Disclaimer: No ownership over any concepts or plots expressed in this work of fiction is stated or implied. The author intends no financial gain from the distribution of this material and makes no claim of copyright or trademark.
S
"Why do you keep sending him to my office?"
Misato leaned back into her chair and considered Ritsuko's question. It was a rare moment they could share outside of work, and here she was, wanting to talk about nothing but work. Misato had actually kept her clothes on and shooed Pen-Pen back into his little house, so the seriousness with which she regarded Ritsuko's visit to her home was evident. Misato smirked and threw her arm over the back of her chair, twisting sideways in her seat.
She smirked. "You'll get angry with me, if I tell you."
Ritsuko's eyes narrowed. She pinched the bridge of her nose, and looked tired. "Really?"
"I want to get him used to talking to girls. He's so shy."
Ritsuko took a sip of her coffee, then burst out laughing. Misato smiled.
"I am not a girl," she muttered.
"I roomed with you in college. You are most definitely a girl."
"That's not what I mean," said Ritsuko. "I'm old enough to be his… much older sister."
"That's the idea! He'll be comfortable around you, so when he talks to girls his own age, he won't be so shy and nervous. You have bigger boobs than his classmates, so it'll be easier on him. It's like trying to help someone get over a fear of spiders by putting a tarantula on them."
Ritsuko stared at her, blankly. "You're out of your mind. Also, that's not how phobia therapy works, you slowly introduce-"
"Well," said Misato, "Why shouldn't I be? I have the freakin' Secretary General of the United Nations breathing down my neck, we have this thing with Rei and Unit Zero tomorrow, I work in a secret underground base full of creepos. I like the kid. I'm trying to help him out."
"I'm surprised you're not trying to put the moves on him yourself," Ritsuko deadpanned.
"I tried, he didn't go for it. I practically throw myself at him, and I get nothing."
Ritsuko continued to stare at her.
"I'm joking. Mostly."
"Right," Ritsuko muttered into her coffee. "I admit, I don't mind. I'm astonished how intelligent he is. I taught him the basics of the AT-Field equations in a few hours."
"Really?" said Misato. "So he was trying to impress you! That's great."
Ritsuko rolled her eyes and blew her bangs out of her face. "What is it with you? Not everything has to do with sex. He might actually be interested in it. Besides, I hear he's got his heart set on someone else."
"Oh?" said Misato.
"There's a rumor going around the Eva cages that he and Asuka are, you know, a thing."
"Hah!" said Misato. "You have got to be kidding me."
"Well," said Ritsuko. "You would know. You saddled yourself with living with them."
Misato shrugged. "You know, I think she likes him a little. You better not let her hear about that, though."
"Don't worry. I'm well aware of her… temperament. I put my foot down, there won't be any more gossip about the Children among my subordinates."
"God," Misato rolled her eyes. "Listen to you, 'my subordinates'. Can't you take five minutes off?"
Ritsuko looked a little hurt at that, rocking back in her seat. "Yes. Where's your beer?"
Misato looked down at her coffee. "I, uh, I don't have any."
"What?"
"I sort of quit drinking."
Ritsuko shook her head. "Wow, you really must be overworked after all."
"It's not that. I don't worry about anything at home. Shinji takes care of it all. I don't know how he finds the time."
"Hmm," Ritsuko looked around. "I barely noticed. It definitely doesn't look like our dorm room in here."
"He can't stand clutter, I guess. So yeah, I quit drinking. For some reason, all my stupid beer was warm, and after a few days I just… I didn't feel like it anymore, you know?"
"Is that true?"
Misato looked around. "Not really. Shinji said he was worried I was drinking too much."
She sighed.
Ritsuko chewed her lower lip.
"I have to say, I'm surprised."
"Yeah," Misato said, cheerily. "On the bright side, I don't have to deal with listening to Asuka shrieking with a hangover anymore."
Ritsuko snorted.
"I do not shriek!"
Asuka came stomping into the apartment, kicked her shoes off, and stormed into the kitchen. She's unbuttoned the top of her uniform shirt and seemingly tugged at it in disgust. She ignored Ritsuko's presence and immediately removed it, almost tearing the buttons loose in her haste, as she dashed into her room.
"Asuka?" said Misato, sitting up. "Is something wrong?"
"I hate that stupid school," Asuka shouted through her door. "Why do I have to go again?"
"Why do you hate it?" said Misato, winking at Ritsuko.
"It's beneath me," Asuka snapped back. "Besides, all of the teachers are senile old lechers that fall all over themselves to stare at me when they're not blathering on about irrelevant garbage. Who decided I have to wear some stupid fetish costume to school every day? What's next, I have to pilot the Eva dressed up as a cat?"
"It's beneath you, I know," Misato leaned back in her seat, staring up at the ceiling. "I hear this every day. You're pissed about something."
"I told you already."
"Oh come on, out with it."
"Shinji's idiot troglodyte friend called me a demon," she snapped. "I complained, and nothing was done! The class representative yelled at him, for all the good that'll do. She's about as scary as a mouse."
"Didn't Shinji say anything?"
"No! He was too busy fawning all over that stupid doll Ayanami," she shouted, her voice twisted, practically dripping with indignation. "All he does anymore is try to talk to her, and she keeps ignoring him."
Asuka marched out of her bedroom, her uniform discarded for her short-shorts and a faded old t-shirt. She practically tore the refrigerator door loose and started milling around in the refrigerator. She stood up and rounded on Misato.
"Where's the beer?"
"You're not old enough to drink," Ritsuko observed.
"I'm sixteen," Asuka snapped back. "I drink all the time."
"You do not," said Misato.
"Yes I do. I've been old enough to drink beer for two years. Now where is it?"
Misato rolled her eyes. "I got rid of it, okay?"
Ritsuko was obviously suppressing a laugh. "Come on, Asuka. Don't push sudsy here off the wagon."
"Hey," said Misato. "That's not funny. Where's Shinji?"
Asuka shrugged as she opened a can of soda. "I don't know. He said he had to run some errand or something, he ran off right after school and left me alone with the men in black."
"You sound mad," said Ritsuko.
"I am not mad," Asuka growled. "I don't care what he does."
"She's not mad until she switches back to German. I hope he's not trying to throw himself at Rei's feet," said Misato. "The Commander would be very upset."
Ritsuko coughed. Misato ignored her.
"Like I care," Asuka said as she left the kitchen. "I'm doing my stupid homework."
"I hope Shinji gets back soon. I'm hungry," said Misato.
"Like I care what that loser does," Asuka muttered.
"Jealous," Ritsuko mouthed.
Misato grinned.
Shinji felt the sun on his back and the breeze ruffling through his hair, and for a while just listened. The sounds of the city were cacophonous and discordant when he first arrived, but the longer he stayed here the more and more orderly they became, a sort of natural rhythm of honking horns and footsteps and shouting and breathing, the sound of human habitation, all layered over a droning melody of cicadas keeping the beat. Sitting on the ledge of a skyscraper and looking down on the business district, he could rest his chin on his cheek and gaze downward in a way no one else could. He didn't need to fear falling, not because he was confident of his footing, but because he simply couldn't fall at all.
Things had become quiet. He didn't know if it was his presence, or the way the city seemed to be teeming with Nerv security people, but there weren't as many muggings or robberies as there had been when he first arrived. The occasional car accident drew his attention. Sometimes he worried that he was limiting himself, not going far enough, maybe that he should find a place where there was real danger, a real need for him, as he did now when he watched the tiny figures under his feet moving in their own orderly way through the air that charged and lived in their presence, painted by the swirling colors of their heat signatures and breath and the strange aura of fuzzy lights he saw around all living things now.
Some of those people down there might have been alive because of him. There were others, somewhere out there, who may not have been, because he focused his attention here, because…
The thought caught in his throat. There were people he cared about here, and he didn't want them to die. He hadn't meant to think of Misato as his friend, hadn't really meant to trust her, but it just sort of happened, something he fell into like fate. The same was true with Asuka. For all her bluster he could see it every time he looked at her, that moment when she realized someone was watching her and started lashing out, even if it was just to carry herself or look back a certain way. He had no idea what to make of her, except to wonder what could have wounded her so badly. The tiny moments of kindness she showed him from time to time baffled him even more, not so much by their existence but because each one made him want so badly for the others to stretch out a little longer.
In the end, he wasn't looking to judge himself for spending his days here, and not somewhere else. Everyone said the world would end if the angels succeeded in doing whatever they wanted to do, the brief message from his father had said something about them, even. There was no place else for him to be, really, so why was he looking for a way out? Did he want to run away?
"I mustn't run away," he said.
A pigeon noisily flapped up to the edge of the roof and lighted beside him, and then trundled near, bobbing its head. It might as well have been nodding in agreement. Haltingly, he reached out and ran his fingers over its head, unconcerned for disease or dirt. The bird closed its eyes tightly and enjoyed having its head scratched, and took a few steps closer to him when he pulled his hand away. It folded its feet beneath itself and looked down beside him, the movement curiously human, as if it wanted to see what he was looking at.
"What do you think?"
The bird stared at him for an instant, head twitching this way and that, and then it dropped off the roof and awkwardly flapped away. Shinji stared at his fingers, saw no microbes crawling across the folds of his fingerprints, and went back to leaning on his hand.
He let out a long sigh. He couldn't run away. He stood up and walked to where he'd left his school uniform and dress shoes tucked into his bag, and started stripping off his costume. He was a little annoyed. The pieces he'd made from the fabric from the canister his mother left him were fine, but his jeans had holes around his knees and tiny holes around the pockets, and the cuffs were frayed. His boots were a mess, with missing eyelets and creased leather and a gash on one of the soles that had widened to the point where the heel might fall off, soon. The treads were worn down to nubs from grinding them into asphalt. After he'd pulled on his slacks, he held up the offending garment and looked through some parts of it to see blue sky, and he didn't even need to concentrate on seeing through it. He would have to replace it all, soon. He needed something more formal looking anyway, some kind of jumpsuit, maybe.
He came down not far from the apartment, checking first from high enough above to make sure that there were none of Asuka's security detail around to spot him landing. It was a risk coming down in his civilian clothes, but he wasn't especially worried. Someone sneaking up on him deserved to catch him, he supposed. He shrugged the back over his shoulder and stepped out of the alley, then lightly jogged the rest of the way home, fast but not fast enough for anyone to notice had they come across him. He was alone, though. There was no symphony of human habitation here, only the drone of cicadas and the half-heard voices of the apartment and the security agents sitting around it and outside. One of them waved idly to him as he trotted up the stairs. He took the stairwell over the elevator up to his floor, since he was faster on foot, anyway. He was tempted to just jump up to the right floor, but some instinct prevented it.
He heard voices in the apartment, and was surprised to see the back of Doctor Akagi's blonde-coiffed head as he peered into the kitchen. He slipped his shoes off and slipped into his room.
"Hey you," Misato called out, "where have you been?"
"Oh," said Shinji. "I was just, ah,"
"What?" said Misato. "Running an errand?"
"Yeah?"
"Okay," said Misato. "What about dinner?"
After he'd successfully tucked his shirt and cape away in the space under the lining of his cello case, he slipped out and closed the door. Asuka was in her room, hunched over some homework or other, her face scrunched concentration. He walked into the kitchen, not sure what to expect.
"Ritsuko will be joining us for dinner tonight," said Misato.
"Actually," Akagi sighed, "I have to get back to work. Prepping for the test."
Misato pouted, theatrically, but waved a hand dismissively.
Akagi turned to him. "Would you walk me out?"
Misato eyed him, suppressing a smile, and he felt himself blushing in spite of herself. "If you want," he said, fighting off the urge to cringe at how awkward he sounded.
He waited patiently as she put on her jacket, then slipped on his shoes and opened the door for her. He didn't say anything as the waited for the elevator, and neither did she. To his surprise, when the doors closed, she pushed the hold button, and exhaled slowly.
She stared at him for a moment, as if studying his face.
"Shinji," said quietly. "I need you listen to me."
He swallowed. "Uh, okay?"
"Rei is off limits. Stay away from her."
He looked at her for a moment. There wasn't any menace in her tone.
"But-"
"I mean it," she cut him off, more insistent than before. She folded her arms over her chest. "Look, I know you mean well. When your father ordered her not to talk to you, he meant it."
"I wouldn't put her in a position to-"
Akagi shook her head. "You don't understand. It's not about her, it's about your father. I don't know why he doesn't want you around her, but if he made it known to the entire organization, he means business."
"I'm not afraid of him," Shinji said, almost angrily. He realized he'd clenched his fists and slowly unflexed his fingers.
Akagi looked at him for a long moment. There was pity in her voice, and quite a bit of real fear. "I am. You should be, too."
She pushed the button for the ground floor. "My car is just outside. Thank you, Shinji."
The doors opened, and he leaned against the wall of the elevator. She stopped in the door itself, standing on the threshold, but didn't turn back.
"You can still come to my office," she said quietly. "Just be careful. I don't want you to be hurt."
He nodded, and she left without further comment. The doors slid closed, and he waited a moment before he pressed the button to go back upstairs. He needed to compose himself, or he might push it right through the wall.
Rei was beginning to think there was something wrong with her. She wondered if she should report it to the Commander.
When she looked at her new identification card, freshly issued, she saw nothing out of the ordinary. When she looked up at the wall, however, her jaw went slack and her eyes almost lost focus as the sheer complexity of it overwhelmed her. Her apartment was now papered in loose leaf, printouts, and old newspaper clippings, running from floor to ceiling along the wall where she kept her small desk, and the pattern had been to flower onto the ceiling as well, spreading like a fungus. It had become too complex for the yarn, so she discarded it, leaving it a fuzzy blue pile at the foot of her bed. It was no longer required. The clippings seemed to pulse and move in her vision, folding and melding into one another, the connections between the information a living thing that had a mind of its own. Even more, now, it tugged at her. The conclusions it led to were inevitable, but even then deeper, more complex meaning unfolded from it. An impulse teased at her mind, a need to complete the picture and fully understand it, to hold it in her mind and view it from all the angles.
Her alarm clock went off. She hadn't slept. It wasn't out of nervousness or concern over the reactivation test of Unit Zero, but in answer to her need to understand. Each node of information arrayed out before her commanded her to find five more, to grow and tend the pattern like a garden. She stood up and silenced the alarm without looking at it, nearly brushing it off the table. She put her identification card down next to her computer and started dressing herself. She chose components of a school uniform at random, assigning no individual shirt or pair of stockings any weight. She wore the uniform not because she was attending school but because she had nothing else. It took her only a few moments to dress. Her scalp itched, and she scratched it. A few pale flakes of white skin drifted in front of her eyes.
The Commander would not approve. She walked barefoot, curling her toes away from the cool tile of the bathroom floor, and leaned over the tiny sink, quickly scrubbing her fingernails through her hair to tease out the rest of the dandruff, then more carefully stroked it into a more manageable position. She saw no purpose in maintaining it other than to keep it out of her eyes. Why the Second Child chose to wear her hair so long when it would interfere with her combat ability, Rei did not know. The Second Child was, in fact, a mystery to her.
She went through the mechanical motions of preparing her morning meal. It was as if her fingers and hands knew what to do, tending the toaster and searching out the jam in the refrigerator without true thought. As she did each morning, she began artfully arranging the various pills and tablets she would swallow after eating, always after eating. As she moved she thought of the Second Child and her curious reaction to Rei. The appearance of Superman had provided her with more data to construct the meaning of the interaction, the tools to build her understanding.
He knew where to find her, knew her name, and addressed her in a strangely familiar fashion. He mentioned her being familiar to him, which implied that he knew someone similar to Rei. There was only one person similar to Rei. His concern for the Second Child drew the pattern tighter, like a sudden tug on a complex knot, and it began to take shape. He had approached Rei out of misplaced concern for her, but also out of concern to the Second Child. His words, combined with Rei's recollection of the Second's peculiar movements, tone, and facial expressions, implied that she was frightened by Rei and, somehow, Superman had learned this.
He was someone in contact with Nerv. The pattern demanded it. Almost unconsciously, she considered height, weight, hair color, bringing up, evaluating, and rejecting each candidate. He was male, which narrowed down the selections. She considered everyone, leaning no stone unturned. With his slender build, youthfulness, and blue eyes, the number of candidates further restricted itself.
Almost without realizing, Rei brought to her hand to her mouth, tipped back a mouthful of water, and bobbed her head back, swallowing the entire course of medications in a single, throaty gulp. She stared at the water glass for a moment, and put it down, trying to remember when she had picked it up. She burped, and tasted the unpleasant flavor of the casings of the capsules she had swallowed.
A moment ago, she had been thinking about something, and was so close to an important thought. She knew it.
She picked up the identification card, slipped on her shoes, and left the apartment door wide as she headed towards the staff car waiting outside.
Asuka timed it just right, walking into the locker room as Rei emerged. Having gone to school on his own, Shinji had actually left early, slipping out of the apartment while both Asuka and Misato were still asleep, but not before preparing both breakfast and lunch for each of them. Asuka had absently carried her lunch in a paper sack until Misato took it from here and put it God knew where, since Asuka didn't bother with such minor details.
Ayanami walked past her in her shining white plugsuit, and it only accentuated the strange effect of her skin, making it seem she was made of porcelain. The suit was unique to her but was also different in design, especially around the chest and upper back section, bulkier and less streamlined than the more refined version Asuka would wear. It briefly occurred to her that she still wore red suits marked '02', despite the change in her piloting status.
As she passed, Ayanami looked at her dully, not taking much interest. Asuka brushed past her without speaking or meeting her gaze, and made sure not to look back, either. She quickly made her way to her chosen locker and opened it, finding the shrink-wrapped suit inside. Since she wasn't going to school, she'd worn her simple yellow sun dress, which made it easy to simply shrug out of her clothes and then slip out of her underthings and socks. She had the suit on in mere minutes, brushing her hair out from the back before hitting the switch to compress it around her body. She still waited, hoping to put a bit more distance between herself and the First Child before leaving the locker room.
When she emerged, she froze in her tracks, stopping nearly in mid-step, a freshly caught breath sticking in her throat and refusing to leave. Commander Ikari passed her, silent and ghost-like, without taking particular notice of her. When he was out of earshot, she let out a quiet, strangled sigh, and walked out a few more paces towards the cage. The Commander walked with his hands thrust in his pockets, deliberately fixing his gaze straight ahead in a sort of practiced indifference, dominating the world around him simply by being in it. A peculiar thought tickled the back of her mind.
Shinji was nothing like his father.
The Commander headed towards the gantry that led to Unit Zero and the confinement cage where it would be tested. Asuka's role was simple; she'd wait in Unit One while Zero was activated, so that she could help restrain it if it went berserk. The idea of an idea going berserk was foreign to her. Unit Two had never so much as proven difficult to synch with. The oddities with Unit One could all be explained. The prototype must have been unstable somehow, weakened by some flaw in the design. As she watched, the Commander stopped, in front of Ayanami.
The girl looked up at him, and beamed. Asuka was already unnerved, but the Commander said something to her and the look of adoration on her face broke into an actual smile. Ayanami folded her hands over her chest in girlish glee at whatever she was hearing, and animatedly began chatting with her superior.
It took Asuka a moment to realize she was hyperventilating.
She broke into a run, each time the sole of her foot slipped on the metal sending an unpleasant jolt up her leg, until the Commander and that creature were out of sight, hidden behind the bulk of Unit One. The entry plug and the side of the Eva had been cleared and left open for her. She stopped to lean on the rail a bit, watching her red-tinged reflection in the gently lapping pool of chilled LCL that surrounded the Eva. When her hands stopped shaking, she was able to force herself to loosen her grip, and the plugsuit's gloves squeaked a little. She turned, took a breath, and headed up to the plug. She sat on the edge, swung her legs inside, and slid down to take her seat.
No one seemed to pay her any mind during synchronization. As the colors flashed, her ratio and the other relevant data were read off by a bored sounding technician. She felt the strange sliding sensation of the Eva taking root in her spine, the rush of sensation as its nervous system came into synchronization with hers, and the rush of its huge body around her, weighed down by the armor. She saw through its eyes, as well, and it saw things she could not. It saw Unit Zero staring at her from a cross the cages, cyclopean, pale like its pilot, and one-eyed. It was definitely a different design from the other Evas, being more hunched, the armor lighter, and the shoulder pylons absent.
All she had to do is sit back and wait, on standby. She flipped through the communications channels, but they were all static. Presumably, they didn't want her listening in as the activated the other Eva. She stopped before she brought up the direct feed to Ayanami, her hand hovering over an imaginary control. Her hands drifted to her lap and she leaned her head back into the seat. Her eyelids started to droop, but she forced them open. It would be no use if she fell asleep, since the synchronization would be lost and she'd be useless in an emergency. She forced herself to sit up and leaned on her hand. Movement through LCL without the rush of combat was sluggish, like moving through water, and she suddenly felt annoyed by it.
Looking across the cage, she saw the other Eva stiffen, its head lifting slightly. An odd intelligence came into that single eye, and she saw the mechanical innards of it swirling as the artificial gaze focused on her. Unit Zero was active, and it was looking at her. She controlled the impulse to wave at it, and even as she did, Unit One's arm twitched ever so slightly. She watched as Unit Zero detached from the armor bolts and the bridge before it retracted. The sleek orange Evan took a few steps forward, wading through the chest-high LCL, pushing out a great wave of it that made Unit One rock on its heels. A moment later, it started backing up, and the head turned in a curiously human motion as it fixed itself back to the wall.
Without warning, the LCL pool began to drain, and Unit One's weight shifted onto its feet. Asuka tensed, drawing the feelings closer, and reflexively freed herself from the wall. Misato appeared in her vision in a hovering circle superimposed over her eyesight by the Eva's systems.
"Asuka," said Misato, her voice tight with tension. "Get ready."
"What is it? Is there something wrong with the test?"
"No. It' an angel, and it's big."
Shinji first heard the sound a few moments before everyone else. Judging by their reactions, the other students didn't hear it so much as feel it. For him, it was like a pounding screech, so piercing and shrill it made his teeth rattle in his mouth. Already on edge, unable to formulate an excuse to get himself down to the base during the activation test, the sound almost made him jump out of his seat, and his knees hit the top of his desk, almost jumping his laptop to the floor. He caught it, and both Toji and Kensuke stared at him. Fortunately, before either of them noticed he'd knocked the top of his desk loose, the actual sound flooded the room, and there was a sudden panic.
It lasted only a moment, but it was enough to get everyone else out of their seats. The students rushed to the window, and only a moment later, the evacuation alarm began winding up, and Shinji felt a sudden chill. Hikari was on the balls of her feet, shouting for the students to move to the shelter. The teacher stood uselessly behind the front desk, lecture notes grasped in his hands.
"Come on," said Shinji, tugging at Toji's arm. "Let's help her."
Toji blinked, the nodded. "Hey!" he shouted, "Let's go!"
Shinji joined him, moving down the window, until finally the class started to move. He drifted to the back of the class as they filed out of the room, joining the other groups of students. Glancing from side to side, he let himself fall out of the line, a few paces behind the hurrying group, and then ducked out of the main hall. He spared another glance to make sure no one had seem him peel off, trotted down the hall to the stairs, and when the stairwell door close, lifted up to rooftop level, skipping the stairs themselves entirely. He pushed out into the afternoon sun, found where he'd stashed his costume earlier, and began to change.
The sound washed over him again, and he stumbled. A cold ball formed in the pit of his stomach as he pulled the tight shirt of his costume down over his body and started slipping into the jeans. He fumbled to lace his boots as the sound flooded across him again, making him tighten his jaw. When he was fully dressed, he took to a running start and jumped off the ledge of the roof, lifting off into the sky.
He went for altitude first, and the world flattened out beneath him, bending from the illusions of distance. As it opened up, he saw the angel skimming over the Ashi lakes, floating towards the city and making its regular chirping sounds, seemingly on every frequency at once. He stared at it in sheer confusion for a moment. It didn't even seem like it was alive. It was immense, by far the biggest moving object he'd ever been, and it would easily overshadow a large section of the city. Its body had no living features at all, no eyes nor nose nor mouth, nor even an indication of them, being an octahedron composed of flat planes of slightly transparent, glassy material. The core was visible, pulsing away in its very center. When he focused on it, he could see it emitting light, too, again on every frequency at once. As it moved through the air, it became a mobile aurora of light, as if it meant to overawe the sun.
He had no idea what to even do, and he was legitimately beginning to worry. The sound pulsed again, and it was starting to hurt, now, actually pain him in his ears. The sensation was so unfamiliar it took him a moment to remember what it was, suffering through it like an infant with an earache. He was actually clasping his hands to the side of his head by the time the next pulse ended.
"I need to think this through," he said, out loud.
Before he had the chance, Unit One rumbled forth from the launch gate, and sprinted for the nearest weapons cache. He started to move, and found himself veering off course. The sound became a screech, so loud he could feel it his chest. The angel broke, shattered like a diamond under a jeweler's pick struck wrong, and the pieces moved and slammed back together into a new shape, a great pointed wedge aimed at the heart of the city, where Unit One stood, feet planted wide apart, rifle shouldered. Asuka opened fire.
Her slugs disappeared in the oncoming wave of the angel's power. The aura of energy around it multiplied, doubling and doubling on itself into a second sun, and Shinji had to press his eyes shut, and even then he saw the ghosts of its passage on the inside of his eyelids. The beam swept through the city, turning a skyscraper into a flooding mass of molten slag, like a candle flash-melting after being tossed into a fire. The beam barely missed as Unit One dodged, dropping the rifle and rolling to one side. The beam swept to follow her, and she wasn't fast enough.
Though the sound was enough to make thin streams of blood trickle from his ears, he heard Asuka's scream of pain and terror perfectly. He opened his eyes, closed them again, and without a moment of hesitation, dove for the beam. He could feel the heat on his skin as he approached, even as the air closed around him, buffeted his body, and burst outwards again as he broke the sound barrier. He kept his eyes pressed tightly shut as the searing heat enveloped him, and the moment he made contact it shoved him along, like a fish caught in a great river current. Trying to move against it felt like swimming upstream. He could only tell where Unit One was from the scream he heard within it. He moved as best he could to put himself between the angel and the Eva, and was rudely shoved towards it. He chanced to open his eyes.
Unit One was melting. Its face was a mass of molten metal, the umbilical had simply been vaporized, and though Asuka had the presence of mind to raise her arms to shield herself, the armored plating was already growing red hot. He could see the open launch gate not far from where she stood. He almost turned towards the angel again but if he did, he was blind, the light pouring into his eyes so hot it drowned out everything else. He let the current push him towards the Eva, rolled over the shoulder, and put his fingers into the armor plating at the top of its back, silently, inwardly praying it would hold. Unit One started to sag, and he felt it pull against his fingers. He turned, twisting the entire weight of the Eva under his grasp, and started to pull.
Unit One sagged backwards, arms falling to her sides, and he pushed as much as pulled, guiding the great bulk until, far beneath him, the machine's heavy feet slid out into the open air of the launch tube. The weight of it fell on him all at once, pressing him down, and he stopped screaming only to grit his teeth with effort, guiding it down through the shaft. It was too far, and if he let it drop without the protective reinforcement of her AT-Field, Asuka would be killed. The weight grew heavier and heavier as he drifted downwards, until at last he was close enough that he could relax and let the Eva settle into a seated position at the bottom of the cage.
It was the first time he'd been in the Geofront in costume. There were probably a thousand cameras pointed at him, but he ignored all that, moving with focus across the Eva's shoulders. He shoved Unit One's head forward through main strength, pressing his feet into the armored plating and pushing with his hands, until he found the emergency plug release. The plug slid out half way, stuck from the thermal expansion. He put his fingers through and yanked it open, peeling it apart with a screech of twisting, protesting metal.
Asuka lay inside, spread out unconscious across the seat. His breath caught before he realized he could hear her heart beating. Her face was beet red, as though from an intense day in the sun, and her breath came in ragged gasps, expelling dribbles of LCL over her chin. Gently, he folded her over his arms and let her head fall on his shoulder, and jumped from the Eva's shoulder to the cage floor.
Relief flooded through him as he saw Misato running towards him, followed by medics with a rolling hospital bed. She said nothing as he passed her and laid Asuka out on the bed, carefully cradling her head with his hand as he rested her there. A thin trickle of blood ran down her upper lip from her nose, mingling with the fluid from the plug still wet on her face. He stepped back as the corpsmen crowded around her.
He stood next to Misato for a moment.
"I think she's okay," he said, quietly. "I didn't see any swelling in her brain. It just knocked her out from the pressure."
She stared at him. "You're a mess."
He glanced down at himself. His cape was hanging from around his neck in tattered threads, and there were great gashes in his shirt, which had pulled apart from the tension, exposing the skin beneath. There was barely enough of his pants left to call him decent, and his boots were completely missing except for rings of charred leather hanging around his ankles. He swallowed.
"Uh," he said, "sorry."
"Thank you," Misato said softly. "I tried to stop her, but she insisted on grabbing the rifle and-"
Shinji rested his hand on her shoulder. "You did everything you could. You can't blame yourself for this."
She blinked, and stared at him for a long moment. She kept looking at his exposed chest.
"Uh," he said, "I think I should go."
A big man in a dark suit was running towards him, footsteps echoing in the cage. Shinji recognized him; it was Yoshida, from the airport, the security chief who'd pushed him around. He was shouting.
"Katsuragi, you incompetent buffoon! I'll have your job for this!"
Shinji put himself between Misato and Yoshida.
"Leave her alone," he said, firmly.
Faster than he would have believed from the man's size, there was a gun pointed at him. Shinji looked at him for a moment, and then sighed, more in resignation than anything else. He focused on just the barrel for an instant, and Yoshida dropped it with a help, grasping at his hand. Shinji caught it, looked at it, and folded it into a ball with his fingers.
"I know you Nerv people think you can push anyone around, but that doesn't fly with me."
With his other hand, Yoshida fished in his pocket, and pulled out a radio.
"Get the blast doors on the launch tube closed. Don't let him out."
Shinji rubbed his face with his hand, glanced at Misato, and took off, pushing straight up as hard as he could. He felt the backlash from the sonic boom as he slid up the launch tube and passed between the closing doors and twisted to watch the angel. It paid no attention him at all, and had taken up a position directly over the city, its original shape returned, except that it had extruded out a thin sliver of itself out and was drilling into the roof of the Geofront.
He started to move towards it, but the shrill screech began, and he backed off. Instead, he headed low over the rooftops until he found the apartment, which was thankfully unmanned by security agents. He circled it, looking through the walls to be sure, and then landed on the balcony. The door slid open and he stumbled inside and sat down on the couch, meaning to rest for just a moment. When he felt sleep tugging at him, he shakily stood up, and looked around. He needed a replacement for his clothes, and he needed it fast. He slipped into his bedroom and looked around, despairing. Inside his desk drawer his sewing kit waited, but he despaired of it. No stitch would hold against the tension of the strange fabric stretched across his chest, and his pants were hopeless. He looked around a moment more, and his eyes fell on the cello case.
Gingerly, he pulled it open and lifted out the still shrinkwrapped plugsuit Akagi had given him. He tore the package and let it unfold in his hands, limp like a second skin, and looked through it. It was the right color, if he took the electronics out and removed the white chest piece. It might work, but first he needed to find what he came here for.
He needed a change of clothes, and he needed an excuse to be in the Geofront.
Misato paced outside Asuka's room, watching through the glass as the doctors moved around her. Superman was right- there wasn't any permanent damage, but she had a full body sunburn. It was a combination of the heat and the sympathetic connection to the Eva. Her body actually burned itself to replicate the damage being done to the Eva's body. Unit One's helmet and optics were a ruin, and it would be weeks until it was at maximum fighting efficiency again. She stopped to try to suppress the urge to cough, such was the pit of ice in her stomach. She was glad she hadn't eaten yet, for fear of throwing up. An absurd thought occurred to her. Asuka had never gotten her lunch.
Finally, Misato was able to enter the room. They had her on a saline drip, and they'd applied a liberal coating of skin cream to her face, probably to soothe the burning when she woke up. She looked almost peaceful in sleep, the way the tension seemed to drain out of her face. With her hair down and spread across the bed, she looked the way she did when she was a little girl under Misato's watch back in Germany.
Slowly, she turned and left the room. There was nothing to do, now. She had to put together her resources and come up with a plan to fight off the most powerful angel yet, using the buggiest, most dangerous Evangelion, piloted by the lest capable pilot. She barely noticed Shinji, until he bumped into her and stopped her in her tracks. She stared at him for a second, confused, and picked at his identification card, which he had clipped to the shirt pocket of his school uniform.
He adjusted his glasses.
"Uh, hi."
"What are you doing here?"
"I, uh, I was outside of the shelter and…"
"Not what I meant," said Misato, "but now that you bring it up, you weren't in the shelter? Are you crazy?"
"No, I…"
He looked past her, at Asuka. Misato followed his gaze, and her lips upturned in the faintest of smiles.
"Oh. Just let her sleep, will you? Maybe get her something to eat if she wakes up."
"Are you sure you don't need me to-"
She shook her head. "No, Shinji. Stay with Asuka. I'll be back."
As she walked away, she glanced over her shoulder. He limped a little, and he looked a bit rough around the edges, his eyes a little bloodshot. She didn't remember him having such a deep tan, either, but it must have been the lighting.
Before she entered the elevator, she paused to lean on the wall for a moment, holding the door open with her hand. How the hell were they supposed to deal with something like this? She took a breath, stepped inside, and hit the button. She had to meet with Ritsuko and her staff and figure out what the hell to do, and get an idea of the situation. The door closed, and she slumped against the wall. When the door opened, she weakly stood up and made her way down the hall. The smell of cigarettes was already wafting out of the lab.
Ritsuko was sitting with her had cradled in her hands, and her assistants all looked uncomfortable. Misato grabbed a desk chair, spun it around, and sat down, leaning on the back.
"Okay, what's it doing?"
Hyuga stood up and looked at his folder. "The angel has extruded a drill bit that's tunneling into the Geofront. It's already breached three layers of plate. At the current speed, we have about eighteen hours until it breaches the armor, just around three in the morning.
Misato sighed. "What are our options."
Ritsuko sat up. "Unit Zero is not combat ready. We just brought it out of containment, and Rei is too far behind on her training."
"Yeah," said Misato. "Being melted wouldn't exactly be good for her health, either. Asuka should wake up soon, but I don't want to put too much pressure on her, either. She would have been killed…" she trailed off.
"If it hadn't been for Superman," Maya said, quietly. "Maybe we could…"
"No," said Ritsuko, "and that's final. We can't plan on him showing up again. The Commander's orders are clear on that matter."
"It's completely wiped out our defenses," said Aoba, folding his arms over his chest. He looked at the projections on Ritsuko's screens. "We could try repairing Unit One and setting up a defense inside the cavern."
"The same thing would happen," said Misato. "Anything approaching this thing is toast."
"Why isn't it using its beam to drill into the Geofront?" said Maya. "That seems like it'd be a lot faster."
Misato blinked, and sat up. "Wait. Defenses…"
"Of course," said Ritsuko. "It doesn't have any defenses. It must have some kind of an upper limit on that beam. If it were using it to assault our static defense and we attacked it…"
"So it's playing it safe," said Misato, "Saving itself up for when we attack again. What do we know about this beam?"
Ritsuko turned around and started furious typing at her console. "It's a broad spectrum energy beam- not really focused, not really a laser. The visible light was only part of it. It's dumping microwave, ulvtra-violet, infra-red, basically the whole spectrum onto the target."
"So it's light," said Misato. "Wouldn't it diffuse?"
"Judging by this data, yes. Over a distance, the beam is weaker. An Eva might be able to take it if it were positioned, oh, let's say ten kilometers away, but not indefinitely."
"Right," said Misato. "That's why it waited to attack, and didn't just bombard us from space or burn right into the Geofront. It has limits."
"I see what you're getting at," said Hyuga. "We need to set up something that can take it out, far enough away that it won't attack us until it's too late."
"We don't have anything remotely like that," said Ritsuko. "I don't think the pallet gun shells are doing to do enough damage, especially at that range. We have a particle beam rifle in the works, but the project was canceled. The committee cut the budget."
"Of course they did," said Misato. "I wonder if…"
"What?"
Misato's eyes widened, and she smiled a sly smile. "I have an idea."
Asuka blinked herself awake, and winced. Everywhere her skin tensed as she moved hurt, as if she'd spent hours in the sun without sunscreen. She sat up, and the movement of the sheets against her bare skin made her wince a breath in through her teeth. Gingerly, she touched her face, and when she drew her hand back, a thin white scale of dried skin clung to her fingertips. Her eyes went wide. She didn't even realized what she'd shouted by the time the word escaped her lips.
"Shinji!"
He came running into the room, and flicked on the light. She drew back and threw her forearm over her eyes, and the other arm over her chest, even though she was wearing a hospital gown. Touching the fabric to her arm, and to her chest, hurt, and she winced.
"Are you okay?" said Shinji.
"No, I'm not okay! What the hell are you doing in here? Trying to get a peek at me?"
"No! You called me!"
"Oh."
He scratched his head. "Um, can I get you something?"
"A mirror."
He blinked.
"Now!"
He turned and rushed out of the room, and she leaned forward to sit on her knees, wincing as the ties of the hospital gown pulled at her skin. She sat for a while, staring at the wall until he returned with a woman's makeup compact. She glanced at him as he held it out, wondering where he'd gotten the courage to talk to an actual woman to get it. She flipped it open, looked at herself, and screamed.
Her face was as red as a beet, and under her eyes on her cheeks, she had white flakes, like from a day old sunburn. She had to force herself back into a neutral expression, since raising her eyebrows hurt like hell. Shinji waited patiently, something folded under his arm.
"Where's Misato?" Asuka growled.
"Overseeing the transport operation," said Shinji.
She snapped the mirror shut and stared down at the sheets.
"What 'transport operation'?"
"Unit Zero is picking up some kind of weapon. She called it a positron cannon, or something. They're going to mate it to parts from some Eva weapon, and you have to fire it at the Angel."
"I see," said Asuka. She sighed. "That makes sense. What's that…"
She glanced at the package under his arm, a shrink-wrapped red plugsuit.
"You're kidding," she growled.
"Um," said Shinji.
She nodded at the suit. "They expect me to put that on, over this. My skin hurts. It just hurts."
He fished around in his pocket, and drew out a small container with a screw-lid. "They said this will help."
Asuka plucked the container from his grasp and screwed away the lid. It was some kind of cream, with a slight red tinge.
"It has LCL in it. It'll help your skin heal."
She looked at him, and then sniffed the ointment. "This is rank."
"Better than a full body sunburn," he shrugged.
"Yeah," she sighed. "Okay, drop the suit and get out. I'm putting it on now."
"Asuka?" he said, as he stood in the door.
"What?"
"Are you…"
"Yes," she said testily, smearing the first of the cream on her nose.
"Are you sure you want to do this? I could try piloting again."
She froze. "What did you say?"
"I could try…"
"Why?" she growled. "Think you'll do better?"
He looked at her for a long, quiet moment. "I don't want anything to happen to you."
She watched him go, staring at the space he left in the door for a while before she got up, painfully limped to the door, and closed it, then made sure the blinds on the window out into the hall were closed, too. She put the ointment down and strained to reach the ties on the back of her gown, wincing at the stretching of her skin.
When it was loose enough she shrugged out of it, and bit her lip. Just having the cool air on her skin hurt. She started slopping the ointment on, beginning with her face, all the way down her calves and the soles of her feet, before she slipped into the suit. She pulled up as she did normally, but when she tried to reach around to her back to put some of the ointment on, her hand started to shake from the pain before she could reach her own skin except for a feeble daub of it.
She stood clutching the front of the suit to her chest for a full minute before she decided she had no choice but to bite the bullet.
"Washout," she called. "I know you're out there. Get in here."
Gingerly, he opened the door and peeked inside, and his eyes went wide as the color drained from his face. He swallowed and stepped inside, closing the door behind him.
"You ah, you need help with the suit, I guess."
"Yes," she said testily, but before that I need you to… to… putthestuffonmyback," she spat it all out at once.
He went from white as a ghost to beet red in the span of a heartbeat. She was surprised he didn't have a heart attack, then and there. She rolled her eyes. "Look, this is a necessity. Let's get it over with. If I catch you staring at my ass, I swear I'll kill you."
He made a show of closing his eyes tightly, and walked over to her as she turned around. Gingerly, he corded her hair up in his hands and put it over her shoulder, and she glanced over at him to make sure his eyes were still shut. She held out the jar and he took it, putting the first of it on his fingers. He started at the nape of her neck and she winced from the touch and the cold, and the sudden relief that came with it. He stopped.
"I, uh,"
"Shut up, and keep going."
She shivered as he traced his fingers down her spine, then back up over her flanks and under her shoulder blades, massaging the ointment into her skin around her shoulders. It didn't take long, and it was a blessed relief. He swallowed.
"Do you, umm, I don't think I should go any, umm, any lower, I mean-"
"I did that," she said quietly. "Thank you. Hold the suit up while I compress it."
He did, lifting it up against her back until she hit the switch and it hissed tightly around her, surprisingly to her utter relief. She let out a long breath as she released the tension, and turned around, letting her hair fall back behind her as she reached for her nerve clips.
"You know," he said absently, "You look a lot better without those."
She stared at him for a second. "They're standard operating equipment, and I like them. When I want fashion advice from you, I'll ask for it."
He shrugged, and his shoulders sank a little. "I guess I should go, now."
"I…" she started, but her breath caught.
He turned around and headed for the door, and stopped.
"I meant what I said, before. Are you sure…"
"Yes," she rolled her eyes.
"Please, be careful."
She bit her lip. He walked out, pulling the door shut behind him. Asuka let out a long breath and fell against the little side table, leaning on it to support her weight. Her legs felt like jelly, and it wasn't from anticipation of the battle, if anything she was annoyed by having to pilot the damn thing again so soon. What the hell was wrong with her?
Before she could divine the answer, Ayanami walked into the room, just barged right in without saying anything and strolled right up. She tilted her head to one side, appraisingly, and said, "You are distressed."
"I am not."
"Yes, you are. Your breathing is irregular, your eyes are twitching and your posture suggests-"
"Shut up," Asuka snapped.
Ayanami blinked. "I am sorry. I am also experiencing stress."
Asuka looked flatly at her as she stood up from the table. "No you're not. Dolls don't feel stress. The Commander just turns a little key on your back, and off you go."
Ayanami ignored her. "Operation Yashima will commence at 2:49 AM. Preparations are currently nearing completion. Your presence will be required at the transport no later than 1 AM."
Asuka looked around. No clock.
"What time is it now?"
"Twelve thirty," said Ayanami. "We should report now."
Asuka glared at her. "You talk like a robot."
Ayanami tilted her head to the side again. "I see."
"Let's go," said Asuka, "I want this over with."
"I need a drink," Misato said to the air, glad no one was in earshot.
The operation was immense- she'd never coordinated something so damned huge before. The last of the transformers, big power converters the size of a small house, were still rolling up towards the forward fire base on huge flatbed trucks of a dozen different makes and configurations, a motley pirate army of commandeered commercial vehicles. She had to beg, borrow, call in the United Nations, and intimidate a few people to get it all working. Strangest of all was Unit Zero.
Having Rei move around in the Eva was risk, but so far the angel had simply ignored them. Looking up at it, Misato wondered. She'd seen an Eva move around before, but never out in the wild this way, striding across a mountain. To see it with her own eyes brought the sense of scale to reality and made it eerie, unnerving, like it didn't belong in the world around it. Rei was positioning the positron gun and completing the last of the assembly- the fine work had already been done with human hands, and now she was holding together the parts of the cobbled together sniper rifle with the Eva's hands, working alongside scurrying technicians with surprising deftness. The thought of working on something with fingers as big as a person moving right next to her unnerved her a little. She had to give those men credit, and Rei, too, for managing it.
She stood on a walkway overlooking it all, watching the motion of machines in the dark. She ordered the site kept mostly unlit, light directed only where necessary, to avoid the creature's attention. Asuka was standing not far away, leaning on the rail in her plugsuit and a bathrobe, watching, glaring at Unit Zero. Misato moved closer to her and leaned on the rail. The girl didn't glance at her.
Misato traced her line of vision to Unit Zero.
"Don't like competition, huh?"
"I don't like her," Asuka said quietly. "She's…"
"What?"
"She like a doll."
Misato stopped herself from standing bolt upright. Her stomach seized, and she felt the color drain from her face. She couldn't deal with this now. These kids were going to be depending on each other for their lives in an hour, and even worse, Asuka had used that word.
Doll.
Misato drew in a breath. Think.
"I feel sorry for her, sometimes," said Misato. "I don't see her that much."
Asuka turned her head slightly. "You've never seen her apartment?"
"No, should I?"
Asuka shrugged.
"She reminds me of myself at that age."
Asuka turned to her and stood up, her eyes wide. "What, you? No way."
Misato looked at her. "You know what happened to me."
Asuka blushed a little, but it was hard to see with the deep tan she'd gotten.
"I overheard you talking about it with… with Kaji."
"After they found me, I didn't talk for almost eight years. I was the quiet girl at the back of the class everyone ignored, even after the let me out of the hospital."
"I can't believe that," said Asuka.
"It's true. Ritsuko was the one to bring me out of my shell. She was a lot like you in her youth."
Asuka stared at her blankly.
"I'd hate to be someone's doll," said Asuka.
Misato leaned on the rail again, and smiled to herself.
Rei stood up, and in Unit Zero, she towered over everything. Piloting almost felt foreign to her- before today, she had never actually done it, the second had. She stepped carefully over Unit One. A secondary view appeared on the holographic screen in front of her, showing Soryu approaching the plug and overlaying her vital statistics and a feed on her life signs from her plugsuit. Rei continued on, walking across the clearing, careful not to let the Eva's feet slip in the freshly scourged earth. Nerv had basically leveled off a mountain for this operation, and the footing was precarious for a two hundred foot tall cybernetic organism.
Her role in the operation was simple. She would, at the appointed time, move forward with the heat shield, the triangular underbelly of a decommissioned space shuttle. It stood on its point not far from where Unit One was set up, resting against a crudely fashioned support pylon, where she'd left it. The welds on her side were still fresh where the supporting struts and braces had been installed to give it more structural strength- the angel's beam struck with physical force.
She turned to stand beside it, awaiting the order. Unit One began to synchronize, and lurched where it lay in the prone position in a support cradle. The Eva was badly damaged, and most of the upper armor had been hastily replaced with gray primered replacement parts. It was vital that Rei shield it, since the uncoated armor would be less effective in diffusing and refracting the energy from the beam.
She saw the Eva crawl up to the gun, and Soryu's image appeared on her screen. Their eyes did not meet.
Captain Katsuragi appeared.
"Rei, get into position. The gun is charging up now."
Rei nodded, walked behind the shield, and hefted it, sliding the Eva's forearm through the grip strips on the back. She held it in front of her like a medieval knight and sprinted forward on the balls of the Eva's feet, nimbly moving over the loose ground. Beneath the mountain, all the lights went out in great waves, the entire country going dark as the grid shut down to power the weapon. Rei fell into a crouch next to the barrel of the gun, and rammed the bottom of the shield into the ground to brace it.
"Weapon charged, waiting for firing solution," Soryu announced, her voice calm, cool, and utterly unlike herself. In the view screen, she was totally focused on her actions, ignoring all outside stimuli. Rei almost admired her posture.
"Firing now."
Unit One's finger closed around the trigger. The gun whirred to life, the barrel went white hot, and a beam of light so bright white it carved a purple streak not in Rei's, but in the Eva's eyesight. Rei fought the urge to press her eyes shut and tensed, and the Eva tensed with her, as she waited for the counter strike.
The angel stopped drilling, shrieked in fury, and without reforming itself threw out a broad beam of energy. When the shot from the cannon hit it, the beam bent, twisted, and diverted upwards, but not far upwards enough. It skimmed through the angel's crystalline body, carving a flaming channel along the surface, and left behind it an ugly, melted scar.
"Scheisse," said Soryu. "I missed."
"It's not you, it's the gun," said Karsuragi. "The MAGI are compensating, should be done before you switch out the fuse. Begin barrel cooling."
Calmly, Asuka went about her work. Unit One cycled out the huge fuse for the cannon like a bolt action rifle, and the spent wreckage bounced on the dirt before coming to a hissing stop, still red-hot from the amount of power shoved through it. Gingerly, she slipped the second shot in place and closed it, but the barrel had not yet cooled.
The angel screamed, shattered, and refocused itself into a gigantic wedge with two long, crystalline spires aimed downwards, shoved into the ground as if to brace. It did not fire at once, but began to glow, and Rei could feel the hum of power in her chest.
"Oh," said Katusragi. "Oh shit, Asuka-"
The angel fired.
Rei pressed her eyes shut. The force of it pushed Unit Zero back, and she dug her heels in to resist it. The shield slammed into her Eva's chest, folding her arms in, and white-hot pain ran up her elbows; the joints might have been broken. She pushed by leaning into it, drifting forward in the seat In mockery of the Eva's motion, fighting to keep the shield down as the top half of it pushed towards her head and would slide free and tumble out of her grasp if it kept on moving. Rei turned the Eva's head and opened her eyes. The entire mountainside had burst into flames, and the top part of their sheltering hill had turned to red hot slag and folded back, like a melting bottle in a campfire.
"Firing!" Soryu screamed.
The beam held true, and punched back through the angel's fury. Rei was gritting her teeth, fighting to hold the shield, but felt the pressure lessen. Something was pushing it forward. The Eva focused on it, anticipating her thoughts.
It was him.
Superman had his back pressed into the shield, shoulders squared against it, legs flailing as if he were trying to stand on the air. He pushed and pushed, and in a moment of curious clarity, Rei saw he was wearing a new set of clothing. This information was relevant, somehow, and-
The beam hit. The angel screamed. The lance of light cut through its body in a single, clean stroke, bisecting it neatly in half and the core with it. In a final, furious scream, the angel simply exploded, pouring all of itself into one last, desperate, flashing act of defiance. Somehow, the force of the burst was directed, focused tightly on the hilltop.
The shield simply ceased to be. It blew apart in burning, half melted fragments, and Rei fought back a scream as the shards of hot material impaled themselves into her Eva. She fell backwards, landing hard on the right shoulder. Unit One fared even worse. The force of the blast lifted the Eva up and slammed it down, and without the protective shield, the primered parts of the armor burst into flames, blue tongues of licking fire washing out over the rest of the armor plates. Rei rolled her Eva onto its back for rescue, and the world doubled on her, fuzzing.
"Oh my God," Misato was saying, over, and over.
The whole mountain was on fire. If the command bunker wasn't on the opposite side, they'd all be dead. The technicians around her were all staring in mute shock at the burning horror before them. The feeds from the Evas had cut off. Unit Zero was lying back-up, spread eagled, beside Unit One, which was rolled over on its side. Both of them were burning, flames lancing up along the edges of their armor plating. It lit up the night like day, and the fire was already snaking down the mountain, towards the city.
"Captain?" said Hyuga. "What do we do?"
"They're dead," said Ritsuko. "Oh God, they're dead, we-"
"Captain!" Maya shouted, "Captain Katsuragi!"
Misato shook her head to clear out the cobwebs.
"Captain! You have to see this!"
Misato ran along the consoles to the girl's screen.
"Put that up on the main display."
Maya typed, and on the display, a pitiful thing compared to the one at Central Dogma, the satellite view of the Ashi lakes wavered. The whole room went silent. No one breathed.
"That's impossible," said Ritsuko.
The lake was moving.
Something, a tiny blue object, was furiously moving over the water in tight circles, and the waters moved with it, rising up from the surface like a waterspout. The entire area of the lake was swirling around in a great maelstrom, drawing in from its banks. It rose steadily, quickly, and suddenly everyone was on their feet watching if crest the hills, the water glowing in the light of the fire. It rose up in a great oncoming wave.
"Everybody!" Misato screamed, "Grab onto something!"
She took her own advice, throwing herself to the ground and looping her arm around Hyuga and Ritsuko as they did the same; Maya grabbed onto her mentor for dear life. The waters came, the waters came and with a thundering clash slammed down onto the hillside. The torrent drank the flames and belched forth steam as it rolled, and kept coming. The wave of steam rolled over the command bunker and the windows cracked from the heat. Sweat budded out on Misato's face.
The water rushed down over the Evas, smothering the flames with a great whump, and jets of steam rose from their prone forms. It smashed down over the encampment, and came rolling down the road towards the bunker. She saw technicians running, jumping into trucks, doing anything they could to get away from the wave.
There was a blur of motion, and he appeared before them, feet planted solidly in the ground, red cape flapping out behind him like a flag. He reared up, flexed his broad back, and brought his hands together in a clapping motion.
It was like a thunderclap. It pushed in the windows, turning them into glassy spiderwebs of bowed safety glass, and rocked the bunker. The wave parted, diving around him from the force of it, splitting, it seemed, almost from his sheer presence. He turned and she saw as beams of heat, just barely visible, lanced out from his eyes and carved furrows into the mountainside, channels that took the water and guided it away, away from her and the bunker and the rest of the people.
The world went silent. Misato got up on her knees, and the others followed. She stumbled over to it, and reached for the latch but missed it, grasping feebly at empty air as the door was pulled free, right off the hinges, and tumbled away into the darkness.
He stepped up into the bunker, and looked her over.
"Is everybody okay?"
She worked her lips, but no sound came out. "Y-yes," she croaked. "I-"
"I have to get the pilots."
He turned, and she grabbed his arm. "Wait."
She didn't think. She didn't plan, consider, or worry about the dozen people watching her. By the time she registered amusement at the half terrified, half confused look on his face, she'd already done it. She pulled him close and kissed him.
"Thank you."
"I, uh, I'm just trying to help, ma'am."
He took two steps off the stairs into the command bunker and into empty air, and took off into the night.
Ritsuko glared at her.
"What?"
Rei slid down the Eva's shoulder plate and would fallen into the mud had Superman not caught her. Her vision was still fuzzy, and it took her a moment to realize who it was, even as he appeared beside her and caught an arm around her waist to keep her from falling. For the moment unconcerned by anything other than remaining upright, she accepted the help without comment and leaned into him. When he lifted the both of them from the ground, she let out a very un-Rei-like yelp of alarm.
The ground tilted and yawed under them. She reflexively put her arms around his neck and her held her around the waist, drifting not quite horizontally across the field to Unit One. He lighted on the side, near the emergency release, holding her up in his hands to make the touch down more gentle for her. Her feet touched the scorched armor and he held her a second more until she found her footing.
He went for the emergency plug release, found the plating over it fused, and yanked the cover free and tossed it over his shoulder. Predictably, the release assembly was melted to slag. Sighing, Superman dropped down and started prying the armor plating off by hand, one at a time, piling them up neatly beside the Eva's neck. Once the top of the plug was exposed, he grabbed it and with surprising deftness pulled it free in a great squeal of metal on metal, guiding it out of the entry channel and onto the ground, where he carefully rolled it upright. Rei took his hand as she descended, and joined him beside it.
He turned the release, and Rei leaned into the plug. Soryu was lying on the command seat, her eyes lidded, but she was awake. She sat up and groaned, grabbing her head with both hands to hold it as if it were made out glass. Rei slid into the plug and held the side to steady herself, offering her other hand to Soryu. The other pilot looked at her askance for a moment, then reached up and took the offered hand. Rei pulled, but she felt drained, her muscles like stretched taffy, and Soryu was too shaky to even stand up. Superman entered the plug, not quite touching the inner surface with his feet, and took them both around the waist. Soryu leaned her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes, and seemed to jerk constantly, fighting off sleep as he lifted them out and lighted gently on the ground. Rei let go of him and helped sit Soryu down against the side of the plug.
Rei sat down beside her.
As Superman sat down, Asuka leaned into him, eyes still closed. Her breathing slowed, but she seemed to still be awake.
"She has a concussion," he whispered, "but she looks okay."
"That is good," said Rei.
"But what is best in life?" said Soryu.
"Huh?" said Superman.
"Movie I saw once, idiot," she mumbled, twining her arms around his bicep. "Make me some dinner. I want some pasta."
Rei tilted her head to the side.
Superman blinked. "Um, miss Soryu?"
"Yeah," she said, blearily. "I'm trying to sleep."
"Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," she whispered, "the lady in the Eva saved me."
Asuka woke up in a hospital bed. Again.
She tried to voice her annoyance, but the words came out as along, drawn out moan. Her head felt like it was stuffed full of rubber, even making tiny squeaking sounds as she moved. Misato leaned over her, beaming.
"Ugh," said Asuka. "I must be dead, and this is hell."
Misato snorted. "No such luck. You did it, champ."
"Did what?"
"Killed the angel. That was all you. We'd all be dead if it wasn't for you."
Asuka smiled a gentle smile. "Yeah. I see how it is."
"You have visitors."
Rather than sit up, she grabbed the remote control for the bed, and it slowly moved up, humming all the while, until she was in a seated position. Shinji was there, and so was Ayanami.
"Definitely hell," she muttered.
Misato stepped back, glancing at the other pilot. She stepped forward, standing at the side of Asuka's bed.
"Soryu."
"Ayanami," Asuka rolled her eyes.
"You should call me Rei," she said quietly. "Asuka."
Asuka blinked. "Oh. Uh, okay."
Rei looked at Misato. "Was that sufficient?"
Asuka's eyes narrowed. "Listen up, First… Rei. This is your first lesson. Stop talking like a robot."
Misato snickered. Shinji scratched the back of his head, but smiled to himself.
"I must go. I have homework to do."
"You must be kidding," said Asuka. "You take that crap seriously?"
"I take everything seriously," said Rei.
She turned to leave without comment. Shinji rushed to the bedside, in his own way, almost pushing Misato aside.
"You're really okay?"
"Oh, fine," she muttered. "I know why you're here. I can put the damn cream on myself."
He blushed furious, "No! I, uh, that is, if you wanted me to I would, but I don't… actually I… umm…"
"Go get me some ice cream," Asuka sighed, rolling her eyes.
"What flavor?"
She closed her eyes and leaned back into her pillow. "All of them. I want a real television, too. How long do I have to sit here?"
"Docs say you can go home in the morning," said Misato, as Shinji walked out. "No school for a few days-"
"That's fine," Asuka mumbled.
"You have to keep putting the cream on, too. Every day, for a week, just to be sure. I'm kind of tempted to get a bottle of it myself, it looks like it does wonders."
"Yeah," said Asuka. "Too bad it stinks so bad."
"Hey," said Misato. "What were you teasing him about?"
Her eyes shot open. "Nothing," she said, innocently.
"Liar," Misato barked. "Out with it."
"I couldn't reach my back with the sunburn," she said sheepishly, "so I had him put it on me."
Misato burst out laughing, so hard she dropped into the chair next to the bed and drew her knees up to her chest, until she was struggling to breathe. Asuka stared at her as though she'd gone mad.
"What the hell is wrong with you?"
Misato wiped the tears from her eyes with her thumbs. "You could have had a nurse do it."
Asuka's eyes shot wide. "I…" she sputtered, "They… I don't… I didn't… shut up!"
Misato jumped up, still laughing. "Whatever you say, Asuka," and patted Asuka on the head as she left. "Get some sleep."
"Ow!" Asuka snapped, "I didn't rub that shit into my scalp!"
"Oh," said Misato, "I'll get Shinji in here for you."
Asuka reached over her shoulder, grabbed her pillow, and chucked it at her, and missed. She fell back against the bed. Shinji grabbed it from the floor as he walked in, bowl of ice cream in hand.
"I couldn't get every flavor so I got something called Neapolitan," he mused, as he held up the pillow. "What was that about?"
"Nothing," she sighed. "Just get in here."
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Last Child of Krypton: Redux
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Chapter Seven: The Best Defense...