- Location
- Gladstone, OR
With regret, I am not one of them.
Cast in Gold - Evangelion/Exalted
- Thread starter Shyft
- Start date
With regret, I am not one of them.
- Location
- National Capital Region, USA
~hands MisterHalt a 'Wizzard' hat~
- Location
- Gladstone, OR
AHh, yeah, I haven't read Discworld, which is a tragedy I know.
- Location
- Really? This field is required?
You know I just had a thought: spirits and small gods can come into existence just because people pray to things, right? If spirits and small gods started showing up in the real world the first gods to form would be ones relating to programing because no one is more superstitious than programmers.
Also I can't imagine this Shinji not doing something to help out Mari now that he knows more about her situation. Especially with how much medical work he did earlier in the story.
Also I can't imagine this Shinji not doing something to help out Mari now that he knows more about her situation. Especially with how much medical work he did earlier in the story.
There's a decent shot that, due to Asuka, he's trying to find a good time to ask before he starts working on her.
Which is a big step up for him.
Chapter 43: Siege Part 11
- Location
- Gladstone, OR
The modern military of the twenty-first century had discarded a number of outmoded strategies and methods to conducting warfare. The most obvious of which was the concept of a siege. It lived on in microcosm, in which a small unit assaults a building, but even then, the contemporary model is that of a lightning-fast engagement. Something that is executed within a day of being necessary, if not within mere hours. The romantic image of an entrenched defender with an unassailable fortress belonged to the history books.
And then Katsuragi Misato described the flypaper stratagem and drafted the theoretical framework for Fortress-City Tokyo-3. Her ideas were not truly novel, but the thoroughness and commitment to a new strategic paradigm resulted in not just the best defense against the Angels- her prototype doctrine was the singular working method. Years before she would have even seen an Evangelion, Officer-Cadet Katsuragi would be in the textbooks, pioneer of Unnatural Warfare.
Of course, no written tactical or strategic doctrine had prepared anyone for the invasion.
The fundamental truth of Misato's genius rested in the fact that she could change her paradigm, to examine a problem from a new angle or accept the absurd. When confronted with the unlikely, improbable or impossible, she tackled the problem with a simple set of rules. Beyond tactics and strategy and even logistics, there is information. From all across human history, armies need it and never have enough of it. Which was why the now-Major Katsuragi turned the forces of that very fortress-city towards reconnaissance.
Weeks of painstaking labor, careful excavation and repair as well as reinforcement. Twenty seven armor layers and nearly a kilometer of rock and earth separated the Evangelion cages from the blasted crater of Tokyo-3. Every access elevator had been wrecked. Only the deployment points shielded by the Hakone region hillsides were passable, and even then, the twist that had befallen Tokyo-3 rendered their maps unreliable at best. Combat-engineers crept upwards, foot by foot and floor by floor within the dense, frightening tangle of maintenance access ways and gaping chasms that marked Evangelion launch rails.
They were the scouts, digging through the earth and metal in a strange reversal of the old, pre-industrial miners. The kind who worked before open-pit excavations and megascale earthmoving machines.Attached to the two-dozen strong crew were thaumaturges, technician and civilian volunteers that Doctor Akagi and Ikari Shinji both recognized as master in their discipline of warding. Crawling, cutting and proofing against intrusion, the teams bored through the layered armor like termites.
Things squirmed in the dark. Rank, nightmarish beasts with oily skin and a raw, seething hatred of heat and light. Soldiers slept in shifts, with no less than ten weapons at the ready any second. Thaumaturges drew bloody runes on combat knives and affixed bayonets. One such night, a creature oozed just on the edge of camp, four legs then six then three, splitting and merging with boneless grace. Teeth rippled, unfurling across its body under flashlight and chemical torch. Gnashing, pointlessly sharp fangs flickered along its undulating length like a zipper, before vanishing into smooth, mirror-black skin.
The one in view was far less dangerous than the hundred more waiting in the shadows. For the soldiers and surveyors, paranoia was their ally.
All signs suggested that if not Raksha, the teeming infestation were something akin to errant dreams given form, a side effect of the otherworldly assault. The first soldier to have voiced that theory had been decisively informed to stop giving them ideas. From there progress was tense, slow. Moving up a few anxious floors at a time, making camp. Running physical communication lines back down to the Geofront itself- they couldn't trust the built in cables, not until everything had been cleared out. Stopping every few days to wait for reinforcements, or to switch with the next team to make the ascent. Going down was only slightly faster, in that the way back was warded and had been recently safe.
Finally though, after harshly counted hours of blood and toil, the exploration team reached the layer of melted slag that marked the detonation of an N2 mine. Bedrock, concrete and steel had flowed like wax into a fluid amalgam. Some places too strong to cut, others too weak to stand under. But like all large problems, it was solvable when taken in smaller steps.
Now, on a warm morning in early May, nearly two-score men saw open air for the first time in months. Vertigo struck them to a man, as high above their heads they beheld the moon, cratered and shining silver, close enough to almost touch...
Until they saw the edges of blue sky and realized it was the cratered, ruined underbelly of the castle beast. That wonder gave way to training and discipline- they were under orders to break through to the surface, make a defensible bolthole, and observe.
* * *
Having hollowed out a cavity, it was easy to improvise a low-slung bunker that covered their heads, save for the tiny slits for gun barrels and binoculars. From there they watched, and waited.
One soldier hummed against the butt of his rifle, propped up on a firing point and his shoulder. "Movement, I think one of the legs is- yep."
"Got it-" His partner nodded, reaching for the hard-line communication set and dialing in. "Observer-one reporting- the castle's still walking in circles, over."
Major Katsuragi's voice came back, tight and proud. "Maintain observation- relief's on the way. Anything else to report? Over."
Glancing at the other team in their warded den, the soldiers considered for a moment. The crater was a hot mess, with only a few stubborn skeletons of buildings standing amidst the melted wreckage. A half-dozen N2 mines did not leave much scenery behind- unless you knew where to look. The streets fared the best, deflecting the blast upward and leaving a grid-like pattern marked into the fortress-city crater. A handful of sections had been blown open when the overpressure and blast wave found a lip or nook and pried its way down. The land had been gouged, raked at by claws of air and unimaginable heat. The outlying hills had been stripped of all that was green and growing, and nothing had living had come back to the bare soil.
"The castle is heavily damaged, setting up for video capture now, Major." Another soldier nodded, hefting the utilitarian, armored camera up to one of the windows and panning it across the battlefield.
Damaged was putting it lightly. The N2 detonations had not been enough to lift the creature or even kill it, but so much energy had been unleashed that the legs had melted on their interior faces, sloughing off huge chunks of living stone and facade. It had left a wide, looping trail of fluid white stone in its path. The castle walked, yes, but it stumbled, each footfall driving down every few minutes in a lopsided wobbly circle. Whatever coordination it had was gone now, a faded memory. Instead of tracing a strong circuit like a hole-saw, it pivoted wildly, sliding into the half-empty pit of Lake Ashi or knocking its knees against the hillsides. Either way, it wasn't going to drill into the Geofront anytime soon.
When the transmission was finished, the Major came back on the line. "Good work boys and girls-"
Another voice cut her off, rising and urgent. "Contact!"
As one, the soldiers moved to their peepholes, weapons at the ready. The Major had fallen silent, waiting. Across the blasted ruins, the air trembled. Above, the walking castle shifted, letting out a fitful rumble as the tone and taste of the world seemed to change. Everything tingled, and those more sensitive to the stranger things of the day felt that expectant frisson against their bones. Fingers of malleable reality billowed out in heavy clouds of cotton-candy smoke. They were frighteningly fast, like storms under time-lapse, seeping into cracks and past the castle's crippled legs. Where they stretched and bloomed, strangeness followed. Trees of crystal grew atop concrete rubble, and then the ground itself melted into ordinary water before draining into the wreckage elsewhere. Fauna both ordinary and unreal spilled out from the froth, horses gave way to unicorns.
The enemy emerged as well, walking the clouds like stair-steps, riding parasols from the castle above. Some waved their arms or raised spears, warding the mists away or whipping it into great and terrible works. War machines and beasts, a market bazaar populated by silk-draped stalls and hawkmen. The crater of Tokyo-3 changed before their eyes. Terraform was not the right word, but for that instant, the land belonged to them more than it did mankind. But for all the apparent strangeness, there was a pattern. There had always been patterns, military organization, units in marching order. Now the broad strokes of mercantilism and an economy. Patterns within patterns, as the bazaar dissolved in a flurry of agitated gestures, replaced by soldiers of a different cast than before. They loped where the previous had swaggered, maws dripped with fangs full of pliant song rather than flesh-ripping fangs. Their enemy was not united, aesthetics briefly mingled and rebounded, like multiple artists keen on executing the same fevered dreams.
And the strange shaping stuff was moving towards their bunker. The Thaumaturges surged forward, pulling out their strongest warding diagrams and scratching in furious calculation with any tool and surface at hand. Pen, knife, cracked fingernail on dusty concrete- all were welcome. They moved with purpose, because fear was for the dying. All that was around them changed, beating against their defenses with a naked, unnatural force of nature. But every hour, every day they spent outside, watching the world and rules shift under madness, they learned.
"Everybody brace!" The squad sergeant hissed. Now, the defenders knew what they didn't know. And Vand had given the defenders a name to this new threat. "Incoming Wyld Storm!"
And then Katsuragi Misato described the flypaper stratagem and drafted the theoretical framework for Fortress-City Tokyo-3. Her ideas were not truly novel, but the thoroughness and commitment to a new strategic paradigm resulted in not just the best defense against the Angels- her prototype doctrine was the singular working method. Years before she would have even seen an Evangelion, Officer-Cadet Katsuragi would be in the textbooks, pioneer of Unnatural Warfare.
Of course, no written tactical or strategic doctrine had prepared anyone for the invasion.
The fundamental truth of Misato's genius rested in the fact that she could change her paradigm, to examine a problem from a new angle or accept the absurd. When confronted with the unlikely, improbable or impossible, she tackled the problem with a simple set of rules. Beyond tactics and strategy and even logistics, there is information. From all across human history, armies need it and never have enough of it. Which was why the now-Major Katsuragi turned the forces of that very fortress-city towards reconnaissance.
Weeks of painstaking labor, careful excavation and repair as well as reinforcement. Twenty seven armor layers and nearly a kilometer of rock and earth separated the Evangelion cages from the blasted crater of Tokyo-3. Every access elevator had been wrecked. Only the deployment points shielded by the Hakone region hillsides were passable, and even then, the twist that had befallen Tokyo-3 rendered their maps unreliable at best. Combat-engineers crept upwards, foot by foot and floor by floor within the dense, frightening tangle of maintenance access ways and gaping chasms that marked Evangelion launch rails.
They were the scouts, digging through the earth and metal in a strange reversal of the old, pre-industrial miners. The kind who worked before open-pit excavations and megascale earthmoving machines.Attached to the two-dozen strong crew were thaumaturges, technician and civilian volunteers that Doctor Akagi and Ikari Shinji both recognized as master in their discipline of warding. Crawling, cutting and proofing against intrusion, the teams bored through the layered armor like termites.
Things squirmed in the dark. Rank, nightmarish beasts with oily skin and a raw, seething hatred of heat and light. Soldiers slept in shifts, with no less than ten weapons at the ready any second. Thaumaturges drew bloody runes on combat knives and affixed bayonets. One such night, a creature oozed just on the edge of camp, four legs then six then three, splitting and merging with boneless grace. Teeth rippled, unfurling across its body under flashlight and chemical torch. Gnashing, pointlessly sharp fangs flickered along its undulating length like a zipper, before vanishing into smooth, mirror-black skin.
The one in view was far less dangerous than the hundred more waiting in the shadows. For the soldiers and surveyors, paranoia was their ally.
All signs suggested that if not Raksha, the teeming infestation were something akin to errant dreams given form, a side effect of the otherworldly assault. The first soldier to have voiced that theory had been decisively informed to stop giving them ideas. From there progress was tense, slow. Moving up a few anxious floors at a time, making camp. Running physical communication lines back down to the Geofront itself- they couldn't trust the built in cables, not until everything had been cleared out. Stopping every few days to wait for reinforcements, or to switch with the next team to make the ascent. Going down was only slightly faster, in that the way back was warded and had been recently safe.
Finally though, after harshly counted hours of blood and toil, the exploration team reached the layer of melted slag that marked the detonation of an N2 mine. Bedrock, concrete and steel had flowed like wax into a fluid amalgam. Some places too strong to cut, others too weak to stand under. But like all large problems, it was solvable when taken in smaller steps.
Now, on a warm morning in early May, nearly two-score men saw open air for the first time in months. Vertigo struck them to a man, as high above their heads they beheld the moon, cratered and shining silver, close enough to almost touch...
Until they saw the edges of blue sky and realized it was the cratered, ruined underbelly of the castle beast. That wonder gave way to training and discipline- they were under orders to break through to the surface, make a defensible bolthole, and observe.
* * *
Having hollowed out a cavity, it was easy to improvise a low-slung bunker that covered their heads, save for the tiny slits for gun barrels and binoculars. From there they watched, and waited.
One soldier hummed against the butt of his rifle, propped up on a firing point and his shoulder. "Movement, I think one of the legs is- yep."
"Got it-" His partner nodded, reaching for the hard-line communication set and dialing in. "Observer-one reporting- the castle's still walking in circles, over."
Major Katsuragi's voice came back, tight and proud. "Maintain observation- relief's on the way. Anything else to report? Over."
Glancing at the other team in their warded den, the soldiers considered for a moment. The crater was a hot mess, with only a few stubborn skeletons of buildings standing amidst the melted wreckage. A half-dozen N2 mines did not leave much scenery behind- unless you knew where to look. The streets fared the best, deflecting the blast upward and leaving a grid-like pattern marked into the fortress-city crater. A handful of sections had been blown open when the overpressure and blast wave found a lip or nook and pried its way down. The land had been gouged, raked at by claws of air and unimaginable heat. The outlying hills had been stripped of all that was green and growing, and nothing had living had come back to the bare soil.
"The castle is heavily damaged, setting up for video capture now, Major." Another soldier nodded, hefting the utilitarian, armored camera up to one of the windows and panning it across the battlefield.
Damaged was putting it lightly. The N2 detonations had not been enough to lift the creature or even kill it, but so much energy had been unleashed that the legs had melted on their interior faces, sloughing off huge chunks of living stone and facade. It had left a wide, looping trail of fluid white stone in its path. The castle walked, yes, but it stumbled, each footfall driving down every few minutes in a lopsided wobbly circle. Whatever coordination it had was gone now, a faded memory. Instead of tracing a strong circuit like a hole-saw, it pivoted wildly, sliding into the half-empty pit of Lake Ashi or knocking its knees against the hillsides. Either way, it wasn't going to drill into the Geofront anytime soon.
When the transmission was finished, the Major came back on the line. "Good work boys and girls-"
Another voice cut her off, rising and urgent. "Contact!"
As one, the soldiers moved to their peepholes, weapons at the ready. The Major had fallen silent, waiting. Across the blasted ruins, the air trembled. Above, the walking castle shifted, letting out a fitful rumble as the tone and taste of the world seemed to change. Everything tingled, and those more sensitive to the stranger things of the day felt that expectant frisson against their bones. Fingers of malleable reality billowed out in heavy clouds of cotton-candy smoke. They were frighteningly fast, like storms under time-lapse, seeping into cracks and past the castle's crippled legs. Where they stretched and bloomed, strangeness followed. Trees of crystal grew atop concrete rubble, and then the ground itself melted into ordinary water before draining into the wreckage elsewhere. Fauna both ordinary and unreal spilled out from the froth, horses gave way to unicorns.
The enemy emerged as well, walking the clouds like stair-steps, riding parasols from the castle above. Some waved their arms or raised spears, warding the mists away or whipping it into great and terrible works. War machines and beasts, a market bazaar populated by silk-draped stalls and hawkmen. The crater of Tokyo-3 changed before their eyes. Terraform was not the right word, but for that instant, the land belonged to them more than it did mankind. But for all the apparent strangeness, there was a pattern. There had always been patterns, military organization, units in marching order. Now the broad strokes of mercantilism and an economy. Patterns within patterns, as the bazaar dissolved in a flurry of agitated gestures, replaced by soldiers of a different cast than before. They loped where the previous had swaggered, maws dripped with fangs full of pliant song rather than flesh-ripping fangs. Their enemy was not united, aesthetics briefly mingled and rebounded, like multiple artists keen on executing the same fevered dreams.
And the strange shaping stuff was moving towards their bunker. The Thaumaturges surged forward, pulling out their strongest warding diagrams and scratching in furious calculation with any tool and surface at hand. Pen, knife, cracked fingernail on dusty concrete- all were welcome. They moved with purpose, because fear was for the dying. All that was around them changed, beating against their defenses with a naked, unnatural force of nature. But every hour, every day they spent outside, watching the world and rules shift under madness, they learned.
"Everybody brace!" The squad sergeant hissed. Now, the defenders knew what they didn't know. And Vand had given the defenders a name to this new threat. "Incoming Wyld Storm!"
- Location
- National Capital Region, USA
Need more dead Rakasha. What kills them best? Cold iron and heroes?
Parselmaster
Silent Balancing Scale
- Location
- Mid-West, USA
Shyft, you really astound me. Your prose is allegory, and the blind can see. Even something as small as this snip demonstrates something larger... It's a wonderful metaphor for taking things one step at a time, and doing your best to overcome great odds. Still, that little warm, scared, flash of yearning hope is teetering rather close to tragedy... You walk a tightrope of tension as fine as the chances of these poor, nameless, scouts.
I love it.
I love it.
Chapter 43: Siege Part 12
- Location
- Gladstone, OR
Yep, I finally managed to write some more. I should clarify that I don't have a writer's block. I have a time management problem.
The vast projections of Central Dogma's command center lit up with a fitful, flickering hum. Dust in the air had yet to settle, and the ventilation system still bore lingering scars from the UN inspector-ninjas. On the holographic display, a carefully drawn and updated map of the surface took shape, meter by meter. Rendered in harsh lines and fields of glowing light, Tokyo-3 had been reduced to a shallow bowl with a flat bottom, where only the strong surface armor prevented the cluster detonation from digging deeper. There was not a lot of sentimental attachment to the fortress city's structures, made for purpose and intended as sacrificial pawns. The whole of the city was effectively destroyed, however, with only the retracted 'civilian' structures remaining in the Geofront ceiling. If and when they secured the surface, they'd have something to start with rebuilding.
At the moment, they were evaluating. After weeks of addressing local and immediate problems, Misato could finally turn her attention back to what was more or less her job- defending NERV and the Geofront. Her actual responsibilities hadn't changed much, despite the chaotic, refugee-like collective they'd made of themselves. As it stood right now, most of the second and third shift were off duty on her orders, including NERV's top commanders and the JSSDF staff. That left a skeleton crew of senior operators in Central Dogma, keeping watch for the exploration team as they slowly cut their way to the surface.
Long weeks of effort had paid off with the first new pictures of land and sky above their heads. Energy seemed to trickle back into the technicians and operators, and Misato felt the effect herself. At her side, Asuka watched, silent and judgemental as befitting a teenager and genius. They were going to need that ego, though. It was enough that Misato was considering grooming the pilot for her job, some years down the line. There were worse things to put hope in, other than a better tomorrow.
Vand watched that image and let out a low whistle, pushing a hand through his hair, blithely ignoring the seriousness of the situation. "Never get tired of this place. Land of lost wonders."
Misato nodded, more than a little bemused. "How're you acclimating?"
"Getting along, best I can. Found a couple books." He gave her an exaggerated, modest shrug that rolled his shoulders all the way down to his hands. "A whole lot of information takes a while to digest, you know?"
Taking that without comment, Misato turned to Hyuuga. "Status?"
"Corroborating reports from above-ground observers." He pushed his glasses back up, then made a fair attempt at smoothing back his ragged hair. "Data agrees that this... Wyld storm is present and ongoing."
"Got a question- real quick." Asuka strode over to Vand, not in the least bit fazed by him being over six feet and thrice her weight. "Why're you here- I mean, Earth. I don't think we ever asked that."
"S'a simple answer-" Vand spread his arms, smiling broadly. "I am a hunter, tracker by trade. Guildsman, Outcaste and pack-fellow, I lead them all into the madness places."
Misato cocked an eyebrow at that. A picture of the man was shaping up in her mind, a powerful individual, but one with long ties to others. "What, people pay you to be a wilderness guide?"
"Well of course- there's valuable stuff in foaming chaos. It is a realm of infinite possibility- lost things are found there all the time, and found things are lost." He winked, and all the young unattached women present seemed to flush on some unspoken cue. "Found you and this place, after all."
Turning back to the projection, Misato's lips quirked to one side, pursed and thoughtful. "Foaming chaos, huh? Is this the storm you 'carried?'
Vand gave her the most open and urgent look of a man who desperately wanted to please his woman, to not have put his foot in his mouth. His borrowed Japanese came out in a hand-waving rush. "No no, that was years ago. A thunderstorm in fact, through the Great Ice and into the deep Northern Wyld."
From her place at the MAGI station, Ritsuko tapped some keys and brought up the leading edge of the storm on the projector. "So what's this then?"
"Like I said- a Wyld Storm, you're seeing eddies and little squalls of unreal. Dangerous, but this is just the edges." Vand walked around, keeping his eyes on the screens, seemingly fascinated by the tricks used to make a three-dimensional image. "It makes shapes, colors, sensory stimuli. There's no sense to it of course, but you can notice its not sensible, there's a line you can follow even if the logic is flawed. You're not finding yourself suddenly living backwards in time, breathing in every word you've ever spoken and choking up every meal you had along the way."
Misato allowed herself the small smile at his obvious curiosity, but focused on the immediately practical and tried to add his description into her strategic model. It wasn't easy, never was. "And how do you deal with Wyld Storms, where you come from?"
"Depends on who you are, It's possible to ride one out, but most run and wait for the calm. Not that it'd work here." He paused, humming. "I was tracking this one, purposeful. Got a hunch or two, but not enough to go on yet."
Asuka, being Asuka, reigned as queen of snark. "I'm dreading the answer why."
"Oh, pretty simple reason. This storm is interesting, because once it got here, it stopped."
* * *
"So tell me about their logistics."
The cafeteria was on 'feast day'- a morale move that Shinji had devised that simultaneously stretched their reserves while it improved moods. He'd devised a number of recipes that cooked well and flavorful, and more importantly could be improvised into casserole and stews after the fact, combined with preservation techniques that the various scientists and engineers came up with, a good 'feast day' could feed a thousand people for half a dozen meals. It made the leaner light days more bearable.
But feast-day or not, the cafeteria at the tail end of a watch rotation was usually slow if not a ghost town. A handful of off-duty personel found a quiet table, and the two cooks on duty were muted behind the glass shields between them and the employees. The lack of people made the already cavernous space feel downright immense.
Misato had asked the question while Kaji busied himself with managing their trays. Vand had gotten into the habit of not being anywhere in particular, but was becoming increasingly comfortable with 'checking in' around the same time every day. He was pretty sure that it was mostly a habit the man was trying to break, after spending who knows how long alone in the wilderness or stranger places, keeping to a schedule or set location was probably really stifling.
But today the Lunar had been somewhere and accepted Kaji and Misato's invitation to 'lunch', such as it was. The Geofront was dark save for the artificial lights inside and out, so the more scenic cafeterias were only preferred for their spaciousness. The escalators had been shut off to conserve power and save on maintenance, but their legs worked just fine. Vand looked at everything, with a vulpine sort of eagerness that reminded Kaji of a wild animal.
"Logistics? What's that word-" Vand rapped his fingers against his chest a few times, eyes searching at nothing. "Like food and gear? Where they get it?"
"Yeah." Misato shot him 'love me-i'm-smart' grin, seasoned a bit by how she and Kaji both knew how dire it really was. "I'm... I should actually apologize- we've been demanding you tell us everything. Constantly."
"S'a matter of life and death, it sure as hell ain't convenient," Vand clapped, smiling. "But I appreciate the thought."
Taking a seat, Kaji spread their trays around. Grilled chicken in the western style with rice and something green, leafy and good for them all. The kitchen staff had outdone themselves, resuscitating what was probably freeze-dried and treated. Vand seemed fairly enamored with the barbeque sauce, taking care to get every drop of the rationed condiment out into his plate where it belonged. For all of his man-of-the-wild affectations, Vand loved cooked food- food he did not make or cook. Finding that out had somehow lead into an amusing story about a little inn in the middle of nowhere with great service, a pretty hostess, and his 'tip' being something like a valuable trinket he found that could buy a small kingdom.
Almost in perfect time, Kaji and Misato both clapped their hands over their trays and offered thanks for the meal, and Vand sort of stopped and stared at them for a moment. A beat later he pulled a cord full of charms, teeth and babules out and wrapped it around his wrist before saying something that Kaji could not place. At their shared look, Vand grinned and shrugged. "Hometown prayer of plenty."
Kaji took the explaination at Vand's word and nodded. With the food spread out and the traditions observed, Vand took a bite and swallowed before letting out a shrill whistle- and stopped cold at the sound of it echoing off the high ceilings and windows. He shot a surprised look up high, before answering "Raksha don't eat like we do. Closer to spirits than men and beasts. So you can't starve them like you or I. Weapons are tougher still."
Those other few souls in the cafeteria looked up at the sound, and some attention lingered. Vand tended to stand out with his hide vest and bare arms. Misato cocked her head to one side with a silent question, while Kaji was already speaking. He shot her an apologetic glance a beat later. "Howso?"
Fidgeting in place, Vand hummed again, searching for an answer. "The first thing is you have to know is that the Fair Folk don't live in the real like we do. Theirs is the realm of dreams and madness and children's sense. It happens because they say so. It takes a powerful kind of noble to bring that power somewhere like here..."
Kaji shot Misato a look, and it was clear she did not like that idea either. "Go on."
"Well-" Vand held up a hand, caution and humility. "I say I am an expert and I have been tracking Fair Folk for some ten years or more- I still do not know everything about them- I can't. And a lot of what I do know I got from the prior me, my past self in an earlier time. And I have no idea where he got it all either, just that..."
He trailed off, and Kaji glanced sidelong at Misato, relieved to see that she was just as nonplussed. Vand picked his fallen expression up with a resolute snort. At the same time, the silver brand on his brow flared into being, washing out the hanging lamps in the cool light of the full moon.
"This thing, my gift of Luna. Another held it before me, and another before him, so on and so forth back into deep time of Creation. I get snatches, nostalgia for a smell, a fond memory of some place I've never seen, and so on. To this day the fae court of Crimson Thorn Holding Over Water treats me as an honored guest and are my oathbound informants, simply because one of me back in the day did something they liked. They change the story every time because it amuses them."
Vand's voice seemed to start low and carry, louder and broader until the very walls were speaking for him. Kaji watched wide-eyed, fingers clenched around his utensils as he came to sudden grips with the fact that the man sitting across from him had more in common with a god than anything he'd ever known. An old god, a verb god, the kind of god he'd suffered through a humanities class to understand. The Lunar blinked, and winced once he realized how loud his speech had carried. His voice dropped low once more, and Kaji let out a sigh of relief, glad that he wasn't willing to discuss strategy in an unsecure area.
"So when I say I can't know, I cannot." He waved his fork around, before spearing another small but flavorful bite of chicken. "But what I mean is that in the land of the mad, they raise whatever they damn well please to play out their... pretend games against each other. That's partly why they love and hate us- we're more real than they are. What we do sticks."
At their blank look, Vand shrugged. "You stab a man and he dies. Raksha stabs a Raksha, and it becomes a grand duel with a tragic ending, his lovers weep at his passing, rivals curse and the stars above go out as he finally breathes his last. Then he dies, and just... continues being, simply because he was... Is a known thing. So long as he is remembered, wept for, cursed and compared against, that "who he Is" exists even without being alive. Sometime later he might decide not to be dead anymore after all, because its kinda boring to be a past-tense."
Kaji leaned back in his seat, meal half-forgotten. His stomach gave him a loud reminder, and he hurriedly scarfed down some more. When he finished, he licked his lips. "...they're mad actors? All the world's a stage and we are players?"
"You're not the first to think that, but that's just on the surface. For one of us, the best we can do is get 'close enough' to their thinking and doing." Vand took another fitful bite of chicken with some salad, but savored the sauce. "So a man stabs a raksha- the raksha stays dead, despite all claims to the contrary. The trick is getting in to do the stabbing. Takes a lot to argue your blood off a knife, you know? "
A sudden surge of humanity joined them on the floor- the next watch was starting, and everyone was eager to get their meal. Kaji let his eyes drift over the crowd, people-watching was an old espionage standby and a habit he'd never wanted to break. It helped that a significant portion of the world happened to be pretty women, so that was a bonus. More interesting, he noted Chairman Lorenz easing his chair through the throng with Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki. That would be a wonderful conversation to hear...
But with more of an audience, the three of them agreed that a change in venue was in order. Misato packed her half-eaten meal up into a carry out, while Kaji left a few greens on the plate. Greens that Vand filched with a deft move of his fork. The Lunar's plate was just shy of licked clean. Pointing the way toward an outdoor balcony, Misato led the way while Kaji put the trays aside and caught up. Safe from most casual eavesdroppers, they picked up more or less where they left off, with Kaji's half-finished mug of enchanted coffee warming his fingers.
Misato let out a haggard breath and raked her fingers through her hair. "So... to recap: Evil twins. Time-travel gimmicks. Nonsensical flashbacks."
And Kaji nearly choked on his breath when Vand said the most Ritsuko-ish thing he'd ever heard. "There is nothing so uncreative as a creature with the breadth of the infinite at its disposal."
To that, Misato let out a woeful moan and sighed. "Wonderful."
Kaji leaned against a slanted pillar, tilting his view up towards curve of the Geofront roof. He sighed, reaching for one of his cigarettes and making a point not to light it. He was already aware that the ramifications of their impromptu debrief were likely sending Misato's brilliant and sexy strategic intelligence spinning. He considered springing something on her to lighten the mood, but it was not to be. Vand jumped onto the railing and crouched, catlike with his hands between his feet and stable as rock.
Glancing between them both, Vand settled on Kaji. "So what do you do around here? You're not a solider or officer, and you don't do any of that science-stuff."
Questions were things Kaji adored, asking and answering. It was honestly refreshing. "Technically I am an officer, but I'm really a spy."
Vand straightened up in place, ears perked and eyes wide. "A spy? How does spying work around here? Is it fun, or boring?"
Misato let her face fall into her waiting palms, groaning, but in good humor. Kaji grinned past his cigarette, laughing. "Well, it's complicated, but mostly what I did was boring. I talked to people, made friends, contacts. Sometimes I went places I wasn't supposed to and read things I shouldn't have. I served two or three masters, and it wasn't very fun. What are spies like where you're from?"
"Depends." Vand grinned. "A Lunar can be a bug on the wall or the bird that craps on your roof. The Dynasts can snatch words right out of the breeze and nobody trusts mail to go anywhere unopened, not if you're in any big city-state back inland."
Whistling softly, Kaji could not help but be somewhat impressed. In a way he found himself identifying with Asuka more, of realizing that when magic and the superhuman were real, that he didn't think it was cheating, just another talent in a wider world. The offhand mention of classic tradecraft only reinforced that feeling.
"You said weapons were harder," Misato tugged the conversation back to a strategic topic.
Vand was quiet for a long moment, frowning. He unfolded his legs and sat down on the rail, rapping his chest again, and Kaji placed the gesture like a westerner might snap their fingers while searching for a word. "Alright... so a man picks up a sword. It's always a sword. A sword is a sword is a sword, and it cuts, and does sword things, right?"
Misato nodded, following. "Right."
"Well, a Raksha has a sword too, except it's only a sword to other Raksha." Vand carried on, speaking fast but clear. "But it's not always a sword. Sometimes it's an army or a monster or a fortress. As far as they're concerned, they're swinging a sword all the same at each other, but how it looks is armies clashing and giant monsters tearing down heaven."
Misato's face went stark pale, and she let out a harsh, rasping sigh. "So... When we bomb one of their formations, kill it down to the last goblin, that's just disarming them?"
"You got it." Vand agreed with a solemn nod. "Means that for most of the time, you're not fighting armies of nobles, you're fighting their armories. And unlike an army or fortress, a Raksha can make a sword cheap like. Sometimes they have an idea of a sword, and keep making things based on that."
"So logistically they're... Well they have logistics?"
"Yep, they're limited to dreamstuff. Gossamer they call it. They get it from... I don't know the word for this, places of power? Or the minds of mortals. That's what happened to you and yours in the hospital down below."
Misato jumped on the immediately pressing and strategic question. "Can we deny them this dreamstuff?"
"Yes and no- the powerful kind, they have other ways of getting it, cannibalism and more..." Vand shrugged. "I've never had to fight a war against Raksha, only heard stories of beastmen hordes against the teeming legions of the Crusade- and that was centuries ago."
"...Maybe I'm looking at this too broadly." Misato cocked her head to one side. "This is all just 'Raksha Basics'... I think we're going to have to fight against these specific Raksha."
Vand blinked once, and Kaji watched as the comprehension washed across his expression. The Lunar's grin was profound and feral. "Then that means you're going to want to learn about Nobles."
The vast projections of Central Dogma's command center lit up with a fitful, flickering hum. Dust in the air had yet to settle, and the ventilation system still bore lingering scars from the UN inspector-ninjas. On the holographic display, a carefully drawn and updated map of the surface took shape, meter by meter. Rendered in harsh lines and fields of glowing light, Tokyo-3 had been reduced to a shallow bowl with a flat bottom, where only the strong surface armor prevented the cluster detonation from digging deeper. There was not a lot of sentimental attachment to the fortress city's structures, made for purpose and intended as sacrificial pawns. The whole of the city was effectively destroyed, however, with only the retracted 'civilian' structures remaining in the Geofront ceiling. If and when they secured the surface, they'd have something to start with rebuilding.
At the moment, they were evaluating. After weeks of addressing local and immediate problems, Misato could finally turn her attention back to what was more or less her job- defending NERV and the Geofront. Her actual responsibilities hadn't changed much, despite the chaotic, refugee-like collective they'd made of themselves. As it stood right now, most of the second and third shift were off duty on her orders, including NERV's top commanders and the JSSDF staff. That left a skeleton crew of senior operators in Central Dogma, keeping watch for the exploration team as they slowly cut their way to the surface.
Long weeks of effort had paid off with the first new pictures of land and sky above their heads. Energy seemed to trickle back into the technicians and operators, and Misato felt the effect herself. At her side, Asuka watched, silent and judgemental as befitting a teenager and genius. They were going to need that ego, though. It was enough that Misato was considering grooming the pilot for her job, some years down the line. There were worse things to put hope in, other than a better tomorrow.
Vand watched that image and let out a low whistle, pushing a hand through his hair, blithely ignoring the seriousness of the situation. "Never get tired of this place. Land of lost wonders."
Misato nodded, more than a little bemused. "How're you acclimating?"
"Getting along, best I can. Found a couple books." He gave her an exaggerated, modest shrug that rolled his shoulders all the way down to his hands. "A whole lot of information takes a while to digest, you know?"
Taking that without comment, Misato turned to Hyuuga. "Status?"
"Corroborating reports from above-ground observers." He pushed his glasses back up, then made a fair attempt at smoothing back his ragged hair. "Data agrees that this... Wyld storm is present and ongoing."
"Got a question- real quick." Asuka strode over to Vand, not in the least bit fazed by him being over six feet and thrice her weight. "Why're you here- I mean, Earth. I don't think we ever asked that."
"S'a simple answer-" Vand spread his arms, smiling broadly. "I am a hunter, tracker by trade. Guildsman, Outcaste and pack-fellow, I lead them all into the madness places."
Misato cocked an eyebrow at that. A picture of the man was shaping up in her mind, a powerful individual, but one with long ties to others. "What, people pay you to be a wilderness guide?"
"Well of course- there's valuable stuff in foaming chaos. It is a realm of infinite possibility- lost things are found there all the time, and found things are lost." He winked, and all the young unattached women present seemed to flush on some unspoken cue. "Found you and this place, after all."
Turning back to the projection, Misato's lips quirked to one side, pursed and thoughtful. "Foaming chaos, huh? Is this the storm you 'carried?'
Vand gave her the most open and urgent look of a man who desperately wanted to please his woman, to not have put his foot in his mouth. His borrowed Japanese came out in a hand-waving rush. "No no, that was years ago. A thunderstorm in fact, through the Great Ice and into the deep Northern Wyld."
From her place at the MAGI station, Ritsuko tapped some keys and brought up the leading edge of the storm on the projector. "So what's this then?"
"Like I said- a Wyld Storm, you're seeing eddies and little squalls of unreal. Dangerous, but this is just the edges." Vand walked around, keeping his eyes on the screens, seemingly fascinated by the tricks used to make a three-dimensional image. "It makes shapes, colors, sensory stimuli. There's no sense to it of course, but you can notice its not sensible, there's a line you can follow even if the logic is flawed. You're not finding yourself suddenly living backwards in time, breathing in every word you've ever spoken and choking up every meal you had along the way."
Misato allowed herself the small smile at his obvious curiosity, but focused on the immediately practical and tried to add his description into her strategic model. It wasn't easy, never was. "And how do you deal with Wyld Storms, where you come from?"
"Depends on who you are, It's possible to ride one out, but most run and wait for the calm. Not that it'd work here." He paused, humming. "I was tracking this one, purposeful. Got a hunch or two, but not enough to go on yet."
Asuka, being Asuka, reigned as queen of snark. "I'm dreading the answer why."
"Oh, pretty simple reason. This storm is interesting, because once it got here, it stopped."
* * *
"So tell me about their logistics."
The cafeteria was on 'feast day'- a morale move that Shinji had devised that simultaneously stretched their reserves while it improved moods. He'd devised a number of recipes that cooked well and flavorful, and more importantly could be improvised into casserole and stews after the fact, combined with preservation techniques that the various scientists and engineers came up with, a good 'feast day' could feed a thousand people for half a dozen meals. It made the leaner light days more bearable.
But feast-day or not, the cafeteria at the tail end of a watch rotation was usually slow if not a ghost town. A handful of off-duty personel found a quiet table, and the two cooks on duty were muted behind the glass shields between them and the employees. The lack of people made the already cavernous space feel downright immense.
Misato had asked the question while Kaji busied himself with managing their trays. Vand had gotten into the habit of not being anywhere in particular, but was becoming increasingly comfortable with 'checking in' around the same time every day. He was pretty sure that it was mostly a habit the man was trying to break, after spending who knows how long alone in the wilderness or stranger places, keeping to a schedule or set location was probably really stifling.
But today the Lunar had been somewhere and accepted Kaji and Misato's invitation to 'lunch', such as it was. The Geofront was dark save for the artificial lights inside and out, so the more scenic cafeterias were only preferred for their spaciousness. The escalators had been shut off to conserve power and save on maintenance, but their legs worked just fine. Vand looked at everything, with a vulpine sort of eagerness that reminded Kaji of a wild animal.
"Logistics? What's that word-" Vand rapped his fingers against his chest a few times, eyes searching at nothing. "Like food and gear? Where they get it?"
"Yeah." Misato shot him 'love me-i'm-smart' grin, seasoned a bit by how she and Kaji both knew how dire it really was. "I'm... I should actually apologize- we've been demanding you tell us everything. Constantly."
"S'a matter of life and death, it sure as hell ain't convenient," Vand clapped, smiling. "But I appreciate the thought."
Taking a seat, Kaji spread their trays around. Grilled chicken in the western style with rice and something green, leafy and good for them all. The kitchen staff had outdone themselves, resuscitating what was probably freeze-dried and treated. Vand seemed fairly enamored with the barbeque sauce, taking care to get every drop of the rationed condiment out into his plate where it belonged. For all of his man-of-the-wild affectations, Vand loved cooked food- food he did not make or cook. Finding that out had somehow lead into an amusing story about a little inn in the middle of nowhere with great service, a pretty hostess, and his 'tip' being something like a valuable trinket he found that could buy a small kingdom.
Almost in perfect time, Kaji and Misato both clapped their hands over their trays and offered thanks for the meal, and Vand sort of stopped and stared at them for a moment. A beat later he pulled a cord full of charms, teeth and babules out and wrapped it around his wrist before saying something that Kaji could not place. At their shared look, Vand grinned and shrugged. "Hometown prayer of plenty."
Kaji took the explaination at Vand's word and nodded. With the food spread out and the traditions observed, Vand took a bite and swallowed before letting out a shrill whistle- and stopped cold at the sound of it echoing off the high ceilings and windows. He shot a surprised look up high, before answering "Raksha don't eat like we do. Closer to spirits than men and beasts. So you can't starve them like you or I. Weapons are tougher still."
Those other few souls in the cafeteria looked up at the sound, and some attention lingered. Vand tended to stand out with his hide vest and bare arms. Misato cocked her head to one side with a silent question, while Kaji was already speaking. He shot her an apologetic glance a beat later. "Howso?"
Fidgeting in place, Vand hummed again, searching for an answer. "The first thing is you have to know is that the Fair Folk don't live in the real like we do. Theirs is the realm of dreams and madness and children's sense. It happens because they say so. It takes a powerful kind of noble to bring that power somewhere like here..."
Kaji shot Misato a look, and it was clear she did not like that idea either. "Go on."
"Well-" Vand held up a hand, caution and humility. "I say I am an expert and I have been tracking Fair Folk for some ten years or more- I still do not know everything about them- I can't. And a lot of what I do know I got from the prior me, my past self in an earlier time. And I have no idea where he got it all either, just that..."
He trailed off, and Kaji glanced sidelong at Misato, relieved to see that she was just as nonplussed. Vand picked his fallen expression up with a resolute snort. At the same time, the silver brand on his brow flared into being, washing out the hanging lamps in the cool light of the full moon.
"This thing, my gift of Luna. Another held it before me, and another before him, so on and so forth back into deep time of Creation. I get snatches, nostalgia for a smell, a fond memory of some place I've never seen, and so on. To this day the fae court of Crimson Thorn Holding Over Water treats me as an honored guest and are my oathbound informants, simply because one of me back in the day did something they liked. They change the story every time because it amuses them."
Vand's voice seemed to start low and carry, louder and broader until the very walls were speaking for him. Kaji watched wide-eyed, fingers clenched around his utensils as he came to sudden grips with the fact that the man sitting across from him had more in common with a god than anything he'd ever known. An old god, a verb god, the kind of god he'd suffered through a humanities class to understand. The Lunar blinked, and winced once he realized how loud his speech had carried. His voice dropped low once more, and Kaji let out a sigh of relief, glad that he wasn't willing to discuss strategy in an unsecure area.
"So when I say I can't know, I cannot." He waved his fork around, before spearing another small but flavorful bite of chicken. "But what I mean is that in the land of the mad, they raise whatever they damn well please to play out their... pretend games against each other. That's partly why they love and hate us- we're more real than they are. What we do sticks."
At their blank look, Vand shrugged. "You stab a man and he dies. Raksha stabs a Raksha, and it becomes a grand duel with a tragic ending, his lovers weep at his passing, rivals curse and the stars above go out as he finally breathes his last. Then he dies, and just... continues being, simply because he was... Is a known thing. So long as he is remembered, wept for, cursed and compared against, that "who he Is" exists even without being alive. Sometime later he might decide not to be dead anymore after all, because its kinda boring to be a past-tense."
Kaji leaned back in his seat, meal half-forgotten. His stomach gave him a loud reminder, and he hurriedly scarfed down some more. When he finished, he licked his lips. "...they're mad actors? All the world's a stage and we are players?"
"You're not the first to think that, but that's just on the surface. For one of us, the best we can do is get 'close enough' to their thinking and doing." Vand took another fitful bite of chicken with some salad, but savored the sauce. "So a man stabs a raksha- the raksha stays dead, despite all claims to the contrary. The trick is getting in to do the stabbing. Takes a lot to argue your blood off a knife, you know? "
A sudden surge of humanity joined them on the floor- the next watch was starting, and everyone was eager to get their meal. Kaji let his eyes drift over the crowd, people-watching was an old espionage standby and a habit he'd never wanted to break. It helped that a significant portion of the world happened to be pretty women, so that was a bonus. More interesting, he noted Chairman Lorenz easing his chair through the throng with Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki. That would be a wonderful conversation to hear...
But with more of an audience, the three of them agreed that a change in venue was in order. Misato packed her half-eaten meal up into a carry out, while Kaji left a few greens on the plate. Greens that Vand filched with a deft move of his fork. The Lunar's plate was just shy of licked clean. Pointing the way toward an outdoor balcony, Misato led the way while Kaji put the trays aside and caught up. Safe from most casual eavesdroppers, they picked up more or less where they left off, with Kaji's half-finished mug of enchanted coffee warming his fingers.
Misato let out a haggard breath and raked her fingers through her hair. "So... to recap: Evil twins. Time-travel gimmicks. Nonsensical flashbacks."
And Kaji nearly choked on his breath when Vand said the most Ritsuko-ish thing he'd ever heard. "There is nothing so uncreative as a creature with the breadth of the infinite at its disposal."
To that, Misato let out a woeful moan and sighed. "Wonderful."
Kaji leaned against a slanted pillar, tilting his view up towards curve of the Geofront roof. He sighed, reaching for one of his cigarettes and making a point not to light it. He was already aware that the ramifications of their impromptu debrief were likely sending Misato's brilliant and sexy strategic intelligence spinning. He considered springing something on her to lighten the mood, but it was not to be. Vand jumped onto the railing and crouched, catlike with his hands between his feet and stable as rock.
Glancing between them both, Vand settled on Kaji. "So what do you do around here? You're not a solider or officer, and you don't do any of that science-stuff."
Questions were things Kaji adored, asking and answering. It was honestly refreshing. "Technically I am an officer, but I'm really a spy."
Vand straightened up in place, ears perked and eyes wide. "A spy? How does spying work around here? Is it fun, or boring?"
Misato let her face fall into her waiting palms, groaning, but in good humor. Kaji grinned past his cigarette, laughing. "Well, it's complicated, but mostly what I did was boring. I talked to people, made friends, contacts. Sometimes I went places I wasn't supposed to and read things I shouldn't have. I served two or three masters, and it wasn't very fun. What are spies like where you're from?"
"Depends." Vand grinned. "A Lunar can be a bug on the wall or the bird that craps on your roof. The Dynasts can snatch words right out of the breeze and nobody trusts mail to go anywhere unopened, not if you're in any big city-state back inland."
Whistling softly, Kaji could not help but be somewhat impressed. In a way he found himself identifying with Asuka more, of realizing that when magic and the superhuman were real, that he didn't think it was cheating, just another talent in a wider world. The offhand mention of classic tradecraft only reinforced that feeling.
"You said weapons were harder," Misato tugged the conversation back to a strategic topic.
Vand was quiet for a long moment, frowning. He unfolded his legs and sat down on the rail, rapping his chest again, and Kaji placed the gesture like a westerner might snap their fingers while searching for a word. "Alright... so a man picks up a sword. It's always a sword. A sword is a sword is a sword, and it cuts, and does sword things, right?"
Misato nodded, following. "Right."
"Well, a Raksha has a sword too, except it's only a sword to other Raksha." Vand carried on, speaking fast but clear. "But it's not always a sword. Sometimes it's an army or a monster or a fortress. As far as they're concerned, they're swinging a sword all the same at each other, but how it looks is armies clashing and giant monsters tearing down heaven."
Misato's face went stark pale, and she let out a harsh, rasping sigh. "So... When we bomb one of their formations, kill it down to the last goblin, that's just disarming them?"
"You got it." Vand agreed with a solemn nod. "Means that for most of the time, you're not fighting armies of nobles, you're fighting their armories. And unlike an army or fortress, a Raksha can make a sword cheap like. Sometimes they have an idea of a sword, and keep making things based on that."
"So logistically they're... Well they have logistics?"
"Yep, they're limited to dreamstuff. Gossamer they call it. They get it from... I don't know the word for this, places of power? Or the minds of mortals. That's what happened to you and yours in the hospital down below."
Misato jumped on the immediately pressing and strategic question. "Can we deny them this dreamstuff?"
"Yes and no- the powerful kind, they have other ways of getting it, cannibalism and more..." Vand shrugged. "I've never had to fight a war against Raksha, only heard stories of beastmen hordes against the teeming legions of the Crusade- and that was centuries ago."
"...Maybe I'm looking at this too broadly." Misato cocked her head to one side. "This is all just 'Raksha Basics'... I think we're going to have to fight against these specific Raksha."
Vand blinked once, and Kaji watched as the comprehension washed across his expression. The Lunar's grin was profound and feral. "Then that means you're going to want to learn about Nobles."
- Location
- Gladstone, OR
You vastly overestimate the capability of a single Solar. That's the point I've been trying to convey through this whole story. Discard any notion that a 'shonen anime' solution would win the day.
- Location
- Gladstone, OR
After the third truck, it was starting to get... obnoxious. He wasn't even sure how many trucks there were left in the Geofront! And hardly any paved roads outside of the tunnel layers and shells! And yet, seemingly without error, a truck appeared from around the nearest blind corridor. Or shadowy archway. Or the Geofront lake- (it was apparently being used to help haul pumping equipment for some reconstruction effort).
The obnoxious part, was that they kept running into him, and crumpling like tinfoil on impact. Doused in steam, hot engine parts and oil, Ikari Shinji, Zenith Exalted and Chosen of the Unconquered Sun (mouthful that was), did what came naturally. He moved to help the driver.
Except... There were no drivers. He distinctly remembered there being an impression of a driver. But when he pulled out of the wreckage the first and second time, that out-the-corner-eye glimpse had vanished from the driver's seat and his memory.
Distressing.
So he dispensed with the pleasantries and instead of ripping free of the offending vehicle, he drove his iron-hard hands into it's engine and firewall. Ripping through thin aluminum alloy, he felt his hands close not on broken flesh and pain, but glittering nothingness. Yellow sparkles spilled from his hands as the image of the driver faded away before his eyes.
"...What."
"Listen, kid." Oh, there was someone standing there. Leaning against one of the Geofront pedestrian rails. "I was given one job, and that was to get you hit by a truck, and I quote "'Hard enough to knock you out.'"
The newcomer was... dressed oddly. Like he stepped out of a fantasy epic- or like the handful of clothes Vand had brought with him, but more ornate. But familiar- Shinji could recognize if not name the cuts and designs as being very close to his native Japan or neighboring China, India and the Middle East. Yellow-ochre patterns set off by blues and brighter golds, sashes and long sleeves. The man's skin was smooth, ageless, but Shinji couldn't help but get the sense that the man was older. Much, much older.
Or maybe that was his tone. He sounded weary.
"Knock me out?" Shinji rubbed the back of his head, idly flicking his hands clean of oil and much. "That's... going to be a challenge."
"Mine is not to reason why, but to do my damned job." The stranger groaned. "Why oh why Couldn't I have been a Serenity? They get parties and bathhouses and orgies..."
"Uhm..." Shinji coughed, bouncing back and forth on his heels and toes.
The stranger ambled over to the truck's bumper, nudging it with his toe and noting the two shin-shaped divots Shinji had left on impact. "Yeuch. You're one of those iron-skinned monk types, aren't you?"
"I wouldn't want to brag, but..." Shinji smiled despite himself, not quite holding back a laugh.
"Well," The yellow-clad stranger sighed. "Be seeing you, kid."
---
A few days later, Shinji downed the last finger of alchemically enriched coffee with a sigh. "How's our ration doing?"
"Pretty good, all things considered." Aoba Shigeru raised the pot with a speculative eye. "If we get hydroponics going, we'll probably just break even. Do you want another hit?"
Grinning, Shinji nodded. "Please, thank you."
As Shigeru was pouring, he glanced down at the mug Shinji had in his hand. "Where'd you get that one? It's got a slogan on it?"
Shinji blinked mid-sip, feeling the fresh brew suffuse him with caffinated clarity. He raised the cup carefully to eye level, turning it left and right to see the english lettering curving around it. 'My love for you is like a truck'?"
Shigeru said something then, wondering aloud if it was one of Misato's novelty mugs or maybe something Kaji had picked up as a joke. Was it one of Ritsuko's, or Maya's... Shinji felt his neck slip, head feeling so heavy all of the sudden. His right eye started to wander, and pretty soon everything was tartan.
"...Oh." Shinji slurred. "'It me... truck-kun~?"
---
What followed was an exercise in sureality.
---
"I am the most benificent goddess Altamacia of the Realm Sagitos!" The angelic woman beamed. "You are my chosen hero- I will permit you to reincarnate in my world with a cheat item of yo-"
"Already got one." Shinji cut her off.
"I-Beg your pardon?" The goddess blinked.
"Exaltation. Cheatiest cheat to ever cheat." Shinji paced around the white void, tasting the air for confluences and sympathies. "I'll be going now."
---
"I have summoned you to be my demon-concubine-weapon!"
"Not interested."
---
"Together we will be warriors of mega-love and hyper-justice!"
"No thank you."
---
"Please join my fam-"
"I'm sorry."
---
"Do you have a guild membershi-"
"I have things to do I'm sorry."
---
"Nagisa!" Shinji reached out and scooped the smaller pilot up into a spine-breaking hug. "I am so glad to see you!"
"Hgrrrk!" Kaworu winced, but pat the taller figure on the back regardless. "I-Ikari-kun. It is nice to see you as well."
Shinji set Kawrou down and sighed. "Lemme guess..." He looked around the white void. "Truck-Kun?"
"Truck-Kun."
There was no deity, multiversal summoning circle, vauge VR plot device or anything of the sort around, just Shinji and Kaworu. Shinji cocked his head, finally really looking. "...Nagisa... Are you-"
"Yes, today I am female." Nagisa agreed. He- she didn't actually look notably different. The untailored white button down and black slacks weren't particularly flattering for anyone. "I have lived many lives and lines, this is one of the... rarer ones. Rarer still to have a crossover."
Shinji nodded slowly. "...in more ways than one."
There was a long, steady silence. Shinji coughed once. "Sooo..."
"Your guess is a good as mine, Ikari-Kun."
A thunderous voice spoke out from everywhere and nowhere. "REINCARNATION PROCESS BEGINS!"
"Whatha-"
---
Shinji was blind, he could barely feel. All senses of his limbs were reduced to this strange ovoid absolute territory... He flexed his will just slightly, and the golden disc appeared above his... body. "Nagisa."
"Yes, Ikari-kun."
"I think I'm a slime."
"Yes, I know the feeling."
The obnoxious part, was that they kept running into him, and crumpling like tinfoil on impact. Doused in steam, hot engine parts and oil, Ikari Shinji, Zenith Exalted and Chosen of the Unconquered Sun (mouthful that was), did what came naturally. He moved to help the driver.
Except... There were no drivers. He distinctly remembered there being an impression of a driver. But when he pulled out of the wreckage the first and second time, that out-the-corner-eye glimpse had vanished from the driver's seat and his memory.
Distressing.
So he dispensed with the pleasantries and instead of ripping free of the offending vehicle, he drove his iron-hard hands into it's engine and firewall. Ripping through thin aluminum alloy, he felt his hands close not on broken flesh and pain, but glittering nothingness. Yellow sparkles spilled from his hands as the image of the driver faded away before his eyes.
"...What."
"Listen, kid." Oh, there was someone standing there. Leaning against one of the Geofront pedestrian rails. "I was given one job, and that was to get you hit by a truck, and I quote "'Hard enough to knock you out.'"
The newcomer was... dressed oddly. Like he stepped out of a fantasy epic- or like the handful of clothes Vand had brought with him, but more ornate. But familiar- Shinji could recognize if not name the cuts and designs as being very close to his native Japan or neighboring China, India and the Middle East. Yellow-ochre patterns set off by blues and brighter golds, sashes and long sleeves. The man's skin was smooth, ageless, but Shinji couldn't help but get the sense that the man was older. Much, much older.
Or maybe that was his tone. He sounded weary.
"Knock me out?" Shinji rubbed the back of his head, idly flicking his hands clean of oil and much. "That's... going to be a challenge."
"Mine is not to reason why, but to do my damned job." The stranger groaned. "Why oh why Couldn't I have been a Serenity? They get parties and bathhouses and orgies..."
"Uhm..." Shinji coughed, bouncing back and forth on his heels and toes.
The stranger ambled over to the truck's bumper, nudging it with his toe and noting the two shin-shaped divots Shinji had left on impact. "Yeuch. You're one of those iron-skinned monk types, aren't you?"
"I wouldn't want to brag, but..." Shinji smiled despite himself, not quite holding back a laugh.
"Well," The yellow-clad stranger sighed. "Be seeing you, kid."
---
A few days later, Shinji downed the last finger of alchemically enriched coffee with a sigh. "How's our ration doing?"
"Pretty good, all things considered." Aoba Shigeru raised the pot with a speculative eye. "If we get hydroponics going, we'll probably just break even. Do you want another hit?"
Grinning, Shinji nodded. "Please, thank you."
As Shigeru was pouring, he glanced down at the mug Shinji had in his hand. "Where'd you get that one? It's got a slogan on it?"
Shinji blinked mid-sip, feeling the fresh brew suffuse him with caffinated clarity. He raised the cup carefully to eye level, turning it left and right to see the english lettering curving around it. 'My love for you is like a truck'?"
Shigeru said something then, wondering aloud if it was one of Misato's novelty mugs or maybe something Kaji had picked up as a joke. Was it one of Ritsuko's, or Maya's... Shinji felt his neck slip, head feeling so heavy all of the sudden. His right eye started to wander, and pretty soon everything was tartan.
"...Oh." Shinji slurred. "'It me... truck-kun~?"
---
What followed was an exercise in sureality.
---
"I am the most benificent goddess Altamacia of the Realm Sagitos!" The angelic woman beamed. "You are my chosen hero- I will permit you to reincarnate in my world with a cheat item of yo-"
"Already got one." Shinji cut her off.
"I-Beg your pardon?" The goddess blinked.
"Exaltation. Cheatiest cheat to ever cheat." Shinji paced around the white void, tasting the air for confluences and sympathies. "I'll be going now."
---
"I have summoned you to be my demon-concubine-weapon!"
"Not interested."
---
"Together we will be warriors of mega-love and hyper-justice!"
"No thank you."
---
"Please join my fam-"
"I'm sorry."
---
"Do you have a guild membershi-"
"I have things to do I'm sorry."
---
"Nagisa!" Shinji reached out and scooped the smaller pilot up into a spine-breaking hug. "I am so glad to see you!"
"Hgrrrk!" Kaworu winced, but pat the taller figure on the back regardless. "I-Ikari-kun. It is nice to see you as well."
Shinji set Kawrou down and sighed. "Lemme guess..." He looked around the white void. "Truck-Kun?"
"Truck-Kun."
There was no deity, multiversal summoning circle, vauge VR plot device or anything of the sort around, just Shinji and Kaworu. Shinji cocked his head, finally really looking. "...Nagisa... Are you-"
"Yes, today I am female." Nagisa agreed. He- she didn't actually look notably different. The untailored white button down and black slacks weren't particularly flattering for anyone. "I have lived many lives and lines, this is one of the... rarer ones. Rarer still to have a crossover."
Shinji nodded slowly. "...in more ways than one."
There was a long, steady silence. Shinji coughed once. "Sooo..."
"Your guess is a good as mine, Ikari-Kun."
A thunderous voice spoke out from everywhere and nowhere. "REINCARNATION PROCESS BEGINS!"
"Whatha-"
---
Shinji was blind, he could barely feel. All senses of his limbs were reduced to this strange ovoid absolute territory... He flexed his will just slightly, and the golden disc appeared above his... body. "Nagisa."
"Yes, Ikari-kun."
"I think I'm a slime."
"Yes, I know the feeling."
- Location
- National Capital Region, USA
"Hey, you. You're finally awake. You were trying to cross the border, right? Walked right into that Imperial ambush, same as us, and that thief over there."
"...man, Kensuke would love this one."
- Location
- Australia, mate
Considering Shinji's track record of hospital visits, there are so many places in his life you could insert that meme.
Timerider
That guy who really should get out more.
- Location
- The End of the World.
That gives me a fantastic story idea.
Every time Shinji get hurt or knocked out, he gets an isekai adventure, only to wake up again once it's over.
There are tons of ways this could go. He could keep any powers/gifts he acquired on his journey. He might only remember the adventures when "dreaming" and forget them when he comes back. Maybe the friends he makes try to follow him to Eva.
The possibilities are endless.