It happened in the middle of the afternoon.
Carson had left me alone for all of a week. Then he had tried to gently persuade me back to his side, and when that didn't work, he tried more forceful measures, including having guards escort me everywhere and stand outside my at night. It still didn't work. He would turn me into something I didn't want to be.
He would have turned me into a monster.
Risa and I were sitting on the catwalk between Units 00 and 01. It had been repaired, for the most part. A few of the grates were still twisted and bent. We were eating a bit of the lunch Tashi had left for us. It had been a paticularily stressful sync test, another one of Carson devisions; all I wanted to do was go to sleep, but I recognized how stupid that would be after a sync test on an empty stomach.
She finished off what was left of her food and sighed, leaning back against the railing.
"I'm thinking about moving on," she announced quietly, looking up at the ceiling, finally visible in the bright lighting.
"What?" I asked stunned. "Where would you go?"
She shrugged. "Back to school, I guess."
"In the city?" I snorted. "You'd never get that far. You'd be swamped by the adoring fans!" I sat up and waved my arms around, though the whole time I was screaming inside. What's happened to me? I WAS someone I didn't want to be! Someone save me from myself!!
Risa looked at me, almost in shock. "Thanks for the vote of confidence, Mei," she said, hurt.
I winced and bit my lower lip. "Sorry....But WHY would you go?"
"I'm tired of piloting that hunk of junk for no reason." She sighed again. "All we ever do is sync tests and the occasional trip above ground to the public presentations or whatever it is. It's just no fun anymore. I used to do this because it was fun. You and Tashi are both healthy, and you will be for some time; you don't need me, especially since you got that other doctor now, what's her name...And you know what's worse? Ever since HE came, I hardly get to see Tashi or you anymore...or at least the 'you' I used to know. You're different now, Mei. I don't know how he did it, but he's changed you so much I barely recognize you anymore." She looked at me now. "I want to do more, Mei. I know I can help more out and about in the world than just what I'd do down here, living like a mole -- "
She never got to finish the sentence as a huge explosion sounded through the entire facility. The lights flickered dangerously and the ceiling rained on us. Somewhere to my left, I heard one of the workers scream in pain and shock, which was abruptly cut off. I felt my heart stop dead in my chest.
"What's going on?" I asked Risa, not expecting her to answer.
"I don't know but we'd better find out."
Tired as we were, we to our feet and ran to C&C.
Tashi was picking himself up off the floor. Blood ran down the side of his face from a cut above his eyebrow. He looked a little stunned and kept trying to wipe blood away from his eyes. No one else was in C&C at the moment.
Risa made him sit down and stay there as she pressed a hand tightly to the wound to stop the flow of blood while I ran to get the medical kit we kept in the room. It wasn't where I thought it was; I had to go searching for it. In the meantime, I had to take cover under one of the consoles as another explosion rocked the place. I finally found the kit, grabbed it, and stumbled over a chair as I rushed to get it to Risa.
Tashi explained, between "ouch"es and "ow!"s as we wiped the blood off his face with some sort of strong-smelling liquid, that the one monitor that had always remained silent and he thought it was broken but could never find anything wrong with it, had suddenly flared and then gone dead again, right before the first exlosion shook us up. He suggested that we go topside -- carefully -- and see what was going on.
Carson burst into the room then, demanding to know what was going on. His hand was wrapped up in a cloth that was beginning to darken with blood. "I want an answer and I want it NOW!" he shouted.
Risa and I looked at each other, pausing in our in our fixing-up of Tashi; I was still wiping blood off, and she had to actually stitch the cut closed. I raised an eyebrow at her, and then laid my cloth down.
"I'll go," I said blandly. "You follow, if necessary. 'Not much fun anymore', huh?" Without waiting for an answer from them, I started to run from the room.
"Mei, stop," Carson said. One of the first times he didn't call me 'Precious' when not surrounded by cameras. "I can't let you go up there. Who knows what will happen?"
I grinned with excitement, and I'm sure it was not a nice grin. I saw it in the fear reflected in his face and eyes. "That's what I'm going to find out." I pushed past him and ran to Unit-01.
"How could she ever think of leaving?" I muttered as I climbed into the entry plug.
Are we going? Shinji asked as soon as the neural link was connected.
"Yes. Do you know what's going on?" Out of the cage, to the launch elevator...
Of course. It's an Angel.
Out of the shaft, above ground. I didn't move. I was on my own out here...Tashi couldn't watch what was going on, and even if he could, he wouldn't be able to tell me what to do. He was as new to this as I was.
And it was an Angel.
I suppose I didn't really believe in them. I'd only ever seen one in my dreams, and even then they weren't clear. I couldn't see it now, either, but even the mere thought of it was enough to make me nervous. I'm sure my mind would have conjured an image of it, but nothing would come up. At best, it looked like a giant, disproportioned Carson in my head. I actually wanted to laugh. I almost did.
What are you laughing about? Shinji sounded like he couldn't believe it. This is hardly the time to be laughing about anything! Now he sounded mad.
"I'm sorry!" I said. "See, I pictured it like it was Carson..."
I'm serious, Mei. You will have absolutely nothing to laugh about.
I ducked my head. "Sorry..." I apologized. What was I doing? I was apologizing to a spirit. No wonder Carson didn't want me going out.
Where did that come from?
My speakers crackled. "It's close to you, Mei," Tashi's voice came, all scratchy and hard to hear. "Just follow the street behind you and turn left behind that tall building." There was nothing but static now. I shut the speakers off, took a deep breath in and let it out a moment later. I moved Unit-01 away from the launch shaft and in the direction Tashi had told me. Surprisingly, I was incredibly unbalanced and almost fell over.
"What's going on?" I asked, more to myself than anything. Unit-01 was bent at a funny angle in the middle of the street -- feet wide apart, back hunched and arms out to my sides.
It's called an AT Field. It's kind of like a shield of energy around the Angel to protect it. This one isn't a flat one like I thought it would be...
"Thank you for that helpful explanation, Mr. Science," I said sarcastically. I tried to right myself and walk again.
It also has the ability to affect the pilots. That's why you can't walk, and why you're being mean.
"How can I help something I didn't even know was going on!" I protested and promptly fell into a building.
It's hard to combat an AT Field, especially one that affects the mind.
"Great words of advice," I muttered, picking myself out of what was left of the building. I managed to stay upright long enough to get around the corner.
I stopped dead and couldn't move. I would have found it eventually, or it would have found me. It was heading towards me anyway; as I stopped, another explosion went off and the building next to me creaked noisily and shuddered. It was an ugly sight.
The Angel was huge and black. It stood even with the top of Unit-01's nose blade, or it would have if it wasn't hunched over. An angry red stripe the colour of blood zigzagged down it's front and back. Two ovular black eyes surrounded by white bone were set wide in what could have been a head. In the center of it's abdomen, that accursed red globe sat peacefully, dark red in the center and fading to bright red on the outside.
It looked up at me, blinking the eyes from the outside corners in once or twice. I shuddered. It could almost have been human...
A gaping hole appeared beneath the eyes and distorted the stripe around it. A red glow appeared and grew both larger and brighter. Before I could begin to think of how to react, a red beam shot out of the hole, hitting the building beside me.
The sound was incredible. The glow died and the beam faded; all was quiet. The Angel shuffled forward on huge feet. Then the building exploded.
It didn't collapse like I thought it would have, like I had seen other buildings do, especially if I hit them accidently with a wayward arm or leg. It went outwards rather than down; I got hit with metal support beams. The rest of the materials were too old to withstand the forces involved; they crumbled into dust.
I had tears in my eyes and Eva almost fell over again. One of the beams -- a monstrosity that must have been a corner support for the entire building -- had all but wrapped itself around my leg. The armor was shattered where it had hit. Pieces of the armor were buried in the flesh beneath where it had been and cut deeply into it. I favoured that leg, taking most of my weight on the other.
"What do I do?" I asked, my voice tight with pain.
Silence. It was hard to clear my head of the pain. I tried to tell myself that it wasn't mine, my real leg was just FINE, but the thought went practically unnoticed.
"Shinji? What do I do?"
Another explosion. The street started to break apart under my feet. I nearly fell over and widened my stance to balance, forgetting about the damage done to my leg. I cried out in pain as I was forcefully reminded and dropped to one knee. It was so hard to see...
"Are you there? Shinji?"
The Angel turned back to me. The red glow in the gaping hole appeared again. I tried to crawl away, get out of the way...
The beam passed over my shoulder. A moment; the building it had hit behind me exploded. The air pressure actually pushing me away, further down the street. My shoulder armor shattered. I screamed in pain and collapsed to the gound, gasping for breath and clutching my shoulder.
The building fell on me.
Everything went dark.
| Previous | Home | Next |
Characters & concept: © 1997-2002 Katsura /\ Evangelion © Gainax