Yeah, as I mentioned in the previous post that fits with her destroying things to boost her synch, but the power should just shift to an internal source when the umbilical is removed, no? I guess the batteries can't operate all the limiter equipment at full power?
Big Red Two: Asuka Does it Again (NGE)
- Thread starter 7734
- Start date
- Location
- Jaburo
Possible. Could also be something in the realm of "metaphysical biology" (Fuyutsuki's department at University, and by extension probably Yui's field of study), related to souls and not to the power supply itself.
- Location
- National Capital Region, USA
Welp, we know where Rei's priorities are. On the pluse side, keeping Shinji alive and sane is also on our list, since we sorta like him, he's part of our crew, and he's very likely to end up with Instrumentality in his hands if things don't get altered enough. And a Shinji who is more mentally stable than canon is a very good thing to have if that rolls down the hill at him again.
Uh? You mean carpet? I'm kind of lost here.
Yeah, this sounds right. Rei mentioned a 'second chance' and is more interested in saving Shinji than she 'should be'. And all three of them remembered once they were in their Entry Plugs and synched high enough. So I'm guessing they remember at least one past war, but only remember when they're synched in high enough. So it not only means they can't hold the memories once the synch fades out, but that it hurts to even get there.
Which leads to what Asuka was afraid of: She has blanks in her memories when she revs her Eva too hard, and fragmentary impressions but no hard details of future memories. She has a feeling she needs to hang around Shinji and Rei, but doesn't know why. She has a sense of urgency and need about her Eva, but without concrete reasons and lots of pain associated with it, whenever she's not freshly out of the Plug she just doesn't want to go near it.
Huh... explains her eye, I guess. Asuka oversynched back when she started, and her body is remembering losing her eye to the MP Evas (or possibly Bardiel, depending if we had Canon or Rebuilds happen.).
We at least need to figure out some way to compare notes more carefully with Rei and Shinji, and see if we collectively can figure out what plan our future selves had in mind.
[X] Fever and Chills. After long enough being pickled in it, you can absorb the LCL into yourself, even if the process takes a notable amount of time.
I'm voting for this in hopes that doing so will help us get around that memory block/retention problem. The LCL is Lilith-juice, literally the lifeblood of the Eva, so I'm hoping it can be used to good effect for us. It sounds like the Pilots have been vomiting it up so far, and that's just left us memory blanking. We really need to write shit down/record our memories somehow in the plug, so we're not losing time.
- Location
- Jaburo
Would those "write in the rain" waterproof notepads and pens work in LCL, too?
- Location
- National Capital Region, USA
Something like that could work. Worth a shot, at least. Unless we can figure a way via jiggering the electronics, like Asuka has worked out for synch boosts.
Bad_kobold
Seeker of the Orb of Zot
- Location
- Seattle
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Fever and Chills.
- Location
- In front of my computer
[X] Fever and Chills. After long enough being pickled in it, you can absorb the LCL into yourself, even if the process takes a notable amount of time.
For reasons others have mentioned, and also that it's probably the least physically incapacitating option short of tanking it, which I think is a terrible idea.
For reasons others have mentioned, and also that it's probably the least physically incapacitating option short of tanking it, which I think is a terrible idea.
Literally nobody was hating or trying to be confrontational. If your immediate reactions to criticism on an open forum is "Ah but you see, fine art.." and "lol idgaf cause im not making money from this" well...
Y'see if we were talking about my books, which people pay me money for, then I would care.
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
There's legitimate critique, and then there's 'lol me no understand', which I will always laugh at. If you're walking into a franchise known for it's mind-benders and then you see one, congratulations. If you didn't expect this, here's your sign.
A poem about a puppet, falling in love with Death
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
Groaning, you considered vomiting over the railing, but you knew it wouldn't actually do anything. Pounding head, mildly nauseous, eyes stinging… yeah, it was a post-synch testitis. Stumbling over to your fellow pilots, you threw your hair forward to cover your eye socket and just looped arms with Rei to help keep yourself and her upright.
"C'mon." you groaned. "Gotta get Shinji."
Rei just looked like she was going to hurl again, so you wiggled her over to the edge of the catwalk again before she blew chunks down into the hangar. Since you could park her there fairly effectively, you could bend down drunkenly to start hauling Shinji upright to the railing.
"Why do I feel… like I just got concussed…" Shinji slured.
"LCL poisoning." you grunted. "Sorry about this, by the way."
"Oh no." he muttered, before you stepped behind him and linked hands around his belly button before heaving. The textbook heimlich manuvere got him to spray LCL-infused puke over into the bay, before Rei looked at you and tried to strangle you in a fit of protective rage. You have to say tried, because she nearly tripped over her own two feet as you moved back and held up your hands.
"Easy!" you yelled, loud enough to hurt. "You have to get it out of your system somehow!"
"Then why aren't you doing it?" Shinji asked, voice of venom.
"I've been dunked it this shit on and off since I was five." you moaned. "You build up a tolerance for it over enough time, and it's not as bad if some fuckers would let us actually fire our AT fields."
"That helps?" Rei asked darkly.
"I mean, sorta?" you groaned. "Keeps the headache down at least."
"Let's just get showered off." Shinji muttered.
Re-linking yourselves with arms across shoulders, you all plodded off to the locker room. With Shinji in the middle this time, you made it the hundred and fifty-ish meters to the doors, before promptly wheeling right into the girl's showers. To the Third's credit, he figured out pretty quickly when he saw two wash kits hanging off showerheads that weren't his, but by that point in time you and Rei had managed to work together to get a few showerheads pointed roughly at the group to start hosing you all down. As red goo was washed off, followed by bits of puke from your two compatriots, you just groaned as the pounding water messed with your headache. It still felt good, though, and it wasn't long before Rei and Shinji both stopped looking like human-shaped blobs of LCL and more like people. With Rei looking for her plugsuit's release, you decided that now was the best time to make going while the going was good to get Shinji out of here before he got a free double feature show.
"Hey." you grumbled. "Third."
"Yeah?" Shinji asked, staring into the pouring water in a vain attempt to get the last film of LCL off his eyes. Good fucking luck with that, kid- you needed to rinse it out carefully, or you'd blink and put a new layer in.
"Scram."
As Shinji turned to you (and you put a hand up to your head to hide the gaping socket and forestall the pounding headache), Rei finally started the process of peeling off her plugsuit, and as you turned to watch with an… academic, yes, academic air of observation, you remembered to remove Shinji. Moving up to him and gently pushing him out of the showers, he finally got the hint when you both heard the thump of Rei's LCL-soaked second skin hitting the floor. With both of you blushing as you returned to your seperate showers, you finally took the time to go to the sinks and start the delicate work of washing out your eye socket. The trick to it was to go slow, since you still had enough optic nerve in the back a sudden impact could have you seeing stars. Once it was clean enough, you pulled out your Emergency Eyepatch, settled it on, and ditched your plugsuit before going to wash off. Soap and water got to work quickly, getting the worst of it all off before a basic hair wash made sure the goop wouldn't do too much damage to your poor hair. Once you were dried off and in something vaugely resembling clothes, just a wrap dress with a cheapass yukata thrown on top, you stumbled out into the hall where Misato was chewing Shinji's ear off about getting dragged into the girl's showers.
"Hey." you muttered. "Home. Sleep."
The ride home didn't trouble you too much, and it wasn't long before you sluggishly pulled down two aspirins and bombed out on your futon. Your last concious thought was that you needed an actual bed.
///
Next morning, you felt like hell. Eye covered in splooge, hair a mess, and mouth tasting like roadkill, you slouched over to your phone and rang up the school to call in sick. Once you'd finished muttering your name to the ID system and half-assing the call, you flopped back on your futon to suffer. Going out to the living room was a bridge too far right now, and as you curled up and moaned your socket throbbed angrily. Right, fuck, forgot to wear your spacer last night. Since today wasn't going to have anyone over, you grabbed it and socketed it in with a slight hiss, the pressure on your orbital ceiling sending a spike of pain through your head. Fuck that hurt.
If you wanted to take your medicine, you'd have to eat something. If you wanted to eat something, then you'd have to leave your room- or so conventional logic went. Most people weren't you, though, and didn't anticipate this sort of malarky, so you had the one last trick up your sleeve- Larabars and bottles of Gatorade. Choking two of the fruit and nut and fiber bars down with half a liter of some blue sports drink, you swallowed another two pills and crashed. Sleep could take you now, please.
The next time you really came to your senses, it was late, and your headache was still throbbing away. At this point, leaving your room was unavoidable- you had to take a piss, and that meant walking across the apartment to the water closet. Moving around hurt, and everything was sore, but you had to go. Slipping on a housecoat and grabbing a hiking pole you'd originally gotten as a button-pusher, you slowly emerged into your apartment. Something was making noise, but it wasn't anything important, so you crabbed across the living room to the water closet.
As you were finishing up, a 'huh' emerged from outside your porcelain paradise, which was thrown in the garbage bin of sensations you could ignore next to pain and your internal timer for when your next period would be. Synch tests always threw that off for some reason, no idea why. Grabbing your stick and closing your housecoat, you moved out, one step at a time. Then disaster struck.
"Hi, Asuk-aaaaaaaaaa!" Shinji screamed as you threw your stick at him and dove behind the couch. The fleshy 'tonk' of your stick hitting him somewhere was quietly met with a keening wail as you stuck the good half of your face out of cover.
"THE FUCK YOU IN MY HOUSE?" you yelled at the top of your lungs.
A soft sob came back, and you got a better look at Shinji, holding onto his balls for dear life as your stick was coming out between his legs. Well, that would explain a lot. Going over to grab your stick, you hobbled over to the freezer to get a bag of frozen peas, which you wrapped in a dishtowel expertly and put a safe distance near Shinji.
"Christ, Shinji, tell me you're coming in next time." you grumbled, blinking as you went to get the poor bastard a cup of water. "My apartment is not safe and happy territory most of the time."
"Could have warned me…" he muttered from the floor, slowly pulling himself to a chair.
"How did you get in, anyway?" you asked archly, moving over to the stove to turn down the heat on a kettle. Shinji had, rather easily, put together a nice looking dinner for you on the stove. Be a shame to waste it.
"Misato has a master key."
"Figures. Knew I needed a deadbolt after you cut the chain."
Serving yourself some of the curry and some of the tea, you settled down with a spoon to start eating. With the peas serving to numb his dignity among other things, Shinji also served himself a small portion, at started eating across from you. Unsurprisingly, it was amazing curry, far more than what your limited stock of food could make.
"I want my pot back at some point." Shinji said, trying to restart the conversation. You nodded.
"Sure."
It was another moment as you sipped the matcha, that you finally decided to answer the unasked question.
"They'd come to get me, sometimes. Middle of the night." you said carefully. "Weren't gentle about it, not like any of the budget flunkies they could get would be. Midnight pilot training, they said. Load of shit."
Shinji stopped moving, listening carefully.
"Imagine someone who never seen a guitar before, picking one up and trying to play Dragonforce. That's what it was like, learning from NERV. Camaraderie, patience, cooperation, communication… they could not comprehend. No understanding of what they did, just rote action as they tried to force me into the mold of something they didn't understand. I was nine when they finally figured out I was going to snap and turn NERV Berlin into a smoking crater if they kept trying. I wasn't really a person, anymore, just this feral little ball of hate who could kill you six ways in five seconds. Then I caused one and three-quarter million euros of damage in a week, and they decided to back off."
Shinji's jaw dropped.
"That's about two hundred and nine, maybe two hundred and ten million yen."
It was still silent in the kitchen, and you liked it that way.
"They started bringing in caretakers, but it wasn't until Misato came that things finally started to click. She saved me. Saved me from what I was becoming."
Another beat of empty sound crept out, volume of nothingness, a structural void.
"I know… I know what I can't do, Shinji. I'm still sick, I need to sleep."
Moving to leave, you started walking towards your bedroom, when you finally heard his voice.
"When we synched, I saw something. A message. I know… I know I must not run away. Whenever I Synchronize, I get told, that not everyone can." Shinji said, trying not to stutter. "What about you?"
"Because I tried. I stand and fight, and I die."
"What if we stood together?"
You just kept walking, until a hand reached yours, grabbing it and holding it.
"I mean it, Asuka. If we stand and fight together- what would happen?"
What do you do?
[] Hold still. Still as the ghost of death
[] Flee. He's proposing suicide!
[] Pull him in closer. Shinji is clueless, and needs to learn.
[] Haul off and slap him; he's being an idiot. Quit courting disaster!
"C'mon." you groaned. "Gotta get Shinji."
Rei just looked like she was going to hurl again, so you wiggled her over to the edge of the catwalk again before she blew chunks down into the hangar. Since you could park her there fairly effectively, you could bend down drunkenly to start hauling Shinji upright to the railing.
"Why do I feel… like I just got concussed…" Shinji slured.
"LCL poisoning." you grunted. "Sorry about this, by the way."
"Oh no." he muttered, before you stepped behind him and linked hands around his belly button before heaving. The textbook heimlich manuvere got him to spray LCL-infused puke over into the bay, before Rei looked at you and tried to strangle you in a fit of protective rage. You have to say tried, because she nearly tripped over her own two feet as you moved back and held up your hands.
"Easy!" you yelled, loud enough to hurt. "You have to get it out of your system somehow!"
"Then why aren't you doing it?" Shinji asked, voice of venom.
"I've been dunked it this shit on and off since I was five." you moaned. "You build up a tolerance for it over enough time, and it's not as bad if some fuckers would let us actually fire our AT fields."
"That helps?" Rei asked darkly.
"I mean, sorta?" you groaned. "Keeps the headache down at least."
"Let's just get showered off." Shinji muttered.
Re-linking yourselves with arms across shoulders, you all plodded off to the locker room. With Shinji in the middle this time, you made it the hundred and fifty-ish meters to the doors, before promptly wheeling right into the girl's showers. To the Third's credit, he figured out pretty quickly when he saw two wash kits hanging off showerheads that weren't his, but by that point in time you and Rei had managed to work together to get a few showerheads pointed roughly at the group to start hosing you all down. As red goo was washed off, followed by bits of puke from your two compatriots, you just groaned as the pounding water messed with your headache. It still felt good, though, and it wasn't long before Rei and Shinji both stopped looking like human-shaped blobs of LCL and more like people. With Rei looking for her plugsuit's release, you decided that now was the best time to make going while the going was good to get Shinji out of here before he got a free double feature show.
"Hey." you grumbled. "Third."
"Yeah?" Shinji asked, staring into the pouring water in a vain attempt to get the last film of LCL off his eyes. Good fucking luck with that, kid- you needed to rinse it out carefully, or you'd blink and put a new layer in.
"Scram."
As Shinji turned to you (and you put a hand up to your head to hide the gaping socket and forestall the pounding headache), Rei finally started the process of peeling off her plugsuit, and as you turned to watch with an… academic, yes, academic air of observation, you remembered to remove Shinji. Moving up to him and gently pushing him out of the showers, he finally got the hint when you both heard the thump of Rei's LCL-soaked second skin hitting the floor. With both of you blushing as you returned to your seperate showers, you finally took the time to go to the sinks and start the delicate work of washing out your eye socket. The trick to it was to go slow, since you still had enough optic nerve in the back a sudden impact could have you seeing stars. Once it was clean enough, you pulled out your Emergency Eyepatch, settled it on, and ditched your plugsuit before going to wash off. Soap and water got to work quickly, getting the worst of it all off before a basic hair wash made sure the goop wouldn't do too much damage to your poor hair. Once you were dried off and in something vaugely resembling clothes, just a wrap dress with a cheapass yukata thrown on top, you stumbled out into the hall where Misato was chewing Shinji's ear off about getting dragged into the girl's showers.
"Hey." you muttered. "Home. Sleep."
The ride home didn't trouble you too much, and it wasn't long before you sluggishly pulled down two aspirins and bombed out on your futon. Your last concious thought was that you needed an actual bed.
///
Next morning, you felt like hell. Eye covered in splooge, hair a mess, and mouth tasting like roadkill, you slouched over to your phone and rang up the school to call in sick. Once you'd finished muttering your name to the ID system and half-assing the call, you flopped back on your futon to suffer. Going out to the living room was a bridge too far right now, and as you curled up and moaned your socket throbbed angrily. Right, fuck, forgot to wear your spacer last night. Since today wasn't going to have anyone over, you grabbed it and socketed it in with a slight hiss, the pressure on your orbital ceiling sending a spike of pain through your head. Fuck that hurt.
If you wanted to take your medicine, you'd have to eat something. If you wanted to eat something, then you'd have to leave your room- or so conventional logic went. Most people weren't you, though, and didn't anticipate this sort of malarky, so you had the one last trick up your sleeve- Larabars and bottles of Gatorade. Choking two of the fruit and nut and fiber bars down with half a liter of some blue sports drink, you swallowed another two pills and crashed. Sleep could take you now, please.
The next time you really came to your senses, it was late, and your headache was still throbbing away. At this point, leaving your room was unavoidable- you had to take a piss, and that meant walking across the apartment to the water closet. Moving around hurt, and everything was sore, but you had to go. Slipping on a housecoat and grabbing a hiking pole you'd originally gotten as a button-pusher, you slowly emerged into your apartment. Something was making noise, but it wasn't anything important, so you crabbed across the living room to the water closet.
As you were finishing up, a 'huh' emerged from outside your porcelain paradise, which was thrown in the garbage bin of sensations you could ignore next to pain and your internal timer for when your next period would be. Synch tests always threw that off for some reason, no idea why. Grabbing your stick and closing your housecoat, you moved out, one step at a time. Then disaster struck.
"Hi, Asuk-aaaaaaaaaa!" Shinji screamed as you threw your stick at him and dove behind the couch. The fleshy 'tonk' of your stick hitting him somewhere was quietly met with a keening wail as you stuck the good half of your face out of cover.
"THE FUCK YOU IN MY HOUSE?" you yelled at the top of your lungs.
A soft sob came back, and you got a better look at Shinji, holding onto his balls for dear life as your stick was coming out between his legs. Well, that would explain a lot. Going over to grab your stick, you hobbled over to the freezer to get a bag of frozen peas, which you wrapped in a dishtowel expertly and put a safe distance near Shinji.
"Christ, Shinji, tell me you're coming in next time." you grumbled, blinking as you went to get the poor bastard a cup of water. "My apartment is not safe and happy territory most of the time."
"Could have warned me…" he muttered from the floor, slowly pulling himself to a chair.
"How did you get in, anyway?" you asked archly, moving over to the stove to turn down the heat on a kettle. Shinji had, rather easily, put together a nice looking dinner for you on the stove. Be a shame to waste it.
"Misato has a master key."
"Figures. Knew I needed a deadbolt after you cut the chain."
Serving yourself some of the curry and some of the tea, you settled down with a spoon to start eating. With the peas serving to numb his dignity among other things, Shinji also served himself a small portion, at started eating across from you. Unsurprisingly, it was amazing curry, far more than what your limited stock of food could make.
"I want my pot back at some point." Shinji said, trying to restart the conversation. You nodded.
"Sure."
It was another moment as you sipped the matcha, that you finally decided to answer the unasked question.
"They'd come to get me, sometimes. Middle of the night." you said carefully. "Weren't gentle about it, not like any of the budget flunkies they could get would be. Midnight pilot training, they said. Load of shit."
Shinji stopped moving, listening carefully.
"Imagine someone who never seen a guitar before, picking one up and trying to play Dragonforce. That's what it was like, learning from NERV. Camaraderie, patience, cooperation, communication… they could not comprehend. No understanding of what they did, just rote action as they tried to force me into the mold of something they didn't understand. I was nine when they finally figured out I was going to snap and turn NERV Berlin into a smoking crater if they kept trying. I wasn't really a person, anymore, just this feral little ball of hate who could kill you six ways in five seconds. Then I caused one and three-quarter million euros of damage in a week, and they decided to back off."
Shinji's jaw dropped.
"That's about two hundred and nine, maybe two hundred and ten million yen."
It was still silent in the kitchen, and you liked it that way.
"They started bringing in caretakers, but it wasn't until Misato came that things finally started to click. She saved me. Saved me from what I was becoming."
Another beat of empty sound crept out, volume of nothingness, a structural void.
"I know… I know what I can't do, Shinji. I'm still sick, I need to sleep."
Moving to leave, you started walking towards your bedroom, when you finally heard his voice.
"When we synched, I saw something. A message. I know… I know I must not run away. Whenever I Synchronize, I get told, that not everyone can." Shinji said, trying not to stutter. "What about you?"
"Because I tried. I stand and fight, and I die."
"What if we stood together?"
You just kept walking, until a hand reached yours, grabbing it and holding it.
"I mean it, Asuka. If we stand and fight together- what would happen?"
What do you do?
[] Hold still. Still as the ghost of death
[] Flee. He's proposing suicide!
[] Pull him in closer. Shinji is clueless, and needs to learn.
[] Haul off and slap him; he's being an idiot. Quit courting disaster!
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I mean if you don't want certain people playing you could just come out and say so.
Raiseth
I Find Your Lack of Memes Disturbing
- Location
- Russia
Just for the record, I totally expect this option to result in Asuka headbutting Shinji. Repeatedly. While holding him in a
dylanredefined
dancing sarcasticly badly
- Location
- portsmouth
X pull him in closer. Etc
- Location
- National Capital Region, USA
Anatomy is an academic discipline, yes. /dry
Hey, lay off him, Misato. It wasn't his fault or idea, and none of them were exactly navigating well under solo-command right then. Like, you really think Asuka would let him get away with a sneak-show and not tie his arms in a knot when she caught him?
You really think that would stop him, Asuka? This Shinji is not letting simple obstacles get in his way. Deadbolt the door, and you'd have him rappelling in through the balcony 15 minutes later.
Everyone is Reisexual, some just don't know it yet. Stupid sexy Rei.
[X] Pull him in closer. Shinji is clueless, and needs to learn.
He's been nailed in the junk once already this evening, and he's still brave enough to not only get within arm's reach, but touch her as well? I hope
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
Everyone is allowed and encouraged to vote. Not all voting options lead to good things.
Misato's hitting him with both barrels- he's too young for that tomfoolery, and he's breaking rank and perving on girls in his chain of command.
I mean I can't say, but that's a valid concern to have.
Raiseth
I Find Your Lack of Memes Disturbing
- Location
- Russia
I mean, I'm pretty sure I'm not Reisexual. She's a fine girl, but not my type.
Also, that fifteen thing.
Btw, 7734, did Asuka attack Shinji because
or because he said hi to her while she was leaving the toilet?
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
Both. As a rule of thumb, the less guarded Asuka is at any given point, the more likely any reaction to surprises includes sudden applications of violence until the surprise has been analyzed. This is also mildly evident in the dissassociative fit in Before the World Ended; since Asuka was basically running at 200% threat level, Shinji showing up wasn't a major surprise, so there was analysis before she interacted with him. Compare to Rei, however, who caused Asuka's shellshocked brain to respond with murder.
Bad_kobold
Seeker of the Orb of Zot
- Location
- Seattle
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Pull him in closer. Shinji is clueless, and needs to learn.
- Location
- Jaburo
[X] Hold still. Still as the ghost of death
Because my inner contrarian is in the driver's seat today, I guess.
Because my inner contrarian is in the driver's seat today, I guess.