Sailor Star Dust wrote:Power Replays

Sailor Star Dust wrote:If you're pre-reader is Mike, then just know as an FYI he's visiting family and as such his net connection has completely sucked the past few days. (I tried talking with him on IRC today and his net shat out like 5 times in a row.)

btw, I'll give you my thoughts on Power Replays at some point this week.

(takes place during the six days Asuka and Shinji spent training in episode 9)

Misato Katsuragi could not hide the sense of horror that gripped her heart as the column of light rose across the already devastated landscape and consumed everything within its proximity. Seconds before Hyuga had reported a high-density energy build up within the Angel’s core not unlike that it had used to the UN from the sky.

“Maya?” Misato asked, almost absent-mindedly, as all the screens in the control room vanished into static. “Maya, can you hear me?”

“Major…” It was Hyuga who called up to Misato first, turning in his chair to face her. “We have lost the connection. Probably due to EMP.”

“What about Rei?” Misato asked, her voice quivering with desperation.

“It’s impossible to tell,” Haruna replied. Her eyes were bristling with tears. “We … we can’t get any readings on the pilot at all.”

“What is Unit-00’s status?”

Hyuga turned away from Misato, checked his console, then turned back and shook his head. “We can’t get anything on any of the frequencies. They’re either not there, or otherwise disabled.”

Misato nodded grimly, aware that at that distance the chances of surviving a blast of such magnitude were slim. The Eva’s AT Field ought to keep Rei safe—at least for a while. And Maya and her staff had evacuated the area immediately before the battle started. Everyone could be still be okay. No reason to panic.

“The EMP interference is gone,” Aoba reported. “Visuals are coming back up.”

All of the screens on the bridge jumped to life either one by one or in clusters, shwoing the ghastly image of the battle zone. Smoke covered the battlefield, billowing in thick brown and gray crowds. The Angel stood in the middle of a broad crater, its wings spread wide apart. It was still holding Unit-00 in its hands—what was left of it.

“No!” Haruna whispered, horrified, and quickly covered her mouth with both hands. She started to cry. Aoba looked over sympathetically, a sad expression on his face.

Every single person in the bridge, with the exception of Gendo Ikari, stared in horror. Even Ritsuko, cold and generally considered to be heartless, stared, visibly shaken by what she was seeing.

The Angel was untouched by the force of the blast, its armor dull and covered in dust, but Unit-00 …

Unit-00 was nothing more than a decimated carcass. Most of its armor was missing or burned through, its flesh charred black and peeling off in parts. As the Angle stepped through the dust, it folded its wings and released Unit 00, which simply fell to the ground like a discarded toy. The once a mighty Evangelion was now a ragged mess. But it wasn’t the Evangelion itself that worried Misato.

Quiet prayers filled the silence. Whispering. Crying.

Misato thought her heart had stopped beating.

“Rei…” Shinji’s voice suddenly broke through the silence, loaded with emotion, shaking to the point of being nearly unrecognizable. “Rei…is she…is she all right? Misato? Is she … is she all right?”

Misato cocked her head, as if snapping from a trance. “Is he watching this in Unit 01?” she screamed, rushing towards Aoba and leaning over his console. “Damn it, is he watching this?”

“I…think he is,” Aoba said, after a moment of hesitation.

“Terminate his video link,” Misato ordered. “Now!”

But Shinji had already seen enough. As much as Misato wanted to protect him, there was no hiding the truth.

“Misato, is Rei all right?” Shinji whimpered. He was on a public channel—everyone on the bridge could hear him. “Misato, answer me. Is she all right?”

A knot of worried faces turned towards Misato. Aoba reached out and squeezed her arm in a gesture of support. Not one of them envied her, she could tell. But they all knew what she did—she couldn’t lie to Shinji.

“Shinji, I…don’t know,” Misato began, shocking on her words. She didn’t know what else to say. She searched in vain for something that would explain what had just happened and reassure Shinji that everything would be all right. Even if she didn’t believe it would. But before she could say anything else, Hyuga broke in.

“The target is on the move again,” he said in alarm. “It is within the Geo-Front’s outer grid.”

“Tell me, Misato!” Shinji insisted, weeping openly now. He had lost it. “I-is she all right? Where is she? Can you talk to her? Please … please. Tell me. Why did you have to send her?”

“Shinji…I…”

“WHY?”

His cry, however, was drowned out by his father’s stern voice echoing from the observation deck. “Enough of this nonsense, Major Katsuragi. Leave the sentimentalities for when this is over. You still have a job to do.”

Misato looked up at him, feeling a kind of hatred she had never felt since her own father died. “But sir, Rei is—”

“You can’t help her now, Major,” Ikari cut her off. “Deploy Unit-01 inside the Geo-Front. There is no point in sending it out there when we know where the Angel’s headed.”

“Misato?” Shinji’s voice echoed again over the bridge.

Although a part of Misato fully understood that Gendo Ikari was right, she could not help but resent him. He could at least fake concern, specially knowing that his son was listening to him.

“Your father’s right,” Misato said, words she would regret for the rest of her life. “We can’t help her from here.” She turned to Hyuga. “Prepare Unit-01 for sortie through route seventh. I want a full rescue and recovery team out there checking on Unit-00 and Rei ASAP. And get a hold of Maya.”

“Misato,” Shinji wept. “I can’t … I can’t …”

Misato sighed, though she understood. “Aoba, can you open a video link to him. Privately.”

The long-haired operator nodded. A small screen on the console nearby flickered, displaying the image of a young boy. His cheeks were flushed a deep red, and streaked by tears. His eyes were lost, sad, but once he noticed the video link had opened in his LCL matrix he started wiping away his tears with the back of his hands.

Misato placed each of her hands on either side of the screen, and leaned over it. “Shinji, please listen to me,” she said as warmly as she could. “I know it’s hard. Rei once told you that if you refused to fight you’d already lost everything, didn’t she? But you haven’t lost everything. All of us, everyone here—you have to protect us. You are the only one who can.”

“Mi-Misato…” Shinji was still wiping away his tears, but also could tell from his expression that he was listening.

“Please, I need you.” That was a cheap shot, manipulating him and his sense of self-worth to get to do what she needed him to. She felt like a whore—like she was back in his bedroom offering her body to him because she could think of no other way to comfort him. She was using him. Always using him.

Misato hated herself for it, but at least she would have time to say she was sorry later. And it wasn’t a lie. She did, truly, need him. They all did.

The main cage inside Central Dogma was a mess of twisted metal and concrete rubble. It reminded Ritsuko Akagi of some kind of urban battlefield, which in some aspects that was exactly what she was looking at. The repairs to this part of the Geo-Front alone would cost hundreds of millions of yens, but the she was not overtly concerned with the money issues anymore now that the UN had just approved a new budget plan to allow for NERV’s renewed importance.

Both Unit-01 and 02 had long been removed to their holding cages, those were easy tasks accomplished with routine equipment. The cages, however, were not designed for the removals of chunks of pulped Evangelion or its own outlying structure components from the space. The modular components allowed some flexibility, however, so it was a matter of thinking things through. And Ritsuko was very good at thinking.

Ritsuko focused all her attention on the grotesque figure that lay sunken in the LCL. What remained above the surface emerged from the orange liquid like some kind of strange island, mostly concrete. The Angels was almost entirely submerged. This made it easier for teams of divers to cut it up into pieces that the cranes could then move. It was a slow tedious process.

There was a small army of techs and machines working in the cage, and even more of them under the LCL’s surface each with a specific task, but Ritsuko judged they were only about halfway back to the cage being useable. And while she had enough trust in the crew to do a good job, she wanted to be here for the next part of the operation.

The Technician standing next to her flinched as his headphones came to life. He turned to the doctor. “Access plate has been released.”

Ritsuko nodded. “Set the charges and bring up the plug.”

The Tech relayed the orders without hesitation and fixed his eyes on the LCL. At first only a few bubbles could be seen, then divers began to pop up and finally, the entry-plug bobbed to the surface like a cork. It was badly dented and covered in scuffmarks. Remarkably, it was not crushed.

A crane was lowered from a gantry overhead and the divers attached the plug to it. Ritsuko noticed that both the ends of the long cylinder were painted red, with white rings running through them. Chinese characters where printed on the plug in black.

“A dummy-plug,” Ritsuko said. “Remove it to Terminal Dogma for disposal.”

It was a lie, of course. Like a lot of other things none of the people present that to know that, and Ritsuko preferred that they didn’t. She was not looking forward to opening to plug and finding the week-old carcass of the girl the Chinese branch had used for their experiment. But it was a necessary lie—Shinji would not have fought the way he did if there was a human life at stake.

So they lied to him. Quite unnecessarily, as it turned out, since he wasn’t the one to defeat the Angel. And she was pretty sure she wouldn’t have had to lie to Asuka about something like this. That girl would do anything to boost her ego, even if it meant having to kill in the process. Misato could dote on Shinji all she wanted; Asuka was the only real warrior among the pilots.

Not that she had actually killed anyone. By the time Unit-02 activated, Ritsuko was fairly sure Unit-A’s pilot was long dead. The Tablet had likely destroyed her mind when it took over the Eva.
The crane stopped overhead with a metallic hiss. Ritsuko turned around and quickly checked the recovery vehicle behind her. It was a long flatbed trailer with a multitude of wheels on both sides, and a half-dozen semicircular brackets to hold the plug in place. This trailer was attached to a control cab. Most NERV vehicles were purpose built, and this one was no different, but it resembled a freightliner in general function.

Slowly, the crane brought plug down onto the trailer. The suspension screeched as the added weight pushed on it, making the whole vehicle sink noticeably.

“Entry-plug secured,” the tech said.

Ritsuko nodded. “Good job. Clear the maintenance crew for access into Terminal Dogma.” She began walking towards the cab, heels clicking on the concrete platform.

She climbed aboard, taking one of the metal bar handholds and opening the passenger side door. The driver, a blonde girl in orange work coveralls, looked at her curiously. “Doctor?”

“Miko, right?” Ritsuko said casually but did not wait for an answer as she settled on the seat and looked through the thick windshield. “Lets go. Gate seven.”

Miko started the vehicle with a flick of her wrist on the ignition key. The engine came to life with a roar, like a dormant beast waking from long hibernation. She dropped the emergency brake, pushed the clutch with her right foot and put the car in gear.

The vehicle rumbled towards one of the loading tunnels, making more noise than Ritsuko thought it should and made a note to herself for scheduling maintenance. There had not been time or resources to look after a lot of the extra-Eva equipment lately, and some deterioration was to be expected. She was confident that the government would be forced to provide replacements if NERV asked.

The narrow entrance opened into a wider space in front of them, strips of light located at the seams between the walls and the roof but it was otherwise dark. Their headlight appeared as bright circles were matter existed in the middle of the black void.

Heavy components like entry-plugs were normally loaded directly to and from storage via the elevators in the cages, making cargo procedures more simple and less time consuming. In fact, weapons and battery packs could be loaded directly to the Evangelion once it was properly placed. But this plug was not going into storage. Nor would it ever go back into any Eva unit.

“You’ve never been to Terminal Dogma, have you?” Ritsuko looked at the girl sitting in the cab with her.

“No, ma’am,” Miko said.

She could not have known what she was carrying. Death had stopped making Ritsuko uncomfortable a long time ago. From her mother’s suicide to the destruction of the Dummy and Re’s bodies, she saw death as something to be acknowledged because of its omnipresent, but it wasn’t something to be upset by. People died. The world was far too much of a cesspit to feel sorry for those who escaped it.

Once the vehicle reached the central hug the light came on automatically. Six different rail lines extended out of a central ring, like a big turnstile, and each rail led to a different gate. There was a cargo platforms locked in front of each gate and as the trailer exited the tunnel it was immediately resting on one of these platforms.

It took once a few seconds for the RFID to register and the hub began turning, placing the vehicle to the gate exactly opposed their assigned one. The center of the turnstile opened up, allowing them to drive to the platform on the opposite side and into another tunnel.

“Is it true what they say?” Miko asked suddenly. “I mean, about there being monsters down there.”

“It depends of how you define a monster.” Ritsuko checked her watch, the hands glowing green. Fifteen minutes and they’d be to the elevator. From there it would be a much longer trip down to Terminal Dogma and the incinerator; thus were NERV’s secrets hid.

Miko did not answer her but Ritsuko noticed she became tense, a perfectly reasonable reaction to the unknown.

Asuka sighed, lifting her head and stiffening her back. She was standing on the edge of the train platform, waiting for the train that would take her to school. The day was clear and hot, illuminated by the bright sunlight as it streamed into the small terminal building of the Hakone Line Monorail.

Hikari didn’t have to try very hard before she allowed her to talk her into going back to school. Asuka had to give credit to her friend for helping her maintain some sense of normalcy in her life when she felt like all she could do was lay down in bed and fight a fresh wave of tears. That she had been there when she needed her meant more than she could ever admit.

She was feeling much better now, and so Hikari was not nagging her to point she wished she would just leave her alone anymore. And although she still wasn’t sleeping as well as she’d like, she felt energized in a way she hadn’t been in months.

She was alive again. The world made sense, and there was nothing for it but to keep moving ahead. Last week that same prospect had seemed so utterly ridiculous.

Asuka looked around. There were only a few other students on the platform, several of them from her own grade. She knew none of them by name, though they probably all knew hers—she had never bothered. They were nobodies without anything remarkable to single them out and make their names if she had had ever heard them worth remembering.

But they were looking at her.

Asuka had gotten used to the stares and the comments. That didn’t mean she liked them, but they didn’t bother her. And she didn’t help herself either; when she’d first been told she’d be wearing the dull jumper school uniform every day, she’d taken it upon herself to have Shinji raise the hem of her skirt to a few inches above her knees, revealing more legs than her classmates.

She had justified it first by saying that it was simply because she hated wearing long skirts, but she knew it was really because she wanted the attention, as if all her physical attributes weren’t enough. If she had been allowed to wear her form-fitting plugsuit to school she would have done so.

Asuka shifted her weight, feeling the pressure change from one heel to the other and brought her book bag to her front holding it with both hands, covering her exposed knees.

Then, without really intending to, her azure gaze became fixed on a brown haired boy slowly ascending into view on the other side of the platform, looking gloomy as usual.

Her thin eyebrows drew together in a scowl, and shot a glare in his direction. What the hell was he doing here?

Shinji kept his head down as he came to stand trackside, eyes on the rails in the gap between them. He was alone too—unlike the last time she could remember a scene like this. Back then he’d had Rei by his side and Asuka was still checking her voice mail hoping to hear a message from Kaji. Now Wonder Girl was in the hospital, and Kaji would never call.
Her chest tightened suddenly.

A fortunate side-effect of spending so much time feeling miserable from so many different things was that it was hard to focus on whatever hurt least amidst a cacophony of hurts. So far she had managed to keep Kaji’s memory on the back of her mind. It would catch up to her, but maybe by then she will have stopped caring. In a way, not having to see him again made the loss easier to deal with.

Not so with Shinji.

She couldn’t avoid him forever; she wasn’t sure she could avoid him at all. Even now she wanted to yell at him across the platform. On the other hand, he was such a doormat that he would not approach her. But she couldn’t just pretend he didn’t exist because whatever it was that he made her feel was not something that would go away.

Frustrating as it was, Asuka had managed to reconcile her inability to be rid of these emotions. She wasn’t known for giving up, but what else was she supposed to do when she didn’t understand any of it? She had no choice, did she? She had to live with herself, the person she hated most in the whole world.

It was Shinji’s fault. Moving to Japan changed her entire world in such a short time that there was hardly time to take in the changes. New life, new culture, yet none of it bothered her in the slightest. But before she met Shinji things like her feelings had never been an issue. Before she moved in with him she’d been perfectly content with the person she was. But that was before …

And it was ever so easy to blame it on him. Just as she did now, grinding her teeth in anger.