Chapter 2: Inklings of doom.
Shinji
There's nobody on the train platform. Nobody whatsoever to be seen on the street either.
In a Japanese metropolis.
This... this is not right. I glance over to Daniel. He nods at me, frown on his face confirming he's thinking the same thing.
We slowly, tenatively shuffle out of the train carriage.
"Weird, she was supposed to meet me at the platform..." I mumble out loud, sort of forgetting the foreigner carrying my suitcase while I look over the picture Captain Katsuragi sent me.
No, not in that way, Shinji, stop that! The onset of adulthood has its moments, but the constant distractions are embarassing.
"Whatever's got everyone off the streets probably delayed her at the very least." Daniel replies from a few feet away, shaking me out of my thoughts. I mumble a "Yeah..." in agreement.
My eyes fall upon a payphone. I glance at my adult companion. "Got a cell phone?"
Daniel's eyes snap wide open in realization and his hand plunges into his pocket. "Yesss... I do!" He shouts triumphantly, pulling a strange blocky grey and green little jalopy out of his pocket like it's excalibur. I look up into his eyes. I'm extremely skeptical, Daniel, and I hope it shows. What you are holding is not, nor will it ever be, a phone.
He blushes, scratches the back of his head. "Er, I know it looks a little... homebrew, but this is a post-impact world! Cut corners where you can, right?"
"Um, sure, sorry..." I say tenatively. Maybe it's a spy thing, I concede. "So, eh..." Back to the point. "Can you call this number?" I hold up the phone number the beautiful Captain Katsuragi has sent me.
Daniel presses the phone... nothing happens. He glares at the device. "No signal." I could hear the annoyance rise in his voice. "Now I know what you're thinking Shinji, but this phone's actually absurdly reliable. If it's getting no signal, then there's no signal to be had."
"Maybe it has something to do with the missing people?" I ask noncommittally while setting off down the train platform stairs toward the pay phone and its land line.
I hear the sound of air freezing behind me. When I look back, I see Daniel breathe out a cold breath, almost like we're on a mountaintop or in winter. No such thing as winter in Japan these days, but still. His eyes go wide, followed by a flash of abject panic which he quickly hides.
"Um... what.. was that? With the breath?" I ask Daniel, extremely worried. He doesn't seem to hear me. In fact, he doesn't seem to be moving at all, so I step closer. His eyes are fixed on his phone.
I hear him whisper. "Ninety. Hundred-and-five..." In English, no less. A readout, I suppose.
And this is where I start to get scared as well.
"Hundred-and-SEVENTY? WHAT?" Daniel shouts at the phone. Incredulity mixing in with fear.
"What... what are you talking about?" I ask him.
Daniel shakes his head, almost as if to shake himself out of a waking nightmare.
"That much..." He all but whispers. "There's somethi-"
And then we hear what later turns out to be a footstep, loud as an explosion.
And we feel it rumbling up our leg bones, up our spines and rattling our teeth.
We glance at eachother. "We need to get out of here, right now!" Daniel shouts and I can't agree more.
My eyes flit from one side of the train station to the other, out onto the street, on the other side of...
And then I see a girl. A pale, skinny girl with blue hair. Not grandma-blue-haired but blue color pallette baby blue hair! And blood red eyes... In a schoolgirl outfit. "What...?" I stammer.
Another belch of frosty breath rolls out of Daniel's mouth. He tries to follow my gaze, and when I follow his gaze I realize whoever that girl standing across the street was, she has somehow vanished.
I hear Daniel's teeth grit and he grumbles in English "Okay, that does it! I'm going Gh-... Huh?!" We hear the screeching of tires and a blue sports car comes careening around the corner, tires wailing. It jolts to a stop in front of the train station.
" -or not, I suppose." Daniel says to no-one in particulair, grinning ear to ear.
We see the woman driving the car. It's Captain Misato Katsuragi, the woman from the picture. "Quick, get in!" she shouts. We run for it. She throws Daniel a confused glance, but when he all but leaps into the back seat with dread on his face, she shrugs and hits the gas.
"Okay, we'll figure you out when we're safe I suppose..." she half-shouts at Danny while keeping her eyes on the road.
So of course, I ask the one question you should never ask in a situation like this: "Safe from what?" Even as the words come out of my mouth, I curse at myself because I already know what's about to happen.
Misato's car turns a corner and we see it. The Angel Sachiel. Four times as tall as the apartment buildings surrounding it, it looks like a gaunt humanoid with one hell of a pair of shoulders.
The creature has a greenish black hide out of which bony shoulderpads, elbow spikes and what looks like a ribcage extend. The ribcage seems to contain the heart of the creature, a glowing red gem that looks fartoo large to even be real. It has a weird jester-crow mask on its head. A featureless white circle exept for big black eyeholes and a beak-like thing that extends down.
I must reiterate that this monster is... what, a hundred meters tall? Taller? I honestly can't tell, it's way too big for me to even guess. What I do know is that its foot is bigger then Captain Katsuragi's car.
I'm able to compare because it's bringing its foot down on us. I see Misato try to swerve out of the way, but time seems to slow. We're not gonna make it. Is it because we dawdled at the train station? Is it because there's three people in the car instead of two?
...At least the good Captain looks even better then in the picture, heh.
The big monster's foot slams down on us and the shadow extends over the car. I can feel the car entering into a skid, with Misato doing everything she can to evade this... this kaiju's foot...
I can also vaguely hear Daniel mumble "please don't be immune please don't be immune please don't be immune" in the back seat.
Wait, what?
Misato's got her eyes closed and one arm around my waist. I feel something airy and cold ripple through my body just as Sachiel stomps down on Misato's precious car.
To everyone's suprise (including the kaiju, I presume), we go right through Sachiel's foot and reappear out the other side as if nothing had happened.
Misato suddenly notices she isn't dead yet. Her eyes snap open, she overcorrects her steering and we almost fly of the road. She bounces her car off the side railing and manages to get it going straight down the road. That... was close.
I glance at Daniel who, for once, isn't looking at me. He's turned around, looking out the back window, trailing the gigantic form of the kaiju. "Vlad, what the fuck have you gotten me into..." I hear him mumble under his breath.
Please realize just how scared I feel right now. If you've ever seen an elephant, you know what it's like to be dwarfed. Now imagine an elephant the size of a large tower block. Okay, now make it three times wider, four times higher, and creepy as fuck, pardon the expletive.
Welcome to what we're speeding away form in an admittedly pretty nippy car. The kaiju is blotting out the sun, for goodness's sake! I'm panicking, though I'm allowed to panic! I'm still a teenager and about to get squished!
Thankfully, the adults are handling things more maturely. Misato's phone rings. In my huddled position, I can only barely see Daniel pick it out of her pocket. He holds it up to his ear.
The monster roars, a deep sound, almost like one of those action film trailer rumbles. I can only hear half the conversation thanks to the bass drone. "-an't quite understa-" Bwooooooooooooooaaaaarrr! "-'re saying." Daniel turns to Misato and shouts at her over Sachiel's bellow: "Ehm, Captain, what's an N2 mine?"
Captain Katsuragi's head swivels in Daniel's direction. She stares at the phone, mouthing something I can't quite make out. Her eyes dart to Daniel. "It's a bomb." She hisses.
"Not a normal bomb, I'd wager?" Danny deadpans in reply. Of course, it's an N2 mine. Explosives are kind of implied.
Misato has her eyes focused on the road again. "All the blast doors are closed..." She replies, as if it were a direct answer.
But Daniel seems to understand. He swallows hard and puts a hand on Misato's shoulder.
"It would be nice if luck struck twice..." He says quietly... "And we'd just happen to be able to drive through a closed door, right, Captain?" Daniel stares self-assuredly at Misato and Misato in turn stares back with an expression of incredulousness...
She turns back to driving and her expression switches to one of mad-eyed. At the same moment as she stomps her foot down on the gas pedal, a heli-jet explodes. The gunship, one of many, has been shot out of the sky and obliterated by a beam of pink light launched from the kaiju's hand.
I'm curled up in my seat, holding onto Misato as much as she's holding on to me. So I don't catch Daniel recognizing the pink energy beam.
I'm thrown into the passenger door when Misato makes a high-speed turn toward the nearest armored door marked 'Geofront'. From the grunt of pain I hear behind me, Daniel has also tumbled into the side door.
And now we're careening at lose-your-license speeds toward a closed armored door. Misato is steering us into a head-on collision! But sure enough, I again feel that cold ripple of floaty energy and we simply pass through the door like it isn't even there. Like we're not even there.
We get through, and the cold feeling dissipates. A bone-rattling blast follows, muffled by the armored door. Obviously the N2 bomb. That... was a big boom.
I hope the defense force managed to kill the kaiju.
Okay, wait. Is Daniel the one making stuff intangible? And what the hell was that monster? Why is this NERV officer coming to pick me up during this... this monster movie! And what does my father ha-... oh wow.
My train of thought is cut off when we roll down the underground highway and Daniel and I get our first look at the gargantuan cavern underneath Tokyo-3. Buildings suspended from the ceiling to keep them safe from the battle above. An underground lake surrounded by meadows and woodland... Mirrors to let in the light, obviously not active during seige... and a great big metal pyramid at the heart of it all.
"Wow..."I stammer, the beautiful view coaxing me of my panic-induced shutdown. "This is a Geofront!" I suddenly exclaim!
"Yup." Misato answers, smiling triumphantly.
Daniel's eyebrows twitch in confusion. He raises up his hand. "Er, question. What's a Geofront?"