Fourteen: A Bolt from the Blue.
Twelfth Ward, Tokyo-3, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan.
July 31st, 2015.
Shinji wrote in the last answer and put his pencil down. That was awful. I should have blown off the geometry and studied for the grammar test. At least Ayanami-san seems confident. Rei had written in her answers in less than five minutes, spending the remainder of the time gazing dreamily out the window. Shinji noticed several students glaring at her; another was blatantly copying off her answers, reckoning that Hikari would be too busy to catch him. Or Ayanami-san couldn't be bothered to take the test seriously. The warmth of the room made it hard for Shinji to keep his eyes open; the air felt like a thick quilt weighing down on the desks. Toji had propped a pencil under his chin to stay awake, looking like he hadn't slept in a week. Meanwhile, Kensuke had finished his test and laid down for a nap; Toji shot him baleful looks every few minutes.
The teacher finally jerked from his reverie, checked his watch.
"Time's up! Please pass your papers up to the front."
Toji leaned over and gave Kensuke a shake; when that failed to rouse him, he kicked him sharply in the shin. Kensuke groaned, rubbing his eyes.
"What time is it?" he said sleepily.
"Time to turn in your test, idiot." The girl behind Kensuke poked him with the stack of question papers; he took the stack, ignoring the dirty look, and passed it forward.
Shinji put away his pencil and eraser and made a beeline for the door. I can't explain the last eleven days to Toji. Not without mentioning stuff that'll get me arrested. He made it out the door and down the stairs before an iron hand closed on his arm. Shinji flinched violently. Shit. He gingerly turned around.
Toji loomed over him. A hand fell onto his shoulder; he looked to his right. Hikari's face was the very picture of calamity; Shinji felt what little courage he had wither away. Kensuke gave Shinji a strained smile from over her shoulder.
"Uh…hi?"
Toji yanked him bodily down the hall and out the door; Hikari pulled open the gym shed, into which Shinji was frog-marched. Kensuke slid the door shut behind them.
Hikari glared at him. "Where the hell were you?! You missed eleven days of class!"
"Um—"
"Do you have any idea how worried we were? You just stopped showing up!"
Shinji hesitated for a second. "What did Misato-san say?"
"Nothing," Kensuke said. "We showed up at your door, but she wouldn't tell us where you were or when you'd be back."
Shinji took a breath. "Alright. I…ran away. NERV caught me, and I got put in a cell for a few days."
Hikari frowned. "That's…what? They—"
"Look," Shinji interrupted. "Can we just drop it? I'm back now. Toji-kun, Kensuke-kun, did you get in trouble for sneaking out?"
Toji shook his head. "Got interrogated, said we snuck out to look for you. The interrogator lectured us on disobeying curfews and called our parents."
Kensuke smiled wryly. "My old man tore me a new one when we got home."
"I couldn't sit down for two days," Toji muttered.
Shinji rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm sorry—"
"Don't apologize," Hikari cut in. "The Idiot Duo snuck out all by themselves. The Idiot Trio, now."
"The Three Stooges," Kensuke offered helpfully. Toji elbowed him.
"Anyway," Hikari said. "Tell me if you're going to vanish again, okay? Bad enough that half the class is gone."
She turned to leave, stopping in the doorway. "Oh, and Ikari-kun?"
"Yeah?"
"I saw your exam paper today. Take your subjects seriously, or you'll end up in remedial classes."
"I was," Shinji protested. "I just didn't have enough time to study."
Hikari walked out of the shed. Shinji followed her back towards the schoolhouse. The noon heat was beginning to falter, a damp stickiness creeping over the city. A ceiling of high anvil clouds slid slowly across the sky, closing off the valley; gusts of tropical wind carried the smell of rain.
"Shinji-kun, d'ya have a minute?" Toji wouldn't quite make eye contact.
Shinji blinked. "Sure. What's going on?"
He followed Toji back towards the track. A strong gust of wind brought a spatter of little raindrops. The distant rumble of thunder echoed like artillery on the mountains, hazy lightning flickering under the clouds. Toji stopped behind the baseball shed. Kensuke was fiddling with a radio receiver, holding a pair of headphones to his ears.
Toji turned to face Shinji. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have hit you."
"What? Oh, you mean before the fight?"
Toji nodded. Shinji shrugged. "Don't worry about it. I wasn't—"
"No, it wasn't okay. I hit you, and you saved both of our"—he gestured to Kensuke—"sorry asses right after." He lifted his chin. "Hit me."
"Huh?"
"Hit me," Toji repeated. "As hard as you can. Then we'll be even."
"Um…"
"He won't let it rest until you do," Kensuke commented, eyes fixed on the dial. "Besides, he kinda deserves it."
Is this really okay? Shinji pulled his fist back, hesitated for a moment, and punched him in the face. Toji stumbled back a step under the blow.
Shinji wiped his hand against his pants. "We're good, then?"
Toji nodded. "Yup. Now, let's get inside before it starts raining."
Kensuke grinned. "Now that we're all pals, Shinji-kun, I have a favor to ask."
"Yeah?"
"I want to pilot an Eva. Can you get Misato-san to give me a shot?"
"Uh…I don't think it works like that. Besides, both pilot billets are already filled." He saw Kensuke's face fall and hastily added. "But I'll ask her to put you on the reserve list?"
"Forget the robots," Toji said. "Can you get Misato-chan to give me a shot with her ?"
"I don't think that's a good idea…"
"All I want is one kiss—"
"You're a minor, Toji-kun. Besides, she's not like you think." She's a sloppy drunk who doesn't clean her room.
"Still worth a shot, right?"
NERV HQ, Tokyo-3 Special Administrative District, Japan.
July 31st, 2015.
Makoto peered at the instrument panel. "Stupid lightning's jamming our scopes."
Maya typed in a rapid series of commands. "It's not resolving with standard anti-noise methods," she muttered. "Maybe if we try discrete sampling?" The curves on the panels decohered into a haze of points.
Makoto frowned. "What if we Fourier'd it? We could filter the HF that way."
"Worth a shot." She wrote in a command sequence. The data shifted into a fine comb of bands; another command cleared the right half of the graph and shifted the dials back to lines.
"Well," Makoto said, "That's better than before." The lightning flickering across the external view-screen eased for a moment. Maya's eyes widened. "Hyuga-san, do you see that?"
Makoto squinted at the screen. A colossal wedge was slowly descending from the storm clouds, its silhouette obscured by sheets of rain. "Is that a tornado?" A light like the Morning Star gleamed amidst the center; the sirens began to blare. Streaks of AA-fire hissed through the air.
Maya rose from her chair. "Pattern Blue—it's an Angel!" The point of light grew millionfold, burning the cloud away; the Angel's crystal form gleamed in the brilliant flame, a diamond unfolding into a hundred-faceted ornament. A piercing, digital scream drove the microphones into saturation. With a flash of orange, the screen went dark.
Third Ward, Tokyo-3, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan.
July 31st, 2015.
Shinji pressed his face to the cold window of the tram. A hulking diamond glided through the storm, a phantom amidst the gray haze. A bolt of lightning struck the top vertex, sending ghostly violet discharge dancing over the glassy faces. Shinji shuddered. "How am I supposed to kill that?"
He glanced over to Rei, who was quietly reading a book. Her demeanor was eerily serene, not a single muscle moving. If not for her open eyes, it would be impossible to tell she was awake. She turned the page, unbothered by the rumble of JSSDF rocket fire. She's seen the same number of attacks as me, yet she's not even looking at the Angel.
An unearthly scream echoed over the land. Shinji snapped back to the window. A fissure opened along the creature's equator; the bottom and lower halves spun apart around a gleaming red orb. A loud crack sounded as the pyramids cleaved into a stack of rotating slabs. So that's its core. The Angel's scream grew louder. A brilliant beam of light shot from the core, sweeping in sharp jerks over the city. Great fiery crosses leapt into the sky, the rain hissing into steam on contact. The stench of bleach hung in the air, mingled with the odor of lightning. The slabs began to spin in reverse, falling back together. The Angel resumed its diamond shape, now approaching the shore. The instant it landed, every artillery piece in the valley opened fire together. Shinji ducked and covered his ears. He peeked back up through the window. The monster was wrapped in a shell of fire. A plume of steam billowed from its form.
Another scream. The ball of fire ballooned, reddened, and burst open. The monster had split, this time into six polyhedral flowers blooming from a tall stem. It spun, the petals spreading wide…
Beams of light streamed in every direction, tracing a ring of death over the mountains. They swiveled up, widening the trace, then the flowers folded shut. A wall of fire burnt around the margin of Lake Ashi, the batteries engulfed with infernos. A row of crosses rose above the rim, sealing Hakone behind blazing bars. The Angel collapsed into a steaming glass sphere, a pearl hanging in the deluge. The tram stopped at the Geofront station; the Section 2 agents grabbed their umbrellas and gestured for the Children to follow.
The covered station was empty; Section 2 agents swarmed over the platforms. A single train sat on the tracks down into the Geofront, the LED display stating simply "Special Transit—NERV HQ." The agents herded Shinji and Rei into one car with one guard, locking it from the outside. Shinji sat down across from Rei, resting his head on the hard plastic chair. The guard sat near the front, resting her submachine gun on her knees. The car lurched into motion, beginning the long slow descent. Shinji closed his eyes, listening to the sounds of battle fade into the distance. Why am I even doing this? I don't want to fight those things again. NERV doesn't care about me either.
The rocky wall gave way to steel plating as they entered the Geofront. They passed over a bridged drainage canal, full nearly to the brim with surging water. A NERV technician sat beside the canal, eating a sandwich.
He looked at Rei, who took her book back out and resumed her motionless posture. Is she that confident, or just arrogant? It's hell out there; she has no idea what it's like to fight.
Shinji turned to Rei. "Ayanami-san? Is that a good book?"
Rei looked up from the book and nodded. "It is…unique."
"That's good, I guess." An awkward silence fell; the guard coughed.
The train tilted sharply downward, picking up speed. The emergency lights shone through the windows, rendering the three occupants in shades of orange and red. Shinji stared down at his feet. One last time—
"Why did you run away?"
He looked up in surprise. Rei was staring steadily at him, book face-down in her lap.
"I'm sorry?"
"Why did you run away from NERV?"
Shinji glanced at the guard, who shrugged. "What're you looking at me for, kid?"
Shinji carefully chose his words. "I don't want to die, Ayanami-san. NERV didn't care enough to protect me, so I ran away."
Rei looked at him for another moment, then returned to her book. Shinji retrieved his SDAT player from his backpack and put in the earphones.
Central Dogma, Tokyo-3 Special Administrative District, Japan.
July 31st, 2015.
Ritsuko spread a map of Hakone over the table. She placed a pistol round over the Second Ward. "That's the Angel. It's moving towards the Third Ward, where the Geofront is closest to the surface. Normally we'd launch you from the primary launch ports, here"—she tapped a set of red circles about a kilometer ahead of the Angel—"but you'd be cut to bits at that range. Instead, we'll send you through one of the auxiliary ports."
Shinji nodded. "Got it. The progressive knife—"
"You'll be using a new weapon for this fight. Ram the fixation spike into the Angel's firing cavity. The backblast should do the trick, if not, finish the job with your knife."
Ritsuko picked up the landline, dialing in a number. After a pause, the other end clicked. "Captain Ibuki, how are repairs going on Unit-00?" She held the phone in the crook of her shoulder, jotting down notes on a sheet of spare paper. "We don't have another hour. Can it launch with the reserve battery? Yes? Well, there's your answer. No—You're going to launch her right under the damned thing. It doesn't matter how long the battery lasts; in thirty seconds they're either heroes or yakitori. Ya-ki-to-ri, chicken skewers. Ok. Got it. Bye." She dropped the receiver onto the hook. "Anyway, Pilot, you get three spikes. We'll hand you one to start, another in an armory station, and send Rei up with the third. Set the point into the cavity and push with your legs. Everything goes to plan, the whole fight's over in thirty seconds. Understood?"
"Yes, but what was that about yakitori?"
"Nothing you have to worry about if you win."
Shinji gripped the controllers, holding down a sudden surge of bile. He clenched his fists tighter as the plug stuttered to life. The LCL warmed. Shinji felt his fear dull, the great machine pumping his body with adrenaline. The Evangelion was lighter than before, more responsive. A second heartbeat echoed within the plug, slowly synching to his own. The comms channel beeped; a holographic image of Misato appeared in the corner. "Shinji-kun, the fixation spike will be next to your right hand at the surface. If you miss, the pallet rifle's in the armory tower; we'll mark it for you."
"Got it. Grab the spike, press the point into the cavity, thrust."
"Ready?"
Shinji nodded tightly. "Ready."
"Launch Evangelion!"
Shinji shot up into the tunnels, the acceleration dropping his stomach into his feet. This is way faster than before. Flickers of light raced from the mouths of maintenance passages. Metallic thuds filled the tunnel, rows of blast doors sealing behind him.
Grab the spike, set the point, stab.
Grab the spike, set the point, stab.
Grab the spike, set the point, stab.
The last door sprung open. Unit-01 flew up into the storm, raindrops drumming a painful rhythm across his chest plates. There it is. The Angel's great bulk cast a rain shadow over the block, waterfalls tumbling over its edge onto Shinji's shoulders.
Shinji held out his right hand. A spike as tall as a telephone pole sprang from the ground, a twenty meter rod of faceted metal. He snatched it up, leveling it at the creature. Finally, it seemed to notice the hostile presence. The Angel fractured along twelve lines, folding back into an angular comet aimed at Shinji's heart. Shinji exhaled, tightening his grip on the weapon. The Angel hovered in the air, weightless—Shinji saw his distorted reflection in the gleaming crystal, a beast of iron and flesh staring down a beast of lead glass.
The point of the comet crumpled backward into a curve of a thousand sparkling facets, splitting into a round maw—a star blazed within.
Now!
He hefted the spike, thrusting it into the beast's mouth. An AT-Field bloomed at the tip, the eye-watering odor of ammonia wafting from the luminous boundary. Shinji shoved up with his knees; the point pressed further and further, the AT-Field boiling the rain into a plume of steam. The tip of the fixation spike warped into a screw, spinning the Field thinner and thinner until it tore away. The spike plunged deep into the Angel's gullet, burying itself to the hilt in crystal innards. The light flickered out. Did I—
The Angel's mouth slammed shut around the spike. Shinji managed to draw his left hand clear, but his right hand was caught in the vice. A terrible heat seared his fist, trapped in the mouth of the beast. Shinji set his feet and pulled with all his might, but to no avail. The tails of the Angel formed into a pair of spined mandibles. Shinji's eyes widened. No! He drew the progressive knife just as the jaws snapped shut. The left jaw swept in at his waist to cleave him in two. Shinji aimed a chop with his knife, catching the mandible and shearing it in half. The crystal shattered into a rain of glass prisms. He looked back…
The right mandible pinned his arm against the Angel's body. He chopped at the jaw with his knife, striking off sparks.
With a terrible grinding sound, the Angel shredded his arm above the elbow. Shinji screamed, loud enough to tear at his throat. Unit–01 reeled back, the stump pouring blood. The Angel opened its maw, letting out a rain of twisted metal and rent flesh. Shinji rolled to the side as it spat out the fixation spike. The weapon ricocheted off the street, tearing a long gouge in the asphalt, and shattered against an overpass.
Shinji scrabbled for cover, diving behind an office tower. The pain in his arm was blinding; he breathed in short gasps to keep down the nausea.
"Shinji! Can you hear me?" Shinji looked hazily at the comms screen.
"There's a pallet rifle in the building—duck!"
Shinji dove out of the way, tumbling down into a drainage canal. A brilliant flash, and the entire block exploded into a fireball.
Shinji rose to his feet, holding out his knife in the one remaining hand. The Angel rose lazily into the air, a spiraling vortex of angular petals orbiting a crimson eye. A star appeared in its jaws.
Shinji crouched, raising his hand to protect his head. The monster fired a blast. A wall of orange light appeared in the air between them; the smell of vanilla cut through the odor of ammonia. The beam ricocheted against the wall, shooting off into the sky. Unit-01 was thrown into the air by the backlash, coming down in the lake with a colossal splash.
That was an AT-Field. Did I do that? A five minute counter began to tick down in the corner of his screen. He turned just in time, as another beam whipped meters past his ear.
"Shinji, run!"
"But—"
"Get to the Redoubt. We'll try again."
Shinji cast one more look at the city, watching the Angel's petals slide back into the gleaming diamond, and struck off for the blinking yellow light on the far shore.
I failed.
Notes:
PREVIEW:
Yo, Ryoji here with your preview. The battle against Ramiel enters a desperate phase. The Angel of Thunder invades the Fortress City. A duel fought with divine weapons decides the fate of Humanity. The Third Child finds his reason to fight. A bond forged from blood. Next time on Herz und Seele: Chapter Fifteen: Duel of the Titans. Don't worry, there'll be plenty of fanservice!