The Second Coming [NGE]

[Ranma-sensei]

I believe Asuka needs an intervention - and Shinji seems to think the same.

"She's a maker, isn't she?"

Click to shrink...

Shinji: "Nope; a keeper. "

Forgoing what Strypgia already mentioned, there are several other things I found:

Spoiler: Corrections

The airplanes are gray because it's impractical to paint otherwise them except for demonstrations or special events.

Click to shrink...

You need to change word order on that.

That was probably the first time that morning she had just stopped to do nothing—nothing but think.

Click to shrink...

With how your sentence is going, that last part seems a little awkward.

The film speed up.

Click to shrink...

That should be 'sped'.

That was the hooded stranger, sitting on my left. She "watched" the film too—though how she did so I can't say, for the hood should've blocked any eyes the stranger may have had.

Click to shrink...

I didn't answer the stranger. I followed her gaze to the movie and keyed in on some dialogue.

Click to shrink...

In these two paragraphs, you are referring to the stranger as a 'she'. Regardless if the stranger really turns out to be Yui (this mistake with the pronouns is the sole reason for this theory), this should be changed to the ambiguous 'they' you're using everywhere else.

"Shouldn't you be in bed?" she said.

Click to shrink...

I propose you describe her as something like tiredly asking, or something in that vein, to get the point across that she seems overly tired (which the rest of the scene implies).

 

[Muphrid]

Just one remark I'd like to make on the above (the other fixes are relatively straightforward):

Spoiler

In these two paragraphs, you are referring to the stranger as a 'she'. Regardless if the stranger really turns out to be Yui (this mistake with the pronouns is the sole reason for this theory), this should be changed to the ambiguous ' they' you're using everywhere else.

Click to shrink...

In this passage, the stranger should be consistently referred to as "she" or "her" as appropriate. I've identified several instances of gender-neutral pronouns in this passage that will be corrected.

 

[Muphrid]

Author's Notes: Story Structure and Revision

Though this is not my first long story, I tried to make some improvements to how I structure and order my writing. I used a master outline document that went into more small-scale detail, at an earlier stage, than I had ever done before. To guide me, I developed a story arc structure that suited my goals. I divided the story into parts and chapters to try to maintain a good sense of momentum as a serial story, delivered weekly. All of this was a major work in progress, with continuous improvements and corrections throughout.



More and more, I feel that outlining is a crucial skill for developing a long story. The Second Coming's outlines total over 150 thousand words—nearly as much as the actual story.

I wrote the story originally through "Character Sketch" with only a broad outline, which consisted of a few changes I wanted to make compared to First Ones. After taking a break to write Auld Lang Syne, I came back to the story during the spring of 2015, and I realized that I'd be better served plotting out the story in full and minute detail.

You might wonder if that's productive, given that, by the time I wrote many of those scenes, I ended up doing something different. I viewed these outlines as approximations of an idea. Often times, when I started to draw up a story arc just before writing it, I'd disregard these notes completely and draw up a new outline, but I'd consult them again later, or partially throughout the process. That gave me the flexibility to discard what I thought didn't quite work but take what I liked. For instance, in my original notes for "The Puncture Engine," Shinji and Asuka go to dinner with Maya and Aoba. I eventually realized that them all going to dinner off-base wouldn't make a ton of sense, but I kept the overall idea of the dinner scene nonetheless.



It was in the development of Misato's arc, "Cherry Blossoms in Faded Gold," that I put together a new idea for an act structure. The arc was giving me massive problems: at one point, I had a concept of the National Square bombing leading to a hostage situation, and that idea gave me fits. I needed something to give order to different ideas I had in mind for the storyline. The three ordeal structure I came up with helped me immensely.

The three ordeal structure is far from revolutionary. An astute reader might recognize that it is only a few tweaks away from the three act structure. The differences are in how the acts are divided; the ordeal structure is more particular to the kind of story I like to tell: with emphasis on character development as the major turning point between phases of a story.

In the three ordeal structure, there are actually five phases of a story arc: a call to action; a first, second, and third ordeals; and an aftermath.

In the call to action, the protagonist is given a choice to follow a new path or course of action. Typically, there are factors they must consider before doing so. This should be related to the protagonist's central flaw—the issue that is to be examined and conquered through the course of the story arc. Eventually, the protagonist is persuaded to heed the call, and we progress to the first ordeal.

The first ordeal exposes the protagonist's flaw. For my purposes, I try to pair the first ordeal with an ostensible success. The protagonist should succeed in some way that still exposes the flaw. This helps keep the mood of the story from turning dark too quickly. In doing so, the flaw that is exposed is often hidden from others; often, only the protagonist knows about it, feels it, or is even aware of it. The first ordeal convinces the protagonist to take action, but now, they act to fix themselves, or to compensate for this flaw.

The second ordeal takes place once the protagonist has had time to try to correct their flaw. They protagonist has done so in a way that is incomplete or ineffective; they overreact, or they outwardly deny the problem. The second ordeal exposes the flaw for all to see: it is undeniable, and it leads to the protagonist's lowest point in the arc. Thematically, it is essential that failure to deal with the flaw also leads to a failure with respect to the overarching plot. A battle is lost due to hubris, or some other disaster results.

On the way to the third ordeal, the protagonist takes the time to truly come to terms with the issue. This is a time of healing and self-insight, and it prepares them for one final conflict, in which their increased self-awareness leads them to victory.

The aftermath, then, is the protagonist's just reward. This may be as short as a few lines or as long a scene or entire chapter. Those who lay the groundwork for nirvana have their time to relish it.

I didn't develop this structure until I was trying to fix "Cherry Blossoms," so the first two arcs don't really fit the structure. I did use it to try to make revisions, but even then, these are piecemeal and incomplete. Still, the three ordeal structure proved instrumental to me developing good story arcs for Asuka and Misato, and to a lesser extent Rei. Asuka's arc is the closest to what I'd consider "textbook" for it: Asuka is given the opportunity to help the effort with her own ingenuity; it doesn't work 100% right the first time, and she works overtime to try to fix it; that worries Shinji and makes him blink before trusting her in a pinch; Asuka realizes that she needs to find happiness in something that doesn't involve her besting others, and she does so by working with people in the final battle.

While the ordeal structure is for one protagonist, when using first-person there's an additional wrinkle: Shinji is the narrator, and he might have a character arc parallel to any other character's. Indeed, the Asuka arc there could be written just as easily from Shinji's point of view, emphasizing how Asuka's attitude toward achieving greatness reflects on his natural inclination toward making do with the status quo.



The three-ordeal structure helps me develop overall story arcs, but arcs as long as the ones I write would be dissatisfying if their climaxes were the only payoff.

I'm not sure if there's another word for what I call payoff, especially if there is one in the academic literature, but I consider the concept crucial. Payoff is something the audience wants to see: Shinji and Asuka having a smooch, say, or Nozomi overpowering a persistent Angel. The time between delivering payoffs, and how satisfying those payoffs are, is big element of pacing.

Managing the time and size of payoffs is an important way of influencing the audience's mood. Since there are many different kinds of payoffs, sometimes one type is more appropriate than another, especially considering plot progression.

Still, knowing when to deliver payoff rather than build toward it is something I've yet to find a good rule for. In Misato's arc, I try to defuse the tense beginning with a series of payoffs: Asuka trying to calm Shinji's nerves, Misato treating him warmly, and successful efforts against Seele in general and then against Lorenz. In Asuka's arc, there's less of this: Shinji and Nozomi have an amusing scene, and Shinji takes Asuka aside to keep her from putting her foot too far in her mouth.

Of late, I've begun to feel that I spend too much time trying to do buildup and not enough delivering payoff. The stories that people seem to enjoy the most have a higher ratio of payoff to buildup. This is something I'm actively looking into going forward.



Having a structure to build story arcs from is one thing; you have to have some stories to tell with that in order to build a larger piece. Then, you have to decide how you want to deliver that content.

Coming from First Ones, I had a couple arcs that I liked, but there was a lot of work needed to expand on them. The introductory arc and the Rei arc were pretty good, I felt, and they just had to be adapted to fit circumstances. The Misato arc there didn't involve Shinji, so that had to change. The Nozomi arc was wrapped up too quickly, so that also needed adjustments. Asuka deserved an arc to herself, befitting her status as a major character. And then, the ending needed to tie all of that together.

I'll talk about the specifics of those character arcs a little later; for now, it's sufficient just to think of the story divided in this way. I conceived of The Second Coming as a text form of a twelve-episode anime, with six arcs, each consisting of two episodes. The original file structure of the story reflected this.

But eventually, I realized that I wanted to deliver this story as a serial novel on a regular schedule. That wasn't totally foreign to me—I did it a long time ago with a Ranma 1/2 piece, but I couldn't keep the schedule at the time. Still, that choice devalued the "12-episode" format I was going for. Delivering a novel of this length over 12 weeks would've been very difficult. I doubted I would get timely feedback, and it would leave little time to make adjustments in case of a significant rewrite.

Instead, I turned to my canonical source for the serial novel: A Tale of Two Cities. It's easy enough to get a copy online nowadays, and using that, I could see that Dickens typically hovered around four thousand words or so for his installments. I could do that; the most difficult thing about it would be coming up with chapter titles.

In the end, I abolished the chapter structure I originally had, made each installment a chapter, gave those chapters names, and gave each arc its own name.

That, in turn, put more focus on the individual chapters. Publishing them serially meant that each chapter needed a good ending point. As a rule, I try to make sure each chapter sees some significant change in the overall circumstances of the story. If a chapter hasn't done that, it's not long enough. If a chapter has already done that, and threatens to do it two or three times, it might be too long. Ending points also depend on what feeling I want to leave the readers with. "Sisters" ends on a somewhat positive note, leading into the final battle against the gyroscopic Angel, and the change in circumstances is all about the relationship between Shinji and Nozomi, not in the overall war. "Threads" ends on a hugely down note as we enter the final arc, with sacrifice being the only salvation from mankind facing the brink of Fourth Impact.



As said previously, I wrote nearly all of this story before beginning to publish it. I only cheated a little bit in that I was still working on the final three chapters by the time I started publishing to Sufficient Velocity. By that point, the ending was very clear and already well in motion, and I was confident the beginning would not be substantially affected.

Writing out (nearly) a whole story before publishing it has had great benefits for me. In Auld Lang Syne, it let me edit in a few characters to flesh out a group, characters I only came up with near the end of the piece. In general, it lets me improve callbacks, foreshadowing, and overall acknowledgement of continuity. For example, the idea that the control room would be laid out more like a NASA Mission Control room came after I wrote Shinji's first tour of Manoah Base, so I retroactively fixed that scene to use the newer model. Originally, Shinji had recurring visions of meeting Rei and the hooded stranger on top of an ephemeral tower, but I eventually came up with the idea of the Theater of Eternity and thought it better, so I edited and fixed those earlier scenes. The hooded stranger herself was originally referred to as veiled and also appeared as Gendo, but I changed the overall look to the current one—a hooded figure whose eyes cannot be seen and whose hands are hidden beneath her sleeves—for various reasons.

There are other elements that are referred to in advance before coming into focus. Shinji and Asuka discuss the puncture engine in the first half of "Mirror Image." Sasaki appears in "From Hell's Heart" and plays a minor role in the testing of the puncture engine before being used heavily in the fifth arc. Shinji's vision of Nozomi's future in "Fugue" had some vague ramblings from Lorenz and such, but that vision becomes much more concrete in "To Become One."

Various scenes have been tweaked or improved since their original writing. I changed an endpoint between "Tokyo-2" and "Project Manoah" to increase the feeling of forward momentum, for instance. Misato has an additional moment in "Whole Heart" to emphasize her change of attitude. The whole roles of Ishikawa, Suzuki, and Misato in the third arc needed a great deal of polish, and the time allowed for editing greatly helped there.

And finally, perhaps the one thing I value most about writing a story so far in advance of publication is the guarantee I can make to the reader: this story will be finished. It has a beginning, but more importantly, it has an end. The SV publication of The Second Coming will, barring unforeseen calamity, end on March 16, 2017.

 

[Muphrid]

Editing changelog: 4.4 fixes, 4.5 SV polish edits, AN polish edits for story structure section

4.4/Soul Cleaver:

• Fixed issues raised by @Strypgia/#199 - Did not address the "world-class physicist" comment, satisfied with letting that stand from Shinji's point of view.
• Fixed issues raised by @Ranma-sensei/#201 - Did not address the "nothing but think" line. Fixed pronouns in accordance with statement in #202.

4.5/Past's Reflection:

• Added a little extra narration to Shinji in the lobby
• Tweaked some dialogue with Kyoko
• Misato now does not deliberately invoke Shinji's concerns to Asuka
• Changed some body language and actions as Asuka confronts Shinji

second-an: wording fixes, added passage on writing the story in advance

4.5/Past's Reflection tomorrow.

The Second Coming ends in 16 weeks.

 

[Muphrid]

24. Past's Reflection

I used to think the sanest people in the world were the ones in the hospital.

I know that probably wasn't always true, but after Third Impact, we all needed a little help. Some of us found common ground during Instrumentality, but that just helped us understand each other. It didn't help us survive what was to come. The people in the hospital, at least, had someone else looking out for them. The rest of us just had to deal with reality on our own.

That said, I think I preferred being a little insane to living in that place. The place was too white, too clean, and too inert. And like in the mountain base, the lights were always on.

When I came to visit Aunt Kyoko, a nurse led me to a meeting area—a room with blue stools bolted to the floor. Hospital staff manned all the exits in pairs, even though Aunt Kyoko was the only patient there.

Aunt Kyoko didn't even look at me as the door opened or as I sat across from her. She was busy. She played go on an electronic board—no moving pieces, nothing you can swallow, that sort of thing. Tapping on intersections put stones down, and all captures were automatic. She played against herself. I'd asked before, on a prior visit, why she did such a thing. She said she had two different strategies she wanted to try, so she would play black one way and white the other. She let the game decide for her which strategy was best.

Forcing Aunt Kyoko to acknowledge me would've gone poorly, so I let her play out her next move. Her breathing was slow and steady. Her blue eyes went back and forth, scanning the board, and every now and then, she adjusted her square-rimmed glasses, always the same way: first on her right side, then on her left, and only with her right hand.

She looked a lot like Asuka, too. The glasses were unique to her, of course, and her features were sharper and a little worn. And when she would look at me—at anyone, really—her whole body wavered a little bit. Just maintaining steady eye contact was a bit of a strain.

That's why, often enough, when we talked she didn't look at me.

"Would you like to play?" she asked, still watching the board.

"I haven't had the time to practice, I'm afraid."

She clicked her tongue at that. "You won't get better if you don't play."

"You're right; I'm sorry."

She laughed, and I did, too.

"This time you're the one looking a bit worse for wear," she said, sliding the game board aside. She met my gaze—trembling notwithstanding—and went on. "So, should I guess what the trouble is?"

I scratched the back of my head. "Uh…"

"Is she pregnant?"

"What?" My throat half closed up. "No!"

"But not for lack of trying."

"No!" I looked aside. "Well, there's trying, and there's trying."

Aunt Kyoko laughed to herself. "I see! Well, perhaps that's for the best. If you're not trying, then that's no good. It's better to have children on your own terms."

"I think so, too."

A silence.

"So," she said, hands folded and putting on a smile. "What's going on with my daughter?"

I sighed, and with some effort, I told her about the puncture engine and how Asuka had worked on it over the previous few weeks and months. In listening to this, Aunt Kyoko closed her eyes and nodded, as though I'd told her the sun comes up in the morning and sets at night.

"Some things never change, do they?" she quipped. "We were all the same way, back in my time."

" 'We'?" I asked.

"Yui, Naoko, and I. The three of us thought we could change the world." She laughed, and she drummed her fingers on the white plastic table. "I guess we all did, in different ways. And everyone who's come after us—Naoko's daughter, as well as mine—has gone about things with that same belief. It's the only way we knew how to work."

"That's what I'm worried about," I said, tapping two fingers on the table. "Asuka's going about this at full tilt, and I don't know if that's good. I don't know if she's doing it right; I don't know what she's going to do when it's done. So what am I supposed to do?"

Aunt Kyoko took off her glasses. She folded them up and placed them on the table, and she rubbed her eyes. "When Asuka told me the Katsuragi girl had made an offer to her, I told her not to take it."

"You did?" My mouth hung open. "She didn't say a word about that."

"That's Asuka," she said with a shrug. "But if it were up to me, I wouldn't see her work on this."

"Even with all this? With the invasion?"

"Does that matter?" She sat back, arms folded, and stared past me. "Yui thought mankind would inevitably fizzle out—and soon, at that. I'm not sure she was wrong. Either way, that's why it was important to her to find a solution soon."

"A solution for what?"

"For entropy—for mortality. She wanted to find a way for us to persist, if not in body and mind then in spirit, in memory. There's nothing more pressing than the destruction of the human race, is there? And yet…" Her eyes came back to me, and she trembled once more. "Whether that fate awaits us tomorrow or a billion years from now, it doesn't change that there's only so much you personally have to give—you and Asuka, both."

I frowned, and I ran my fingers through my hair. "So she should just stop?"

"Look at me," she said with a sad smile. "You want her following in my footsteps?"

"You—you're still here," I said. "And you have people who love you."

"And I'm thankful for that, believe me, but…" She pulled at her resident's gown. "Look at me now."

I bowed my head.

"You don't want to follow in Yui's footsteps, either, I think," said Aunt Kyoko. "When I said I didn't want someone joining this new Eva program or what-have-you, I meant that—and not just for Asuka."

I touched her hand and nodded. "I understand. Thank you."

She smiled at that, and we chatted about other, trivial things for a time—about sailboats and German candy, about small things that could bring us joy even though they didn't matter that much.

When it was time for me to leave, Aunt Kyoko went back to playing go against herself. Two of the nurses came to take her back to her room, leaving the meeting area empty. It was only as she reached the door that Aunt Kyoko stopped in her tracks and called back to me, saying,

"Oh, Shinji?"

"Yes?"

"You and Asuka should come together next time."

I nodded sadly. "I'm sorry I missed your birthday."

"You should be. Asuka's getting better at cooking, but…" She winced.

"I'm working on that."

"Good. I'd like to see her improve next year. Or if not, I'm relying on you to rescue me."

The door to the residents' wing opened, and the sting of rubbing alcohol made me rub my nose.



Once I was back on the base, I arranged for an appointment with Misato and Maya. My concerns were simple: Asuka was working too hard on the device and had invested too much of herself in it. I asked them to be cautious about her work. That was easier said than done, however.

"The truth of the matter is," said Maya, "while most of us on the team have more experience with the Eva, Asuka is creative and innovative in her own way. She's innovative to the point that some of us on the team have difficulty following her sometimes."

Misato made a face at that, like she'd just swallowed a cherry pit. "Are you telling me you can't reliably vouch for her work?"

"I'm saying it takes time."

Time was something we were short of. The Fractal Angel was on the move again, this time making for Australia. An improved and tested puncture engine was a high priority, if at all possible to achieve. In the end, they left it to me to monitor Asuka's behavior and wellbeing.

And how was Asuka doing? When I saw her later that afternoon, she was over the moon.

"We've got it!"

She barged into my office, took a seat in my guest chair, and leaned back, beaming.

"It's gonna work," she said. "Count on it."

Asuka had worked all night on modifications to the engine—modifications that Maya scoured and rechecked independently, much to Asuka's annoyance, but ultimately, Maya cleared the changes. The engine had been reinstalled in the Eva, and Nozomi would soon be on the way with Unit-14 to the battle site.

With the bulk of her work done, Asuka was content to kick back and relax. "I've got some simulations running on some alternative tweaks we might make mid-battle," she said, "but those will take as long as they take. In the meantime, I want to get at least a 10-battle winning streak in the Battle Tower. Or, we could go see Hikari. I think that would cheer her up since Nozomi's going out to fight again. What do you think?"

"Have you slept?" I asked her.

She rolled her eyes. "You can sleep when there's nothing else worth doing. Have you been sleeping?"

"What do you mean?"

"Were you sleeping, or did you work through lunch?"

"I was working."

"On what?"

I turned over a sheet of paper and scanned my eyes over it. I have no idea, to this day, what it actually said. "Stuff."

"Uh-huh. How about the backup pilots? Or Nozomi? What's going on with them?"

I shrugged. "The backups don't have the same synch ratios as Nozomi. And she's got enough on her plate."

Asuka scooted her chair up and leaned forward. "So, what have you been doing?"

"I—I review the reports about the upcoming missions so Nozomi can be ready."

Asuka nodded at that, looking aside. "So you can relay orders more clearly."

"Or make suggestions myself."

"Right." Asuka closed her eyes and rubbed her temple, looking tired. "Fine. Well, let me know if there's anything you want to do tonight, all right?"

Not that there was much we could do. As nice as it would've been to see Horaki and Toji, going into town and then up north would've taken time—time we didn't have if the mission began early in the morning. No, we stayed in that night, and Asuka cursed her handheld game out when she could only get a 9-battle winning streak in the Battle Tower.



The next day.

The target: Canberra, capital of Australia.

The enemy: the Fractal Angel and its new protector—a spider-like Angel, one with eight needle-thin legs spread radially around a disc-shaped central body.

The Australians fought tooth-and-nail through the streets of the downtown district. Unlike the Vietnamese or Koreans, they weren't content to pull back and bombard the enemy's walkers or keep the "harpies" at bay with flak cannons.

The Aussies made the enemy fight for every meter, and so the Spider came into the city. Its needle-like legs pierced tanks' armor and the steel frames of skyscrapers alike. The Fractal Angel stayed back. It settled down over the Parliament House—the seat of Australian government, appropriately shaped like a pair of boomerangs. The Fractal hovered over the building and the lawn outside it, building up power for its ultimate attack.

"Ops, the Australians are ready," reported the communications controller.

Hyuga nodded. He stood one step below Misato's desk, and with his arms folded across his chest, he scanned the three forward screens of the control room.

"All right," he said. "Let's kill some Angels today. Tell the ADF we're good to go."

The officer relayed his message, and Australians made their move: their tanks and armored vehicles did an about-face, retreating to the north and west. They opened up on the Spider Angel with artillery fire, shelling its central body and the skyscrapers around it with abandon. What had once been a battlefield dominated by twisted and broken metal erupted in pockets of fire.

The Spider Angel gave chase. Its legs pierced the pavement beneath them like picks to a sheet of ice. Its central body bobbed up and down as it pursued a fleet of armored vehicles, and a horde of walkers followed the Angel like footmen behind a knight's charge.

"That's our cue," said Hyuga, making a fist. "Launch Eva!"

Unit-14 dropped from an airborne launch vehicle. Encased in a black aerodynamic sheath, the Eva spiraled down from altitude. The sheath's upper and lower halves separated at skyscraper height, and the Eva tumbled onto the ground before coming up for a ten-point landing:

Right at the feet of the Fractal, with not a blade of grass disturbed on the parliament grounds.

"And people said gym class was a waste of time," said Nozomi. "Hey, Angel! Surprise!"

She flipped a switch on the controls and punched at the Fractal's center. The Angel turned one of its points toward the Eva, and the Angel's AT field layers bent and buckled, forming angled shock waves, like from the wake of a ship.

"Is this right?" asked Nozomi. "This isn't working as well as the first time!"

Maya rose from her station and got on the communications loop. Looking at me, she said, "It's drawing from the energy stores it's been saving for its anti-AT field attack. We'll have to deplete all of that energy first before we can break through. She needs to hold on."

"If you can wait it out, we have a chance," I said. "Do you feel anything? Hear anything unusual?"

"Not too much; it's just pushing back against me a bit."

I peered past Maya to Asuka, who gave me a knowing nod. I smiled, let out a breath, and sat a little further back in my chair.

The first AT field layer snapped and reconnected around the Eva and Angel.

"Ops, pattern yellow has changed trajectory," said the detection controller. "It's on its way back to Unit-14. ETA three minutes."

Hyuga grimaced, and he looked across the aisle. "Maya, what can we do to speed this up?"

"We're working on that," she said, poring over a binder full of material as a few of her colleagues gathered around, "but bear in mind: this engine is still in an experimental stage. There might not be a way to adjust it like this that we can guarantee will work and pose minimal risk to the pilot."

"But if no one else has something, I might have a solution." Asuka rose from her seat, touching two fingers to her breastbone. "I thought something like this might happen. I ran some sims overnight to test different configurations. I have one that works—in theory."

Maya coughed. "Asuka—a simulation is not reality."

"I know that, but just look at the data! Tell me you think this isn't good enough to salvage this operation."

Maya and her colleagues gathered around Asuka's station. A flurry of comments and half-formed thoughts followed.

"No, I can't—how can you even follow this?" said one technician.

"Okay, that's good. We can do that, and it'll probably work, but you can't guess what will happen to the contamination ratio, can you? Or can you?" said another.

"This is so fast," said Maya, shaking her head. "Too fast. How are we supposed to know, inside of two minutes…?"

There was a crackle in my ear. "Shinji," said Misato, "this is on a private loop."

I glanced back reflexively. The general's eyes were on me, but she spoke quietly enough that no one but she, Hyuga, and I could actually hear.

"Regardless of what Captain Ibuki says, what do you think of this?"

I about gagged on the spot. I glanced back at Asuka, who was going over finer points of her data with the rest of the qualified controllers. She gestured loudly with a pen in hand, nearly drawing on the screen to make her points. And as I watched her, my heartbeat settled down. The way her hair moved as she talked, how the fabric of her white labcoat pulled and twisted as she gestured—those details were all unmistakably characteristic of her. Every fiber of her being was laid bare for the controllers on duty to see.

And what did that show me?

I turned back to Misato, and I gestured to Asuka with one hand. "She believes she's right," I said, smiling.

Misato raised an eyebrow. "And?"

I pursed my lips and sighed. "And she needs to believe that."

Misato's eyes flickered to Asuka. The General kept two fingers on her headset, even as she navigated the controls to broadcast to the room.

"All right, listen up everyone."

The room froze. Asuka and the other controllers stopped in their tracks, even midway through a plot of data.

"We're not going to try an experimental set of modifications on this timescale for a decision," said Misato. "Captain Ibuki, you've said that that's exactly what we'd be doing in trying to make a fix so quickly—isn't that right?"

Maya nodded. "It is, General."

"Then we have no choice. The Australians have already evacuated their government. Tell them we're aborting the operation. Start on the abort and extraction plan. Get Nozomi, the Eva, and the puncture engine home. Let's do this right next time."

"But Misato!" Asuka stormed up the center aisle. "I have an idea here; what is the harm in a short, controlled trial?"

Misato left her seat, and she took her headset off, holding the device by the microphone boom. "You can't know that what you have will work, or what dangers it will introduce," she said, standing toe-to-toe with Asuka. "It's not about being right. It's about following a sound process. We shouldn't rush things unless we have nothing to lose. We have a lot to lose right now."

"So do the Australians; they're going to lose a whole city!"

Sighing, Misato took Asuka by the shoulders with a light touch. She lowered her voice, saying, "Please, Asuka. I know this is important to you. Let's talk about this later, all right?"

Frowning, Asuka nudged Misato's hand aside. "What are you saying?"

Misato's eyes went to me, and that look didn't escape Asuka.

"What did you tell her?" she said, shaking. "What have you been telling people about me, Shinji?"

"Control, third pattern detected!" cried a controller.

Misato raced back around her desk, putting her headset back on. "What? Where?"

"Right on top of Unit-14!"

A dark mist formed above Unit-14 and the Fractal Angel. The mist coalesced as ephemeral tendrils, yanking the Eva off the ground.

"What—what—hey!" Nozomi lurched about in the entry plug. "Ikari, what's going on? How did something like this sneak up on you guys?"

"I—" My mouth moved, but hardly a word came out for several seconds as I fumbled and stuttered. Eventually, I sputtered out, "I don't know! We're trying to get you out of there; we're already in abort procedure. Just hold on!"

"Abort procedure? How am I supposed to get out of here when I'm hanging fifty meters in the air?"

A silence. As Nozomi struggled to break the Mist Angel's tendrils, Hyuga took one ear off his headset and stepped up to Misato's station.

"Play dead," he said.

Misato drummed her fingers on the table, looking like she'd had a rotten piece of fish for lunch. "All right," she said. "Do it."

And so we left Nozomi there. We left Nozomi at the epicenter as the N2 weapons dropped on Canberra. The Australians wouldn't let the Angels get away scot-free. They blew up their own city, scorching the earth, rather than let the Angels escape unscathed.

And all Nozomi could do was curl into a ball and ride out the blast. If nothing else, the shockwaves did blast her free of the Mist Angel's grasp, but to see Unit-14 bounce sickeningly through the forest of Eucalyptus outside of town was a hard pill to swallow. The Eva was broken, battered, and burned. Nozomi probably shared at least one or two of those qualities, as well.

But they were alive, and with the Eva powered down to minimal levels, the Angels moved on for their next targets none the wiser.

Rescue crews made their way to the forest to retrieve Unit-14, and when the threat abated, most of the controllers were released to rest and recover.

That included me, in theory, but I knew better than to expect such a thing.

After all, even as we rose to leave, the wounded look in Asuka's eyes was still there.



Once the Eva had been retrieved and the controllers released from their stations, Asuka and I headed back to our quarters, but we didn't say anything to each other on the way. We didn't exchange a single word until Asuka tapped her ID card on the reader and allowed me to go in first: there, she closed the door behind me and stood in the doorway, saying,

"What did you tell Misato?"

She leaned back against the closed door, arms folded, with the white labcoat tight around her body.

I gulped, undid a button at my collar, and said, "I told her I've been worried about you. That's all."

"Really?" she said, an eyebrow raised. "That's all?"

"She didn't want to do anything about it, at the time. Nobody's trying to work against you."

"No?" Asuka pointed back toward the control room. "Then what do you call that?"

"Asuka, Asuka, look—Misato—" I had both my hands in front of me, even though I didn't know what to do with them. "Misato made a judgment call; that's all! Honest!"

She narrowed her eyes, studying me like a hawk. "And you agree with her?"

I let out a breath, rubbed my forehead, and said, "I think you've been working hard on this—maybe too hard."

"What do you know about that?"

I flinched. "Asuka—"

"It's not a crime to put in a little goddamn overtime. I'm trying to help save the world here!"

"But that's not all you're trying to do."

Her eyes flashed. "What do you mean by that?"

"You don't remember that dinner with Maya?" I asked, raising both eyebrows. "You don't remember how you all but said that you were a better scientist than her?"

"That's because I am!"

"But this is no time to be trying to prove it! This is dangerous, Asuka!" I stomped my foot. "It's dangerous for Nozomi, and it's dangerous for you!"

Asuka narrowed her eyes. "You would think that."

I blinked. "Excuse me?"

"This is exactly how you are, Shinji," she said, stepping closer. "This is exactly how you've always been. Don't stick up. Don't stand out. Just sink into the shadows and never mind what's going on around you."

"I don't know what you—"

"Is that how you want me to be?" she asked, her voice growing louder. "You want me to be just like you? You want me to go do trivial good deeds anonymously, like that's actually supposed to matter? You want me to go feed the homeless, even when I could do so much more? Should I sit at home and stare at letters from angry people, offering empty words about hope and strength?"

I balled both hands into fists, but I kept them at my side. "Asuka!"

"The world doesn't need another useless person, Shinji!" she roared, "And I will not act like that even if you ask me to!"

Trembling, I shouted back, "Then you're going to end up just like your mom!"

Her eyes widened, and she let out a sound between a squeal and a shriek. She took one step toward me, and I backpedaled. I fell backward on the bed.

Asuka collected her breath, and she covered her face with her hand. "Shinji."

Her voice was icy, and she shuddered as she took her next breath. She turned away.

"I'm going home tonight," she said, "maybe for a day or two. That's for the best. Right?"

I tried to speak, but at first, a hoarse, croaking sound came out. I swallowed—painfully—and with my head low, I said, "Right."

She nodded at that—still not facing me. "See you."

And she walked out.

 

[Ranma-sensei]

In the meantime, I want to get at least a 10-battle winning streak in the Battle Tower.

Click to shrink...

Not much time and on phone, so please excuse my monosyllabic posting.

Corrections follow:

Her breathing was slow and stead.

Click to shrink...

'steady'

" 'We'?" I asked.

Click to shrink...

There's a redundant space, at the beginning.

The sheath's upper and lower halves separated at skyscraper height, and the Eva tumbled on the ground before coming up for a ten-point landing:

Click to shrink...

'onto' or 'towards'

Asuka rose from her seat, touching to fingers to her breastbone

Click to shrink...

'two'

 

[Strypgia]

Misato's eyes went to me, and that look didn't escape Asuka.

"What did you tell her?" she said, shaking. "What have you been telling people about me, Shinji?"

Click to shrink...

Damn it, Misato. Way to throw Shinji under a bus, there.

After all, even as we rose to leave, the wounded look in Asuka's eyes was still there.

Click to shrink...

Ouch. She trusted you, Shinji. And now it looks like you used that against here.

Trembling, I shouted back, "Then you're going to end up just like your mom!"

Click to shrink...

It might have been better to put it 'I don't want you to end up burned out and in a hospital'. That's less accusatory. But ouch...

Asuka collected her breath, and she covered her face with her hand. "Shinji."

Her voice was icy, and she shuddered as she took her next breath. She turned away.

"I'm going home tonight," she said, "maybe for a day or two. That's for the best. Right?"

Click to shrink...

Oh no... no no no. Damn it, Shinji. You better make up for this, somehow.

 

[Ranma-sensei]

It might have been better to put it 'I don't want you to end up burned out and in a hospital'. That's less accusatory. But ouch...

Click to shrink...

I'm getting a somewhat 'Dr. Reed' vibe from Kyoko.

Is she schizophrenic? I mean, it would be tragically humorous, to be healed of her MPD just to end up with schizophrenia...

 

[Muphrid]

Author's Notes: Small-scale structure and techniques

Once the large-scale structure of a story is planned out, it's time to get in the trenches and start doing the work of actual writing. Some of these techniques are commonly discussed: imagery, figurative language, and the like. These are effective for conveying ideas or descriptions in colorful or memorable ways, but before I get into too much detail, let me step back a bit. A major goal of a writer, I feel, is the manipulation of readers' attention and impression of a piece. There are some things you want a reader to pay attention to. There are some things you want the reader to feel or think about. Your job as a writer, then, is to make sure that you highlight what you want emphasized or downplay what you want overlooked. You want to make sure your prose works to deliver a coherent impression, instead of coming off as a jumble of words with conflicting impacts.

To accomplish this goal, there are several basic ideas I try to keep in mind. Often, I try to manage how often the readers notice the words on the page are words, compared to a story that they're following along with. I need tools to draw attention to what's important, and by contrast, to make that which should not be thought about to fade to the background. To deliver impressions, I need the means to convey feelings and ideas precisely, often through sensory descriptions. And, on top of those things, I need to make sure I am holding the reader's attention: that they're interested in what happens going forward and that they cannot anticipate all that is to come (or else, there would be no point). All of these ideas help construct a finely-tuned narrative.



I'll start with the last of those ideas: making sure the reader is not bored. I try to consider your audience here. What do they want to see? How easily can they anticipate what might happen?

For The Second Coming, and for many of my works, I chose to write for an audience that would be relatively patient. There aren't shocking twists or bursts of heartwarming every chapter. By design, the structure of the piece supports only so many high points. So the audience would necessarily have to have some patience (perhaps, on reflection, too much patience).

Because the pacing and payoff structure is slow-developing, the story supports being relatively subtle. There are many times where I refuse to say outright something that's going on, hoping to engage the reader in figuring out exactly what's going through a character's mind or what might have happened off-screen. For example, the reporter Miyamoto mentions "the lack of bullets" from the assassination attempt. It's perfectly reasonable to wonder what exactly that means and how that could be. Did the shooter fire blanks? Or something else? This is a form of engagement that is fitting for slower-developing stories, and it promotes hard thinking about many aspects of the story. In contrast, a faster-developing story would want to be more explicit or risk losing people, and such a story would rely more on emotional impressions to maintain a consistent sense of engagement.

Note that I'm not talking about how fast the plot is, only how fast the pacing of payoff is. A story can have a relatively slow-developing plot but frequent payoffs. Advice and Trust's early chapters struck me this way: the development of Asuka and Shinji's relationship, and their relationship with Rei, is far more important than the Angel stuff in terms of screentime. Payoffs are very frequent, and as a result, the story benefits from playing things more "straight-up". Trying to play that more subtly would've compromised the core narrative pull of the story.

A major tool for this restraint is Shinji's narration. I often refrain from having Shinji expound on his thoughts, relying instead on his observations to let the reader decide what's going on. Now, that's not an absolute rule: narration for setting the mood is important, but that accomplishes a different purpose. Moreover, when Shinji does offer his thoughts on some matter, there can be some level of misdirection. Shinji's "drunken" monologue about stuff seeping out of him uses the example of body fluids to say what's really on his mind: that he himself is a waste and pointless. In other places, Shinji expresses anger toward someone or something that is really directed at himself. This form of unreliable narration serves to characterize Shinji without saying what's on his mind as though it were objective fact.



Much of what I try to do with this story has to do with the managing of impressions. That's particularly true given that, at most points in this story, the nature of the personal conflict is quite clear. Characters in this story often spend time trying to move each other to different positions or actions. They ask for change in each other. It's my goal to supplement those conflicts with a good sense of ambiance and mood.

Part of that comes from scenery and location. That was a criticism of Auld Lang Syne: that I wasn't painting a good picture and neglected using the scenery to add to the overall feeling of the work. There are several ways I tried to address that in this piece. Shinji's apartment, for instance, conveys a sense of isolation through its height. That was doubly so when many of the visions with Rei and the stranger took place on top of a tower, instead of in the theater. Many of the scenes in Tokyo-2, as well as Myanmar, use a sense of desolation and emptiness to weigh on the characters. The arcade that features in "Cherry Blossoms" is, on the other hand, quite lively. The theater used for Rei's visions is concrete but otherworldly, defying the laws of physics in some places, which adds to the sense that it is truly unreal.

I also firmly believe in the importance of using objects and rituals that the characters believe are meaningful. Some of these include Misato's rank insignia (the golden cherry blossoms), Asuka's white labcoat, and Nozomi's sketchpad. In each of these cases, and in other examples, the characters attach a certain meaning to objects, places, or actions. You can consider, for example, the meaning Shinji attributes to the phone on his bedroom desk. It is not merely a phone; it means more than that to him. Engaging and interacting with the phone (and others like it) connects him with the outside world. That is a meaningful action to him, and it's not something he does lightly. For Nozomi, the act of sketching is part of her drive to understand people and herself. Later on, Shinji adopts a particular phrase and instills it in Sasaki, attaching meaning to it—the dedication to the cause. In this way, a sentiment or impression can be evoked quickly just by mere mention or hint of one of these important devices. They're shorthands for larger feelings or ideas.

Beyond these shorthands, it's important to use the full toolbox of narrative techniques to get across different ideas or feelings. For instance, each character has a different manner of speaking or behaving that gives an impression of their personality. Consider Nozomi: she's subdued, sarcastic, and casual. She's not very animated. She doesn't pay too much attention to authority. You can notice these aspects from how she speaks—not overly friendly, but at the same time not super-polite. Contrast that against Asuka, whose personality can get Loud at times. She will yell, and she'll show her emotions with extreme movements and gestures.

Describing characters is one thing—you can lean on their actions and words to describe them based on evidence rather than statements of fact. Describing other objects can be done similarly, but there is a risk: the more obliquely something is described, the more words it takes to get the point across. For something that might appear infrequently, more direct approaches may be justified. When using more direct description, it always helps to connect details logically. Some authors say to describe an object top-to-bottom or vice-versa, so that an image can be built gradually and in connection with previously established details. The same basic principle applies to more complicated objects or scenes: avoid jumping around. In addition, often the first or last part of a description is the one that sticks in the reader's mind best, so finding a logical way to end where you want to hammer something home is a powerful trick.



It's all well and good to have a litany of impressions to try to impart, but to get them across effectively, you need to have ways to highlight them—to make them stand out from the rest of the piece. There are a few techniques I use to accomplish this: through judicious word choice, through paragraph and sentence structure, and through repetition or illustrative devices, among others.

A good choice of words can make all the difference toward delivering an impression. Words with double meanings can help deliver an impression subtly: if the more common meaning or connotation is innocuous, then some readers will probably read that and ignore the more sinister or nuanced connotation. That's good for more of a "second reading" type of thing—an easter egg. Conversely, if the more common or overt connotation is the one that stands out while the less used one is more innocent, that adds a touch of ambiguity.

The extent of such double meanings can be contextual: consider a woman trying to remove a bloody spot from her dress. If she merely "cleans" it, then that's relatively unemotional. If she "scrubs" it out, then that suggest some struggle with the underlying cause, as well as the actual spot. If she "bleaches" it, then that implies finality. All of these are more subtle because they're words that could ordinarily be used with cleaning something. If, instead, she "destroys" the spot or "excises" it, then these are much stronger indications of emotion, even though their meaning with respect to a spot is not unusual.

Attention can be manipulated through sentence and paragraph structure. As a rule, shorter paragraphs and sentences attempt to command more attention. They have a livelier feel, and they put increased emphasis on what's happening on a moment-to-moment basis. Longer paragraphs and sentences let people settle in and process things more gradually. A healthy mix of long and short promotes attention as well: going to shorter paragraphs and sentences when more attention is needed works best when there are stretches of longer paragraphs and sentences to signal less need for close attention. For that reason, overuse of short paragraphs and sentences can be tiring: the reader may not be able to maintain 100% attention for that long and may find the demand taxing or irritating. A bunch of long paragraphs and sentences can also be tiring, for the lower density of critical information fosters boredom. Short paragraphs and sentences do well with action or intense drama scenes. Long paragraphs and sentences allow the author to cover long sections of time or space quickly or to provide details on a more factual level as a basis for later development.

Finally, I make frequent use of repetition, which reduces the risk that a point I wanted to get across would get skipped or missed. A great example of this is the end of "Mirror Image," where the repetition in the narration that Shinji can do something—can make a difference—is used to underscore the importance of the realization. A secondary use is to emphasize atypical or unusual thinking, as in Shinji's narration during "Fugue."

For The Second Coming, I often use long paragraphs of narration to introduce scenes. I sneak in little tidbits like Shinji seeing Asuka "almost every day" before the Angels came again, even though they live together, but I use more vivid language to describe the incessant blinking of the red light on his phone, and I use repetition to make a point very clear, where necessary, or to emphasize unusual trains of thought.

 

[Muphrid]

Editing changelog: SV polish edits for 4.6/Past's Reflection, nested quote spacing fix

General changes: revised spaces between nested quotation marks to narrow non-breaking spaces. In bbcode, this is U+202F, and the character does not yet seem to be significantly narrower than regular spaces. Previously published chapters that are not otherwise revised will not be republished solely to fix this spacing issue.

strip-tex: added narrow non-breaking space support in place of regular-sized non-breaking spaces.

4.5/Past's Reflection: corrections for issues raised by @Ranma-sensei/#206

4.6/Self-portrait:

• Removed some superfluous words (e.g. "you see" etc.) and made some wording more direct
• Other minor wording changes throughout, and paragraphs merged
• Some revisions to Shinji's visit to Asuka and his monologue afterward: the two are tied together more strongly, and with a more conclusive statement at the end. The chapter now ends with Shinji returning to his apartment.

second-an: minor wording changes


4.6/Self-portrait tomorrow.

The Second Coming ends in 15 weeks.

 

[Muphrid]

25. Self-portrait

At that time, I could have counted on one hand how many nights I'd spent away from Asuka—at least since she came back from the sea.

For all of us who came first, just surviving was hard. I came back near the remains of Tokyo-3 and watched Lilith's head sink into crater bay. I didn't see anyone else at all, actually, until Asuka came back.

I didn't trust her at first. I didn't trust that she was Asuka. I didn't trust that she was real, but Asuka convinced me. She didn't love me unconditionally. She didn't shower me with praise I didn't deserve. No human being can offer such things. That's how I knew she was real: just because I wanted something from her didn't mean she'd put up with it—not without getting her due in return.

It was Asuka who convinced me to go inland—away from the sea and toward salvation. She kept things organized and running smoothly. She managed our camp and scrounged for supplies. She made sure I wasn't useless: I had the hands for cello, so she assumed I could turn that into a talent for trapmaking, tying up tents, and the like. When we came across other bands of survivors, she made sure we had the sticks, crowbars, and matches to defend ourselves.

So you see, I trusted Asuka to take care of a lot of this stuff. She had that certainty. She reduced that life-and-death situation down to something I could deal with and understand: patch up a tent, make some food, and so on.

But Asuka could make mistakes, too. One time, we spotted a group of survivors coming our way. She thought one pointed a rifle into the air, so she threw a Molotov cocktail their direction.

It wasn't a rifle, though: it was a signalling flag.



The next morning, after the fall of Canberra, the senior officers and civilian staff gathered in the briefing auditorium to assess the situation. The Spider, Fractal, and Mist Angels were staying together on their way north to the Asian mainland. Misato put our hopes on the puncture engine for a quick and effective solution. "Make it work," she ordered the scientists. "Whatever you need to do—make it work."

"Yes, General," said Maya, speaking on behalf of her people—a group that didn't include Asuka. The scientists left an empty seat for her at the end of the row, but that was all.

After some discussion on the PLA's ability to resist, discussion turned to strategy and tactics. We needed to develop a means to attack these Angels effectively even while outnumbered. Hyuga developed a series of maneuvers for Nozomi and me to practice. That was easier said than done, of course: Nozomi wasn't in the greatest shape. She'd survived the N2 weapon drop, but she'd come away with a broken bone in her hand. The hours of waiting for rescue and safe return to Japan had taken a toll on her mind as well. When she got in the simulator, she was a little cranky.

"So it goes like this, right?" said Nozomi, rubbing her left hand. "Everybody says, 'Hey,' or 'Hi,' or 'Hello,' and before their breath is cold, they have you stripped down, put in another skintight suit, and sent to another chamber with bloody fluid going down your throat." Shaking her head, she sighed. "So, are you holding up, Ikari?"

The control room was only partially staffed that morning, as was typical for simulated exercises. "I've had better days," I told Nozomi, and I took a seat at my station. "If you need some time to recover, I can get the doctors here."

"Is there time?" she asked, casting me a weary eye.

I shook my head.

"Then it is what it is," she said. "What about you?"

"Me?"

"I heard Soryu's taking some time off?'

I rubbed my forehead. "Yeah, she—she needs some time. She's been working pretty hard, too. I'm hoping some time to herself will do her some good."

"You think having her idea shot down in front of the whole control room won't hurt her too much?"

I shook my head. "Nobody really doubts Asuka. We all just think she needs to slow down. Stuff like this has to be done the right way. Your sister wouldn't want it done any other way, would she?"

Nozomi huffed at that. "That's putting it mildly." She licked her lips, opened both eyes forcefully, and gripped the controls. "All right, can we get this over with?"

I smiled slightly, and I dusted off the file of maneuvers and techniques Hyuga wanted us to practice. It was intimidating: fighting one against three isn't something I'd ever had to try. The worst I'd ever faced was two against two, and even then, I'd had Asuka as a partner. If anything, Asuka had more expertise in this sort of asymmetric battle: she was the one who fought the mass-produced Evangelion units.

But Asuka wasn't with us. It was just me and Nozomi.

I guided Nozomi through the practice maneuvers and tried to instruct her as best I could. The list was rigorous and difficult, and Nozomi struggled with it. One maneuver involved Nozomi taking Unit-14 underneath the Spider Angel, in an attempt to shield her from the Mist and the Factal. There, the objective was to attack the Spider from below without letting it impale her on its razor-sharp feet. The goal was to attack quickly before the Spider could reposition and expose her, but Nozomi was cautious, continuing to chase the Spider's body rather than leap in for the kill.

"When you get in that position, you've got to go," I told her. "Go for the kill, or you're dead anyway."

Nozomi shrugged. "I just don't think I can reach all the way up to the body if I'm not directly under it."

"If you can't reach it, then the Spider will just move out of the way, and it moves faster than you do. Even if it doesn't, you have to assume the Mist will wrap itself around you and make sure you can't do anything."

"What if it does?" asked Nozomi. "You don't want to see what would happen if it gets tangled with the Spider's legs?"

"That might be something we can improvise out of," I said, "but Hyuga wants you to go for the kill, and I think he's right."

Nozomi pursed her lips. "All right—you wanna spin it up again?"

I restarted the scenario, and Nozomi went into battle against the three simulated Angels. The Fractal made no move against her. The Mist shot its icy tendrils, but she cut through the air with her prog knife to keep it at bay. Unit-14 somersaulted between the Spider's legs, and the Eva found its feet underneath the Spider—albeit some ways off-center compared to the Spider's main body.

Still, Nozomi leapt for the Spider's core. She grasped and clawed at the main body, holding on with one arm as she thrust the prog knife at the Angel's underbelly, but the Angel brushed her aside with one of its legs, leaving her in the open and vulnerable to a grisly death.

She pounded her right hand on the control levers, and she grunted. "Reset?" she asked.

I clicked a button on the screen, and the simulation Angels vanished.

"So yeah," said Nozomi, letting out a tense breath. "About this decisive attacking thing."

"Maybe a jetpack?" I offered.

"I don't even wanna know what that mist is gonna do to a jetpack," said Nozomi. "It's gonna hurt my maneuverability on the ground, too. You wanna try a grappling hook?"

"Those legs will cut any grappling line we have," I said. "No, no, look—let's try the jetpack. I know it'll be awkward, but I think it's the best chance we have. Trust me on this. There were a lot of times back then I wished I had a jetpack, so let's give it a shot this time."

Nozomi shrugged. "Okay, Soryu."

I flinched. "Excuse me?"

"Nothing."

We went through the test again, this time equipping Unit-14 with a jetpack attachment. Like Nozomi thought, the jetpack did make ground maneuverability difficult: she had a much harder time rolling into position underneath the Spider initially, but once she did manage to get there, the jetpack gave her the thrust and power to pierce the Angel's core without needing to grab it first.

That was all well and good, save for the handful off attempts where Nozomi got splattered by the Spider's legs just for trying to get underneath it. It was a decent method, but it needed some work.

We couldn't spend all afternoon working on that technique, so after a few more looks, we moved on. I flipped to the next page of maneuvers, and I glanced down the row of desks and to the left. Of course, the control room was staffed only as needed for simulations. Maya's people were busy working on the puncture engine. If they weren't asked to attend in advance, they wouldn't be there.

Nozomi and I worked on maneuvers for a few hours before I let her go to rest. There was only so long a pilot could be expected to maintain focus and peak performance anyway, so at that point, we weren't working with much. Better to recharge, regroup, and retry later.

Still, I wanted some more practice with the ideas of the maneuvers, even without Nozomi. I arranged for the first backup pilot, Sasaki, to get some time in the simulator, but just as Sasaki was on his way to the locker room, the door to the control room opened.

"Sorry to interrupt," said Maya, peering inside. "I heard you and Kazuto were getting ready for some simulation runs?"

"That's right," I said.

"Great! Do you mind if I borrow the two of you for another test?"

I shifted in my seat. "Right now?"

"Either now or when you're done with your exercises?"

I sighed, and I closed the maneuver file. "Sasaki," I said on the microphone, "Maya needs us to be guinea pigs again."



Maya had another puncture engine test in mind for us. I suited up and manned a simulation body once again, despite the feeling of an anvil pressing on the back of my eyes. The staff were back at their positions, save for Asuka. Maya manned the microphone in the experiment control room all on her own.

"All right, let's reestablish a baseline," said Maya. "Kazuto and Shinji, if you'd extend your hands out to one another and attempt to touch, like before?"

We did so, and as before, our AT fields created a wall of separation between us.

"Good, very good," said Maya, glancing at the readouts in front of her. "All right, Kazuto, leave your hand there. Shinji, do you remember where the puncture engine control is mapped to?"

I wiggled the fingers on my right hand. "Button R4, right?"

"That's right. You can activate it now."

"Maya," I said, "what are we testing here that we couldn't do before?"

"That," she said, "is a secret?"

"Maya…"

"It wouldn't be scientific to tell you," she argued. "This is human subject research as much as it is metaphysical biology. Your belief that the situation is the same or different, that it should or shouldn't be more successful, could affect the results."

"So…?"

"Turn on the engine, Shinji."

I swallowed, and I pressed down on the trigger button. I reached out with the simulation body's arm, grabbing the other body by the wrist. I held that position for a moment; I looked at the other simulation body's head—its grotesque, half-formed head—but despite the parade of soldier ants crawling behind my eyes, I stayed squarely in reality.

"Good," said Maya. "That's great. Thank you both. Let's get you two out of there now, all right?"

A successful test. No discrepancies. No mental contamination.

What more could've gone right?

As soon as I could get out of the ill-fitting plugsuit, I barged out of the pilots' locker room and made for the lab. Maya was still in the experiment control room, sitting with two technicians as they examined the data.

"Maya!" I cried.

She cocked her head, and she held her clipboard a little closer to her chest. "Yes? Is something wrong?"

"I want to know now," I said to her, "what exactly did we just test?"

"The puncture engine, of course. We had to do some additional development—"

"I know that!"

The two technicians at the front of the room looked up from their tablets, and I turned away from them.

"I know that," I said again, more softly this time. "But I want to know what changes you made compared to the first time."

"Shinji," she said, "would you really understand it if I told you everything we've done since the first test?"

"That's not—" I stopped and hissed, shaking my head. "That's not what I'm asking you. Why can't you just tell me?"

Maya pursed her lips, and she offered me a seat in a rolling chair, which I accepted. She flipped through some pages, though I didn't see her reading them very carefully, and she said,

"Shinji, do you think it matters if we tested Asuka's idea just now?"

"Of course it does," I said. "If Asuka had been right, then—" I looked aside, to an empty chair near the control panel. "Then we could've saved Canberra! And Nozomi wouldn't have broken her hand, or—"

"That may be correct," said Maya, smiling, "but that doesn't change for me that we couldn't have known. There wasn't enough time to be sure it was safe, let alone effective. There wasn't enough time to be thorough or to be confident in the process. That's a little of what science is about, isn't it?"

I frowned. "Okay…"

"What I'm saying," Maya went on, "is that right now, it looks like Asuka's idea was safe. You felt that, too, didn't you?"

"I did."

"I'm not sure it would've actually worked the way she thought, though. It might not have helped break through that strong AT field fast enough. We'll look at this data and see. Do you understand?"

I understood.

I understood just fine.

Asuka was right.



I went ahead with exercises for the rest of the day, but once it got into the evening, I left the base. I went straight home.

"Asuka!"

The dinner table had a film of dust on it. The kitchen sink was dry. The bed had been made and sat unwrinkled.

"Asuka? Asuka!"

I checked the washroom sink. Her toothbrush was gone. Back in the bedroom, a whole drawer of the dresser sat empty.

I collapsed onto the bed. The air didn't even smell of her. It was just nothing. She might've been gone ever since the night before. She could've gone anywhere.

Could have.

I went to my desk—now empty, save for the landline phone and a light. I dialed a number I knew well.

"Hello, Horaki residence," said the middle sister.

"It's me," I said. "Is she there?"

A pause. "She is. Do you want me to ask if she'll talk?"

I let out a sigh of relief. "Do you think she'll want to?"

"Probably not."

"That is like her, isn't it?"

"It really is."

Another pause. I pulled my collar away from my body, and I said,

"I'm coming up there."

"I know," said Horaki.

"How is she?"

"She's doing what she knows how to do," said Horaki. "She's solving problems, even if they're trivial—even if they're games."

"She hasn't talked about what happened?"

"It's Asuka."

I nodded to myself. "Right. See you soon."

Horaki said her goodbyes as well, and I put up the hood of my sweatshirt to go.



The trip north to Toyoshina was quite different at night. In the darkness, the fields of farmland were patches of black. Occasionally, a street lamp or house light interrupted the void—a sign of scattered humanity clinging to life despite great separation between each of us.

I took a cab to the Horaki home, and I found the light on when I arrived. Horaki answered the door before I could ring the bell.

"Before I let you in," she said, "I need you to promise me something: don't ask her to come back for her job, or for you."

I scoffed, not sure what to say. "Horaki…"

"I mean, you can ask her, but that shouldn't be the goal, right? Just be there for her." She nodded at me questioningly.

I gulped, and I nodded in turn. "I need to be her friend first."

Horaki smiled. "Yeah. I know you can do that. I just thought it should be said."

"Thank you." I peeked toward the road. "May I come in?"

She winced. "Oh, yes! Yes, of course. Please."

Horaki led me inside, and she motioned for me to follow to a stairwell. We talked quickly about Nozomi—who wasn't exactly answering Horaki's calls. I told her Nozomi was fine, but Horaki didn't seem so sure.

"She's not as unshakable as she makes out to be," said Horaki. "She and Asuka have that in common, I think."

"She's stronger than you might worry she is," I said. "And that also applies to both of them."

"Then maybe I'll just be the one to worry," she said, smiling to herself, "and you tell me when I'm wrong to do so. How does that sound?"

I nodded. "Remind me to tell Toji to treat you to dinner soon. You deserve it."

Horaki beamed at that—brighter than any of the lonely streetlamps in the dark that night—but she didn't let her delight get the better of her. She put on her class rep face as we made the top step, and she led me down the hallway to a guest room. She slid the room divider only partway open, just enough for her to peer inside. "Asuka?"

"Yeah?" The response was lazy, disinterested.

"He's here to see you."

"That right?" There was a faint electronic sound, and then a clattering. "Okay, whatever. Send him in."

Horaki stepped aside, nodding to me, and I went in.

The room was sparsely furnished—a flexible space redecorated based on need, I guessed. Maybe it once belonged to the other family in the house. Whatever the reason, there was only a futon, an old television, and a game console within.

Asuka had a bag of Cheetos or maybe a knock-off of them, with about a quarter of the bag poured into a bowl next to her. She licked the powdery cheese coating off her fingers as she lay flat on her stomach, just a meter or so in front of the television. She was dressed in tight pajamas with a cat pattern—nothing I recognized as hers, so I thought maybe Horaki had given them to her for her stay. It would've been just like Asuka to forget something like that.

After a short silence, Asuka tossed the game controller aside and kicked her bare feet back and forth idly. "Okay, so," she said. "How's life?"

"It's rough," I admitted, "but we're trying to hang in there. How are you?"

She shrugged, despite not getting up. "I'm fine."

"Are you?"

She looked back with one eye. "Why do you ask?" she asked coyly. "Do you want me not to be?"

"Ah, uh, huh?" I eked out.

She rolled over and threw herself to her feet. She was a bit wobbly, but I dare say that worked in her favor, for she sauntered up to me with those wavering, back-and-forth steps and took me by the collar with her thumb and forefinger.

"Asuka, I, uh—you know, Maya said you weren't wrong. That's something I wanted to say, at least."

"Pff." Asuka rolled her eyes. "As if I need Maya to tell me I'm right."

"Then, you know, I'll say you were right, then."

She eyed me from under her eyebrows. "Shinji, you don't know anything about metaphysical biology."

"That's true, but—"

"So, is that it?"

I blinked. "Huh?"

"That's all you wanted to say?" she said, stepping closer—so close I could smell the cheese on her breath—not like I cared. "That's all you wanted to do here?"

I shook my head. "I wanted to see you."

"You did?" she said, raising both eyebrows.

"Yeah."

"Good."

She leaned in, and I took her. I kissed her in spite of the taste of Cheetos on her lips, or the sweat on her body and in her hair because she hadn't bathed for a day or two. Actually, you know what? I kissed her in part because of those things, because they told me I was kissing her.

She pressed her body against mine, and her fingers caught the button of my pants. She broke the kiss, but I put my lips to her neck instead. "Do you want me, Shinji?" she asked.

"Yes!"

"Do you need me? Do you need me so bad your life isn't complete without me?"

"Yes, Asuka! Yes!"

She made a soft, satisfied sound. "Mm, I like that."

But her fingers on my pants gave way, and she pulled back. She straightened her pajamas along with my shirt, and with a more measured, thoughtful look, she said,

"I like that a lot. And I might like it a little too much."

"Asuka…"

"It could be," said Asuka, "that's the only thing I really like."

I closed the gap between us, and I took her into my arms—just for a hug this time. "If that's how you feel," I said, "you don't have to do anything else. You don't have to go back there. Whatever you choose to do, I'll support you."

"And not go behind my back when you think I have a problem?"

"If you listen a little more when I tell you I think you have a problem."

Asuka huffed at that, but she smiled and nestled herself closer to me. "That's fine."

A pause. Asuka sighed heavily, but she didn't say anything for a while.

"What do you think you want to do?" I asked.

"Dunno. Would like to beat that game and then think about it, maybe."

"You want me to go?"

"Gimme a minute," she said, "but after that—you know, it's hard to concentrate on a game when someone else is watching you."

I smiled and laughed, and I held her all the tighter.

"Hold on; I'm not finished," she went on. "About what I said yesterday…"

"What about it?"

"If you want to keep working with Nozomi, or just whatever else—you don't have to do anything more, you know?"

"Maybe," I said. "But I'll have to think about that, too."

She let out a breath, settling into my arms.

"We both have things to think about," she said.

I smiled at that, and I leaned over to Asuka's side. I whispered something in her ear, and she nodded in turn.



I left Asuka in Horaki's care for the rest of the evening. Asuka still had some thinking to do about her future, after all, and I felt Horaki would benefit from the company—if nothing else, to help take her mind off Nozomi. Of course, I think Horaki would've insisted on letting Asuka stay anyway.

I went back to my apartment, rather than return to the base. It gave me the opportunity to clear the dust from the dining room table and to eat a home-cooked meal of my own. I did a little redecorating, too, and I put up the picture of my parents on my nightstand. It's true that they were not the most loving people, and they worked toward and accomplished things I didn't necessarily agree with.

But they were my parents, whether they deserved my love or not. I couldn't agree with what they'd chosen to do, but there was something about them I could safely emulate: their drive to get something done, to make a plan and carry it out. My parents were ambitious people. They were ambitious for the wrong things, but they pushed unceasingly to make things happen, to get stuff done. It would've been wrong of me to condemn them entirely for what they strove for. Their capacity to strive for a goal—that was worth learning in spite of who they were.

I hadn't yet come to follow that path. I'd wandered aimlessly for two years, not really knowing where I'd end up or what I would do in the future. Even that night, with Asuka at the Horaki home and away from me, I still didn't know what I would do with myself going forward. There weren't a lot of things I felt I was good at or that would suit me. I'd learned to play the cello and thought I was competent, at least, but few people can make a career of music. I'd been out of school as well, not wanting the attention. What could someone like me do in the future?

I didn't have the answer to that, and with Angels still roaming the globe, it felt premature for me to think so far ahead, but there was something I could do in the present time. I could go to the base and sit at my station in the control room. I could go there and shed the anxieties that might cast a fog in my head.

I'm not a perfect person. I certainly wasn't one then, but there was something I could strive for, even if I had nothing else. It was the thing I whispered in Asuka's ear that night. It was the reason I could bear sitting in the control room chair even as Nozomi fought creatures from the void of space.

It was the reason people could rise from the sea at all.

"It's okay to be here," I'd said to her, and my words pushed some strands of hair aside around Asuka's ear. "It's okay to be here even if you're not totally happy with who you are."

"Thanks," she'd said, and she'd smiled.

It was the smile of someone who believed she should show nothing else in the moment, of someone who wanted desperately for the smile to be real.

"I hope so," she said at last.

I hoped she'd come to believe it in her heart, too.

 

[Ranma-sensei]

Good, they're talking. At least they learned something from the mess that was Third Impact.

Below some mistakes I found:

I didn't see anyone else at all, actually, until Asuka came [color=red[/color]came back.

Click to shrink...

Double 'came', there.

Do you need me so bad you're life isn't complete without me?"

Click to shrink...

'your'

I whsipered something in her ear, and she nodded in turn.

Click to shrink...

'whispered'

"Thanks," she'd said, and she smiled.

Click to shrink...

Taking into account tense, shouldn't that second part be 'had', too?

 

[Muphrid]

Author's Notes: Audience targeting and community

It's easy to think of writing as something that happens in a vacuum, to believe that there is a set of best techniques, ideas, approaches, and even plots that people would appreciate equally well now as they did ten thousand years ago or will ten thousand years hence. Nothing could be further from the truth. Taste in fiction changes. The novel as we know it did not even exist two thousand years ago. And moreover, a writer is often judged as much by readership at large as they are by the community of other writers around them, which serves as a first conduit to getting word about their story out—or, perhaps, as an insulator that keeps it from being felt.

This section of The Second Coming Author's Notes series discusses tailoring a story to an intended audience, as well as networking with the community to make a story known and to get it read. I will not pretend I have been entirely successful in this respect, but perhaps through the example of things I have tried, folks will come to understand and appreciate different courses of action that could be worthwhile for their own stories.



Knowing your audience is crucial for setting the tone and structure of a story. As I've said before, the kinds of successes and failures—the kinds of obstacles—you use in a story should reflect what your audience (whether that's a concrete community or a more abstract idea of the kind of person you want to enjoy your story) is looking for in fiction. A more action-oriented story can put emphasis on themes like inner strength and resolve, especially if those qualities help the protagonist find power they did not know they had or could not reliably use before. Such stories can also use turning points that hinge upon outsmarting the enemy, or on unveiling an unsuspected advantage.

My style of fiction, down to the plot construction and design of character arcs, is inherently more character-focused, on average. That favors turning points based on changes in opinions or attitudes. It supports a slower-developing story, as often these turning points require more time to grow and become clear. In hindsight, the choice I made to divide the story into small, weekly segments may have been a mistake as a result. Smaller chapters put more emphasis on fast action, on a higher density of payoffs compared to longer chapters—which naturally build more investment through the course of a reading session.

That's one aspect in which I may have made an error or mistake in trying to present this story, and it's not the only one, I feel. My remarks above concern a broad and general dimension of appeal: essentially, one that is concerned with the progression of overt events vs. what's going on in the characters' heads. Focusing too much on the latter can make the story's overt plot hard to follow or unsatisfying. My opinion of the overt plot in The Second Coming is that it is a bit thin. Shinji, due to his position as a single character in a wider story, can't often get the full picture of what's going on. That is a serious limitation of first-person point of view, and it takes time and effort to work around that. Stuff like why the Zenunim attacked the Chinese and Japanese forces, for instance, is left to speculation because it reflects on the enemy's intentions. For a character piece, that is appropriate, but for following plot progression, it may seem arbitrary or totally unexplained. The balance to be struck there is quite difficult.

On a more specific level, the audience of immediate readers (rather than a general audience you don't know about) may have more particular tastes. Just coming to SV to write an Evangelion piece, I learned a great deal about the current Eva community's culture. It's undeniable that Advice and Trust has sparked an Eva fic renaissance that is unique and characteristic of SV, and much of the community has, in my opinion, tuned its tastes and culture around that. Though Strypgia and I both share an inclination toward positive and mature relationships, I think the differences between our stories may have posed an insurmountable obstacle. The Second Coming, like many of my other pieces, often examines people struggling against their base urges to find happiness. That can get pretty dark at times. The setting is unfamiliar and different. As Susano pointed out, the use of a new pilot can be perceived as perpetuating and compounding the use of child soldiers in a manner that, unlike small AU divergences, represents a new instance, instead of merely working with what canon gives us.

One reason I cannot tailor the story much in light of becoming aware of such ideas is that the story was 99% written by the time I published the first chapter. I still firmly believe that writing a piece ahead of time confers great benefits for revision and continuity, but being somewhat unfamiliar with the SV Eva community, I did not take into account the current culture in writing the piece. While I don't advocate people completely and utterly trying to "pander" to an audience or community, knowing who would read your story and anticipating what they might say is important. There are always marginal details in a story that one feels are flexible and could change to give different impressions. Doing that to meet an audience's interests isn't cynical. It's giving people something they'd enjoy reading.



As important as it is to understand the expectations of your audience, it's also crucial to build relationships with other writers. These are the people who can tell you what's good and bad about your writing, much more so and in more detail than common readers can.

For my part, I have tried to reach out to other writers with insight and analysis, going beyond giving mere impressions of a piece. In times past, I carried out long and thorough analysis of people's work, covering a half-dozen major aspects of a passage: plot and structure, characterization and development, style and command, setting and worldbuilding, themes, and more. Such an analysis is hugely time-consuming, though, and I seldom go into such detail anymore. I also fear that offering opinion to that degree of detail can be paralyzing to the recipient if they are not fully confident in their work already.

In this respect, though, I still feel I can do better to network and integrate with the community of authors. I think back to Brian Randall, who influenced me while he was still alive. He would routinely read Haruhi Suzumiya stories unprompted from Fanfiction.net. He had that much wherewithal to wade through the drek to try to find aspiring authors with a touch of promise and to encourage them. I do not share that desire. To me, there are some people who are simply too far away from where I feel I could engage them properly, and I lack the patience to read through hundreds of thousands of words to catch up on even good writers' pieces (and if I did not do so, I would not be reasonably qualified to offer suggestions or advice). Simply put, I enjoy writing and talking about the craft much more than reading other people's work just for the sake of reading. I do not defend this attitude as one that is the most constructive or beneficial to my interests; I do not think it is. Rather, if you're looking to make a piece known, I think it is probably best to read other people's stuff—especially if you can stand to do so just for the sake of reading it, instead of looking to build connections. The connections will come naturally.

You can try other things, as I have. Advertising, I've found, is only marginally effective. The best real advertising is word of mouth, and there is little anyone can do to control that. You can try saying less about a piece to promote speculation among readers (goodness knows Evangelion promotes fan-wanking by being obtuse, right?) but if there are few other people to talk about it, you may simply stifle conversation through silence. You could say more, but you might obliterate someone's idea of what the story was and turn them away. You can play with summaries (is a longer summary going to draw people by including more of what's potentially interesting? does a short summary leave more to the imagination and gain attention by being snappy?), but to be honest, I have no concrete idea whether either approach matters or actually works. Getting people to read a story is an art unto itself, and it is one I'm far from mastering.



On the whole, I am disappointed that The Second Coming was not better received. My efforts to promote the story have failed, and my hopes for an active community of readers to engage in speculation and discussion have not materialized. I believe there are several potential reasons for this: not being actively involved in SV's Eva community prior to publishing the story, crafting the story askew to the community's interests, and not engaging with fellow authors effectively later on. With the story nearly two-thirds complete at the time of this writing, the opportunity to change that is, in all likelihood, already gone.

And perhaps that is not something to mourn for too long, either. I had no further plans for another Evangelion story. I expected I would hang around for a time for things that interest me until ultimately leaving.

But, maybe this experience can be informative and useful for other authors to consider in the future, or perhaps it will inform my efforts going forward in trying to promote and gain readership for other projects.

 

[Matt R]

Don't get discouraged! It's been an interesting story, and I'm eager to see how it continues.

One additional factor to consider regarding the readership and thread discussion (especially discussion) is the number of EVA fics currently ongoing on SV right now. Personally, I'm following nine right now, including yours (albeit several of those haven't updated in a while). With that many threads ongoing, a lot of the general Evangelion discussion gets absorbed in just a few of the threads.

I did have one plot-related question... the masks worn by the human-sized mini-Angels that attacked Shinji and Asuka's apartment early in the story had five eyes, while Lilith's mask had seven. Is this a significant detail (i.e. identifying which Seed of Life they originated from, or some such)?

 

[Strypgia]

Just coming to SV to write an Evangelion piece, I learned a great deal about the current Eva community's culture. It's undeniable that Advice and Trust has sparked an Eva fic renaissance that is unique and characteristic of SV, and much of the community has, in my opinion, tuned its tastes and culture around that. Though Strypgia and I both share an inclination toward positive and mature relationships, I think the differences between our stories may have posed an insurmountable obstacle.

Click to shrink...

I don't know if I'd call it an obstacle. They're simply different stories. I do appreciate a good dark tour through Eva.

A&T is, like The Second Coming, grounded in character changes. I just let a key moment go positively, and have basically been following canon from there, and seeing how that one change affects things. The Second Coming is a darker tale due to it being set after the canon cast has gone through all the many, many deep traumas of the series and End Of movie, and survived despite them. Those events have left deep scars, though, and it shows in every aspect of the characters, even when they have managed to take wisdom from what they went to, and learn to open up to each other, like Shinji and Asuka have here.

It's exploring those character changes that is the fun of writing the story. Eva is a character-focused show to begin with, with the Giant Cyborg fights merely one element that lets the character drama play out. As beautiful a 3 minutes Asuka's battle with the Mass Production Series is, it wouldn't have a tenth the dramatic weight it does if it didn't represent both the apex and destruction of Asuka's painful, desperate struggle to perfect herself as a Pilot and a girl. So a heavy focus on Shinji's struggle with his unwilling Messiah role, and the damages that still linger in both the people and the world around him, are wonderful to see played out so deeply here.

One reason I cannot tailor the story much in light of becoming aware of such ideas is that the story was 99% written by the time I published the first chapter. I still firmly believe that writing a piece ahead of time confers great benefits for revision and continuity, but being somewhat unfamiliar with the SV Eva community, I did not take into account the current culture in writing the piece. While I don't advocate people completely and utterly trying to "pander" to an audience or community, knowing who would read your story and anticipating what they might say is important. There are always marginal details in a story that one feels are flexible and could change to give different impressions.

Click to shrink...

I have found that having to explain or patch explanations into the story, and not having a defined plan beyond an outline, has been an interesting path for A&T. There have been events and aspects I did not foresee at all when I began writing, even as I've worked to keep things within the outline I worked out 2 years ago. Some of them were rather large, like Rei's falling in love with Shinji and Asuka. Others were more subtle, like Asuka's growing joie de vivre that springs from knowing Shinji loves her, and comes out as a more sassy, happy Asuka, still just as sharp as canon, but much less angry and harsh, since she's no longer having to mask off so much loneliness and pain.

In contrast, there's A Crown of Stars, which like The Second Coming was largely pre-written before I posted any of it on SV. That one was never meant to even be published, so was written entirely for my own amusement. I had no idea of any expectations or standards of any readership. (It is also the first thing I've written, so the rockiness of my inexperience is very apparent in the early parts.)

...I suppose I'm also helped out by the way there really wasn't an 'SV Eva Community' until A&T somehow attracted a following, giving me 'room' to write as I liked.

In any case, The Second Coming has been a introspective, interesting read that deserves more attention. I also apologize if I talked to much about my own fic in your thread for contrast and discussion. I have appreciated the 'behind the scenes' posts you've been doing.

 

[AuraTwilight]

I'm not very active in this thread but I've been reading every update, and honestly this is one of my favorite Eva fanfics (points due to being extremely compliant with canon and not headcanoning the religious symbolism as literal or making post-3I Shinji a superhuman).

I just, unfortunately, don't have much to critique or add to the discussion, other than I'm fascinated by everything being brought to the table and you've utterly captivated my interest in the narrative and my respect as a writer.

 

[Glor]

I don't know if I'd call it an obstacle. They're simply different stories. I do appreciate a good dark tour through Eva.

Click to shrink...

Is the Second Coming really dark though? It's an Eva story with themes and characters that progress logically from what we get in the show.

What I've noticed when it comes to Eva fanfic is that people generally don't want to read a work closer to the source material compared to something more lighthearted. Hence the popularity of fics like The Second Try or even NGE Nobody Dies, which has a huge following and is talked about everywhere, compared to a fic like Genocide, which has much smaller ratings and is rarely talked about. Despite how it was able to develop the characters in a completely believable way towards a positive outcome and also maintain the tone of Eva. But because NGE has such dismal moments people would rather read crack or WAFF instead of something with the same tone, no matter how true to the source material it is. Not to say Eva fans don't enjoy or appreciate a story like that, clearly they do, there just seems to be a preference towards fluff and it isn't difficult to understand why considering how everything plays out in the show.

 

[Muphrid]

One additional factor to consider regarding the readership and thread discussion (especially discussion) is the number of EVA fics currently ongoing on SV right now. Personally, I'm following nine right now, including yours (albeit several of those haven't updated in a while). With that many threads ongoing, a lot of the general Evangelion discussion gets absorbed in just a few of the threads.

Click to shrink...

That's a great point, and one I had not considered.

I did have one plot-related question... the masks worn by the human-sized mini-Angels that attacked Shinji and Asuka's apartment early in the story had five eyes, while Lilith's mask had seven. Is this a significant detail (i.e. identifying which Seed of Life they originated from, or some such)?

Click to shrink...

Sure, so back in First Ones, this was a major symbolic element. There was a cult devoted to opposition to Lilith and that worshiped the being with 5 eyes. They defaced Cult of Lilith jewelry to have 5 eyes, and one of these cultists even sent Maya a can with 5 eyeballs in it as a measure of intimidation. The use of clothing with elements in groups of 5 (e.g. 5 buttons) was heavily used imagery as well.

In this story, though, it's obviously not been used as frequently. There is one scene, though, where you might be able to connect the dots and figure out who or what has 5 eyes and what their name is.

In any case, The Second Coming has been a introspective, interesting read that deserves more attention. I also apologize if I talked to much about my own fic in your thread for contrast and discussion. I have appreciated the 'behind the scenes' posts you've been doing.

Click to shrink...

Not at all. I enjoy hearing about your experiences and the contrast between A&T and ACoS. Having written some things off the cuff and now a couple pieces more or less entirely before getting input, I think your experience largely mirrors my own, and each presents different challenges. I still don't know if I would rather deal with the possibility of an unforeseen idea potentially derailing a story or the danger of not knowing what will resonate beforehand, but it's interesting to hear how someone else feels about it.

I'm not very active in this thread but I've been reading every update, and honestly this is one of my favorite Eva fanfics (points due to being extremely compliant with canon and not headcanoning the religious symbolism as literal or making post-3I Shinji a superhuman).

I just, unfortunately, don't have much to critique or add to the discussion, other than I'm fascinated by everything being brought to the table and you've utterly captivated my interest in the narrative and my respect as a writer.

Click to shrink...

Thanks; I'm glad to bring something new to the table. And I do wonder if there is a way to encourage "lurker" readers to discuss things--or whether it's a good idea to try to push for that. I think it will always be true that many more people read and go about their business than comment or discuss. That is the nature of the beast and not something I would try to upend completely. Still, I do wonder if there could be something mutually beneficial or enjoyable by shifting the balance a bit, and if so, how might we get there?

Is the Second Coming really dark though? It's an Eva story with themes and characters that progress logically from what we get in the show.

What I've noticed when it comes to Eva fanfic is that people generally don't want to read a work closer to the source material compared to something more lighthearted. Hence the popularity of fics like The Second Try or even NGE Nobody Dies, which has a huge following and is talked about everywhere, compared to a fic like Genocide, which has much smaller ratings and is rarely talked about. Despite how it was able to develop the characters in a completely believable way towards a positive outcome and also maintain the tone of Eva. But because NGE has such dismal moments people would rather read crack or WAFF instead of something with the same tone, no matter how true to the source material it is. Not to say Eva fans don't enjoy or appreciate a story like that, clearly they do, there just seems to be a preference towards fluff and it isn't difficult to understand why considering how everything plays out in the show.

Click to shrink...

I feel there may be a couple different meanings to the word dark here.

I've tried really hard to have The Second Coming avoid getting too far down into the pit of depression and despair. That was something I tried to do differently from my SAO piece: there, people felt like there was simply no path forward to a happy ending just before the story's conclusion. I really wanted to avoid that feeling. Even when tested or beaten down, there is--or there should be--the sense that Shinji's hope and conviction cannot be snuffed out. His belief that a better world can come to pass may waver, but it never truly dies.

In that sense, it is my hope that The Second Coming is seen as optimistic at core. On the other hand, there are some sad and frustrating moments in this piece. Shinji refusing to step into the cage elevator and walking away rather than confront the weight that has burdened him; his drunken fugue and spat with Nozomi; Misato's casual admission that she sees no future for herself; Shinji's inadvertent betrayal of Asuka and their subsequent fight--to me, these are intense and uncomfortable moments. I think that discomfort is something not everyone would want to experience. And maybe something that's different about this story is that, as joyous as it may be to see the characters step back from the brink in the end, it may also carry a sense of relief. I imagine people feeling some measure of dread or anxiety in waiting for those moments to come.

I may have that wrong, of course, but if I don't, I think I'll be weighing how I might go about that differently in the future. I remember one reviewer on another story commenting that that piece wasn't a gripper or a page-turner. They had to digest it in spurts every now and then. They liked it that way, but even so, I think it would be good to be able to evoke a different mood or feeling at times. It's good to be able to do things differently when you need to.


Thank you all for your remarks.

 

[Strypgia]

I've tried really hard to have The Second Coming avoid getting too far down into the pit of depression and despair. That was something I tried to do differently from my SAO piece: there, people felt like there was simply no path forward to a happy ending just before the story's conclusion. I really wanted to avoid that feeling. Even when tested or beaten down, there is--or there should be--the sense that Shinji's hope and conviction cannot be snuffed out. His belief that a better world can come to pass may waver, but it never truly dies.

Click to shrink...

I think you are correct about the different definitions of dark. This is not a dark story in the way I Knew Him When or The Way Out Is Through are. It is a badly damaged world, both physically and in terms of the people, but it still has hope, and fights for it, though the struggle looks gloomy at the moment, with Angels running rampant, wiping out city after city. But Shinji, never the most optimistic of people, still thinks they can win peace and stability in the end. That he can still hold on to hope makes it all the more painful that Misato seems to have given up on herself, pouring all her remaining strength into being the battle leader, but resigning herself to a life of lonely pain in the wake of Kaji's loss. This does highlight and contrast poignantly with the mutually supportive closeness that Shinji and Asuka have won, though.

In that sense, it is my hope that The Second Coming is seen as optimistic at core. On the other hand, there are some sad and frustrating moments in this piece. Shinji refusing to step into the cage elevator and walking away rather than confront the weight that has burdened him; his drunken fugue and spat with Nozomi; Misato's casual admission that she sees no future for herself; Shinji's inadvertent betrayal of Asuka and their subsequent fight--to me, these are intense and uncomfortable moments. I think that discomfort is something not everyone would want to experience. And maybe something that's different about this story is that, as joyous as it may be to see the characters step back from the brink in the end, it may also carry a sense of relief. I imagine people feeling some measure of dread or anxiety in waiting for those moments to come.

Click to shrink...

Shinji is still Shinji. He's grown and learned, but he's still burdened by his past, and hardly freed from some of his same flaws of hesitancy and fear. But the development he's undergone is impressive: His accidental backstab of Asuka would have been even worse then it was if they didn't trust each other as much as they do now, and their reconciliation far slower and harder. Here, though it did cause a huge argument and some time apart, both of them acknowledged the separation left them feeling even more pained and alone, and talked to each other about it. That change is what they've gained from all the terrors they lived through to make it this far, and it's seeing that change in them play out against a unfathomable new enemy that's the real fun of this story. Both Asuka and Shinji are being forced (at still a very young age!) to step up into roles that they've already seen nominal adults fail at, and somehow try to win. Asuka is trying to surpass both Ritsuko Akagi and her own mother in her scientific efforts, and Shinji, with his little lie about the Simulation Bodies and the Puncture Engine tests, has shown that he's still the Pilot he was: Willing to do a job he hates and take on terrible pains so he can spare anyone else from having to do so.

There's dark and painful times they still have to walk through, but you still have the feeling that the have the strength to and they will, not least because they've learned it's alright to lean on each other. Misato has somewhat given up on that, and I hope she remembers how to before the end.

 

[Muphrid]

That he can still hold on to hope makes it all the more painful that Misato seems to have given up on herself, pouring all her remaining strength into being the battle leader, but resigning herself to a life of lonely pain in the wake of Kaji's loss. This does highlight and contrast poignantly with the mutually supportive closeness that Shinji and Asuka have won, though.

Click to shrink...

It's interesting you've taken this viewpoint on Misato. I'd hoped that the end of her arc would make it seem as though she's turned a corner, albeit not explicitly so. Of course, even then, there's a difference between trying to turn a corner and actually doing so.

 

[Muphrid]

Editing changelog: SV polish edits for 4.7/Tether, reworking of 5.3/Progenitors II

4.6/Self-portrait: fixes from @Ranma-sensei/#212

4.7/Threads:

• Added some narration to the opening scene and Asuka's training session with Nozomi
• The Fractal Angel's distorted space attack now affects audio and video communications between the base and Unit-14
• Twaked some body language and dialogue between Asuka and Shinji as they catch up after dinner

Part 5 - What You Leave Behind:

• References to Misato as "colonel" replaced with "general"
• Assorted, incomplete spelling and wording fixes

5.3/Progenitors II: major reworking of Shinji going after Lilith before the contact experiment. Eisheth now accompanies them.

5.6/Sisters II:

• Shinji now directly references Rei's remark about responsibility being a "fire that burns in the heart"
• Minor other tweaks to their conversation to fit Rei's position back in 4.5/Progenitors
• Shinji's last line to Nozomi here is changed to "Either way, I support you," instead of "I think that's good, too."

second-an: minor wording tweaks, and an additional couple closing paragraphs to the Audience Targeting section


The Second Coming Part Four - The White Coat - concludes tomorrow with 4.7/Tether.

The Second Coming ends in 14 weeks.

 

[Muphrid]

26. Tether

Asuka came back to the base the next morning.

As much as I would've liked for her to spend more time away, Asuka's presence was sorely needed. The Angels had returned to the Asian mainland. The next iteration of the puncture engine was still in development, even with Asuka's previous ideas acting as a foundation. While we enjoyed her help for the time being, Asuka was quick to point out that her long-term future was still up in the air:

"I'm just helping out until the team can get by without me," she told us at breakfast. "After that," she said with a shrug, "who knows? We'll see."

With that goal in mind, Asuka had planned to spend only a half-day at the base: in the morning, she joined Maya's team for nonstop research and development, but for the afternoon, she'd hoped to take some time for herself—playing video games, looking for other job opportunities, or whatever else. She'd been in touch with her degree advisor about coming back to that team as well, but Misato had a different idea. After the morning briefing, Misato and I talked for a bit about Asuka. Misato was curious about the arrangement Asuka and Maya had worked out, and she remarked,

"Maybe what Asuka needs isn't a change of place but a change of pace."

I frowned. "What does that mean?"

"Oh, nothing," said Misato, putting on a sly smile, and she skipped down the corridor toward the research building. Grown women aren't supposed to skip in public—never mind a grown woman who was also a general in GSDF—but that was Misato. She'd skip like a loon if she wanted to. She'd run with an idea if she wanted to. No amount of arguing would convince her otherwise, or so I believed.

When I found out what her idea was, I realized I couldn't have been more right.



In the afternoon, we reconvened in the control room for simulated exercises. This round of exercises was unusual, though: Maya and her team of combat controllers were on hand, providing feedback as if they were really monitoring the Eva and Angels in a battle simulation. As Nozomi battled a facsimile of the Fractal Angel, Maya chimed in with an idea.

"Tell her to target the point of the Angel's spikes."

All eyes in the control room turned to the person at the Plugcom station: Asuka. She kept a finger on her headset's transmit switch and asked,

"The spikes? Are they a weak spot?"

"For the purposes of this exercise, yes," said Maya.

Asuka cast a questioning glance to Hyuga, who nodded in agreement, and she got on the horn to Nozomi.

"Okay, Nozomi—we want you to attack the spikes on that snowflake Angel."

"Spikes?" came the pilot's response on the radio. "Okay. Just any spike? None in particular?"

"I'd like to know that, too," said Asuka, casting a glance across the aisle. "Seems like the instructions are far too vague, right?"

Maya bristled at the suggestion, but Hyuga intervened. "Tell Nozomi," he interrupted, "that she should go ahead with that and we'll get her more information as we can."

Narrowing her eyes, Asuka cued the mic again. "Looks like that's all we have for now," she said, in a calmer voice. "We'll get back to you when we know more."

"All right, got it."

Nozomi went to work in the simulator, bashing virtual fists against a digital facsimile of an AT-field, and as she did so, Asuka slumped back in her chair a bit, letting out a hissing breath.

For my part, I watched this unfold alongside Misato in the upstairs observation room. The simulated radio transmissions poured into the room through a portable speaker, and during this lull, Misato and I discussed how it was going.

"Misato," I said, "if this is Plan A for what to do if I'm fired, maybe I shouldn't be worried."

She laughed at that. "Cute, but don't be too smug. Asuka's more than capable of improving."

That much I knew well. Still, I had another question on my mind.

"What if she doesn't take to this change?" I asked. "You'd still support her walking away?"

Misato shrugged. "I can't make her work here, and I wouldn't even if I could. Either she wants to be here or she doesn't. If doing this helps us and makes her happy, great! If not…" Misato sighed, and she peered over the bottom edge of the window. "Then she should find something that she won't be tempted to burn out on."

Downstairs and through the glass, Asuka stood up from the Plugcom seat, planting both hands on the table. "Look, this is what I have. I don't have anything else to tell you. You're the pilot. Kill the damn thing."

Wincing, Misato got up and made for the door. "Rome wasn't built in a day."

"It'd be nice if it were built before the Germanic tribes sack it," I said.

Misato merely waved a hand in understanding as she walked away, disappearing down the adjoining hallway, and it wasn't too long before she was downstairs to talk to Hyuga. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but they were watching Asuka talk to Nozomi the whole time. It wasn't hard to guess.

Asuka, for her part, kept pressing on throughout the exercises, but they took a toll on her. That was evident for the rest of the session and into the afternoon.

When those exercises ended, the team retired for the day, and we had a short dinner. It was only then that I really caught up with Asuka and saw just how much the day's activities had worn her down.

"Everywhere I go, there's a question," she moaned, pulling at some of her hair. " 'No, I don't know what will happen if you attack that Angel's center, and no, I haven't simulated what would happen if we implanted a second S2 organ just to power the puncture engine.' Who thinks that's a good idea?"

I walked with her back from dinner to our quarters. "Someone in the lab did?"

"No shit," she said, sighing. "Maya wants Aoyama to take over my duties. He's nice, works hard and all, but…eugh, I don't know. How long is that going to take—a month? Two months? This could all be over by that point."

"So that's your plan?" I asked, stepping beside her. "In a month or two, whatever happens, you want to be gone?"

"Yeah." At that, her step slowed a bit, and she smiled. "It'll be nice to do something else, I think."

"Even with all this going on?"

She sighed again. "I know Misato has hopes for this little experiment of hers. I'm trying it. But I talked to my advisor, and she says I can come back to my thesis work at any time. I think that would be good."

"That's what's going to make you happy?"

"I think so?" She gave me a half-smile. "It's something that's mine, I think. Not like this, where you're just a small cog in a big machine." She frowned. "Even if the fate of the world rests on that machine working."

"And it does."

"Yeah, it does." She looked aside. "But, there are a lot of people who can do that for this project."

"You think so?"

"Probably."

I stopped walking. "Asuka…"

"I hope so." She stopped too, and she turned to face me. She met my gaze—and wavered a bit. "If there's not, yet I'd rather be doing something that I can really make a difference in…then I don't know. I really don't know."

I nodded. I started walking again, and as she settled into step beside me, I put an arm around her. She was tense at first, and I said, "That's okay. It's okay not to know."

She relaxed a bit, and she let out a heavy breath. "Thanks," she said. "I appreciate that."

Still, when we made it to our quarters, Asuka let me go inside, but she stayed out.

"I'm gonna go back still," she said quietly, hands in her pockets.

"You can come back anytime," I said. "I'll still be here."

"I know." She smiled slightly. "I appreciate that, too. I just…" She looked aside. "You know?"

"Yeah, I do." I touched the side of her shoulder. "Take care, Asuka."

"You, too, Shinji."

With that, she walked away, hands in her labcoat's pockets, and she took every step with a slow, unassuming stride.

For as long as I'd known her, Asuka had been larger than life in every way, yet at that moment, the bunker's cramped hallway dwarfed her.



Two days later, the Angels made their move on Beijing.

We were ready, of course. Satellite imaging had told us the Angels' destination long before they arrived. The Chinese had mustered their full forces to defend the shore, establishing a buffer zone to the Beijing beach. In this area, any invaders coming by sea would face withering fire from artillery.

And those that evaded the buffer zone faced Unit-14.

" 'So, Nozomi, how was your day?' 'Not bad, Hikari, just smashed some aliens with my foot. How about you?' "

Nozomi passed the time by…well, I think you get the idea. To her, the hordes of alien creatures were mere pests to her, like ants or fleas. She squashed the white, faceless walkers underfoot, and they dissolved into LCL before their bones could crunch underneath her. She batted down the winged shriekers, and they liquefied themselves rather than cling to life crippled and broken.

So while Nozomi and Unit-14 could not kill the enemy so easily, the Eva was enough of a distraction for the People's Liberation Army to hold their ground and maintain an effective bombardment—which could kill the enemy fast enough that they wouldn't regenerate.

But all of this was time-wasting more than anything. Three Angels were on the way, and for this, we were ready:

Asuka and I, that is.

Hyuga had another station set up next to mine, so we were both on duty as plug communicators for the mission. If something extremely technical needed to be told to Nozomi—something in Asuka's expertise—that would be her job. I'd stay as the main communicator for the rest of the mission otherwise.

Until then, the two of us were stuck sharing a cubicle.

"Is this all you do?" she asked me at one point, gesturing at a set of video feeds. "You watch Nozomi, you watch what's going on outside—that's it?"

I jerked my head across the aisle, toward the systems monitoring stations. "Is it different over there?"

"Sure," she said, arms folded. "You have readouts, charts, graphs, tables—all of that. You have to be constantly reading and looking for faults. Here, what do you do?"

I pushed a stack of papers to her side of the cubicle. "Here, we review battle plans and go over them in our heads until we dream about them."

She eyed the stack cautiously. "And that's all you can do," she said, and she ran her thumb over the papers' edges, feeling the full thickness of the stack. Then she sighed and slid them away.

It wasn't long after that the Angels came.

The Mist came first, strangling Chinese aircraft that the shriekers hadn't yet harassed and brought down. Planes and helicopters fell like meteorites, showering the city in fire, and all along, the Mist floated high and out of reach.

Then, the Fractal and the Spider came. The Spider led the way, crushing all opposition underneath its needle-like legs as it arrived from the south, and the Fractal followed silently, settling down on a mountaintop to the southwest. That started the clock.

"All right, people, it's time," said Misato, rising from her station at the back of the room. "Let's make it count this time. Wipe the bastards off our planet. I don't want to have to chase them down again. Major Hyuga, are we go?"

He nodded. "We are, General."

"Then let's go to work."

Hyuga motioned to me, and I got on the microphone. "Nozomi, we're on."

"About time." Nozomi shook out her hand, and she maneuvered the Evangelion off the rugged, rocky shore. Unit-14 waded out of the fire zone and into the city in the hills, with mortars and shriekers buzzing over the Eva's head.

The Mist Angel took notice, coming after Nozomi with a dozen ephemeral tendrils.

"Knives, Nozomi," I said into the headset.

A pair of prog knives popped out of Unit-14's shoulder pylons, and Nozomi sliced through the tendrils. The cut ends dissipated into the air as a blue haze, trailing in Unit-14's wake, and for the moment, that was all the Mist Angel dared to do.

"Target's just on the other side of the peak," I said. "Ready for the underbelly?"

"You got it."

Unit-14 dashed over the jagged peak and flew into the valley on the other side, where most of New Beijing lay. There, the Spider Angel ran rampant against Chinese artillery pieces, but Nozomi was ready: she slid Unit-14 down the rocky slope, underneath the belly of the Angel. Two spiny legs stabbed at her but sank into the rock instead.

Then, when she passed directly underneath the Angel's body, two rockets fired from her back, boosting her toward the core. She grabbed the base of one leg, dangling from it as she reached with her free hand—her free fist.

"Puncture engine activated," said one of the systems controllers.

"Am I good?" asked Nozomi.

"Yes, take it down!" I said.

And she obliged: with one punch, she blasted through the black disc of the Spider's central body. The core within shattered, and the Spider collapsed in an inert heap.

"Okay! Next?" said Nozomi, sticking a landing at the base of the corpse.

"Next!" I said. "Second target, Fractal!"

Nozomi closed in on the Fractal, and this time, the Mist posed more of an obstacle: it grabbed at Unit-14 from all sides, taking the Eva by the ankles.

"Jet pack, jet pack!" I cried.

Nozomi hit full blast on the jet pack, and the Eva yanked itself free, setting fire to some of the Angel's ephemeral body in the process. Streaks of blue fire lit up the morning sky, and the Mist recoiled, undulating wildly and letting out a warbling screech.

"Hm, looks like you don't need me," said Asuka, who let her transmit switch dangle with the rest of the cord. "This is going well."

"So far," I said, putting on a smile. With a pen, I pointed to the Fractal Angel on a monitor. "Do you think we have a shot with that?"

Asuka cleared her throat, frowning. "We'd better," she said.

And we'd soon find out. Nozomi and Unit-14 stormed up to the Fractal—which made no response in turn. It just sat there, gathering energy to wipe out the city and all its defenders.

"Engine activated," reported the controller again.

"All right," said Nozomi, "here we go!"

BANG! Static burst through my headset. The Fractal's AT field manifested as translucent layers of light. Nozomi groaned and grunted, and under the weight of her effort (and the Eva's fist), the first of those AT field layers gave way, snapping and reconnecting like a cosmic rubber band.

I shot a glance at the systems controllers, and Maya gave a cautious, positive nod.

"You're doing good, Nozomi," I said on the radio. "Just keep that up, and—"

BANG! Another burst of static. The second AT field layer snapped, and the Fractal Angel glowed hotter, vibrating wildly.

"Unknown signal pattern," said one of the detection controllers.

"Is it releasing the energy now?" demanded Hyuga. "Is it ready?"

"No, Ops, pattern does not match previous releases. This is—"

"Whoa!" cried Nozomi, and Unit-14 backed off.

Probably because the Angel was gone.

Or rather, it wasn't clear where the Angel had gone, for the hillside around Nozomi had turned into a hall of mirrors—or at least, the closest thing to that yet still as large as a mountain outside a city.

It was as if space itself had shattered into a thousand shards, and everywhere Nozomi looked, there was a fragment of Unit-14 staring back at her. These fractures weren't sharp—they had no substance to them--but Nozomi moved through them hesitantly, as if the Angel had glued kaleidoscopes to her eyes.

"Ikari?" she cried, her voice faint and fraught with static. "Ikari, you there?"

The video feed went awash with pixels to a blank blue screen. I rose, watching the forward projectors for an external feed. "I'm here, Nozomi, but I've lost your camera. Can you hear me?"

"Barely. Okay, so, this wasn't in the simulator. I'm gonna need an idea. You guys got one?"

I cast a desperate glance at Maya and company, but she only shook her head as the rest of her staff frantically went through manuals and other material. "Tell her we're working on it," she said.

"They're working on it," I said.

"Yeah? You guys working on this, too?"

The Mist—it enveloped the fractured hillside. Scattered images of Unit-14 cutting and slicing at it came through the fragmented hall of mirrors, but Nozomi was overwhelmed. The blue Mist pressed in on Unit-14's AT field like a vat of acid to a metal plate.

At that, Asuka slid away from our cubicle and carried her headset in hand, stretching the cord to its limit. She went across the aisle, to the systems control stations, but she didn't say a word—not at first, at least. She merely listened as Maya and the others worked on a solution.

"Look, this is a shared AT field," said one of the scientists. "The engine is working—and it's giving the Angel the means to project what it wants in the shared region where both fields are connected."

"This is a form of contamination," Maya concluded. "But not mental—all of space is affected."

At that, Asuka rapped her knuckle on a cubicle wall. "If the Angel is using the shared AT field against us, should we turn the engine off?"

"Have to, definitely," said another scientist. "Punt on this mission and get the Eva to safety."

"Unless," said Maya, "we use the engine to manipulate both Angels' AT fields at once."

One of the scientists peered at the front projector screens, with one showing the view from a satellite feed. "It is an amorphous Angel we're dealing with. The interaction between that one and the other could be destructive."

"Or leave Nozomi vulnerable to both Angels at once," said Asuka. "We need to time this down to the millisecond."

"We can do that," said Maya.

Asuka scoffed and rubbed her forehead. "It's going to be very tight. What do we need her to do?"

The scientists gathered closer to hammer out some of the details, getting Hyuga's approval for their proposal when they were finished. When they were through, Asuka marched right back to her station next to me, and she snugly put on her headset.

"Looks like I'm on!" she said. "You ready?"

"I am," I said. "Are you?"

"Yeah, of course!" she said, nodding. She nodded several times at that. "Of course…"

I scooted over to her side of the cubicle. "You need me to get you transmitting?"

"No, no, I got it!" She clicked the transmit control on the monitor twice in rapid succession—turning it off and on—and then a third time, and she cleared her throat. "Manoah Base Control to Evangelion Unit-14, do you read?"

"I've got you, Soryu. Please tell me we're not gonna do all the formality every time we talk."

Asuka laughed, and she straightened herself up in her chair. "Spoilsport," she said. "Okay, Nozomi, Maya's got an idea for you: you should get a visual instrument overlay in front of you now. Do you see it?"

"Okay, yeah," said Nozomi, her voice echoing slightly in the static. "What am I looking at here?"

"Best-guess signals for the Angels' locations. You should see a smear of purple color for that cloud, but the snowflake should be white. Do you see it?"

"Yeah. This is your 'best guess'?" echoed Nozomi.

"This isn't an exact science. Just cut or blast your way through to the snowflake. We'll cut the puncture engine remotely, and then you need to be ready, all right? You need to be ready to reassert your own AT field as soon as the engine cuts out."

"And then?" asked Nozomi.

"Kill the thing," said Asuka.

"Okay."

Unit-14 went to work. Beneath the fragmented distortion of space, the Eva cut itself free of two misty tendrils. Nozomi grunted, and the Eva's eyes shot a beam of hard light through the dome. The distortion cracked there, and the Mist shuddered like a deer with an arrow through its back.

The entry plug video came back to life with only a few stray spots of pixelation. Nozomi shook the fingers on her left hand and coughed.

"We've got you back, Nozomi!" cried Asuka.

"Not yet you don't!" Nozomi caught her breath and cut herself free from the remaining mass of mist that had bound her. On her display, a white false-color blob dominated the view in front of her. Despite a jumble of reflected images, she barreled through the distorted space to attack it.

"Ready, Asuka!" cried Maya.

Asuka hunkered down in front of her monitor. "Okay, Nozomi, when you see the engine deactivation warning, you need to get back, all right? Ready?"

"Yeah, do it!"

"Here we go!"

The ambient hum in the entry plug diminished, and a red box flashed in front of Nozomi's eyes. She turned around and bolted from the scene—the scene of the kaleidoscope world shattering back into reality, with the Mist surrounding the Fractal Angel in a swirling, irregular pattern.

"Now!" cried Asuka. "Kill that snowflake!"

Nozomi planted the Eva's foot in the ground, and she lunged back at the Fractal, stabbing with a prog knife from the right. The Fractal's AT field manifested itself:

As a distorted barrier covering both the Fractal and the long, extended length of the Mist Angel around it.

A stretched-thin layer shattered at the knife's pressure, and Nozomi stabbed harder, putting the Eva's full weight behind the blow. She brought a second knife to bear from her left hand, prying the AT field apart the way a hunter tears meat from a carcass.

Because, after all, the Fractal Angel was as good as dead by that point.

Nozomi sank the Eva's knives into the Fractal's main body, and the creature radiated with light—it shattered!

"Yeah!" cried Asuka, pumping a fist from her seat.

"Asuka!" Misato shot a glare from the commander's station. "Mission's not over yet."

Sinking into her seat, Asuka put her gaze straight ahead. "Yes, Mom," she said, and even Misato cracked a slight smile at that.

Why?

Because the mission had been made. The day was won.

The Mist Angel retreated. New Beijing was safe. The armies of the enemy went back to the sea and dissolved themselves to fight another day.

And to a man—from Nozomi saying, "Good job, Soryu," as the rescue plane picked her up to Maya giving Asuka a relieved smile as we left the control room for the day—everyone was happy for Asuka and the role she played that day.

But, as for Asuka herself, she sat at her station in the control room for a time, and she didn't say anything on our way out, either. At dinner she was quiet and picked at her food more than anything.

No, it wasn't until later that night, when I'd already cleaned my teeth and was heading to bed, that I heard from her—with a knock on my base quarters' door.

I opened that door, and she was there. She had her key card in one hand and said, "I know I have a key, but I thought it'd be better to ask first."

She had her white labcoat folded and tucked under her arm, too.

"Ask me what?" I responded.

"Can I stay tonight?" she asked, looking aside.

"Just tonight?"

She shook her head at that, blushing slightly. "If you'd have me, no."

I welcomed her inside, taking her by the hand. It was, after all, our home away from home.

She left that labcoat folded up on the plastic desk we'd been furnished with. That was fine by me, of course. I didn't do much work there, and she could use the space:

The space to be herself.

The White Coat
The Second Coming Part Four End​

 

[Strypgia]

Wincing, Misato got up and made for the door. "Rome wasn't built in a day."

"It'd be nice if it were built before the Germanic tribes sack it," I said.

Click to shrink...

Awkward analogy, Shinji...

With that, she walked away, hands in her labcoat's pockets, and she took every step with a slow, unassuming stride.

For as long as I'd known her, Asuka had been larger than life in every way, yet at that moment, the bunker's cramped hallway dwarfed her.

Click to shrink...

That's oddly affecting, seeing the world pressing down on her like that.

The Fractal's AT field manifested itself:

As a distorted barrier covering both the Fractal and the long, extended length of the Mist Angel around it.

Click to shrink...

Is that colon break supposed to be like that?

"Can I stay tonight?" she asked, looking aside.

"Just tonight?"

She shook her head at that, blushing slightly. "If you'd have me, no."

Click to shrink...

Shinji has been learning, and if he has an ounce of brains, he'll never turn you away, Asuka. Ever.

 

[Muphrid]

Awkward analogy, Shinji...

Click to shrink...

Ah, awkward because of Germanic? Maybe I should look up a more precise name?

 

[Strypgia]

Ah, awkward because of Germanic? Maybe I should look up a more precise name?

Click to shrink...

No, it's awkward because it's perfectly accurate, just a bit tender when it's your girlfriend.