Heya guys. These next two chapters should keep you fairly satisfied for now. They're kind of serving as filler chapters, not very long… But believe me, chapter seven will be long enough to hold your interest. I'll try to update more often too, you guys have no idea how encouraging some of your reviews are. Well, I don't really have much more to say… Than get reading so… Enjoy!
Twitch
"Everybody! Prepare for an emergency! We're about to be hit by a massive quake!" Misato shouted as she rushed into the control center. "I just got a transmission from Unit-01! The angel has begun to fall apart, but will mostly still be intact when it's hits the ground within the city limits! This things made of stone, and it's at least a mile tall! You do the math!" Everybody looked at Misato awkwardly for a second.
"Well don't just sit there damnit, it's comin—" Misato was cut off and thrown off of her feet by a massive tremor that shook and rattled the inside of the control room, the rest of NERV HQ and the entire city. The power cut out instantly, but through the passageway of the ears one could hear the pandemonium of the invisible and darkened scene quite well. Laying on the ground with a fresh gash in her head, Misato watched as the lights flickered once or twice. During one of these instances in which the power flickered back on for a split second, she witnessed pure chaos. As the ground shook, she saw Dr. Akagi lose her balance and tumble down the small flight of seven or so stairs that led down to the main computer consoles of the control room. One of the monstrous computer screens on which most of the Eva's data was visible shattered in a rain of threatening glass shards. Then once again, nothing but darkness. The low ominous rumble started up again. Misato could feel it start on one side of the room, and thunder over, besides and under her through the earth near and far. Another vicious jolt upward from the ground sent her rag body sailing a foot off of the floor, the impact of the way she hit the ground so violent that she managed to break her ankle in the process.
"Geah…" She heard the groans of many personnel that were caught by surprise. Chairs rolled everywhere blindly striking out at people and inanimate objects alike with the next jolt. More glass shattered, the glittering of broken glass against the ground chiming sharply in her ears.
"Umph!" The leg of a rolling computer chair struck her in the gut , knocking the wind out of her. Others screamed and yelped in pain and helplessness. Misato tried the best to resist painting a picture in her head to match the sounds she was hearing. As suddenly as it had started, it all ended. Curling up in a fetal position she tried to gather her thoughts. Clamping both hands over her head and focusing distantly into the pitch black she noticed the dampness on her hands. She had found the source of her dizziness, a large split in her scalp that bled profusely as the direct result of striking her head against the ground.
"Shit…" The backup generators kicked on shortly after, another precaution NERV had installed during the last power outage. About half of the lights in the room illuminated, the faint glow making everything distinctly visible. "Ugh… Fuck…" Sluggishly, Misato rose to her feet. Her head was swimming, her thoughts a cancerous pool of splitting head pains and confusion balanced meticulously on her shoulders. She saw Ritsuko sitting on the ground where she had fallen. Once the lights came on she rose, and noticing Misato's dizziness bolted up to help her.
"Misato! Are you alright?" Cupping her hand around Misato's elbow, she offered her some stationary support.
"I'm ph-ph-ffffine…" She seemed to vomit her words sluggishly. "Y-y-you need t-t-to check on Aoba…" Misato's eyes half lidded, they aimed their dazed look towards the spot where Aoba lay slumped against a computer terminal.
"Aoba!" Dr. Akagi shrieked and rushed down to his side. "Aoba? Aoba!" She shook him by the shoulders profusely, but got no response. His eyes did not open, nor did he utter a word. Trying her best to retain her gruff, cold and professional exterior Ritsuko checked his pulse and breathing. "He's fine." She alerted. "Just unconscious. Is anybody else hurt?" The rest of the control room personnel responded, most stating that they only had minor injuries such as cuts or sprained joints.
"We've got to check on the rest of the terminal." Ritsuko said, trying to gather a team to search for anybody that might have been hurt.
"N-no. W-we've gotta get to Shinji and Asuka, the internal emergency response and medical team'll take care of that…" Misato's head was still swimming, but had dimmed from a maelstrom of disorientation to dizziness and slurred speech.
"Miss Katsuragi! Dr. Akagi! We've lost total contact with Unit-01!" One of the analysts alerted the two. Shortly after the generator had come on, all of the control room computers re-booted to the state they were in before the power went out. One screen was shattered, and the other was cracked down the middle. The image was slightly distorted, but it still worked so they transferred Unit-01 and 02's data feeds to the same screen.
"The last live information feed that we had from Unit-01 was the one mapping it's power usage, but judging by the sudden peak before communications were cut it looks like all power has been lost to Unit-01!" She exclaimed, concerned with the situation. It was just like that of any of the control room observers. They served as the translators between pilots and Eva's, ever concerned with any one thing hindering either in the heat of battle. Even under chaotic circumstances they were on the problem within seconds.
"W-w-what was the l-l-last recorded location of Unit-01?…" Misato questioned almost drunkenly.
"About 7.8 miles north of NERV headquarters located somewhere in the industrial section!"
"W-well I'm goin out there to check out the s-s-situation. After all of this, the entire retrieval crew's prolly forg-g-goten about them…" She started to bumble out of the control room and head for one of the personnel elevators.
"Misato wait! I'll go with you… I know I can't talk you out of going out there, but with your condition you're going to need some help. Come on." She clamped a hand on Misato's shoulder, helping to keep her stability.
"T-thanks Ritsuko" After another five minutes, they had a retrieval team together. One of them was heading towards Asuka's last recorded location. The convoy that Ritsuko and Misato rode with was on its way to retrieve Shinji and his Eva. It took the caravan about seven minutes to get to the industrial section and find Unit-01.
"Oh god… This doesn't look good…" The power to Unit-01 was indeed cut. Part of it could not be seen, for half of it's body was trapped under a boulder the size of a gas station. The Eva was stuck in a pose as it reached outward, looking as if it were trying to crawl out from under the stony abomination in it's last moments before it's energy ran out. The scene was somewhat morbid. Misato knew that the Eva could easily be repaired, but the way it desperately reached out with cold un-glowing eyes struck her negatively.
'Shit… I hope Shinji's alright…' The Eva's body structure and framework didn't look to be warped at all as it ran under the rock, so she was fairly confident that Shinji would be okay. Her speech improving some, she took charge of the situation.
"Okay! You g-guys! Back under the lip of the rock, and use the hydraulic lifts on the trucks to lift it off of the Eva!" She barked. The transport crew climbed into their vehicles. The transport trucks were monstrous. Easily doubling the size of a dump truck one would see at an Iron Range, they spanned the width of the highway. They rolled on ten massive heavy duty tires each, four in the front and six in the back to help support the dead weight of an Eva. Between the tires of the trucks standing about twenty five feet tall, a clearance of a Ten foot by Eleven foot space was allowed for most cars to travel under the fossil fueled abominations. Sometimes this was the case, because the trucks would normally take up the width of the road. Because they filed along one behind the other, the driver of the car was forced under what seemed to be a horrendously loud rolling tunnel, having not to manage under one, but four trucks. The behemoths diesel engines roared, coughed and powered to life; each one weighed in at about one-hundred tons. Backing the lips of their expansive titanium diamond plate cargo beds under the protruding part of the rock, each transport engaged it's hydraulic lift and began to lift the meteor sized boulder. The sound of stressed metal whispered through everybody's ears in a wailing moan, but Misato knew that the transports could take it. Two transports were parked on the other side facing away from the rock, prepared to take the brunt of the load when it rolled off of Unit-01. The stone began to teeter, before crashing down violently onto the beds of the other two transports. In unison they carried the boulder away and dumped the massive load before returning. By the time the two transports got back they were already working on getting the plug out.
"Come on, that's it!" They had finally managed to hook up a mobile power source to the ejection system. Ritsuko looked around thoughtfully, waiting to greet Shinji. It was then that she saw the red tint on one side of Misato's head.
"Misato!" She caught up with her, clamping a hand over her shoulder. "Misato you're bleeding from the head! Profusely I might add! You shouldn't be up like this! Go sit down, I'll take care of the rest of this." Misato shook Ritsuko's hand off of her shoulder.
"Thanks Ritsuko, but I'm fine. I have to see if Shinji's alright."
"But—"
"Ritsuko, I'm fine." Misato re-assured her as she swaggered to the side a bit. As Misato headed over to help the crew in ejecting the plug, one of the electricians approached Ritsuko.
"Why do you think the power was totally cut Dr. Akagi?"
"Your guess is as good as mine I guess. The only way I could see it happening is if the S2 engine was somehow damaged or affected."
"Guess so." The worker replied. After a few more minutes, the plug was sticking triumphantly erect from the back of the Eva's neck. They used one of the truck's cranes to pull it the rest of the way out since the Eva was face down, and set it down gently. Rushing over to the metal cylinder Misato pulled open the entry hatch. It flung open, a tide of LCL rushing over her feet as the plug emptied. She froze up the minute she looked inside. Her eyes widened in response to immediate shock of what she saw. She stood there completely motionless, not uttering a single word.
"Misato?" Ritsuko shouted. "Misato what's wrong?" Rushing to her side to witness what had rendered Misato speechless, she to dropped her jaw, swimming in disbelief as she peered inside of the plug.
