X-X-X
CHAPTER 8
X-X-X
"Red Alert, Code Blue! I repeat: Red Alert, Code Blue!"
Maya let go of the base intercom button, running her hands through her hair nervously. She slammed her laptop shut and pushed it to the side of her desk. "Okay… at least the auxiliary staff will be here in a few minutes," she managed.
"Fuck, what do we do?" Aoba's eyes darted around the room. "The Commander and the Captain are both away, and we're down an ops Lieutenant. We're in no shape to hold off an angel!"
"Well, what do you normally do?" Asuka frowned. "You could start by bringing up a visual. It'd be nice to know what I'm up against."
Aoba gave he a funny look. "You mean what we're up against?"
"No. You don't get to fucking say that," she growled back. "Not until you've been in an active entry plug."
"Visual confirmed. Bringing it up on the big screen." Maya's was the only voice in the room that maintained professionalism. "Object is definitely an angel, and appears aquatic. No other telemetry yet; we don't have sub-sea sensors that far out."
A capture from a spy satellite appeared in the center of the massive screen. It showed a hideous leviathan cresting out of the ocean waves, leaping what had to be close to a hundred meters into the air. Its proportions defied comparison to any normal fish - it seemed to be all fin and mouth and tail, like some kind of demented manta ray.
Asuka eyed the coordinates on the capture, mentally contrasting them with Japan. "It's far out from us," she said, half to herself. "Why's it showing itself above the water now…?"
Her eyes narrowed, and she slid the tips of her canine teeth over each other. She wasn't interested in revisiting the dental problems her younger self had endured due to a stress reflex of grinding her teeth, but the less severe mimic of the movement still helped her focus.
The auxiliary staff were mostly seated by now, the lower level workstations filled and active. Asuka stepped up to the parapet-like guard wall on the upper ops floor and leaned over.
"Hey! Give me a zoomed out shot from that position, will you?"
Maya raised an eyebrow. "Don't me and Aoba outrank you, Warrant Officer?"
Asuka met her eyes, her expression stony. "Are you saying you want sole command of this operation, First Lieutenant?"
Maya opened her mouth. Then she closed it, and looked away. "Let the mission log show that Warrant Officer Soryu is commanding this operation," she murmured. "Be it on your own head, Asuka."
"I know how command works, Lieutenant. I'm not a child." Asuka looked up at the big screen, now showing a much larger satellite's-eye-view. The angel had submerged again, but the titanic splash it had left was still visible as a small white spot on the waves; the creature was nearly the size of an aircraft carrier.
Not far west - maybe a few kilometers, no more than two dozen - a substantially smaller dot left a respectable wake on the ocean surface.
"What's that? Lock onto it and zoom in!" Asuka bit her lip. "Aoba, Maya, get Moloch ready for launch with aquatic combat gear ASAP."
"Yes, sir," Maya said without a trace of sarcasm in her tone. "I'm going to have them attach signal boosters to her radiocom suite too, so you'll be able to fully access ops data from the entry plug."
The spy satellite recalibrated and took its photo, this time focused on the anomaly not far from the angel. When the picture finally resolved, Asuka almost recoiled in shock.
"That's… that's Baal. Was zur Hölle is… is Mari doing out there?! I thought she was assigned to guard duty in the Arctic!" Asuka bit her thumbnail nervously. "Hail her! Try any radiocom frequency."
"Yes, sir!" The radio operator turned back to her workstation and began typing with breakneck speed.
"Maya, what's my status?"
"Moloch will be ready to launch in approximately two hundred seconds, if the aquatic combat gear gets attached without a hitch." She tapped out another sequence on her computer. "Ops data is already forwarding to your entry plug. I'd advise getting down there and settling in for launch about now."
"I don't - !" Asuka cut herself off, forcibly biting back the angry words she'd been preparing to snap. Focus, Asuka, focus. She gives advice to Misato too, and even if she is slighting you, being petty never made anyone a better commander; don't screw up your moment in the sun.
"Noted," she said instead. "On my way."
She turned and strode towards the exit, heading for the express elevator down.
X-X-X
"Drop is in two minutes. Prepare to go to output level two, but don't engage AT fields unless absolutely necessary - we have no idea how long it will take to disable the target."
"Yes," Rei replied.
"Got it, Captain."
Rei regarded the open comm channel, which displayed Shinji's face. He looked nervous, but determined.
The second child thinks the third has the makings of a soldier. I have not yet seen reason to disagree. With the flick of a thought, Rei ran a systems diagnostic on Asherah, making sure the prototype Unit had no faults that would compromise her current mission. He shirks combat duty to the point of approaching insubordination, but once actually deployed he fights with a fervor almost matching Soryu's.
"Drop in one hundred and fifty seconds."
Soryu…
No, I must not become distracted. I am on duty. Rei closed her lilin eyes, then opened them again. Her smaller set of hands tightened around the control yokes. I will not allow myself to dwell on an irritation that is not even present.
She concentrated, and felt the rod depth motors in her heart shift. The timer on her psychic HUD sped up, blurring forward to settle on a new number. Output level 3: 271:51 hours to shutdown.
"Drop in one hundred and twenty seconds."
They'd been briefed at a breakneck pace by Misato on the flight towards Old Tokyo: a foolish attempt to produce a facsimile of an Evangelion had resulted in a runaway automaton with a faulty boiling-water reactor on board. Their assignment was to stop and disable the machine, and contain it in the event of a reactor meltdown. Fortunately, since it was not an angel, it possessed no AT field - and thus they would not be limited by a handful of minutes as their own internal reactors risked red-lining.
Diagnostics complete. Evangelion UNIT00 at 100% battle strength. Reactor at 99.4% fuel. Synchronicity at 39.1% with .1% variance. 251 +/- 2 green links active. 36 waveform convergence points.
Hardware Diagnostic results: Link circuit normal. Uplinks normal. AT augments normal. Musculature normal. Gyroscopes normal. Subsystems and onboard computers normal. Comms normal.
"Drop in ninety seconds."
Rei shifted her internals again.
Output level 2: 126:31 minutes to shutdown.
Rei opened her ocular, and her cockpit HUD filled with the view of the open sky beneath her.
Evangelions cannot use parachutes. This will be a test of our capability - airborne deployment is not a sortie scenario that was ever expected to be used with these units. There have been no simulations, and the first live test is now.
"Drop in sixty seconds."
They were coasting low above the cloud layer. Not far ahead, the clouds thinned out, and the blasted ruins of Old Tokyo were visible.
This body is 10.52 years - this body is roughly thirteen years old - its heart has - its core is - it - no. No. Focus.
Rei closed her eyes, silencing her thoughts one by one until her mind was utterly quiet. All that existed in her world was the soft hum of the bright entity that posed as her soul, and the whispering hiss of the remnant of herself locked in Asherah's core.
"Drop in thirty seconds."
Will the Commander be proud of me? She already knew the answer, but the thought intruded like a persistent insect finding gaps in a window screen. Commander Ikari would not care about a civilian matter; indeed, even slaying angels was no more than was expected of her. From time to time, the Commander would grace her with a gruff well done, Rei if she had completed some sort of special task in an exemplary manner, but such moments were few and far between. Praise from the Commander was to be earned, and never received as a gift - and no one else would ever -
"Pretty good, for a test jockey…!"
Rei snapped her eyes open, doubling down on her meditative discipline. I will not be distracted. Focus.
Backhanded though it was, the compliment had shaken Rei more than she cared to admit. Camaraderie was an utterly alien concept to her, and yet the Second Child had simply given it - unasked and unearned.
"Drop in ten seconds. Nine. Eight."
Rei glanced over at the image of Shinji on her HUD. His eyes were narrow and his shoulders were set.
"Seven. Six. Five."
Below them, the massive mecha was visible - stumbling across the expansive wasteland towards Atsugi. It looked even larger than an Evangelion, but its movements were horribly awkward and mechanical.
"Four. Three. Two. One."
And then they were falling.
X-X-X
The armored float and propeller felt, more than anything, like a very bulky backpack. Asuka wondered with some trepidation whether she would even be able to fight effectively with a dead weight hanging off of Moloch's shoulders.
"Moloch, we're going to launch you to the edge of the urban zone. As soon as you deploy, sprint for the coast - you've got a lot of ground to cover."
"Ja, understood." Asuka was still getting used to the extra displays cluttering her upper HUD and peripheral vision. It wasn't quite the same glut of battle data that could be seen in the Central Dogma ops room, but it was a lot more than she was used to accessing from an entry plug. "Any response from Baal yet?"
"No response on any standard frequency. We'll keep trying."
From outside the Eva, the cage P.A. system blared. "Launch in ninety seconds. Lifting umbilicals and opening cage two."
Asuka frowned. "Are you transmitting with NERV's UN callsign?"
"… yes. Why wouldn't we be?"
"It might…" Asuka shook her head. "Record a message to transmit without a callsign."
"Without a callsign?"
"That's an order," Asuka snapped back. "Go: 'what'cha doing out there, four eyes?' Done. Send it until a response comes back."
"Yessir," Maya replied, although Asuka could hear the trepidation in her voice. Not every day she gets asked to pass on message in english, I guess.
"Launch in ninety seconds. Moving Evangelion Unit Two to the catapult." Asuka felt the cage base platform shift under her feet - and a moment later, the catapult clamps closed around her pauldron wings.
"I've got a response!" It was one of the auxiliary staff, presumably the radiocom operator. "Patching through to Moloch now."
There was a hiss of static on the line, and a new sound only comm window appeared - the voice replying in english. "Is it ever good to hear from you, princess! But I have to admit, I was expecting Misato or the Commander, not a pilot!"
"They're both away. I'm in command of this mission," Asuka said, switching back to Japanese. "And it is a mission, because I don't know if you're aware, but there's an angel on your tail."
"Yeah, noticed the ugly bastard about twenty minutes ago." Mari trailed off, and when she spoke again, her voice was subdued. "It's moving a little faster than I can. If it catches Baal in this state, it'll be over for me, I'm afraid."
Asuka swallowed a stab of panic, her grip on the control yokes tightening. "Hang tight," she said through clenched teeth. "And keep sprinting. Moloch is outbound to meet up with you."
As if on cue, the cage P.A. sounded again. "Launch in thirty seconds. Clearing the catapult trajectory."
Forcibly controlling her breathing, Asuka relaxed her grip on the control yokes. Stay calm, stay cool, stay loose. It's just an angel.
… just the first angel you'll be facing solo, since Mari seems too beat up to be much help. The first real angel, not seraph…
Her eyes snapped open, and she looked up to the control room comm screen. "Maya, Aoba - keep your eyes peeled for seraphim. They used them once; no reason to believe they wouldn't a second time."
"Got it." The tactical map in the corner of her display zoomed out, and overlayed with AT detector activity. "None yet. We're keeping watch."
"Good." Asuka's eyes narrowed. "Launch when ready!"
As she said it, the timer reached zero. The rails energized, and Moloch's platform shot upwards.
X-X-X
"Asherah, you have minor cracking in your left greave and sabaton. I'm not detecting any bone damage, but the muscle scan will take longer." Hyuga rattled off information rapidly. "Ishtar, your landing shattered the knee plates in both greaves."
"So, don't get hit in the legs?" Shinji chuckled slightly.
"That is unlikely to be a problem, pilot Ikari," Rei said quietly. "Our target lacks substantial offensive capacity."
Shinji looked at the comm camera with an odd expression, but then focused on his HUD again. "Here it comes."
The mechanical goliath was striding forward, swinging its arms as it moved. This gave it the rather comical impression of being a huge, robotic gorilla.
"Asherah, move to intercept. Ishtar, stand by to deploy an AT field in the event of a nuclear containment breach."
Rei stood from the kneeling landing pose, and began running towards the oncoming robot.
I will take the brunt of the damage if the reactor goes critical. This is the logical choice - my unit is the most easily repaired, as well as the least valuable, and my life is of no consequence. The captain's tactical acumen is impressive.
There was an earthshaking crash as Rei slammed into the machine, impacting its center mass with Unit 00's braced elbow. She followed up with a straight punch from the back shoulder.
Jet Alone staggered backwards, almost falling over on legs driven by inadequate control software. Its chestplate was dented, and cracked where her elbow had struck, but the mech was not substantially damaged.
"Target appears more heavily armored than expected," she noted, readying herself to follow up.
She didn't get a chance.
Jet Alone lashed out with a fist, catching Asherah in the gut. Rei jerked as the LCL was violently ejected from the lungs of her lilin body, and she stepped back, swaying. She expected the mech to attack again as she was weakened, but before it could get a chance, a huge purple shape slammed into it.
"Misato, you said this thing wasn't coded to defend itself!" Shinji sounded angry. He'd moved forward and grabbed both of Jet Alone's arms, but the machine certainly wasn't proving easy to keep hold of.
Curiously, it was Ritsuko's voice that replied. "It shouldn't be! The test specs said its systems weren't armed. All it was supposed to do was walk!"
"Our parameters have changed." Rei's voice was still soft. "Its combat software is not advanced, but it is still a far greater threat than anticipated. Captain, requesting permission to use destructive force."
Currently, Rei and Shinji were under orders to engage and disable Jet Alone, without damaging it enough to risk cracking the reactor case and releasing irradiated heavy water or unprotected fuel rods - for this reason, they were forbidden from targeting central systems, and had been deployed without ranged weaponry. Destructive Force would mean allowing them to stop the robot by any means necessary, regardless of the damage done to it or its bulky reactor.
"… permission granted," Misato finally replied, grinding the words out through gritted teeth. "But if you must cause a nuclear accident, do try to limit the splash zone."
"Yes," Rei acknowledged, composed as ever.
Soryu would be able to bring it down without damaging the reactor. Rei's eyes narrowed for a second, but this time she didn't fight the thought. There seemed to be little point in keeping her focus when thoughts of Asuka came up.
No person, or phenomenon, has been able to repeatedly divert my attention in such manner before Soryu.
She didn't let it keep her from combat effectiveness, however. Shinji was still struggling to restrain the robot's arms, but his grip seemed to be holding. Rei stepped to the opportunity, slamming the heaviest punch she could muster into its forward armor.
The machine's casing caved under the strike, and a crack formed in the damaged metal. Rei drew back, preparing a follow-up, when Jet Alone abruptly stopped trying to wrench its arms free and instead lashed out with its right leg.
Its kick was low, and Rei's left greave was already damaged. There was an echoing boom as the main ADNR plate split down its center, and several splinters of orange hyperdiamond scattered over the blasted earth of the dead zone.
Rei stepped back quickly, moving her weakened leg behind her. "You were correct, pilot Ikari. We must avoid being struck where our armor is compromised."
Shinji gave the camera that strange look again, but then focused on the mech he was grappling.
Each arm that Unit 01 gripped was too strong for an evangelion arm to overpower alone. The purple eva abruptly released one arm and slammed her elbow down onto Jet Alone's back, staggering it slightly; a moment later, his eva had both hands on a single arm.
Shinji let out a growl of exertion as he wrenched the control yokes, and the mech's arm snapped, letting out a shriek of deforming steel as its superstructure was ripped apart.
Unfortunately for Shinji, this meant that he no longer had a controlling hold on Jet Alone - which immediately turned to face Unit 01, swiveling 180 degrees at the waist.
"Since when can it do that?!" Misato yelled.
A steel hand clamped around Unit 01's neck, and on her HUD, Rei could see Shinji dropping the control yokes to clutch at his throat. It was a foolish move - his synchronicity was still under 50%, and thus letting go of the manual controls would cause a loss of strength and coordination that would make it difficult for him to free himself.
Jet Alone cannot be allowed to damage Ishtar, or injure pilot Ikari.
Rei stepped forward and grabbed the first anchor that her hand could close around,yanking hard and pulling the mech off Unit 01. There was a horrible creaking, then a hiss.
She'd grabbed a control rod. And in manhandling the giant machine, the rod insertion seal had been damaged; a jet of superheated heavy steam was leaking from around the cracked boron.
"The reactor shielding has been breached," Rei reported tonelessly. "Damage to a control rod has left a leak, currently emitting gaseous deuterium oxide. The full extent of nuclear hazard is not known."
"Fuck. Acknowledged, Asherah. Move to contain the leak with AT fields as soon as practical."
Unit 01 got to its feet, a little unsteadily. Shinji looked shaken, but still determined.
"It's damaged, Ayanami. We can do this."
The strength in Shinji's voice was surprising, but Rei didn't let herself dwell on it.
"Yes," she replied, her eyes narrowing slightly.
X-X-X
The ballast and propeller backpack was heavy as hell and just as irritating to maneuver in, but Asuka admitted - to herself, if no one else - that the mission wouldn't exactly have gone well if she'd tried to do without. Sure, Unit 02 could walk on the abyssal plain pretty easily; but the angel was attacking Mari on the surface, and the square-cube law dictated that Evangelions simply could not swim unassisted.
"The sixth angel is underwater. I'd guess it's not breaching because it's trying to take Baal by surprise. Its speed and last known location suggest that it'll reach its target in about two hundred and forty seconds."
"Got it," Asuka murmured. "I'm at maximum speed. What's my ETA?"
"About two hundred and ten seconds, if Baal keeps course."
Asuka cursed vividly in german. "Cutting that one a little fucking close," she murmured.
"Nothing we can do about that, Moloch. The aquatic combat equipment is as fast as we can make it."
"Noted." Asuka flicked a button on her right controller - while thought commands generally worked for a standard deployment, the command software suite was not as compatible with the uplink. "Baal, I'm relaying your comm to the control room. What's your status? How bad?"
Mari actually hesitated before replying. "Pretty roughed up, to be honest," she said at last. The 'sound only' window abruptly resolved into a grainy image of the british pilot's head and shoulders; Asuka winced at the ragged edge where her left plugsuit sleeve should have been. "Left arm is straight up gone; left foreleg and right hind leg are both feeling a little less than fully responsive. Can't even begin to tell you the total armor damage. Reactor is under half fuel."
"Scheisse, four eyes," Asuka began, before remembering that she should be using callsigns. "How'd you manage to do that to yourself?"
"That's not for battle comms, princess, sorry - secure lines only. I promise I'll tell you later, kay?"
"Roger," Asuka replied, though she gritted her teeth. Just how deep do the smoke and mirrors go? Seems like everyone in NERV and their mothers are sitting on black ops and classified projects… at least I trust Mari to actually make good on that promise.
"Contact in sixty seconds." Despite initial hesitation, Maya seemed to have warmed up to being first officer to Asuka. There wasn't a trace of disdain or disapproval in her voice.
"Acknowledged," Asuka replied, narrowing her eyes. "I'll see if I can add our own AT sensors to your data feeds. I want you to triangulate a position on that angel if you can."
"Will do. Two Evangelions should be enough to give us an accurate location point, but you won't be able to pull sensor data from Baal until you're able to sync a closer connection."
"What does that mean?" Asuka deadpanned.
"It means you have to get to contact range first. Speaking of: forty seconds."
"Thanks." Asuka's armored hands tightened around the B-type gauss harpoon gun that she was equipped with. While it would have difficulty piercing an AT field alone, all it took was one hook - the eva could then pull close with the harpoon cable and engage with knives.
"We have little to no battle data on this angel, other than what we can glean from its looks. Caution and pre-engagement reconnaissance are advised, if possible."
"Acknowledged," Asuka murmured. A second later, Mari echoed the sentiment.
The familiar pulsing pressure of a strong AT field was now a distinctive presence in Asuka's perception, and what had felt like one signature was now two - one behind the other, but closing quickly.
"Baal, I'm going to try and engage behind you. Keep heading for New Yokosuka."
"Don't give me that, princess. I've got your back."
Asuka narrowed her eyes. "That's Moloch to you, and that's an order, Baal."
Mari was silent for a moment, fixing the camera with a hard look, but then she relented. "Fine, but I'm cutting speed by twenty percent and that's final. If shit hits the fan I'm not gonna run out on you."
"Contact in ten seconds!"
Asuka angled her head up. Some distance away, a wake was visible on the ocean surface above her. That must be Baal.
The dark spot against the deep blue backdrop, further away but closing fast, had Asuka a lot more worried.
"Tootles, princess!"
"Moloch, Baal has passed over your position. Data relay link has connected successfully."
A moment later, Aoba's voice came over the comm. "Holy shit! How are you still mobile, Baal?! You're a fucking wreck!"
"Manual sync control keeping me from feeling the worst of it, mostly."
Man, all this chatter makes it hard to focus. Asuka's eyes widened at the thought. Scheisse, is this how Misato feels all the time?
The distant speck grew larger, forming into an ominously finned shape.
"I have contact with the angel," Asuka said. She tried as hard as she could to keep a rushed tremor out of her voice, but doubted her success.
The comms abruptly went silent, the mission taking priority in everyone's minds.
"Its course has veered off Baal slightly. It's heading for me now, I think."
The shape continued to grow. It was now obviously larger than the submerged evangelion - and when it opened its mouth, it revealed a maw worthy of swallowing whole ships. Each tooth was as long as Unit 02's forearm.
"Oh, mein Gott. Gott im Himmel…"
With a powerful sweep of its tail, the monster shot forward. Asuka twisted and rolled, her propellers whining at the strain - and the angel missed her by what could not have been more than a few feet.
Output Level 1: 19:41 minutes to shutdown. 4:59 minutes to red line.
The leviathan banked, slowing abruptly, but not quite stopping. It didn't immediately rush Asuka's position - in fact, it seemed to hesitate for a moment.
Then a ripple of its fins sent it twisting back on course, away from Unit 02 and in the direction of the wake on the surface.
"Oh, fuck you!" Asuka primed the harpoon gun. "You're not leaving this to chase down my sister, you gottverdammt overgrown goldfish!"
She focused as hard as she could on projecting an AT spike, firing the harpoon a second later.
The water flash-boiled as orange energy collided with blue, and the projectile bounced harmlessly off the angel's shield.
"Oh, hell, I just got your sensor readings from that. Its AT field is a lot stronger than Shamshel's… it's a real tank."
However, despite the harpoon's ineffectiveness, it definitely seized the Angel's attention. The beast halted and turned to face Unit 02 once again, opening its gargantuan mouth.
"EITHER PREY WILL SUFFICE."
Asuka shuddered, as much from the sight as from the awful voice in her entry plug. The three-quarters view offered a better perspective on the scale of the thing - It was already the size of an aircraft carrier, and over a third of its length was mouth and jaw.
It could swallow two evas whole…
"NO LILIN IS SAFE FROM GAGHIEL."
"Are you guys hearing that?" Asuka said, her voice low and wary.
"Hearing what?" The perplexed tone in Maya's voice was an answer in itself.
"Nothing. Nevermind." Asuka narrowed her eyes.
She quickly pressed the harpoon retrieval lever, and the huge spike whipped out of the depths and back towards her harpoon gun. At the same moment, the angel swept its powerful tail and shot forward.
"Oh, fuck!"
Asuka tried to swerve away again, but she was too close and the angel was too fast. While it didn't quite catch her torso - a blow which might have caused instant desynchronization - but Unit 02's right arm was trapped in its mouth as a tooth pierced her shoulder.
To her credit, Asuka did not scream, but a trickle of red tainted the LCL as she bit her tongue. The armor and skeletal integrity readings on her HUD abruptly flickered into red.
"Moloch! You've taken severe damage. You need to disengage and fall back!"
"I'm fucking… working on it, thanks!" Asuka yelled back, her voice thick from the swelling bite in her tongue. "It's got my fucking arm!"
Mari's comm channel opened again, showing the British pilot wearing a worried expression. "That's it - I'm turning this evangelion around, princess!"
"And just what do you think you can do to help, four eyes?" The angel nosed downwards into a dive, and Asuka shifted the harpoon gun as she was dragged down.
"I can fucking distract it, if nothing else!"
"You're on the surface, four eyes!"
"Baal's B-type gear has a dive function!"
Asuka was about to bite out a response, but the entry plug shook violently as the angel opened its mouth and slowed, sending the bleeding Eva tumbling forward from the momentum.
Then it swept its tail again, charging forward, and bit once more.
Asuka gagged, a thin stream of bile mixing with the blood in her mouth. For a moment her senses fled her, leaving only the choking agony of huge teeth rending her lungs and intestines.
At least it didn't hit the entry plug, or core, she thought, her head foggy and unfocused. I… I guess I know how Shinji felt fighting Shamshel, now.
Her head felt light, and her eyes began to lose focus. She could tell her sync was dropping in response to the severe damage - without looking at the readouts, she knew it couldn't be above sixty percent. The shock had triggered her reactor safety, dropping it to output level two and shutting down her unit's AT field.
A small but shrill alarm brought her back to herself, and she looked up. She immediately felt a sickening jolt of fear at the sight, its icy clutches biting through even the burning agony of the injury.
A bright red warning was flashing on Asuka's HUD.
BALLAST TANKS PUNCTURED - B-TYPE AQUATIC COMBAT EQUIPMENT COMPROMISED
Her heart dropped like a stone. Without the ballast tanks, Unit 02 could not float herself - she was effectively a casualty of battle now, whether she liked it or not. It was impossible to fight in the ocean without functional B-type equipment. Asuka hung her head, letting despair wash over her.
An image briefly flickered through her mind's eye - an orange Eva, Unit 00, knocked to her knees with a plasma whip curled around her head and wrist.
Rei doesn't give up, even when it looks hopeless. The despair quickly gave way to resentment and anger - much more familiar and welcome emotions, to Asuka's mind. I'll be damned if I let her carry off the title of toughest pilot again!
The German teenager clenched her teeth, fighting to keep her thoughts clear through a haze of pain and terror.
Moloch can no longer swim. If it drops me it's all over. And it isn't stupid - with Mari still mobile, its smartest move is to drop me for later and engage the actual threat.
As if on cue, the angel opened its mouth again, letting the helpless evangelion slide off of its upper teeth.
"Oh no you fucking don't," Asuka growled, as she slammed the trigger on the harpoon gun.
Gaghiel had broken her own defensive AT field, but it had been forced to drop its own in order to effectively bite her. The harpoon sank more than half its length into the back of the angel's throat, the barbed spikes shooting out to anchor it as it did so. The angel didn't even twitch.
The harpoon gun had approximately one thousand meters of thick graphene-composite cable on its winch, which was currently freewheeling loose. Asuka let herself fall, trying to look as helpless as possible.
If I'm lucky, that arschloch will think I'm thoroughly incapacitated, and ignore the parting shot… given the size of the ugly fucker, it can't have been much more than a sting anyway.
Sure enough, Gaghiel seemed convinced of its victory. It hung motionless for a minute as Unit 02 sank, then closed its mouth violently; Asuka bit her lip, but the cable held. She'd guessed correctly, and the angel's teeth were too widely spaced and lacking in bladed edges to damage the ultra-high-strength graphene. The beast twisted its fins and turned back towards the surface.
Unit 02 was sinking rapidly, and the light above Asuka was dimming fast. However, she could still see the faint wake of Unit 05 approaching - and then the wake resolved into an actual image of the four-legged eva, as the ballast tanks on her legs filled and sank.
Kicking her spider-like legs behind her, Unit 05's ballasting was much more safely positioned than Unit 02's had ever been. Take notes, acting commander Soryu, Asuka thought to herself. Maybe you can get them to redesign the main line aquatic combat gear.
The pulsing pain in her gut and shoulder was still making her gasp, and black dots threatened at the edge of her vision. Gaghiel continued moving further away, swimming up towards the surface as the red evangelion sank into the depths.
Okay, that's your breather. Time to get back in the game, Asuka.
She twisted the harpoon gun, wrapping the cable twice around Unit 02's left wrist. A second later she cringed, as the line jerked taut and it felt like her arm was being ripped from its socket - but the cable and anchor both held, and Asuka actually began to rise slightly.
Got you, fucker! Hooked like a fish!
Gaghiel thrashed, suddenly painfully aware of the barb and the weight hanging off it. It whipped its tail and banked, turning to confront Asuka once more.
"Oh no you fuckin' don't!"
Unit 05's lone arm latched onto the nearest fin. Mari pulled hard, dragging herself towards the angel; a shimmering orange light formed around Unit 05's helmet horn.
Asuka reached up with her injured arm, gripping and pulling the harpoon line. She nearly swallowed her tongue as a fresh lance of pain struck her shoulder, but she persisted, hauling herself up the cable towards her enemy.
Meanwhile, Unit 05 pulled herself closer still and struck. The helmet horn wasn't very sharp, but it was propelled by the strength of an evangelion-grade mechanical prosthetic, and augmented with the arcane energies that only the titanic biomechs could wield. There was a blinding flash of blue and orange energy, and a plume of bright blue blood filled the water.
Gaghiel twisted again, trying to throw off the clinging pest, but Mari wasn't having any of it. She snapped her jaw restraints and bit down on the fin, gripping at two points, and then reversed all her propellers. The angel found itself trapped - pinned between the grip of two bloodied but tenacious evangelion units.
Asuka reopened her comm. "I think its core is in its mouth, Baal," she said, fighting to keep the exertion from effecting her voice. "Keep it pinned, and I'll see if I can take it out."
"You got it, Moloch." Unit 05 let go with her arm, but kept her teeth in the fin. She quickly retrieved a prog-knife from her pauldron and stabbed it into the angel's flesh. "Handhold, acquired!"
Gaghiel seemed incapable of deciding which enemy to face first, and Asuka intended to capitalize as much as she could on that hesitation. Biting back a screech, she pulled again, steadily climbing the cable.
X-X-X
Jet Alone lay destroyed, its components strewn across the wasteland behind them. Radioactive heavy water had leaked everywhere, but the evangelions' AT fields had contained the steam clouds adequately - and no unprotected fuel rods had escaped the damaged reactor casing. Cleanup of the hot zone would be fairly straightforward: the mech body and any radioactive debris would be retrieved and contained, as much contaminated soil as would be practical would be excavated and treated similarly, and then the area would be hastily marked with the appropriate warning signage and abandoned.
NUCLEAR ACCIDENT SITE
A familiar, terrifying trefoil design on a yellow background.
Radiation Hazard Zone: DO NOT ENTER.
It was far from the only such dead zone in the world; in fact, it wasn't even the only one in the Itto Sanken wasteland. Most active nuclear power plants had suffered catastrophic failures during the brief but bloody natural disasters that had been triggered by the Second Impact, and many waste containment facilities had deteriorated from neglect as humanity struggled to survive the cataclysm. The panicked, reckless wars that had marked the weeks and months following the disaster had also left their scars on the globe - some biotoxic, some chemical, and some nuclear.
The land will be left to cool over the next handful of centuries or millennia. The children will be confined within their war machines until the exterior decontamination of the Eva armor is deemed sufficient for them to safely exit in the protection of helmeted plugsuits.
"Ritsuko, what have I told you about smoking on airplanes?!"
The scientist blinked, looking away from the window to glance down at the small cigarette in her fingers. "This is a NERV transport. I can basically do whatever I want, Misato."
The captain frowned. "Please don't smoke on NERV aircraft, then. Better?"
Ritsuko almost snapped back a smarmy retort, but caught herself. After sabotaging Jet Alone, you owe her more than this.
She pinched the ember from the end of the cigarette, and tossed it into a nearby wastebasket. "Sorry."
Misato's eyes narrowed, and a playful smirk crossed her face. "Ahh, so that's how I get you to look after yourself? I guilt you into it? Well, I can work with that."
A ghost of a smile flickered in Ritsuko's eyes, but then died.
"How are the pilots doing?" She said eventually.
"Shinji's a bit irritated that he can't exit before we return and decontaminate. Rei is… well, Rei."
Rei is, indeed, Rei. Ritsuko kept her expression perfectly neutral despite the urge to wince again. To one not privy to the details of her existence, she is a difficult creature to describe.
"We'll be landing at NERV-J airfield soon," Ritsuko said softly, still gazing out the plane's window. "The wash bays shouldn't take more than two or three hours to remove the critical radhazard."
"Two or three hours is a long time to a teenage boy." Misato's voice was dry. "And it'll be half an hour before we land and unload the Evas."
"I…" Ritsuko's shoulders fell, and she still didn't turn to face her girlfriend. "There's no way to speed up decontamination. I'm sorry."
Misato frowned, her eyes filling with concern. "Hey, Rits. You okay?"
"Of course I'm not okay," the scientist snapped. "I just sabotaged a nuclear reactor, salted another half-dozen square kilometers of earth, and harmed two children to do it. I've had better days."
The captain tilted her head, although she didn't move to comfort Ritsuko.
"Well… this is an interesting turnaround," she said at length.
Ritsuko smirked, though it was a hollow smile. "Isn't it just?" Her hands reflexively went to her pockets.
"Uh, Rits?" Misato arched an eyebrow. Ritsuko looked down at her hands, uttered a curse, and stuffed the pack of cigarettes back in her pocket.
"Sorry." This time, the word was laced with a bitter tone. "This is fucking killing me. The greater good… it gets harder to believe that every day."
"Does the commander often order you to do black-ops kind of things?" Misato said, her voice inquisitive but cautious. "I've been paying attention - hearing him whisper about some kind of 'scenario' with the sub-commander. From what you've told me, NERV isn't above both bending and breaking law and morality alike… and I've seen those vaults of secrets in the lower levels, or at least their locked doors. Even in a facility as big as NERV-J, there shouldn't be anywhere the third officer is barred from."
Ritsuko let out a short, sharp laugh. "You don't know the half of it. Hell, even I don't know all of it." A brief memory of Rei's face blinked in her mind's eye. "But Jet Alone is certainly not the first time he's used me to deliver harm upon the undeserving for ill-defined purposes. Stopping… them is a noble goal, but at this point no goal can excuse everything I've done."
"Not even you know all of it," Misato echoed, her expression thoughtful. "So no one does, except the commander himself."
"And Fuyutsuki, I think," Ritsuko corrected. And possibly Rei, because who can tell with her.
"I'm not okay with that." Misato's eyes hardened. "I'm not okay with being ordered around on a shadow agenda. I'm going to find this shit out. All of it."
Ritsuko clenched her teeth, swallowing a sick feeling in her gut. She retrieved her pack of cigarettes and stuck one between her lips, though she didn't move to light it.
"You're poking a hornet's nest, Misato," she murmured eventually. "Except the hornets drive unmarked black cars, and sting with silenced handguns."
"I know it's dangerous. Fortunately, I'll have help from the best."
Ritsuko quirked her brow.
"I'll have a world-class spy on one hand, and an inside woman on the other. Seems like a solid team to me."
"Kaji's stationed in the arctic. And is that a letter of conscription, captain?"
"He can still make anonymous phone calls and access the NERV network. And yes, it is. You owe me."
Ritsuko chuckled again, this time with a trace of actual levity. "I certainly can't argue with that."
X-X-X
Fight! Fight! Fight!
The blood and bile in the LCL had been filtered out by the circulation system, leaving Asuka with only tooth marks in her mouth and a hollow feeling that would soon be hunger. Neither bothered her enough to draw her notice.
Fight! Fight! Fight!
She clenched her teeth harder and pushed her synchronicity back up, her concentration capping out just over 75%. The pain from her injuries increased in kind, and there was a series of small prickles in her human skin as the plugsuit sections over her abdomen began overloading and burning out.
Asuka only ground her teeth harder and hauled faster, steadily pulling herself up to the leviathan she'd harpooned.
"Jesus, princess - you doing okay down there?"
Asuka's gaze flicked upwards to where Unit 05 was still pinning the angel, her propellers in full reverse. "I'm fine," she growled, her voice thick from mouth pain and adrenaline frenzy.
Another voice clicked on - Maya's. "Asuka, Moloch's limiter system is overloaded! You're at risk of mental contamination or berserking - you need to fall back!"
"Fuck that. I'm going to destroy this motherfucker." Asuka clenched her teeth again, vaguely noting that her canines and premolars felt unusual. "If you don't have anything useful to say, then shut up!"
She redoubled her efforts, climbing even faster - and Gaghiel thrashed harder, apparently sensing the fury of the beast below it. The bloody puncture in her shoulder burned and the eviscerating bite through her guts flickered dangerously close to breaking her resolve every time she shifted. She could barely feel anything below her belt.
Good thing I don't need to fucking walk.
Asuka kept pulling, closing in on her target. There was maybe sixty meters of distance left - the height of an Eva, no more. Gaghiel twisted harder.
It doesn't have any gottverdammt eyes! How can it see me getting closer?!
She reached up again, grabbing a new handhold - and Gaghiel pulled free of Mari's grip, its fin ripping as it yanked out of of Unit 05's teeth.
"Scheisse!"
Gaghiel swooped down towards Unit 02, its maw opening like the jaws of hell. Asuka gunned her propeller into its engine's redline, veering out of the monster's path just in time.
"Princess?! Asuka!"
The angel continued to dive, and suddenly Asuka felt herself dragged down instead of up. The twisting spirals and undulations were a clear giveaway of an attempt to buck her off.
It's running away from Mari, trying to fight me alone. It thinks that'll give it an advantage.
Asuka gritted her teeth again, pulling herself towards the angel despite the added water drag pushing her unit back. Gaghiel kept swimming downwards, pulling both of them into the abyssal darkness.
One more! Just one more!
A final pull, and Unit 02 was right at the corner of the angel's vast maw. The darkness around them was now thick and oppressive, but Asuka didn't turn on her external lighting. If it makes me harder to see, I'll do this by touch.
The water pressure bore down in Unit 02's armor, registering as a faint discomfort through the link circuit. Asuka ignored it, wrapping the cable around her weakened right hand and wrist.
Gaghiel twisted again, and the cable jerked, swinging Unit 02 against the side of the angel. There was a bright shimmer of blue as she bounced off.
"That won't fucking do," Asuka hissed to herself as she increased to output level one and engaged her AT field.
Or, at least, as she tried to.
Her eyes scanned quickly over her HUD, and she sucked in a deep breath at the results.
Comm: UNIT05/Baal: -SIGNAL LOST-
Comm: Control room: -SIGNAL LOST-
She glossed over a few dozen warnings about the state of her ravaged armor or half-destroyed evangelion body.
Systemic damage exceeds threshold for combat; reactor safe mode engaged. Output level 1 available only under special override. In lieu of automatic transmission from control, please request an authorization code from your commanding officer.
"Special override?! Are you fucking kidding me?" Asuka slammed her fist down on the control yoke. "I am the commanding officer here! Work, damn you!"
The prompt resolutely remained, and the mental signal to activate level 1 still brought forth no result.
Asuka felt her anger mounting, the boiling pool of fury that always lurked in the back of her head threatening to spill over. She let go of the control yokes, and grabbed the central panel in the tightest grip should could muster - randomly jamming her thumbs into several buttons, but she was beyond caring, especially since the analogue controls for an evangelion were primarily cosmetic anyway.
Asuka?
The presence of the evangelion around her felt heavier and more alien than ever before. "Don't do this to me, Moloch," she whined pitifully. "You're supposed to be my warmachine… you're supposed to do what I tell you, not what your stupid codes say!"
Aaaassssuuuuuukaaaaaa…
The depth pressure - or possibly sync stress; at this point she couldn't tell the difference - kept building, reaching almost unbearable levels.
"Please," Asuka hissed, finally abandoning her pride and illusion of control. "Gottverdammt - please, Moloch! Wake up! Fight, you stupid piece of -"
Her plea was abruptly cut off as she jerked in shock. Though the Eva's eyes were still online, the HUD displays that framed the visual input all simultaneously blinked into static, then returned as nondescript red boxes with ERROR as their only message.
"Was zür Holle?"
And then she was filled with rage, her vision streaking with red as a mad wrath seized her. She was only vaguely aware of the last message that flickered across the HUD, before everything except the raw visual input disappeared.
EVA-UNIT02 SYSTEM CRASH
FATAL LIMITER ERROR! FORCING SUBSYSTEM SHUTDOWN
STATUS: BERSERK
Asuka grinned evilly, and felt her jaw restraints break as she did so. She didn't need a heads-up display to tell her that the reactor was behaving properly now - she could feel her AT field gathering power.
She raised a clawed hand and struck, ripping through Gaghiel's AT field in a single blow and leaving deep gouges in the angel's flesh. Asuka vaguely noticed she could see clearly again - then laughed as she realized her four eyes were glowing like a set of massive floodlights.
Gaghiel banked hard away from her, still desperately trying to shake her off without any limbs or surfaces to scrape against - but the graphene cable looped around her wrist held resolutely strong, proving an excellent anchor.
Asuka struck again, this time ripping through the lip to bring her claws against a tooth of the upper jaw.
Its core is in its mouth. You can do this, Asuka! You can do this, Moloch! Kill! Kill! Kill!
"WHAT MONSTERS HAVE THE LILIN WROUGHT?!"
Asuka noticed it didn't open its mouth to speak the suspiciously flawless german syllables - effectively confirming that it was telepathy, not speech.
She kicked her armored feet onto the bottom lip and braced her shoulder under her hand, shifting her grip from the tooth to the gum. Then she pushed upwards.
The wound in her gut burned as if she'd drunk molten steel straight from a crucible, but the overwhelming fury pushed through the pain as if it wasn't even there. Asuka didn't know if the berserker rage was actually healing the injury or if it was merely dulling the pain - nor did she particularly care. She roared incoherently, and pushed again.
She felt like Atlas himself when the strength of her back and legs won out, heaving the monster's jaws open with an effort that deserved every measure of the word titanic.Her shoulder slipped under the almighty force of Gaghiel's bite, and she staggered forward.
There was a flash of agony in her left leg. Asuka didn't spare it a thought - she was inside the beast's mouth, and closing in on its heart.
She made to get her limbs under her and crawl, but found one leg lighter than the other. Looking down, she was treated to the sight of her left leg terminating in a ragged stump just below the knee.
I didn't need both arms at full strength, I didn't even need an intact torso - I sure as hell don't need both legs. This arschloch is going to fucking die.
Gaghiel's tongue thrashed, slamming her against the roof of its mouth, but she sank her claws into its tongue and held tightly. Grimacing, she began crawling forward over the unstable surface.
There it is. There's the core.
Half of her armor was broken or bitten off, she'd lost a leg, and her shoulder and abdomen were crippled - but it was all worth it. It was worth it, for the victory.
Asuka lunged the last few meters, sinking her claws into the flesh around the red orb, and squeezed.
Her vision filled with blinding light a mere fraction of a second before she finally, finally passed out.
X-X-X