X-X-X
CHAPTER 4
X-X-X
"So. How is it coming along?"
Ritsuko straightened, turning her back to her project - an Evangelion entry plug, the substantial bulk of which currently dominated her 'special' workshop in Terminal Dogma. Unlike most entry plugs, this one was painted a dark red.
"Still an enormous tangle of problems, sir." Ritsuko kept her voice neutral. "If you want a detailed progress report, you'll have to wait until this evening. I haven't had time to compile my findings yet."
Gendo didn't move a muscle, apparently preferring to remain standing in the doorway. "What has caused the delay?"
"Well, interruptions don't exactly help," Ritsuko deadpanned.
Gendo didn't visibly react. The uptight bastard used to have a sense of humor, Ritsuko grumbled internally. I know I'm hardly a paragon of good cheer, but did he have to turn into a goddamn machine when his wife was taken?
"Anyway, all sorts of things have been getting in my way," Ritsuko continued. "There's the fact that I'm also on call for tech support on the S2 project. There's the fact that you won't let me bring my assistant down here - and by the way, I still think I could use Maya's help without giving the game away. There's the fact that I can't risk running tests on actual units, instead of simulations. At the core of it, though, is a simple and disgustingly metaphysical problem."
Gendo tilted his head, almost imperceptibly.
"The problem is that the dummy plug is a machine, and the Evangelions aren't machines." Ritsuko straightened her glasses. "As you know better than most, Evas have souls. All evidence - and I do mean all; I've gone through every byte of data produced since Gehirn - says that it takes another soul to sync with them. A computer replica, a digital soul? It effectively can't be done, at least with the resources I have. I'd need a computer comparable to the MAGI, dedicated to the dummy plug and nothing else, to even come close to a guarantee."
Gendo's expression, predictably, did not change - although he did put his hands in his coat pockets, an oddly deliberate gesture.
Well, that wasn't what he wanted to hear. It must suck for him that I'm irreplaceable. Ritsuko suppressed the urge to smile. With Mother and Yui and Kyoko all dead or gone, there aren't exactly a lot of angelic-biotech and metaphysical engineering specialists left in the world.
"Do you have a proposed solution?" Gendo asked, softly. It carried a hint of warning to it.
"As a matter of fact, yes, I do." This time, Ritsuko let herself smile. "Let me use the physical backups as well as the data."
"No." His voice was more forceful than Ritsuko had heard from him in years.
"Sir, hear me out. I don't need that soul - I don't think that would even work if I tried." It was Ritsuko's turn to put her hands in her pockets, although her bleach-white lab coat was considerably different from Gendo's officer uniform. "I just think I'd have a better chance faking it with a warm body, than with false link electrodes and LCL treatments. And - conveniently enough - those backups are warm bodies with blank minds."
Gendo didn't reply, or move at all, for nearly a full minute. Ritsuko felt the sweat accruing on her skin. Damn, the ventilation really sucks down here…
"Alright," Gendo said at last. "You are authorized to use one physical backup. Do not break it."
Oh, don't pretend that's from a place of caution. You made ninety-eight backups - you have plenty to spare.
"I'll treat it like spun glass." Ritsuko's smile widened, and she decided to try pushing her luck. "Shall I head to the tank and pick out one I like, then?"
"No need. One will be selected and brought to your workshop."
Translation: stay the hell out of my inner sanctum. Paranoid much, commander? Not that I have room to talk…
"I look forward to it, Commander. Hopefully, I'll have some progress to report soon."
"See that you do." Gendo turned and walked away. The door slid shut behind him.
He's probably just mad that I keep finding and destroying his bugs. Ritsuko turned back to the red entry plug. Oh well… I've got plenty of work ahead of me. Might as well get busy.
X-X-X
"I didn't think the First even went to school."
Shinji looked up from his food, following Asuka's gaze over to where Rei was sitting. True to form, she was staring idly out the window; apparently she felt no need to actually eat during lunch periods.
Asuka frowned as she noticed the sunlight reflecting off of two tiny bracelets on Rei's wrist. Jewelry? Can't be, not on her… besides, those look too small to be decorative. Maybe they're a location tracker for the Commander or something. That'd be creepy enough for her, right?
"Well, she is our age," Shinji offered. "I'm pretty sure she's required to, by law."
"True, I guess," Asuka groused. "She just seems like such a… robot. Hell, she doesn't even pay much attention - it's like this is just something to fill her time while she's waiting for NERV to whistle."
Shinji furrowed his brow. "You really… don't get along with her, do you?" He said tentatively.
"Not at all. But nevermind that." The German girl leaned back in her seat. "I'm tired of talking about the First. She doesn't bear wasting thoughts on."
"Well… that's unfortunate, because you're going to see her this afternoon."
Asuka's gaze snapped back to Shinji, and then she rolled her eyes and groaned. "Oh, fuck. Sync test?"
"Sync test."
"Scheisse!" Asuka hissed. "I love piloting Eva, but Dr. Akagi is fucking insatiable. Three sync tests in one week? One was a lot, back in Germany!"
"Misato told me it'd be every other day, actually, so…" Shinji scratched the back of his head, evidently trying to look apologetic. "Three and a half tests a week."
"Gott im Himmel," Asuka groaned. "How are you so stone faced about that, anyway? You're a conscript. I'd expect you to complain harder than anyone."
Shinji looked down. "W-well," he stuttered. "I'm, well, I'm used to people telling me what to do. Besides, it's not like I really had anything else planned after school."
Each separate sentence of that was gottverdammt pathetic. Together… "Third, that's the most pathetic thing I think I've ever heard." Asuka gave him a withering look. "It's like you aren't even interested in growing a spine."
Shinji just looked away without answering, and Asuka ground her teeth. At this point, I don't even know if the First is actually worse! One's a silent android, the other a whiny wimp - and both are pliant, spineless dolls!
"… hey, Soryu…"
Asuka looked back up. "Huh? What? And call me Asuka, that Japanese last name thing is stupid."
Shinji ignored the cultural jab. "Did you…" he paused, pressing the heel of his hand against the side of his head. "Before Misato picked us up, that day. Did you hear the angel… say something?"
A jolt of nervousness skittered down Asuka's spine, but she swallowed the tension. "You heard it too?" She asked, her tone guarded. I was afraid I'd imagined it.
" 'Your weapons cannot destroy me,' " Shinji recited. "I suppose it was almost right, too. It soaked up a nuke! It took a rampaging monster with a magic force field to kill it."
Asuka furrowed her brow in confusion. "You understood it?"
Now it was Shinji's turn to look confused. "That's… what it said. Exactly that."
"That's funny," Asuka replied, slowly and carefully. "Because I heard something to a similar effect… but in pitch perfect German."
There was a tense silence, broken only by the classroom chatter around them. Shinji looked away first.
Asuka glanced over to Rei - and was surprised to see the pair of red eyes staring right at her and Shinji. Was she listening? Why the hell would the android be interested, anyway? But even as she thought it, Rei was turning away, her expressionless gaze once again directed out the classroom window.
Yeesh. What a weirdo.
"… do you think that means anything?"
"What?" Asuka blinked. "Well, yeah. If they talk, odds are that they think. If they think, some are going to be smarter than others. And since I can't imagine the third angel being the brightest example of the species, I guess we need to be ready to fight angels that are cunning as well as strong."
Shinji huffed softly, his voice almost sounding frustrated. "I meant that… we fight because we don't understand each other, right?" He shook his head. "If they can speak human languages, shouldn't we make efforts to communicate with them?"
"I'm pretty sure what they speak is some kind of psionic projection, unless you know anyone else who can speak Japanese and German at the same time." Asuka frowned. "And you're wrong. Communication isn't the issue. We fight them because they attack us - they come to our home, they fight us in the streets of our own city. As far as we know, they want to annihilate the human race. What other reason do we need to raise arms against them?"
Shinji looked away, idly poking at his food. "I never thought of it that way."
"Of course you didn't." Asuka snorted. "Peace, love, communication is the answer. You'd make a good hippie."
The other pilot sighed. "Whatever you say, Soryu."
Yeah, don't try to deny it.
"Anyway," Asuka began. "Have you ever wondered -"
She was cut off by a sharp ringing sound, and her phone vibrating. She looked down, startled. I thought I put it on silent. What the hell is it ringing for?
When she picked it up, however, it wasn't displaying the incoming call screen. It was displaying nothing but the NERV logo and the words "EMERGENCY" in red lettering on a black background.
Only then did the slowly rising wail of an air raid siren register in her ears.
"An angel is attacking," came a soft voice. "A vehicle from Section Two will be waiting for us at the gates of the school."
Asuka looked up, but Rei was already sprinting - sprinting - towards the door of the classroom. Around them, the other students were standing up and shuffling after her in a much more relaxed evacuation pattern.
Shinji looked at Asuka, an uncertain expression on his face. "Well… duty calls, I guess?"
Asuka smirked. "Hey, that's the spirit. I'll make a pilot of you yet, Shinji."
X-X-X
Gendo hung up the red phone. He had not actually been on a call, but he liked to maintain at least the appearance of answering to higher powers.
"The object has been titled Shamshel, the Fifth Angel." He laced his fingers once more, leaning forward over his elevated desk. "Captain Katsuragi, you have command of the defense operation."
Below, on the ops deck of the Central Dogma Control Room, Misato nodded and turned back to the bridge bunnies.
"All three pilots are en route," Hyuga announced. "ETA eight minutes to their arrival."
"Give me a visual on our target," Misato ordered.
The big screen flickered, blinking to a spy plane view above the Pacific Ocean. The angel hovered a scant few meters from the ocean surface as it flew steadily towards Japan.
"It's bigger," Fuyutsuki said quietly.
"More elegantly built, too," Gendo murmured back. "I have little doubt it's more powerful."
Possibly powerful enough to deploy seraphim. Fortunately, our force numbers three Evangelion units this time, not just one.
The angel was a sleek beast; where Sachiel had been a hideously disproportioned humanoid, Shamshel was a more like an insect - and one that needed no wings. It was shaped remarkably like a reversed torpedo, albeit a gently undulating one. Its head and what appeared to be two vestigial legs were tucked into a rigid section of its carapace at the front of the body.
"Hold on," Maya said abruptly. "I'm picking up more blue patterns at other points in our detector grid! There are four of them. Three north of the first, one south, all on a trajectory straight to Tokyo-3."
"Give me more," Misato snapped. "Tell me what we're facing, dammit."
"Their patterns are weaker, so they should be smaller," Maya rattled off. "Or have weaker AT fields, at least. We're currently estimating each smaller signature to rate about 48% of the larger angel in terms of threat level. Working on visual confirmation."
The view of the angel shrank slightly, and four smaller feeds sprang up beside it.
There they are. My guess that it was a deficiency on Sachiel's part was correct. Gendo slid another pill from his pocket.
The seraphs looked essentially like smaller versions of the larger angel, undulating slightly faster and with a much more narrow profile - more snakelike than the wide-bodied angel itself. Most notably, each appeared to have only one 'leg', situated centrally just below the head.
"The pilots have entered NERV headquarters," Aoba called. "They're being taken straight to the cages. Unless you want to brief them first, Captain?"
"No. That'd take too long." Misato glared at the screen. "I want to intercept these ones before they make it to Tokyo-3, if we can. Get the pilots into entry plugs as fast as humanly possible."
X-X-X
Despite her grudge, Asuka had to admit that the First Child could move when it mattered. The normally unassuming and somewhat lethargic girl had power-walked with the longest strides her frame could sustain to the locker that was geometrically closest to the locker room door, and had peeled out of her school uniform so fast that Asuka would have sworn she must have ripped it somewhere.
Rei's plugsuit was bone-white. I don't know what I expected. Stock human, stock plugsuit.
In fact, the plugsuit did have some customizations. There were unidentifiable attachments on the upper ribs, and a surprisingly extensive pattern of what looked like primitive link nodes on her back and arms. I guess if her Eva is outdated, her plugsuit would be outdated to match?
Asuka had barely pulled her own plugsuit up to her shoulders by the time Rei was striding to the elevator on the other side of the room.
Seeing her all poised and ready is surreal. Even more so, when she's in what would in any other context be called fetish gear.
Okay. Come on, Asuka. She's creepy, but you're about to step into battle together. You can come up with something.
"Hey, First," she called, as she locked the plugsuit collar around her neck.
Rei paused as if frozen in place, her hand hovering over the button to open the elevator door. Slowly, without moving in any other way, she turned her head to glance over her shoulder.
Asuka noted a twitch of the girl's eyelid as the red eyes appraised her figure, taking in the shades of scarlet, burgundy and maroon that shaded her plugsuit. Wow, was that an expression? I'm counting it. I was beginning to wonder if her face really was porcelain!
"… good luck out there," Asuka managed, fighting down the urge to bite her tongue. She pressed the compression trigger on her plugsuit's enlarged wrist cuff, and the baggy neoprene abruptly shrank, form-fitting itself against her. One of these days, I will find out how it does that. I know it's mostly not actual neoprene - maybe the compression is some esoteric function of the ultra-tech polymer weaves -
"Luck?" Rei murmured, tonelessly as ever.
"Argh!" Asuka ground the heel of her palm against her brow. "Fucking… forget it! Just try not to die, okay?!"
Rei blinked. Then she blinked again. Shit, did I break the dolly? I hope it doesn't come out of my paycheck if I have to replace her. Asuka rolled her eyes and strode forward until she was standing beside Rei - who still had not moved.
"Well? The elevator's not going to call itself. We're on a schedule here!"
Rei seemed to jolt out of whatever confused daze she had been in, and hit the button. A scant three seconds later, and the elevator doors opened. Asuka stepped inside, and Rei followed - her pace strangely subdued, given her wild alacrity earlier.
"Cages!" Asuka called out. The elevator started to move, slowly at first, but rapidly gaining speed as it shot downwards to the bottom floor of Central Dogma.
"I…" Rei's voice halted. Asuka turned her head sharply - unprovoked speech from Rei was a rare occurrence. "I will make an effort to avoid this body's termination," she managed at last.
Asuka narrowed her eyes at the other pilot. Stone faced as ever… but her pupils are pinpricks. Did that seriously stress her that much? "Well don't sprain your cerebellum thinking too hard about it," she retorted.
"Sprain my -?"
"Central Dogma, level zero: Evangelion Cage Facility." The elevator door slid open - greeting them with flashing red alarm light and the sound of blaring klaxons.
Asuka didn't wait for Rei to finish - nor did the other pilot make an attempt to. Both sprinted full-tilt out into the wide hallway; Rei skidded to a stop in front of the cage zero door, while Asuka raced to cover the extra distance.
Where's Shinji? Asuka turned hard as she ran, physically colliding with the cage two door before the sensor could auto-open it. Probably beat us to it. He's got a locker room to himself, so he didn't get distracted by the First's weirdness.
Asuka stepped out onto the upper bridge above Evangelion Unit 02. The entry plug was already waiting in place, and the technicians had cleared the lower umbilical bridge. The orange-clad workers stood aside the minute they noticed her presence.
That's right! Ace pilot coming through, bitches! It's time to save the world!
X-X-X
"This attacker, The Fifth Angel, has been termed Shamshel." Misato's voice was clipped and rapid. "Unlike Sachiel, this angel appears to be accompanied by a force of four other entities - telemetry suggests they are physically similar to the angel itself, but smaller and weaker. They have been termed seraphim."
Great, multiple targets. That complicates things. Asuka could feel her hands squeezing and releasing the control yokes in a rhythm, discharging nervous energy. She could also feel the hands of the beast she was now part of, mimicking the motion near-perfectly. On the other hand, talk about opportunities to rack up and jack up a kill count!
"Because there are multiple enemies in this assault, we will be deploying you in a scattered pattern. Moloch - you'll be deployed directly east, near the coast. You'll be launched at the eastern edge of the Tokyo-3 metro zone, and from there it should be a short jog east at level three speeds. Confirm."
Asuka nodded slightly, opening her squad radio channel with a thought. "Ja, understood."
"Asherah will be deployed at the northeast coast. You'll have a longer distance to cover from the catapult, so I recommend sprinting at level two speeds and reducing power consumption when you arrive. Confirm."
With a beep, a 'sound only' window appeared on Asuka's HUD - or rather, on the spherical space around her head where information from the Eva's systems was projected directly into her sensory cortex. "Yes," Rei's soft voice answered.
"Ishtar will be deployed within Tokyo-3. Since he carried the last battle by himself, Shinji gets the light rearguard duty today. You'll launch to Central 3rd Street and take position there. Confirm."
A window containing a side view of Shinji's despondent face appeared. "Understood."
Huh, Shinji seems kind of out of it. I know him and Misato weren't getting along too well earlier… wonder if there's a connection…
"All units: launch!"
The rippling shock of the sudden acceleration shook both of Asuka's bodies, and the entry plug's seating gyroscopes shuddered. Her human body sucked a deep lungful of the thick orange liquid.
LCL smells like shit, but I'm a fan of the oxygen density. It's like an espresso shot with every breath.
There was another shift and shudder as the whiplash-like acceleration inverted, decelerating rapidly -
And the catapults reached the surface. The elevator clamps released, and Asuka concentrated.
Umbilical cable detached; reactor online. Power output level three: 287:49 hours to shutdown.
Asuka began walking east across the sparse suburban landscape, Unit 02's forty-meter legs making strides that ate up the distance rapidly. In her rear view she could see Unit 01 taking position in the urban zone, and further back, the distant figure of Unit 00 sprinting on an oblique trajectory.
There was no need for Unit 02 to sprint, though, and Asuka welcomed the power conservation. At a brisk walk, an Evangelion could still move at over fifty miles per hour - that, combined with the fact she had no obligation to follow roads, meant it took her less than ten minutes in all to reach the coast.
The Pacific Ocean glittered in the sunlight of the eternal summer. Asuka hung back from the beach itself, dropping Unit 02 into a ready crouch behind the second row of dunes.
No need to risk getting knocked into the water when I don't have aquatic combat gear. Besides, I hate how sand feels under Moloch's boots - way too slippery. She's too heavy for that scheisse.
Asuka closed her eyes, taking her hands off the control yokes. She dropped her internal reactor to output level four, and opened her squad comm. "Moloch, in position," she said, her voice unusually calm.
"Roger, Moloch. ETA on the first target is three minutes and forty seconds." Misato's voice clicked off.
Stay cool, Asuka. Be like a blade. Cold, sharp, focused. The German pilot took a deep breath of LCL. Remember the hard mode simulations with Mari? Think of it like that.
… except if I die here, I die for real.
Psh, I'm not going to die. I'm the best there is. Look at those harmonic readings - 79.8% synchronicity with .2% variance, sixty-four waveform convergence points, 259 plus or minus 6 green links active. I've spent nine years training for this - more than half my life.
I'm not going to die.
I'm not.
Asuka opened her eyes, wrapping her hands around the control yokes once more and hefting her APFSDS Gauss "pallet" rifle. She narrowed all six of her eyes at the horizon, and the idyllic blue of the sea gleamed back at her.
Doesn't really look all that different to the Atlantic, from here. On a sunny day, they're both just massive expanses of glittering blue…
Then her expression changed from scrutiny to full alertness. "Contact," Asuka barked. "I've got a visual. It's on the horizon, heading this way. Transmitting now."
The lone speck on the horizon grew, and two more appeared behind it. One of the second wave was larger than the other.
"I think I have a visual on Shamshel itself. Trajectory is slightly to my north."
"Acknowledged, Moloch. The Fifth Angel is on a trajectory between our two defense points. Asherah, Ishtar, confirm."
"Yes."
"Confirmed."
Asuka quirked her eyebrow. The fifth angel. Fifth. Sachiel was the third angel… I'd bet money that whatever secret scheisse Mari is guarding has to do with the fourth.
"Moloch, you're looking at less than sixty seconds until the leading seraph is within range. Look alive."
"You don't have to hold my hand, Misato," Asuka grumbled back. "I've got this."
"No back talk on the battlefield, pilot." Misato didn't give Asuka a chance to drop an indignant response. "Asherah, do you have a visual?"
"Not yet." Rei's voice was as soft as ever, but it carried a great deal more focus than usual.
Asuka raised her rifle, bracing its colossal stock against her equally colossal shoulder. The peripheral nervous system links were configured for targeting optimization, and the gun was fully loaded and charged.
"… just… a little closer…"
Asuka's reticles turned red, and she slammed the trigger down.
The snapping bark of hypersonic projectiles split the quiet beachfront air. The leading seraph twitched, halting suddenly and drawing itself up.
"Mein Gott, they're ugly motherfuckers. Like the world's scariest sex toy… eww."
"Asuka, squad comm is not for trivialities."
"That's Pilot Soryu when I'm in Moloch," Asuka murmured back. "Unless you want me to call you Misato instead of Captain."
"You literally just -" Misato stopped abruptly. "Shit, the trailing targets are changing course. Intercept!"
The Angel itself suddenly picked up speed, and the other seraph broke off the approach, heading north. The seraph that Asuka's salvo clipped lowered itself back into movement configuration, then began approaching at a similar speed increase.
"Scheisse." Asuka opened the squad comm again. "Rei - er, Asherah, at least one more seraph is heading your way!"
"Yes."
Which is practically all she fucking knows how to say… dammit. Asuka fired another short burst of high velocity rounds at the approaching seraph, but it ducked and weaved, evading the worst of the salvo - and its AT field effortlessly blocked the rest. Scheisse, where are the others? Shamshel and four seraphim… I've only seen two…
"Contact," Rei said - just a trace faster and sharper than her voice usually sounded.
Enough of this! Asuka shifted her reactor to output level one, and concentrated her AT augments. Then she lifted the rifle a third time, switching its operation to semiautomatic.
An almost-invisible thread of shimmering orange light tracked each bullet as they crossed the phase-space tunnel - and the seraph's AT field did nothing against them this time. The armor-piercing flechettes tore through its lower body and head chitin, and an unearthly scream echoed over the beach.
'Output Level 1: 19:35 minutes to shutdown. 4:52 minutes to red line.'
The seraph reached the beach and reared itself again, looking about as angry as a faceless alien can. Blue blood dripped from several wounds where Asuka's marksmanship had struck true.
Its 'leg' - I can think of other anatomical comparisons for that appendage, personally - twitched, and then glowed.
Asuka barely threw herself aside in time. The whip-like plasma arc slashed a remarkably beautiful wave-like pattern of glass and smoking, scorched dunegrass into the terrain where she had crouched a moment prior.
It has a fucking plasma whip. Okay, breathe. You've got this, Asuka. Stay cool.
The seraph twisted to face her again. Asuka pushed her AT field forward, slammed the gun mode to fully automatic and fired.
The shower of point blank flechettes shredded the seraph's flesh, ripping into the body just below the head. Blue blood and chunks of flesh went flying.
A second later, the plasma whip flashed again. The pallet rifle disintegrated into glowing pieces, and Asuka bit the inside of her cheek as the tail of the whip wrapped around her hand.
"GOTT-IM-FUCKING-HIMMEL!"
It was like she'd grabbed a moving band saw - a ripping, burning lash of agony. She recoiled, jerking her hand away violently and stumbling back a few paces.
Her right gauntlet was a lost cause. The palms and fingers of an evangelion were very lightly armored to allow for grip, and what little ADNR could be found was poor defence against an overwhelming assault of eldritch energy. The flesh under the armor was smoking and scorched, although the burn was shallow.
Lost my gun. This is a melee now, and the alien arschloch has a lot more range than I do in that regard…
The whip lashed out again. Asuka ducked to the right, and the weapon clipped her shoulder instead of slashing her torso; she barely felt the assault through the much thicker pauldron armor.
Wait, what's that?
The last of the pallet rifle's clip had gone into Asuka's volley at the center mass just below the head - and, having already sustained some damage, the seraph's torso looked like blue-tinted hamburger meat. Underneath the mangled alien flesh was something hard, and red, like a huge round garnet -
It's the core! Asuka realized with a start. That's its heart, its weak spot! I can kill it!
She reached for her right prog-knife. The seraph was faster.
Plasma coiled around her vambrace before her hand was even halfway to her pauldron wing. The hyperdiamond armor plates began to crack and glow as the monster pulled her arm towards it.
Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck it hurts, it fucking HURTS. She reached up with her free hand. I'm not going down to a gottverdammt flying trouser snake armed with something out of bad science fiction! I'll fucking kill you left handed!
Asuka pulled her trapped arm, hauling the seraph towards her. Her progressive knife activated in her other hand, its blade giving off the familiar glow and high-pitched whine. She stepped forward, thrusting her left hand and pulling on her right in the same motion.
An unearthly scream split the air, and Asuka's vision dissolved into a cascade of sparks. The thing twisted, squirmed - and fell still.
Slowly, the searing burn in Asuka's forearm began to fade.
Moloch's forearm. Not mine. My arm is fine, my hand is fine. She began carefully dialling back her synchronization, trying to reduce the pain without losing her battle control. So what if I got some cuts, anyway! Ace pilot one, aliens zero!
Asuka straightened, shoving the inert corpse off her. The whip fiber, now cold and relatively harmless, was a painful ordeal to untangle her arm from - she bit the inside of her cheek yet again, this time yielding visible red trails in the LCL - but she pulled free relatively quickly. She rolled her shoulders and shifted her internal systems, dropping to output level two with more than two minutes to spare of overheat safety. Then, she opened the squad comm.
"Target eliminated," she managed. She'd intended to say it a good deal more triumphantly, but hadn't realized how hard she had been breathing. "Zone is clear. I… fuck. Who needs me? Wasn't Rei about to get dogpiled?"
"Asherah is currently dealing with three seraphs, yes. Move to assist ASAP."
Three? Scheisse. "On my way." Asuka turned north, moving parallel to the coast line.
"Affirmative, Moloch. It looked like you lost your rifle - are you armed?"
"Still have both knives. I'll be fine."
"Don't be an idiot, Asu- Pilot Soryu. We're sending two Chinooks with a new pallet rifle now, to rendezvous just before you reach Asherah."
"… acknowledged," Asuka responded, a grudging note in her voice.
X-X-X
When synced with Unit 00, Rei's idle thought process was left effectively freewheeling.
This body is roughly thirteen years old, but it is a difficult measure. It was grown in pieces.
This body has no heart, only a core, a core filled with bright light and fury.
To some, it might have been disconcerting, but Rei did not even register annoyance. Her mental discipline was noteworthy even during simple tests - on a battlefield, she might have been a machine.
She'd crouched behind a large hill, her pallet rifle locked and loaded. The seraphs' energy weapons made short work of buildings, but had a hard time slicing actual terrain.
They are not greatly intelligent, beyond responding to threats when they see them. Were I more heavily equipped, or backed by another Eva, outwitting them would be trivial. As it stands, they are substantially more challenging.
The extensive burns on her left arm and the side of her torso spoke of just how much more challenging. Rei ignored the injuries easily. Even had it not been filtered through a 36.0% sync rate, the level of pain was insignificant compared to the shattered bones and conscious invasive surgery she was accustomed to enduring.
Rei cast her AT field, feeling out the area around and behind her meager cover.
There, there, and there. I cannot leave cover without stepping into the line of fire of two of them. I can face one easily, but guarding against two such weapons precludes returning fire.
The seraphs moved, and Rei watched them carefully through the arcane energy field.
One coming around - no, two -
Rei lifted her pallet rifle and collected her AT field, hurling forward a shockwave of visible orange light. The leading seraph's own AT field was stripped away like so much tissue paper under the onslaught, and it bobbed in midair as if staggered.
Rei was already firing. The stream of slender, finned, hypersonic projectiles was like a chainsaw to the unprotected seraphim flesh, and the alien writhed under the assault.
Then - amid the flying droplets of blue blood and chunks of flesh - a bright glow appeared.
Struggling through her sub-par synchronicity, Rei lifted her left hand and caught the plasma whip. She twitched as her hand closed and the burning light wrapped around her wrist, its embrace painful enough to crack her cold facade.
Sloppy. I must be more disciplined.
Her right arm was shaking uncontrollably, but she managed to lift the pallet rifle. Her HUD reticle told her that, more or less, she was still on target.
Then the second seraph rounded the hill.
She didn't even get a chance to pull the trigger. The other whip flashed, and Rei had no time to react. Her vision flashed into white and a crackling hum filled her ears as the seraph's weapon coiled around her head.
In the entry plug, bubbles formed as the temperature began climbing rapidly. Rei convulsed, her smaller body coughing and swallowing LCL. The monster's grip was like being waterboarded with molten lead.
No! I will endure. I must. Rei clung to her grip on the pallet rifle and the first seraph's weapon, despite every nerve in her body screaming at her to clutch her head. My squad leader has ordered me to survive, and I will. I am stronger than this.
She raised the pallet rifle. Her ocular was still obscured by white-hot fire, but her grip on the other whip gave her a steady feedback on where at least one of the seraphs was standing. Bracing the rifle against her shoulder, she pointed and fired blind.
She was rewarded by a screech, and a sharp tug on the lash she was holding. She fired again, holding the trigger down until the gun clicked and went still.
The whip in her hand slackened, and the scorching heat of it began cooling.
It is dead, or… incapacitated. Rei struggled to think through the searing pain in her skull. Now I must face the other. Asherah is… too valuable to sacrifice, and I myself am under orders to endure.
The whip around her head abruptly loosened, and her vision - albeit dazed and unfocused, and fogged by the damaged cover on her ocular - returned. She staggered, but righted herself.
Two remain.
Her pallet rifle's clip was depleted. She ejected the spent one, and went to reload -
The seraph's lash flew again. Rei attempted to pull back her AT field into a defensive barrier, but Unit 00's augments responded sluggishly to her poorly synced commands, and the plasma cut through the energy shield before it could gather strength.
The line of incandescent pain struck her neck, coiling around it and holding fast. Her lilin body bit its tongue, fighting off the phantom sensation of being choked by a burning noose.
Asherah needs no breath, and my other form can still breathe freely. I must not fall.
Her shaky hand found one of the pallet rifle clips, and pulled it off her back cargo racks. She missed on the first try, but her second attempt slammed the magazine home.
Rei ratcheted the bolt and pressed the trigger. At point blank range, she barely needed to aim - even while convulsing in pain from the plasma whip around her neck, the majority of the flechettes found their target.
The seraph shrieked, retracting its whip and coasting backwards. Rei tried to lift the pallet rifle and sustain fire, only to find her right leg buckling under her. The earth shook as the Evangelion fell to its knees.
Focus. Rei gritted her teeth. Focus. Remain in control.
Half of her skin had been turned to well-done steak, her head and neck were all kinds of fucked up, and her eye was out of calibration - her HUD reticle would be useless. She ran through a mental list of the injuries, her thoughts clinical and detached, as she took a deep breath of LCL.
She managed to get one leg under her, but could tell that she wasn't going to manage the other. The Eva's already glitchy systems were taxed by her damage levels, and the strength to stand just wasn't there. Her reactor was only about 90 seconds away from red line.
The two blurred outlines of the seraphs began drifting forward again. Unable to retreat, Rei lifted her rifle once more.
My chances have become narrow, but I must not concede until death. I must make every possible effort. She lifted the gun to her shoulder, lining up her ocular to iron-sight the huge weapon. Whatever comes about, I am confident that at least one more of them will fall.
"Hey, somebody order an ace pilot rescue?"
Rei barely had time to register the video feed appearing on her HUD before a new AT field rippled across her own. There was a distinctive ripping staccato sound, and a shower of hypersonic flechettes rained down on the trailing alien.
She didn't need a second prompt. As the other Eva continued tearing into the less damaged seraph, Rei centered her iron sights on the blurry red outline of the other creature's core and pulled the trigger.
The first four APFSDS rounds deflected away. The fifth chipped the core. The sixth split it completely in two, and the seraph died, screaming and thrashing in its final moments.
Rei's gun clicked empty, and her burned hand precluded the possibility of easily reaching for another magazine. She set her rifle down, and began searching her back-mounted cargo racks for a fresh clip with her uninjured hand.
Her effort proved unnecessary.
The other Eva moved closer, her AT field strengthening from the proximity. With its defenses peeled completely away, the last seraph was helpless under the pallet rifle fire, and three short bursts saw it collapsing - dead as the rest of its kin.
Rei reached up to her Eva's face, crushing the ruined and graphite-stained diamond cover on her ocular. Freed of its obstruction, the synthetic eye easily recalibrated itself, and Rei's vision cleared.
She felt herself twitch.
The hideously scarlet figure of Unit 02 stood on the other side of the dead seraphs, her pallet rifle slung over her shoulder in a strangely jaunty pose.
"Pretty good for a test jockey!" Asuka crowed. "With that sync score I didn't think you'd get even one kill, let alone two!"
Rei observed the comm feed from Asuka's Eva, her own feed still set to sound only. The German's shoulders were moving more than normal, and her right arm was shaking slightly - probably from pain feedback, given the ravaged state of her Eva's right vambrace and gauntlet.
She makes negative assumptions of my ability, but this fight was not effortless for her either.
"Jeez, looks like they really fucked you up, First." Asuka's brow furrowed momentarily, before her expression returned to its usual smirk. "You gonna make it back on your own?"
"Yes," Rei replied, soft as ever. Ten minutes or so in output level two will restore Asherah's strength. Then I will be able to walk. The pain feedback impaired my fine motor control, but will have negligible impact on walking.
"That's good. Misato?… hey, Misato! You there?"
There was silence on the line for a solid thirty seconds, then the video feed from the control room popped into existence beside Asuka's own feed. "Sorry about that. I was… talking. With Shinji."
"Talking? About what?"
"Nothing you need to worry about, Pilot." Misato seemed on edge, her tone tense and her movements jumpy. "The fifth angel has been defeated. Moloch, Asherah, return to NERV headquarters for debrief."
Rei nodded slightly, despite having a sound-only comm feed. "Yes."
"Yeah, yeah. Sure thing. See you in twenty or so." Asuka's comm clicked off - and Unit 02 began approaching Rei's position.
What? Why is she not returning to Tokyo-3 for retrieval?
Unit 02 came to a stop, looming over Unit 00's kneeling form like a colossus. She stood motionless for a moment, then extended a scarlet-armored hand towards Unit 00.
"Well? You wanna sit there until you recharge, or you wanna get back to base now? Your call, First."
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