DISCLAIMER: The characters, story, universe, etc. of Neon Genesis
Evangelion belong to GAINAX. They're not mine, and I make no claim to
them.
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Foreword: Not much to say about this chapter, other than the huge mecha
fight. But I won't give any of that away with this little note.
Really, I just wanted to take this moment to thank the people who voted
for me in the Tako Ball awards (all two of you). It was an honor to at
least be nominated, and I'll try even harder to move up the ranks next
year.
And another convenient conversion factor: 1 kilometer = 0.6214 miles,
so 15 kph = 9 mph.
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" " = speech
^ ^ = thoughts
_ _ = italics
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Angels of Armageddon
Author: Ryan Xavier
Chapter 10: Oblivion Awaits
Misato sat in the driver's seat, grumbling to herself about the
situation.
She was in an old station wagon, one of the few vehicles they'd been
able to salvage for this trip. She sat in the middle of a small
caravan: in front of her was a Jeep, and in front of that was the
military Humvee they'd borrowed. Behind her was an SUV, and last in
the line was the unmistakable form of Unit-00. The mech was easily
keeping pace, watching through its unblinking cyclopean eye as its
footsteps shook the ground at regular intervals.
Of the vehicles, the station wagon easily had the smoothest ride.
Unfortunately, that really only mattered on a paved road. Here, on the
dirt plains, she'd have much preferred something like the Jeep, which
Shigeru had appropriated. This car bounced everywhere, topping and
bottoming out on every little bump. It was something like a roller
coaster, minus the excitement. She was just left sick to her stomach.
The same went for the other occupants of the car. Hikari looked quite
green, in her seat next to Misato in the front passenger seat.
"Getting second thoughts there, Hikari-chan?" Misato asked, flashing
the girl a smile.
Hikari did her best to smile back. "No, no," she said, slowly shaking
her head. "I just...ah!" she cried out as the car flew over another
bump, going up on two wheels for a moment. "Katsuragi-san!"
"What?" Misato asked, innocently. "I'm just trying to keep up."
"Keep up?" came Asuka's voice from the back seat. The girl shoved her
way forwards, until her head was sticking between Misato and Hikari's.
"You're practically in the Humvee's trunk as it _is_!"
"That's the fun of it all," Misato said. She adjusted her sunglasses
and grinned again, looking back to the land in front of them. "God, I
forgot how much fun driving is."
With an annoyed expression, Asuka looked at Hikari. "Are you suddenly
worried we won't make it, too?"
Hikari smiled. "Well, she's doing her best...urk..." she held her
stomach as it threatened to vomit up everything she'd ever eaten.
Accidentally - or perhaps not - Misato went over another small dip in
the terrain, causing Asuka to fall back into her seat, by the window.
The German girl rolled her eyes and looked out the window for a moment,
trying to amuse herself with the terrain. It didn't work; there was
nothing out there to see. Just an endless expanse of dirt, still red
after all these years. As though it had been permanently stained with
the blood of its former inhabitants.
She looked over to her right, where Ariel sat in the middle seat. The
white-haired girl was sitting there with her arms crossed over her
chest, staring straight ahead. She was also humming a tune to herself,
bringing some marginal background music to the otherwise quiet car.
Asuka listened for a brief moment, just long enough to identify the
song. When she did, she shuddered.
"Could you stop?" she asked Ariel.
Ariel stopped humming 'Halleluiah'. "Beg your pardon?" she asked,
looking over at Asuka.
"It's just...I don't like that song," Asuka said, quietly. "It's
funny, though," she said, smiling bitterly. "I can't really remember
_why_ I don't like it...but hearing it just gives me the chills. So
could you stop?"
Ariel blinked. "My apologies," she said. "I was simply trying to pass
the time."
"Yeah, I know," Asuka said. "How long have we been in this car,
Misato? I'm going _crazy_ back here!"
"I dunno," came the response. "Since sunrise, I know that much."
Asuka just shook her head. The sun was now past its peak, and on its
way back down to the horizon. It sure _felt_ like they'd been in the
car since sunrise. Her legs felt numb, and her whole body was itching
to just be able to _move_.
"So what do you think of our intrepid driver's style?" Asuka asked,
looking slantwise at Ariel.
"It leaves much to be desired," the girl said, glancing over at Asuka
for a brief moment. "But then again, so do the...oof..." she said, as
a bump caused her to hit her head on the ceiling. "...the roads," she
finished, rubbing her sore skull.
"You know, I still don't quite understand," Asuka said, changing
conversational tack. "Most of us have a reason to come along, I
guess...but why're you here?"
Ariel turned her head, this time looking Asuka in the eyes. "I'm
trying to find a...friend I lost touch with. I don't think they are
quite in their right mind."
"They?" Asuka asked, quirking an eyebrow. "Not he or she?"
"No," came the simple response, as Ariel looked away.
Asuka lowered her voice and leaned in closer to Ariel. "Is it a guy?"
she asked, grinning. "Some old flame you're looking for?"
Ariel looked at the red-haired girl next to her. For a brief moment,
her cherry blossom eyes betrayed a hint of sorrow, of deep injury and
long suffering. It passed quickly, though, as the girl covered it up,
again.
"I just want to find them before they hurt themselves...or other
people." she said, in a low voice. It didn't sound like she was
talking to herself. It sounded more like she was whispering, for fear
that if she raised her voice, she break down crying.
Asuka looked at the other girl, confused. "Oh..." she said, slowly.
Carefully, she took Ariel's hand. The white-haired girl flinched at
the contact, a habit she seemed to have around Asuka. Asuka ignored
it, and not for the first time, either.
"We'll find..._them_," Asuka said, conspicuously emphasizing the last
word as she looked at Ariel suspiciously. "And then we'll see what we
can do."
Ariel shook her head. "You don't understand..." she said, in an even
lower voice than before.
Asuka patted Ariel's hand, figuring out that it was better at this
moment not to say anything to the other girl.
But that still left her in silence. Boring, oppressive, silence.
"Say, Hikari," Asuka said, turning her head to look at the front again,
"why'd you bother to come along?"
"Because my Touji is coming, too," came the cheerful response. As
cheerful as one can be while sick to their stomach, that is. "Touji
didn't want to be left out, he told me that much. So the only solution
was for him to go. And I couldn't let him go alone, could I?"
Asuka rolled her eyes and looked at Ariel. "She's got it bad," she
said, switching over to German so that Hikari wouldn't be able to
eavesdrop.
Ariel looked at Asuka, not understanding. "What?" she asked,
automatically changing languages, as well.
"Her," Asuka said, tilting her head towards Hikari. "She's just
_obsessed_ over that idiot Suzuhara."
"Well, I can understand why," Ariel said. "It is rather obvious, I
would think."
"Yeah, yeah," Asuka said, waving off the comment. "Just a tip from me:
don't ever get like that. Got it?"
Ariel looked away, glancing off to her side, at the other window seat.
There, sitting quietly looking out the window, was another reason for
her rather bad mood during this trip: Rei Ayanami.
"Yes, I understand," she said, still using German as she looked back to
Asuka. "Or like...her," she added on, copying Asuka's head-tilt, this
time aiming it at Rei.
Asuka's eyes widened a little, and she blinked a few times. "Don't
tell me...you could _tell_ she's caught up over Shin...uh...some guy?"
"Yes, I could tell," Ariel said, doing her best to look casual. "I
thought anyone could tell."
"Not anyone," Asuka said, looking past Ariel and at the blue-haired
girl. "She's pretty damn good at hiding it, you know."
"I suppose so."
"But not that it matters," Asuka said, haughtily turning up her nose.
"Yes, that's another example of what _not_ to do. Don't ever let some
guy control your life."
"Ze...Rei lets a man control her?"
"Are you kidding? She's a doll, Ariel," she said, clapping Ariel on
the shoulder. "She doesn't know what to do with herself unless there's
some _guy_ sitting around telling her what to do. First that Commander
Ikari guy, now Kaoru and Shinji...I'd like to see what she'd do without
someone to order her around."
Ariel just smiled, laughing quietly at the private joke.
"Ich wurde alles tun, um meinem Leben einen Sinn zu geben," Rei
replied. 'I would do everything to find meaning in my life.' She
looked away from the window, long enough to transfix both of the other
girls with her cold, crimson-eyed gaze. "Just as I do now," she added,
switching smoothly back over to Japanese.
At that, she looked back out the window, resting her chin on one hand.
A dead silence fell on the back seat of the car, as both of the other
girls turned a few shades redder in embarassment. Misato occasionally
called over her shoulder to ask how they were doing, but all she got
was a monosyllabic answer.
Rei didn't pay any attention to them. She continued staring out the
glass, out at the Humvee, which was now just a little ahead of them,
and to the side. She could just manage to see in through the window of
the truck, and was _just_ able to see...
* * *
Shinji shifted a little in his seat as he felt an itch between his
shoulders. It only lasted a moment, though.
"Something wrong, Shinji-kun?" Kaoru asked, leaning forwards and
looking over Shinji's shoulder.
"No...nothing's wrong, Kaoru-kun," Shinji said, quietly. He let out a
slow breath and went back to staring straight ahead. ^Why can't we
just _be_ there,^ he thought, impatiently. It was going to happen, he
could feel it. Another Eva was going to return to life. The sooner
they got there, the better. By going to the Eva instead of the other
way around, they might be able to avoid more deaths.
Shinji closed his eyes, as the images of the cleanup at the American
plane returned unbidden to his mind. He'd seen the bloody, broken
bodies of the crew being pulled out. He'd seen them thrown off to the
side, covered by a simple tarp so people wouldn't have to look. And
then there'd been the others, the people who'd been part of his camp,
their lives crushed underneath the feet of uncaring monsters.
^Not again,^ he promised himself. ^I can't let that happen. Not
again.^ To do so would mean a failure as a leader. Not to mention as
a human being.
In the back of the truck, someone else was highly focused on preserving
life. But as opposed to making quiet promises, she was making
preparations. This person, otherwise known as Ritsuko Akagi, was
busily working on some rather complex electronic equipment.
Major Lewis had told them that they would find a video camera in the
back of the truck. That much was true; a little hand-held digital
video camera _had_ been there. But also with it had been an assortment
of electronics and scanners, the type Ritsuko had said could be easily
modified to detect AT fields. It was no surprise the Americans had had
such equipment, but Shinji was still wondering whether or not it was an
accident that Lewis had left that gear in his truck for them to find.
Ritsuko was currently typing on a laptop that had been back there. Her
fingers were moving quickly, though not as quickly as they'd been able
to back before Third Impact. Every few minutes, she would mutter to
herself that she was out of practice with this sort of thing.
"How's it going, Ritsu-chan?" Maya asked from the driver's seat.
Shinji turned to look at the woman, and still couldn't quite surpress a
smile. Maya couldn't have looked more out of place sitting behind the
wheel of the enormous Humvee. Not only did it handle like a bus, the
steering wheel was on the wrong side. She'd spent the first few hours
with a very strained expression on her face, as though it were all she
could do not to run the vehicle off a cliff.
"I'm making progress," Ritsuko's voice called back across the cabin.
"I should be done writing the software by the time we stop to make
camp. Then we'll just have to make the appropriate modifications to
the hardware."
"OK," the other woman said, before going back to watching the ground in
front of them, her knuckles turning white on the steering wheel.
Apparently she still hadn't gotten over her nervousness.
"So we'll really be able to detect the Eva?" Shinji asked, still
incredulous over their good fortune at finding that equipment.
"With a ninety percent certainty," Ritsuko replied, not looking up from
what she was doing. "It won't be as reliable as the equipment at NERV,
but it will suffice."
"Will you be able to tell when it activates? The Eva, I mean."
"I don't know, Ikari," Ritsuko bit out. "Just let me do my job."
Shinji blinked, drawing back a little. "Sorry," he mumbled. He
twisted in his seat, turning around to look at Kaoru, sitting behind
him. "Kaoru-kun..." he said.
"Yes?" Kaoru said, looking at him with an interested expression on his
face.
"Kaoru-kun...I've been thinking. The last two Evas that Unit-00
destroyed exploded when it crushed their cores, right?"
"To an extent, that is what happened, Shinji-kun. But remember these
'explosions' had little destructive force."
"Well, yeah," Shinji said, clenching one hand, out of Kaoru's view.
"But I was just thinking...maybe we just got lucky. What if the next
one really _does_ explode when you crush the core?"
Kaoru cocked his head, thinking. "I am not certain that would happen,
Shinji-kun," he answered. "The energy from the critical S2 reactions
has been siphoned off efficiently in both cases. There is no reason it
would not happen again."
"Yeah..." Shinji said, clenching his fist again. "But I still don't
know. Look, Kaoru-kun, if you have to kill it, don't smash its core.
I'm afraid if you do...we'd all end up losing."
Kaoru shrugged. "I can understand your concern, Shinji-kun. Ritsuko-
san has told me of the output in a critical S2 reaction. But I still
do not believe - "
"Just try to do it, Kaoru-kun," Shinji said, more firmly. "I don't
want you and Ayanami taking risks when you don't have to."
Kaoru blinked at being cut off, then nodded slowly. "Very well,
Shinji-kun. I can try, at least. I suppose there are ways..." he
said, his brow furrowing in thought.
"And, if you can..." Shinji continued, "if you can...stop Ayanami from
using the Dummy plug. I've told her not to use it, but..." he shook
his head. "She doesn't listen to me. I just...don't understand her."
"She is trying to win the battle, Shinji-kun," Kaoru said, plainly.
Shinji only shook his head again, in response. "Well..." Kaoru said,
slightly unsettled, "...I will try, Shinji-kun. And..." he said,
pausing to make sure he had Shinji's attention, "why don't you call her
Rei?"
"Huh? Oh, sorry," Shinji mumbled. "I'm just used to calling her
Ayanami. It was really weird, when she asked me...well, not _asked_
me, but when she said I could call her Rei if I wanted."
Kaoru nodded, a brief smile coming to his lips. "It was shocking to
hear she thought you enough of a friend to use her first name?"
"Yeah," Shinji said, nodding. "And she still calls me 'Ikari-kun', so
it feels a little weird calling her Rei, like that."
"I could work on that," Kaoru mumbled to himself.
"What?" Shinji asked, not quite hearing his friend.
"Nothing, Shinji-kun," Kaoru said, smiling again. "How much longer
until we stop?"
"Not much," Shinji said, looking out the window to try and gauge where
the sun was. "I think...well, I _hope_ we can get there by nightfall."
"Very well."
* * *
"Are you quite sure about this, Katsuragi-san?" Hikari asked nervously.
"Ah, I knew this day would come eventually," Misato replied casually.
"But...but I..."
"Quiet, Hikari," Asuka snapped, as she sat down in the driver's seat of
the car.
"Just give her a chance, girls," Misato said, in a soothing voice. "I
need a break from driving, anyway."
"Yeah, and _I_ volunteered," Asuka said, proudly. "Where're you gonna
find someone more qualified than me to take over?
Rei and Ariel both raised their hands.
"Shut up," Asuka bit out, looking away from them. "If I can drive an
Eva, then this'll be easy." With that, she put the keys into the
ignition.
"Unit-02 was responsible for a great degree of property damage during
its operational time," Rei began to recite, as though reading from a
report. "With damages exceeding 450 million - "
"I said shut _up_!" Asuka hissed.
"Rei, give her a chance, at least," Misato said, patting the pale
girl's hand. "It's not like she's driving on the highway or anything."
Rei let out a small sigh, then looked away, giving her quiet consent to
let Asuka try.
"Are you _sure_ you want to be back there, Katsuragi-san?" Hikari
asked, looking over her shoulder, into the back seat.
Misato lurched as Asuka snapped the transmission into Drive and started
nudging the gas pedal. "No, it's OK, Hikari-chan. You should get the
front seat, anyway." She leaned back. "And it gives me a chance to
get to know these two girls back here," she added, glancing at Ariel
and Rei on either side of her. She was greeted by two icy cold stares,
one from a set of blood red eyes and another from a set of rosy pink
eyes.
Misato broke a sweat, but shook it off quickly. "All right, you're
doing great now, Asuka. Just be careful with the gas..."
"Ha! Like I said, this is easy," Asuka commented haughtily. She
played with the steering wheel, sending them through a lazy, 15 kph
slalom which succeeded in shoving Misato alternately against Rei, then
Ariel, with a loud series of 'oofs' from all three of the women.
Asuka looked back down in front of them. "Ah, crap, I'm going too
slow. Everyone's leaving us behind."
"It's OK, we can catch up later," Misato said.
"Screw that," Asuka replied. "Betcha I can get up to them _now_."
This claim was followed shortly by the sound of four seatbelts clicking
into place.
"Shut up!" Asuka snapped, again. "Now, I guess I just hit the gas like
this..."
"Asuka, why don't you just let me...AAAAAAAHHHH!!!"
* * *
It was quite late by the time they finally reached their target. The
sun had long set, and the stars were shining brightly, billions of
lights so like the fireflies from the other night, yet at the same time
so different.
Several hundred meters from the shoreline, the Humvee ground to a halt,
its tires skidding slightly on the dirt as its tremendous mass was
forced to stop. Its engine powered down, but its headlights stayed on,
lighting up the darkness ahead of them.
The black SUV and the open-top Jeep came in right alongside each other,
one stopping on either side of the Humvee, forming a very rough line of
vehicles.
Kensuke hopped out of the Jeep, landing on his feet and kneeling down,
letting himself catch his breath before standing up. "Glad _that's_
over," he said.
"No kiddin'," Touji said, jumping out the other side. "Oh, my achin'
ass," he said, rubbing the afflicted body part.
Shigeru just laughed from his position in the Jeep's driver's seat, and
got out as well, stretching. The SUV unloaded as well, dispatching a
few other volunteers from the camp.
All four of the Humvee's doors opened at once, and the occupants got
out. Ritsuko got out of the driver's seat; when they'd stopped for a
few minutes some time ago, most of the vehicles had changed drivers.
Shinji, Kaoru, and Maya got out of their respective seats. Ritsuko,
Maya, and a moment later Shigeru as well, went around to the back of
the Humvee and began unloading the equipment.
Shinji got around to the Jeep and met with his friends. "How're you
guys doing?" he asked, tiredly.
"Ah, I'll live," Touji said, smirking.
"Yeah, same here," Kensuke said. Then he looked up at the vehicles and
started pointing, tapping the air where each truck was. His lips moved
quietly, mouthing the numbers 'one, two, three...'
"Hey, guys," he said. "Didn't we leave with _four_ vehicles?"
"Come to think of it..." Shinji said, looking back at the three trucks,
"Yes. Where's the car?"
All three boys began to look around nervously, not wanting to get too
worked up over something that could turn out to not be worth the
effort. But two of them couldn't help from worrying a little: some of
the most important women in their lives were in that car.
"Tell you what, I'll look over here," Touji said. "That Misato
probably just took a wrong turn...or somethin'."
"Uh...yeah," Shinji said. "I'll look over here, then."
The boys split up. Kensuke watched them go in separate directions, and
shrugged, sighing as he leaned against the side of the Jeep.
Touji had just started to walk around behind the Humvee when he heard
the noise of four tires scraping on loose dirt. He looked up just in
time to see a pair of headlights coming straight at him.
Cursing, he jumped backwards, losing his balance and falling onto his
back. In front of him, a car shot by at a breakneck speed, sending up
a cloud of dirt behind it.
He got to his feet and ran back behind the Jeep. He was soon joined by
Shinji who, though he hadn't been nearly hit, had still noticed the
arrival.
The car did a rather impressive one-eighty, its tires skidding noisily,
before it finally halted, crashing back down onto its suspension with a
loud 'thunk'. After bouncing on its springs for a few seconds, it
finally fell still, its engine going silent. Even its headlights shut
down.
Touji and Shinji approached, cautiously. Behind them, Shigeru and a
few of the men from the SUV picked up some high-powered flashlights and
began shining them off in the direction of the car, forming makeshift
spotlights for the two boys.
The back two doors on the car opened first. Out the left side came
Rei, and out the right came Ariel. Both looked a little ruffled, but
more out of the effects of being thrown around than out of actually
being scared. Both calmly brushed themselves off and straightened out,
Ariel taking a few moments to brush her hair out of her eyes.
"Hey...uh...you!" Touji called out to Ariel, not quite remembering her
name at the moment. "What happened?"
Ariel looked at him, a half-second passing before she reacted. One
corner of her mouth quirked upwards, as she recognized Touji. She
opened her mouth to speak when -
"Well _excuse_ me!" Asuka said, popping out of the driver's side door.
"I was just trying to catch up, you wimps!"
Shinji thought he could hear some voices from inside the car, but it
was difficult to tell.
"Well, at least we're here in one piece!" Asuka shouted back,
apparently in response, before slamming the door so hard the car rocked
on its suspension.
"Asuka!" Shinji called out to the girl, closing the distance and coming
up to her. "What happened?"
"Hmph," Asuka said, turning up her nose. "I just volunteered to
relieve Misato at the break, that's all."
Shinji blinked. "Uh...I didn't know you knew how to drive."
"I learned!" Asuka explained, exasperated. "C'mon, it's not like I was
going to run it off the road!" She then fell into a string of muttered
German curses.
"Uh huh..." Shinji said, blinking again. "Well, is everyone all
right?"
Asuka just glared at him for a moment, then gestured sharply at the
car. Shinji looked, in time to see Rei helping a rather pale Hikari
out of the passenger seat, while Ariel was almost literally dragging
Misato out of the back.
"Well...OK," Shinji said, nervously. "C'mon," he said, putting one arm
around Asuka's waist and leading her back towards the other vehicles.
"Maybe we can get dinner."
"Better be worth the trouble, Shinji-chan," came the reply, nearly
growled out from the anger she was feeling.
"Uh...we'll see, OK?"
Touji, seeing that Hikari, though shaken, was still standing, went to
go help the other girl get Misato out. Ariel spared him a brief
glance, then shifted her grip, letting Touji take Misato's right arm
while she took the left. Together, they managed to support the older
woman as she stepped out of the car.
Misato was just staring off into space, mumbling to herself. "Never
should have...never let Asuka drive, never ever..."
"OK, it's alright, Misato," Touji said, patting her on the arm.
"You're all in one piece."
"Yes, yes," Misato said, nodding. She kept nodding for several seconds
after she'd stopped talking. "Need...beer..."
"Can you handle this?" Touji asked, glancing over at the other girl.
"I can take Katsuragi to the camp, if that is what you're asking,"
Ariel replied, sizing him up with her eyes.
"Right..." Touji said, blinking. "Thanks. Uh...what's your name
again?"
"Ni," Ariel replied. "Ariel Ni." She then took Misato's hand and
started leading the other woman off towards the trucks.
"Well, thanks then!" Touji called after her. He didn't get a response.
"Strange girl," he mumbled to himself, before he went over to the other
side of the car.
Hikari was leaning against the side of the car, trying to take deep
breaths to calm herself. She was staring at the ground a few
centimeters in front of her feet, apparently to reassure herself that
yes, she had stopped moving. One hand was supporting her ever-growing
stomach. The other, however, was clutching the limp hand of Rei
Ayanami.
Rei was standing there calmly, her other arm hanging by her side. She
was looking unblinkingly at Hikari, letting the other girl calm down.
The darkness was hiding her face, masking her expression with shadows.
Touji stood there, frozen, at the sight. For a brief moment, he wished
that Kensuke were here, with his old camera. There was no way anyone
was ever going to believe this.
Rei was the first to break the moment, looking away from Hikari. As
the light from one of the flashlights caught the girl's face, Touji
blinked. Rei didn't have her customary blank expression on, right now.
Rather, she almost looked a little...confused. As though, at the
moment, she didn't know what to say or do. Touji found this to be more
than a little unsettling.
But as Rei saw Touji, her expression snapped back to the customary
emotionless mask. "Suzuhara-kun," she said, simply.
Hikari looked up, at Rei's soft utterance. It didn't take her long to
see who Rei was looking at. "Touji!" she called out, running over to
the boy.
Touji gave her a hug as she came up to him. "It was horrible..."
Hikari muttered. "Listen to me...don't _ever_ let Asuka drive you
anywhere."
"Right," Touji said, nodding. "Tell you what, why don't we head back
and get some dinner?"
Hikari nodded, squeezing Touji up against her one last time before
releasing him. She looked over her shoulder, at Rei. The blue-haired
girl had already turned to leave.
"Hey, Ayanami..." she called after the girl. Rei didn't say anything,
or even turn around. The only indication that she'd heard Hikari was
that she stopped walking.
"Ayanami, do you want to join us?" Hikari asked, only half-sure that
Rei was listening. "I mean...I'm just asking."
_Now_ Rei turned her head. But she did not immediately look at Hikari.
Rather, her gaze tracked back to the trucks, not too far away. There,
she could see Shinji already sitting down on a folding chair that had
been unloaded from the SUV. Preparations were being made for a fire.
The boy looked happy, as did Asuka, sitting by his side. Seeing this,
Rei's eyes softened, for a split second.
Rei turned around, so that she was finally facing Hikari. "Very well,
Horaki-san," she said, in the same soft monotone.
"All right then," Hikari said, nodding. "C'mon, Touji-chan."
She started walking, holding Touji's hand as they headed over to the
others. Rei trailed along behind.
* * *
It took a while, but they finally got a small fire started, using some
of the kindling they'd brought along. Most of the people who'd come
along had something to do; Ritsuko and Maya were busily modifying the
equipment they had to track AT fields, while Shigeru and some of the
men were looking under the hoods of the trucks and car, trying to make
sure they'd keep running long enough to get them back home. Misato
occasionally checked on their progress, but currently she was keeping
Ritsuko and Maya company.
The children, however, were taking a brief respite from the work,
trying to rest after the day's events. They all had their excuses:
Shinji and Asuka were supposed to delegate work, Kaoru and Rei had to
rest in case they needed to use the Eva. Touji, for his part, had to
look after Hikari. Ariel had not given a reason for why she was there,
but no one had taken the trouble to ask her to help out with anything.
Kensuke, left as the only one without a decent excuse, was doing his
best to help out Shigeru and the others.
Rei sat, legs curled up her her chest with her arms wrapped around her
legs. In front of her, Hikari was talking almost continuously, leaving
Touji to sit by quietly, not wanting to interrupt.
"...and me and my sisters liked camping out on the weekends," Hikari
was saying. "So this really isn't too bad. Actually, it's better. Me
and my sisters never brought along those big lights."
"Or an Eva," Touji commented.
Hikari laughed sweetly. "Yeah, that," she said.
Rei might have been paying attention to the chatter, but it was
difficult to be sure. Hikari kept talking, unable to get rid of the
feeling that maybe she was boring the blue haired girl. Rei wasn't
making eye contact, instead occasionally sipping from the cup of broth
that sat steaming next to her.
Hikari paused, taking a drink from her own cup. Rei blinked once, but
this didn't necessarily mean anything. Her brow furrowing, Hikari
decided to see if Rei had actually been listening while she'd been
rambling on.
"So how about you, Ayanami?" Hikari asked. "What do you think of
living outdoors?"
"It is..." Rei began immediately, showing that, much as she'd done back
in school, she'd been listening, even if she'd seemed disinterested.
However, she trailed off, searching for a word. "...bearable," she
finished.
"Bearable?" Hikari asked, confused. "Well, I guess so. Just as long
as you have something to keep you warm."
Rei nodded, sparing Hikari a brief glance before looking back off into space.
"Ayanami..." Hikari began again. "Or Rei...can I call you Rei?"
"If you wish."
Hikari blinked. "Well, Rei...you've been letting me carry on. Do you
want to say anything? I mean, what are you thinking about? You're
always so quiet, like you're lost in thought, or...something."
Rei did nothing; she didn't even turn her head to look at the other
girl.
^Am I not worth the trouble of answering?^ Hikari wondered, looking at
the other girl. "Rei?"
"I am planning for the battle," Rei said, turning her head even further
away.
Hikari blinked. "Is that all you think about, Rei?" she said, quietly.
Again, no response from the blue-haired girl. She turned her head to
look at Shinji and the others, talking on the other side of the fire.
She closed her eyes and replied.
"It is all I have," she said, quietly. She opened her eyes again, as
though coming to some kind of internal decision. "Perhaps all I can
have."
"Rei..." Hikari said, at a loss for words.
"You gotta lighten up, Ayanami," Touji said, hearing Hikari trail off.
"There's got to be something other than Evas that you can think about."
Rei slowly turned her head, looking Touji in the eye. To his credit,
the boy didn't flinch under her gaze. Rei regarded him carefully,
cocking her head to one side.
Touji managed a half-smile. "_That_'s better, right there, Ayanami.
Why don't you look at someone when they're talking to you?"
"It has never occurred to me to do so, Suzuhara-kun."
"OK..." Touji replied, looking away and up into the sky as he was
caught off-guard by the reply.
"It's just a polite thing to do," Hikari added, seeing Touji suddenly
start wanting out of this conversation. She threw the boy a brief
glare for backing out so quickly, making him draw in upon himself a
bit.
Satisified that Touji was properly chastised, she looked back to Rei.
"Tell you what, Rei...why don't you start calling me by my first name?"
"Why?"
"Well...I've known you for a while. And you said I can call you Rei."
"Yes. I suppose I will try...Hikari-san."
^Good enough for a start,^ Hikari thought, rolling her eyes at the
'-san'. ^Now I wonder if my Touji would let Rei call him - ^
"And I guess you might as well use my first name, too," Touji said,
beating Hikari to the punch.
"I see..." Rei said, nodding. "And may I use the first names of
others, as well?"
Touji put on an annoyed expression. "This isn't a briefing, Rei. But
yeah. People like Kensuke, Misato, and I guess Ariel...she seems to
know you, but I dunno why. Go ahead. They won't mind."
Rei again fell silent, leaning back as she fell into her thoughts.
After a moment, she mouthed the word, 'Shinji'.
Hikari and Touji looked at each other.
"Rei?" Hikari asked. "Are you..._blushing_?"
* * *
Shinji spared Rei a brief glance, having to look directly through the
fire in order to get even a momentary glance. Obscured by the bright,
dancing tounges of flame, the mysterious blue-haired girl could only
just barely be seen. But then a brief night wind blew down, dulling
the flames with its short-lived caress long enough for him to get a
better view. He could see her listening patiently to Hikari, as she
talked about who-knew-what. Shinji blinked, however, as he saw Rei's
lips move. Was Rei Ayanami having an actual _conversation_? With
someone who's last name wasn't Ikari?
"Something wrong, Shinji-kun?" Kaoru asked, from his position next to
Shinji.
Shinji leaned back, up against the tire of the Jeep sitting behind him.
It was uncomfortable, but still better than lying on the ground like
Kaoru was. Still, the pale boy looked quite relaxed, his fingers laced
behind his head as he stared up at the familiar ceiling of the stars.
"Nothing much, Kaoru-kun," Shinji sighed out. "I'm just wondering why
Ayanam...Rei is sitting over there," he said, stumbling over her name.
"It's like she prefers being alone."
"Not true," Kaoru said, closing his eyes. "She simply prefers not to
deal with people."
Shinji blinked. "What's the difference?"
Kaoru smiled, though he kept his eyes shut. "It is difficult to
explain, Shinji-kun," he said. "Perhaps later."
"All right."
Shinji let himself relax, as best as one can while sitting on hard
ground and leaning against a tire. He looked off to his right. There,
Asuka and Ariel were sitting close to the fire, warming their hands by
the flames. They were having a conversation, though Asuka was doing
most of the talking. Shinji couldn't understand a word they were
saying; it was almost enough to make him wish he'd studied German.
Still, he was able to smile, seeing this.
^Good to see Asuka still knows how to make friends,^ he thought. ^I
wonder if I know how.^
An unwanted memory surfaced. A memory of the dead, the shattered
bodies from the last battle.
^I wonder if I have the right to make friends.^
"Hmm..." Kaoru said, quietly.
Shinji, his face a little sullen, turned to look back at the boy lying
next to him. Kaoru was in the same position as before, only now his
eyes were open, glittering with reflected light from the stars. "What
is it?" Shinji asked him.
"The sky," Kaoru said, still in a quiet, almost awed voice. "So many
of the Lilum say it is something unattainable. Heaven, so to speak."
Shinji looked up, as well, glad to find something to take his mind off
of his current thoughts. He was greeted by the infinite expanse of
celestial light, in the form of uncountable points of flickering
illumination, clusters of life in unrelenting darkness.
"It's nice to think such a place exists," Shinji commented. "To think
there's a better place to go after death."
Kaoru glanced at Shinji. For a moment, his eyes were quite serious, as
cold and calculating as Rei's ever had been. "I suppose so," he said.
His eyes turned again, this time looking across the ground, over at
Ariel. "Though some of us do not belong there. They...have nowhere to
go, after they meet their end."
Shinji blinked, not noticing where Kaoru was looking, because he was
still looking up at the night sky. "That's a sad thing to think,
Kaoru-kun."
"Well," Kaoru sighed out, "it is just idle wondering, I suppose. The
result of too much fatigue." He paused for a moment, so long that
Shinji began to wonder if his friend had decided to go to sleep. But
then he spoke again:
"Shinji-kun, look at the moon," Kaoru said, pointing over at a part of
the sky off in the distance.
Shinji followed Kaoru's finger, until he saw the white, cratered disc
of the moon, the huge glowing orb, easily the brightest in the sky.
"Beautiful," Shinji said, simply.
Kaoru nodded. "Indeed. There are a few things in life that are worth
being patient for. Such as the sight of a full moon at night."
Shinji nodded. "Or a sunrise."
Kaoru glanced over at the other boy for a moment. "I suppose," he
sighed out. "It is merely a matter of timing, in the end. Where you
are and what you are doing when the time comes. But for now...the moon
is there for us."
"Hm," Shinji said, looking up at the heavenly object.
But even as he watched, Shinji felt something happen. As though
something in the back of his head physically shifted around. Then, the
moon turned black, like a blinking eye, becoming so dark that it seemed
to pull in all around it, standing out even from the darkness of the
night sky. Streaks of white appeared on its surface, forming a twisted
zebra pattern on the previously white orb.
And then the blackness was upon him, under him. It pulled him down, in
a slow but inexorable pull, sucking him into its impenetrable depths.
He reached out, trying to grab onto something solid, but nothing could
be found. Shinji's heart accelerated, as he tried to scream. But that
only let the blackness flow into his mouth, suffocating him as water
suffocates a drowning man. No one could hear him, even as he finally
sank into the all-consuming darkness.
And then he returned to himself.
He blinked as the dream ended. A split-second passed before the cold
set in. Shinji hugged himself, feeling as though, just as his body had
been pulled away in the dream, all his warmth had been taken in the
real world. He shuddered, half-expecting to be able to see his breath
as he sighed.
He looked to his side, to see Kaoru was also shivering. Suddenly
becoming aware of his pulse ringing in his ears, he looked over to
Asuka. Then Rei and Touji. They were all shivering, as though struck
by a lance of pure ice.
He was on his feet almost instantly. He looked down at Kaoru, who was
also getting up. A look of resolve was suddenly apparent on the pale
boy's face, a look which Shinji somehow knew would be on his own face.
"Did you feel that?" Shinji asked. Kaoru nodded once. It was all he
needed.
Shinji looked around, to see Asuka, Touji, and Rei also on their feet,
standing stock-still as they looked at him. Without a thought, he took
off, running towards one end of the line of trucks. The other four
children followed closely behind, keeping pace as best they could.
Ariel was left alone, with no company save the crackling fire. She had
remained sitting the whole time, her hands resting on her crossed
ankles. Several moments after the Children had left, she let out a
slow breath. Finally, she looked up, over at the point in space where
she could hear the tide slowly crashing. In a voice so quiet she could
barely even hear herself, she spoke a single word:
"Leliel."
* * *
Misato yawned loudly as the night dragged on. In front of her, Ritsuko
sat in a simple folding chair, typing on a laptop.
"What I wouldn't give for a coffee," Misato said, grinning.
"Indeed," Ritsuko said, not looking up. "Even _your_ coffee would make
this easier."
Misato bristled a little at the comment, but then grinned again. "So
how's it going, Ritsu?"
"As well as can be expected," the blonde doctor replied. "I've
calibrated the equipment with Unit-00's AT field, but that should not
be a problem. AT fields all operate on the same band of wavelengths."
"Always the scholar," Misato commented. She picked up a nearby
notebook, leafing through it and glancing over the circuit diagrams.
"I could never understand this stuff."
"We all have our talents, Misato," Ritsuko said, glancing at her old
friend. She then went back to typing. "If anything, you keep this
from becoming dull."
"Heh," Misato said, quietly. "Yeah, what would you do without me?"
Ritsuko would have eventually come up with a reply, but she was cut off
by three pounding sets of footsteps. Both women looked up in time to
see Shinji, Asuka, and Rei skid to respective halts not far from them.
"Whoa!" Misato said, holding up her hands. "Where's the fire, Shinji-
kun?"
"Ritsuko-san!" Shinji said, breathless. "Ritsuko-san, can you scan for
AT fields yet?"
"I suppose so," Ritsuko said, giving Shinji an odd look. "Why?"
"Do it," Shinji said, his voice firm. "Do it quickly. I think...oh,
God..."
Misato's eyes narrowed as something clicked in her mind. "You better
do it, Ritsu," she said, looking over at the doctor.
Ritsuko nodded slowly and started typing. "It is not fully calibrated
yet, but I can still do a coarse measurement..." she explained. "And
here we are..." she said. "Interesting."
Shinji and Asuka were by Ritsuko's side in a heartbeat. "What is it?"
Shinji asked, worried. "Do you detect something?"
"It's rather garbled, but there is definitely a blue pattern out
there," Ritsuko said, her brow furrowing as she typed in another line
of commands. "Epicenter at..." she trailed off. "...two hundred
meters off the coastline," she finished, quietly.
"It is awake," Rei said, addressing the group. She looked up at Shinji
and Asuka. "We felt it."
"All right then," Misato said, standing up quickly. She was visibly
trying to hide the fact that she was just as scared as the three
children. "We knew this might happen. OK, get Nagisa. Rei, you and
him go get Unit-00, and - "
"Misato."
Misato looked down, at Ritsuko, who was still sitting, staring at her
laptop. "Misato, this is..." she said, shaking her head.
"What is it?" the former Major asked, coming around and standing
between Shinji and Asuka to look over Ritsuko's shoulder. She could
read the screen. Though it had windows open for the graphs of AT field
strengths and wavelengths, they all read flat lines. Another window
was open, reading a simple message: SIGNAL LOST.
"What?" Misato asked, confused.
"The pattern is gone," Ritsuko explained. "It didn't just change
wavelength...I would have been able to tell. It simply disappeared."
"Shinji-kun!" came Kaoru's voice, from the Humvee.
Shinji excused himself and walked around to the truck. There, Kaoru
and Touji were standing, working some of the large floodlights they'd
used earlier.
"What is it, Kaoru-kun?" Shinji asked.
"Look," Kaoru said, simply. He aimed the light out over the sea of
LCL. Shinji looked. His eyes went wide, a moment later. Where Kaoru
was aiming, just hours ago, there had been the huge, decapitated,
winged form of a petrified MP Eva, standing silent vigil over the
warped world. But now...
"Gone?" Shinji asked, incredulous.
* * *
"I still just can't believe it," Asuka was saying, the next day. "How
could that happen? How could we just _lose_ a goddamn _Eva_?"
She was currently sitting in the Jeep, though not in the driver's seat.
Shigeru had appropriated that position, much to the relief of the other
people in the Jeep.
"I don't know," Shinji said, from his position in the back. "Not only
that, but how can we _keep_ losing it?"
The Humvee was riding in front of them. Though they couldn't see from
where they were, Ritsuko and Maya were sitting in the back of the
truck, operating the scanning equipment to the best of their ability as
they bounced over the rough terrain. After a sleepless night, the blue
pattern had appeared again, kilometers away from their position. The
whole group had packed up in record time, and gone out to track down
the pattern, only to have it vanish as they approached. It had
appeared again, once more several kilometers away. They'd followed it,
only to have the same thing happen. Over and over again.
Now, the day was beginning to drag on. The sun had passed its apex
some time ago, and was beginning to crawl back down the sky. The heat
was oppressive, radiating off the ground and the hot metal of the
vehicles. Sweat was beginning to roll down everyone's face, making
their clothes stick to their bodies and their hair hang down in their
eyes.
"This sucks," Asuka commented, lifting up her hair to try and let out
some of the heat. "Why won't this thing just stay _still_? Making us
play hide-and-seek with it. What a dumb Eva..."
Shinji shook his head, not knowing what to say. Looking to see if
anyone else had an answer, he looked off to his side, to where Ariel
sat. The white-haired girl was sitting quietly, one arm resting on the
side of the Jeep while she stared straight ahead. She was wearing a
set of goggles she'd found in the Humvee to protect her eyes from the
dust they were kicking up in their passage, but other than that, she
was just as bad off as the rest of them.
Except for two individuals. Shinji turned around, looking at Unit-00
following the convoy as they traveled. Rei and Kaoru were sitting on
its shoulders, both to be prepared for if they had to engage the enemy,
and also to free up extra space in the already-cramped vehicles.
"Perhaps it is playing with us," Ariel commented, offhandedly.
"What was that?" Shinji asked the girl.
Ariel turned to look at him, one corner of her mouth quirking as their
eyes met. "It is moving almost as though it knows of our position.
Perhaps it is merely testing our patience, waiting for us to make a
mistake." She shrugged. "It is just an idle thought."
"It could be right, though," Asuka commented, glancing over her
shoulder at the other girl. "Hey Shinji-chan, didn't those last two
Evas target Unit-00?"
"Actually, the black one went after Touji," Shinji said, meekly.
"Yeah, yeah," Asuka said, waving him off. "But I mean...they _did_
come to us. Maybe instead of driving around like idiots, we should
just sit down and wait it out."
Shinji thought it over. "Unless it decides to head back to the
settlement," he said. "Who's to say those last two were just targeting
Unit-00?"
"Baka," Asuka said, bopping Shinji on the knee. "It's big, it's
strong, and it has an AT field. If I was gonna attack someone, I'd
want to take out their big guns first, so they couldn't fight back."
"Maybe," Shinji said, still not convinced.
"Good enough for me," Asuka said. She pulled a radio out of a pack at
her feet. "Hey, Misato? You there?"
"Yes Asuka," came the staticky reply. "What is it?"
"Why don't we just stop here? If it's going to keep doing this until
we run out of gas, why not just sit down and wait for it to come to
us?"
There was a long pause before the reply came back. "Did you and Shinji
agree on this?"
"Yeah, we did," Asuka replied immediately. "Why not? It beats driving
around in this oven."
"...all right, if you say so," came Misato's reply. Her voice sounded
distinctly unconvinced. But the Humvee still turned and slowed down,
grinding to a halt on the plain. The Jeep followed suit a moment
later, as did the other two vehicles, once they'd been radioed and
informed of the change in plans.
The group immediately began to set up. Ritsuko and Maya started lining
up their computer equipment, while a couple of men from the SUV began
setting a few of the scanners down at various places over the impromptu
camp. Shinji headed around to the back of the Humvee, along with
Asuka. Opening up the doors, the children looked inside, where Maya
and Ritsuko were still hard at work. Misato, still in the driver's
seat, stretched and let out a low sigh, closing her eyes and looking
out the window.
Unit-00 stopped a few dozen meters away from the trucks and lowered its
occupants to the ground. Kaoru and Rei quickly joined Shinji and Asuka
over by the Humvee, listening to hear what Ritsuko had to say.
"It's still stationary..." the woman was saying. "...wait, it's on the
move. It has shifted position again."
Asuka nodded, then grinned at Shinji, nudging him in the ribs with one
elbow. "Wouldn't have been worth all the time of driving to that last
spot anyway, eh, Shinji-chan?"
"I guess so," came Shinji's hesitant response. "How is it moving like
this, Ritsuko-san?"
"I still don't have enough data to answer that question, Ikari,"
Ritsuko said. "I'll give you an answer when I have one."
Shinji blinked, drawing back a little. "Sorry," he muttered.
"It's moving again," Ritsuko said. "A new orientation, one-point-six
kilometers from here."
They waited. The blue pattern moved, again and again. Each time, it
came a little closer to their position.
"We should get ready," Kaoru said, looking at the pattern as it
appeared again. "This way, Rei."
"Hang on, Kaoru-kun," Shinji said, holding up one hand. "Just let me
get...Kensuke!"
"Eh?" the boy asked, looking up. He was leaning over the back of the
Humvee, digging around inside of it. "What is it?" he asked,
innocently. "I just wanted to see what you guys are hiding back here."
"Well...excuse me a minute," Shinji said, pushing Kensuke out of the
way as politely as he could. He reached into a box inside the back of
the vehicle, quickly finding what he wanted.
He pulled out a pair of radios, which he handed to Rei and Kaoru. The
pale children clipped these onto their clothes at the waistline.
Complementing these were a pair of headsets, lightweight affairs
that fit rather well. After setting the frequency and testing the
volume, the pair set off for another corner of the camp.
"I guess we should go too, then," Shinji said. He took Asuka by the
arm and gently led the girl away. Asuka resisted for a moment, angrily
pulling him back to look at the computer screen for another few
minutes. But eventually she became bored of watching the wave patterns
and set off, this time dragging Shinji along with her. They also put
on radios, and threw one to Ritsuko. Then then climbed up a small
hill, a rise in the terrain that put them about ten meters above
everyone else, giving them a better vantage point.
This left only Ritsuko, Misato, and Maya in the Humvee, watching as the
pulsing blue pattern kept vanishing and reappearing, with greater and
greater frequency. Finally, however, it stabilized, not vanishing but
in fact becoming stronger, until it finally levelled out.
"Distance is oh-point-four kilometers," Ritsuko said. "It's
moving."
"Teleporting, again?" Misato asked, squeezing between the front seats
of the truck and trying to peek around and steal a glance at the all-
telling computer screen.
"No," Ritsuko said, annoyed, as she shoved Misato away. "Moving at
nominal speed for an Eva. I assume it's walking. If I had to guess, I
would say that it has finally decided to take a closer look at us."
They watched as the screen read off numbers. It kept coming closer,
until...
"Here it comes," Ritsuko said, looking up from the computer screen.
Her eyes focused on a point in the distance, a point which a half dozen
other pairs of eyes simultaneously looked to.
Right on cue, a giant white form stepped from behind the mountain that
had previously been blocking their view. It moved slowly, footsteps
shaking the ground even at this distance. Its shoulders slumped, arms
dangling by its sides as though it were unsure of what to do with them.
"Looks different," Misato commented, her eyes narrowing as she took it
in.
"Indeed," Ritsuko said, typing on the laptop. The Eva did not have the
demonic appearance of the other MPE's that had activated so far.
Rather, its head was more rounded, and it had large shoulder flanges,
similar to those of Unit-00. In addition, its skin looked more like
metal plating than actual flesh. But it was still colored the plain,
pure white of the MPE's.
"But I would recommend deploying," Ritsuko continued, not looking up
from the screen this time. Her fingers flew over the keyboard,
accessing the data she'd need.
"Yes, yes," Misato said, nodding sharply. She raised her radio up to
her mouth. "Shinji-kun, you see it?"
"Clearly, Misato-san," came the reply. "Kaoru-kun, you're clear to
engage."
"Deploy AT field and move in," Misato added on, speaking from memory.
"Take no offensive action unless provoked."
"You heard her, Kaoru-kun," Shinji's voice came from over the radio.
He sounded slightly chastised at Misato having to fill in that last
part for him. Misato just shrugged. He would learn, eventually.
"Understood, Shinji-kun," came Kaoru's voice, his tone almost cheerful,
back over the radio. Seconds later, Unit-00 stepped forwards, closing
towards the white Eva in the distance. After the first few steps, its
AT field rippled into existence around it, shoving away anything that
dared come near.
"Interesting," Ritsuko said, ceasing her typing. She held one finger
to her mouth, thinking hard.
"What is it?" Misato asked, looking down at her old friend.
"The scans show this Eva to be highly similar in construction to Unit-
04," Ritsuko answered, reaching forwards and scrolling down through
some of the data. "To within a 98% accuracy," she added, after a
moment.
"Unit-04?" Misato asked. "But that one was destroyed."
"Not destroyed," Ritsuko corrected. She looked back up at Misato.
"Its S2 engine malfunctioned, creating a Sea of Dirac like the one that
pulled in Unit-01 earlier."
"Sea of Dirac..." Misato said, her brow furrowing. "You mean that hole
in the ground?"
"Yes," Ritsuko replied, simply. "Which is what worries me..."
Misato raised the radio back up to her mouth. "Nagisa, be careful with
this one, it might..." she trailed off, as she looked back up to the
white Eva.
The Eva was sinking. It was slowly melting into the ground, as though
caught in an enormous pit of quicksand. But from her position, Misato
could see that it wasn't quicksand. Rather, it was a large, expanding
'shadow'. Contrary to the Eva's white exterior, this shadow was dead
black, the color so deep as to be impenetrable, a miniature black hole
suddenly materializing from nothingness, and drawing all around it back
into nothingness.
"Misato-san?" Kaoru said. "This could prove problematic. I am pulling
back to reassess the situation."
"Understood," Misato shot back. She looked down to Ritsuko. "Is there
anything we can do, Ritsu?"
"Not from here," Ritsuko said. "We've never been able to get a full
understanding of how a Sea of Dirac functions."
Her lips tightening, Misato watched, helpless, as the white Eva
vanished entirely within the shadow, its body dissolving as it sank, as
though it was not just sinking, but rather truly dissappearing.
^Too bad that's not what it's really doing,^ Misato guessed. ^It
wouldn't just be committing suicide.^
Unit-00 stepped forwards, cautiously, as the black hole began to
shrink, rapidly contracting back towards its center.
"Careful, Kaoru-kun," Shinji warned, over the radio. "I don't know if
it's safe to move in."
"I will be careful, Shinji-kun," Kaoru replied. "I just - !"
His voice cut off as the blackness reappeared, this time directly under
Unit-00. With reflexes that impressed even Ritsuko, the blue giant
flexed its legs and jumped, before the shadow could solidify into the
all-consuming maw it had been just moments before.
"What is happening?" Kaoru asked, his voice betraying more than a
little nervousness. Even as he jumped clear, the shadow came into full
existence. A spire of rock, caught helpless, toppled over, falling
into the blackness and sinking in, slowly but surely being devoured.
But even before it could vanish, the shadow again contracted,
apparently unsatisfied with what it had been able to find. As the Sea
slipped back over the ground, the rock spire ceased sinking. Rather,
it shook as the shadow passed underneath it, cracks running up its
surface. Once the shadow had passed, it was obvious that only what had
still been outside the blackness was left; anything that had sunk in
was gone, cut off by the impossibly sharp edge of the closing hole.
As soon as it had shrunk to a pinpoint and disappeared, the shadow
reappeared, again under Unit-00. Once more, the mech jumped away,
clearing hundreds of meters before its feet slammed back into the terra
firma, sinking into the dirt and sending a huge tremor rippling through
the ground.
Again dissatisfied, the blackness receded. As it shrunk, Kaoru's voice
came back over the radio.
"Ritsuko-san! I am redirecting Unit-00's AT field to cover the base
camp. It may offer some protection against the attacker."
"Alright, Kaoru-kun," Shinji's voice came over the radio. "Be careful.
You don't want to get caught in it."
"I know all too well, Shinji-kun."
Even as Kaoru was saying this, Ritsuko, Misato, and everyone else
nearby felt the hairs on their necks prick up. In front of them, the
air rippled, forming an impenetrable wall of pure will. For a moment,
a feeling of security went through the people watching from the two
vehicles. But it was only a moment.
Because no sooner had the AT field pulled them into its protective
embrace than the ground opened up, turning to pure blackness right
underneath their very feet.
Shocked screams broke out immediately as people saw it happening. A
few people, caught on the ground, started sinking in, uselesslly
pulling at their legs in an effort to get out of the black swamp they'd
become mired in, and were slowly sinking into.
Ritsuko jumped a little as she felt the truck shudder underneath her.
Looking down, she saw it: sure enough, as the shadow expanded, it was
going underneath the Humvee, slowly pulling it down into the earth.
Maya, next to her, let out a yelp of pure shock, looking to both of the
other women in the hopes that they'd have some idea of what to do.
"Jump!" Misato yelled, popping open the door and clambering out onto
the Humvee's hood. Maya nodded and followed closely, tugging at
Ritsuko's sleeve as she did so. Ritsuko, however, just turned,
shrugging out of the other woman's grip. Maya, too scared to notice,
kept going. She followed Misato as they got a brief running start on
the Humvee's broad hood, then jumped clear, landing just outside the
edge of the ever-expanding shadow. The two women rolled with the
impact, immediately dragging themselves to their feet and running to
try and get clear. As she ran, Maya looked back at the Humvee.
"Sempai!" she called out. "Sempai, get clear! Jump out!"
Ritsuko didn't move.
"Sempai!" Maya screamed, running back for the Humvee. She was stopped,
however, as Misato threw her arms around her waist, digging in her
heels and keeping the hysterical woman from running straight into her
own death.
"It's too late!" Misato grunted out, pulling Maya back. "She can't get
clear!"
"SEMPAI!!!"
Ritsuko was oblivious to the screaming of her former student. She
typed madly, her fingers a blur on the keyboard. She accessed the
scanning equipment still in the truck, calling up what data was still
available. She quirked an eyebrow as she got data from one of the
scanners that had already been sucked into the hole.
^Could be useful later,^ she thought. She looked down, raising her
feet up as she saw the floor panels vanish into the blackness. She
got up on the large central console of the truck, forced to crawl due
to the low ceiling. She slowly made her way towards the front, racing
with the void crawling up towards her. Looking at the data one more
time, she nodded to herself and picked her radio.
"Nagisa," she said, her voice utterly calm. "Disable your AT field."
"Ritsuko-san?" Kaoru asked, confused. "I do not understand why - "
"I'll explain later, Nagisa," Ritusko said, folding up up the laptop.
She got up on the dashboard as the seats vanished from view. "Just do
it. _Now_."
The delay couldn't have been much longer than a second, as Kaoru
ordered Unit-00 to shut off its AT field. But it was the longest
second of Ritsuko's life. The sea of oblivion crept up, beginning to
swallow the dashboard. Ritsuko got up on her tiptoes, bracing herself
against the roof as she felt her balance start to waver. She could
only watch as the darkness appeared over the edge of the dash and crept
towards her, slowly reaching out to pull her into its cold clutches.
Then, it halted. All of a sudden, the Humvee stopped sinking. Ritsuko
kept watching, her feet aching from holding her up on her toes, sweat
begining to trickle down her back. But it still didn't come any
closer. She was tempted to try touching the blackness, to see if it
was still capable of pulling things in. But she repressed that
perverse desire as soon as it surfaced.
Sure enough, the shadow receded once more, passing underneath the
remains of the truck - which was now little more than the top of a
dashboard, a roof, and most of a windshield - leaving behind only the
parts that were still above the surface.
Ritsuko waited a full five seconds after the darkness had receded.
Then she collapsed to her knees, wincing as she crashed onto the hard
soil. In her hands, she still clutched the laptop she'd been typing on
so fervently.
She raised the radio back up. "Nagisa..." she said, breathlessly.
"Nagisa, it..." she took a moment to catch her breath. "It tracks AT
fields. The stronger the field, the stronger the attraction. So do
_not_ deploy Unit-00's AT field."
"Understood, Ritsuko-san."
Ritsuko smiled as she heard the confirmation. Then, the radio fell
from her hands, followed shortly thereafter by the laptop. She slumped
forwards, hugging her body as though freezing. It was all she could do
to keep breathing, as she felt tears going down her face.
"Sempai!" Maya called out. A split-second later, the younger woman was
there, crawling under the roof of the devoured Humvee and helping
Ritsuko get out. She looked at her old teacher with an expression of
intense worry.
^Never thought I'd _miss_ being in a command center, safe and secure a
kilometer underground,^ Ritsuko thought, smiling again. She shivered,
doing her best to reassure Maya, who was blubbering over her, crying
tears of her own.
* * *
Kaoru cringed, watching the Sea of Dirac recede once again. It left
behind the shattered remains of a camp. Metal, stone, and flesh alike
were severed, leaving behind useless scraps of metal, as well as limbs,
hands reaching uselessly to try and pull themselves out of the icy grip
of death.
He looked back to Unit-00, and the titan fell into a combat stance,
stepping carefully along the ground. Its eye was trained on the dirt
at its feet, almost daring it to open up and try swallowing it again.
But accompanying the overwhelming rush of adrenaline was a sensation of
utter fear, of insecurity itching at the back of his head. The AT
field was down. Unit-00 was defenseless, now; nothing save his own
reflexes and combat ablities were going to preserve the gigantic combat
machine. Kaoru had to exert a huge amount of self-control just not to
project the AT field out of raw habit.
But it appeared to be working; as Kaoru watched, both through his own
eyes and through Unit-00's optics, he could see that, wherever the
attacker was hiding, it wasn't striking anymore. It was, apparently,
blind.
Even though the mech's footsteps were making the ground rumble, a
deathly silence had fallen on the area. Everyone still alive was
looking, probing the ground for the other Eva, waiting for it to show
itself.
It didn't take long. The ground opened once more, so quickly that
Kaoru took a step back out of surprise. But this time, the black
circle was not underneath Unit-00. Rather, it was a good distance off
to the right.
Unit-00 turned to face the shadow, waiting to see what would happen.
Sure enough, the white Eva was rising up, coming out just as it had
gone in. Its head appeared, followed by its shoulders, then its torso,
then its legs, and finally its feet, shooting out of the Sea of Dirac
quicker than he could've guessed was possible. It then stood on the
blackness, hovering over oblivion, as the shadow receded again,
vanishing. Now above ground, it turned to face Unit-00. It stepped
towards the mech.
Kaoru didn't give it a chance to go on the offensive. Unit-00 charged,
Progressive knife deploying as it ran. It grabbed the knife out of the
sheath and slashed at the white Eva as the distance closed.
But the Eva was already reacting. It had looked up, its twin black
eyes meeting Unit-00's single red one, for a moment, as the blue Eva
had dashed towards it. As the knife descended, the world opened up.
The black hole appeared once again, this time oriented vertically,
directly behind the copy of Unit-04. The white Eva stepped backwards
as the knife came down. The Prog knife missed by centimeters. Before
Kaoru could react, the white Eva had vanished into the black hole
again, which snapped shut so suddenly as to have been a magician's
illusion.
"Where..." Kaoru muttered. Unit-00 looked around madly, in all
directions, brandishing its knife. Its eye focused and panned,
searching for an opponent that was not there.
The attack finally came. A black hole opened up directly behind Unit-
00. Before the blue mech could react, a pair of white arms emerged
from the hole, going around Unit-00 and pinning its arms to its sides.
As the hole expanded further, the white Eva stepped out, again making
its presence known.
Kaoru grunted, feeling his own arms crushed into his rib cage in
sympathetic response. He summoned up all of Unit-00's strength and
pushed against the white Eva's grip, desperately trying to free his
arms.
Finally, the grip broke. Unit-00 half-turned, grabbed Unit-04 by the
scruff of its neck, and then twisted, throwing its whole body into the
maneuver as it tossed Unit-04 through the air.
Unit-04 went airborne, arcing up, then down, towards the ground. But
The Sea of Dirac opened up underneath it before it could impact. It
simply continued its fall, plumetting back into the depths of the
blackness, instead of crashing into the ground as the laws of physics
would dictate. The hole snapped shut.
Kaoru waited, keeping his cool this time, preparing for the inevitable
strike. Finally, the air yawned open, this time to Unit-00's right.
Unit-00 dodged, backing away quickly before Unit-04 could again grab
it. The white Eva stepped out, coming back into the physical world.
It circled slowly, going in a slow counterclockwise circuit, mirrored
by Unit-00, no more than a few arms' lengths away.
Unit-04 finally broke away, stepping forwards and throwing a punch at
Unit-00. Unit-00 sidestepped the blow, letting the fist graze its left
shoulder. Its right hand, clutching the knife so hard the armor plates
on its knuckles were popping, thrust the weapon directly at Unit-04's
face.
The blackness came again. This time, right in front of the target.
Unit-00's knife arm, instead of hitting an Eva, sank right into a black
hole as it appeared just in front of Unit-04's face.
Kaoru's eyes widened as the arm disappeared to halfway up the forearm.
Not only that, but it kept going in, drawn inwards by a force as
invisible and as undeniable as gravity.
"Nagisa!" Misato's voice came over the radio.
"Y...yes, Misato-san?" Kaoru groaned out, clutching his right arm as he
felt it freezing.
"Nagisa, blow the arm! Quick, before you lose any more!"
"No!" Shinji's voice came over the radio. "That'll hurt Kaoru-kun!"
"Shinji-kun, this isn't the time!" Misato shouted back. "We're about to
lose the whole Eva!"
"Yes, Misato-san!" Kaoru grunted out, before Shinji could say anything
else. He closed his eyes and gave the mental order.
White-hot pain exploded through his body as Unit-00's right arm was
blasted free at the elbow. Kaoru fell to his knees, only just managing
to repress a cry of agony as he clutched his own right elbow, sure that
he would find a bloody stump there, like the one mirrored on Unit-00's
right arm.
As Unit-00 stepped back, holding its smoking, bleeding wound, Unit-04
also stepped away, not pressing its advantage. It waited patiently as
the shredded remains of Unit-00's arm were sucked into the airborne Sea
of Dirac.
Unit-04 slowly began to advance, its armored feet shaking the ground
with each step. Unit-00 fell back, slowly but surely losing ground to
the other titan. It glanced to one side, then the other, looking for
something it could use against the implacable opponent.
Suddenly, the white Eva stopped, suddenly freezing in place. Slowly,
as though underwater, its head turned, looking behind its armored
opponent, at a point behind it. Kaoru flinched as the mech's eyes,
sockets as black as the Sea of Dirac it controlled, fell on him. Then
they moved a little to the side, focusing on something other than him.
Unit-04's mouth opened, letting out a slow breath. It sucked in more
air, then growled slowly. Kaoru felt the chill of true fear running
through him, at that sound. It was the sound of hate, pure and simple.
Hatred born of long torment, of years spent despising a single object,
or more specifically, a single person.
He moved on instinct. The Eva was distracted. Now was the time to
strike, before it could act on whatever its hatred might lead it to do.
Unit-00 ran for the white Eva once more.
Unit-04 didn't even waste the energy of turning its head back to face
its opponent. With one hand, it reached out, grabbing Unit-00 by the
face as the blue Eva came up to it. Kaoru jerked, then grunted as he
felt his neck strain. Unit-04 lifted Unit-00 off the ground, still
using nothing but its lone arm. The blue titan was limp, its powerful
limbs hanging uselessly by its sides as its controller tried to keep
breathing in the face of the pain transmitted through his link to it.
Unit-04 turned and threw the blue giant to the side. Unit-00 crashed
to the ground, unmoving, a broken, useless doll. Then the ground
opened once more, and the white Eva sank, vanishing from the world.
* * *
Standing no more than a few meters off to Kaoru's side, Rei watched as
Unit-00 engaged the enemy.
^The Eva can manipulate space,^ she observed, as Unit-04 used its Sea
of Dirac to dodge Unit-00's first strike, and then to appear behind the
attacking Eva. ^How to engage something which can change its position
on the battlefield instantaneously?^
Her face betrayed no perceptible reaction as Unit-00's arm was pulled
into the black hole which suddenly appeared in front of Unit-04. She
merely blinked as the arm exploded, breaking free from its assailant
and leaving Unit-00 with half a right arm, and no Progressive knife.
^There must be a way to break its Sea of Dirac,^ she thought. ^It is
merely a manipulation of an AT field.^
^Kill.^
Rei blinked as the voice sounded in her head.
^Destroy.^
She briefly glanced around, confirming that no one was nearby, save
Kaoru, who was trying to pull himself back up to his feet. The voice
sounded...familiar, somehow. Tugging at some memory, but not quite
causing it to surface.
^The boy has failed,^ the voice said. Rei now recognized the voice as
her own. Only it sounded younger, and, in an odd way...bitter. Yes,
that was the word for it. Bitter, cold, and...angry.
^Who are you?^ she thought, at the voice.
^You know who I am,^ the voice replied, in an almost mocking tone.
Rei's eyes widened. ^You...^
^Yes. You cannot deny me, Ayanami. I am the power you need. I am
what can destroy the enemy. I can annihilate all who stand in your
way, kill all who would threaten Ikari-kun and the others.^
Rei closed her eyes. ^No...no, I cannot.^
^Yes you can. You can activate me, give me the strength of the Eva. I
will win this battle for you.^
^No,^ Rei thought, firmly. ^Ikari-kun has told me not to use you.^
^His word means nothing, if it would lead you to defeat.^
Rei closed her eyes again, holding one hand to her forehead as a
headache came on. Fear began flickering through her, bubbling up
through her stomach and climbing up her spine.
^I cannot do that,^ she thought, again. ^You would destroy all.^
^It is my purpose.^
Rei opened her eyes. Not in response to what the Dummy plug had said,
but because she'd heard a noise which struck a note of pure terror in
her. A feeling she'd only been able to guess at before, when she'd
seen it happen to someone else. As though in a dream, she looked down
to her feet.
"A shadow?" she mumbled, her eyes widening.
"Rei!"
The word came over the radio, up into her headset. Two voices spoke
it, in perfect synch: two boys, one with crimson eyes like hers, and
another with deep blue eyes, far from here, only able to watch as Rei's
feet vanished into the yawning hole of oblivion that had appeared
beneath her.
Kaoru looked away from Unit-00, letting it stand still as he focused
his attention on Rei. "Rei!" he called out again. "Rei, get out!"
He got to the edge of the black hole, stretching out his hand in an
effort to reach her. But it was too far; Rei was at least five meters
from him already. And even as he watched, the hole continued
expanding, pushing him backwards as he stepped away from the edge.
"Rei!" Shinji cried out again, helplessly. "Someone! Anyone! Help
Rei!"
Rei was now in up to her knees. She felt a chill going through her;
her legs felt like they were frozen into solid ice, and the feeling was
inching its way upwards, towards her heart. Utter blackness stared her
in the face as she looked down, death embodied in an AT field as it
slowly swallowed her.
Up to her waist, now. Rei struggled uselessly, trying to pull free.
The icy feeling was now filling her through and through; she shivered,
hugging herself tightly to try and preserve some hint of warmth.
Suddenly, something clicked in her head. Something was worming its way
into her mind, briefly brushing her psyche as it pulled her physical
body into its maw.
"So...that is what you fear..." she said. Slowly, she unfolded her
arms, watching as drops of cold sweat fell from her body in the
movement. The black sea had already pulled her in up to her abdomen.
There was not much time left before it had her entirely in its grip.
Or it could just close now, cutting her in half.
Rei reached out with her right hand, palm down.
"REI!!!!" came another hysterical cry. She was no longer sure of who
was calling to her. She just reached down, letting her palm touch the
surface of the black sea.
It immediately began to pull her hand in. But as it did so, Rei closed
her eyes and focused her mind. She reached inside, searching for
something she hadn't had a reason to use - and in fact hadn't been
_able_ to use - for quite some time. She didn't hope, or pray.
Somehow, she knew it would be there.
Her skin took on a luminescent quality, glowing so slightly it could
have just been a trick of the light. As this happened, she stopped
sinking. The icy feeling, indeed _all_ feeling, left her as she felt
something well up from deep within her self, rushing through her veins
with untold excitement, and out into her hand.
She couldn't see with her eyes closed, but had she been looking, she'd
have seen a series of ripples, glowing bands of rainbow-colored light,
spreading outwards from her palm. The ripples passed through her as
though she were not there, expanding outwards until they vanished at
the edge of the dark hole. They kept coming, emanating more
frequently, and with wider bands, until finally, the entire Sea of
Dirac was consumed by a single, overpowering swath of light, shining as
brightly as the sun.
Rei's hair was blown backwards as a wind came from the lit sea
underneath her. She kept her eyes closed, though her brow furrowed, as
though in some kind of internal struggle. Finally, though, she
relaxed, going back to the placid expression she'd worn since the day
began.
And with that, she was ejected, blasted free of the ground like a shot
out of a gun. Rei opened her eyes in time to see the ground falling
away from her, giving her a brief sensation of vertigo. Then gravity
took notice of her once again, and she began to fall. She rotated
herself in mid-air, lining up so she'd land on her feet. She was well
aware of just how high she was, now, but again, she somehow _knew_ that
she would be all right.
* * *
Shinji was no doctor, but he was sure his heart stopped for a brief
moment as he saw Rei get launched into the air.
The girl tumbled, going up so high she could have landed on an Eva's
shoulder. Shinji's eyes locked onto her as she reversed direction and
began to fall. He was unable to look away. He found himself wondering
if he'd be able to watch when she hit the ground.
Rei turned her arms, using the momentum to rotate herself until she was
oriented feet-first. The fall was over all too quickly.
Shinji found he didn't even blink as she hit the ground. But then
again, he didn't expect what he saw, either. Rei hit the ground and
went to a crouching position, as though she'd only fallen from a few
meters up. A microsecond later, a small shockwave blasted out from the
girl, kicking up a large cloud of dust and obscuring the view. The
wind blew the dust aside quickly, though, revealing Rei at the middle
of a shallow crater, standing up straight. Slowly, the girl turned and
looked directly at Shinji. He knew it was impossible, but he was sure
he could see the crimson of her eyes, even at this range. A chill
rippled through him, making him clench his teeth in fear for a brief
moment. Only one thought could make its way through his consciousness:
^Who or what _is_ Rei Ayanami?^
He didn't have time to puzzle out an answer. Even as he watched, the
still-glowing Sea of Dirac spat out one last thing: the resurrected
Unit-04.
The Eva leapt out as though it had stepped on hot coals, jumping
backwards and landing unsteadily on its feet, with the Sea of Dirac
between it and Unit-00, not to mention Rei and Kaoru.
Then, it happened: the Sea exploded. The glowing phenomenon ceased,
leaving only a dull gray color on the earth. The ground heaved up,
shattering like glass as it finally surged to reject this abomination
of nature. The grayness vanished, as well, leaving only a broken
stretch of land twenty meters across, rocks vomited up into a twisted
natural sculpture.
Slowly, the shock passed. After about ten seconds, people began to
move again. After another five seconds, the Evas began to move. Unit-
04 began staggering backwards, unsteady and unsure of itself. It
quivered, its muscles tensing and bending it over sideways. Its mouth
opened in a silent shout of frustration, then bent over backwards to an
impossible degree, its arms splayed out to the side as its spine was
forced into an inverted 'U'-shape. It was as though it were some doll
an invisible child were twisting about.
Unit-00, on the other hand, was moving quite smoothly. Though missing
an arm, it still stood tall, clenching its remaining fist in
anticipation. It watched for a moment, of eyeing the target, almost
_willing_ it to attack. All Unit-04 was able to do was relax its back
muscles, coming out of its contortionist pose and hunching its
shoulders forwards, its arms dangling at its sides.
Finally, it happened: a bubble formed in Unit-04's chest, along with a
similar bulge on its back. Armor plates popped and twisted out of the
way as the boil pushed its way through. The Eva shook, its arms coming
up shakily and touching the sore, grabbing at it, almost trying to push
it back in. But for all its efforts, both bulges kept growing, pushing
the powerful hands aside. It expanded, becoming steadly larger, until
the Eva's entire upper body was encased in a mass of quivering flesh.
The Eva flung its arms wide, falling to its knees and letting out one
last inhuman scream of agony.
And then the sore burst, simultaneously on the Eva's back and front in
a spray of red blood. Its eyes dimmed, and it fell silent.
* * *
Ariel fell to her knees as she felt it happen. She felt the soul
become erased. Obliterated.
Her guts spasmed, and she pitched forwards, vomiting. She remained
still for a long time, even after her stomach was empty. Tears and
blood from the girl mixed with the puddle of bile as she wept silently.
Leliel was no more.
* * *
"We won?" Shinji asked the air. He looked at the silent Eva. "We
won!" he said, more firmly.
But fate seemed determined to keep them from celebrating too soon.
Shinji was interrupted, as a noise came that chilled his blood: the
sound of an Eva's engine starting up. Unit-00 was already online,
which could only mean...
He turned around. Sure enough, Unit-04 was getting back to its feet,
oblivious to the gaping hole in its chest, and the entrails hanging out
its back. The Eva's eyes flickered, in a surreal kind of blink. Then
they lit up, the dead black pools beginning to glow a bright blood red.
"Kaoru-kun! Rei!" Shinji screamed into the radio. "LOOK OUT!"
Unit-00 dodged just in time to avoid a tackle by the deranged Eva.
Unit-00 turned and planted a kick in Unit-04's chest, only to have its
leg grabbed. Unit-00 was tossed, sailing through the air and skidding
along the ground as it landed, pushing up a small mountain of displaced
earth underneath its body.
Unit-04 began to advance. Watching this, Shinji talked into his radio.
"Ritsuko-san! Ritsuko-san! What's going on? How is it moving??"
"I think I know why..." came the calm voice on the other end. "I
believe - "
"Yes? What?" Shinji asked, frantic. Unit-04 jumped at the still-prone
Unit-00. The blue Eva retaliated by raising up its feet and kicking
the white Eva back as it descended.
"Unit-04 was an experimental model for the S2 organ, Shinji," Ritsuko
explained. "The designers probably built in a backup battery supply,
just in case the engine didn't work."
"How long does it have?" Shinji asked.
"I'm uncertain. At most, five minutes. But it may be less. The
batteries were only to be used to get the Eva on and off the testing
grounds, in the case of engine failure."
Both Evas were on their feet again. This time, somehow, Shinji knew
there would be no Sea of Dirac, no black hole for the white Eva to
vanish into, or use as a shield. But somehow, it didn't matter. Unit-
04 advanced, clocking Unit-00 with an elbow to the face. The blue Eva
could only just block the follow-up punch with its good arm. Unit-04
pressed its advantage, belting Unit-00 in its right side, where it
couldn't defend.
Unit-00 bent over double, but even as Unit-04 reached for it, the blue
Eva charged, catching Unit-04 off-guard. It shoved Unit-04 to the
ground, straddling it and placing its one good hand on the Eva's neck.
"Kaoru-kun, remember don't crush the core!" Shinji called into his
radio.
"I rememeber, Shinji-kun!" Kaoru's voice answered. "But right now I am
just trying to stay alive!"
Unit-04 finally pried Unit-00's fingers off of its throat. It sat up,
shoving Unit-00 to the ground and getting to its feet. Unit-00 shakily
got to its own feet just as Unit-04 reached for its neck. Two white
hands wrapped around the blue Eva's throat. They began to squeeze.
Shinji winced as he heard Unit-00's neck groan. He covered his ears as
the cracking sound started. It was so familiar, hearing the sound of
an Eva's neck breaking, slowly...steadily...until the final, defeaning
thunder of the spine shattering. Shinji slammed his eyes shut, waiting
for that horrible noise.
It never came.
After a few moments of agonizing waiting, Shinji dared to open his
eyes. He looked at the battle, again.
The Evas were both frozen in the same positions they'd been in when
he'd looked away. Unit-00 was still trying to break free, and Unit-04
was still strangling the blue Eva. Or rather, it appeared to be doing
so. In truth, Unit-04 was standing there, stiff as a statue. Indeed,
Unit-00 was finally able to pull the white hands aside and step away,
letting the murderous arms spring back to their former positions as
though made of stiff rubber. Unit-04 continued to stand there, arms
still locked in the forward position, frozen fingers clawing at the
air, an expression of anticipation and hunger etched onto its inhuman
face.
"Ran out of power," Shinji sighed out, collapsing to the ground. He
raised up his radio. "Ritsuko-san, does Unit-04 have any other power
supplies?"
"None that I'm aware of, Ikari."
"Good," Shinji said. He fell backwards, landing on his back. "_Now_
we've won."
^And what has Rei found out about herself, then?^
"Well, I _guess_ we did," Asuka said, dejectedly.
Shinji turned his head, looking over at the girl. "What do you mean?"
Asuka looked at him for a long moment, her mouth tight. Her eyes
seemed to be probing him, looking for something she was no longer sure
she would find. But only for a moment. Then she shook her head and
blinked, glaring down at him.
"Don't you remember, you baka?" she shouted. "The camera _was_ in the
back of the Humvee! You know, the truck that thing _ate_!"
Shinji blinked, then looked away, cursing sharply in frustration.
After shaking his head for a few moments, he sighed, putting both hands
over his face. "Oh..._that_..." he said, now sounding even more
depressed than Asuka had.
"What camera?" came a new voice.
Shinji looked between his fingers, turning his head in the direction of
the voice. "Kensuke?"
"Yeah, Shinji. What're you and the devil here talking about?"
Asuka growled at the boy. "Don't you remember, you baka? We were
supposed to film the Eva so we could show the Americans we're not just
bullshitting them! They even gave us a camera to do it with!"
"You mean this?" Kensuke asked, lifting up one hand. Sure enough, he
held the camera in question, letting it dangle off his fingers.
Asuka's eyes widened. "You mean..."
Shinji got up. "Kensuke, please tell me you got that on tape."
"Well, yeah," the boy said, shrugging. "Found this in the back of the
truck, and it looked like no one was doing anything with it. So what
else was I supposed to do? Got some great battle footage."
Kensuke soon found himself caught up in a crushing embrace from both
Asuka and Shinji, both of whom were falling all over themselves to
thank him. After the shock wore off, he smiled. Now if only he could
get _this_ on tape...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Started: August 31, 2001
Version 1 Ended: September 28, 2001
Version 2 Ended: November 9, 2001
Send comments to: otakusadist@hotmail.com
And visit my site: http://www.angelfire.com/anime2/shinjirei
As always, thanks go to the Avatar of Dragonia, Heavyarms Kai, and
Judging Eagle for prereading this fic.
Also thank you Kristian, for helping me with the German, a language I
know virtually nothing about. (And my apologies for screwing up the
language in previous chapters; I'll see about fixing that. ^_^)
Evangelion belong to GAINAX. They're not mine, and I make no claim to
them.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Foreword: Not much to say about this chapter, other than the huge mecha
fight. But I won't give any of that away with this little note.
Really, I just wanted to take this moment to thank the people who voted
for me in the Tako Ball awards (all two of you). It was an honor to at
least be nominated, and I'll try even harder to move up the ranks next
year.
And another convenient conversion factor: 1 kilometer = 0.6214 miles,
so 15 kph = 9 mph.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
" " = speech
^ ^ = thoughts
_ _ = italics
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Angels of Armageddon
Author: Ryan Xavier
Chapter 10: Oblivion Awaits
Misato sat in the driver's seat, grumbling to herself about the
situation.
She was in an old station wagon, one of the few vehicles they'd been
able to salvage for this trip. She sat in the middle of a small
caravan: in front of her was a Jeep, and in front of that was the
military Humvee they'd borrowed. Behind her was an SUV, and last in
the line was the unmistakable form of Unit-00. The mech was easily
keeping pace, watching through its unblinking cyclopean eye as its
footsteps shook the ground at regular intervals.
Of the vehicles, the station wagon easily had the smoothest ride.
Unfortunately, that really only mattered on a paved road. Here, on the
dirt plains, she'd have much preferred something like the Jeep, which
Shigeru had appropriated. This car bounced everywhere, topping and
bottoming out on every little bump. It was something like a roller
coaster, minus the excitement. She was just left sick to her stomach.
The same went for the other occupants of the car. Hikari looked quite
green, in her seat next to Misato in the front passenger seat.
"Getting second thoughts there, Hikari-chan?" Misato asked, flashing
the girl a smile.
Hikari did her best to smile back. "No, no," she said, slowly shaking
her head. "I just...ah!" she cried out as the car flew over another
bump, going up on two wheels for a moment. "Katsuragi-san!"
"What?" Misato asked, innocently. "I'm just trying to keep up."
"Keep up?" came Asuka's voice from the back seat. The girl shoved her
way forwards, until her head was sticking between Misato and Hikari's.
"You're practically in the Humvee's trunk as it _is_!"
"That's the fun of it all," Misato said. She adjusted her sunglasses
and grinned again, looking back to the land in front of them. "God, I
forgot how much fun driving is."
With an annoyed expression, Asuka looked at Hikari. "Are you suddenly
worried we won't make it, too?"
Hikari smiled. "Well, she's doing her best...urk..." she held her
stomach as it threatened to vomit up everything she'd ever eaten.
Accidentally - or perhaps not - Misato went over another small dip in
the terrain, causing Asuka to fall back into her seat, by the window.
The German girl rolled her eyes and looked out the window for a moment,
trying to amuse herself with the terrain. It didn't work; there was
nothing out there to see. Just an endless expanse of dirt, still red
after all these years. As though it had been permanently stained with
the blood of its former inhabitants.
She looked over to her right, where Ariel sat in the middle seat. The
white-haired girl was sitting there with her arms crossed over her
chest, staring straight ahead. She was also humming a tune to herself,
bringing some marginal background music to the otherwise quiet car.
Asuka listened for a brief moment, just long enough to identify the
song. When she did, she shuddered.
"Could you stop?" she asked Ariel.
Ariel stopped humming 'Halleluiah'. "Beg your pardon?" she asked,
looking over at Asuka.
"It's just...I don't like that song," Asuka said, quietly. "It's
funny, though," she said, smiling bitterly. "I can't really remember
_why_ I don't like it...but hearing it just gives me the chills. So
could you stop?"
Ariel blinked. "My apologies," she said. "I was simply trying to pass
the time."
"Yeah, I know," Asuka said. "How long have we been in this car,
Misato? I'm going _crazy_ back here!"
"I dunno," came the response. "Since sunrise, I know that much."
Asuka just shook her head. The sun was now past its peak, and on its
way back down to the horizon. It sure _felt_ like they'd been in the
car since sunrise. Her legs felt numb, and her whole body was itching
to just be able to _move_.
"So what do you think of our intrepid driver's style?" Asuka asked,
looking slantwise at Ariel.
"It leaves much to be desired," the girl said, glancing over at Asuka
for a brief moment. "But then again, so do the...oof..." she said, as
a bump caused her to hit her head on the ceiling. "...the roads," she
finished, rubbing her sore skull.
"You know, I still don't quite understand," Asuka said, changing
conversational tack. "Most of us have a reason to come along, I
guess...but why're you here?"
Ariel turned her head, this time looking Asuka in the eyes. "I'm
trying to find a...friend I lost touch with. I don't think they are
quite in their right mind."
"They?" Asuka asked, quirking an eyebrow. "Not he or she?"
"No," came the simple response, as Ariel looked away.
Asuka lowered her voice and leaned in closer to Ariel. "Is it a guy?"
she asked, grinning. "Some old flame you're looking for?"
Ariel looked at the red-haired girl next to her. For a brief moment,
her cherry blossom eyes betrayed a hint of sorrow, of deep injury and
long suffering. It passed quickly, though, as the girl covered it up,
again.
"I just want to find them before they hurt themselves...or other
people." she said, in a low voice. It didn't sound like she was
talking to herself. It sounded more like she was whispering, for fear
that if she raised her voice, she break down crying.
Asuka looked at the other girl, confused. "Oh..." she said, slowly.
Carefully, she took Ariel's hand. The white-haired girl flinched at
the contact, a habit she seemed to have around Asuka. Asuka ignored
it, and not for the first time, either.
"We'll find..._them_," Asuka said, conspicuously emphasizing the last
word as she looked at Ariel suspiciously. "And then we'll see what we
can do."
Ariel shook her head. "You don't understand..." she said, in an even
lower voice than before.
Asuka patted Ariel's hand, figuring out that it was better at this
moment not to say anything to the other girl.
But that still left her in silence. Boring, oppressive, silence.
"Say, Hikari," Asuka said, turning her head to look at the front again,
"why'd you bother to come along?"
"Because my Touji is coming, too," came the cheerful response. As
cheerful as one can be while sick to their stomach, that is. "Touji
didn't want to be left out, he told me that much. So the only solution
was for him to go. And I couldn't let him go alone, could I?"
Asuka rolled her eyes and looked at Ariel. "She's got it bad," she
said, switching over to German so that Hikari wouldn't be able to
eavesdrop.
Ariel looked at Asuka, not understanding. "What?" she asked,
automatically changing languages, as well.
"Her," Asuka said, tilting her head towards Hikari. "She's just
_obsessed_ over that idiot Suzuhara."
"Well, I can understand why," Ariel said. "It is rather obvious, I
would think."
"Yeah, yeah," Asuka said, waving off the comment. "Just a tip from me:
don't ever get like that. Got it?"
Ariel looked away, glancing off to her side, at the other window seat.
There, sitting quietly looking out the window, was another reason for
her rather bad mood during this trip: Rei Ayanami.
"Yes, I understand," she said, still using German as she looked back to
Asuka. "Or like...her," she added on, copying Asuka's head-tilt, this
time aiming it at Rei.
Asuka's eyes widened a little, and she blinked a few times. "Don't
tell me...you could _tell_ she's caught up over Shin...uh...some guy?"
"Yes, I could tell," Ariel said, doing her best to look casual. "I
thought anyone could tell."
"Not anyone," Asuka said, looking past Ariel and at the blue-haired
girl. "She's pretty damn good at hiding it, you know."
"I suppose so."
"But not that it matters," Asuka said, haughtily turning up her nose.
"Yes, that's another example of what _not_ to do. Don't ever let some
guy control your life."
"Ze...Rei lets a man control her?"
"Are you kidding? She's a doll, Ariel," she said, clapping Ariel on
the shoulder. "She doesn't know what to do with herself unless there's
some _guy_ sitting around telling her what to do. First that Commander
Ikari guy, now Kaoru and Shinji...I'd like to see what she'd do without
someone to order her around."
Ariel just smiled, laughing quietly at the private joke.
"Ich wurde alles tun, um meinem Leben einen Sinn zu geben," Rei
replied. 'I would do everything to find meaning in my life.' She
looked away from the window, long enough to transfix both of the other
girls with her cold, crimson-eyed gaze. "Just as I do now," she added,
switching smoothly back over to Japanese.
At that, she looked back out the window, resting her chin on one hand.
A dead silence fell on the back seat of the car, as both of the other
girls turned a few shades redder in embarassment. Misato occasionally
called over her shoulder to ask how they were doing, but all she got
was a monosyllabic answer.
Rei didn't pay any attention to them. She continued staring out the
glass, out at the Humvee, which was now just a little ahead of them,
and to the side. She could just manage to see in through the window of
the truck, and was _just_ able to see...
* * *
Shinji shifted a little in his seat as he felt an itch between his
shoulders. It only lasted a moment, though.
"Something wrong, Shinji-kun?" Kaoru asked, leaning forwards and
looking over Shinji's shoulder.
"No...nothing's wrong, Kaoru-kun," Shinji said, quietly. He let out a
slow breath and went back to staring straight ahead. ^Why can't we
just _be_ there,^ he thought, impatiently. It was going to happen, he
could feel it. Another Eva was going to return to life. The sooner
they got there, the better. By going to the Eva instead of the other
way around, they might be able to avoid more deaths.
Shinji closed his eyes, as the images of the cleanup at the American
plane returned unbidden to his mind. He'd seen the bloody, broken
bodies of the crew being pulled out. He'd seen them thrown off to the
side, covered by a simple tarp so people wouldn't have to look. And
then there'd been the others, the people who'd been part of his camp,
their lives crushed underneath the feet of uncaring monsters.
^Not again,^ he promised himself. ^I can't let that happen. Not
again.^ To do so would mean a failure as a leader. Not to mention as
a human being.
In the back of the truck, someone else was highly focused on preserving
life. But as opposed to making quiet promises, she was making
preparations. This person, otherwise known as Ritsuko Akagi, was
busily working on some rather complex electronic equipment.
Major Lewis had told them that they would find a video camera in the
back of the truck. That much was true; a little hand-held digital
video camera _had_ been there. But also with it had been an assortment
of electronics and scanners, the type Ritsuko had said could be easily
modified to detect AT fields. It was no surprise the Americans had had
such equipment, but Shinji was still wondering whether or not it was an
accident that Lewis had left that gear in his truck for them to find.
Ritsuko was currently typing on a laptop that had been back there. Her
fingers were moving quickly, though not as quickly as they'd been able
to back before Third Impact. Every few minutes, she would mutter to
herself that she was out of practice with this sort of thing.
"How's it going, Ritsu-chan?" Maya asked from the driver's seat.
Shinji turned to look at the woman, and still couldn't quite surpress a
smile. Maya couldn't have looked more out of place sitting behind the
wheel of the enormous Humvee. Not only did it handle like a bus, the
steering wheel was on the wrong side. She'd spent the first few hours
with a very strained expression on her face, as though it were all she
could do not to run the vehicle off a cliff.
"I'm making progress," Ritsuko's voice called back across the cabin.
"I should be done writing the software by the time we stop to make
camp. Then we'll just have to make the appropriate modifications to
the hardware."
"OK," the other woman said, before going back to watching the ground in
front of them, her knuckles turning white on the steering wheel.
Apparently she still hadn't gotten over her nervousness.
"So we'll really be able to detect the Eva?" Shinji asked, still
incredulous over their good fortune at finding that equipment.
"With a ninety percent certainty," Ritsuko replied, not looking up from
what she was doing. "It won't be as reliable as the equipment at NERV,
but it will suffice."
"Will you be able to tell when it activates? The Eva, I mean."
"I don't know, Ikari," Ritsuko bit out. "Just let me do my job."
Shinji blinked, drawing back a little. "Sorry," he mumbled. He
twisted in his seat, turning around to look at Kaoru, sitting behind
him. "Kaoru-kun..." he said.
"Yes?" Kaoru said, looking at him with an interested expression on his
face.
"Kaoru-kun...I've been thinking. The last two Evas that Unit-00
destroyed exploded when it crushed their cores, right?"
"To an extent, that is what happened, Shinji-kun. But remember these
'explosions' had little destructive force."
"Well, yeah," Shinji said, clenching one hand, out of Kaoru's view.
"But I was just thinking...maybe we just got lucky. What if the next
one really _does_ explode when you crush the core?"
Kaoru cocked his head, thinking. "I am not certain that would happen,
Shinji-kun," he answered. "The energy from the critical S2 reactions
has been siphoned off efficiently in both cases. There is no reason it
would not happen again."
"Yeah..." Shinji said, clenching his fist again. "But I still don't
know. Look, Kaoru-kun, if you have to kill it, don't smash its core.
I'm afraid if you do...we'd all end up losing."
Kaoru shrugged. "I can understand your concern, Shinji-kun. Ritsuko-
san has told me of the output in a critical S2 reaction. But I still
do not believe - "
"Just try to do it, Kaoru-kun," Shinji said, more firmly. "I don't
want you and Ayanami taking risks when you don't have to."
Kaoru blinked at being cut off, then nodded slowly. "Very well,
Shinji-kun. I can try, at least. I suppose there are ways..." he
said, his brow furrowing in thought.
"And, if you can..." Shinji continued, "if you can...stop Ayanami from
using the Dummy plug. I've told her not to use it, but..." he shook
his head. "She doesn't listen to me. I just...don't understand her."
"She is trying to win the battle, Shinji-kun," Kaoru said, plainly.
Shinji only shook his head again, in response. "Well..." Kaoru said,
slightly unsettled, "...I will try, Shinji-kun. And..." he said,
pausing to make sure he had Shinji's attention, "why don't you call her
Rei?"
"Huh? Oh, sorry," Shinji mumbled. "I'm just used to calling her
Ayanami. It was really weird, when she asked me...well, not _asked_
me, but when she said I could call her Rei if I wanted."
Kaoru nodded, a brief smile coming to his lips. "It was shocking to
hear she thought you enough of a friend to use her first name?"
"Yeah," Shinji said, nodding. "And she still calls me 'Ikari-kun', so
it feels a little weird calling her Rei, like that."
"I could work on that," Kaoru mumbled to himself.
"What?" Shinji asked, not quite hearing his friend.
"Nothing, Shinji-kun," Kaoru said, smiling again. "How much longer
until we stop?"
"Not much," Shinji said, looking out the window to try and gauge where
the sun was. "I think...well, I _hope_ we can get there by nightfall."
"Very well."
* * *
"Are you quite sure about this, Katsuragi-san?" Hikari asked nervously.
"Ah, I knew this day would come eventually," Misato replied casually.
"But...but I..."
"Quiet, Hikari," Asuka snapped, as she sat down in the driver's seat of
the car.
"Just give her a chance, girls," Misato said, in a soothing voice. "I
need a break from driving, anyway."
"Yeah, and _I_ volunteered," Asuka said, proudly. "Where're you gonna
find someone more qualified than me to take over?
Rei and Ariel both raised their hands.
"Shut up," Asuka bit out, looking away from them. "If I can drive an
Eva, then this'll be easy." With that, she put the keys into the
ignition.
"Unit-02 was responsible for a great degree of property damage during
its operational time," Rei began to recite, as though reading from a
report. "With damages exceeding 450 million - "
"I said shut _up_!" Asuka hissed.
"Rei, give her a chance, at least," Misato said, patting the pale
girl's hand. "It's not like she's driving on the highway or anything."
Rei let out a small sigh, then looked away, giving her quiet consent to
let Asuka try.
"Are you _sure_ you want to be back there, Katsuragi-san?" Hikari
asked, looking over her shoulder, into the back seat.
Misato lurched as Asuka snapped the transmission into Drive and started
nudging the gas pedal. "No, it's OK, Hikari-chan. You should get the
front seat, anyway." She leaned back. "And it gives me a chance to
get to know these two girls back here," she added, glancing at Ariel
and Rei on either side of her. She was greeted by two icy cold stares,
one from a set of blood red eyes and another from a set of rosy pink
eyes.
Misato broke a sweat, but shook it off quickly. "All right, you're
doing great now, Asuka. Just be careful with the gas..."
"Ha! Like I said, this is easy," Asuka commented haughtily. She
played with the steering wheel, sending them through a lazy, 15 kph
slalom which succeeded in shoving Misato alternately against Rei, then
Ariel, with a loud series of 'oofs' from all three of the women.
Asuka looked back down in front of them. "Ah, crap, I'm going too
slow. Everyone's leaving us behind."
"It's OK, we can catch up later," Misato said.
"Screw that," Asuka replied. "Betcha I can get up to them _now_."
This claim was followed shortly by the sound of four seatbelts clicking
into place.
"Shut up!" Asuka snapped, again. "Now, I guess I just hit the gas like
this..."
"Asuka, why don't you just let me...AAAAAAAHHHH!!!"
* * *
It was quite late by the time they finally reached their target. The
sun had long set, and the stars were shining brightly, billions of
lights so like the fireflies from the other night, yet at the same time
so different.
Several hundred meters from the shoreline, the Humvee ground to a halt,
its tires skidding slightly on the dirt as its tremendous mass was
forced to stop. Its engine powered down, but its headlights stayed on,
lighting up the darkness ahead of them.
The black SUV and the open-top Jeep came in right alongside each other,
one stopping on either side of the Humvee, forming a very rough line of
vehicles.
Kensuke hopped out of the Jeep, landing on his feet and kneeling down,
letting himself catch his breath before standing up. "Glad _that's_
over," he said.
"No kiddin'," Touji said, jumping out the other side. "Oh, my achin'
ass," he said, rubbing the afflicted body part.
Shigeru just laughed from his position in the Jeep's driver's seat, and
got out as well, stretching. The SUV unloaded as well, dispatching a
few other volunteers from the camp.
All four of the Humvee's doors opened at once, and the occupants got
out. Ritsuko got out of the driver's seat; when they'd stopped for a
few minutes some time ago, most of the vehicles had changed drivers.
Shinji, Kaoru, and Maya got out of their respective seats. Ritsuko,
Maya, and a moment later Shigeru as well, went around to the back of
the Humvee and began unloading the equipment.
Shinji got around to the Jeep and met with his friends. "How're you
guys doing?" he asked, tiredly.
"Ah, I'll live," Touji said, smirking.
"Yeah, same here," Kensuke said. Then he looked up at the vehicles and
started pointing, tapping the air where each truck was. His lips moved
quietly, mouthing the numbers 'one, two, three...'
"Hey, guys," he said. "Didn't we leave with _four_ vehicles?"
"Come to think of it..." Shinji said, looking back at the three trucks,
"Yes. Where's the car?"
All three boys began to look around nervously, not wanting to get too
worked up over something that could turn out to not be worth the
effort. But two of them couldn't help from worrying a little: some of
the most important women in their lives were in that car.
"Tell you what, I'll look over here," Touji said. "That Misato
probably just took a wrong turn...or somethin'."
"Uh...yeah," Shinji said. "I'll look over here, then."
The boys split up. Kensuke watched them go in separate directions, and
shrugged, sighing as he leaned against the side of the Jeep.
Touji had just started to walk around behind the Humvee when he heard
the noise of four tires scraping on loose dirt. He looked up just in
time to see a pair of headlights coming straight at him.
Cursing, he jumped backwards, losing his balance and falling onto his
back. In front of him, a car shot by at a breakneck speed, sending up
a cloud of dirt behind it.
He got to his feet and ran back behind the Jeep. He was soon joined by
Shinji who, though he hadn't been nearly hit, had still noticed the
arrival.
The car did a rather impressive one-eighty, its tires skidding noisily,
before it finally halted, crashing back down onto its suspension with a
loud 'thunk'. After bouncing on its springs for a few seconds, it
finally fell still, its engine going silent. Even its headlights shut
down.
Touji and Shinji approached, cautiously. Behind them, Shigeru and a
few of the men from the SUV picked up some high-powered flashlights and
began shining them off in the direction of the car, forming makeshift
spotlights for the two boys.
The back two doors on the car opened first. Out the left side came
Rei, and out the right came Ariel. Both looked a little ruffled, but
more out of the effects of being thrown around than out of actually
being scared. Both calmly brushed themselves off and straightened out,
Ariel taking a few moments to brush her hair out of her eyes.
"Hey...uh...you!" Touji called out to Ariel, not quite remembering her
name at the moment. "What happened?"
Ariel looked at him, a half-second passing before she reacted. One
corner of her mouth quirked upwards, as she recognized Touji. She
opened her mouth to speak when -
"Well _excuse_ me!" Asuka said, popping out of the driver's side door.
"I was just trying to catch up, you wimps!"
Shinji thought he could hear some voices from inside the car, but it
was difficult to tell.
"Well, at least we're here in one piece!" Asuka shouted back,
apparently in response, before slamming the door so hard the car rocked
on its suspension.
"Asuka!" Shinji called out to the girl, closing the distance and coming
up to her. "What happened?"
"Hmph," Asuka said, turning up her nose. "I just volunteered to
relieve Misato at the break, that's all."
Shinji blinked. "Uh...I didn't know you knew how to drive."
"I learned!" Asuka explained, exasperated. "C'mon, it's not like I was
going to run it off the road!" She then fell into a string of muttered
German curses.
"Uh huh..." Shinji said, blinking again. "Well, is everyone all
right?"
Asuka just glared at him for a moment, then gestured sharply at the
car. Shinji looked, in time to see Rei helping a rather pale Hikari
out of the passenger seat, while Ariel was almost literally dragging
Misato out of the back.
"Well...OK," Shinji said, nervously. "C'mon," he said, putting one arm
around Asuka's waist and leading her back towards the other vehicles.
"Maybe we can get dinner."
"Better be worth the trouble, Shinji-chan," came the reply, nearly
growled out from the anger she was feeling.
"Uh...we'll see, OK?"
Touji, seeing that Hikari, though shaken, was still standing, went to
go help the other girl get Misato out. Ariel spared him a brief
glance, then shifted her grip, letting Touji take Misato's right arm
while she took the left. Together, they managed to support the older
woman as she stepped out of the car.
Misato was just staring off into space, mumbling to herself. "Never
should have...never let Asuka drive, never ever..."
"OK, it's alright, Misato," Touji said, patting her on the arm.
"You're all in one piece."
"Yes, yes," Misato said, nodding. She kept nodding for several seconds
after she'd stopped talking. "Need...beer..."
"Can you handle this?" Touji asked, glancing over at the other girl.
"I can take Katsuragi to the camp, if that is what you're asking,"
Ariel replied, sizing him up with her eyes.
"Right..." Touji said, blinking. "Thanks. Uh...what's your name
again?"
"Ni," Ariel replied. "Ariel Ni." She then took Misato's hand and
started leading the other woman off towards the trucks.
"Well, thanks then!" Touji called after her. He didn't get a response.
"Strange girl," he mumbled to himself, before he went over to the other
side of the car.
Hikari was leaning against the side of the car, trying to take deep
breaths to calm herself. She was staring at the ground a few
centimeters in front of her feet, apparently to reassure herself that
yes, she had stopped moving. One hand was supporting her ever-growing
stomach. The other, however, was clutching the limp hand of Rei
Ayanami.
Rei was standing there calmly, her other arm hanging by her side. She
was looking unblinkingly at Hikari, letting the other girl calm down.
The darkness was hiding her face, masking her expression with shadows.
Touji stood there, frozen, at the sight. For a brief moment, he wished
that Kensuke were here, with his old camera. There was no way anyone
was ever going to believe this.
Rei was the first to break the moment, looking away from Hikari. As
the light from one of the flashlights caught the girl's face, Touji
blinked. Rei didn't have her customary blank expression on, right now.
Rather, she almost looked a little...confused. As though, at the
moment, she didn't know what to say or do. Touji found this to be more
than a little unsettling.
But as Rei saw Touji, her expression snapped back to the customary
emotionless mask. "Suzuhara-kun," she said, simply.
Hikari looked up, at Rei's soft utterance. It didn't take her long to
see who Rei was looking at. "Touji!" she called out, running over to
the boy.
Touji gave her a hug as she came up to him. "It was horrible..."
Hikari muttered. "Listen to me...don't _ever_ let Asuka drive you
anywhere."
"Right," Touji said, nodding. "Tell you what, why don't we head back
and get some dinner?"
Hikari nodded, squeezing Touji up against her one last time before
releasing him. She looked over her shoulder, at Rei. The blue-haired
girl had already turned to leave.
"Hey, Ayanami..." she called after the girl. Rei didn't say anything,
or even turn around. The only indication that she'd heard Hikari was
that she stopped walking.
"Ayanami, do you want to join us?" Hikari asked, only half-sure that
Rei was listening. "I mean...I'm just asking."
_Now_ Rei turned her head. But she did not immediately look at Hikari.
Rather, her gaze tracked back to the trucks, not too far away. There,
she could see Shinji already sitting down on a folding chair that had
been unloaded from the SUV. Preparations were being made for a fire.
The boy looked happy, as did Asuka, sitting by his side. Seeing this,
Rei's eyes softened, for a split second.
Rei turned around, so that she was finally facing Hikari. "Very well,
Horaki-san," she said, in the same soft monotone.
"All right then," Hikari said, nodding. "C'mon, Touji-chan."
She started walking, holding Touji's hand as they headed over to the
others. Rei trailed along behind.
* * *
It took a while, but they finally got a small fire started, using some
of the kindling they'd brought along. Most of the people who'd come
along had something to do; Ritsuko and Maya were busily modifying the
equipment they had to track AT fields, while Shigeru and some of the
men were looking under the hoods of the trucks and car, trying to make
sure they'd keep running long enough to get them back home. Misato
occasionally checked on their progress, but currently she was keeping
Ritsuko and Maya company.
The children, however, were taking a brief respite from the work,
trying to rest after the day's events. They all had their excuses:
Shinji and Asuka were supposed to delegate work, Kaoru and Rei had to
rest in case they needed to use the Eva. Touji, for his part, had to
look after Hikari. Ariel had not given a reason for why she was there,
but no one had taken the trouble to ask her to help out with anything.
Kensuke, left as the only one without a decent excuse, was doing his
best to help out Shigeru and the others.
Rei sat, legs curled up her her chest with her arms wrapped around her
legs. In front of her, Hikari was talking almost continuously, leaving
Touji to sit by quietly, not wanting to interrupt.
"...and me and my sisters liked camping out on the weekends," Hikari
was saying. "So this really isn't too bad. Actually, it's better. Me
and my sisters never brought along those big lights."
"Or an Eva," Touji commented.
Hikari laughed sweetly. "Yeah, that," she said.
Rei might have been paying attention to the chatter, but it was
difficult to be sure. Hikari kept talking, unable to get rid of the
feeling that maybe she was boring the blue haired girl. Rei wasn't
making eye contact, instead occasionally sipping from the cup of broth
that sat steaming next to her.
Hikari paused, taking a drink from her own cup. Rei blinked once, but
this didn't necessarily mean anything. Her brow furrowing, Hikari
decided to see if Rei had actually been listening while she'd been
rambling on.
"So how about you, Ayanami?" Hikari asked. "What do you think of
living outdoors?"
"It is..." Rei began immediately, showing that, much as she'd done back
in school, she'd been listening, even if she'd seemed disinterested.
However, she trailed off, searching for a word. "...bearable," she
finished.
"Bearable?" Hikari asked, confused. "Well, I guess so. Just as long
as you have something to keep you warm."
Rei nodded, sparing Hikari a brief glance before looking back off into space.
"Ayanami..." Hikari began again. "Or Rei...can I call you Rei?"
"If you wish."
Hikari blinked. "Well, Rei...you've been letting me carry on. Do you
want to say anything? I mean, what are you thinking about? You're
always so quiet, like you're lost in thought, or...something."
Rei did nothing; she didn't even turn her head to look at the other
girl.
^Am I not worth the trouble of answering?^ Hikari wondered, looking at
the other girl. "Rei?"
"I am planning for the battle," Rei said, turning her head even further
away.
Hikari blinked. "Is that all you think about, Rei?" she said, quietly.
Again, no response from the blue-haired girl. She turned her head to
look at Shinji and the others, talking on the other side of the fire.
She closed her eyes and replied.
"It is all I have," she said, quietly. She opened her eyes again, as
though coming to some kind of internal decision. "Perhaps all I can
have."
"Rei..." Hikari said, at a loss for words.
"You gotta lighten up, Ayanami," Touji said, hearing Hikari trail off.
"There's got to be something other than Evas that you can think about."
Rei slowly turned her head, looking Touji in the eye. To his credit,
the boy didn't flinch under her gaze. Rei regarded him carefully,
cocking her head to one side.
Touji managed a half-smile. "_That_'s better, right there, Ayanami.
Why don't you look at someone when they're talking to you?"
"It has never occurred to me to do so, Suzuhara-kun."
"OK..." Touji replied, looking away and up into the sky as he was
caught off-guard by the reply.
"It's just a polite thing to do," Hikari added, seeing Touji suddenly
start wanting out of this conversation. She threw the boy a brief
glare for backing out so quickly, making him draw in upon himself a
bit.
Satisified that Touji was properly chastised, she looked back to Rei.
"Tell you what, Rei...why don't you start calling me by my first name?"
"Why?"
"Well...I've known you for a while. And you said I can call you Rei."
"Yes. I suppose I will try...Hikari-san."
^Good enough for a start,^ Hikari thought, rolling her eyes at the
'-san'. ^Now I wonder if my Touji would let Rei call him - ^
"And I guess you might as well use my first name, too," Touji said,
beating Hikari to the punch.
"I see..." Rei said, nodding. "And may I use the first names of
others, as well?"
Touji put on an annoyed expression. "This isn't a briefing, Rei. But
yeah. People like Kensuke, Misato, and I guess Ariel...she seems to
know you, but I dunno why. Go ahead. They won't mind."
Rei again fell silent, leaning back as she fell into her thoughts.
After a moment, she mouthed the word, 'Shinji'.
Hikari and Touji looked at each other.
"Rei?" Hikari asked. "Are you..._blushing_?"
* * *
Shinji spared Rei a brief glance, having to look directly through the
fire in order to get even a momentary glance. Obscured by the bright,
dancing tounges of flame, the mysterious blue-haired girl could only
just barely be seen. But then a brief night wind blew down, dulling
the flames with its short-lived caress long enough for him to get a
better view. He could see her listening patiently to Hikari, as she
talked about who-knew-what. Shinji blinked, however, as he saw Rei's
lips move. Was Rei Ayanami having an actual _conversation_? With
someone who's last name wasn't Ikari?
"Something wrong, Shinji-kun?" Kaoru asked, from his position next to
Shinji.
Shinji leaned back, up against the tire of the Jeep sitting behind him.
It was uncomfortable, but still better than lying on the ground like
Kaoru was. Still, the pale boy looked quite relaxed, his fingers laced
behind his head as he stared up at the familiar ceiling of the stars.
"Nothing much, Kaoru-kun," Shinji sighed out. "I'm just wondering why
Ayanam...Rei is sitting over there," he said, stumbling over her name.
"It's like she prefers being alone."
"Not true," Kaoru said, closing his eyes. "She simply prefers not to
deal with people."
Shinji blinked. "What's the difference?"
Kaoru smiled, though he kept his eyes shut. "It is difficult to
explain, Shinji-kun," he said. "Perhaps later."
"All right."
Shinji let himself relax, as best as one can while sitting on hard
ground and leaning against a tire. He looked off to his right. There,
Asuka and Ariel were sitting close to the fire, warming their hands by
the flames. They were having a conversation, though Asuka was doing
most of the talking. Shinji couldn't understand a word they were
saying; it was almost enough to make him wish he'd studied German.
Still, he was able to smile, seeing this.
^Good to see Asuka still knows how to make friends,^ he thought. ^I
wonder if I know how.^
An unwanted memory surfaced. A memory of the dead, the shattered
bodies from the last battle.
^I wonder if I have the right to make friends.^
"Hmm..." Kaoru said, quietly.
Shinji, his face a little sullen, turned to look back at the boy lying
next to him. Kaoru was in the same position as before, only now his
eyes were open, glittering with reflected light from the stars. "What
is it?" Shinji asked him.
"The sky," Kaoru said, still in a quiet, almost awed voice. "So many
of the Lilum say it is something unattainable. Heaven, so to speak."
Shinji looked up, as well, glad to find something to take his mind off
of his current thoughts. He was greeted by the infinite expanse of
celestial light, in the form of uncountable points of flickering
illumination, clusters of life in unrelenting darkness.
"It's nice to think such a place exists," Shinji commented. "To think
there's a better place to go after death."
Kaoru glanced at Shinji. For a moment, his eyes were quite serious, as
cold and calculating as Rei's ever had been. "I suppose so," he said.
His eyes turned again, this time looking across the ground, over at
Ariel. "Though some of us do not belong there. They...have nowhere to
go, after they meet their end."
Shinji blinked, not noticing where Kaoru was looking, because he was
still looking up at the night sky. "That's a sad thing to think,
Kaoru-kun."
"Well," Kaoru sighed out, "it is just idle wondering, I suppose. The
result of too much fatigue." He paused for a moment, so long that
Shinji began to wonder if his friend had decided to go to sleep. But
then he spoke again:
"Shinji-kun, look at the moon," Kaoru said, pointing over at a part of
the sky off in the distance.
Shinji followed Kaoru's finger, until he saw the white, cratered disc
of the moon, the huge glowing orb, easily the brightest in the sky.
"Beautiful," Shinji said, simply.
Kaoru nodded. "Indeed. There are a few things in life that are worth
being patient for. Such as the sight of a full moon at night."
Shinji nodded. "Or a sunrise."
Kaoru glanced over at the other boy for a moment. "I suppose," he
sighed out. "It is merely a matter of timing, in the end. Where you
are and what you are doing when the time comes. But for now...the moon
is there for us."
"Hm," Shinji said, looking up at the heavenly object.
But even as he watched, Shinji felt something happen. As though
something in the back of his head physically shifted around. Then, the
moon turned black, like a blinking eye, becoming so dark that it seemed
to pull in all around it, standing out even from the darkness of the
night sky. Streaks of white appeared on its surface, forming a twisted
zebra pattern on the previously white orb.
And then the blackness was upon him, under him. It pulled him down, in
a slow but inexorable pull, sucking him into its impenetrable depths.
He reached out, trying to grab onto something solid, but nothing could
be found. Shinji's heart accelerated, as he tried to scream. But that
only let the blackness flow into his mouth, suffocating him as water
suffocates a drowning man. No one could hear him, even as he finally
sank into the all-consuming darkness.
And then he returned to himself.
He blinked as the dream ended. A split-second passed before the cold
set in. Shinji hugged himself, feeling as though, just as his body had
been pulled away in the dream, all his warmth had been taken in the
real world. He shuddered, half-expecting to be able to see his breath
as he sighed.
He looked to his side, to see Kaoru was also shivering. Suddenly
becoming aware of his pulse ringing in his ears, he looked over to
Asuka. Then Rei and Touji. They were all shivering, as though struck
by a lance of pure ice.
He was on his feet almost instantly. He looked down at Kaoru, who was
also getting up. A look of resolve was suddenly apparent on the pale
boy's face, a look which Shinji somehow knew would be on his own face.
"Did you feel that?" Shinji asked. Kaoru nodded once. It was all he
needed.
Shinji looked around, to see Asuka, Touji, and Rei also on their feet,
standing stock-still as they looked at him. Without a thought, he took
off, running towards one end of the line of trucks. The other four
children followed closely behind, keeping pace as best they could.
Ariel was left alone, with no company save the crackling fire. She had
remained sitting the whole time, her hands resting on her crossed
ankles. Several moments after the Children had left, she let out a
slow breath. Finally, she looked up, over at the point in space where
she could hear the tide slowly crashing. In a voice so quiet she could
barely even hear herself, she spoke a single word:
"Leliel."
* * *
Misato yawned loudly as the night dragged on. In front of her, Ritsuko
sat in a simple folding chair, typing on a laptop.
"What I wouldn't give for a coffee," Misato said, grinning.
"Indeed," Ritsuko said, not looking up. "Even _your_ coffee would make
this easier."
Misato bristled a little at the comment, but then grinned again. "So
how's it going, Ritsu?"
"As well as can be expected," the blonde doctor replied. "I've
calibrated the equipment with Unit-00's AT field, but that should not
be a problem. AT fields all operate on the same band of wavelengths."
"Always the scholar," Misato commented. She picked up a nearby
notebook, leafing through it and glancing over the circuit diagrams.
"I could never understand this stuff."
"We all have our talents, Misato," Ritsuko said, glancing at her old
friend. She then went back to typing. "If anything, you keep this
from becoming dull."
"Heh," Misato said, quietly. "Yeah, what would you do without me?"
Ritsuko would have eventually come up with a reply, but she was cut off
by three pounding sets of footsteps. Both women looked up in time to
see Shinji, Asuka, and Rei skid to respective halts not far from them.
"Whoa!" Misato said, holding up her hands. "Where's the fire, Shinji-
kun?"
"Ritsuko-san!" Shinji said, breathless. "Ritsuko-san, can you scan for
AT fields yet?"
"I suppose so," Ritsuko said, giving Shinji an odd look. "Why?"
"Do it," Shinji said, his voice firm. "Do it quickly. I think...oh,
God..."
Misato's eyes narrowed as something clicked in her mind. "You better
do it, Ritsu," she said, looking over at the doctor.
Ritsuko nodded slowly and started typing. "It is not fully calibrated
yet, but I can still do a coarse measurement..." she explained. "And
here we are..." she said. "Interesting."
Shinji and Asuka were by Ritsuko's side in a heartbeat. "What is it?"
Shinji asked, worried. "Do you detect something?"
"It's rather garbled, but there is definitely a blue pattern out
there," Ritsuko said, her brow furrowing as she typed in another line
of commands. "Epicenter at..." she trailed off. "...two hundred
meters off the coastline," she finished, quietly.
"It is awake," Rei said, addressing the group. She looked up at Shinji
and Asuka. "We felt it."
"All right then," Misato said, standing up quickly. She was visibly
trying to hide the fact that she was just as scared as the three
children. "We knew this might happen. OK, get Nagisa. Rei, you and
him go get Unit-00, and - "
"Misato."
Misato looked down, at Ritsuko, who was still sitting, staring at her
laptop. "Misato, this is..." she said, shaking her head.
"What is it?" the former Major asked, coming around and standing
between Shinji and Asuka to look over Ritsuko's shoulder. She could
read the screen. Though it had windows open for the graphs of AT field
strengths and wavelengths, they all read flat lines. Another window
was open, reading a simple message: SIGNAL LOST.
"What?" Misato asked, confused.
"The pattern is gone," Ritsuko explained. "It didn't just change
wavelength...I would have been able to tell. It simply disappeared."
"Shinji-kun!" came Kaoru's voice, from the Humvee.
Shinji excused himself and walked around to the truck. There, Kaoru
and Touji were standing, working some of the large floodlights they'd
used earlier.
"What is it, Kaoru-kun?" Shinji asked.
"Look," Kaoru said, simply. He aimed the light out over the sea of
LCL. Shinji looked. His eyes went wide, a moment later. Where Kaoru
was aiming, just hours ago, there had been the huge, decapitated,
winged form of a petrified MP Eva, standing silent vigil over the
warped world. But now...
"Gone?" Shinji asked, incredulous.
* * *
"I still just can't believe it," Asuka was saying, the next day. "How
could that happen? How could we just _lose_ a goddamn _Eva_?"
She was currently sitting in the Jeep, though not in the driver's seat.
Shigeru had appropriated that position, much to the relief of the other
people in the Jeep.
"I don't know," Shinji said, from his position in the back. "Not only
that, but how can we _keep_ losing it?"
The Humvee was riding in front of them. Though they couldn't see from
where they were, Ritsuko and Maya were sitting in the back of the
truck, operating the scanning equipment to the best of their ability as
they bounced over the rough terrain. After a sleepless night, the blue
pattern had appeared again, kilometers away from their position. The
whole group had packed up in record time, and gone out to track down
the pattern, only to have it vanish as they approached. It had
appeared again, once more several kilometers away. They'd followed it,
only to have the same thing happen. Over and over again.
Now, the day was beginning to drag on. The sun had passed its apex
some time ago, and was beginning to crawl back down the sky. The heat
was oppressive, radiating off the ground and the hot metal of the
vehicles. Sweat was beginning to roll down everyone's face, making
their clothes stick to their bodies and their hair hang down in their
eyes.
"This sucks," Asuka commented, lifting up her hair to try and let out
some of the heat. "Why won't this thing just stay _still_? Making us
play hide-and-seek with it. What a dumb Eva..."
Shinji shook his head, not knowing what to say. Looking to see if
anyone else had an answer, he looked off to his side, to where Ariel
sat. The white-haired girl was sitting quietly, one arm resting on the
side of the Jeep while she stared straight ahead. She was wearing a
set of goggles she'd found in the Humvee to protect her eyes from the
dust they were kicking up in their passage, but other than that, she
was just as bad off as the rest of them.
Except for two individuals. Shinji turned around, looking at Unit-00
following the convoy as they traveled. Rei and Kaoru were sitting on
its shoulders, both to be prepared for if they had to engage the enemy,
and also to free up extra space in the already-cramped vehicles.
"Perhaps it is playing with us," Ariel commented, offhandedly.
"What was that?" Shinji asked the girl.
Ariel turned to look at him, one corner of her mouth quirking as their
eyes met. "It is moving almost as though it knows of our position.
Perhaps it is merely testing our patience, waiting for us to make a
mistake." She shrugged. "It is just an idle thought."
"It could be right, though," Asuka commented, glancing over her
shoulder at the other girl. "Hey Shinji-chan, didn't those last two
Evas target Unit-00?"
"Actually, the black one went after Touji," Shinji said, meekly.
"Yeah, yeah," Asuka said, waving him off. "But I mean...they _did_
come to us. Maybe instead of driving around like idiots, we should
just sit down and wait it out."
Shinji thought it over. "Unless it decides to head back to the
settlement," he said. "Who's to say those last two were just targeting
Unit-00?"
"Baka," Asuka said, bopping Shinji on the knee. "It's big, it's
strong, and it has an AT field. If I was gonna attack someone, I'd
want to take out their big guns first, so they couldn't fight back."
"Maybe," Shinji said, still not convinced.
"Good enough for me," Asuka said. She pulled a radio out of a pack at
her feet. "Hey, Misato? You there?"
"Yes Asuka," came the staticky reply. "What is it?"
"Why don't we just stop here? If it's going to keep doing this until
we run out of gas, why not just sit down and wait for it to come to
us?"
There was a long pause before the reply came back. "Did you and Shinji
agree on this?"
"Yeah, we did," Asuka replied immediately. "Why not? It beats driving
around in this oven."
"...all right, if you say so," came Misato's reply. Her voice sounded
distinctly unconvinced. But the Humvee still turned and slowed down,
grinding to a halt on the plain. The Jeep followed suit a moment
later, as did the other two vehicles, once they'd been radioed and
informed of the change in plans.
The group immediately began to set up. Ritsuko and Maya started lining
up their computer equipment, while a couple of men from the SUV began
setting a few of the scanners down at various places over the impromptu
camp. Shinji headed around to the back of the Humvee, along with
Asuka. Opening up the doors, the children looked inside, where Maya
and Ritsuko were still hard at work. Misato, still in the driver's
seat, stretched and let out a low sigh, closing her eyes and looking
out the window.
Unit-00 stopped a few dozen meters away from the trucks and lowered its
occupants to the ground. Kaoru and Rei quickly joined Shinji and Asuka
over by the Humvee, listening to hear what Ritsuko had to say.
"It's still stationary..." the woman was saying. "...wait, it's on the
move. It has shifted position again."
Asuka nodded, then grinned at Shinji, nudging him in the ribs with one
elbow. "Wouldn't have been worth all the time of driving to that last
spot anyway, eh, Shinji-chan?"
"I guess so," came Shinji's hesitant response. "How is it moving like
this, Ritsuko-san?"
"I still don't have enough data to answer that question, Ikari,"
Ritsuko said. "I'll give you an answer when I have one."
Shinji blinked, drawing back a little. "Sorry," he muttered.
"It's moving again," Ritsuko said. "A new orientation, one-point-six
kilometers from here."
They waited. The blue pattern moved, again and again. Each time, it
came a little closer to their position.
"We should get ready," Kaoru said, looking at the pattern as it
appeared again. "This way, Rei."
"Hang on, Kaoru-kun," Shinji said, holding up one hand. "Just let me
get...Kensuke!"
"Eh?" the boy asked, looking up. He was leaning over the back of the
Humvee, digging around inside of it. "What is it?" he asked,
innocently. "I just wanted to see what you guys are hiding back here."
"Well...excuse me a minute," Shinji said, pushing Kensuke out of the
way as politely as he could. He reached into a box inside the back of
the vehicle, quickly finding what he wanted.
He pulled out a pair of radios, which he handed to Rei and Kaoru. The
pale children clipped these onto their clothes at the waistline.
Complementing these were a pair of headsets, lightweight affairs
that fit rather well. After setting the frequency and testing the
volume, the pair set off for another corner of the camp.
"I guess we should go too, then," Shinji said. He took Asuka by the
arm and gently led the girl away. Asuka resisted for a moment, angrily
pulling him back to look at the computer screen for another few
minutes. But eventually she became bored of watching the wave patterns
and set off, this time dragging Shinji along with her. They also put
on radios, and threw one to Ritsuko. Then then climbed up a small
hill, a rise in the terrain that put them about ten meters above
everyone else, giving them a better vantage point.
This left only Ritsuko, Misato, and Maya in the Humvee, watching as the
pulsing blue pattern kept vanishing and reappearing, with greater and
greater frequency. Finally, however, it stabilized, not vanishing but
in fact becoming stronger, until it finally levelled out.
"Distance is oh-point-four kilometers," Ritsuko said. "It's
moving."
"Teleporting, again?" Misato asked, squeezing between the front seats
of the truck and trying to peek around and steal a glance at the all-
telling computer screen.
"No," Ritsuko said, annoyed, as she shoved Misato away. "Moving at
nominal speed for an Eva. I assume it's walking. If I had to guess, I
would say that it has finally decided to take a closer look at us."
They watched as the screen read off numbers. It kept coming closer,
until...
"Here it comes," Ritsuko said, looking up from the computer screen.
Her eyes focused on a point in the distance, a point which a half dozen
other pairs of eyes simultaneously looked to.
Right on cue, a giant white form stepped from behind the mountain that
had previously been blocking their view. It moved slowly, footsteps
shaking the ground even at this distance. Its shoulders slumped, arms
dangling by its sides as though it were unsure of what to do with them.
"Looks different," Misato commented, her eyes narrowing as she took it
in.
"Indeed," Ritsuko said, typing on the laptop. The Eva did not have the
demonic appearance of the other MPE's that had activated so far.
Rather, its head was more rounded, and it had large shoulder flanges,
similar to those of Unit-00. In addition, its skin looked more like
metal plating than actual flesh. But it was still colored the plain,
pure white of the MPE's.
"But I would recommend deploying," Ritsuko continued, not looking up
from the screen this time. Her fingers flew over the keyboard,
accessing the data she'd need.
"Yes, yes," Misato said, nodding sharply. She raised her radio up to
her mouth. "Shinji-kun, you see it?"
"Clearly, Misato-san," came the reply. "Kaoru-kun, you're clear to
engage."
"Deploy AT field and move in," Misato added on, speaking from memory.
"Take no offensive action unless provoked."
"You heard her, Kaoru-kun," Shinji's voice came from over the radio.
He sounded slightly chastised at Misato having to fill in that last
part for him. Misato just shrugged. He would learn, eventually.
"Understood, Shinji-kun," came Kaoru's voice, his tone almost cheerful,
back over the radio. Seconds later, Unit-00 stepped forwards, closing
towards the white Eva in the distance. After the first few steps, its
AT field rippled into existence around it, shoving away anything that
dared come near.
"Interesting," Ritsuko said, ceasing her typing. She held one finger
to her mouth, thinking hard.
"What is it?" Misato asked, looking down at her old friend.
"The scans show this Eva to be highly similar in construction to Unit-
04," Ritsuko answered, reaching forwards and scrolling down through
some of the data. "To within a 98% accuracy," she added, after a
moment.
"Unit-04?" Misato asked. "But that one was destroyed."
"Not destroyed," Ritsuko corrected. She looked back up at Misato.
"Its S2 engine malfunctioned, creating a Sea of Dirac like the one that
pulled in Unit-01 earlier."
"Sea of Dirac..." Misato said, her brow furrowing. "You mean that hole
in the ground?"
"Yes," Ritsuko replied, simply. "Which is what worries me..."
Misato raised the radio back up to her mouth. "Nagisa, be careful with
this one, it might..." she trailed off, as she looked back up to the
white Eva.
The Eva was sinking. It was slowly melting into the ground, as though
caught in an enormous pit of quicksand. But from her position, Misato
could see that it wasn't quicksand. Rather, it was a large, expanding
'shadow'. Contrary to the Eva's white exterior, this shadow was dead
black, the color so deep as to be impenetrable, a miniature black hole
suddenly materializing from nothingness, and drawing all around it back
into nothingness.
"Misato-san?" Kaoru said. "This could prove problematic. I am pulling
back to reassess the situation."
"Understood," Misato shot back. She looked down to Ritsuko. "Is there
anything we can do, Ritsu?"
"Not from here," Ritsuko said. "We've never been able to get a full
understanding of how a Sea of Dirac functions."
Her lips tightening, Misato watched, helpless, as the white Eva
vanished entirely within the shadow, its body dissolving as it sank, as
though it was not just sinking, but rather truly dissappearing.
^Too bad that's not what it's really doing,^ Misato guessed. ^It
wouldn't just be committing suicide.^
Unit-00 stepped forwards, cautiously, as the black hole began to
shrink, rapidly contracting back towards its center.
"Careful, Kaoru-kun," Shinji warned, over the radio. "I don't know if
it's safe to move in."
"I will be careful, Shinji-kun," Kaoru replied. "I just - !"
His voice cut off as the blackness reappeared, this time directly under
Unit-00. With reflexes that impressed even Ritsuko, the blue giant
flexed its legs and jumped, before the shadow could solidify into the
all-consuming maw it had been just moments before.
"What is happening?" Kaoru asked, his voice betraying more than a
little nervousness. Even as he jumped clear, the shadow came into full
existence. A spire of rock, caught helpless, toppled over, falling
into the blackness and sinking in, slowly but surely being devoured.
But even before it could vanish, the shadow again contracted,
apparently unsatisfied with what it had been able to find. As the Sea
slipped back over the ground, the rock spire ceased sinking. Rather,
it shook as the shadow passed underneath it, cracks running up its
surface. Once the shadow had passed, it was obvious that only what had
still been outside the blackness was left; anything that had sunk in
was gone, cut off by the impossibly sharp edge of the closing hole.
As soon as it had shrunk to a pinpoint and disappeared, the shadow
reappeared, again under Unit-00. Once more, the mech jumped away,
clearing hundreds of meters before its feet slammed back into the terra
firma, sinking into the dirt and sending a huge tremor rippling through
the ground.
Again dissatisfied, the blackness receded. As it shrunk, Kaoru's voice
came back over the radio.
"Ritsuko-san! I am redirecting Unit-00's AT field to cover the base
camp. It may offer some protection against the attacker."
"Alright, Kaoru-kun," Shinji's voice came over the radio. "Be careful.
You don't want to get caught in it."
"I know all too well, Shinji-kun."
Even as Kaoru was saying this, Ritsuko, Misato, and everyone else
nearby felt the hairs on their necks prick up. In front of them, the
air rippled, forming an impenetrable wall of pure will. For a moment,
a feeling of security went through the people watching from the two
vehicles. But it was only a moment.
Because no sooner had the AT field pulled them into its protective
embrace than the ground opened up, turning to pure blackness right
underneath their very feet.
Shocked screams broke out immediately as people saw it happening. A
few people, caught on the ground, started sinking in, uselesslly
pulling at their legs in an effort to get out of the black swamp they'd
become mired in, and were slowly sinking into.
Ritsuko jumped a little as she felt the truck shudder underneath her.
Looking down, she saw it: sure enough, as the shadow expanded, it was
going underneath the Humvee, slowly pulling it down into the earth.
Maya, next to her, let out a yelp of pure shock, looking to both of the
other women in the hopes that they'd have some idea of what to do.
"Jump!" Misato yelled, popping open the door and clambering out onto
the Humvee's hood. Maya nodded and followed closely, tugging at
Ritsuko's sleeve as she did so. Ritsuko, however, just turned,
shrugging out of the other woman's grip. Maya, too scared to notice,
kept going. She followed Misato as they got a brief running start on
the Humvee's broad hood, then jumped clear, landing just outside the
edge of the ever-expanding shadow. The two women rolled with the
impact, immediately dragging themselves to their feet and running to
try and get clear. As she ran, Maya looked back at the Humvee.
"Sempai!" she called out. "Sempai, get clear! Jump out!"
Ritsuko didn't move.
"Sempai!" Maya screamed, running back for the Humvee. She was stopped,
however, as Misato threw her arms around her waist, digging in her
heels and keeping the hysterical woman from running straight into her
own death.
"It's too late!" Misato grunted out, pulling Maya back. "She can't get
clear!"
"SEMPAI!!!"
Ritsuko was oblivious to the screaming of her former student. She
typed madly, her fingers a blur on the keyboard. She accessed the
scanning equipment still in the truck, calling up what data was still
available. She quirked an eyebrow as she got data from one of the
scanners that had already been sucked into the hole.
^Could be useful later,^ she thought. She looked down, raising her
feet up as she saw the floor panels vanish into the blackness. She
got up on the large central console of the truck, forced to crawl due
to the low ceiling. She slowly made her way towards the front, racing
with the void crawling up towards her. Looking at the data one more
time, she nodded to herself and picked her radio.
"Nagisa," she said, her voice utterly calm. "Disable your AT field."
"Ritsuko-san?" Kaoru asked, confused. "I do not understand why - "
"I'll explain later, Nagisa," Ritusko said, folding up up the laptop.
She got up on the dashboard as the seats vanished from view. "Just do
it. _Now_."
The delay couldn't have been much longer than a second, as Kaoru
ordered Unit-00 to shut off its AT field. But it was the longest
second of Ritsuko's life. The sea of oblivion crept up, beginning to
swallow the dashboard. Ritsuko got up on her tiptoes, bracing herself
against the roof as she felt her balance start to waver. She could
only watch as the darkness appeared over the edge of the dash and crept
towards her, slowly reaching out to pull her into its cold clutches.
Then, it halted. All of a sudden, the Humvee stopped sinking. Ritsuko
kept watching, her feet aching from holding her up on her toes, sweat
begining to trickle down her back. But it still didn't come any
closer. She was tempted to try touching the blackness, to see if it
was still capable of pulling things in. But she repressed that
perverse desire as soon as it surfaced.
Sure enough, the shadow receded once more, passing underneath the
remains of the truck - which was now little more than the top of a
dashboard, a roof, and most of a windshield - leaving behind only the
parts that were still above the surface.
Ritsuko waited a full five seconds after the darkness had receded.
Then she collapsed to her knees, wincing as she crashed onto the hard
soil. In her hands, she still clutched the laptop she'd been typing on
so fervently.
She raised the radio back up. "Nagisa..." she said, breathlessly.
"Nagisa, it..." she took a moment to catch her breath. "It tracks AT
fields. The stronger the field, the stronger the attraction. So do
_not_ deploy Unit-00's AT field."
"Understood, Ritsuko-san."
Ritsuko smiled as she heard the confirmation. Then, the radio fell
from her hands, followed shortly thereafter by the laptop. She slumped
forwards, hugging her body as though freezing. It was all she could do
to keep breathing, as she felt tears going down her face.
"Sempai!" Maya called out. A split-second later, the younger woman was
there, crawling under the roof of the devoured Humvee and helping
Ritsuko get out. She looked at her old teacher with an expression of
intense worry.
^Never thought I'd _miss_ being in a command center, safe and secure a
kilometer underground,^ Ritsuko thought, smiling again. She shivered,
doing her best to reassure Maya, who was blubbering over her, crying
tears of her own.
* * *
Kaoru cringed, watching the Sea of Dirac recede once again. It left
behind the shattered remains of a camp. Metal, stone, and flesh alike
were severed, leaving behind useless scraps of metal, as well as limbs,
hands reaching uselessly to try and pull themselves out of the icy grip
of death.
He looked back to Unit-00, and the titan fell into a combat stance,
stepping carefully along the ground. Its eye was trained on the dirt
at its feet, almost daring it to open up and try swallowing it again.
But accompanying the overwhelming rush of adrenaline was a sensation of
utter fear, of insecurity itching at the back of his head. The AT
field was down. Unit-00 was defenseless, now; nothing save his own
reflexes and combat ablities were going to preserve the gigantic combat
machine. Kaoru had to exert a huge amount of self-control just not to
project the AT field out of raw habit.
But it appeared to be working; as Kaoru watched, both through his own
eyes and through Unit-00's optics, he could see that, wherever the
attacker was hiding, it wasn't striking anymore. It was, apparently,
blind.
Even though the mech's footsteps were making the ground rumble, a
deathly silence had fallen on the area. Everyone still alive was
looking, probing the ground for the other Eva, waiting for it to show
itself.
It didn't take long. The ground opened once more, so quickly that
Kaoru took a step back out of surprise. But this time, the black
circle was not underneath Unit-00. Rather, it was a good distance off
to the right.
Unit-00 turned to face the shadow, waiting to see what would happen.
Sure enough, the white Eva was rising up, coming out just as it had
gone in. Its head appeared, followed by its shoulders, then its torso,
then its legs, and finally its feet, shooting out of the Sea of Dirac
quicker than he could've guessed was possible. It then stood on the
blackness, hovering over oblivion, as the shadow receded again,
vanishing. Now above ground, it turned to face Unit-00. It stepped
towards the mech.
Kaoru didn't give it a chance to go on the offensive. Unit-00 charged,
Progressive knife deploying as it ran. It grabbed the knife out of the
sheath and slashed at the white Eva as the distance closed.
But the Eva was already reacting. It had looked up, its twin black
eyes meeting Unit-00's single red one, for a moment, as the blue Eva
had dashed towards it. As the knife descended, the world opened up.
The black hole appeared once again, this time oriented vertically,
directly behind the copy of Unit-04. The white Eva stepped backwards
as the knife came down. The Prog knife missed by centimeters. Before
Kaoru could react, the white Eva had vanished into the black hole
again, which snapped shut so suddenly as to have been a magician's
illusion.
"Where..." Kaoru muttered. Unit-00 looked around madly, in all
directions, brandishing its knife. Its eye focused and panned,
searching for an opponent that was not there.
The attack finally came. A black hole opened up directly behind Unit-
00. Before the blue mech could react, a pair of white arms emerged
from the hole, going around Unit-00 and pinning its arms to its sides.
As the hole expanded further, the white Eva stepped out, again making
its presence known.
Kaoru grunted, feeling his own arms crushed into his rib cage in
sympathetic response. He summoned up all of Unit-00's strength and
pushed against the white Eva's grip, desperately trying to free his
arms.
Finally, the grip broke. Unit-00 half-turned, grabbed Unit-04 by the
scruff of its neck, and then twisted, throwing its whole body into the
maneuver as it tossed Unit-04 through the air.
Unit-04 went airborne, arcing up, then down, towards the ground. But
The Sea of Dirac opened up underneath it before it could impact. It
simply continued its fall, plumetting back into the depths of the
blackness, instead of crashing into the ground as the laws of physics
would dictate. The hole snapped shut.
Kaoru waited, keeping his cool this time, preparing for the inevitable
strike. Finally, the air yawned open, this time to Unit-00's right.
Unit-00 dodged, backing away quickly before Unit-04 could again grab
it. The white Eva stepped out, coming back into the physical world.
It circled slowly, going in a slow counterclockwise circuit, mirrored
by Unit-00, no more than a few arms' lengths away.
Unit-04 finally broke away, stepping forwards and throwing a punch at
Unit-00. Unit-00 sidestepped the blow, letting the fist graze its left
shoulder. Its right hand, clutching the knife so hard the armor plates
on its knuckles were popping, thrust the weapon directly at Unit-04's
face.
The blackness came again. This time, right in front of the target.
Unit-00's knife arm, instead of hitting an Eva, sank right into a black
hole as it appeared just in front of Unit-04's face.
Kaoru's eyes widened as the arm disappeared to halfway up the forearm.
Not only that, but it kept going in, drawn inwards by a force as
invisible and as undeniable as gravity.
"Nagisa!" Misato's voice came over the radio.
"Y...yes, Misato-san?" Kaoru groaned out, clutching his right arm as he
felt it freezing.
"Nagisa, blow the arm! Quick, before you lose any more!"
"No!" Shinji's voice came over the radio. "That'll hurt Kaoru-kun!"
"Shinji-kun, this isn't the time!" Misato shouted back. "We're about to
lose the whole Eva!"
"Yes, Misato-san!" Kaoru grunted out, before Shinji could say anything
else. He closed his eyes and gave the mental order.
White-hot pain exploded through his body as Unit-00's right arm was
blasted free at the elbow. Kaoru fell to his knees, only just managing
to repress a cry of agony as he clutched his own right elbow, sure that
he would find a bloody stump there, like the one mirrored on Unit-00's
right arm.
As Unit-00 stepped back, holding its smoking, bleeding wound, Unit-04
also stepped away, not pressing its advantage. It waited patiently as
the shredded remains of Unit-00's arm were sucked into the airborne Sea
of Dirac.
Unit-04 slowly began to advance, its armored feet shaking the ground
with each step. Unit-00 fell back, slowly but surely losing ground to
the other titan. It glanced to one side, then the other, looking for
something it could use against the implacable opponent.
Suddenly, the white Eva stopped, suddenly freezing in place. Slowly,
as though underwater, its head turned, looking behind its armored
opponent, at a point behind it. Kaoru flinched as the mech's eyes,
sockets as black as the Sea of Dirac it controlled, fell on him. Then
they moved a little to the side, focusing on something other than him.
Unit-04's mouth opened, letting out a slow breath. It sucked in more
air, then growled slowly. Kaoru felt the chill of true fear running
through him, at that sound. It was the sound of hate, pure and simple.
Hatred born of long torment, of years spent despising a single object,
or more specifically, a single person.
He moved on instinct. The Eva was distracted. Now was the time to
strike, before it could act on whatever its hatred might lead it to do.
Unit-00 ran for the white Eva once more.
Unit-04 didn't even waste the energy of turning its head back to face
its opponent. With one hand, it reached out, grabbing Unit-00 by the
face as the blue Eva came up to it. Kaoru jerked, then grunted as he
felt his neck strain. Unit-04 lifted Unit-00 off the ground, still
using nothing but its lone arm. The blue titan was limp, its powerful
limbs hanging uselessly by its sides as its controller tried to keep
breathing in the face of the pain transmitted through his link to it.
Unit-04 turned and threw the blue giant to the side. Unit-00 crashed
to the ground, unmoving, a broken, useless doll. Then the ground
opened once more, and the white Eva sank, vanishing from the world.
* * *
Standing no more than a few meters off to Kaoru's side, Rei watched as
Unit-00 engaged the enemy.
^The Eva can manipulate space,^ she observed, as Unit-04 used its Sea
of Dirac to dodge Unit-00's first strike, and then to appear behind the
attacking Eva. ^How to engage something which can change its position
on the battlefield instantaneously?^
Her face betrayed no perceptible reaction as Unit-00's arm was pulled
into the black hole which suddenly appeared in front of Unit-04. She
merely blinked as the arm exploded, breaking free from its assailant
and leaving Unit-00 with half a right arm, and no Progressive knife.
^There must be a way to break its Sea of Dirac,^ she thought. ^It is
merely a manipulation of an AT field.^
^Kill.^
Rei blinked as the voice sounded in her head.
^Destroy.^
She briefly glanced around, confirming that no one was nearby, save
Kaoru, who was trying to pull himself back up to his feet. The voice
sounded...familiar, somehow. Tugging at some memory, but not quite
causing it to surface.
^The boy has failed,^ the voice said. Rei now recognized the voice as
her own. Only it sounded younger, and, in an odd way...bitter. Yes,
that was the word for it. Bitter, cold, and...angry.
^Who are you?^ she thought, at the voice.
^You know who I am,^ the voice replied, in an almost mocking tone.
Rei's eyes widened. ^You...^
^Yes. You cannot deny me, Ayanami. I am the power you need. I am
what can destroy the enemy. I can annihilate all who stand in your
way, kill all who would threaten Ikari-kun and the others.^
Rei closed her eyes. ^No...no, I cannot.^
^Yes you can. You can activate me, give me the strength of the Eva. I
will win this battle for you.^
^No,^ Rei thought, firmly. ^Ikari-kun has told me not to use you.^
^His word means nothing, if it would lead you to defeat.^
Rei closed her eyes again, holding one hand to her forehead as a
headache came on. Fear began flickering through her, bubbling up
through her stomach and climbing up her spine.
^I cannot do that,^ she thought, again. ^You would destroy all.^
^It is my purpose.^
Rei opened her eyes. Not in response to what the Dummy plug had said,
but because she'd heard a noise which struck a note of pure terror in
her. A feeling she'd only been able to guess at before, when she'd
seen it happen to someone else. As though in a dream, she looked down
to her feet.
"A shadow?" she mumbled, her eyes widening.
"Rei!"
The word came over the radio, up into her headset. Two voices spoke
it, in perfect synch: two boys, one with crimson eyes like hers, and
another with deep blue eyes, far from here, only able to watch as Rei's
feet vanished into the yawning hole of oblivion that had appeared
beneath her.
Kaoru looked away from Unit-00, letting it stand still as he focused
his attention on Rei. "Rei!" he called out again. "Rei, get out!"
He got to the edge of the black hole, stretching out his hand in an
effort to reach her. But it was too far; Rei was at least five meters
from him already. And even as he watched, the hole continued
expanding, pushing him backwards as he stepped away from the edge.
"Rei!" Shinji cried out again, helplessly. "Someone! Anyone! Help
Rei!"
Rei was now in up to her knees. She felt a chill going through her;
her legs felt like they were frozen into solid ice, and the feeling was
inching its way upwards, towards her heart. Utter blackness stared her
in the face as she looked down, death embodied in an AT field as it
slowly swallowed her.
Up to her waist, now. Rei struggled uselessly, trying to pull free.
The icy feeling was now filling her through and through; she shivered,
hugging herself tightly to try and preserve some hint of warmth.
Suddenly, something clicked in her head. Something was worming its way
into her mind, briefly brushing her psyche as it pulled her physical
body into its maw.
"So...that is what you fear..." she said. Slowly, she unfolded her
arms, watching as drops of cold sweat fell from her body in the
movement. The black sea had already pulled her in up to her abdomen.
There was not much time left before it had her entirely in its grip.
Or it could just close now, cutting her in half.
Rei reached out with her right hand, palm down.
"REI!!!!" came another hysterical cry. She was no longer sure of who
was calling to her. She just reached down, letting her palm touch the
surface of the black sea.
It immediately began to pull her hand in. But as it did so, Rei closed
her eyes and focused her mind. She reached inside, searching for
something she hadn't had a reason to use - and in fact hadn't been
_able_ to use - for quite some time. She didn't hope, or pray.
Somehow, she knew it would be there.
Her skin took on a luminescent quality, glowing so slightly it could
have just been a trick of the light. As this happened, she stopped
sinking. The icy feeling, indeed _all_ feeling, left her as she felt
something well up from deep within her self, rushing through her veins
with untold excitement, and out into her hand.
She couldn't see with her eyes closed, but had she been looking, she'd
have seen a series of ripples, glowing bands of rainbow-colored light,
spreading outwards from her palm. The ripples passed through her as
though she were not there, expanding outwards until they vanished at
the edge of the dark hole. They kept coming, emanating more
frequently, and with wider bands, until finally, the entire Sea of
Dirac was consumed by a single, overpowering swath of light, shining as
brightly as the sun.
Rei's hair was blown backwards as a wind came from the lit sea
underneath her. She kept her eyes closed, though her brow furrowed, as
though in some kind of internal struggle. Finally, though, she
relaxed, going back to the placid expression she'd worn since the day
began.
And with that, she was ejected, blasted free of the ground like a shot
out of a gun. Rei opened her eyes in time to see the ground falling
away from her, giving her a brief sensation of vertigo. Then gravity
took notice of her once again, and she began to fall. She rotated
herself in mid-air, lining up so she'd land on her feet. She was well
aware of just how high she was, now, but again, she somehow _knew_ that
she would be all right.
* * *
Shinji was no doctor, but he was sure his heart stopped for a brief
moment as he saw Rei get launched into the air.
The girl tumbled, going up so high she could have landed on an Eva's
shoulder. Shinji's eyes locked onto her as she reversed direction and
began to fall. He was unable to look away. He found himself wondering
if he'd be able to watch when she hit the ground.
Rei turned her arms, using the momentum to rotate herself until she was
oriented feet-first. The fall was over all too quickly.
Shinji found he didn't even blink as she hit the ground. But then
again, he didn't expect what he saw, either. Rei hit the ground and
went to a crouching position, as though she'd only fallen from a few
meters up. A microsecond later, a small shockwave blasted out from the
girl, kicking up a large cloud of dust and obscuring the view. The
wind blew the dust aside quickly, though, revealing Rei at the middle
of a shallow crater, standing up straight. Slowly, the girl turned and
looked directly at Shinji. He knew it was impossible, but he was sure
he could see the crimson of her eyes, even at this range. A chill
rippled through him, making him clench his teeth in fear for a brief
moment. Only one thought could make its way through his consciousness:
^Who or what _is_ Rei Ayanami?^
He didn't have time to puzzle out an answer. Even as he watched, the
still-glowing Sea of Dirac spat out one last thing: the resurrected
Unit-04.
The Eva leapt out as though it had stepped on hot coals, jumping
backwards and landing unsteadily on its feet, with the Sea of Dirac
between it and Unit-00, not to mention Rei and Kaoru.
Then, it happened: the Sea exploded. The glowing phenomenon ceased,
leaving only a dull gray color on the earth. The ground heaved up,
shattering like glass as it finally surged to reject this abomination
of nature. The grayness vanished, as well, leaving only a broken
stretch of land twenty meters across, rocks vomited up into a twisted
natural sculpture.
Slowly, the shock passed. After about ten seconds, people began to
move again. After another five seconds, the Evas began to move. Unit-
04 began staggering backwards, unsteady and unsure of itself. It
quivered, its muscles tensing and bending it over sideways. Its mouth
opened in a silent shout of frustration, then bent over backwards to an
impossible degree, its arms splayed out to the side as its spine was
forced into an inverted 'U'-shape. It was as though it were some doll
an invisible child were twisting about.
Unit-00, on the other hand, was moving quite smoothly. Though missing
an arm, it still stood tall, clenching its remaining fist in
anticipation. It watched for a moment, of eyeing the target, almost
_willing_ it to attack. All Unit-04 was able to do was relax its back
muscles, coming out of its contortionist pose and hunching its
shoulders forwards, its arms dangling at its sides.
Finally, it happened: a bubble formed in Unit-04's chest, along with a
similar bulge on its back. Armor plates popped and twisted out of the
way as the boil pushed its way through. The Eva shook, its arms coming
up shakily and touching the sore, grabbing at it, almost trying to push
it back in. But for all its efforts, both bulges kept growing, pushing
the powerful hands aside. It expanded, becoming steadly larger, until
the Eva's entire upper body was encased in a mass of quivering flesh.
The Eva flung its arms wide, falling to its knees and letting out one
last inhuman scream of agony.
And then the sore burst, simultaneously on the Eva's back and front in
a spray of red blood. Its eyes dimmed, and it fell silent.
* * *
Ariel fell to her knees as she felt it happen. She felt the soul
become erased. Obliterated.
Her guts spasmed, and she pitched forwards, vomiting. She remained
still for a long time, even after her stomach was empty. Tears and
blood from the girl mixed with the puddle of bile as she wept silently.
Leliel was no more.
* * *
"We won?" Shinji asked the air. He looked at the silent Eva. "We
won!" he said, more firmly.
But fate seemed determined to keep them from celebrating too soon.
Shinji was interrupted, as a noise came that chilled his blood: the
sound of an Eva's engine starting up. Unit-00 was already online,
which could only mean...
He turned around. Sure enough, Unit-04 was getting back to its feet,
oblivious to the gaping hole in its chest, and the entrails hanging out
its back. The Eva's eyes flickered, in a surreal kind of blink. Then
they lit up, the dead black pools beginning to glow a bright blood red.
"Kaoru-kun! Rei!" Shinji screamed into the radio. "LOOK OUT!"
Unit-00 dodged just in time to avoid a tackle by the deranged Eva.
Unit-00 turned and planted a kick in Unit-04's chest, only to have its
leg grabbed. Unit-00 was tossed, sailing through the air and skidding
along the ground as it landed, pushing up a small mountain of displaced
earth underneath its body.
Unit-04 began to advance. Watching this, Shinji talked into his radio.
"Ritsuko-san! Ritsuko-san! What's going on? How is it moving??"
"I think I know why..." came the calm voice on the other end. "I
believe - "
"Yes? What?" Shinji asked, frantic. Unit-04 jumped at the still-prone
Unit-00. The blue Eva retaliated by raising up its feet and kicking
the white Eva back as it descended.
"Unit-04 was an experimental model for the S2 organ, Shinji," Ritsuko
explained. "The designers probably built in a backup battery supply,
just in case the engine didn't work."
"How long does it have?" Shinji asked.
"I'm uncertain. At most, five minutes. But it may be less. The
batteries were only to be used to get the Eva on and off the testing
grounds, in the case of engine failure."
Both Evas were on their feet again. This time, somehow, Shinji knew
there would be no Sea of Dirac, no black hole for the white Eva to
vanish into, or use as a shield. But somehow, it didn't matter. Unit-
04 advanced, clocking Unit-00 with an elbow to the face. The blue Eva
could only just block the follow-up punch with its good arm. Unit-04
pressed its advantage, belting Unit-00 in its right side, where it
couldn't defend.
Unit-00 bent over double, but even as Unit-04 reached for it, the blue
Eva charged, catching Unit-04 off-guard. It shoved Unit-04 to the
ground, straddling it and placing its one good hand on the Eva's neck.
"Kaoru-kun, remember don't crush the core!" Shinji called into his
radio.
"I rememeber, Shinji-kun!" Kaoru's voice answered. "But right now I am
just trying to stay alive!"
Unit-04 finally pried Unit-00's fingers off of its throat. It sat up,
shoving Unit-00 to the ground and getting to its feet. Unit-00 shakily
got to its own feet just as Unit-04 reached for its neck. Two white
hands wrapped around the blue Eva's throat. They began to squeeze.
Shinji winced as he heard Unit-00's neck groan. He covered his ears as
the cracking sound started. It was so familiar, hearing the sound of
an Eva's neck breaking, slowly...steadily...until the final, defeaning
thunder of the spine shattering. Shinji slammed his eyes shut, waiting
for that horrible noise.
It never came.
After a few moments of agonizing waiting, Shinji dared to open his
eyes. He looked at the battle, again.
The Evas were both frozen in the same positions they'd been in when
he'd looked away. Unit-00 was still trying to break free, and Unit-04
was still strangling the blue Eva. Or rather, it appeared to be doing
so. In truth, Unit-04 was standing there, stiff as a statue. Indeed,
Unit-00 was finally able to pull the white hands aside and step away,
letting the murderous arms spring back to their former positions as
though made of stiff rubber. Unit-04 continued to stand there, arms
still locked in the forward position, frozen fingers clawing at the
air, an expression of anticipation and hunger etched onto its inhuman
face.
"Ran out of power," Shinji sighed out, collapsing to the ground. He
raised up his radio. "Ritsuko-san, does Unit-04 have any other power
supplies?"
"None that I'm aware of, Ikari."
"Good," Shinji said. He fell backwards, landing on his back. "_Now_
we've won."
^And what has Rei found out about herself, then?^
"Well, I _guess_ we did," Asuka said, dejectedly.
Shinji turned his head, looking over at the girl. "What do you mean?"
Asuka looked at him for a long moment, her mouth tight. Her eyes
seemed to be probing him, looking for something she was no longer sure
she would find. But only for a moment. Then she shook her head and
blinked, glaring down at him.
"Don't you remember, you baka?" she shouted. "The camera _was_ in the
back of the Humvee! You know, the truck that thing _ate_!"
Shinji blinked, then looked away, cursing sharply in frustration.
After shaking his head for a few moments, he sighed, putting both hands
over his face. "Oh..._that_..." he said, now sounding even more
depressed than Asuka had.
"What camera?" came a new voice.
Shinji looked between his fingers, turning his head in the direction of
the voice. "Kensuke?"
"Yeah, Shinji. What're you and the devil here talking about?"
Asuka growled at the boy. "Don't you remember, you baka? We were
supposed to film the Eva so we could show the Americans we're not just
bullshitting them! They even gave us a camera to do it with!"
"You mean this?" Kensuke asked, lifting up one hand. Sure enough, he
held the camera in question, letting it dangle off his fingers.
Asuka's eyes widened. "You mean..."
Shinji got up. "Kensuke, please tell me you got that on tape."
"Well, yeah," the boy said, shrugging. "Found this in the back of the
truck, and it looked like no one was doing anything with it. So what
else was I supposed to do? Got some great battle footage."
Kensuke soon found himself caught up in a crushing embrace from both
Asuka and Shinji, both of whom were falling all over themselves to
thank him. After the shock wore off, he smiled. Now if only he could
get _this_ on tape...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Started: August 31, 2001
Version 1 Ended: September 28, 2001
Version 2 Ended: November 9, 2001
Send comments to: otakusadist@hotmail.com
And visit my site: http://www.angelfire.com/anime2/shinjirei
As always, thanks go to the Avatar of Dragonia, Heavyarms Kai, and
Judging Eagle for prereading this fic.
Also thank you Kristian, for helping me with the German, a language I
know virtually nothing about. (And my apologies for screwing up the
language in previous chapters; I'll see about fixing that. ^_^)