Chapter 18: In That Sea, The Sky
StriderInCosmos
Wanderer in the Worldsea
- Location
- Somewhere in... Terminal Dogma? I think?
Chapter 18: In That Sea, The Sky
I don't think I can do this alone anymore.There was a time when I could. Or at least, I was sure that I could. Now, though, without Eleanor to bounce ideas off of, without Shinji or Asuka or any of the others… It's a chilling feeling. And as much as I'm sure Deputy-Commander Kaji is willing to help, he proves a poor substitute in that regard.
How did I do this for so long? Was I just… numb in some way? Whatever the case, I can't reach Shinji now. For one reason or another. And I won't have the strength to stop this alone. So now, I wait for Eleanor and the others to arrive. If nothing else, what comes next is going to be a spectacle unlike any this world has ever seen before.
- From the personal journal of Daniel Theisman
AAA Wunder, 3 Days Out From Japan
Eleanor sighed quietly as she lounged in what had been designated a break room, the rest of her kids with her. She considered Unit-02 in its gantry from the camera capture on her phone with a critical, frankly somewhat grumpy eye.
The Arm Bar had been gone over with a fine-toothed comb over the last few days after they'd been rearmed at New Pacifica to make sure that nothing would go wrong with it that didn't involve an enemy directly hitting it. That task involved several double shifts with little in the way of breaks. It had to be done, though. They were, once again, walking in to stop the apocalypse, in such grandiose terms.
'If Daniel doesn't talk Shinji out of it.' she mused. She hoped that however slim the chance was with Shinji's seeming determination to do whatever needed to be done, that he could do it without them getting involved. If not, well, two 80-meter tall nigh-magical war machines would do decently enough.
The door slid open, and Eleanor looked up to see Maya walk in, a clear look of anxiety on her face even as she seemed to try at relaxing. "What's up, Maya?" Asuka asked, comfortable in the otherwise empty room, dropping any pretense or secrecy that might otherwise be needed.
Maya sighed as she brought a chair over towards them. "We dug up an old controller for the DSS Chokers, seeing as Daniel…" she shook her head. "Well, did whatever he did to destroy it."
"Used his Interfacing?" Shinji offered.
Maya nodded. "Yeah. That. I was able to keep the changes I made to the Choker's coding secret, but the old design…" she shook her head. "It's a lot less accident-proof than I'd want it to be. Ritsuko says it's a stopgap until we can manufacture another one like the one that was destroyed."
"And what do you mean by… less accident-proof?" Shinji said, clearly anxious at the vagueness of the statement.
Maya blanched. "I mean… it's just a trigger, really. No other verification systems or physical steps in order to activate it. One pull, and…"
She began to turn green, and the others began to go pale as well. "Anyways," Eleanor said, gathering everyone's attention, "if all goes well, we might never have to worry about it at all."
Before she could continue, alarms flashed, and an eerie howl that was the general quarters alarm sounded. "Well, Eleanor," Kaworu said as they rose and dashed out the door towards the gantries, "it looks like we have something else to focus on anyway."
Reaching the massive bay for Unit-02 in near record time, Maya slipped back into command. "Alright, what's the situation?" she shouted to someone on what had been termed the 'mini-brain', the information suite that was linked to the bridge's sensors.
"We have… 15 unknown contacts, coming in hot!" one of the technicians placed there replied as Maya came to stand beside her. "We'll establish visual contact in 30 seconds."
Eleanor turned to the kids. "Go get the readiness checks done! I'll be along once I see what we're dealing with."
The kids nodded, dashing over to Unit-02 as Eleanor walked over to the mini-brain just in time to see visual contact with their approaching foes, still just dots on the horizon at the moment. They flew towards the fleet in an ever-shifting pattern, approaching with a speed that suggested that this was a flight of Mark.04As. But as they got closer, all those at the station saw things that shouldn't be on any 04A. Arms. Legs. A head. And a Pallet Rifle clutched to an awfully familiar body…
'What the hell?' Eleanor thought as the group of Evangelions, actual honest-to-god Evangelions, came swooping in to land on various fleet ships, most all of them thankfully automated, in a half circle. It was, they were, the Mark.06, painted in shades of green and wearing the Mark.04As like some demented jetpack.
As the doors to the Wunder's gantries opened and the technicians scrambled off of the now-activated Unit-02, Eleanor knew that just 2 Evangelions of their own would be hard-pressed to counter them. If they could do it at all. So, she made her decision.
"Kensuke," she said through a soul link directly to the man who waited up above, "We've got company, as I'm sure you can see. When can the Suzuharas, Mana, and Mayumi be ready?"
"About 5 minutes to get them onto the hull, formed up, and locked on to your position for teleport," Kensuke replied. "Should Ichigo go along too? You look like you're in a hell of a mess."
"Only if she feels ready. This is going to be… chaotic." Eleanor said as she and the others began to make their way towards what reinforced rooms there were for the crew to get out of the way and stay safe during operations.
As the number of crewmen dwindled, soon leaving Eleanor and Maya in the hallway, Eleanor turned to Maya as she paused. "I'll be back in a moment."
Maya blinked as Eleanor pulled up the sleeve of her jacket, revealing a bracelet of silver with a white and gold stone over her wrist. It was one she had seen before. "What do you… mean…"
She trailed off as a tap on the stone gave Eleanor two twin rings of light to press, and the familiar click-hiss of a sealing Plugsuit released a seemingly diaphanous material from the bracelet, white and blue and gold, before sealing up into what was undeniably a Plugsuit. Yet, this was armored, the number 10 situated on the sternum of a chestplate as Eleanor tapped on a display that had appeared on a vambrace. "Wait a minute…"
"The Children are going to need some help," Eleanor replied as a jet of water flew out of the floor from behind her. "So I'll be providing some. Along with some backup."
She smiled as the water became a curtain that began to wrap around her. "Don't worry. I know what I'm doing."
Then the water enveloped her, vanishing along with her. To where Maya didn't know. But if there was one thing she was sure of, it was that things had gotten at once much clearer and, somehow, much, much more exciting.
. . .
Asuka Shikinami-Langley felt a thrill that she'd missed in the space between ops as the lift rose and brought her and Unit-02 into the open air, Unit-08 across from them as they looked out on their rather familiar-looking opponents.
"Captain," she said to the comm-screen that appeared, "what are we dealing with and how do I kill it?"
"We're still processing the sensor data now." Captain Katsuragi said. "Either way, they don't look friendly. Your task is to engage and destroy. The method is at your discretion."
"IFF tags are coming through." Doctor Akagi said as Asuka readied her newest, and probably her new favorite, weapon: a twin-bladed sword staff. "They're reading as… Mark.06H."
The name made her blood run chill for a second. "Wait a minute." Mari piped up. "Are you actually saying that NERV somehow copied that mystery Eva?"
"So it seems," Katsuragi said, a hard edge to her voice. "Now get to it!"
The words were like music to her ears as Asuka, instead of doing the somewhat sensible thing of hanging back and shooting at them, picked a target that was on a sufficiently large carrier, and dashed towards it, leaping into the air as she unfurled her AT Field behind her, wrapping her vitals in it as she glided towards her chosen foe, the Eva unloading with a Pallet Rifle that had a Progressive Knife strapped to it like a bayonet.
She slammed into the deck of the carrier, hearing Mari's sniper rifle join the main guns of the Wunder in holding off the others as best they could. Right now, though, it was just her and the Eva in front of her. 'It'll be just like the simulations.' she thought with a grin.
She charged in, aiming the blade at the core as the Mark.06H stepped back, the butt of its rifle slamming into the flat of the blade and guiding it into the gap between its arm and its torso, trapping it as it twisted to the side, seeming to aim at throwing her over the side of the ship.
Asuka simply twisted the handle of the staff, the free blade detaching as she maneuvered it around to strike at its now-exposed core. An AT Field flashed to life, the blade stopping inches short of the chest as the Mark turned, slamming the stock of its rifle into Unit-02, then charged into Unit-02, its backpack screaming to life as it carried her and her weapon out into the open ocean.
Asuka felt the tug of g-forces, muffled though it was by the LCL, as she tried to wrestle her weapon away from the Mark's grasp, freeing the blade as her opponent let go, sending her tumbling into the air as it made a wide turn back towards the fleet.
'Okay, maybe not quite like the simulations, but I like a good challenge.' Asuka thought to herself as her AT Field wings flared back to life, beginning her flight back towards the Wunder as she recombined her weapon. The sight… was not a pretty one.
Several Marks had landed on the Wunder's hull, forcing Mari to abandon her sniper rifle, now stowed back away within the ship. A Progressive Glaive was fending them off decently enough, her AT Field keeping the barrage of Pallet Rifle fire at bay.
"Asuka, mate, I'd love to get some help here!" Mari said over the comm-link as she landed a graze on one of the Mark's legs, the most she seemed to have been able to do thus far. "I'm getting swarmed and need some eyes and hands on the back of my head!"
"I'll get there as soon as I can! I just need to figure out how to make these stupid wings go-"
There was a flash of light from behind Unit-08, and Asuka's eye went wide as something impossible appeared. A white, blue, and gold Eva, or at least something that looked a lot like it, wielding a two-headed great ax made entirely of glowing water.
It made the Marks closest to it pause and regard it for the barest of moments, which was all the new Eva needed to dash in and begin getting to work, its ax cleaving through AT Fields as their creators danced back, twin tentacles appearing on its back to wrestle Pallet Rifles into the sky as it charged toward their wielders.
"Well hello, luv," Mari said as she took it in before getting back to work. "Been a while since we last saw you."
Asuka landed deftly in the middle of the rapidly growing group, shoving a pair onto the right wing and following after them, her blades whirling in the wind to keep them isolated. "Where are its friends? We could use them right about now."
The pair of Marks were dogged in trying to pry apart her defenses, bayonet and cannon shell keeping her surprisingly at bay.
'C'mon.' Asuka grimaced. 'Damn you. Die already!'
Then, a slip in the defense of the one on her right. Its core wide open. Smothering its AT Field with hers, she drove her blade towards it with a shout.
Just as it got within meters, however, the Mark's companion shoved it aside, taking the blow just to the right of its own core, the blade going deep as the wound began to gush with blood. The Mark that had been shoved aside quickly recovered, and Asuka felt a stab of fear as its rifle rose to her chest, its AT Field far stronger than she expected as it tore through her own. 'Shit!'
There was no time to react now. It would pull the trigger far before she could extract her blade and bat the rifle away. She grit her teeth against what would be coming next, hoping the angle was just right. Then, the Pallet Rifle, something Asuka knew was engineered to almost never fail in any regular circumstances, gave a hollow clunk.
Asuka overcame the shock of the moment and acted, a hand going from her weapon to lay an arm across its chest as she shoved it off the wing, sending the clearly still surprised Mark tumbling away as she twisted her blade in the wound with no small amount of effort, trying to get a shot towards possibly hacking into the core.
The Mark that had impaled itself on her drew back, the blade coming back slick with blood as it aimed its rifle at her. As her AT Field returned to shield her, however, the Pallet Rifles the Marks wielded continued to shock her as it outright exploded in the Eva's hands, her foe stumbling back as its arms, mangled for a moment by the blast, began to mend themselves.
'More AT Field bullshit. Not on my watch!' Asuka shouted wordlessly as she charged, swinging wide to try at cutting off one of its arms. In a flash, the skin on its left arm fully reformed, leaving its other a dangling mess for a moment as it reach out behind her, the Prog Knife from the ruined rifle bouncing off an AT Field Asuka threw up behind her to land in the Mark's hand, a slash parrying the incoming blade as it drove in towards her, putting Asuka on the defensive.
"Man," Asuka mused aloud as she dueled with the Eva, "their manufacturing must have really gone to hell if their Pallet Rifles are exploding."
"I don't think it's that, Asuka," Mari replied, her voice clearly strained in concentration. "I think our new friend here might have something to do with it. There aren't any more rifles up here."
"Then its control of its AT Field must be amazingly precise." Doctor Akagi interjected. "It's linked up with the Magi now. You're fighting alongside…"
She paused for a moment, Asuka stowing her sword-staff and switching to her own Prog Knife as she kicked away the now fully healed Mark. "How do you say this? Unit equals 10?" Doctor Akagi asked rather incredulously.
"10?" Asuka said as she began to grapple with her opponent, taking it to the floor with a well-timed leg sweep and getting on top of it as she maneuvered her Prog Knife over its chest, the Mark's hand darting up to her wrist to stop the nearly white-hot blade from falling. "Where the hell are the other 9? We'd actually appreciate the help at this point."
The comms were silent for a moment as Asuka put the Mark's knife hand flat on the wing, shifting to pin it with a knee as she put both her hands on the Prog Knife and push past the resistance of the hand that held her arm back, the point of the knife shuddering slightly as it slowly came closer and closer to its target. 'Come on! Die already!' Asuka thought with a growl as she put everything into overwhelming her enemy's strength.
Finally, something gave, and her knife slammed home into the center of the Mark's chest, causing it to spasm, then fall still.
"Alright, Asuka!" Mari whooped. "First kill of the day."
"I wish I felt as good as you sound," Asuka said, nearly panting from the sympathetic effort of killing the now unmoving Eva as she stood and turned to regard the cluster of enemies still standing. "These things are a pain."
Then, she growled out a sigh as she watched the collected Marks disperse, their 04A jetpacks screaming to life as they jumped to several ships scattered across their attendant fleet, alone or in pairs.
"Oh, come on. What gives?" Mari whined. "It was just starting to get fun."
"It looks like they're trying to divide and conquer us. Likely with the assumption that we won't fire on our own ships. We'll need to be careful for another minute or so."
The voice, or who it belonged to, almost didn't register with Asuka for a moment as a comm-screen blinked to life over the audio-only link to the bridge. Then, her eye went wide as she fully saw who was contained within the new panel. "Eleanor? You're the one piloting that Eva? How?"
"We'll talk about that after we're done. Now that I've raised the curtain, as it were, I might as well announce myself. This is Major Eleanor Theisman of HERZ, piloting Unit-E-10. Wunder actual, I'm linking into your tac-net now, as will the reinforcements coming in t-1:45. They'll be under my command."
"What?" was all Asuka managed to get out before she saw several flashes from the corner of her eye, accompanied by harsh, buzzing growls. The AT Field of the ship flashed into sight as it blocked most of the incoming fire, massive explosions rippling across the front, but a few managed to break through.
Eleanor's personal AT Field stopped the rest as she held her ax behind her head, throwing it with a mighty heave towards one of the closer lone Marks. It tumbled end over end, slicing through the AT Field that was thrown up against it like hot butter and slamming into the Mark's head, sending it reeling back and tumbling off the edge of the ship.
"Nice shot," Asuka said, retrieving a Pallet Rifle of her own from a weapon's bay. "Wish I could do something like that."
"Given some time and the right training," Eleanor replied, "you just might be able to."
She paused for a moment before smiling slightly. "Alright. Here they come."
Asuka expected a flash of light, a clap of thunder, something to signify her reinforcement's arrival. But they simply… appeared. 5 more Evangelions, or at least they looked like them. Three of them were familiar to her, as she remembered them helping with springing them out of the Arctic ice to first take off. The other two… One looked like a tree had come to life, its head adorned with antlers like one of those pagan gods that Mari sometimes read about. The other looked like something out of a wall painting she'd seen in another of Mari's books, with a body of deep, clay-like brown shot through with highlights of bright red, yellow and green and a head that sported a half-circle crest, split down the middle, like some crazy hairstyle.
'Who are these guys?'
. . .
Eleanor smiled a little wider as Toji, in Unit=04, let out a cheer. "Oh man, it's been too long since I've been in this seat! I'm ready to kick some ass!"
She was thankful that the comms to the other Frame Titan Units were able to be seen and heard only by her as she chuckled, setting the comm-link to Shikinami, Mari, and the Wunder to adaptively edit her speech based on a Pneumaic link. A security feature she had taken for granted before. She'd still try and be careful nonetheless. "Alright ladies and gentlemen, you know what we're looking at, I'm sure."
"They're just Evas, after all," Mana said with a calm smile. "If anything, this is almost old hat."
She looked over at Mayumi. "Do you have some targets in mind that we could take down together?"
Mayumi considered the question as they began to spread out, Toji and Hikari jumping over to some singletons on wings of light and leaves and allowing their AT Fields to tank the blasts that came after them, their signature weapons springing into being. "I think those two over on that battleship are good targets. I'll hold back and support you."
"Perfect," Mana said as she charged and took off, wings of water in the form of a whale's tail flowing into being. "Just make sure not to hit me too much, alright?"
Mayumi rolled her eyes as her gun-lance formed even as she smiled. "Well, as long as you don't do anything too fancy, I think I can make that work."
Confident that they would be able to engage their targets well, Eleanor turned her focus to the newest pilot in their group. One who looked almost familiar if it wasn't for her green hair. "Stick by me, Ichigo. I've got your back."
Ichigo, the pilot of Unit=11, nodded, a look of uncertainty still in her eyes even as she stepped forward. "I will. What is our target?"
Eleanor looked around at the rapidly increasing chaos as Unit-02 and Unit-08 jumped into the fray, and picked out two Marks that stood on a carrier, one kneeling in front of the other, offering long-range fire support to a pair of their brethren that were engaging Toji and Hikari. "Let's go give Toji and Hikari a hand with those two over there," she said, pointing out their opponents to Ichigo through a soul-link, as well as the landing spots they would take up. Ready?"
Ichigo took a deep breath as the pair began to run toward the edge of the ship. "As much as I think I can be."
"We've got this, Ichigo. You've got this."
With that, the pair leaped into the open sky, Eleanor's wings flowing back out as a massive eagle formed over Unit=11 claws first, clutching its shoulders as they split off and flew towards a destroyer and a battleship that were at the ends of the carrier. "Wunder actual, we need the fleet as close together to each other as we can in order to take these on effectively." Eleanor began as she sent out a spiraling lash of water to bind the kneeling Mark. "Can you maneuver them with the AT Field keeping everyone aloft?"
"We'll see what we can do." was the reply, still somewhat dazed in tone, from Doctor Akagi as Eleanor landed deftly on a destroyer, pivoting her body to see Unit=11 land on the battleship as it finished forming a rifle out of a supernatural clay, the eagle that had carried her there disappearing as she got the attention of the one that had still been standing with rounds of painted ceramics.
The two Marks marshaled their AT Fields quickly even as they grew closer and closer to each other, Eleanor's binding flying apart as the other's stopped a barrage of rounds.
The Mark that faced her leaped over to the destroyer that Eleanor stood on, Prog Knife flashing as it sliced and stabbed at her. She summoned her ax, smothering her opponent's AT Field as she applied her superior reach and striking power to keep the Mark on the back foot.
As she deflected a blow, she felt herself, through Unit=10, wobble precariously, becoming very aware of the still not-insignificant gap between her and the next ship behind her. She pressed forward, sweeping the ax through the Mark's legs and sending them tumbling off the sides of the ship as it began to fall with them, grabbing onto the side of the ship and clinging as best it could one-handed.
Its back, for the briefest of moments, was open. As Eleanor heard the Mark.04A beginning to scream, she acted, raising her ax high and chopping into the 04A, the scream stuttering then falling silent as the Mark.06H spasmed, then went still, letting go and falling towards the sea below.
Eleanor looked back up to see Ichigo now on the carrier grappling with her opponent, her rifle exchanged for a thin, almost foil-like blade of bright pinkish-white Metos that maneuvered the Progressive Knife in her foe's hand away as she darted in and touched the chest of the Mark.
Red paint flowed from the fingers of Unit=11 into a symbol, circular and swirling, and Ichigo stepped back as the mark glowed, then exploded, a hollow crack lost in the boom as she shoved the now dead Mark over the side of the carrier.
"Good job, Ichigo," Eleanor said as she saw Ichigo breathing deeply. "Let's see who else might need our help."
They scanned around the battle for a moment. Unit-02 and Unit-08 had joined Toji, Hikari, and Mana in hopping from ship to ship chasing their Marks, clashing for a moment before hopping to the next precarious perch. More immediately concerning were the 6 Marks that rose into the air, screaming toward Mayumi.
"If anyone's free," Mayumi began as she turned her gun-lance towards an approaching trio, a howling beam of utter cold dodged by the three as they landed surrounding her, "I'd appreciate some help!"
"We're on our way, Mayumi," Eleanor said as Unit=10 leaped into the air, Unit=11 following suit as Mayumi warded off the Marks surrounding her as best she could, a shotgun-like blast from her gun-lance sweeping one of them limply off the side of the Wunder as they drew near.
"Eleanor, catch!" "Mayumi said, and she felt a chill go across the right side of her chest as Borealis, Mayumi's fairly new Spirit, latched itself onto the chest of Unit=10 like a pendant or medal. She felt a ripple of cold as Mayumi channeled an Expression through Borealis with her landing, tendrils of frost lashing out to bind a Mark's arms to its side with a crackle as Eleanor engaged another, machinery whirling around the arm of Unit=10 to form a massive piston spike that gored her target through its shoulder.
Move and countermove became her whole world, strategy on the fringes mingling with an instinct that had been obtained all too harshly during the Unity War. She would keep the ship, her team, her kids, safe. For she would not have to heal if she could defend.
. . .
Mari Makinami, pilot of Unit-08, was having the time of her life as she leaped from ship to ship in the most daring game of 'the floor is lava' she'd ever played.
Look at them all go! The new guys were positively entrancing, leading a dance all their own and yet interconnected with theirs. The shark-looking one in particular seemed almost eerily in tune with her, catching her and having her back in ways only Asuka could. And even a few ways that Asuka couldn't.
'Wonder how you can do that.' she mused as she landed on the battleship that contained her thus-far slippery foe, thankful that the ships that were taking quite a bit of damage were automated by the Achiral System. Seeing this, the Mark in front of her turned away again, its screaming meemie of a jump pack winding up to send it into the air.
'Oh no you don't!' She charged forward, smothering the enemy Eva's AT Field as she dug her knife into the highest exposed core she could find, the scream petering out as the Mark stumbled forward, just barely keeping from falling over the edge.
Now it turned back to her, Prog Knife at the ready, pausing only for a moment before it charged at her.
It was just her and it on this ship, the others keeping the rest busy as they danced. And it was a right and proper dance, this time. No overbearing partner like the 10th Angel. Or the other 2, for that matter. No, it was a test of near-matched abilities, and the skill to wield them. And it was glorious.
She ducked under a swipe as she charged forward, jabbing the knife in its side over and over again. Whoever, or whatever, was piloting it might not even register it, might fight through it, but it hindered the movement of the Eva all the same.
For the briefest of moments, she pondered on how she came to be here, in the cockpit of a giant biomechanical robot, shaking another one in a manner that wouldn't be too out of place in a bar fight or a prison jump. It wasn't the first time she had done it. But she was a scientist before all this. A somewhat respectable sort. At least, before…
She shook her head as she leaned back from a slash that would have left the bridge of her nose quite sore. She needed to focus on the dance. The pontificating could come later.
She waited for another slash to come her way, dodging back, then her free hand flashed out to catch the wrist as she stabbed down at the shoulder, hoping to catch the Plug. Its free hand managed to catch her wrist as well, the tip of her knife stopping meters from the armor and causing it to sizzle as they began to wrestle, a step forward or back coming every few moments as the knives began to shudder from the effort of forcing them down.
Mari began to kick the Mark's shins, once, then again, then again, her foe's foot slipping toward the side of the ship they stood on ever so slightly with each kick. 'If nothing else, it'll buy me some room to breathe when he tumbles over the side.'
Slowly, more and more, she watched the foot go closer and closer to the edge as she shifted her own. Nearly there… nearly there…
Then, she saw her opponent shift her knife a little and let it slam down into its shoulder, grabbing her and pitching them both off the side of the ship.
Mari's eyes went wide as the Mark bear hugged her, its 04A jetpack screaming, quite literally, to life and driving them downward. "Guys…" she said, her voice rising as her concern mounted. "I think this daft bastard wants to drown me! I'd like some help, please!"
"Someone's on their way!" Eleanor replied, the last words Mari heard as she slammed into the ocean, her vision going red as the LCL-infused water drew her quickly in and muffled all sound from the outside, the scream of the 04A becoming a distant wail as they went ever deeper.
She felt her ears pop from the sympathetic pressure that pressed in on her Eva as the red that surrounded her deepened in color until it was a nearly inky black, the AT Field propulsion and the unstuck, bubbling Prog Knife, joined by hers as she pulled it out of the Mark's shoulder, the only sources of light around them.
Her link to the Wunder's bridge cut out as her comms lost range and clarity, her link to Eleanor remaining. 'That's odd. I wonder how that works.'
It was the only legible thought that had nothing to do with the quickly building terror that bubbled in her gut and frothed over into her mind. Had they slowed down somehow? How much deeper could they go? The oceans were said to be dead, but… what if there was something else out there?
Spikes of fear slowly sank into her skin as she heard the creaking of metal under pressure, felt dizziness begin to swirl through her head. Could you get the bends in an Eva? 'That would suck.'
Then, Mari almost suppressed a scream as the AT Field disappeared from sight, and currents she could not see pried the Mark's fingers from her wrist as it pulled it into the void and out of sight, cracking and crunching sounds making their way into the Plug as she tried to marshal herself.
"What the fuck was that?" she said mostly to herself as she waved around the Prog Knife to try and find… something.
She yelped as, on her third pass, her knife lit up… one of the new guys, leaning back as her blade barely missed its face. "Sorry, shark-boy," she said through the external speakers, however much good they did. "Thanks for the rescue."
"It'll be alright. It's just back up to the surface. Easy as can be. Hold on."
Mari didn't know how she heard that as she felt the Eva, its shoulder pylons glowing back to life, hold her in a bridal carry of all things. It wasn't over any speakers. But… she felt it. Felt the calm, sure nature of the words, an island in the ocean she was sinking into.
'Whatever that was, miss,' she thought as they rose from the ocean without even a splash into the air, flying back to the fleet, 'thanks for that.'
It was then that her link to the Wunder was re-established. "Mari, are you operational?" Captain Katsuragi asked.
"Just dandy, thank you mon capitan," Mari replied airily as her rescuer touched down on the wing of the Wunder, letting her down to take a look around. The fleet was, while in a rather decent state of disrepair now, empty. "Aw, did we take care of everyone already?"
"Yeah, we did, Specs," Asuka replied, jumping slightly as the Evas around her disappeared.
"And you guys are off now, too?" Mari pouted, turning to see the Unit that had saved her stepping back and waving to her. "Aw, man. Well, goodbye, ma'am. Thanks for the save, whoever you are."
She was gone as soon as the last word went out of Mari's mouth, leaving both her and Asuka to witness Unit=10 become some strange teal goo that shrank into a small, relatively speaking, tube that must have been the Entry Plug for the thing.
"Now where did all that goo go?" Mari asked as the Plug landed on the surface of the Wunder.
"That's a story for later. Right now, I have to check on all of you. See you in a few." Eleanor's comm-link promptly cut out as the Plug disappeared.
. . .
Captain Misato Katsuragi, along with Doctor Ritsuko Akagi and Security Chief Beifong, walked towards the room that held a person she thought she had gotten figured out, for the most part, wondering silently at what she had witnessed over the last several hours.
It was nothing less than… magical. In a world where all wonder seemed to have been drained away, replaced with a forlorn bitterness, these giants strode from what seemed like fairy tales into the real world, carrying with them untold power.
But that power came in the form of an Evangelion. They had AT Fields. Hell, they even looked damn near close to an exact replica of an Eva. How? More importantly… why wait until now?
Those questions, and whatever others she might have, would hopefully be answered as the door opened, revealing Eleanor Theisman, apparently a Major of HERZ, sitting and looking intently at her from behind a table as she and her companions stepped through, the door shutting behind them.
"So… Major." Captain Katsuragi began, taking a seat in front of Eleanor. "Care to explain what, exactly, just happened?"
"To fully do that is going to take time and trust, Captain," Eleanor replied coolly.
"We have a little over 2 days until we reach Japan, Mrs. Theisman," Misato said. "We have all the time we need."
"Not for what I have to say. And how can I trust you when you put bomb collars around the necks of children to make them do your bidding?" Eleanor retorted, her eyes narrowed. "It doesn't shine a kind light on you, whatever your justifications are to yourselves."
"You know full well that they could end the world in an Evangelion. All of them." Ritsuko interjected. "That you pilot similar war machines, and have soldiers of your own that appear and disappear seemingly at will without any way to prevent them from initiating an Impact-"
"That takes training, not terror." Eleanor bit out. "Shinji didn't have the training because nobody knew what the limits of the Eva's power were besides SEELE and perhaps Commander Ikari. After that, you could have made some effort to help the pilots master their emotions, the keys to unlocking the limits of the Eva's powers. But you, in your fear, jumped straight to controlling them with such."
Misato opened her mouth… and words failed her. She thought of the fear in Shinji's eyes. The flickerings of such in Rei, the first emotion she'd been able to see in the girl's eyes… ever. 'Damn you.'
"I think," Beifong interjected, "we're getting a little off course for what you wanted to ask her, Captain."
Misato took a deep breath and nodded. "Yes. So, what is HERZ, exactly?"
"The organization I and my fellow pilots belong to, specifically to its Outbound Operations Division, though our interests align sufficiently enough that we're little different. Save this world, return it to what It was."
"I doubt, however," Ritsuko began, "that you want the Evangelions gone after the end of it, seeing as you seem to have what appears to be a breathtaking amount of them."
"As long as the Evangelion has the possibility of existing, someone will find a way to create one, regardless of whether it's public or private." Eleanor shrugged. "The genie's been let out of the bottle now. There's no putting it back anymore. The atom can't be un-split, the soul not un-discovered."
"Not if we have anything to say about it," Misato interjected. "How long has HERZ been operating?"
"More than a few years now."
"Then how did you get your hands on so many Evangelions?" Ritsuko asked. "Those take decades to build, and the souls of those close to their pilots."
"That's a trade secret for now. What I can tell you as of this moment is that they aren't traditional Evas. They don't have an actual core, per se. They're formed by an extremely advanced manipulation of the properties of LCL, or synthetic LCL in our case, and the fundamental forces behind AT Fields."
Akagi shook her head. "That's… impossible. Synthetic LCL? The forces behind AT Fields? No one's managed to crack either of those."
"Clearly not here, Doctor," Eleanor replied. "That hasn't stopped us from taking advantage of it."
"Why are you here on the Wunder then?" Misato asked. "If you can do all this, then why are you playing spy on our ship?"
"I'm afraid I can't fully say for reasons of operational security." Eleanor paused. "But what I can say is that… NERV, Commander Ikari, SEELE themselves, aren't the only threat that this world faces. Or even the most dangerous."
"That's impossible, too," Misato said, shaking her head. "NERV wants to end the world by initiating an Instrumentality event by way of an Impact, uniting humanity into a mass consciousness. You can't top that."
"Maybe so," Eleanor said, her voice low as she leaned forward. "But they aren't planning on taking the whole population of humanity and making a fanatical army out of them, are they?"
Misato blinked, taken aback by the sheer ridiculousness of the idea. "How?" she asked nearly numbly. "What would someone even use an army like that for?"
Eleanor leaned back. "Reality is a lot bigger than you know, Misato. Bigger than you can even imagine."
"But I want to explain that alongside my husband once we've stopped whatever might happen next. When Shinji's safe, and Ikari and Fuyutsuki are, if not dead, then at least apprehended. You know the smallest bit, now. And for now, that's going to have to be enough."
"Now wait a minute," Ritsuko interjected as Eleanor stood. "What about your team? It's clear that your story of LCL-enhanced super soldiers was a lie. Are they a part of HERZ, too?"
"Yes." Eleanor walked over to the door, then paused as she looked back. "But there's more truth in that story than you might think."
She held out her hand, and Misato's eyes went wide as she watched a sphere of… water, clear and swirling, grow above her palm until it was the size of a softball. It dropped into her hand, retaining its shape, and she tossed it at Ritsuko, who caught it with a start. "We'll be talking soon, I'm sure. For now, I'm going to make sure that Unit-02 is in good shape coming out of the battle."
With that, Major Eleanor Theisman walked out the door, leaving Misato and Ritsuko to stare at the impossibility that Ritsuko cupped in her hands.
. . .
Commander Gendo Ikari pondered on the footage that both he and Fuyutsuki had just gone over, the sounds that crept into his office, open to the air, not even a distraction. If their appearance in assisting the escape of the Buße was a statement of existence, then their actions here, as the vessel now approached, were a statement of intention and alliance with their foes.
"What's to be done then, Ikari?" Fuyutsuki asked as he looked out the opening behind Ikari into the Geofront. "With powers like the ones we've seen on display approaching…"
"We will adapt to circumstances, as we always have," Ikari replied. "We were able to overcome similarly miraculous powers as manifested by the Angels. And we have taken such powers and skills for our own. We may not be able to replicate the form of what we have seen, but we can match its function with sufficiently applied AT Fields. Set the Magi to studying them, and inform the old men that they have something to keep them occupied for a little while longer."
"What of the Mark.06Hs?"
"We will make whatever discoveries we make part of the Dummy Plug program for such. And even these new threats, divorced from their powers, seemed an even match for the Marks. We will deploy them elsewhere throughout the world, with a concentration on NERV-Euro."
"And the young Mr. Ikari? SEELE's boy?"
"Their training is almost complete. They will commence the operation in 2 days. Before then, you will reveal to Shinji Ikari the lineage of the Ayanami line, to ensure that he is in the proper state of mind to fulfill our plans."
Fuyutsuki was silent for a moment. "Yes, Ikari. I will do so."
"See to it."
With that, Fuyutsuki came into Ikari's sight, walking across the ruined office and out the door.
As he found himself alone, something that had been in the back of his head, something clearly foreign, tried to whisper to him again. What he had taken from the Key stifled such a voice, and he did his best to drive the voice out.
After a moment's silent struggle, it was gone. Good. There were more important things to focus on.
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