Yay, finally getting this thing going. Please keep up the reviews, I enjoy both the criticism and the complements.
Chapter 8
Friday morning started in what had become the familiar way in the Katsuragi/Ikari household. Shinji was up and clean first and had coffee and breakfast ready by the time Misato woke up. By 0700 they had both left, Misato for work and Shinji for school.
On his way towards the school, Shinji saw the blue haired girl from the hanger walking some distance ahead of him. He ran to catch up and saw that she still wore several bandages and had her left arm in a sling. He also only realized as he got close that she was at least 4 inches taller than. It wasn't that she was tall, Shinji knew he was short.
"H-hi there, I'm Ikari Shinji, we um met I guess you could say when the angel attacked."
"Yes, we did." She replied, not looking at him as he walked beside her.
"You're a pilot too, right?"
"Yes, I am."
Shinji walked besides her in silence for several minutes. They were almost to the school and she had said 5 words to him. She was really pretty, even with the bandages on and he really wanted to talk to her but he wasn't good at this in the first place and now she probably knows he is awkward and thinks he is a freak. She'll talk to everyone and it will be just like the last time and the whole school will laugh at him and… Shinji stopped, physically and mentally. Rei kept walking but Shinji was thinking.
I know how to act. I act okay and calm all the time when I am mad. As long as its not in front of father or Dr. Akagi or someone like that I can do it. I am going to try acting normal, these people don't know I am weird yet; maybe I can pull it off. If she thinks I'm a freak then it was just speeding up the inevitable anyway.
Shinji Caught back up to the blue haired girl. "H-hey I did not get a chance to ask, you know when the angel attacked and everything, what's your name?"
The girl still did not turn to him or stop walking.
"Ayanami Rei."
"Okay, Ayanami-san, I'm sorry if I hurt you in the hanger, I do not know what I was thinking. I probably just made it worse."
"You did not."
"Well, that's good to know. So um, what class are you in?"
"2-1."
"C-cool, we are in the same class then."
They crossed through the school gates and when Shinji saw Kensuke waving he waved back. When he turned to look at Rei she had already walked away. Once they got to class, Shinji saw Rei already there, staring out the window. That's what she seemed to do most of the time, or at least every time Shinji looked at her, which was often.
"So, got a thing for Ayanami, huh?" Kensuke said as they walked to their normal spot under the tree at lunch.
"She is… like me." Shinji replied, scanning the crowd of students for the blue haired girl.
"What, you mean like she works… you know."
"Yeah, I… I met her the first day I was here. If I couldn't… you know, they were going to have her do it. She was already injured though."
Shinji had become more comfortable discussing being a pilot and he felt better talking to someone about it. They still avoided mentioning some words, both because it kept Shinji calm and because he'd rather it not be known openly. He was guilty over the destruction caused during the battle. Nobody had told him directly but he had seen some of the work Misato had brought home. There had been an evacuation order but Shinji felt bad for the people coming back to destroyed homes and jobs.
"Oh, hey got somebody I want ya to meet, his family just got back today and he said he was going to get to school about lunchtime." Kensuke said.
Shinji did the math in his head. "What took his family so long? The evacuation order was lifted 10 days ago."
"They got in a car accident and his kid sister was hurt. They couldn't come back until she was well enough to move."
"Wow, that's pretty bad. Did you talk to him, how is he holding up?"
"You can ask him yourself, I see him." Kensuke pointed towards the school gates. "HEY TOJI!"
What struck Shinji about the boy that waved back was just how big he was. He had broad shoulders and with his sleeves rolled up Shinji thought his arms must be twice as thick as his own. As he got closer, Shinji saw he was head and shoulders bigger taller than he or Ken. When Toji reached them, Shinji was surprised to see Ken and he embrace.
"How are ya, man? How is Sakura holding up?" Ken said once they separated. Shinji assumed Sakura was Toji's sister.
Toji looked quite sullen. "She's alive, awake, definitely not getting any worse. Docs say she'll be able to go home in a couple weeks if nothing changes. I'll be happy once she is home."
"Me too man, hey I want you meet this guy. This is Ikari Shinji, Shinji, this is Suzuhara Toji. Toji, this is the guy."
Toji grabbed Shinji by left hand and nearly yanked him off his feet. He shook Shinji's hand vigorously and patted him on the shoulder. "So you're the guy, huh!"
"I-I g-guess…" Shinji wasn't sure if Toji was being violently nice or nicely violent. "W-what guy am I?"
"He knows Shinji, I know you didn't want anybody else to know, but Toji can keep a secret and he is a good friend. That and I noticed you kinda twitch a lot, so whatever your afraid of has Toji to deal with now."
Shinji didn't know Toji would deal with an angel but he seemed nice enough. As they headed to their usual spot under the tree to eat lunch, Shinji spotted Rei. After he got her attention he jogged over to her.
"Ayanami-san, I was, um, wondering if um… would you like to come eat with us. I saw you were alone and company makes food better."
The blue haired girl looked at him silently for a second then picked up her small plastic bento.
"Very well, I am willing to see if this is true."
"O-okay, great!"
They sat down with Ken and Toji and introductions were made. They sat in a half circle in the shade, Kensuke on the furthest left, and proceeding right Toji, Shinji, and Rei.
"So he was the one that fought the first one, cause you were hurt, but you're a… you know, too?"
"Yes, I am a pilot."
Toji, already sitting , put his hands on the ground and bowed his head, nearly touching the dirt before sitting back up.
"You both have my eternal gratitude…" Toji said.
"Oh boy here we go." Said Ken, covering his face with his palm. Toji turned to his friend to reply.
"Hey man, you know what? These two are goddamn warriors, fighting for the rest of us, putting their asses on the line so we can go about our cushy lives." Toji turned back to Shinji and Rei. "You 2 are Samurai in my book. You ever need anything I can get, or need something I can do, say the word and it is yours."
"Don't talk like that dude, you sound like a gangster or something." Ken said, getting waved off by Toji for his trouble.
"Thank you Toji. If we are friends than with everyone sitting here I think this is the most friends I have ever had." Shinji said with a happy smile.
Rei raised her hand from her lap. "There is something I need."
"Whadya got?"
"My phone is in my right pocket, it is about to ring." Rei pointed to the right hip pocket of her jumper, on the same side as her slung arm.
"How do you know th-"
Toji was interrupted by a phone ringing, but Rei was quite curious that it wasn't coming from her. Shinji awkwardly reached in his pants and pulled out his NERV phone. He flipped it open and stared at it for a sec as it continued to ring before remembering he had to press the answer button.
"T-this is Shinji. Oh hi Misato…" Shinji turned to Rei. "Yeah she is with me, do you need to-… W-what! Another one!" Shinji yelled the last words then looked around to make sure nobody was staring after being admonished over the phone. "Front of the school, now?... Okay, see you there." Shinji flipped the phone shut.
"Um, we need to go." Sinji looked to Rei again. "Misato says she will meet us at the gate… its another one." Goodbyes were said and good luck exchanged before Shinji and Rei ran for the front of the school.
"Awesome!" Kensuke was already up. "Come on man I can get my camera and we can get away before the lockdown starts!" No sooner had he stopped speaking than the siren began to sound. "Crap come on, lets go!"
Rei and Shinji met up with Misato at the front of the school, the captain screaming at them to get in the car. They barely had time to their fasten seat belts in the back seat before she slammed the accelerator pedal down and they were off with quiet buzzing in the NERV hybrid
Misato took a black NERV file folder from her briefcase in the passenger seat and gave it to the pilots behind her.
"This angel is airborne, so I'm glad we got you acquainted with the ranged combat systems, Shinji. The blue pattern was initially detected over the South China Sea. This one being in the air, the Chinese got a good look at it off Taiwan. They wanted to call it Gwailo, but we are going to stick with the fifth angel, codename Shamshel. It is about 200 meters end to end. You can't really see it in the pictures, but eyes on the scene say the edges ripple as it moves, like its swimming. Ritsuko noticed it looked like a marine flatworm so we roped in a biologist from the Tokyo-2 aquarium to give an analysis."
Shinji and Rei looked through the folder and the glossy pictures of angel. The pictures were ordered oldest, and so furthest away, to most recent, which were from aircraft near the creature. The more distant pictures looked like a flying carpet with white teeth hanging below it. As the pictures became closer, the pilots could see it was a deep purple with rippling edges like frills, the color fading out to pink along the edges. On the underside there were 3 white conical structures, the teeth, two side by side near the leading end and one about midway down the body. On the topside were two ring shaped eyespots and two structures that resembled horns near the front.
"The angel will be passing over the West coast of Japan near Fukuoka-2 within the hour. The plan is for Shinji in unit 01 to intercept to the West of the city, which the angel should reach within 2 hours of reaching land. Rei, you will be on stand by to deploy in unit 00 as a last resort."
"Misato-san, does it looking like a flatworm tell us anything about it?" Shinji asked.
"No idea, the biologist gave us some quick notes based on his observations, they should be in there."
Shinji shuffled through the documents until he found the mentioned notes. He was interested in those white things beneath the body. He found what he was looking for and read aloud.
"The conical structures on the underside of the specimen resemble protrusions found on many flatworms of the class…" Shinji had to sound this out as the scientist had written it in latin letters instead of Kanji. "Turbellaria… The structure in the approximate center of the body corresponds to a mouth. While the pair of forward structures appears to be… appears to be… I think he miswrote this character, that can't be right."
"Well what does it look like, Shinji?" Misato asked, briefly looking back.
"Well it looks like it says dueling… well, um… I don't want to say." Shinji said, blushing.
"Rei, what does it say?"
Rei took the folder from Shinji and read aloud: "Dueling penises, Captain Katsuragi."
Misato laughed for several minutes while Shinji turned deep red. Rei found their behavior odd and but more amusing than the mention of genitals. Genitals were not funny.
It was not long before they were descending into the geofront on one of the freight elevators, just like the first attack. Misato could run the car without concern for ventilating the fumes this time though, and even Rei was grateful for the heater as they went deeper. The geofront was always so cold. Shinji wondered if it was like this in the wooded "surface" too. He wondered if he could go there after this battle.
Approximately 3 hours later…
"Hey Ken?"
"Yeah Toji?
"I want you to know that I consider you a dear friend and what I need to tell you should in no way take away from the bond we share, it just needs to be said now, before anything else happens."
"I love you too man!"
"I fucking hate you Kensuke Aida."
Some time previous to the above conversation…
"Okay Shinji, we have a few minutes left before launch, I want to go over this one more time."
"Okay Misato." Shinji Ikari sat inside the activated but immobile Eva. The body was still locked down, but he could look around and had been playing with the zoom functions, watching individual technicians scramble around the hanger. The mission brief appeared before him for the 3rd time since he had entered the plug.
"You will be launching from the furthest West point of the railway. You will engage the angel with the pallet rifle and retreat into the city as necessary. As we were not able to execute a full evactuation, attempt to delay its entry into the city if possible. However elimination of the target takes priority over avoiding casualties." It was painful for Misato to say that last part, especially given what she had learned about the pilot program the prior week. This was why it was necessary, so that when it was between innocent lives and killing the angels, the pilots would always make the right… no, the correct choice. Misato was not ready to call anything involving what had been done to Shinji 'right'.
"I got it. Find the target, locate the core, and shoot."
"Remember Shinji, this is the real thing. You have to maneuver for advantage and to evade. We don't know where the angels core is yet, we need to locate it with probing attacks or coax it into showing its weakness." Misato cautioned Shinji. She had seen it before: when a new recruit gets even a few days training they develop an overinflated confidence. It is actually a good thing because it gives them a bedrock of confidence as training continues and becomes more difficult. When they make mistake it holds them up and they do not become discouraged. They had not yet reached that point with Shinji, and he only had that balloon of confidence holding him up. His operation of the weapon was excellent, but it is not the same thing as knowing how to fight. Misato made a mental note to talk to her JSSDF contacts and see if she could get some tactical range time for Shinji.
For her concern Misato got a roll of the eyes from Shinji. "I said I got it!" he replied.
Lieutenant Ibuki turned her chair about to face Misato. "Commander, all is ready for launch."
"Thank you LT. Shinji, we are all green here, ready?"
"Ready!"
"Lieutenant, be ready to launch unit zero-one on my mark."
"Aye Ma'am" Maya lifted the clear polymer shield next to her station's keyboard, revealing the launch control and making the final connection between the electric railway system and her control.
"Three…two…one… Launch!" Misato commanded
Lt. Ibuki activated unit 01's catapult, sending the Eva surface-ward and pressing Shinji into his seat. 20 seconds later, a hatch to the west of the city opened, rails extended and unit 01 rises. A secondary rail brings a carriage bearing a pallet rifle arrives as the umbilical station rises from the ground. Shinji allows the automated arms of the umbilical station to attach the cable then shoulders the rifle. NERV VTOLs begin to circle the area, providing both the bridge and Eva additional views of the area.
"Eva unit 01, ready to go!" Shinji says confidently. He knows how to fight now, he actually has a weapon, and he has support. This won't be like…whatever happened with the first one. He remembered being scared, terrified down to his very core. But he beat that one and this time he can do it without passing out.
No sooner does Shinji transmit the message, then the angel appears, snaking its way through the hills at low altitude. As Shinji brings the rifle up, something catches his eye on the next hill forward. A quick look reveals nothing and he brings the rifle back up, drawing a bead on horn like structures near the leading edge of the angel. Something in the back of his mind makes him look at that hill again and he sees a tiny bit of movement among the trees.
"Knew it… okay zoom in…" Shinji lowers the rifle and tries to look closer.
"Shinji! Get your eyes on the target!"
"Misato, there is something there! Its two people…" Shinji said as he zoomed in further.
"Crap, Shinji, take a knee and use the hill for cover. Now what the hell is it?"
Shinji ignored Misato's order, the Eva standing in the open with its weapon down. "Its… Oh no, its Ken and Toji!"
"Who?!"
"They're in my class, they… They're my friends!" Saying that felt weird to Shinji. He liked it though. His friends. It felt good.
Misato looked on the upper left corner of the main screen, where unit 01's view was shown. "Crap, we have civilians in the field. Air wing, either tell them to get out and guide them to safety or make the pick-up."
Misato was shocked when she got a response not from the flight lead but from above and behind her. "Belay that order air wing. Warn them but do not risk pick up. If the civilians do not vacate the area it is only their fault if they are harmed."
Misato turned and glared at Gendo Ikari. "Commander, there is an angel down there!"
"Exactly Captain Katsuragi. That is an angel, a being capable of destroying all of mankind should we fail here. The lives of two children too stupid to follow a shelter order are immaterial in the face of such a threat." The elder Ikari said, hands as ever steepled in front of his face. "Should we diminish our reconnaissance capability by sacrificing a VTOL in an effort to save them, we could very well lose the battle because of it."
"Yes Commander…"
"I'm advancing! If I move up they will not be in the path of the angel."
Shinji brought the rifle up and began to move forward. The Eva's steps were clumsy on the uneven ground, with the machine nearly falling more than once. More inadequacies of training, they had never covered movement outside the flat city. He moved through the hills, keeping the rifle on the angel and feeling through walking sideways. He moved right and the angel lazily turned to keep its horned leading edge facing him. It was watching him and it made Shinji uneasy. It made no noise and while it may have been traveling quite fast before, now it was just floating there like a big purple physics defying magic carpet.
Shinji was sure his friends were out of the way now, but the angel was only getting closer to him. He had begun to slowly retreat towards the city, keeping the rifle trained on the angel the whole time. It was unnerving being watched by something with no eyes and he could just feel it examining him. It had been flying at hundreds of kilometers per hour but now it was moving so slowly.
"Shinji, open fire. No sign of the core yet and it seems to be acting cautiously so it may not take the bait until it understands you are a threat."
"W-where should I shoot?"
"The first angel's core was relatively central its body, so that would be a good start here." Dr. Akagi said to Misato, rather than over the radio.
"Okay Shinji, aim for center mass just like in practice, but be ready for anything!" Misato called out over the radio.
"O-okay, attacking!"
It felt as soon as he had pulled the trigger the rifle was wrenched from the eva's hands and off its feet. In a split second, the angel had extended long glowing tendrils from the pair of white structures. One hand grabbed the rifle and the other pulled the eva's feet from under it. The rifle was thrown aside and the Eva let to lay as the angel brought both appendages to a ready position, tips hanging above the plane of its body.
"Oh, fuck…" Was said, by who is really not important, there was enough to go around.
Shinji brought the eva to its feet as the angel, slowly at first, began to strike the ground in front of it with the glowing tentacles, making wide circles. Each strike threw up earth and forest, burning to ash in mid-air and leaving deep black gauges in the ground. As Shinji realized his umbilical had been severed when he saw the countdown beginning, the movements grew faster and faster until the whips were as one pink wall before the beast.
As the personnel on the bridge saw the aerial views, all present shared a moment of fear. As the angel slowly made its way forward, everything the lashing tendrils passed over was left a wide blackened path. Where the angel passed, nothing but ash remained. As it began to dig into a hillside, even that huge amount of earth was worn away to nothing, the ground flat in the angel's wake.
"Shinji, wake up and get moving! Get to another cable, we will send weapons up!"
"But my friends! They're in the path of that thing again!"
"Shinji! This is the fate of the goddamned planet we are talking about here. Maybe they got away, it doesn't matter if you don't get your head back in the fight." Misato groaned as her orders fell on deaf ears for the second time today as unit 01 scrambled over the hills. As it stopped, its heel slid in the earth, throwing up clouds. The Eva stood directly in front of where Aida Kensuke and Suzuhara Toji stood, petrified with fear.
"Hey Ken?"
"Yeah Toji?"
Shinji stared down the nearing wall of destruction. He didn't even know what he was thinking to do. He just knew that HIS friends were down there. People who had been nicer to him after know him for days, or in Toji's case less than a day, than many had been after knowing him for years. They trusted him to do this, to save everyone from the Angels and he had to fulfill that.
Exactly how he was to do that was what Shinji was thinking as the angel drew closer. Through the attacks, he catches glimpses of the angel.
"Shinji…"
It has shifted, its body as S-curve to push the bases of its arms forward. It is almost mesmerizing really, it looks random but he sees the thing through the attacks again and again in the same place.
"Shinji…"
It feels like time slows down and Shinji kind of laughs to himself as it hits him. Of course it is never random. Anything done that fast has to be ordered. If the arms, genitals, whatever, are so destructive, the thing has to make sure not to hit itself.
"Heh… I see it now."
"EARTH TO SHINJI, ANSWER ME DAMMIT!"
"Oh, sorry Misato, I guess I kind of spaced…"
"IN THE MIDDLE OF A BATTLE YOU JUST KINDA SPACED! " The captain screamed into the microphone she had pulled from the console at which the lieutenants sat. She had all but thrown the long-haired one out of his chair and she had one foot up on the desk. "Whatever you saw better be damned important because if its not so help me god I will find you before we all die horribly!"
"I-I'm sorry Misato, but I saw the pattern, don't you see it there?"
"We see the same thing as you Shinji, but its moving too fast to show up on camera as anything but a blur."
Now that he had seen the pattern, Shinji could see where the holes opened. It looked like, to keep the curtain effect constant, the angel moved its arms in spirals, but every time they crossed they had to uncross, probably to avoid being tangled. But it looked like everywhere except really close to the body, the angel kept the arms as far apart as possible. That probably meant it wasn't immune to the damage. The holes appeared where the angel had to uncross its arms, because the tips drifted furthest apart at those points.
"There are… its moving really fast but its following like a pattern. Its like in the kitchen when I chop up small stuff really fast, like herbs. When I first saw someone do it, it looked like he was just chopping down really fast, but its actually a complex motion you have to practice so you don't hurt-"
"Shinji! I get it, you see an opening, can you get through?"
The angel was getting close now. There was not enough room for the eva to take a stride and it was backed up to the hill on which Ken and Toji were. If he didn't do something soon, the angel would take him, then his friends, then everyone else in the world.
"Y-yeah I think I can."
Shinji deployed the progressive knife from the Eva's shoulder pylon and hefted it in the Eva's hand as it came to life. He heard the screech of the motor and felt the vibration through the Eva's hand. He took a deep breath and stepped forward, leading with the eva's left shoulder through the gap.
Evangelion unit 01 was thrown to the ground, one pylon severed near the shoulder, and armor boiled off from shoulder to fingertips all along the left side. Shinji wailed in pain as the eva fell back, slamming into the hillside only yards from the other children. For just a moment the attack slows but the angel quickly recovers and resumes its slow but apparently unstoppable advance.
On the command bridge, red sirens through everything in dark relief and klaxons sounded. "Dammit!" Captain Katsuragi said. "I thought he could do it. Get the JSSDF on the line, maybe an N2 strike will delay it again and we can retrieve the Eva."
"Ma'am, unit 01 is getting back up!"
Shinji's entire body felt like it was on fire. It was the shock of hitting the ground like that more than the burning. He felt the burning sure. But he was a cook dammit. You work in a kitchen, you play with fire, you get burned. The good cooks didn't stop getting burnt, fire is too unpredictable to never cross it. The burns just stopped hurting. He breathed heavy in the plug, red warning lights washing out the bright light of the outside world on the displays. The blade wasn't in his hand and the other pylon was missing. He didn't care
"I've been hit harder by girls, you pathetic worm. These are my friends, and I'm gonna protect them!"
"Pilot's synch ratio has jumped to 110%!"
Eva 01 pushed off the hills side and charges with a roar. Shinji could feel the Eva responding faster now. That had been the problem before. He told it to move and it took too long. Now he could do this. The hole was small. It had been large enough to dive through, but too small to avoid contact.
The silence was somehow worse for Misato than the anguished scream. By all accounts the damage had been worse on the successful attempt than when the attack had bee rebuffed, but the eva had made it. The frill and horn had been stripped from the helmet and among the charred black Misato could see only slivers of green and purple.
The evangelion had rolled and stopped in a crouch, having dove through the gap. Smoke rose from its burn covered body, but neither the giant nor the pilot seemed to be reacting. Instead the Eva lunged for the body of the worm with outstretched arms. The impact brings the angel to the ground with the evangelion straddling it. The third structure, the one in the middle of its body now revealed its purpose.
As Misato watched the aerial view, the feed from the evangelion lost as it passed through the angel's attack, the mouth opened and she was reminded of a documentary she had seen on poisonous animals. It looked like the mouth of one of those snails the conch shells come from. A little thing when closed, it was huge as it opened and revealed…
"The core!" Shinji exclaimed just as the thing grabbed the eva with both arms. No amount of fortitude or tolerance could stop the scream that followed.
Life is a passing thing, an experience, temporary by its very nature.
I don't want to die…
Pain is a part of life, thus pain too is a passing thing, an experience temporary by its very nature.
The evangelion roared and plunged its hand into the mouth of the thing, grabbing the glowing red orb. As the arms worked their way through its remaining armor, its flesh burned but it was not stopped.
Shinji Ikari, you more than most know that the key to getting through hardship is to…
…Know that it ends. Pain passes as quickly as it comes. It is a distraction from duty.
Very good… What is your duty?
My friends believe in me, they came here because they believe I can protect them, I can't let them down!
Good enough for now... Correct this error in the universe, end its suffering.
With the full force of the giant's body, unit 01 begins to squeeze. The angel finally makes noise now, shrieks of pain and terror as the core begins to crack. Its whip-like arms burn brighter and the smoke continues to rise from the Eva's body, but the pressure does not cease. Its mouth closes around the Eva's arms and acid washes over its hands, but those hands do not release.
Thou art an enemy of the rightness of the universe. You pervert the dharma by your very presence.
The core shatters and the roar of victory from the evangelion outlasts the angel's death knell before both bodies go limp. There is no fire, only the stink of burned land, and wood, and flesh. Within the entry plug, Shinji's eyes were heavy as the pain, temporary though it may be, and exhaustion overcame him.
"I… am created…"
On a nearby hillside, two young men have watched the entire battle. They have no radio, and have not been privy to the communications from NERV. They sit frozen in shock for several minutes, even after both monsters in front of them have fallen silent.
"H-hey Ken…"
"I heard you the first time Toji."
"Not that… what the hell is a dharma?"
Aida Kensuke shrugs. The boys lay on the hillside, staring up at the stars as darkness falls.
"But that… was awesome."
End
Sorry the lead up to this took so long but I hope it was worth it!
Next chapter: The aftermath, new faces, and lots of fanservice. (One of those is a gross and horrible lie that I feel ashamed to have perpetrated on you all.)