]+ ELECTRONIC TRANSCENDENCE PRODUCTIONS +[
presents
]+ NEON EPOCH +[
]+ E V A N G E L I O N +[
]+ EPISODE 3: CHORUS SINGS WINTER +[
By Eliot "Lostfactor" Lefebvre
Based off of "Shin Seiki Evangelion" by GAINAX
]++[
How can I, your servant, talk with you, my lord? My strength is gone
and I can hardly breathe.
- DANIEL 10:17
]++[
Ryo's hands gripped the smooth metal of the cockpit's handles, felt the
nylon seat soft behind him despite the soaking of the entire chamber
with LCL. The cockpit was still dark, only an audio feed established
to his Evangelion, synchronization not yet started and an uneasy
sensation of peace permeating the air. Above the unit, the observation
deck was bustling with activity, technicians preparing for EVA-00's
first activation on record - even though Ryo could see none of it, he
knew it was happening, felt almost reassured by the silent knowledge of
its presence. Anyone else would have been nervous, sitting in the
uncomfortable liquid and waiting for some kind of communication, but
Ryo barely batted an eyelash, knowing that he would be notified as soon
as his interaction was required.
"Katsuragi should have been here," muttered Ritsuko, hurriedly sipping
coffee from a white china mug before setting it down atop a computer
terminal and checking the display. "Even if it is only a technical
activation of the unit, that's something that she should be present
for. Especially considering that Ryo's our only asset if the Angels
attack prematurely."
"I informed Captain Katsuragi that her presence would not be necessary
at this test," replied Gendou, his gaze never shifting for a moment
from the orange Evangelion unit sitting below him. The fluid had been
drained from the holding cell that it was stored in, the catwalk and
other restraints retracted, leaving only the unit standing alone. "We
still have certain questions about this unit's reliability. It is
possible that it will need to be scrapped. Depending on the outcome of
this test, we will form a plan of action as far as mandatory attendance
goes." He paused. "Is the unit ready for synchronization?"
"All systems are prepared," replied Ritsuko, standing from the computer
display and glancing around the room. She stepped towards the lone
microphone towards the front of the room, knowing that in lieu of
Misato's presence it became her task to direct the pilot. "Ryo, we're
going to begin synchronization. Are you ready?"
"Yes," came the flat reply. The boy's tone always disturbed Ritsuko,
almost as if he were mocking her, despite the fact she knew he was
doing no such thing. She pushed the thought out of her head, flashing
a quick hand signal to the other technicians on deck.
The last few restraints on the Eva snapped loose, and power began to
surge through the gigantic cord plugged into the back, making the unit
stir for a moment as it started activating. "Pilot's lifesigns are
stable," noted one of the technicians, the sound of tapping keyboards
filling the room as the unit slowly began to accept its pilot.
"Machine appears to be fully ready for synchronization."
"Good," replied Ritsuko, feeling more confident about the test than
before. Despite the fact that Tokyo-3 was the world headquarters of
NERV, it had disturbed her slightly that only the first two Evangelion
units were housed at the facility, as if it were the most expendable
part of the organization. Knowing that EVA-00 was working properly did
wonders for her sense of safety. "We'll bring the pilot up to the
standard operating level of 45%, try to maintain it for a few minutes,
then shut down the unit."
Sitting within the Eva, Ryo could finally see the world around him, the
machine's external cameras finally active. It was only interesting
from an academic point of view - the massive teal room had only one
distinguishing feature, the skybox that sat at roughly eye level with
the Eva unit. Ritsuko's voice came over the radio, but he only paid
partial attention to her statements, knowing the bulk of what she was
explaining to him - that he needed to focus on the machine as he'd been
taught, that he would begin to expand his perception to the Eva's.
Moving his mind outwards, feeling the Eva's limbs begin to emerge at
the corner of his mind, he felt the sudden tickle of something else, as
if another human were breathing down his neck. "Ritsuko, I'm getting
the sense of another person in here," he noted, remaining calm despite
the disturbing nature of the sensation. "Is everything all right?"
Ritsuko paled slightly at Ryo's statement, looking towards Gendou for
some kind of reassurance. The commander remained immobile, staring at
the machine with a gaze that seemed neither approving nor hateful. "I
think so, Ryo. Remember, you're dealing with the earliest unit, so
there are some eccentricities to the machine that hadn't been fixed
yet. The production models -"
Before Ritsuko could say another word, the other end of the
communication line snapped off with a hiss of static, and Ritsuko
looked out of the control box to see the machine suddenly twitching in
an almost human manner, moving in a way that it shouldn't have been.
"Feed lines to the cockpit have been lost!" shouted one side of the
room, drawing Ritsuko's attention immediately.
"Establish a feed with the pilot immediately!" she shouted, moving away
from the window towards the lone available console. Hitting a few
keys, she brought up the synchronization rate monitor, wondering what
was going wrong. The rate seemed to be flowing perfectly normally,
slightly faster than what had been predicted for the prototype unit but
otherwise unsurprising.
"No response from any attempts! The machine is refusing all outside
contact!" There was the sound of more keystrokes as Ritsuko looked up,
saw the Eva rearing to its full height, gripping its head as though it
were in pain. The giant's lone red lens of an eye stared at her for
one piercing moment, then jerked away, the thing's hands gripping its
head as it shook. "Machine appears to be under another individual's
control! Its AT Field is unfolding!"
Looking up, Ritsuko saw the thing stabilize on its feet, hands lifting
away from its head as it stared at the skybox. "Cut the power,"
ordered the commander, remaining perfectly stable as the machine seemed
to finally take notice of Gendou's position. Then Ritsuko could only
gape as the Evangelion formed a fist and hurled it towards the skybox,
driving at the structure with all its might. For all that she knew the
observation deck was strong enough to withstand such a blow, Ritsuko
found herself suddenly very afraid and feeling very helpless.
Then the blow hit, the box folding inwards ever so slightly with the
force of the impact. Ritsuko flung herself down behind the console as
the tearing noise filled the air, then looked up to see the massive
machine throwing another punch, Gendou's position unchanged. Panic
struck, and Ritsuko quickly keyed in a quick series of commands,
hearing the loud hiss from the dock that indicated the machine's power
supply had been jettisoned. "Power cut off!" she shouted, wondering
how many of the technicians were still monitoring their stations.
"Thirty seconds of power remaining in the machine!"
"Eject the entry plug," Gendou said, his command louder than before but
still perfectly calm. The Eva slammed its fists against the skybox
again and again, the reinforced windows spiderwebbing and beginning to
break apart, Ikari remaining unmoving all the while. The Eva's upper
back split open, and the long white tube of the entry plug shot out,
but still the machine moved for a moment longer, pushing its hands
towards Gendou as if the commander were the devil himself. Watching
the great giant's hands shatter throught the glass, Ritsuko could feel
herself freezing, knowing that in an instant the unit would break
through the window and kill them all.
And then the unit ceased to move at all, hands frozen in a death-grip
around the commander's position. Gendou stared at them for a second
longer, then turned and headed towards the stairwell down into the
floor level of the holding bay. "Get a medical team to the entry plug
immediately," he barked, not even taking notice of the still-cowering
technicians. "Begin to analyze the data on this activation; see what
went wrong."
Down at the floor of the chamber lay the entry plug, looking almost
like refuse that the Eva had discarded. Inside, Ryo writhed, trying to
maintain focus despite the pain. The LCL felt like liquid fire,
clogging his lungs and burning him apart from the inside. He pushed
against the upper hatch of the cockpit, trying not so much to get out
as to simply drain the horrible burning liquid. But it was sealed
tight, and it took ten minutes for the medical team to pop open the
seal, while the LCL casually burnt him away, covered in blood and
scorches...
]++[
In the depths of Central Dogma, Ryo Ayanami woke from his memories, the
notion of wishing to forget escaping him. His life consisted of
routines, of the simple patterns that he'd grown accustomed to, and
recalling the day that he suffered his injuries had become a routine as
much as awakening to the fluorescent lights and pale white walls of the
hospital. For a week before Neil Richelieu had arrived at Tokyo-3,
he'd lay in bed, waking when his body had enough sleep, contemplating
nothing for hours until he was fed, sleeping, awaiting moments when the
commander desired to talk to him. Then Neil had broken the routine
with his brief and sudden arrival, an arrival that would have been a
welcome relief from boredom if Ryo truly understood the concept of
being bored.
By Ryo's estimation, it had been at least four days since Neil had
departed, and Ryo had noticed a marked change in the doctor's tone
since then, almost as if they were contemptuous of Ryo's continued
presence even as they commented on his amazing healing. They would
stand over him in their white coats, telling him that he had healed
third-degree burns when they had expected he'd be lucky to even walk
again, all the while clearly wishing that it was Neil instead. Ryo
would have felt jealous, perhaps even said something, if it had
bothered him. Regardless of their emotions towards him, he would be
released eventually, and return to service as an Evangelion pilot.
Something in the air told him that today would be that day. He no
longer felt the residual burning pain in his lungs from the LCL, no
longer had a dull ache seeping through his limbs, no longer tried to
remain perfectly still to ease the pain of motion. The doctors, in
their angry tones, had told him his recovery was amazing, that no human
should have healed the injuries he'd suffered so quickly. It was an
academic footnote to him, of only minor consequence. As before, he
stared at the ceiling, simply waiting, knowing that time would pass and
he would be given a new routine to follow.
A creak came from the door of the room, and he turned his head to look
at the door, pain finally absent from the motion. The light spilling
out from the hallway seemed unimaginably bright for a moment, the only
break being the dark silhouette of one of the doctors. "Get up," he
ordered, resent barely concealed beneath his voice. "You're being
released."
]++[
"It looks empty," Nieve announced, staring down from the catwalk to the
bottom of the holding bay. There were still traces of the odd-colored
liquid that had filled it before dripping towards the bottom, looking
more viscous than Nieve could remember it seeming. "Every day for the
past few years, I'd come in here and see it standing here, as if we
were old friends. Now it's gone." She smiled at herself, looking over
at Kaji. "I sound silly, don't I?"
"Only a little," he replied as she rose to her feet, her heels clicking
against the thin metal of the catwalk. While she had the freedom to
wear what she chose, he had to wear the deep blue jumpsuit of the
Intelligence division of NERV, a suit that he loathed with a passion
and had informed Nieve of more than once. "But it'll be fine. In a
few days, we'll be in Japan, and then you'll get to see if all that
practice in EVA-02 was worth the time."
"Hmmph." Nieve shrugged, stepping around Kaji towards the sliding door
out of the holding bay. "I'm wondering if all the time we've spent
sitting around here was worth it." The doors slid open on her
approach, Kaji a few feet behind her. She smiled to herself, hoping
that he was admiring the low back on her dress instead of just
following her as an officer. "It took days just to get the transfer
order put through. We should have moved faster."
Kaji chuckled, hearing the hiss of the doors shutting behind him as
Nieve continued down the corridor heedlessly. "As I remember, it
wasn't us putting through the transfer paperwork, it was me." He
shrugged. "Considering the immense amounts of money put into NERV, it
makes sense that the UN would want to know what we're doing with the
machines."
"No, I would think that they'd want to get the machine where it can be
useful as fast as possible," she replied, sounding frustrated. She
stopped before an elevator, pressing a button on the side and waiting
impatiently for the machine to bring the car to the appropriate level.
"By the time we get there, the Angels could have been exhausted
completely. That would make the expense of EVA-02 worthless."
The elevator dinged, and Nieve stepped in as the doors slid open, Kaji
following behind her as she pressed the button to bring them to the
surface. "I'm afraid you're going to have to wait even longer to get
into a combat situation, much as you're looking forward to it," he
replied, drawing an irritated stare from Nieve immediately. "We're
also responsible for the transport of the Sixth Child from Africa. EVA-
05 is being transported to the nearest possible rendezvous point over
land, and we'll pick both of them up before heading to Japan."
"You're kidding, right?" asked Nieve, staring at Kaji for a second,
obviously hoping that his statement wasn't true. He shook his head,
provoking an irritated growl from Nieve as she slammed her fist against
the side of the elevator. "God damn it, that's pointless! They could
airlift the pilot and the machine from NERV's headquarters there! It's
taking longer for us to get there anyways, and now they're just slowing
us down!"
"UN policy is to try and keep the Evas in groups of two during
transportation, in case something attacks the transport." Kaji offered
another shrug as Nieve continued to fume, crossing her arms angrily
across her chest and gritting her teeth. "Cheer up. I'm sure that the
two Children who are there can keep everything under control until you
get there."
"Are you insane? The First Child hasn't even seen combat yet, and the
only reason the Third Child managed to get away from the Third Angel
with his life is because something happened to the machine." Kaji's
eyes widened slightly at Nieve's second statement, obviously not
expecting her to be aware of the specifics of EVA-01's first battle.
"The techs let me review a transcript of the battle. From what you
told me, I thought that the Third Child had won through skill, not
luck."
"Give him a little more credit than that," replied Kaji, seeming a
little hurt by Nieve's statement for reasons she couldn't discern.
"Neil didn't have any training in the Eva, but he did manage to beat
the Angel. Even if the victory wasn't flawless, it's better than
nothing."
Nieve said nothing, simply sulking against the wall for a moment,
trying to think up a way to get to Tokyo faster than she'd been
scheduled to. "Could we go on ahead?" she asked, turning towards Kaji
and softening her expression somewhat. "I mean, as long as the convoy
picks up EVA-05, it will get transported. So why can't we just move on
ahead with EVA-02?"
"Because we're not allowed to," replied Kaji. The tone was familiar to
Nieve, carrying the subtle implication that his tolerance was running
low. "Nieve, you'll get there in due time, and I'm certain that your
machine will have more than enough work to do once we get there. Relax
for a minute."
"I seem to be the only once concerned about this," she muttered
bitterly, turning her gaze away from Kaji indignantly. She knew that
she wasn't a political leader, that she couldn't have the sway of an
entire country, but she also knew that without the Children the Evas
were essentially useless. She knew how important she was to the entire
project, and knowing that she didn't have any control over the
situation at all made her angrier than she'd expected. Kaji said
something to try and calm her down, but she wasn't listening, harboring
a deep sense of being manipulated and a temporary animosity towards the
Third Child.
]++[
Ryo knew, on a visual level, that Central Dogma and the First Municipal
High School of Tokyo-3 were very different places. The wooden green
and manilla hallways broken regularly by windows looked nothing like
the sleek metal of NERV's corridors, the light streaming in from the
outside a far cry from the almost suffocating artificiality of the
underground facility's light. As far as Ryo was concerned, however,
there was no meaningful distinction between the two as he walked
towards Class 2-A, which for all he cared may as well have been the
locker room of Central Dogma, Commander Ikari's office, or the entry
plug itself. It was simply a new routine, a new route to memorize.
He'd been given clear instructions as to how the routine was to be
maintained before leaving for school, all given in short, staccato
commands from Dr. Ikari. "You will arrive for school at precisely 8
AM." "You will dress in the provided uniform, without any wrinkles or
stains on your clothing." "You will not discuss any of NERV's internal
procedures." "You will not volunteer to let any other students into
NERV facilities." The briefing had gone on for at least an hour, with
Ryo giving a simple nod to each statement. They were not questions,
nor was there any need to question the routine. It was what Commander
Ikari had decided upon, therefore it was to be followed.
Checking the sign above the door one last time, Ryo pushed open the
door to the classroom, walking in quietly and ignoring the stares of
others. He knew where he was to sit, a lone seat near the window in
the classroom, and he stepped over to it without even looking twice,
placing his bag next to his desk and facing forward, waiting for class
to start.
"You're Ayanami, aren't you?" asked a voice, male, the name coming
across almost as an accusation. Ryo turned to see another boy his age
leaning over his shoulder, his bleached blonde hair projecting off of
his head at an angle that didn't seem physically possible, the
expression on his face seeming somewhat uneasy. Over his uniform he'd
slung a black windbreaker which he'd left unzipped. "I recognize you
from earlier. You haven't been here since the first day."
"I am Ayanami, correct," he replied, turning back towards the front of
the room. He saw no more need for a discussion with the other boy, but
his view was obviously not shared as the boy sat down backwards at the
desk in front of him, studying Ryo's features as if he were preparing a
report. "You're in my way."
"Not from where I'm sitting," replied the boy, still eyeing Ryo as if
he were about to bite. "You're part of NERV, aren't you? One of the
Eva pilots?"
"Yes," replied Ryo, still unsure of where the conversation was heading,
opening his bag and beginning to put his notebooks inside the desk.
The boy was still staring at him, and he noticed that he was beginning
to attract something of a crowd around his desk. "Is there a point to
this?" he asked, the faintest hint of annoyance in his words.
"I'm wondering why you're in school," replied the boy, leaning over
Ryo's desk further. Ryo took no notice of it, continuing the simple
routine of putting his books away. "That Neil kid, the other pilot,
he's not coming to school. Why does he get out of it?"
Ryo didn't answer immediately, placing one notebook on his desk and
opening it to a blank page. "I would imagine that his absence has
something to do with the fact that he doesn't speak Japanse," he said
at length, drawing what looked like a befuddled look from the boy as if
he hadn't considered the possibility. "If you want to talk to him, I
suggest you find him instead of me."
"Vash, leave Ayanami alone," shouted a voice from the back, drawing the
blonde boy's attention. The boy, who Ryo assumed was Vash, stared back
at Ryo for a moment, studying his gaze. Ryo took notice of it, simply
staring dead ahead and waiting for class to start. Shifting
uncomfortably in his seat, Vash stared for a moment longer, then shook
his head and stood from the chair, turning and heading towards the back
of the room.
"Excuse me," came another voice, obviously addressing Ryo. He glanced
to his side, seeing a short-haired young girl sitting next to him. She
glanced towards the back of the room quickly, then leaned slightly
towards Ryo. "You know Neil?"
Nodding, Ryo turned back towards the front of the room, unconcerned by
the events that had just transpired. It was far more important to him
that the professor was entering the room, putting his own books down
and preparing to begin class. Then Ryo heard a small noise to his
side, and he glanced towards the girl to see her looking as though she
were about to say something, mouth half opened. She shook her head and
smiled at Ryo, then turned towards the front of the room.
His routine demanded that he turn back towards the board, that he focus
on the professor and listen to what he had to say. Still, Ryo found
himself staring at the girl for a half-second longer, a vague sensation
that he could not explain tickling at the back of his mind. He turned
back towards the front of the room, his attention on the professor, but
he found himself wondering what the girl was going to say, wanting to
find the answer to his questions more than he wanted to follow his
routine for just a moment.
]++[
Sighing heavily, Misato placed the telephone back down on the cradle,
feeling exhausted just from the act of simple conversation. She felt
the sudden urge for a cigarette, to have the distinct scent fill her
nose and filter through her lungs, just to relieve the stress for a
moment, but she pushed the thought out of her mind, knowing that there
was a reason why she had stopped smoking in the first place.
"Americans," she muttered, shaking her head as she turned to face
Ritsuko. "They never want to let go of anything military."
"Will they be transferred?" asked Ritsuko, sipping her coffee and
apparently unconcerned with Misato's stress. They were waiting inside
Misato's office for Neil to arrive, more out of the fact that it was
the room closest to the locker room that had a phone inside. It
certainly wasn't for comfort - the only pieces of furniture inside were
a single floor lamp that Misato insisted upon using instead of the
fluorescent lights, a swiveling business chair, and the gray metal desk
that all offices were given. Misato's excuse was that she hadn't had
any time to decorate it, but Ritsuko would have sooner believed that it
was simply because Misato had no interest in furnishing the place.
"Your concern for me is noted," muttered Misato, sinking backwards into
the padded nylon of her chair. "Yes, they'll be transferred. EVA-03
will be moved over land to Nevada, then it and EVA-04 will be airlifted
here. They expect they'll be here in a day or two." She sighed,
rubbing her forehead as she leaned back, feeling slightly relieved that
the only sound in her office was Ritsuko's breathing. "It's a shame
that we can't just get the other two units lifted here. They'd come
faster."
Ritsuko took another sip of her coffee, the bitter taste keeping her
mind alert and off of unimportant matters. "EVA-02 is too far away to
lift here. The plane would have to make a stop in America, and their
facilities aren't equipped to handle the European prodction model."
She glanced at the teetering piles of paper that had already
accumulated atop of Misato's desk, noticing that the top one looked to
be a personnel file for Neil. "You know, you should bring the Third
Child's data down for filing."
"Do I tell you how to do your job?" sighed Misato, rubbing her forehead
more vigorously. She shook her head, knowing that Ritsuko was looking
at her disapprovingly even with her eyes closed. "Sorry. I didn't get
any sleep last night, and I'm not exactly at the top of my game right
now."
"I hope you don't think I believe that," replied Ritsuko, drawing
Misato's attention instantly. She sat up in her chair, looking towards
the other woman for some kind of cue from her expression, but Ritsuko
had already turned away, sipping her coffee as if she hadn't said
anything. "You got drunk. Poor judgement on your part, especially
considering that we're staring Neil's training today."
Misato glared, the accusation stinging more than she'd expected it to.
"I didn't get drunk, I just had a couple of beers. That's not 'poor
judgement.'" She looked towards Ritsuko, who continued to stare off
into the distance, not even giving Misato a second glance. "You could
benefit from occasionally using some poor judgement, you know. It
would do wonders for your social life."
The comment was meant to sting, but Ritsuko's glance back told Misato
that it had succeeded at doing virtually nothing. "There's time in the
day for me to have a social life or a career with NERV," she replied
flatly, obviously unaffected by the accusation. "I'm too good at the
latter to be concerned about the former."
Wanting to get the last word in, Misato was cut off by the noise of her
office doors hissing open, and she looked up to see Neil standing in
the doorway. She stood, and Neil stepped in slightly, obviously
uncomfortable in his new attire. "I put the suit on," he muttered,
still apparently checking it out as Misato walked towards him. "It
feels strange, though. A little too close to my skin. Like I'm still
not wearing anything."
"It's called 'skintight' for a reason," replied Misato walking towards
him. "Besides, if we really didn't have you wearing anything, I think
the female technicians would be staring too much." Ritsuko rolled her
eyes at the comment, and Neil blushed slightly, Misato ignoring both as
she ushered Neil out of the door and back into the hallway. "Come on.
We've got to get you down to the entry plug, then get you out to the
surface for training." Neil obliged, stepping out into the hallway.
Misato began to follow him, then stopped, holding up a finger to
indicate that she'd only be a minute.
Ritsuko stared at the other woman, a puzzled look on her face. "Why
the delay?" she asked, finally displaying something other than self-
righteous calm in her tone. "If he's ready to begin the tests -"
"Something just occurred to me," Misato interjected, leaning against
one side of the door frame and extending her legs just far enough to
make leaving impossible without tripping over her. "Do we even have
pilots for the two American units? The Marduk Report skips the
identity of -"
"We know who the Fourth and Fifth Children are," replied Ritsuko before
Misato had even finished her objection, drumming her fingers against
her clipboard out of impatience. "The Marduk Report concealed them
because they were not introduced to the project at a younger age, and
we thought it best to keep them protected until the Angels attacked.
Same as with the Third Child." She paused for a moment, Misato still
leaning in the doorframe. "Are we going to get to work, or are you
going to stand there all day?"
Misato considered saying something else for a moment, another thought
rolling around in her head, but she decided against it. "That was it,"
she said, letting the doors to her office slide open again as she
stepped out to see Neil waiting, leaned against the opposite wall of
the corridor and drumming his hands against the hard metal. "Sorry
about the delay. Let's get to work."
]++[
The hum of the engine and the high wail of the sirens were the only
sounds that penetrated the transport truck, but the emptiness of the
vehicle made the noises echo all that louder. In a vehicle designed to
house dozens of soldiers for transport into a combat situation, a
single teenage girl was hardly enough to counteract the echoing effects
of the chamber's size, and so she was seranaded by redoubled humming
noises, refracted squeals, and the gentle thumping of the wheels as the
truck moved along the highway. It was intimidating somehow, the lack
of any human contact combined with the echoing sounds, but Niobe
Littmore refused to allow it to disturb her, keeping her mind focused
on the task ahead of her. She would be at the rendezvous point in
several hours, and when she got there she had to be ready to perform
her duties, ready to meet the NERV officers waiting for her and be the
pilot of her Evangelion.
Her parents, true to form, had not stayed to watch her leave, instead
promising her that they would call her on her cell phone. Glancing at
the small phone, more out of something to do in the emptiness of the
truck than in anticipation of the call, she smiled bitterly, still
feeling a rush of pride for being the Sixth Child. Despite the
progress that the continent had made since the Second Impact, Niobe
knew that most of the world still thought of Africa as the most
primitive location on the face of the planet, that all of its
inhabitants were still squatting in the bush, that there were about
five cars across the entire length of the continent and they were
constantly driving across deserts or savannah. To be one of the
Children was something to be proud of anyways, but Niobe knew that she
had to be more than proud, that her status held more importance than it
did for perhaps any of the other Children.
Lost in her own thoughts, Niobe almost didn't notice when the phone
rang, its soft buzz lost in the bland din of the transport truck until
it had already rung twice. Slapping herself for her stupidity, she
grabbed the phone, flipped it open, then pressed it to her ear as the
connection was established. "Three rings," stated her father's voice,
deep, disapproving as always, as if Niobe were personally responsible
for all the woes in his life. "You said you would answer right away."
"You're right, I did," Niobe replied, not feeling up to trying to argue
the point with her father. She knew that it was an immaterial issue,
and she also was all too aware of the fact that trying to argue with
him was a no-win scenario. "We should be at the docks in about twelve
hours. If traffic continues to be light, it'll be sooner." She
paused. "You don't think that I'm going to be able to do it, do you?"
"No," replied her father, no hesitation in his voice. Niobe gave
another bitter smile, knowing his old game of expectations against
capability. He never expected that she could do anything - just
listening to him, it was a miracle she could tie her own shoes. "I
don't. So you've got to prove me wrong, don't you?"
"Right," replied Niobe, leaning back in her seat, fighting the urge to
undo her seatbelt and start pacing. "I'm a little worried, though.
I've been thinking about the situation, and really, I've only been
training on EVA-05 for two years. That's a lag compared to some to the
other Children. I'll do my best, but I don't know if -"
"If you're going out there expecting to be anything other than the
best, you can forget about coming back," snapped her father, the anger
evident in his voice. Niobe winced, less at the peak in volume than at
the fact that she should have known that was the wrong thing to say to
him. "You are Niobe Littmore of South Africa. Nobody will care about
you at all if you can't be the best pilot of all the Children. Now
tell me what you're going to do, now, before I hang up in disgust."
A single tear started to bubble from the corner of her eye, but she
ignored it, forcing herself to remember the whole reason she was
sitting in the transport. "I'm going to be the best," she said, doing
her best to sound strong. "You just watch, dad. I'm going to be the
best pilot that they've got."
There was a momentary pause from the other end, as if the signal had
gone dead. Niobe realized when her father began speaking again that he
simply had let his speech halt for a moment, that it had nothing to do
with the reception of the phone. "Call me Joseph, not 'dad.'" He
sounded slightly less disapproving than before, almost as if he were
proud of her response. "You're an adult, you should act like one."
"Joseph. You're right." She fought down the urge to apologize,
knowing that it would only make the situation worse. "I'm almost out
of range on the phone, Joseph. If there's anything else you want to
say, you should probably say it now." Although Niobe didn't say it,
part of her wanted him to say that he was proud of how far she'd come,
that all the effort she'd put into making EVA-05 work correctly meant
something to him. But she knew that he'd say no such thing, and that
same part of her wanted him to not answer her, to let her maintain the
illusion that he'd said what she wanted just as they moved out of
signal range.
"Your mother will mail you any personal belongings you need once you're
in Japan," her father said briskly, scattering the thoughts she'd had
for a split-second with those few words. "We will be in touch once you
get there." Then the dial tone sounded for a second before Niobe heard
the trademark static that indicated she'd moved out of signal range.
She paused, then shut the phone, knowing that it would be useless once
she got to Japan but not wanting to deplete the power on the off chance
that she was wrong.
Niobe put the phone down next to her for a second, then picked it up
again, looking at it intently. As she stared, she found a desire
swelling inside of her to hurl the phone against the opposite side of
the transport, to take some solace in the noise it made as it split
apart and left her alone forever. The sensation grew to be almost
overpowering, and she felt her grip on the device tighten before she
released it and put it down on the seat next to her. Closing her eyes,
she leaned back against her seat, doing her best to stay confident with
the fears shouting for her attention inside her head.
]++[
The scent was familiar, but that didn't make the LCL flooding the
chamber any more pleasing than it had been the first time, nor did it
make the salty taste in his mouth or the sticky scent of blood any less
disturbing. It wouldn't have been so bad, however, if he hadn't needed
to wear the suit. Misato had shown him what was called a plugsuit a
few minutes before he'd been expected to change into it, and he'd been
reluctant at the time. "It helps you synchronize with your Eva," she'd
explained, going on to spout some technobabble that she admitted she
didn't even understand fully. The bottom line was that they wouldn't
let Neil get into the entry plug this time unless he put on the
plugsuit, and that meant he didn't have much choice if he wanted the
next Angel attack to go any more smoothly than the first one. He
needed training, and to train, he needed to use the Eva again, whatever
his feelings on the uniform were.
As the cockpit flooded with LCL, he looked down on the suit again,
still amazed by the way that it managed to feel tight without being
restrictive. His first impression of it was that it was some sort of
modified green wetsuit, with a piece of purple armor molded onto the
chest and upper back. Once he'd actually gotten into the thing,
though, he'd found that it was somewhat different, with all sorts
different little ridges and bumps across it that looked variably like
screws and plugs. Aside from the colors, he'd been informed by Misato
that it could easily be distinguished from the other Children's suits
by the blocky "03" on the chest. Why it mattered wasn't made clear to
him, especially since the suit vacuum-sealed itself to fit more or less
anyone who put it on. He didn't find it uncomfortable physically - it
actually felt a little nice, almost comfortable. It was the sensation
of being exposed that made him uneasy, even as the LCL rushed up clog
his mouth and lungs.
Coughing for a moment as the liquid flowed in, Neil felt the sensation
of normality kick in once again as the cameras activated, the cockpit
now feeling a lot more comfortable than before. Misato warned him that
synchronization was beginning, and he felt the same tickle at the edges
of his mind, the same way that the machine had felt before. It felt
less frightening now, even though it was only his second time in the
machine. "All right, Misato, I'm ready when you are," he announced as
the restraints were removed and the Eva moved towards the launch pad.
"Let's start the training session."
In the command room, Misato nodded, signaling to the technicians to
launch the machine towards the surface. "We're launching you into the
Geo-Front for training, Neil," she explained, moving over towards
Ritsuko as the computers tracked the machine's progress out of Central
Dogma. The central screen had moved away from monitoring the Eva in
its docked position, now centering on the machine's intended emergence
point. "How's his synchronization rate doing?"
"47% and holding steady," replied Ritsuko, sounding slightly displeased
with the result of the readings. "It's above normal operating
parameters, but I'd expected higher, especially considering his rates
before." She sighed, examining the display more closely, obviously
looking for some kind of spike in the readout. "Perhaps it's the
machine acting up again."
EVA-01 lurched out of the exit port a few hundred meters away from
Central Dogma, Neil keeping his mental control over the machine to keep
it from falling. The radio was silent for a moment, then Misato's
voice came over the channel, a slight bit of a crackle added to it as
if the radio were malfunctioning. "All right, Neil, basics first.
That cord plugged into your back is your power supply. It's what keeps
the Eva running. If it gets disconnected, though, you only have five
minutes of operation left with the internal batteries. There are
spares placed all around the city, so you should be able to move around
without worry."
Neil took a quick glance behind him, noticing that trailing wire as if
for the first time, then nodded, stepping off of the exit port and
finding the Eva's controls far more managable than before. "Okay. Got
that." He paused, testing the machine's arms and hands for a moment.
"What else should I really have been told about before I got in this
thing?"
Misato's response signaled the beginning of an amount of time that Neil
couldn't begin to really gauge, save by the fact that he knew he was
moving through the Eva's systems at a whipcrack pace. He finally got
an explanation of why the machine had two vertical black fins extending
from its shoulders, as Misato explained that they stored the only on-
board weapon for the machine, the progressive knife. What was
progressive about it wasn't explained, although Neil assumed it had
something to do with the sheer size of the weapon. Then he was briefed
on weapon depots, the Eva's built-in targeting system, the armor
structure, flexibility, muscle mass, synchronization, launch ports,
number designation, on and on until he could feel his head start to
swim.
What made it worse, other than the fact that he still loathed the
sensation of the LCL in his mouth and lungs, was the fact that he still
hadn't actually been trained at all. He'd assumed that the point of
the exercise was to let him be more effective the next time an Angel
attacked, not simply to be given a rundown of how EVA-01 worked. As he
picked up what Misato told him was the standard-issue Evangelion rifle,
letting the targeting crosshairs pop into view on his camera, he could
no longer resist sighing. "Why do I get the impression that there's a
reason why you're just briefing me on all of this?" he asked, putting
the rifle down in the grass of the Geo-Front. "Couldn't I get some
kind of actual training?"
The radio stayed silent for a moment, as if Misato hadn't heard the
question. "There's one other system that we need to go over before we
get into training, but I still haven't quite figured out how to explain
it to you." She sighed. "I mentioned that the armor wasn't the
primary defense of the Evangelion, and it isn't. The primary defensive
system is the AT Field."
"AT Field?" asked Neil, the phrase sounding odd even though it wasn't
complicated. A memory tickled at the back of his mind, recalling some
of the shouts he'd heard over the radio after the Angel had punched
through his helmet. "You shouted something about that with the Third
Angel, didn't you?"
"Yes. All of the Angels have an AT Field, part of why the UN forces
weren't having any effect on the Third during its approach." Another
memory came to Neil's mind, more hazy than the first, knowing that
while he was raging against the Angel in a red fury that he'd torn
through some kind of glowing barrier. "The AT Field keeps the machine
safe from all conventional weaponry, but in the Evas, it also allows
you to neutralize the AT fields of the Angels." She paused.
"Unfortunately, it's tough to explain how to activate one... sort of
like tensing a muscle, from what Ritsuko's told me."
"Uh-huh. So that's my training on it." He sighed, trying shifting his
focus around inside of the Evangelion, feeling very much as if he were
trying to find a needle in a darkened concert hall. Wishing that he
could shut off the radio for just a minute, he struggled, muttering
anything that he could think of into the bloody liquid around him to
try and make the Eva deploy the damn field. After a minute, he growled
loudly, shoving the handles of the cockpit back and forth with as much
force as he could muster. "Damn it, ACTIVATE THE FIELD!"
He had expected, at best, for Misato to restraing the impulse to laugh
and for his machine to simply remain unresponsive to his demands.
Instead, he heard the background chatter on the radio suddenly take on
an excited tone, and the air a few meters away seemed to start
shimmering with a vaguely green tone. "Well done, Neil," announced
Misato, sounding a little surprised that he'd managed to do it as
well. "The field is deployed. Whatever you just did, that's how you
get it to work."
"Throw a hissy fit. Great plan." He kept his voice low enough so that
he didn't think that Misato could hear him, but he suspected that she
guessed what he was saying regardless. "All right. If we're done with
the briefing, can we get on to something resembling real training?"
]++[
School, despite his brief encounter during the morning, had run
according to the routine that Commander Ikari had laid out for him, one
that he found easy to follow. He listened, took down everything the
professor said, read what the professor told him too, and simply waited
until the class was dismissed for the day. Without the concept of
boredom and nothing else to anticipate, the hours flew by for him, and
before he knew it the class was let out, spreading out from the drab
white building across the campus, towards their various homes. Ryo
knew this part of the routine as well, that he was to report to NERV as
soon as he was let out, and he headed towards the bus stop, knowing
that it would bring him close enough to an access route for him to be
there on time.
"Ayanami-san!" The shout drew Ryo's attention, the voice recognized
instantly by his mind as the voice of the girl from the classroom in
the morning. She was running towards him, a piece of paper fluttering
in her hand, something indeterminate flashing in her eyes. For a
moment, Ryo thought that she might be heading towards someone else,
that perhaps he wasn't the only Ayanami in the class, but the
expression in her eys combined with her slowed pace as she approached
him dashed that theory. "Can I ask you a favor?"
Ryo stared, somewhat confused by the question. "What do you want me to
do?" he asked in response a moment later, certain that she'd simply
misphrased her question by accident.
"You don't have to do it if you don't want to," she replied, looking
slightly perturbed by his own question and confusing him further.
"I... I wanted to ask you if you'd be willing to give this to Neil."
She extended the piece of paper that she'd been holding, and Ryo saw
that it was a sketch of a city, presumably Tokyo-3, around the middle
of the day, black and white pencils with some intentional smudging.
"Why?" asked Ryo, taking the sketch regardless of the question. He
turned it over, expecting some kind of text on the back, but it was
blank. Confused by both the question and the sketch itself, a vague
frown stirred at the edges of his face. "Did he lend it to you, and
now you need to return it?"
"It's a gift," replied the girl, a thin smile crossing her face. "When
we met, I was... well, it's not really important. I just want him to
know that I'm not mad at him, that I don't blame him for what happened
to my brother." She sighed. "Tell him to hold on to it, as a
keepsake, and tell him that Eiko wants to talk to him again. Please."
"Eiko," repeated Ryo, staring at the sketch, trying to understand the
girl's statement. He knew that there was some emotion at play, one
that he couldn't quite pick out or understand, and it made him feel
uncomfortable, knowing that she was speaking about something beyond his
comprehension. "I'll give it to him," he said after another minute of
staring, trying not to sound curious once again as he tucked the sketch
into his bag. "He and I will probably see one another at NERV."
"Thank you," Eiko replied, giving a slight sort of bobbing bow to Ryo
before turning to run back towards her friends. She took a few steps,
then stopped and turned back, an expression on her face that Ryo
couldn't place. "I'd go see him myself, but... well, I don't know
where he lives. I really appreciate it."
Ryo did not respond to her final statement, staring after her as the
bus pulled to the curb in a cloud of exhaust and sand. She wanted to
use him, use him to perform a function that she was incapable of
performing herself. That was nothing that Ryo was unaccustomed to, and
it was nothing that he had ever felt anything but neutral towards. For
the barest moment, however, he felt himself feeling jealous, almost
resentful of the fact that she only cared about him to the extent that
she could use him. He pushed the thought out of his mind, stepping
onto his bus and showing his pass as he walked towards the nearest
empty seat. It was a distraction from his routine, something that he
could not afford.
]++[
"UN Forces have engaged the target. We should have visual in a few
moments." Makoto Hyuga was in his element, fingers dancing across the
keyboard and keeping a close watch on the sudden energy spike that had
appeared on their monitors a few minutes prior as Misato stood over his
shoulder. They still hadn't relayed any information to Neil, but
Makoto's fingers hovered over the alert button, and Misato knew that
all they were awaiting was the arrival of Commander Ikari. "The
pattern is blue. It's definitely an Angel."
"Hold on. I'm sure that the commander is -" Misato was cut short as
the hiss of an elevator filled the air, and she glanced up to see Ikari
taking his seat on the level above while Fuyutsuki stood next to him.
The commander's expression was fixed not on the main monitor, but
instead on the wireframe map suspended in midair slightly beneath the
monitor, a single flashing red dot indicating the Angel's position.
"Commander, we've identified the energy pattern as an Angel. We
haven't contacted 01 yet, but -"
"Classify this as the Fourth Angel," announced Gendou, his tone making
it questionable whether or not he'd even listened to what Misato was
saying. A half-second later, the main screen began displaying the
visual feed from the UN forces, this time only from the onboard camera
of the aerodrones. The thing was easily as huge as the prior Angel,
but it looked different, almost like the top half of a squid, skimming
along the surface of the water towards Tokyo-3 and ignoring the attacks
of the drones. "Sound the alert."
Neil heard the wailing horn fill the air for a second, followed a
moment later by a calm female voice announcing something in Japanese.
He shouldered the rifle he had been using for target practice, knowing
that something was going on. "Misato?" he shouted, hoping that the
communicaton would be audible over the roar of the alarm. "What's the
alarm for?"
"We've just confirmed the Fourth Angel's presence," replied Misato,
sending a chill up Neil's spine. He'd known, on an academic level,
that he was going to have to fight another Angel, but the familiarity
he was slowly establishing with EVA-01 seemed to melt away at the
thought of actual combat. He didn't want to be put in a situation like
before, but he gritted his teeth, trying not to show his apprehension.
"Head back towards the entry port you'd used - we'll launch you to the
surface from there." She paused. "You'll need to get rid of the
rifle."
Sighing, Neil tossed the rifle to the ground, sending EVA-01 running to
the entry port. It was already sliding into action, rails extending
vertically and the platform for the unit to stand on popping up at
ground level. Pressing his back agains the rails, he put both feet
firmly on the platform, then felt the machine lurch downward and around
for a second. A sickening motion later, the unit was shooting upwards
again, this time towards the streets of Tokyo-3.
"Once you're at the surface, there will be a weapons depot a few meters
to your left. You can get another weapon from there." Misato sighed,
glancing back towards the main screen. The Angel had moved within
range of NERV's cameras, but the visual was still unclear, largely
because the Angel was now both moving too quickly and causing too much
destruction for a clear picture of the beast. The purple thing seemed
to be hurling energy projectiles around, but Misato couldn't tell
exactly how. "What's the status on Unit 00?"
"Ryo was supposed to arrive here in a few minutes," replied Ritsuko,
obviously trying to remain calm despite the situation. "He might be a
little late, but he'll get here. EVA-00... well, it's up to 80%
functionality, but the armor is still weak and we're not certain how
reliable the neural connections are. It's probably not a good idea -"
"Prepare EVA-00 for deployment as a backup unit. Notify Ryo that he is
to descend to the locker room immediately upon his arrival, to suit up
and stand by inside his machine." Misato, shocked, stared up at the
commander, who continued to stare at the main screen dispassionately.
"He will not see action unless Neil fails."
The statement, from anyone else, would have sounded like an attempt to
reassure Misato, but in her agitated state it only made her more
nervous about Neil's prospects, and she knew for a fact that Gendou had
no interest in calming her nerves. "Don't worry, Neil," she muttered,
low enough so that the surrounding microphones couldn't pick up her
voice. Glancing towards Maya's console, she studied the gauges for an
instant, wishing that she knew more about what the displays meant, and
at the same time wishing that she felt more confident about Neil's
prospects.
Neil emerged on the surface, swallowing hard before turning towards one
of the white buildings with the NERV logo that he'd noticed the day
before with Eiko. The top of the building slid away, revealing an
array of weaponry, some ranged, some not. Neil grabbed the rifle, an
identical duplicate to the one he'd used earlier inside the Geo-Front,
then listened to Misato's instructions, quick information on the Angel
and the strategy that she'd formulated. He positioned his Eva as he
was told, leaning it against a nearby building and crouching, breathing
coming more heavily while waiting for the Angel.
It felt like hours passed after Misato's last few words to Neil as he
sat in the cockpit, Eva unit waiting patiently against the building,
its pilot waiting for the signal that the Angel was within range. The
rifle was in his hands, the targeting crosshairs beeping about his
visual field, as he craned the machine's neck around, staring off in
the direction that the Angel was supposed to be coming from. His palms
felt sweaty, the LCL felt like thick smoke clogging his eyes, ragged
breaths seemed to tear themselves out of his throat, and more than
anything he wanted to have been able to tell Misato that he wouldn't
pilot the machine. But he stood fast, waiting for something to emerge
in his field of sight, doing his best to fight off the boredom of
waiting and the terror of what he knew was coming at once.
Just before the effort required became too great, Neil saw the purple
form that he'd been told to expect emerge from behind a mountain,
hovering slowly into the city. It was standing upright, and as it
drifted in Neil could get a good look at the thing's body, a flattish
triangular head perpendicular to its relatively featureless body,
covering the red orb that Neil knew to be the Angel's core as if it
were a cowl. At either side of the Angel dangled what looked to be
tentacles, though they were glowing a bright purple, and they were
moving entirely the wrong way for tentacles. "The Fourth Angel's in
visual range," he announced, bringing the rifle around slowly. "I'm
attempting to target the core -"
As Neil brought the rifle around to face the Angel, shifting the target
crosshairs to focus loosely around the red orb, the beast suddenly
lurched into movement, flying towards Neil's position with a burst of
speed. Fighting down a panic, Neil pushed the unit away from the
building, forcing it to stand and jump back before raking the Angel's
position with rifle fire. The bullets bit harmlessly into the target,
and Neil could only watch as the twin tentacles lashed out towards him
in a frenzy, slicing through the building that he'd been leaning
against a second prior. He jumped backwards, trying to squeeze off
another round of shots at the core but being blocked by the protective
shield of the Angel's head.
"Neil, its AT Field is protecting it right now!" shouted Misato's
voice, cutting through the loud humming that the thing's tentacles gave
off and the crashing of buildings around the Eva as Neil continued
jumping backwards and out of harm's way. "You've got to try and get
closer to the thing, to unfold your own field and neutralize it!"
"Easy for you to say!" Neil shouted back, pulling down the trigger and
letting the rifle blast out another series of rounds. He watched as
the bullets bounced off thin air, small octagonal ripples appearing as
they hit nothing, the Angel still approaching faster than he could
dodge. A swipe of the tentacle cleaved through the rifle, and he had
to duck away as it slashed at him again. "Misato, there's no way I can
get close enough to it! Those tentacles will cleave right through me!"
"You can't be hurt by them if your AT field is deployed!" replied
Misato, a slight falter in her voice making Neil momentarily wonder if
she was trying to convince him or herself. "You unfolded it once
before, now do it again."
"R-right," replied Neil, skidding EVA-01 to a halt and trying his best
to force his perception outwards into the machine, the same way he had
during training. The Angel paused for a moment, apparently unsure of
what Neil was trying to do, then lunged forward once again, whirling
its tentacles and tearing through the landscape around it. "AT Field,
Activate. Activate. ACTIVATE!"
Then one spinning tentacle of the Angel rammed through the chest of EVA-
01, punching straight through the armor and bursting out the other
side. Neil felt his heart suddenly freeze up, and he coughed for
breath, trying to tell if the taste of blood in his mouth was the LCL
or his own. Pain shot through his left side, intensified as the Angel
shoved its other tentacle through the same hole, widening it before
withdrawing both. The Eva fell, and Neil gasped for breath, knowing on
some academic level that he was having a heart attack before he felt an
electric shock race through his body.
"EVA-01's pilot avoided a cardiac arrest!" shouted Maya, her station
devoted to monitoring Neil's vital signs. "The plugsuit's
defibrillator activated automatically, but he should be fine in a few
moments! Synchronization down to 38%!"
"Why didn't you activate the AT Field?" muttered Misato, averting her
eyes from the prone Evangelion on the monitor. She sighed, shaking her
head and knowing what she had to do even as she hated it. "EVA-01
won't be active again soon enough, and we can't let the Angel take it
out. Deploy EVA-00."
]++[
Since his arrival, Ryo had been given orders almost faster than he
could process them, first instructed to get in his new plugsuit, then
to get in the entry plug, then to wait for some kind of contact from
the control room. It was nothing new to him, a sudden barrage of
orders in a crisis situation that he'd been half-expecting even before
he arrived. He'd quickly been told that Neil was on the surface, and
that EVA-00 was to act as backup in the unlikely case that something
went wrong with the other Evangelion unit. An understandable caution,
and still relatively routine.
It wasn't until the LCL began to flood the cockpit that he knew there
was something wrong, that he was going to have to deviate from the
routine. The salty aroma of the liquid filled the cockpit as Ryo
tightened his grip around the handles, remaining calm despite the track
record that he'd had with the machine. Taking a deep breath of the
liquid, he coughed involuntarily as it filled his lungs, waiting for
the radio to come on-line. "Ryo, Neil's in trouble on the surface,"
Misato announced, sounding particularly concerned. "We need you to
cover him while he's refitted with some supplementary armor."
"Understood," Ryo replied, feeling the machine begin to tickle at the
back of his mind. The external cameras came to life, and for a moment
Ryo wondered if the machine was going to activate properly, if it would
go berserk a second time. But this time there was no other presence at
the back of his mind, nothing but the empty spare limbs of the machine
and his own pragmatic thoughts. Feeling the pad lurch towards the
launch tube, he extended his own thoughts into the machine's mind,
remaining perfectly calm as the machine raced towards the surface.
"EVA-00's synch ratio holding steady at 41%," announced Makoto,
surveying the displays as Misato fixed her gaze on the main screen.
"Some of the neural connections weren't fully regenerated before the
unit was launched - it's unlikely that the ratio will rise much higher
than that."
"We don't have any other choice," replied Misato, hanging her head
slightly as the surface port opened and EVA-00 stepped out, moving
swiftly towards a weapons depot and grabbing a shotgun out from the
inside. "EVA-01 needs someone to cover its retreat, and at the moment
we've only got one alternative." Sighing to herself, she focused her
gaze back on the main screen, knowing that she couldn't afford herself
the luxury of guilt. "Ryo, your display should be picking up Neil's
location. Cover him while he recovers, then keep the Angel occupied
while he retreats."
Neil, for his part, was slowly feeling his breathing return to normal,
the pain in his chest ebbing away just like the electric tingle still
running along his arms and legs. Some part of him felt guilty for
screwing up once again, but he tried to force himself to remain calm,
moving his mind out to the Eva's limbs once again. The pain in his
chest returned, but he focused on the fact that it wasn't really his
pain, that he had to keep focused about it or he was certain to die.
Glancing around, he saw that the Angel had already moved off, then
noticed EVA-00 stepping around the corner from another building,
shotgun held tightly and confidently. The machine looked much like
Neil's, save for the orange color, the lack of shoulder flanges, and
the single red eye in place of EVA-01's pair. "Ryo?" he asked, still
trying to get EVA-01 back onto its feet.
"I'll cover your retreat," replied the boy's voice flatly, his machine
stepping over the still-prone Eva before firing a round from the
shotgun. The Angel seemed to take notice of him as the shells exploded
against its AT Field, and it whirled around even as Ryo shifted his
position and fired again, drawing the Angel's attention away from Neil
and EVA-01. "Get to one of the entry ports." Another tentacle swipe
cleaved through a building and came dangerously close to Ryo, but the
Eva's movements didn't falter, still leading the Angel carefully away
from the other machine.
Breathing deeply, Neil hefted his own Eva back to its feet, noticing as
he glanced down that there was what appeared to be blood pouring out of
the wound on his machine's chest. "Neil, do what Ryo said!" snapped
Misato over the radio, and Neil looked towards the direction that Ryo
had come from, seeing one of the ports open a few dozen meters away.
"We'll fit you with a quick armor plate, then send you back to the
surface."
Taking a step towards the entry port, Neil froze as he heard the
humming noise of the Angel's tentacles cutting through something,
looking back towards Ryo and EVA-00 in terror. The Angel had sliced
apart the shotgun, and there were no depots visible from Ryo's
position, forcing him to simply bob and weave out of the Angel's
range. It was clearly a losing maneuver, and the Angel was moving
faster than Ryo seemed to be able, the lashing tentacles tearing up the
land around the machine in great furrows of dust. As Neil watched, EVA-
00 began to crouch slightly to jump away from the Angel, and the great
beast casually drove both of its tentacles towards the Eva's left knee,
driving straight through the armor and causing the Eva to buckle to the
ground.
"Ryo!" shouted Neil, turning his machine around as the Angel snapped
the lower leg clean off at the knee, then drove its tentacles hard into
the machine's right shoulder. The Eva writhed for a moment as the
energy whips slid through its body, then raised its hands to grab the
tentacles and try to yank them out, the effort obviously futile.
"Misato, he's going to die out here! He hasn't got any weapons to
defend himself!"
"Neil." The voice was calm, controlled, and unmistakably male, and
Neil knew without even asking that it was Ikari speaking now. "EVA-01
is losing blood, and is suffering from severe damage. If you do not
retreat, you may not be able to continue functioning for much longer.
Return to the facility immediately."
"And let Ryo die?" Neil scowled, ignoring the pain in his chest as he
started running towards the Angel, deploying one of the knives in the
shoulder units and holding it with the blade facing downward as he took
a deep breath. The commander's voice came over the radio again, but
Neil wasn't listening, focusing entirely on making the machine do what
he wanted. Letting the knees buckle slightly, he flung his Eva
skyward, hoping that he'd judged his jump correctly as it flew through
the air, skimming over the buildings towards the Fourth Angel.
Braced against a building, Ryo ignored the searing pain in his leg and
shoulder, trying not to think about the thick taste of blood in his
mouth as he tried to force the tentacles out from his shoulder before
they tore it off. He pushed with all his strength, but there seemed to
be some kind of barrier preventing him from fully commanding the Eva,
and the tentacles forced themselves further into the wound even as he
struggled against them. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see EVA-
01 flying through the air, and he turned his gaze towards the machine,
wondering what Neil was trying to do.
Feeling the air whistle past his machine as he fell towards the Angel,
Neil found himself thrusting the handles of the cockpit forward even
though he knew they had no effect, gritting his teeth as he anticipated
the impact. The Eva slammed hard into the AT Field, leaving the
machine crouched on the top of the apparently stunned Angel. Focusing
his strength and trying to feel the same anger that he'd felt earlier,
Neil drove the knife down, pushing against the surface of the Angel's
field and trying to break through. There was a momentary resistance,
then the orange octagons rippling out from his position faded into
nothingness and the Eva's feet hit the curved back of the Angel, the
field successfully neutralized.
Then Neil remembered that the back of the Angel was curved, and he felt
EVA-01's feet slipping, the machine sliding down towards the ground.
Instinctively, he wrapped his arms around the Angel's head, trying to
bring his prog knife to bear against the core that he knew was
underneath the hood and just out of his visual range. The Angel seemed
to understand the concept well enough to know that it wanted it not to
happen, and it began to thrash its body back and forth, forcing Neil to
tighten his grip as best he could, feeling the pain in his chest
intensify with the Angel's movement.
Remaining still for a moment, Ryo watched the situation, Neil stabbing
the knife in his hand desperately, the blade scraping against the
Angel's underside but failing to damage the core. The Angel was in a
frenzy, unable to lash its tentacles with enough accuracy to hit Neil's
Eva, but Ryo knew that the damage to EVA-01 was too intense for him to
continue holding on for long. Forcing his Eva back into action, Ryo
felt the salt taste in his mouth intensify as he pushed his machine
forward, but ignored it and reached towards Neil's hand, grabbing it
and pointing the blade in the right direction. "Here," he said,
forcing Neil's grip towards the core, letting the tip of the blade bite
into the red orb. "It's right -"
Although its tentacles weren't quite able to stab EVA-01 again, the
Angel was more than capable of hitting EVA-00, and it stabbed through
the wound in the shoulder again, spreading it once more. Ryo winced
inside his machine, feeling the shoulder begin to give but knowing that
he had to help Neil. Shifting his weight, he pushed forward with Neil,
both Evas forcing the knife into the core as the tentacles of the Angel
sliced through the upper part of the right shoulder and left it hanging
by a thread. The blade sliced through the hard red surface of the
core, and the Angel arched backwards, slamming Neil against a building,
then froze, tentacles fading away harmlessly.
For a moment, neither EVA-01 nor 00 moved, both bleeding onto the
ground slowly, their pilots hurt by their experience. Then Neil stood
again, walking to the Angel and yanking his knife out, sliding the
weapon back into his shoulder unit as he walked towards EVA-00. "This
is Unit 01. The Fourth Angel has been neutralized." He paused, then
gritted his teeth and grabbed the damaged EVA-00, helping support it as
he grabbed the severed leg and started heading back towards one of the
entry ports. "I'm escorting EVA-00 back with me."
]++[
Showered and changing back into his clothes, Ryo could hear shouting
outside the locker room, recognizing Misato's voice as the one shouting
and Neil's voice coming in occasional response. "You disobeyed a
direct order!" she shouted, something in her voice sounding as though
she weren't as angry with him as she was trying to act. "How can NERV
trust you as a pilot if we can't trust you to follow orders? The Eva
isn't a toy, you know."
"But the pilots are?" asked Neil, sounding more than a little
contemptuous. The question struck a nerve with Ryo, catching his
attention as an earlier thought resurfaced. "Misato, you know how I
feel about that boy that was hurt during my first combat. I couldn't
abandon Ryo to the Angel, knowing that he didn't have any chance to
survive."
Misato shouted something back at him, but Ryo's attention was focused
on the thought that Neil's statement had given him, making the rest of
the conversation seem less important to him. He stared at the door to
the room for a moment, then turned back to dressing, tucking his shirt
in and taking his shoes out of the locker. It was a moment longer
before Neil walked into the room, still in his plugsuit, the expression
on his face unreadable. "They let you come down here earlier," he
noted, heading over towards the shower stalls. "Lucky you. I can't
get this stuff off me fast enough."
Ryo didn't respond immediately, the strong scent of LCL hitting his
nose as Neil walked past him and rounded the corner to the showers. He
heard the hiss as the plugsuit was depressurized, then the sound of the
faucet being turned on followed by a cloud of vapor dripping out from
the stalls. "Misato was angry with you for disobeying orders," he
noted, meaning it as a question but knowing that it sounded like a
statement. "Why did you do it?"
"There wasn't a choice," replied Neil, his voice coming as a shout over
the stream of pressurized water. Ryo finished tying his shoes,
grabbing his bag out of the locker and remembering what Eiko had said
to him. "Besides, something tells me they were Gendou's orders, not
Misato's. And it all worked out, right? The Angel's defeated, we're
both still alive, and aside from my chest still hurting everything
seems to be fine." He paused. "Why did you come up to save me?"
"I had no choice," replied Ryo, knowing that the thought was the same
but somehow catching that the sentiment was entirely different. "I was
placed in EVA-00 to act as backup in the event that something happened
to your machine. Something did." He paused, reaching into his bag for
a second, then removing his hand without the sketch. Knowing that Neil
had no choice but to break routine, to do specifically what he was told
not to do, made the same curiosity he'd experienced earlier in the day
return to him almost involuntarily. "Thank you for saving me."
"Don't worry about it. You did the same for me." The water shut off,
and Ryo waited for a moment as Neil came out from the stalls, towel
wrapped around his waist as he headed towards his own locker. He began
to open the locker, then froze, pausing mid-motion. "Look, Ryo, I
don't know about you, but I was terrified out there. The first time
that I got in that machine, I woke up in a hospital. It almost
happened again." He paused. "You kept me from that, and I really
appreciate it. Thank you."
"You're welcome," replied Ryo, the words coming to him without
hesitation or conscious thought. He flashed his mind back to getting
inside of EVA-00, knowing that his experiences had been no better than
Neil's, but he couldn't remember feeling any fear. All he remembered
feeling was the desire to do what he was told, to accept his new
routine as it was presented to him. Fear didn't even enter into the
equation. "It's what we have to do, after all."
Slinging his bag over his shoulder, the First Child stepped outside of
the locker room, noting Misato briefly as he walked past her and down
the corridors of the building. He hadn't given the sketch to Neil on
purpose, suddenly finding himself asking why it was his job to convey
messages, why it was that Neil was important enough that EVA-00 could
be risked to make sure that he survived. The questions would have been
passionate in anyone else, but Ryo was not angry about his situation,
simply beginning to sense a kind of curiosity in himself for the first
time.
Ryo's routine dictated that he needed to report to Commander Ikari's
office, that he needed to speak with the commander about other
matters. Instead, he stood still, opening his bag and taking out the
sketch, staring at it for a moment. "Neil said he didn't have a
choice," he muttered to himself, something bubbling underneath his skin
that he couldn't quite place. The way that Neil had acted, as if Ryo
were worth breaking routine for, left an odd sense in his head, leaving
him almost to wonder if perhaps Neil knew something he didn't, some bit
of information he wasn't privy to.
Then the concepts sank once again, routine asserting its presence and
the sketch slipping back into Ryo's bag. Quickening his pace, he
turned down the corridors of Central Dogma, his routine static and
unchanging despite the thoughts floating in his head. Something was
different about Neil, something that he didn't understand, something
that he needed to at least begin to know, but it was nothing so great
that it superceded what others needed him for. Once he understood why
Neil needed him, it would all make sense. He was certain of it.
]++[
Outro: Neon Epoch Evangelion is based off of -Shin Seiki Evangelion- by
GAINAX and company. It is not intended to be a straightforward fanfic,
but it is building off the work of others, and as such it is done with
the utmost respect for the original works and their authors.
Basically, even though this is an original work, it's based off the
work of others, and if you read this, you should go to see the original.
Special thanks to all of the real Children - you know who you are.
Extra special thanks to Joe Augulis for his consultation on the
Japanese portions of the story. He might not know much Japanese, but
that's more than I know.
Copyright 2002 Eliot Lefebvre.
NEXT EPISODE:
An enemy unknown.
Allies unaccounted for.
New emotions almost unnoticed.
NEON EPOCH EVANGELION 4: LOVERS UNAWARE
]++[
We only have a little time in our lives to waste. Make the most of it.
Electronic Transcendence Productions:
Producer of, um, stuff for an unspecified time-period.
Rants:
presents
]+ NEON EPOCH +[
]+ E V A N G E L I O N +[
]+ EPISODE 3: CHORUS SINGS WINTER +[
By Eliot "Lostfactor" Lefebvre
Based off of "Shin Seiki Evangelion" by GAINAX
]++[
How can I, your servant, talk with you, my lord? My strength is gone
and I can hardly breathe.
- DANIEL 10:17
]++[
Ryo's hands gripped the smooth metal of the cockpit's handles, felt the
nylon seat soft behind him despite the soaking of the entire chamber
with LCL. The cockpit was still dark, only an audio feed established
to his Evangelion, synchronization not yet started and an uneasy
sensation of peace permeating the air. Above the unit, the observation
deck was bustling with activity, technicians preparing for EVA-00's
first activation on record - even though Ryo could see none of it, he
knew it was happening, felt almost reassured by the silent knowledge of
its presence. Anyone else would have been nervous, sitting in the
uncomfortable liquid and waiting for some kind of communication, but
Ryo barely batted an eyelash, knowing that he would be notified as soon
as his interaction was required.
"Katsuragi should have been here," muttered Ritsuko, hurriedly sipping
coffee from a white china mug before setting it down atop a computer
terminal and checking the display. "Even if it is only a technical
activation of the unit, that's something that she should be present
for. Especially considering that Ryo's our only asset if the Angels
attack prematurely."
"I informed Captain Katsuragi that her presence would not be necessary
at this test," replied Gendou, his gaze never shifting for a moment
from the orange Evangelion unit sitting below him. The fluid had been
drained from the holding cell that it was stored in, the catwalk and
other restraints retracted, leaving only the unit standing alone. "We
still have certain questions about this unit's reliability. It is
possible that it will need to be scrapped. Depending on the outcome of
this test, we will form a plan of action as far as mandatory attendance
goes." He paused. "Is the unit ready for synchronization?"
"All systems are prepared," replied Ritsuko, standing from the computer
display and glancing around the room. She stepped towards the lone
microphone towards the front of the room, knowing that in lieu of
Misato's presence it became her task to direct the pilot. "Ryo, we're
going to begin synchronization. Are you ready?"
"Yes," came the flat reply. The boy's tone always disturbed Ritsuko,
almost as if he were mocking her, despite the fact she knew he was
doing no such thing. She pushed the thought out of her head, flashing
a quick hand signal to the other technicians on deck.
The last few restraints on the Eva snapped loose, and power began to
surge through the gigantic cord plugged into the back, making the unit
stir for a moment as it started activating. "Pilot's lifesigns are
stable," noted one of the technicians, the sound of tapping keyboards
filling the room as the unit slowly began to accept its pilot.
"Machine appears to be fully ready for synchronization."
"Good," replied Ritsuko, feeling more confident about the test than
before. Despite the fact that Tokyo-3 was the world headquarters of
NERV, it had disturbed her slightly that only the first two Evangelion
units were housed at the facility, as if it were the most expendable
part of the organization. Knowing that EVA-00 was working properly did
wonders for her sense of safety. "We'll bring the pilot up to the
standard operating level of 45%, try to maintain it for a few minutes,
then shut down the unit."
Sitting within the Eva, Ryo could finally see the world around him, the
machine's external cameras finally active. It was only interesting
from an academic point of view - the massive teal room had only one
distinguishing feature, the skybox that sat at roughly eye level with
the Eva unit. Ritsuko's voice came over the radio, but he only paid
partial attention to her statements, knowing the bulk of what she was
explaining to him - that he needed to focus on the machine as he'd been
taught, that he would begin to expand his perception to the Eva's.
Moving his mind outwards, feeling the Eva's limbs begin to emerge at
the corner of his mind, he felt the sudden tickle of something else, as
if another human were breathing down his neck. "Ritsuko, I'm getting
the sense of another person in here," he noted, remaining calm despite
the disturbing nature of the sensation. "Is everything all right?"
Ritsuko paled slightly at Ryo's statement, looking towards Gendou for
some kind of reassurance. The commander remained immobile, staring at
the machine with a gaze that seemed neither approving nor hateful. "I
think so, Ryo. Remember, you're dealing with the earliest unit, so
there are some eccentricities to the machine that hadn't been fixed
yet. The production models -"
Before Ritsuko could say another word, the other end of the
communication line snapped off with a hiss of static, and Ritsuko
looked out of the control box to see the machine suddenly twitching in
an almost human manner, moving in a way that it shouldn't have been.
"Feed lines to the cockpit have been lost!" shouted one side of the
room, drawing Ritsuko's attention immediately.
"Establish a feed with the pilot immediately!" she shouted, moving away
from the window towards the lone available console. Hitting a few
keys, she brought up the synchronization rate monitor, wondering what
was going wrong. The rate seemed to be flowing perfectly normally,
slightly faster than what had been predicted for the prototype unit but
otherwise unsurprising.
"No response from any attempts! The machine is refusing all outside
contact!" There was the sound of more keystrokes as Ritsuko looked up,
saw the Eva rearing to its full height, gripping its head as though it
were in pain. The giant's lone red lens of an eye stared at her for
one piercing moment, then jerked away, the thing's hands gripping its
head as it shook. "Machine appears to be under another individual's
control! Its AT Field is unfolding!"
Looking up, Ritsuko saw the thing stabilize on its feet, hands lifting
away from its head as it stared at the skybox. "Cut the power,"
ordered the commander, remaining perfectly stable as the machine seemed
to finally take notice of Gendou's position. Then Ritsuko could only
gape as the Evangelion formed a fist and hurled it towards the skybox,
driving at the structure with all its might. For all that she knew the
observation deck was strong enough to withstand such a blow, Ritsuko
found herself suddenly very afraid and feeling very helpless.
Then the blow hit, the box folding inwards ever so slightly with the
force of the impact. Ritsuko flung herself down behind the console as
the tearing noise filled the air, then looked up to see the massive
machine throwing another punch, Gendou's position unchanged. Panic
struck, and Ritsuko quickly keyed in a quick series of commands,
hearing the loud hiss from the dock that indicated the machine's power
supply had been jettisoned. "Power cut off!" she shouted, wondering
how many of the technicians were still monitoring their stations.
"Thirty seconds of power remaining in the machine!"
"Eject the entry plug," Gendou said, his command louder than before but
still perfectly calm. The Eva slammed its fists against the skybox
again and again, the reinforced windows spiderwebbing and beginning to
break apart, Ikari remaining unmoving all the while. The Eva's upper
back split open, and the long white tube of the entry plug shot out,
but still the machine moved for a moment longer, pushing its hands
towards Gendou as if the commander were the devil himself. Watching
the great giant's hands shatter throught the glass, Ritsuko could feel
herself freezing, knowing that in an instant the unit would break
through the window and kill them all.
And then the unit ceased to move at all, hands frozen in a death-grip
around the commander's position. Gendou stared at them for a second
longer, then turned and headed towards the stairwell down into the
floor level of the holding bay. "Get a medical team to the entry plug
immediately," he barked, not even taking notice of the still-cowering
technicians. "Begin to analyze the data on this activation; see what
went wrong."
Down at the floor of the chamber lay the entry plug, looking almost
like refuse that the Eva had discarded. Inside, Ryo writhed, trying to
maintain focus despite the pain. The LCL felt like liquid fire,
clogging his lungs and burning him apart from the inside. He pushed
against the upper hatch of the cockpit, trying not so much to get out
as to simply drain the horrible burning liquid. But it was sealed
tight, and it took ten minutes for the medical team to pop open the
seal, while the LCL casually burnt him away, covered in blood and
scorches...
]++[
In the depths of Central Dogma, Ryo Ayanami woke from his memories, the
notion of wishing to forget escaping him. His life consisted of
routines, of the simple patterns that he'd grown accustomed to, and
recalling the day that he suffered his injuries had become a routine as
much as awakening to the fluorescent lights and pale white walls of the
hospital. For a week before Neil Richelieu had arrived at Tokyo-3,
he'd lay in bed, waking when his body had enough sleep, contemplating
nothing for hours until he was fed, sleeping, awaiting moments when the
commander desired to talk to him. Then Neil had broken the routine
with his brief and sudden arrival, an arrival that would have been a
welcome relief from boredom if Ryo truly understood the concept of
being bored.
By Ryo's estimation, it had been at least four days since Neil had
departed, and Ryo had noticed a marked change in the doctor's tone
since then, almost as if they were contemptuous of Ryo's continued
presence even as they commented on his amazing healing. They would
stand over him in their white coats, telling him that he had healed
third-degree burns when they had expected he'd be lucky to even walk
again, all the while clearly wishing that it was Neil instead. Ryo
would have felt jealous, perhaps even said something, if it had
bothered him. Regardless of their emotions towards him, he would be
released eventually, and return to service as an Evangelion pilot.
Something in the air told him that today would be that day. He no
longer felt the residual burning pain in his lungs from the LCL, no
longer had a dull ache seeping through his limbs, no longer tried to
remain perfectly still to ease the pain of motion. The doctors, in
their angry tones, had told him his recovery was amazing, that no human
should have healed the injuries he'd suffered so quickly. It was an
academic footnote to him, of only minor consequence. As before, he
stared at the ceiling, simply waiting, knowing that time would pass and
he would be given a new routine to follow.
A creak came from the door of the room, and he turned his head to look
at the door, pain finally absent from the motion. The light spilling
out from the hallway seemed unimaginably bright for a moment, the only
break being the dark silhouette of one of the doctors. "Get up," he
ordered, resent barely concealed beneath his voice. "You're being
released."
]++[
"It looks empty," Nieve announced, staring down from the catwalk to the
bottom of the holding bay. There were still traces of the odd-colored
liquid that had filled it before dripping towards the bottom, looking
more viscous than Nieve could remember it seeming. "Every day for the
past few years, I'd come in here and see it standing here, as if we
were old friends. Now it's gone." She smiled at herself, looking over
at Kaji. "I sound silly, don't I?"
"Only a little," he replied as she rose to her feet, her heels clicking
against the thin metal of the catwalk. While she had the freedom to
wear what she chose, he had to wear the deep blue jumpsuit of the
Intelligence division of NERV, a suit that he loathed with a passion
and had informed Nieve of more than once. "But it'll be fine. In a
few days, we'll be in Japan, and then you'll get to see if all that
practice in EVA-02 was worth the time."
"Hmmph." Nieve shrugged, stepping around Kaji towards the sliding door
out of the holding bay. "I'm wondering if all the time we've spent
sitting around here was worth it." The doors slid open on her
approach, Kaji a few feet behind her. She smiled to herself, hoping
that he was admiring the low back on her dress instead of just
following her as an officer. "It took days just to get the transfer
order put through. We should have moved faster."
Kaji chuckled, hearing the hiss of the doors shutting behind him as
Nieve continued down the corridor heedlessly. "As I remember, it
wasn't us putting through the transfer paperwork, it was me." He
shrugged. "Considering the immense amounts of money put into NERV, it
makes sense that the UN would want to know what we're doing with the
machines."
"No, I would think that they'd want to get the machine where it can be
useful as fast as possible," she replied, sounding frustrated. She
stopped before an elevator, pressing a button on the side and waiting
impatiently for the machine to bring the car to the appropriate level.
"By the time we get there, the Angels could have been exhausted
completely. That would make the expense of EVA-02 worthless."
The elevator dinged, and Nieve stepped in as the doors slid open, Kaji
following behind her as she pressed the button to bring them to the
surface. "I'm afraid you're going to have to wait even longer to get
into a combat situation, much as you're looking forward to it," he
replied, drawing an irritated stare from Nieve immediately. "We're
also responsible for the transport of the Sixth Child from Africa. EVA-
05 is being transported to the nearest possible rendezvous point over
land, and we'll pick both of them up before heading to Japan."
"You're kidding, right?" asked Nieve, staring at Kaji for a second,
obviously hoping that his statement wasn't true. He shook his head,
provoking an irritated growl from Nieve as she slammed her fist against
the side of the elevator. "God damn it, that's pointless! They could
airlift the pilot and the machine from NERV's headquarters there! It's
taking longer for us to get there anyways, and now they're just slowing
us down!"
"UN policy is to try and keep the Evas in groups of two during
transportation, in case something attacks the transport." Kaji offered
another shrug as Nieve continued to fume, crossing her arms angrily
across her chest and gritting her teeth. "Cheer up. I'm sure that the
two Children who are there can keep everything under control until you
get there."
"Are you insane? The First Child hasn't even seen combat yet, and the
only reason the Third Child managed to get away from the Third Angel
with his life is because something happened to the machine." Kaji's
eyes widened slightly at Nieve's second statement, obviously not
expecting her to be aware of the specifics of EVA-01's first battle.
"The techs let me review a transcript of the battle. From what you
told me, I thought that the Third Child had won through skill, not
luck."
"Give him a little more credit than that," replied Kaji, seeming a
little hurt by Nieve's statement for reasons she couldn't discern.
"Neil didn't have any training in the Eva, but he did manage to beat
the Angel. Even if the victory wasn't flawless, it's better than
nothing."
Nieve said nothing, simply sulking against the wall for a moment,
trying to think up a way to get to Tokyo faster than she'd been
scheduled to. "Could we go on ahead?" she asked, turning towards Kaji
and softening her expression somewhat. "I mean, as long as the convoy
picks up EVA-05, it will get transported. So why can't we just move on
ahead with EVA-02?"
"Because we're not allowed to," replied Kaji. The tone was familiar to
Nieve, carrying the subtle implication that his tolerance was running
low. "Nieve, you'll get there in due time, and I'm certain that your
machine will have more than enough work to do once we get there. Relax
for a minute."
"I seem to be the only once concerned about this," she muttered
bitterly, turning her gaze away from Kaji indignantly. She knew that
she wasn't a political leader, that she couldn't have the sway of an
entire country, but she also knew that without the Children the Evas
were essentially useless. She knew how important she was to the entire
project, and knowing that she didn't have any control over the
situation at all made her angrier than she'd expected. Kaji said
something to try and calm her down, but she wasn't listening, harboring
a deep sense of being manipulated and a temporary animosity towards the
Third Child.
]++[
Ryo knew, on a visual level, that Central Dogma and the First Municipal
High School of Tokyo-3 were very different places. The wooden green
and manilla hallways broken regularly by windows looked nothing like
the sleek metal of NERV's corridors, the light streaming in from the
outside a far cry from the almost suffocating artificiality of the
underground facility's light. As far as Ryo was concerned, however,
there was no meaningful distinction between the two as he walked
towards Class 2-A, which for all he cared may as well have been the
locker room of Central Dogma, Commander Ikari's office, or the entry
plug itself. It was simply a new routine, a new route to memorize.
He'd been given clear instructions as to how the routine was to be
maintained before leaving for school, all given in short, staccato
commands from Dr. Ikari. "You will arrive for school at precisely 8
AM." "You will dress in the provided uniform, without any wrinkles or
stains on your clothing." "You will not discuss any of NERV's internal
procedures." "You will not volunteer to let any other students into
NERV facilities." The briefing had gone on for at least an hour, with
Ryo giving a simple nod to each statement. They were not questions,
nor was there any need to question the routine. It was what Commander
Ikari had decided upon, therefore it was to be followed.
Checking the sign above the door one last time, Ryo pushed open the
door to the classroom, walking in quietly and ignoring the stares of
others. He knew where he was to sit, a lone seat near the window in
the classroom, and he stepped over to it without even looking twice,
placing his bag next to his desk and facing forward, waiting for class
to start.
"You're Ayanami, aren't you?" asked a voice, male, the name coming
across almost as an accusation. Ryo turned to see another boy his age
leaning over his shoulder, his bleached blonde hair projecting off of
his head at an angle that didn't seem physically possible, the
expression on his face seeming somewhat uneasy. Over his uniform he'd
slung a black windbreaker which he'd left unzipped. "I recognize you
from earlier. You haven't been here since the first day."
"I am Ayanami, correct," he replied, turning back towards the front of
the room. He saw no more need for a discussion with the other boy, but
his view was obviously not shared as the boy sat down backwards at the
desk in front of him, studying Ryo's features as if he were preparing a
report. "You're in my way."
"Not from where I'm sitting," replied the boy, still eyeing Ryo as if
he were about to bite. "You're part of NERV, aren't you? One of the
Eva pilots?"
"Yes," replied Ryo, still unsure of where the conversation was heading,
opening his bag and beginning to put his notebooks inside the desk.
The boy was still staring at him, and he noticed that he was beginning
to attract something of a crowd around his desk. "Is there a point to
this?" he asked, the faintest hint of annoyance in his words.
"I'm wondering why you're in school," replied the boy, leaning over
Ryo's desk further. Ryo took no notice of it, continuing the simple
routine of putting his books away. "That Neil kid, the other pilot,
he's not coming to school. Why does he get out of it?"
Ryo didn't answer immediately, placing one notebook on his desk and
opening it to a blank page. "I would imagine that his absence has
something to do with the fact that he doesn't speak Japanse," he said
at length, drawing what looked like a befuddled look from the boy as if
he hadn't considered the possibility. "If you want to talk to him, I
suggest you find him instead of me."
"Vash, leave Ayanami alone," shouted a voice from the back, drawing the
blonde boy's attention. The boy, who Ryo assumed was Vash, stared back
at Ryo for a moment, studying his gaze. Ryo took notice of it, simply
staring dead ahead and waiting for class to start. Shifting
uncomfortably in his seat, Vash stared for a moment longer, then shook
his head and stood from the chair, turning and heading towards the back
of the room.
"Excuse me," came another voice, obviously addressing Ryo. He glanced
to his side, seeing a short-haired young girl sitting next to him. She
glanced towards the back of the room quickly, then leaned slightly
towards Ryo. "You know Neil?"
Nodding, Ryo turned back towards the front of the room, unconcerned by
the events that had just transpired. It was far more important to him
that the professor was entering the room, putting his own books down
and preparing to begin class. Then Ryo heard a small noise to his
side, and he glanced towards the girl to see her looking as though she
were about to say something, mouth half opened. She shook her head and
smiled at Ryo, then turned towards the front of the room.
His routine demanded that he turn back towards the board, that he focus
on the professor and listen to what he had to say. Still, Ryo found
himself staring at the girl for a half-second longer, a vague sensation
that he could not explain tickling at the back of his mind. He turned
back towards the front of the room, his attention on the professor, but
he found himself wondering what the girl was going to say, wanting to
find the answer to his questions more than he wanted to follow his
routine for just a moment.
]++[
Sighing heavily, Misato placed the telephone back down on the cradle,
feeling exhausted just from the act of simple conversation. She felt
the sudden urge for a cigarette, to have the distinct scent fill her
nose and filter through her lungs, just to relieve the stress for a
moment, but she pushed the thought out of her mind, knowing that there
was a reason why she had stopped smoking in the first place.
"Americans," she muttered, shaking her head as she turned to face
Ritsuko. "They never want to let go of anything military."
"Will they be transferred?" asked Ritsuko, sipping her coffee and
apparently unconcerned with Misato's stress. They were waiting inside
Misato's office for Neil to arrive, more out of the fact that it was
the room closest to the locker room that had a phone inside. It
certainly wasn't for comfort - the only pieces of furniture inside were
a single floor lamp that Misato insisted upon using instead of the
fluorescent lights, a swiveling business chair, and the gray metal desk
that all offices were given. Misato's excuse was that she hadn't had
any time to decorate it, but Ritsuko would have sooner believed that it
was simply because Misato had no interest in furnishing the place.
"Your concern for me is noted," muttered Misato, sinking backwards into
the padded nylon of her chair. "Yes, they'll be transferred. EVA-03
will be moved over land to Nevada, then it and EVA-04 will be airlifted
here. They expect they'll be here in a day or two." She sighed,
rubbing her forehead as she leaned back, feeling slightly relieved that
the only sound in her office was Ritsuko's breathing. "It's a shame
that we can't just get the other two units lifted here. They'd come
faster."
Ritsuko took another sip of her coffee, the bitter taste keeping her
mind alert and off of unimportant matters. "EVA-02 is too far away to
lift here. The plane would have to make a stop in America, and their
facilities aren't equipped to handle the European prodction model."
She glanced at the teetering piles of paper that had already
accumulated atop of Misato's desk, noticing that the top one looked to
be a personnel file for Neil. "You know, you should bring the Third
Child's data down for filing."
"Do I tell you how to do your job?" sighed Misato, rubbing her forehead
more vigorously. She shook her head, knowing that Ritsuko was looking
at her disapprovingly even with her eyes closed. "Sorry. I didn't get
any sleep last night, and I'm not exactly at the top of my game right
now."
"I hope you don't think I believe that," replied Ritsuko, drawing
Misato's attention instantly. She sat up in her chair, looking towards
the other woman for some kind of cue from her expression, but Ritsuko
had already turned away, sipping her coffee as if she hadn't said
anything. "You got drunk. Poor judgement on your part, especially
considering that we're staring Neil's training today."
Misato glared, the accusation stinging more than she'd expected it to.
"I didn't get drunk, I just had a couple of beers. That's not 'poor
judgement.'" She looked towards Ritsuko, who continued to stare off
into the distance, not even giving Misato a second glance. "You could
benefit from occasionally using some poor judgement, you know. It
would do wonders for your social life."
The comment was meant to sting, but Ritsuko's glance back told Misato
that it had succeeded at doing virtually nothing. "There's time in the
day for me to have a social life or a career with NERV," she replied
flatly, obviously unaffected by the accusation. "I'm too good at the
latter to be concerned about the former."
Wanting to get the last word in, Misato was cut off by the noise of her
office doors hissing open, and she looked up to see Neil standing in
the doorway. She stood, and Neil stepped in slightly, obviously
uncomfortable in his new attire. "I put the suit on," he muttered,
still apparently checking it out as Misato walked towards him. "It
feels strange, though. A little too close to my skin. Like I'm still
not wearing anything."
"It's called 'skintight' for a reason," replied Misato walking towards
him. "Besides, if we really didn't have you wearing anything, I think
the female technicians would be staring too much." Ritsuko rolled her
eyes at the comment, and Neil blushed slightly, Misato ignoring both as
she ushered Neil out of the door and back into the hallway. "Come on.
We've got to get you down to the entry plug, then get you out to the
surface for training." Neil obliged, stepping out into the hallway.
Misato began to follow him, then stopped, holding up a finger to
indicate that she'd only be a minute.
Ritsuko stared at the other woman, a puzzled look on her face. "Why
the delay?" she asked, finally displaying something other than self-
righteous calm in her tone. "If he's ready to begin the tests -"
"Something just occurred to me," Misato interjected, leaning against
one side of the door frame and extending her legs just far enough to
make leaving impossible without tripping over her. "Do we even have
pilots for the two American units? The Marduk Report skips the
identity of -"
"We know who the Fourth and Fifth Children are," replied Ritsuko before
Misato had even finished her objection, drumming her fingers against
her clipboard out of impatience. "The Marduk Report concealed them
because they were not introduced to the project at a younger age, and
we thought it best to keep them protected until the Angels attacked.
Same as with the Third Child." She paused for a moment, Misato still
leaning in the doorframe. "Are we going to get to work, or are you
going to stand there all day?"
Misato considered saying something else for a moment, another thought
rolling around in her head, but she decided against it. "That was it,"
she said, letting the doors to her office slide open again as she
stepped out to see Neil waiting, leaned against the opposite wall of
the corridor and drumming his hands against the hard metal. "Sorry
about the delay. Let's get to work."
]++[
The hum of the engine and the high wail of the sirens were the only
sounds that penetrated the transport truck, but the emptiness of the
vehicle made the noises echo all that louder. In a vehicle designed to
house dozens of soldiers for transport into a combat situation, a
single teenage girl was hardly enough to counteract the echoing effects
of the chamber's size, and so she was seranaded by redoubled humming
noises, refracted squeals, and the gentle thumping of the wheels as the
truck moved along the highway. It was intimidating somehow, the lack
of any human contact combined with the echoing sounds, but Niobe
Littmore refused to allow it to disturb her, keeping her mind focused
on the task ahead of her. She would be at the rendezvous point in
several hours, and when she got there she had to be ready to perform
her duties, ready to meet the NERV officers waiting for her and be the
pilot of her Evangelion.
Her parents, true to form, had not stayed to watch her leave, instead
promising her that they would call her on her cell phone. Glancing at
the small phone, more out of something to do in the emptiness of the
truck than in anticipation of the call, she smiled bitterly, still
feeling a rush of pride for being the Sixth Child. Despite the
progress that the continent had made since the Second Impact, Niobe
knew that most of the world still thought of Africa as the most
primitive location on the face of the planet, that all of its
inhabitants were still squatting in the bush, that there were about
five cars across the entire length of the continent and they were
constantly driving across deserts or savannah. To be one of the
Children was something to be proud of anyways, but Niobe knew that she
had to be more than proud, that her status held more importance than it
did for perhaps any of the other Children.
Lost in her own thoughts, Niobe almost didn't notice when the phone
rang, its soft buzz lost in the bland din of the transport truck until
it had already rung twice. Slapping herself for her stupidity, she
grabbed the phone, flipped it open, then pressed it to her ear as the
connection was established. "Three rings," stated her father's voice,
deep, disapproving as always, as if Niobe were personally responsible
for all the woes in his life. "You said you would answer right away."
"You're right, I did," Niobe replied, not feeling up to trying to argue
the point with her father. She knew that it was an immaterial issue,
and she also was all too aware of the fact that trying to argue with
him was a no-win scenario. "We should be at the docks in about twelve
hours. If traffic continues to be light, it'll be sooner." She
paused. "You don't think that I'm going to be able to do it, do you?"
"No," replied her father, no hesitation in his voice. Niobe gave
another bitter smile, knowing his old game of expectations against
capability. He never expected that she could do anything - just
listening to him, it was a miracle she could tie her own shoes. "I
don't. So you've got to prove me wrong, don't you?"
"Right," replied Niobe, leaning back in her seat, fighting the urge to
undo her seatbelt and start pacing. "I'm a little worried, though.
I've been thinking about the situation, and really, I've only been
training on EVA-05 for two years. That's a lag compared to some to the
other Children. I'll do my best, but I don't know if -"
"If you're going out there expecting to be anything other than the
best, you can forget about coming back," snapped her father, the anger
evident in his voice. Niobe winced, less at the peak in volume than at
the fact that she should have known that was the wrong thing to say to
him. "You are Niobe Littmore of South Africa. Nobody will care about
you at all if you can't be the best pilot of all the Children. Now
tell me what you're going to do, now, before I hang up in disgust."
A single tear started to bubble from the corner of her eye, but she
ignored it, forcing herself to remember the whole reason she was
sitting in the transport. "I'm going to be the best," she said, doing
her best to sound strong. "You just watch, dad. I'm going to be the
best pilot that they've got."
There was a momentary pause from the other end, as if the signal had
gone dead. Niobe realized when her father began speaking again that he
simply had let his speech halt for a moment, that it had nothing to do
with the reception of the phone. "Call me Joseph, not 'dad.'" He
sounded slightly less disapproving than before, almost as if he were
proud of her response. "You're an adult, you should act like one."
"Joseph. You're right." She fought down the urge to apologize,
knowing that it would only make the situation worse. "I'm almost out
of range on the phone, Joseph. If there's anything else you want to
say, you should probably say it now." Although Niobe didn't say it,
part of her wanted him to say that he was proud of how far she'd come,
that all the effort she'd put into making EVA-05 work correctly meant
something to him. But she knew that he'd say no such thing, and that
same part of her wanted him to not answer her, to let her maintain the
illusion that he'd said what she wanted just as they moved out of
signal range.
"Your mother will mail you any personal belongings you need once you're
in Japan," her father said briskly, scattering the thoughts she'd had
for a split-second with those few words. "We will be in touch once you
get there." Then the dial tone sounded for a second before Niobe heard
the trademark static that indicated she'd moved out of signal range.
She paused, then shut the phone, knowing that it would be useless once
she got to Japan but not wanting to deplete the power on the off chance
that she was wrong.
Niobe put the phone down next to her for a second, then picked it up
again, looking at it intently. As she stared, she found a desire
swelling inside of her to hurl the phone against the opposite side of
the transport, to take some solace in the noise it made as it split
apart and left her alone forever. The sensation grew to be almost
overpowering, and she felt her grip on the device tighten before she
released it and put it down on the seat next to her. Closing her eyes,
she leaned back against her seat, doing her best to stay confident with
the fears shouting for her attention inside her head.
]++[
The scent was familiar, but that didn't make the LCL flooding the
chamber any more pleasing than it had been the first time, nor did it
make the salty taste in his mouth or the sticky scent of blood any less
disturbing. It wouldn't have been so bad, however, if he hadn't needed
to wear the suit. Misato had shown him what was called a plugsuit a
few minutes before he'd been expected to change into it, and he'd been
reluctant at the time. "It helps you synchronize with your Eva," she'd
explained, going on to spout some technobabble that she admitted she
didn't even understand fully. The bottom line was that they wouldn't
let Neil get into the entry plug this time unless he put on the
plugsuit, and that meant he didn't have much choice if he wanted the
next Angel attack to go any more smoothly than the first one. He
needed training, and to train, he needed to use the Eva again, whatever
his feelings on the uniform were.
As the cockpit flooded with LCL, he looked down on the suit again,
still amazed by the way that it managed to feel tight without being
restrictive. His first impression of it was that it was some sort of
modified green wetsuit, with a piece of purple armor molded onto the
chest and upper back. Once he'd actually gotten into the thing,
though, he'd found that it was somewhat different, with all sorts
different little ridges and bumps across it that looked variably like
screws and plugs. Aside from the colors, he'd been informed by Misato
that it could easily be distinguished from the other Children's suits
by the blocky "03" on the chest. Why it mattered wasn't made clear to
him, especially since the suit vacuum-sealed itself to fit more or less
anyone who put it on. He didn't find it uncomfortable physically - it
actually felt a little nice, almost comfortable. It was the sensation
of being exposed that made him uneasy, even as the LCL rushed up clog
his mouth and lungs.
Coughing for a moment as the liquid flowed in, Neil felt the sensation
of normality kick in once again as the cameras activated, the cockpit
now feeling a lot more comfortable than before. Misato warned him that
synchronization was beginning, and he felt the same tickle at the edges
of his mind, the same way that the machine had felt before. It felt
less frightening now, even though it was only his second time in the
machine. "All right, Misato, I'm ready when you are," he announced as
the restraints were removed and the Eva moved towards the launch pad.
"Let's start the training session."
In the command room, Misato nodded, signaling to the technicians to
launch the machine towards the surface. "We're launching you into the
Geo-Front for training, Neil," she explained, moving over towards
Ritsuko as the computers tracked the machine's progress out of Central
Dogma. The central screen had moved away from monitoring the Eva in
its docked position, now centering on the machine's intended emergence
point. "How's his synchronization rate doing?"
"47% and holding steady," replied Ritsuko, sounding slightly displeased
with the result of the readings. "It's above normal operating
parameters, but I'd expected higher, especially considering his rates
before." She sighed, examining the display more closely, obviously
looking for some kind of spike in the readout. "Perhaps it's the
machine acting up again."
EVA-01 lurched out of the exit port a few hundred meters away from
Central Dogma, Neil keeping his mental control over the machine to keep
it from falling. The radio was silent for a moment, then Misato's
voice came over the channel, a slight bit of a crackle added to it as
if the radio were malfunctioning. "All right, Neil, basics first.
That cord plugged into your back is your power supply. It's what keeps
the Eva running. If it gets disconnected, though, you only have five
minutes of operation left with the internal batteries. There are
spares placed all around the city, so you should be able to move around
without worry."
Neil took a quick glance behind him, noticing that trailing wire as if
for the first time, then nodded, stepping off of the exit port and
finding the Eva's controls far more managable than before. "Okay. Got
that." He paused, testing the machine's arms and hands for a moment.
"What else should I really have been told about before I got in this
thing?"
Misato's response signaled the beginning of an amount of time that Neil
couldn't begin to really gauge, save by the fact that he knew he was
moving through the Eva's systems at a whipcrack pace. He finally got
an explanation of why the machine had two vertical black fins extending
from its shoulders, as Misato explained that they stored the only on-
board weapon for the machine, the progressive knife. What was
progressive about it wasn't explained, although Neil assumed it had
something to do with the sheer size of the weapon. Then he was briefed
on weapon depots, the Eva's built-in targeting system, the armor
structure, flexibility, muscle mass, synchronization, launch ports,
number designation, on and on until he could feel his head start to
swim.
What made it worse, other than the fact that he still loathed the
sensation of the LCL in his mouth and lungs, was the fact that he still
hadn't actually been trained at all. He'd assumed that the point of
the exercise was to let him be more effective the next time an Angel
attacked, not simply to be given a rundown of how EVA-01 worked. As he
picked up what Misato told him was the standard-issue Evangelion rifle,
letting the targeting crosshairs pop into view on his camera, he could
no longer resist sighing. "Why do I get the impression that there's a
reason why you're just briefing me on all of this?" he asked, putting
the rifle down in the grass of the Geo-Front. "Couldn't I get some
kind of actual training?"
The radio stayed silent for a moment, as if Misato hadn't heard the
question. "There's one other system that we need to go over before we
get into training, but I still haven't quite figured out how to explain
it to you." She sighed. "I mentioned that the armor wasn't the
primary defense of the Evangelion, and it isn't. The primary defensive
system is the AT Field."
"AT Field?" asked Neil, the phrase sounding odd even though it wasn't
complicated. A memory tickled at the back of his mind, recalling some
of the shouts he'd heard over the radio after the Angel had punched
through his helmet. "You shouted something about that with the Third
Angel, didn't you?"
"Yes. All of the Angels have an AT Field, part of why the UN forces
weren't having any effect on the Third during its approach." Another
memory came to Neil's mind, more hazy than the first, knowing that
while he was raging against the Angel in a red fury that he'd torn
through some kind of glowing barrier. "The AT Field keeps the machine
safe from all conventional weaponry, but in the Evas, it also allows
you to neutralize the AT fields of the Angels." She paused.
"Unfortunately, it's tough to explain how to activate one... sort of
like tensing a muscle, from what Ritsuko's told me."
"Uh-huh. So that's my training on it." He sighed, trying shifting his
focus around inside of the Evangelion, feeling very much as if he were
trying to find a needle in a darkened concert hall. Wishing that he
could shut off the radio for just a minute, he struggled, muttering
anything that he could think of into the bloody liquid around him to
try and make the Eva deploy the damn field. After a minute, he growled
loudly, shoving the handles of the cockpit back and forth with as much
force as he could muster. "Damn it, ACTIVATE THE FIELD!"
He had expected, at best, for Misato to restraing the impulse to laugh
and for his machine to simply remain unresponsive to his demands.
Instead, he heard the background chatter on the radio suddenly take on
an excited tone, and the air a few meters away seemed to start
shimmering with a vaguely green tone. "Well done, Neil," announced
Misato, sounding a little surprised that he'd managed to do it as
well. "The field is deployed. Whatever you just did, that's how you
get it to work."
"Throw a hissy fit. Great plan." He kept his voice low enough so that
he didn't think that Misato could hear him, but he suspected that she
guessed what he was saying regardless. "All right. If we're done with
the briefing, can we get on to something resembling real training?"
]++[
School, despite his brief encounter during the morning, had run
according to the routine that Commander Ikari had laid out for him, one
that he found easy to follow. He listened, took down everything the
professor said, read what the professor told him too, and simply waited
until the class was dismissed for the day. Without the concept of
boredom and nothing else to anticipate, the hours flew by for him, and
before he knew it the class was let out, spreading out from the drab
white building across the campus, towards their various homes. Ryo
knew this part of the routine as well, that he was to report to NERV as
soon as he was let out, and he headed towards the bus stop, knowing
that it would bring him close enough to an access route for him to be
there on time.
"Ayanami-san!" The shout drew Ryo's attention, the voice recognized
instantly by his mind as the voice of the girl from the classroom in
the morning. She was running towards him, a piece of paper fluttering
in her hand, something indeterminate flashing in her eyes. For a
moment, Ryo thought that she might be heading towards someone else,
that perhaps he wasn't the only Ayanami in the class, but the
expression in her eys combined with her slowed pace as she approached
him dashed that theory. "Can I ask you a favor?"
Ryo stared, somewhat confused by the question. "What do you want me to
do?" he asked in response a moment later, certain that she'd simply
misphrased her question by accident.
"You don't have to do it if you don't want to," she replied, looking
slightly perturbed by his own question and confusing him further.
"I... I wanted to ask you if you'd be willing to give this to Neil."
She extended the piece of paper that she'd been holding, and Ryo saw
that it was a sketch of a city, presumably Tokyo-3, around the middle
of the day, black and white pencils with some intentional smudging.
"Why?" asked Ryo, taking the sketch regardless of the question. He
turned it over, expecting some kind of text on the back, but it was
blank. Confused by both the question and the sketch itself, a vague
frown stirred at the edges of his face. "Did he lend it to you, and
now you need to return it?"
"It's a gift," replied the girl, a thin smile crossing her face. "When
we met, I was... well, it's not really important. I just want him to
know that I'm not mad at him, that I don't blame him for what happened
to my brother." She sighed. "Tell him to hold on to it, as a
keepsake, and tell him that Eiko wants to talk to him again. Please."
"Eiko," repeated Ryo, staring at the sketch, trying to understand the
girl's statement. He knew that there was some emotion at play, one
that he couldn't quite pick out or understand, and it made him feel
uncomfortable, knowing that she was speaking about something beyond his
comprehension. "I'll give it to him," he said after another minute of
staring, trying not to sound curious once again as he tucked the sketch
into his bag. "He and I will probably see one another at NERV."
"Thank you," Eiko replied, giving a slight sort of bobbing bow to Ryo
before turning to run back towards her friends. She took a few steps,
then stopped and turned back, an expression on her face that Ryo
couldn't place. "I'd go see him myself, but... well, I don't know
where he lives. I really appreciate it."
Ryo did not respond to her final statement, staring after her as the
bus pulled to the curb in a cloud of exhaust and sand. She wanted to
use him, use him to perform a function that she was incapable of
performing herself. That was nothing that Ryo was unaccustomed to, and
it was nothing that he had ever felt anything but neutral towards. For
the barest moment, however, he felt himself feeling jealous, almost
resentful of the fact that she only cared about him to the extent that
she could use him. He pushed the thought out of his mind, stepping
onto his bus and showing his pass as he walked towards the nearest
empty seat. It was a distraction from his routine, something that he
could not afford.
]++[
"UN Forces have engaged the target. We should have visual in a few
moments." Makoto Hyuga was in his element, fingers dancing across the
keyboard and keeping a close watch on the sudden energy spike that had
appeared on their monitors a few minutes prior as Misato stood over his
shoulder. They still hadn't relayed any information to Neil, but
Makoto's fingers hovered over the alert button, and Misato knew that
all they were awaiting was the arrival of Commander Ikari. "The
pattern is blue. It's definitely an Angel."
"Hold on. I'm sure that the commander is -" Misato was cut short as
the hiss of an elevator filled the air, and she glanced up to see Ikari
taking his seat on the level above while Fuyutsuki stood next to him.
The commander's expression was fixed not on the main monitor, but
instead on the wireframe map suspended in midair slightly beneath the
monitor, a single flashing red dot indicating the Angel's position.
"Commander, we've identified the energy pattern as an Angel. We
haven't contacted 01 yet, but -"
"Classify this as the Fourth Angel," announced Gendou, his tone making
it questionable whether or not he'd even listened to what Misato was
saying. A half-second later, the main screen began displaying the
visual feed from the UN forces, this time only from the onboard camera
of the aerodrones. The thing was easily as huge as the prior Angel,
but it looked different, almost like the top half of a squid, skimming
along the surface of the water towards Tokyo-3 and ignoring the attacks
of the drones. "Sound the alert."
Neil heard the wailing horn fill the air for a second, followed a
moment later by a calm female voice announcing something in Japanese.
He shouldered the rifle he had been using for target practice, knowing
that something was going on. "Misato?" he shouted, hoping that the
communicaton would be audible over the roar of the alarm. "What's the
alarm for?"
"We've just confirmed the Fourth Angel's presence," replied Misato,
sending a chill up Neil's spine. He'd known, on an academic level,
that he was going to have to fight another Angel, but the familiarity
he was slowly establishing with EVA-01 seemed to melt away at the
thought of actual combat. He didn't want to be put in a situation like
before, but he gritted his teeth, trying not to show his apprehension.
"Head back towards the entry port you'd used - we'll launch you to the
surface from there." She paused. "You'll need to get rid of the
rifle."
Sighing, Neil tossed the rifle to the ground, sending EVA-01 running to
the entry port. It was already sliding into action, rails extending
vertically and the platform for the unit to stand on popping up at
ground level. Pressing his back agains the rails, he put both feet
firmly on the platform, then felt the machine lurch downward and around
for a second. A sickening motion later, the unit was shooting upwards
again, this time towards the streets of Tokyo-3.
"Once you're at the surface, there will be a weapons depot a few meters
to your left. You can get another weapon from there." Misato sighed,
glancing back towards the main screen. The Angel had moved within
range of NERV's cameras, but the visual was still unclear, largely
because the Angel was now both moving too quickly and causing too much
destruction for a clear picture of the beast. The purple thing seemed
to be hurling energy projectiles around, but Misato couldn't tell
exactly how. "What's the status on Unit 00?"
"Ryo was supposed to arrive here in a few minutes," replied Ritsuko,
obviously trying to remain calm despite the situation. "He might be a
little late, but he'll get here. EVA-00... well, it's up to 80%
functionality, but the armor is still weak and we're not certain how
reliable the neural connections are. It's probably not a good idea -"
"Prepare EVA-00 for deployment as a backup unit. Notify Ryo that he is
to descend to the locker room immediately upon his arrival, to suit up
and stand by inside his machine." Misato, shocked, stared up at the
commander, who continued to stare at the main screen dispassionately.
"He will not see action unless Neil fails."
The statement, from anyone else, would have sounded like an attempt to
reassure Misato, but in her agitated state it only made her more
nervous about Neil's prospects, and she knew for a fact that Gendou had
no interest in calming her nerves. "Don't worry, Neil," she muttered,
low enough so that the surrounding microphones couldn't pick up her
voice. Glancing towards Maya's console, she studied the gauges for an
instant, wishing that she knew more about what the displays meant, and
at the same time wishing that she felt more confident about Neil's
prospects.
Neil emerged on the surface, swallowing hard before turning towards one
of the white buildings with the NERV logo that he'd noticed the day
before with Eiko. The top of the building slid away, revealing an
array of weaponry, some ranged, some not. Neil grabbed the rifle, an
identical duplicate to the one he'd used earlier inside the Geo-Front,
then listened to Misato's instructions, quick information on the Angel
and the strategy that she'd formulated. He positioned his Eva as he
was told, leaning it against a nearby building and crouching, breathing
coming more heavily while waiting for the Angel.
It felt like hours passed after Misato's last few words to Neil as he
sat in the cockpit, Eva unit waiting patiently against the building,
its pilot waiting for the signal that the Angel was within range. The
rifle was in his hands, the targeting crosshairs beeping about his
visual field, as he craned the machine's neck around, staring off in
the direction that the Angel was supposed to be coming from. His palms
felt sweaty, the LCL felt like thick smoke clogging his eyes, ragged
breaths seemed to tear themselves out of his throat, and more than
anything he wanted to have been able to tell Misato that he wouldn't
pilot the machine. But he stood fast, waiting for something to emerge
in his field of sight, doing his best to fight off the boredom of
waiting and the terror of what he knew was coming at once.
Just before the effort required became too great, Neil saw the purple
form that he'd been told to expect emerge from behind a mountain,
hovering slowly into the city. It was standing upright, and as it
drifted in Neil could get a good look at the thing's body, a flattish
triangular head perpendicular to its relatively featureless body,
covering the red orb that Neil knew to be the Angel's core as if it
were a cowl. At either side of the Angel dangled what looked to be
tentacles, though they were glowing a bright purple, and they were
moving entirely the wrong way for tentacles. "The Fourth Angel's in
visual range," he announced, bringing the rifle around slowly. "I'm
attempting to target the core -"
As Neil brought the rifle around to face the Angel, shifting the target
crosshairs to focus loosely around the red orb, the beast suddenly
lurched into movement, flying towards Neil's position with a burst of
speed. Fighting down a panic, Neil pushed the unit away from the
building, forcing it to stand and jump back before raking the Angel's
position with rifle fire. The bullets bit harmlessly into the target,
and Neil could only watch as the twin tentacles lashed out towards him
in a frenzy, slicing through the building that he'd been leaning
against a second prior. He jumped backwards, trying to squeeze off
another round of shots at the core but being blocked by the protective
shield of the Angel's head.
"Neil, its AT Field is protecting it right now!" shouted Misato's
voice, cutting through the loud humming that the thing's tentacles gave
off and the crashing of buildings around the Eva as Neil continued
jumping backwards and out of harm's way. "You've got to try and get
closer to the thing, to unfold your own field and neutralize it!"
"Easy for you to say!" Neil shouted back, pulling down the trigger and
letting the rifle blast out another series of rounds. He watched as
the bullets bounced off thin air, small octagonal ripples appearing as
they hit nothing, the Angel still approaching faster than he could
dodge. A swipe of the tentacle cleaved through the rifle, and he had
to duck away as it slashed at him again. "Misato, there's no way I can
get close enough to it! Those tentacles will cleave right through me!"
"You can't be hurt by them if your AT field is deployed!" replied
Misato, a slight falter in her voice making Neil momentarily wonder if
she was trying to convince him or herself. "You unfolded it once
before, now do it again."
"R-right," replied Neil, skidding EVA-01 to a halt and trying his best
to force his perception outwards into the machine, the same way he had
during training. The Angel paused for a moment, apparently unsure of
what Neil was trying to do, then lunged forward once again, whirling
its tentacles and tearing through the landscape around it. "AT Field,
Activate. Activate. ACTIVATE!"
Then one spinning tentacle of the Angel rammed through the chest of EVA-
01, punching straight through the armor and bursting out the other
side. Neil felt his heart suddenly freeze up, and he coughed for
breath, trying to tell if the taste of blood in his mouth was the LCL
or his own. Pain shot through his left side, intensified as the Angel
shoved its other tentacle through the same hole, widening it before
withdrawing both. The Eva fell, and Neil gasped for breath, knowing on
some academic level that he was having a heart attack before he felt an
electric shock race through his body.
"EVA-01's pilot avoided a cardiac arrest!" shouted Maya, her station
devoted to monitoring Neil's vital signs. "The plugsuit's
defibrillator activated automatically, but he should be fine in a few
moments! Synchronization down to 38%!"
"Why didn't you activate the AT Field?" muttered Misato, averting her
eyes from the prone Evangelion on the monitor. She sighed, shaking her
head and knowing what she had to do even as she hated it. "EVA-01
won't be active again soon enough, and we can't let the Angel take it
out. Deploy EVA-00."
]++[
Since his arrival, Ryo had been given orders almost faster than he
could process them, first instructed to get in his new plugsuit, then
to get in the entry plug, then to wait for some kind of contact from
the control room. It was nothing new to him, a sudden barrage of
orders in a crisis situation that he'd been half-expecting even before
he arrived. He'd quickly been told that Neil was on the surface, and
that EVA-00 was to act as backup in the unlikely case that something
went wrong with the other Evangelion unit. An understandable caution,
and still relatively routine.
It wasn't until the LCL began to flood the cockpit that he knew there
was something wrong, that he was going to have to deviate from the
routine. The salty aroma of the liquid filled the cockpit as Ryo
tightened his grip around the handles, remaining calm despite the track
record that he'd had with the machine. Taking a deep breath of the
liquid, he coughed involuntarily as it filled his lungs, waiting for
the radio to come on-line. "Ryo, Neil's in trouble on the surface,"
Misato announced, sounding particularly concerned. "We need you to
cover him while he's refitted with some supplementary armor."
"Understood," Ryo replied, feeling the machine begin to tickle at the
back of his mind. The external cameras came to life, and for a moment
Ryo wondered if the machine was going to activate properly, if it would
go berserk a second time. But this time there was no other presence at
the back of his mind, nothing but the empty spare limbs of the machine
and his own pragmatic thoughts. Feeling the pad lurch towards the
launch tube, he extended his own thoughts into the machine's mind,
remaining perfectly calm as the machine raced towards the surface.
"EVA-00's synch ratio holding steady at 41%," announced Makoto,
surveying the displays as Misato fixed her gaze on the main screen.
"Some of the neural connections weren't fully regenerated before the
unit was launched - it's unlikely that the ratio will rise much higher
than that."
"We don't have any other choice," replied Misato, hanging her head
slightly as the surface port opened and EVA-00 stepped out, moving
swiftly towards a weapons depot and grabbing a shotgun out from the
inside. "EVA-01 needs someone to cover its retreat, and at the moment
we've only got one alternative." Sighing to herself, she focused her
gaze back on the main screen, knowing that she couldn't afford herself
the luxury of guilt. "Ryo, your display should be picking up Neil's
location. Cover him while he recovers, then keep the Angel occupied
while he retreats."
Neil, for his part, was slowly feeling his breathing return to normal,
the pain in his chest ebbing away just like the electric tingle still
running along his arms and legs. Some part of him felt guilty for
screwing up once again, but he tried to force himself to remain calm,
moving his mind out to the Eva's limbs once again. The pain in his
chest returned, but he focused on the fact that it wasn't really his
pain, that he had to keep focused about it or he was certain to die.
Glancing around, he saw that the Angel had already moved off, then
noticed EVA-00 stepping around the corner from another building,
shotgun held tightly and confidently. The machine looked much like
Neil's, save for the orange color, the lack of shoulder flanges, and
the single red eye in place of EVA-01's pair. "Ryo?" he asked, still
trying to get EVA-01 back onto its feet.
"I'll cover your retreat," replied the boy's voice flatly, his machine
stepping over the still-prone Eva before firing a round from the
shotgun. The Angel seemed to take notice of him as the shells exploded
against its AT Field, and it whirled around even as Ryo shifted his
position and fired again, drawing the Angel's attention away from Neil
and EVA-01. "Get to one of the entry ports." Another tentacle swipe
cleaved through a building and came dangerously close to Ryo, but the
Eva's movements didn't falter, still leading the Angel carefully away
from the other machine.
Breathing deeply, Neil hefted his own Eva back to its feet, noticing as
he glanced down that there was what appeared to be blood pouring out of
the wound on his machine's chest. "Neil, do what Ryo said!" snapped
Misato over the radio, and Neil looked towards the direction that Ryo
had come from, seeing one of the ports open a few dozen meters away.
"We'll fit you with a quick armor plate, then send you back to the
surface."
Taking a step towards the entry port, Neil froze as he heard the
humming noise of the Angel's tentacles cutting through something,
looking back towards Ryo and EVA-00 in terror. The Angel had sliced
apart the shotgun, and there were no depots visible from Ryo's
position, forcing him to simply bob and weave out of the Angel's
range. It was clearly a losing maneuver, and the Angel was moving
faster than Ryo seemed to be able, the lashing tentacles tearing up the
land around the machine in great furrows of dust. As Neil watched, EVA-
00 began to crouch slightly to jump away from the Angel, and the great
beast casually drove both of its tentacles towards the Eva's left knee,
driving straight through the armor and causing the Eva to buckle to the
ground.
"Ryo!" shouted Neil, turning his machine around as the Angel snapped
the lower leg clean off at the knee, then drove its tentacles hard into
the machine's right shoulder. The Eva writhed for a moment as the
energy whips slid through its body, then raised its hands to grab the
tentacles and try to yank them out, the effort obviously futile.
"Misato, he's going to die out here! He hasn't got any weapons to
defend himself!"
"Neil." The voice was calm, controlled, and unmistakably male, and
Neil knew without even asking that it was Ikari speaking now. "EVA-01
is losing blood, and is suffering from severe damage. If you do not
retreat, you may not be able to continue functioning for much longer.
Return to the facility immediately."
"And let Ryo die?" Neil scowled, ignoring the pain in his chest as he
started running towards the Angel, deploying one of the knives in the
shoulder units and holding it with the blade facing downward as he took
a deep breath. The commander's voice came over the radio again, but
Neil wasn't listening, focusing entirely on making the machine do what
he wanted. Letting the knees buckle slightly, he flung his Eva
skyward, hoping that he'd judged his jump correctly as it flew through
the air, skimming over the buildings towards the Fourth Angel.
Braced against a building, Ryo ignored the searing pain in his leg and
shoulder, trying not to think about the thick taste of blood in his
mouth as he tried to force the tentacles out from his shoulder before
they tore it off. He pushed with all his strength, but there seemed to
be some kind of barrier preventing him from fully commanding the Eva,
and the tentacles forced themselves further into the wound even as he
struggled against them. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see EVA-
01 flying through the air, and he turned his gaze towards the machine,
wondering what Neil was trying to do.
Feeling the air whistle past his machine as he fell towards the Angel,
Neil found himself thrusting the handles of the cockpit forward even
though he knew they had no effect, gritting his teeth as he anticipated
the impact. The Eva slammed hard into the AT Field, leaving the
machine crouched on the top of the apparently stunned Angel. Focusing
his strength and trying to feel the same anger that he'd felt earlier,
Neil drove the knife down, pushing against the surface of the Angel's
field and trying to break through. There was a momentary resistance,
then the orange octagons rippling out from his position faded into
nothingness and the Eva's feet hit the curved back of the Angel, the
field successfully neutralized.
Then Neil remembered that the back of the Angel was curved, and he felt
EVA-01's feet slipping, the machine sliding down towards the ground.
Instinctively, he wrapped his arms around the Angel's head, trying to
bring his prog knife to bear against the core that he knew was
underneath the hood and just out of his visual range. The Angel seemed
to understand the concept well enough to know that it wanted it not to
happen, and it began to thrash its body back and forth, forcing Neil to
tighten his grip as best he could, feeling the pain in his chest
intensify with the Angel's movement.
Remaining still for a moment, Ryo watched the situation, Neil stabbing
the knife in his hand desperately, the blade scraping against the
Angel's underside but failing to damage the core. The Angel was in a
frenzy, unable to lash its tentacles with enough accuracy to hit Neil's
Eva, but Ryo knew that the damage to EVA-01 was too intense for him to
continue holding on for long. Forcing his Eva back into action, Ryo
felt the salt taste in his mouth intensify as he pushed his machine
forward, but ignored it and reached towards Neil's hand, grabbing it
and pointing the blade in the right direction. "Here," he said,
forcing Neil's grip towards the core, letting the tip of the blade bite
into the red orb. "It's right -"
Although its tentacles weren't quite able to stab EVA-01 again, the
Angel was more than capable of hitting EVA-00, and it stabbed through
the wound in the shoulder again, spreading it once more. Ryo winced
inside his machine, feeling the shoulder begin to give but knowing that
he had to help Neil. Shifting his weight, he pushed forward with Neil,
both Evas forcing the knife into the core as the tentacles of the Angel
sliced through the upper part of the right shoulder and left it hanging
by a thread. The blade sliced through the hard red surface of the
core, and the Angel arched backwards, slamming Neil against a building,
then froze, tentacles fading away harmlessly.
For a moment, neither EVA-01 nor 00 moved, both bleeding onto the
ground slowly, their pilots hurt by their experience. Then Neil stood
again, walking to the Angel and yanking his knife out, sliding the
weapon back into his shoulder unit as he walked towards EVA-00. "This
is Unit 01. The Fourth Angel has been neutralized." He paused, then
gritted his teeth and grabbed the damaged EVA-00, helping support it as
he grabbed the severed leg and started heading back towards one of the
entry ports. "I'm escorting EVA-00 back with me."
]++[
Showered and changing back into his clothes, Ryo could hear shouting
outside the locker room, recognizing Misato's voice as the one shouting
and Neil's voice coming in occasional response. "You disobeyed a
direct order!" she shouted, something in her voice sounding as though
she weren't as angry with him as she was trying to act. "How can NERV
trust you as a pilot if we can't trust you to follow orders? The Eva
isn't a toy, you know."
"But the pilots are?" asked Neil, sounding more than a little
contemptuous. The question struck a nerve with Ryo, catching his
attention as an earlier thought resurfaced. "Misato, you know how I
feel about that boy that was hurt during my first combat. I couldn't
abandon Ryo to the Angel, knowing that he didn't have any chance to
survive."
Misato shouted something back at him, but Ryo's attention was focused
on the thought that Neil's statement had given him, making the rest of
the conversation seem less important to him. He stared at the door to
the room for a moment, then turned back to dressing, tucking his shirt
in and taking his shoes out of the locker. It was a moment longer
before Neil walked into the room, still in his plugsuit, the expression
on his face unreadable. "They let you come down here earlier," he
noted, heading over towards the shower stalls. "Lucky you. I can't
get this stuff off me fast enough."
Ryo didn't respond immediately, the strong scent of LCL hitting his
nose as Neil walked past him and rounded the corner to the showers. He
heard the hiss as the plugsuit was depressurized, then the sound of the
faucet being turned on followed by a cloud of vapor dripping out from
the stalls. "Misato was angry with you for disobeying orders," he
noted, meaning it as a question but knowing that it sounded like a
statement. "Why did you do it?"
"There wasn't a choice," replied Neil, his voice coming as a shout over
the stream of pressurized water. Ryo finished tying his shoes,
grabbing his bag out of the locker and remembering what Eiko had said
to him. "Besides, something tells me they were Gendou's orders, not
Misato's. And it all worked out, right? The Angel's defeated, we're
both still alive, and aside from my chest still hurting everything
seems to be fine." He paused. "Why did you come up to save me?"
"I had no choice," replied Ryo, knowing that the thought was the same
but somehow catching that the sentiment was entirely different. "I was
placed in EVA-00 to act as backup in the event that something happened
to your machine. Something did." He paused, reaching into his bag for
a second, then removing his hand without the sketch. Knowing that Neil
had no choice but to break routine, to do specifically what he was told
not to do, made the same curiosity he'd experienced earlier in the day
return to him almost involuntarily. "Thank you for saving me."
"Don't worry about it. You did the same for me." The water shut off,
and Ryo waited for a moment as Neil came out from the stalls, towel
wrapped around his waist as he headed towards his own locker. He began
to open the locker, then froze, pausing mid-motion. "Look, Ryo, I
don't know about you, but I was terrified out there. The first time
that I got in that machine, I woke up in a hospital. It almost
happened again." He paused. "You kept me from that, and I really
appreciate it. Thank you."
"You're welcome," replied Ryo, the words coming to him without
hesitation or conscious thought. He flashed his mind back to getting
inside of EVA-00, knowing that his experiences had been no better than
Neil's, but he couldn't remember feeling any fear. All he remembered
feeling was the desire to do what he was told, to accept his new
routine as it was presented to him. Fear didn't even enter into the
equation. "It's what we have to do, after all."
Slinging his bag over his shoulder, the First Child stepped outside of
the locker room, noting Misato briefly as he walked past her and down
the corridors of the building. He hadn't given the sketch to Neil on
purpose, suddenly finding himself asking why it was his job to convey
messages, why it was that Neil was important enough that EVA-00 could
be risked to make sure that he survived. The questions would have been
passionate in anyone else, but Ryo was not angry about his situation,
simply beginning to sense a kind of curiosity in himself for the first
time.
Ryo's routine dictated that he needed to report to Commander Ikari's
office, that he needed to speak with the commander about other
matters. Instead, he stood still, opening his bag and taking out the
sketch, staring at it for a moment. "Neil said he didn't have a
choice," he muttered to himself, something bubbling underneath his skin
that he couldn't quite place. The way that Neil had acted, as if Ryo
were worth breaking routine for, left an odd sense in his head, leaving
him almost to wonder if perhaps Neil knew something he didn't, some bit
of information he wasn't privy to.
Then the concepts sank once again, routine asserting its presence and
the sketch slipping back into Ryo's bag. Quickening his pace, he
turned down the corridors of Central Dogma, his routine static and
unchanging despite the thoughts floating in his head. Something was
different about Neil, something that he didn't understand, something
that he needed to at least begin to know, but it was nothing so great
that it superceded what others needed him for. Once he understood why
Neil needed him, it would all make sense. He was certain of it.
]++[
Outro: Neon Epoch Evangelion is based off of -Shin Seiki Evangelion- by
GAINAX and company. It is not intended to be a straightforward fanfic,
but it is building off the work of others, and as such it is done with
the utmost respect for the original works and their authors.
Basically, even though this is an original work, it's based off the
work of others, and if you read this, you should go to see the original.
Special thanks to all of the real Children - you know who you are.
Extra special thanks to Joe Augulis for his consultation on the
Japanese portions of the story. He might not know much Japanese, but
that's more than I know.
Copyright 2002 Eliot Lefebvre.
NEXT EPISODE:
An enemy unknown.
Allies unaccounted for.
New emotions almost unnoticed.
NEON EPOCH EVANGELION 4: LOVERS UNAWARE
]++[
We only have a little time in our lives to waste. Make the most of it.
Electronic Transcendence Productions:
Producer of, um, stuff for an unspecified time-period.
Rants:
