Evangelion A Self Insert. An Evangelion Self Insert

[Dartz_IRL]

Been going for a few years

And still going strong

Tokyo-3 was burning in the night sky. Sparks rolled up like fireflies dancing in glowing orange clouds of smoke. Smaller fires were splashed across the mountainside, burning in patches in the forests. Most were already dying on their own, smothered by the damp conditions.

Old Hakone was slowly being consumed by flames. I watched the flames licking across and between houses in the old city, first taking a tentative taste before consuming the building whole. The wooden buildings just went up like tinder. Fire crews did their best, but it was a losing battle. A gas bottle rode a jet of fire into the sky.

The flames illuminated the main city; damaged but still mostly intact. We’d kept the worst of it from falling on the main city.

Everything was to protect the city. And only the city.

Another orange glow silhouetting the ridgeline to the South was a pyre for Minamizu, sending a column of black ash kilometres into the sky. Rainout had covered everything in a thin layer of black ash-muck. Bigger shards of ejecta were still scattered about. Blasted high into the air while molten, they’d glassified as they cooled before shattering when they landed.

I was too tired to feel anything. My home was being slowly nibbled to death before my eyes, I was beyond feeling sick at watching the destruction. Naked fatigue had left me feeling like the little black nub left when the majority of the candle had burned down. The flame was still burning. It was still barely clinging on.

But it lacked the capacity to do much if anything else.

“Stand down from Alert One. All Units, Stand down from Alert one,”

My body was running on autopilot. My hands swept across the controls, powering Unit 03 down. Touchscreens flickered and warped beneath my fingers. Switches thunked on the control throttles, answered by chirrups from the seat-mounted speakers.

The procedure was simple. Secure and safety any armament. Shut down targeting radars so the techs wouldn’t get microwaved. Throttle back the power to the minimum necessary to move. Then finally dock with a mobile parking gantry.

The Main Energy Systems display switched over from ‘Racing’ to ‘Slow’. Power consumption fell off to less than a hundredth of its usual value. I could feel the energy draining from her body. The last few megawatts were used to stand the Eva up into its parked position. Docking clamps from the gantry engaged on the shoulders, supporting thousands of tons of meat and armour.

It was a weight off my mind.

“Unit 03, request fixed power connection,”

Maya looked well rested when her face appeared beside me. Another alarm beeped somewhere, distracting me for a second. My mind swam as I tried to figure out what it had been. Nothing seemed to have changed.

Control; “Fixed power connection establish. Cleared to power down to idle mode”

“Unit 03 Roger. Shutting..... uh..... powering down to shut. Power down to idle Roger,”

The space between my ears was flooded with a strange treacly confusion that clung itself to all thought and idea and dragged them down to become part of the growing mire of the mind.

Focus Noriko.

Focus.

Something’s missing somewhere.

I scanned around. Everything seemed normal. All the displays gave me what looked like the correct information. No alarms. No flashing warnings. The only idiot lights were the ones that should’ve been lit.

Hy hand hovered over the controls, my eyes tracking to my fingers. Everything blurred, colours and lights slurring together. I closed my eyes and shook my head, opening them again.

I blinked.

Focus!

My eyelids hung half closed.

What am I missing?

Maya’s face was still framed in a window to my left.

Control; “Unit 03, is there a problem?”

I looked at her.

“No, no problem.”

My voice croaked.

Control; “Then why haven’t you switched to idle mode yet?”

Her smile was a warming ray of sunshine that brought light to the darkening recesses of my mind.

“Right, right.” I offered her a sheepish smile.

I took one look back at the array of information displayed on the monitors around me, and completely forgot what I was going to do. All that was left was a dim haze smothering the echo of the idea of what I was about to do.

Maya’s face still watched. Her smile still shone.

“Right! The power!”

It was a complete Eureka moment. The fog cleared and I finally brought the Eva down to a quiescent idle. Power was being drawn from the batteries which were being continuously replenished by the umbilical cable.

She was idle, but still ready to jump at a moments notice. It was chased by a burp that sent a bubble floating back to the top of the entry plug

I swallowed a deep breath of LCL which mutated into a deep drawn out yawn.

“How long do I have?”

Another yawn rang off the walls.

Control; “Unit 04 will arrive in four hours. The Angel’s next orbit will take ninety-three minutes.”

I glanced to my right.

Mission Elapsed Time: 31:40:25

Nearly thirty-two hours.

That’s the last thing I remember before falling asleep.

I...I

I was never more afraid than I was waiting for Asuka. It was the worst ten minutes of my life so far. It was the longest ten minutes of my life so far. It was time enough for me to run through every possible permutation of this...

Each one with a worse outcome than the last.

Sitting there in hot water, with every muscle in my body stretched taught demanding that I run away. I already knew I couldn’t tell her the whole truth. It was beyond unbelievable, and I didn’t want to do what I figured I’d have to do to get her to believe it.

Half the truth would be enough.

Half the truth felt right. Especially when the only thing I knew for certain about what happened to me was that Nagisa had been responsible, and that I never wanted to go through it again. Even to go home.

Maya was there. The number ‘04’ had been scarred onto her back some time ago, a pink shadow of a sports jersey somehow branded into place. Even the normal ones had their scars I guess. Like Misato, I had both kinds.

A three story monitor displaying an image of Mt Fuji framed by cherry blossoms towered over the entire bath. The bath itself was big enough to be a swimming pool if it’d been any deeper, more than large enough to feel empty despite being crowded enough to be filled by a buzz of conversation. Someone was getting married.

I’d found a quiet corner for myself where I tried to relax a little before Asuka arrived.

Instead of relaxing, I was burning with apprehension.

Asuka entered ten minutes after I expected her to, with a towel clinging to her body as she strode with confidence. I hoped in vain she wouldn’t spot me sitting in the corner but those ice blue eyes locked right in on target.

She slipped out of her towel, and then into the water beside me doing her level best not to let anyone see her naked body. It didn’t stop all the other women from looking at her, exchanging whispers among each other.

“So, what is it with the Japanese and communal bathing? It’s so unsanitary.”

Everyone heard her. They retreated away from her, clearing us a private space in the bath, cursing the dirty foreigner for polluting the water with her unwashed body.

Gaijin Smash! Something only a blue-eyed redhead could possibly get away with.

“Okay,” she began, “Spill it Noriko; How do you know Fifth?”

Everything I’d prepared beforehand and stored in my mind just melted in the intensity of her gaze.Those eyes had a laser beam intensity that froze me in place. Words locked up in my throat.

I fought the urge to shuffle back away from her.

“I have seen Kaworu before.”

“Where?”

“I saw him in my dreams before I woke up in the hospital.”

That did a merry tapdance right along the line dividing true and false. I forced myself to swallow and meet her gaze. She didn’t seem puzzled.... she just waited with building impatience for me to keep going.

“I should have died in the crash. I was declared dead.” I looked down at the scars still left behind. “I saw the future.... “ I looked at her. She still betrayed nothing about what she thought of this. “Kaworu told me he was an Angel, and...” I paused to collect myself. “Kaworu did this to me.”

The look on her face said it all. You’re crazy.

“Kaworu destroyed my psyche. He destroyed my self. He destroyed everything about me and I’ve been slowly rebuilding a personality out of the remains.”

She actually eased back. The other women at the other end had gone quiet and I was glad we’d stuck to my native language. I could feel my momentum building. I could feel tears starting to rise in my eyes and part of me was secretly glad because it’d give my performance a little extra credence.

“Kaworu is an Angel. He is the seventeenth.” I took a breath and looked at the other women, who’d gotten back to chatting. “ I don’t know if the others know. But I do.” I tried to stare at Asuka, who seemed to be dithering between shock, confusion and outright disbelief. I stopped caring. “I know a few days in advance when they’re coming. I already knew EVA. I already knew Misato before she came to my hospital room. I knew you, Shinji and Rei. I knew who you were before I met you.” My throat tightened again as images of the person in front of me screaming, desperately trying to move her Eva, with her eye cascade of blood flashed through my mind. “And I know how it ends.”

“How?” she asked.

“Everybody dies.” I croaked out. I swallowed another breath, gritting my teeth. “And I hate Kaworu because when he gave me this knowledge, he raped my mind and ruined me.”

Yes, I did use the R-word. Yes I meant it. Yes, I was aware of the irony. I pored all of my frustration and fury and hate into it. If I could’ve stabbed him with it I would have.

I could see her turning it over in her mind, switching between disbelief, confusion, uncertainty and surprise at how vehement I was.

“If you already knew me, you would be able to tell me something about my past.” she said, mildly. I knew immediately where this was going. And if she asked me, I knew I’d tell her. “I know I haven’t told you this, Noriko, so if you already knew me you could tell me what my major was in, in college. So what was it?”

Her face expected an answer.

For a moment my jaw dropped wide. The thought hadn’t even occurred to me. I could’ve told her exactly what happened to her mother. I could’ve told her about her father, the nurse, the stuffed monkey doll. But Goddammit why wasn’t what she studied in college EVER in the series?

“I don’t know everything.” I defended.

“But you know when the next Angel is due.”

“Sort of.” I nodded.

“And you know what it will be then?” She pushed.

“Kaworu said this would be different. But it should fall from orbit sometime over the next few days.”

“They arrive roughly every two weeks.... there’s always an Angel in the next few days.”

Shot down again. My shoulders fell.

“You don’t believe me, do you?”

I didn’t mean to, but I was certain I was giving her a pleading look, desperate for her to say she did anyway.

“No”, she shook her head. “But I believe you believe yourself.” she said, cautiously. “But, what’s a more logical explanation? That the Fifth Child is really an Angel and he gave you the secrets of the future, or that you still have some lingering injury to the brain that affects your memory, and causes you to retroactively reinterpret and rewrite your memories.” She took a breath. “ Just one of these is scientifically documented.”

“But.”I swallowed a lump in my throat “I’m not crazy.” My voice had shrunk down to the size of a mouse, recoilling back down my throat.

“I’m not calling you crazy. I respect you, Noriko. I’d respect anyone who could be as fit and as ‘almost normal’ as you after an injury like that. But, isn’t it more likely?”

If it hadn’t happened to me....

“The Fifth is pretty creepy.” she continued. “Physically he’s kinda attractive but he makes my skin crawl, especially when he looks at me.” A shudder went through her body. “Like wondergirl, something is just wrong about him. Isn’t it more likely that your mind created a reason to justify that feeling to yourself?”

I had a trump card to play, but I just couldn’t bring myself to play it. Besides, she’d probably assume Misato let it slip and I’d subconsciously retconned it to fit with my warped worldview now. It was a far better, more logical explanation than what I was offering.

“Are you going to tell anyone about this?”

“I won’t if you don’t want me to. But try to tone down the hate for wonderboy if you don’t want other people prying. I don’t know what the others would do if they found out.”

The worst possibility was that it could have been true. On one level, the idea that it was all just a fractured mind trying to make sense of the world made a lot of sense.

No. I was right. I was certain of it. I knew who I was and what had happened to me. I knew beyond all shadow of a doubt..

She just wouldn’t believe me. And making an issue of it would bring down other forces. Maybe I should have lead with ‘I’m really a grown man stuffed into the body of a fourteen year old girl. I come from a universe where this is all a TV show. I’ve seen the bad end..... oh, and your mom hung herself’.

“Thanks,” I offered with a forced smile.

“Well, that’s just one of the advantages of being my friends, isn’t it?” she said haughtily, stretching herself to rise up above me. “It’s the duty of the strong, after all, to look after those in need.”

I slipped down to my neck in the water.

I had to remind myself that it could have gone worse. She could’ve outright called me a lunatic, or a liar and I might’ve blown my friendship entirely. Instead, Asuka just thought I was completely brain damaged.

Joy.

She pushed herself up out of the water. “I’m going to go call Hikari and let her know about later.” she heaved a sigh. “And Shinji asked me to bring the First too, but you know what she’ll say.”

“I’ll stay here for a few minutes.”

“Don’t be late,” she warned. “You know he’s bringing Touji the stomach with him.”

“I’ll catch up,” I assured her. “I’ll bring Motoko too. It’ll give us numerical superiority.”

She left me alone there, leaving with just as much confidence as she entered. The others stayed at the opposite end, conspiring amongst themselves about the pilots and their peculiarities.

A few moments after she’d left I shot to my feet.

Asuka said she respected me.

I...I

I fell asleep in the Eva.

I rarely slept soundly. I had nightmares about being trapped in an airline seat by my own broken bones, drenched in fuel while watching the flames crawl towards me. If it wasn’t that, it was waking up at home, going through the whole genderbender thing again in the other direction, then getting to watch the people I’d grown to like beg me to come back and help while they died. I was crushed alive by unit 01, machinegunned by the JSSDF, discovered as the fraud I wasn’t anymore...

And when I did dream, my dreams went beyond weird.

It was a dream... but not. I was aware. I knew I was dreaming. I knew I was asleep. But there I was still perfectly aware, standing in a facsimile the city, in a park beside Kaworu Nagisa.

But something was a little weird about about him. It started with the unidentifiable tune he was humming.

“I’m Kaworu,” Kaworu said. “All of him.”

“Huh?”

He looked no different. Same red eyes. Same graphite hair. Same alabaster skin. But still different nonetheless.

“The Kaworu you know is a three dimensional reflection of me, existing in a form compatible with lilin consciousness. The Angels exist wholly in a dimension beyond human consciousness, what you would know as the Fifth Dimension. Metaphysics calls it the Room of Gauf.”

Again, I allowed my true genius to show. “Huh?”

The world dissolved into a single white room. Kaworu held up a piece of paper and drew a dot on it.

“This is a point. It has no height, no width or depth It just is. It exists riding uncontrollably along time’s arrow.”

“Right, right.” I got it.

“ Now… add a second point. “ he drew another dot, “And fill in the line between them. That line between points is the first dimension. It has length… and only length.”

“The X direction. Right? “ I see where this is going, “With Y and Z as the second and third dimensions, and the Fourth being time.”

“Almost,” he smiled at me, “But for now lets just stay in two dimensions. Imagine somebody who lives solely in the second dimension. They have length and width, but no height… this stick figure”… he drew a simple humanoid shape. “If he were to encounter a 3 dimensional object, what would he see?”

“Slices in two dimensions as the object transects his home plane.”

Now I knew where this was going, I could begin to sound like something more than a child receiving a lecture.

“Yes. And if he were to move anywhere? “

“He could only move along an X’Y plane.”

“Now, what happens if we fold his two-dimensional plane in the third dimension like so,” He twisted the paper once, then took both ends so they joined up. “Now watch. Imagine the two dimensional man walking along this path.” He drew a line starting at the split…

“It’s a moebius strip.” I said, “He can move in the second dimension and never reverse his direction, but still end up back where he started, because he’s been moved in the third dimension, and isn’t aware of it.”

“Precisely.” He smiled… perhaps a little surprise. “Now look up,”

I saw him and myself. A dark haired girl who just looked like she realised something profound, standing beside another Kaworu

“What the?”

“So you understand?” alt-Kaworu said.

“I do,” alt-me answered. “But that’s just…weird.” She shuddered.

“Follow me,” the Kaworu beside me directed, tugging me gently by the shoulder. I think I knew where this was going…

We walked while he talked.

“Imagine what would happen then to those who can only perceive in three dimensions, moving forward in their own dimension, who’s path is then moved within the Fourth Dimension. They themselves will not be aware of it. To them, all they see is the snapshot of the Fourth Dimension which transects the planes of the Third Dimension they perceive… the ‘now’. Now would they notice if the Fourth dimension were looped back in it’s own moebius strip? As creatures they could keep moving forward, but still end up at the same startpoint over and over again.”

I had a horrible feeling about where this was going.

“On a larger scale, this is what happens to the world. Each Third Impact is like the tape binding the moebius strip together in time. It’s a crash in the universe triggered by the sudden absence and recurrence of sapient awareness. Those living on the strip can’t tell this is happening, they just feel themselves moving forwards, even though they may be treading over the same basic therritory.”

The flaw was obvious, “But I remember seeing myself in the future…” err.. “Past. Whatever?”

“Yes, you do. Because you retain your self awareness throughout the entire trip. Lilin have this clever trick whereby their momentary self includes information from all previous states.”

“My current memories,”

He nodded. “ Third Impact doesn’t just destroy the lilin. The end of each cycle destroys the evidence that it ever existed in the first place, while laying the foundations for the next to begin. The information is destroyed.”

Ends with the Third… begins with the two. Third Impact, and Shinji and Asuka on the beach doing an Adam and Eve. A little more thought on the whole creation myth and suddenly the expulsion from paradise began to make a lot more sense.

The juice left over from Third Impact was an Eden… and the desire for knowledge, the desire to have a self which could understand right or wrong, led to the expulsion from Eden.

I think…

“Now look up,” a familiar voice said from straight infront of me.

I turned my head, and saw the expression on my own face from a few moments ago. Or right now… or … whatever.

“So now you understand?” Kaworu beside me asked.

“I do,” I said… then remembered myself saying the exact same words a few minutes before and shuddered as a few sanity points fluttered away on the wind “But that’s just weird,”

“Follow me,” the Kaworu beside her directed, tugging her gently by the shoulder. I think I knew where she was going…

But didn’t we already go there? And then they’d come around and see the exact same thing, and another cycle would start over…. And… my head started to hurt.

“Okay… I understand that we’re looping around in a cycle. But how do we break the cycle?”

“A system will continue in motion unless an external force acts upon it.” he repeated something I remember him saying “By knowing it exists, we can try find a route that steps off.”

He turned left and I followed him.

“So then… why me?”

“Because I am an Angel.” As if that explained everything. “Lets go back to our dimensions. Think of yourself and all the three dimensions you exist in, squished down to a point. Then, think of yourself in ten minutes time, in a different position. Another point. And the line between them would be the Fourth dimension of time. “

“And a four dimensional being would exist along that entire line simultaneously.”

He nodded again. “But for a being that perceived time above Four dimensions, that’s what you’d look like - a long, amorphous thread, extending from when you came into existence, to when the thread is cut”

“Timeline?” For some reason , I started to think of reality in terms of derivatives. I perceive a snapshot of the Fourth Dimension delta-t in length, then the Fourth dimension is sort of the integral of the third. And the snapshot I perceive now includes information from previous snapshots as part of itself.

“Lifeline. Everything that you are, where and will be, simultaneously. You are birth, life and death all laid out in the one space. Everything that you are and will be.”

I looked at him fearfully,

“You can see the future,”

“Possibilities.” He said. “That change with every action or thought or decision made by the lilin. I can see you dying. I can see you living. All along the one lifeline. Decisions made act as branches along the line, forming new lines. These tangle with the lifelines of others out there, forming the tapestry of life. The Fifth Dimension is the summation of all possible lifelines originating from the origin of this universe. The Fifth Dimension is the room of gauf, it is the one where both Angels and Lilin live.”

“But we’re three dimensional”

“Lilin perceive three dimensions but are fundamentally Fifth Dimensional creatures. The fruit of your knowledge allows you to perceive the universe in a way that causes the timeline to exist as perceived. The lilin soul is a functional part of the three dimensional reality, the perception of which gives it form.”

“Eh?”

Okay… now I was confused. The little beachball in my brain was starting to twirl.

“This restricts your immediate perceptions to a single three dimensional plane, but the soul - that which you are - intersects each and every possible timeline you are in. And each intersection is it’s own individual person. Some are almost imperceptibly different from you and some utterly unrecognisable. The desire for individuality keeps you separate from these selves, it gives them form and shape.”

I think I got that.

“Echoes of different timelines reverberate through a soul. A person who dies in a plane crash in one line, might well have a strange fear of flying in another. A writer might call it his muse which allows him to get into the mind of a serial killer. Thoughts and ideas, half-fragments of memories and ripples of emotion bleed through and then disappear.”

I looked at him, feeling a little cold.

“And in those echoes and fragments are pieces of the previous lines of this world. Now, they are inside you.”

His finger stabbed me in the chest. The bolt of pain shocked me awake.

I opened my eyes to be met by a burning sunset above Tokyo 03. A moment later, I realised it wasn’t the sunset that was burning, but the city itself. My eyes scanned around, while I struggled to make sense of what I was seeing around me. I swallowed a lungful of LCL, before finally catching up to where I was and what was happening.

I blew bubbles with a yawn. I’d fallen asleep. Despite the amphetamines, I was so tired I’d fallen asleep anyway. I’d dreamed. Only, it was seared into my memory in the way dreams just weren’t.

Just like the train, I could remember everything. I could remember his eyes staring right through me. Sick anger crawled like a centipede up the back of my throat.

He. Was. In. My. Mind.

AGAIN.

“Control to all Units. Control to all Units. Set Condition One. Set Condition One. ”

I’d have worry about it later. Take a deep breath. Try to focus. Try to wake up. Kaworu was somewhere over the North Pacific, about two and a half hours away.

I got about getting Unit 03 ready once again, allowing my awareness to expand out, filling each finger and toe with my mind.

Even she felt tired.

I....I

I opened my eyes to be met by a burning sunset over Tokyo-3. The sun had dropped below the level of the clouds for a few minutes before finally sinking beneath the mountains, casting long black shadows.

I could look up and see a stunning rolling grey sea of clouds, crests of swells flecked with orange flame. The ground was still slick with rainwater, a cool breeze threatening further showers later in the night.

Puddles glimmered with orange light. Fire-sparks flickered off skyscraper windows far above me.

The sun began its final plunge below the mountains, a cold shadow embracing me and forcing me to pull my jacket tighter around my shoulders. Darkness rolled up the face of the buildings around me, the fires in the windows going dark as the shadows cast by the mountains rolled up the buildings.

Dusk settled is as the last windows went dark, the glow from the clouds overhead extinguishing a few minutes later. Late-night offices could be picked out, whole floors illuminated in strips of white light. The sky above continued to brood.

At least I hadn’t blown my friendship with Asuka, that was the main thing. She thought I was brain-damaged instead. A small smile came to my lips. Asuka also respected me.

Well, Asuka was far more than the 2 dimensional character I’d once seen on a television screen.

I made it to Motoko’s house a few minutes after dark. The lights were already on, casting a warm glow on the street beyond. I didn’t even hesitate before knocking on the door.

Her father answered and he towered over me. I hated being reminded how small I was. I was looking up at his broad face. Small eyes inspected me.

“I am a friend of Motoko’s, sir. I would like to speak to her.”

It amazed me how clear that came out. He didn’t even blink. He dissapeared back inside for a second. I heard him calling for Motoko. Her answer was smothered by distance. I just couldn’t make her.

“She’s upstairs in her room. Come inside.”

“Thank you sir,”

The Japanese language was great for puns. But for self-esteem? Talking with adults I didn’t know was soul crushing. Keep your head down, and know that you’re the serf. I remembered to leave my runners at the door.

It was a larger home than our apartment, having an upper floor. Two NERV parents, and a post-Second Impact child moved them pretty high up the housing allocation list. They got a standalone house. Aside from families, only high-ranking members of the city government got houses.

The thing I always noticed about other peoples homes, was that they smelled of strange dinners and exotic air fresheners in the way your own home never did. It was an alien place, with strange decorations on the walls, along with photographs of places now drowned beneath the ocean.

I knocked on her door. “Motoko?”

“Yeah?”

I slid the door open with a smile on my face.

The first thing I saw were the posters. I’d known Motoko was a Daisuke Mifune fan, but her room was practically wallpapered with Mifune posters. It was stunning. It made me just a little uneasy.... Photoshopped eyes gazed longingly down on the bed from multiple angles.

“Oh, I know, Dai is just that awesome isn’t he?”

Motoko seemed to drift away into her own dreams for a moment. She was lounging around in a t-shirt and her underwear, laid back on her bed with her laptop supported on her knees.

I forced myself to smile “...sure.”

“You don’t think so?”

“You know how I feel about this.”.

She cringed. “Sorry. Sometimes I forget.”

I waved it off with a swat from my hand. “No big deal.” I sighed. “Anyway I came here Misato was promoted and...” I paused, just taking a moment to get my mind around the sentence.

“You came to invite me to a party to celebrate?”

“Bingo!” I beamed. “How you know?”

“Hikari just posted about it on her DSpora,” she giggled at me. Her fingers pecked at the keys. “And I just told her that I’m coming too.”

She was far too pleased with herself. I let her have her momentary, minor victory

“Touji and Kensuke will be there, so we need to balance.”

“Well, I just have to finish the latest chapter of Morita Life. Akira finally gave in to Tetsuo.”

I glanced at the screen. It was the standard fare.... nothing special. Elfin men with razor-shap chests and almost feminine chins.

“I prefer Girl’s love stories myself,” I said, dismissively.

They fired the imagination far better, for one thing.

“I don’t know. There’s something about the thought of grown men being so soft and tender and accepting.” She began to blush. “The only thing more handsome than a crown prince snared in the depths of love, is two crown princes snared in the depths of each other’s love.”

Great. My best friend is a Yaoi fangirl. I set myself in solid ice, freezing my heart solid. “Princes are arseholes.”

“So, you prefer boys like Shinji then?” she needled. “It’s obvious, really.”

“And so does Asuka’” I tried to slip around the question. Or at least imply without admitting outloud. “And so does Rei.”

“Ooh,” she winced in sympathy. “I suppose if you have to work together, life and death, it does sort of do that. But all three of you?”

I nodded, swallowing a lump. “Shinji likes Rei.” I said. “He thinks Asuka hates him. Asuka is embarrassed admit she likes him even to herself. Rei is unaware of her own feelings and cannot act on them. Shinji afraid to make the first move...”

“And you’re still mentally in the cooties phase,” she added.

“I am mature enough to know I not ready.” I said, pointedly. It wasn’t even a case of being too young. I was still coming to terms with myself... adding another person to the equation was asking for trouble.

“What about Kaworu?” she asked, mildly.

“Kissing Kaworu would be kissing a Dementor.” I sneered.

She blinked. “Dementora?” Her fingers pattered at her keyboard, the local search engine spitting out the answer before I could even begin to explain. “Ooh. Obscure reference.”

I wasn’t sure if she was more embarrassed by not knowing that herself, or by the fact that her best friend was just that nerdy. Blame Second Impact for the Harry Potter series ending at The Goblet of Fire and falling into obscurity.

“I meant, for Shinji. What about Kaworu and Shinji?”

“Only in..... “ I stopped myself before I said ‘Episode 24’ “Only if he had no friends left.”

When he was alone and desperate for any form of human contact after everyone he cared for had been taken away for him. Well, if it came to that...

“Ask him out.”

What?

Her doujin fell to the floor as she pounced towards me with an almost predatory gleam in her eye. I stared right at her, like a doomed deer watching the wolves approach, paralysed with shock. My jaw dropped open but no sound came out.

“You know you want to.”

The lizard brain wanted to. I didn’t. I snorted at her. “Office romances are doomed to fail.”

Listening in on Misato’s phone conversations with Ritsuko actually paid off for once. I matched her tone exactly.

“Fine. Stay twelve years old. Just admit it....”

I was beyond twelve years old. Part of me was still an adult. I was mature enough to know it’d be a bad idea. And because the idea of acting on those impulses still gave me the same reaction as eating food from the NERV employee canteen again.

The mere exploration of the idea in my mind made me want to throw up. But. she was right, in a way. I would never admit as much to anyone else, except for my ‘best friend’. And Misato who figured it out.

I saw my way out.

“Fine,” I sighed. “I do like Shinji Ikari. If I ever.... wanted to, I would prefer to go out with him.” Her face lit up... she seemed ready to squeal with glee. I cut her off with a raised hand. “But. I think it would be bad to actually date. EVA is more important and dating another pilot will make complicated.” She sat back down. Something small latched like a miniature flip-flop somewhere in the back of my mind. “Maybe when it is over.”

It had the side effect of satisfying both warring impulses. I got what I saw in the mirror, every single piece of it and all the attendant consequences. It was only a matter of time, just waiting until I felt emotionally ready.

And so, I will acknowledge that yes, I do feel that way. But I would prefer not to act on those feelings.

My head’s still too bloody messed up to deal with the consequences.

“So, when’s this party anyway?”

“Shinji promised to hold Misato for one hour while we prepare” I checked the time on my phone. “They should be near finished.”

Laziness was an art I hadn’t lost.

---->>

It wasn’t laziness that tried to force me back to sleep. Sleep deprivation had caused my mind to set solid like concrete.

“Noriko.... are you awake in there?”

I swatted for the voice that seemed to be coming from all around me. It took an age for me to realise it was coming from the headrest speakers.

“Be nice to get some fucking sleep.” I slurred, before swallowing a yawn.

Power set. Power lock? System..... system.... what now? I stared at the consoles and vid-windows around me, trying to make sense of the walls of text and colour closing in around me.

Nerve connection. Confirmed. Biomonitor. Confirmed. Synchro-start... Now!.

Episode 8 saved my ass. Once I remembered Asuka’s little startup sequence, the rest was obvious. My mind flowed like cold tar through the EVA’s frame as synchronisation rushed through my awareness . It was a blur of confusion, accelerated ahead of my thoughts and awareness.

I was too tired to concentrate on doing much more than spread my AT field. I had to do much more than spread my AT field. Drawing in a deep yawn, then burping up a bubble of LCL.... I completely forgot what I’d been planning to do.

I sat there, staring at the lights and holo windows with my mind seized up solid.

“Unit 03, Status report.”

Maya looked fresh and well rested in the comm-window.

I blinked, gave a bleary eyed look around the cockpit and assumed that because nothing was flashing red or wheeting at me that everything must’ve been just fine.

“Control. Unit 03 online. All systems nor... norminal.”

“Unit 03, take the rifle from the building to your left and switch to induction mode.”

The rifle was another standard pallet rifle. They were mass-produced and designed to be disposable. Empty one, drop it, then pick up another fresh. Nobody ever expected to run out of rifles. Then again, nobody expected an Angel attack to last for two days and counting.

“Control, I have the rifle. Induction mode engaged.”

“Unit 03, set targeting mode to Intellink.”

“Roger,” I croaked out. It had been configured to run as a script operated by one little red button, to save me remembering the sequence.

This was how we saved ammunition. Everything from tank-guns to anti-aircraft batteries to the EVA’s was all linked in through the MAGI. The MAGI assigned targets based on position. All we had to do was engage.

“Headquarters to all Units. Radar has picked up multiple entry tracks. Estimate range at Tokyo-3 in thirty seconds. Impact in sixty-three seconds.”

Hyuuga sounded almost bored. I checked the clock. Right on cue. Another manic minute. There was no rush of adrenaline, or kick of excitement. It was a tired routine. I raised my pallet rifle to my shoulder, targeting HUD already picking out the incoming trails.

Moments later the MAGI determined my allocation, passing the data on to the targeting computer. I glanced at 00, 01 and 02. They were all standing ready, although one of Asuka’s fins had been smashed.

Every single cannon in the city was aimed at the sky. Tanks, mobile artillery, mountain emplacements, even the ropeway guns. Firefighters had run to shelter before the bombardment began. They scurries about with hoses struggling to get everything under cover once more. Flames continued to lap unchecked at a skyscraper a hundred meters to the right. Fire was slowly eating into the building.

Hyuuga began the countdown. “Twenty Five seconds.”

My finger tensed up on the trigger. Take a deep breath. Try to clear the tired fog. Release the firing lock and....

My viewscreens flicked and froze for a moment, the image beyond turning into a single still photograph projected in super detail.

A solid black wall swept it silently away, before being flooded with a wall of basic printed white alphanumeric text. My mind locked up as I tried to make sense of what was happening. My first instinct was to try the firing lock switch again, but nothing happened. Again, again and again, each time with the same result getting steadily more annoyed at it’s staunch refusal to do anything.

I started to feel sick when my mind finally caught up with the idea that Unit 03’s computer systems had just crashed, hard. In amongst the chaos of hexadecimal words, backtrace and process lists was one word that loomed large in bright white letters on the black screen of death.

PANIC

Good advice.

My heartbeat began to race as the adrenaline took a firm hold.

----->>

I tried to keep calm, but the excitement was just bubbling up inside me. It wanted to burst out of my mouth in a fit of giddy giggles. I’m ashamed to say it, but it was my first surprise party. In any life. It just wasn’t done back home.

The apartment was dark inside, with the only light coming from the crescent moon outside. A few stray moonbeams glinted of the banner overhead. The clock on the VCR was painfully bright to eyes adjusted to the dark.

I swallowed hard, trying not to burst out laughing.

My one regret was that I arrived too late to change out of my jogging wear. Kensuke, crouched beside me, wasn’t complaining however. He was doing his level best to try and ignore me entirely and not be obviously stealing glances. I could hear him swallowing a lump that kept crawling up his throat, while licking his lips to keep

Maybe I shouldn’t have raced the lift up the stairs?

It was hard not to have sympathy for the poor guy. I knew from painful experience just how uncomfortable it could be. He was trying desperately hard not to touch me in case...

“Hey, don’t put that there! Pervert!”

Asuka’s shriek interrupted my train of thought. She was hiding in Shinji’s room with Touji.

“I can’t help it. You keep pushing against me!”

“If you weren’t trying to....”

“I’d cut it off rather than put it in there.”

That was when I lost it and burst out laughing. A snap of palm-skin meeting face rang out simultaneously.

“Touji. I can’t believe you’d take advantage of a girl in the dark!”

Hikari had already jumped to conclusions. She was standing in the doorway to Shinji’s room, with Motoko leaning over her to see what was happening.

“So the surprise party is cancelled?” Kensuke wondered aloud.

“Will everyone shut up!” Motoko yelled.

I leant back against the couch, trying to swallow my own laughter and failing abysmally. Kensuke edged forward leaning over the top, trying to see just what the hell Touji and Asuka were doing to each other.

He reached out to grab at the top of the couch and pull himself up over it. He grabbed something else entirely.

The yelp of pain that came out of my mouth threw him backwards. That look of horror on his face told me immediately that it’d been accident. That didn’t stop it from hurting like all hell.

“...Sorry,” he blurted out, holding his hand open to show he hadn’t ripped the whole thing off

That didn’t stop it from feeling like he had.

“Be careful next time,” I said through clenched teeth, stroking at soft flesh to try and sooth the ache.

The natural response would’ve involved a toe-up kick to a very painful place. A spark of spite demanded I take a shot anyway, but I bit back on it. I also knew from painful experience that he’d be beating himself up over it every time he saw me for the next few weeks.

It was an accident. I was an adult. I could let it pass, to his obvious surprise. He stared at me with his hand still hanging in mid air.

“Is that other stooge molesting you too?” Asuka called over, groping in the dark for support.

“It was an accident,” I answered calmly.

Kensuke offered me a grateful smile in return. “Anyway,” he began, swallowing the lump in his throat. “According to Shinji’s message, they should’ve been here five minutes ago,”

I sat there with my back to the couch waiting for the ache to die down while trying to ignore the memory of Noriko complaining bitterly to her father about being the only one in her class who hadn’t begun to develop. Be careful what you wish for, I thought ruefully.

“Someone want to go out onto the balcony and keep watch?” Asuka suggested.

“Too late now,” Hikari said. “They might be down there already.”

Kensuke sat back down beside me. “Just keep waiting then.”

“For how long? They’re late already.” Asuka’s frustration was starting to show.

“Does it really have to be a surprise surprise?” Motoko enquired. “I mean. It’s going to be a surprise anyway, but not that sort of surprise.”

“They can’t be too far away,” Hikari chimed in. She was staring the door.

“I don’t think I can take the smell anymore,” Asuka sneered.

“The fox smells its own first,” Touji shot back.

Kensuke’s phone interrupted everyone with a ringtone that, at first, reminded me of Char’s Counterattack, but wasn’t. He rummaged in his pocket, taking deliberate care not to brush against me again.

Just watching him made me uncomfortable. I was halfway through translating ‘I don’t mind you touching my breast’ into Japanese before I realised that he might hear something entirely different from what I meant.

I managed to keep myself from laughing out loud, but the stupid grin just refused to go away.

He flipped open his phone and scanned the message. His face lit up.

“They’re in the lift! Less than a minute. Commence Operation Stardust!”

Annoyed groans mixed with hurried shuffling as we got back into position. Kensuke shunted me in the side as he rolled over back behind the couch. I didn’t even move. He shot gave me a stunned look.

I grinned at him. Yeah. I am that strong. I work out.

Outside, muffled voices approached the door. Adrenaline flooded my body. My muscles stretched taut, ready to spring forward as soon as the door slid open. I could feel my heart racing, charging up some big capacitor in my body ready to dump all that energy in one massive explosion.

Misato’s voice. Shinji’s voice. I held my breath. Everyone went dead still. Waiting.

One. Two. Three... The servos on the door whined, pulling it open.

The lights exploded on with a nuclear flash, blinding for a heartbeat to eyes used to moonlight. I sprang up... releasing all that energy in one single explosive burst.

“Surprise!”

Misato was staring at us, her eyes wide like a deer trapped in headlights. Her right hand shot down to her hip, covering her holster while she forced a grateful smile that looked anything but.

------>>

I was staring at the blank screens like Bambi staring at an oncoming truck, trying to make sense of what had just happened. It was a wall of white data scrawled on a black screen, refusing to go away no matter how hard I yanked at the control throttles.

“Go Ya Fucker! Come on!”

Adrenaline flooded my body. My mind struggled to spin up, like an old engine starved of oil for far too long. I sat there, shivering, shaking, desperate to run and do something but my thought process had just seized up solid.

“Unit 03, Status report.”

I glanced at the speaker. It sounded like Ritsuko. She sounded less tired than usual. The connection between mouth and brain dropped like a stone.

“The.... fucking.... fucker’s all...” I grasped for the right description but it just slipped through my mental fingers .”...fucked.”

“Thank you for the concise report. Hard power off the system. Then use the accelerated startup sequence. Skip all primary checks.”

In layman’s terms, just turn it off and on again as fast as possible.

“Uh..... Roger that.”

Hard restart proceedure. Right. Hard restart. In a hurry. How I do this again? How? Right! Raw adrenaline blasted apart the fog clouding my mind. I know how to do this!

I groped under the entry plug cradle for the power disconnect handle and pulled it hard. It latched open with a meaty thunk just in time to cut of Akagi telling me to do the same thing.

Next. The screens went dark. Circulation pumps wound down. For a heartbeat, everything whent still and quiet. Ten seconds before the first impact. Or near enough to that. It felt like it’d take an hour. It felt like it might happen any second now.

Distant thunder rolled far beyond the walls of the entry plug. Cannon fire..

I slammed the disconnect handle back shut. Electricity crackled and fizzed as the plug lights flickered back to life. Pumps spooled up as the disk drives behind me whined to life. The drive-head’s rattled as they reset themselves. The system offered me the option to go through a full startup sequence or just skip everything and go for the full rush.

I felt the thunder rise up through me. It shook me to the core and chilled me to the bone, like sitting on the world’s largest subwoofer.

First impact. I had to get it running. I had to get it online now.

My breath was ragged and fast, struggling to keep up. Abort pre-start checks. Yes, I’m certain I want to do it. Definitely certain. I punctuated it with an angry kick that shook the whole cradle.

“Hurry up!”

I was shaking. I wanted to just go. My whole body was ready to explode into action. My blood was burning hot with the last reserve of my energy.

While Unit 03 crawled through startup.

My hands were running on autopilot, faster than the system itself.

“Hurry up!”

It didn’t like being hard-powered off. It kept insisting on diagnostics and scans that I knew would take an hour. It kept insisting I cancel them. It kept disagreeing with me and asking if I was sure I wanted to skip.

Every. Goddamned. Time.

The world will end because a programmer never realised that after a kernel panic, someone might want to restart really, really, quickly and not worry about this crap.

“Stupid, piece of motherfucking shit..”

“Unit 03, Be advised, you’re still on vox.”

I could hear the cheerful grin on Maya’s face. I could hear the pandemonium in behind her as NERV struggled to keep up.

The world materialised around me. The fog covering the monitors cleared.

A million tracers streamed up from the ground. Muzzle flashes were like a broken flourescent light in my peripheral vision, flickering away in the distance. Every single gun in the city was firing, from the tanks all the way up to the big mountain emplacements firing two-ton beehive shells from battleship cannons. Unit 02 pulsed through a magazine, rippling fire between discrete targets.

Target. Shoot. Target. Shoot. Target. Shoot. Target. Shoot.

Asuka was shooting like with a machine’s rhythm, not even pausing to check if she hit. She fired one last burst before throwing the expended rifle to the ground.

“Nächste!”

The building beside her split open, one single rifle, instead of the usual rack of ten.

A thousand more fireballs burned in the sky. Some burst apart like fireworks.where tracerfire intersected. Some just burned straight on through. A new crater had been blasted out of the mountain behind me, still glowing a hot molten orange.

New fires sparked up down in the city

A few last straggler-systems came online, completing the picture. All seemed well.

“Unit 03 Online.”

My monitors lit up with targeting information, picking out each individual project.

“Copy that Unit 03. Fresh rifle in the building to your right. All your systems look normal”

Ritsuko, for one moment, sounded truly relieved.

“Roger.”

I grasped it and brought it to my shoulder in one fluid movement, alread

“Thirty seconds!” Hyuuga announced

Thirty more seconds until this bombardment ended and I was wide awake for the first time in hours. I pulsed out the first three rounds a heartbeat later.

I didn’t even see whether they hit or not.

-----

I saw it hit Shinji right in the face. His eyes tracked it right up until it hit him square on the nose.

Splat!

The whole pie burst across his face in an explosion of processed cream and chocolate coating.

Touji was looking down at his now empty right hand,, while Asuka gaped in surprise as her mind processed what had just happened. Shinji tried to wipe the remains of his face with the back of his hand. Motoko broke the funerary silence with an explosion of laughter.

“Sorry man,” said Touji, struggling to hold the laughter in. “But we’d have lost.”

Kensuke hid his amusement by covering his mouth with his hands. I snorted cola out my nose, making my eyes water, and Hikari glared furiously at him unable to believe that he’d actually followed through with it.

“I can’t believe you actually did that.”

Touji seemed to inhale a whole lungful of defiance, trying to loom over Asuka. “Well... a man must be willing to sacrifice...”

Shinji flicked cream off his face, smeared chocolate across his cheeks and looked like he would’ve loved to have been asked about making the sacrifice first. His shirt was ruined for a start.

“Just spin the bottle,” he said, his flat tone doing little to hide his irritation.

Once the adults arrived and crowded us out of the living area, we’d slipped back into my bedroom. Most of our snacks had been thrown up on our bed, mostly because the boys didn’t want to sit on Asuka’s bed, and Asuka didn’t want to risk them being at eye level with her underwear.

It also made it easier to reach the bottle without having to bend down. And equally easy to get at the food for both ‘teams’. It kept the ‘accidental’ gropings to a minimum.

It meant my arse was going numb from sitting on a hard floor.

Motoko flicked the bottle with her wrist. It spun fast, and kept spinning. It might’ve been a good idea to empty it a bit more so it stopped quicker. I sat there pretending not to really care, while still staring at the red bottle cap

Ultimately, Motoko was the one person I could trust. My official ‘best friend’. I actually smiled when it landed on me.

“Dare.” I said with confidence.

That grin was my first warning. Like a bad poker player who’d just been dealt a royal flush.

“I dare you, to kiss Shinji Ikari. A real deep kiss with the tongue and everything..”

My mouth found gear before my brain did.

“Damn you !”

The look of surprise in Shinji’s face was clear. Touji wasn’t sure whether to cheer or not, while Kensuke slapped him on the back hard. Hikari was blindsided enough that she just stared, while Asuka switched rapidly between disgust and what looked almost like fear...

I just got out of there before anyone could get a word in otherwise, slamming the door behind me hard enough to interrupt the adult Karaoke going on outside, before taking up a brooding position on the balcony overlooking the city.

With hindsight, maybe I could’ve handled it better.

------

 

[Dartz_IRL]

And forward we march

------


I leant on the balcony overlooking the city, watching it burn. The air itself tasted burnt and hot, embers drifting on the wind. A watch was being kept over the tents to make sure no more of them caught light.


Adrenaline kept my head clear.


Tanks roared up along the mountain pass behind me, threads clanking and pounding on the concrete. They were their own mobile miniature earthquakes.


From high above, they seemed puny. They popped like cockroaches when stepped on. But stand beside a T-90 with its engine roaring and prepare to feel humble and small. There were divisions arriving from as far away as the base at Oaori. The roads on the Eastern side of the valley were lined with tanks, with just enough space left to allow the ammo-trucks to drive by.


Ammunition arrived by the planeload at the airport, being trucked up to the tanks in drafted delivery vans. So far there’d only been one explosive accident that I knew of. A half hour later the crater was bridged and cargo was moving again, shimmering ribbons of headlights gilding the hills. Keeping the guns fed was a logistical nightmare, but it was somebody elses logistical nightmare.


The US Army were shipping in laser missile defence systems from Korea, setting them up on the ridgelines. Russian water-bombers skimmed low over the lake sucking up thousands of gallons before dumping it on the hotter fires to keep them from whipping up into a full-blown firestorm. The pirate ship that normally ferried tourists across the lake was being used to float hoselines out to the deeper parts of the lake, so they could suck up clean water rather than clogging mud mud.


The Self Defense Forces were in the city proper, helping to fight the fires. Fire engines were arriving from departments all across the country.


After two days, the city still stood. Battered, burned, but still fucking here.


A solid mat of LCL and hair weighed my head down, dragging me to the ground and sapping my energy. My stomach ached for a substantial meal, despite being full of jellied LCL. The smell of blood in my nostrils mixed with the smoke drifting up from the city below on a hot breeze. It all mixed into a sickening miasma that made me think of a barbeque in a slaughterhouse.


A glistening slug of gelatinised LCL was crawling out my nose. A snort sent it splattering on the ground. Never let anyone say saving the world was glamorous.


The first thing I did was find the support truck. We had our own set up specially on missions like this - a portable shower and changing area, with an emergency medical van and Hotaru on standby. The command van still wore dents from the fifth angel, a tangle of cables thicker than a man running from underneath it out to the city as a whole, then down to the Geofront.


Diesel generators thrummed, floodlights creating a small pool of artificial daytime.


I slipped into the changing area and peeled the plugsuit off my body, trying not to puke because of the smell before throwing it in the disposal. Then jet-washing the stink off my body just to get clean and hygienic again for the first time in two days.


Cold air, hot water, and ten minutes getting my hair clean that quickly drew out into a half-hour soaking in hot water daydreaming about a nice, warm bed back home. I let my mind drift back, wandering around the room, running the fingers of my memory over it all. I could step out onto the balcony and catch a cool sea breeze rolling in from the coast.


It made me ache inside, and I knew Noriko had been a happy child growing up there. A wall-scroll of Sailor Moon hung on the wall, mixed with a dozen other items that were conspicuously Japanese - keeping in touch with home culture.


And the plush teddybear from the box - still scorched and reeking of kerosene. A chill ran through my body and I forced it all away with a shaked of my head before it got any worse.


I was standing alone in a portable shower, feeling sick and sore and tired, with hot water cascading off my body and a half-shot of adrenaline making me shiver all over.


That was the penalty for gaining Noriko’s identity.


I dried myself, then stepped into a fresh, stiff plugsuit. I could barely remember wearing anything different.


Next was some food.With a half hour to go before the next bombardment, I grabbed a meal from the back of a JSSDF canteen truck.


It came boiled in a plastic bag, just about managed taste better than jellied Lilith-blood. The last thing I did was find a place to stand and eat, while watching the city burn.


“Hey Fourth Child, what’d you get in yours?”


Asuka sat beside me, with a steaming ration pack in her hands. Her voice lacked all her usual energy, being tired and stretched like toffee pulled into a string. The smell of congealed LCL clung to her - a skin of jelly covering her plugsuit.


“Yakitori Chicken,” I answered, poking at it with a spork.


“Mackerel in Ginger,” she said.


She sounded just as dubious about that as I was. It didn’t stop either of us digging in. It felt like five-star cuisine when it hit the belly, all warm and soothing inside. Enough to grab on tight and start dragging me down to the pit of sleep.


“So. About the other night.”


Asuka’s words woke me right up again. I turn away, shields coming up quickly as echoes of embarrassment ring through my mind.


“Motoko took me by surprise, that’s all....


She grabbed me by the shoulder and forces me to face her. “I don’t mean that!” Her body may be tired, but her mind is wide awake. Her eyes were cold and demanding, staring through me.


“ I can’t blame you for being disgusted. I meant what you told me before that, in the baths. Is this what you expected?”


Oh.


A popping gas-bottle added a little punctuation to the question as it rocketed into the sky. I watched it rise until it burned out, the empty shell tumbling back to the city.


“No. This is a dozen times worse.” I looked at her, “Does this mean you believe me”


She still stared through me - watching. “You might’ve gotten lucky with the space part, you know?”


“No. Not lucky.”


I wasn’t even looking at her. I was looking at the future playing through once more in my mind. If we even got that far.


She took a few seconds to chew on another mouthful of ‘food’, buying time for herself to think it over before swallowing.


“Are you going to tell anyone else?” she asked me.


“No,” I said calmly. “They’ll call me crazy. Or worse.”


“Not if there was proof.”


That drew a small smile to my lips. She believed me.


“Then they’d kill me. Or worse.”


She sat there, working it over in her mind. I knew with absolute certainty that there were people out there who would kill me in a heartbeat if they knew what I knew about them. And the worse part didn’t even bear thinking about.


They might want to know more.


“They might make you chose between being porked by the the Third or Freakazoid?”


I blinked. It took a moment for that to worm it’s way into my brain and get comfortable.


“Hah!” I snorted after a few moments.


She made a show of sighing deeply, as if life was being horrifically unfair to her right at that moment.


“Of course, that idiot’s having as easy time of it over at Tarikihonganji. Scratch-made apple pie, hot showers after every bombardment. At least we know who’s the favourite.”


And wasn’t I grateful to her for doing that.

-----------

 

[Christopher Robin]

So, there's this and you BGC SI fic. Is there a reason for turning into a girl in both of them?

 

[Dartz_IRL]

Honestly?

For the Eva fic, because I as a Teenage Dummy plug did it. I tried it a while back anyway, but the plot wouldn't come together right. It's a lot of free drama that's easy to exploit.

As for the Bubblegum Crisis fic.... because I wanted a boomer character, a 33-S was the weakest, and a male 33-S seriously pushed the creeper threshold when tried. And a 33-S character works for later parts of the story.

 

[Christopher Robin]

There's an old fic I read one with a male 33-S, except he was some sort of hunter-killer variant to hunt down the sexbot versions.

 

[Dartz_IRL]

I know it.

Done wrong however, it could come across horrendously skeevy, depending on how it was written. There've been three version of NPE.... the earliest version was a male SI but didn't really work too well. . It was difficult to have a male viewpoint character without either shoving Shinji out of the way, or having too much of the wrong kind conflict with either Misato or Asuka. It's easier to form sane relationships between other characters and Noriko.

While for YT2032. There was also a story with a male sexaroid SI. It went badly pretty quickly because of that fact. I liked the idea of a boomer SI, and the 33-S were the easiest options with some nice bonuses to mid-story drama.

 

[Dartz_IRL]

And moving onwards

--------

------

I sat the whole thing out in my entry plug. Orange-jumpsuited technicians clambered over Unit 03, racing to refit the multiple ballistic missile launch systems. I stood still, locked in induction mode while watching the game of asteroids from hell.

Bomblets from the Angel burst with a sun-flash in mid-air where they were hit. A few rare bombs hit the ground, most hitting outside the valley. Fountains of flame and ash and stone rose up when they hit. I could feel the shockwave roll up through the Eva’s body each and every time. Laserfire strobed from the ridge-top emplacements, streaks of light flickering through momentary whisps of smoke. Particles of dust glittered as they vapourised..

The firefighting continued in the city anyway.

I focused on feeding accurate tracking data to the Magi. Even at a dead standstill, I could still be useful.

Unit 01 and Unit 00 stood across the valley, with Unit 02 behind me. The green trim on Unit 01 was glowing bright. White accent’s on 02 and 00 shone orange in the firelight. Every single tank had its running lights on. Blue lights strobed inside the city, fighting a war with the flickering flames.

At any one moment, hundreds of tons of ammunition hung in the air. All while a million fireflies rose up into the sky.

For the first time in two days, I could watch it all.

All I could do was stare open-mouthed at the enormity of it all.

I was this small little person, at the core of what was the largest war machine in human history. I started to wonder what would happen when the machine finally ran out of fuel.

The Angel passed over before that happened. Less than two minutes after it had begun the bombardment to tail off. The last few gunshots sputtered, with Unit 01 on the valley claiming the last hit - according to MAGI.

“Stand down from Alert One. All Units, Stand down from Alert one,”

Maya Ibuki’s eyes had started to retreat back into their sockets, fatigue adding years to her face. An older woman was staring at me through the comm-window than the one who’d woken up that morning.

“We’re receiving message from Neopan 4-4-0.”

I couldn’t recognised the voice - it was part of the chatter. Half-bored, and half-trying to keep myself awake with artificial humour I keyed open a comm-line.

“Kaworu’s plane was shot down over the sea of Japan. It spun in, there were no survivors.”’

“Not funny Noriko,” Misato’s voice chided. “Put it through.”

“Neopan 4-4-0 say they expect to arrive within thirty minutes.”

“Estimate time to completion of refit on Unit 03?” Misato asked. She yawned deeply.

“Forty seven minutes, thirty-three seconds.” Akagi answered.

“Katsuragi to all. When Unit 04 arrives, it will come pre-equipped with the multiple launch system. Unit 03 is being refitted as we speak. After the next pass, we plan to launch a full salvo of non-nuclear missiles, with the intention of shooting down the Angel.”

There was a pause as she let that sink in for everyone.

“I guess we know who the new favourites are,” Asuka groused beside me. I couldn’t help but smile at that sour expression she wore.

“Not my fault it’s the newest,” I broadcast back, wearing a goading grin.

“If this fails. I’ve placed a request for A-210 action with the United Nations Security Council. That is all”

Asuka’s response just died in her mouth, her jaw hanging open. I’m sure I was doing the same thing. I knew what A-210 was. All the pilots did. It was the final option.

And she said it with such chilling certainty. I couldn’t see the expression on her face, but it wasn’t hard for me to picture the fierceness in her eyes. I’d seen it so many times.

Shinji opened a private channel, linking all the EVA’s with an encrypted link originally intended to allow us to discuss secret pilot matters without worrying about being heard by those who mightn’t have been cleared..

He leaned in towards the monitor. Keeping his voice was barely above a whisper, he asked:. “Is she really going to use nuclear weapons?”

--------

An electronic bell-chime interrupted the teacher, warbling three times over the school's tannoy. The emergency alert signal.

A deadly silence followed.

“Attack warning: RED. Attack warning: RED. A Special State of Emergency has been declared for the Kanto and Tokai Regions. All residents seek immediate shelter. All residents seek immediate shelter,”

In the schoolyard, and all around the city, the sirens began to wail, spooling up to a high cold scream before tailing off into a long drone then cycling once more. I'd known it was coming, but something about it still chilled to the bone.

An exctasy of fumbling followed as everyone rushed to their feet. Books were shoved in bags. Blinds were drawn. Windows were closed. Everyone in class had their duty to perform. Ours was to get the hell out of there as fast as humanely possible.

Asuka was first out the door - being closest to it. I was just behind her with Rei close enough that I could smell her. Shinji followed her, with Kaworu taking time to pack his books safely before bringing up the rear.

He hammered down the corridor, footfalls echoing above the sound of sirens outside. We’d made it down the stairs to the ground floor by the time the first classes began to stream out their classroom doors. We didn’t even stop for our shoes, we just kept running. We were first into the yard, focused on nothing but making it to the waiting convoy. The hot afternoon sun was baking, sucking sweat out of our bodies.

There was no time to speak to each other. There was no time to look around for the Angel, or check the skies. There was nothing but panting and the crunch of gravel under foot. Sharp stones nipped through soft-soles but we pushed on. I took the lead, crossing the yard at a full sprint. Shinji was lagging behind Rei. Kaworu brought up the rear.

The noise of the sirens was winding down slowly, leaving only silence for one awful moment. It was hard not to expect

“By order of the City Council, all residents are to proceed to their Emergency Evacuation point. All residents proceed to their Emergency Evanguation point.”

The voice boomed from hundreds of speakers throughout the city, echoing off the buildings and valley-walls. It was followed by the sound of tyres screeching in the distance, chased by the blare of car horns.

The convoy consisted of three pilot transports - Lamborghini LM003’s with civilian interiors, and three of the standard military variant to provide an escort. All six of them were idling beneath a cloud of sweet petrol exhaust, waiting to go with doors open.

I barreled straight into my assigned seat, slamming the armoured door behind me.

A Lamborgini LM003 is not a slow machine, inspite of it’s size. A turbocharged V12 petrol engine from a pre-impact supercar will make anything fast, even four tons of armoured off-road truck. The engine pushed us forward with a bull-roar, inhaling deep through whistling turbochargers.

It was two of us to a vehicle, with Rei riding alone. An armed guard occupied the front passenger’s seat beside the driver. Each of us had a P90 within arm’s reach, loaded and ready for action.

“This is exciting,” said Kaworu in his usual mild town.

I opened my mouth to call him an idiot. Then came the light.

It was like someone had just ramped up the stagelights on the world, until the entire sky had lit up with the radiance of a thousand suns. The clouds themselves were burning white hot.

“Down! Down! Down!” our guard yelled.

We could see people outside throwing themselves into the shadows, ducking and covering behind any little scrap of shelter. I dragged the blast blanket over my head, burying myself against the centre console with my back to the wall.

We sat there, waiting, counting the seconds as the light dimmed away. One, two, three, four, five......

Nothing. Just waiting with our mouths open and heads covered by a blast blanket.

Ten seconds. Still nothing. Our minds frozen. At least ten kilometres away. I could hear Kaworu breathing beside me, only a few centimetres away from me. He didn’t even seem to care. Myown breath was ragged, waiting for the truck to be crushed around us like a tin can.

Fifteen seconds.

I could hear my breath shaking. Was this what he’d been talking about?

Twenty seconds.

A dozen hands grabbed at the side of the Lamborghini and started to rock it from side to side, a low growl rolling on through the ground beneath. I gripped tight onto the seat in front of me, bracing for the blast.

It stopped.

“Was that it?” I dared ask.

“That was just the ground shock.” The driver answered. “This thing’s miles away.”

I raised my head

A pillar of flame was rising through the clouds, punching through and up into the blue skies beyond. We say there watching it, feeling the radiant heat on our faces like staring at a fire from across the room.

The top crowned out, flattening an bulging into the black, boiling form of a full-blown mushroom cloud. It took my breath away, leaving me sitting slack-mouthed for a moment

“Was that nuclear?”

It looked like every single nuclear explosion I’d ever seen on television. Only without the

“No.” our guard answered. “Different sort of light. This was a different .” Her voice carried the weight of experience.

“Right. Fuckit. Lets go before whatever that was gets here.”

We’d made it a few kilometres - about halfway to the tunnel route - when the hail started to fall. I thought it was hail at first. It rattled off the metal roof of the truck. It cracked off windows and pinged off the armoured belly as it bounced on the road. It bulleted around on the concrete outside, peening off windows and the truck’s skin.

It smelled of heat. It filled the cabin with the scent of hot, burnt stone that immediately took me back to Mount Asama.

“It’s rock,” said Kaworu. “Pebbles are falling from the sky.”

“What is this?” I asked him. “Is this what you meant?”

I grabbed his shirt, pulling him towards. I didn’t care about being heard I didn’t care what anyone thought. This just didn’t happen in the series.... it didn’t. There was no massive explosion or disaster. I couldn’t have forgotten something this, not an event this large. This was a major plot development, a key moment where big budgets were spent on glorious animation to ram home the scale of the disaster, and it hadn’t happened.

“This is just the beginning,” he answered with a smile.

I let him go, slowly settling back down into my seat. I couldn’t tell if it was anger or fear but I was shaking. My mouth had gone bone dry. I wanted to punch him in the face, to blame him for everything that was about to happen, to make him feel it just once.

But there were armed guards in the car, and Asuka had warned me about blowing up on him.

I sat in silence for the rest of the journey, watching parked cars roll past. A few had been smashed out of the way by the lead truck to make a path. It was easier than making four tons of Italian engineering turn. Steam still rose from the radiator of a pre-impact Toyota.

Five minutes after the flash, the blast finally arrived like an enormous door slamming deep in the depths of hell. Echoes of destruction rang around the valley to the tune of shattered glass as streetlights popped, raining shining fragment of glass onto the round. It to roll over my body and bounce around inside my chest and stomach.

Far to the south, the mushroom cloud still grew, bleaching white as it rose higher and higher towards the stratosphere.

Minamiizu, along with everyone who lived within a 30 kilometer radius of the town, had just been obliterated.

And like everyone else in Tokyo-3, I had no idea what was going to happen next.

-------

 

[biomonkey]

Excellent. Always good to see an update from you, Dartz.

 

[Dartz_IRL]

And back on schedule

And missiles away

-------

09:35

Morning on the Third day.

The sky was clear. For a definition of clear. For the time being, the wind was blowing the worst of it all away from the city. The column of ash and smoke rising from Minamiizu seemed to be thinning. It still cast shadow which stretched away to the horizon.

Gotenba was burning. Old Hakone had been extinguished.

Tokyo-3 was still there. For a definition of there. I could name each and every building that’d been destroyed, by grid-reference. An ammo building had a hole punched through it. The Geofront’s armour had been exposed in the central park down to the third layer. One of the Solar towers was rubble. Craters were splashed through the city, cutting roads, electrical mains and water pipes.

Some office blocks had collapsed, falling through to the Geofront below when their locks had failed. Rei’s apartment was now a smouldering crater. The schoolyard was being used as a forward operation base.

Unit 01 was parked beside Tarikihonganji, its armour smudged with soot. The temple was still there. 00 was further down the valley, towards the North end of the city. Unit 02 was sitting in the forest across from 00, red paint now dulled and dirty. I could see Asuka sitting on its shoulder, her pose mirroring her Evas in small scale. What Shinji and Rei were getting up to on the far side of the valley, I didn’t know.

Unit 04 was parked at the South end of the city, close to the lake. Its armour was pristine, shining nickel plate. It hadn’t even been painted. Kaworu’s face hovered in the centre a comm-window beside my shoulder.

“Primary systems stable. Solenoid engine operating in maximum power point tracking mode. Missile battery at cold standby. Eva Unit 04 is awaiting final targeting information.”

I was too tired to be angry at him. I was too tired to feel anything but cool relief that it might finally be over. We just

“Eva Unit 03, Status report,”

It wasn’t Maya on the comm. I didn’t know who it was. She was thin, with short-cropped black hair and frightened eyes on a face that didn’t look more than three years older than my own. She’d taken Maya’s seat by virtue of having had a good night’s rest. She might’ve been a low level Magi technician or system operator. Now she was taking far more responsibility than she’d ever expected to have to bear.

Welcome to the club.

I brought up the checklist, not wanting to make her job any harder.

“Primary systems stable. External power to battery hybrid mode. Missile battery at cold standby. Unit 03 awaiting final targeting information.”

I could see her glancing away at a booklet offscreen.

“Switch to individual secure line. Segregate communications. MRC-Four-One-One to code Romeo.”

At least we were both reading from the script. I switched settings as it instructed.

“MRC-Four-One-One, Romeo, Roger that.”

The window fritzed for a few frames, dropping resolution. A small indicator appeared in the corner of the window letting me know that I was only talking with her. The UN insisted on maximum security - it was very easy to put things other than non-nuclear warheads on those missiles.

She pressed a few keys, pecking at them while reading her manual

“Target data package uploading to Unit 03,”

My systems chirped, letting me know that something was sending me data. All I had to do was accept. It took a moment to find the right switch.

“Target package received.”

“Commit package to missiles.”

Uh.... I scanned my instruments, struggling to remember how to do it. I fingered my way through missile settings, brushing menus and windows away on a desperate hunt, My hunt was interrupted by the junior technician

“Unit 03 Has there been a problem?”

I glanced at her. Her nerves were welling up, panic behind her eyes. She must’ve been asking herself if it’d been her own mistake.

“Am....Standby,” I broadcast back, diving deep down through sub-menu’s before finally finding it.My fingers skipped across the plug walls, selecting items and asking the system what they were.

My hand was shaking as it moved. To my relief, I found the right control

“Commit package. Confirmed.”

The relief was clear on her face - it hadn’t been her fault.

“Adapt firing position,”

I checked the ground, making certain that I had enough space to launch. I leant forward, almost into a runner’s position. It helped take the blast from the missiles.

“Unit 03, firing position.”

“Spinup Missiles one through six for strategic launch.”

My fingers worked the switches, each one latching in sequece.

“Spinning up Missiles one through six for strategic launch. Three minutes to Ready-one. Waiting for launch commit code.”

“Launch commit code: 7-7-7-7, 7-7-7-7-BATMAN”

I coughed. “Batman?”

“Batman,” she confirmed, her expression momentarily bewildered.

Somewhere in Worcester Massachusetts, one single programmer was laughing at his mighty achievement. In a way it was reassuring: Unit 03 was a human work. A machine created by people with a sense of humour - with hopes and dreams as much as me. It gave a face to the million or more people who’d worked towards putting me in that hotseat.

Along with Kilroy, who announced he’d been on the entry plug carriage.

A few simple jokes gave weight to the hopes and dreams of the world. There were people behind me, in cities and cubicles far away.

“Standby mode primary ignition,”

“Primary ignition. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. One minute to ready one.”

Flick a switch. Read what was on the list.

“Standby mode secondary ignition.”

Flick a switch. Read what was on the list. It could’ve been automated, if they’d had an inclination to do so. But people liked people in the loop. Joshua protocols and all that.

“Secondary ignition. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Fifty seconds to ready one.”

“Standby mode range safety system.”

“Range safety. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Thirty-five Seconds to ready one,”

It was hard to get excited. It was hard to feel energised. All I felt was the desire to get things fucking done and over with. The sooner that happened, the better.

“Set launch pattern,”

“Setting Launch pattern.... um...” I scanned through the document, taking a moment to regain my place on the list. “....Alpha six,”

“Fifteen seconds,” she said

“Trigger set. Target set. Firing program set. Eva Unit 03 ready to fire in ten....

Nine.”

I read the countdown on the monitor beside me out loud. A wave of nausea rolled over my body as my mind started to catch up with what I was doing. My mouth kept going.

“Eight.

Seven.

Six.”

“Commence Primary Ignition.”

I flicked the first stage trigger. He latched into place. Annunciators flashed out patterns of red, green and yellow lights as the missile’s onboard software began the firing sequence.

No alarms sounded. I assumed everything was okay. One red button offered me the chance to abort right up until the last second.

“Four.”

“Ignition sequence start.”

Second stage trigger. Caps on top of the shoulder pylons blasted off, tumbling to the ground. One crushed a parked car. The other crashed through local powerlines with a spray of orange sparks.

“”Two.

One.”

I held my breath

“Zero.”

“Commence Firing.”

I pulled the switch. Nothing happened for a moment. ‘FIRING SEQUENCE ACTIVE’ flashed in angry red letters over the missile subsystems display. Too late to abort. The first launched with a punch, almost like something heavy grabbing a moment. It rose up out of its tube riding a column of white gas.

It stopped in mid air for a moment, hovering a few dozen metres above my head. I kept my head bowed down. Rocket motors roared to life, flooding my vision with smoke and flame. The heat began to sear the back of my neck while a thousand drums began to roll outside the entry plug.

The second missile launched in sequence. Followed by a third. Then a fourth.

A quick glance at my screen showed no warnings. They were tracking up into the sky. Grey smoke drifted in the breeze around me, rising up to meet the base of the cloudbase. I glanced to my right to see Unit 04 wreathed in smoke.

All indicators were green.

“Firing complete.” I broadcast, before standing upright.

“Acknowledged. 34 minutes to detonation. Switch back to conventional comms and stand down from launch..”

The display skipped a few frames once more, as the resolution jumped up. She looked ready to pass out, but for her it was over. She exhaled a long, whistling breath through her lips before smiling at me.

I returned the gesture.

Now, it was time to wait.

----->>

 

[Dartz_IRL]

Boom

-----
Hurry up and wait. The worst part was waiting.

We ran to the briefing room and burst through the door covered in sweat, still riding the adrenaline rush. Nobody was there to meet us - only cold, fresh air and a video-floor that used an overhead view of the Geofront as a screensaver. It was peaceful down below, a contrast to the world above.

We’d already had the biggest explosion since Second Impact to chew on. We then had minutes sweating and waiting, standing in our school uniforms on aching feet while the adrenaline drained.

“They always do this,” deadpanned Shinji.

“What are you, stupid? It’s dangerous to be outside up there.”

Asuka made the point in her usual manner. Rei glanced at her for a moment, before returning her attention to a single door built into the far wall. Kaworu lingered uncomfortably close. They say a watched pot never boils.

A watched door never opens.

Rei seemed determined to keep it shut by sheer force of will. Goosebumps tickled across the tops of my arms as I tried to figure out what could’ve caused such a massive explosion. y mouth had gone dry, beads of sweat trickling across my brow.

I was standing like I was being forced to balance on a razor’s edge.

Waiting.

Shifting my weight from leg to leg.

Looking at Shinji, who just seemed tired of standing.

Waiting.

Watching Asuka work herself up. She seemed to suck all the confidence and energy out of everyone else to hoard it for herself.

And still waiting.

Wringing my hands together, wondering just what was going to be waiting back up on the surface. What on Earth could cause an explosion that big - big enough that even our guards had no idea what it was.

Only that it wasn’t nuclear.

It was something big enough to worry people who had personal experience of nuclear explosions.

The door opened, a shaft of light slashing across the floor from outside. Misato strode along it with a purpose, clipboard under arm, stopping about two metres away from us. She took a moment to glance at each of us in-turn, offering an appreciative nod.

“An angel has been detected in Earth orbit.” She gave it a moment to sink in. “We believe it intends to drop on this city in a self-destructive attack within the hour. Your mission is to catch it with the Evangelion. If it hits, this city and everything within a hundred kilometres will become an extension of the Pacific Ocean .”

Bwa?

My jaw hit the floor.

Asuka was looking at me. Shinji just looked stunned.

“With our bare hands?”

That’s...... isn’t that what happened?

“Yes,” she confirmed.

“And that explosion?” I asked.

“The angel adjusting its aim.”

“If we miss?” asked Asuka.

“Then it’s over. Everybody dies.”

“Am I to ride with Nagato?” Kaworu, as unfazed as ever, asked it almost like he was asking for a lift home from work in a car.

“No”Misato shook her head gently. “You will board a flight to America. You and Unit 04 are our designated survivor in case this fails.”

“No glory for you,” teased Asuka.

“What are the chances?” asked Shinji. He sounded just a little more nervous than usual.

“Slim,” answered Misato, calm as anything. Her eyes were burning with determination. “But not zero.”

Okay. I know this angel. Maybe the reason they didn’t show the blast because it was Gainax and they were short of money. That made sense. I was back on known ground.

I grinned in relief. “Then it’s as good as a hundred percent.”

The creed of the Dai-Gurren-Dan would see me right. All I had to do was not screw up. Panic over. The Prince of lies lied. Big surprise.

Misato gave me an approving smile, before slipping five folders out from underneath her clipboard. “Still, you’re each required to write a will.”

Asuka scowled at her. “I’m not going to die.”

“I don’t need one,” Rei chipped in in her usual soft tone.

Shinji sighed, then looked at me. “Everyone else is saying no.”

“Good,” she smiled proudly at all of us. “We have fifty-five minutes left. Get ready. And we’ll all go for steak when it’s over.”

Shinji’s eyes gleamed hopefully “Steak?”

Asuka frowned.

“I promise.”

We watched her leave, hurrying out the same door.

“So,” Asuka nudged Shinji.”The Second Impact generation are so poor that they think we’ll be impressed by steak. And you play along.”

“It’s best to be nice,” stated Shinji.

It made sense when the only meat they had growing up was long pork. Thankfully, I didn’t know the Japanese euphemism for long pork, so I kept that to myself.

Asuka begun to rummage in her school bag, removing a city map. “You know, the Midoriyah cafe is supposed to be good. Of course, the First has to come”

“I dislike meat,” Rei stated

“I have no objections,” Kaworu stated, “It is the natural order of things, after all.”

“You’ll be in America.” I reminded him. “Thank fuck.”

“Shame.” he said.

After that, it was hurry up to the lift down to the changing rooms. Then wait until it arrived. I could feel Asuka watching me on the lift as we rode. I was staring through the safety-grate watching the wall beyond rush past, appreciating the cool rush of air cloaking my body.

The passing lights timed out the seconds, a metallic thunk

“So. Kaworu. Why did you become a pilot?”

Shinji just had to fill the silence.

“Because it is our destiny,” the Angel stated with a warm smile.

“Your destiny?”

“My destiny to be here, to meet you, Shinji.”

He stepped towards him, off For a moment, I thought I might’ve been feeling jealous, a hot flash of anger that demanded I get in the way before he got closer.. I glanced at Shinji, standing there with the first shoots of manhood growing on his boyish face, looking just a little uncomfortable at how close Kaworu was getting.

“Um.... “

“Hey Fifth,” Asuka cut in, hard. “The Third is a bit sensitive. Try not to weird him out, or Misato’ll have to come running to mother him again and that’ll hold everything up.”

Kaworu stepped back, meeting her gaze with those sharp red eyes of his.“He asked me a question. I answered with the truth,”

“You could answer in a way that doesn’t creep out the people actually fighting to keep you safe while you’re on your plane flying over the Pacific.”

She tried to stare him down in her usual manner. It was like trying to stare down a dead tree. He was taller than her - but not by much. I think Asuka might’ve been stronger if it came to a straight fight - Kaworu just didn’t have any sort of build to speak off under his shirt.

There was bone, some sort of soft tissue, and then pale skin.

The lift juddered to a halt at the bottom of the shaft, cage doors falling open with a slam. Time to go. Rei marched first, Shinji waited for Asuka.to finish her staredown challenge.

“I have a flight to get to.”

Kaworu didn’t even care about the challenge. He just turned away and walked off, leaving her standing there, bewildered and dumbstruck for a moment, before she turned with a stomp and started off

I followed last.

Why couldn’t Kaworu’s plane crash?

My mind fell back to that morning as I followed . The upside of getting better at Japanese was that I could speak off the cuff without taking the time to translate everything in my head. The downside of of getting better at Japanese was that I could speak off the cuff without taking the time to translate everything in my head - and think better of saying something stupid.

I owed Motoko an apology.

-------

The worst part was the waiting. Five minutes after non-nuclear missiles were supposed to have detonated, we were waiting on the results. I couldn’t bite my nails, my teeth squeaked off the plastic material of my plugsuit.

All I could do was wait and count the seconds on my mission timer, hoping it would all be over soon.

A comm-window chirped open. Misato’s face was set in stone.

Katsuragi; “Our missiles have failed.”

I nearly threw up. A burp bubbled up out of my mouth, rising up to the top of the entry plug.

Katsuragi; “We achieved a five percent reduction in mass of the Angel. Our request for an A-210 order has been approved. Colonel Stanislav Petrov of the United Nations Joint Nuclear Administration Agency will brief us on the details.”

I wondered if it was the same one. I wondered if he had been named after him. I’d never know, of course, but I could appreciate the irony.

“I would like to propose the use of Eight, W-71 warheads in Single Megaton configuration, arranged in a targetting pattern which will englobe the Angel at a distance of 0.6 kilometres to ensure proper focusing of the radiative energy and allow for complete detonation of all weapons.”

His voice was sober and clear. Even across oceans and fibre cables. The most terrible weapons in the world were his job, nothing more.

“At this distance, the incident radiation should cause the rapid explosive ablation of the surface layers of the Angel. The resulting disruption to the Angel’s structure caused by radiation and ablation pressure will lead to its ultimate destruction.”

In my mind, I pictured a man not to different from Moff Tarkin. Grey hair, strong cheekbones and an immaculate military uniform.

“Secondary effects at this altitude will be considerable. Unshielded electronics over a large portion of the Northern Hemisphere risk being damaged. Satellites with line of sight to hypocentre will be knocked out. A temporary radiation belt will encircle the planet for several days, disrupting remaining satellite capabilities.”

I could hear murmurs in the background.

“Irradiated remains will re-enter the atmosphere within 30 minutes - disintegrating on re-entry. Projections based on the consistency of the Minamiizu impactor suggest that the remains will airburst at an altitude of 20 kilometres over the North Atlantic Ocean. There is a risk of thermal injuries amongst those on the surface beneath the airburst along with flash injuries and eyesight damage amongst those with a line of sight to the burst.”

I wondered if it would land on my home. My old home. Or Noriko’s old home. She still had friends there.

“The majority of fallout will thus disperse in the upper atmosphere, with concentrations forming over the North Atlantic and parts of Western Europe. Fishing restrictions will be required in European waters while farming restrictions will be required for an indeterminate period of time.”

Asuka was open-mouthed, struck dumb. Obviously, I wasn’t the only one having that thought.

“Ground radiation levels in certain zones may require sheltering in place for up to three days, but no major evacuation will be necessary as the dose-rate will have reduced below the safe limit within 21 days. Children under the age of fourteen will be evacuated on a short term basis to minimise radiation exposure. We estimate, based on population densities and predicted fallout densities, there will be approximately twenty-thousand excess cancers over the next twenty years.”

I’d seen cancer rot someone alive from the inside out over the course of three years. I wouldn’t wish that fate on my worst enemy. We were potentially condemning twenty thousand people to a slow and agonising death.

“Do you wish to proceed with this action?”

He was cold and impassive. All just a fact of life to him. These statistics and effects were projected from historical data, reinterpreted through computer simulations before being offered up for digestion and a simple yes or no answer. I watched Misato close her eyes, drawing a deep breath in through her nose. I felt my whole body go cold. She waited for long seconds, the weight of the world dragging down at her shoulders as she exhaled.

When her eyes opened once more, they burned. They intensity and force of will behind them was breathtaking.

Katsuragi; “We face a responsibility unlike no other in the history of mankind: We have our fears - that which may become reality. And we have the Angels, which are reality. Initiate order A210.”

Nobody laughed. Nobody cried. Most people were silent. This was our duty. To do what is necessary to save humanity - as terrible as it may be. I think we all felt like that, in some way or another.

Petrov spoke once more. “These warheads are designed to detonate only after environmental triggers have been met. These triggers were set assuming a surface tasking. We will need another 18 hours to finish adaptation of the missiles and warheads.“

“Major Katsuragi? We only have enough ammunition for maybe six more passes.“ That sounded like Hyuuga. Misato turned away from her monitors to face whoever it was..

Katsuragi; “We need eighteen hours.”

“That’s impossible Major!”

Katsuragi; “Impossible? For us doing the impossible is routine. What I’m asking you to do now is to go beyond the impossible, to do what can’t be done. And if that’s too difficult, then you’re not trying hard enough. Now. Get to work. "

My aim in life was to grow up to be like Misato. No really. She’d been awake for nearly three days, she’d just ordered the largest nuclear strike in fifteen years, and she still had cold fire in her eyes.

-----

1: I moved that line from the previous segment to here, in lieu of a long speech.

 

[Dartz_IRL]

Unlucky for some. Come to think of it, this tends to be the point where most of these die. The Tenth Angel appears. And decides it won't march to it's death like all the others

Also. I experimented with the scene ordering a bit, going for an anachronic order. Not sure how well it works. It's also part of the reason why this took a year and a half for so little. The other reason is that I junked a fair bit of filler that would've been towards the end. Surprsingly short...

Rest of the Story is Here

The guns were quiet again.

They waited.

The whole world waited. A refreshing, petrichor smell hung in the cool night air, carried by a breeze rolling down off the mountain. The fires were dying down, beaten back by tankers and five hours of solid rain.

Clouds hung over our heads, glowing various shades of white, blue and orange according to whatever illumination was beneath them. Firecrews were winning the war in the city, damping down the last few steaming embers.

All five of us had gathered near the command van, supposedly to have something to eat. We were there in body, if not in spirit, sitting around a picnic table. We weren't really hungry. Our ration-packs saton the table uneaten, steadily cooling themselves.

I wasn't sure if I wanted my last meal to be cheap MRE.

Rei sat opposite me, turning her nose up at the meat as usual. Shinji sitting on the was downcast, staring into a cup of steaming instant-soup as if it contained the answer to life, the universe and everything. Asuka, beside me, seemed to have lost whatever life force had kept her going. Her face had drawn in around her cold, hard eyes. She stared at a point a kilometre behind Ayanami. It was hard to shake the feeling that we'd lost.

I stuck a spork into the contents of the MRE-packet, twirling them around to release the ginger aroma. All that achieved was to turn my stomach.

Kaworu, sitting beside me, was calm. He sat with his eyes closed, almost like he was meditating. I considered asking him if we really could lose, but decided not to. I was just too tired to get angry with him if he gave another cryptic answer.

More questions would be asked of me if I did.

I pondered the dream I'd had a few days before when I dozed off in the entry plug, feeling a pang of anger rise along with the sensation that he'd violated my mind. Again.

I'd strangle him later.

"So..." Shinji began..

"So..." I continued.

Nobody had anything else to say after that. Asuka's foot began to tap on the concrete. Rei steepled her hands, choosing to stare at the space held underneath her palms. I glanced at my watch, emitting a low growl when I saw that less than five minutes had passed since I last checked it.

It felt like an eternity.

"This is stupid," snarled Asuka. "I'd rather be in my Unit 02 than here!"

"Orders are orders," said Kaworu in his usual, mild tone. "We can't help them. No matter how uncomfortable they make us feel."

Asuka fixed him with the blackest stare I'd ever seen. She was ready to bore right through me just to strangle him. "Where were you really brought up?"

"In a research facility near Bonn."

She snarled at him, standing up to tower over him. "You really are just another doll-pilot, aren't you?" She spat it out "A toy incapable of thinking for itself. A product. A Coppelion who dances to the tune...."

"Cheyenne reports all weapons have activated as planned."

The voice boomed from the tannoy, echoing off the mountains around us. It left Asuka standing there with her mouth gaping open. Shinji sat bolt upright. I stared at the speaker, mounted to a light-pole above our heads.

Asuka's eyes darted between the tannoy and Kaworu, still calmly waiting for her to finish.

She sat back down. After that, only the thrumm of the generators could be heard. This was it. This was the moment on which the future turned. We had already surived, or we were already dead.

It was just a matter of waiting to find out. The tannoy squaked to life again, humming with power.

"Within the next minute, sometime, we should know." Misato's voice emerged. It was soft, subdued and calm. "This is the most important moment, maybe the last moment. I'd like to take the chance to offer a prayer."

She paused to take a breath. I felt my stomach go taught.

"May we live without destruction.
May we look to tomorrow with hope.
May Peace and Light return to us.
Oh Peace, oh Light return."

Another pause, letting her words settle heavily on our shoulders.

"Thank you all for trying."

The tannoy clicked off. The roar of an aircraft passed distantly overhead, receding into the distance. Somewhere, someone was pushing a diesel engine to its limits. A radio was playing an old song I swore I could recognise.

I wanted to do so may things. I wanted to call Motoko and apologise for being such a bitch. I wanted to go for that meal Misato promised us. I wanted to see my family one last time, just to let them know what happened to me. I wanted to sleep in my own bed. I wanted to see the school again.

I wanted it to be over. I wanted it to be quick.

I wanted it to have happened another way. A more awesome way. A way that didn't involve irradiating a continent.

The tannoy squawked again. I held my breath.

"East Atlantic ground tracking station confirms visually. Awaiting target status..."

Hyuuga, teasing us. I could feel myself shaking all over. I couldn't stop fidgetting, suddenly wanting to do something, anything, but just sit there and wait. I pushed myself to my feet, pins and needles tickling through my legs. Asuka did the same, followed by Shinji.

It squawked on more time. It fell to Hyuuga again to break the news.

"Multiple discreting objects detected in decaying orbit. Atlantic tracking confirms - no AT signature detected. Blood pattern negative. Target is silent."

That was the moment where their should've been the crash of trumpets and the rise of hopeful strings, accompanied by the stomping march of drums as the EVA's rolled forward. It passed in near silence. There were no rousing cheers. Nobody punched the air. I don't think anybody actually said anything.

We all just sat down and breathed on collective sigh of relief.

It was done.

The Angel was destroyed. Thousands would die in the decades to come. Billions would live. They might condemn us for what we had to do. But at least they can.

Both Misato's big moments come straight from Godzilla. I managed to avoid the usual Oppenheimer remarks - but he was foremost in my mind. The Ghita itself gave me a number. Also, "Those who Walk away from Omelas", I was a Teenage Dummy Plug, Gunbuster, Copellion... and that's just off the top of my head. And I suppose you could argue for others, especially since the solution in the end is, essentially, More Gun.