[X] Plan: Spreading Waves -SHIKINAMI-
-[X] Deploy Unit-00. This is a dangerous play that will absolutely piss off the Steering Committee.
--[X] Deploy her above-ground and have her jump down through the crater ontop of the Angel, shooting it with the crossbow and activating her AT Field when she collides with it to try and divert it at an angle and make it crash-land into the artificial lake.
-[X]Have someone rescue Hikari?
--[X] Asuka
-[X]Cut Unit-01's sync rate?
--[X] Keep it where it is
-[X]Re-arm Asuka? (Will take an entire round)
--[X] Yes, with the Naginata
-[X] Instructions for Shinji
--[X] Get into position so that, if Rei can't completely divert it during her airdrop, he can try and push the Angel into the lake with his AT Field when it comes down. Once the Angel makes landfall, try and break its AT Field from the side of the shore, pincering it between his own AT Field and Asuka and Hikari's lakeside and Rei's from above.
-[X] Instructions for Asuka
--[X] Rearm, plug a new power cable into Unit-02. Then grab another power cable, jump on one of the warships in the lake and use the extra cable haul up Hikari out of the lake. Once the Angel comes down (hopefully in the lake, and try not to be directly under it when it lands) keep trying to break its AT Field from atop the warship, pincering it between her and Hikari's AT Fields and Shinji's shoreside and Rei's from above.
-[X] Instructions for Hikari
--[X] Grab the power cable that Asuka sends down and climb up onto the warship, then plug in. Once the Angel comes down, help Asuka break the AT Field from atop the warship, pincering it between her and Asuka's own AT Fields and Shinji's shoreside and Rei's from above.
Gendo puts up token resistance to your request to send Rei out to maintain face, but he's obviously already made his mind up. Fuyutsuki, on the other hand, vigorously protests, telling Gendo that there's no way the Committee will stand for this. Gendo says it's an emergency. It simply can't be helped. Fuyutsuki tells him that the Committee won't accept that as an excuse. Gendo says nothing.
You inform Rei of your plan, and she accedes. She sounds nervous. You launch her.
Shinji gets into position near the Angel lazily floating through the subterranean air of the Geofront. The paint drips down viscously onto the ruined forest. You take a breath to compose your thoughts, then give Asuka her orders. You're firm, concise, and detached with your instructions. In the end, it only partially matters, because Asuka wants to kill this thing, and you telling her to break off is not conducive to her killing this thing. You have to let her have it, unfortunately. You explain why her current plan of action is stupid and reckless and will get her killed. She can
handle it, she insists. You tell her she can't. You've seen her performance lately. She cannot. Even if she was in top form and Unit-02 wasn't broken by the Angel's attacks, there would still be a significant risk of failure. She has no weapon and she's running out of power. She's going to lose, and there's nothing she can do to change that. You will cut off support for Unit-02 and eject her Plug if she doesn't break off.
Shinji loses his patience, and uncharacteristically for him, tells Asuka to stop screwing around and go rescue Hikari. He doesn't need her to get herself killed to prove some kind of dumb point. Is she stupid? Hikari also says she would really like some help, if it's not too much trouble. Shinji and Rei have got the front, but you're telling Asuka to help in the back, so it must be for a good reason, Hikari implores her.
Asuka breaks off, saying nothing to you. She finds a power station and jams the Umbilical Cable into Unit-02's back before stomping her way towards one of the warships. The instruments tell you that Asuka's blood pressure, cortisol levels, and general negative emotions are spiking. Ritsuko leans over to you and says her psychograph is showing alarming amounts of something called destrudo. You have only a vague idea of what that means specifically, but you know it's bad. You rub your temples. You feel like there's a very high chance she's going to do something stupid and self-destructive to prove she's worth something to you.
For the time being, Asuka is complying with your orders.
Unit-00 steps onto the rim of the hole where your armor plates used to be and jumps.
Roll: 1d12; result: 10 (
pass)
Roll 3d10; result: 16 (
pass)
Rei does an acrobatic maneuver that's a little clumsy, but she manages to position herself above the Angel nonetheless. The fall of Unit-00 feels like an eternity, but it happens in mere seconds. In that span of time, Rei fires round after round at the Angel, all of which hit their marks, but all of which bouncing harmlessly off its AT-Field. The force applied doesn't push it in any particular direction, but it does get the Angel's attention. It slows its spiraling descent towards the floor of the Geofront and begins turning its body back towards Rei, giving her an opportunity to collide with it directly.
She reaches out and gropes towards the Angel's backbone, just barely brushing it with Unit-00's fingertips. She instead twists her body towards it and slams her AT-Field into the Angel's. This moves the needle, and the Angel's body whips upwards in a long U shape before plummeting towards the lake. As it does so, it emits a strange series of low clicks or thuds that remind you of vaguely of large metal gears grinding against each other.
Roll: 1d100; result: 23 (
fail)
Unit-00 does not manage to right itself before landing, and instead of hitting the water, it crashes in a heap onto one of the shores, dangerously close to Unit-01. The force of the impact topples what few trees in the area were left standing and buries Unit-00 in a small crater. Its AT-Field wavers and expands outwards massively, enough to knock Unit-01 off its feet, before weakening and returning to normal. Ritsuko says Rei's psychograph readings have spiked. She leans in closer to you and whispers in your ear that she thinks the Angel has been
talking to her again, and whatever it said had an adverse effect on Rei.
The Angel crashes into the lake below with a mighty splash a second or two after Rei. A pink plume of foam, hundreds of meters tall, erupts from the water's surface as it sinks into the lake. Even when violently smacked by Unit-00, it seems to fall eerily slow towards the water. Unfortunately for you, Asuka's arguing with you and general lack of focus has resulted in her rescue of Hikari being delayed, and she's just barely pulling herself up onto the warship when the Angel hits the water. She's yet to rearm herself. She loses her grip as the waves violently rock the warship, and she falls in.
The water around where the Angel fell roils and bubbles, while a growing cloud of red paint rapidly spreads from the point of impact like the aftermath of a shark attack. The Angel reemerges, awkwardly positioning its body in Rei and Shinji's direction and readies itself to fire a projectile at them. The lake's surface has turned a dull purple, and the color is growing redder and redder as the Angel continues dumping its fluid into the water around it.
You hear a scream. It's Asuka, and she's dragging herself onto the warship. Alarms blare. The substance, while still quite diluted by the water of the lake, has gotten into Unit-02's wounds and is eating through its tissue like acid. Even at Asuka's low sync rate, the pain is excruciating. Unit-02 convulses and shakes as it leans over the edge of the ship on all fours, trying to locate the now-dropped Umbilical Cable intended for Hikari in the murky water.
Unit-03 is not doing much better. The damage to its armor by the JSSDF is comparable to the damage Asuka's sustained. Ritsuko's team did what they could to seal the worst of the gaps, but there's only so much that could be done when higher priority tasks included rewiring its nervous system, reattaching its arms, and making sure its knees are going the right way around again. There's no sugarcoating it; Hikari is gasping and shrieking in pain. And crying a little. Gendo orders her synchronization cut further than it already has, which would render Unit-03 almost immobile, according to Ibuki. But it's not like she was that mobile to begin with, and she's in debilitating pain anyway. Reluctantly, Ibuki brings her synchronization rate down to just barely above the startup index.
Shinji manages to dive on top of Rei to prevent her from getting lasered by the Angel. His AT-Field deflects most of the damage, though the attack leaves visible burns on Unit-01's back. Shinji yelps in pain.
Asuka says she'll be right back, so don't cut her synchronization rate, the words coming out in a strained, choked whisper, and then dives into the water. Alerts indicate that Unit-02 is sustaining damage once more.
MOVEMENT IV
~Ombré~
Now what?
[ ] Instructions for Rei
[ ] Instructions for Shinji
[ ] Instructions for Asuka
[ ] Instructions for Hikari
