Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.
Disclaimer: I do not own DC comics or anything associated with it and am making no profit off this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.
Chapter Sixteen: The Beginning of the End
The first thing Ritsuko became aware of was the pain.
Before she opened her eyes, before she even fully regained consciousness, she felt the dull throbbing. It was worst at her back, between her shoulder blades, but her whole body ached.
"Ohhh…" she groaned, reaching up and rubbing at her still closed eyes.
Her body felt leaden, and she was severely tempted to just go back to sleep. However, she knew that the pain would prevent her from being able to drift off again.
Finally opening her eyes, she winced as the harsh white light of the overhead caused her to squint.
Where am I? She wondered.
Her memory was foggy; she felt like she could barely remember her own name, let alone the sequence of events that had led to her waking up in this place, feeling like she'd just been through the wringer.
She braced herself for a few seconds, then sat up, gritting her teeth against the new spike of pain that came with the movement. Finally upright, she looked around, more fully taking in her surroundings.
She was in a small, Spartan room, barely large enough to contain the cot she had woken up on and a small toilet. The walls were bare cement, and there was no other furniture. The room was completely windowless, and the only door was a thick, armored affair.
"Well, looks like I'm a prisoner," she muttered, her voice coming out as a croak.
Now had she wound up in this situation?
Trying to focus her gradually clearing mind, she thought hard, casting her memory backwards.
It all came back to her at once. Killing the final Angel, only to return to her hideout to find Deathstroke and his team waiting to ambush her, something they'd done with great success.
Shit, that means I'm in NERV, she thought, rubbing her head. Hopefully nobody bothered to actually look in that cave…
"Scarab, we have to get out of here, as soon as possible," she said quietly.
Nothing but silence answered her.
"Scarab?" she whispered, trying to ignore the sinking feeling that was suddenly threatening to overtake her.
Nothing.
She tried thinking at it next, but she couldn't sense its thoughts at all. How could that be? It was plugged directly into her central nervous system!
Wasn't it?
Her heart hammering, she reached toward her back, ignoring the pain that the movement brought.
She was just able to reach far enough for her fingers to brush against the end of a long line of stitches the ran across her back.
They had cut the scarab out of her.
"No," she breathed, actually able to feel the blood draining from her face. "It's happening."
The fate of her alternate dimension counterpart, the Scarlet Scarab, was now happening to her. She thought she had avoided it when she had escaped Gendo's initial attempt to capture her, but it looked like she had only delayed the nightmare.
Soon, the Commander would have her lobotomized. She would be reduced to a shadow of her former self, and the intellect she had always been so proud of would be effectively destroyed. The scarab would endure a similar treatment, and only after both of them had been so crucially diminished would they be reunited.
Of course, they wouldn't be a heroine anymore, instead, they would be the mindless weapon of Commander Ikari, perfectly willing to murder the people who had been Ritsuko's best friends if he ordered it.
"No!" she exclaimed, pounding on the heavy door with her fists. "No!"
No one came to investigate all the noise, and the door certainly didn't budge. Eventually, Ritsuko gave up and sat down heavily on the room's cot, looking down at her hands.
She was doomed, which probably meant that the whole damn world was also doomed. SEELE would have their victory, and the Reach would be free to plunder the effectively uninhabited Earth.
Without the scarab, there was nothing she could do to prevent any of it. Indeed, absent that incredible piece of alien technology, which was also the wonderful, crazy, often infuriating being that had become her friend, Ritsuko was every bit as alone and powerless as she had ever been.
She buried her face in her hands, unable to think about anything except how much of a pathetic failure she was.
"Three cups of coffee and box of cookies," Shinji announced as he walked onto the middle tier of NERV headquarters' elaborate command center. "Fresh from the cafeteria."
"Thanks, Shinji," Makoto said, accepting the Styrofoam cup he was offered. "You didn't have to do this, though. You're a pilot, not an intern." He added, which got a snort of laughter from Aoba.
"I don't mind," the Third Child replied softly. "I don't really have any place to be right now."
Misato had brought him and Asuka in earlier for a routine sync test, which had concluded a while ago. However, the Ops Director's shift wouldn't end for several hours yet.
Of course, he could've just headed home by train, like Asuka had done, but he had his own reasons for lingering.
"You're a lifesaver," Aoba put in, as he and Maya took their own beverages.
"Have you been that busy lately?" Shinji asked, taking his own cup of tea from the cardboard holder.
"That bored is more like it," Aoba replied.
"Everyone's saying that all the Angels are dead now," Makoto added. "Rumor has it that we're probably going to be disbanded and the Evangelions decommissioned. I don't know if that's true, but there's no denying that there hasn't been a whole lot of work around here lately."
"Have there been a lot of rumors flying around?" the Third Child asked in a carefully neutral voice, opening the box of cookies and holding it out to the trio of technicians and waiting for each of them to take one.
"Oh, sure, tons of them," Makoto said around a mouthful of vanilla wafer.
"Not like that really means anything," the long haired tech added dismissively. "The rumor mill around here is pretty much always in overdrive. It's because there's so much in NERV that's top secret. Deny people information, and people make up their own. It's human nature."
"Thank you Mr. Philosophy," Makoto smirked.
"It's true!" Aoba retorted.
"It feels like all of NERV is holding its breath," Maya finally entered the conversation, speaking in a quiet voice. The petite brunette was staring into her cup of coffee, like she might find the answers to important questions in the brown liquid. "Everybody's saying that the Angels are all gone, but the commanders keep warning everybody not to let their guard down. It's like they're expecting an attack, but they haven't contradicted the rumors about the Angels being gone."
That statement hung in the air for several seconds, leaving an uncomfortable silence. It wasn't a big leap of logic to figure out that meant that the commanders were apparently expecting an attack from human enemies.
It was Shinji who finally broke the silence. "I heard people are saying that it was the Blue Beetle who killed the last Angel," he said softly.
Immediately, the technicians grew more guarded. The Third Child saw Makoto visibly tense up.
"Well, we really can't confirm or deny that," the bespectacled technician said.
"The MAGI detected a blue pattern a while back," Aoba added. "A powerful one, too. Everybody started scrambling, but then it just went away."
Shinji nodded. "I know. I was called in, after all, then told I could head back home before the car taking me to headquarters got halfway here," he reminded them.
"We don't know if that blue pattern was the real deal or a severe glitch from the MAGI," Aoba said. Unlike Makoto, he was a lot less nervous discussing the obviously delicate topic. Even so, he was a lot more tense than he'd been a minute ago. "All we know for sure is that if there was an Angel, we didn't kill it."
Looking at the suddenly wary NERV technicians, Shinji had to resist the urge to grimace at how guarded they had suddenly become.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised, he told himself.
It wasn't exactly normal for him to make small talk with the NERV staff and go looking to swap rumors. He tended to be the last person to know any and every bit of news around the base, and it was mostly his own fault for being so incurious.
He knew this last bit because Asuka and Misato had told it to him, more than once.
Still, he couldn't give up now.
"Some people are even saying that NERV caught the Blue Beetle recently," he mentioned in as offhand a tone of voice as he could muster.
It apparently wasn't offhanded enough. "That's really not something we should be discussing, Shinji. Especially not here at headquarters," Makoto said sternly.
"It could get people into trouble," Aoba added grimly.
"Anyway, thanks for making a run down to the cafeteria for us," Makoto added.
"Uh, no problem," Shinji said. Then, taking the obvious dismissal for what it was, he headed for the door. "I'll see you all later, I guess."
Once out of the command center and in the empty hallway outside of it, the Third Child allowed his shoulders to slump. He didn't know why he'd thought he'd be able to get that information out of the technicians, but he'd really believed it.
Stupid, he told himself.
He was halfway down the hall when he heard light but quick moving footsteps approaching him.
"Shinji."
He turned and was surprised to find that Maya had followed him. "Oh, um, Lieutenant Ibuki, what can I do for you?"
She hesitated for a moment before she responded. "Why did you want to know about Ritsuko-sempai?" she asked.
"Oh, um, I don't know why really," he said awkwardly.
Maya's eyes narrowed.
"Ritsuko was really nice to me," he said, reaching back and rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. "Nicer than, well, almost everybody. I never really believed that was only because she wanted to use me or something. So when I started hearing that maybe NERV had captured her, I just…thought I should try to find out. I honestly don't know what I'd with the information. Maybe nothing. I don't plan on trying to break her out or anything. I'm sure I'd never get past security even if I tried."
The brunette's expression softened.
"She's in the special wing of the detention block," she said in a whisper, leaning down toward him so he could hear it.
"The special wing?" Shinji breathed. "What's that?"
Maya shook her head. "It's just off the regular one. It was originally built in the event that one of the pilots suffered mental contamination from linking with EVA and, well, changed."
"I see," Shinji said. "Thank you for letting me know."
She nodded. "I hope it brings you some kind of peace of mind," she said. "Don't tell anyone you heard it from me, though."
"This is disastrous!"
From behind the expressionless safety of his holographic avatar, Chairman Keel allowed his wizened face to twist into a sneer as he observed one of his fellow members of SEELE rant and rave.
Every member of the shadowy cabal considered himself a smooth operator, a master manipulator on a grand scale, and in all fairness, they all were. A man didn't get invited to join the SEELE unless he had demonstrated the ability to manipulate nations, control vital sectors of the economy, or bend the world to his will in some equally impressive fashion.
Still, the kinds of stakes that SEELE played for often left even them feeling skittish and prone to panicking, much to Keel's annoyance.
He supposed that he himself might succumb to that fear if things were different. Unlike them, Keel had very little to lose; the various implants and medical devices that had been made a part of his body could only sustain his life for so much longer.
"The death of the Fifth Child at Unit One's hands was meant to be our justification for ordering an attack on Tokyo-3," SEELE 05 growled. "But thanks to the Blue Beetle's interference, we can't do that. What should be our moment of triumph will never be because we can't perform our final stroke!"
"Calm down," Keel directed his colleague, judging that he'd allowed the man to vent for long enough.
"We're staring down the prospect of complete failure, and you tell me to calm down?" SEELE 05 hissed.
"We are not going to fail," Keel growled. "The loss of the Fifth Child in this unexpected manner is a setback, not a catastrophe. The possibility that Ikari would manage to kill the Fifth Child in a way that could not be publically blamed on NERV is a contingency we're prepared for. Ample evidence has been manufactured proving that Ikari intends to use the Evangelions to move against the Japanese government, and I will see to it that it soon reaches the Prime Minister's desk. The Blue Beetle's actions against Tabris have delayed our final victory by an hour or two, nothing more."
There was a brief pause as the other members of the council took that in. It was hard to tell, due to the holographic avatars ensuring that he couldn't actually see any of them, but Keel thought he'd mollified everyone.
"And what happens when Ikari deploys the Evangelions to stop the JSSDF?" SEELE 11 asked. "With the Mass Produced Evangelion Series destroyed…"
"Again, contingencies are ready," Keel said. "The optimal outcome is that the JSSDF takes NERV headquarters and apprehends the Children before Ikari can deploy any of the Evangelions. However, if that should fail, the JSSDF is prepared. After all, they've been seeking a counter to the Evangelions ever since they first saw one in action, and Blue Beetle herself assisted them in upgrading their combat capabilities."
A low chuckle ran through the room.
"It…seems that we don't have as much to fear as I'd believed," SEELE 05 said, which was as close to admitting that he'd completely overreacted as the man would ever come.
"And even if we did, it's far too late to turn back now," SEELE 11 chimed in with a touch of humor, making a point that Keel wished someone had put in a few moments ago.
"Despite all the difficulties, we are on the verge of victory. The edge of death and rebirth for all this is and all that will ever be," SEELE 02 said.
"Instrumentality," several of the other members murmured.
"Is there any other business?" Keel asked.
Silence was his answer.
"Then this meeting is adjourned," he said. "The next time this council meets, it will be to observe the Third Impact together."
All the monoliths winked out, save for Keel's own. The chairman of the shadowy cabal pushed a button on his desk, and the hologram melted away.
At the same time, the air before him shimmered, and there was a soft whoosh of displaced air as the Reach Negotiator materialized before him, phasing back into regular reality.
"I told you they were skittish, did I not?" Keel asked.
"You should see my subordinates," the Negotiator chuckled. "I can hardly blame them, though. We of the Reach tend not to be risk takers, and this situation is a bit outside of the norm for us."
"Your people sound like they appreciate everything that can increase the chance of victory. Every bit of insurance against defeat," Keel observed. "It's something I can certainly relate to."
"I'm sure you can," the Negotiator replied, sounding vaguely amused.
"Speaking of which…"
"Ah, yes, of course," the Negotiator said, producing a small box that he handed to Keel. "Remember, if Green Lantern's superiors come calling, you stole that from us."
"Duly noted," Keel said. "I hope you make a great deal of profit from this planet's natural resources."
The Negotiator smiled, then pressed a button on his cane, disappearing once more.
Meanwhile, as games of chess were being played with people and organizations as the pieces, Misato Katsuragi sat in the command center, standing the night watch and quite oblivious to the machinations of the powerful people around her.
Of course, just because she had no way to know about what Gendo or SEELE were doing didn't mean she failed to notice all the tension in the air around headquarters. Though the Angels were supposedly all dead, the sense that the other shoe was about to drop was palpable.
That the Commanders were insisting that the staff maintain an unusually high level of readiness at all times certainly wasn't doing anything to quell any rumors. It was also, incidentally, the reason why she'd gotten stuck with the night shift.
She didn't mind. It gave her a chance to think.
I can't believe the Angels are all dead, she thought, idly tracing circles on the armrest of her chair.
She supposed that she should feel triumphant and fulfilled about that, but she didn't. Instead, she felt at loose ends. Empty, even.
Which really shouldn't have been a surprise, when she thought about it. After all, she'd devoted pretty much her entire adult life to killing the Angels.
Her lips quirked upwards slightly. She had wondered, more than once, how Asuka would deal with the end of the war that she'd devoted her life to preparing for, but she'd never once pondered how she herself would handle it.
Hmph, here I am, acting like I don't know what to do with myself now, she thought.
Of course, her new task was all too clear. She had to finish Kaji's work and discover the truth about NERV.
In all the fuss created over the Blue Beetle and the revelation of her identity, almost no one had taken note of the Vice Commander's brief disappearance, or the Special Inspector's permanent one. But it had dealt a blow to her, a very severe one.
Even so, she found herself strangely reluctant to throw herself into her new cause as fully as she'd committed to her old one. She was all too aware of the things she'd sacrificed to get where she was and do as much as she had against the Angels. Another crusade would no doubt require similar sacrifices.
Also, though it made her feel ashamed even to think it, she felt like there were…better things she could be doing. Asuka was still suffering from the aftereffects of the Fifteenth Angel, and Shinji was probably hurting, too; he and Rits had grown surprisingly close before it had come out that she was the Blue Beetle.
Besides, there were the other…extracurricular activities she could possibly take on, she mused, toying with the invisible ring on her finger.
Still, she had promised the only man she'd ever loved that she'd finish his work, and just abandoning that would be an unthinkable betrayal.
So she'd just have to unearth NERV's secrets, and hope her world didn't fall apart around her in the meantime.
"Is this really all the progress you've made so far?" Gendo demanded.
The man in the white coat who stood before the Commander of NERV, a middle aged computer science expert named Oshiro (Gendo couldn't be bothered to remember his given name), looked like he wanted to sink into the floor and disappear.
Under other circumstances, the Commander would have moderated his approach at least somewhat, recognizing that it would be counterproductive toward the goal of getting the most out of the man over the long term.
Gendo didn't give a damn about the long term anymore. He kept his cold glare trained on the man.
"H-Honestly, sir, I think this is quite encouraging," Oshiro said. "You're asking me—us…my team and I, I mean—to figure out a completely alien system. An AI that's mostly dormant. That we seem to have a functional interface between it and the MAGI is a huge step."
Gendo glanced at the device sitting next to Oshiro. It was a smaller, highly modified version of the machine hidden down in Terminal Dogma, the one used to make copies of Rei's memories should NERV need to replace the First Child with one of her clones.
The scarab floated inside of a glass tank, looking like some bizarre but harmless curiosity. Certainly not like the sort of thing that had allowed Ritsuko Akagi—the brilliant yet pathetic daughter of an equally brilliant yet pathetic woman—to become such a thorn in his side.
"'Encouraging' isn't good enough," Gendo told Oshiro. "That device is a thousand times more advanced than the JSSDF hardware based off similar technology, and I require that you find out how to exploit that. The amount of time you have is measured in days, if not hours."
"Days?" Oshiro gasped. "But, sir, I don't understand. Why so little time?"
"That is not your concern," Gendo said flatly.
Not for the first time, he cursed the fact that it had taken so long to capture the Blue Beetle and separate her from the source of her power. If this state of affairs had existed even a few months ago, the possibilities would've been nearly endless. The scarab could well have guaranteed the success of his Scenario.
As it was the thing represented a slim chance at having an ace in the hole when the time came.
"We'll all do our best, sir," Oshiro pledged.
Gendo gave the man a grunt of acknowledgement then headed for the door, leaving the flustered scientist to collect his wits and then redouble his efforts.
Really, Oshiro was hardly the person the Commander would've preferred for this job. The ideal person would've been Ritsuko, of course, but that was obviously out of the question.
Ibuki would've been next in line. Though she might not have been as qualified as some of the other members of Technical Division One, at least on paper, she had been Ritsuko's protégé for long enough to have developed skills for working with exotic computer systems. However, he didn't trust her to run this project, not when it was public knowledge that her sempai had been the Blue Beetle.
So he made do with the best he had. It was what he'd been doing since before he'd lost his Yui. Hopefully it would be enough to see them reunited soon.
Many hours later, there was movement in the dense foliage at the edge of the Geofront.
The advance scouts of the JSSDF assault force peeked through the shrubbery, searching for any sign of unexpected defenses. If what their superiors had told them about NERV Central was true, then there was no telling what might be in store for them. There was clearly no line Ikari was unwilling to cross; he might have struck bargains with anyone in order to strengthen his position.
Still, there was no sign that anything worse than NERV's token security force awaited them. They signaled back to the rest of the force.
And the attack commenced. Hundreds of attack vehicles, from tanks to APCs to artillery pieces sprang to life from their positions all around Tokyo-3. Most of them headed for the city, but several opened fire on the urban area's still inactive defensive structures. The rockets slammed into the dummy buildings, quickly igniting the ordnance contained in them and causing the structures to erupt from within, spraying fire and chunks of debris in all directions.
Down on the street level, the citizens of Tokyo-3 who'd just been going about their morning saw the sudden destruction and terror shot through many. Several of them screamed, outright embracing panic.
The denizens of Tokyo-3 had grown used to dealing with Angel attacks. However, NERV was usually able to see the often huge, lumbering monsters coming early enough to order the civilians to take shelter. The JSSDF had done all they could to strike without warning, to cripple NERV's defenses before the paramilitary organization could even do anything to respond to their attack.
The JSSDF deeply regretted the civilian casualties that would inevitable come as a result of their surprise attack, but with the potentially astronomical cost of failure, the top brass and the Prime Minister had all agreed that they could pull no punches against NERV. The price for the element of surprise would have to paid in the blood of Japanese civilians.
With the initial bombardment taking out the city's static defenses, the tanks and armored personnel carriers surged forward, heading toward the numerous tunnels that led to the Geofront.
It was time to take the fight directly to NERV and Ikari.
"What the hell is going on?!" Misato barked as alarms and klaxons blared all around her, right lights flashing everywhere on the command center. "Is the MAGI detecting a blue pattern?"
The Ops Director had been on the verge of finishing up her late shift and heading home when the alarms had sounded, obliterating her plans to leave and get some sleep. Needless to say, not only was she as tense as she always was when the alarms in headquarters all went off, she was pissed, too.
"Negative, no blue pattern," Maya answered.
"Then what's the alarm sounding for?" the major demanded.
"We're under attack by human forces," Aoba said grimly. "The JSSDF by the looks of it."
He input a quick command, and the pictures on the screens in the vast room immediately shifted, showing various scenes from around the city. The burning ruins of several destroyed buildings. Combat vehicles streaming into the Geofront access tunnels. Civilians running around in terror.
All traces of her fatigue were suddenly drowned in a tide of adrenaline.
"Hyuga—" she began, her gaze snapping toward the bespectacled tech.
"I've already tried to contact JSSDF command," he said, obviously having anticipated her next order. "They're not responding." He added grimly.
Misato's jaw set. "Transform the city, at least as much as possible," she said, glancing at the image of a smoldering dummy skyscraper on one of the monitors. "And sound the evacuation alarms!"
"Major," Hyuga spoke up quietly, "with all due respect, are you sure it's a good idea to get everyone to the shelters? They might have shown even less restraint if not for all the civilians on the surface."
"I'm not going to use noncombatants as human shields. Sound the evacuation alarms," Misato replied sternly. "Anybody with any sense is already heading to the shelters, anyway." She added under her breath.
"Yes, ma'am."
"Seal off all the entrances to headquarters as soon as possible," she said. "And get the pilots to their Evangelions now!"
"Asuka is already en route to Unit Two," Maya reported. "But we can't locate Rei or Shinji."
Misato had to resist the urge to scream. Of all the times for those kids to go AWOL…
"Trace their cell phones, then," she growled.
"We've tried," Aoba replied. "Rei's is turned off. Shinji's put him in the boy's locker room, but we've already sent someone there to get him. The phone was there, but he wasn't."
The Operations Director grit her teeth. After Shinji had run away after the battle with the Fourth Angel, NERV had implanted GPS chips into the pilots' cell phones to let them track their locations. She had frequently wondered if she should tell the Children about them, not sure if it was right to leave them ignorant of the fact that NERV had tagged them like a researcher might tag a wild animal.
Apparently, she needn't have fretted so much. At least two of them had figured it out, or at least guessed.
"The attackers will kill them if they find them," she said grimly. "I want them found. Search headquarters floor by floor if you have to. Send everybody who's not crucial to our defense. Janitors, scientists, everybody!"
"Yes, ma'am!"
The orders given out, Misato turned to look at the monitors. She knew that they were badly outnumbered and outgunned in this battle, and sometimes it didn't matter how cleverly the officer in charge utilized her own resources. Sometimes even the savviest leader could only delay the inevitable.
Their only chance was for the Evangelions to deal enough damage to get the JSSDF to retreat before they could gain control of NERV headquarters. In the meantime, people were going to die, probably lots of them.
Misato only hoped that the Children wouldn't be among the casualties.
Not even the thick walls of metal and concrete that surrounded her could keep out the deafening racket generated by the base's alarms. Ritsuko heard the muffled noise and knew instantly that headquarters was under attack.
She also knew that the Angels were all dead, which meant that the attackers had to be human.
SEELE is making its move, she thought grimly.
Gendo would probably grab Rei and rush down to initiate Third Impact, assuming that nothing stopped him, leaving the rest of NERV to buy him enough time to do just that. The forces acting at the behest of Keel (whether they knew it or not), might stop him, or they might not.
It didn't really matter. If Gendo was stopped today, then SEELE would initiate their own version of Third Impact at some point in the near future.
No matter who won this battle, humanity lost. Misato, Maya, Shinji…everyone she had ever cared about would be consumed, transformed into part of the massive gestalt being.
And she was powerless to do anything about it. She supposed that Misato, as the Green Lantern, might be able to pull off the save, but she couldn't see her friend abandoning her post in the middle of a desperate battle.
Especially since Misato didn't know about the plans for Third Impact. Ritsuko had never told her about that, afraid that her friend would fly off the handle and attack NERV, not caring that the rest of the Angels had still needed to be dealt with.
I should've trusted her, Ritsuko thought miserably, drawing her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around her legs, curling herself into a ball. She could hardly have made the situation any worse than I already have…
She drew her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around her legs. She wasn't sure why she wasn't crying by this point; the impending end of humanity as everyone knew it seemed like it should be worth a few tears, but they just wouldn't come.
"It's so quiet," she whispered to herself, then immediately regretted speaking aloud. Hearing her own voice only served to further underscore how oppressive the silence around her was.
Ritsuko missed the scarab, and not just because losing it meant that she had also lost all her powers. The inside of her head seemed even more stiflingly quiet than the cell did without it and the constant "hum" that came from having her nervous system linked directly to another intelligent being.
The corners of her mouth twitched briefly as she thought about it. It hadn't been too long ago that having a connection with the scarab had been bizarre, alien, and nearly intolerable. Back then, she never would've believed that she could grow accustomed to it, but here she was, thinking about how strange its absence was.
The heavy tumblers inside her cell's armored door started to turn then, the sound of it practically thunderous.
Ritsuko's gaze snapped up. A spike of hope shot through her, but she ruthlessly suppressed it, not wanting to be disappointed. Probably SEELE had launched a cyber attack against the MAGI, and Ikari was going to demand she stop it.
Though it does seem odd that they'd do it at the same time as a conventional attack instead of before one, she thought as she waited for the doors to open. In fact, I'm surprised they decided to try at all. Keel must know Gendo has me and the scarab by now. I would've expected him to want to get both of us out of his control as soon as possible.
She shook her head, again telling herself that it was pointless to hope. She had lost. She had to accept that now.
The door opened, its hinges emitting a low squeak as it moved. She didn't look up.
"Ritsuko?"
Her eyes widened, then snapped toward the door.
Shinji stood there, alone, looking as uncertain as ever. Rather amazing, considering he'd probably just committed half a dozen felonies.
"What are you doing here?" she blurted out.
"Well, when the alarms went off, I thought it was an Angel, but it turned out to be the JSSDF. So they're scrambling the base's security force, and I just…came down here. I don't really no why I decided to do that, but I did, and I saw the place was unguarded. I guess they pulled the guards away to the defend the base or something. And then I just…opened your cell," Shinji explained.
He said all of this very quickly, and Ritsuko had the distinct impression that he was as least as shocked by his actions as she was. The two of them just stared stupidly at each other for a second.
Ritsuko got over it first. In one explosive motion (which had the wound in her back crying out in protest, only to be completely ignored) she jumped off the cot and wrapped her arms around the Third Child, hugging him tightly.
"Thank you," she said.
She held him for several seconds, immensely grateful at the one last chance he'd given her to save the world, to not be a complete failure.
Then she belatedly noticed that the Third Child had frozen in response to her embrace, his whole body completely motionless. She quickly released him.
"Sorry," she said, embarrassed.
Shinji mumbled a few words that were probably supposed to be "That's okay" or something of that nature, his face flushed.
She put a hand on his shoulder. "You should head to Unit One, now. It's the only safe place for you," she told him.
"What about you?" Shinji asked, looking up at her with big, worried eyes.
"I'm either going to save the world or get shot, most likely," Ritsuko answered frankly.
It felt a little mean to be so blunt and honest with him, but considering how good the chances were that she would, indeed, end up riddled with bullet holes, she didn't think it was wise to sugar coat things and leave him shocked if she died.
"R-Ritsuko!" Shinji gasped. "You can't…! Let me help you! I could…" he trailed off.
"You've helped me tremendously, Shinji, but you can't do anything else for me now," she said, making sure her tone was firm but not harsh. "What you can do is pilot Unit One. Leave the rest to me."
He hesitated. "But…"
"Go."
The Third Child paused for one more moment, then turned and started jogging away, heading for the Evangelion cages. Ritsuko dearly hoped that the JSSDF hadn't reached deep enough into the base to be a threat to him.
She shook her head. Difficult though it was, she couldn't think about Shinji now. She had to focus on her own mission; she needed to stop both SEELE and Gendo, and to have a chance at that, she needed to get the scarab back, pronto.
Okay, so all I have to do is figure out where it is inside a massive building that's being invaded, she thought. I'm unarmed, I have the body of a twenty-something Olympic athlete—with a recently stitched up wound from surgery in my back—and I'm wearing a hospital gown that shows my ass.
She really hoped that luck was with her today. It suddenly seemed like she was going to need it.
"Evangelion Unit Two, launch!"
With those words, Asuka went rocketing toward the surface to confront a very different enemy from the kind she'd been fighting so far.
The Second Child had always known that the potential for people to die as collateral damage was present nearly every time she took her Evangelion into combat. She had been told about that from a very young age, and how she couldn't let guilt over those unfortunate deaths make her want to stop piloting.
Yet this, being sent out to fight other humans like this, wasn't something she'd ever been told she'd have to do. It wasn't a possibility that any of the many people who'd trained her for combat had ever prepared her for.
Unit Two reached the surface of the Geofront, coming to an abrupt stop as the lift immediately halted its ascent. The force of inertia caused the crimson Evangelion's head to snap up, giving the impression that the massive war machine was waking up.
Instantly, all the tanks and artillery pieces that had made their way into the Geofront ceased firing, turned, and unleashed an unrelenting barrage of fire at the red EVA. The withering bombardment they subjected it to would have reduced any building to rubble in seconds, if that.
"You shouldn't have come here," Asuka growled as she expanded her Evangelion's AT field, the invisible barrier stopping all the shells and rockets cold.
The scarlet giant took off toward the attacking forces, kicking tanks and sending them flying through the air like children's toys, until they eventually crashed into the walls of the Geofront with enough force to crumple their tough armor. Unit Two broke out into a jog, stepping on vehicles and crushing them like soda cans.
Asuka hadn't been trained to kill other humans, and she took no pleasure in it. However, the Second Child had learned, at the ripe old age of four, just how brutal and ruthless the world could be. She knew that she had to defend herself and her home relentlessly, and that she couldn't afford to show mercy while doing so.
"I'll fight you until my last breath if I have to!" Asuka roared, and her scream blared from Unit Two's external speakers, echoing off the Geofront walls.
The crimson titan squatted, sweeping its arms across the ground and sending dozens of enemy vehicles flying. They couldn't hurt her anymore than they'd been able to hurt the Third Angel, and she'd seen the videos of that very one-sided fight.
Then the JSSDF force began to pull back, and for a moment Asuka thought (with a considerable amount of relief) that they'd decided to do the sensible thing and had gone into full retreat.
Her assumption was proven wrong a moment later when new vehicles started to pour out of the Geofront access tunnels. More tanks, and incredibly, aircraft streamed into the massive cave.
These weren't more standard JSSDF fare, though. These were the new Reach-tech enhanced weapons that the Blue Beetle had helped them develop. The ones that the brass had hoped would allow the JSSDF to replace NERV and the Evangelions.
Asuka allowed her lips to curl. These she would take some pleasure in destroying.
"This is not going quite how I'd envisioned it," Ritsuko panted, coming to a stop and allowing herself to lean against the wall.
Of course, one of the scenarios she'd had in mind had involved her being killed by NERV Security or Section Two, so she supposed that wasn't entirely a bad thing. Still, she did wish that there was less running involved. Her stamina definitely wasn't where it should be, no doubt thanks to her wounded state.
In spite of all the chaos that was no doubt engulfing large sections of the base, the part used by the Technical Divisions was eerily quiet. No fighting was happening there, and most of the scientists had apparently decided to seek shelter elsewhere. Ritsuko had never taken a look at a map of NERV headquarters with military tactics in mind, but now she assumed that all the labs and workshops were well away from the parts of the base that an invader would want to seize first.
Which was good, of course. The bad news was that she couldn't seem to find her object, even though, as the former Project-E chairperson, she knew this place very well.
Damn it, they have to be keeping the scarab around here somewhere, she thought to herself.
Taking a deep breath, she pushed off the wall, ready to start looking again.
She was stopped before she could even begin by an ominous click from behind her.
Even though Ritsuko had never fired a normal, run-of-the-mill firearm (as opposed to the scarab's futuristic weapons), she was still completely certain the sound had come from a gun.
"Hands above your head," a man's voice spoke from right behind her. Silently cursing herself for not hearing him coming, Ritsuko complied. "Now, turn around, slowly."
She did so, finding herself face to face with a man in a tan uniform and a red beret. Not one of Section Two's members, he was in NERV Security.
Ritsuko had always liked NERV Security more. The group seemed to be made up of a much better class of people than the thugs in suits that made up NERV's secret police force. Still, she wasn't exactly thrilled to see this guy.
He's young, she thought, realizing that the man before her was barely twenty, if that, and he looked nervous.
"Don't move," he ordered her.
Ritsuko nodded fractionally.
Holding his gun with one hand, the man fumbled for his radio with the other. He glanced down at it to see the buttons.
And Ritsuko's leg shot upwards, crashing into his groin. The man's eyes bugged out, and his mouth opened as if to release a scream, but only a tiny, high pitched whine came out. A moment later he collapsed to the ground, cupping the abused part of his anatomy.
"I'm really sorry about that, but the world is literally at stake. Believe it or not, you may even thank me someday," Ritsuko said, squatting down next to his supine form. "…this next part you'll probably never be too grateful about, though."
Meanwhile, in a vast office in neighboring Tokyo-2, a pair of men were receiving real time updates on the progress of the battle. One wore a dark suit, the other a military uniform.
"The Reach-tech units are being routed by the Evangelion, sir," Katsuro said.
The general who had once been the superstar of the JSSDF now occupied a purely advisory position, and looked a good ten years older than he had a few short months ago.
"And we thought that those weapons might allow the JSSDF to take over dealing with the Angels," the Prime Minister said with contempt.
Katsuro had never suffered any such illusion, even though he knew it was one that the JSSDF had promoted in their PR war with NERV. The Blue Beetle had always been the lynchpin of every strategy for killing Angels without Evangelions.
With the way events had played out, though, Katsuro thought that it was best to hold his peace on that issue.
"It looks as if we have no choice but to play our trump card," the Prime Minister said softly.
"Sir, I have to recommend against that," Katsuro said at once. "In order to deploy that thing into the Geofront—"
"I'm aware of what needs to be done, General."
"Even if NERV's ordered an evacuation already, there are no doubt civilians still on the surface," Katsuro continued. He normally never would have kept pressing the leader of his nation like this, but the circumstances demanded it.
"I know, but Ikari's built abominations down there. Those things need to be wiped from the face of the Earth," the Prime Minister said heavily, reaching for the phone that sat on his desk.
Back in the command center of NERV headquarters, the level of tension was rising steadily. Even though Unit Two was all but making sport out of the its enemies, inside the base the forces of the JSSDF were steadily advancing, sweeping away the less heavily armed NERV Security force. Misato had ordered several hallways be flooded with bakelite to slow them down, but the JSSDF infantrymen had come ready with demolitions. It was barely delaying them at all.
On the command center, they were easily able to monitor how quickly their enemies were getting to the nerve center of the base, which was where they were, of course.
"Major," Makoto said, "there's a heavy bomber approaching the city. It should be right above us in a few seconds."
"What?" Misato demanded.
"Oh my God," Makoto gasped.
"What?!" the Operations Director barked.
Makoto didn't get the chance to answer as the floor beneath them shook furiously, and a muted blast of thunder sounded from outside. Most of the screens in the command center went to static, and Makoto had to grip his chair to keep from falling off of it.
Misato, who'd been standing, hadn't been quite so lucky. "Ugh," she grumbled as she picked herself off the floor. "Was that…?"
"A nuclear missile," Aoba confirmed grimly.
"Damn it, haven't these people ever heard of moderation?" Makoto growled.
The Operations Director was already pondering more a relevant question. "Why now?" she muttered to herself. "Why did they wait to do this, instead of doing it right at the start?"
She'd like to think that it was because they wanted to give Tokyo-3's civilians a chance to evacuate, but given how ruthless the JSSDF had been so far, she couldn't quite believe that.
"Ma'am, the JSSDF's second wave is pulling back," Aoba announced.
"What are they getting ready to throw at us now?" Misato asked, more convinced than ever that the enemy was about to spring some new surprise on them.
"Radar's picking up another aircraft over the city," Makoto put in. "It's too large to be anything but an Evangelion carrier."
Misato frowned, not bothering to point out what they all knew, namely that the Mass Production Evangelion Series had been completely destroyed.
"Get the cameras back up," Misato ordered. "I need to be able to see what's happening in the Geofront."
"Roger," Maya said.
The command given, Misato turned her gaze to look up at the still static filled main screen, crossing her arms and quietly tapping her foot in her impatience.
The picture came back just in time for her to see what the JSSDF had dropped into the Geofront. It looked an enormous robot, easily about the size of an Evangelion, but covered in black and blue armor and bristling with weaponry.
"What the hell is that?" Aoba wondered aloud.
"It looks a little like the Jet Alone," Maya remarked.
Whatever it is, it's trouble, Misato thought.
"Asuka—" she began.
"I see it, Misato!" the Second Child replied, sounding annoyed. "Don't worry, I can handle this stupid toy!"
The Ops Director dearly hoped she was right.
In his years of being a scientist, most of the supervisors that Dr. Oshiro had answered to fully understood the scientific process. They realized that progress usually happened slowly, and while great breakthroughs did happen, they couldn't be predicted or rushed. Demanding them didn't work.
On this project, however, Gendo Ikari had shown a complete unwillingness to accept that, which was why Oshiro found himself still at work even while the base was under attack.
If I actually survive today, I'm quitting, the man thought as he typed away at this computer, turning his head to briefly gaze at the scarab. No more working for a psycho.
It never occurred to him that Ikari might understand perfectly well how scientific progress worked, and that the man was only being so unreasonable because he was desperate.
At least he left me some protection, he thought, glancing at the trio Section Two agents who occupied the room with him. Not like that's gonna help if the damn army bursts in here, though.
His grim thoughts were interrupted by the door opening, and a young woman wearing the uniform of NERV Security walking in.
"What do you want?" one of the Section Two men demanded without preamble.
In answer, the woman belted him across the face, sending him staggering. The other agent who been standing by the door immediately threw his own punch at her, but she'd expected that and ducked the blow, then sprang up and landed a fierce uppercut onto his jaw. The man cried out in pain and collapsed to the floor.
The swift motions caused the woman's red beret to go falling to the floor, revealing her blond hair. Oshiro's eyes widened.
"Doctor Akagi!" he gasped.
She ignored him and went rushing for the glass capsule that held the scarab. The third Section Two quickly got between her and it, reaching for his gun, but she shoved him hard.
Only to have him retaliate by lashing out at her with his pistol, the butt of the weapon hitting her in the skull. With a cry of pain, she went down, less than a meter away from her goal.
Correcting his grip on his weapon, the Section Two agent pointed the firearm at the fallen woman.
"What are you—?" Oshiro began.
The agent ignored him. "Any last words?" he asked Akagi.
Author's Notes: Well, here we are again, the closing stretch. I had honestly expected to get a bit further and get more action in here, but it took me longer than I'd thought to reach this point. Plenty of action and explosions in the next chapter, though, I promise you that.
Anyway, thanks as always to my readers and reviewers, and thanks to my beta reader as well.