Disclaimer: Same as Chapter 1.
Chapter 44: Zechariah
Hyuga peeked his head over the top of his console and quickly stuck it back just as a fresh spray of bullets smashed into the metal paneling protecting him and his two bridge companions. Earlier than anticipated, the JSSDF had arrived at the bridge but had immediately been met with resistance. A few of the crew were already dead, but most of them were still standing, using their workstations as cover and firing the occasional round at their armor-clad attackers while the building shook slightly on occasion from the impact of a tank shell.
"It looks like we've stopped them from advancing, but their numbers aren't going down at all," the bespectacled technician said grimly.
"Damnit," Aoba groaned as he grabbed a case attached to the underside of the table. "They just keep coming--like cockroaches." Maya was crouched down as low as she could get beneath the legspace of her desk, her hands covering her ears to lessen the damage all the noise would do.
"I wonder why they're going through all this," Hyuga said as he turned to the source of all the shooting. "...They could just blow the whole damn place up if they wanted." Aoba was busy unlocking the case, marked with the emblazoned words 'FOR SELF-DEFENSE ONLY. PERSONNEL SHOULD NOT OPERATE UNLESS CLEARED TO CARRY FIREARMS BY A SUPERIOR OFFICER.'
"Hey, if we weren't sitting on the original MAGI system AND the first Evas, they probably would have." With that, he turned to Hyuga and handed him a pistol, which he took silently.
Sorry, Major...but this is one order we can't follow.
He stood up just long enough to take a few shots into the mass of black, while Maya stared at him with a flabbergasted expression on her face. She was snapped away from the oddness of seeing the reserved Hyuga firing a gun when Aoba presented one to her as well.
"I...I can't shoot this thing!" the girl said with apprehension as she stared at the thing.
"You've fired one in basic-- we all had to!"
"B-but that was different!" Maya yelled back over the gunfire. "I can't shoot at human beings!"
At that moment a soldier appeared beside Maya, running towards them with his rifle at the ready. Before he could fire, Aoba noticed him and shot twice, bringing the trooper crashing to the ground. Maya's eyes widened as she saw the man's blood slowly begin to pool around him.
"Idiot!" Aoba said angrily at his friend. "You think they're going to hesitate? Either you kill or you die!"
Maya's hand tightened around the pistol as she cowered silently beneath the desk.
"General, we've found Unit-02!" The commanding officer of the siege troops turned to his subordinate upon hearing this news.
"...Are you sure?"
"Positive sir! It's at the bottom of the Geo-Front lake-- we're flushing it out as we speak!"
Asuka heard and felt the depth charges exploding just around Unit-02, the closer ones actually jostling her around in the Entry Plug. She tried to keep her head straight, to remember that such weak explosive had no hope of damaging the Eva, but somehow each shock wave seemed to scare her more than the previous.
Why am I afraid...?
This was what she'd wanted, after all. What she had quietly prayed for the entire time she had laid in that hospital bed after she'd realized that the one person she had trusted...who she had...cared about...had been lying to her from the start. His compassion, his kindness, all of it... She wanted to lay down and die, just so the pain in her heart might lessen.
I was...just used...like...like a doll.
A worthless paper doll.
Not even worthy of being alive.
But if I were to die... then...what will happen to me?
For the first time in her life, Asuka accepted that she was afraid.
She curled up into a ball, her arms wrapped around her knees as she tried to ignore the blasts around her, quietly whispering into the silence of the Entry Plug.
"...I don't want to die.
I don't want to die
I don't want to die
I don't want to die
I don't want to die..."
If I die... then that's it. I'll disappear. I'll be gone. Just like mom...
"Mom..." She prayed helplessly, all the pride that she had once possessed gone in this one moment. "...I don't... I don't want to... Mom... I...I DON'T WANT TO DIE!" Asuka screamed. At first nothing happened. Then she suddenly felt an incredible, peaceful warmth surround her. She couldn't say where it came from, but suddenly she saw someone in her mind's eye. A gentle woman...her red hair perfectly offset by sterling blue irises. Eyes that radiated not madness but lucidity and love.
It was you, Asuka realized with a growing smile. You were watching me all along...Momma!
The VTOLs busy dropping depth charges into the lake only saw a growing red shape rushing up at them from the depths of the water. Before they could attempt to fly a safe distance away, Unit-02 burst through the surface of the lake, smashing any planes that happened to be in its path as it threw itself onto dry land. It succeeded in landing on its feet, crushing a few nearby tanks in the process. Asuka let out a bloodthirsty howl as she backhanded a few of VTOLs foolish enough to come within the Eva's reach, swatting them like oversized flies.
"...Asuka?" Maya's shocked and concerned voice came over the communicator. "Are you all right?" Asuka allowed herself one of her trademark confident smirks.
"Never better." Without another word, the redhead took off on a run, the leapt with all the might she could muster to the very top of the Geo-Front's dome. She nearly lost her balance as the unsupported piece of land began to crumble beneath her. The tanks and missle trucks still on the surface began to shoot frantically at Unit-02, which only served to annoy Asuka. "DO YOU REALLY THINK THAT YOU BASTARDS COULD KILL ME?" She screamed as she backflipped to the opposite end of the gap just as the ground collapsed, sending armored vehicles and debris raining down on the Geo-Front.
Suddenly the screen alerted her to a missle lock. Asuka turned around just in time to see a line of missle batteries scattered among the far-off ruins of Tokyo-3. She waited until she saw the flares of the missles being launched into the air before running full speed at the decimated cityscape. A few of the rockets hit the ground around her or came dangerously close to making contact, but she either dodged or leapt into the air to throw them off.
"I CAN'T BE KILLED BY ANYONE! NOT WHILE MOMMA'S PROTECTING ME!" Once Asuka reached the offending vehicles, she waited for just long enough for the missles to catch up with her, then jumped away too fast for the rockets to compensate for Unit-02's remarkable speed. The street lit up with fire and shrapnel as the intimidating form of the blood-red Eva towered over the wreckage triumphantly.
"That loathsome Evangelion," SEELE-09 growled to his companions darkly.
"An entire batallion decimated within a matter of minutes."
"The time has finally come to use our trump card."
"Indeed. Send out Units-05 through 13 at once!"
"Section 27, Floor 9 secure! Moving on to Sections 28 and 29..."
"Repeat, we've been immobilized on Floor 13! Bakelite levels rising steadily-- we can't hold it off..."
"We've established a perimeter around Area G-- proceeding to sweep the area..."
"Meeting increased resistance in the Command Center; looking for alternate flanking routes..."
Misato listened carefully to the enemy's radio chatter through the filched headset. Based on what she heard, she lead Shinji one direction and then another to avoid detection. The only drawback was that they were having to take a roundabout path to their destination, which was taking precious time. After what felt like an eternity of walking, Misato finally came to a stop outsid a steel door.
"All right, beyond this room's an elevator. That's where we need to g--" She stopped as a fresh wave of talking flooded the earpiece.
"We've got all the elevators on levels 09 through 06 secured-- guards are standing by. Kill anyone who approaches on sight." The Major turned slightly pale upon hearing this. This elevator led straight to the Cage...If they couldn't use that then they'd have to take the long way up and find a free one before the JSSDF cut them off.
I don't have time for this, she grimaced to herself as her thoughts fell onto the Commander. He's probably already at Terminal Dogma by now...
She pulled Shinji along a little ways farther to a set of stairs.
"Well, it's a long climb," she said with an out-of-place grin, "...but it's the only chance we've got." She took Shinji by the wrist as they began to ascend the staircase. They were nearly halfway to Level 05 when an armed soldier suddenly appeared out of the door to Level 07. The soldier and Misato stared at each other for about half a second before both fired. The Major was just a bit faster, which ended up saving her life. The now-dead warrior's body weight and inertia threw him over the guardrail, creating a loud smash as it hit the stairs. Misato didn't have time to breathe before voices began to drift up from the hallways below her.
"What was that?"
"I heard a shot-- no wait, two!"
"It came from the stairwell..."
Misato turned to Shinji, who was a few feet behind her, a shell-shocked expression on his face.
"RUN!" she yelled as she pulled his arm so hard that she nearly yanked it out of its socket.
"Asuka, can you hear me?"
"Loud and clear, Captain Ibuki," the redhead sarcastically addressed the woman on the other end of the communicator. In fact, Maya's voice was just barely audible over the sound of gunfire and some isolated explosions. "Hey, are you guys gonna be alright down there?"
"We'll manage. Listen, radar's picked op a group of objects heading toward your location-- they're moving pretty fast." Asuka furrowed her brow slightly. She didn't want to deal with the military any more than she had to.
"What is it-- more air support?"
"Well, I'm not sure...It's definitely something strange, but I can't tell without a concrete visual."
"Where are they coming from?"
"They should be there in about 15 seconds, heading due south." Asuka studied the sky where Maya had instructed until she saw something in the distance.
"...It looks kind of like a flock of birds. Wait..." Upon closer inspection, Unit-02's pilot realized that whatever they were, 'birds' was certainly not it. In fact they looked almost humanoid. Perfectly white with huge albatross wings on their backs... Maya gasped on the other end of the line.
"Th-those are... that's the Mass-Produced model!" Asuka looked up at the bleached monstrosities, now circling above her head like vultures.
"The Eva series...It's been completed?"
"Asuka, don't worry; Misato's getting Shinji. We'll send him out as soon as he gets to the Cage. Just hold them off as long as you c--"
"...No." Maya blinked at Asuka's blatant rejection of assistance, then turned angry.
"Asuka, this isn't a game! Those things will kill you! Just swallow your pride and wait for Unit-01 to--"
"My pride..." Asuka said dangerously into the speaker, "...has nothing to do with this. Keep Shinji and Unit-01 as far away from here as you can. Any weapons you could get me are more than welcome, though." Maya was silent as she stared at the small feed showing the nine Evas slowly making their way down.
"...All right, Asuka. I'll have all available lifts bring you what we can."
"Understood," the redhead said before cutting off the connection.
Shinji...
I know that you can never forgive me for what I did...
I was wrong.
So... Just this once...let me protect you.