Have this a day early, y'all have earned it. Also getting anything done on a monday evening after newly re-acquainting yourself with what it's like to have your body and brain strip-mined for labor value is... difficult at best.
Y'all think my work is good enough to be worth setting up a p/a/t/r/e/o/n?
... also, wow FFN, that's really a dirty word that your document manager censors? Lmao you are part of the problem
Edit: credit to user Lotus'guard for fixing my garbage understanding of German swears, thanks so much
X-X-X
Chapter 29
The Siege of Hakone: Fire and Radiation
X-X-X
"The backup is positioned and primed to launch in the event of a primary failure." The technician's accent was thick, but his Japanese was impeccable otherwise.
The field comm blinked away, replaced by Maya's face in the control comm. "Waiting on your call, Squad Leader."
Asuka nodded grimly, re-checking her pilots' positions one final time. They were crouched along the ridge, the massive bio-mecha almost hidden in the shadows cast by the late afternoon sun.
"Copy," she replied, her voice controlled. "Give me an impact countdown."
A frozen timer display popped into existence in the corner of her HUD. [38.7s]. Not a lot of wiggle room.
"Pilots, prepare to advance over the ridge on the firing order."
"Ready."
"Ready."
"Yes."
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
"Fire!" Asuka called, standing up and raising her pallet rifle in the same motion.
The horde of seraphs reacted as a single organism, howling in chorus and swarming towards the attackers. They crawled over and under and around each other, a crushing mass of chitin so dense that it was hard to tell where the flechettes from the Evangelions' guns landed - the injured seraphs were swallowed by the mass of their kin as soon as they fell.
[31.7s]
If there was one saving grace, it was that the arachniform aliens didn't seem well coordinated. They fanned out as they climbed the slope, roughly equal numbers heading for each pilot's position. Still too many, far too many for the corps to handle in a pitched battle, but few enough that the spearheads of the formations could be slowed by sustained gauss gun fire -
[22.1s]
- but the slower-firing heavy railgun was not as suited for crowd control.
"Baal, fall back to the crest!"
"You got it, Leader!"
The four-legged Unit 05X was nimble, capable of both rolling on her wheels and stepping like her own version of an alien spider. In this case, it served both Eva and Pilot well, dancing just out of the blast radius of a thermobaric belt bomb thrown by Unit 01.
[08.7s]
"Shields! Shields!"
The swarm seemed to have grown more than moved. It was abundantly clear that reinforcements were crawling out of the tunnel exits much faster than existing forces were being depleted.
Ohh, Matarael, what a big swarm you have - well let's see how well it eats a nuke, huh?
[0.0s]
X-X-X
Synchronicity: 0.0% - pilot unconscious or incapacitated
Asuka jolted awake, a headache already taking root in her lower skull. There was a familiar itchy feeling along her spine, too; a textbook indicator of AT overexertion.
Synchronicity: 5% - 10% - 20% - 30% - 50% - 78.9%
Link circuit within normal parameters: stable synchronization achieved
The entry plug was dark, and her HUD was mostly a smear of red indicators and error codes. Before her human optic nerves could fully focus, the visuals disappeared, replaced by [Rebooting - Jacob's Ladder 1.2.0] and the NERV logo.
Linking strain detected. Administering paracetamol (acetaminophen) and dihydroergotamine for headache relief. Warning: do NOT dose above tested safe levels on a per-pilot basis.
Then her perception flooded with light as the Evangelion's optics came back online.
Unit 02 was lying on her side on a steep incline. The earth beneath her head was a mixture of dust, baked clay, partially melted silicates, and cinders. The air was hazy.
Oh yeah... we got fucking nuked. Damn. It cold knocked me out.
Not far off, a blue and black mass shifted. As Unit 02's optics continued to calibrate, the blur resolved into an injured seraph - its carapace smashed, several legs missing, angel blood pouring from its wounds in ultramarine rivulets.
But its mouth-parts were intact. Intact, and dripping acid.
The creature chittered quietly, barely audible over the cacaphony of pained and dying sounds from the other seraphs who hadn't been lucky enough to be killed instantly. Its three good legs scratched the ground, and it began to drag itself towards Unit 02.
Oh, uh, fuck. Determined bastard, I'll give it that.
Asuka went to push herself up, but her arms didn't move. A waterfall of yellow notifications began pouring down the status window pop-up on her HUD, and after a second a larger red warning text overlayed the whole display.
Motor Control: FATAL DRIVER CRASH! Foreign voltages detected in control junctions. Were you exposed to strong EMP recently?
Recommendation: flush system by hard grounding and reboot
Asuka blinked stupidly, even as her spinal column transmitted the appropriate commands by pure reflex. Since when is the onboard computer this clever? Was there a major software update recently or something...?
Feeling began to return to the Evangelion's limbs, but not enough to do more than twitch. Asuka gritted her teeth as the seraph dragged itself closer, bracing in anticipation of a stinging acid burn –
- and the seraph exploded into a spray of blue blood and chitin. A moment later, the popping boom of two slugger shots registered in her ears.
A comm window appeared, hissing with static noise, labeled Unknown Contact - Sound Only. Almost as soon as it appeared, it was gone again.
Two armored hands, Evangelion hands, hooked themselves under Unit 02's shoulders. Asuka felt herself being dragged to her feet. She tried to stand under her own power, but Unit 02's legs were still dreadfully shaky - perhaps no longer paralyzed, but definitely not to back to full strength.
The Evangelion beside her was adorned in white armor, her anterior paint seared a spray of burnt yellow and khaki by the flash of heat and ultraviolet radiation.
" - Leader? S-" The comm hissed unintelligibly, still sound only. "Th- w-"
Oh... right, Nuclear Blackout. Gott, I wish we'd been able to drill nuclear fire tests before right now. Asuka keyed the little-used control button for the Eva's external speaker system.
"I'm alright, Asherah. EMP caused temporary paralysis. Should be back to full in a minute." The sound was tinny, distorted by the buzz of a blown sound surface, but much clearer than the radiocomm.
Unit 00 cocked her head, but then nodded. "Ishtar and Baal seem similarly afflicted. I appear the only Eva not temporarily disabled by the blast."
Rei had been mid-rear of the pack, by distance. Mari had been further behind. That Unit 00 had weathered the electromagnetic pulse mostly unaffected was... curious, to say the least.
Motor Control: 65% function overall (nervous-response assay)
EVA02 clear for free standing activity.
Asuka looked back at the other two evangelions. Unit 01 was tentatively getting to her feet on shaky legs; Unit 05X was not upright, but between her wheels and semi-functional arms, she was managing a passable crawl. The EMP had likely hit her titanium bionics harder than the flesh-shielded limbs of the other units.
Motor Control: 68% function overall
"Form up, pilots," Asuka called, stepping out of Unit 00's embrace. "Lose the guns, get ready for blade fighting. We're breaching the tunnels as soon as everyone's back up to strength."
X-X-X
This body is 10.66 years old and its heart has beat 448,522,703 times.
The tunnels were, strictly speaking, large enough to fit an evangelion through.
This was not to say the fit was comfortable. With generally oval cross-sections, significantly wider than their ceiling height, they were decidedly not optimized for bipeds. Three of the four evangelion units had to stoop to avoid constantly scraping the stone roof above.
And stoop they did - not out of fear of damaging their helmets, for hyperdiamond was far harder than any stone; but rather, because the structural integrity of the tunnels was uncertain, and the deadweight tonnage of bedrock above their heads could crush them far more easily than any angel.
Unit 05X's flexible legs proved a striking advantage, keeping her center of gravity low and her movements more or less normal - a spider-like evangelion to traverse a spider-like angel's home. Thus, she had taken the head of the column in their spelunking expedition.
"Another fork up ahead, Leader. North looks a bit more traveled... yep, it looks to lead down."
"North it is, then."
The evangelions had inertia-based movement trackers, and could draw a roughly linear shape of their path. Unfortunately, according to Dr. Akagi, they were not quite clever enough to actually map the tunnels they traversed with any subtlety. Not without the MAGI system, anyway - and deep underground, neither the MAGI nor normal GPS could be reached.
There would be no communication between units if they lost line-of-sight, either. The endless rock swallowed radio signals without a trace; acoustics fared slightly better, but wouldn't reliably echo much further than two corners.
"Hah! Check out what y'all look like in the higher EMR spectrum! We're glowing hot."
Rei tuned her optical frequencies up. Sure enough, microwaves and gamma rays radiated from their armor like phantom heat, an aftereffect of being cooked in a nuclear crucible.
Note to self: deep check of armor integrity after mission. Carbon structures are vulnerable to neutron degradation...
"Contact! One -" Mari cut herself off with a curse in English. "Damn, lost it."
"Stay sharp, everyone. Don't split up." Asuka's voice was hard. "No way that airstrike got them all. They must be falling back."
"To where?" Shinji, this time.
"Who knows. A nexus, maybe, or a big cavern if they have one. Overwhelming numbers don't help them much if we can choke their routes of approach, so they might be looking to surround us." Asuka took a deep breath, deliberately rolling her shoulders and correcting her tense posture. "Don't rush ahead. Don't lose your cool about anything, no matter what. We can't get split up. That'll play right into their claws."
"Acknowledged."
"Acknowledged."
"Yes."
This body is 10.66 years old and its heart has beat 448,524,601 times.
The tunnels grew slowly wider and taller as they went deeper. Eventually, all four of the evangelions could stand at full height. The inertia trackers read more than ten kilometers of descent. The barometers asserted they were well below sea level.
"Hey, Leader."
"What's up, Ishtar?"
"These inertia trackers can only draw rudimentary paths, right?"
"Yeah, that's what Rits- er, Dr. Akagi said."
"Well, uh, Ishtar seems to think Dr. Akagi is wrong."
"What?!" Asuka's eyes flocked around her HUD, clearly scrutinizing the navigation display. "Hurensohn, what's this? Inclines, connection points, cross sections... Dr. Akagi wouldn't lie to us for no reason, would she? Not again..."
Rei's face remained impassive, betraying nothing but mild interest in Asuka's agitation; it would be her luck that Asuka - the person who could read her best - would be the only other pilot that could see her face.
But in the link circuit of Unit 00, a cold, sharp, toxic aura blanketed her senses, crawling down her spine and making her struggle not to shiver.
They are growing restless, One's voice hissed. Synchronizing so well with their children, so often, so long, they cannot help but stir. Soon they will sleep no longer. And when they wake, no chains of silicon or hyperdiamond will hold them back.
Rei carefully regulated her breathing, forcing down the symptoms of anxiety by physical override.
It is unlike you to help me, One.
Oh? Does this help you? That's sweet, really.
I do not see how additional information could be unhelpful.
One chuckled, her voice darkening further. It helps you, then? To know their destiny is beyond yours? To know they will outgrow the aid of a manufactured half-human? To know their mothers love them still, while the only presence that watches over you is a tortured wraith of what you once were?
Rei twitched, her stony expression finally cracking. "Be gone!" she snapped, her voice breaking into a similar hiss. Asuka abruptly stopped speaking on the other channel, her eyes filled with concern as she looked at Rei's comm window.
"Uh, is everything alright, Moloch? You cut off there."
Asuka held Rei's gaze a moment longer, then looked back to Shinji's comm. "Yeah. Yeah... it's all good."
This body is 10.66 years old and its heart has beat 448,524,889 times.
One chuckled softly as she vanished into the dark.
X-X-X
"Forget itching, it's like sandpaper. The feeling of hearing a frayed bow on an out-of-tune string, but it never stops. It's - yeah, it's not fun."
"Got to be a lot of them, then?"
"It's worse now than when we were attacking the entrance."
Asuka winced. The monstrously strong AT readings from the horde of seraphs had been quite unpleasant; the AT reading from the deep caverns ahead now felt similar to her, but it was established fact that Unit 01 was both significantly stronger with, and significantly more sensitive to, AT energies.
Asuka drew her second prog-sword from its sheath. "Alright, pilots," she said, her voice strong despite herself. "I'll charge down the center. Ishtar and Asherah, guard my flank approaches. Baal, you're the most mobile one, so you're our floating support. Use that lance wisely, okay?"
"You got it, squad leader."
"Good. Everyone ready to go reactors hot?" She couldn't help but glance at Rei, hoping that her curious outburst earlier wasn't something that could affect her combat performance.
She's changed more in the months I've known her than I've seen most people change in years. Gott, I hope that her steadfast reliability hasn't changed...
Rei just looked blankly back at her. "Yes."
"Ready!"
"Yeah."
"Alright. On 'go.'" Asuka powered up the second energy blade, then dialed Unit 02's reactor up to output 1. "Eins, zwei, drei - go!"
The cavern walls blurred as the alien flesh-golem strained the laws of physics, shifting and accelerating at strain levels that would have sheared steel or titanium like paper.
The first thing Asuka saw before her was a seraph, only one long stride away convenient swing range. Its head was cloven apart before it could even begin preparing to spit, and in the next moment Asuka was stepping onto its carapace, trampling the creature down as she charged towards her next target.
But she'd spent time enough as a battle commander to learn to multi-task.
In the back of the cavern a larger spider lurked, easily five or eight times as tall at the shoulder as any seraph. Its body was fatter, its legs longer and much thicker, its chitinious plating craggy with disproportionate reinforcement.
Asuka got a better look as she hacked down another seraph and stabbed a third that filled the gap. Lacking the distinct head the seraphs sported, the monster had a circular mouth embedded flat on the front of its body, with seven grotesquely humanlike eyes embedded in a circle around it. More eyes, smaller ones, dotted the spaces between the plates of its carapace. No exposed core could be seen.
Given the seraphs in the cavern were no swarm - a few dozen, a hundred at most - the AT reading amounted to a solid confirmation that this was the angel Matarael.
"SO COME BEFORE ME AT LAST, THE LILIN CHILD-WARRIORS AND THEIR MONSTROUS PETS," The angel's hellish voice boomed. "YOUR FIRE FROM THE SKY WILL NOT SAVE YOU NOW! NOT HERE, DEEP BENEATH THE BEDROCK! THIS TIME YOU FACE ME AND MY CHILDREN IN OUR HOME, OUR FORTRESS, AND THIS TIME THE ADVANTAGE IS MINE."
Shinji and Rei pulled closer as the seraphs did their best to flank. Though they were yet still falling faster than they replenished, every so often a new seraph would crawl out of one of the passages - or the podlike structures behind Matarael that could only have been egg sacs.
Armor Integrity (structural sensor assay): [72%]. Corrosive damage detected on helmet, forearms, anterior cuirass, greaves.
"Can't keep support, leader. I gotta hold open the path to retreat!"
"Acknowledged." Asuka grit her teeth, focusing as hard as she could on the movement of her blades.
Cutting open one seraph, decapitating another, running a third through and yanking the blade out again - and her path to Matarael was clear, nothing but bare rock between them.
She made it two strides. Nearly close enough to swing at a leg, before that same leg - its bulk belying its speed - lashed out and struck Unit 02 dead center in the chest, smashing straight through her AT shield and cracking the damaged hyperdiamond of her cuirass. Asuka was thrown over a hundred meters, landing flat on her back, her fall cushioned only by the disintegrating corpses of fallen seraphs.
Critical damage detected to anterior cuirass! Armor locally compromised.
"SO FIERCE! SO FIERY! IS YOUR MOTHER PROUD OF YOU, CHILD? DID SHE EVER EVEN KNOW HOW MUCH YOU NEEDED HER APPROVAL?"
Asuka's angry growl choked in her throat. How - how?! How does it know that?
"AHH, THE YOUNG BOY. HE SEARCHES NOT FOR GHOSTS." Another of Matarael's legs blocked Shinji's strike, the alien chitin shrugging off the energized blade apparently unscathed, and kocked Unit 01 back in a similar manner. "HE KNOWS THERE IS NO LOST LOVE TO CHASE! HIS FATHER HAS NO LOVE IN HIS HEART."
It's fucking with our concentration.
The tactic was effective, too. Asuka felt rattled. Her focus was not broken, but it definitely took more effort. On the teamcomm visual, Shinji's pained expression told a similar story.
And it's so gottver-fucking-dammt tough!
"AND YOU, YESSS..."
Pushed back from the angel, Asuka and Shinji had been rushed by new waves of seraphs, enough to drastically delay their progress all over again. However, with seraphim attention focused on the bipedal units, Mari had found her opening.
"WE KNOW YOU, CURSE-BEARER. WE HEAR YOUR SONG FALTER AS THE DARK WATER PULLS YOU DEEPER."
"You don't know shit, you rat bastard!"
Unit 05X was fast, and the bodyweight of an evangelion was titanic enough to pulverize the thickest reinforced concrete at speed. Weaving around a striking leg at the last moment, Mari managed to stab the tip of her lance into one of Matarael's grotesque eyes, driving it deep into the angel's body.
Matarael screamed, and every pilot winced. It thrashed violently, the convulsions of its legs kicking Unit 05X unceremoniously away. There was an ominous, low-pitched creaking as the tremors shook the rock.
But the seraphs didn't falter, and after a moment, the angel seemed to recover. It lifted a gargantuan leg and stomped on the embedded lance, breaking it off to a stub. Though still bleeding profusely, Matarael was clearly not finished.
"AND YOU! FITTING TO BE LAST OF ALL, CHILD OF EARTH! LOOK AT YOU NOW, A CRUEL MOCKERYOF THE HUMANITY YOU PROFESSED TO LOVE!"
Rei had finished butchering the seraphs on the western side of the cavern. Now she had advanced to stand near Matarael, a few careful meters outside the range its legs. She held her swords almost casually, despite the flesh of Unit 00's hands showing through the bloodstained remains of her corroded gauntlets.
On the teamcomm visual, she was actually smiling.
"You do not frighten me, Adamite."
"IMPOSSIBLE, NEPHILIM! YOU AND YOURS ARE THE WEAKEST AMONG US! THROUGH MY CHILDREN I HAVE SEEN ALL OF YOUR FEARS!"
Rei stepped closer, then dodged to the side. Matarael's strike missed her, but she ended up with her back to the cavern wall.
"NO MOTHER TO LOVE, NO FAMILY TO CARE, NO HOME TO REST! A WRETCHED ARTIFICIAL ORPHAN HAUNTED BY HER OWN GHOSTS!"
"You are no expert of my fears." Rei pivoted one of her swords into a reverse grip. "If you wish to upset me, tell me what I do not tell myself."
Matarael struck again, lashing out to pin the white-armored Eva against the wall. Rei dodged again - leaving her sword-arm outstretched until the last possible moment.
Matarael's kick drove the energized blade deep into the rock. With a noise like the break of thunder, a fissure split the cavern wall in a rough horizontal line. Matarael drew its leg back to strike again, but Rei had pulled back out of its range, abandoning one of her swords in the crack.
One of her swords, and both of her remaining thermobaric belt-bombs, their fuses beeping softly in the free/beacon radio channel.
"Retreat!" Rei yelled, and Asuka thought she might have screamed something similar herself, but the meteoric rise of her already-elevated adrenaline levels left her memory foggy. Instead of rushing for the exit, however, she turned, watching to make sure Rei was actually following them out and not making some kind of stupid suicide mission out of her already-dangerous plan.
And Rei did run - as fast as she could, whole dodging seraphs. As soon as Unit 00 was within reach, Asuka was reaching out, grabbing the other Eva's wrist and pulling her forward.
After the fact, she would criticize herself for being foolish enough to try and hurry a soldier who was already at a dead sprint. But in the moment, nothing seemed more important than making sure Rei wasn't the last out.
As it was, though, they almost didn't get out at all. A hundred and fifty, maybe two hundred meters into the exit tunnel when the beacon channel shrieked with overlapping detonator tones -
And then died, the transmitters obliterated in a crucible of burning aluminum powder and oxirane.
There was a barely perceptible fraction, less than a twentieth of a second, where the tunnel ahead was lit up by a blinding light behind them. Then the pilot corps were struck in the back with a hypersonic shockwave of incandescent air.
Units 02 and 00 were knocked flat on their faces, and an inane part of Asuka's brain registered annoyance that her helmet was now definitely beyond repair. Further up, Unit 01 staggered; Unit 05X swayed, but her wide stance kept her steady.
"Keep moving!"
Asuka hauled her battered Eva to her knees just before the thermobaric backdraft hit. Ironically, leaning into the sucking wind actually helped her, pushing Unit 02 upright more easily than her own arms could.
"Rei? Rei!"
"Keep moving!"
"Not without you, dummkopf! Get up!"
Once again, Asuka took Rei's hand - this time leaning down, as Unit 00 had not managed to stand. As she slung the other Eva's arm over her shoulder, the reason became apparent: a chunk of bedrock the size of a small apartment building had fallen on Unit 00's leg, breaking the titan's bone at the knee.
Rei's eyes were closed, her expression pained. "Keep moving," she gasped again. "The rock -"
"Yeah, yeah, I know!" The ground shook, and the airflow once again blew dust against their backs. "Just - shut up and help me out here!"
Behind them - further now - there was a sound like the rumble of distant thunder, and Matarael screamed. It was a high, tortured scream, just starting to grow lower and rougher when a particularly large chunk of falling rock blocked the cavern off behind them and cut off the sound.
The ominous rumbling, however, only grew louder.
With three good legs between them, Units 00 and 02 made decent time, at least given that the floor was now steadily shaking under them. Asuka did her best to focus on powering forward, ignoring the truck-sized chunks of rock that occasionally broke free of the ceiling to rain down on their heads and shoulders.
Units 01 and 05X were waiting up at the next junction, despite the growing cracks in the cave walls. Shinji ducked in to grab Unit 00's other arm, effectively carrying the crippled Eva between them rather than half-dragging her, speeding up the group. No more seraphs accosted them along the way.
None of them spoke again before they reached the surface.
X-X-X
"It's gone. I think Rei's stunt did it."
"Huh?" In the haze of adrenaline crash, Asuka turned her Eva's head rather than just looking at the teamcomm. Shinji looked just as tired as she did, albeit slightly more focused.
"I don't feel an angel AT here. Anywhere. Not a trace I can find, not even weak or distant, not even a seraph."
Mari fist-pumped tiredly, a surreal gesture to see from a four-legged colossus lying flat on her back in a dusty crater. "Fuck yeah. Crazy fucking dangerous, Blue, but good thinking. Nothing tears up tunnels like a fuel-air bomb."
"It was a gamble," Rei mumbled. "I risked it only because our other weapons proved ineffective..."
"None of us died," Asuka asserted, gathering the remains of her composure. "And if the Angel really is down, mission accomplished."
"Yeah." Shinji nodded, and Asuka noticed that Unit 01 was following his gestures too. A moment later, the purple helmet was turning up to look out across the crater that had once been a valley. "... lot of big bombs dropped today, huh?"
Asuka couldn't help but break into a fit of giggles, and a moment later, the others were drawn in. And it was the cracking, high-pitched laugh of someone teetering on the edge of hysteria, but also the breathy relief of knowing they'd brushed with death and yet again survived.
"Pilots?! Squad leader, respond!"
Asuka had never been so glad to hear Maya's worried voice. "We're here, control!" She called back, her voice colored with a heady mix of mirth and exhaustion. "We made it out!"
"Is the angel terminated?"
Asuka let out one last laugh, darker than the rest. "I dunno. You tell me, control." She shrugged heavily. "You've got those big AT detector satellites. Me? I just kill things."
X-X-X