Salty
Shadow Cabal Assumptor Supreme
- Location
- Sun, Moon, Talia
- Pronouns
- I/Me
Cast in Gold - Evangelion/Exalted
- Thread starter Shyft
- Start date
This is awesome. Raksha are some of the weirdest things out there and it's great to see their strangeness brought out to see. I particularly like the glowy whale. It reminded me of the Wind Fish from a Zelda game:
There's just a lot of interesting things going on in this chapter, so I'll bullet-point:
-Rei macking on Asuka is hilarious
-Kaworu referring to secondary and tertiary souls is ominous
-Raksha cutting through AT field effortlessly is terrifying but appropriate
-"Aliens from Jupiter" plot is campy in a good way
-Gendo being overridden by an Epic Solar Speech warms the heart
There's just a lot of interesting things going on in this chapter, so I'll bullet-point:
-Rei macking on Asuka is hilarious
-Kaworu referring to secondary and tertiary souls is ominous
-Raksha cutting through AT field effortlessly is terrifying but appropriate
-"Aliens from Jupiter" plot is campy in a good way
-Gendo being overridden by an Epic Solar Speech warms the heart
- Location
-
- Pronouns
- He/Him
There was a little part of me just going "Eeeee!" here. Glad to see her grow. That actually has the possibility of being a healthy relationship, it's ridiculously out-of-place in an Eva fic.
It implies that Kaworu only has one soul, unlike every other human. I also love him attempting small-talk in the worst situations.
I think that you might be getting ahead of yourself there. Asuka unless i'm remembering wrong, she hasn't really shown any inclination towards regarding members of her own sex as being potential romantic partners. Rei will continue to grow, but I feel she's sooner going to learn about the sting of rejection from her choice to kiss Asuka.
- Location
- National Capital Region, USA
Not necessarily. Asuka (in canon, at least) wanted more than anything else to feel valued and loved, since she was at heart afraid she was worth neither. And here Rei's been her closest friend for weeks, months. Sexual attraction or not, she knows Rei is sincere in her feelings about Asuka, and Asuka won't simply toss that off. Sex or not, Asuka will very much like the feeling that someone she's close to cares about her that much.
Humans only have two souls, though. Only exalts have a third, and he's not doing anything to Shinji. Maybe his Eva has secondary and tertiary souls?
Considering Rei has been learning from Misato, it may well have been part affection and part trolling/teasing. Making Asuka flustered is fun.
The way I see it, Asuka is aware of three things:
1. Asuka is quite possibly the closest person to Rei in the entire world due to their time locked together in the Magi. Rei is horrible at being a human being, and is only gradually learning how to be a "real" girl.
2. As such, Asuka is aware that the Rei has only just started experimenting with interacting with people, and tends to keep the more extreme stuff for her closest companions just in case.
3. Rei's been living with Misato, and has picked up some of Misato's mannerisms in regards to communicating affection (now that I think of it, some of Asuka's, too). So the open flirting is Rei's way of saying "I like you, you make me feel good/safe, I want to express this". Asuka is also aware that while Rei might very well love Asuka, it is not necessarily in a romantic way, but that is the only way Rei has observed people communicating it and so that is the only way Rei knows how to show it.
So Asuka wants to encourage Rei opening up (non-Doll acting Rei is good), is aware that the flirting is a way of saying "I am with you" and "We are friends", and that Rei has no background on non-romantic love due to her NERV non-upbringing and her actions probably cannot be taken like a normal persons.... Or Rei is serious and Asuka needs to figure out how to respond.
I just thought it was either human and angel and EVA, or the human's two souls with the EVA's third.
- Location
- Gladstone, OR
The Exaltation is not a 'Third Soul', but it does fit between the two parts of a Mortal Human Soul. As opposed to a Mortal Dragon King Soul (anatomy undefined), Mountainfolk, or other Primordial Race Soul.
There's more ,but that steps on stuff I'd rather reveal as part of the narrative.
- Location
-
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The earlier bit with the soul camera showed Evas to have two souls. One human-shaped, one completely alien. So, those would be the secondary and tertiary souls Kaworu mentions.
Chapter 41: Communication - Part 2
- Location
- Gladstone, OR
"Attackers have breached the Geofront!"
The alarm had Misato rolling out of a shadowed doorway and into the twisted, scrambled corridors with gun in hand. Her heels hit the floor with a muted squeak and she charged ahead after the invaders. Her boots echoed in time with the Section 2 suits formig up behind her, and she peered through the sickly warning lights and flashing strobes.
Columns of smoke shot out from burning, melting vents and the once orderly Evangelion Cages seemed to tangle in on themselves, lit with a guttering, almost radioactive tangerine backlight. A door slammed down behind her, cleaving a pair of suits in half, leaving the top blazer to flutter to the ground. Misato couldn't stop moving.
Above, speakers spoke with Ritsuko's lips. "Geofront Sector seven lost. There's nothing left to save. Geofront sector eight lost- there's nothing left to save-"
Shadows peeled out from the walls, slicing her agents apart into black ribbons that soaked themselves with blood. Misato twisted and raised her weapon in the same move, squeezing the trigger but feeling the weapon cycle on empty. The formless darkness took on a wild and gnarled shape, full of warts, leering eyes and bulbous noses. Her gun was useless. Tossing it aside, Misato raised her arms and screamed into the capering shadows.
Ritsuko still muttered from above, and more doors slammed shut throughout the cages. "Nothing left to save."
Misato fought, punching, kicking and clawing. She ripped apart the shadows, broke them over her her knees. They raked clawed hands through her hair and came back bloody, but she wouldn't stop. Pumping her legs, she charged through a mass of them. The shadows bore down, catching on her arms, around her middle. They dragged her down and back, but still she fought.
Tearing through the last filmy layer, Misato slammed into an opposite wall, dimly aware she left a bloody mark on the NERV logo stretched across it. Behind her the shadows reformed, and she had no more strength to fight. Misato picked up her feet and ran, as if hell itself were behind her. Maybe it was.
The corridors shifted into stranger shapes- she found herself running on walls one second, then gantries across open air. She tumbled into an open space and saw the burning Mass Production Evangelion lurch around, throwing up noxious clouds of smoke and filling her nose with the smell of rancid, burning flesh. The only path forward was along it's flailing arms, and she braved the flames.
Up the elbow, over the wrist and off the hand, Misato leaped away from the Eva and landed in the far doorway, safe from the smell and heat and horrible things. She turned and twisted down the next hallway, faintly hearing Ritsuko declare the Evangelion as nothing left to save.
First, the wall exploded, then Misato knew pain. When she came too seconds later, she felt something hot and wet spill over her front. A hole just below her breasts had been carved out of her chest, a ragged arc that shattered bone and opened her lungs. Her sudden slump came to a sudden stop, and another impact slammed her into the wall a second time.
Forcing her eyes open, she saw Moreau past the pain, hands on his swords and nearly wrist deep in her chest.
She blinked once, and then it was Shinji, hands still on the hilts and frowning sadly. "Nothing left to save."
The pilot stood up and started walking backwards, away from her and into the rapidly lengthening distance. Hot tears started to spill over her cheeks, and Misato reached out with one blood-soaked arm.
Pinned to the wall, Misato bled and struggled with her dimming vision. The darkness blurred as her whole body tensed one final time, pushing against the blades, against her drooping eyelids. He couldn't just leave her, not like this, she wasn't prepared to di-
* * *
"-iauugh!"
Throwing herself upright out of bed so fast as to throw the covers past her knees, Misato groaned. She rubbed at her eyes and sighed feeling tear tracks and gunk. "Whatever happened to cheap martinis and jet ski dreams..."
It was dark in the officers quarters, and she could barely see the trees outside the angled window. The fiber optics and reflectors on the surface had been damaged early on in the battle, leaving the Geofront cavern cold and thick with shadows. Misato glanced at the budget-bin NERV issue alarm clock and sighed again. Four AM. Figured.
Easing a hand down past the bottom hem of her tank top, Misato traced the two thin lines along her stomach. She had a matching set on her back, and there hadn't been time to get them fully removed. She frowned into the darkness, feeling her insides churn. Just her luck that she'd get a handful of hours before heading back out. Central Dogma was well ventilated, but right now all Misato could feel was cold from sweat and stress.
Letting her eyes slip closed, Misato sighed again. They snapped open when she heard her bedroom door slide open a second later. Rei and Asuka stood in the doorway, all but drowning in oversized NERV issue T-shirts. The blue-haired pilot's eyes almost glowed in the dark, but the function light from Asuka's eyepatch was almost too bright to look at. The bit of tech probably had night vision.
Apparently it did, because Asuka must have seen the question on her face. "We heard you screaming."
Having said that, the girls didn't even give Misato a chance to say she was alright. Watching them move with a surprisingly quiet efficiency, she got the feeling they wouldn't have believed her anyway. Plopping down on either side, the two pilots cuddled up next to her in a fairly matter-of-fact manner.
Rei, on her left, propped herself up on one arm and whispered across Misato to the redhead. "I am not against this plan, however..."
Caught between them, Misato could only watch the byplay and smile, glancing at Asuka while she pulled her patch off.
She slid under the futon and grabbed the covers, drawing them up over the three of them. "I'm just doing what I wish someone had done for me."
Misato wiped at her eyes, before letting Rei cuddle up on her unoccupied side. She wondered then, if it was possible to be so happy that you stopped crying. The red-eyed girl finished curling up under her arm. Looking down her front, Misato found herself smiling uncontrollably at the curtains of red and blue hair spreading out over her body.
Drawing the girls close, Misato planted a kiss on top of their heads one after the other and was rewarded by a pair of tiny laughs. "Kids are tough, you've got the rest of your lives to bounce back from all kinds of shit. Adults are supposed to know better. We're never intended to bounce, so when we hit the ground, too often we shatter instead."
Rei didn't answer with words, but she wrapped her arms around Misato's middle and hugged her tighter all the same.
"That's deep." From the other side, Misato felt Asuka press a smile into the skin just below her collarbone. "How about we put you together tomorrow. Go to sleep Misato."
* * *
However many hours later, Misato felt herself wake up rightly. She was warm, deliciously so, and for a moment gladly forgot that there was an ongoing extranormal invasion from space. Instead, she kept her eyes closed and considered which warm body to curl up closer to. On a whim, she chose the left hand one, purring contentedly.
The warmth on her right side shifted and peeled away, and she heard Asuka's not-too-distant voice. "Sleep well?"
Happy, rested and sultry, Misato opened one eye and twisted just far enough from Rei to offer Asuka a brown-eyed wink. "I just spent the night wedged between two gorgeous girls- that's a loaded question if I ever heard one."
A second later, a pillow hit her head.
* * *
When he wasn't in his Evangelion, Shinji was in the labs almost every spare hour.
The main section took up multiple floors as truckloads full of salvage and recovered material made its way through hastily-conceived quarantines and security checkpoints. So far they hadn't found an infiltrator or figurative Trojan horse, but it seemed like such an obvious thing, Misato drafted the procedures on the spot. The largest room was set aside for hundreds of tables, and glass-faced lockers that stretched to the ceiling.
It was full of people too. Scientists, engineers, veterans of Shinji's special projects division along with Ritsuko's own people from Project E, and anyone else who'd even shown a hint of potential had been tapped for research duty. Thousands of unique objects had to be sorted, cataloged and prioritized for further study in the hopes of learning something useful. Outlying labs were being stripped of their equipment to expedite the search for answers or meaningful intelligence, as they simply did not have enough tools and machines to scan everything.
All told, they had so far learned that the invaders were an incomprehensible riot of pattern green bullshit.
Resisting the urge to massage his eyes, Shinji let out a long, sputtering breath. Thinking about it, Shinji still couldn't remember the last time he actually suffered eyestrain, but old habits died hard. Physically, he knew was just shy of inexhaustible, able to power on through day and night. Mentally... Well, puzzles and mysteries didn't reinvigorate him either. There was no mistaking the weight though, bearing down on him and everyone working alongside him. A few months ago he would have been struggling with his own unrealistic expectations and perfectionism. Today, he was acutely aware that lives depended on the work they were all doing.
Beneath harsh, white fluorescent lights, Shinji looked back down at the table and started picking through the salvage. Another rolling cart was heavy with improvised supplies and thaumaturgical tricks. Anything he could do to spare one more chemical gas analyzer or similar tool. While he sorted out the obvious 'treasure' from everything else, he heard Ritsuko's voice carry over the rest of the research staff.
"Gemstone fragments, storage box four-hundred and fifty... two." Shinji could hear Ritsuko pause to check the inventory. "Armor shrapnel, appears vaguely Malaysian in design, shattered via incendiary round impact. Basic reassembly reveals fragments to be a solid, contiguous sheet of unnatural density and composition, transparent diamond at center mass with a fused edging of emerald, changing crystalline structure to inform coloration at the atomic level."
He looked up in time to catch her finishing a recording. "Not personally a geologist, but safe to conclude as impossible to duplicate outside of artificial means due to pressure and temperatures required, even forgoing the presently uncut shape."
Most everything they had recovered so far defied conventional analysis. Half the time, mass spectrometry returned nonsensical results, and others came back as flatly impossible but eminently understandable. Gold coins had been recovered from what had been reported as an invader's strong point and literal dragon's hoard. Which would have been... consistent with the mythology if it hadn't looked like a blizzard-serpent with sapphire eye-studded scales and trailing whiskers of frost. The dragon wasn't important though. What was important, was that every gold sample tested was one hundred percent pure, marred only by the actions required to test its composition.
Shinji thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. The dragon was absolutely important- it was an invader, and it was also a dragon.
Fuyutsuki had also been spending his hours in the labs, scouring reference books of mythology and his own notes on metaphysical biology. He also had back-lit box mounted on one wall, spread out with soul photographs over the past few months. When he'd first put them up, Ritsuko had turned a bit red. Shinji noted that some of the pictures were of his soul, and Rei's, but the rest were all of the head of Project E herself. Not that they looked like much of anything. Each dark plastic sheet was some kind of false-color image heavily processed, but they had consistent structures and shapes between each photograph. Shinji noted that his own was particularly interesting, because at some point, his Exaltation changed too.
Not that soul physiology was extremely useful right then. Everyone in the lab including Fuyutsuki, Ritsuko and Shinji were focused on the ongoing crisis. Mired in lab work, experiments and running tests, everyone looked about as exhausted as he felt, mentally at least. Senior staff and division heads were required to sleep, but the heavy bags both Ritsuko's and Fuyutsuki's eyes told Shinji everything he needed to know about scheduled shifts and combat conditions.
Catching his eye, Fuyutsuki nodded and offered him a wan smile. "Any progress, Shinji?"
Blinking rapidly, Shinji quickly shook himself back into alertness. Still felt weird to be called just by name. "Nothing jumping out yet. I've been adding what I can to the Wall."
The 'Wall' was one side of the lab chamber that had been painted white, and then Shinji took a marker to it. Half the space was thick with notes, formula and thaumaturgical procedures. Most of it was inconclusive, unfinished and otherwise a meager, faltering step forward. Shinji let out a rough breath and turned back to the examination table. Before he could reach for another trinket, an argument elsewhere in the lab broke apart in a huff. A few moments later, a group of scientists and engineers carried what looked like a piece of full plate mail and laid it down in front of him.
An older man with a bristly mustache crossed his arms and let out a tired breath. "Ikari-san, we were hoping you could tell us what the hell this is."
Hooking a nearby chair with his foot, Shinji sat down and hummed. As far as armor went, it was beautiful, like a relentlessly detailed work of art. It was absolutely covered in filigree, dripping with embellishment and the like. He ran his fingers over some of the etchings and realized it was almost like lace, but made of steel. Or nearly something like steel. It had a strange luster and gleam that was almost liquid and candied under the laboratory lights. He could see his reflection in the curves and panes.
"It looks like someone tried to make a costume into real armor." Reaching out, he picked it up and almost immediately dropped it.
The armor was too light. It was almost like holding something made of spun sugar. Despite all that though, he could feel the strength. It didn't bend or flex like he expected. Even the thinnest, weakest looking parts were unbelievably strong. On a hunch, he raised it higher and held it to his chest, increasingly aware that he was much too big for it, and not... voluptuous enough either.
Swallowing thickly, Shinji looked up from the armor even as the people surrounding him looked on. "Ritsuko, I could use your help over here..."
It took her a few moments to break free from itemizing and cataloging, but when she did Ritsuko looked up. Her eyes flicked up to his own, then down at the breastplate in his hand- emphasis on breast.
"I suppose I must." She mumbled, crossing by few tables to stand across from him and squinting through her glasses. "Misato is missing something of an opportunity..."
There was no good answer to that, so Shinji just held the armor out for her. She narrowed her eyes to thin slits. "You've checked it right? It's not going to eat me?"
Shinji looked back up at her. "You think I can't treat whatever it could do?"
Ritsuko just gave him an apologetic wince and nodded. Aside from mandatory training with personal body armor and such, no one else in the labs had any experience with plate mail or anything like that, so it took Ritsuko a few minutes to figure out the straps and plates. She ended up having to take her lab coat off, leaving her in an increasingly worn skirt and blue vest.
As she finished cinching the straps, Ritsuko let out an agonized little sigh. "These things- everything we've seen, all the recovered material- is saturated with Pattern Green. There has to be something generating it, saturating their bodies with it. Tokyo-3 is nearly covered in the stuff."
Letting out one last grunt, Ritsuko pulled the last catch closed. "We can't even pick Rei out on the pattern sensors now."
Finally, Ritsuko stood up, blinking once, twice. She craned her neck and twisted at the hips, frowning. "I knew it was light but..."
Fuyutsuki approached as Ritsuko started stretching her arms over her head, letting them rest at her sides and more. "You still have full range of motion."
"I think my shirt is more restrictive." Ritsuko mumbled and gave the rigid edge across her bust a fitful tug. She looked up at Shinji and licked her lips. "About how strong do you think this is as armor?"
"Well," Shinji reached for his notes while the other scientists and engineers started leaning in, not unreasonably considering Ritsuko an object of study. "I want to say it's equivalent to late eighteenth century full plate mail- obviously all we have is the cuirass. But that one was reported as having stood up to... NATO Five-five-six caliber."
Standing, Shinji waved for Ritsuko to follow him past the tables towards one of the few remaining bare patches of wall. "Unfortunately that's second hand information. I can tell you that's the best quality steel for its purpose I've ever seen, and it weighs less than our shirts."
While they moved, the scientists and other engineers cleared more of a space, and Shinji gently guided Ritsuko into the designated testing area, and they were all mumbling about how the Proving Grounds having been converted to refugee shelters and aid stations. Space was constantly being reapportioned throughout the Geofront dome as the incoming civilian population swelled.
Once every was in place, Shinji offered Ritsuko a reassuring little smirk. She blinked once and and a question formed on her lips, but Shinji was already rearing back with one arm chambered. His fist hit the breastplate with a heavy, meaty impact and scooped Ritsuko up off her feet and across six inches to wall. She dropped to the floor, still standing and sputtering helplessly while the other scientists broke out into a fervent whisper.
"Wh-What the hell was that Shinji?" Ritsuko pressed a hand to her middle, and he could see she was looking for dents. "Not that I'm against hands-on testing but..."
"You're accidentally channeling Misato?" Shinji smiled a bit wider and pointed over her shoulder. Ritsuko turned obligingly and blinked.
The wall was spider-webbed with cracks, and Ritsuko was barely winded.
Before they could consider further testing, the lab doors slid open and the sound of boots filled the space. Tall enough to peer over the milling crowd of scientists, Shinji blinked and wondered what paramedics were doing there. Pairs of them were trooping in with simple cloth gurneys stretched between them, along with a growing collection of patients. Even from across the room and a brief exertion of his reserve told him they were not medically well, and Shinji carefully threaded through the crowd to examine them up close.
Ritsuko joined him a beat later, still wearing the recovered breastplate. "We're not- I'm not authorized to do medicine in here, you want to take them-"
The lead paramedic raised his hand, careful not to hit someone nearby. "This might be more serious than it seems, ma'am. We figured we needed to take this right to the top."
Shinji heard that, and was aware enough to notice Misato and Hyuuga Makoto enter after the last of the paramedics. More people were pushed to the walls as the paramedics cleared a space for the division heads. Shinji tossed Misato a quick fond but wan smile before turning back to the patient. Judging by all obvious symptoms, he was something akin to... Shinji couldn't even put it into words, but there was a distinct impression of a psychological problem.
Giving Shinji a quick return grin, Misato cleared her throat and put a steadying hand on Ritsuko's shoulder. "Patrols up on the surface found these people wandering the streets, between recovery operations."
"But what are we supposed to be looking at here, besides someone experiencing severe catatonia?" Ritsuko frowned, checking the man's pupil dilation and every word dripping with frustration.
The paramedics started packing up to leave, gingerly threading through the gathered scientists. None of them looked one bit happy about leaving their patients like that, but they were needed elsewhere.
But while they did that, the lead medic shook his head. "Despite the apparent catatonia, that man and the rest can recite their own names, my name, the time of day and their credit card numbers backwards. Yet we can't get any sensory or stimulus response out of them, because all our best guesses say the only thing their brains are doing right now is keeping them blinking and breathing."
Ritsuko let out a groan, and Shinji saw Fuyutsuki wince out the corner of his eye while she moaned. "... And something out there did this to him. Wonderful."
With that declaration, the paramedics all but scrambled to the next crisis. Thinking quickly, Shinji grabbed the nearest engineer. A quiet word put the various scientists and engineers into motion, splitting up and arranging transport for the afflicted to the infirmary. Morale was visibly draining from everyone present, and Shinji flexed his hands, huffing.
Fuyutsuki had been silent for the past few minutes, staring at the nearest victim. He spoke quietly, but Shinji could hear the severity as it cut through the crowd noise. "Ritsuko, do you by chance have one of your soul cameras nearby?"
Nodding, she moved off to set it up while the victims were gradually shuffled out across the geofront, save for one left behind at Fuyutsuki's request. Soon the lab was empty, save for the senior officers and division heads. With the camera set up, the former professor snapped a few photos and arranged for them to be processed, muttering quietly while they waited.
Shinji felt Misato's presence at his side, and her hand found his and gave it a light squeeze. Out the corner of his eye, he watched Misato, and how she took in all the materials and salvage.
Then her eyes locked onto Ritsuko with a laser-intense focus. "Rits, I understand the labs hours are getting long but... what is that you're wearing?"
There was a long pause, and Shinji counted five heartbeats before Ritsuko wilted, and Hyuuga stifled a laugh. "... The scientific method and shame."
Seconds ticked by as the MAGI processed the data, and a nearby printer whined as it produced a handful of smoky plastic pages. Fuyutsuki clipped them to the light box and frowned. No one else said anything, but Shinji stepped in a little closer, followed by the others. The five of them took in the metaphysical photographs, and Shinji's eyes flicked from the older ones, the examples and baselines...
Compared to Ritsuko's healthy soul, the victim's was dimmer, lacking extraneous whorls and structures. Shinji couldn't help but think of it as emaciated, or maybe even desiccated. Like someone had starved the soul, drained it off everything it could. A healthy soul looked like it was always in motion, ready to leap off the page and twist in lazy patterns of false-color and the like. The man's catatonic soul...Shinji blinked and glanced at Fuyutsuki, suddenly reminded and understanding. The old man spotted it first.
But Ritsuko was the first one to put it into words "...No metabiological activity. Their souls are- they're like the clones."
Shinji felt his train of thought swerve at the sudden non-sequitur, and he felt Misato lean around his side while he spoke. "What clones?"
"Considering the circumstances, I can't really give a damn about security clearance." Ritsuko sighed and massaged her eyes before elaborating. "The clones of Rei."
* * *
Any other time, Gendo would have let the silence stretch out until his opponent's patience ran out. The trick was due in part to his own vindictive streak, of that perverse willingness to go further and escalate more than anyone else. Tempered with experience and iron resolve, it was a tool Gendo valued immensely.
But now was not the time to force Khil to speak first. "Chairman, I believe we both can agree this situration is completely unprecedented."
The statement hung heavily in the air between them, and Khil Lorenz only sat in his chair, silent save for the thin electric whine of life support. Gendo's normal office was in ruins- its glass floor shattered and spilt across the Geofront. Even weeks after Moreau's attack, the Commander still had his arm in a sling. Shinji had set the bone in a few seconds, but it healed no faster than normal. Painkillers kept the ache down to a dull throb.
Finally, the older cyborg sighed. "There is no hope in reconciling the current situation with what we know of the Scrolls. Either we have created an unrecognizable tangent, in defiance of all we know of those who came before, or this is truly an unprecedented, unwelcome surprise."
"Neither of us has time to waste on unraveling the tangle of causes." Gendo sat heavily behind his desk, painfully unable to link his fingers together or rest comfortably, even in his place of power. "We must accept what things are and carry on. I won't bother to ask after your records of the Scrolls, but do they have any insight?"
Khil could not shake his head, but the way his face and lips pulled back, limp and worn was a fair equivalent. "The active prophecy yet remains red, and the only commonality is the original sequence regarding the Second and transporting ADAM as bait. I can tell you that none of our verified recordings have spoken of these invaders, or even remotely describe them."
The old man paused then, before grunting. "These new ones look more like biblical angels than the ones we've been herding since Impact."
"I'm certain it's merely a coincidence- I have been noticing many of them lately." Gendo drummed his fingers on the desk with his good hand. "We've been leaning on our shared agent, he will correct his misguided attempt at heroism shortly, once we have a better assessment of what's going on. The Fourth has, for whatever reason, grown particularly attached to the man."
"Nagisa is the worst kind of unpredictable- for his driving motive is amusement." Khil's cybernetics whined harder. "His commitment to the cause is unquestionable though, fanatic and reasoned."
Mulling that over, Gendo's fingers stilled. "What do you know of Pattern Green?"
"Very little, aside from Akagi's little projects the past year." Khil's frown quirked down lower with the easy admission. "I'm old but not hard of hearing though. The new players on the board are suffused with the phenomenon, are they not?"
It was more complicated than that, Gendo could readily admit to himself. The rest he could simply leave as information the old man did not need to know. "They are, to an extent that defied prediction or even conception."
Khil clicked the joystick that steered his wheelchair, angling around to better face Gendo. "Potentially setting them apart as a third or external actor, perhaps. Or the First Ancestral Race. You are correct though- their origins and exact natures are not relevant to our goals, mutual or otherwise."
Gendo nodded, locking eyes with the visor. "Then I believe it we can agree to pool our resources where applicable. Put simply; a temporary alliance."
"Eminently logical." The cyborg offered the commander a surprisingly winning smile- perhaps the expression was easier on Kihl's old nerves and sinew.
Regardless, Gendo couldn't take Kihl's easy acceptance as indicative of his true commitment. Theirs was a utilitarian arrangement, and nothing more.
Still, there was one final point that needed clarification. "And the Fourth?"
Khil was quiet for a long moment. They both heard the sound of approaching footsteps, and the old man answered before the door slid aside. "At your disposal."
* * *
The Commander's temporary office lacked the sinister personality he had become known for. Little more than a converted meeting room, it had tables, sweet, blessed chairs and a whiteboard taking up an entire wall. Fresh from the labs, Misato settled into one of the thankfully cushy seats while Ritsuko fussed with the local MAGI terminal. A portable holographic projector hummed to life in the center of the table, filling the center of the space with a boot-up screen while the room lights dimmed automatically. Tools like that had seen more use in past few weeks than they had in years.
More people filtered into the meeting room in ones and twos, but hers was the biggest group having come straight from the analysis lab. Mulling over Ritsuko's recent revelations, Misato barely noticed her friend settling down next in the seat next to her. The scientist offered her a wan little smile as they waited, and Kihl Lorenz sat to one side, observing quietly.
Shinji was also on her mind. Wriggling in her seat, she glanced at him sidelong, wondering what he was thinking. His face had darkened since leaving the labs, turning positively thunderous after Ritsuko's little revelation, and the... Misato wasn't sure if she wanted to call it menace or something more like intent.Well, whatever it was, the feeling poured off the teenager in thick waves, and everyone could feel it. Fortunately, Shinji was still fairly easy to read, so Misato was fairly sure it wasn't directed at anyone in the room, meaning no reason to pry.
He perked up and his expression warmed when Rei then Asuka marched in, both clad in their plugsuits but 'dry'. They hadn't been deployed that day. Rei had taken to wearing a pair of sweatpants over her suit between sorties, but Asuka favored her repaired leather jacket.. She still drowned in the thing, but Asuka made it work. Misato couldn't help but wonder if Asuka was showing her legs off on purpose though. The new pilot Nagisa brought up the rear, toweling his hair off from LCL and the last patrol.
The last people to make it into the meeting were the JSSDF generals alongside Kaji and Fuyutsuki- they hadn't had time to designate civilian representatives, and technically everyone who lived and worked in Tokyo-3 were employees of NERV. One of the generals helped Fuyutsuki with a sheaf of folders and a sealed sample container before they all finally took their seats. Looking around the table, Misato winced glumly. They were all, in a word, tired. Misato let the pleasantries and pre-meeting small talk wash over her, adding what she could and achingly aware that it and her own musing was just coping mechanism for everyone.
Arm still in a sling, the Commander stood up at the head of the conference table. His beard looked thicker than normal. "In the interests of efficiency, we shall focus on new developments. Akagi; your findings."
Misato blinked as Ritsuko straightened up in her seat and pulled in a steady, deliberative breath before turning to Fuyutsuki. The Sub-Commander stood, and everyone faced him as he opened the folder in his hand.
He passed the glossy photo-images with a heavy, stony frown. "Some of you already know this." He nodded to about half the table, including Misato herself. "But I am afraid that everything is even more serious than we previously thought."
Misato reached for one of the false-colored soul photos, but she kept her eye on everyone else in the room, ready to guage their reactions. Most of the JSSDF staff stared at the images with barely disguised looks of confusion. Considering they were showing something that looked like a bad psychedelic trip, that was understandable.
When all the copies were passed around, Fuyutsuki cleared his throat and sighed. "Those are processed photographs of the healthy human soul- and the page after that shows us of a soul from a recently recovered civilian."
General Kirishima held the a page in each hand, glancing between them, and Misato could hear the thick dread in his voice. "Just tell us what we're looking at, professor."
The old man slumped back into his seat, hands shaking. "There is something up there, which can through some means, damage the human soul."
It was such an odd statement, but there was a verifiable, quantified thing that was attached to human existence. Fuyutsuki among others had discovered it. Ikari Yui had refined their understanding of it, and now the old man was telling them it was at risk. Misato shivered despite her own familiarity. Knowing more about the deeper science did not allay her fear.
General Kirishima paled, but he forced his hands to stop shaking before giving Fuyutsuki a respectful nod. His mouth worked, likely having gone dry before finally speaking. "Is there a source? Is this a weapon, can we defend against it, anything?"
Fuyutsuki spread his hands helplessly, looking closer to six hundred years old rather than sixty. "I'm afraid I don't know."
"We've noticed a correlation between the ongoing Pattern Green phenomenon and our own metaphysical biology- whatever the pattern energy is, it interacts with souls." Ritsuko added. "So far it hasn't been harmful, but I don't want to rule out the source being some kind of environmental hazard, like radiation."
Then she reached out for the sample container Fuyutsuki brought in and opened it with a deft twist. Revealing a knife made of multiple pieces sandwiched and bolted together, she held it up for the whole room to see. The center, sharpened portion had a dully reflective carmine shine, almost crystalline. Misato felt her skin crawl.
"In the history of metaphysical biology, the only proven examples of soul-damage result from contact experiments, or being cut with something made of this." She gestured at the blade, suspended inside the acrylic-walled cylinder. "I've seen men rendered unto inchoate plasm with these blades."
Everyone in the room fell silent at that, in some ways confused and uncomprehending, and others uncertain. Perhaps it was hard to believe what the weapons could do without evidence, but at that point, they were more than willing to go on the expert's word.
Asuka mumbled faintly, looking off into the distance between Fuyutsuki and Ritsuko, but managing to rest on neither. "My mother was working on a contact experiment...
Ritsuko gave the pilot a pained, understanding glance before sighing. She turned to the Commander and shook her head. "There's nothing positive to report, I'm afraid. We're seeing lots of interesting and potentially useful developments, but considering..."
She trailed off then, and the assembled senior staff and military leaders understood.
"As long as Tokyo-3 is under their control, we can't make any progress." Shinji declared, and his voice was almost deafeningly loud in the quiet. He reached for a page of handwritten notes, picking up the report without pause. "Everything we want to do comes down to manpower, and we don't have enough of it."
The generals around the table rumbled in agreement, and it was a fairly obvious problem. Everyone was feeling that particular crunch. Ritsuko nodded across the table at Shinji. "Correct. Our research and think tanks are all spread too thin, and we're struggling to develop any kind of meaningful intelligence to hand over to Operations or the JSSDF contingent."
"Even the soldiers we're supporting in the Geofront are being stretched too far- to say nothing of having only four Evas and pilots." Everyone turned to Shinji as he spoke, and the pilot-director frowned. "I'm taking on extra shifts just so the others can sleep."
Then Asuka cocked her head to one side, frowning, and Misato envied the girls ability to shake off the existential horror. "On the note of resources, silly question- how are we feeding everyone in the Geofront?"
"We'll need to start rationing soon, but I have some ideas on how to stretch things out." Shinji let a tiny grin flicker across his face.
"Remember when I said NERV doesn't need a nutritionist?" The redhead let out a tired little laugh. "Yeah, my bad."
"Food and medical supplies will be the biggest concern." Ritsuko pointed out, and everyone in the room turned to focus on her. The little byplay between the two teenagers seemed to chip away at the oppressive helplessness, in turn focusing everyone's attention on something concrete and actionable. "Water's easy- if it comes to that we can just drain Lake Ashi into the Geofront. Misato wrote that plan."
Blinking again, Misato couldn't stop the brief burst of laughter. "Well hey, I did."
The Commander cleared his throat, not quite grunting. "To summarize, you've so far learned nothing immediately useful in the past six weeks."
Ritsuko shook her head and sighed. "Unfortunately no."
There was a dull, ringing absence after that statement. Misato could feel the mood in the room hit bottom and start digging. It was an awfully easy thing to understand though, and in a way, Misato realized this was how the JSSDF command staff had felt when the first Angel had attacked. Damning the budget and committing everything they had to no avail. Thinking about it, she bit her lip and hummed. They weren't quite so hopeless yet, Shinji was a stabilizing presence for her at least, and relentlessly capable. Asuka had also been indispensable, ranking somewhere just below Ritsuko and herself as master of Unnatural Warfare and bullshit soul technology.
And speak of the cute little devil, Asuka raised her hand, frowning as she rubbed her prosthetic and pulled it off. "Listen, as terrifying all this is, are we just going to dance around the fact these aliens came all the way from Jupiter."
Ritsuko and Fuyutsuki both winced, while Misato actively resisted the urge to remind the girl they'd already seen little green monster men. The JSSDF generals exchanged their own fair share of incredulous glances, but Asuka had the proof right there in her entry plugs' combat recordings. The cloudy bands and massive super storm everyone knew from grade school had been plain to see through the... portal.
"We can also say that they have multiple methods of travel-" Misato shuffled through her briefing materials with Hyuuga's assistance, pulling out pictures of the whale-castle, and other strange beasts. "So they have portals to Jupiter, might be from Jupiter for all we know, and then they can make up these big things to get around with."
Asuka nodded, leaning over to spread the photographs out while Ritsuko manned the holo-projector, pulling up video recordings. "So far we've seen whole armies and giant monsters conjured out of thin air, like when Shinji fought that crazy shadow warrior. I think the whale-castle is the same kind of thing."
"So one tool with a lot of uses?" Misato wondered. It wasn't the most elaborate hypothesis, but anything to keep everyone talking.
"I'm just calling it like I see it, but we don't know." Asuka groaned. "We do know they went to Jupiter, so I'm thinking we'll need to take the fight to them eventually."
The Commander was the one to fix Asuka with a look. "Unfortunately, interplanetary space travel is-"
"Not feasible I know." Asuka groaned, rocking back in her chair and crossing her arms over her chest. "If we could spare the Evas, Rei and I could maybe rig up some kind of AT-field drive but no. They have those maw-portals though. The teeth in the sky? ...I hate this war because I just said that with a straight face."
Asuka's pained look was earning her points with everyone else around the table. No one was immune to the absurdity of the situation. Misato cocked her head to the side, already warming up to the idea. "You're thinking about somehow taking one of those things over and taking a shortcut?"
"All things being equal, yeah!" Asuka grinned suddenly, full and honest, while Misato watched as everyone else around the table blanched or nodded along.
Ritsuko coughed into her hand, audibly apologetic. "Unfortunately there are too many unknowns- the situation is not equal. Not yet."
General Kirishima raised his hand before nodding to Asuka then Commander Ikari. "And we don't even have the supplies to truly fight a ground war, let alone a one-way suicide mission into deep space. But this remains vital intelligence- the girl's seen them head for Jupiter, and we have ground-based observatories."
There was a loud hollow thump, and everyone turned to see Ritsuko's head hit the table. The tanned blonde groaned, and she tilted her head to look at Misato. "And you have reminded me that our enemy might have faster-than-light travel. Or wormholes. Or some other kind of bullshit pattern green magic."
"Suffice it to say that is bad." Asuka declared before throwing herself back in her seat and sweeping her.hair over her shoulders.
Shinji stood up then, and all eyes turned to the tallest person in the room. "I think it's worse than that. These things, those monsters we're fighting? They... they're too human."
He reached out for a keyboard and started typing, calling up recorded images of the four confirmed Angels thus far. The holo-projector hummed industriously as tall, oddly geometric and simultaneously organic shapes rotated above the table. Every Angel they had so far encountered looked like living computer-generated sculptures, even the ocean-going one. As far as Misato could tell, they looked like life made of math. The projection flickered to images of the new invaders, ignoring the thousand-thousand monsters and favoring the humanoid ones. Even the first Angel they fought was a tetrapod with two arms, two legs and the suggestion of a head.
The images on the display were all frighteningly human, more than mere structural similarities. Eyes, noses, lips, long pointed ears. Everything looked to be in the right places and right sizes- usually. Most were beautiful, all were awesome and grotesque to behold. Misato found herself cringing at some of the recorded images, caught between longing fascination and awful revulsion. She forced herself to look past the projection and at Shinji. He was safe to look at, to focus on.
Misato wasn't alone in her discomfort at least. Only Lorenz seemed unaffected, but that might have had to do with his extensive cybernetics. Still, she had a chance to think about it. "Is it some kind of disguise function? Or are we seeing what we want to see?"
Ritsuko and Shinji shook their heads at that, and he clarified. "No, it's too arbitrary, and we've had corroboration from multiple individuals who all see the same things, plus photographs. They're not plucking anything out of the ether or collective unconscious- if they are, that'd be the least of our problems."
Nagisa took a moment to speak up then. "They can interact with AT fields however- though I don't know how. We've seen then bring down an Eva's barrier in almost every engagement, though they lack the same efficiency of an Angel, as far as I can tell."
The JSSDF contingent exchanged a brief look at that before urging Nagisa to explain. "The significance of that is?"
"Well," Nagisa temporized. "The AT field is an aspect or manifestation of the soul. Anything that interacts with it by definition is grappling with your very identity and sense of self. Angels have their own version, and an Evangelion weaponizes it."
"Human AT-fields reflect and contain." Asuka added quickly, before the generals could ask too many metaphysical questions. "We'll get a cheat sheet of AT-field mechanics copied down for all of you as soon as we can. I don't know if it will help your battle strategy, but you can trust us pilots to handle the tactics."
Turning back to Shinji, Misato waved, shivering in her jacket. The invaders on the projection were staring at her. "Back to 'too human', what do you mean?"
Shinji pointed at the display, almost helplessly. "It's just, even our own science fiction talks about how human-aliens makes no sense, and these things are alien! Maybe not from space, but they shouldn't look so much like us! Or act like us!"
He changed the display to show some of the white and grey-garbed troops they'd been seeing around the city, and they were very much troops. They had an almost martial bearing, disciplined and well-ordered. "Obvious military organization with standard bearers. The thing that got me the most was that shadow monster Nagisa-san and I fought. I don't think you understand- the thing inside winked at me."
Cutting himself off with a snarl, Shinji sat back down with a heavy groan. "The idea of winking has matured over ten thousand years of human social evolution, and it means different things in different cultures. It somehow knew I would understand. These things are so wildly, unbelievably..."
Misato leaned back in her seat, dreading what was to come. Shinji was almost ranting, but every word resonated with her in a way that was both reassuringly right and horrible in its implication. Silently, she nodded, and he continued. Glancing around the table, she realized everyone else was starting to understand as well.
Kihl spoke up for the first time since the meeting started. "They understand us. Not us personally, culturally, but they know what makes us tick, and instinctively shy away from danger. That implies a deeper history or shared knowledge than anyone here has previously assumed."
"It's a frighteningly real possibility." Shinji nodded. "The shadow pilot winked at me. It made a point to maneuver the battle towards the civilians and soldiers. It... was..."
Shinji stood again, shaking his hands at his sides and exhaling harshly. "It was fucking with me. They are fucking with us."
Nagisa raised his hand. "You were however able to overcome the shadow's manipulations when I offered a positive distraction. It did read you like a book, but once your mental stage changed, the battle was yours."
The tall pilot dropped back to his seat and sighed. "That's true, but it's still scary as all hell."
Misato frowned, glancing up at the projector and the sublime horrors for a moment. Fiddling with her cross, she bit her lip. None of this made any sense, and they were nothing like the Angels. The Angels were single-minded, almost monomaniacal in their focus. She was also pretty sure that the first one they fought didn't actually start attacking until they started lobbing tank shells at it.
Silence stretched out in the meeting room as everyone digested Shinji's contribution. Misato though still couldn't shake something. Something that nagged at her, gnawing at the edge of her mind.
The cross slipped out of her hand as it hit her. "They can fuck with us."
Everyone turned to look at her- the senior staff like Hyuuga and Maya, her fellow directors, the commanders and JSSDF staffers. Misato ignored the stares, feeling her heart pound and that sense of elation build in her mind. She was on the cusp of figuring something out. Standing, she almost leaned into Ritsuko's face and reached for the keyboard, and Shinji passed it around to Rei. It made its way across through Asuka, Nagisa and Kaji before ending up in Ritsuko's hands and finally Misato's. Punching keys, she brought the Angels back up, grinning widely.
"The Angels have been clever in their own way, but obnoxiously dumb about everything else. These guys though-" Misato waved at the still images of the new invaders. "They're putting the screws to us, actively attacking our morale. The Angels are Stygian horrors and ciphers. These guys?"
She pointed at the screens again, still smiling. "We can fuck with them right back."
Humming, almost overflowing with energy, Misato stood up and ambled over to lonely whiteboard, and she only distantly noticed Rei ease out of her seat and join her. Black marker in hand, Misato started scribbling. Behind her, the pilots, command staff, scientists and JSSDF contingent perked up. Feeling their eyes on her back and following her hand, she grinned wider and stood taller. Hips cocked and jabbing at the board with a swing and a bounce, she felt like every inch of the Katsuragi Misato she ever wanted to be. It had been too long.
"What do these new aliens value?" Misato rounded on the table, beaming. "Hell if I know, but by looking at them I can say they like being beautiful and inflicting terror. The only thing I can think to say is that these guys are practicing total war- not just on our civilians and the city itself, but our very minds, hopes and fears."
Indicating the red-haired pilot wit a sweep of her hand, she continued. "They wanted us to see Jupiter, to connect its image with theirs and take away from it how small and outclassed we are in the scope of this fight. It wasn't simply a retreat, it was a tactical psychological maneuver!"
Commander Ikari stood up, cutting through the din with his own low grunt. "And you suggest we reply in kind, Major?"
She nodded, sobering in an instant. "There's a time and place for morality, and I don't expect any rule of war to apply here. They escalated first."
One of the green-jacketed generals scowled, not quite slamming his fist on the table. "On top of something out there threatening our souls, you can't expect us to sit here and believe that a living ice-sculpture is trying to demoralize my men using... jigs and festival dancing! Are you sure you're not reading too far into these... animals and art-projects?"
Misato shrugged somberly, giving the man her full attention and painfully aware of his perspective. It also was also a poisonous thought that she had to kill without mercy. "This far beyond a conventional war, sir. We can only react based on effects felt on our troops, because direct displays of aggression are so varied as to be impossible to judge."
"Our respect for them is below contempt." Rei intoned, her voice had a cutting note, like a finely tuned violin. She had started adding to the whiteboard herself with a red marker. "Together, our ongoing objectives must include identifying what they value, and expending all reasonable effort to desecrate it. If an otherworldly enemy chooses to engage us as equals, we should take every option to gain advantage of the situation."
Misato tossed Rei a quick nod and a wink for the assist, but turned back to the conference table and put on her soldier face, full of charm and professionalism. Hope seemed to ripple around the table, tinged with an understandable amount of confusion and apprehension. It was a simple psychological trick, one that most people experienced but not always noticed. In having a goal, their misgivings and frustrations seemed to ebb away. Already she could see people with pen and paper out, scribbling notes and requesting more information as mental gears turned. Oddly enough, Nagisa was smirking, reeking of smugness.
"So far, I don't think anything we've learned has changed the situation." Misato hopped up to her feet again, tossing the soul photos aside. "Yes, it's terrifying. And we're going to put as much as we can spare to the questions that all need answers like this one, but the tactical and strategic situation hasn't changed. We're still fighting against whatever the hell these things are, and our objectives are the same. The only difference now is we're risking our souls, which isn't that much different from being dead."
"Then what do you suggest, Major Katsuragi?" One of the JSSDF generals growled, crushing a pencil between his fingers. "Blithely ignore the metaphysical threat and carry on as normal?"
"Pretty much!" Misato winked, pouring on more cheer and charm than she technically felt, but they needed it. The whole room, all of NERV and Tokyo-3 needed it more than she could fully describe. "We've already had a fair run of hopeless battles, and I've seen my pilots pull out miracles. An unknowable enemy from beyond the stars is normal."
Turning and walking back to the whiteboard, Misato started drawing on blank section, listing out their problems and assets. "What do we need people, Manpower right?"
She nodded at Shinji, and he agreed while she wrote the new entry down. "Not enough trained soldiers- but we also need scientists, engineers, labor in general."
"And where do you propose to get such human resources?" The Commander intoned.
Misato smiled and gestured at the walls, before pointing up at the ceiling. "What do we have brewing over our heads? Confusion, resentment, frustration. Anger. Those are human resources! What they planned was to break our resolve, so I say we show them the resolve of all Tokyo-3! Call in as many refugees as we can, offer them a chance to feel useful again, to pick up and fight. Most of them won't go for it, but the people who can volunteer, we can use!"
The alarm had Misato rolling out of a shadowed doorway and into the twisted, scrambled corridors with gun in hand. Her heels hit the floor with a muted squeak and she charged ahead after the invaders. Her boots echoed in time with the Section 2 suits formig up behind her, and she peered through the sickly warning lights and flashing strobes.
Columns of smoke shot out from burning, melting vents and the once orderly Evangelion Cages seemed to tangle in on themselves, lit with a guttering, almost radioactive tangerine backlight. A door slammed down behind her, cleaving a pair of suits in half, leaving the top blazer to flutter to the ground. Misato couldn't stop moving.
Above, speakers spoke with Ritsuko's lips. "Geofront Sector seven lost. There's nothing left to save. Geofront sector eight lost- there's nothing left to save-"
Shadows peeled out from the walls, slicing her agents apart into black ribbons that soaked themselves with blood. Misato twisted and raised her weapon in the same move, squeezing the trigger but feeling the weapon cycle on empty. The formless darkness took on a wild and gnarled shape, full of warts, leering eyes and bulbous noses. Her gun was useless. Tossing it aside, Misato raised her arms and screamed into the capering shadows.
Ritsuko still muttered from above, and more doors slammed shut throughout the cages. "Nothing left to save."
Misato fought, punching, kicking and clawing. She ripped apart the shadows, broke them over her her knees. They raked clawed hands through her hair and came back bloody, but she wouldn't stop. Pumping her legs, she charged through a mass of them. The shadows bore down, catching on her arms, around her middle. They dragged her down and back, but still she fought.
Tearing through the last filmy layer, Misato slammed into an opposite wall, dimly aware she left a bloody mark on the NERV logo stretched across it. Behind her the shadows reformed, and she had no more strength to fight. Misato picked up her feet and ran, as if hell itself were behind her. Maybe it was.
The corridors shifted into stranger shapes- she found herself running on walls one second, then gantries across open air. She tumbled into an open space and saw the burning Mass Production Evangelion lurch around, throwing up noxious clouds of smoke and filling her nose with the smell of rancid, burning flesh. The only path forward was along it's flailing arms, and she braved the flames.
Up the elbow, over the wrist and off the hand, Misato leaped away from the Eva and landed in the far doorway, safe from the smell and heat and horrible things. She turned and twisted down the next hallway, faintly hearing Ritsuko declare the Evangelion as nothing left to save.
First, the wall exploded, then Misato knew pain. When she came too seconds later, she felt something hot and wet spill over her front. A hole just below her breasts had been carved out of her chest, a ragged arc that shattered bone and opened her lungs. Her sudden slump came to a sudden stop, and another impact slammed her into the wall a second time.
Forcing her eyes open, she saw Moreau past the pain, hands on his swords and nearly wrist deep in her chest.
She blinked once, and then it was Shinji, hands still on the hilts and frowning sadly. "Nothing left to save."
The pilot stood up and started walking backwards, away from her and into the rapidly lengthening distance. Hot tears started to spill over her cheeks, and Misato reached out with one blood-soaked arm.
Pinned to the wall, Misato bled and struggled with her dimming vision. The darkness blurred as her whole body tensed one final time, pushing against the blades, against her drooping eyelids. He couldn't just leave her, not like this, she wasn't prepared to di-
* * *
"-iauugh!"
Throwing herself upright out of bed so fast as to throw the covers past her knees, Misato groaned. She rubbed at her eyes and sighed feeling tear tracks and gunk. "Whatever happened to cheap martinis and jet ski dreams..."
It was dark in the officers quarters, and she could barely see the trees outside the angled window. The fiber optics and reflectors on the surface had been damaged early on in the battle, leaving the Geofront cavern cold and thick with shadows. Misato glanced at the budget-bin NERV issue alarm clock and sighed again. Four AM. Figured.
Easing a hand down past the bottom hem of her tank top, Misato traced the two thin lines along her stomach. She had a matching set on her back, and there hadn't been time to get them fully removed. She frowned into the darkness, feeling her insides churn. Just her luck that she'd get a handful of hours before heading back out. Central Dogma was well ventilated, but right now all Misato could feel was cold from sweat and stress.
Letting her eyes slip closed, Misato sighed again. They snapped open when she heard her bedroom door slide open a second later. Rei and Asuka stood in the doorway, all but drowning in oversized NERV issue T-shirts. The blue-haired pilot's eyes almost glowed in the dark, but the function light from Asuka's eyepatch was almost too bright to look at. The bit of tech probably had night vision.
Apparently it did, because Asuka must have seen the question on her face. "We heard you screaming."
Having said that, the girls didn't even give Misato a chance to say she was alright. Watching them move with a surprisingly quiet efficiency, she got the feeling they wouldn't have believed her anyway. Plopping down on either side, the two pilots cuddled up next to her in a fairly matter-of-fact manner.
Rei, on her left, propped herself up on one arm and whispered across Misato to the redhead. "I am not against this plan, however..."
Caught between them, Misato could only watch the byplay and smile, glancing at Asuka while she pulled her patch off.
She slid under the futon and grabbed the covers, drawing them up over the three of them. "I'm just doing what I wish someone had done for me."
Misato wiped at her eyes, before letting Rei cuddle up on her unoccupied side. She wondered then, if it was possible to be so happy that you stopped crying. The red-eyed girl finished curling up under her arm. Looking down her front, Misato found herself smiling uncontrollably at the curtains of red and blue hair spreading out over her body.
Drawing the girls close, Misato planted a kiss on top of their heads one after the other and was rewarded by a pair of tiny laughs. "Kids are tough, you've got the rest of your lives to bounce back from all kinds of shit. Adults are supposed to know better. We're never intended to bounce, so when we hit the ground, too often we shatter instead."
Rei didn't answer with words, but she wrapped her arms around Misato's middle and hugged her tighter all the same.
"That's deep." From the other side, Misato felt Asuka press a smile into the skin just below her collarbone. "How about we put you together tomorrow. Go to sleep Misato."
* * *
However many hours later, Misato felt herself wake up rightly. She was warm, deliciously so, and for a moment gladly forgot that there was an ongoing extranormal invasion from space. Instead, she kept her eyes closed and considered which warm body to curl up closer to. On a whim, she chose the left hand one, purring contentedly.
The warmth on her right side shifted and peeled away, and she heard Asuka's not-too-distant voice. "Sleep well?"
Happy, rested and sultry, Misato opened one eye and twisted just far enough from Rei to offer Asuka a brown-eyed wink. "I just spent the night wedged between two gorgeous girls- that's a loaded question if I ever heard one."
A second later, a pillow hit her head.
* * *
When he wasn't in his Evangelion, Shinji was in the labs almost every spare hour.
The main section took up multiple floors as truckloads full of salvage and recovered material made its way through hastily-conceived quarantines and security checkpoints. So far they hadn't found an infiltrator or figurative Trojan horse, but it seemed like such an obvious thing, Misato drafted the procedures on the spot. The largest room was set aside for hundreds of tables, and glass-faced lockers that stretched to the ceiling.
It was full of people too. Scientists, engineers, veterans of Shinji's special projects division along with Ritsuko's own people from Project E, and anyone else who'd even shown a hint of potential had been tapped for research duty. Thousands of unique objects had to be sorted, cataloged and prioritized for further study in the hopes of learning something useful. Outlying labs were being stripped of their equipment to expedite the search for answers or meaningful intelligence, as they simply did not have enough tools and machines to scan everything.
All told, they had so far learned that the invaders were an incomprehensible riot of pattern green bullshit.
Resisting the urge to massage his eyes, Shinji let out a long, sputtering breath. Thinking about it, Shinji still couldn't remember the last time he actually suffered eyestrain, but old habits died hard. Physically, he knew was just shy of inexhaustible, able to power on through day and night. Mentally... Well, puzzles and mysteries didn't reinvigorate him either. There was no mistaking the weight though, bearing down on him and everyone working alongside him. A few months ago he would have been struggling with his own unrealistic expectations and perfectionism. Today, he was acutely aware that lives depended on the work they were all doing.
Beneath harsh, white fluorescent lights, Shinji looked back down at the table and started picking through the salvage. Another rolling cart was heavy with improvised supplies and thaumaturgical tricks. Anything he could do to spare one more chemical gas analyzer or similar tool. While he sorted out the obvious 'treasure' from everything else, he heard Ritsuko's voice carry over the rest of the research staff.
"Gemstone fragments, storage box four-hundred and fifty... two." Shinji could hear Ritsuko pause to check the inventory. "Armor shrapnel, appears vaguely Malaysian in design, shattered via incendiary round impact. Basic reassembly reveals fragments to be a solid, contiguous sheet of unnatural density and composition, transparent diamond at center mass with a fused edging of emerald, changing crystalline structure to inform coloration at the atomic level."
He looked up in time to catch her finishing a recording. "Not personally a geologist, but safe to conclude as impossible to duplicate outside of artificial means due to pressure and temperatures required, even forgoing the presently uncut shape."
Most everything they had recovered so far defied conventional analysis. Half the time, mass spectrometry returned nonsensical results, and others came back as flatly impossible but eminently understandable. Gold coins had been recovered from what had been reported as an invader's strong point and literal dragon's hoard. Which would have been... consistent with the mythology if it hadn't looked like a blizzard-serpent with sapphire eye-studded scales and trailing whiskers of frost. The dragon wasn't important though. What was important, was that every gold sample tested was one hundred percent pure, marred only by the actions required to test its composition.
Shinji thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. The dragon was absolutely important- it was an invader, and it was also a dragon.
Fuyutsuki had also been spending his hours in the labs, scouring reference books of mythology and his own notes on metaphysical biology. He also had back-lit box mounted on one wall, spread out with soul photographs over the past few months. When he'd first put them up, Ritsuko had turned a bit red. Shinji noted that some of the pictures were of his soul, and Rei's, but the rest were all of the head of Project E herself. Not that they looked like much of anything. Each dark plastic sheet was some kind of false-color image heavily processed, but they had consistent structures and shapes between each photograph. Shinji noted that his own was particularly interesting, because at some point, his Exaltation changed too.
Not that soul physiology was extremely useful right then. Everyone in the lab including Fuyutsuki, Ritsuko and Shinji were focused on the ongoing crisis. Mired in lab work, experiments and running tests, everyone looked about as exhausted as he felt, mentally at least. Senior staff and division heads were required to sleep, but the heavy bags both Ritsuko's and Fuyutsuki's eyes told Shinji everything he needed to know about scheduled shifts and combat conditions.
Catching his eye, Fuyutsuki nodded and offered him a wan smile. "Any progress, Shinji?"
Blinking rapidly, Shinji quickly shook himself back into alertness. Still felt weird to be called just by name. "Nothing jumping out yet. I've been adding what I can to the Wall."
The 'Wall' was one side of the lab chamber that had been painted white, and then Shinji took a marker to it. Half the space was thick with notes, formula and thaumaturgical procedures. Most of it was inconclusive, unfinished and otherwise a meager, faltering step forward. Shinji let out a rough breath and turned back to the examination table. Before he could reach for another trinket, an argument elsewhere in the lab broke apart in a huff. A few moments later, a group of scientists and engineers carried what looked like a piece of full plate mail and laid it down in front of him.
An older man with a bristly mustache crossed his arms and let out a tired breath. "Ikari-san, we were hoping you could tell us what the hell this is."
Hooking a nearby chair with his foot, Shinji sat down and hummed. As far as armor went, it was beautiful, like a relentlessly detailed work of art. It was absolutely covered in filigree, dripping with embellishment and the like. He ran his fingers over some of the etchings and realized it was almost like lace, but made of steel. Or nearly something like steel. It had a strange luster and gleam that was almost liquid and candied under the laboratory lights. He could see his reflection in the curves and panes.
"It looks like someone tried to make a costume into real armor." Reaching out, he picked it up and almost immediately dropped it.
The armor was too light. It was almost like holding something made of spun sugar. Despite all that though, he could feel the strength. It didn't bend or flex like he expected. Even the thinnest, weakest looking parts were unbelievably strong. On a hunch, he raised it higher and held it to his chest, increasingly aware that he was much too big for it, and not... voluptuous enough either.
Swallowing thickly, Shinji looked up from the armor even as the people surrounding him looked on. "Ritsuko, I could use your help over here..."
It took her a few moments to break free from itemizing and cataloging, but when she did Ritsuko looked up. Her eyes flicked up to his own, then down at the breastplate in his hand- emphasis on breast.
"I suppose I must." She mumbled, crossing by few tables to stand across from him and squinting through her glasses. "Misato is missing something of an opportunity..."
There was no good answer to that, so Shinji just held the armor out for her. She narrowed her eyes to thin slits. "You've checked it right? It's not going to eat me?"
Shinji looked back up at her. "You think I can't treat whatever it could do?"
Ritsuko just gave him an apologetic wince and nodded. Aside from mandatory training with personal body armor and such, no one else in the labs had any experience with plate mail or anything like that, so it took Ritsuko a few minutes to figure out the straps and plates. She ended up having to take her lab coat off, leaving her in an increasingly worn skirt and blue vest.
As she finished cinching the straps, Ritsuko let out an agonized little sigh. "These things- everything we've seen, all the recovered material- is saturated with Pattern Green. There has to be something generating it, saturating their bodies with it. Tokyo-3 is nearly covered in the stuff."
Letting out one last grunt, Ritsuko pulled the last catch closed. "We can't even pick Rei out on the pattern sensors now."
Finally, Ritsuko stood up, blinking once, twice. She craned her neck and twisted at the hips, frowning. "I knew it was light but..."
Fuyutsuki approached as Ritsuko started stretching her arms over her head, letting them rest at her sides and more. "You still have full range of motion."
"I think my shirt is more restrictive." Ritsuko mumbled and gave the rigid edge across her bust a fitful tug. She looked up at Shinji and licked her lips. "About how strong do you think this is as armor?"
"Well," Shinji reached for his notes while the other scientists and engineers started leaning in, not unreasonably considering Ritsuko an object of study. "I want to say it's equivalent to late eighteenth century full plate mail- obviously all we have is the cuirass. But that one was reported as having stood up to... NATO Five-five-six caliber."
Standing, Shinji waved for Ritsuko to follow him past the tables towards one of the few remaining bare patches of wall. "Unfortunately that's second hand information. I can tell you that's the best quality steel for its purpose I've ever seen, and it weighs less than our shirts."
While they moved, the scientists and other engineers cleared more of a space, and Shinji gently guided Ritsuko into the designated testing area, and they were all mumbling about how the Proving Grounds having been converted to refugee shelters and aid stations. Space was constantly being reapportioned throughout the Geofront dome as the incoming civilian population swelled.
Once every was in place, Shinji offered Ritsuko a reassuring little smirk. She blinked once and and a question formed on her lips, but Shinji was already rearing back with one arm chambered. His fist hit the breastplate with a heavy, meaty impact and scooped Ritsuko up off her feet and across six inches to wall. She dropped to the floor, still standing and sputtering helplessly while the other scientists broke out into a fervent whisper.
"Wh-What the hell was that Shinji?" Ritsuko pressed a hand to her middle, and he could see she was looking for dents. "Not that I'm against hands-on testing but..."
"You're accidentally channeling Misato?" Shinji smiled a bit wider and pointed over her shoulder. Ritsuko turned obligingly and blinked.
The wall was spider-webbed with cracks, and Ritsuko was barely winded.
Before they could consider further testing, the lab doors slid open and the sound of boots filled the space. Tall enough to peer over the milling crowd of scientists, Shinji blinked and wondered what paramedics were doing there. Pairs of them were trooping in with simple cloth gurneys stretched between them, along with a growing collection of patients. Even from across the room and a brief exertion of his reserve told him they were not medically well, and Shinji carefully threaded through the crowd to examine them up close.
Ritsuko joined him a beat later, still wearing the recovered breastplate. "We're not- I'm not authorized to do medicine in here, you want to take them-"
The lead paramedic raised his hand, careful not to hit someone nearby. "This might be more serious than it seems, ma'am. We figured we needed to take this right to the top."
Shinji heard that, and was aware enough to notice Misato and Hyuuga Makoto enter after the last of the paramedics. More people were pushed to the walls as the paramedics cleared a space for the division heads. Shinji tossed Misato a quick fond but wan smile before turning back to the patient. Judging by all obvious symptoms, he was something akin to... Shinji couldn't even put it into words, but there was a distinct impression of a psychological problem.
Giving Shinji a quick return grin, Misato cleared her throat and put a steadying hand on Ritsuko's shoulder. "Patrols up on the surface found these people wandering the streets, between recovery operations."
"But what are we supposed to be looking at here, besides someone experiencing severe catatonia?" Ritsuko frowned, checking the man's pupil dilation and every word dripping with frustration.
The paramedics started packing up to leave, gingerly threading through the gathered scientists. None of them looked one bit happy about leaving their patients like that, but they were needed elsewhere.
But while they did that, the lead medic shook his head. "Despite the apparent catatonia, that man and the rest can recite their own names, my name, the time of day and their credit card numbers backwards. Yet we can't get any sensory or stimulus response out of them, because all our best guesses say the only thing their brains are doing right now is keeping them blinking and breathing."
Ritsuko let out a groan, and Shinji saw Fuyutsuki wince out the corner of his eye while she moaned. "... And something out there did this to him. Wonderful."
With that declaration, the paramedics all but scrambled to the next crisis. Thinking quickly, Shinji grabbed the nearest engineer. A quiet word put the various scientists and engineers into motion, splitting up and arranging transport for the afflicted to the infirmary. Morale was visibly draining from everyone present, and Shinji flexed his hands, huffing.
Fuyutsuki had been silent for the past few minutes, staring at the nearest victim. He spoke quietly, but Shinji could hear the severity as it cut through the crowd noise. "Ritsuko, do you by chance have one of your soul cameras nearby?"
Nodding, she moved off to set it up while the victims were gradually shuffled out across the geofront, save for one left behind at Fuyutsuki's request. Soon the lab was empty, save for the senior officers and division heads. With the camera set up, the former professor snapped a few photos and arranged for them to be processed, muttering quietly while they waited.
Shinji felt Misato's presence at his side, and her hand found his and gave it a light squeeze. Out the corner of his eye, he watched Misato, and how she took in all the materials and salvage.
Then her eyes locked onto Ritsuko with a laser-intense focus. "Rits, I understand the labs hours are getting long but... what is that you're wearing?"
There was a long pause, and Shinji counted five heartbeats before Ritsuko wilted, and Hyuuga stifled a laugh. "... The scientific method and shame."
Seconds ticked by as the MAGI processed the data, and a nearby printer whined as it produced a handful of smoky plastic pages. Fuyutsuki clipped them to the light box and frowned. No one else said anything, but Shinji stepped in a little closer, followed by the others. The five of them took in the metaphysical photographs, and Shinji's eyes flicked from the older ones, the examples and baselines...
Compared to Ritsuko's healthy soul, the victim's was dimmer, lacking extraneous whorls and structures. Shinji couldn't help but think of it as emaciated, or maybe even desiccated. Like someone had starved the soul, drained it off everything it could. A healthy soul looked like it was always in motion, ready to leap off the page and twist in lazy patterns of false-color and the like. The man's catatonic soul...Shinji blinked and glanced at Fuyutsuki, suddenly reminded and understanding. The old man spotted it first.
But Ritsuko was the first one to put it into words "...No metabiological activity. Their souls are- they're like the clones."
Shinji felt his train of thought swerve at the sudden non-sequitur, and he felt Misato lean around his side while he spoke. "What clones?"
"Considering the circumstances, I can't really give a damn about security clearance." Ritsuko sighed and massaged her eyes before elaborating. "The clones of Rei."
* * *
Any other time, Gendo would have let the silence stretch out until his opponent's patience ran out. The trick was due in part to his own vindictive streak, of that perverse willingness to go further and escalate more than anyone else. Tempered with experience and iron resolve, it was a tool Gendo valued immensely.
But now was not the time to force Khil to speak first. "Chairman, I believe we both can agree this situration is completely unprecedented."
The statement hung heavily in the air between them, and Khil Lorenz only sat in his chair, silent save for the thin electric whine of life support. Gendo's normal office was in ruins- its glass floor shattered and spilt across the Geofront. Even weeks after Moreau's attack, the Commander still had his arm in a sling. Shinji had set the bone in a few seconds, but it healed no faster than normal. Painkillers kept the ache down to a dull throb.
Finally, the older cyborg sighed. "There is no hope in reconciling the current situation with what we know of the Scrolls. Either we have created an unrecognizable tangent, in defiance of all we know of those who came before, or this is truly an unprecedented, unwelcome surprise."
"Neither of us has time to waste on unraveling the tangle of causes." Gendo sat heavily behind his desk, painfully unable to link his fingers together or rest comfortably, even in his place of power. "We must accept what things are and carry on. I won't bother to ask after your records of the Scrolls, but do they have any insight?"
Khil could not shake his head, but the way his face and lips pulled back, limp and worn was a fair equivalent. "The active prophecy yet remains red, and the only commonality is the original sequence regarding the Second and transporting ADAM as bait. I can tell you that none of our verified recordings have spoken of these invaders, or even remotely describe them."
The old man paused then, before grunting. "These new ones look more like biblical angels than the ones we've been herding since Impact."
"I'm certain it's merely a coincidence- I have been noticing many of them lately." Gendo drummed his fingers on the desk with his good hand. "We've been leaning on our shared agent, he will correct his misguided attempt at heroism shortly, once we have a better assessment of what's going on. The Fourth has, for whatever reason, grown particularly attached to the man."
"Nagisa is the worst kind of unpredictable- for his driving motive is amusement." Khil's cybernetics whined harder. "His commitment to the cause is unquestionable though, fanatic and reasoned."
Mulling that over, Gendo's fingers stilled. "What do you know of Pattern Green?"
"Very little, aside from Akagi's little projects the past year." Khil's frown quirked down lower with the easy admission. "I'm old but not hard of hearing though. The new players on the board are suffused with the phenomenon, are they not?"
It was more complicated than that, Gendo could readily admit to himself. The rest he could simply leave as information the old man did not need to know. "They are, to an extent that defied prediction or even conception."
Khil clicked the joystick that steered his wheelchair, angling around to better face Gendo. "Potentially setting them apart as a third or external actor, perhaps. Or the First Ancestral Race. You are correct though- their origins and exact natures are not relevant to our goals, mutual or otherwise."
Gendo nodded, locking eyes with the visor. "Then I believe it we can agree to pool our resources where applicable. Put simply; a temporary alliance."
"Eminently logical." The cyborg offered the commander a surprisingly winning smile- perhaps the expression was easier on Kihl's old nerves and sinew.
Regardless, Gendo couldn't take Kihl's easy acceptance as indicative of his true commitment. Theirs was a utilitarian arrangement, and nothing more.
Still, there was one final point that needed clarification. "And the Fourth?"
Khil was quiet for a long moment. They both heard the sound of approaching footsteps, and the old man answered before the door slid aside. "At your disposal."
* * *
The Commander's temporary office lacked the sinister personality he had become known for. Little more than a converted meeting room, it had tables, sweet, blessed chairs and a whiteboard taking up an entire wall. Fresh from the labs, Misato settled into one of the thankfully cushy seats while Ritsuko fussed with the local MAGI terminal. A portable holographic projector hummed to life in the center of the table, filling the center of the space with a boot-up screen while the room lights dimmed automatically. Tools like that had seen more use in past few weeks than they had in years.
More people filtered into the meeting room in ones and twos, but hers was the biggest group having come straight from the analysis lab. Mulling over Ritsuko's recent revelations, Misato barely noticed her friend settling down next in the seat next to her. The scientist offered her a wan little smile as they waited, and Kihl Lorenz sat to one side, observing quietly.
Shinji was also on her mind. Wriggling in her seat, she glanced at him sidelong, wondering what he was thinking. His face had darkened since leaving the labs, turning positively thunderous after Ritsuko's little revelation, and the... Misato wasn't sure if she wanted to call it menace or something more like intent.Well, whatever it was, the feeling poured off the teenager in thick waves, and everyone could feel it. Fortunately, Shinji was still fairly easy to read, so Misato was fairly sure it wasn't directed at anyone in the room, meaning no reason to pry.
He perked up and his expression warmed when Rei then Asuka marched in, both clad in their plugsuits but 'dry'. They hadn't been deployed that day. Rei had taken to wearing a pair of sweatpants over her suit between sorties, but Asuka favored her repaired leather jacket.. She still drowned in the thing, but Asuka made it work. Misato couldn't help but wonder if Asuka was showing her legs off on purpose though. The new pilot Nagisa brought up the rear, toweling his hair off from LCL and the last patrol.
The last people to make it into the meeting were the JSSDF generals alongside Kaji and Fuyutsuki- they hadn't had time to designate civilian representatives, and technically everyone who lived and worked in Tokyo-3 were employees of NERV. One of the generals helped Fuyutsuki with a sheaf of folders and a sealed sample container before they all finally took their seats. Looking around the table, Misato winced glumly. They were all, in a word, tired. Misato let the pleasantries and pre-meeting small talk wash over her, adding what she could and achingly aware that it and her own musing was just coping mechanism for everyone.
Arm still in a sling, the Commander stood up at the head of the conference table. His beard looked thicker than normal. "In the interests of efficiency, we shall focus on new developments. Akagi; your findings."
Misato blinked as Ritsuko straightened up in her seat and pulled in a steady, deliberative breath before turning to Fuyutsuki. The Sub-Commander stood, and everyone faced him as he opened the folder in his hand.
He passed the glossy photo-images with a heavy, stony frown. "Some of you already know this." He nodded to about half the table, including Misato herself. "But I am afraid that everything is even more serious than we previously thought."
Misato reached for one of the false-colored soul photos, but she kept her eye on everyone else in the room, ready to guage their reactions. Most of the JSSDF staff stared at the images with barely disguised looks of confusion. Considering they were showing something that looked like a bad psychedelic trip, that was understandable.
When all the copies were passed around, Fuyutsuki cleared his throat and sighed. "Those are processed photographs of the healthy human soul- and the page after that shows us of a soul from a recently recovered civilian."
General Kirishima held the a page in each hand, glancing between them, and Misato could hear the thick dread in his voice. "Just tell us what we're looking at, professor."
The old man slumped back into his seat, hands shaking. "There is something up there, which can through some means, damage the human soul."
It was such an odd statement, but there was a verifiable, quantified thing that was attached to human existence. Fuyutsuki among others had discovered it. Ikari Yui had refined their understanding of it, and now the old man was telling them it was at risk. Misato shivered despite her own familiarity. Knowing more about the deeper science did not allay her fear.
General Kirishima paled, but he forced his hands to stop shaking before giving Fuyutsuki a respectful nod. His mouth worked, likely having gone dry before finally speaking. "Is there a source? Is this a weapon, can we defend against it, anything?"
Fuyutsuki spread his hands helplessly, looking closer to six hundred years old rather than sixty. "I'm afraid I don't know."
"We've noticed a correlation between the ongoing Pattern Green phenomenon and our own metaphysical biology- whatever the pattern energy is, it interacts with souls." Ritsuko added. "So far it hasn't been harmful, but I don't want to rule out the source being some kind of environmental hazard, like radiation."
Then she reached out for the sample container Fuyutsuki brought in and opened it with a deft twist. Revealing a knife made of multiple pieces sandwiched and bolted together, she held it up for the whole room to see. The center, sharpened portion had a dully reflective carmine shine, almost crystalline. Misato felt her skin crawl.
"In the history of metaphysical biology, the only proven examples of soul-damage result from contact experiments, or being cut with something made of this." She gestured at the blade, suspended inside the acrylic-walled cylinder. "I've seen men rendered unto inchoate plasm with these blades."
Everyone in the room fell silent at that, in some ways confused and uncomprehending, and others uncertain. Perhaps it was hard to believe what the weapons could do without evidence, but at that point, they were more than willing to go on the expert's word.
Asuka mumbled faintly, looking off into the distance between Fuyutsuki and Ritsuko, but managing to rest on neither. "My mother was working on a contact experiment...
Ritsuko gave the pilot a pained, understanding glance before sighing. She turned to the Commander and shook her head. "There's nothing positive to report, I'm afraid. We're seeing lots of interesting and potentially useful developments, but considering..."
She trailed off then, and the assembled senior staff and military leaders understood.
"As long as Tokyo-3 is under their control, we can't make any progress." Shinji declared, and his voice was almost deafeningly loud in the quiet. He reached for a page of handwritten notes, picking up the report without pause. "Everything we want to do comes down to manpower, and we don't have enough of it."
The generals around the table rumbled in agreement, and it was a fairly obvious problem. Everyone was feeling that particular crunch. Ritsuko nodded across the table at Shinji. "Correct. Our research and think tanks are all spread too thin, and we're struggling to develop any kind of meaningful intelligence to hand over to Operations or the JSSDF contingent."
"Even the soldiers we're supporting in the Geofront are being stretched too far- to say nothing of having only four Evas and pilots." Everyone turned to Shinji as he spoke, and the pilot-director frowned. "I'm taking on extra shifts just so the others can sleep."
Then Asuka cocked her head to one side, frowning, and Misato envied the girls ability to shake off the existential horror. "On the note of resources, silly question- how are we feeding everyone in the Geofront?"
"We'll need to start rationing soon, but I have some ideas on how to stretch things out." Shinji let a tiny grin flicker across his face.
"Remember when I said NERV doesn't need a nutritionist?" The redhead let out a tired little laugh. "Yeah, my bad."
"Food and medical supplies will be the biggest concern." Ritsuko pointed out, and everyone in the room turned to focus on her. The little byplay between the two teenagers seemed to chip away at the oppressive helplessness, in turn focusing everyone's attention on something concrete and actionable. "Water's easy- if it comes to that we can just drain Lake Ashi into the Geofront. Misato wrote that plan."
Blinking again, Misato couldn't stop the brief burst of laughter. "Well hey, I did."
The Commander cleared his throat, not quite grunting. "To summarize, you've so far learned nothing immediately useful in the past six weeks."
Ritsuko shook her head and sighed. "Unfortunately no."
There was a dull, ringing absence after that statement. Misato could feel the mood in the room hit bottom and start digging. It was an awfully easy thing to understand though, and in a way, Misato realized this was how the JSSDF command staff had felt when the first Angel had attacked. Damning the budget and committing everything they had to no avail. Thinking about it, she bit her lip and hummed. They weren't quite so hopeless yet, Shinji was a stabilizing presence for her at least, and relentlessly capable. Asuka had also been indispensable, ranking somewhere just below Ritsuko and herself as master of Unnatural Warfare and bullshit soul technology.
And speak of the cute little devil, Asuka raised her hand, frowning as she rubbed her prosthetic and pulled it off. "Listen, as terrifying all this is, are we just going to dance around the fact these aliens came all the way from Jupiter."
Ritsuko and Fuyutsuki both winced, while Misato actively resisted the urge to remind the girl they'd already seen little green monster men. The JSSDF generals exchanged their own fair share of incredulous glances, but Asuka had the proof right there in her entry plugs' combat recordings. The cloudy bands and massive super storm everyone knew from grade school had been plain to see through the... portal.
"We can also say that they have multiple methods of travel-" Misato shuffled through her briefing materials with Hyuuga's assistance, pulling out pictures of the whale-castle, and other strange beasts. "So they have portals to Jupiter, might be from Jupiter for all we know, and then they can make up these big things to get around with."
Asuka nodded, leaning over to spread the photographs out while Ritsuko manned the holo-projector, pulling up video recordings. "So far we've seen whole armies and giant monsters conjured out of thin air, like when Shinji fought that crazy shadow warrior. I think the whale-castle is the same kind of thing."
"So one tool with a lot of uses?" Misato wondered. It wasn't the most elaborate hypothesis, but anything to keep everyone talking.
"I'm just calling it like I see it, but we don't know." Asuka groaned. "We do know they went to Jupiter, so I'm thinking we'll need to take the fight to them eventually."
The Commander was the one to fix Asuka with a look. "Unfortunately, interplanetary space travel is-"
"Not feasible I know." Asuka groaned, rocking back in her chair and crossing her arms over her chest. "If we could spare the Evas, Rei and I could maybe rig up some kind of AT-field drive but no. They have those maw-portals though. The teeth in the sky? ...I hate this war because I just said that with a straight face."
Asuka's pained look was earning her points with everyone else around the table. No one was immune to the absurdity of the situation. Misato cocked her head to the side, already warming up to the idea. "You're thinking about somehow taking one of those things over and taking a shortcut?"
"All things being equal, yeah!" Asuka grinned suddenly, full and honest, while Misato watched as everyone else around the table blanched or nodded along.
Ritsuko coughed into her hand, audibly apologetic. "Unfortunately there are too many unknowns- the situation is not equal. Not yet."
General Kirishima raised his hand before nodding to Asuka then Commander Ikari. "And we don't even have the supplies to truly fight a ground war, let alone a one-way suicide mission into deep space. But this remains vital intelligence- the girl's seen them head for Jupiter, and we have ground-based observatories."
There was a loud hollow thump, and everyone turned to see Ritsuko's head hit the table. The tanned blonde groaned, and she tilted her head to look at Misato. "And you have reminded me that our enemy might have faster-than-light travel. Or wormholes. Or some other kind of bullshit pattern green magic."
"Suffice it to say that is bad." Asuka declared before throwing herself back in her seat and sweeping her.hair over her shoulders.
Shinji stood up then, and all eyes turned to the tallest person in the room. "I think it's worse than that. These things, those monsters we're fighting? They... they're too human."
He reached out for a keyboard and started typing, calling up recorded images of the four confirmed Angels thus far. The holo-projector hummed industriously as tall, oddly geometric and simultaneously organic shapes rotated above the table. Every Angel they had so far encountered looked like living computer-generated sculptures, even the ocean-going one. As far as Misato could tell, they looked like life made of math. The projection flickered to images of the new invaders, ignoring the thousand-thousand monsters and favoring the humanoid ones. Even the first Angel they fought was a tetrapod with two arms, two legs and the suggestion of a head.
The images on the display were all frighteningly human, more than mere structural similarities. Eyes, noses, lips, long pointed ears. Everything looked to be in the right places and right sizes- usually. Most were beautiful, all were awesome and grotesque to behold. Misato found herself cringing at some of the recorded images, caught between longing fascination and awful revulsion. She forced herself to look past the projection and at Shinji. He was safe to look at, to focus on.
Misato wasn't alone in her discomfort at least. Only Lorenz seemed unaffected, but that might have had to do with his extensive cybernetics. Still, she had a chance to think about it. "Is it some kind of disguise function? Or are we seeing what we want to see?"
Ritsuko and Shinji shook their heads at that, and he clarified. "No, it's too arbitrary, and we've had corroboration from multiple individuals who all see the same things, plus photographs. They're not plucking anything out of the ether or collective unconscious- if they are, that'd be the least of our problems."
Nagisa took a moment to speak up then. "They can interact with AT fields however- though I don't know how. We've seen then bring down an Eva's barrier in almost every engagement, though they lack the same efficiency of an Angel, as far as I can tell."
The JSSDF contingent exchanged a brief look at that before urging Nagisa to explain. "The significance of that is?"
"Well," Nagisa temporized. "The AT field is an aspect or manifestation of the soul. Anything that interacts with it by definition is grappling with your very identity and sense of self. Angels have their own version, and an Evangelion weaponizes it."
"Human AT-fields reflect and contain." Asuka added quickly, before the generals could ask too many metaphysical questions. "We'll get a cheat sheet of AT-field mechanics copied down for all of you as soon as we can. I don't know if it will help your battle strategy, but you can trust us pilots to handle the tactics."
Turning back to Shinji, Misato waved, shivering in her jacket. The invaders on the projection were staring at her. "Back to 'too human', what do you mean?"
Shinji pointed at the display, almost helplessly. "It's just, even our own science fiction talks about how human-aliens makes no sense, and these things are alien! Maybe not from space, but they shouldn't look so much like us! Or act like us!"
He changed the display to show some of the white and grey-garbed troops they'd been seeing around the city, and they were very much troops. They had an almost martial bearing, disciplined and well-ordered. "Obvious military organization with standard bearers. The thing that got me the most was that shadow monster Nagisa-san and I fought. I don't think you understand- the thing inside winked at me."
Cutting himself off with a snarl, Shinji sat back down with a heavy groan. "The idea of winking has matured over ten thousand years of human social evolution, and it means different things in different cultures. It somehow knew I would understand. These things are so wildly, unbelievably..."
Misato leaned back in her seat, dreading what was to come. Shinji was almost ranting, but every word resonated with her in a way that was both reassuringly right and horrible in its implication. Silently, she nodded, and he continued. Glancing around the table, she realized everyone else was starting to understand as well.
Kihl spoke up for the first time since the meeting started. "They understand us. Not us personally, culturally, but they know what makes us tick, and instinctively shy away from danger. That implies a deeper history or shared knowledge than anyone here has previously assumed."
"It's a frighteningly real possibility." Shinji nodded. "The shadow pilot winked at me. It made a point to maneuver the battle towards the civilians and soldiers. It... was..."
Shinji stood again, shaking his hands at his sides and exhaling harshly. "It was fucking with me. They are fucking with us."
Nagisa raised his hand. "You were however able to overcome the shadow's manipulations when I offered a positive distraction. It did read you like a book, but once your mental stage changed, the battle was yours."
The tall pilot dropped back to his seat and sighed. "That's true, but it's still scary as all hell."
Misato frowned, glancing up at the projector and the sublime horrors for a moment. Fiddling with her cross, she bit her lip. None of this made any sense, and they were nothing like the Angels. The Angels were single-minded, almost monomaniacal in their focus. She was also pretty sure that the first one they fought didn't actually start attacking until they started lobbing tank shells at it.
Silence stretched out in the meeting room as everyone digested Shinji's contribution. Misato though still couldn't shake something. Something that nagged at her, gnawing at the edge of her mind.
The cross slipped out of her hand as it hit her. "They can fuck with us."
Everyone turned to look at her- the senior staff like Hyuuga and Maya, her fellow directors, the commanders and JSSDF staffers. Misato ignored the stares, feeling her heart pound and that sense of elation build in her mind. She was on the cusp of figuring something out. Standing, she almost leaned into Ritsuko's face and reached for the keyboard, and Shinji passed it around to Rei. It made its way across through Asuka, Nagisa and Kaji before ending up in Ritsuko's hands and finally Misato's. Punching keys, she brought the Angels back up, grinning widely.
"The Angels have been clever in their own way, but obnoxiously dumb about everything else. These guys though-" Misato waved at the still images of the new invaders. "They're putting the screws to us, actively attacking our morale. The Angels are Stygian horrors and ciphers. These guys?"
She pointed at the screens again, still smiling. "We can fuck with them right back."
Humming, almost overflowing with energy, Misato stood up and ambled over to lonely whiteboard, and she only distantly noticed Rei ease out of her seat and join her. Black marker in hand, Misato started scribbling. Behind her, the pilots, command staff, scientists and JSSDF contingent perked up. Feeling their eyes on her back and following her hand, she grinned wider and stood taller. Hips cocked and jabbing at the board with a swing and a bounce, she felt like every inch of the Katsuragi Misato she ever wanted to be. It had been too long.
"What do these new aliens value?" Misato rounded on the table, beaming. "Hell if I know, but by looking at them I can say they like being beautiful and inflicting terror. The only thing I can think to say is that these guys are practicing total war- not just on our civilians and the city itself, but our very minds, hopes and fears."
Indicating the red-haired pilot wit a sweep of her hand, she continued. "They wanted us to see Jupiter, to connect its image with theirs and take away from it how small and outclassed we are in the scope of this fight. It wasn't simply a retreat, it was a tactical psychological maneuver!"
Commander Ikari stood up, cutting through the din with his own low grunt. "And you suggest we reply in kind, Major?"
She nodded, sobering in an instant. "There's a time and place for morality, and I don't expect any rule of war to apply here. They escalated first."
One of the green-jacketed generals scowled, not quite slamming his fist on the table. "On top of something out there threatening our souls, you can't expect us to sit here and believe that a living ice-sculpture is trying to demoralize my men using... jigs and festival dancing! Are you sure you're not reading too far into these... animals and art-projects?"
Misato shrugged somberly, giving the man her full attention and painfully aware of his perspective. It also was also a poisonous thought that she had to kill without mercy. "This far beyond a conventional war, sir. We can only react based on effects felt on our troops, because direct displays of aggression are so varied as to be impossible to judge."
"Our respect for them is below contempt." Rei intoned, her voice had a cutting note, like a finely tuned violin. She had started adding to the whiteboard herself with a red marker. "Together, our ongoing objectives must include identifying what they value, and expending all reasonable effort to desecrate it. If an otherworldly enemy chooses to engage us as equals, we should take every option to gain advantage of the situation."
Misato tossed Rei a quick nod and a wink for the assist, but turned back to the conference table and put on her soldier face, full of charm and professionalism. Hope seemed to ripple around the table, tinged with an understandable amount of confusion and apprehension. It was a simple psychological trick, one that most people experienced but not always noticed. In having a goal, their misgivings and frustrations seemed to ebb away. Already she could see people with pen and paper out, scribbling notes and requesting more information as mental gears turned. Oddly enough, Nagisa was smirking, reeking of smugness.
"So far, I don't think anything we've learned has changed the situation." Misato hopped up to her feet again, tossing the soul photos aside. "Yes, it's terrifying. And we're going to put as much as we can spare to the questions that all need answers like this one, but the tactical and strategic situation hasn't changed. We're still fighting against whatever the hell these things are, and our objectives are the same. The only difference now is we're risking our souls, which isn't that much different from being dead."
"Then what do you suggest, Major Katsuragi?" One of the JSSDF generals growled, crushing a pencil between his fingers. "Blithely ignore the metaphysical threat and carry on as normal?"
"Pretty much!" Misato winked, pouring on more cheer and charm than she technically felt, but they needed it. The whole room, all of NERV and Tokyo-3 needed it more than she could fully describe. "We've already had a fair run of hopeless battles, and I've seen my pilots pull out miracles. An unknowable enemy from beyond the stars is normal."
Turning and walking back to the whiteboard, Misato started drawing on blank section, listing out their problems and assets. "What do we need people, Manpower right?"
She nodded at Shinji, and he agreed while she wrote the new entry down. "Not enough trained soldiers- but we also need scientists, engineers, labor in general."
"And where do you propose to get such human resources?" The Commander intoned.
Misato smiled and gestured at the walls, before pointing up at the ceiling. "What do we have brewing over our heads? Confusion, resentment, frustration. Anger. Those are human resources! What they planned was to break our resolve, so I say we show them the resolve of all Tokyo-3! Call in as many refugees as we can, offer them a chance to feel useful again, to pick up and fight. Most of them won't go for it, but the people who can volunteer, we can use!"
- Location
- National Capital Region, USA
That's a Katsuragi Plan, alright...
Has anyone in the Geofront suggested, even jokingly, that they try the traditional weapons of cold iron, silver, etc?
Has anyone in the Geofront suggested, even jokingly, that they try the traditional weapons of cold iron, silver, etc?
GeshronTyler
Kleiner Giftzwerg
Yay, more CiG! Yeah, I was half expecting Misazo having a nightmare, and the more the sequence escalated, the surer I became...Hnnng, that image of "the girls" snuggling up to share warmth and comfort might just give me diabetes.
So, the "Defenders of the Earth/Tokyo 3" have finally made a breakthrough, or at least have discovered a wedge to help them start to consolidate their position? Nice that Misato was the one to inspire it. I liked Rei coming up in support as well. I was thinking that the narrative needed the protags to come up with a way to start to fight back...What better concept than counter-trolling?
Hmm, I wonder how much Gendo is actually still invested in appearing to play along with SEELE's scenario (if only to substitute his own), after Shinji made his position very clear, and after the Invasion of the Weird.
Kihl I guess is still bound and determined to carry through. Still, if I understood things correctly, the Cyber-Ninja's weren't any part of SEELE/Khil's plan, and neither were the antisoul weapons (soul cutters?), so there would still be a third (possibly more) faction wanting to play.
So, the "Defenders of the Earth/Tokyo 3" have finally made a breakthrough, or at least have discovered a wedge to help them start to consolidate their position? Nice that Misato was the one to inspire it. I liked Rei coming up in support as well. I was thinking that the narrative needed the protags to come up with a way to start to fight back...What better concept than counter-trolling?
Hmm, I wonder how much Gendo is actually still invested in appearing to play along with SEELE's scenario (if only to substitute his own), after Shinji made his position very clear, and after the Invasion of the Weird.
Kihl I guess is still bound and determined to carry through. Still, if I understood things correctly, the Cyber-Ninja's weren't any part of SEELE/Khil's plan, and neither were the antisoul weapons (soul cutters?), so there would still be a third (possibly more) faction wanting to play.
Maybe they'll come across it by coincidence. Someone decides to fight the fancy dressed fencer with a big ugly iron mace/hammer, and they see that the iron was super effective? I could see Asuka hitting one of them with a convenient building section. All those analysts would work out the iron weakness fairly easily, given a hint.
The problem is, it has to be iron, and steel doesn't count. We don't use iron much anymore, now that low-carbon steel is cheaper.
*ponders where cast iron is still used*
Cast iron skillets still have some advantages.
Maybe somebody's grandmother is going to take out a faerie commando with a skillet? Or that one teacher who always goes off-topic.
Matsci
Grash itsh griah! Rwar arr rawrrawrarar!
Cast Iron and the like is HIGHER carbon content than most Steels. Steel is a more PURE form of iron.
It doesn't matter anyways, as Earth Iron isn't Creation Iron. Literately. You use Alchemy, not blast forges, to turn Iron in to Steel in creation
Yeah, I'm not sure cast iron would work either. Wrought iron, the type historically referred to as cold iron, probably would though - if Earth humans are Creation humans, and they must be for Shinji to have Exalted, it seems fairly likely that there are other parallels.
Chapter 41: Communication - Part 3
- Location
- Gladstone, OR
Hark, what ho? An update? An interlude into happenings ongoing?
* * *
Tokyo-3 belonged to them.
Fear hung over the massive boulevards in thick palls and cloud banks, clinging fitfully to corners and turning shadows into glimpses of horror unknowable. For the first week, the cicadas droned and beat their drums without pause. On the seventh day, they stopped and deafened the city with their silence. The following sunrise came with an orchestra. Within the itself, man and stranger things clashed, toppling buildings or raising the streets as beasts of water and needle-beaked birds of fire and envy. Those civilians caught in the middle were figuratively ripped apart. Saneda Ayumi wondered if literally would have been preferable.
She couldn't say how long they'd been captured. No one could have counted the days, and her pager had been turned to chittering beetles by some unseen whim. Hundreds of people- young, old, strong, weak, brave or cowardly were herded through the city, block by block. They passed by alleys filled with dancing things, and clamped their hands over their ears when the marching songs started. The Parades wound through Tokyo-3 like a mad snake, and those caught in the revelry sang and jumped. Until they died.
Their guards were worse, if for no other reason than they seemed to have a plan. Tall and beautiful or despairingly ugly, they seemed to revel in excesses. Soldiers with gnarled, warty faces and crooked noses herded their prisoners with long spears trailing pearl grey banners. Their armor was the same, emblazoned or wreathed in grey flame.
Sometimes the sentries would wave their hands and the next second Ayumi would find the intersection empty- then they'd slap her with the flat of their spears and howl like wolves. To that she could only run. Run until her shoe soles gave out, then her legs, and finally her will. And the moment her head hit the pavement, she realized she was back in the crowd of prisoners, hauled up on her feet by the nearest wardens or the bravest captives. Days of this wore at her- at all of them, and she saw the terror etched into the faces of everyone around her.
She barely noticed passing through the gates into Tokyo-3 Municipal High School.
The ugliest ones were also the caterers. Trays and bowls hewn out of driftwood or worse were carried out for the prisoners, sloshing fitfully with cold gruel. Ayumi was dead certain whatever it was, the stuff was enough to keep them alive and nothing else. Their captors had herded them through the school grounds- the quad, outdoor yards and then inside through hallway and stairwell.
Water seemed to fascinate them- at least the faucets and drinking fountains did. She watched the grotesque little ones tear down the walls looking for the pipes, twisting knobs and gurgling at the sudden, messy spray. The taller leaders barked orders orders, and their words became paper soldiers that formed ranks and bucket brigades, tending water to the prisoners.
Toji braced himself against her shoulder, and she did much the same. He'd been there through it all, alongside her, the one familiar face from before. Their group was ushered into the cafeteria, packed in with hundreds of others. Their clothes were ragged, drawn and threadbare, stained with things Ayumi could name from recent experience.
Looking at the invaders wasn't any better. The ones inside the cafeteria, the tall ones, they hurt to look at. Hurt in a way that told her she'd never see anything as beautiful or sublime again. She squinted against it like glare, as though staring into the sun... and immediately put the comparison out of her mind. Seeing those things made her feel lessened, reduced. Ayumi let out a shuddering breath and forced her eyes to focus on the tiled floor.
The boy at her side nudged her shoulder. Following his eyes, she looked through the crowd. The far end of the cafeteria had been converted into a stage, and some odd part of her mind summoned up the idea of public executions. She wasn't the only one. The crowd started boiling, those closest to the stage pushing and shoving back. The armored spear men pulled them back by the collars, blocking the retreat with grey banners and spear tips.
Toji's throat worked, and he spoke out the side of his mouth. "Hey, Saneda-san?"
She couldn't help the fear that had leaked into her voice. "Suzuhara?"
He gave her an absent nod and squeezed her hand. "Listen, when we get out of here, you'll tell Hikari-chan I was brave and a total badass, right?"
Turning to face him, Ayumi almost swore, but she stopped before making a sound. His eyes were swollen red, snot was dripping down his nose, and he sniffled loudly. She blinked and closed her mouth with a click, before mumbling- "S-Sure."
Toji gave her a firm little nod. "Good. Glad we have an understanding. Back in a sec!"
Ayumi barely had time to even register him moving, throwing his weight into and through the raving throng.
* * *
He totally wasn't scared. Not one bit. The wet, cold clammy feeling of sweat on his palms was nervous energy- adrenaline. Same thing he felt before a basketball game. Nothing worth mentioning. Toji shouldered through the crowd and their growing panic, and as the press of bodies thinned. Spilling out into a clearing ahead of the stage, Toji slammed into it and caught himself with both palms on the edge. Air rushed out of his lungs and he craned his neck upward.
The first thing he saw was hands. The second thing was too many. It was a woman, and he could tell because she was not shy about it or the uncomfortably long miles and miles of legs. She was practically dripping with hands. Fingers, wrists, thumbs and all. She had too many shoulders and not enough feet, with bone-white skin and equally white hair- though the inside was a weird steely blue, and her eyes were... He couldn't tell what color her eyes were, but they had more in common with gemstones than anything.
Toji managed to rip his attention away and saw some of the other captives being hauled around on stage by the monsters in armor. Heart pounding in his chest, he vaulted the barrier and rushed them, all but plowing into one with his shoulder. The spearman and the two civilian girls in his four arms all tumbled to the floor like bowling pins, and a second later, Toji realized the soldier had fallen apart into hollow pieces of armor.
Scrambling to his feet, Toji grabbed for the fallen spear and whirled, flicking the blade towards the other guards and putting the other captives behind him. The crowd was shouting, fear and cheering blurring together into a riot of sound. Toji tightened his grip and felt his knuckles crack, even as his eyes flicked left and right, looking for threats. Then the woman raised too many hands. Her soldiers immediately bowed, and Toji found the spear vanishing from his fingers.
Disarmed, Toji sniffed loudly and spread his arms out to either side, shoving the civilians behind him. The monster-soldiers had let the others go and the rushed behind him, half-a-dozen people shielded by a teenager. Stranger things had happened. The handsy woman waved again and Toji felt his eyes water, and the soldiers stood and braced, weapons held at salute. The little creepy beasts that carried the food swarmed the stage and tugged the civilians back into the crowd, but the leading lady beckoned with - it bore repeating - too many hands.
The crowd below shouted, held back by spears even as the pressed the line. Toji waved the sound down, and wasn't so foolish as to think nothing was going to happen. They were prisoners, after all. The white-haired lady pointed at another pair of stranger beings, both similar to her and looking nothing like her. They knelt before a stick wound in ivy leaves, and laid their hands on it before muttering something in a strange language. The sounds made too much sense for it to be anything made up. The pair got up and left without much fanfare, and Toji could only muster up a mental shrug.
Handsy smiled at him, nodding her head at the stick. She raised her too many hands and played charades, gesturing and pointing until he got the message. Toji nodded, mumbling "Touch the stick thing and you won't hurt them."
The white-haired woman nodded and smiled wider, fortunately with just the right number of teeth. She offered her hand, and against his better judgement, Toji took it and walked up to the stick. She walked him through the motions and told him the words to repeat, sounding like something Shinji might have talked about during their experiments.
When he nodded, Handsy smiled again and kissed his knuckles. Nonplussed, Toji barely registered her guiding his right hand to the stick, and her saying the first half of the script. He stumbled through the second half, and felt something take hold. A beat later, they both spun around until the woman was on his left and holding his arm up along with all of hers. looking out at the crowd of prisoners, Toji smiled. Maybe there was something to this diplomacy thing...
The beasts and stranger soldiers on stage and all throughout the cafeteria cheered, making sounds no human should have suffered hearing. They cheered twice more, shaking the walls with their force, and on the second cheer, the regular people in the crowd started shouting too. Screaming more like it. Ayumi was in front now, tears streaming down her face, but for the life of him, Toji couldn't think of a reason why.
Then Toji glanced up and saw the hand woman holding his arm up, hanging from her grip by the wrist. His left sleeve dropped to his side, empty. That was when the absence hit.
* * *
A handful of other captives helped Ayumi drag Toji back into something resembling a private bit of cafeteria. Someone had pulled a blanket out of a closet and shoved benches together as a bed. On the way through the crowd, his tracksuit sleeve had melted, burned way in rainbow colored fire. The athlete shivered and shuddered, sticky with sweat and pallid like waterlogged flesh. Something else was there, bubbling at the stump of his shoulder. Ayumi bit her lip, caught between knowing, hoping and dreading.
Finally settled on the bench with dozens of people crowding around, Toji managed to look at her with one sluggishly tracking eye. "H-Hey. Saneda-san. I was brave, right?"
Ayumi tried not to look at the mass on his shoulder. Instead, she swallowed her fear and smiled. "Yeah, you were brave."
* * *
Tokyo-3 belonged to them.
Fear hung over the massive boulevards in thick palls and cloud banks, clinging fitfully to corners and turning shadows into glimpses of horror unknowable. For the first week, the cicadas droned and beat their drums without pause. On the seventh day, they stopped and deafened the city with their silence. The following sunrise came with an orchestra. Within the itself, man and stranger things clashed, toppling buildings or raising the streets as beasts of water and needle-beaked birds of fire and envy. Those civilians caught in the middle were figuratively ripped apart. Saneda Ayumi wondered if literally would have been preferable.
She couldn't say how long they'd been captured. No one could have counted the days, and her pager had been turned to chittering beetles by some unseen whim. Hundreds of people- young, old, strong, weak, brave or cowardly were herded through the city, block by block. They passed by alleys filled with dancing things, and clamped their hands over their ears when the marching songs started. The Parades wound through Tokyo-3 like a mad snake, and those caught in the revelry sang and jumped. Until they died.
Their guards were worse, if for no other reason than they seemed to have a plan. Tall and beautiful or despairingly ugly, they seemed to revel in excesses. Soldiers with gnarled, warty faces and crooked noses herded their prisoners with long spears trailing pearl grey banners. Their armor was the same, emblazoned or wreathed in grey flame.
Sometimes the sentries would wave their hands and the next second Ayumi would find the intersection empty- then they'd slap her with the flat of their spears and howl like wolves. To that she could only run. Run until her shoe soles gave out, then her legs, and finally her will. And the moment her head hit the pavement, she realized she was back in the crowd of prisoners, hauled up on her feet by the nearest wardens or the bravest captives. Days of this wore at her- at all of them, and she saw the terror etched into the faces of everyone around her.
She barely noticed passing through the gates into Tokyo-3 Municipal High School.
The ugliest ones were also the caterers. Trays and bowls hewn out of driftwood or worse were carried out for the prisoners, sloshing fitfully with cold gruel. Ayumi was dead certain whatever it was, the stuff was enough to keep them alive and nothing else. Their captors had herded them through the school grounds- the quad, outdoor yards and then inside through hallway and stairwell.
Water seemed to fascinate them- at least the faucets and drinking fountains did. She watched the grotesque little ones tear down the walls looking for the pipes, twisting knobs and gurgling at the sudden, messy spray. The taller leaders barked orders orders, and their words became paper soldiers that formed ranks and bucket brigades, tending water to the prisoners.
Toji braced himself against her shoulder, and she did much the same. He'd been there through it all, alongside her, the one familiar face from before. Their group was ushered into the cafeteria, packed in with hundreds of others. Their clothes were ragged, drawn and threadbare, stained with things Ayumi could name from recent experience.
Looking at the invaders wasn't any better. The ones inside the cafeteria, the tall ones, they hurt to look at. Hurt in a way that told her she'd never see anything as beautiful or sublime again. She squinted against it like glare, as though staring into the sun... and immediately put the comparison out of her mind. Seeing those things made her feel lessened, reduced. Ayumi let out a shuddering breath and forced her eyes to focus on the tiled floor.
The boy at her side nudged her shoulder. Following his eyes, she looked through the crowd. The far end of the cafeteria had been converted into a stage, and some odd part of her mind summoned up the idea of public executions. She wasn't the only one. The crowd started boiling, those closest to the stage pushing and shoving back. The armored spear men pulled them back by the collars, blocking the retreat with grey banners and spear tips.
Toji's throat worked, and he spoke out the side of his mouth. "Hey, Saneda-san?"
She couldn't help the fear that had leaked into her voice. "Suzuhara?"
He gave her an absent nod and squeezed her hand. "Listen, when we get out of here, you'll tell Hikari-chan I was brave and a total badass, right?"
Turning to face him, Ayumi almost swore, but she stopped before making a sound. His eyes were swollen red, snot was dripping down his nose, and he sniffled loudly. She blinked and closed her mouth with a click, before mumbling- "S-Sure."
Toji gave her a firm little nod. "Good. Glad we have an understanding. Back in a sec!"
Ayumi barely had time to even register him moving, throwing his weight into and through the raving throng.
* * *
He totally wasn't scared. Not one bit. The wet, cold clammy feeling of sweat on his palms was nervous energy- adrenaline. Same thing he felt before a basketball game. Nothing worth mentioning. Toji shouldered through the crowd and their growing panic, and as the press of bodies thinned. Spilling out into a clearing ahead of the stage, Toji slammed into it and caught himself with both palms on the edge. Air rushed out of his lungs and he craned his neck upward.
The first thing he saw was hands. The second thing was too many. It was a woman, and he could tell because she was not shy about it or the uncomfortably long miles and miles of legs. She was practically dripping with hands. Fingers, wrists, thumbs and all. She had too many shoulders and not enough feet, with bone-white skin and equally white hair- though the inside was a weird steely blue, and her eyes were... He couldn't tell what color her eyes were, but they had more in common with gemstones than anything.
Toji managed to rip his attention away and saw some of the other captives being hauled around on stage by the monsters in armor. Heart pounding in his chest, he vaulted the barrier and rushed them, all but plowing into one with his shoulder. The spearman and the two civilian girls in his four arms all tumbled to the floor like bowling pins, and a second later, Toji realized the soldier had fallen apart into hollow pieces of armor.
Scrambling to his feet, Toji grabbed for the fallen spear and whirled, flicking the blade towards the other guards and putting the other captives behind him. The crowd was shouting, fear and cheering blurring together into a riot of sound. Toji tightened his grip and felt his knuckles crack, even as his eyes flicked left and right, looking for threats. Then the woman raised too many hands. Her soldiers immediately bowed, and Toji found the spear vanishing from his fingers.
Disarmed, Toji sniffed loudly and spread his arms out to either side, shoving the civilians behind him. The monster-soldiers had let the others go and the rushed behind him, half-a-dozen people shielded by a teenager. Stranger things had happened. The handsy woman waved again and Toji felt his eyes water, and the soldiers stood and braced, weapons held at salute. The little creepy beasts that carried the food swarmed the stage and tugged the civilians back into the crowd, but the leading lady beckoned with - it bore repeating - too many hands.
The crowd below shouted, held back by spears even as the pressed the line. Toji waved the sound down, and wasn't so foolish as to think nothing was going to happen. They were prisoners, after all. The white-haired lady pointed at another pair of stranger beings, both similar to her and looking nothing like her. They knelt before a stick wound in ivy leaves, and laid their hands on it before muttering something in a strange language. The sounds made too much sense for it to be anything made up. The pair got up and left without much fanfare, and Toji could only muster up a mental shrug.
Handsy smiled at him, nodding her head at the stick. She raised her too many hands and played charades, gesturing and pointing until he got the message. Toji nodded, mumbling "Touch the stick thing and you won't hurt them."
The white-haired woman nodded and smiled wider, fortunately with just the right number of teeth. She offered her hand, and against his better judgement, Toji took it and walked up to the stick. She walked him through the motions and told him the words to repeat, sounding like something Shinji might have talked about during their experiments.
When he nodded, Handsy smiled again and kissed his knuckles. Nonplussed, Toji barely registered her guiding his right hand to the stick, and her saying the first half of the script. He stumbled through the second half, and felt something take hold. A beat later, they both spun around until the woman was on his left and holding his arm up along with all of hers. looking out at the crowd of prisoners, Toji smiled. Maybe there was something to this diplomacy thing...
The beasts and stranger soldiers on stage and all throughout the cafeteria cheered, making sounds no human should have suffered hearing. They cheered twice more, shaking the walls with their force, and on the second cheer, the regular people in the crowd started shouting too. Screaming more like it. Ayumi was in front now, tears streaming down her face, but for the life of him, Toji couldn't think of a reason why.
Then Toji glanced up and saw the hand woman holding his arm up, hanging from her grip by the wrist. His left sleeve dropped to his side, empty. That was when the absence hit.
* * *
A handful of other captives helped Ayumi drag Toji back into something resembling a private bit of cafeteria. Someone had pulled a blanket out of a closet and shoved benches together as a bed. On the way through the crowd, his tracksuit sleeve had melted, burned way in rainbow colored fire. The athlete shivered and shuddered, sticky with sweat and pallid like waterlogged flesh. Something else was there, bubbling at the stump of his shoulder. Ayumi bit her lip, caught between knowing, hoping and dreading.
Finally settled on the bench with dozens of people crowding around, Toji managed to look at her with one sluggishly tracking eye. "H-Hey. Saneda-san. I was brave, right?"
Ayumi tried not to look at the mass on his shoulder. Instead, she swallowed her fear and smiled. "Yeah, you were brave."
Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
Did he just trade an arm and a leg?
Man, what steel prices.
Man, what steel prices.
- Location
- National Capital Region, USA
Someone more Exalted savvy tell us what happened to Touji's arm there?
Salty
Shadow Cabal Assumptor Supreme
- Location
- Sun, Moon, Talia
- Pronouns
- I/Me
If I were to guess, I'd say some sort of Wyld Taint or Mutation.
Of course, the whole scene read to me like Touji was getting his soul eaten/pledging his fealty to a Fae.
- Location
- Australia, mate
Sadly I know nothing about Exalted. Could someone give me the idiot's guide to what just happened? To me it seemed like he tried to fight them, then... some sort of ritual happened and his arm got ripped off while the weird people cheered.
Chapter 41: Communication - Part Final
- Location
- Gladstone, OR
Well, better late than never. Been bouncing around with a lot of other projects, paid and not paid. Unfortunately the forum version will lack italics, as this particular update is huuuuge.
Still, I hope you all enjoy the conclusion to Chapter 41!
In one of the darker meeting rooms, the only sounds were that of labored breathing and the whine of life support. Ikari Gendo and Kihl Lorenz sat in contemplative silence, barely blinking. Leaning against a table, Nagisa Kaworu watched a mote of dust float through a beam of light cast from a nearby office lamp and smiled.
"If it reassures you fine gentlemen," He began- "I am more than willing to wait my turn."
* * *
One day after the high-command briefing, the sprawling titan that was NERV shuddered. It spasmed and twisted in on itself as it's various cells and organizations ate at its resources and rendered output; both information and material. The Geofront couldn't feel the thunder of war and countless guns through the kilometer of armor and launch systems, but the interior dome rattled every time an Eva was sent catapulting to the surface.
Ritsuko found herself sharing one of the express access elevators with Rei. She had an orange-stained towel draped around her shoulders, and the smell of clean LCL hung around her like a cloud. Clean didn't mean nice, unfortunately. She offered the pilot a wan smile and turned back to her clipboard. Floors ticked by by the second, and the rotary counter flipped from one digit to the next in the following half second. It took five ticks for Ritsuko to realize she'd been reading the same sentence over and over again.
Glancing up at Rei, she suppressed a frown and bit her lip, until finally letting out a sight. "I owe you an apology."
Rei looked up and blinked past her bangs, visibly surprised. Ritsuko winced and plowed on ahead. "Yesterday, before the briefing, we realized something, and I made a comparison between some of the civilian casualties, and... Well, the clones of you."
The blue-haired girl cocked her head to the side, studiously unreadable. "Was Commander Ikari upset?"
"I doubt he knows, but I don't really care what he thinks right now. I'm more worried about you." Ritsuko admitted, then she blinked. "Why does the Commander matter to you?"
"He is a deliberate person, and ruthlessly committed." Rei's lips compressed down to a thin line, but didn't speak further.
Ritsuko nodded then, taking the silence and implied warning as a positive gesture. She licked her lips and stood up straighter. "If anyone asks me- Misato and Shinji were both there, would you like me to tell them anything...?"
The pilot glanced away, staring at the elevator wall for a long moment, before finally speaking. "I could explain now, but considering the circumstances above ground, it might not be the best time to burden each other with this knowledge. What would you advise?"
Chewing her lip, Ritsuko thought about it. Rei had grown- older and wiser beyond the scope of the Scenario into something the scientist couldn't quite name. Fifteen or sixteen years old, she couldn't quite say, but Ritsuko took a moment to look back on the last half of her life.
Finding it wanting, she sighed and gave Rei a somber little smile. "I think that, trite as it sounds, now is the best time and you should make the most of it."
To that, Rei offered the older woman a surprisingly winsome little smile. "I like that methodology."
* * *
Not long after the morning patrol, Shinji got a page from Ritsuko asking him to call her back. From there, Rei answered, patiently instructing him to clear the central shaft to Terminal Dogma. Ritsuko had pushed a classified schematic to the MAGI terminal nearest the phone, and it was all Shinji needed to give Rei an estimate on repairs- four hours, tops. Her voice and answer had a quiet certainty and decisiveness he'd grown to appreciate, and didn't even bother asking why. Answers were coming, and Rei had clicked off after declaring she had to find Asuka.
Reaching the wreckage had been a challenge in and of itself, and there simply were not enough personnel free to surmount it. During the infiltration and base raid, two of the SEELE cyborgs had tried reaching Terminal Dogma. The commanders had executed a particular contingency, detonating explosives and demolishing the elevators and access ways to the deeper structure. After that, they had not seen or heard anything about the surviving cyborgs. The shaft itself was three kilometers deep, and the block was a third of the way down.
Shinji, for his part, could recognize the implication that whatever was down that far was important, but not so mission-critical as to require constant access.
When he pulled himself out of the repaired shaft, Shinji blinked and saw some people he expected, and some he didn't. There was Ritsuko and Rei, and then Asuka, but behind them was Kaji and Nagisa of all people.
He gave them a befuddled look, but Rei stepped forward and took his hand. "Misato-san was busy, and I trust Ritsuko and Kaji-san to 'fill her in', when the time is right."
Shinji nodded at that, smiling thinly. "No senior staff?"
Rei's own grin turned slightly impish. "What the Commanders don't know, won't hurt them."
* * *
Asuka fidgeted at all the delays, but made a point to lace her fingers with Rei's and give the other girl's hand an intermittent squeeze or two. Fortunately for all of them, the main elevator was at the top of the shaft and undamaged, noting that Ikari had cleared the wreckage and repaired the tracks with the glowing goldness.
Ritsuko took the opportunity to round on Kaji and huff. "Kaji, aside from Rei inviting you, why are you here?"
Spreading his arms before tucking them behind his head, Kaji grinned broadly with an unlit cigarette hanging from his lips while he put a hand on his chest in the western style. "As the young lady said, what the Commanders don't know won't hurt them, and in any case, I have the perfect excuse! I am inspecting! This is in fact, my job."
The blonde crossed her arms over chest and jerked her head over at the grey-haired pilot. "And Nagisa-kun?"
To that, Asuka cut in, apologetically. "He was hanging around with Kaji and I so..."
"It's fine, Asuka-chan." Rei shrugged, smiling faintly.
Nagisa simply inclined hs head and offered Rei a respectful bow, but Asuka didn't miss the sour look Ritsuko gave the rookie. Or Kaji's own warning glance.
The elevator itself moved swiftly, spiraling down with the interior isolated on its own bearings. Asuka could watch the walls and rails shift through the grates framing the four sides of the car. All told, they'd be at the bottom in a few minutes. Ikari had mentioned something about fixing the pressure-system too. Considering how deep they were, it was a good thing to fix. They ran across two more damaged sections as the descended, but progress was steady. When Ikari ducked out for the spot-fixes Nagisa opened his mouth a few times between giggling fits, and Asuka told him, not unkindly, to not ask.
The elevator itself cleared the shaft and moved onto an open double-helix track, revealing the cavernous interior of Terminal Dogma. The deepest part of the Geofront was aggressively utilitarian and uncomfortably brutal, almost hellish in how harshly the lights were cast up the walls and across the massive concrete support walls and dividers. Nothing penetrated the thick shadows masking the far walls, no matter where she looked and what vision mode she used.
Asuka let out a low, breathy whistle. "The fuck is this place."
"The hub and source of... Almost everything that is NERV." Ritsuko murmured. She jerked her chin eastward. "The Evangelion graveyards are over there. A few levels below us is the LCL manufacturing facility, which I am not showing any of you today. Or ever, I hope. We're going to the Memory Transfer Machine and ancillary facilities."
"Well, that's not ominous at all now, is it?" Asuka huffed and squeezed Rei's hand again, and the blue-haired girl gave her a thankful smile.
Pointing more northward, the blonde directed them off the elevator and towards the smaller installation. A rusty set of stairs and limp, sagging catwalks lead down from the elevator platform and the bottom floor, descending into the forest of concrete and steel. The walls bristled with pipes, machinery and stranger devices. It was old, with paint flaking away in places, or concrete having cracked away and revealing rebar beneath. For all of that though, it still functioned, humming with a droning, liquid sound.
Moving forward, Rei began to head the group with Asuka at her side, and the others behind them. Kaji brought up the rear and made a point to always keep Nagisa in front of him, but took the time to eye the walls and cryptic markings along the pipes and fittings. Ahead, the dark and pitted concrete was lit by a citrine glow, and through the gaps in the retaining walls and columns, Asuka could see the floor panels give way to a complicated nest of more pipes.
As the light grew brighter, Rei started speaking. "As Ritsuko-san said, we are approaching the Memory Transfer Machine, which is part of an ongoing effort to create a truly pilotless Evangelion. There are other purposes and uses, but that, ostensibly, is the official one."
Asuka could hear Shinji's frown as he loomed over their shoulders. "And the unofficial ones?"
In the open chamber ahead, the light and reflections made it hard to see through the clear glass walls. The group stopped at that point, and Rei turned, giving the tallest boy a small, apologetic look. "The place where I was made unfinished, and where the rest of me... rests."
Rei sighed then, and Asuka felt the gears turning in her own mind as a dozen or more pieces and odd quirks starting to put themselves together. She exchanged a wordless look with Ikari, and his face had gone slack, even as his eyes seemed to read the air in thought. Nagisa and Kaji flanked Ritsuko, the new pilot had remained studiously silent and respectful, while the older man paled and tugged at his already loose tie.
"I want to apologize... There were so many reasons for keeping this to myself." Rei murmured. "Ritsuko has proven her integrity to me in this matter."
Now Ritsuko looked distinctly uncomfortable, mumbling. "This is all my mother's doing- I just inherited her mess."
Kaji moved to give her a hug before putting on a brave look, drawling. "Well, we're here. Shame to turn back now."
Nodding, Asuka sucked down a bitingly cold and nauseous breath. She took a step forward, then another. The soles of her plugsuit were hard enough to make the metal platform rattle and creak. Ikari was there behind her and his sheer bulk did the same. The light and reflections shifted, leaving the glass panels suddenly all too clear.
Rei. That was what Asuka saw. Twenty identical Rei floating in oxygenated LCL, wearing little more than a vacant smile and an equally empty, dull stare. Their eyes did track, but it was a fitful, torpid thing. Asuka felt the bile rise in her throat. Then Kaji put a hand on her shoulder, giving her enough wherewithal to catch her breath and think. She miscounted initially, there were only eighteen bodies. She glanced at the standing, incarnate First Children and mouthed the obvious question.
Rei just nodded, pointing first at herself then down at another room below the tangle of pipes. "I am the second instance of Ayanami Rei. The Memory Transfer Machine beneath us creates a transcription of my soul and captures it as data, which can be etched onto an appropriate metaphysical medium."
"Which is why your physiology reminds me of an Eva's sometimes." Shinji broke in with the gold brand shining on his brow. He turned from the clones to the real thing, pale but focused. "The transfer system doesn't work unless you're part Evangelion."
"Not precisely 'Evangelion', but the distinction is meaningless." Rei admitted. "There is more, but the knowledge is exceedingly dangerous, and the evidence even more so."
Still looking somewhat sickly, Kaji's curiosity bubbled over. "Hey now- this is already pretty dangerous-"
Asuka cut him off, direct and with all her considerable attention on Rei. She gave the girl a firm, approving nod "Focusing on the practical information?" To Kaji, she huffed, and did not apologize in the least for her attitude- if Kaji wanted to be dumb, it was her duty to correct it. "If Rei says it's dangerous, it's actually fucking dangerous."
"Very much so." Rei confirmed. Then she looked more pointedly at Ikari and Kaji. "As I said, the primary purpose of this facility was to help develop a control-interface for the Evangelions. The memory-transfer and resurrection was a useful side-effect. Unit-00 uses the original method developed here, while Units-01 and 02 have more specialized interfaces."
That bombshell had Asuka thinking, glancing at the machines and devices for a moment before focusing back on Rei. A half-dozen questions formed on her lips, but she tamped down the urge. That alone was proof that there was more to her Eva, more to her partner than even she knew as self-proclaimed authority of AT-field science and technology. Asuka shoved the storm of thought and intrigue into the back of her mind, even as her brow furrowed.
Shinji's brand was out now, and he snapped his fingers. "Which explains the soul-transcription. You need a soul to make an AT-field. Asuka drummed that into my head quickly enough..."
He trailed off, then Asuka saw his jaw practically unhinge. "Are the Evangelions dubbed over with copies of your soul?"
At that, Rei shook her head, sending her ponytail whipping side to side in heavy waves. "Only Unit-00, and we've never been able to fully... determine the transfer fidelity."
"So what are our-" Asuka watched as Shinji waved a hand at her then himself. "'specialized interfaces'?"
Rei shrugged. "Unfortunately, I do not precisely know how it was done, save that Sorhyu Kyoko Zeppelin, Naoko Akagi, and Ikari Yui were all the primary minds behind the Evangelion project."
Hearing her mother's name called up all kinds of interesting and awful associations. Asuka beat back the sudden rush of memories, and outwardly, she didn't even twitch. However, she didn't ask the most obvious question aloud, and maybe she should have. Why are we special? All of this basically means being a pilot is arbitrary... the fuck? She knew her mother was involved in the Evangelion project, specially after her selection as a pilot, but Asuka couldn't seen to find an end to the questions.
Then Asuka glanced up at Ritsuko, noting the older woman looking sour and upset. Maybe she wasn't the only one unhappy about the things her mother did or didn't do. Kaji sauntered his way in and draped his arms around the blonde's shoulders, leaning into whisper something reassuring in Ritsuko's ear. Granted, it didn't look very reassuring. Ritsuko's face paled, and she gave Kaji a sickly look despite his otherwise unassuming smile. The remaining subtleties were lost on Asuka, what with the dull thrum and drone of the clone tanks and her own storm of thought.
Rei meanwhile had fallen completely silent, eyes downcast and fidgeting. Asuka focused on that, taking Rei's hand again and lacing their fingers together. Rei looked up at that, blinking once before giving Asuka a watery smile. Her own blood felt cool in her veins, and the hot flush Asuka expected didn't come, even though she could feel eyes on her.
"Why do they all have short hair? The clones." Shinji voiced the idle thought, and Asuka found herself wondering despite everything else. It's not like someone came down here to well, cut it, right?
Shaking the question free, and frowning, Asuka gave the clones a critical eye and compared them to the genuine article. The real Rei was... fuller, healthier. Aside from the longer hair, she'd actually started picking up color and well, was just plain taller than the clones. Even through the thick glass and murky LCL, Asuka could tell the clones were wan, listless and almost corpse-like.
Ritsuko answered, pointing at a complex looking pump loaded with plastic vials. It hummed intermittently. "Designer hormones and chemical cocktails keep them docile. I didn't know until recently how much their use impacts the development of a healthy soul though. Rei- our Rei is fine though."
Silence dominated the chamber aside from the hum and bubble of machinery. Kaji was left staring at the devices and clones, distant and contemplative, while Ritsuko drifted between him and Ikari. The blonde kept glancing sidelong at Nagisa as well. Asuka for her part couldn't really focus though, not with Rei needing her now, and literally in hand. She looked over at her friend, knowing that Rei did this for her peace of mind too. The thought made her eyes sting and blur.
"So this pretty much explains. Everything." Ikari turned to face Rei more fully. "Were you afraid of how we'd react?"
"Not exactly, no." Rei frowned minutely. "As long as the system is intact, I am functionally immortal. I believed my own lack of socialization was already alienating enough. I admit I was also concerned about tying up so much of NERv's resources for what could be seen as... excess."
"There you go talking like a textbook again, and it's not like you designed this thing." Asuka sighed explosively, puffing up her jacket and letting it settle around her sides. She looked past Rei and caught Shinji's eye. "I think we're thinking the same thing, for once?"
Shinji gave the redhead a sharp nod before moving with one mind. With him on one side and Asuka on the other, the two of them sandwiched Rei in a double-sided hug.
* * *
More than a year of worry and speculation had led him here. Well, technically Rei had led him here. The cloning chamber and memory transfer device was the stranger truth, compared to whatever hypothesis or idea he had as to her condition. He lived in a world set against stygian horrors from beyond the stars, armed with giant combat cyborgs. That NERV had a secret cloning facility in its lowest levels somehow didn't surprise him.
It felt wrong and right for him to realize the clones were, at the moment, just meat.
"Ritsuko." Shinji spoke quietly, a little urgent. "I'm asking- is there anything else I need to be made aware of, about how these Rei and these clones are being tended to? Is there anything I need to be made aware of, medically, metaphysically. Ethically?"
She just sighed and pulled off her glasses, letting her eyes drift closed. "Nothing Rei hasn't already explained. And like I said, I inherited all of this from my mother."
Then Ritsuko opened her eyes and gave him an oddly bittersweet smile. "I think I actually might want to consult you more, now that you're in the loop. Later, probably. If we survive this... Whatever is going on."
Shinji smiled despite himself and nodded. "I'll hold you to that, Doctor Akagi."
Turning, he eyed Nagisa peering into one of the tanks. The ash-blonde pilot was cocking his head left and right, and as Shinji got closer, he realized one of the clones was trying to imitate the movement. Eerie.
He took the last few steps deliberately, looming without meaning to. "Nagisa."
"Ikari-kun." Nagisa didn't turn away from the glass, and when he blinked, the nearest clone followed sluggishly. "I like to consider myself fairly worldly, but I have never seen anything like this before."
Something didn't quite track right then, and Shinji frowned. It wasn't a hostile sense- Nagisa was strange and cryptic and obnoxiously insightful, but never hostile. Fighting alongside him for months had to count for something, after all.
Shinji made a point to stare ahead at nothing, before cutting his eyes to the side and willing the weight of his attention to fall onto the other pilot's awareness. "I suppose I should be fair and point out that I can tell you're like Rei. So by that, you mean you haven't seen the place you were created?"
Nagisa now did turn and gave him a surprisingly winning grin. He grinned so widely, his eyes crinkled shut. "Pretty much, yes."
* * *
Plans took time, and any kind of organizational or military effort involved a lot of hurry-up-and-wait. Four days of effort amounted to building momentum, as instructors were found, training fields cut into the Geofront forest, and the search for civilian volunteers. In a different situation, NERV had once mobilized the entire power production of Japan and secured the equipment and material needed to use it in less than twenty hours.
Unbroken lines of communication and intact logistical channels made everything simple.
Now, Misato had to focus entirely on the resources at her fingertips. As considerable as they were, most of her truly useful plans still required that connection to the outside world. The Geofront had been their whole universe for the past six and a half weeks, with no chance of reinforcement or outside resupply. About the only things they had the stock for were Evangelion operations, and Shinji was helping stretching every bolt and sinew as long as possible. Misato blinked, and flash of red and blue out the corner of her eye reminded her of Asuka and Rei- they'd wandered in side by side and thick as thieves.
She let out a long, ragged sigh and sat heavily down in her regular command center seat. The MAGI were reduced to more basic operations, incapable of prognostic forecasting and the like. Still, they were useful. Armed with census and state identification data, the two supercomputers matched rescued civilians to improvised death certificates. She watched the holographic display flicker through images of bad drivers license photos and school IDs, almost tossing the graphics from one column to the next.
Misato scowled and gingerly crossed her arms over her chest. A third column stood out as neither rescued or dead.
Sixty-seven percent missing and unaccounted for.
* * *
In the screen-cast shadows a few meters away, Asuka and Rei both looked at Misato, and then they glanced at each other, worry plain on their faces.
* * *
If there was ever a moment Ritsuko envied the pilots for their Evas, this was it.
Arrows, actual goddamn arrows were punching holes through concrete and building facades. She felt gunfire rattle in her bones and through the ill-fitting uniform. Throwing her arms over her head, she ran through a cloud of dust and slammed shoulder first into a mostly intact wall. Rock chips and debris pelted her from one side, while a hand grabbed her wrist and pulled.
She wrenched her eyes open and stared through the clear goggles at one Kaji Ryoji . Rifle in hand, he grinned past his cigarette. "Having fun yet?"
Ritsuko just blinked once, for the moment forgetting the din and screams of war. She licked her lips and almost shouted, but her helmet slipped down over her eyes. Shoving it back up, she tried again. "You-what. Ka-ji!"
Tugging her forward, the older man hugged the wall alongside the soldiers. A jeep careened through the wide boulevard and slammed into a glass-maned lion less than ten meters ahead, while the gunner unloaded on the snarling thing with a heavy machine gun. The shattering glass broke into an orchestra and it was all Ritsuko could do to stay on Kaji and follow him.
They ducked right, away from the main street and into a cramped, normally straight and even alleyway. Dumpsters, nests of crates and temporary structures choked the once clean access way, but right now Ritsuko could only call the refuse a haven of familiarity. A half-dozen experienced veterans followed them, but Ritsuko could not honestly feel safe. Not now, maybe not ever.
She absently reached behind her and felt for the secure containment and bakelite reservoir, huffing softly. "I cannot believe your arrogance, Kaji Ryoji."
"It's so weird hearing either you or Katsuragi saying my full name." Kaji just grinned, sucking in a quick breath. "Fieldwork is a new thing for you. I gotta say Ritsu, I like it."
Any other time, Ritsuko would have turned mottled, purple red. Now, covered in dust, grime and sweat and feeling the stares of soldiers boring into her shoulders... Now, she scowled. "Whatever's going on, we're all outside our comfort zones, Kaji-san."
"Incoming!"
The shout came from their radios, and the world seemed to rumble in response. A shadow crossed over the valley, and the icy fingers of dread sank into Ritsuko's sides. Hoarfrost and rime seemed to grow on the walls and street. Time to move. Her boots hit the ground hard and sure, Shinji having refused to let her go out without soles tailored to her stride. She muttered a wordless prayer of thanks as her heels and treads chewed through ice and dusty concrete. The soldiers behind her urged her onward, and Kaji had already rounded the corner, leaning around and firing above and behind the crowd.
Ritsuko never saw what was chasing them.
The sudden silence was all-encompassing, and her ears throbbed at the sudden lack of stimulation, begging to maintain the over-saturation. Not quite stumbling over to a chewed pile of wrecked cars, the soldiers and one scientist hunkered down. It was amazing the difference one city block made- the battle felt and sounded like it was a world away.
"Sergeant." Kaji waved. "Any word from Dogma?"
The fire team leader shook his head. "Command's busy, inspector. Major Katsuragi likely thinks we can handle ourselves. I say break for five and then move on to objective."
"Sounds like her." Smirking, Kaji leaned back against a ruined car door and palmed his cigarette. It was mangled and a little damp, and had never seen a match or lighter.
He caught her eye, smiling. "So, Ritsuko. What's this I hear about a Hollywood kiss? Misato get a boyfriend under our noses?"
Ritsuko just stared at him. "You're asking me that now. "A mortar shell exploded in the distance. "Now, of all times. That's what's on your mind?"
The rough-shaven man just shrugged, smirking. Suddenly, Ritsuko felt the like everyone was hanging on her every word. "You're all incorrigible gossips, aren't you?"
"We're soldiers, ma'am." One of the men offered her a jaunty, teasing salute. "It's what we do."
Another explosion threw a plume of smoke and debris into the air, and Ritsuko sighed. Despite it all, the coping mechanism worked. "Fine- fine. Misato stopped the ninjas from escaping through the cages, but was wounded. Fatally."
Now they were hanging on her every word for a different reason. "Fortunately, Shinji was there and managed to make a miracle... so..."
She trailed off then, fixing Kaji with a level stare and all but daring him to ask for details.
Kaji had the decency to simply shake his head and sigh. He rubbed the back of his neck, laughing faintly. "Now I'm wondering if I should have a talk with Shinji-kun, or buy him a beer."
"Getting him drunk doesn't end well, take my word for it." Ritsuko grumbled, and sucked in a quick, calming breath.
The sergeant stood up but stayed low in cover. Moving swiftly, the other soldiers checked for threats and enemy movement before waving the two civilian specialists forward into the center of their special unit. Kaji had cast aside the dashing rogue agent once more, naming directions with a curt efficiency. The eight of them crawled through the wreckage of two wrecked buildings, and in the distance they saw Unit 03 and 02 sweeping aside whole armies that marched up the slopes of Mount Hakone.
Finally, after what felt like hours, Kaji directed them to a sealed maintenance door. Damage had wedged it shut, but soldiers always carried a universal key. The shaped charge was placed in seconds and they scurried to safe distance before detonating. The charge sheared through the door's hinges, and the whole reinforced hunk of steel and rivets slumped out of the way with a mournful bang.
With the way clear, Ritsuko urged the soldiers to wait outside while glaring at Kaji. Armed with flashlights, they eased into the dark city structure. "I cannot believe your sheer arrogance, leaving the sample here of all places."
"Unfortunately, Akagi." Kaji grumbled, crouching under a sagging brace of pipes. "Your boss wanted the key to armageddon, and I wasn't about to just hand it over."
"Be that as it may, this place is unsecured." Ritsuko growled, kneeling down a little less than Kaji did to clear the same obstacle.
The older man stopped and nodded, lit by the reflected light and a dropped glow stick. "Well, it's here. Be careful though- the last time I checked..."
Ritsuko glanced over at him, blinking once at the warning. She let out a wary breath and reached for the case, verifying the seal before opening the safe outer lock. She'd seen grainy, false-color pictures, but the real, embryonic thing was another story. She choked on her own saliva, feeling a surge of something hot and metallic flood the back of her throat. In that first second, it felt almost normal. In the second, when the hot and wet wouldn't stop, she started to panic.
Then the eye taking up most of its underdeveloped head swiveled, staring right at her.
The flashlight dropped down and rolled fitfully along the grated floor, and Ritsuko stumbled down on all fours in the slash of light in the dark. Kaji's own beam joined hers as she coughed, hard and heavy. A wet heave filled her mouth with something so awful and familiar, she nearly screamed. Citrine orange spilled past her clenched teeth and out onto the grate.
She coughed out two lungfuls of LCL before whatever that was finally abated, and Ritsuko stumbled back into the darkness, shaking like a leaf. Hauling her backpack around, her hands worked on autopilot, and Kaji had already tossed his flashlight down to help. Together they opened the emergency containment vessel and shoved ADAM in. One final lever flooded the new container with freshly charged bakelite and anesthetic chemicals.
After that, Kaji and Ritsuko exchanged a wordless look, before he picked her and the container up in one move, running full tilt for the exit.
* * *
Later, a strange thing hobbled into the dark space, sniffing after the trail of humans and their delightful leavings and cast off bits. The air and corridors were thick with the boring smell of steel, metal and man-shaped rock. Prowling on knobby limbs, the monstrous little worker made its way to the strongest smell.
It found a faint trace of acrid orange on the grated floor. Lifting the panel to access the pipes and pool below was a trifle task, and it reached down to scoop a sample of the heavenly brew with one gnarled finger.
A single lick delivered it unto euphoria and ecstasy without end or limit.
* * *
"All things being equal, I can admit that this may have not been the greatest idea I've ever had."
Sneaking out of the Geofront had been easier than Asuka expected. The defensive perimeter was as tightly spaced as possible out of necessity, with armed guards and cameras holding sentry over the most defensible bottlenecks. The Geofront was gradually turning into a fortress within a fortress. Huge swaths and almost a kilometer of city superstructure and underground facilities were left as no-mans-land. The long tunnels, elevators and conveyors that lead outside had all gone silent after the invasion.
Things roamed in those dark places.
And for all of that, the hardest part was sneaking past the guards at a tram station. Armed with a hastily programmed MAGI access code courtesy of Ikari, and Rei's perfect recall of the Geofront interior, the two of them made it up to the Evangelion cages unseen in the dead of night. From there, it was just one long elevator ride to the surface.
Leaning against the cab wall, Asuka idly tossed a blocky NERV-issue radio into the air. It tumbled lazily, and she snatched it out of the air.. "So... is Ikari going to squeal on us?"
Standing near the door, Rei just glanced at her sidelong. "I highly doubt it. And if we need a daring rescue, he will be at hand."
"Small favors." Asuka let out a low laugh and shoved the radio into her jacket pocket.
She fiddled with her eyepatch then, checking the charge and synchronization. Everything was good. Rei had prepared six emergency injectors of stabilizer, and Ikari had checked the infusion pump before they went out.
Red eyes cut back, and Rei frowned minutely. "Are you certain we should be going out unarmed?"
"These things block bullets with swords." Asuka groaned. "I do not want to deal with that crazy without an Eva or AT-field, thank you very much."
Almost as if on cue, the elevator doors whipped open, revealing the top level access hall. It had seen better days. The last time either of them had been there was the day of the ninja attack. Breaking out a flashlight from one pocket, Asuka flicked her head at the ruined corridor, and Rei nodded without a word. Together they moved, not quite in synch, but fluidly all the same. The wall had caved in at several points, slumping and spilling concrete and debris across the floor.
Aside from the rough walk, the way was clear all the way to the exit. Leaning around the yawning doorway, Asuka let out a soundless whistle before whispering. "...Really hope we can pull this off..."
Rei just brushed her arm affectionately and nodded before taking point- she had the Absolute Territory after all, and the enemy couldn't just instantly rip through one. Asuka sighed softly and followed, crouching and staying low. Almost all of the taller armory buildings were heavily damaged, if not outright destroyed, and the sky was thick with dust and clouds. No way to see the stars or moon. Power was out to the city surface as well, lit only by distant fires and the infrequent explosions. Somewhere, blocks away, Ikari was patrolling in Unit 01.
Keeping her head down, Asuka sighed softly and tucked her hair back as best she could. The wind was picking up. If she remembered correctly, Rei parked around the corner and-
The rest of her thought abrupty cut off when she bumped into Rei and nearly stumbled. Catching herself at the last minute, she leaned around the other girl, blinking.
"My car is gone." Rei hissed. She rounded on Asuka, and for a moment it looked like Rei was glaring at her. Instead it was just her scanning the battlefield.
Asuka groaned again and resisted the urge to pound her head into a nearby wall. "We are so AWOL and in so much trouble it's not even funny- but goddamnit this is going to be worth it- Rei, stay calm. These things might be bullshit magic, but I don't think they drive stick-shift. It can't be far."
Ten minutes of searching felt like ten hours, despite Asuka having a digital clock counting the time superimposed on the edges of her vision. Picking through the ruins and debris bit by bit, they made their way further from the half-collapsed Geofront access. Rei seemed to twitch more and more as the minutes passed, bouncing with her toes and flexing her fingers. Finally though, they squeezed through a parking garage gate and found the Skyline more or less intact, much to Asuka's relief.
Rei all but teleported to the vehicle while Asuka followed somewhat warily. Wedged up against a wall, the car was scuffed, dented, and one of the smaler passenger windows was spiderwebbed with cracks. Asuka looked at her friend and felt her heart clench at the sorrowful expression on Rei's face. Taking a closer look, Asuka wondered something had taken claws to it. They did find it more than a block away though...
After making two full passes, Rei frowned and crouched down near the rear of the car. "The muffler's gone."
Worring at her lip, Asuka couldn't help but wonder why. Why would someone take a muffler- it made no sense. "It'll still run, right?"
"It should." Rei reassured her, pulling the keys from her backpack. "Though it will be loud."
To that, Asuka just huffed and gave Rei a mischevious smirk. Together they flung the doors open, checking for damage and debris. The tank was stil three-fourths full of gas and nothing seemed to be leaking. Stretched over the front passenger seat, Asuka reached and groped in the dark backseat for their school bags. They'd abandoned for eight weeks now. Her hands clamped around the handles just as Rei turned the engines over.
The car and bottom floor of the garage seemed to rattled along with the loud gasoline roar, and Asuka felt the pressure in her bones and teeth. Her heart started pounding despite herself, nad she dropped back into the seat with the bags in her lap. One hand moved to buckle up while the other started pawing for catches. Old assignments, school laptop, nail clippers and a fancy pen. Wright's pen. She stuffed it back inside, scowling at nothing.
In the driver's seat, Rei's legs pumped and her hand fell on the shifter, throwing them into gear and out into the ruined Tokyo-3. Asuka kept her eyes out on the road and the battlefield. It looked so much different from ground level, even surrounded by the glass and metal body of the car. An Eva kept her high above it all, but on the streets, she could see the soot, rubble and blood all too easily.
Asuka let out a woeful grunt and slumped back into her seat. The hypervigilance was starting to wear on her. They had to get out on the open road, as quietly as possible. Rei's foot was feather-light on the gas, both to keep the throaty engine quiet and to avoid colissions. They couldn't afford headlights or speeds faster than ten kilometers an hour.
Feeling her eyes unfocus, Asuka watched the digital clock in her sight tick over. "I don't mean to rush you, but time is something we don't have."
Rei played the wheel hand over hand, weaving deftly past a section of broken road. "Unfortunately, this is a sports car, not an all-terrain vehicle."
The city was lit by fires and the eerie waves of magic or stranger things their enemies tossed into the air. The Angels at least had the decency to shake hands with physics, casting off waste heat or stripping electrons out of the atmosphere whenever they did something unorthodox. She could see strange things play in the shadows, or play with the shadows, throwing inky blackness out like spiderwebs.
Moving up one street, Asuka caught Rei frowning out the corner of her eye, before the blue-haired girl pointed ahead. "Is that light up ahead?"
A quick check with her prosthetics zoom had Asuka blinking. "...It's a lantern. It's a pumpkin lantern."
Still scanning the distance, she tried to keep her perspective steady while Rei drove closer. The street was starting to look familiar despite all the ruins and wreckage. They were in an old part of the city; old in the sense that it didn't retract. The train station would have been a few blocks over and...
A flash of pearl grey caught her eye, and Asuka's hands dug into the dashboard. "It's more of those organized ones! The ones with the banners! Do you know where we are?"
The question was inspired, and Asuka had no idea why she asked it, but Rei always knew where everything was. "We are nearing the school."
"Shit." Asuka breathed. "I think we need to stay on this road if we want to get out of the city."
She looked ahead and off to the left then. Silhouetted against smoke and the low hills along the north-western side of the city was Eva Unit 01. They couldn't afford to get too close to NERV's operational area either.
"Asuka-chan." Rei kept her voice low and intent. "We must scout the situation."
Dropping heavily back into her seat, Asuka scrubbed her scalp and sighed. "We have to do it fast and quiet though- They'll have archers and whale ships, remember?"
Rei just gave her a decisive nod, and, somehow managed to urge the car faster and quieter through the streets and wreckage. Switching to a rangefinder, Asuka counted off the meters and kept an eye out for sentries. She waved for Rei to stop as one figure seemed to walk across the air above the street, but a closer look told her they'd made some kind of fortress in the middle of the intersection. Graninte stones as dark as night seemed to drink in the light of their lanterns and the weak starlight.
Bit by bit, they managed to ease closer, sometimes having to double back to get around a blocked route or some other obstacle. The intact apartments and mundane office buildings surrounding the intersection castle had been hastily converted into almost classical battlements and citadels. And all of them had been strung with glit pearl grey banners marked with darker illustrated flames. It all reeked excess and glamourous pagentry, but it was also new. Asuka reached into her jacket pocket and fingerered the radio. If they said something now, they'd ruin their admittedly selfish mission, but...
She shook her head and sighed. "They're entrenched at the highschool, and this is the first time we've seen them hold territory. We'll tell Misato and the others when we get back."
Rei nodded and picked out a clear path. Finally, they were headed away from the city and into the outlying hills.
* * *
The roads outside the city were clearer in some ways, choked in others. The urban streets were cratered or covered in the ruins of fallen buildings, wrecked combat vehicles, and strange monstrous corpses. The further away they got, the more Asuka saw abandoned cars, civilian traffic. Most of it had been pushed to the shoulders- not driven. Like some great hand or beast had scooped up the freeway drivers and carelessly shoved them aside .
She remembered then, that the invasion had been going on for at least an hour before the Geofront even knew about it.
Neither Rei or Asuka could say it was safe, but as the car shot down the eastern route, they at least felt more at ease. The enemy seemed myopically focused on downtown Tokyo-3, but Asuka's night vision could pick out their traces amongst the hills and suburbs. They passed by a dark, rusted graveyard of train cars, stuck into the ground like railroad spikes after the tsunamis following Second Impact.
The brighest lights outside the city were the stars and fireflies that seemed almost as common as the cicada. The buzzing summer insects had all but vanished though, since the invasion. A gust of wind moved the tall grass surrounding the road, and through the dark, Asuka spotted something dark, muscled and clawed stalking through the shadows. In the actual shadows, not the physical space between the grass. She shot Rei a wordless look, face tight and wary.
Rei hit the gass and flicked her hand. The headlights snapped on, throwing achingly bright white pools of light out onto the road ahead.
Glancing sidelong at the other girl, Asuka huddled into her jacket, alone in her head with her own thoughts. It had been weeks since it happened, but thinking about it still made her cheeks burn red despite the icy sense of threat. There had to be a good way to say it, but nothing was coming clear. Sneaking a quick look in the rearview mirror, she saw something void cross the highway behind them. She had to say something, and soon.
"So... Uhm..." She frowned then, stumbling and stuttering to herself before finally giving up and letting out an apologetic sigh. "I'm sorry I left you hanging."
Rei just blinked, barely turning to face her. "I don't follow."
"You, and uh..." Asuka turned even redder with each word. "The kiss. When you kissed me. That one time."
That got a response, and Rei's eyes lit up in recognition. She smiled, keeping an eye on the road while she spoke. "It's been... A busy time. Surviving."
Asuka nodded absently. Surviving. That word had taken on something of greater magnitude of meaning recently. "Definitely has... So- can I ask why?"
"It is difficult to say- to find words." Rei's smile was positively contagious despite the tension. "I've been filled with something, a feeling and affection. I had to do something with it."
"So you kissed me." Asuka completed the thought. All the could-haves and just-in-cases were getting caught in her throat and mind, and thinking about it, Asuka couldn't blame Rei feeling something similar...
"So I did." Rei nodded, easing the car past a wrecked service vehicle. Then she frowned, visibly worried. "I didn't overstep, right?"
"No! No not at all! I mean, it was odd but... well, it's just." Asuka felt her face heat up again, and she let out a rasping whisper. "Girls really don't do anything for me, so..."
Rei smiled softly, tilting her face just far enough to meet Asuka's eye. "It's much the same for me. I like... Contact, Asuka-chan, and you are among the three most valuable people I know."
"So me, Ikari and Misato." Asuka hummed softly. "And you kissed me, because of that?"
"An accurate summary." The blue-haired girl hummed pleasantly. Then Asuka was caught when Rei gave her a half-lidded, mischevious grin. "I also enjoyed seeing the look on your face."
Face mottled red, and somehow deliriously happy despite that fact, Asuka smiled. It was a bright, shining grin that seemed to light up her reflection in the passenger-side window. It may not have been the most transparent of exchanges, but Asuka felt at least one lingering worry fade from her mind. The rumble of the unmuffled engine filled the freeway, but there was almost no wildlife to disturb after so much battle. The city and outlying country was almost devoid of animals and insects.
Which was why Asuka couldn't help but wonder why she was hearing hoofbeats. Twisting, she scanned the road and horizon. When she saw it, tears welled in her eyes, and the first words that came to mind were the most noble of steeds. The majestic creature seemed to glow pearl-white under starlight, and every beat of its cloven hooves on the ground was sublime poetry. Flawless blue eyes unmarred by iris or pupils stared unflinchingly straight ahead, and its gleaming, spiraling horn was shaped of flawless opal...
Then Asuka blinked, and noted the rider sitting astride the unicorn didn't look half bad either. Aside from being a creepy fucking shirtless elf.
Galloping ahead of the car, Asuka watched the unicorn toss its mane in resplendent waves and sing with the voice of an actual angel. It composed an aria on the spot, and Asuka felt the car swerve just slightly when Rei's hands slipped on the wheel. The sudden shock and move snapped Asuka out of her funk, and she whirled, looking for the horse and rider. Along the way, she eyed the speedometer, and there was a distant realization that the horse was going faster than forty kilometers an hour.
The rider turned and glared down at Asuka past the visor of a shimering silver helmet, recrossing his arms and jerking his head forward. It was an imperious thing, communicating volumes despite the brief and severe motion. Asuka felt the spit dry up in her mouth. "...Rei. I think he wants to race."
Rei just tightend her hands on the wheel. "Excellent."
This is when Asuka noted that Rei was wearing a pair of distinctly Misato-esque driving gloves.
* * *
Ayanami Rei could count on two hands the number of times she truly felt alive. Her discovery of chocolate had been one, and they had just finished discussing the most recent, vitalizing moment. When she cycled the clutch, switched gears and bore down on the gas, Rei counted that as the ninth. The sound and thunder that shook the hills in response had her heart pumping hot and hard against her breastbone.
Hands loose and steady on the wheel, she looked out for the challenger, painfully aware that she was playing its game. The eneny did not fight or die as anything good or normal, so Rei knew then, that she was racing for lives. The horse and rider had move from passenger side to driver. The hills approached, and without breaking stride, the rider waved one arm, commanding the road to change.
The dark night gave way to a strange impossibility- though no stranger than anything else they had done so far. Trees with glowing leaves lit the track as it emerged out of cloudbanks of tall savannah grass. Sprawling stadium stands filled with screaming cheering things appeared, an endless throngs of an impossible audience. The road itself changed, rearing up out of the ground like a coiling snake with an infinite length.
Rei pushed the track, the insanity and teeming crowds out of her mind. Hands steady on the wheel, she cut her eyes to the right. Her opponent deserved almost every inch of her attention. Tall, broad-shouldered and reeking of masculinity, he still sat upright in the saddle with his arms folded over his chest. No matter how hard his mount gallopped, he remained perfectly stable. Rei couldn't see his eyes past the rainbow-metalic hawk mask.
No matter. She checked the line of the curve ahead and shot ahead. Acceleration forced Rei into her seat, and she heard Asuka's uneasy moan. Odd- she liked going fast in her Evangelion. Maybe the LCL support made the redhead more comfortable. The unicorn and rider charged after her, shoeless hooves beating against the pavement fast as gunfire.
Whipping out of the turn, the track suddenly dipped down like a rollercoaster. Rei felt her ponytail rise and sway under the sudden shift, and then she started sliding out of her seat. Asuka shoved one arm up and braced against the roof while tossing her other arm around Rei's shoulders, letting her focus on driving. The car hovered weightless for a few agonozing seconds before gravity- or some approxmation of- grabbed on and pulled the wheels down to the track. They slammed back into the seats and bounced, sending the car swerving. The clutch keened miserably, and Rei's legs pumped hard, getting the car back in gear.
Ahead, the rider charged ahead, silvery-white hair trailing like a banner flag from under his helmet. The headlamps made it and the Unicorn's mane look like gleaming platinum silk. Another turn reared up with the speed and stance of a striking snake, flaring out a cobra's hood laden with screaming fans.
Turning against the curve, Rei shifted gears and waited for the straightaway. "Someday, I will need nitrous oxide."
Asuka whirled on her, eye wide and wild."The hell do you need laughing gas for!?"
Rei switched gears and her car roared in response, almost drowning Asuka's shriek out as they soared out of the curve and onto the straightaway. "Improved fuel-air ratio, mostly!"
* * *
Asuka slammed both hands into the dashboard and cheered. "There's the finish line!"
And Rei could see she was right- a gaudy, ostentatious thing appeared ahead, with multiple flagwavers waiting for their arrival. Her Skyline and the rider were fighting for first place. The car was ahead by a bumper, then the unicorn by the horn. Studied disdain had faded. The rider was bent over the reins, hugging his mount and leaving a trail of glittering rainbow sparkles in his wake.
Fussing with her eyepatch, Asuka moaned that the range finder wasn't working. Rei risked a quick glance at the console, one-forty kilometers an hour. Her hand fell down on the stick and she pumped the clutch. The engine roared in response, kicking into gear as the speedometer climed. One-fifty, one sixty. The rider and mount pressed on, hooves moving so fast they were a blur.
And then the Skyline started to pull ahead.
The rider's mask cracked and Rei could see the tiniest hint of a glowing white eye in her rear view mirror. Reaching into nothing, the rival cast a tiger's roar into the air, mingling with the throaty piston rumble. Gleaming chrome shapes leaped up and out of the road surface, landing on tire-paws and looking like some unbelievable mix of big cat and internal combustion engine. While the rider trailed back, the tiger-racers clawed at the track, digging yard-wide trenches with each grasping stride.
Rei pushed the pedal to the floor.
Claws raked the back of the car, savaging the taillights and carving furrows into the trunk. The air pressure changed inside, and Rei was nearly flung from her seat as the impact sent the car reeling. Even as they fishtailed, Asuka shoved Rei back into the seat before locking white knuckles onto the door and seat. More of the beasts shoved at the car snapping metal jaws on air as Rei fought the steering and forced the car back on track. One-eighty, then two-ten kilometers an hour. The slighest touch sent her careening across the track, but there was a cold certainty with each twist of the wheel.
A feather-tap on the brakes dropped her behind two of the tigers, and they crashed into each other in a ringing clap of metal and fury. Foot back on the gas, Rei charged forward and ran them down, shattering them like glass despite their bulk.
The rest of the tigers kept pace no matter the speed, even as the finish line loomed ahead. Snarling, Asuka pounded the dash. "Rubberbanding motherfuckers!"
Rei couldn't afford to reply. She'd lost one side mirror in the scuffle and a dozen of the mauling things were still on her rear. She watched, waiting for that one gap to thread the needle. Ahead, the big cat-engines drifted, coiling and prepared to pounce. That was it!
Coaxing the last bit of speed from her car, Rei shot through the opening and crossed the finish line.
Behind then, the track, tigers and jungle scene vanished, and there was no trace of the unicorn rider. Ahead was patently normal, urbane highway and the first fingers of Misato's neighborhood.
Rei, understandably, hit the brakes. The car spun relentlessly, but Rei was ready for that, working the wheel and expertly draining their momentum. Wrenched to a stop, Asuka tumbled out of her seat, pulled from the passenger side and now laying with her head in Rei's lap. The redhead looked up at Rei and blinked owlishly. The seatbelts hadn't been made with racing maneuvers in mind.
* * *
Asuka let out a sputtering breath and dragged her hands down her face. "How in the hell did we get lost a few blocks from home. I know that store! And that park!"
Still in the driver's seat, Rei just shrugged. Asuka groaned a second time before sighing explosively. They'd been driving in circles for an hour. They knew they were in the right area, but there was no way they could have just missed the apartment. It had a freaking hot-spring resort on the roof. Turning to look out the window, Asuka frowned, grumbling.
The car at least came out of the race well enough- whatever damage the tigers had inflicted was... it hadn't happened. Somehow. The fuel was spent and Rei fussed over the radiator, but there were no claw mark- and one of the mirrors magically reappared as if it hadn't been touched. Asuka wasn't entirely sure if they made it out unscathed, though. Her everything was sore, from her heart and lungs to her arms and all inbetween. The crash of adrenaline had set the two of them giggling, laughing for almost five minutes. Asuka had taken her patch off just to wipe the tears away.
Now though, they were still lost. Rei eased the car around the corner and yet again they passed by the same store. They were going in circles, and still no closer to their destination. Dawn was just a few hours away. Asuka stopped then, thinking furiously. They were going in circles.
"Rei." She looked up and out the window before glancing her way. "Do you think these things can fuck with our sense of direction?"
The blue-haired girl frowned, but nodded seriously. "They have proven to do... strange things. Our response?"
Asuka frowned, biting her lip. "Stop the car."
Pulling over, Rei waited as Asuka opened the door and dashed for the storefront. She scooped up a bit of broken metal from a wrecked car and started carving a handful of lines in the cheap eighties building facade. She wasn't sure why, maybe because of the victory rush from the race, but Asuka felt the urge to add a more personal touch. She stepped back from the wall and admired her handywork.
The wall read Asuka Langley Sorhyu was here.
"There." Asuka declared to no one in particular. She rushed back into the car and buckled up. "Let's try this again, see if that changes."
Rei nodded and pulled out, and they made the circuit once more. At the end, they saw the message right where Asuka had left it. Turning, Asuka faced Rei, staring in both wonder and something like a dawning horror. Rei matched her expression with a similar one, though it had the First's patented low key delivery.
"You know where we are now, right?" Asuka hazarded.
The other girl just nodded. Together, they turned around and stared out the other side of the car, opposite of the storefront.
There, standing some eight or so stories tall was the heartbreakingly familiar and blatantly apparent building that housed Misato's apartment. They'd been driving past it for over an hour.
Asuka groaned. "I fucking hate these things. I really do."
* * *
Getting into the apartment was easy. The doors weren't locked, and the stairs still worked. The power was definitely out though, and eight weeks of neglect had started to take its toll. Asuka had made a point of digging out a notebook from her school bag and started taking notes on what they had seen, and Rei remained on point, armed with her own Absolute Territory. Fortunately, there were no active watchers in the immediate vincinity, save for the light touch of Asuka's awareness brushing against her own perceptive space.
The stairs were clear, save for clawmarks and signs of the strange things milling through the abandoned buildings. They seemed to explore everywhere on some whim or another. Their footsteps and the scratch of Asuka's pencil on paper were the only sounds in the open hallway. Reaching the door to their aparment, Rei reached out to lay a hand on Asuka's shoulder.
"Look." She pointed at the door itself, surrounded by knee-high towers of beer cans with some expensive wine bottles.
Scratches marked the doorframe as well, but they were too regular. Asuka hunkered down, frowning as she sketched them in her notes. Her toe nudged a dark shape between the beer towers, and waved Rei to take a look. It was a cast-iron frying pan. The door itself was propped open, with a gap about two handspans wide. Asuka shrugged at Rei before setting her notes aside and stepping up to get the door open.
Once inside, they saw it was... not as much of a mess as they expected. Some cushions were flung around haphazardly, and there was a kind of smell that stood out from the cold still air outside, but neither of them could quite place it. Rei headed into the kitchen, confirming that almost all of Shinji's expensive cookware had been taken. Looking around, she spotted pans and griddles as the centerpieces of more beer-can barricades across the patio door.
Asuka joined her, pointing at the sink. "The water's still running."
Neither of them made a move to turn it off. Pulling out her notes, Asuka started listing off their objectives- clothes, non-perishable supplies and so on. It had been eight weeks without power, so most of the leftovers would have been bad. The beer and wine would have been fine though. Together, they made an estimate of how much they could load in the car and how much time they had before dawn. It wasn't much.
There was no good reason to split up either. Deciding to work their way top down, they headed up stairs. Ikari's room didn't even have a door, just a wall of books separating it from the rest of the space. Aside from some projects, there wasn't anything there he needed... But Rei took up his cello and SDAT from the desk. Asuka shot her an apologetic look, and they both knew they might have to leave it behind regardless. Oddly enough, it looked like something had raided his desk, spreading his notes about thaumaturgy all over the floor.
Asuka leaned down to pick a page up and skimmed it, mumbling faintly. "'Bind a door with three-tied string...'"
Misato's room was easier. The two teenagers raided the closet, arms laden with anything they could think to grab. A car full of supplies would have been a drop in the bucket, but anything was better than nothing. Their own shared room proved to be more of a challenge. Rei didn't need much in the way of supplies, and happily shared with Misato or Asuka. The redhead meanwhile had been empting the ensuite bathrooms of all their hair-care products and stuffing them in a pillowcase. It was dumb, but It was clear she wanted it.
Glancing at her bed and desk, Rei frowned. Un, Deux, Tres, Quatre and Cinq were missing. The door to their cage was open, and their food plate had been picked clean. Asuka caught her staring so she freed one hand from a pile of supplies and reached out to take her own.
"I think they're fine- I mean, they got out, right?" The redhead nodded at the cage, hopeful.
Rei nodded, but leaned in closer. The food dish was empty, but the bottom of the cage were leftover crumbs; rice and bits of bread and other things she couldn't identify at a glance. They looked edible at least, for a mouse....
Downstairs, Rei heard a door slide open. She looked up at Asuka and reached into her backpack for one of her stabilizers, and the other girl just nodded slowly. Together, they headed for the stairway. Rei carefully and passively stretched her senses, feeling Asuka's presence around her, and little else. Rounding the corner and looking down the stairs, Rei could only blink. Asuka was in little better state.
"Wark."
* * *
PenPen flapped huffily, swanning around enough that five white shapes rushed out from under the couch and into Rei's waiting palms. The five lab mice raced up her arms and sat on her shoulders, sniffing her neck and ears as she giggled. Asuka meanwhile had a look of someone putting two and two together and not getting four. She gaped down at the hot-springs pengiun, then at the barriers and totem-defended guardian lines around all the doorways. Finally, PenPen concluded his explaination with a decisive squawk, holding his wings at his sides.
Asuka blinked, and could only stare helplessly. "I think he's trying to tell me, that he's seen some serious shit."
The penguin only gave her a decidedly flat, arid look in response. Asuka clapped her hands and sighed. "Okay- let's get everything loaded! No sense waiting around in here."
Gathering up their haul in a rush, Asuka made a note to raid Shinji's desk for those notes, stuffing them all into her school bag. They made some hard calls on what to take and what to leave, and Shinji's cello couldn't come with. The first fingers of daylight started to reach over the hills, and that was their deadline- they had to get back to base before Ikari's night-watch ended.
* * *
The trip back was easier in some ways, and harder in others. Dawn stretched over the battlefield, and the car reached the urban sprawl just as Unit 01 returning to base. Asuka caught snatches of purple and green Evangelion between the buildings as they picked through the wreckage for their own way in. A ten-lane wide tunnel was as good as any other, heading underground and away from the fighting.
Fumbling in her coat for the radio, Asuka turned it on and started tuning. The speaker crackled with distortion and static between channels, and a storm of orders spilled out in a rush. Misato's voice cut through it all, demanding they find their missing pilots.
To that, Asuka winced, but found herself smiling regardless. "Yep. We're in trouble. Worth it?"
Rei grinned. "I think so, yes. Shall we call in?"
Nodding, Asuka scanned the tunnel wall for a location code and sucked in a quick, steadying breath. She found the right channel and clicked the call button. "This is Pilot Sorhyu reporting in."
* * *
After being checked, double checked and then rushed through validation again, Asuka slouched back in the car seat, waiting for the transport carriage to carry them the rest of the way into the Geofront. Stepping out onto the platform and stretching lazily, she let out an expansive, aching yawn. Soldiers and Section 2 agents kept a steady watch with guns cradled neatly in their arms, ready but patient. Perhaps they knew they wouldn't be needed.
Misato was there on the platform, arms crossed over her chest and positively thunderous. There was a clear space some ten feet wide around her, where none dared get her attention. The older woman fixed Asuka with a look, and her eyes cut like razors over to Rei. She pointed down at the ground before her feet, and the unstated command was painfully transparent.
Walking stiffly, Asuka marched up and took her place, with Rei at her side. Misato scowled, speaking low but never once raising her voice or growling. "I hope you have an explanation. Anything that would rationalize your momentary lapse of judgement and perhaps sanity. What were you two even thinking?!"
Asuka opened her mouth to speak, and then stopped. Her brain moved a mile a minute, spinning freely as an idea caught hold. She shot a mischievous look at Rei despite the tension, and the other girl nodded. Not giving Misato a chance to do more than sputter, Asuka turned and quickly hopped back to the car. She came back after a quick check of the back seat, and Misato had no move or response to Asuka neatly dropping PenPen into her arms.
With her attention completely occupied by penguin, Misato stopped short, and Asuka considered the smug sense of victory she was feeling as wholly justified. Rei leaned in, a smile plain in her voice. "Perhaps Misato-san will need a moment."
"Heard that." She muttered, not unkindly, consumed with cradling her friend and long-time roomie in her arms. "You two will answer for this. I hope you understand that."
Asuka just rolled her eyes and smiled. Misato deigned to let them walk away then, and they felt they could leave the cargo be for just a bit longer. Far enough away from the crowds as not to be overheard, Asuka gently took Rei's hand in hers.
"Listen, if you want to kiss me, that's fine." Asuka turned a bit red, but smiled nonetheless. "But I have one request; don't ever kiss me as if you were about to die. Instead..."
Rei nodded, lacing her hands with Asuka's and visibly hanging on every word.
Inwardly cursing the inch and half Rei had on her, Asuka pushed herself up on her toes and pressed her lips to Rei's. Together they hit the wall, and after a few long seconds, Asuka pulled back with a pop.
Asuka took in the crimson, awestruck look in Rei's face and grinned. "Kiss me knowing you're going to live."
Still, I hope you all enjoy the conclusion to Chapter 41!
In one of the darker meeting rooms, the only sounds were that of labored breathing and the whine of life support. Ikari Gendo and Kihl Lorenz sat in contemplative silence, barely blinking. Leaning against a table, Nagisa Kaworu watched a mote of dust float through a beam of light cast from a nearby office lamp and smiled.
"If it reassures you fine gentlemen," He began- "I am more than willing to wait my turn."
* * *
One day after the high-command briefing, the sprawling titan that was NERV shuddered. It spasmed and twisted in on itself as it's various cells and organizations ate at its resources and rendered output; both information and material. The Geofront couldn't feel the thunder of war and countless guns through the kilometer of armor and launch systems, but the interior dome rattled every time an Eva was sent catapulting to the surface.
Ritsuko found herself sharing one of the express access elevators with Rei. She had an orange-stained towel draped around her shoulders, and the smell of clean LCL hung around her like a cloud. Clean didn't mean nice, unfortunately. She offered the pilot a wan smile and turned back to her clipboard. Floors ticked by by the second, and the rotary counter flipped from one digit to the next in the following half second. It took five ticks for Ritsuko to realize she'd been reading the same sentence over and over again.
Glancing up at Rei, she suppressed a frown and bit her lip, until finally letting out a sight. "I owe you an apology."
Rei looked up and blinked past her bangs, visibly surprised. Ritsuko winced and plowed on ahead. "Yesterday, before the briefing, we realized something, and I made a comparison between some of the civilian casualties, and... Well, the clones of you."
The blue-haired girl cocked her head to the side, studiously unreadable. "Was Commander Ikari upset?"
"I doubt he knows, but I don't really care what he thinks right now. I'm more worried about you." Ritsuko admitted, then she blinked. "Why does the Commander matter to you?"
"He is a deliberate person, and ruthlessly committed." Rei's lips compressed down to a thin line, but didn't speak further.
Ritsuko nodded then, taking the silence and implied warning as a positive gesture. She licked her lips and stood up straighter. "If anyone asks me- Misato and Shinji were both there, would you like me to tell them anything...?"
The pilot glanced away, staring at the elevator wall for a long moment, before finally speaking. "I could explain now, but considering the circumstances above ground, it might not be the best time to burden each other with this knowledge. What would you advise?"
Chewing her lip, Ritsuko thought about it. Rei had grown- older and wiser beyond the scope of the Scenario into something the scientist couldn't quite name. Fifteen or sixteen years old, she couldn't quite say, but Ritsuko took a moment to look back on the last half of her life.
Finding it wanting, she sighed and gave Rei a somber little smile. "I think that, trite as it sounds, now is the best time and you should make the most of it."
To that, Rei offered the older woman a surprisingly winsome little smile. "I like that methodology."
* * *
Not long after the morning patrol, Shinji got a page from Ritsuko asking him to call her back. From there, Rei answered, patiently instructing him to clear the central shaft to Terminal Dogma. Ritsuko had pushed a classified schematic to the MAGI terminal nearest the phone, and it was all Shinji needed to give Rei an estimate on repairs- four hours, tops. Her voice and answer had a quiet certainty and decisiveness he'd grown to appreciate, and didn't even bother asking why. Answers were coming, and Rei had clicked off after declaring she had to find Asuka.
Reaching the wreckage had been a challenge in and of itself, and there simply were not enough personnel free to surmount it. During the infiltration and base raid, two of the SEELE cyborgs had tried reaching Terminal Dogma. The commanders had executed a particular contingency, detonating explosives and demolishing the elevators and access ways to the deeper structure. After that, they had not seen or heard anything about the surviving cyborgs. The shaft itself was three kilometers deep, and the block was a third of the way down.
Shinji, for his part, could recognize the implication that whatever was down that far was important, but not so mission-critical as to require constant access.
When he pulled himself out of the repaired shaft, Shinji blinked and saw some people he expected, and some he didn't. There was Ritsuko and Rei, and then Asuka, but behind them was Kaji and Nagisa of all people.
He gave them a befuddled look, but Rei stepped forward and took his hand. "Misato-san was busy, and I trust Ritsuko and Kaji-san to 'fill her in', when the time is right."
Shinji nodded at that, smiling thinly. "No senior staff?"
Rei's own grin turned slightly impish. "What the Commanders don't know, won't hurt them."
* * *
Asuka fidgeted at all the delays, but made a point to lace her fingers with Rei's and give the other girl's hand an intermittent squeeze or two. Fortunately for all of them, the main elevator was at the top of the shaft and undamaged, noting that Ikari had cleared the wreckage and repaired the tracks with the glowing goldness.
Ritsuko took the opportunity to round on Kaji and huff. "Kaji, aside from Rei inviting you, why are you here?"
Spreading his arms before tucking them behind his head, Kaji grinned broadly with an unlit cigarette hanging from his lips while he put a hand on his chest in the western style. "As the young lady said, what the Commanders don't know won't hurt them, and in any case, I have the perfect excuse! I am inspecting! This is in fact, my job."
The blonde crossed her arms over chest and jerked her head over at the grey-haired pilot. "And Nagisa-kun?"
To that, Asuka cut in, apologetically. "He was hanging around with Kaji and I so..."
"It's fine, Asuka-chan." Rei shrugged, smiling faintly.
Nagisa simply inclined hs head and offered Rei a respectful bow, but Asuka didn't miss the sour look Ritsuko gave the rookie. Or Kaji's own warning glance.
The elevator itself moved swiftly, spiraling down with the interior isolated on its own bearings. Asuka could watch the walls and rails shift through the grates framing the four sides of the car. All told, they'd be at the bottom in a few minutes. Ikari had mentioned something about fixing the pressure-system too. Considering how deep they were, it was a good thing to fix. They ran across two more damaged sections as the descended, but progress was steady. When Ikari ducked out for the spot-fixes Nagisa opened his mouth a few times between giggling fits, and Asuka told him, not unkindly, to not ask.
The elevator itself cleared the shaft and moved onto an open double-helix track, revealing the cavernous interior of Terminal Dogma. The deepest part of the Geofront was aggressively utilitarian and uncomfortably brutal, almost hellish in how harshly the lights were cast up the walls and across the massive concrete support walls and dividers. Nothing penetrated the thick shadows masking the far walls, no matter where she looked and what vision mode she used.
Asuka let out a low, breathy whistle. "The fuck is this place."
"The hub and source of... Almost everything that is NERV." Ritsuko murmured. She jerked her chin eastward. "The Evangelion graveyards are over there. A few levels below us is the LCL manufacturing facility, which I am not showing any of you today. Or ever, I hope. We're going to the Memory Transfer Machine and ancillary facilities."
"Well, that's not ominous at all now, is it?" Asuka huffed and squeezed Rei's hand again, and the blue-haired girl gave her a thankful smile.
Pointing more northward, the blonde directed them off the elevator and towards the smaller installation. A rusty set of stairs and limp, sagging catwalks lead down from the elevator platform and the bottom floor, descending into the forest of concrete and steel. The walls bristled with pipes, machinery and stranger devices. It was old, with paint flaking away in places, or concrete having cracked away and revealing rebar beneath. For all of that though, it still functioned, humming with a droning, liquid sound.
Moving forward, Rei began to head the group with Asuka at her side, and the others behind them. Kaji brought up the rear and made a point to always keep Nagisa in front of him, but took the time to eye the walls and cryptic markings along the pipes and fittings. Ahead, the dark and pitted concrete was lit by a citrine glow, and through the gaps in the retaining walls and columns, Asuka could see the floor panels give way to a complicated nest of more pipes.
As the light grew brighter, Rei started speaking. "As Ritsuko-san said, we are approaching the Memory Transfer Machine, which is part of an ongoing effort to create a truly pilotless Evangelion. There are other purposes and uses, but that, ostensibly, is the official one."
Asuka could hear Shinji's frown as he loomed over their shoulders. "And the unofficial ones?"
In the open chamber ahead, the light and reflections made it hard to see through the clear glass walls. The group stopped at that point, and Rei turned, giving the tallest boy a small, apologetic look. "The place where I was made unfinished, and where the rest of me... rests."
Rei sighed then, and Asuka felt the gears turning in her own mind as a dozen or more pieces and odd quirks starting to put themselves together. She exchanged a wordless look with Ikari, and his face had gone slack, even as his eyes seemed to read the air in thought. Nagisa and Kaji flanked Ritsuko, the new pilot had remained studiously silent and respectful, while the older man paled and tugged at his already loose tie.
"I want to apologize... There were so many reasons for keeping this to myself." Rei murmured. "Ritsuko has proven her integrity to me in this matter."
Now Ritsuko looked distinctly uncomfortable, mumbling. "This is all my mother's doing- I just inherited her mess."
Kaji moved to give her a hug before putting on a brave look, drawling. "Well, we're here. Shame to turn back now."
Nodding, Asuka sucked down a bitingly cold and nauseous breath. She took a step forward, then another. The soles of her plugsuit were hard enough to make the metal platform rattle and creak. Ikari was there behind her and his sheer bulk did the same. The light and reflections shifted, leaving the glass panels suddenly all too clear.
Rei. That was what Asuka saw. Twenty identical Rei floating in oxygenated LCL, wearing little more than a vacant smile and an equally empty, dull stare. Their eyes did track, but it was a fitful, torpid thing. Asuka felt the bile rise in her throat. Then Kaji put a hand on her shoulder, giving her enough wherewithal to catch her breath and think. She miscounted initially, there were only eighteen bodies. She glanced at the standing, incarnate First Children and mouthed the obvious question.
Rei just nodded, pointing first at herself then down at another room below the tangle of pipes. "I am the second instance of Ayanami Rei. The Memory Transfer Machine beneath us creates a transcription of my soul and captures it as data, which can be etched onto an appropriate metaphysical medium."
"Which is why your physiology reminds me of an Eva's sometimes." Shinji broke in with the gold brand shining on his brow. He turned from the clones to the real thing, pale but focused. "The transfer system doesn't work unless you're part Evangelion."
"Not precisely 'Evangelion', but the distinction is meaningless." Rei admitted. "There is more, but the knowledge is exceedingly dangerous, and the evidence even more so."
Still looking somewhat sickly, Kaji's curiosity bubbled over. "Hey now- this is already pretty dangerous-"
Asuka cut him off, direct and with all her considerable attention on Rei. She gave the girl a firm, approving nod "Focusing on the practical information?" To Kaji, she huffed, and did not apologize in the least for her attitude- if Kaji wanted to be dumb, it was her duty to correct it. "If Rei says it's dangerous, it's actually fucking dangerous."
"Very much so." Rei confirmed. Then she looked more pointedly at Ikari and Kaji. "As I said, the primary purpose of this facility was to help develop a control-interface for the Evangelions. The memory-transfer and resurrection was a useful side-effect. Unit-00 uses the original method developed here, while Units-01 and 02 have more specialized interfaces."
That bombshell had Asuka thinking, glancing at the machines and devices for a moment before focusing back on Rei. A half-dozen questions formed on her lips, but she tamped down the urge. That alone was proof that there was more to her Eva, more to her partner than even she knew as self-proclaimed authority of AT-field science and technology. Asuka shoved the storm of thought and intrigue into the back of her mind, even as her brow furrowed.
Shinji's brand was out now, and he snapped his fingers. "Which explains the soul-transcription. You need a soul to make an AT-field. Asuka drummed that into my head quickly enough..."
He trailed off, then Asuka saw his jaw practically unhinge. "Are the Evangelions dubbed over with copies of your soul?"
At that, Rei shook her head, sending her ponytail whipping side to side in heavy waves. "Only Unit-00, and we've never been able to fully... determine the transfer fidelity."
"So what are our-" Asuka watched as Shinji waved a hand at her then himself. "'specialized interfaces'?"
Rei shrugged. "Unfortunately, I do not precisely know how it was done, save that Sorhyu Kyoko Zeppelin, Naoko Akagi, and Ikari Yui were all the primary minds behind the Evangelion project."
Hearing her mother's name called up all kinds of interesting and awful associations. Asuka beat back the sudden rush of memories, and outwardly, she didn't even twitch. However, she didn't ask the most obvious question aloud, and maybe she should have. Why are we special? All of this basically means being a pilot is arbitrary... the fuck? She knew her mother was involved in the Evangelion project, specially after her selection as a pilot, but Asuka couldn't seen to find an end to the questions.
Then Asuka glanced up at Ritsuko, noting the older woman looking sour and upset. Maybe she wasn't the only one unhappy about the things her mother did or didn't do. Kaji sauntered his way in and draped his arms around the blonde's shoulders, leaning into whisper something reassuring in Ritsuko's ear. Granted, it didn't look very reassuring. Ritsuko's face paled, and she gave Kaji a sickly look despite his otherwise unassuming smile. The remaining subtleties were lost on Asuka, what with the dull thrum and drone of the clone tanks and her own storm of thought.
Rei meanwhile had fallen completely silent, eyes downcast and fidgeting. Asuka focused on that, taking Rei's hand again and lacing their fingers together. Rei looked up at that, blinking once before giving Asuka a watery smile. Her own blood felt cool in her veins, and the hot flush Asuka expected didn't come, even though she could feel eyes on her.
"Why do they all have short hair? The clones." Shinji voiced the idle thought, and Asuka found herself wondering despite everything else. It's not like someone came down here to well, cut it, right?
Shaking the question free, and frowning, Asuka gave the clones a critical eye and compared them to the genuine article. The real Rei was... fuller, healthier. Aside from the longer hair, she'd actually started picking up color and well, was just plain taller than the clones. Even through the thick glass and murky LCL, Asuka could tell the clones were wan, listless and almost corpse-like.
Ritsuko answered, pointing at a complex looking pump loaded with plastic vials. It hummed intermittently. "Designer hormones and chemical cocktails keep them docile. I didn't know until recently how much their use impacts the development of a healthy soul though. Rei- our Rei is fine though."
Silence dominated the chamber aside from the hum and bubble of machinery. Kaji was left staring at the devices and clones, distant and contemplative, while Ritsuko drifted between him and Ikari. The blonde kept glancing sidelong at Nagisa as well. Asuka for her part couldn't really focus though, not with Rei needing her now, and literally in hand. She looked over at her friend, knowing that Rei did this for her peace of mind too. The thought made her eyes sting and blur.
"So this pretty much explains. Everything." Ikari turned to face Rei more fully. "Were you afraid of how we'd react?"
"Not exactly, no." Rei frowned minutely. "As long as the system is intact, I am functionally immortal. I believed my own lack of socialization was already alienating enough. I admit I was also concerned about tying up so much of NERv's resources for what could be seen as... excess."
"There you go talking like a textbook again, and it's not like you designed this thing." Asuka sighed explosively, puffing up her jacket and letting it settle around her sides. She looked past Rei and caught Shinji's eye. "I think we're thinking the same thing, for once?"
Shinji gave the redhead a sharp nod before moving with one mind. With him on one side and Asuka on the other, the two of them sandwiched Rei in a double-sided hug.
* * *
More than a year of worry and speculation had led him here. Well, technically Rei had led him here. The cloning chamber and memory transfer device was the stranger truth, compared to whatever hypothesis or idea he had as to her condition. He lived in a world set against stygian horrors from beyond the stars, armed with giant combat cyborgs. That NERV had a secret cloning facility in its lowest levels somehow didn't surprise him.
It felt wrong and right for him to realize the clones were, at the moment, just meat.
"Ritsuko." Shinji spoke quietly, a little urgent. "I'm asking- is there anything else I need to be made aware of, about how these Rei and these clones are being tended to? Is there anything I need to be made aware of, medically, metaphysically. Ethically?"
She just sighed and pulled off her glasses, letting her eyes drift closed. "Nothing Rei hasn't already explained. And like I said, I inherited all of this from my mother."
Then Ritsuko opened her eyes and gave him an oddly bittersweet smile. "I think I actually might want to consult you more, now that you're in the loop. Later, probably. If we survive this... Whatever is going on."
Shinji smiled despite himself and nodded. "I'll hold you to that, Doctor Akagi."
Turning, he eyed Nagisa peering into one of the tanks. The ash-blonde pilot was cocking his head left and right, and as Shinji got closer, he realized one of the clones was trying to imitate the movement. Eerie.
He took the last few steps deliberately, looming without meaning to. "Nagisa."
"Ikari-kun." Nagisa didn't turn away from the glass, and when he blinked, the nearest clone followed sluggishly. "I like to consider myself fairly worldly, but I have never seen anything like this before."
Something didn't quite track right then, and Shinji frowned. It wasn't a hostile sense- Nagisa was strange and cryptic and obnoxiously insightful, but never hostile. Fighting alongside him for months had to count for something, after all.
Shinji made a point to stare ahead at nothing, before cutting his eyes to the side and willing the weight of his attention to fall onto the other pilot's awareness. "I suppose I should be fair and point out that I can tell you're like Rei. So by that, you mean you haven't seen the place you were created?"
Nagisa now did turn and gave him a surprisingly winning grin. He grinned so widely, his eyes crinkled shut. "Pretty much, yes."
* * *
Plans took time, and any kind of organizational or military effort involved a lot of hurry-up-and-wait. Four days of effort amounted to building momentum, as instructors were found, training fields cut into the Geofront forest, and the search for civilian volunteers. In a different situation, NERV had once mobilized the entire power production of Japan and secured the equipment and material needed to use it in less than twenty hours.
Unbroken lines of communication and intact logistical channels made everything simple.
Now, Misato had to focus entirely on the resources at her fingertips. As considerable as they were, most of her truly useful plans still required that connection to the outside world. The Geofront had been their whole universe for the past six and a half weeks, with no chance of reinforcement or outside resupply. About the only things they had the stock for were Evangelion operations, and Shinji was helping stretching every bolt and sinew as long as possible. Misato blinked, and flash of red and blue out the corner of her eye reminded her of Asuka and Rei- they'd wandered in side by side and thick as thieves.
She let out a long, ragged sigh and sat heavily down in her regular command center seat. The MAGI were reduced to more basic operations, incapable of prognostic forecasting and the like. Still, they were useful. Armed with census and state identification data, the two supercomputers matched rescued civilians to improvised death certificates. She watched the holographic display flicker through images of bad drivers license photos and school IDs, almost tossing the graphics from one column to the next.
Misato scowled and gingerly crossed her arms over her chest. A third column stood out as neither rescued or dead.
Sixty-seven percent missing and unaccounted for.
* * *
In the screen-cast shadows a few meters away, Asuka and Rei both looked at Misato, and then they glanced at each other, worry plain on their faces.
* * *
If there was ever a moment Ritsuko envied the pilots for their Evas, this was it.
Arrows, actual goddamn arrows were punching holes through concrete and building facades. She felt gunfire rattle in her bones and through the ill-fitting uniform. Throwing her arms over her head, she ran through a cloud of dust and slammed shoulder first into a mostly intact wall. Rock chips and debris pelted her from one side, while a hand grabbed her wrist and pulled.
She wrenched her eyes open and stared through the clear goggles at one Kaji Ryoji . Rifle in hand, he grinned past his cigarette. "Having fun yet?"
Ritsuko just blinked once, for the moment forgetting the din and screams of war. She licked her lips and almost shouted, but her helmet slipped down over her eyes. Shoving it back up, she tried again. "You-what. Ka-ji!"
Tugging her forward, the older man hugged the wall alongside the soldiers. A jeep careened through the wide boulevard and slammed into a glass-maned lion less than ten meters ahead, while the gunner unloaded on the snarling thing with a heavy machine gun. The shattering glass broke into an orchestra and it was all Ritsuko could do to stay on Kaji and follow him.
They ducked right, away from the main street and into a cramped, normally straight and even alleyway. Dumpsters, nests of crates and temporary structures choked the once clean access way, but right now Ritsuko could only call the refuse a haven of familiarity. A half-dozen experienced veterans followed them, but Ritsuko could not honestly feel safe. Not now, maybe not ever.
She absently reached behind her and felt for the secure containment and bakelite reservoir, huffing softly. "I cannot believe your arrogance, Kaji Ryoji."
"It's so weird hearing either you or Katsuragi saying my full name." Kaji just grinned, sucking in a quick breath. "Fieldwork is a new thing for you. I gotta say Ritsu, I like it."
Any other time, Ritsuko would have turned mottled, purple red. Now, covered in dust, grime and sweat and feeling the stares of soldiers boring into her shoulders... Now, she scowled. "Whatever's going on, we're all outside our comfort zones, Kaji-san."
"Incoming!"
The shout came from their radios, and the world seemed to rumble in response. A shadow crossed over the valley, and the icy fingers of dread sank into Ritsuko's sides. Hoarfrost and rime seemed to grow on the walls and street. Time to move. Her boots hit the ground hard and sure, Shinji having refused to let her go out without soles tailored to her stride. She muttered a wordless prayer of thanks as her heels and treads chewed through ice and dusty concrete. The soldiers behind her urged her onward, and Kaji had already rounded the corner, leaning around and firing above and behind the crowd.
Ritsuko never saw what was chasing them.
The sudden silence was all-encompassing, and her ears throbbed at the sudden lack of stimulation, begging to maintain the over-saturation. Not quite stumbling over to a chewed pile of wrecked cars, the soldiers and one scientist hunkered down. It was amazing the difference one city block made- the battle felt and sounded like it was a world away.
"Sergeant." Kaji waved. "Any word from Dogma?"
The fire team leader shook his head. "Command's busy, inspector. Major Katsuragi likely thinks we can handle ourselves. I say break for five and then move on to objective."
"Sounds like her." Smirking, Kaji leaned back against a ruined car door and palmed his cigarette. It was mangled and a little damp, and had never seen a match or lighter.
He caught her eye, smiling. "So, Ritsuko. What's this I hear about a Hollywood kiss? Misato get a boyfriend under our noses?"
Ritsuko just stared at him. "You're asking me that now. "A mortar shell exploded in the distance. "Now, of all times. That's what's on your mind?"
The rough-shaven man just shrugged, smirking. Suddenly, Ritsuko felt the like everyone was hanging on her every word. "You're all incorrigible gossips, aren't you?"
"We're soldiers, ma'am." One of the men offered her a jaunty, teasing salute. "It's what we do."
Another explosion threw a plume of smoke and debris into the air, and Ritsuko sighed. Despite it all, the coping mechanism worked. "Fine- fine. Misato stopped the ninjas from escaping through the cages, but was wounded. Fatally."
Now they were hanging on her every word for a different reason. "Fortunately, Shinji was there and managed to make a miracle... so..."
She trailed off then, fixing Kaji with a level stare and all but daring him to ask for details.
Kaji had the decency to simply shake his head and sigh. He rubbed the back of his neck, laughing faintly. "Now I'm wondering if I should have a talk with Shinji-kun, or buy him a beer."
"Getting him drunk doesn't end well, take my word for it." Ritsuko grumbled, and sucked in a quick, calming breath.
The sergeant stood up but stayed low in cover. Moving swiftly, the other soldiers checked for threats and enemy movement before waving the two civilian specialists forward into the center of their special unit. Kaji had cast aside the dashing rogue agent once more, naming directions with a curt efficiency. The eight of them crawled through the wreckage of two wrecked buildings, and in the distance they saw Unit 03 and 02 sweeping aside whole armies that marched up the slopes of Mount Hakone.
Finally, after what felt like hours, Kaji directed them to a sealed maintenance door. Damage had wedged it shut, but soldiers always carried a universal key. The shaped charge was placed in seconds and they scurried to safe distance before detonating. The charge sheared through the door's hinges, and the whole reinforced hunk of steel and rivets slumped out of the way with a mournful bang.
With the way clear, Ritsuko urged the soldiers to wait outside while glaring at Kaji. Armed with flashlights, they eased into the dark city structure. "I cannot believe your sheer arrogance, leaving the sample here of all places."
"Unfortunately, Akagi." Kaji grumbled, crouching under a sagging brace of pipes. "Your boss wanted the key to armageddon, and I wasn't about to just hand it over."
"Be that as it may, this place is unsecured." Ritsuko growled, kneeling down a little less than Kaji did to clear the same obstacle.
The older man stopped and nodded, lit by the reflected light and a dropped glow stick. "Well, it's here. Be careful though- the last time I checked..."
Ritsuko glanced over at him, blinking once at the warning. She let out a wary breath and reached for the case, verifying the seal before opening the safe outer lock. She'd seen grainy, false-color pictures, but the real, embryonic thing was another story. She choked on her own saliva, feeling a surge of something hot and metallic flood the back of her throat. In that first second, it felt almost normal. In the second, when the hot and wet wouldn't stop, she started to panic.
Then the eye taking up most of its underdeveloped head swiveled, staring right at her.
The flashlight dropped down and rolled fitfully along the grated floor, and Ritsuko stumbled down on all fours in the slash of light in the dark. Kaji's own beam joined hers as she coughed, hard and heavy. A wet heave filled her mouth with something so awful and familiar, she nearly screamed. Citrine orange spilled past her clenched teeth and out onto the grate.
She coughed out two lungfuls of LCL before whatever that was finally abated, and Ritsuko stumbled back into the darkness, shaking like a leaf. Hauling her backpack around, her hands worked on autopilot, and Kaji had already tossed his flashlight down to help. Together they opened the emergency containment vessel and shoved ADAM in. One final lever flooded the new container with freshly charged bakelite and anesthetic chemicals.
After that, Kaji and Ritsuko exchanged a wordless look, before he picked her and the container up in one move, running full tilt for the exit.
* * *
Later, a strange thing hobbled into the dark space, sniffing after the trail of humans and their delightful leavings and cast off bits. The air and corridors were thick with the boring smell of steel, metal and man-shaped rock. Prowling on knobby limbs, the monstrous little worker made its way to the strongest smell.
It found a faint trace of acrid orange on the grated floor. Lifting the panel to access the pipes and pool below was a trifle task, and it reached down to scoop a sample of the heavenly brew with one gnarled finger.
A single lick delivered it unto euphoria and ecstasy without end or limit.
* * *
"All things being equal, I can admit that this may have not been the greatest idea I've ever had."
Sneaking out of the Geofront had been easier than Asuka expected. The defensive perimeter was as tightly spaced as possible out of necessity, with armed guards and cameras holding sentry over the most defensible bottlenecks. The Geofront was gradually turning into a fortress within a fortress. Huge swaths and almost a kilometer of city superstructure and underground facilities were left as no-mans-land. The long tunnels, elevators and conveyors that lead outside had all gone silent after the invasion.
Things roamed in those dark places.
And for all of that, the hardest part was sneaking past the guards at a tram station. Armed with a hastily programmed MAGI access code courtesy of Ikari, and Rei's perfect recall of the Geofront interior, the two of them made it up to the Evangelion cages unseen in the dead of night. From there, it was just one long elevator ride to the surface.
Leaning against the cab wall, Asuka idly tossed a blocky NERV-issue radio into the air. It tumbled lazily, and she snatched it out of the air.. "So... is Ikari going to squeal on us?"
Standing near the door, Rei just glanced at her sidelong. "I highly doubt it. And if we need a daring rescue, he will be at hand."
"Small favors." Asuka let out a low laugh and shoved the radio into her jacket pocket.
She fiddled with her eyepatch then, checking the charge and synchronization. Everything was good. Rei had prepared six emergency injectors of stabilizer, and Ikari had checked the infusion pump before they went out.
Red eyes cut back, and Rei frowned minutely. "Are you certain we should be going out unarmed?"
"These things block bullets with swords." Asuka groaned. "I do not want to deal with that crazy without an Eva or AT-field, thank you very much."
Almost as if on cue, the elevator doors whipped open, revealing the top level access hall. It had seen better days. The last time either of them had been there was the day of the ninja attack. Breaking out a flashlight from one pocket, Asuka flicked her head at the ruined corridor, and Rei nodded without a word. Together they moved, not quite in synch, but fluidly all the same. The wall had caved in at several points, slumping and spilling concrete and debris across the floor.
Aside from the rough walk, the way was clear all the way to the exit. Leaning around the yawning doorway, Asuka let out a soundless whistle before whispering. "...Really hope we can pull this off..."
Rei just brushed her arm affectionately and nodded before taking point- she had the Absolute Territory after all, and the enemy couldn't just instantly rip through one. Asuka sighed softly and followed, crouching and staying low. Almost all of the taller armory buildings were heavily damaged, if not outright destroyed, and the sky was thick with dust and clouds. No way to see the stars or moon. Power was out to the city surface as well, lit only by distant fires and the infrequent explosions. Somewhere, blocks away, Ikari was patrolling in Unit 01.
Keeping her head down, Asuka sighed softly and tucked her hair back as best she could. The wind was picking up. If she remembered correctly, Rei parked around the corner and-
The rest of her thought abrupty cut off when she bumped into Rei and nearly stumbled. Catching herself at the last minute, she leaned around the other girl, blinking.
"My car is gone." Rei hissed. She rounded on Asuka, and for a moment it looked like Rei was glaring at her. Instead it was just her scanning the battlefield.
Asuka groaned again and resisted the urge to pound her head into a nearby wall. "We are so AWOL and in so much trouble it's not even funny- but goddamnit this is going to be worth it- Rei, stay calm. These things might be bullshit magic, but I don't think they drive stick-shift. It can't be far."
Ten minutes of searching felt like ten hours, despite Asuka having a digital clock counting the time superimposed on the edges of her vision. Picking through the ruins and debris bit by bit, they made their way further from the half-collapsed Geofront access. Rei seemed to twitch more and more as the minutes passed, bouncing with her toes and flexing her fingers. Finally though, they squeezed through a parking garage gate and found the Skyline more or less intact, much to Asuka's relief.
Rei all but teleported to the vehicle while Asuka followed somewhat warily. Wedged up against a wall, the car was scuffed, dented, and one of the smaler passenger windows was spiderwebbed with cracks. Asuka looked at her friend and felt her heart clench at the sorrowful expression on Rei's face. Taking a closer look, Asuka wondered something had taken claws to it. They did find it more than a block away though...
After making two full passes, Rei frowned and crouched down near the rear of the car. "The muffler's gone."
Worring at her lip, Asuka couldn't help but wonder why. Why would someone take a muffler- it made no sense. "It'll still run, right?"
"It should." Rei reassured her, pulling the keys from her backpack. "Though it will be loud."
To that, Asuka just huffed and gave Rei a mischevious smirk. Together they flung the doors open, checking for damage and debris. The tank was stil three-fourths full of gas and nothing seemed to be leaking. Stretched over the front passenger seat, Asuka reached and groped in the dark backseat for their school bags. They'd abandoned for eight weeks now. Her hands clamped around the handles just as Rei turned the engines over.
The car and bottom floor of the garage seemed to rattled along with the loud gasoline roar, and Asuka felt the pressure in her bones and teeth. Her heart started pounding despite herself, nad she dropped back into the seat with the bags in her lap. One hand moved to buckle up while the other started pawing for catches. Old assignments, school laptop, nail clippers and a fancy pen. Wright's pen. She stuffed it back inside, scowling at nothing.
In the driver's seat, Rei's legs pumped and her hand fell on the shifter, throwing them into gear and out into the ruined Tokyo-3. Asuka kept her eyes out on the road and the battlefield. It looked so much different from ground level, even surrounded by the glass and metal body of the car. An Eva kept her high above it all, but on the streets, she could see the soot, rubble and blood all too easily.
Asuka let out a woeful grunt and slumped back into her seat. The hypervigilance was starting to wear on her. They had to get out on the open road, as quietly as possible. Rei's foot was feather-light on the gas, both to keep the throaty engine quiet and to avoid colissions. They couldn't afford headlights or speeds faster than ten kilometers an hour.
Feeling her eyes unfocus, Asuka watched the digital clock in her sight tick over. "I don't mean to rush you, but time is something we don't have."
Rei played the wheel hand over hand, weaving deftly past a section of broken road. "Unfortunately, this is a sports car, not an all-terrain vehicle."
The city was lit by fires and the eerie waves of magic or stranger things their enemies tossed into the air. The Angels at least had the decency to shake hands with physics, casting off waste heat or stripping electrons out of the atmosphere whenever they did something unorthodox. She could see strange things play in the shadows, or play with the shadows, throwing inky blackness out like spiderwebs.
Moving up one street, Asuka caught Rei frowning out the corner of her eye, before the blue-haired girl pointed ahead. "Is that light up ahead?"
A quick check with her prosthetics zoom had Asuka blinking. "...It's a lantern. It's a pumpkin lantern."
Still scanning the distance, she tried to keep her perspective steady while Rei drove closer. The street was starting to look familiar despite all the ruins and wreckage. They were in an old part of the city; old in the sense that it didn't retract. The train station would have been a few blocks over and...
A flash of pearl grey caught her eye, and Asuka's hands dug into the dashboard. "It's more of those organized ones! The ones with the banners! Do you know where we are?"
The question was inspired, and Asuka had no idea why she asked it, but Rei always knew where everything was. "We are nearing the school."
"Shit." Asuka breathed. "I think we need to stay on this road if we want to get out of the city."
She looked ahead and off to the left then. Silhouetted against smoke and the low hills along the north-western side of the city was Eva Unit 01. They couldn't afford to get too close to NERV's operational area either.
"Asuka-chan." Rei kept her voice low and intent. "We must scout the situation."
Dropping heavily back into her seat, Asuka scrubbed her scalp and sighed. "We have to do it fast and quiet though- They'll have archers and whale ships, remember?"
Rei just gave her a decisive nod, and, somehow managed to urge the car faster and quieter through the streets and wreckage. Switching to a rangefinder, Asuka counted off the meters and kept an eye out for sentries. She waved for Rei to stop as one figure seemed to walk across the air above the street, but a closer look told her they'd made some kind of fortress in the middle of the intersection. Graninte stones as dark as night seemed to drink in the light of their lanterns and the weak starlight.
Bit by bit, they managed to ease closer, sometimes having to double back to get around a blocked route or some other obstacle. The intact apartments and mundane office buildings surrounding the intersection castle had been hastily converted into almost classical battlements and citadels. And all of them had been strung with glit pearl grey banners marked with darker illustrated flames. It all reeked excess and glamourous pagentry, but it was also new. Asuka reached into her jacket pocket and fingerered the radio. If they said something now, they'd ruin their admittedly selfish mission, but...
She shook her head and sighed. "They're entrenched at the highschool, and this is the first time we've seen them hold territory. We'll tell Misato and the others when we get back."
Rei nodded and picked out a clear path. Finally, they were headed away from the city and into the outlying hills.
* * *
The roads outside the city were clearer in some ways, choked in others. The urban streets were cratered or covered in the ruins of fallen buildings, wrecked combat vehicles, and strange monstrous corpses. The further away they got, the more Asuka saw abandoned cars, civilian traffic. Most of it had been pushed to the shoulders- not driven. Like some great hand or beast had scooped up the freeway drivers and carelessly shoved them aside .
She remembered then, that the invasion had been going on for at least an hour before the Geofront even knew about it.
Neither Rei or Asuka could say it was safe, but as the car shot down the eastern route, they at least felt more at ease. The enemy seemed myopically focused on downtown Tokyo-3, but Asuka's night vision could pick out their traces amongst the hills and suburbs. They passed by a dark, rusted graveyard of train cars, stuck into the ground like railroad spikes after the tsunamis following Second Impact.
The brighest lights outside the city were the stars and fireflies that seemed almost as common as the cicada. The buzzing summer insects had all but vanished though, since the invasion. A gust of wind moved the tall grass surrounding the road, and through the dark, Asuka spotted something dark, muscled and clawed stalking through the shadows. In the actual shadows, not the physical space between the grass. She shot Rei a wordless look, face tight and wary.
Rei hit the gass and flicked her hand. The headlights snapped on, throwing achingly bright white pools of light out onto the road ahead.
Glancing sidelong at the other girl, Asuka huddled into her jacket, alone in her head with her own thoughts. It had been weeks since it happened, but thinking about it still made her cheeks burn red despite the icy sense of threat. There had to be a good way to say it, but nothing was coming clear. Sneaking a quick look in the rearview mirror, she saw something void cross the highway behind them. She had to say something, and soon.
"So... Uhm..." She frowned then, stumbling and stuttering to herself before finally giving up and letting out an apologetic sigh. "I'm sorry I left you hanging."
Rei just blinked, barely turning to face her. "I don't follow."
"You, and uh..." Asuka turned even redder with each word. "The kiss. When you kissed me. That one time."
That got a response, and Rei's eyes lit up in recognition. She smiled, keeping an eye on the road while she spoke. "It's been... A busy time. Surviving."
Asuka nodded absently. Surviving. That word had taken on something of greater magnitude of meaning recently. "Definitely has... So- can I ask why?"
"It is difficult to say- to find words." Rei's smile was positively contagious despite the tension. "I've been filled with something, a feeling and affection. I had to do something with it."
"So you kissed me." Asuka completed the thought. All the could-haves and just-in-cases were getting caught in her throat and mind, and thinking about it, Asuka couldn't blame Rei feeling something similar...
"So I did." Rei nodded, easing the car past a wrecked service vehicle. Then she frowned, visibly worried. "I didn't overstep, right?"
"No! No not at all! I mean, it was odd but... well, it's just." Asuka felt her face heat up again, and she let out a rasping whisper. "Girls really don't do anything for me, so..."
Rei smiled softly, tilting her face just far enough to meet Asuka's eye. "It's much the same for me. I like... Contact, Asuka-chan, and you are among the three most valuable people I know."
"So me, Ikari and Misato." Asuka hummed softly. "And you kissed me, because of that?"
"An accurate summary." The blue-haired girl hummed pleasantly. Then Asuka was caught when Rei gave her a half-lidded, mischevious grin. "I also enjoyed seeing the look on your face."
Face mottled red, and somehow deliriously happy despite that fact, Asuka smiled. It was a bright, shining grin that seemed to light up her reflection in the passenger-side window. It may not have been the most transparent of exchanges, but Asuka felt at least one lingering worry fade from her mind. The rumble of the unmuffled engine filled the freeway, but there was almost no wildlife to disturb after so much battle. The city and outlying country was almost devoid of animals and insects.
Which was why Asuka couldn't help but wonder why she was hearing hoofbeats. Twisting, she scanned the road and horizon. When she saw it, tears welled in her eyes, and the first words that came to mind were the most noble of steeds. The majestic creature seemed to glow pearl-white under starlight, and every beat of its cloven hooves on the ground was sublime poetry. Flawless blue eyes unmarred by iris or pupils stared unflinchingly straight ahead, and its gleaming, spiraling horn was shaped of flawless opal...
Then Asuka blinked, and noted the rider sitting astride the unicorn didn't look half bad either. Aside from being a creepy fucking shirtless elf.
Galloping ahead of the car, Asuka watched the unicorn toss its mane in resplendent waves and sing with the voice of an actual angel. It composed an aria on the spot, and Asuka felt the car swerve just slightly when Rei's hands slipped on the wheel. The sudden shock and move snapped Asuka out of her funk, and she whirled, looking for the horse and rider. Along the way, she eyed the speedometer, and there was a distant realization that the horse was going faster than forty kilometers an hour.
The rider turned and glared down at Asuka past the visor of a shimering silver helmet, recrossing his arms and jerking his head forward. It was an imperious thing, communicating volumes despite the brief and severe motion. Asuka felt the spit dry up in her mouth. "...Rei. I think he wants to race."
Rei just tightend her hands on the wheel. "Excellent."
This is when Asuka noted that Rei was wearing a pair of distinctly Misato-esque driving gloves.
* * *
Ayanami Rei could count on two hands the number of times she truly felt alive. Her discovery of chocolate had been one, and they had just finished discussing the most recent, vitalizing moment. When she cycled the clutch, switched gears and bore down on the gas, Rei counted that as the ninth. The sound and thunder that shook the hills in response had her heart pumping hot and hard against her breastbone.
Hands loose and steady on the wheel, she looked out for the challenger, painfully aware that she was playing its game. The eneny did not fight or die as anything good or normal, so Rei knew then, that she was racing for lives. The horse and rider had move from passenger side to driver. The hills approached, and without breaking stride, the rider waved one arm, commanding the road to change.
The dark night gave way to a strange impossibility- though no stranger than anything else they had done so far. Trees with glowing leaves lit the track as it emerged out of cloudbanks of tall savannah grass. Sprawling stadium stands filled with screaming cheering things appeared, an endless throngs of an impossible audience. The road itself changed, rearing up out of the ground like a coiling snake with an infinite length.
Rei pushed the track, the insanity and teeming crowds out of her mind. Hands steady on the wheel, she cut her eyes to the right. Her opponent deserved almost every inch of her attention. Tall, broad-shouldered and reeking of masculinity, he still sat upright in the saddle with his arms folded over his chest. No matter how hard his mount gallopped, he remained perfectly stable. Rei couldn't see his eyes past the rainbow-metalic hawk mask.
No matter. She checked the line of the curve ahead and shot ahead. Acceleration forced Rei into her seat, and she heard Asuka's uneasy moan. Odd- she liked going fast in her Evangelion. Maybe the LCL support made the redhead more comfortable. The unicorn and rider charged after her, shoeless hooves beating against the pavement fast as gunfire.
Whipping out of the turn, the track suddenly dipped down like a rollercoaster. Rei felt her ponytail rise and sway under the sudden shift, and then she started sliding out of her seat. Asuka shoved one arm up and braced against the roof while tossing her other arm around Rei's shoulders, letting her focus on driving. The car hovered weightless for a few agonozing seconds before gravity- or some approxmation of- grabbed on and pulled the wheels down to the track. They slammed back into the seats and bounced, sending the car swerving. The clutch keened miserably, and Rei's legs pumped hard, getting the car back in gear.
Ahead, the rider charged ahead, silvery-white hair trailing like a banner flag from under his helmet. The headlamps made it and the Unicorn's mane look like gleaming platinum silk. Another turn reared up with the speed and stance of a striking snake, flaring out a cobra's hood laden with screaming fans.
Turning against the curve, Rei shifted gears and waited for the straightaway. "Someday, I will need nitrous oxide."
Asuka whirled on her, eye wide and wild."The hell do you need laughing gas for!?"
Rei switched gears and her car roared in response, almost drowning Asuka's shriek out as they soared out of the curve and onto the straightaway. "Improved fuel-air ratio, mostly!"
* * *
Asuka slammed both hands into the dashboard and cheered. "There's the finish line!"
And Rei could see she was right- a gaudy, ostentatious thing appeared ahead, with multiple flagwavers waiting for their arrival. Her Skyline and the rider were fighting for first place. The car was ahead by a bumper, then the unicorn by the horn. Studied disdain had faded. The rider was bent over the reins, hugging his mount and leaving a trail of glittering rainbow sparkles in his wake.
Fussing with her eyepatch, Asuka moaned that the range finder wasn't working. Rei risked a quick glance at the console, one-forty kilometers an hour. Her hand fell down on the stick and she pumped the clutch. The engine roared in response, kicking into gear as the speedometer climed. One-fifty, one sixty. The rider and mount pressed on, hooves moving so fast they were a blur.
And then the Skyline started to pull ahead.
The rider's mask cracked and Rei could see the tiniest hint of a glowing white eye in her rear view mirror. Reaching into nothing, the rival cast a tiger's roar into the air, mingling with the throaty piston rumble. Gleaming chrome shapes leaped up and out of the road surface, landing on tire-paws and looking like some unbelievable mix of big cat and internal combustion engine. While the rider trailed back, the tiger-racers clawed at the track, digging yard-wide trenches with each grasping stride.
Rei pushed the pedal to the floor.
Claws raked the back of the car, savaging the taillights and carving furrows into the trunk. The air pressure changed inside, and Rei was nearly flung from her seat as the impact sent the car reeling. Even as they fishtailed, Asuka shoved Rei back into the seat before locking white knuckles onto the door and seat. More of the beasts shoved at the car snapping metal jaws on air as Rei fought the steering and forced the car back on track. One-eighty, then two-ten kilometers an hour. The slighest touch sent her careening across the track, but there was a cold certainty with each twist of the wheel.
A feather-tap on the brakes dropped her behind two of the tigers, and they crashed into each other in a ringing clap of metal and fury. Foot back on the gas, Rei charged forward and ran them down, shattering them like glass despite their bulk.
The rest of the tigers kept pace no matter the speed, even as the finish line loomed ahead. Snarling, Asuka pounded the dash. "Rubberbanding motherfuckers!"
Rei couldn't afford to reply. She'd lost one side mirror in the scuffle and a dozen of the mauling things were still on her rear. She watched, waiting for that one gap to thread the needle. Ahead, the big cat-engines drifted, coiling and prepared to pounce. That was it!
Coaxing the last bit of speed from her car, Rei shot through the opening and crossed the finish line.
Behind then, the track, tigers and jungle scene vanished, and there was no trace of the unicorn rider. Ahead was patently normal, urbane highway and the first fingers of Misato's neighborhood.
Rei, understandably, hit the brakes. The car spun relentlessly, but Rei was ready for that, working the wheel and expertly draining their momentum. Wrenched to a stop, Asuka tumbled out of her seat, pulled from the passenger side and now laying with her head in Rei's lap. The redhead looked up at Rei and blinked owlishly. The seatbelts hadn't been made with racing maneuvers in mind.
* * *
Asuka let out a sputtering breath and dragged her hands down her face. "How in the hell did we get lost a few blocks from home. I know that store! And that park!"
Still in the driver's seat, Rei just shrugged. Asuka groaned a second time before sighing explosively. They'd been driving in circles for an hour. They knew they were in the right area, but there was no way they could have just missed the apartment. It had a freaking hot-spring resort on the roof. Turning to look out the window, Asuka frowned, grumbling.
The car at least came out of the race well enough- whatever damage the tigers had inflicted was... it hadn't happened. Somehow. The fuel was spent and Rei fussed over the radiator, but there were no claw mark- and one of the mirrors magically reappared as if it hadn't been touched. Asuka wasn't entirely sure if they made it out unscathed, though. Her everything was sore, from her heart and lungs to her arms and all inbetween. The crash of adrenaline had set the two of them giggling, laughing for almost five minutes. Asuka had taken her patch off just to wipe the tears away.
Now though, they were still lost. Rei eased the car around the corner and yet again they passed by the same store. They were going in circles, and still no closer to their destination. Dawn was just a few hours away. Asuka stopped then, thinking furiously. They were going in circles.
"Rei." She looked up and out the window before glancing her way. "Do you think these things can fuck with our sense of direction?"
The blue-haired girl frowned, but nodded seriously. "They have proven to do... strange things. Our response?"
Asuka frowned, biting her lip. "Stop the car."
Pulling over, Rei waited as Asuka opened the door and dashed for the storefront. She scooped up a bit of broken metal from a wrecked car and started carving a handful of lines in the cheap eighties building facade. She wasn't sure why, maybe because of the victory rush from the race, but Asuka felt the urge to add a more personal touch. She stepped back from the wall and admired her handywork.
The wall read Asuka Langley Sorhyu was here.
"There." Asuka declared to no one in particular. She rushed back into the car and buckled up. "Let's try this again, see if that changes."
Rei nodded and pulled out, and they made the circuit once more. At the end, they saw the message right where Asuka had left it. Turning, Asuka faced Rei, staring in both wonder and something like a dawning horror. Rei matched her expression with a similar one, though it had the First's patented low key delivery.
"You know where we are now, right?" Asuka hazarded.
The other girl just nodded. Together, they turned around and stared out the other side of the car, opposite of the storefront.
There, standing some eight or so stories tall was the heartbreakingly familiar and blatantly apparent building that housed Misato's apartment. They'd been driving past it for over an hour.
Asuka groaned. "I fucking hate these things. I really do."
* * *
Getting into the apartment was easy. The doors weren't locked, and the stairs still worked. The power was definitely out though, and eight weeks of neglect had started to take its toll. Asuka had made a point of digging out a notebook from her school bag and started taking notes on what they had seen, and Rei remained on point, armed with her own Absolute Territory. Fortunately, there were no active watchers in the immediate vincinity, save for the light touch of Asuka's awareness brushing against her own perceptive space.
The stairs were clear, save for clawmarks and signs of the strange things milling through the abandoned buildings. They seemed to explore everywhere on some whim or another. Their footsteps and the scratch of Asuka's pencil on paper were the only sounds in the open hallway. Reaching the door to their aparment, Rei reached out to lay a hand on Asuka's shoulder.
"Look." She pointed at the door itself, surrounded by knee-high towers of beer cans with some expensive wine bottles.
Scratches marked the doorframe as well, but they were too regular. Asuka hunkered down, frowning as she sketched them in her notes. Her toe nudged a dark shape between the beer towers, and waved Rei to take a look. It was a cast-iron frying pan. The door itself was propped open, with a gap about two handspans wide. Asuka shrugged at Rei before setting her notes aside and stepping up to get the door open.
Once inside, they saw it was... not as much of a mess as they expected. Some cushions were flung around haphazardly, and there was a kind of smell that stood out from the cold still air outside, but neither of them could quite place it. Rei headed into the kitchen, confirming that almost all of Shinji's expensive cookware had been taken. Looking around, she spotted pans and griddles as the centerpieces of more beer-can barricades across the patio door.
Asuka joined her, pointing at the sink. "The water's still running."
Neither of them made a move to turn it off. Pulling out her notes, Asuka started listing off their objectives- clothes, non-perishable supplies and so on. It had been eight weeks without power, so most of the leftovers would have been bad. The beer and wine would have been fine though. Together, they made an estimate of how much they could load in the car and how much time they had before dawn. It wasn't much.
There was no good reason to split up either. Deciding to work their way top down, they headed up stairs. Ikari's room didn't even have a door, just a wall of books separating it from the rest of the space. Aside from some projects, there wasn't anything there he needed... But Rei took up his cello and SDAT from the desk. Asuka shot her an apologetic look, and they both knew they might have to leave it behind regardless. Oddly enough, it looked like something had raided his desk, spreading his notes about thaumaturgy all over the floor.
Asuka leaned down to pick a page up and skimmed it, mumbling faintly. "'Bind a door with three-tied string...'"
Misato's room was easier. The two teenagers raided the closet, arms laden with anything they could think to grab. A car full of supplies would have been a drop in the bucket, but anything was better than nothing. Their own shared room proved to be more of a challenge. Rei didn't need much in the way of supplies, and happily shared with Misato or Asuka. The redhead meanwhile had been empting the ensuite bathrooms of all their hair-care products and stuffing them in a pillowcase. It was dumb, but It was clear she wanted it.
Glancing at her bed and desk, Rei frowned. Un, Deux, Tres, Quatre and Cinq were missing. The door to their cage was open, and their food plate had been picked clean. Asuka caught her staring so she freed one hand from a pile of supplies and reached out to take her own.
"I think they're fine- I mean, they got out, right?" The redhead nodded at the cage, hopeful.
Rei nodded, but leaned in closer. The food dish was empty, but the bottom of the cage were leftover crumbs; rice and bits of bread and other things she couldn't identify at a glance. They looked edible at least, for a mouse....
Downstairs, Rei heard a door slide open. She looked up at Asuka and reached into her backpack for one of her stabilizers, and the other girl just nodded slowly. Together, they headed for the stairway. Rei carefully and passively stretched her senses, feeling Asuka's presence around her, and little else. Rounding the corner and looking down the stairs, Rei could only blink. Asuka was in little better state.
"Wark."
* * *
PenPen flapped huffily, swanning around enough that five white shapes rushed out from under the couch and into Rei's waiting palms. The five lab mice raced up her arms and sat on her shoulders, sniffing her neck and ears as she giggled. Asuka meanwhile had a look of someone putting two and two together and not getting four. She gaped down at the hot-springs pengiun, then at the barriers and totem-defended guardian lines around all the doorways. Finally, PenPen concluded his explaination with a decisive squawk, holding his wings at his sides.
Asuka blinked, and could only stare helplessly. "I think he's trying to tell me, that he's seen some serious shit."
The penguin only gave her a decidedly flat, arid look in response. Asuka clapped her hands and sighed. "Okay- let's get everything loaded! No sense waiting around in here."
Gathering up their haul in a rush, Asuka made a note to raid Shinji's desk for those notes, stuffing them all into her school bag. They made some hard calls on what to take and what to leave, and Shinji's cello couldn't come with. The first fingers of daylight started to reach over the hills, and that was their deadline- they had to get back to base before Ikari's night-watch ended.
* * *
The trip back was easier in some ways, and harder in others. Dawn stretched over the battlefield, and the car reached the urban sprawl just as Unit 01 returning to base. Asuka caught snatches of purple and green Evangelion between the buildings as they picked through the wreckage for their own way in. A ten-lane wide tunnel was as good as any other, heading underground and away from the fighting.
Fumbling in her coat for the radio, Asuka turned it on and started tuning. The speaker crackled with distortion and static between channels, and a storm of orders spilled out in a rush. Misato's voice cut through it all, demanding they find their missing pilots.
To that, Asuka winced, but found herself smiling regardless. "Yep. We're in trouble. Worth it?"
Rei grinned. "I think so, yes. Shall we call in?"
Nodding, Asuka scanned the tunnel wall for a location code and sucked in a quick, steadying breath. She found the right channel and clicked the call button. "This is Pilot Sorhyu reporting in."
* * *
After being checked, double checked and then rushed through validation again, Asuka slouched back in the car seat, waiting for the transport carriage to carry them the rest of the way into the Geofront. Stepping out onto the platform and stretching lazily, she let out an expansive, aching yawn. Soldiers and Section 2 agents kept a steady watch with guns cradled neatly in their arms, ready but patient. Perhaps they knew they wouldn't be needed.
Misato was there on the platform, arms crossed over her chest and positively thunderous. There was a clear space some ten feet wide around her, where none dared get her attention. The older woman fixed Asuka with a look, and her eyes cut like razors over to Rei. She pointed down at the ground before her feet, and the unstated command was painfully transparent.
Walking stiffly, Asuka marched up and took her place, with Rei at her side. Misato scowled, speaking low but never once raising her voice or growling. "I hope you have an explanation. Anything that would rationalize your momentary lapse of judgement and perhaps sanity. What were you two even thinking?!"
Asuka opened her mouth to speak, and then stopped. Her brain moved a mile a minute, spinning freely as an idea caught hold. She shot a mischievous look at Rei despite the tension, and the other girl nodded. Not giving Misato a chance to do more than sputter, Asuka turned and quickly hopped back to the car. She came back after a quick check of the back seat, and Misato had no move or response to Asuka neatly dropping PenPen into her arms.
With her attention completely occupied by penguin, Misato stopped short, and Asuka considered the smug sense of victory she was feeling as wholly justified. Rei leaned in, a smile plain in her voice. "Perhaps Misato-san will need a moment."
"Heard that." She muttered, not unkindly, consumed with cradling her friend and long-time roomie in her arms. "You two will answer for this. I hope you understand that."
Asuka just rolled her eyes and smiled. Misato deigned to let them walk away then, and they felt they could leave the cargo be for just a bit longer. Far enough away from the crowds as not to be overheard, Asuka gently took Rei's hand in hers.
"Listen, if you want to kiss me, that's fine." Asuka turned a bit red, but smiled nonetheless. "But I have one request; don't ever kiss me as if you were about to die. Instead..."
Rei nodded, lacing her hands with Asuka's and visibly hanging on every word.
Inwardly cursing the inch and half Rei had on her, Asuka pushed herself up on her toes and pressed her lips to Rei's. Together they hit the wall, and after a few long seconds, Asuka pulled back with a pop.
Asuka took in the crimson, awestruck look in Rei's face and grinned. "Kiss me knowing you're going to live."
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Lewd kissu. I love it!
Hose the elves down with LCL! Make'em too high to do anything. [Note don't actually do this]