18:40 Hours TST (Tokyo CENTRAL DOGMA, Tokyo-3 The elderly
officer was grim. "Ikari, are you confident of defeating the Angel?"
"Of
course," Gendo replied. "This is why NERV exists."
"We expect
much," blathered one of the uniformed fools. "We’ll be monitoring the
situation."
And with that
the UN generals slinked away, tails between their legs.
Gendo smirked.
It was finally time!
"Captain
Katsuragi."
"Sir?"
called the crisp voice from the
"Prepare
Unit-01 to sortie."
"Yes,
sir!"
On the wall
monitor, Gendo studied the familiar form of Sachiel.
What a pathetic
creature you are, Angel. All the power in the world and yet you are about to be
murdered by a bunch of hairless ground-apes with pointy sticks. You exist, and
we suffer. You exist, but we learn. The Fruit of the Knowledge of Good and Evil
wasn’t such a bad deal for mankind when you get down to it.
Fuyutsuki spoke
quietly, not wanting his voice to drift. "Ikari, are you absolutely
sure about this?"
Gendo couldn’t
help but laugh. The unfamiliar noise spooked Fuyutsuki.
-*-
TAKING SIGHTS
Chapter 04 – The Butterfly Effect
Written by: Lavanya Six
(Please don’t sue)
-*-
from: NERV ([email protected])to: General Staff ([email protected])date: Wed, July 15, 2015 at 08:03 AMsubject: (SAFETY ALERT) HAZARDOUS MATERIALS ON GEO-FRONT SURFACE, PRACTICE CAUTION DURING TRAVEL To all NERV employees:
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While we at NERV strive for an efficient
and safe testing environment we are unfortunately unable to ensure that all
live munitions explode properly during these exercises. As such, unexploded
materials may be present on the Geo-Front surface and may not be limited to
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The UN Special Agency NERV, est. 2010 AD- God's In His Heaven, All's Right With the World -*-
18:42 Hours TSTSURFACE LEVEL OF GEO-FRONT, Tokyo-3 Shinji leaned
back in the pilot’s seat of Evangelion Unit-01 and sighed.
Ever since the
call came in, NERV had thrown him into a compressed training regime in
preparation for the inevitable battle. What was supposed to have taken take
weeks he had had to do in, what? A day and a half?
(Had it only be that
short a time?)
Aside from
sleeping in a spare bunk on base and the odd meal, they’d kept him in the Eva
doing anything they could think of: live-fire pallet rifle exercises, knife
fights, generating an "AT-Field". Shinji shuddered at that
memory. They’d turned the turrets of the battleship in the middle of
Geo-Front’s lake on him, forcing him to deflect the incoming shells with a
force field, and only given him a ten second heads-up! He’d managed – somehow –
but Misato would still do it to him randomly, claiming it helped him stay on
his toes. Even after Shinji learned that the shells couldn’t possibly breach
Unit-01’s armor plating he still went along with the drilling. Really, what
could he say to Misato and his Father? "No"?
Shinji snorted.
The video
intercom display on his HUD popped open. Misato Katsuragi gave him a friendly
little wave, but aside from that she was all business. Not the airhead she
acts like at home. "Shinji! We’ve received authorization to move out.
Advance to Gate 8 for transport." Blinking red arrows appeared that
directed his (or was it the Eva’s?) gaze in the proper direction. "We’ll
prep for launch from Catapult 37."
"Yes,
ma’am."
She smiled.
"Misato’s fine, you know."
"Y-yes,
Miss Misato."
Next to the
intercom display, a security feed replayed a loop of battlefield footage of the
Third Angel. It looked... very alien. And now he had to fight it. And if he
lost he’d...
He’d be...
"Breathe,
Shinji," Misato advised. "It’ll be okay. You trained for this, you’re
ready for this. I believe in you."
"It took an
N2, Misato."
"I know. It
had an AT-Field. So do you."
Shinji, despite
being lost in thought, tried not to crush trees underfoot. It was a lost cause.
The power cable he was dragging cut a ruinous trench behind him.
Once he arrived
at his destination an orgy of heavy machinery buckled the Evangelion in place.
Distantly, Shinji felt the pull of magnetism through Unit-01’s senses. I
keep forgetting it’s not just a robot. It’s a bio-machine.
Misato popped up
again. "Shinji, the pallet rifle will be waiting for you at the top. We
fitted a spare progressive knife in your other shoulder pauldron too."
"Target in
the center and pull the switch," he recited.
"Right!
Just like we practiced."
Doctor Akagi
stepped into the camera’s view. "Shinji, don’t forget about the AT-Field.
If you don’t neutralize it first you won’t do any meaningful damage."
But if the Angel
doesn’t have an AT-Field protecting it that means I don’t have one protecting
me either! And then that thing will be able to... to ki-
He shivered.
"Y-yes."
Misato came back
on. "The Angel has reached the outer defense parameter. We need to move
before it gets within attack range of the city. Are you ready?"
Shinji hesitated
but then nodded.
"EVA
LAUNCH!"
-*-
Sachiel the Angel had a headache.
In the grand
scheme of things, having an exploding sun thrown in its face didn’t count for
much. That was more a moral’s concern. The glory of the Fruit of Eternal Life –
what the Lilium called S2 – meant that Sachiel could grow and adapt to anything
that tried to hurt it.
No, Sachiel was
starting to get irritated with Lilith’s brood. They were everywhere, infesting
the glorious face of God’s creation like parasites. Worse, they kept trying to
bite Sachiel. True, they were toothless, pitiful things, but on the whole the
day’s events were starting to rub Sachiel raw.
Plus! They!
Never! Shut! Up!
Through his
myriad senses the Angel had listened to their radio waves and other
technological communications. The Lilium were constantly jabbering and
screaming and talking to each other... but never with each other.
It wasn’t just on the battlefield (though Sachiel had no concept of
‘battlefield’ or other arbitrary divisions in temporal space; to him the Earth
was a perfect union of land, water, and sky). They screamed into the night sky
in a thousand different languages in unnatural energies only for their cries to
fall back down to Earth from the ionosphere in a rain of unadulterated pain.
Three billion
souls... all alone.
Annihilating the Lilium through his own union with ADAM would be a
mercy to them, Sachiel decided. Afterwards the New Earth would be a memorial of
quiet.
The Angel almost
sighed when a new volley of missiles struck.
-*-
"Hmm. It
looks... sad, somehow."
Gendo cast a
glance back towards Fuyutsuki. "I doubt that."
"Do you suppose
it knows? About...?"
"I have
considered the notion. However, I doubt any will be forthcoming on the subject
for some time." The image of a red-eyed, grey-haired boy flashed in
Commander Ikari’s mind. "However, when that day
arrives I imagine it should make for an interesting conversation."
Below, Lt. Hyuga
announced, "Final safety lock released! Evangelion Unit-01 is ready for
battle!"
Fuyutsuki held
his breath. "Here we go again."
-*-
On the
mountainside overlooking Tokyo-3 history settled in for the start of a familiar
war.
The missile
barrage didn’t harm the Angel. The missiles themselves weren’t even designed
for maximizing damage to their target. They were meant to provide a
distraction. Amid the thick smokescreen, Sachiel paused to reorient itself and
to deal with the Attack UAVs buzzing it.
Shinji found the
pallet rifle right where his HUD prompt had indicated. Switching off its
safety, he engaged Unit-01’s targeting computer. Moving to the top of the
mountain range, Shinji located the wall of smoke a short way down the opposite
slope. His computer brought up a vector overlay, laying out an approximation of
the Angel’s body over the dim figure Shinji saw faintly in the smoke. With only
the moon and ground fires providing illumination, the Angel’s vague outline
provoked a demonic presence.
Shinji moved
forward, closing the distance.
Then he felt it:
Sachiel’s AT-Field. For some reason the sensation of
it was familiar to Shinji. It... smelled. It smelled like loneliness.
He shook his
head at the absurdity of the thought.
Shinji extended
Unit-01’s AT-Field and attempted to match the Angel’s own AT-Field. After a
moment his HUD flashed green.
"Target in
the center and pull the switch."
He fired.
-*-
In an instant
the world snapped into focus for Sachiel.
Lilith!
Not her brood or
their incessant screams. Her. He smelled Her flesh. He smelled Her soul.
He smelled Her d-
Wait.
Wait. Wait.
Wait.
This was not the
light of Lilith’s soul he felt. It was similar, yes, but NOT Her’s.
Sachiel looked
up.
There, just
above him, was a shade. Sachiel could feel the shade probing the edges of his
soul, trying to force its way in. No, this shade wasn’t Lilith. It didn’t have
a fraction of Her glory. It was more a Shadow of Lilith. And its soul was
little more than a mockery of Her glory. But then how did i-
Lilium. It was a
Lilium wearing the flesh of its Mother.
For the first
time in his short life, the Angel felt rage.
This...this
ABOMINATION will NOT STAND!!
Sachiel
concentrated.
-*-
Hot pink light
filled Central Dogma’s main viewscreen.
Hyuga screamed
over his station. "Umbilical severed! Unit-01 has sustained moderate
damage to outer armor plating! Four minutes, fifty-three seconds of power
remain!"
Maya’s fingers
dashed over her keyboard. "Pilot’s life signs stable! He’s OK!"
"Damn
it!" Misato couldn’t spot any signs of movement onscreen. Everything was
still on fire. "It wasn’t supposed to be able to fire crossbeams that
close in!"
Ritsuko blinked.
"It... it let itself get caught in the blast just to hit Unit-01?"
Aoba shouted,
"Energy spike detected at the epicenter!"
As if on cue,
the pink haze of the Angel’s attack faded to nothingness, revealing to NERV’s staff that Sachiel – now even more melty looking – was standing over the prone form of
Unit-01.
Misato cried
into the comm, "SHINJI! MOVE YOUR ASS!"
-*-
Shinji Ikari was
scarred shitless.
It was standing
over him. It was standing over him. He’d lost his gun and it was standing over
him. He’d deployed his AT-Field, he’d followed orders, and now it was standing
over him and it was going to kill him and he was going to die oh god he was
going to d-
Sachiel grabbed
Unit-01 by the head and hauled it up.
The prog knife! Shinji suddenly remembered his other
weapon. He willed the Eva to reach f-
PAIN!
Shinji grabbed
his right eye. "Arrrrggggh!" The Angel was
killing him! The Angel was killing him in the cockpit somehow!
PAIN!
"Noooooo!"
PAIN!
"HELP!
SOMEONE HEL-"
PAIN!
The Third Child
nearly blacked out when he felt the Angel put its arm lance through Unit-01’s
skull (and thus, through the miracle of synchronization, Shinji’s skull). The
force of the final blow carried the Evangelion backwards, the mightiest war
machine of man dangling like a trout on a hunter’s spear tip. When the arm
lance halted at its maximum extension momentum continued to carry the purple
giant forward. Unit-01 rolled along the mountainside in a broken heap of limbs
until at last it came to a rest.
Then blood
started to spray out its shattered head.
Shinji couldn’t
even bring himself to scream.
-*-
"Head
damaged! Extent unknown!"
"Synchrograph has reversed! The pulses are flowing
backwards!"
Dr. Akagi sprang
into action. "Cut the circuits! Stop the feedback!"
"It’s no
use!" Maya cried. "The Eva’s refusing the signal!"
Makota said, "No response from the monitoring system.
Pilot status unknown!"
It was Shigeru
who drove the final nail into the coffin. "Unit-01 has gone totally
silent."
Above the fray,
Fuyutsuki felt a swell of triumph. "We’ve done it now."
Captain
Katsuragi swore. "Stop the operation. Protecting the pilot’s life is now
our top priority." She looked to Maya. "Eject the entry plug!"
"We
can’t!"
"What?
Why?"
Gendo was
smiling.
Maya pointed to
her monitor. "The ejection system was damaged in the Eva’s crash landing.
We have to remove the plug manually!"
Ritsuko leaned
over the young technician’s shoulder. "Damn! We need to get him up and
moving. Use the plug suit’s defibrillator. Just give him the minimal voltage,
though. We don’t want to kill him."
"Yes,
Sempai!"
A long moment
passed.
"Ikari,"
NERV’s Vice-Commander said carefully, "shouldn’t
it have happened by now?"
Gendo had
stopped smiling.
-*-
Sachiel had no
love for Lilith or Her brood, but that... shade... that Shadow of Lilith had
been an insult to Her. It was dying now. He could smell it on the air.
Good.
The Angel turned
back towards the all-encompassing light of ADAM.
-*-
Someone punched
Shinji in the chest.
Considering the
teen had just felt someone blow a hole through his skull the minor sensation of
being punched in the chest proved oddly distracting. Shinji just wanted to curl
up in the dark and feel himself bleed to death. Now someone wouldn’t
leave him in peace!
"Ow!" He woke from his stupor. "Stop it! I’m
up!"
A screen burst
into life on his HUD. "Shinji! Are you okay?"
"Misato!
I... I failed. I’m sorry."
"It’s okay,
Shinji. Look, we need you to restart the Eva and retreat. We’ll find another
way somehow to defeat the A-"
"NO!"
Shinji shivered
as he heard his father yell.
A second screen
popped up on his HUD. This one was a tiny off-black monolith that read
‘COMMANDER IKARI – AUDIO ONLY’ in scarlet font.
"Shinji,"
started his Father in an icy voice, "you will restart the Eva and you will
destroy the target."
"I... I
can’t!"
"You
WILL."
"No! You’re
wrong! I can’t do this!"
"No,
Shinji, you WILL fight." Father’s voice grew louder with each word.
"Too much has happened! Too many people have died for you to fail me now!
I won't let you throw away everything just because you’re afraid of pain
and death! You mustn’t run away, Shinji! NOT this time! NOT from this
fight!"
("It’s not ideal, I know, but life never is. We make do with what we have
until we build something better. We can’t run away from life because it’s
unpleasant. If we run away then we’ll never be able to build that better
life.")
"Father..."
("I won’t lie to you. This will be the hardest thing you’ve ever done in
your life. It may well be the last thing you ever do with your life. But the
world needs you, Shinji. I need you.")
"I...
I..."
("Unit-01 was her final project. It was her hope for Unit-01 to usher in a
new age for mankind. I think she would have approved of you piloting it.")
"...yes.
I’ll do it. I’ll pilot it."
"Excellent,"
said his father. "NOW. GET. UP."
-*-
Maya followed
the readout. "Absolute Borderline crossed. Synchronization rate holding
steady at 40.6"
"I-I CAN'T
SEE! IT CUT OUT MY RIGHT EYE! OH GOD! OH GOD, I'M BLIND!"
Ritsuko
explained, "The Angel must have damaged the Eva's right optic nerve!
Shinji's mind can't interpret the conflicting data!"
"Shit,"
Misato swore. "Cut his synch ratio down to 30."
From on high a
voice proclaimed, "Belay that order."
Misato spun
around. "But Commander, the pilot w-"
"The pilot
needs to fight at his full capacity, Captain. He’ll have to get over the
pain."
Dr. Akagi got on
the comm. "Shinji! LISTEN! It's not your eye! That's fine! It's the
Eva's!"
"WHAT?! NO!
THAT'S... THAT'S NOT POS-"
"Feel your
face, damn it! It's still all there!"
"I... I...
you're right!! Thank God!! Oh, thank God!"
Misato sighed.
"Shinji, there’s a new umbilical cable three hundred meters to your north.
Hook up before your batteries drain."
"Y-Yes,
Misato!"
Fuyutsuki wiped
sweat from his brow. "Ikari," he whispered, "can he really do
this?"
"Of course.
Unless he defeats the Angel humanity has no future."
"That’s not
exactly a vote of confidence."
-*-
Unit-01,
battered and bloody, sprinted down the mountainside with a knife in its hand and
murder in its heart.
The MAGI had
shown Shinji was only capable of projecting and negating an AT-Field within a
very limited area, which meant that pallet rifles and other ranged weaponry
were out. That left close-quarters, hand-to-hand combat. Since the Angel had
already shown it was willing to catch itself in its own blasts anything other
than a knife fight was a pointless waste of energy. The way Misato figured it,
Shinji’s only chance was to punch Sachiel in the balls and then, when it
kneeled over, cut the bastard’s throat.
Figuratively speaking.
I mustn’t run
away. I mustn’t run away. I mustn’t run away.
Shinji,
galloping towards the Third Angel, overlooked the irony of his chant.
-*-
Sachiel didn’t
know what hit him.
Well, that was a
lie. He knew even as the two giants tumbled down the mountainside in a shower
of rock and dirt. It was the Shadow of Lilith. Surprisingly, it had managed to
scrape itself off the ground for a second round.
Sachiel concen-
Pain! Such pain!
It... it had
hurt him! The Abomination had cut at his very being.
And it was
singing! It was singing the song of the Lilium! It filled him with its pain
and loneliness and separateness and want. He felt
disgusted. Sick.
Please, he tried to
tell the foul shade, stop!
-*-
The Angel reached
out to him. It was going to stab him in the head again!
"Oh no you
don’t!"
Shinji reacted
on fearful impulse. He reached out with Unit-01’s free hand and grabbed the
Angel’s long, segmented limb and twisted. With an audible scream from
the monster its right arm exploded in a mash of blue blood and bone.
The simulations
hadn’t been like this.
"The
Core!" shouted Misato. "Destroy the Core!"
Shinji stabbed.
Again and again. The prog knife chipped away at the
Angel’s red Core. A more experienced fighter would have aimed at the same spot,
widening the break. Shinji’s aim was wild. He could only ‘see’ out one eye and
adrenaline alone was keeping him from shaking uncontrollably with fear.
Almost there...
almost have it....!
-*-
Sachiel knew he
was going to die.
Die and never be
with ADAM the Father again.
Die and never be
Completed.
Still, Sachiel
reasoned with his grand mind, if he were to die it might as well be in the
service of ADAM. And what better way to honor ADAM than to kill this
blasphemous Shadow of Lilith?
For the last
time in his short immortal life, Sachiel concentrated.
-*-
Central Dogma
was silent.
Just outside of
Tokyo-3 a giant cross of white light lit the nighttime sky.
Misato forced
herself to breathe. "P...pilot status?"
The light faded.
Unit-01’s comm channel reactivated. Shinji’s groans filled Central
Dogma.
Hyuga announced,
"He’s alive! He’s okay! The AT-Field protected him!"
An explosion of
applause and cheering filled Central Dogma. Aoba and Hyuga shared smiles of
relief. Doctor Akagi impulsively hugged a shocked (and blushing) Maya Ibuki. Misato Katsuragi picked up a headset and pressed it
into her ear, trying to hear over the general roar.
"Shinji!"
"Mi...
Misato? Did I... did I....?"
"Yes,"
she said, her voice becoming emotional. "You saved the day."
"Oh."
-*-
Two men stood
above the pandemonium.
"Ikari?"
"Hmm?"
"What just
happened?"
"What just
happened is that we learned a lesson."
"A lesson?
About what?"
"Change,
Fuyutsuki. Change."
-*-
end part 04
-*-