Neon Genesis Evangelion: Altered Destinies

Launch Twenty Nine

"What's the situation?" a visibly tired Gendo Ikari asked. He, along with the rest of the staff had been up most of the night as the battle raged on out in the city, and the exhaustion was starting to show.

"The Bardiel contagion has apparently been cleansed, though NERV will continue to closely monitor reports from the city," Ritsuko said tiredly. "Tokyo-3 suffered significant damage from the angel's material assimilation ability, and civilian casualties were high," she added. Personally she expected him not to care about the last bit, but she felt the need to have it on record anyway.

Gendo indeed seemed rather uncaring as he said, "I understand the military suffered heavy losses?" He smiled slightly as he noted, "Hopefully they will listen to us next time."

Ritsuko did her best to drive away the urge to slap that smirk off his face, but it was hard. "You might want to watch the helmet cams of the attack," she said stiffly, "you might find it enlightening."

Gendo didn't react to the snipe, instead continuing, "As I understand it, there have also been losses at the school the First uis attending. If there have been losses to potential pilots, please adjust our data accordingly."

'Oh hell,' Ritsuko thought, mentally praying it wasn't any of Shinji or the other's friends. They had enough stress to deal with. "I'll check into it," she promised.

Not much later Misato was visiting the school, along with Ritsuko. "Why do I have to go along?" Misato complained.

"Moral support," Ritsuko said dryly. "Besides I want us to look in on Shinji and the others too," she added.

"Did we get confirmation on losses?" Misato had to ask.

"There are still a lot of people missing," Ritsuko hedged before adding, "but losses are estimated at over 500 people, NOT counting the missing."

"And if we add those in?" Misato had to ask.

"Over a 1000," Ritsuko sighed.

The principal of the school was a older man, mostly bald and visibly worned down by the passage of years. Still, he greeted them firmly and waved them to two chairs. "You probably won't hear this too often," he said, "but thank you. You and your pilots may have saved a lot of lives."

"Thank you," Ritsuko nodded.

"May not hear it often?" Misato echoed questioningly.

"There is a lot of anger out there from people who lost friends and family," he answered gravely, "most of which is aimed at the Angels. But there is also anger directed at NERV."

"Understandable, really," Ritsuko sighed tiredly, "they wouldn't be targets if they weren't here."

"Please don't give them more ammo, Rits," Misato said, elbowing her in the side.

"Anyway, I understand you'll need access to our files," the principal continued, "that has been cleared, as usual."

"Thank you," Misato stopped to shake his hand before they left.

"Nurse's office," Ritsuko lead the way as they covertly peeked into classrooms.

The school hadn't exactly been packed before the crisis, with the decline in population after Second Impact. Half full rooms, sometimes less, were the norm. Now, however there were classes with just one or two kids, sitting awkwardly as the teachers talked.

"Holy shit," Misato muttered as they walked by, "I hope the parents just kept their kids home, or something."

"Me too," Ritsuko agreed.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"Where is everyone?" Shinji muttered as she, Asuka and Rei headed into class. Mana was off running checks on Jet Alone, which was rather annoying Why did she get to avoid classes? It wasn't fair. Kan was apparently skipping school too, though he had checked in with NERV about some kind of family thing.

"A lot of kids were kept home, I think," Asuka answered with a frown. Still, there shouldn't have been THAT many empty seats. Right?

Several students straggled in over the day, surprisingly including Hikari Horaki. The brown haired girl in pigtails looked visibly upset, and was unable to concentrate on the teacher. Instead she just stared out the window and fidgetted.

"We should ask if her family is all right," Rei said as the three pilots met at lunch.

"We might be intruding," Shinji shook her head.

:Idiots," Asuka growled, getting up and walking to where Hikari sat. "Is everything all right?" she bluntly asked the girl.

Hikari smiled weakly, "No, not really. My family is fine, thankfully, but Toji..."

"What happened?" Shinji asked worriedly.

"His sister Sakura is missing," Hikari said quietly, "She didn't turn up at the shelters during the attack, and she's not answering her phone."

Rei exchanged worried looks with Shinji. "That's where Ken and Toji are," she realized, "they are out helping with the search."

Hikari nodded glumly. "I would be too, but I thought someone should at least show up to tell the teacher why they were absent," she explained.

Asuka cursed in German then muttered, "We should be out there helping search."

Shinji hesitated, then she nodded. "You're right," she agreed, then walked over to where the teacher was tiredly grading papers.

"Yes?" he sighed tiredly as Shinji walked up. It took a few minutes, but Shinji managed to get him to see reason. The class was dismissed for 'independant study' and the teens hurried out to go join in the search.

"What did you say to him?" Hikari had to ask.

Shinji shrugged as she said, "I just pointed out that with half the class away for whatever reason, we would all have to redo the lesson anyway. So why not just let us go and review the stuff later on?"

"Not bad," Asuka clapped her on the back, then looked at Hikari. "Okay, where's the search based? No point wandering around randomly."

"Near Toji's apartment, though there's a lot of groups searching," Hikari sighed.

"Wonder if we can get NERV involved?" Shinji wondered quietly, but Rei shook her head no. Apparently she knew it was unlikely.

They ended up at the search organizers base not long afterward, where a lot of adults and a few teens were either coming in or going out again to search. A note board had been set up, and areas around the tower were marked out in sections, marked to show if they had been searched or not.

"Hey," Toji looked tired as the dark brown haired boy greeted them, "you skipped class too?"

"We didn't skip," Hikari told him with a exasperated smile, "we were excused." She put a hand gently n the taller boy's arm, "Any news?"

"Nothing yet," Toji sighed. He nodded to the others "Thanks for coming, but..."

"Yeah?" Asuka asked as he hesitated.

"You should know we found some bodies out there," Toji said quietly. "The police are helping, but you may see some unpleasant stuff."

Shinji gulped but nodded. "There's missing people out there who's families want them home," she said, "it would be wrong not to help."

"Hmm," Rei nodded.

Teams spread out through the afternoon, trying to cover as much ground as possible while being careful enough to check everywhere. Not easy, but they did their best. There were army officers and cops out too, and sadly little heavy lifting equipment.

"Oh damn," Asuka muttered, then added some German curses too.

Leona took a blanket and covered the crushed little boy. "Fuck," she agreed tiredly.

"I saw the footage of you and you teams trying to fight the angels," Asuka noted tiredly as they waited for the body recovery team to arrive, "you were very brave."

"We had no idea what we were getting into," Leona sighed, the tank jock stretching tiredly. "At least you guys killed the damn things."

"Mana killed the damn things," Asuka noted admiringly She was actually pretty proud of her roommate toasting those things.

A few minutes later the body was recovered, then they moved on looking through the wreckage. Everyone was getting dusty and dirty from digging around through the wreckage, but they carried on regardless.

Nearby, Ken tuned out Al bitching about his boss Leona not paying attention to him as the young man searched and worried. He had gotten a summary of another timeline from his alternate self as well as a 'crib sheet' of data. It wasn't complete, of course, but it had a lot of information. But this battle against Bardiel hadn't been in it AT ALL.

'Has our timeline totally diverged from his?' Ken wondered as they walked, 'And if so, how? And would it matter?'

"Hey, I hear something," Al cut off his bemoaning about Leona loving her tank more than him.

"Me too," Ken agreed as he moved near a section of fallen wall. "Hello!" he called as loudly as he could.

"Oh thank god," a female voice replied, "part of the roof collapsed on me!"

"Hold still," Al said, "we'll get help."

It took a few minutes to get the pros in, in which Ken found out that yes, it was indeed Sakura and that she had been hurt, too. Heavy equipment was brought in, even as Toji and his father fretted nearby. It was delicate work, getting the concrete aside without hurting Sakura any more, but in the end they managed it.

"Looks like we have a happy ending, maybe," Shinji noted as Sakura was pulled out, her family rushing forward to hug her.

"Sort of," Asuka noted, "her leg is a wreck... but at least she's alive."

To be continued...