December 6th 2015, 09:32
"Wondergirl! Push to Delta and hunker down, we'll cover your advance!" Ace ordered, her words promptly being echoed by Asuka herself in the outside. "We'll use the airstrike to cut a path for us and make a concentrated push to the next objective from there!"
"...I don't think pushing forward from that position is a good idea."
Shinji casually lounged in his seat, took a sip from his cup of tea, and watched as the two aspects of his redheaded roommate discussed battle strategies. A scene that had become very common within Asuka Central during the last 48 hours, owing in no small part to Misato deciding that the girls were becoming too adept at the standard training scenario. So the Major had decided to shake things up a little bit: right as the Pilots had dragged their sleepy selves to the simulators after Asuka's birthday party, Misato had presented them with a number of limited but powerful support elements that they could ask for, ranging from a scanner sweep of their surroundings that would light up enemies, ordnance restocks and artillery barrages, to even the use of a single N2 strike for times of real trouble. The odds that the trio faced had been adapted accordingly, but the real shift that their tactics were forced to adapt to came with the addition of secondary objectives that would award them extra uses of their limited off-map support on a successful completion. Their nature and difficulty varied wildly and unpredictably, to the point of being nigh-impossible to complete on occasion, and the decision of whether to overextend in search of their rewards or not was left entirely up to them.
Needless to say, this new iteration had led to many a misjudged offensive on the Pilots' part and a few angry headaches for their leader, but had proven to be even more enriching than the previous one. Without noticing, and always wanting to get one step further than their previous attempt, the Pilots had been slowly learning to communicate and get a feeling for each other's actions, understanding how far they could push in one direction without their coordination breaking down.
But the most shocking part of the experience for the Third Child was that Asuka herself had been the one to put in motion this set of changes within the team. She had been the one to ask the other two where they thought their strengths lay and to adapt their strategies accordingly. She had taken steps to integrate Ayanami into the team, mending a few of the rifts that had always existed between them in the process and, perhaps most important of all, she had been far more receptive of Makinami's antics during their off-time, bringing the three of them far closer than they had been mere days ago.
All of that was likely because Ace and 'Asuka' both had taken to this new programme with a lot of enthusiasm, which was half the reason Shinji had decided to keep himself out of the strategy discussions. Slowly but surely, the two Aspects were starting to work in tandem rather than against each other, even if the steady ceasing of hostilities between them had still involved a lot of heated arguments. He wasn't completely certain of his conclusions but, if Shinji had to guess, the truce that had been declared within HQ was the deciding factor that was resulting in an Asuka that sounded optimistic, confident and... happy.
"Pushing forward through an empty field is a bad plan?" Ace's heckling brought Shinji back to the present. "That has to be a new one for you."
"You're assuming it will be empty," his self-proclaimed assistant countered. "Because sure, it sounds good on paper, but what do you think Misato will expect us to do when you play that hand? Stop being so rigid and think outside the box for a minute! If we push straight from there, we risk running head first into one of those nasties she came up with, and then what? We'll be outgunned and in a terrible position!"
"Then what do you propose? If we stay here, we'll just be flanked and surrounded. Besides, we're running out of time to win this round."
"I wasn't thinking about defending, but that we take another path forward, instead. The bombing should mess with all the sensors in the area for a short while, so..." Asuka traced with one of her fingers through the air, a second path appearing in the tactical holo-screen that the pair had manifested. "I think we should use that chance to strike through... here."
"That's where most of the enemy forces are concentrated." Ace reminded her other, in her best 'Are you kidding me?' tone.
"And that's where Misato is bound to be pulling some troops from to reinforce the breach we just made. It's also very unlikely that whatever Angel mash-up she came up with this time is waiting for us there, in such a fortified position."
Ace opened her mouth to offer a rebuttal but then closed it again without a word, giving some thought to the plan that Asuka was proposing. She turned to the holo-screen, her trained and experienced mind taking some time to weigh the strengths of the squad against the more difficult odds that they would be facing, while also trying to predict what Misato's defensive placement would actually be.
"Good point," the Pilot eventually conceded with a lack of displeasure that Shinji was proud to see. "All right, we'll give that a try."
A second set of orders were issued and, with barely any questions about the new and unexpected route, yet another sign of the trust that was beginning to develop in the Pilot corps, the new plan was set in motion. A pair of simulated B-1 strategic bombers soared high in the sky and unleashed a blazing inferno of destruction, tearing apart a large section of the battlefield while the three Evangelion units used their A.T. Fields to shrug off the damage and swiftly march off course, just as they had planned. They then charged the enemy stronghold head on, punching like a hammer through the reorganising lines in a fine show of German tactics and emerging through the other side, battered and bloody, but still fully operational.
The group pressed their advantage and charged onward to their extraction point, ignoring all fire coming their way until a massive cross-shaped explosion forced them to stop and fully extend their A.T. Fields. Quickly, Asuka scanned the horizon until she caught the slow and lumbering form of the Third Angel, identifying its exact position just before it vanished out of sight.
"...That must be the latest design from the Katsuragi Workshop of Training Horrors." Ace muttered to herself and filed the mutated Angel for future reference, silently thankful that Misato had not decided to use the Fifth as the basis for her idea. She then barked an order to disengage and keep heading for the extraction point and, a minute later, the Evangelion carriers arrived while two of the three Pilots happily cheered for their first victory in hours.
Ace, for her part, kept her satisfaction subdued. The Angel had been waiting for them exactly in the spot that Asuka had predicted it would be, and that wasn't a detail the Pilot had failed to notice. She shifted her view to the side with a grimace, half-expecting her other to be yelling 'I told you so' with her expression only but, instead, what she found was an open palm facing her way.
"Oh yeah! Another great victory!" Ace happily exclaimed, accepting the offered high-five. "The next angel is toast! The Valkyries are unstoppable!"
"...The Valkyries?" Shinji echoed, unable to keep a hint of surprise from showing in his voice. A small mistake that made Ace quickly turn towards him with one of her far too common dangerous expressions.
"...What? You got something to say?"
"No! It's just that you..." the Third Child swallowed while he quickly tried to come up with a way to avoid digging his own grave any further. "I guess coming up with a team name doesn't sound like something you would do?"
A moment of silence ensued on the bridge and Shinji promptly reviewed his words, mentally kicking himself for what had been a clear case of foot in mouth. The Third Child then closed his eyes and braced for impact...
...but the expected impact never came and, in its place, a single, short word was uttered:
"Why?"
Shinji cautiously opened his eyes to find Ace staring at him like he had grown a second head. A sight that left the young man speechless for a second, because genuine surprise at his words wasn't something that he had expected to see from her.
"Because she's always going about being the best Pilot, and demanding that we don't drag her down and all that? Asuka was never too interested in teams when she was in the EVA, so I just… thought you didn't, either?"
The unsure tone at the end of Shinji's reply led to the two girls in front of him sharing a short look and, after not even a second of silent communication, Ace turned back towards him with a groan.
"I think you're getting something wrong here, Third. I may be the embodiment of Asuka's pride as a Pilot but I'm also the one with all the knowledge that comes with that, and I did mention that Asuka knows all about military tactics, logistics and all those other things important for waging war, remember?" Ace raised her eyebrows meaningfully, making absolutely certain that Shinji recalled their conversation at the mountaintop. "Which means that she's fully aware of the fact that there are no one woman armies outside of fiction. Not even in an EVA."
"Huh?"
"I'll put it in simpler terms: I want her to be the best, but I never wanted her to fight alone. That's the quickest way to get oneself killed."
"Oookay. That… makes sense, I guess," Shinji agreed, finding no fault with Ace's logic. "But wait, if it's not because of you then why-?"
"Finish that question and I'll be seriously tempted into subtracting points from your progress, Third."
On further reflection, it was a stupid question.
"Oh," Shinji's eyes travelled to the seat that the third of Asuka's Aspects usually occupied. It was empty now, the same way it had been since around the time of his roommate's birthday party. Truth be told, Maisie's absence was starting to make the Third Child feel a bit uneasy. "Where is she, anyway?"
"Beats me," Ace replied with an easy shrug, signalling how she didn't feel the same way. "Probably licking her wounds because our stellar performance is proving her wrong at every turn!"
"Your habit of claiming victory prematurely still lingers with you, I see," the calm and collected, borderline arrogant voice of the crew's missing member suddenly replied from out of nowhere. "You have proven nothing."
All three individuals present turned to see Maisie casually making her way to the bridge, from an angle that Shinji was certain had been completely empty not five seconds ago. Not caring in the slightest about the situation that was developing outside or the pause that her entrance had brought about, the half-girl sat in her seat and began to look through files that Shinji couldn't quite decipher.
'I'll never get used to them popping up from thin air.' The young man thought to himself with a sigh.
"Oh man, here comes the party pooper. And we were all having such a blast," Ace moaned, giving Shinji a pointed look. "See, Third? This is why you never mention the devil."
"Come on, now," Shinji chastised her. "That's not very nice."
"And whose side are you on?" the Pilot shot back with an offended half-glare. She then threw up her hands and decided to focus back on the big screens. "You know what? Forget it. I'm not wasting my good mood on this."
Making good on her words, Ace turned around with a huff and began grumbling at Asuka, the far too nice Aspect of the Second Child nodding her head in time with each of the irate Pilot's pauses. Shinji, for his part, felt somewhat bad for the hand he had played in his assistant's delicate situation, but decided to trust her abilities and turn to Maisie instead.
"Are you... alright?" he cautiously began after a short pause to gather his courage. "You haven't been around for some time."
"I have simply been engaged, investigating some of the recent changes in our liege's mindset. Nothing that would concern either you or your worries," the Doll responded flippantly, causing a crease of annoyance to appear on the Third Child's brow. "...But I appreciate the sentiment, nonetheless," Maisie continued, with an almost imperceptible hint of warmth in her icy tone that gave swift pause to Shinji's anger. The young man then saw her left eye turn his way, curious. "More importantly, I believe I should be the one asking that question: how are you feeling, Ikari?"
"Eh…" the Third Child blinked, caught flat-footed. "Fine, I think?"
"Is that so?" Maisie mouthed, clearly unimpressed. "Perhaps it is still too soon for you."
"Too soon for what?"
"That would be telling, even if you should be more than capable of finding out by yourself," the Doll's blank look became a small smirk. "However, that would necessitate you showing a smidge of sense, and we all know how very unlikely that is."
"Wha-?" Shinji needed a second to fully process Maisie's words, but it wasn't long after that his discarded anger came back with a vengeance. He worried about her and that was the response he received? "What's your problem?!"
The young man exploded, but the only thing his shouting achieved was for Maisie to smile wider.
"...Interesting response," she stated, clearly much more satisfied but still every bit as enigmatical. Without further words, Maisie turned to her terminal and proceeded to ignore the entire room. No more answers would be had from her.
Furious, the Third Child spun around to his seat and threw himself into it, almost knocking the chair and himself to the ground in the process. He raised his eyes to find that both Ace and Asuka had turned towards him, but it was the latter who was giving him the strangest look.
"What?!" he demanded.
Taken aback, his assistant opened her mouth to speak but the shrill, far too familiar sound of HQ's early warning system cut off whatever answers she had thought of giving him. In an instant, an almost oppressive atmosphere took a hold of the bridge, the Asuka gremlins down below quickening their pace into a flurry of activity just as Shinji could almost feel the tensing of every single muscle in his host's body.
The Third Child's eyes shifted to his companions, finding a similar mix of apprehension with a hint of determination in two out of the three. Ace was the exception: the foreboding siren was clearly music to the girl's ears.
"Awesome." She mouthed with a confident grin.
The next Angel was on its way.
-O]|[O-
"System checks are green, synchronisation successfully established in all Evangelion Units," Maya Ibuki's soft voice sounded on edge, as it always did when an Angel attacked. "I'm sending all available data on the target so far, read up on it while we finish the final checks. We'll be sending you to the surface shortly. Stand by."
Flicking the window away, Asuka focused her eyes on the field report she had been handed: the Angel looked like a DNA chain that had been shaped into an actual angel's halo and was moving very slowly towards the city. There was no head, no appendages and, more important than the lack of an obvious means of attack or defence they could prepare against, there was no visible core on the target.
'…And here I hoped that the spherical insult to physics we faced back then would be the only one without a 'destroy this' sign,' Asuka sighed with a mental groan. 'That's going to be a pain.'
The MAGI, seeming to notice the absence of the red jewel as well, had designated the enemy as a pattern orange for the time being, a detail in the report that baffled the Second Child. The MAGI was supposed to be this incredibly advanced supercomputer and it couldn't just assume that the latest massive alien to assault the city was related to all of the previous massive aliens they had already dealt with?
'Of course it's an Angel! What else could it be?!'
"My first fight! Man, I've got butterflies going up to my neck!" Mari's grinning face suddenly showed up in Asuka's HUD, looking like she had tripled her sugar intake for the morning. "Hey, hey, Princess! Do you think I'll do well?"
"...Do you want the truth or do you want us to stay friends?"
Mari's eyes blinked a few times behind her glasses. "Oh, wow. So you can actually joke around, Princess!" she quickly rallied behind an impish smile. "Colour me surprised!"
"Who said I was joking?" Asuka deadpanned, but it wasn't long before she was smirking back. It felt good to mess with the Fifth Child for a change. The redhead's eyes shifted to the other side of the HUD, where Rei's silent but ever watchful face had begun to float at some point during their exchange. "But don't worry, you two will be fine. You've trained with me, after all."
"Hai, hai! Lead us to everlasting glory, ma'am!" Mari agreed with a mock salute. "Let's kick some ass, Bluebird!"
One of Rei's eyebrows minutely rose above the other. "Agreed, the Angel must be defeated. Proceed with caution."
"Cut the chatter, girls. I'm sending your deployment positions, make sure you give them a good look," Misato cut into the conversation, her commanding voice quickly silencing all talk. "We still don't know what we're dealing with, so we'll do this by the numbers: Asuka, you take point. Units 01 and 00 will hold position ten klicks and thirty klicks from the target respectively and offer both fire support and the option of a staggered retreat if need be."
"Roger," the Second Child acknowledged with a professional nod, satisfied as she noticed Mari drop the doofus act and put on a semblance of seriousness. "What's the attack strategy?"
"We will lead the attack from long range with Rei and JSSDF artillery and air support in order to probe the Angel's defences. Depending on its reaction we might have you intercept its counterattack or charge into melee. Unit-01 will work as the anchor to this operation, supporting the front or the rear as the situation develops."
"So..." Mari brought a finger to her lips in mock thought. "In other words, exactly what we've been doing for the last two weeks."
"Like I said, by the numbers. We don't have enough intel on the enemy to do anything fancier right now, so we'll adapt accordingly as the battle unfolds," Misato replied back, somewhat dismissively. Her voice then turned to steel as she focused all her attention back on Asuka. "And related to that, I want to make one thing clear: if the situation develops unfavourably with our current setup I pre-emptively order you to regroup and retreat. Should there be no change to the pace of the target, we should have enough time to mount a few more assaults before it reaches the city limits. As it stands, there's no reason to rush things."
The underlying meaning behind Misato's subtle words was crystal clear to Asuka: one casualty in the Pilot corps was already one too many. A shudder travelled through her spine as the Second Child recalled the 'battle' with the Fifteenth and her pigheaded refusal to retreat from a completely hopeless situation.
These days, she felt more stupid than proud about her stubborn stand.
"Everyone makes mistakes, Asuka."
'That was a lot bigger than a mistake,' Asuka shot back, biting back a comeback about how the Invincible Third Child didn't seem to ever be included in everyone. 'Chances are you'd still be around if I had listened to her, Stupid Shinji.'
"And I wouldn't have learned everything that I have, either. I think that's a good trade."
'Everything you have learned?' Asuka echoed, puzzled. '...The heck's that supposed to mean?'
"Huh... Nothing. Forget I said anything," Shinji quickly corrected himself. "I meant that... you know, I'm not dead, Asuka. We'll figure something out."
Asuka briefly toyed with the idea of pressing the clearly uncomfortable Third Child, but eventually decided against it. She had bigger fish to fry, and chances were it was probably just one of those Shinji things, anyway. Of the pervy kind if she had to bet, too. Better that she ignored it while she still could.
With a terse nod meant both for Shinji and Misato, Asuka conveyed her agreement and performed a last minute check of all her systems. Everything came out green, as expected, and as the Major finished the final steps of the deployment process Asuka's blue eyes travelled to the gargantuan forms of Evangelion Units 01 and 00. They were about to go battle a complete enigma of an enemy but, for some reason, she didn't feel nervous. On the contrary, knowing that she had comrades watching her back made Asuka feel more ready than ever.
A feral grin spread across the Second Child's face. It was finally time to show the world what she could really do.
"Eva Units, LAUNCH!"
-O]|[O-
December 6th 2015, 10:27
"When is that stupid thing going to move?!"
"Patience, Asuka. If it wants to give us the first move then we will gladly accept the invitation," Misato's officer persona calmly chided, not at all bothered by the way in which the Angel had stopped its sluggish march towards the city, preferring to spin in place. Its sudden halt had spooked every member of the operation, but it had shown no signs at all of wanting to go on the offensive beyond that. "Are you ready, Rei?"
"Unit-00 is in position, target locked," the First Child's ever cool voice responded. "Awaiting firing orders."
"Good, give our JSSDF friends the go ahead."
"Acknowledged," Asuka heard the glasses guy from the bridge crew report before he went silent for a few moments. "Artillery barrage inbound. Impact in T-Minus 20 seconds." More heavy silence followed, tense enough that a pin striking the floor could have likely been heard from the other end of HQ. "Five, four, three, two..."
"FIRE!"
On the mark, Rei pressed the trigger on her controls and the gargantuan fingers of Unit-00 responded in kind, a beam of light firing from the positron rifle and arching to the target in less than a second. The luminous arrow was then forced to a stop when the hexagonal pattern of the Angel's AT-Field manifested in its path, the two forces struggling against each other for a few, brief moments before the arc of energy was redirected to the heavens.
"The beam has been deflected! Artillery and missile strike has also struck the Angel's AT-Field!" one of the other male bridge crew reported. "No effect on the target!"
"Prepare a second shot."
Asuka let go a breath she didn't notice she had been holding. The redhead had not expected the Angel to go down in a single shot considering how tough the last batch had been, but ominous countdowns always filled her with a sense of trepidation. Shaking the remaining nerves out of her body, Asuka gave silent thanks for not having her chance to shine stolen and focused back on her instruments, promptly noticing that while the area was still too filled with smoke for visual confirmation, the data feed from the MAGI was making a change in the target very clear:
"Wait!" Asuka quickly broadcasted, while she heard Ritsuko quote her word for word at the same time over at HQ. "The Angel is stopping its rotation!"
"Roger that. Unit-00, abort the reload and raise your AT-Field."
"Acknowledged."
Asuka blinked and almost missed what came next: the Angel's double helix form came to a complete stop and coalesced into a single, thick ring, before it segmented into a snake-like form and launched itself forward at several times the speed of sound.
"I-It's fast!" Asuka exclaimed, jerking Unit-02's body around and raising her pallet rifle as the Angel sped past. But it was too late, in the second it had taken her to get into firing position the Angel had already flown far out of effective range and well into their backline.
Rei barely had time to let go of her positron rifle before Unit-00 dove out of the Angel's charge path. It then came to a stop in front of the blue titan, ignoring the physics of inertia and launching a series of stabbing attacks with the two ends of its body, like a scorpion's poisonous tail looking to skewer its prey. But none of them struck true, hours of having the Fifth Child popping out from the most unexpected of places during training had taught Rei much about the art of dodging.
"What the-?! It homed in on the AT-Field?!" Misato's shock slipped past her Commander's façade. "Units 01 and 02, support Unit-00!"
"Already on it!" Asuka heard Mari's cheery voice come through the comms right as she commanded Unit-02 into a run. "Hold tight, Bluebird! The cavalry is on its way! DA-DA-DA-DAAAA-DA DA-DA-DA-DAAAAA-DAAAA!"
"Be serious, you moron!"
"I am being serious! Singing psychs me up for battle!" the Fifth Child shot back, unfazed as usual. "Heads up, Rei! A million tons of dynamic entrance, coming through!"
And in time with Mari's words, Unit-01 slammed into the Angel's AT-Field feet first at the speed of a meteor, the orange barrier flaring to life and suspending the EVA in mid-air. Undeterred, the purple giant converted its leverage into a back flip and delivered a powerful slash with its prog-glaive to minimum effect, before being forced to dodge out of the way of one of the Angel's stabs.
Opposite to her, Unit-00 didn't fare much better. The blue titan's attempts at nullifying the Angel's barrier were proving ineffective, and its basic prog-knife was incapable of providing enough leverage to pierce the AT-Field. Before long, the two EVAs had been pushed on the defensive, the Angel using both ends of its body as if they had a mind of their own, contracting, curving and extending a million different ways in a deadly show of fencing.
"Damn," Mari snarled, sidestepping away from a stab at her shoulder. "We've beaten invisible Angels, invulnerable Angels, freaking walking armouries and the equivalent to an Angel-Zombie apocalypse, why is a squiggly snake being this annoying?!"
"Stop complaining and get around the target!" Asuka ordered, prog-axe screaming as she charged into the fray. "Surround it! AT-Fields at maximum!"
Leading by example, the Second Child deployed Unit-02's defensive barrier and slammed it against the Angel's, the pale snake pausing just an instant to react to this new threat and giving the other two Evangelions all the opportunity they needed. Like a machine, well-oiled from hours upon hours of gruelling training, the three Evangelions formed a triangle that trapped the Angel between them with the full force of their AT-Fields and, with three walls pressing down on it from all sides, the sixteenth invader was forced to completely halt its offensive. Its own orange barrier shone ever brighter, delimiting the borders of its existence and trying to push any foreign objects away, but it was to no avail. Little by little, inch by inch, the coordinated efforts of the three EVAs were gaining ground.
"That's it, keep reducing it! Squeeze the bastard!" Asuka roared, watching as the Angel's physical form became smaller and smaller under the strain of each step they took. The pressure against their AT-Fields was also becoming steadily stronger, however. "Sure could use some support here, Misato!"
"A second barrage is already on its way, keep the Angel pinned." Misato replied, and when Asuka flicked her eyes skyward for a second she noticed the tell-tale contrails of explosive heavy-duty ordnance just a few seconds away from their position. With a war cry, the Second Child willed Unit-02's AT-Field to grow stronger, a command that was mimicked by the two other Evangelions moments before the world turned white.
Asuka could feel it before the noise and light filters in the cockpit deactivated: after the barrage, the Angel's AT-Field was a hair's breadth away from snapping. Visible fissures were showing up all along its surface, the snake's erratic movements within its crumbling cocoon reeking of desperation.
But still it endured.
"Come on...!" the Second Child hissed through gritted teeth, raising Unit-02's axe for a final blow. "Crack!"
"High energy reading from the target!" Maya's frantic voice came through the channel just as she was about to strike. "Watch-!"
But before the mousy assistant could finish, the wall that Asuka had been pushing against suddenly disappeared. The Angel's diminutive form, a fraction of what it had once been, curled further into itself prior to shooting forward like a bullet. It struck Unit-00's AT-Field and effortlessly pierced through it, striking the blue titan behind and pushing it to the ground with a massive crash.
"Shit!" Asuka swore as she regained her balance, watching as the Angel that had been in its death throes quickly grew back to its full size, one of its ends sticking out of a hole in Unit-00. A hole from which sickening tendrils were starting to grow. "Rei's hit!"
-O]|[O-
"I-It's an infector type!" Maya reported the bad news for all to hear. "Contamination is spreading from Unit-00's abdomen!"
"Status of the Pilot?!"
Katsuragi's high-pitched demand perfectly illustrated the sudden change from confidence to disarray that HQ had gone through in barely a few seconds. Reports on Unit-00, its Pilot's condition and the Angel's changes were flying this and that way but no one could make heads or tails out of the information yet. As it stood, the only thing the early reports were breeding was fear and bewilderment. Chaos, the very last thing you wanted to have during a military operation.
Funnily enough, Mari thought she heard Commander Ikari's voice ask about Rei in the background, too. Even he wasn't unperturbed by the sight of her predicament, it appeared.
'No wonder they're all confused,' Mari tightened Unit-01's grip around the prog-glaive. 'That's one hell of a trump card the bastard was holding.'
"Misato! What's going on?!" Asuka demanded, her blue eyes widening in fear at what was happening to the First Child. "Shit, we gotta help her!"
"Don't touch the Angel!" Akagi's voice rose above the chorus and stopped the two EVAs in their tracks. "Direct contact with the target will likely contaminate your EVAs too!"
"Right," Mari clicked her tongue in disgust. Of course it wouldn't be that simple. "What's the plan, then?"
"Keep doing what you were doing!" Katsuragi ordered, her mind clearly already thinking of extra contingencies that could be put into play. "Use your AT-Fields to force it out of Unit-00!"
'...As good a plan as any other, I guess.' Mari thought to herself, separating from Unit-02 and slamming her EVA's AT-Field against the Angel's. The pushback was weaker than it had once been, but still strong. Strong enough that it made Mari wonder how many of the Major's alternate solutions involved Ayanami as a casualty.
A lot, probably. The reports on the First Child's evolving condition didn't paint a pretty picture, after all.
Mari's eyes flickered over to the open channel from Unit-00. The blue haired Pilot was breathing heavily and muttering to herself in some sort of delirium, the sickening tendrils that had started to grow from her abdomen already all the way up to her breasts. The sight made Mari feel unusually angry. Rei was both weird and a factor that could have been troublesome in the future, but the quiet girl she had gotten to know quite well over the weeks didn't deserve what was happening to her.
Then, for an instant, Mari saw Ayanami's pained face take on another expression, other eyes. Pistachio green framed by a tanned brown skin, the product of tens of hours of toil under an unrelenting sun. She looked serene, at peace, a white-toothed smile standing in stark contrast to the droplets of crimson blood all around it.
The familiar girl mouthed a few words. They were without sound, but Mari could understand them in her heart, anyway:
"For the friends we couldn't save. For the friends we might yet help."
The Fifth Child's anger transformed into barely contained fury.
'...Dammit. This is so not the time for a damn flashback.'
A wail snapped Mari back to the present. Asuka had managed to burst open one of the previous cracks they had caused in the Angel's AT-Field long enough to get a solid hit in with her axe, but while the Angel had quivered in pain, it had not been the source of the scream.
It had come out of Ayanami, instead.
"You gotta be kidding me!" Asuka stared at the feed from Unit-00, horrified. "We can't hit it, either?!"
"We don't have a lot of choices!" Mari replied back, pushing against a second visible crack and readying her glaive for a powerful slash. "Sorry, Bluebird!"
A second shrill scream signalled another good hit on the Angel, but it didn't prove enough to defeat it before the Angel forewent the tatters of its AT-Field in favour of mobility and began to twist its serpentine body out of the way of all subsequent attacks. No matter how hard they tried, glancing blows were everything the two Pilots managed to land, and those continued to seem more painful to Rei than to the Angel.
It was obvious that they were quickly running out of time.
Mari's eyes flickered to the feed from Unit-00 again: Rei was now in a foetal position and speaking some existential nonsense, but among the irrational lines Mari caught a few referencing the sleeping Third Child. They were strangely phrased but very clear in their meaning, enough for the Fifth Child to pause in her assault.
That kid sure was popular.
"Is she really babbling about...?" Mari found herself wondering before she could stop herself.
"Does it matter?! Get it off her!" Asuka roared, her axe missing its twisting mark yet again. "Damn bastard! STAND STILL!"
Asuka was right, it didn't matter. None of it would matter if Rei died in that battle. Mari knew enough about NERV to know that Ayanami's claims about being replaceable had never been an exaggeration, but would her successor have any memory of her old self? Would she retain her fondness for the Third Child or remember their brief time together, have the same wants and needs that Mari knew Ayanami must have had at some point in her life?
The only thing the Fifth Child was fully certain of was that she didn't want to find out.
"It sounds like you have some sort of plan?"
'I do. Half of one, anyway,' Mari confirmed, glad to know that Yui was aware enough to realise what was going on in the battle. 'So if you want to help me save your quasi-daughter's life, feel free to lend a hand.'
An encouraging sensation washed over the Fifth Child, rather than words. Doctor Ikari was in agreement, it appeared.
"This is going nowhere," Mari told Asuka, discarding the prog-glaive to the side. She then put Unit-01's fists up. "Listen, Princess: I'm going to give you a clear shot at this, so you better make it count."
"Hey! What are you-?"
Unit-01 lunged forward before Asuka could finish her question, the Angel detecting the sudden movement and launching an attack in its direction. Deftly, the purple giant sidestepped the stab and rotated its body so that it was facing the white snake...
...and, ignoring Akagi's advice, firmly grabbed the Angel in its hands.
"Gotcha!" Mari hissed, tightening her hold on the struggling serpent and extending it so that it was as taut as it could be. "Not so quick anymore, are we?!"
-O]|[O-
Asuka's breath hitched in her throat. It had been bad enough before, but now the very same tendrils that were all over Unit-00 were starting to climb up Unit-01's arms! What was that idiot thinking?!
"Mari! You-"
"What are you gawking at?!" Mari yelled back, very unlike her usual self. "I'll be fine! Smash the damn thing!"
Despite their urgency, Mari's words gave Asuka even further pause. Bluntness and anger aside, it didn't sound like the pilot of Unit-01 was in any pain. How was that possible, considering that Rei had begun hurting as soon as the Angel had touched her?
Something was wrong, very wrong, but all of that could wait. Shaking her questions away, Asuka raised the prog-axe high above Unit-02's head.
-O]|[O-
The axe viciously struck its mark, and then it did so again, and again, and the Angel, fully aware of its terrible situation, intensified its escape attempts with every strike. Its desperation was palpable, Rei continuing to scream in agony as the Angel's body thrashed about, blood red liquid dripping out of its enlarging wound.
Mari didn't allow it to flee. She could feel a slight tingling in her arms as the tendrils reached Unit-01's elbows but it didn't bother her in any way. She knew it would be far worse the moment the infection made it past her shoulders, however.
"What are you doing, Agent Morgan?" the neutral voice that she had been expecting to hear promptly reached her ears.
"Hey, Arthur," Mari greeted back in a similar tone. "Just a little independent action."
"Stop. Your current initiative runs the risk of undermining our entire operation."
"Really? I thought keeping a valuable asset alive would be a good idea."
"The First Child is not one such asset," Arthur argued back, without a syllable rising above another. "I would understand risking your cover in such a manner for the Second, given her potential, but the First Child's nature and likely actions in the future make your initiative very questionable."
"...Yeah, well. I guess this is one of those things you can't understand, copper-brain," Mari snarled, not even trying to keep a scowl from her face. "I'm done losing important people."
Silence followed, marred only by Asuka's continued strikes and Rei's pained screams. Arthur was probably adjusting his calculations and predictions, if Mari had to guess.
"Understood," her handler finally spoke. "Am I to understand that you will not deviate from your current course of action?"
The Fifth Child didn't deign the question with a response.
"Acknowledged."
-O]|[O-
"FUCKING DIE!"
Asuka slammed her prog-axe down for the last time. She tuned out Rei's screams and focused on pushing her weapon forward, inch by bloody inch, the Angel's life force now spilling out of its wound like a crimson river. Its end was near, and the Angel knew it, but it continued to stubbornly cling to life with every last bit of its strength.
The Second Child didn't let that fact deter her. Asuka could feel Shinji's presence with her, and she kept pushing down.
'Just... a little bit... MORE!'
The red giant let out one final, defiant roar, and the last strand of Angel tissue was finally snapped...
...
...Or it should have been, but it wasn't so. A wall of light pushed the Evangelions back with the force of ten N2 warheads and sent them flying, Unit-02 landing on its feet and sliding to a stop a long distance away from its target. When Asuka regained her bearings she noticed that the Angel had detached itself from Unit-00 and morphed back into its double helix form. It glowed ominously as it rotated, but stayed in place with no signs of further aggression.
"The target is stationary!" the glasses bridge crewman reported the obvious. "The AT-Field it's projecting is one of the strongest on record!"
"Is it attacking?"
"There is… an energy build-up towards the centre of the ring, but it is gradual and slow," Akagi elaborated for Misato's benefit. "There is a possibility that the Angel could be preparing itself for a massive attack, but considering that it would take it days to reach the same energy levels that the Fifth Angel was conjuring on a whim, I believe a defensive effort on the target's part is more plausible."
"So it's licking its wounds, just like the Third Angel before Shinji arrived. Keep me informed on its progress," Misato ordered. "Asuka, Makinami, disengage. Retrieve Unit-00 and retreat back to base. I want a medical team ready to get the First Child out of that plug, and I wanted it five minutes ago!"
-O]|[O-
Their return to base lacked any of the fanfare of their deployment. It had been hurried, disorganised and, above all, tense. Ayanami had fallen unconscious the moment the Angel had pulled out of Unit-00, and HQ's attempts at revival had proven completely unsuccessful. The girl was alive, if barely, the sickening tendrils that had grown on her body still present in both her and Unit-00 but apparently inert, at least.
Through the comms, Mari heard how the rescue team wheeled away the First Child the very moment that Evangelion Unit-00 reached its home in the gantry. Their take on the situation wasn't reassuring, a brief look at Asuka's crestfallen expression in the HUD letting her know that the Second Child had been tuned in to the transmission, as well.
Mari would have been lying if she claimed that she didn't share at least a fraction of the redhead's thoughts, but they had done everything they could for her. The rest was up to Rei.
Her own rescue team had been waiting for Unit-01's arrival, too, but they had been understandably perplexed to find none of the infection that Ayanami had suffered adorning her arms. She allowed the doctors to tear through the fabric of her plugsuit in search of answers, but their well-meaning actions only served to raise even more questions.
'Their faces are worthy of a picture,' Mari smirked, allowing herself to enjoy what humour she could. 'Not that I expected anything else.'
The sound of a multitude of hurried steps and the barking of orders, followed by the frightened yelps and screams of the EVA maintenance staff tore the medical team's attention away from her 'wounds'. They turned just in time to see a fully equipped squad of soldiers rush to their position, weapons in hand, and demanding that everyone present lay face down on the floor. The engineers and rescue teams did as told without rebuke.
"Make sure you keep those barrels pointing away from the staff," Mari sternly ordered, rising to her feet. She walked over to the soldiers and grabbed an assault rifle for herself. "What's the sitrep?"
"The timeline's been pushed up, Ma'am," the squad leader, a young woman hidden under layers of armour and gadgets, reported the obvious. "Fireteams Epsilon through Foxtrot have already begun the assault on the lower levels. Alpha through Charlie are holding on to your command to start the takeover of the bridge and the Commander's office."
"...Wonderful," Mari replied, unable to hold back an exasperated groan. Exactly the words she had wanted to hear with an Angel circling the city.
'Then again, this change of plans was probably your own doing, genius.'
"What's going on?! Who are you people?! And what's with all the weapons?!" a familiar angry voice loudly demanded, opening a path through the sea of armed people like some sort of modern Moses. "Let me through, you assholes! I have to get to-"
With a mighty push, Asuka Langley-Sohryu made it past the final line and to the side of Unit-01's head. She raised her eyes and quickly found her teammate, her sister in arms, her friend. A wide smile of relief appeared on her face at the affirmation that she was alright…
…and then that same smile froze in place, the Second Child looking as if she would break from a finger's subtle caress.
"...M-Mari...?" Asuka mouthed. Her eyes were wide as saucers, her voice barely a whisper. She kept looking from one arm to the other, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. "What's...? Y-Your arms...?"
With a sigh, Mari raised her hand and held the thing that had spooked the medical team in front of her face. Metallic dark grey shone under the lights in the parts of her body where the plugsuit had been cut and the fake skin had fallen off due to the Angel's attack. The cybernetics that comprised the appendage, an absolute work of art for anyone even mildly interested in their engineering, softly whirred as she flexed her fingers.
She so wanted to tell the shocked girl all about it, answer every single one of the million questions she knew had to be battling inside her brain for a chance to be asked. But Mari also knew that it was not the time for any of that.
"...Sorry, Princess. We'll talk later," the Fifth Child ultimately offered with a weak smile, before she turned to two of the troopers. "Get her back in the plug. Things shouldn't get out of hand in this area, but better safe than sorry."
"Hey! You people don't get to say where I have to be!" Asuka protested, hands on her hips and with no intention of making things easy. She stared at the two fully loaded men with far more fire than Mari would have expected out of any unarmed civilians and opened her mouth, clearly intending to give them a piece of her mind in true Asuka fashion. She stopped herself just prior to blurting out her tirade, however, her eyes widening in recognition. "...Wait a second. You two are-"
"Yes, yes, we are who we are, your Highness. It's always a pleasure to see you again," Mister Casual, the name that Asuka had bestowed on Agent 2846B, replied with his usual flair. His designated partner, Agent 5743G, or Mister Monotone, stoically stood by his side. "NERV HQ is going to become a more dangerous place than you're used to for some time, so, if you will please follow us...?"
"And what if I refuse?"
"Asuka, please," Mari pleaded, putting aside all pretences for the sake of protecting the other person she had come to think of as a friend. "Rei being on a stretcher is bad enough. I don't want to risk anything happening to you, too."
"Because you care or because I'm useful?"
The venomous question hurt a bit more than Mari had expected, even if she didn't allow it to show in her face. The Fifth Child forced the feeling aside, quickly deciding that full honesty was probably the best option at that point. Asuka had clearly figured a lot of things out in just a few, short moments, anyway.
"…Both."
The answer was not to Asuka's liking. Again, she opened her mouth with the intention of speaking her mind but, once more, she stopped. For a few seconds, the redhead seemed to have a battle of wills with herself, scowling even deeper than before and likely thinking some less than flattering things about everyone involved, especially her teammate. In the end, however, Asuka turned around with one last, angry look in Mari's direction and marched back towards Unit-02, her two escorts trailing a few paces behind.
The quizzical looks of most of the remaining squad followed behind the Second Child, but Mari needed no explanation to make an educated guess as to what had just transpired.
'Thanks for the save, Sleeping Beauty.'
Mari shook her head to clear her thoughts and let out another, tired sigh. She held the current of air out for a few moments before she rose back up, her eyes back to being those of a leader.
"It should go without saying, but check your targets and leave the civvies out of this. We still need them to run the show and we don't want any bad blood getting in the way of that," Mari ordered without room for any argument. "The security forces and Section-2 are fair game, but if you can spare the former without risking you or your team, do so. I want a pristine op, no mistakes allowed. Understood?"
"Yes, Ma'am!"
"Good," the Fifth Child acknowledged, unlocking her weapon's safety. "Let's raise some hell."