III – "I don't like this"
The next day, in the afternoon
The two phones went up simultaneously – and the kids shared a surprised look over the table full of handbooks. "Really? Now? With Misato away?" Asuka complained before rushing towards the door.
"Well, maybe they have a spy at NERV?" Shinji quipped as he slid his shoes on. "Maybe Kaji-san is doing one more job on the side?"
"Seriously?" Asuka scoffed, half-amused, half-annoyed at his comment. "You think he'd be so disloyal?"
"This was a joke, you know", Shinji remarked over the sound of their steps as they were rushing down the stairs towards the black cars that were surely waiting for them next to the apartment already.
"Well, we'd be sure if you'd been a bit better with interrogating him!" she pointed out.
"Hey, it's not that I didn't try, but he's an adult–" he objected as they reached the ground and indeed found their transport waiting for them.
"You could've just… ah, never mind", she waved her hand. "See you at NERV!" she called out just before she jumped into the first car at hand and slammed the door, leaving Shinji outside. "Pilot Soryu reporting. What's up?"
"I have the Second Child, taking route five-seven, ETA ten minutes", the black-suited driver reported via his radio before turning to answer Asuka. "Don't know, we've got an order for all pilots to assemble at NERV. An Angel alert, unconfirmed."
"Including the Fourth Child?" Asuka probed.
"I wouldn't know, Soryu-san", the driver replied with a small shrug. "I'm on Ikari-Soryu duty today."
"Wait, his name is first on that label?" Asuka asked with almost a hiss in her voice, her eyes narrow. "How come?"
The driver's expression was clearly saying "I'm not paid enough to deal with this", but he wisely decided not to voice that sentiment. "I don't know, please ask the one responsible for the mobilization plans. I believe this means Major Katsuragi. I'm just following orders."
"Like saying that saved people before…" she sneered but decided not to press the issue. Her pre-battle anxiety, a beast that reared its ugly head every time but was never allowed to show itself outside, was there, strong as always, ready to stoke her fears as always, and commanded most of her attention right now – as always.
...
"Pilot Ikari reporting", Shinji declared in a worried voice as he climbed into the next car, closed the door carefully, and reached for the seatbelt. "Can you tell me what happened?"
"…route two-eight. ETA thirteen minutes", the driver finished his report over the radio before looking back at Shinji for a second. "Negative. All we know is that there is likely an Angel heading here, and we follow the city-in-danger protocol. You'll know once we get there."
"Of course", Shinji accepted. "Thank you."
"Strap yourself in, boy", the driver added with a somewhat sheepish expression. "Your friend's limo just snatched the safer route, and the orders say clearly 'no longer than fifteen minutes', so… I hope you've got a good stomach."
Shinji did not reply; the suddenness of the acceleration pushed him into the seat and made him realise what a blessing was the presence of LCL inside the Evangelions.
...
About fifteen really scary minutes later
"Asuka! What's going on?" Shinji, still a little pale on his face, managed to catch up with the girl as she headed to the elevator that would take her to the Cages.
"All they told me there was an 'incident' and they're deploying us as a 'precaution'", she explained with a scoff. "And you're late."
"The driver told me you grabbed the safer route", Shinji explained in an apologetic tone. "He drove so fast I thought I'm going to have a stroke!"
"Excuses", Asuka scoffed as they reached the elevator and started it. "You should've–"
"Asuka! Can we drop this now?" Shinji interrupted her with a pleading expression. "What else do you know?"
"Nothing", she replied with a shrug. "Everyone's so busy that I had to grab some technician to tell me what I just told you. I'm sure there's something amiss, but hey, who are we to be told?" she grumbled. "Just some random people who pilot those machines everybody depends on their survival", she continued, her voice dripping with venom.
"Well", Shinji took a quick look and decided that the elevator was safe enough before carefully reaching for her hand. "I don't like this, but let's focus on piloting the best we can?"
"Spare me the pep talk, okay?" Asuka scoffed with a notably less venomous voice; it was not the first time she noticed that her venom glands did not work too well when she was starting to feel warm – and that boy's hands clearly had some magical properties. "I know what I am here for, better than you. I trained for this for a decade, remember? Doesn't change the fact that I don't like to be a mushroom", she continued and lowered her voice before continuing, "First Suzuhara being made a pilot without a word to us… and now, this."
"I'm sure they would've told us", Shinji disagreed. "Eventually."
"Do you really think Misato would've told us if we didn't pressure her?" Asuka checked, eyeing him. "Don't be naïve, she was about to walk out."
"Well, it was early in the morning, and she was busy…" Shinji countered.
"Listen, I get it, you like her", Asuka let out a heavy sigh. "And so do I, I've been friends with her for longer than you know her. But she's a soldier and our commander, and that means that sometimes she'll do bad things to us, like sending us in harm's way or lying to us, just because she–"
She interrupted suddenly and yanked her hand out of his in a nervous move the moment the sound of the elevator's arrival reached her brain.
"Pilot Ikari. Pilot Soryu", Rei Ayanami acknowledged their presence in her usual style.
"Wondergirl", Asuka addressed her with certain disdain just after Shinji spoke the proper greeting. "How come you're here?"
"I was at the headquarters when the alarm condition was set", the girl explained.
"Convenient", Asuka commented with suspicion in her voice. The contact with Shinji now broken and the cold coils of anxiety grasping her soul again, she could feel her venom glands return to full operability. "Or maybe–"
"Ayanami", Shinji interjected, "do you know what happened?"
"There is a possible Angel presence and we are being deployed as a precautionary measure", she recited.
"Wonderful", Asuka scoffed once more. "Maybe we should call the NERV helpline. Perhaps–"
"Battle stations, Level One", an announcement blared through the internal speakers across the NERV HQ. "I repeat, battle stations, Level One."
"An order to launch all Eva units has been given" followed via the room's speakers. "All pilots, proceed to your entry stations."
"Well, it's been a pleasure, Wondergirl", Asuka's voice regained its usual venom. "Duty calls."
Rei did not answer – and Shinji could only sigh.
...
The Entry Plug slid in without any issue; no matter how unlike anything else the sensations were, Asuka was used to them. The worried 'this is not okay' still rattled in her mind, of course, but she knew all too well that going into battle all tense would cause her to underperform, and this was not something she could allow herself to happen. 'But it'd really help if we'd normally have some idea what we are against. Some visual feed. Something!'
She shook it off; it was time for the wave of sensations that accompanied the proper synchronisation with her Unit – the warmth that soothed the soul, the familiarity of something that she had known for her entire life, the feeling of being welcome bordering on an embrace. Only then she realised that, despite her attempts on relaxing or at least quelling her anxiety, her hands were clutching the mechanical controls almost painfully. She took a few breaths, colder external LCL perceptibly replacing the already-warm one in her lungs – but as much as it helped avoid breaking the servos with excessive force, it did nothing to ease her worries. 'And they just recruited the gorilla… what if this is some suicide mission, and he's supposed to replace one of us? No, it'd make no sense, we don't have a – shit, we have a new Unit!' she realised, a chill running down her spine. 'No, they'd not be that insane… would they?'
She shook the dark thoughts off the best she could – but it did not help much. She, of course, knew a medicine that would help – and she was rapidly approaching a state when this medicine became not a convenience, but a necessity. 'Ach, Scheiß drauf', she finally decided – and with a sigh, punched the comm button.
...
Shinji Ikari was focused. Admittedly, it was mostly about him trying not to get even more nervous in this uncertain situation than about anything else, and it was not exactly working. And so, when a voice came over the internal comms, he welcomed it as some measure of distraction. Especially since it was Asuka's voice. "Hey, Shinji, don't get your ass killed", he heard her speak as his Unit was speeding through the bowels of NERV HQ. "I'd rather have my back covered once it comes to something", she added with a smirk.
"Asuka…" he looked at her with a soft plea in his eyes and a smile on his face. "Can you be serious just now? You know I always have your back."
"Not if you're fried, and no, I can't be serious unless you want me to go crazy over this situation", she disagreed with surprising intensity. "Don't worry. We got this covered, even Wondergirl is here."
"I know. I hope you're right", Shinji shook his head. "I wish Misato was here, though."
"So do I, but stop worrying", she insisted, her expression serious. "Focus on piloting. You did it before, you can do it again. I'll be close by."
"I know", he smiled and relaxed as much as he could under the circumstances, savouring the last moments of silence before the storm.
...
A few minutes later, high over Japan
"I really don't get it" came to Shinji over the direct channel from Unit-02, Asuka's voice sounding irritated even over the low-quality of the audio stream. "I used to love flying, and now I'm nauseous every time we take to air!"
"Maybe the food is to blame?" he quipped, hoping that his anxiety did not seep through his voice enough to worry Asuka. "I told you that dessert would be too much; we should've waited until after homework."
"Hey! Don't you guilt-trip me over how much I eat, I'm not Misato! I have the perfect metabolism!" Asuka protested vehemently, offence obvious in her voice. "Besides, it's all your fault."
"How can it be my fault?" Shinji asked in a confused voice.
"You cook too well, that's how!" she exclaimed as if this was the most obvious thing in the world. "And I can't resist good stuff, and you know it. You should've made that dessert after we did the homework, not like you did, in full view. How could you expect me to wait while all the time I'd know it's there?"
"Hey, could you not blame me for your lack of self-control?" he protested. "And you can always tell me not to make anything for dessert at all, right?"
"What are you, stupid? It's the most–"
"Pilots, prepare for release", a calm, deep voice of the transport squad leader interrupted them over the comms. "Your designated drop zones are being relayed to your panels now. The release begins in five seconds from my mark and will put you in the trajectory, but safe landing is on you."
"Roger that", they both confirmed and braced in preparation for a manoeuvre they rarely got to experience.
"Mark!" came just a few seconds later.
"Hurrah! Somersault time!" Asuka exclaimed in an elated voice as the clamps clanked, releasing Unit-02's form.
"Asuka! Bad idea!" Shinji exclaimed–
–but it was too late. Unit-02, released from the clutches of its holder, began its acrobatic descent. Shinji wanted to add something – but the sound of clamps unlocking around him and the sensation of freefall quickly forced him to focus on directing the descent and using the AT field to soften the drop. 'Well… I can't blame her, can I? We rarely get to fly…'
...
"Damn it, couldn't they just let us walk here?" Asuka grumbled to nobody in particular, her voice pained.
"It's too far to cover in one battery, even when running, Asuka", Shinji replied over the general comms, "and you saw how much damage we cause when we run. I guess Misato prefers to pay for air delivery than pay damages to all people along the way", he concluded, his voice betraying some cheer despite the tense situation.
"I guess", Asuka shrugged with a hint of a smile. "But it's not Misato this time, remember? She's at Matsushiro, overseeing this – oh f-shit!" she exclaimed, her voice turning cold.
"Asuka?" Shinji probed in a worried voice, a horrifying suspicion seeping into his mind a moment later, along with a sudden sinking feeling. 'An incident. Where could an incident happen?'
"Command, why are we out here?" Asuka asked over the direct channel to HQ, her thoughts exactly the same. "There's no Angel alert, are we here as some decoration? An honour guard? Or is this just a combat exercise? Come on, don't treat us like mushrooms!"
"There's been an incident at Matsushiro", a tense, unnaturally level, and forcibly calm voice of Lieutenant Maya Ibuki replied. "The Commander ordered Level One battle stations. We don't know anything else yet."
"Wait, Misato-san was at Matsushiro! What happened to her?" Shinji interjected, his stomach turning into a ball of ice as his worst suspicions became reality. "Is she okay?"
"We can't contact them yet", Lieutenant Ibuki replied, her voice still tense. "We sent a rescue force, but it will take a while."
"No way… what will we do?" Shinji asked nobody in particular, trying his best to keep his voice calm; regrettably, he was not exactly satisfied with the results.
"What we always do", Asuka chided him, her voice level and determined; there was a cold ball growing in her gut, but she knew letting that feeling overtake her would be her doom. "Leave the rescue to professionals, and fight if needed. Stop worrying and focus, this will do us most good", she added – and as she was speaking those words, unexpected calm descended on her. 'I can do it. I am not alone', came to her mind. 'And he better remember that, too!'
"Agreed, but how can we fight an Angel by ourselves?" Shinji asked in a voice full of doubt, eliciting a quiet eyeroll from Asuka.
Rei Ayanami's face appeared on the comm display as she joined the conversation: "Commander Ikari is taking direct command. We should be fine."
Her tone was impassive as usual, but there was something else about her, something Shinji could not put his finger at for a moment, not before the face disappeared.
...
Rei Ayanami was easily the calmest of all the Pilots under most circumstances; never was it as obvious as just before combat. The moments when she was about to go into battle were ones where she could almost feel something that passed for excitement for her; after all, fighting the Angels was one of her purposes in the Scenario, one of the reasons she existed at all. She did not relish in that, that was a feeling strange for her; but it was the time she felt something, and as such, it was welcome. But it was not the only reason she enjoyed those moments inside her Unit; there was something else.
Inside Unit-00 was the only place in the entire world where she did not feel incomplete.
This has never been a very strong feeling; she simply always knew that she was imperfect: many things that would make her human were missing. She was aware that some of it was caused by her unusual upbringing, others by the imperfections of the process that was used to create her, and some further elements were likely lost by the process of reincarnating her the first time.
But here, inside the Plug slid into Unit-00, it was different.
Here, she felt at home. Here, she felt welcome. Here was familiar.
She never mentioned that to anyone, though – and nobody ever asked. Commander Ikari was politely asking her about details of her life, but it was nothing but a protocol; his questions rarely varied, and thus, neither did her answers. Doctor Akagi and her staff asked questions regarding her physical and mental condition – but never asked about her feelings or sensations.
And so, those remained hers and hers alone, along with those confusing moments, like the one when before one of the previous battles, she suddenly realised she never knew how chocolate tasted and suddenly wanted to try it. Or now, when she suddenly started to wonder how it would be to swing on a swing. And equally strange was the new feeling of being taken care of, a feeling she did not have for a long time, a feeling that just appeared.
All that caused a rare reaction in her, a reaction she usually reserved for interactions with the only parent figure she knew, and that rarely so.
Rei Ayanami was smiling.
...
"Shinji, did you see what I saw?" came in on a direct channel from Unit-02.
"Not sure? What do you mean?" he replied, his head tilted in confusion. "There's nothing in my field of vision. You're far further out."
"Not on the field, Dummkopf…" she let out an LCL-dampened sigh, smiling with a hint of both exasperation and affection; it seemed that the Dreadful Mystery of the Wondergirl's Smile had to wait for some better time. "Never mind. And about far… Hey, aren't we spread a little too wide?" she directed a question at somebody else. "I can't even see any of the other units between all those hills and overpasses and valleys, let alone have them in my cover fire range. How are we going to support each other?"
"Those were the Commander's orders", Lieutenant Ibuki replied over the general comms. "He wanted to cover the most ground."
"I don't like this", Asuka grumbled. "This is fighting with nearly no backup."
"Well, we managed to converge on target when we had to hold the sky, right?" Shinji countered with surprising confidence in his voice. "We should be fine."
"Since when are you the optimist?" Asuka scoffed.
'Since I get to kiss you and hold your hand' appeared in Shinji's mind – but knowing that the comm channels were not exactly private, even those technically called so, he kept that to himself.
He could not know that the wave of warmth that embraced him after that thought was not entirely his own.
...
"Target is approaching" sounded on Shinji's comms. "All units prepare for ground combat", an order followed, along with an image of the hunched form of Unit-03 relayed to all Evangelion feeds via the HQ's systems.
"No way", he uttered in confusion. "An Angel? Is that an Angel?"
"Correct, that is the target", the Commander replied tersely.
"You say this is the target, but it's an Eva, isn't it?" Shinji kept asking, his voice increasingly confused. "How can this be?"
"Do not concern yourself with that", came in an equally terse answer in his father's voice. "Destroy the target."
Shinji did not reply to that; he just kept tracking the slowly approaching figure, a feeling of dread overtaking him with every step it came closer.
"Shinji", he suddenly heard in Asuka's voice over the Unit-to-Unit comm; her voice was focused, cold, and borderline fearful; that alone made his heart skip a beat. "It has a pilot", she stated with absolute certainty.
"Gods, no", he replied with disbelief as the horror of realisation slowly seeped into his soul; he knew that Asuka was right – but the cruel reality of who the pilot had to be was too much to take. "If he's inside, we can't fight it! How can we–"
"Scheiße!" a curse came over the comms, interrupting his words. "How could it move so fast?!"
His hands tensed on the controls as the worry for her and the uncertainty of the situation seized him. 'What should I do?' rattled in his head, over and over again.
"Scheiße", Asuka repeated, her tone now more determined, annoyed, and angry than distracted or worried.
Shinji suddenly realised what was going on; this was exactly the tone she had when she was done with thinking and about to move into action. "Asuka, don't!" he exclaimed in a panicked voice. "We can't fight it!"
"Shut the fuck up and get here if you want to help!" she yelled back as if through clenched teeth, making his hands tighten on the controls again.
"We can't fight it!" he repeated pleadingly – but deep down, he already knew that Asuka was no longer listening.
"Pilot Ikari, remain silent unless you have something relevant to say" came in a harsh tone over the comms in the voice of Commander Ikari, making Shinji realise that he did not deactivate the uplink to the HQ before replying to Asuka. "This is your target, and you will fight it if it becomes necessary. You will be directed."
Shinji once more did not reply, his head a turmoil of conflicting thoughts, his hands clenched on the controls, his mind aware that not so far from here, Asuka was about to engage a dangerous enemy, an enemy that held his friend hostage. He knew that this was the wrong thing to do; he knew that they simply could not fight that Angel, no matter what his father said; he knew that they could not endanger Toji. He also knew that Asuka would not heed his call; he knew that she would fight, no matter what.
And because of his preoccupation with this knowledge, he failed to realise that his greatest worry was the fact that he was not at her side in this fight.
...
Unit-02 was standing a few hundred meters away from the hunched form of the ex-Unit-03, her prog knife gleaming in her hand. The rifle she started the encounter with was somewhere near, destroyed in the first skirmish by the initial attack and the barely successful dodge; it was now useful as a club at best; and so, she paid it no heed. Both Units faced each other, neither willing to make the first move, both looking for a weakness that refused to show.
Asuka, while still keeping her eyes trained on the target, took a few deep breaths; she was doing her best to calm herself down. It did not work too well, though; the anxiety was not caused by the combat itself – once the fighting began, it went away, as it usually did. The real problem was that she was painfully aware of the dilemma she was facing.
'It's some damned Greek tragedy, isn't it? Damned if I do, damned if I don't… if I fight that thing, he'll hate me for endangering that dumb gorilla', she mused as she measured the enemy and watched for any movements that would telegraph an attack. 'If I don't fight and kill that thing, it will kill me, it will then kill him, and, let's face it, Suzuhara will not just walk away from it, because either this thing will destroy everything including him, or Ayanami will get lucky and will stick something sharp through it – and him – anyway… without much regard for his life, like the good soldier she is.'And it would have to be Ayanami', she realised. 'He will not fight this thing, not with that jock inside, and he will die if it reaches him. So, I must kill it for him, or I'll be crying at his funeral…'
She slowly pushed her doubts aside; the twisted form of the Angel kept staring at her, but she knew it would not last forever. She had to act.
She took another deep breath, her eyes still wide open. There was no need to blink while submerged in LCL, after all; it remained purely a reflex, and she knew that some reflexes could kill you in combat.
'If he hates me for that, he's even more of an idiot than I thought was possible', she continued with an internal scoff, feeling more confident with every second and with every word. 'I'll sort it with him out later', she finally decided, even as a part of her was wistfully telling her this was not going to be simple.
Asuka measured the twisted shape in front of her for the last time, reported "engaging the enemy!" into the comms – and charged, her prog knife in front of her, the hand that held it supported with the other, her body weight put behind it, both eyes fixated at the target, and her body ready to adjust to any movement or counteraction the target was going to make.
It was a simple plan, based on an equally simple assumption that while the target might have been fast, its general abilities were about the same as that of an Evangelion it was based on, or no more than just a bit better. This meant that any hand-to-hand combat would be resolved by a contest of skill, ingenuity, and mental endurance, traits Asuka believed herself to have in abundance.
The problem with this assumption was also simple: it was entirely wrong.