Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is Owned by Gainax. Buy the DVD's of
the Series and the Movies from them. I did, and it was worth every dime.
I don't own anything except my DVD's, and this is done for my own
satisfaction.
Episode 2:07 Goodbye is never a good thing to say.
Takes place after 1st season, and the End of Evangelion Movie.
Presumed date is Saturday June 11th, 2016
"Toji, slow down, you're gonna kill us all," Hikari said from the back seat.
"Then you better put your seat belt on, so the Ambulance driver doesn't have to look for the bodies babe," Toji said through gritted teeth, as he mashed the accelerator to the floor, and the tires on his Toyota 4Runner squealed.
Cutting across people's lawns, and taking the corners wide, Toji Suzuhara was driving like a madman, and Kensuke Aida, his best friend, was beginning to wonder if it had been a mistake to let him drive. Even if there was no longer any government to regulate drivers licenses and levy fines, by popular consensus, there were some people who just should not be allowed to drive until they were more mature. Toji was making Hikari and Kensuke believe that he might be one of these people.
Toji blew through several intersections, not even taking notice of the traffic control signs. Stop, yield, slow, none of them mattered as he pelted toward home. The tires squealed one last time, as Toji stomped the brakes, and skidded sideways to stop in front of Hikari and Asuka's home.
"I don't see the car, but it might be around back or in the garage," Hikari said. "We should go check."
The three teenagers piled out of the car, and headed into the house. There was no sign of Asuka's presence, and no sign that she'd been here recently.
"Great. Well?" Toji asked.
"The base," Hikari said.
Meanwhile back at Misato and Kaji's wedding reception, Shinji had recovered a little more since Doctor Akagi had helped him out by giving him a sniff of smelling salts, and some chamomile tea.
"Why, Misato? Why did she leave me like that? Everything was perfect, and then from out of nowhere WHAM! Utter chaos."
"I don't know Shinji, I can only guess. Ritsuko?" Misato asked, turning.
"Well, I suppose the most likely cause would be that Asuka has yet to let go of her baggage."
"Meaning?" Misato asked.
"Meaning that, like Shinji here, Asuka had a lot of emotional problems, stemming from a very traumatic childhood. If I could hazard a guess, I'd say that she's been keeping everything bottled up inside, but its slowly been seeping out of her. Today, when she kissed Shinji, everything rushed to the surface at once, like a damn breaking. When the kiss ended so abruptly, she could only feel ashamed that she had been enjoying something so wonderful, and, was unwilling to let the other baggage just slide. She probably assumed in that moment that this had all been a trap, and, in a sense, it was, it just didn't come from the person she thought it did. She couldn't see this for the opportunity it was, and, instead, she saw it as another chance to be hurt by someone she cared about and ran away from it."
"But where has she run off too?" Misato asked.
"I bet I know where," Shinji said, sitting up, and drying his eyes. Turning to Misato, he hugged her quickly, and then stood back taking off his tux jacket. "Hang onto this for me will you Misato. I'm going to go get Asuka."
"Sure thing Shinji," Misato said, as he turned and started to run out of the room.
"And Shinji?" she said.
"Yes?" He said, turning to look expectantly at her.
"Make sure you tell her," she said.
Shinji nodded, knowing instinctively what it was he had to tell Asuka. He ran out through the hall, and into the hatcheck room. There, on a peg on the wall, was his helmet and leather jacket. Quickly donning them, he ran out the front door to the temple and jumped on his bike. Shoving the key in the ignition, he triggered the starter, and gunned the motorcycle out of the parking lot, leaving a cloud of smoke and several millimeters of his tire behind.
"Don't you dare run out on me Asuka. I'm not going to let you go that easily," he said to himself, gritting his teeth together as he wound the bike wide open, heading for the NERV Landing field.
"So why are we heading for the landing field, Hikari?" Toji asked, as they screamed though another intersection.
"Asuka once told me that the only time she was ever really at peace these days was when she was running flat out in the sky over the ocean in that F- 22 Raptor she pilots on long range Air Patrols."
"Great, so the only time she's happy is when she's flying a multi-Billion yen fighter plane," Toji said.
Kensuke Aida thought that that WOULD be great, but he wasn't about to say that to Toji right now.
"TOJI LOOK OUT!" Kensuke shouted.
Toji swerved, over corrected, fishtailed, and spent several seconds recovering from the near accident, as a black and gold street bike screamed through the intersection they were crossing, and turned up the road they were following. Strange orange sparkles were dancing around the edges of the bike, as it wobbled slightly, and then straightened out, accelerating away from them.
"That's Shinji's bike isn't it?" Toji asked.
"Yes, it is, he's gotta be heading for the Airfield as well," Hikari said. 'How romantic,' she thought, sighing.
"Toji, you're gonna loose him, step on it," Kensuke urged, grabbing Toji's arm.
"Lay off will you, I picked this thing out because I thought I'd use it for some 4x4 fun. It's not a sport model like Shinji's Bike or Asuka's BMW,' Toji said, shrugging off Kensuke.
Deep within the heart of the former NERV Nagoya-2 Emergency Facility, the super computer known as "The Shepherd" registered several brief but distinct events. Long unused circuits tripped an alert, and alarms began to sound throughout the facility. Makato Hyuga sat bolt upright in his chair and stared at the screen.
"Huh? Pattern Orange, AT Field detected. What the hell?" he shouted. "Someone get hold of Commander Katsuragi."
"It's Commander Ryoji, by now Makato," said Shigeru Aoba. "She's getting married today, or did you forget?"
"I didn't forget, but this is more important than that."
Shigeru looked at his screen more closely, and nodded. "I hate to admit it, but I think you're right. Do it."
Not waiting to be told again, Makato stabbed at the "Emergency Alert" button on his console. Across the city, hundreds of cell phones went off, the recorded message informing their owners to report to combat stations.
"This is the part I hate. I wish Maya were here to take care of this, she always dealt better with Misato than I did," Shigeru noted. He lifted his cell phone, and punched in the Commander's number.
"What now?" Misato asked, opening her phone and taking the call.
"We've got a situation here ma'am. You need to report at once," came Shigeru's voice from the Operations Center.
"Alright, we'll be there in ten," she said, hanging up.
"So much for the Honeymoon," Kaji said, pinching Misato's butt as she ran towards the front door of the Temple; a dozen other personnel, including her husband, right behind her.
"Come on, come ON! Must... Go... FASTER..." Shinji said this last through gritted teeth. The high performance bike was locked firmly into 7th gear, and the RPM's were redlining dangerously at over 11000. The bike was still accelerating up through 250, 270 290 kph, and still climbing. Shinji came over a small rise overlooking the JSDF Airfield, and the bike came free of the ground. Orange sparks were now flying all around the bike, but he failed to notice them, so fixed on his target was he. He had sailed almost 300 yards before the rear wheel of the bike touched back down, and the shock slammed the front wheel to the ground violently. A shower of orange sparks flew up around the bike at the impact, as if he had landed in some kind of orange puddle, and the water had been kicked up into the air.
Shinji grabbed the rear brake, and the friction slowed the bike, and straightened it out before it could fishtail out of control. Shinji could see a clear shot of the field from here, and noticed a bright red F-22 Raptor easing down the taxiway, heading for the only runway long enough for the F-22 to launch from.
"Not that easily you don't," he shouted, as his bike closed in on the fighter plane.
"YAAAAAHOOOOOOOO!" Kensuke and Toji shouted as the 4x4 caught air coming over the same hill Shinji had. Landing much short of his mark, however, Toji controlled the bouncing rig as it tried to swerve left and right. Kensuke's cell phone rang, and he answered it.
"Hello? Hey guys its Misato. Hey Misato, what's up? No, no we haven't caught up with Asuka yet. But I think Shinji's about to. Where? The Airfield. Shinji's chasing her Raptor on his bike, and I think he's actually gonna catch her before she can lift off, if you can believe that. Well no, I hadn't thought about that, and I bet Shinji hasn't either. Hey, Suzuhara, is there any way you can think of that Shinji can stop Asuka from taking off?"
Suzuhara blanched white. "No way, Dude. That Jet is at least 50 times heavier than his bike. If he tries to get in front of it to stop it, he's toast. Besides, even if it did stop her, taking out the nose wheel would probably cause the plane to flip. It'd kill Asuka, and probably Shinji."
"I was afraid of that," Kensuke groaned. "What? What's that Misato? I don't know if we can, but we'll try to get his attention. Hit the Horn and lights Toji."
Toji responded by pressing both thumbs into the buttons that activated the horn, and using the smallest finger on his left hand to turn his headlights on and off.
"Damn it Shinji, this is NOT the time for you to pull this crap," Misato growled as her car sped towards the monorail station leading to the underground command center.
"Call him at his second number," Kaji said.
"What? His second, oh, right, his helmet has a built in cellular unit. Damn it. Hang on," she said, as they cut across a parking lot, instead of traveling another 400 feet to the intersection and turning onto the connecting road.
Misato thumbed through her cell phones directory, eventually finding the listing for Shinji with two numbers highlighted. She punched the selector to choose the second number and hit send.
Shinji heard the soft musical tune that meant someone was calling him over his helmet system.
"Phone. Answer," he said, and the cellular unit built into his helmet accepted the voice cue, and connected the call.
"Shinji what the HELL are you doing!" she shouted.
"I'm going to stop Asuka and make her talk to me."
"No, you're not, you're about to get run over by a massive fighter aircraft, and splattered all across the tarmac of that runway. Let her go. She's not going to go far, and I'm sure she'll come back when she's had a chance to calm down."
"Huh? How did you know I'm on the runway?"
"Aida told me. They're not far behind you, but to far away to be of any use," she said.
At this, Shinji looked up at the rear view monitor mounted over his steering column. Sure enough, there was Toji's SUV, just coming through the airfield gates, lights flashing.
"Are you going to stop? Kensuke says she's left the taxi-way, and is gathering speed for takeoff," Misato asked.
"Not yet. Sorry Misato, but if she wants to be the one to run away this time, she's got to go through me," Shinji said.
"Phone... Off."
Misato's line went dead. It was just as well, Kaji was handing her his cell phone.
"Commander? This is Shigeru. Sorry to ruin this day for you, but we've detected a pattern Orange and what appears now to be two separate AT fields. The contact is intermittent, at best, but they're definitely there, and they're building in power."
"Pattern Orange? But that's an EVA signature. What the hell is going on, I thought all the EVA's were destroyed."
"Not quite ma'am, Unit-01 wasn't destroyed, it's still in high Lunar Orbit. We're still monitoring it, but it's not what's generating this signatures. Whatever it is, its' coming from the Airfield."
"Shinji and Asuka," Misato whispered. "Oh dear god, would someone please tell me what is happening out there?"
Shinji chopped power to his bikes engines, and skidded the thing sideways. The strange orange glow, which had been around him earlier, flared into an almost solid wave of color on the other side of the bike, as if he were skidding through a puddle of water. When the bike came to a stop, he was parked across the runway, a good 200 meters short of the end of the tarmac. There was no way she could avoid seeing him now. She'd see him, and HAVE to stop.
Asuka's plane closed in. Gathering speed. The engines were straining, sounding like they would rip themselves out of the plane, and continue on into the sky on their own. He could see a strange orange glow coming from beneath the nose and forward wing flaps.
"Phone... Dial Asuka... Flight" His cell immediately dialed the headset in Asuka's helmet. After several moments she answered.
"WHAT?"
"Asuka stop, we need to talk," said Shinji.
"About what. About how you set me up, and then proceeded to humiliate me in front of EVERYBODY?"
"Asuka, no, I didn't do that to you. I could never do that to you. We need to talk about US, about what just happened, about... you know you're coming towards me really fast?"
"Get out of the way Third Child, or I swear I'll run you over."
"Asuka, you haven't called me that since the first day after we awakened. Do you have to start now Asuka-Chan?"
"Don't you dare use that tone with me Shinji Ikari, it won't do you any good. I am the great Asuka Langley Soryu, and I will NOT be stopped by the likes of you."
"If you want to get airborne Asuka, you're gonna have to go thru me. Can you do that Asuka? Can you kill a man in cold blood, just because he's trying to tell you that he's in love with you?" he asked. The orange motes around Asuka's leading edge surfaces surged in intensity and seemed to be straining to lift the plane before it reached him.
Shinji didn't hear any response from her, only her labored breathing. It sounded as if she were crying.
"Asuka. Please. Don't do this," he said, holding his arms out in front of him. He didn't notice the orange glow that surrounded him building in intensity. Now so bright that Toji, Kensuke, and Hikari could see its blinding flash from clear across the airfield.
"ASUKA!" he screamed, sounding like some kind of wounded dying animal.
"LEAVE ME ALONE!" Asuka shouted at the same instant, pulling up on the stick, and sailing over the head of Shinji, her plane's entire underbelly covered with a similar flaring orange glow.
The turbulence of her passing flashed over Shinji, as he and his bike were lifted into the air, and thrown into the bog at the end of the runway, now surrounded by the strange orange glow. Shinji came to rest almost 50 meters inside the bog at the end of the runway, and the lights surrounding his unconscious form began to fade.
"She's Airborne Commander," Shigeru reported.
"Patch me into her," Misato said.
Soft crying met her initial fury, and tempered her reaction.
"Asuka, Asuka is that you? Can you hear me?"
"I can hear you Misato," Asuka sniffed.
"Asuka honey, why don't you land that thing so we can all sit down and have a nice talk. Okay?" Misato said in her best 'understanding mother' tone.
"No."
"Why not?"
"You know why. Shinji, that idiot, embarrassed me in front of all those people," she sobbed. 'Still it was an incredible kiss,' a part of her thought.
"I don't see how. You were only doing what came natural. There's nothing to be embarrassed about."
"Kissing Shinji is NOT Natural Misato!" Asuka shouted. 'No matter how much you enjoyed it,' that small part within her asked.
"Somehow I think that that isn't how you really feel. I know, I was there, I saw how happy you looked. How happy you BOTH looked. Now turn that plane around, and we'll have a nice talk. Woman to woman," Misato said hopefully.
"Don't remind me. I'll never be able to live this down," she said. "Just leave me alone, I need to be alone to think about this, alright." 'Why do you need to think? You know where you belong. Give up you're pride and admit your feelings. Go back to him," the voice was urging.
"Asuka, where are you going?"
"I don't know Misato, I just don't know. But I know I can't come back there. I need to think about some things."
"Are you thinking about how much Shinji loves you Asuka? Are you? Did he tell you that before you ran him down? That's all he could think about as he left the Temple, you know that Asuka. We haven't heard from Aida and Suzuhara yet, they were looking for his body the last communication we had with them. Do you think it was worth his life, for him to tell you how he felt? How he's always felt?" Misato cried into the cell phone.
"Shinji loved you Asuka, and now he's probably dead. Kind of a high price to pay for loving someone don't you think?"
There was no response from Asuka, only a strange silence, and the growing static of a poor communications link.
"Asuka, can you hear me, Asuka you're breaking up, come in. Shigeru get her back."
"Sorry ma'am she's out of range."
"DAMN!" Misato swore thumping her hand on her steering wheel. "Alright Shigeru, thanks for helping with that. Now, do you have any more information about what caused the code orange and those AT fields?"
"Nothing Commander. They've both gone silent too."
"I want to see all the data you can give me when I get there. Kaji and I should be there inside of 5 minutes.
"Roger Ma'am, we'll have everything ready for you. Aoba out."
"Well, all in all, I think this is one of the most exciting wedding days I've ever heard of," Kaji said, smiling.
"Stuff it Kaji," Misato said bluntly.
On the airfield, Toji squealed his 4Runner to a stop at the end of the runway. The reeds leading into the bog at the end of the runway were broken and scattered like someone had mown a path through them with a brush cutter. Toji, Kensuke, and Hikari jumped out of the SUV, and Toji and Kensuke crashed into the water, searching for Shinji. They found his bike first. The beautiful and sculptured lines of the bike had been shattered, the turbulence of the fighter's close passage had thrown it more than 230 yards from where Shinji had abandoned it, in a last, desperate, attempt to stop Asuka. The front half of the bike was on one side of the path through the reeds, and the other half was on the other side. They kept looking, not seeing any sign of Shinji's Jacket or his Helmet.
"Over here, Toji, look," Kensuke called. He'd seen something. It was Shinji's black motorcycle helmet. Designed to take a tremendous impact and protect the cranium of the wearer, it was split and splintered, the carbon fiber shell shredded and scarred.
"Oh Jeez," Toji swore softly, "Kensuke, buddy, we've got to find him. He isn't gonna be walking away from this one.
"Do you see anything?" Hikari called.
"No babe, nothing, Call Misato, and have her scramble an EMS crew, and get the emergency room prepped for us."
"OH GOD NO! SHINJI!" Toji turned at the anguished cry behind him. Kensuke was splashing through the bog, and bent over to lift something black and limp from the water.
"NO! SHINJI! NO!" he wailed, as Toji approached. Shinji seemed oddly at peace, but he was covered in scratches and blood. His jacket had been ripped to shreds and there was blood pouring out of several places on his head. His face was covered in it, and his hair was matted with it.
"Aida. AIDA! Is he breathing?" Toji shouted bending down to help his distraught friend with his burden. "Help me lift him Kensuke. We've got to get him out of this bog." They both lifted Shinji up, trying to be careful with him, but frequently dropping or banging some part of Shinji as they maneuvered out of the bog.
"Oh Shinji, no." Hikari gasped.
Toji and Kensuke laid Shinji down on the ground, and Toji checked for a pulse.
"No breathing, no heartbeat. Great! Hikari, call Misato back and tell her we need a life flight. If they don't get Shinji to the hospital five minutes ago he's dead."
Hikari burst into tears and redialed Asuka, choking she managed to get out Suzuhara's message. "Misato wants to know if you know CPR."
"Yeah, I know it. Starting now. Come on Aida, I'll do chest compressions, and you breathe for him. AIDA! Snap out of it! If you seize up now, Shinji's dead."
Aida bent over, cleared Shinji's airway, and began to breathe for him. Toji, meanwhile, had ripped Shinji's shirt open, and, finding the spot that their Health teacher had shown them, began chest compressions. He heard the bones on Shinji's chest snap with a sickening crack, but kept going. If he lived he'd have broken ribs, and a pulse. If he died, they wouldn't matter.
Toji began his count, "One, two, three, four, five, BREATHE. One, two, three, four, five, BREATHE." They continued this for a full minute, and then stopped to see if he was breathing on his own. No dice, but Toji thought he detected a weak pulse. "I think his hearts beating Aida, but don't stop breathing for him," Kensuke said, and Aida went back to work. The screech of a VTOL coming in over the field told Toji and Hikari that Misato had already been thinking that way. The VTOL was painted the White and red that meant it belonged to the hospital. It dropped onto the field, engines still revving, as it eased towards the tarmac where Shinji lay.
The crew piled out the back of the VTOL before the pilot finished setting them down.
"Stand back, we've got him," the lead EMT said. The EMT's quickly accessed Shinji and determined that his heart was beating very faintly, and he was breathing in fits.
"Jesus kid, don't die on us, not after everything you've done," the EMT whispered.
"Good job you three. You can come with us, if you want," he said.
Suzuhara nodded, and helped the Paramedics lift Shinji onto the backboard, and then on to the stretcher. He and the others followed the paramedics to the back of he waiting VTOL, where they all piled in.
"Roger that, lifting now, estimated time is four minutes. Tell Commander Katsuraki umm... Commander Ryoji, that she should meet us in the hospital. Tell her he's 01 Critical. Roger. Air Rescue one, out."
Kensuke, hearing the pilots' cryptic message, gasped and turned to stare at Shinji, as he fought for his life. The current military medical vernacular defined an 01 Critical case as a severely injured patient that the EMT's presumed would be DOA. The EMT was telling them that in his expert opinion Shinji had only a 1% chance of making the hospital alive.
'This can't be,' Aida thought to himself, 'Shinji's saved the world all by himself at least a dozen times. Heck he's the reason we're all still here. This can't be how it ends for him, it just can't.'
Aida felt the VTOL shift and a heavy thump hit him as they landed in the hospital parking lot. Nurses and doctors swarmed out of the doors to the hospital, and rushed to meet the EMT's. Quickly gathering Shinji's gurney, they whisked him away to the emergency room. The teens ran to follow, but were directed to a nearby waiting room before they could go into the Emergency room with him.
Hikari, Kensuke, and Toji collapsed onto the couches of the waiting room and tried not to think about what could happen to Shinji. Suddenly Hikari burst into tears, and, as if the floodgates had opened, Toji and Kensuke began to weep as well. The three friends huddled close together, crouched on the floor, and prayed for a miracle. In their experience, these were very often answered.
Next on Episode 2:08 of Neon Genesis Evangelion As Shinji lies in a hospital bed, his future uncertain, two mysterious objects fall from the sky. The mystery of the orange lights will be revealed, and a startling series of events will occur heralding the arrival of a new darkness on the horizon.
It's Evangelion Episode 2:08 Messages from the Choir.
Episode 2:07 Goodbye is never a good thing to say.
Takes place after 1st season, and the End of Evangelion Movie.
Presumed date is Saturday June 11th, 2016
"Toji, slow down, you're gonna kill us all," Hikari said from the back seat.
"Then you better put your seat belt on, so the Ambulance driver doesn't have to look for the bodies babe," Toji said through gritted teeth, as he mashed the accelerator to the floor, and the tires on his Toyota 4Runner squealed.
Cutting across people's lawns, and taking the corners wide, Toji Suzuhara was driving like a madman, and Kensuke Aida, his best friend, was beginning to wonder if it had been a mistake to let him drive. Even if there was no longer any government to regulate drivers licenses and levy fines, by popular consensus, there were some people who just should not be allowed to drive until they were more mature. Toji was making Hikari and Kensuke believe that he might be one of these people.
Toji blew through several intersections, not even taking notice of the traffic control signs. Stop, yield, slow, none of them mattered as he pelted toward home. The tires squealed one last time, as Toji stomped the brakes, and skidded sideways to stop in front of Hikari and Asuka's home.
"I don't see the car, but it might be around back or in the garage," Hikari said. "We should go check."
The three teenagers piled out of the car, and headed into the house. There was no sign of Asuka's presence, and no sign that she'd been here recently.
"Great. Well?" Toji asked.
"The base," Hikari said.
Meanwhile back at Misato and Kaji's wedding reception, Shinji had recovered a little more since Doctor Akagi had helped him out by giving him a sniff of smelling salts, and some chamomile tea.
"Why, Misato? Why did she leave me like that? Everything was perfect, and then from out of nowhere WHAM! Utter chaos."
"I don't know Shinji, I can only guess. Ritsuko?" Misato asked, turning.
"Well, I suppose the most likely cause would be that Asuka has yet to let go of her baggage."
"Meaning?" Misato asked.
"Meaning that, like Shinji here, Asuka had a lot of emotional problems, stemming from a very traumatic childhood. If I could hazard a guess, I'd say that she's been keeping everything bottled up inside, but its slowly been seeping out of her. Today, when she kissed Shinji, everything rushed to the surface at once, like a damn breaking. When the kiss ended so abruptly, she could only feel ashamed that she had been enjoying something so wonderful, and, was unwilling to let the other baggage just slide. She probably assumed in that moment that this had all been a trap, and, in a sense, it was, it just didn't come from the person she thought it did. She couldn't see this for the opportunity it was, and, instead, she saw it as another chance to be hurt by someone she cared about and ran away from it."
"But where has she run off too?" Misato asked.
"I bet I know where," Shinji said, sitting up, and drying his eyes. Turning to Misato, he hugged her quickly, and then stood back taking off his tux jacket. "Hang onto this for me will you Misato. I'm going to go get Asuka."
"Sure thing Shinji," Misato said, as he turned and started to run out of the room.
"And Shinji?" she said.
"Yes?" He said, turning to look expectantly at her.
"Make sure you tell her," she said.
Shinji nodded, knowing instinctively what it was he had to tell Asuka. He ran out through the hall, and into the hatcheck room. There, on a peg on the wall, was his helmet and leather jacket. Quickly donning them, he ran out the front door to the temple and jumped on his bike. Shoving the key in the ignition, he triggered the starter, and gunned the motorcycle out of the parking lot, leaving a cloud of smoke and several millimeters of his tire behind.
"Don't you dare run out on me Asuka. I'm not going to let you go that easily," he said to himself, gritting his teeth together as he wound the bike wide open, heading for the NERV Landing field.
"So why are we heading for the landing field, Hikari?" Toji asked, as they screamed though another intersection.
"Asuka once told me that the only time she was ever really at peace these days was when she was running flat out in the sky over the ocean in that F- 22 Raptor she pilots on long range Air Patrols."
"Great, so the only time she's happy is when she's flying a multi-Billion yen fighter plane," Toji said.
Kensuke Aida thought that that WOULD be great, but he wasn't about to say that to Toji right now.
"TOJI LOOK OUT!" Kensuke shouted.
Toji swerved, over corrected, fishtailed, and spent several seconds recovering from the near accident, as a black and gold street bike screamed through the intersection they were crossing, and turned up the road they were following. Strange orange sparkles were dancing around the edges of the bike, as it wobbled slightly, and then straightened out, accelerating away from them.
"That's Shinji's bike isn't it?" Toji asked.
"Yes, it is, he's gotta be heading for the Airfield as well," Hikari said. 'How romantic,' she thought, sighing.
"Toji, you're gonna loose him, step on it," Kensuke urged, grabbing Toji's arm.
"Lay off will you, I picked this thing out because I thought I'd use it for some 4x4 fun. It's not a sport model like Shinji's Bike or Asuka's BMW,' Toji said, shrugging off Kensuke.
Deep within the heart of the former NERV Nagoya-2 Emergency Facility, the super computer known as "The Shepherd" registered several brief but distinct events. Long unused circuits tripped an alert, and alarms began to sound throughout the facility. Makato Hyuga sat bolt upright in his chair and stared at the screen.
"Huh? Pattern Orange, AT Field detected. What the hell?" he shouted. "Someone get hold of Commander Katsuragi."
"It's Commander Ryoji, by now Makato," said Shigeru Aoba. "She's getting married today, or did you forget?"
"I didn't forget, but this is more important than that."
Shigeru looked at his screen more closely, and nodded. "I hate to admit it, but I think you're right. Do it."
Not waiting to be told again, Makato stabbed at the "Emergency Alert" button on his console. Across the city, hundreds of cell phones went off, the recorded message informing their owners to report to combat stations.
"This is the part I hate. I wish Maya were here to take care of this, she always dealt better with Misato than I did," Shigeru noted. He lifted his cell phone, and punched in the Commander's number.
"What now?" Misato asked, opening her phone and taking the call.
"We've got a situation here ma'am. You need to report at once," came Shigeru's voice from the Operations Center.
"Alright, we'll be there in ten," she said, hanging up.
"So much for the Honeymoon," Kaji said, pinching Misato's butt as she ran towards the front door of the Temple; a dozen other personnel, including her husband, right behind her.
"Come on, come ON! Must... Go... FASTER..." Shinji said this last through gritted teeth. The high performance bike was locked firmly into 7th gear, and the RPM's were redlining dangerously at over 11000. The bike was still accelerating up through 250, 270 290 kph, and still climbing. Shinji came over a small rise overlooking the JSDF Airfield, and the bike came free of the ground. Orange sparks were now flying all around the bike, but he failed to notice them, so fixed on his target was he. He had sailed almost 300 yards before the rear wheel of the bike touched back down, and the shock slammed the front wheel to the ground violently. A shower of orange sparks flew up around the bike at the impact, as if he had landed in some kind of orange puddle, and the water had been kicked up into the air.
Shinji grabbed the rear brake, and the friction slowed the bike, and straightened it out before it could fishtail out of control. Shinji could see a clear shot of the field from here, and noticed a bright red F-22 Raptor easing down the taxiway, heading for the only runway long enough for the F-22 to launch from.
"Not that easily you don't," he shouted, as his bike closed in on the fighter plane.
"YAAAAAHOOOOOOOO!" Kensuke and Toji shouted as the 4x4 caught air coming over the same hill Shinji had. Landing much short of his mark, however, Toji controlled the bouncing rig as it tried to swerve left and right. Kensuke's cell phone rang, and he answered it.
"Hello? Hey guys its Misato. Hey Misato, what's up? No, no we haven't caught up with Asuka yet. But I think Shinji's about to. Where? The Airfield. Shinji's chasing her Raptor on his bike, and I think he's actually gonna catch her before she can lift off, if you can believe that. Well no, I hadn't thought about that, and I bet Shinji hasn't either. Hey, Suzuhara, is there any way you can think of that Shinji can stop Asuka from taking off?"
Suzuhara blanched white. "No way, Dude. That Jet is at least 50 times heavier than his bike. If he tries to get in front of it to stop it, he's toast. Besides, even if it did stop her, taking out the nose wheel would probably cause the plane to flip. It'd kill Asuka, and probably Shinji."
"I was afraid of that," Kensuke groaned. "What? What's that Misato? I don't know if we can, but we'll try to get his attention. Hit the Horn and lights Toji."
Toji responded by pressing both thumbs into the buttons that activated the horn, and using the smallest finger on his left hand to turn his headlights on and off.
"Damn it Shinji, this is NOT the time for you to pull this crap," Misato growled as her car sped towards the monorail station leading to the underground command center.
"Call him at his second number," Kaji said.
"What? His second, oh, right, his helmet has a built in cellular unit. Damn it. Hang on," she said, as they cut across a parking lot, instead of traveling another 400 feet to the intersection and turning onto the connecting road.
Misato thumbed through her cell phones directory, eventually finding the listing for Shinji with two numbers highlighted. She punched the selector to choose the second number and hit send.
Shinji heard the soft musical tune that meant someone was calling him over his helmet system.
"Phone. Answer," he said, and the cellular unit built into his helmet accepted the voice cue, and connected the call.
"Shinji what the HELL are you doing!" she shouted.
"I'm going to stop Asuka and make her talk to me."
"No, you're not, you're about to get run over by a massive fighter aircraft, and splattered all across the tarmac of that runway. Let her go. She's not going to go far, and I'm sure she'll come back when she's had a chance to calm down."
"Huh? How did you know I'm on the runway?"
"Aida told me. They're not far behind you, but to far away to be of any use," she said.
At this, Shinji looked up at the rear view monitor mounted over his steering column. Sure enough, there was Toji's SUV, just coming through the airfield gates, lights flashing.
"Are you going to stop? Kensuke says she's left the taxi-way, and is gathering speed for takeoff," Misato asked.
"Not yet. Sorry Misato, but if she wants to be the one to run away this time, she's got to go through me," Shinji said.
"Phone... Off."
Misato's line went dead. It was just as well, Kaji was handing her his cell phone.
"Commander? This is Shigeru. Sorry to ruin this day for you, but we've detected a pattern Orange and what appears now to be two separate AT fields. The contact is intermittent, at best, but they're definitely there, and they're building in power."
"Pattern Orange? But that's an EVA signature. What the hell is going on, I thought all the EVA's were destroyed."
"Not quite ma'am, Unit-01 wasn't destroyed, it's still in high Lunar Orbit. We're still monitoring it, but it's not what's generating this signatures. Whatever it is, its' coming from the Airfield."
"Shinji and Asuka," Misato whispered. "Oh dear god, would someone please tell me what is happening out there?"
Shinji chopped power to his bikes engines, and skidded the thing sideways. The strange orange glow, which had been around him earlier, flared into an almost solid wave of color on the other side of the bike, as if he were skidding through a puddle of water. When the bike came to a stop, he was parked across the runway, a good 200 meters short of the end of the tarmac. There was no way she could avoid seeing him now. She'd see him, and HAVE to stop.
Asuka's plane closed in. Gathering speed. The engines were straining, sounding like they would rip themselves out of the plane, and continue on into the sky on their own. He could see a strange orange glow coming from beneath the nose and forward wing flaps.
"Phone... Dial Asuka... Flight" His cell immediately dialed the headset in Asuka's helmet. After several moments she answered.
"WHAT?"
"Asuka stop, we need to talk," said Shinji.
"About what. About how you set me up, and then proceeded to humiliate me in front of EVERYBODY?"
"Asuka, no, I didn't do that to you. I could never do that to you. We need to talk about US, about what just happened, about... you know you're coming towards me really fast?"
"Get out of the way Third Child, or I swear I'll run you over."
"Asuka, you haven't called me that since the first day after we awakened. Do you have to start now Asuka-Chan?"
"Don't you dare use that tone with me Shinji Ikari, it won't do you any good. I am the great Asuka Langley Soryu, and I will NOT be stopped by the likes of you."
"If you want to get airborne Asuka, you're gonna have to go thru me. Can you do that Asuka? Can you kill a man in cold blood, just because he's trying to tell you that he's in love with you?" he asked. The orange motes around Asuka's leading edge surfaces surged in intensity and seemed to be straining to lift the plane before it reached him.
Shinji didn't hear any response from her, only her labored breathing. It sounded as if she were crying.
"Asuka. Please. Don't do this," he said, holding his arms out in front of him. He didn't notice the orange glow that surrounded him building in intensity. Now so bright that Toji, Kensuke, and Hikari could see its blinding flash from clear across the airfield.
"ASUKA!" he screamed, sounding like some kind of wounded dying animal.
"LEAVE ME ALONE!" Asuka shouted at the same instant, pulling up on the stick, and sailing over the head of Shinji, her plane's entire underbelly covered with a similar flaring orange glow.
The turbulence of her passing flashed over Shinji, as he and his bike were lifted into the air, and thrown into the bog at the end of the runway, now surrounded by the strange orange glow. Shinji came to rest almost 50 meters inside the bog at the end of the runway, and the lights surrounding his unconscious form began to fade.
"She's Airborne Commander," Shigeru reported.
"Patch me into her," Misato said.
Soft crying met her initial fury, and tempered her reaction.
"Asuka, Asuka is that you? Can you hear me?"
"I can hear you Misato," Asuka sniffed.
"Asuka honey, why don't you land that thing so we can all sit down and have a nice talk. Okay?" Misato said in her best 'understanding mother' tone.
"No."
"Why not?"
"You know why. Shinji, that idiot, embarrassed me in front of all those people," she sobbed. 'Still it was an incredible kiss,' a part of her thought.
"I don't see how. You were only doing what came natural. There's nothing to be embarrassed about."
"Kissing Shinji is NOT Natural Misato!" Asuka shouted. 'No matter how much you enjoyed it,' that small part within her asked.
"Somehow I think that that isn't how you really feel. I know, I was there, I saw how happy you looked. How happy you BOTH looked. Now turn that plane around, and we'll have a nice talk. Woman to woman," Misato said hopefully.
"Don't remind me. I'll never be able to live this down," she said. "Just leave me alone, I need to be alone to think about this, alright." 'Why do you need to think? You know where you belong. Give up you're pride and admit your feelings. Go back to him," the voice was urging.
"Asuka, where are you going?"
"I don't know Misato, I just don't know. But I know I can't come back there. I need to think about some things."
"Are you thinking about how much Shinji loves you Asuka? Are you? Did he tell you that before you ran him down? That's all he could think about as he left the Temple, you know that Asuka. We haven't heard from Aida and Suzuhara yet, they were looking for his body the last communication we had with them. Do you think it was worth his life, for him to tell you how he felt? How he's always felt?" Misato cried into the cell phone.
"Shinji loved you Asuka, and now he's probably dead. Kind of a high price to pay for loving someone don't you think?"
There was no response from Asuka, only a strange silence, and the growing static of a poor communications link.
"Asuka, can you hear me, Asuka you're breaking up, come in. Shigeru get her back."
"Sorry ma'am she's out of range."
"DAMN!" Misato swore thumping her hand on her steering wheel. "Alright Shigeru, thanks for helping with that. Now, do you have any more information about what caused the code orange and those AT fields?"
"Nothing Commander. They've both gone silent too."
"I want to see all the data you can give me when I get there. Kaji and I should be there inside of 5 minutes.
"Roger Ma'am, we'll have everything ready for you. Aoba out."
"Well, all in all, I think this is one of the most exciting wedding days I've ever heard of," Kaji said, smiling.
"Stuff it Kaji," Misato said bluntly.
On the airfield, Toji squealed his 4Runner to a stop at the end of the runway. The reeds leading into the bog at the end of the runway were broken and scattered like someone had mown a path through them with a brush cutter. Toji, Kensuke, and Hikari jumped out of the SUV, and Toji and Kensuke crashed into the water, searching for Shinji. They found his bike first. The beautiful and sculptured lines of the bike had been shattered, the turbulence of the fighter's close passage had thrown it more than 230 yards from where Shinji had abandoned it, in a last, desperate, attempt to stop Asuka. The front half of the bike was on one side of the path through the reeds, and the other half was on the other side. They kept looking, not seeing any sign of Shinji's Jacket or his Helmet.
"Over here, Toji, look," Kensuke called. He'd seen something. It was Shinji's black motorcycle helmet. Designed to take a tremendous impact and protect the cranium of the wearer, it was split and splintered, the carbon fiber shell shredded and scarred.
"Oh Jeez," Toji swore softly, "Kensuke, buddy, we've got to find him. He isn't gonna be walking away from this one.
"Do you see anything?" Hikari called.
"No babe, nothing, Call Misato, and have her scramble an EMS crew, and get the emergency room prepped for us."
"OH GOD NO! SHINJI!" Toji turned at the anguished cry behind him. Kensuke was splashing through the bog, and bent over to lift something black and limp from the water.
"NO! SHINJI! NO!" he wailed, as Toji approached. Shinji seemed oddly at peace, but he was covered in scratches and blood. His jacket had been ripped to shreds and there was blood pouring out of several places on his head. His face was covered in it, and his hair was matted with it.
"Aida. AIDA! Is he breathing?" Toji shouted bending down to help his distraught friend with his burden. "Help me lift him Kensuke. We've got to get him out of this bog." They both lifted Shinji up, trying to be careful with him, but frequently dropping or banging some part of Shinji as they maneuvered out of the bog.
"Oh Shinji, no." Hikari gasped.
Toji and Kensuke laid Shinji down on the ground, and Toji checked for a pulse.
"No breathing, no heartbeat. Great! Hikari, call Misato back and tell her we need a life flight. If they don't get Shinji to the hospital five minutes ago he's dead."
Hikari burst into tears and redialed Asuka, choking she managed to get out Suzuhara's message. "Misato wants to know if you know CPR."
"Yeah, I know it. Starting now. Come on Aida, I'll do chest compressions, and you breathe for him. AIDA! Snap out of it! If you seize up now, Shinji's dead."
Aida bent over, cleared Shinji's airway, and began to breathe for him. Toji, meanwhile, had ripped Shinji's shirt open, and, finding the spot that their Health teacher had shown them, began chest compressions. He heard the bones on Shinji's chest snap with a sickening crack, but kept going. If he lived he'd have broken ribs, and a pulse. If he died, they wouldn't matter.
Toji began his count, "One, two, three, four, five, BREATHE. One, two, three, four, five, BREATHE." They continued this for a full minute, and then stopped to see if he was breathing on his own. No dice, but Toji thought he detected a weak pulse. "I think his hearts beating Aida, but don't stop breathing for him," Kensuke said, and Aida went back to work. The screech of a VTOL coming in over the field told Toji and Hikari that Misato had already been thinking that way. The VTOL was painted the White and red that meant it belonged to the hospital. It dropped onto the field, engines still revving, as it eased towards the tarmac where Shinji lay.
The crew piled out the back of the VTOL before the pilot finished setting them down.
"Stand back, we've got him," the lead EMT said. The EMT's quickly accessed Shinji and determined that his heart was beating very faintly, and he was breathing in fits.
"Jesus kid, don't die on us, not after everything you've done," the EMT whispered.
"Good job you three. You can come with us, if you want," he said.
Suzuhara nodded, and helped the Paramedics lift Shinji onto the backboard, and then on to the stretcher. He and the others followed the paramedics to the back of he waiting VTOL, where they all piled in.
"Roger that, lifting now, estimated time is four minutes. Tell Commander Katsuraki umm... Commander Ryoji, that she should meet us in the hospital. Tell her he's 01 Critical. Roger. Air Rescue one, out."
Kensuke, hearing the pilots' cryptic message, gasped and turned to stare at Shinji, as he fought for his life. The current military medical vernacular defined an 01 Critical case as a severely injured patient that the EMT's presumed would be DOA. The EMT was telling them that in his expert opinion Shinji had only a 1% chance of making the hospital alive.
'This can't be,' Aida thought to himself, 'Shinji's saved the world all by himself at least a dozen times. Heck he's the reason we're all still here. This can't be how it ends for him, it just can't.'
Aida felt the VTOL shift and a heavy thump hit him as they landed in the hospital parking lot. Nurses and doctors swarmed out of the doors to the hospital, and rushed to meet the EMT's. Quickly gathering Shinji's gurney, they whisked him away to the emergency room. The teens ran to follow, but were directed to a nearby waiting room before they could go into the Emergency room with him.
Hikari, Kensuke, and Toji collapsed onto the couches of the waiting room and tried not to think about what could happen to Shinji. Suddenly Hikari burst into tears, and, as if the floodgates had opened, Toji and Kensuke began to weep as well. The three friends huddled close together, crouched on the floor, and prayed for a miracle. In their experience, these were very often answered.
Next on Episode 2:08 of Neon Genesis Evangelion As Shinji lies in a hospital bed, his future uncertain, two mysterious objects fall from the sky. The mystery of the orange lights will be revealed, and a startling series of events will occur heralding the arrival of a new darkness on the horizon.
It's Evangelion Episode 2:08 Messages from the Choir.