sama decided to help us! Clearly, we're too useless to beat Misato's stupid test without him around.'
"That's not what I meant and you know it."
The Second Child flinched slightly at the accusation, knowing in the back of her mind that the Shinji was right. In her defence, though, two hours and fifteen attempts at doing the same thing over and over with only minor improvements to show for it had left her somewhat irritable.
But again, and for once, that wasn't Shinji's fault. It was no one's fault, really, just Misato's training regime being plain unfair by design, which made the Second Child's preferred method of stress relief somewhat ineffective.
'Fine, whatever,' Asuka eventually relented, offering something that vaguely resembled an olive branch. 'Keep talking if you want, but don't tell me what to do.'
Eyes then darting at an enemy lock signal that had just appeared in her HUD, Asuka quickly rushed forward and sought cover behind a ruined building, two large missiles impacting the other side and exploding in a blazing inferno not a second after. Unit-02 reached for the pistol that served as its secondary weapon and aimed it at the crossroads to its right, just in time to greet an enemy charging around the corner with a bullet to the head, the robot immediately crumpling into a heap on the floor.
The attackers Misato had conjured for the simulation were akin to their EVAs, but far more artificial-looking in their design: their surfaces were flat and the edges of their armour full of angles, giving them an almost polygonal look that wouldn't have been amiss on a mass-produced version of their robots that looked to minimize production costs. The truth of their design had nothing to do with money, however, their simplicity purely meant as a means to easily tell friend from foe and reduce the processing workload on the MAGI.
But despite their looks, they were still every bit as lethal as their own units, even if their approach to combat favoured the basics. A flaw that the trio had been forced to take full advantage of as a way of combating their numerical disadvantage, three-to-one odds at the best of times, and that had led them to a measure of success once they had learned how to properly exploit it.
That all changed when the assaults began to be led by a copy of one of their EVAs, selected at random and with an AI tailor-made for them from the information the MAGI had on each Pilot's fighting style. Unit-02 would recklessly lead the charge of its wave and be suicidally aggressive in its approach, looking to cause as much damage as possible before going down, while Unit-00 would be content to sit at the back of the pack and use the lesser troops as a shield while it shot at any exposed or engaged enemies. Unit-01, loaded with the combat data of Shinji Ikari, served as a middle ground between the two extremes, with the added possibility of the Evangelion randomly going berserk when heavily damaged.
All three of the 'Elites', as Asuka took to calling them, were a significant threat on their own and required different tactics to put down, but their real danger lay in how they altered the otherwise unremarkable strategies of the mob below them, making them far more cunning or violent to suit the situation and forcing the girls to adapt their nascent teamwork time and time again, to usually lacking results.
But they had persevered, and at the fifteenth attempt had made it farther than any other try before. Their EVAs were bloodied, battered, low on ammunition and Asuka would wring Mari's neck if she made another one of her witty and out of place comments, but through all of that, the Second Child felt as if she could almost see the finish line.
"Enemy movement in my quadrant. I'm also receiving sniper fire from the enemy Unit-00," Rei reported over the radio, tasked with defending the main objective, a virtual recreation of the NERV HQ pyramid, from any enemy flankers that slipped past Units 01 and 02. "Need support."
"Gotcha, Wondergirl," Asuka acknowledged, checking the updated positions of their foes on her tactical map and coming up with the fastest route there. "Hold tight, I'm circling around to surround those assholes. Glasses, you find and neutralize that damn sniper."
"By your will, Your Highness~!"
Asuka gritted her teeth but allowed the Fifth Child's remark to go without reply, concentrating instead on getting through her waypoints as quickly as possible. Judging by their current timing, and if she was to trust Misato to honour the grace periods that she had been giving them in between waves thus far, it was likely that the enemies the First was engaging were the very last remnants in the operations area. Logic dictated that Asuka's path should therefore be mostly clear, and the Second Child acted in accordance to that.
"Asuka, have you forgotten what happened the last time you rushed in like this?"
But of course, it would fall to Shinji to worry about the unlikely.
'Stop being such a pessimist, Third, I know where the enemy is,' Asuka replied, keeping her attention forward. 'And besides, I've got another pair of eyes to warn me of incoming danger, right?'
"Uh…" the Third Child mumbled after a hesitant pause. "Yeah, sure."
A pause that wasn't lost on Asuka. Shinji sounded a bit surprised, for some reason, and the redhead couldn't figure out why. The only thing she had done was repeat her previous offer/apology, after all.
'...What?' Asuka demanded when the silence finally turned awkward. 'Did I say something we-'
But her unfinished question would go without answer. Suddenly, a gargantuan explosion rocked the entire area, almost knocking the crimson Evangelion off its feet. Bracing herself in order to maintain her balance, Asuka struggled to see through the glare that now invaded her sensors.
There was only one type of explosive ordnance in the world that could do both of those things.
"...What the-?! An N2 warhead?!" Asuka exclaimed, the light winding down enough that she could spot a familiar cloud of smoke high in the air. The blast had come from the pyramid they were supposed to defend. "Wondergirl! Are you alright?! What happened?!"
"I'm... unsure. No enemy breached my perimeter," Rei reported, the same confusion Asuka felt audible beneath her usual stoicism. "I'm still combat capable, but the objective appears to have spontaneously exploded."
"On its own?" Asuka echoed the unexpected information with a frown. "...Hey, Misato. Did you do that?"
"Primary target lost," the Major's face appeared in Asuka's HUD, her neutral expression betraying no information. "Retreat from the combat area and head towards the extraction zone marked in your maps. You have three minutes to reach your destination. Anyone not in the area at the designated time will be left behind and considered missing in action for the purposes of this exercise."
The sudden change in objectives told everything Misato's poker face did not, however. Clearly, she must have thought that they were doing too well, or something.
"Well, that's... a good thing. Isn't it?"
'Maybe,' Asuka agreed, keeping the sarcastic remark about the change in plans to herself. 'Now let's see what we have here...'
The Second Child fiddled with her HUD for a second and checked the coordinates to their objective, quickly learning that their destination was well over a hundred kilometres away, past the mountains surrounding Tokyo-3. A distance that a sprinting Evangelion wouldn't have had an issue crossing in half their allotted time.
If only they weren't in the middle of a battlefield.
"What?!" Asuka furiously exclaimed. "We have to clear a path all the way to there in three minutes?!"
"Those are your orders," Misato acknowledged with a nod. "Time is ticking."
The link with HQ went down with a foreboding beep and, for a moment, Asuka wondered just how Misato expected them to get out of that mess. They could just make a run for it, but at that point they might as well be carrying big, bright 'SHOOT ME' signs for the benefit of every single enemy in the area, which likely wouldn't end well. Leave it to Misato to prepare an ambush or two for them along the way, too, for good measure.
'No, we'll need to pull off something a bit more fancy than that,' the Second Child decided, even if, admittedly, she still had no plan. 'But first, regroup.'
"Alright!" Asuka ordered. "Wondergirl, with me! Glasses, take out your target and hold position until we arrive! Be on the lookout for any other Elites that might get in our way!"
"Roger that~!"
The red and blue Evangelions reunited and all remaining stragglers taken care of, Asuka and Rei set a course towards Mari's position and linked up with the last member of their team underneath the enemy Unit-00's sniper nest. The Elite cyclops was silent, a grisly prog-knife inflicted wound running all around its neck; the effective, if somewhat crude handiwork of the Fifth Child.
Asuka wasted no time in offering pointers to Mari, though, grabbing a pallet rifle for herself and choosing to quickly agree on a route that would see them to safety. They decided to forego the most direct route and stay within the city limits for as long as possible, moving cover to cover, seeking and dispatching threats as necessary but also making sure to keep a brisk pace, a requirement that earned them a few nasty injuries despite their best efforts. By the time the trio had reached the edge of the city and their options for protection ran dry, Asuka would have been able to more quickly perform her status report by mentioning the parts of Unit-02 that weren't damaged.
But the redhead didn't allow such a thing as critical condition to deter her. All their preparations had left them with just a hundred seconds on the timer.
"Alright, this is what we're going to do," Asuka began, launching into a brief explanation that saw the girls covering three of the four sides of a square, leaving the one from which the least contacts had been detected unwatched. Back to back and AT-Fields extended, their formation looked akin to a Testudo from the ancient Roman legions, offering a good degree of protection and mobility so long as they remained well-coordinated.
A requirement that they could still improve upon, the errant bullet or beam still managing to make it through their defences, much to Asuka's chagrin. But still, they were making good time and the Second Child had to admit that things were progressing rather well...
...up until that stopped being the case.
It started with a positron beam from their blind spot that Asuka wouldn't have been able to block had it not been for Shinji's timely warning. Following the energy particles back to their source revealed the enemy Unit-00 perched on one of its sniper nests, a sight that wouldn't have been cause for too much concern had it only been alone.
But that wasn't so. All three of the Elites were now coming after them at once, and while Units 01 and 02 were still a fair distance away, one armed with a heavy cannon and the other with a halberd, that would not remain true for long.
Misato had taken off the kiddie gloves.
"It was being too easy, alright," Asuka growled, holding back the urge to swear as the pressure against their shielding quickly intensified. The riffraff was turning more aggressive, too. She turned a quick eye towards the crest of the mountain, their ticket to freedom. "And we were so close, too."
"Well... We can still make it," Mari offered. "Most of us, anyway. One could stay behind so the other two can escape."
"I volunteer."
Asuka narrowed her eyes at the First Child's nigh-instant suggestion, but didn't argue with her. She, however, couldn't shake the feeling that they were playing straight into Misato's hand, but it was true that sticking to their formation against their current odds wouldn't work, either, and she honestly didn't have any better ideas. Asuka glanced at the clock again: sixty seconds.
"...Fine. Wondergirl, you look after our backs. Take a shot when you can, but focus on delaying them and keeping your A.T. Field up. We're not leaving you here," the Second Child then turned towards Mari. "Okay, Glasses: on my mark we drop everything and make a run for the top, we then take out my doppelganger from cover and offer fire support to Unit-00. Clear?"
"Crystal!"
"Then let's get to it! GO!"
In the span of a few seconds, the purple and red Evangelions had sprung from their positions and sprinted upwards, the bombardment of shells and energy weapons failing to catch up to their sudden dash until they were well behind the mountain's protection. Then, as one, and with a coordination that briefly reminded Asuka of the successful sortie against the Seventh Angel, Units 01 and 02 aimed their pallet rifles and launched their attack on the advancing enemies, dropping many and forcing the Elite Unit-02 to slow its charge or face crippling damage.
"Alright, Wondergirl, your turn!" Asuka commanded to the remaining EVA. "Move it!"
Rei Ayanami dropped her AT-Field and did as she had been ordered, using the supporting fire and the brief window offered by their enemies changing targets to charge up the mountain like Asuka and Mari had done before her. It took the bluenette barely two seconds to be within reach of the cusp and she was about to take her final step when a positron beam lanced through the air and struck Unit-00 on the right knee, severing the limb and bringing the titan down with a deafening crash.
The other two Evangelions stopped their fire long enough to watch as the fallen giant slid half the distance she had covered, the enemy army ignoring her in favour of resuming their slow march towards their position.
Thirty seconds.
"Wow, that was a good shot," Mari commented on the sniper's handiwork with a whistle of appreciation. "And, hey; things didn't go exactly as planned, but... two out of three is still a good ratio, don't you think?"
"Not good enough. Cover me."
"What?" Unit-01 turned to look at its teammate, but Unit-02 had already jumped forward and was sliding down the slope. "Hey, Princess!"
If Asuka heard her she showed no signs of it, rushing while firing her pallet rifle at the enemy until she was at Unit-00's side. The Second Child then threw down her weapon and tried to work her arms around the fallen Evangelion's body, focusing her AT-Field into the largest barrier she could project while helping the blue titan to its remaining foot.
"Asuka, watch out!"
Asuka snapped to attention at the warning and managed to refocus her barrier before disaster struck her like a freight train. The Second Child looked over Unit-00's shoulder to find her doppelganger all over her, the edge of its halberd sparking against Unit-02's AT-Field.
'How did it get here so fast?!' Asuka gawked, watching as the blade began to tear through her protection despite her best efforts. 'Shit, no time to-!'
"HIYA!"
A purple foot suddenly appeared from out of nowhere and struck the charging Unit-02 square on the head, completely shifting its momentum and sending the Elite rolling down the mountain. Asuka watched it go for a moment, her mouth hanging open just a fraction as she turned to stare at the smug-looking Unit-01.
"What's with the look?" Mari asked her, smirking widely. "You didn't think I was just going to stand and watch, did you?"
"...As if," Asuka recovered with a scoff, secretly grateful. "You never do as you're told."
"He-he! That's an endearing character trait!"
Unit-01 dramatically tapped a fist against its chest and, despite herself, the Second Child found that she couldn't help but smile a bit at Mari's antics.
'I guess she earned herself that one.'
"Further talk is unnecessary," Rei suddenly interrupted the moment. "We should make our way to the evacuation point."
"Yours is not endearing," Asuka rolled her eyes as she mumbled, before she began to push the injured Evangelion out of the fray. "Fine, shut up and hop, Wondergirl!"
Mari grabbed a hold of Unit-00 as well and the three Evangelions ran up the mountain, ignoring the bullets sinking into their backs and the warning signs in their HUDs in favour of reaching the top one second earlier. The moment they arrived at the crest and without saying a word, Units 01 and 02 jumped in unison with enough energy to carry the injured Unit-00 with them, soaring through the sky for the briefest of moments and resuming their mad dash to freedom the very instant the EVAs' made touchdown on the other side of the mountain.
'Just a little bit more!' Asuka thought to herself, noting that they were just two kilometres away from their goal. A distance that they could cover in the blink of an eye with no enemies to bar their path.
But just as they were about to enter into their target zone, the girls hit a barrier that blocked them and made them land flat on their rears, a wall that the Second Child had seen form barely a tenth of a second before they slammed against it. While Mari moaned in pain and loudly asked the heavens just what it was that stood in their way now, Asuka shifted her eyes to look at the timer, fearing the worst.
It read zero seconds.
"...Goddammit."
-O]|[O-
Misato had not been amused.
Admittedly, she hadn't been angry, either. More like a shade of disappointed, if even that, although the Major had made completely sure of deflecting whatever suspicions Asuka might have had behind a wall of stoicism for the entire hour of the debriefing. She had limited herself to mercilessly pointing out the tactical blunders, inefficient positioning and coordination mistakes of the last two hours, with the occasional praise for a good decision here and there thrown in to break the tedium. It had been a hellish experience to go through after the marathon of a simulator session, and while Misato obviously knew that, that knowledge hadn't stopped her from finishing the meeting with the one thing Asuka thought she had escaped by virtue of being cooped up inside the Geofront:
Homework. Specifically, written reports. On the topic of the last simulation battle, which they had already discussed at length during the debriefing.
'Is it just me, or has Misato awakened to her sadist tendencies since she was let out of jail?'
Asuka's observation was left without an answer from the resident of her mind, but she did feel a sensation that felt like Shinji offering sympathy for her woes. Slightly surprising, considering that the Third Child had been petulantly silent since the moment she had shot down his latest proposal. In Asuka's defence, though, telling Ritsuko Akagi about their situation sounded like as terrible an idea as they came, but Shinji hadn't exactly liked her promises of finding some other way.
'Fat lot of good that's going to do me when I'm falling asleep on the kitchen table, Third.' Asuka snarked with a sigh, watching her words so as to not make things worse.
At least the Second Child wouldn't suffer through her troubles alone, as her two teammates had been saddled with exactly the same task. It would be annoying to get through, but if the three of them worked together their extra-curricular activities would be done that much sooner. So long as Makinami didn't go on one of her tangents, of course.
Asuka let out a drawn-out sigh. Being team leader was a lot more exhausting than she ever imagined.
"Retracing your steps to assist me made no tactical sense."
...And Wondergirl wanting to get things started early didn't make things any easier.
"This again?" Asuka replied, barely suppressing a groan. "I told you a hundred times already, I made the decisions that seemed appropriate given the circumstances, and I would take them again."
"Your willingness to repeat them doesn't change the fact that they were suboptimal decisions."
"So, what?" Asuka planted herself in front of Rei and narrowed her eyes at her, bringing the entire group to a halt. "If something like that happens in the sims again, or in a real battle, I should just leave you to die? Is that what you're saying?"
"Yes," the First Child immediately nodded. "I can be replaced."
An answer that Asuka promptly shot down with a scoff.
"Bullshit, again with that? Whatever you say, and morals aside, doing that would make my leadership skills look bad," Asuka then smirked, a thought coming to her mind. "But hey, why don't we turn things around? What would you have done if you were in my shoes, Wondergirl?"
"If I were… 'in your shoes'?" Rei wondered, tilting her head to the side. "I… question the possibility of something like that happening."
"…Eh?"
"No, no, no, Bluebird. Don't be so literal about it," Mari jumped in to relieve Asuka from her confusion. She pointed with her thumb at the dumbfounded Second Child. "What Princess here is trying to ask you is what you would have done if you were leading the squad and she was the one needing help. Right?"
"Of course! How could that be taken as anything else?!"
"Apologies," Rei bowed her head slightly forward, before she contemplated the problem for a few moments. "…If I were in your position, I would have tried to assist you."
"What, all this bitching and now you tell me you'd have done the same?" Asuka rolled her eyes, almost throwing her arms up in frustration. "Why the change of heart?"
"Because Ikari-kun would be saddened if you died."
The Second Child went very still and, try as she may, she couldn't stop the hint of a blush that made it to her cheeks. Asuka thanked her lucky stars that this time at least Suzuhara wasn't around to see her. Makinami's giggles were easier to ignore.
"…You're still going on about that, aren't you?"
"Yes, I am," an affirmative nod. "It was, and still is, a logical conclusion."
"Right," Asuka almost growled. "'Logical conclusion', she says."
'And all that logic can't get her to see how monumentally stupid what she just said was,' she continued to herself. 'Gods, Third. What the hell do you see in this weirdo?'
"EH?!"
Pressing past the bewildered cry from inside her head with nothing but a small wince, Asuka prepared to continue with her argument. In truth, somewhere during the conversation she had sort of forgotten that Shinji was there and listening to her every word, her question meant as rhetorical and only for her own ears.
Still, and with such a reaction, Shinji would need to be interrogated in the future. It served to further prove her point, too.
"Okay, fine. So the Third would mope if I wasn't around when he decides to stop being lazy, we already established that," Asuka crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes at the girl across her. "But what? Do you think he'd be jumping for joy if you kicked the bu-… died?"
"I…" Rei confidently began before she cut herself short, a flash of Shinji's relieved face at the end of the battle with the Fifth Angel passing through her mind's eye. The First Child frowned in reflection. "…suppose Ikari-kun would be saddened in that situation as well."
"You bet your pale little ass he would, so maybe you should start thinking twice before keeping up with the self-sacrificing bullshit," her point made, Asuka turned around with a scoff and began to head further down the hallway, Mari in tow. "Whatever you say about replacing, there can only be one Rei Ayanami, and I'm sure that the Third agrees with me on that. And I don't want to see him sulking any more than he already does."
Struck silent, the First Child stood still, mulling Asuka's words. Having her individuality validated and appreciated was a sensation that felt surprisingly good, and one that brought the first few hints of doubt on her otherwise single-minded sense of purpose. In truth, however, such deep contemplations were not the only reason why Rei Ayanami had remained slightly behind, staring at the redhead's fiery mane.
"Hey, hey, Princess!" she watched as the Fifth Child excitedly asked a question to the Second. "What would you do if I'm ever on the ground like that?!"
"I'd shoot your other leg."
"EEEH?!"
It was an unrelated matter that occupied her, one that had remained at the forefront of her mind for some time by then. And, for just a moment during their argument, Rei could have sworn she had seen it again: something different about her redheaded companion that had only started to appear in recent days.
Ever since the fight with the Fifteenth, to be precise, the one that saw Shinji Ikari fall into an unexplainable slumber. And the one that had seen the Second Child almost collapse into herself only to resurge against all odds, with mannerisms and a positive state of mind that were a far cry from the crying and beaten teenager that had spent the first night at Shinji's bedside.
Too far, in fact. And the Second Child's recent tendency towards distraction and muttering to herself, both things that she had rarely done prior to the last battle, only made Rei even more suspicious.
Her mind made up, the First Child narrowed her eyes and hurried to catch up to the others.
"Just one more question, Second Child," she called out, prompting the redhead to turn around in irritation again.
"What is it now?" Asuka demanded, some of her anger leaving her when she saw Rei's serious expression. "Fine, ask away, Wondergirl."
"When was the last time you spoke with Ikari-kun?"
Asuka froze, a thousand thoughts invading her mind as the bluenette asked her the very last question she could have foreseen with unusual boldness.
"E-Excuse me...?" she stammered. "W-What… do you mean…?"
"I meant what I asked: when was the last time you spoke with Ikari-kun?"
"That's a weird question to ask her, Bluebird," Mari unwittingly came to the flustered redhead's rescue. "I mean, it would have been at some point before the last battle, right?"
"I didn't ask you, Fifth Child," Rei bluntly replied, not even looking in her direction. Dramatically and with her usual flourish, Mari's hand shot up to her heart and she stared at the First Child with a pout and almost teary eyes, wordlessly asking her why she was following in Asuka's footsteps.
Her silent plea was ignored, too.
"Fine," Mari mumbled, her head hanging as she shuffled her feet to the side of the corridor. "Since I'm clearly not wanted, I'll be over there. Sulking. By myself."
The Fifth Child leant against the wall and gave Rei the evil eye over the rim of her glasses, quietly muttering about unfairness and killjoys but not interfering in any other way. A few steps away Rei still awaited Asuka's reply, ever patient and adamant on anything that involved Shinji Ikari, much to the Second Child's chagrin.
"We should tell her!"
A boy that had wasted no time in making his opinion known.
'Are you insane, Third?!' Asuka anxiously protested. 'How do you even want me to start?!'
"It doesn't matter! Ayanami will listen to us!"
'What do you mean it doesn't matter?! They'll kick me out of the program for sure!' the redhead continued, getting angrier by the second. 'And why are you so damn sure that the stupid doll will solve your problem better than I ever could?!'
"I'm not saying she can do better than you, but we can't let this chance go, even if it ends up going nowhere! Asuka, please!"
Asuka's comeback died on her lips, an annoyed growl taking its place instead. Something about hearing Shinji beg for her assistance tugged at her heartstrings in a way she just couldn't resist.
'...Okay, fine! I'll tell her!' Asuka finally relented, her annoyance all but evaporating the moment she felt Shinji's joy at her agreement. 'But don't start crying when this doesn't work!'
Asuka's brief elation vanished the second she realised that she didn't have the slightest clue about how to breach such an unbelievable subject, however. She quickly tried to come up with comparisons or metaphors or any examples of similar things happening in fiction, but didn't come up with anything that would make the explanation easier to swallow.
So in the end, Asuka settled for the truth.
"...I last spoke with Shinji five seconds ago," she began after taking a deep and calming breath, Rei's ears visibly perking up the moment she mentioned the Third Child's name. "Something happened to us after the last battle and he's been stuck inside... my head ever since. That's why he's in that weird coma. He started talking to me a few days back, and we're trying to figure out some way to put him in his own body again." Asuka paused, noticing that she had the other two Children's undivided attention. The redhead then felt a sudden mischievous urge take a hold of her, before she continued with a smirk. "...He can also see what I see and hear what I hear, so he has seen the two of you naked."
"I HAVE NOT!" Shinji's expected rebuttal loudly rang inside her head. "What the hell, Ace?!"
Barely managing to keep her wince from showing, Asuka blinked for a second at the moniker that Shinji had used to show his displeasure. It was a bit weird that he hadn't used her name, but still, it was nice knowing he regarded her as the best.
Instead, she focused her attention on the First Child's reaction, promptly noticing that Ayanami looked as surprised as she had seldom seen her. Obviously she didn't believe their story.
'Look at her, Third. Told you, she doesn't buy it!' Asuka told her passenger, barely resisting the urge to gloat. 'And you still think speaking to Doctor McBitchface about your problem is a good idea?'
"Maybe it would be if you don't try to make it sound ridiculous!"
'I don't need to try! It's already ridiculous, for God's sake!' the Second Child shot back, this time failing to keep her temper in check. 'As if explaining it like you're not a pervert would have changed anything!'
"Hey, Princess! What's up with that?" Mari curiously asked from the side, failing to notice the danger. "The Third Child being a voyeur didn't show up in any reports!"
"That's the part you stuck with?!" Asuka exploded in her direction, prompting Mari to put her hands up in front of her for protection. The redhead then turned around with a sound akin to a dragon's breath, charging down the hallway like an angry bull. "And why don't you ask the one that's asking the stupid questions?! I just gave a stupid answer to match! As if I could have spoken to stupid Shinji in the last three days!"
Mari followed her with her eyes, not daring to leave her defensive stance until a few seconds after Asuka had turned around the next corner. Slowly, she detached herself from the wall, blinking at the complete one-eighty that the girl's disposition had done in the space of a minute.
'...That was wild even by her standards,' the Fifth Child mused, shifting to stare at Rei out of the corner of her eye. 'I get that the Third Child is a sore topic for Sohryu, but why would that weird question affect her so much?'
"What's up, Bluebird? You look serious," Mari began, hoping that prodding the immobile bluenette would reward her with some information into her motives. "Oh! Are you in shock about Sleeping Beauty's ogling tendencies, too? I know I am! I mean, he just looks so innocent that-"
"No, I'm not," Rei cut her off, her crimson eyes never leaving the path Asuka had taken, a path that she herself began to tread not an instant later. "But it has been four days since Ikari-kun fell asleep, not three."
One eyebrow rising above its twin, Mari re-checked her facts as she fell into step next to the First Child, quickly realising that Ayanami was right. The Second Child had subtracted one day out of Shinji Ikari's coma, a silly mistake that Mari had come to realise was very unusual for Asuka to make, especially in regards to anything involving the ever-important Third Child.
'I wonder,' Mari considered, the cogs inside her mind beginning to turn. 'Did that discrepancy come out of Sohryu blurting out the first number that came to mind in the heat of the moment, or could it really be something else?'
The Fifth Child resolved to think things through on the way back, but ten minutes later Mari Makinami was no closer to an answer, and a glance to her left told her that she wasn't alone in that predicament: Rei Ayanami continued to be deep in thought, her eyes even more intensely focused on the back of the Second Child than before. The latter did her best to ignore her but some annoyed remarks still found their way to the back of the group, even if the redhead had visibly simmered down during the trip to their shared apartment. She was still setting the blazing pace that screamed 'I'm feeling moody', though.
And the reason why still baffled Mari quite a bit.
'Seriously. What was that about?'
Both the First and Second Children had been acting very out of character in recent days, for some reason, but while Sohryu's divergence could have been attributed to the return of her piloting abilities, Ayanami's sudden penchant for not taking her eyes off of the Second Child wasn't quite as simple to explain.
Unless she had fallen madly in love, or something, which sounded about as likely as a visit by friendly aliens. Plus, that didn't account for name-dropping the comatose Third Child like she had, and Sohryu's bizarre reaction to it.
'Yeah... Sohryu is one crappy liar and it's obvious that she's hiding something but, even then, that story she spun sounds... far too unlikely,' Mari's eyes flew to the bluenette a second time. 'Hell, if not for Ayanami's weird interest in it I would dismiss it outright.
'...But maybe I should let the Doc know about what Sohryu said. See if she can stick in some subtle scans under some excuse or work a different type of magic, just in case... If her story has the slightest chance of helping us figure out a treatment for the Third Child, that would probably secure us Yui Ikari's support, and help sway Sohryu and maybe even Ayanami to our side when the time comes. It's probably worth a shot.'
Her mind made up to seek Akagi at the earliest convenience, Mari focused back on her surroundings only to notice that her musings had made her fall behind the other two by quite a distance. In fact, her return to awareness came just in time to see the Second Child turn around and look straight at her.
"Come on, slowpoke!" she called. "I want to get there before dinner!"
'Come on, slowpoke! I want to get there before dinner!'
A similar but different echo of Sohryu's words resonated inside Mari's mind, just as a blurry vision flew in front of her eyes: a shadow beckoning from under the side of a ruined building, rubble and more debris littering the path forward.
Then the image disappeared as soon as it came, leaving a disoriented Fifth Child in its wake.
'...Huh?' she frowned, trying to identify the figure. 'W-Was that...?'
"Hey, Earth to Glasses! Are you there?" a hand being waved in front of her face snapped Mari out of it, fingers that she could tell belonged to Sohryu even before she raised her eyes to look at her disgruntled face. The redhead then pointed her thumb at the First Child, staring curiously from the side. "Finally! Don't tell me you're coming down with Wondergirl's stare-into-your-soul syndrome, too. Is there like a virus for that floating about, or something?"
"...Nah, I'm fine Princess," Mari reassured her with the most convincing smile she could summon at the time. "Just a... long thought that came to mind."
A grin that failed to be too persuasive, the Second Child narrowing her eyes at her for a second or two. She then shook her head and turned around, deciding to continue leading the pack as she had previously.
"...Whatever."
And without further words between them, the trio rebuilt their formation and resumed the final stretch of their march to their shared quarters, Asuka charging ahead while blind to the fact that her back was now being observed by yet another pair of eyes.
And just below them, a small smile grew to decorate the Fifth Child's face.
'...I guess they could have some parallels.'