Asuka didn't need the warning messages of her Evangelion's instruments to tell that the battle was close to joining. After all, she had been given a front row seat to the Angel's transformed magnificence still far in the distance, the shape and movement of its pearly wings causing her gifted mind to go into overdrive thinking of all the dangerous possibilities her second encounter with this monster could bring. They were not pretty images.
'Last time it took the three of us to back it into a corner and it hadn't even… evolved yet,' Asuka wondered, struggling to keep her nerves under control. 'Now I'm alone, my instruments don't tell me anything, that fancy supercomputer can't figure the Angel out and Akagi is less than useless. Is this going to be alright?'
"Well, it's showtime," Misato's voice broke the Second Child out of her musings. "Are you ready, Asuka?"
"…I always am," Asuka responded, in a voice that she believed confident but that the look in Misato's eyes quickly informed her was not. An awkward silence ensued before the tactical mastermind of NERV turned to one of the bridge operators for a second, Asuka watching Misato's eye pan from right to left a few moments later, in what she believed was a quick check of the command room personnel.
"Unit-02, pick up that rifle and advance to these coordinates," Misato spoke through the channel once more, a positron rifle coming out of the ground right next to Asuka's crimson Evangelion as she did. "The strength of the Angel's AT-Field appeared to wane the moment it became mobile, so we'll open with a poke at its defences from range. Take your shot and duck back into cover. We will relay whatever information MAGI gives us and come up with our strategy from there."
The Second Child did as ordered, grabbing hold of the offered weapon and setting up at the given coordinates, behind a mountain range. The area before her was clear of any blockers to her line of sight, and would offer a perfect shot whenever the Angel entered her line of fire in less than half a minute. Asuka's eyes flickered to the satellite feed of her target once again, the redhead having already long lost count of the times she had stared at it since its transformation.
"Are you expecting it to counter fire? To me it looks like this Angel focuses more on hand to hand combat. Or hand to tentacle or whatever."
"I'm expecting anything at this point. No need to take risks yet," Misato tersely replied, just as the Angel's wings began to peek from behind a mountain. "Rifle status reads as calibrated and primed. Fire when ready."
Asuka took a deep breath and watched, hawkish, as the Angel slowly came into view, its movement far too languid for the Second Child's impatient nature. As she waited, however, the redhead noticed something wrong with her crosshairs: they were moving a little bit, almost imperceptibly and certainly not enough to influence the accuracy of any shot at the range she was firing from, but enough to catch her attention. Quickly and efficiently, without losing sight of her target's movement, Asuka went through a checklist of possible malfunctioning equipment, but found nothing wrong with her sensors or connectors. She was about to push the thought of the possible malfunction aside when her right hand twitched involuntarily, bringing Asuka's attention to it.
Her right hand had not only twitched once, it was shaking and causing the feedback from the handle's fine-tuning sensors to very slightly throw off her aim. The redhead grit her teeth and tried to tell herself that her hand was just quivering in anticipation and excitement, but her best attempts did little to help her ignore the truth.
"It will be fine, Asuka," Shinji's soothing voice suddenly invaded her senses. "We've got this."
And just like that, the crosshairs stopped shaking and firmly settled into place, right as a small scowl appeared on Asuka's face. She would never admit it, but given the circumstances, it felt reassuring to have Shinji Ikari, the Pilot, the Ace, in her co-pilot seat.
"…Right."
The Second Child took another calming breath and focused her attention on her target: the Angel had finally finished gracefully gliding into full view and was offering itself for a clear shot, so Asuka took a few seconds to correct her aim and point the rifle towards the main ring of the Angel. Unit-02 then pressed the trigger and the ray of wild energies flew against the circling wings, a familiar orange barrier appearing at the last second.
"Direct hit, no visible effect on the target!" one of the bridge crew reported the obvious.
"I'm reading a high energy concentration!" the mousy bridge girl followed up, Asuka quickly refocusing her crosshairs on the unaffected Angel as its rotation quickly picked up speed and all its wings simultaneously rose up to touch the sky. An almost hypnotic display only broken by a pinprick of light in the centre of the halo that turned into a retaliatory energy lance.
"Scheiße!"
Asuka barely had enough time to let go of the rifle and roll away, AT-Field at full power as the thin beam of light pierced cleanly through one side of the mountain and out the other. Unit-02 hurried to its feet and broke into a run in the opposite direction, the beam moving to match her speed and nipping at the crimson robot's giant heels.
"I want a saturation strike from all launchers east of the city! Bring up barriers D-17 through 28! Give Unit-02 some extra cover!"
The Second Child changed the course of her dash in time with Misato's orders and slid past two rising barriers to finally come to a stop behind a third, hundreds of missiles soaring past Unit-02's head to explode harmlessly against the Angel's AT-Field.
"Asuka! Keep moving!" Misato continued before the redhead could even get her bearings. "Those barriers won't hold!"
"And don't deploy your AT-Field!" Akagi followed up. "The Angel is still using it to track your movement!"
Asuka did as ordered with no argument and dove for the next barrier just as the one she had been hiding behind finally gave way and allowed the beam of light through. Rolling her crimson chariot into a crouch, Asuka focused her will into her AT-Field just short of activating it, and observed the pale beam hold immobile in the air. A few seconds later, it dissipated into nothingness and the Second Child let out a sigh of relief, a quick check of the satellite feed showing the Angel's return to its standard rotation.
-O]|[O-
"Don't tell me it's that damn diamond all over again!"
"No," Ritsuko assuaged Misato's fears, quickly analysing the combat data that her ward was showing her. "The amount of energy it unleashed isn't even in the same order of magnitude to what the Fifth could do."
"Meaning? Can we take a hit and remain combat worthy?"
Maya keyed in a few commands into her terminal and the graph shifted to a handful of lightning-quick combat simulations from different engagement distances. It only took a few seconds before the results had been compiled into an extensive report.
"MAGI's current rough estimates establish that Evangelion armour should be able to withstand the energy blast for a short period of time before melting, although taking a direct hit should obviously be avoided," Ritsuko calmly relayed. "Unit-02's AT-Field should be able to cushion the beam a lot more effectively, although, again, I don't recommend straining the Pilot with such a task for long."
"Especially since the Angel seemed to be using Unit-02's AT-Field for beam guidance, just like what happened with Unit-00 during the last fight." Maya chimed in, continuing her analysis at the same time.
"Not only that, but we also noticed the energy flow becoming less intense the longer the beam held," Ritsuko continued, pointing to a downward trend in the graph. "Unlike the Fifth, this Angel might not be capable of persevering with this method of attack for extended periods of time."
"So there already appear to be a few glaring weaknesses in this one," Misato reasoned, piecing together the next steps of her strategy. She stepped towards Hyuga's terminal and pointed to four spots on the tactical display. "We should try to establish whether detecting AT-Fields is the only way the Angel has to track its targets. Prepare the decoys we used against the Fifth and launch them through the elevators here, here, here and here."
"What do I do in the meantime?" Asuka's question came through the communications channel, as the room became abuzz with activity once more.
"Move to these coordinates and stand by," Misato offhandedly commanded, flicking her finger against another spot on the monitor. "Stay out of sight."
"Roger," the redhead acknowledged, Unit-02 breaking into a careful march before the Second Child threw another question at Ritsuko. "By the way, have you figured out where the damn core is? Do I have to gut it like we tried to do before?"
"That is a possible course of action, but MAGI currently hypothesizes that the Angel's core is actually located in the very centre of the ring."
"In the middle?" Asuka echoed, zooming the satellite feed in her HUD so that she could take a close look at the Angel from above. "But there's nothing there!"
"Like I said, it's currently just a hypothesis born of where the Angel appears to be gathering the energy for its beam attacks. The MAGI deduced that the Angel's core should be close to that point, and I see no reason to fault their logic at this moment. The core could be simply obscured from sight, somehow."
"'Somehow.'"
"Yes, somehow," Ritsuko shrugged in response to Asuka's disbelieving echo. "I know it sounds terribly unscientific of me, but it's currently what I have."
"…I don't have any fancy degrees and I could have told you most of that." The redhead grumbled under her breath, unaware that the unmatched sensitivity of the Entry Plug's microphones managed to carry her voice to the other side. Ritsuko gripped her ever-present tablet tighter, the plastic straining a bit under the pressure of her fingers.
"Fancy degrees or not, it can be quite the daunting task to understand the secrets of the alien beings that consistently ignore the foundations of our laws of physics as we know them," she spat with barely hidden enmity. "But you're free to try your hand at it whenever you please, Second."
Asuka was taken aback by the unexpected reply, her mouth struggling to come up with a comeback for a few moments before her gaze turned to one side of the Entry Plug.
"…I'll pass on that, I'm too busy saving your asses at the moment." She lamely finished, her half-flippant words only causing Ritsuko's eyes to narrow further.
"I see, you're so devoted to your job. Maybe if you had shown half this commitment three hours ago we wouldn't be in the situation we are now."
"Ritsuko!"
"Doctor, please refrain from taunting the Second Child, who so happens to currently be the last line of defence for mankind." Arthur calmly elaborated on Misato's indignation.
"A fact that makes me fear for mankind's future," Ritsuko muttered. "Besides, she started it. Although I should probably refrain from stating that."
"And yet you made your statement anyway. Your claim is illogical, Doctor Akagi."
"Everyone!" Misato assertively interrupted, bringing the argument to a stop. "We've got an Angel to kill, remember? Please?"
At the mention of the Angel, Ritsuko opened her mouth to speak but no rebuke came out of it, the doctor's eyes soon closing with a deep sigh as she realised how far she had allowed her professional mask to slip and the damage that she could have caused, if not for Misato's intervention. Visibly ashamed of herself, Ritsuko roughly ran a hand through her forehead and hair before she gave a small, repentant bow to Misato and Asuka both.
"…You're right, Katsuragi, I apologise. All the stress is starting to get to me." She spoke in a sedate tone, truly sounding as exhausted as she claimed. Misato's eyes then shifted towards Asuka, the girl's eyes downcast as she visibly struggled to come up with words, as well.
"Yeah, I…" the redhead mumbled, equally as embarrassed. "…I shouldn't have said any of that, either."
"It's alright. Let's all just focus, okay?" Misato reassured them both, making certain that there wouldn't be any parting shots before she finally turned her attention to Maya Ibuki, who mutely followed her Senpai with her eyes as she walked closer to her. "Are the dummies in place, Maya?"
"Y-Yes!" the girl almost jumped a foot in the air, and Misato couldn't help but crack a smile at the sight. "T-They're… They're going up right now."
And almost in time with Maya's words, four full-scale inflatable balloons sporting Unit-02's shape popped up on the satellite feed, one of the fakes being vaporised almost instantly. A second one met the same fate after two more minutes of the Angel's advance, while the last two were left undisturbed in spite of a clear line of sight to the target. Misato watched these developments and allowed half of her brain to process them with military efficiency, while the other half focused on the haggard and stressed faces on most of the bridge crew.
The Fifth Angel had been a tense affair for everyone involved, but today's combination of the military takeover and the disastrous first engagement that had knocked out two thirds of NERV's combat strength was making that fateful day so long ago feel like another Tuesday. Misato was starting to fear that the upper echelons of NERV would cave under the pressure if this Angel wasn't defeated quickly.
"…It appears that the Angel does possess some detection capabilities outside of AT-Fields, visual or otherwise," Ritsuko finally announced, after poring through the results. "Judging from the tests, MAGI also tentatively establish the range of those abilities at roughly three kilometres, although they're still unsure whether targets further away were truly undetected or simply ignored as threats."
"We will avoid open ground during our approach, anyway," Misato acknowledged, giving Hyuga a quick command and turning her attention to Unit-02's communications window. "Asuka, we're sending a prog-glaive at your destination. Sneak further and try to ambush the Angel, but don't activate your AT-Field, just like before."
"Yeah, yeah…" Asuka agreed with a small sigh, still reeling from the previous exchange. "Man, hiding like this is not really my style."
"Be patient, you'll be doing things your way soon enough," the Major reassured her. "As a matter of fact, I want you to try and focus your attack on the Angel's wings when you get the chance."
"Think that will stop it for a while?"
"It's something worth trying." Misato finished, leaving Unit-02 to advance to its new position. One more time, she turned towards her former accomplice and circled another group of defensive batteries with her finger, adding some of the northern defences to the command as well. "I want another saturation strike ready to cover the last leg of Unit-02's advance."
With a nod, Hyuga made certain that everything would be ready and reported as much barely a minute later, while the Major used that time to ensure that all the other pieces on the board were also prepared and in place. Fifty-seven seconds after her last check the Angel crested another hill, one that put it dangerously close to the fortress city itself, and Misato gave the order to strike.
One more time the missiles flew, and one more time they exploded against the octagonal defences of the Sixteenth, creating a wall of fire, smoke and ash. An impressive display of pyrotechnics, almost as beautiful as it was useless, but one that would still serve a purpose.
"Asuka, GO!" Misato commanded, even if redundantly, for Unit-02 had already leapt into action before the words had left her mouth, diving into the grey wall and towards the Angel.
-O]|[O-
"AT-Field! MAX POWER!" Asuka roared when she focused all her will on the point where her glaive made contact with the Angel's defences, the smoke and ashes parting as the orange barriers manifested and crashed against each other. Sparks flew as the edge of the blade began to shine and dig into the Angel's AT-Field, but the Second Child clicked her tongue in frustration when she noticed her weapon struggling to advance at all. Relieving the pressure against her foe, Asuka completed her slashing motion and brought the glaive in another arc around Unit-02's body to strike once more at the same spot she had already struck once, but amidst the shower of sparks the result was very much the same as her first attempt.
It was during her second flurry of slashes that Asuka saw the Angel raise two of its wings high above it, giving the redhead barely a second's warning to roll Unit-02 out of the way before they came crashing down tip first and gored a large crevice into the ground.
"Shit!" Asuka grunted, her eyes flicking to the large hole for a quick moment before she swung her glaive around to strike at the exposed appendages, again, with zero success. "It's not working, Misato!"
"Of course it's not, we needed three EVAs the last time," Ace muttered, yanking Shinji's attention from the main screen and towards her. "Even the brat figured that one out."
"But I don't think Misato-san has many other options right now. Do you have any better ideas?"
"Honestly, no," Ace admitted with a shake of her head, her eyes narrowing a second later. "But we managed to get into range so sticking close to it is probably our best bet, we'll just need to play it defensive for a bit and wait for an opening. Maybe Akagi can actually figure something out."
Ace's words were delivered in her usual self-assured tone, the same one that had always been paired with the makings of a flawless strategy to overcome whatever odds were thrown her way in the past. It was usually a soothing sight, one that always succeeded at comforting Shinji regardless of the end results of the Pilot's plans, but this time the fearless image was damaged when he noticed that Ace was unconsciously biting her lip.
"You… don't sound too confident." Shinji blurted out before he could think better of it, earning himself a scalding glare for his troubles.
"Well, so sorry about that. I mean, we're in a one on one duel with an Angel. Exactly the situation I didn't want to ever find ourselves in, remember?" Ace grumped back, crossing her arms and focusing on the big screen again. Asuka and Unit-02 were following their directives to the letter under the brat's supervision, but while they were avoiding any sort of damage to the red titan they were also failing to hurt the Angel in any way. It wasn't hard to imagine how the battle would eventually end if the situation didn't change in some way sooner rather than later. "…But we'll make it work, so make sure you pull your own weight, too."
"I've been trying to think about how to do just that," Shinji sighed, his shoulder drooping a little. "I mean, talking to Asuka right now is probably not a great idea, I'll just distract her. And there's not much else I can do that you two can't right now, so…"
"So what, you're giving up already?"
"I didn't say that!" Shinji quickly protested, motioning around the room with his hand. "But the red door disappeared at the end of the last fight and it hasn't come back yet! I can't do much more without it!"
"Yeah, yeah, stop your whining. Man, you really are useless without me, are you?" Ace replied, a victorious smirk suddenly appearing on her face. "But don't worry, I've got you covered!"
Shinji frowned in confusion at the Pilot's words, and that confusion only grew when Ace dramatically raised a finger to the air and then brought her hand back down in the shape of a gun, aimed straight past Shinji.
"BANG!" she pretended to fire, the Third Child cowering a bit when a small, white ball actually shot out from the girl's fingers and quickly embedded itself in the far wall. Just an instant later, a familiar crimson door with orange trimmings appeared in the exact same spot Ace had attacked.
"Wha-?!" Shinji mouthed, quickly gathering his jaw from the floor and turning an inquisitive towards the Pilot. "Since when can you do that?!"
"Since a while ago. I experimented a little bit on my free time and got it to work, easy, even if I just made it look more dramatic than it strictly needs to be." Ace blew on her fingers, as if blowing away the smoke of a recently fired handgun, before she threw a meaningful look Shinji's way. "Not only me, though, I'm sure you could have done it, too, since you've already been inside. But I bet you were too busy doubting yourself to actually try."
Shinji winced slightly at the accusation, but offered no rebuke. After all, the idea of trying to summon the crimson door had indeed occurred to him a few times in the past, but Ace was right in her assumption that he had quickly shot down those budding plans as too crazy to actually work, in spite of the fact that he had seen far more unlikely things during his time inside Asuka's mind. He had always taken refuge in the fact that the red door would show up without fail somewhere nearby whenever synchronisation happened to cover for his fear of failure.
"…Point taken, thanks for the help. Let's get…" Shinji began with a sigh and a step in the door's direction, when he noticed that he was going on that journey by himself."…Wait, you're not coming?"
"I just told you that someone has to hold the fort, and even if she's gotten a bit better, I still don't trust the brat that much." Ace replied, cocking her head in the direction of her busy twin. She then turned back to Shinji with her usual cocky smirk and gave him a thumbs up. "Just do what you always do, give us some more juice to work with and I'll handle the rest, promise. You got this!"
"Go get'em Shinji!" a cheerful agreement echoed from down below, the Third Child's earnest assistant taking a second to pitch in before she focused back on the battle. Shinji felt his cheeks heat up a little, the sheer amount of trust he had received from the two fronts proving a bit overwhelming.
It was far more encouraging, however.
"Right," the young man nodded, opening the crimson door. "I'll be back soon."
As he stepped through the gate, the familiar yet still disorienting feeling of nausea settled in and Shinji quickly found himself within the cosy chamber that had almost become a sort of second home over the many days of Asuka's training, an anchoring point for the zaniness that permeated his roommate's inner world. After all, while every other part of Asuka's mind appeared to shift and evolve in response to what happened in the 'outside', this room had always remained curiously unchanged. The fireplace still sat at the far wall, red carpet covered the floor, and the three chairs that faced away from each other, occupied by Asuka and the two female residents, stood where they had the very first time Shinji had entered.
It was truly the same that it always was, down to the smallest cracks on the stone wall. Shinji couldn't help but let out a small sigh of relief.
"You are late, Ikari," a chiding voice spoke behind him all of a sudden, causing the Third Child to jump with a squeak.
"GAH!" Shinji quickly spun to face the source and found Maisie, looking somewhat bored. He wasted no time in giving her an irritated look. "Don't do that! Do the three of you get a kick out of making me jump, or something?!"
"Well, I cannot speak for the others, but I do indeed find it endlessly amusing to watch you squirm," Maisie replied with a mocking smirk. "And that is your own fault for being so easy to frighten."
"I wasn't scared! I just didn't expect to see you here!" Shinji paused his protest for a second, his brain catching up to who he was speaking to. "…Actually, we were wondering where you had disappeared to."
"Spare me your white lies, I'm not naïve enough to believe that I would be missed by those two." Maisie waved her hand in front of her, as if meaning to bat the young man's words away, before her sarcastic tone returned in full force. "You, on the other hand, I could picture troubling your empty little head. I might have even found the sentiment flattering if it wasn't so utterly misplaced."
"…I guess it's my fault for not seeing that one coming."
"As it always is," the Doll replied, walking past Shinji and motioning with her right hand to the sitting Asuka. "But aren't you here because there was something that you needed to do? Go ahead, don't let me stop you."
Shinji followed Maisie with eyes full of suspicion until she came to a stop a few steps away from the central chair. He didn't believe the Aspect to hold any malicious intent, but it wasn't often that she was this accommodating and non-confrontational, either, and it put the primal part of his mind on edge. After a few seconds of hesitation and an expectantly raised eyebrow, however, Shinji decided to trust in Maisie and continue ahead with his intentions. He didn't truly have a choice in the matter, after all.
And so, going through motions that had quickly become custom, Shinji stepped towards Asuka and sat on the floor in front of her. He spied a glance at the two women at the back and noted, to no surprise, that they had completely failed to react to his presence. The pair had not spoken to either him or Ace again since the first and last time they had conversed, and they showed no intention of changing that even with a different presence in the room.
Pushing that dilemma out of his mind, Shinji grabbed hold of a few of Asuka's fingers and closed his eyes, trying to synchronise with her as best as he could while intruding as little as possible. He couldn't help but smile when the fingers he held on to twitched at the contact and he felt a small pushback in his mind from Asuka's end of the connection, before she relaxed her barriers and allowed him to share the space. At once, Asuka's mix of anxiety, courage and determination all coursed through him, broken words and visions of what was happening 'outside' appearing in his mind's eye, and all of it made Shinji feel frustrated that he couldn't do more than he already was.
'…But that's just how things are,' the young man thought to himself, clutching the fingers a bit tighter. 'Now it's all up to Asuka and the girls.'
"…Hey," Shinji spoke and turned back to Maisie, finding the Aspect looking his way with an unreadable expression. "Can I ask you how you found out about this place?"
"You can. You are even fortunate enough that I am willing to indulge your curiosity," Maisie quickly switched back to her usual haughtiness. "I have known of this room since long before you arrived. In fact, I believe it to be intrinsically tied to my very existence."
"Tied to you? In what way?"
"What makes you believe I would humour you that far, you cretin?" The Doll narrowed her eyes at Shinji's eager follow up before her face fell with a sigh. "…Is what I would like to say, but the truth is that I couldn't reward your interest any further even if I wished to, for I myself do not know the answer. Putting it into simple terms, my belief is more of a… gut feeling, than anything else."
Hearing her explanation, Shinji couldn't stop himself from mimicking Maisie's downcast expression; here was yet another possible lead that turned out to go nowhere.
"And have you ever tried to get to the other side of those chairs?" he continued, motioning with his head to the two thrones at the back of the room.
"Have you?"
"Yeah, Ace and me both," Shinji pointed with his left hand to the centre of the red carpet, then back to the crimson door. "We could walk until we reached the middle, more or less, and then we couldn't get any closer no matter how fast we tried to go, like we were running on a treadmill. Ace even tried to teleport to the other side but that didn't work, either. She just reappeared next to the door every time she tried."
"Then you already know my answer." Maisie replied, matter-of-factly. Yet another dead end.
"And do you… have any idea who they are?" the Third Child finally tried after a minute of silence, fully aware that he was grasping at straws at that point. "Ace and I think that they have something to do with Unit-02, or maybe that they are some other Aspect of Asuka that got stranded here… somehow. But it's hard to figure out anything more when they refuse to speak back to us. Do you know anything that helps?"
Expecting another quick denial, Shinji was surprised when no fast reply came out of Maisie. He turned his attention to her and found the half-girl staring hard at the two thrones he had been talking about, looking for all intents and purposes like she had not even heard him, like she had completely forgotten that Shinji was with her in the room.
And only a second later, a big part of the young man wished she wouldn't remember.
Maisie's expression had morphed into the most menacing scowl that he had ever seen on her, scary enough that it put to shame any of the heated looks Ace had given him in the past. After all, Ace's judging stares were always filled with a combination of annoyance, disappointment, anger or a sense of rivalry, but at that point, none of that was on display before Shinji.
The look on Maisie's face was one of pure hatred.
"Hey… A-Are you okay?"
Shinji regretted asking almost as soon as the words left his mouth, Maisie's menacing look coming to rest squarely on him. The half-girl's sharp eyes had lost a lot of their edge during the transition, but they were still intimidating enough to make him gulp.
"Of course I am. And no, I don't know anything about her," Maisie brutally rebuked him. "Now how about you focus on what's important before your foolishness gets us all killed?"
Without a word of argument, Shinji made himself smaller, closed his eyes again and did as he had been told.
-O]|[O-
"GO TO HELL ALREADY!"
Feeling Shinji's support at the back of her mind, her ears barely registering a report about increased synchronisation, Asuka brought her glaive around for another strike at her target's wings. Sparks flying on contact, the Angel's AT-Field appeared to struggle more with this offensive than the dozens that had preceded it as the Second Child poured everything she could muster into willing the blade past, making microscopic gains before her enemy pushed her back once more.
Asuka clicked her tongue, shifted her stance, and watched as the Angel spun to counterattack, her experience allowing her to easily identify, evade and counter the coming blow with another pointless step in their dance. Before long, and despite the momentary victory that Shinji's support had given her, the battle had devolved into another stalemate, with Unit-02 unable to penetrate the Angel's AT-Field and the Angel failing to strike down the irksome red insect buzzing all around it.
"…I don't get it," Asuka muttered to herself, deftly stepping to the side of another pearly wing. "Why isn't it trying to fry me with that stupid laser?"
"We've been looking into that," Misato promptly replied. "And MAGI believe it's tied to why it couldn't shoot at you for long before. It might not be capable of keeping its AT-Field up and using the beam at the same time."
"Finally some damn good news. So keep up the pressure?"
"Yeah, keep giving it hell for the moment. We're talking to the Russians right now and looking into the possibility of dropping some of the N2 warheads right on top of the Angel, try to overwhelm the field with a combined offensive."
Asuka's mouth set into a grim line as she added one more step to her death-waltz, her eyes briefly flicking to the map of the area while the glaive, again, ineffectively sparked against the barrier.
"This close to the city?"
"It's far from ideal, but we don't have much of a choice at this point," Misato confirmed with a hint of regretful acceptance in her words. The damage to the outer ring of Tokyo-3 would be severe, but they could always rebuild. "Focus on your fight for now, I'll keep you paged on what the MAGI think of the plan."
"Yeah well, tell them to hurry the hell up, why don't you…?" Asuka's complaints went unfinished when she noticed that the defensive step that had followed her latest strike, performed entirely by muscle memory, had evaded no attacks by the Angel. Kicking herself for the slip, the redhead instantly fell into a firmer defensive stance and willed that Unit-02's AT-Field manifest, watching as all the wings rose skywards as one and appeared to vibrate, an eerie hum enveloping the area and quickly rising in intensity. "…Shit, the freak's wisened up! What's it doing now?!"
It was at that moment that Asuka felt an immense force strike against her defences, a push so violent that it sent Evangelion Unit-02 flying back first through the air until it crashed past three of the city's outer armoury buildings. Sliding to a stop in a disjointed heap and completely disoriented for more than a few moments, Asuka eventually coughed and groaned in pain, squinting past the dizziness, rolling the crimson titan onto its stomach and dragging herself to what appeared to be cover.
"Misato!" she struggled to yell into the comms amidst the lessening coughing fits. "What… just happened?"
But static was the only reply that returned. Asuka smashed her fist against the side of the Entry Plug and let out an angry Teutonic curse, catching her breath before she risked a peek out of the side of the massive slab of concrete that protected her: she quickly located the Angel in the distance, its wings still reaching towards the sky above but otherwise immobile. Asuka couldn't help but gawk at how much smaller it suddenly looked, however. Her instruments were indicating a sudden distance of four kilometres between them.
"Misato! Goddammit, Misato! This is not the time to go silent on me!"
"Status re-!" the voice of the person she had been wishing to hear finally made it through the sea of static. "-suka! Asuka, respond!"
"I'm here! What the hell just happened?!"
A deep sigh of relief reached Asuka's ears before Misato joined in her line of questioning. "Yeah, Ritsuko! What the hell just happened?!"
"In layman's terms, the Angel appears to have extended its AT-Field outwards with unprecedented force and reach, pushing you all the way back to the city. It has since returned to its original size, but the field's advance as well as the resulting shockwave appear to have possessed similar properties to those of an electro-magnetic blast," the doctor tersely replied, among the shuffle of feet and the sound of hurried keystrokes. "The effect has not reached deep inside the Geofront, but I would wager that most of the electronics on the surface are either completely fried or offline, pending reboot. The latter will take some minutes."
"Great. A blackout is exactly what we needed right now," Misato's words betrayed how she was probably reaching for the bridge of her nose at that moment in time. "How are you holding up, Asuka? Any damage we might not know about?"
"No, I'm a little dizzy, but I'm… okay…" Asuka trailed off, her eyes slowly widening as she caught sight of hundreds of tiny stars twinkling in the evening sky, stars that would appear in no chart known to man, with dozens and dozens more joining the grandiose constellation with every passing second. "Whoa…"
"…Asuka? What's wrong?"
The stars twinkled one last time, then fell back to the earth in droves.
And the only thing Asuka could do was scream.
-O]|[O-
"AAAAAAAAGH! DU ARSCHLOCH! MISATO! MISATO, ES TUT WEH!"
"Asuka?! What's going on?!" Misato's loud demand echoed through the command centre but was quickly swallowed by Asuka's howls of pain. Quickly realising that she would get no answers out of her pilot, however, the Major's demands shifted targets. "Did the beam fire again?!"
"It can't be, we're getting no hostile energy readings from Unit-02! This must be something else!" Hyuga reported back, before he paused on one of the newest reports. "Wait! These are…"
Misato was at his side like a hawk on a hare, grabbing on to the monitor and rushing through the reports for any sign of answers.
"Damage reports from the armoury buildings? Taken down by hundreds of impacts?" she read, her military mind already busy concocting a few likely scenarios. "How are we getting this?"
"The… physical line to the building itself must still be operational."
"Then update the situation map with all the buildings that have been shredded like this, we need to get an idea of the damage range of this new threat! And check if any of the visual feeds in the city are still online. Give me eyes on what's going on, even if it's from a damn security camera!" taking but a moment to ensure that the holographic map was properly updating and everyone were trying their hardest to ensure the second part of her command, Misato whirled on Maya, a simple, yet crucial demand on her lips. "How's Asuka?!"
"Unit-02 has received extensive damage to the torso, arms and thighs! Multiple lacerations and heavy bleeding in some areas! Mobility has been compromised! The Pilot's vitals are stable, but I'm reading an increased heartbeat and her brain activity is all over the place!" Maya turned to Misato, shaken. "I-I think she's panicking, Major! Asuka's synch-rate is plummeting! She won't be able to deploy her AT-Field like this!"
"I've found a working camera!" Aoba reported from the other end of the bridge. "Patching it to the main screen!"
As one, everyone in the bridge turned to the front of the room, Aoba working the battered and barely functional device to turn and face the fight outside. Smoke and debris clouded much of the feed, but the quality was good enough to spot many shiny dots rising skywards within the vicinity of the Angel, then being shot forward like bullets, the resulting image being one where Unit-02 appeared to be receiving concentrated and never-ending fire from a hundred airborne heavy machineguns.
"…Are those… its feathers? It's like a rain of knives…" Misato quickly reasoned, turning back to Hyuga. "Dammit! Force cut the connection, we need to keep the Pilot safe!"
"And what about the plug? Do we eject?"
Misato bit her tongue before she could respond with a resolute 'YES'. Ejecting the Entry Plug would mean the definite end of Unit-02's contribution to the fight, and leave the way to the heart of NERV completely open. All their hopes of beating this Angel rode on Asuka piloting Unit-02 and doing it herself, the only deviations from that plan available to them were to either send Makinami on a suicide mission with Unit-01 that was unlikely to change anything, or to activate the self-destruct of NERV HQ and hope that the resulting blast took the Angel with them.
Misato's military mind was clear on what choice needed to be made, what choice had the greatest objective chance of success. But the side of her that refused to see the Second Child as just a Pilot screamed that there was no guarantee that the Angel would stop its attack the moment Unit-02 went inactive. In that case, every second that Asuka spent inside the plug could easily mean her death.
Misato found herself at a crossroads and, for perhaps the only time in her military career, she hesitated.
"No. We won't be able to insert the plug again if we eject now and Unit-02 is our last active unit in the field. We'll have to hope that the Angel stops considering the inactive EVA as a threat and gives us a chance to regroup and strike back, there's a precedent for them acting in such a manner." Misato promptly turned to Ritsuko, and her glare was one that could have pierced a hole through the side of NERV HQ. The doctor, however, took it with little more than an apologetic shrug. "…Don't look at me like that. It's what you were thinking but didn't want to say."
Ritsuko was completely right on all accounts, she realised, but resisting the urge to slap her right then and there still took all of Misato's self-control. Instead, she balled her fists and stoically turned back to the screen as the severance command was issued, Misato's heart rising to her throat as Unit-02 shut off and the crimson titan slumped forward and to its knees, defenceless and utterly defeated.
Mercifully, the Angel's barrage stopped soon after.
"Unit-02… is silent."