New Century 2318 [NGE]

[Pineapple]

New Century 2318

Chapter 1:
Minute to live rule​

It wasn't my first time seeing it, of course. I'd been born down there, spent the first four years of my life down there. I didn't remember it. Time and distance had a way of taking those things from you. What I had was just foggy, faded images in my mind.

Father had sent me away for reasons that I could only call selfish. At least, that's what I told myself. Ganymede was about as far from him as I could have reasonably been sent so it wasn't really a surprise that that is where I ended up.

From this high up, the ball of red and blue and green seemed almost calm. From here, it was almost pretty. Almost. The huge red patches in the oceans had a way of looking like blood. It didn't used to look that way; I'd seen pictures.

I didn't have to think about it for long; the station's gravitational rotation took it out of view after a few minutes and I was looking back towards the outer planets. Ganymede didn't feel like home, not really. Earth didn't either.

But he'd asked me to come back, so I should, right?

I looked down to the picture in my right hand, a woman, not too much older than I was. Her hair was, well, heliotrope came to mind. It definitely came out of a bottle, but not one I'd ever seen. Looking at her didn't hurt, that was for sure. I was supposed to meet her here.

Of course I'd checked the the time; triple checked it, accounted for as many different time zones as I could think of. I could only come to the conclusion that she was late. I'd flown across half the system, changed ships no less than eight times, crossed so many time-zones I'd lost count...

And she was late.

If I had known that was going to happen, I would have boarded the shuttle without her. The shuttle that I could see pulling away from the station at that very moment. It would be hours before another one arrived, but after a week of traveling that didn't seem so bad.

The truth was, I wasn't really looking forward to seeing my father again. Any delay in seeing him wasn't so bad, really. Give me more time to prepare for.. whatever it was this visit was going to turn into. He hadn't spoken to me since I'd been sent away. He'd sent letters. Once or twice I'd even answered, but neither of our hearts were in it.

"Ikari?"

I turned sharply at the sound of the voice. In this large chamber it echoed, it didn't hurt that we were the only two people there after the shuttle had left.

It was the purple haired woman. She was on the far end of the concourse, up-spin from me. She was wearing a flight suit and a 'zeegee' pack. Had she not taken the shuttle to get here?

"You're Ikari right?" She asked me as she closed the half dozen meters of distance with a short jump and a burst from her pack. Most people considered it rude to do such a thing while a station is spun up for AG, but people who spend most of their time in a real gravity well tended not to notice such things.

At least we were relatively alone.

I didn't realize how dry my throat was when I opened my mouth to talk. It had probably been days since I'd spoken to anyone. "Y-yes, that's right."

She looked me up and down with a critical eye. "You don't look like your picture"

I felt my face twitch at the mention of that but I shook it off. "Well I think the only pictures he'd have to give you are ten years old. A lot can change."

"Yep, so... so..." her voice trailed off and her eyes unfocused from me and onto something behind me.

I raised an eyebrow at her and slowly turned around to look out of the window set into the side of the station. Out in space, the shuttle that had un-docked earlier was spinning on axis and leaking atmosphere through the hole that used to be the left wing.

The screech that pierced my soul came next, and my eyes locked onto the massive black-skinned monster descending past the station and towards the planet below. "What--"

"Get down!"

She grabbed me by the back of my jacket and dragged me down to the hull plates as a section of the concourse down-spin from us exploded out into space. The rushing air pulled my head down and I saw the debris from the damaged shuttle rolling away from the station. It looked like they might have tried to dock but crashed into the station instead.

It had been years since decompression training, and to be honest I was far too shocked by what had happened to do anything but hang on and try not to get sucked out into space. I tried to calm down, focus on the numbers.

Math was never my strong suit.

"Two minutes, tops!" the woman yelled. "Come on, we're getting out of here!"

The station shook under our feet and I felt myself getting... lighter? The spin was stopping. The station must have taken more damage than I thought. Stopping the spin to reduce the stress on the structure after a collision. There had been a freighter incident on Ganymede--

"We don't have time for this!" she yelled before throwing her arm around me and pulling me against her. I was starting to get light headed, from fear or decompression, I didn't know. A moment later I heard the hissing of her 'zeegee' pack and we were floating towards the hatch on the far end of the concourse.

It was getting cold and I could feel my ears popping, my head swimming as the oxygen and pressure levels dropped.

The leak might have been slow enough to give us two minutes like she said, but the concourse was big and the rushing air was pulling at us the entire time. It didn't help that I was used to a much higher oxygen content than someone from Earth. I'd probably pass out before she did.

The impact jarred me out of my thoughts, pessimistic as they were, and I looked up to see we'd hit the wall next to the emergency hatch. That would take us into the connecting shaft towards the center of the station.

Located at the inboard side of the gravity ring, it wasn't a place we could reach while the station was under spin, but with the spin stopped we were able to make it 'up' there on the woman's zeegee pack.

She hit the release and the hatch slid back, a soft puff of air hit us in the face as the pressure equalized with our compartment in a quick moment. She pushed me inside first and climbed up in a second later before sealing the hatch behind us.

Impulse. Everything was impulse. Mine was to freeze in confusion and fear, but her impulse was to act, to get us both out of there.

"I need a status report. I've got the package but the station was hit. What's going on out there? Is it attacking?" The woman said, but not to me. It looked like she might have an ear piece.

Of course, that cut me out of any reply she might get--

She turned to me and shook her head. "That hit was worse than I thought. Station is breaking up. We've only got a few minutes."

I felt the cold grip of fear around my insides and the pounding of my heart in my ears. Adrenaline, fight or flight response. Where would I go? "The escape pods are--"

"Not where we're going. You're not gonna like this part."

I was knocked against a bulkhead when the station shook around me, cutting off any reply or question I might have had. A moment later I felt a strong blow strike me in the stomach and I felt the wind knocked out of me.

She'd punched me and I'd spat out the entire lungful of air I'd had. My eyes were watering even as I doubled over. What the hell was she playing at?

"Aoba, we're doing it now!"

The alarm screeched in my ears and then they popped. The emergency hatch unsealed violently and we both launched out of the chamber like a cannon. My tears boiled off in an instant and it felt like my head was going to explode.

The concourse had fully decompressed in the time we'd been gone, and the damage had spread. The entire far bulkhead was missing now; what had been a floor was now a gaping hole that we were hurtling towards at maybe a dozen meters per second. If we clipped the edge we'd probably get splattered, at least lose a limb.

But she was wearing that pack.

I needed to breathe but nothing I could do would make air out of the nothing I was floating through. Each gasp solved nothing and... then we passed through the hole and out of the station. We'd be dead in minutes, at least I would be.

My vision started to blur; the panic wasn't helping me conserve what oxygen I had in my blood. The edges closed in and then we struck something hard and I bounced, a hand grabbed me and pulled on my arm, and then a hissing filled my ears as pressure returned.

The first lungful of air was greedy and burned. The second was better, but once the pain started to fade the distraction it provided left me and I was aware of how much the rest of me hurt.

I'd heard stories of people passing through hard vacuum without a suit, but I'd never been stupid or desperate enough to do it myself. Now I could check that one off on my list of Things I Would Never Do Again.

I blinked away the bright light inside the airlock and looked at the woman who'd dragged me through it. Of course she had an air pack. She was prepared for this, or just prepared in general.

"You know," I croaked out of my now sore-as-hell throat, "There's a reason people don't do that."

"Do you want to go back?"

I shook my head. What was done was done, repeating the experience wouldn't make it any more fun the second time.

Her hand wrapped around my wrist and she pulled me onto my feet, and then past them. No gravity, we weren't under power yet.

"Welcome to the Tengu. You can call me Misato, and you are.. Shi--"

I felt a lump rise in my throat and I cut her off by instinct, "Natsu Ikari."

She flinched like she'd been struck, I had probably been too harsh. "Alright, Natsu then. Strap in, we're not done yet."

xxx​

They hadn't told me much, but I wasn't surprised. That seemed to be my lot in life. What I'd managed to gather from consoles and the stacked-deck layout of the ship was that it wasn't meant to land. About forty meters long.

The drive looked oversized compared to what I'd seen on the ships that visited Ganymede, though the tapered cylinder layout of the hull was common enough. Under acceleration the deck layout would provide a semblance of gravity.

And with a drive that size it was probably fast as hell.

The command deck was at the front of the ship, or the top relative to the interior layout, and it was there that I was strapped in. I was seated at an auxiliary console, an empty seat for an additional crew member, maybe.

I'd only seen Misato and two other people. The ship looked like it could hold at least ten, based on the command deck's size and number of stations.

"So much for a milk run, eh Captain?" the man at the pilot's station asked. He looked a few years older than me, a few younger than Misato. Asian; Japanese? Dark haired, slim build.

Misato strapped herself into a seat next to mine, but her displays had a lot more information on them. Speed, position, tactical readouts. I could make out the station, the damaged shuttle, and further away the monster I'd seen through the window.

"This is probably going to be an expensive day. Lay in an intercept with that pattern blue. We were supposed to be on Earth before it showed up. We need to buy some time. Jettison the camouflage panels." She knew what she was doing, after what had just happened I shouldn't have been surprised.

"Camouflage? Wanna let me in on the secret?" I found myself asking. Maybe being left in the dark wasn't something I wanted to be my lot in life.

"We're about to let everyone in on the secret. Panels detonating in five, four, three--" The man at the pilot's station announced. I wondered if he was the 'Aoba' that Misato had been talking to on the radio.

There was a slight tremor through the seat and the console in front of my changed, though not to the same extent that Misato's panel had changed. Being nosy, I looked to see that targeting systems seemed to be overlaid over the sensor readouts.

"Guns are coming online. Drive is heated up. We're go for burn."

"Do it."

The ship lurched forward and I felt myself being pressed down into my seat. I didn't know how many Gs we were pulling but I knew it was more than I'd ever experienced before. That over-sized drive unit was burning with a purpose.

"Fifteen seconds to intercept. You know, we really don't have the crew for this," the pilot, Aoba, said to Misato. His voice was shaking a little. I was terrified, but that made me quieter than usual. Aoba was cool as a cucumber, comparatively.

But then, maybe that was just because he'd only seen the monster through a sensor screen and not through a window with his own eyes.

"We're working with what we've got. Buy the people on the ground some time to get in front of this. Arming torpedoes; firing!" Misato called back as her finger stabbed down on the console.

The ship clunked under me, I assumed that was a torpedo being fired. Curiosity was steadily becoming an impulse to rival my fear and, with that, I started poking at my console, looking for an external view.

It was beautiful. The angle that I'd found, for a moment, was filled with stars in the highest resolution imaginable; it was like looking through a window, without the reflection of your own face staring back at you.

For me, the wonder had never worn off. People blamed my origin on Earth, and maybe they were right, but something about the stars in the sky, the things so far beyond our reach and yet right in front of us...

To me, it had always felt like staring into the heart of creation.

The ship rolled through its intercept, angling for direct fire weapons if I had to imagine, and brought the monster that had damaged the station back into view. Long black-green spindly legs and a stretched, distorted body. Spindly, spider-like arms that sprouted from bone-plated shoulders.

And that face, like a crude bird with glowing red eyes.

The things that nightmares are made of, I was sure I would never forget. Was this monster our punishment for the arrogance in thinking we had the right to tread in the domain of gods?

"We're getting really close to the point of no return here!" Aoba yelled over the slowly growing roar of atmosphere rushing past the hull. We were still high enough to be considered space, but at the speeds we were pulling to intercept, even a little bit of air would be... noisy.

"We'll fight it to the ground if we have to! I'm bringing the device online now. I'm giving you fire control. We've got one shot, don't miss." Misato answered back. I chanced a glance at her console and saw a familiar trefoil symbol set against a yellow background.

Nuclear? How did she even--

"Target locked, coils charged. Firing!" Aoba yelled before the ship bucked so hard I slid upward in my harness, the recoil of whatever he'd fired being strong enough to temporarily negate all of the thrust being generated by the fusion drive.

My panel winked out and the ship twisted to the side around me. I strained against my harness for a moment before the force let up and I was weightless. Freefall.

"EMP forced a reboot. We're offline for the next thirty seconds," he said, then hesitated. There was something else, something I was certain I wasn't going to like. "May want to hang on, we were not in a stable orbital track when we lost navigation."

"What?!" Misato yelled. She was trying her console, it wasn't working. It was just as dark as mine. "What about the backups?!"

"Those would be fine if we were still in orbit. I can't run the main drive manually. I've got maneuvering thrusters but they're not going to get us back into orbit on their own."

"Which means..."

"Well, you did say 'Fight it to the ground' didn't you?"

The human inner ear is not as precise as the accelerometers that would universally be installed in any space-faring vessel, but that isn't to say it wasn't receptive to changes in velocity or orientation, even slight ones.

I knew we were slowing down a few moments before I felt it in the harness. Aerobraking probably; we were hitting the Earth's atmosphere. Our angle was pretty steep before we'd lost power, a necessity for aiming the gun at that monster, probably.

The pressure on my chest from being pressed upwards into the harness kept increasing. We were descending, rapidly, into thicker air, and obviously well above terminal velocity.

That would change, but probably not quickly enough to matter. We should have been on our way to the escape pod, ships that fell into an atmosphere didn't tend to leave much more than a crater.

"Power coming back online. Drive controls are back up!" Aoba yelled from above us. I could feel the ship rotating aggressively as he tried to correct our descent. He seemed like he knew what he was doing. At least, he was doing better than I could have.

The display in front of me finally finished rebooting and the external view came back online; grey and white and sunlight. My momentary confusion evaporated into gut-wrenching fear when the display cleared up and instead displayed a city. We'd punched through the cloud deck and the ground was approaching faster than it should, given how low we were already. Maybe forty, forty five seconds to impact.

It would be a painless death and there wouldn't be anything left to identify our bodies.

"Aoba!?" Misato yelled from beside me. She could see what I could see. We were about to die.

"Sometimes you just gotta ride the lightning... Hold on!" Aoba yelled from the upper deck.

From my screen, I could see the docking grapplers fire out from the side of the ship. They'd never hold, they weren't meant to arrest motion so much as reel a ship in. Anything more robust would be more of a military--

The ship lurched violently under us as the line went taut between the ship and the two-hundred floor high rise, the winch screamed as it let more line out. It wasn't a docking grappler, it was a boarding grappler. Illegal and yet, I might not die so I couldn't complain.

A second grappler launched out and latched onto another building and brought the ship about, we were following an arc around the buildings. A third, and then a fourth grappler launched and went taut, almost like the ship was walking along the side of the buildings on stilts.

Despite the side-load forcing me into the back of my seat I found myself almost relieved. Each new attachment jolted less than the last, we were noticeably slowing our descent to something survivable.

The scream from before pierced the cabin and I felt it in my chest, in my heart. I panned the camera angle and saw it descending towards us, on fire, and exuding a sense of being very pissed off. "Uh, guys?!"

"I can't align, bringing PDGs online! Misato?" Aoba yelled from above us, he couldn't look, too busy keeping us alive to divert too much attention.

"Got it!" She yelled up then turned to me, "Natsu, fire control is at your station. Make yourself useful and light it up!"

"Y-yes ma'am!" I found myself yelling in something that came out more like a terrified wail than the brave agreement I'd been trying for. Just like manual space debris interdiction, right? Target in the center...

And pull the switch. I squeezed the firing trigger and the point defense guns instantly hemorrhaged erratic streams of tracer fire towards the monster descending on top of us. The first few seconds of fire missed wildly while I tried to adjust my aim, the computers weren't calibrated for air resistance or gravity.

"Hyūga, interception was unsuccessful, target is on course for the city. Send out Rei!" Misato was yelling next to me, probably into a radio.

The shots that did connect were bouncing off, hitting some kind of energy shield. Technology like that didn't even exist, and yet, there it was in front of me.

"Stand by Tengu. Akagi had everything ready in advance. We're deploying Unit Zero in four seconds."

Unit Zero? Of what?

I pulled my hands away from the controls when the PDGs entered an emergency cooldown cycle. They weren't doing anything anyway, not much more than give me something to distract myself from the absolutely terrifying direction my life had turned in less than a day.

The ship shook hard and rolled to the side as an object easily the size of the space monster rocketed past us, upwards towards the creature. I caught a flash of blue and white armor plating zipping past the camera, but it was too close to make out features until it passed us.

Another giant, a robot of some kind. It was holding some kind of projectile weapon, like some kind of gigantic rifle scaled up to be held by something so huge. Was that 'Unit Zero' ?

The ship jolted hard under me and gravity felt like it was 'down' again. The sensation of movement was gone. No, actually, it wasn't gone. I felt slightly like I was moving down, but in a measured, slow way.

The camera feed was blocked off by a massive armor plat closing over top of the ship. An elevator?

"Well, landing wasn't really the original plan, but it looks like I did a good job, right?" Aoba laughed down at us. It was the kind of laugh that one laughs when they have just recently not died, and I could understand the impulse.

xxx​

The thing about hard vacuum is that it has certain effects on... well, everything. I was healthy even after my brief adventure without oxygen, my clothing was... far less healthy. Ripped seams from flash water trapped in the fabric. It hadn't been important on the Tengu, but on the ground, going to meet my father...

Misato had insisted that I change, and I didn't have any of my things, they'd been lost on the station. That left me with... borrowing. Borrowing things that weren't exactly my style, but that fit well enough. Anyone could wear black, after all.

The relative silence after our landing was welcome, but uncomfortable. The only sound I could pick out other than the background humming of the facility we were in was the clicking of our shoes. My own and Misato's stood out, Aoba's shoes were a little more subdued. I liked his a lot better, shame he wasn't my size.

After everything else that had happened, I could tolerate a quiet walk. It let my thoughts wander to whoever must have been piloting that machine they launched after the monster. I hadn't heard anything that might have indicated that they failed, and we were also still alive.

We stopped at a thick steel door that split in the middle, the kind that retracted into the wall and looked like it was rated to hold back the vacuum of space. I had to wonder what use such a thing would be on a planet.

"Your father is on the other side of this door. Our job was to get you this far, and we did. I just... Well, I'm going to be right there with you, ah, Natsu." Misato offered as she typed a code into the door panel. She seemed a little stiff.

Whatever I was in for, it was signaled by the thunking of lock bolts retracting a few moments before the door itself split and slid open with a low groan. Definitely heavy. Darkness and track lighting outlining the perimeter of the floor greeted us.

The thick smell of copper and cooling oil flooded my nose, not dissimilar from some of the new construction areas on Ganymede. I stepped through the door first, eager to get it over with if nothing else. Misato fast-stepped behind me, not eager to get left behind, or perhaps not eager to leave me to my own devices.

Which was a little amusing, given that she'd given me control of some really powerful weapons not even a half of an hour ago.

The lights clicked on all at once on us and the room, much more massive that I'd thought, came into view brightly enough o hurt my eyes. To my left was a gigantic purple horned head, and it might have terrified me or surprised me more if I hadn't seen a blue one like it shortly ago.

Or if my father hadn't been standing directly in front of me, demanding far more attention. He didn't look different from the last time I'd seen him, so many years ago. My legs felt weak, mouth dry, palms damp and cold.

"Who are you?" He asked, cold, flat. Time really could change so many things, could he really not tell?

"I'm your child, you've sent for me, and here I am. That is what you wanted, right?" I asked, just as flat as he did. I could play that game too. I'd had years to practice.

"You're not my son." His face was still expressionless, orange tinted lenses hid his eyes from me.

I felt my face twitch and felt that burst of hot anger fill me. He didn't even have the decency to know?

My flat expression broke and I sneered at him, "Was it the way I fill out this dress that gave it away?"

 

[Pineapple]

What whaaaaat? What could this mean!?

 

[Doctor Squared]

What whaaaaat? What could this mean!?

Click to shrink...

It means we'll be fighting a Death Star-sized Ramiel?

 

[4WheelSword]

Cool

 

[Jake]

"Was it the way I fill out this dress that gave it away?"

Click to shrink...

I laughed far harder than I should have at that.

 

[odlawzein]

"Was it the way I fill out this dress that gave it away?"

Click to shrink...

That's a very interesting and surprising butterfly you got there. Hoping to see all the repercussions from this.

 

[Eskjc]

I love it so far.

 

[Yla]

1) Love the concept of Evangelion in a different technology setting. I've loved the 1915 fic I read once, EarthScorpion's Cthulhutech crossovers set in 2096 and I'm looking forward to this one. Everything is the same, and yet not.

2) Shinji/Natsu is transgender? Well how about that.

 

[Turing Decidable]

I rate this reunion: 0/10, not worth literally getting spaced for.

 

[Inverness]

Plot twiiiiiiiist!

This seems pretty interesting, I'll be watching.

 

[Pineapple]

2) Shinji/Natsu is transgender? Well how about that.

Click to shrink...

was this adequately surprising or was it sort of given away early on?

 

[Yla]

was this adequately surprising or was it sort of given away early on?

Click to shrink...

No, I only 'got it' in the last five lines.
(Natsu would have been a strong earlier clue, if I had any idea about Japanese first names.)

 

[Jake]

was this adequately surprising or was it sort of given away early on?

Click to shrink...

The post you made advertising the fic was a bit of a giveaway, at least for people who can be hedgehogged to get access to that particular subforum.

 

[Pineapple]

The post you made advertising the fic was a bit of a giveaway, at least for people who can be hedgehogged to get access to that particular subforum.

Click to shrink...

Well... yeah.

 

[Varriety]

I figured the name was trying to get away away from his father, but how far he went surprised me. The only time I can remember seeing the name 'Natsu' is the little I've seen of Fairy Tail, so the gender bit was a surprise.

Looking forward to the butterflies a space-capable NGE Earth will bring.

 

[Pineapple]

 

[Pineapple]

Chapter 2:

The Day You Find Out Why​

I didn't know what to do or to say. The outburst had come from a place I'd been trying to suppress. I'd had people on Ganymede, people who cared. They helped me to get to who I had become, all the treatments, surgeries, therapies, they'd helped. The outbursts were less there but…

I was alone, home, after a fashion, but alone. I'd thought that things would be different when the invitation had come. I thought that finally, after all those years...

Maybe I was too foolish and idealistic, thinking that after fourteen years he'd suddenly have a change of heart.

"You could have at least taken the effort… to know who I was." I whispered. My shoulders slumped, I felt so defeated. It was hard enough to hold myself up in a full G, but with his reaction, and after I ran out of steam… I just lacked the will.

"I sent for you because I need you." He said, finally. I couldn't detect hatred in his voice. That was what I was most used to. Hatred, disdain, confusion, 'why can't you just be happy with what you've got. Why can't you just get along. Why can't you just be like everyone else.

No, he said he needed me. That's like wanting me. He didn't change his mind when he saw me, send me back, send me away, no, he needed me.

"For what?" I asked, trying to keep the shakiness out of my voice. I was trying so very hard not to feel like I'd felt so many times before, so vulnerable, so--

"This." He said simply and raised his white gloved hand to point to his right, at the purple armored giant's head. "You are one of the chosen few who can pilot this machine, who can destroy the beings known as Angels. I called you back here because I need you to do this."

"Wait," Misato interjected suddenly from behind me. "You want her to pilot Unit One? She's only just gotten back to Earth, she's not ready!"

"I don't… I can't! I won't!" I yelled, I could feel the tears streaming down my face. He needed me, but he didn't want me. Never could be that easy. I could never be that whole.

He snapped his fingers loudly, it echoed through the chamber and a hologram popped into existence in front of us. That blue robot from before, fighting the monster we'd burned with nuclear fire. The Angel, that's what he'd called it.

A second projection popped up showing a girl my age wearing a body suit. Blue hair, beautiful red eyes. Whatever wasn't covered in her body suit was covered in bandages, she was bleeding. She looked like she was in a lot of pain, struggling.

"If you won't do it, she will have to do it alone. She is already wounded. Even if she wins, she won't survive, at this rate." He said to me. Still hiding himself behind those orange lenses. I could almost hear a hitch in his voice, betraying that he did feel emotions.

It wasn't that girl's fault. She was doing what she had to do, right? She'd been trained, she'd known what she was getting into. Maybe that didn't matter, it only mattered that she was doing something she could do, to save people, to protect them from that monster.

I felt my hand rolling up into a fist, a burst of adrenaline that I desperately needed to help me push myself up, to stand tall. "You think… I can fight?"

His hand rose to cover his face, and when he removed it again, I could finally look into his eyes for the first time since I was ten years old. "You will fight. That is why you are here. That is what I need you to do."

Muscles tightened up, shoulders back, chest out. It was everything I could do, but I needed to do it. Fight gravity, prove myself. "What is her name?"

My father's face softened, ever so slightly. I spend so much of my time watching people, looking for their reactions, their feelings when they looked at me, I could read people. He felt something for her. "Her name is Rei Ayanami."

Something about her name struck a chord in me, something nostalgic deep down, a memory I couldn't quite grasp onto. It didn't matter, I'd made my decision the moment I'd seen her face. I didn't have it in me, I wasn't the kind of person who could have made any other choice.

"I'll fight then, for Rei Ayanami."

xxx​

Seeing Rei in her flight suit prepared me for when I was presented with my own version. The colors were different, a bit more of blue and a bit more plating around the chest. It fit me perfectly, if a bit tight.

But it was, apparently, supposed to be tight.

"You're gonna do fine. Just sit in the seat and everything else gets a bit clearer. It all works on nerve linking, mind control. If you've got any questions we'll answer them." Aoba reassured me as we walked towards my destiny. He had his hand on my back, probably meant to keep my at ease, guide me along and make sure I didn't make a run for it.

For some reason, it made me blush. Most people on Ganymede knew me before, and could never really look past that. He didn't treat me like that, he treated me like, well, exactly what he saw. There wasn't an underlying discomfort, an unwillingness to even make contact with me.

I shook my head a little, and found myself walking a little closer to him. "So how much further? I got a little turned around after we left that hanger."

"We're not going back the way we came. You'll board the entry plug from behind the Evangelion, there's a whole procedure. You don't need to worry too much about it." He explained in a casual, disarming kind of way. Badass space ship pilot, chill guy, and he wasn't half bad to look at.

Oh. Let's not go down that path.

The hallway ended in a security door, another one of those big heavy ones, and he typed his key code into it. This one opened a bit faster than the last one, or many the anticipation wasn't killing me so much this time.

"This is where we part ways. I'll be on the command deck helping guide you through the activation and launch." He paused for a second and grabbed my hands, "Look, Natsu, You're doing something that I wish I could do."

"I wasn't going to do it, I was going to leave." I deflected, I couldn't accept his praise. Not at all--

"But you didn't leave. The two most important days in your life are the day you're born, and the day you find out why. Today is that second day. Good luck, but you won't need it." He let go of my hands and took a step back, and the door closed between us.

He just had to go and build me up like that, being all inspirational and making me feel like I could actually do it. But, I had to try.

More doors opened opposite from me, making this chamber into a sort of airlock. Beyond those doors, a larger room with what had to have been the control seat sitting in it. Long, almost like a vehicle in its own right, it reminded me of… I wasn't quite sure what.

Three technicians in surgical scrubs and face masks guided me, wordlessly to the seat. It was just as well, I didn't know what I'd say to them anyway. They helped me get settled into the surprisingly comfortable seat and then two of them set about securing panels and toggling controls around the lower, forward end of the seat.

The third--

I felt a sharp stabbing sensation and an almost like bone crunching sensation in two distinct places in my skull, for the first instant it was absolute agony and then the pain disappeared all at once. I pressed my hands against my head and stared down into my lap in shock.

"Sorry about that… It's better if you don't have any warning. Neuro-link implants. You'll need them." She apologized. I'd have to get her name later, to thank her for making it so quick and painless or, perhaps, revenge.

The floor on either side of the seat retracted away and I descended through the gap on a large hydraulic arm. Willing myself to look over the side and down, I saw that I didn't have far to go; there was a huge white cylinder with an opening in it that I was descending towards.

My teeth clicked together with the sudden stop at the bottom, when the seat finally interfaced with the bottom of the tube at a downhill angle. The seat felt more comfortable for me in that position, with my legs lower than my hips, sort of a half-standing half-laying down.

The lights inside of the tube, the 'entry plug' as Aoba had called it, clicked on as the hatch above me pivoted closed. More motion, this time down and forward, along the same axis that I was inclined at. A few seconds later, a clunk, the sound of servos, and then a splash.

Fluid was pouring in from below, orange in color. A comm holo illuminated to my left and in it, Aoba, and Misato stood. "Uh, guys, is this supposed to happen?" I asked with… more than a little fear in my voice.

"It's breathable fluid, It'll absorb shocks and oxygenate your blood directly. Just like going into cryo. You'll be fine." Aoba explained.

Sure, like going into cryo.

I hated going into cryo, and at least I didn't have to be awake for that.

"Uh… Roger that, I guess." I muttered right before the liquid passed my chin. It flooded past me in an instant and I tried to resist it, hold my breath.

My resistance didn't last long though, a few moments, I inhaled and the not-quite-cold liquid poured into my mouth, filled my lungs. It wasn't as unpleasant as cryo fluid, tasted a bit like copper and salt, a bit thicker too.

Just breathe, in and out.

The copper-steel colored walls seemed to energize around me, fizzling out and replacing themselves with a view of the large hanger bay I'd been in a few minutes before, when I'd confronted my father.

"Final stage nerve connections are online, sync is holding at… seventy percent. It'll move." I didn't recognize the voice, though it was female. Clinical, cold? Detached.

"So that's good, right?" I asked. I shouldn't have been able to talk with lungs full of cryo fluid, and yet my voice was only slightly off, this was definitely some different stuff.

"That's good, Natsu. We're moving you to the launch platform now." This time I did recognize the voice, Misato. She made me feel a little better, if only because I felt like her luck ought to be contagious. The number of times we both should have died, I'd lost count.

I felt heavier, like I had a heavy blanket draped over me. I felt myself sliding backwards, but it felt almost double. Was that the link? There wouldn't be much point in such a thing if it didn't go both ways, would there?

The movement stopped with a soft jolt, the area around me was a much more open space, with rails leading from at least a dozen different chambers that looked the same as the one I'd left. Along the wall I was back-against, were more rails, leading up. Launch mechanisms.

I caught, to my far left, the Tengu, sitting on a platform bolted to said rails. It looked… a lot smaller from up here. It was amazing how quickly my perspective adapted to being inside of such a huge machine.

"Natsu, we've got the catapult locked and charged. This is your last chance to turn back." Misato offered. A way out, but at this point I'd already gone too far. I'd survived too much that should have killed me. I wasn't religious, but there still had to be a reason for it.

Maybe I was born for this. "Natsu Ikari, Unit One. I'm ready, let's go."

She nodded at me from the other side of the holo comm and turned towards the command staff. "We're doing this. Unit One, launch!"

The G-forces pressed me down into the seat and into the catapult, it was like sitting through full hard burn in space, but with the added thrill of being fired through a metal tunnel cut into a planet. Lights passed by faster than I could count, and, in a moment--

My motion seemed to stop all at once, nearly lifting me out of my seat. In front of me, a few hundred yards, the blue robot lay against a broken building, trying to get up.

Across from her, the space monster, the Angel, was staring directly at me through that bony bird mask, two black voids for eyes and that rubbery, greenish skin.

"I've made a mistake."

 

[mauke]

Don´t worry Natsu. Whit protagonist luck on your side this won´t be your last.

 

[Doctor Squared]

"But you didn't leave. The two most important days in your life are the day you're born, and the day you find out why. Today is that second day.

Click to shrink...

Well...

 

[Susano]

Well, that's a bad first encounter for Natsu and Misato, what with Misato literally punching the air out of her lungs. Couldn't be helped due to circumstances, I guess, but you could at least say sorry, Misato. I did like how Misato offered her a last chance out, though. Showed at least some respect for what Natsu wants, unlike canon Misato...

Gendo seems a bastard like always. No surprises there. And the neurolink... ouch. Meanwhile, Aoba... hm. "Praise"? I kinda didn't read it that way. In fact... Natsu gets shanghaied into this, and he's all "Isn't that cool! I wished I could do this! You have purpose now!". This comes across as almost making light of what Natsu has to do, in a way.

And yes, Natsu. Maybe you have made a mistake.

 

[Pineapple]

Maybe you have made a mistake.

Click to shrink...

Sometimes you're the swatter, sometimes you're the fly.

 

[Dealer]

Well, Natsu's an adult mecha protagonist, she can handle this space monster easily.

Also seventy percent sync seems really goddamn high for what should be her first time in an Evangelion.

 

[Susano]

Also seventy percent sync seems really goddamn high for what should be her first time in an Evangelion.

Click to shrink...

Yeah I noticed that as well. It's in the 40s in canon. But I figured, hey, with it being set literally three centuries later, who knows how the tech has changed. I mean, we know it's different, see the neurolink. So who knows, maybe such high numbers are normal and even 100% plus isn't something unusual.

As long as it doesn't reach 400%...

 

[Naughtilus]

For that matter, are the NC2318 Evas the same thing? with souls and all

 

[Pineapple]

Well, Natsu's an adult mecha protagonist, she can handle this space monster easily.

Also seventy percent sync seems really goddamn high for what should be her first time in an Evangelion.

Click to shrink...

Yeah I noticed that as well. It's in the 40s in canon. But I figured, hey, with it being set literally three centuries later, who knows how the tech has changed. I mean, we know it's different, see the neurolink. So who knows, maybe such high numbers are normal and even 100% plus isn't something unusual.

As long as it doesn't reach 400%...

Click to shrink...

Well, energy technology is better too. No cables, there's a different form of endurance limitation on an Evangelion.