T-plus 198 hours, 49 minutes, 16 seconds
Lieutenant Maya Ibuki stared into the dark lens of the video camera, trying to collect her thoughts in the last few moments before the debriefing began. Her mentor, Dr. Akagi, assured her everything would be fine. The video conference about to take place was a mere formality, and there would be no actions issued against her for her role in the events that had transpired during her time as Mission Commander in the DPRK. The people on the other end of the camera had already been briefed on everything, and this was, in reality, more of a question-and-answer session than anything else. Of course, the fact that she had no idea who would be asking the questions worried her, as did the doctor's assurances she didn't need to be concerned, saying they were senior researchers and ranking officers at other NERV installations. The whole setup of the room was designed to elicit uneasiness and trepidation- she sat in a small illuminated circle while the rest of the room was cast in shadow. Alone, on the spot, and without any idea who she would be conversing with. It was more like what you'd expect from an interrogation than a follow-up debriefing.
A red warning light switched on, slowly flashing in the room's dim light. As the interval between flashes decreased, she swallowed her doubts and fear. She had to be professional. She had to be sure, confident, and self-assured. No matter what they asked, she just had to remember she had been the mission commander, taken the teams to the DPRK, and brought as many of them home as she could. No material left behind was classified. Everything that had gone wrong was from events and circumstances beyond her control. The personnel losses were beyond her control and were not anticipated by her commanding officers.
Those thoughts did nothing to settle the dread, fear, and sorrow she had been inundated with over the past week. None of it helped her when she lay in her bed at night, sleepless and sick. This interview was supposed to be the closing action of her end of the disastrous launch and Evangelion's combat mission, but she was sure it would do nothing for her sleepless nights.
The light changed over to a solid glow as the camera's aperture twitched as it focused in on her. A speaker hissed as a deeply modulated voice greeted her.
"Good morning, Lieutenant Ibuki. We've already read the reports, but we would like to hear your impressions of the events when your teams were situated, having taken command of the site and establishing the temporary manufacturing facility.
Maya took a deep breath and began.
Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!
As Ritsuko entered the observation deck, Gendo didn't look up from watching the woman report to the SEELE council.
"They will want to speak to the girl."
"Well, they'll have to wait in line," Ritsuko said, crossing her arms as she joined him in watching her least troublesome protégé below them. "She's catatonic. We can maneuver her around, have her sit up, and the like, but there's no response to any other stimuli. Her eyes remain unfocused, and she only stares at whatever is before her."
"So she's like Misato then, and not like Shinji after his episodes."
"It's very similar, yes, which makes me wonder if there was any contact between Misato and ADAM. If there was, then-"
"It doesn't matter," Gendo said, abruptly interrupting the scientist. "It might have mattered before, but now, it isn't worth our time. Nothing ever came of Katsuragi's time spent in recovery and observation. There were no new insights into the Angels or ADAM, and they could never find any clues from the MRIs and brain scans. If Sohryu's current condition is the same as Katsuragi's after Second Impact, then her usefulness to us is minuscule. Rei will be the only Pilot we have left."
Gendo winced as his body shuddered, tremors running through him. He remained upright purely by force of will as the nascent god-thing writhed within his flesh. A rope-like appendage snaked its way just under the surface of his face, pressing up against the skin of his cheek before retreating back down his neck to where the main body of the growing creature nestled in his flesh.
"As soon as it is convenient, I want you to test her in sequence with the dummy plug system. If she can establish a connection, good. If not, we will have to rely on Rei as our only Pilot." he continued, ignoring the Sub-Commander's offered assistance.
"Is this to take precedence over my work on the salvage operation?"
"Yes. If she can still offer us the use of Unit-02 in her current state, then that doubles our operational capacity. The recovery of Shinji is still a primary concern, but Kozo should be able to carry on that project while you run the tests. Lieutenant Ibuki will assist you."
"Is that wise? She's torn up about the whole thing. She might have objections to using Asuka in her current state- and she'll probably object to testing her anyways."
"That's a valid concern from both her and you," Gendo admitted, watching the young woman below as she answered questions and made explanations. "but we don't have a choice. Swap her out for another technician and stick her on another project if you want."
A smirk crossed his face, one Ritsuko hadn't seen in over a month.
"Actually, yes. Go ahead and ask another one of your technicians to assist you with Sohryu. We'll promote Ibuki and then have her head up the project to recover the Lance. On the outside, it rewards outstanding work in the face of a difficult assignment. On the inside, it is a 'punishment' detail, so she doesn't think we're just trying to make her feel better about herself after a disastrous mission."
"The Lance is currently in orbit around the moon, Gendo." Ritsuko reminded him. "We still don't have a spaceport and won't pull the same deal with the DPRK again. Even if they were trustworthy, the UN would certainly move to block a similar deal under the weapons embargoes."
"Yes, yes, I know. Only the fact that there was the threat of the Angel allowed us to get away with the first one. So the task will be difficult, but not impossible for her. SEELE was unhappy I could maneuver that with only some slight prodding from their side. The old men would much rather have us more dependent on them. There are other resources available for her to pursue in order to recover the weapon. We won't need to deal with the DPRK. Of course, if the Lance remains outside everyone's reach, so much the better. My plans work with it being beyond the reach of SEELE or with it in our possession."
"Fine, fine," Ritsuko said, sighing as she turned to leave. "I'll start getting the test chamber set up for the experiment. Unit-02's repairs are underway, and it will be ready for duty by the end of the week. I'll also submit the papers for Maya's assignment and promotion."
"Very good."
With a final glance down at her protégé below, Ritsuko turned and left the shadowed observation room, the door locking behind her.
Nodding to himself as he continued to watch the debriefing, Gendo reformulated his plans and assessed possible corrections to the new issues facing his scenario. The newly promoted Captain was holding up well under the interrogation, although he wondered how composed she would be if she knew who she was talking with. As it was, she was calm and in command of herself and only a little unsure at times as she responded to their questions.
T-minus 45 hours, 37 minutes, 30 seconds
Asuka glared at the landscape before her from her perch atop the superstructure of the launch facility. The view from up here was excellent but did nothing to temper her anger. She had thought going to one of the most reclusive nations in the world would have been interesting, especially seeing and working with their space agency. It should have been, anyway, but the 'Glorious Leader' appeared to have other plans. This was not a joint mission between NERV and the DPRK. Remarkably few people had remained, primarily political officers, who served as liaisons to the scientists and technicians now stationed several kilometers from the launch site. NERV had a complete run of the facilities but was barred from leaving the area. Despite their agreement, the Koreans still did not trust the Japanese, and NERV, a multi-national private organization, was still a primarily German-Japanese venture. The government wanted as little interaction between their peoples as possible- but she wasn't sure if it was more out of hatred for the Japanese personnel or a desire to limit cultural contamination. Either way, it meant no exploring.
Worse still was that there wasn't anything for her to do! It was all up to the fabrication teams right now. They were finishing the construction of the launch vehicle around her Unit-02, so she couldn't do anything with it. She had helped design the launch vehicle, incorporating it and her Evangelion into the massive rockets that would launch her into space, but now there was nothing she was allowed to assist with- nothing worth her time, anyway. She could weld and set rivets and do all the other things, but that was a waste of her talents. Besides, what good was it to bring the technicians and engineers with them if they didn't get to do their jobs?
She couldn't even access her MAGI link to check on the programs she had set to run before leaving. It was too much of a risk to try to connect from over here. Back-door connection or not, an IP address from the DPRK trying to connect to the MAGI not part of the temporary linkup from their field station was sure to set off red flags, and she wasn't willing to risk trying to set up a piggyback signal. The cyber warfare division of North Korea was undoubtedly trying to hack the NERV communication systems, and she didn't want to let them in through her own efforts accidentally.
So here she was, bored out of her skull, waiting for the chance to go and kill the Angel that remained in a distant orbit. It was content to sit there, neither drawing closer nor going farther away. It was locked in orbit over Tokyo-3 and continued to swat down anything anyone sent at it. However, it seemed everyone had given up on that endeavor, electing to not waste their stores of weapons in such a futile endeavor.
Waiting, with nothing to do and no good news of Shinji. No good news from anyone. Maya had her hands full, what with overseeing the mission, and while she wasn't opposed to her hanging around in the background, it was clear the woman wouldn't assign her anything to take care of or supervise.
Well, it would only be a few more days at the current rate of progress.
She could wait. Patience was one of the many German virtues, after all.
T-minus 1 hour, 16 minutes, 20 seconds
Rei watched the sky, staring up into the night. Of course, she could not see the Angel above her, but she wondered if she could locate it using her own Angelic abilities. There had been a sense of awareness of the Angels in the past, and she could feel Lilith below. Even past the anti-psychic shielding and with her power diminished by the Lance, Rei could feel the familiar presence of the Second Angel in the back of her mind.
She wasn't sure if she could feel the being of light and matter. Perhaps it was just her mind playing tricks on her, but she thought she could feel something out there, up in the night sky's darkness.
Rei longed for the operation to be over, for the Pilot-Captain to deal with the Angel and return.
Her experiments with the clones and download of the captive agent were at a standstill. The results were... not promising. The breakthrough she had enjoyed in getting the clone to accept the upload without compromising the clone's ego border was not enough. The uploaded image was either compromised by the apparent pain of the man during the download or other potential issues, from an incompatibility between the host body and a foreign image to even just an inability of a stock human to be imaged. Earlier in the testing process, she had discounted the inherent differences between her physiology and a pure human. It seemed likely the ability for her to have a (more or less) copy made of her mind and implanted into a clone body was directly related to the amount of Angelic material in her genetic makeup.
It was frustrating, the girl admitted to herself as she scanned the skies. She was no closer to being able to get Shinji back, and by all appearances, neither was the official project. Perhaps it was time to find a different avenue. The longer they waited, the less chance there was for success. The Commander's deadline for action was fast approaching, and they would attempt the same salvage program that had failed to achieve anything in the past, regardless of promising simulation results or not.
The idea prompted a sinking feeling in the pit of her being, a sensation reminiscent of the zero-g tests, a freezing cold that sent shivers down her spine and chills running across her skin.
She did not know what she would do if she lost him. He had come to hold a very significant place in her heart. If that part of her was ripped away, if he was gone...
Staring up into the night sky, her eyes burned like twin fires. She could not lose him. Not now. He was hers, and she was his. If they could not be together... If he was gone, and she left behind...
In the depths of the underground city, Unit-00's animating spirit grinned as it felt its younger sibling's pulsing power and tumultuous emotion, the psychic emanations bridging the gulf separating them. The mindless drones opened their mouths and wailed into the LCL, the normal vacant expressions replaced with worry, psychic mirrors for their queen, their exaggerated expressions grotesque mockeries of human pathos.
Her phone pulsed in her pocket, the vibrating alarm letting her know she needed to return to NERV to stand by as the Pilot-Captain's launch time was at hand. What good she would do sitting in Unit-00 was unknown, but it was the will of the Commander. His orders were to be obeyed, his plans to be fulfilled, and his strategies followed. His scenario had brought her Shinji and new desires, a reward for faithful obedience. She would see his will carried out, even at the cost of her life. The Pilot-Captain was headed toward the heavens, and should she fall before the Angel, Unit-00 would be ready to attack and defend- whatever was necessary.
The burning glow faded from her eyes as a soft sigh escaped her lips. Turning away from the ruins of her old apartment, Rei made her way back towards NERV.
T-minus 3 minutes, 20 seconds and counting
Asuka grinned as she rechecked her panels, feeling the vibrations from the massive engines as they warmed up. She had said her goodbyes a few moments ago before cutting communications and switching to stand-by mode. After the superstructure had separated and the umbilical cables had been retracted from the rocket, there would be no more communication with mission control until she re-entered full gain out in space. She wouldn't know what hit her if anything went wrong between now and then.
It was exciting in its own right.
What was more exciting was the fact that it was finally happening. While the mission had technically started when they had left Japan for Korea, it was finally truly underway. She would leave Earth in a few minutes and head into space.
She watched with eager anticipation as her mission clock counted down, her heart beating like a drum in the darkened confines of the Entry Plug.
From beyond the layers of armor and launch vehicle, the booming voice sounding over the loudspeakers was a mere whisper inside the Entry Plug. "T-minus 90 seconds and counting, all systems go."
The vibrations grew in intensity, rippling through the LCL and resonating in her bones. Asuka's lips curled back, her grin less like an excited child anticipating an exciting ride and more like the hungry grin of a tiger before pouncing. Quivering with nervous energy, she checked her restraints one last time. She had undergone G tests and zero-g free fall stress tests before, in what seemed like a lifetime ago back in Germany, but now it was going to be the real deal. A massive three-stage rocket, not some centrifugal whirling carnival ride. Actual space, not a high-altitude plane dropping down towards the ground. Her chariot to the stars was four times the size of Von Braun's Atlas boosters, and the final propulsion system, still technically illegal, was more potent than his wildest dreams.
The whisper could not be heard anymore past the vibrations of the great engines warming up.
T-minus 30 seconds and counting. This was going to be it. Her first solo kill. And it was going to be in space. No assists, no crazy bullshit, no support from anyone else. Just her. 15 minutes of full gain mode to maneuver, close, destroy, and configure for re-entry.
She had this. She had to have this. Rei was the only possible backup, and she was confined to Earth. If she failed out here, she would die. The knife's edge of existence, the ultimate expression of the will to live, of the will to seize victory from unknowable power.
T-minus 15 seconds and counting. Down below, liquid hydrogen boiled into white vapor as the engines neared ignition, and the countdown continued.
The time for second thoughts, second guesses, and alternate plans was long gone. Only one path lay before her now; on it, she would find either victory or death.
T-minus 9 seconds and counting. Red sparks were shooting out of the igniters at the base of the launch pad.
Either way, she would find glory.
T-minus 5 seconds and counting. The main engines started, eight cones of fire so hot, so intense, they were invisible to the naked eye at the actual engine nozzles, with only tiny white cones visible six feet below the ringed apertures.
4.
3.
2.
1.
0. We have lift-off. Solid state boosters engaged.
Asuka screamed in exultant joy as her body slammed back into the throne as she raced for the sky. That her voice was lost to her ears, drowned out by the devastation pushing her up and away from Earth's firm embrace, did not matter.
T-plus 5 seconds. White cones flashed into existence ahead of the rocket, visual cues as Asuka breached the sound barrier, leaving sonic booms in her wake. The smoke trail no longer appeared perfectly vertical, shaping into a graceful arc as she crossed the peninsula toward Japan.
T-plus 2 minutes. With their aluminum fuel mix expended, the four external solid-state boosters decoupled and fell away. The main tank, filled with liquid hydrogen and oxygen, wasn't even down by a twentieth, the heavy lifting having been done by the boosters. Over one million kilograms of fuel had been burned in the two minutes since takeoff.
T-plus 5 minutes, 15 seconds. Evangelion Unit-02 reached space, officially marking Asuka as the first Evangelion Pilot to conduct operations off the Earth. The liquid fuel tank was down by half as the titanic missile rode its oxygen flame into the eternal night.
T-plus 7 minutes. The first stage continued to burn, taking the launch vehicle past near orbit.
T-plus 9 minutes, 45 seconds. The separation between the first and second stages occurred, the secondary systems engaging as exterior shields were blown away, allowing the dark eyes of the Evangelion to look on the starry field across which it traveled. Two Nuclear explosions further propelled the second stage towards its prey, hurtling across the empyrean. The second stage fell away, leaving only the third stage. A countdown clock appeared on Asuka's display, and she slipped the restraints loose, preparing for battle.
T-plus 199 hours, 34 minutes, 45 seconds
"And your sensors did not pick up any change from the Angel following the separation of the Evangelion from the secondary stage?"
"That is correct," Maya replied, wondering why they wanted to review this part again. "There wasn't any response from the Angel until Unit-02 had exited the launch vehicle and configured itself for combat. While still on stand-by mode, her third stage passed the previous intercept point."
"And then what happened?"
"Nothing. The Angel did not react until she reached the activation point, at T-plus 12 minutes. Pilot Sohryu switched from stand-by mode to full gain, activated her AT-Field, and engaged the Angel."
T-plus 12 minutes
Asuka excitedly howled as the mission clock reached 12:00. She switched to full-gain mode, finally activating the Evangelion.
The starry field of open space appeared before her eyes, but what caught her attention was the massive, glowing form of the Angel. Asuka's AT-Field splashed into existence, and she launched a diversionary spray of missiles from one shoulder-mounted missile pod as she brought her modified pallet gun to bear as the directional thrusters altered her trajectory.
The missiles detonated fruitlessly upon the Angel's AT-Field, but the Angel's light weapon flashed through the area where Unit-02 had been only moments before. They had done their job.
"Unit-02 to NERV, Unit-02 to NERV. Activation has occurred, and I have engaged the Angel. All systems are operational." Asuka reported on the radio, her voice light and excited. It was hard for her not to laugh. While the communication lag was not very long, it would still be noticeable. "I'm moving to intercept and counter the enemy AT-Field."
Altering her course again, she shifted the protective energy field into a tight wedge, forcing it into the spherical shield of the Angel, eroding away at the glowing hexagonal pattern that hung in space between them. As soon as a small hole appeared, Asuka fired a harpoon at the Angel, the tow line snaking out from the chest-mounted launcher. The harpoon hit and pierced the Angel, a spray of blue blood ejecting in a series of wobbling spheres.
The tow line was not meant for her to get closer to the Angel, at least not yet. For the initial engagement, it was meant to keep her from drifting too far away from the Angel during combat and to help preserve the compressed gases that served the directional thrusters.
Asuka opened up with the pallet gun now, each shot throwing her back at a rate of a few centimeters per second, only to have that momentum arrested by the cable tether. A succession of rapidly expanding spheres of smoke billowed out from the weapon's barrel, and the barrel slowly began to glow red with heat. Ignoring the glowing barrel, Asuka ejected the spent magazine and slammed in the second of the three spares she had attached to Unit-02.
"Unit-02 to NERV, the target's AT-Field is down. The first tether is in place, the first magazine is expended." She chattered excitedly, opening up again through the smoke, her sensors quickly cutting through the visual obstruction. "It's bleeding, but there's no sign of the core."
Light flashed from the Angel, seeming to come from every facet of the crystalline body. It poured over Unit-02 and seemed to fill the inside of the entry plug with brilliant, blinding light. Cursing, Asuka squinted as she continued to fire, still sending reports back to NERV.
"It's trying to blind me!" She shouted, engaging her filters. "Polarization filters have no effect! Changing to a different spectrum!" She switched to IR but was still bathed in the same blinding light. Cursing again, she swapped through different levels of thermal sensors, but nothing abated the eye-piercing light.
Worry began to mount as she heard something, a low ringing in her ears.
Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!
Lieutenant Ibuki stared at the political officer, mouth agape. "Are you serious?" Almost every eye in the room was trained on the pair standing at the head of the control room.
"Quite so," the commissar said, his Japanese stilted but apologetic. "Our orders are to seize you, your people, and all technology associated with the Evangelion Project and your manufacturing systems. They were quite clear about this. You will be debriefed and released at a future point once our scientists and engineers are satisfied."
"But our agreement! We've honored it every step of the way!" Maya said, anger fighting with the cold fear churning in her gut. "We've already delivered on our-"
"New transmission incoming from Unit-02!" One of the technicians called out, worry in his voice as he furiously typed away at his terminal. Asuka's panicked shouts filled the room, along with buzzing interference.
"There is nothing you can do for her now." The commissar stated, ignoring the Pilot's frantic updates. "These messages are already minutes old anyway, and according to the mission plan, this part of the mission is being handled at your Tokyo-3 site."
The buzzing sounds flattened out, cycling through a strange series of unintelligible noises that tugged at the edges of Maya's memory. Ignoring it, she kept her focus on the man in front of her, who had, until just a few moments ago, been a reliable partner in getting Unit-02 into space.
"But why? After all, we've done? There's no reason for this; we've already shared all the technical specs with you!"
"They have doubts about that." He replied, whistling sharply. The doors behind him flew open as armed guards flooded in, weapons leveled at the NERV personnel. "But I do not doubt you will make certain they believe you've told us everything."
Asuka screamed suddenly, and the radio transmission surged with thousands of voices before being cut off by one of the DPRK soldiers.
Trembling with fear and anger, Maya leaned close to the man, grabbing him by his uniform coat.
"There will be such awful consequences for this; don't be a fool!" She hissed, glaring at him. "Just one operational Evangelion will be enough to wreak destruction on your country! Even if you want to go back on your word, on your agreement, think of that!"
"I don't think anyone will be coming to rescue you or punish us." He countered, coolly and indifferent, the apologeticness fading from his voice. "After all, NERV did nothing when other nations seized the people and equipment in their borders. There was only a half-hearted attempt to pull property out or to destroy what they could not take." Reaching up, he pulled her hands from his jacket. "You will remain as our guests, and NERV will do nothing."
His words hit Maya like a hammer, and she remembered how NERV had simply cut their losses and run from confrontations with national governments across the globe. Commander Ikari was not likely to risk anything to rescue them- and even if he did, it wouldn't be in time to keep them safe and unharmed. She sank to the ground, tears welling up in her eyes, unable to function in the face of armed threat.
In space, the deadly dance continued, both participants reaching out to the other, unaware and uncaring of what was happening on the small world far below them. Asuka screamed as thousands of voices flooded her entry plug in a cacophonous noise before coalescing into a single, thunderous, overwhelming shout.
WHO ARE YOU?
T-plus 234 hours, 34 minutes
Rei watched as the technicians led the blank-faced redhead down the gantry and into the waiting test body. She had just finished her training simulations and was heading back to the locker room to shower and change. She would then take this body to her quarters and change over to the drone waiting in the laboratory while this one would rest as if sleeping.
She no longer needed sleep. Her mind had not slept for over two weeks now. Her time was filled with experiments, testing, and training. Her physical body certainly did not require it- only periodic immersion into the LCL tank after extended periods without being home to her consciousness. Without it, they would begin to break down. The last experiment showed a five-day period before tissue breakdown started in the internal organs, with seven days before connective tissue began to fail.
Her latest experiment, modeling the salvage of Shinji, had finished running while she was in mid-simulation, and it returned as a failure. The rest of the day would be spent figuring out where the operation had gone wrong.
She did not take comfort in the fact that the official operation was as successful as her own efforts. Any effort into his recovery was welcome, and she no longer cared who got him back or how. All that mattered was his return. There were infinitely many Rei Ayanamis but only one Shinji Ikari.
She could not duplicate him in the same manner as she had been duplicated. She could clone him, to be sure, but she could not put a copy of his mind into that clone. Despite all her efforts, it was beyond the capability of a stock human to endure.
The Pilot-Captain's encounter with the Angel had left her a shadow of her former self. When Rei had visited the older girl after her recovery from Unit-02, the usually animated redhead seemed unaware of her presence. Rei had been quite interested in speaking to her, particularly concerning the second stage of the battle. However, no conversational topic could elicit a response from Sohryu.
Daily observation of the other girl became an added task to her list of self-imposed duties. While the only remaining Pilot still on active status, Rei was also the least experienced and successful in battle. Returning the Pilot-Captain to active duty, if not to her former self, was a new priority if the continued existence of NERV and Mankind was to be assured.
Having Shinji back would be a more acceptable alternative, but the Pilot-Captain existed in a non-disincorporated state. Restoring her to active duty was likely easier and likely to occur before Shinji's recovery as the Commander's imposed deadline drew ever closer.
They would have one shot at this; if it failed, the Commander's Scenario was rendered obsolete. Without Shinji, without Unit-01, there could be no controlled Third Impact. At that point, NERV would attempt to destroy SEELE, Lilith, the ADAM sample, the Evangelions, everything. Mankind would have to continue on its own, without the Fires of Prometheus to light their way through the dark night of the future.
Of course, she would have to perish alongside Lilith and the ADAM sample. They could not leave a source of Angelic material like herself available for misuse if some part of SEELE managed to escape the cleansing fires. This did not bother the pale girl at all, for apart from the fact she had accepted the inevitability of her own death long ago, a continued existence without Shinji was not one she could contemplate. Not now. But past her calm acceptance of death, there was something else, a new thought taking form.
She had always been destined to die. She had not been necessarily destined to die with Shinji, but after their time together, she had assumed that it would be so. If she was to be denied this...
The Pilot-Captain vanished from sight as the test body's entry plug sealed shut, and the technicians checked the terminal screens, running through a quick series of tests before reporting over their radios to the control room.
Rei softly sighed as she left the test chamber and headed towards the showers. There was much that needed to be done but very little time to actually accomplish anything. If she could not correct the failures in her latest simulation, there might be time to construct one more test.
T-plus 12 minutes and 25 seconds
WHO ARE YOU? The unified thousands of voices asked, the words slamming into the Pilot on an almost physical level. Asuka sagged back against her throne before rallying and returning fire.
The voices broke again, returning to the formless chattering noise as the blinding light ceased. The Angel's AT-Field flickered back into existence briefly, trying to shield itself from the resumed onslaught.
Asuka expended the second magazine and loaded her third, slamming it home. The AT-Field was set for maximum erosion, and her rounds tore through empty space unhindered. The crystalline bird's form shuddered with each impact, but the glowing body regenerated with ease for all the spinning globules of blood that were ejected from it. The Angel's body flashed with light again, completely bypassing the dimmed settings Asuka set her visual sensors to.
WHO ARE YOU? The question was repeated for a third time.
T-plus 200 hours, 14 minutes and 45 seconds
"Stop it! Stop asking me that!" Asuka's voice screamed, sounding tinny over the long-distance transmission. The transmission was filled with static and oddly distorted.
"Who is the pilot talking to?"
Maya didn't know which one of the mysterious oversight committee members asked the question. The voice-distorting equipment they were using changed the modulation of their voices constantly, sometimes even while they were speaking. It made it impossible for her to track how many people had asked her questions and which ones were focusing on what events. It was a system designed to keep her off balance, to make her unsure of herself. To ferret out hidden or wrong information. This was an interrogation, not a debriefing.
"We can only assume she is talking to the Angel," Maya said, dreading the next line of questions that were sure to follow- the Commander had warned her about this in a strange, clandestine manner. She was supposed to keep information from these questioners, information some of the top scientists of NERV should have access to. This raised the question of if these were NERV scientists, why was the Supreme Commander of NERV trying to keep valuable information from people who worked for him?
It meant there was something else to this inquest that she wasn't seeing. There was information she wasn't privy to that would make this mystery clear. It was possible, she reasoned, that these people were actually United Nations officials NERV had coordinated with before, but if so, why hide that information from her?
"I have not heard anything from anyone other than the pilot." This voice was highly pitched, with a fast-paced buzzing component to it. "Have your technicians scrubbed the audio?"
"The MAGI are still working on it," she truthfully replied, "but there is a lot they are working on right now, and so they can't devote maximum resources to this." That certainly was the truth, although the supercomputers had not been told to prioritize this aspect of the investigation and recovery projects centered around Unit-02 and the last Angel. "The recording logs in Unit-02 also have suffered similar distortion and degradation. We are following all leads to help the Pilot recover better."
The Commander had been adamant about keeping the fact that Shinji had suffered Ego-Border collapse from this committee. Any aspect of that situation was to be kept from these people, and there was to be no sign any resources were being used on his recovery as opposed to this project.
He wanted to keep that topic to NERV-Central personnel only for some reason. It was an interesting and suspicious fact, but the bright Lieutenant didn't know what to make of it. But it had sparked a bitter realization that one way or another, she had been lied to about who these voices were and the purpose of this meeting. They were intelligent but asked the wrong questions for scientists interested in the phenomena surrounding the Angel and the Pilot of Unit-02. They were looking for something else, something different.
Maya tried to keep her realization of this second betrayal from her voice and face.
T-plus 24 minutes and 47 seconds
Maya screamed, huddling behind a desk as shots were exchanged back and forth between the NERV and DPRK personnel. She had never done well in the required emergency drills, and they hadn't done much to prepare her for the reality of combat.
The technician standing over her exchanging fire with the enemy soldiers collapsed backward, blood pumping from his chest as he gasped in wet, gurgling breaths. Maya recognized the sucking chest wound for what it was almost immediately. Shouts and screams filled the control room, interspersed among the deafening sounds of gunfire. Sobbing, the mousy technician tried to put pressure on the dying man's wound as he drowned in his own blood.
More Japanese voices filled the air as other NERV agents maneuvered in on the North Koreans. Section 2 Agents poured in from behind the soldiers, catching them unprotected in a deadly crossfire.
A man leaped over the desk, trying to escape the punishing gunfire. Maya looked up into the frightened eyes of the political officer.
An uncharacteristic look of hate and anger crossed her face as she scrambled for the pistol lying at her side, ignoring the man's pleading expression as she brought it up, finger curling back on the trigger.
T-plus 15 minutes and 4 seconds
YOU ARE WEAK. YOUR SONG IS AN ABOMINATION. STAND ASIDE OR BE DESTROYED. I WILL BE JOINED WITH THE GREAT MOTHER.
Asuka squinted at the Angel with hate-filled eyes, her face twisted with anger. Unit-02 thrashed violently as she ejected the cable that tethered them together. She flung the useless rifle at her foe, and with a blast of her thrusters, she tumbled away.
"Du magst Lieder? Ich habe da einen Lied für dich, du Scheiße fressendes Mistschwein von einem Bastard." She growled, hands flying over the controls. She reached down between her feet and ripped open a panel, fingers fumbling for a set of cables. Closing in on them, she yanked them free of their connection, shorting out some control systems. "Ich singe dir ein ganz spezielles Lied vom Teufel!"
"EINHEIT-02! " She shouted, squinting into the blinding light with a furious glare. "Sonderprotokolle anwenden! Erlaubnis, Sohryu: Blitzkrieg!"
The standard entry plug lights were washed out under the brilliance of the Angel's AT-Field, but there was a noticeable change as the regular running lights switched to a dark red.
"EVANGELIONS MARSCHIEREN IN DIE HIMMLISCHEN LÄNDER!" She screamed back at the Angel over the thundering chorus of singing voices. "UND SIE SINGEN EIN LIED DES TEUFELN!" Kicking open another panel in the side of the plug, she smashed her armored foot through the robust electronics sheltered beneath it. "Wir pfeifen auf unten und oben. Und uns kann die ganz Welt Verfluchen oder auch loben!" Laughing wildly, a manic, almost unhinged laugh, she reached under the control yoke and flicked a switch. "EINHEIT-02! Beschränkungen auflösen!"
The red Evangelion shuddered as restraint and control components were blown apart, sending small sections of armor flying off. Some flew freely out into the void, nothing more now than additional space trash, but others were still braced in by the additional space equipment. One small piece of jettisoned armor punctured a thruster tank, sending her into a spin. Slamming a hand against the eject override, Asuka sent the damaged air tank flying off. Alarms began to sound as her synchronization ramped up quickly, surpassing old scores in seconds.
"WO IMMER WIR AUCH SIND, WIR SCHREITEN VORAN!"
She opened up with the last of the missile pods and launched their contents at the Angel, her AT-Field gaining strength as Pilot and Evangelion became one. With one last look at her control panel, sharp eyes taking every last detail in, she reflexively licked her lips. "Ich wünschte du könntest das sehen, Shinji." Flipping two more switches, she looked back up at the Angel. "UND VERDAMMTER TEUFEL, SIE LACHT GENAUSO! HA HA! HA! HA! HA HA!" Asuka slammed her fist down against the final button in the sequence. "Bestien-Modus aktivieren!"
T-plus 18 minutes and 32 seconds
Gendo frowned as Asuka's singing rang out over the loudspeakers. He looked down at Ritsuko's station in the command center, watching the woman react with horrified shock.
"Special protocols?" he asked his second command, who shrugged. Looking up at the time-delayed relay of information, he let out a small sigh. "Why do I think this will be another nuclear-tipped lance event?"
"Because both pilots are of above-average intelligence?" Kozo replied, watching as the readouts changed, energy levels dipped and rose, and warnings flashed on the screen as vital restricting components were removed. "Because both are dedicated to the destruction of the Angels, and both are adept engineers? Because she has a history of personal modifications to her Evangelion's systems and a burning desire to be the best and overshadow the other pilots?"
"ABORT! ABORT! SEND OVERRIDE COMMANDS IMMEDIATELY!" Ritsuko was screaming down below, trying to interrupt the Pilot's command sequence.
"It's too late for that! She's beyond the effective range of remote commands! Even if it goes through, we won't know what situation we're putting her in!"
"It looks like she's trying to remove the restraints and artificially increase her synchronization." Kozo placidly commented, ignoring the frantic commotion below. "These patterns seem reminiscent of her mother's contact experiment- but you can see some differences in the modulation of the EM pattern."
Gendo lifted his head from his hands, staring at the readouts, his stomach churning. "This is not good. They are similar, but there are several differences in the stabilization pattern. Look at the modulation in the AT-Field- she's figured out how to mimic part of how Shinji controls Unit-01."
"She's unlocking the Evangelion's true power. She's attempting her own modified Contact, her own Instrumentality."
"This is bad."
"Yes. What's worse is we won't know how bad until after the time delay."
"Contact everyone that will listen to us. Have them prepare all long-range countermeasures and intercept weapons."
"Do you think it will work? It may be wounded now, but it will have regenerated by the time anything is launched."
Gendo paused, watching the monitors. With another sigh, he picked up the phone and opened a channel to Rei in Unit-00.
"Rei, go and get the Lance. If, for any reason it becomes necessary, use it."
"Yes, Sir."
T-plus 202 hours, 55 minutes, 24 seconds
"Thank you very much, Lieutenant Ibuki. I think that this satisfies this inquiry."
"Yes, sir," Maya responded, no sign of relief in her face or voice.
The cameras switched off, and the speakers went silent. Maya stood up and swiftly left the room.
A side door opened, and Gendo strolled into the room, standing before the camera, hands in his pockets, his body slouched into a posture of disinterested attention.
"Ikari." The voice over the speakers was unmodulated and belonged to Kiel Lorenz.
"Chairman."
"The loss of the Lance is unacceptable. You must take steps to reacquire it. Your pilots run amok and threaten our operation. This is also unacceptable. Take control of the situation, or I shall send someone to do it for you."
"Consider the second done," Gendo began, "but the first will require resources beyond what I have, as you-"
"You forced my hand, Ikari. We are close to the end now. There's no time for little games or diversions. Instrumentality will come to pass, our death and rebirth into KADMON. I have let you indulge in your petty schemes, but it should be clear to you now who is in control. The whole world jumps at my command, Ikari. Do your job, or I will have you removed."
The communications system was remotely switched off. Gendo turned and left the room.
T-plus 15 minutes and 15 seconds
Evangelion Unit-02's four eyes burned with baleful viridian fury. A toothless maw opened and roared into the silence of space, bloody pieces of destroyed restraints ripping loose. A flickering of hexagons appeared around the bloody gums of the beast, and a new set of teeth grew in, pushing up and out of flesh and metal. Sharp fangs filled the snarling mouth, deadly tools to rip and tear.
A glowing sword of light formed in one great hand, almost as tall as the crimson giant wielding it.
Inside the Entry Plug, Asuka screamed out in hungry joy.
"WIR KÄMPFEN FÜR NERV! WIR KÄMPFEN FÜR ERDE! WIR LASSEN DIE ENGEL NIE ZUR RUHE KOMMEN!"
A glowing bridge of multi-hued fire arced out from Evangelion to Angel. Elation built up inside Asuka as she charged down the rainbow bridge, the burning zweihander held high.
"WIR HABEN IMMER WIEDER GEKÄMPFT. WIR HABEN DEN LEVIATHAN, DIE ZWILLINGE UND DEN DRACHEN GETÖTET! WIR SIND BEREIT, ES MIT DEN ENGELN AUFZUNEHMEN! WIR RUHEN UNS NIEMALS AUS. WIR SIND DIE, DIE ANDERE VERNICHTEN!"
Unit-02 leaped up, pushing off the bridge of light, swinging the sword around laterally into the Angel as she collided with it. Behind her, the rainbow vanished into stray cosmic radiation, igniting an Aura Borealis back on Earth.
The Angel screamed as its blinding light vanished. Unlike the Evangelion's monstrous cries, this one skipped across the empyrean to be heard. Blue blood flooded from the awful wound in its side, painting swaths of the Evangelion with it.
Even as she drifted away from the Angel after the initial impact, Asuka twisted and jumped off a new surface of rainbow-colored fire, positioning herself for another charge. A new bridge formed underneath her feet, leading back to the Angel. Charging again, Asuka glanced at her panels, reveling in the warmth she felt with the improved synchronization, the sense of rightness and belonging. Bringing her sword back around, she leaped once more at her foe, zweihander whipping up over her head.
The burning weapon broke on the newly reformed AT-Field. The shrieking Angel blasted Asuka with a beam of light more reminiscent of the geometric nightmare that had plagued Shinji and Rei than its earlier blinding light.
This beam hit with force, burning blood and paint off the Evangelion. The tether broke under the assault, and Unit-02 was sent flying back through space. Unit-02's AT-Field flashed into view, saving her optics from melting into useless slag. Unit-02 roared again, mimicking the rage of the Pilot nestled within.
Her eyes began to glow green; Asuka set in a new string of commands, adjusting dials and flipping switches as a red flush spread across her skin, a sunburn going unnoticed as she fought. Turning her hateful gaze through the emptiness between her and the Angel, she flexed her shoulders. Unit-02 also flexed as burning wings erupted, her glowing sword re-materializing in her hands. The Entry Plug sank in deeper as her synchronization score increased, numbers spinning on the screen. The heat that had blossomed in her chest continued to warm her, engulfing the Pilot like a loving embrace.
Her score crossed 76% as she flew through the night at her enemy, a terrifying monster of flesh, steel, and fire, fangs bared in vicious, hungry anger.
NO! the voice of her mother screamed out in frantic worry.
Asuka's eyes widened as the sword fell from her hands, vanishing into a spray of glowing hexagons. A core of cold shock ran through her, a freezing chill that cut through the warmth of synchronization as the spirit within the Evangelion pushed her away, desperately trying to keep from completely merging with her daughter.
NO! The voice echoed in Asuka's ears, ringing in her mind.
The voice was not a memory.
This was not a memory.
Asuka screamed as she felt her mother's mind touch her soul, merging with her even as it tried to pull away. Waves of strange pain rocked her as she felt her very soul try to merge and split something else. Memories blurred and faded, old feelings and thoughts vanishing, reshaping, and changing. For a single, horrifying second, she saw herself as a small child on the day her mother had her accident, that awful morning. Pain and terror racked her body as unknown thoughts raced across her mind.
The synchronization score dropped like a brick, and Unit-02 became little more than space junk.
The wounded Angel took advantage of the situation and swatted the suddenly tumbling Evangelion with a new blast, sending the titan plummeting back towards Earth.
The glowing form shimmered as it healed. A new light beam jumped from the Angel to the falling Evangelion.
HATE HATE HATE HATE burned through Asuka's mind as she whimpered in the darkness of the Entry Plug, no longer connected with her war machine. The Angel's voice thundered into Asuka's mind as she screamed and cried, twisting and thrashing in her seat.
YOU WILL BE DESTROYED. YOU WILL DIE. NO LONGER WILL YOUR SONG MAR THIS WORLD.
Deep inside the systems of Unit-02, Kyoko Sohryu screamed in terror, trying to reconnect with her daughter, desperately trying to rekindle synchronization. They had to engage the Evangelion for re-entry. They had to be sure the intercept course with Earth was correct. She had to get Asuka away from the Angel.
I WILL REND YOUR SONG SO THAT NOTHING REMAINS. THE DISCORDANT AND DISHARMONIOUS STRINGS WILL BE CUT. YOU WILL DIE AND THE WORLD WILL BE BETTER FOR IT.
Space and light shimmered and shifted around the Angel as it drew power into it, making ready to destroy the hated, hurtful shadow once and for all. The glowing light took on a slightly blue color around the edges, with thin veins of energy traced through the blinding form to a now visible orb of red, resting where a more traditional being would have a pelvis.
A beam of white light shot out and stabbed at the defenseless Evangelion.
A bifurcated, twisted spear rocketed through space, trailed by a narrow tube of ozone layer and atmospheric gases from Earth.
The Angel exploded into fire and light, a great burning cross in the night, visible to the naked eye down over nighttime Japan. When the tube of gases, drug along by the Lance as it had torn through the atmosphere, hit the fire, it erupted into flame. As fantastic as this display was to those on Earth below, Rei stood still from where she had thrown the weapon, trying to find the falling form of Evangelion Unit-02 amid the twisting firestorm overhead.
The wounded rag-doll made from metal and meat was hard to spot, but Rei found it among the burning backdrop before it hit the upper atmosphere. It was, she noted, not correctly configured for re-entry.
It was also off course.
This was a problem.
As Unit-00 plotted an intercept, Rei launched into a sprint, lifting her AT-Field overhead, stretching it as far as she could like a net. She had once promised the girl that she would not let her fall. She had not then, and she would not now.
T-plus 32 minutes, 8 seconds
Maya frantically counted the people around her as they rushed across the tarmac to the waiting aircraft. There needed to be more people. Were so many of them already dead or captured? While the fabrication teams had left earlier, there had still been more people on the ground here than there were making a break for the cargo planes, even discounting the bodies they had left behind in the control room. Three of the five cargo planes waited on the tarmac while the remaining escort gunship took off and made strafing runs around the area with its 20mm and 40mm cannons. The crew was trying to buy them time to escape, but once the DPRK Air Force arrived, the gunship would be as much of a target in the air as the cargo planes on the ground.
Too many people, good people, her people, dead or held by the political officers and soldiers. Fresh tears ran down her face as she sprinted up the waiting, welcoming ramp, ducking under the small arms fire being put down by the loadmaster. The sound of his rifle was lost in the deafening report of the circling AC-130 Spectre Gunship as it laid waste to the general surroundings.
She was shoved into a seat by a hard-faced Section-02 agent as the plane lurched into motion, headed down the runway toward freedom.
T-plus 208 hours, 16 minutes, 52 seconds
Maya stared at the wall of her apartment, trying to think. It was hard trying to deal with the pain. It was still fresh and hot, a horror unlike anything else she had experienced, even when dealing with the genuine terrors of the Evangelions. This was much more personal, if less visceral, than some of the things she had seen while working as a technician on the command bridge. The official paperwork for her promotion sat on the counter, barely looked through. She was tasked with recovering the Lance in orbit around the Moon. She had no idea how she was supposed to accomplish this, but her mentor mentioned something about resources and political favors. Even so, it took a lot of work for the newly minted Captain to focus. The interrogation had only poured salt on open wounds, but the subtle clues and information she had picked up on during the hours under the proverbial microscope taunted her. The bridge crews had always known that the Supreme Commander was scheming and plotting ruthless son of a bitch, but she had gotten the feeling there was some power imbalance between him and the "NERV Scientists." It was curious, the things they asked about and the things they did not. Something was rotten here, something hidden just out of sight.
As a member of the central command crew, she was 'privileged' in that she could be said to rub shoulders with the highest echelons of NERV Command. She worked directly with the Chief Scientist, the head of Tactical Operations, and the pilots and often interacted with the second most powerful man in NERV. She certainly knew more about the Supreme Commander than most. But what did she really know? Sure, everyone speculated about what went on behind the tomb-like doors to the man's office, just as they wondered what went on behind those gleaming glasses as he sat above them, watching the children fight for the future of Mankind. He was at turns coldly distant and a figure of bombastic, burning passion.
Furthermore, what about the other strange occurrences? The sabotage that had crippled NERV just as an Angel approached? The weirdly coordinated protests against NERV operations across the world? The men who had tried to abduct Shinji from the recovery ward? The vanished UN Inspector?
The Geo-Dome was rife with secrets. Rei had kept secrets and had built a nuclear-tipped lance. Asuka had kept secrets and had managed to get a large amount of life-threatening modifications done to her Evangelion! She, of course, was charged with maintaining some secrets and kept out of the loop on others. Of course, to anyone with a security clearance, this wasn't necessarily something to be concerned about- things were based on a need to know, but still... There clearly was more than the regular sort of secrets running around.
When the young woman started to add up the things she knew and figured them against those she didn't, a strange and worrying image began to take shape. Things were definitely not all as they seemed. Just who were those voices? What power did they hold over NERV that even the slightest idea that Shinji wasn't asleep in a coma had to be hidden from them? This went beyond trying to project an image of strength to ensure confidence in their ability to deal with the alien threat. Gendo Ikari had openly laughed in the face of the United Nations- so who were these people who supposedly worked for him that he was tip-toeing around and keeping secrets from?
Reaching over to her tablet, Maya opened a secure connection to the MAGI and got to work. She was as close to a top-level user as possible, with barely fewer privileges than her beloved mentor. It was time to put it to good use.