My systems shut down. "What on earth..?" I start. A red light flashes in front of me and to the sides on my viewscreen. 'Activating Dummy Plug System' they say.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" I scream. "I WANT CONTROL!!!"
"You are not doing your job," my father says, calmly, coldly.
"But there's a person in there!" I try to argue. "I can't kill someone in cold blood!"
"It is an Angel, and it must be destroyed," he tells me, and that is the end of the argument.
My viewscreens activate again, only this time I am an observer. I can only watch helplessly as Unit-01 reactes to the dummy plug. I am surprised at the intensity of it's attack, as well as sickened. The Unit is ferocious, attacking the Angel Unit-03 in a way that I could never bring myself to do. I try the controls anyway, hoping that it will respond to me in some way and stop.
"Stop it! Stop! Stop!" I repeat over and over again. "Stop! Stop it!"
Unit-01 rips Unit-03's arms off. A liquid much like blood sprays out, coating all the buildings nearby with it.
"Stopstopstopstop!!" I am almost desperate now, shoving at the crossbar that holds me in place. "Stopstopstopstopstop!!!"
The entry plug in Unit-01's hand. "DON'T!!!" The fingers close.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Only then does the Unit stop. After it has taken someone's life.
I only sit there in shock as recovery crews try to get inside the entry plug of Unit-03, to try and recover the pilot.
"Shinji-kun..." Misato's voice enters softly into my ears.
"Who's the pilot?" I ask softly.
"I'm sorry, Shinji..," she says. "The pilot is...the pilot is..."
She doesn't need to finish the sentence. I can see for myself who the pilot is. His body is limp between the two mens' arms, his head dropped down to his chest.
Touji. My best friend.
I scream.
I came to myself again, feeling as though someone had just hit me in the stomach with a board. "Why?" I whispered. "Why kill someone..." I actually had tears slipping out from the corners of my eyes.
Because it was necessary.
That was the last thought of the Unit as the entry plug ejected and drained of LCL.
I was pretty useless for the rest of the day. The primal quality of the memory was stuck in my mind. All I could really see was the Unit's hand, crushing the entry plug of Unit-03 beneath it's fingers, over and over again. Tashi eventually gave up on trying to get me to do anything useful and productive, and Kyle just refused to talk to me, probably because of what had happened with Unit-01.
The highlight of the day was that Risa and Unit-00 finally synchronized. We had been working for months to get Unit-00 fixed and then it reacted violently, but now it would accept her. We had a long moment of triumph that didn't fade until after we had gone to bed.
I dreamed of Jun and Lina again. I was actually relieved that the Unit's memory fragment didn't enter my dream, but I wasn't sure how much more mild this dream was.
Tashi had me and Risa testing together now. He and Kyle had somehow managed to fix the system up to handle up to three testees at once to do comparitive charts. This was the second time we had done it this way, and it seemed to work.
During the middle of the test, the Unit assaulted me again, without any warning. It wasn't as much a memory this time. It was more like a simulation like the ones Tashi has shown us on the computer, where you see things as though they were really happening, but they weren't.
Dummy Plug System Activated the screens say.
"What? No, they can't be!" I cry, swinging the controls around. The Unit doesn't respond. I feel the shift in it as the dummy plug comes into full activation, and it registers as unconcious. The Angel on the viewscreen starts extending it's arms, preparing to attack.
Unit-01 becomes the attacker, leaping at the Angel and beating up on it. The Angel falters under the onslought.
"No....stop..." I whisper as I watch the Angel be all but ripped apart by an out-of-control Evangelion. I swing the contols again. No response.
"Stop...stop....stop!!" I start to struggle to get out of the plug's seat but it holds me fast and I can hardly move. With my hands, I shove the controls violently from side to side, using my whole body as leverage. One of them breaks off in my hand, bits of the metal and wiring flying off into the LCL and suspending there for a moment before drifting down.
The Unit still doesn't respond to me and continues to destroy the Angel.
The other control breaks off in my hand. I stare at them in shock for a moment before shaking them loose off my hands and pushing at the crossbar. "Stop! Stop! Stop!" I feel so trapped. Outside, the Unit is using a part of the Angel's body to crack the red globe set in it's chest. Inside the globe I can see the curled form of another human being. The globe's surface cracks.
"STOP!!!" I scream. With all the strength in my body, the crossbar gives way and breaks off into the LCL. The vision fades away.
"MEI!!!" Tashi's voice interupts into my ears, a strange sound after the silence induced by the Unit. I gasp as I see the hand controls and the crossbar floating in the LCL in front of me. I can't say anything, do anything, until everything hits me at once.
"LET ME OUT!!!" I shrieked, getting out of the seat and pushing at the door of the plug. "I HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE!"
I fell back into the seat as the plug was deactivated from the outside and twisted out. The controls and crossbar sank to the bottom as the LCL was drained out. I got back up as soon as it stopped moving and started pushing at the door again. It opened and I all but leaped out.
Tashi was on the other side, along with a dripping Risa. I fell out of the plug, hitting the walkway on my side and heard as well as felt my arm pop in its socket. Before they could do anything, I struggled to my feet and ran away from Unit-01.
I stopped running when I could hardly breathe from exertion. I didn't know where I had run to, but I once I took the time to look, I recognized it as the bottom level of NERV we had taken the time to look at. None of us had gone further. I sank down to the dusty floor, closing my eyes and resting my head against the wall behind me to catch my breath. Once I did, I struggled to my feet and wandered back.
I wasn't really eager to go back. Unit-01 was more a nightmare now than the haven it used to be. Tashi was sure to yell at me for damaging the plug so badly. I honestly didn't think I was strong enough to break the controls and crossbar off... Risa would want to do a full examination and ask me a barage of questions to determine if I was alright or not. Kyle...well, I didn't know about Kyle. Maybe he would laugh at me for running away.
I didn't know how long I had been gone, but I wasn't ready to face them yet, so I went to my room, changed for bed and went to sleep. For the first time in months, I slept without dreaming.
Tashi didn't yell at me, which I was surprised at. He only calmly asked what I had been thinking when I had damaged the plug. My eyes to the floor, I told him that I hadn't really been thinking about anything. He raised an eyebrow at me and was silent for the longest time. I felt my tentative control break. I started crying.
Luckily, he had sent the other two out, telling them to start scrounging supplies for rebuilding my entry plug, which could take awhile. Now, as I brought my hands to my face and covered it with them, he got up from his chair and put his hands on my shoulders.
"I'm not blaming you, Mei," he said softly. "All I want to know is what possesed you to destroy the only plug for Unit-01 we can find." He hesitated a moment longer and then awkwardly pulled me into his arms.
It was a long time before I could reply. When I did, it was barely audible. "The Unit...it's showing me things I don't want to see."
"What?" He sounded like he almost didn't believe me.
I nodded against his chest. "It has a concious mind, but it's been quiet for a long time now. I think it's been sending me the dreams I've been having for months, and the other day it showed me what happened when the previous pilot didn't live up to what was expected of him. Yesterday...it just took over. I thought it was really happening..." I took a deep breath to supress the lump that rose in my throat, which prevented me from speaking for a few more moments. Tashi was silent until I continued.
"It was an Angel...whatever an Angel is...and Unit-01 just took over all controls. It wouldn't respond to me at all. It was trying to kill it...and there was a human inside...and it killed the Angel...with no thought or regret...it just wouldn't respond!" I burst into tears again. Tashi continued to hold me and gently stroked my hair.
"It's alright," he said. "You'll be okay. Do you think you'll pilot Unit-01 again once we rebuild the entry plug?"
So much to ask right now... "I'll try," I said, doubtfully. "I won't know until it's rebuilt."
He smiled; I could feel it. "That's all I can ask," he said.
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Characters & concept: © 1997-2002 Katsura /\ Evangelion © Gainax