Part 8: Paths

Toji woke up on the beach naked. All he remembered was seeing before this was LCL fluid being inside of his Eva and he winced in pain remembering that he had lost his limbs, so forcing himself around on his back was when he felt something. On the end of each of his stumps, he felt something pudgy and round, soft and he flexed his limbs and realized that he had a...

Quickly bringing his stump up to his face, he saw a hand, his hand pushing on the ground. He saw he also had another hand and then he looked down, feet. He was whole and very...he looked around to see that he was by a sea of blood. With that he wanted to throw up, but, all that came out was spit.

After a long moment, Toji realized that he was not alone.

Rachel had spent the last three days walking with this girl. Between being washed ashore of a sea of blood and very naked, things were good as they could be for the time being.

Somehow, a lemon tree had survived the disaster zone she was walking through. The tree almost symbolizing the sourness of the situation, but, also of hope of the situation they were currently in. Between the large homemade ponchos, she had been wearing and the girl who washed in from the sea with her, all she knew about the girl was her name, Nozomi, and also, she only spoke Japanese.

Nozomi was searching for someone named Toji and given that the girl wouldn't leave without this person even with the broken English she was speaking. Given that Noz was about a few months younger than she was, she was looking more frantic about what was going on. That was when they saw a naked guy lying on the beach.

"Toji" Noz called out as she started to run over to the boy. Rachel noticed that given how the two of them were talking, it was as if they were both catching up to speed. Third Impact would bring about much change in this world and the desire to find lost ones, like Rachel herself.

Kensuke was looking around the break room they had come across and soon realized that everything was written in German. Boy, did he wish for Asuka to be here, he didn't know if he was going to get a diet soda or something that tasted like several month old canned coffee.

"Well, how are things going Kensuke?" Hikari said looking around the room as she brought her kid sister back in along with Toji's.

"Well, I think I can force the lock off but, I was able to find some change, so, I think we can get the vending matching to at least drop some food out," Kensuke said as he pointed to the forced open change machine in the corner. "So, how are the girl's doing?" He asked as Hikari took a seat at one of the break tables.

"They are doing fine. But, I think the bathroom break was worth it," She said looking at Tru and Desmond. "I think that whatever happened here also hit NERV central. I mean, look at the vending machine, I think we are in NERV Germany."

"Yeah, that means whatever happened to us, it must have transported us here and dumped us into the LCL tanks." Kensuke said looking at the current facts they had.

"So, that means that we are either the first or..." Suddenly things went crazy.

"HELLO, IS THERE ANYONE THERE?" A female voice asked in English over the loud speakers.

"Hikari, did you hear that?" Kensuke asked as everyone in the room looked up at the speaker.

"Uh, IF YOU CAN HEAR THIS, WAVE AT THE CAMERA, WE ARE IN THE CONTROL ROOM." The voice said as Hikari turned to see the camera sitting in the corner of the room.

Hikari slowly moved over to the camera and started to wave at it. Quickly grabbing a dry board and a marker, she wrote down something on the board and held it up to the camera.

"UH, TO THE GIRL WITH THE FRECKLES, WE DON'T READ JAPASESE ALL THAT WELL. HELL, IF YOU KNOW YIDDISH, THEN WE MIGHT COMMUNICATE, DO YOU HAVE SOME BROKEN ENGLISH." The voice said, then suddenly, something was spoken in a language that neither Hikari nor Kensuke understood, but, suddenly Tru's face lit up as she rushed over and grabbed the dry board from Hikari's hands and started to scribble something onto it in some sort of strange figures and held it up to the camera. There was a brief conversation with a male voice as she was scribbling like mad in this strange language as if she was afraid the person on the other end of the speaker would disappear.

"Hey, slow down." The voice said this time and it was not shouting over the speaker. "Tru," The male voice said in English before it broke into the strange language Tru spoke in. It was as if the voice was saying, calm down. I will tell you and the others how to get to us. Hikari moved over as Tru placed the board on a set of tables and sat down.

"Not alone." Tru said as she just hugged Hikari. That was when the female voice started to speak in broken Japanese.

"Okay, I think we can guide you to the control room. So, you had better take some notes. We will get on the speakers and guide you there, but, you will need to get some flash lights in some of these places it will get really dark." The female voice said as Kensuke started to look around to see if he could find some flashlights for the trip. Soon, they were going to meet the people in the control room.

Amanda was looking at the various monitors. Along with the green wet suit she was wearing, she felt like she was in some Sci-fi TV show and this was their sense of high fashion.

"Amanda…" Spike said as he pulled up a seat by her. Amanda shifted as she adjusted the jacket she was using a makeshift skirt before she turned around. "I think that girl with the long blond hair might probably be from Israel," Spike said as he started to recite some of the Yiddish he knew.

"Yeah, she must be scared out of her wits. I mean, I think she and her brother must be glued to each other after waking up in that swimming pool of blood," Amanda said as she looked up at the large floating screen in the middle of the room. Tiled upon it were all the camera feeds that were throughout this military base. Between the number of blood puddles and piles of clothes, they hadn't seen anyone other than those kids.

"Yeah and Tiffany has been a little worried that I might be the last guy on the face of the planet."

"I agree with you," Amanda said as she looked over to see Tiffany in the corner curled up in a jacket. "I think Tiffany likes that boy in the dark plug suit."

"Yeah, but trust me, whoever designed these wet suit thingies, I will have to kill the man if I ever find him," Spike said leaning over to look at the monitor as the group of two girls, one boy and several young children.

"Yeah, but, I am starting to notice a theme with the three of us," Amanda said looking at the number of boys to girls as well with ages. "Between six that have emerged from the blood pool, there have been two girls for every boy," Amanda said as she did the math again. "It's like someone or something is just spitting us out in controlled numbers or it just might be that someone might just want to pacify us." Spike got up and walked over to look at the number of people on the screen as they made a turn at one of the hallways.

"I don't know about that, I mean, it just might be that each of us was able to break free of that, well, dream world we were stuck in. For all we know, there could be more males emerging from another place, or an equal number showing up here," Spike said as he looked at the screen and counted boys and girls. That was when the blond girl looked up at the monitor and waved a little nervously.

"I think Tru might need to hear an encouraging word from you," Amanda said as she reached over and handed the mic over to Spike.

"So what do you want me to say to her?" Spike asked a bit concerned.

"I don't know. You speak her language, read out some poetry or something like that," Amanda said as she brushed back a lock of blond hair to behind her ear.

"Okay," Spike said as he reached down and pulled out a book of English poetry he had found in one of the break rooms and started translating it in his head before he read it aloud in Hebrew.

Tru was moving with the others as they made their way to the control room. Slowly over the speakers, she could hear Spike's voice. He was reading poetry aloud. It just felt good to hear someone speaking her native tongue, she wondered what the barer of this voice looked like. Was his hair silver, black, blue, gray, violet? She didn't know, but, just hearing him made her feel safe. That was when Hikari turned around as she guided the two younger females, one of them did not look much like her, but, it might have been the fact that she might have the characteristics of her father. As they made their way around another corner, she saw Hikari look at the sign up ahead and get excited. Hikari was saying something she couldn't understand. She knew it was positive, but what did it mean? When she saw a golden haired female come from around the corner and speaking in a voice similar to the one she had heard in the break room, that she fully understood that they had arrived to the place where they would be with others like them and that she would meet the male Angel who had guided the group here.

Asuka was having a great time flying like a bird. She was arcing her AT field like Lillith had taught her to do and feeling the rush of cold air across her bare face was exciting.

"Hey wait up Asuka!" Sheba said as she raced up beside of her. Asuka was still grinning at the drowned cat look the curvy angel now sported after Asuka shoved her full body into a cloud. The smirk on Asuka's face was of pure joy as she saw how the cotton dress clung to Sheba's naked breasts.

"Hey! I am cutting free for once," Asuka said as she did a back flip on top of the cloud she was on.

"Yes I know," Sheba said pulling off her dress and rolling it up in her hands to squeeze the water out of it. That was when Asuka noticed that Sheba wasn't wearing any undergarments at all! But, she just let it slide as Sheba redonned her long dress.

"After the Third Impact, I think I know that Kaji was saying to me about him growing up," Asuka said as she expanded her AT field out over the cloud so that she could lay back on it, while looking up at the next layer above her. "You take the small things for granted."

"Yes and for the Angel it is the same way," Sheba said as she looked out over the horizon. After a moment, Asuka got up and decided to see what her new powers could do. Adjusting her field, Asuka started to glide forward in one direction as she started to shift her weight and field of her body from foot to foot until she was able to mirror the feeling of ice skating.

"Hey Asuka!" Navi called out as she floated up to the cloud Asuka was on. "Wow! You're skating like an Olympic pro," Navi said as Asuka let her worries fade away as she enjoyed this piece of normality in her life.

"Asuka, Peter and Lillith say they're sensing a number of AT fields in the area," Navi said attempting to get Asuka's attention. "They want us to check it out." Sheba turned towards her and shrugged.

"I believe that she is enjoying herself too much to notice what you're saying." Sheba mused as she hovered at the edge of the cloud.

"I agree. Listen, could you keep an eye on Asuka while she finishes her dreams of going for the gold? I'll just fly down and see what's up with the AT fields." Navi replied handing Sheba one of the radios they had gotten from the abandoned mall. "Just press and hold the button to speak, if anything comes up okay." Navi finished as she flew off away from Asuka.

"Eat this first, child! You don't have half the skills I do with my ability of flight," Asuka said as she spun around doing a triple toe loop before landing on the expanded field with her feet.

"Humans are such strange creatures."

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