[NGE] The Coming of the First Ones

[Muphrid]

Let's try something different.  Chapter six isn't yet finished, but I feel fairly confident in the first few scenes. Here's one of them.

Spoiler: ShowHide

A Polyp in a Cluster of Sea Stars

The room had white walls and a smooth, shiny, dark blue floor.  It smelled of chemicals and disinfectant.  Pumps whirred.  Sensors beeped.  Beds went down the length of the long room, a line on each side with a central walking aisle between them.  Curtains gave each bed and its occupant a modicum of privacy, but that was all.

A man in green, short-sleeved scrubs stood at the doorway, nodding for the group of people who approached.

"Welcome," he said, bowing slightly.  "We're very pleased to have you, Ikari-san."

Shinji nodded in acknowledgement, peering past the nurse and into the room.  At his sides, two SDF members stood guard in combat fatigues—an unusually varied sight in this sterile, pristine hospital ward.

And last but not least, Asuka brought up the rear.  She ran two fingers through her hair, keeping her hands occupied, but her gaze was fixed on Shinji and his words with the head nurse.

"We have a few minutes for you to meet with each of the men," said the head nurse.  "I'll be there to make sure no one is unduly stressed by the visit."

"Stressed?" asked Shinji.

"It's just a precaution.  Though I think everyone will feel quite honored that you've come, it's best to be careful.  If someone gets overexcited, we may need to take a break and give them sedatives.  You understand, of course."

Shinji nodded again, and the nurse stepped aside to show the four of them into the room.  Shinji started on the left, stepping out of the aisle so the curtain by the adjacent bed hid him from general view.  A woman lay in this bed.  Her hair was short and dark.  She sat up slightly when Shinji approached, meeting his gaze with sharp brown eyes.

"Hello."  Shinji greeted her with a bow.  "What's your name?"

"Murakami," said the woman.  "Corporal, ASDF, at your service."

"Pleased to meet you, Corporal."  He motioned to Asuka, who gave a short smile of her own.  "This is my girlfriend.  We've come all this way just to visit you."

Corporal Murakami scoffed pleasantly.  "Not just me, I hope.  I don't think I'll be much entertainment.  See, I could go chattering away for five minutes and forget you were even here.  I'm not a very good host."

"Don't be so hard on yourself," said Shinji.  "You're doing just fine."

"Am I?" the corporal said coyly.  "How can I be a good host when I haven't even been introduced to my guests?"

Abashed, Shinji chuckled nervously.  "Sorry, most people know who we are.  I didn't even think about it."

"I'm only kidding," said the corporal with a friendly smile.  "You really are just a kid, aren't you?  Still, it's a surprise to see someone like you around here.  Word is you're holed up with the Evangelion, wherever it's being kept, and you're not coming out until the Russians and Chinese stand down or they drag you out kicking and screaming."

"Asuka and I have been in hiding, yes," said Shinji, "but we come out now and then to visit with people."

At that, Shinji was being intentionally liberal with the truth.  This was the first time he and Asuka had left the mountain in weeks.  In truth, Asuka had hardly missed the outside world.  Misato had managed to have most of Asuka's lab equipment and work moved into the mountain, which meant instead of catching a bus to work each day (or every few days, when she'd started sleeping at work instead), Asuka only had to go down a few levels to get to business.  Strangely, it was Shinji who felt bottled up in the mountain.  Though introverted by nature, Shinji had a strong desire to be involved in the effort against Eisheth.  It was refreshing, on one level, for Asuka to see such life in him, but it still took some getting used to—for both of them.  They weren't pilots anymore.  They couldn't fight it out on the front lines.  Asuka was a scientist; she could still work toward something on her own.  Shinji didn't have such a well-defined interest or area of expertise.  He dabbled in music now and then, but that was all.

So Shinji did the only thing he could—he played the role of reluctant celebrity.  As a public figure, Shinji commanded great attention and, for the most part, respect.  Sure, there were some crazies who hated him, but most people weren't like that.  And given the enthusiasm with which their offer was accepted, most of the volunteers in SDF appreciated what a gesture it was for Shinji to come visit the wounded.  Asuka found the idea a bit unnerving; hospitals seldom sat well with her.  The sterile, inert smell brought back bad memories that she preferred to forget.  Still, Shinji met the idea with a sense of gravity and respect, the same respect he treated the ASDF corporal who lay in a hospital bed before him.  Shinji was chatting with her well enough, and Asuka was glad for that.  While the woman didn't have any visible injuries—no missing limbs or anything like that—it was only a matter of time before it came up.  Soldiers didn't end up in a hospital unless they had to be there.

"So you were going to train to help maintain helicopters?" Shinji asked at one point.

The corporal laughed, unable to answer.

"What's so funny?"

"It just seems strange," said the corporal.  "Here we are, just talking here in the hospital, and we haven't even introduced ourselves to each other yet."

Shinji blinked.  "But we did.  I mean, I didn't, but you did."

"I did?  When?"

"You said your name was Murakami, with ASDF.  You're a corporal, aren't you?"

The corporal was dismissive, disbelieving.  "You must've read my file."

Asuka touched a hand to Shinji's shoulder and shook her head.  She kept him back while the nurse stepped in to keep the corporal from getting confused.  Short-term memory loss.  That's what it was.  A blow to the head left few marks on the body as evidence of trauma, but that simple injury left the woman unable to create new memories from just a few minutes before.  How horrifying it was to see a person like that—seemingly normal and unscathed, but she wasn't all there.  She might never be all there again.

That was the price of war, and thus far, war had not been kind to Japan.  Asuka had seen little point in worrying over what exactly the Russians and Chinese were doing, but it was impossible not to hear something.  The Americans were unwilling to stretch themselves thin, and their defense of the island nation was half-hearted at best.  Better to save their resources for Eisheth's arrival, and if the Chinese and Russians took the Eva, it would still be in the hands of men, of people who would fight Eisheth.

So it came as no surprise that the Russians broke through the Japanese-American naval perimeter and established a beachhead at Fukui, intent on marching for Tōkyō-2, but the Japanese nation would resist them.  It would fight for every inch, and these people—the people in the hospital room with her and Shinji—had given their bodies and minds to do it.

Shinji took to the SDF members rather well.  He spoke with them politely, always asking their names and what they did.  If they wanted to talk about their injuries, he listened.  If they wished to talk about anything else, he engaged them as best he could, but that didn't make it easy.  Watching Shinji speak with a woman wearing an eyepatch gave Asuka chills, and the unending spectrum of disfigurements and injuries took their toll on Shinji, too.  As he went further down the row of beds, his polite smile faded with time.  Each lost finger damped his spirit, and one man who could no longer speak or form words merely smiled at Shinji, knowing there was no other way they could communicate.  How hard it must've been for him to find energy for each new face he met.

After they finished speaking with half the room, Shinji took the nurse aside.  "Can we have a few minutes before we continue?"

"Of course," said the nurse, and he showed Shinji, Asuka, and their guards to the hallway, where sickeningly white fluorescent light gave way to warm sunshine.  Three great windows opened to a grassy landscape, interspersed with concrete walking paths.  The hospital was serene and secluded, a place for these men and women who'd fought for Japan to recover in peace.  Shinji stood by the window with the sun on his face and took a deep breath, shaking his head.

"How are you holding up?" asked Asuka.

"Better than I thought I would," he said, "but it's still difficult in there.  It's not that I haven't seen things like that before."

"Like Suzuhara."

"Right.  But you see people in there—some of them with hope, others despair.  It makes you wonder if that hope is real or fake, if that despair can be changed by a single visit from someone like me.  If we'd had people visiting us when we were pilots, would things have turned out differently?"

Asuka shrugged.  "I can't think of anyone I would've wanted to visit me.  I talked to my father on the phone from time to time.  That was fine.  And when things got bad, I don't think I would've wanted him to see that anyway.  Really, it's silly to worry about how things could've turned out.  We're here, and none of that's going to change.  I think all those people in there appreciate what you're doing, and if they don't, they're not being harmed by it, either."

Shinji stared out the window at that.  "You might be right."

He was pensive and deep in thought, weighing carefully the seriousness of his responsibility—to those wounded soldiers in the hospital, to the people of Japan, and to himself.  There he was, a mere boy making visits with the fallen, as a politician or a celebrity would.  Indeed, he was the ultimate celebrity, for there was no one more famous, more universally known.  Up to that moment, Shinji had always run away from the spotlight.

"Well," he said, balling a hand into a fist at his side, "I guess we shouldn't leave the other half of the room waiting too long."

But maybe, with those first few steps back to the ward, he was moving into the public eye as well.  That act drew a twinge in Asuka, a noticeable swell of respect and admiration for the man Shinji was becoming.

Yet there was something else, too—some feeling she couldn't put into words.  All eyes were on Shinji after all.  He set their agenda.  It was he whom the wounded look toward for relief and comfort.

And it was to him the guards ran when he stumbled at the threshold.

He wasn't the only one.  The building shook and trembled.  The windows rattled against their frames.  Outside, the trees waved and rustled with the breeze.

Asuka put a hand to the glass, feeling the vibrations.  It pushed against her touch and retreated again.

"What is it?" asked Shinji, rubbing his twisted ankle.  "An earthquake?"

In the distance, a line of white smoke streamed across the sky—a trail that an airliner would leave.

Or a fighter jet.

Or a missile.

The death wail of a siren came through the glass.  It cried over the trees as birds took flight and squirrels fled the clearings.  One of the guards took out a satellite phone and started dialing.  The news he got back wasn't good.

"Ikari-san, Sōryū-san, we need to get you to safety.  This area may no longer be safe."

At once, the halls of the hospital started flooding with nurses, doctors, and other staff.  Whatever had happened—a bomb drop, a missile strike, or something else—it was like the shoe of a cosmic toddler kicking over an anthill, and the hospital workers emerged in a collective response.  Unlike ants, however, that response was anything but orderly and controlled.  As Shinji, Asuka, and the two SDF guards made for the stairs, a wall of humanity stood in their way.  Bulky metal beds clogged the corridors, and heart monitors beeped with unhealthy speed.

"Excuse me."  Shinji took one of the doctors by the sleeve as politely as he could.  "What's the problem up there?  It doesn't seem like anyone's moving."

"What do you think the problem us?  The stairs are jammed with people, and the administrators are fighting to get on the elevators."

"But what about the patients?  Aren't they more important?"

"In theory.  But do you see anyone stepping aside to make room and get these beds through?"

Before Shinji could ask another question, the doctor shoved an arm through the crowd and fought his way forward.  Shinji, Asuka, and their SDF escort wouldn't be so lucky.  Any single one of them might've been able to cut through the crowd, but all four of them?  Not a chance.  And they had to stay together.  Those were Misato's explicit orders.

"Ikari-san!" cried a guard.

Misato's orders must not have meant very much, for Shinji crouched to the floor and scrambled through a gap under a gurney.

The guards forced their way into the crowd.  "Ikari-san?  Ikari-san!" they cried, but Shinji was nowhere to be found.  Asuka peered around the mass of bodies, trying to catch a glimpse of him.  Shinji was getting taller every day, or so it seemed.  How could he just vanish into a crowd like this?  Was he that nimble, even still?

I'm a scientist and an Eva pilot, not a gymnast.  I'm not crawling on the floor.  Shinji, what are you doing?

Asuka followed in the trail of the guards, to no avail.  When a new elevator car opened its doors, however, the whole of the crowd went quiet, for a single voice spoke over them.

"Excuse me," said Shinji, blocking the path to the elevator doors.  "I know many of you must be scared, but there are a few gurneys behind you that need to get through here.  We're evacuating to the hospital basement, right?  I don't think the people on carts will be able to get down there any other way."

"Kid, you may have saved the world, but we work here," cried a voice.  "Get out of the way!"

"Who he is or what he did doesn't matter!" Asuka shouted back.  "He could be a street vendor in Kōbe selling octopus dumplings for all you should care.  Is Shinji right, or is he wrong?  Do you have some better plan to get the patients to safety or not?"

The crowd went quiet, humbled by Shinji and Asuka's rebuke, and the way to the elevator parted for a pair of gurneys to go through.  With the route clear, Asuka caught up with Shinji, and they—along with their two SDF guards—stood watch over the elevator, ensuring an orderly procession of wounded to the basement below.

"That was pretty clever," Asuka told Shinji, giving him a sly nudge for good measure.  "Sneaking along the ground where no one was looking to get to the front."

Shinji shrugged.  "I just saw where I had to go and I went."

He talked about it so casually, like it was the natural thing to do.  That's how Shinji was, and more and more, he was overcoming his anxieties, standing up for what he saw was right and necessary.

The crowd thinned over a tense few minutes, for the stairwell quickly became passable for able-bodied staff and visitors, and when the hallway cleared, the guards insisted Shinji and Asuka get downstairs as soon as possible.  Asuka took a long look out the window on the way out.  Smoke rose in the distance, but how far it was and how much danger they were in she couldn't say.  What Shinji had done—breaking up a tense and anxious mob—would be sorely needed in the coming days.  In times of crisis, it was all too easy for people to be swept away in fear, and the Russians and Chinese were only getting closer.  A voice of reason, earnestness, and sanity would be the only defense against Eisheth's insanity.

"Ikari-san?" said one of the guards, stopping by the doorway.

Shinji checked down the halls, making sure there were no more patients coming.  When he was satisfied, he nodded to the guard.  "Looks okay.  Let's go then."

He would be the one giving orders and providing hope, and it was Asuka's fate to walk in his shadow, always following as the sirens of coming doom wailed.

[Muphrid]

JonBob and I discussed the previous scene briefly on irc:

< JonBob_work> It seems like another iteration of "people are idiots, shinji has to keep them from imploding themselves." Also, asuka is less tsundere than normal, but the situation is fine for that.
< Muphrid> How did you feel about what Asuka has to do in that scene?
< JonBob_work> Meaning there as an observer and support for Shinji?
< Muphrid> Yes, essentially.
< JonBob_work> As for making it Asuka instead of someone else, it does kinda  feel that you could use almost anyone. She has the best connection to Shinji for the talk during the break, but that could apply to a number of people
< Muphrid> Without giving too much away, I think it is that role-reversal between Shinji and Asuka that is interesting.  He's at the fore now, in front of her.  In that sense, while anyone could be in that support role, to me it's interesting to have Asuka there because it's so different for her.
< Muphrid> So that's what I'm going to be trying to do.
< Muphrid> Examining how she feels about that situation and what it means for her and such.
< Muphrid> What I'm taking away from your comments right now is that, from that scene by itself, it may not be clear that that's where we're headed yet.
< JonBob_work> It does feel very role reversal. I think that it'd be easy to get there with a little bit more, so it seems like you're on the right track. But right now I'm just not sure what the scene is trying to do for her.
< Muphrid> Yeah, that makes sense.

Whether it is more appropriate to do more to introduce this theme I alluded to in the first scene may depend on this next snippet edit: the rest of the chapter here.

Spoiler: ShowHide

Between crates full of syringes, pill bottles, and needles, the patients and staff of the SDF hospital waited out the raid.  Under the sickening greenish-yellow glow of fluorescent lights, they passed the time with idle chatter.  A young boy rolled a coin on the ground, trying to predict how it would fall.  Two MSDF enlisted men played rock-paper-scissors for dozens of rounds, neither of them keeping score.  Most troubling of all were the labored breaths of the wounded.  Many of the patients needed constant monitoring and care.  The stress of the raid elevated their heart rates.  Nurses passed around syringes of sedatives like candy, weaving through the crowd in improvised, chaotic routes.  No one could say if they reached every last patient.

So much trouble they went to, yet the time of danger was quite short.  After twenty minutes, the sirens stopped; the shrill beeping on the radio gave way to news reports, fraught with static yet calming all the same.  Where the staff moved the gurneys back to the elevators, the two guards who'd come with Shinji and Asuka directed them to the stairs.

"Colonel Katsuragi insists that you return to base immediately," said one of the men, packing up a satellite phone.

There was no resisting SDF's will, especially when Misato wielded it.  The four of them left the way they'd come—in a nondescript silver sedan, protected by bulletproof glass and armor plates in the doors.  It was a compromise between security and anonymity, and with the SDF escort changing into casual attire for the drive back, it was the best they could do.  One could only hope no one would look in and see their sidearms.  They were conspicuous but necessary, for nowhere in Japan could be considered truly safe anymore.  The route back to Tōkyō-2 spoke to that.  No shortage of SDF vehicles went up and down the road.  Helicopters swarmed through the sky.  Fire crews convened to extinguish the blaze at a burned out base, yet the smoke towered skyward in an unending trail.

Japan was wounded.  Every missile that penetrated its defenses wounded the country and nation.  Every foreign soldier who set foot on its soil sowed pestilence and death with his steps.  Japan had been hit so hard with Second Impact, seeing its capital decimated.  Third Impact had been even worse; between the flooding and the crater, the damage was great, and they'd had only two short years to recover.  Now, the country was bleeding again.

The city showed those wounds as much as the countryside.  The oncoming armies made their march toward Tōkyō-2 each day, and in large part, the civilian population had fled.  Tōkyō-2 had a missile defense system and constant air patrols, but it was a standing target, and no one wanted to be around if the Russians and Chinese broke through to raze it.  The streets were largely deserted.  Only a few brave souls dared stay behind.  Maya and her followers were some of them.  They promised to give refuge and support to those who had no place left to go.  They vowed to defend the city if the invaders came, even if they had only sticks and rocks to wield against them.

If they really hoped to be beacons of light against the darkness, they'd better start sharpening their sticks.

By then, National Square was one of the few places left in Tōkyō-2 with any real activity.  A staunch perimeter defended the plaza, with turret emplacements and a winding pattern of concrete barricades.  Once past the gate, a heavy presence of guards stood watch at the entrance to the Defense Ministry.  Shinji and Asuka submitted themselves to searches and scans, as required before their entry and transport back to Hachibuse Mountain.  How long that tram would keep running no one could say.  If the enemy closed in on the capital, no doubt Misato would order the tram tunnel collapsed to prevent its use, but still, the question would remain:  what could a tunnel straight to the Defense Ministry be used for?  What could it mean?  Even if the Russians and Chinese came all that way without knowing where the Eva was held, they would rightly be curious.

And that possibility grew ever closer each second.  Highlighting the urgency, Misato met with Shinji and Asuka on their return to the mountain, and the base commander looked none too pleased.

"There are a couple analysts who are relearning the finer points of communication right now," she said.  "I'm sorry about the scare, Shinji-kun, Asuka.  If I'd had even an inkling of an attack that far inland, I wouldn't have sent you out there."

"It was a good thing to do," said Shinji.  "I'm glad to have met those people, even if it was a little dangerous."

Misato's apologetic simper turned grim.  Silence was the only comfort she could offer then, for she could do no more.  As powerful and influential Misato had proved, there were things even she couldn't do—or wouldn't do.  Thus far, Japanese men and women had fought to protect their country.  They'd died defending it, but only because Japan was too principled to use all the weapons at its disposal.



Asuka remembered well the day she'd realized that.  It was the day the Chinese navy landed on Japanese soil.  Word of the oncoming army spurred on an evacuation of the capital and the cities closest to the beachhead, but Asuka had been confident the war would end quickly.  After all, they had the most powerful weapon ever wielded on their side.

But for some reason, the briefings she received on the military situation focused entirely on conventional warfare instead.

"It's unfortunate the Americans lost their nerve," Misato had said that day.  "That likely pushed the timetable for the invasion up at least three or four weeks."

She'd stood beside a projector screen with a laser pointer in hand.  In the audience, taking in these analyses and reports, sat a council of three:  Asuka, the former pilot, teen genius, and scientist; Shinji, the boy who brought mankind back from the sea; and Nozomi, the Sixth Child.

"In preparation for the assault, MSDF concentrated on defending possible landing sites for the Sino-Russian force.  Heavy defense of the coast from the mouth of Himekawa River and north of it discouraged the enemy from attempting more than a bluff landing there.  Had they been able to break the defenses, they would've had a straight, easy path to Tōkyō-2.  Instead, the enemy have made their landing near Sakai, in Fukui Prefecture.  While it's regrettable invaders have set foot on Japanese soil, as far as defending the capital we've been able to hold out thanks to the terrain.  The mountains between here and Fukui are a formidable impediment to overland travel.  There are three highways in particular that we've been defending."

Misato pressed a button on her laser pointer, and the image changed.  It wasn't a map, however.  It was Misato in a tank top and low-cut yellow shorts, sporting a pair of rectangular, black-rimmed glasses as she lay down suggestively on a bed.

"Doesn't look like that highway is being defended at all," said Nozomi.

Caught off guard, Misato clicked repeatedly on her pointer, finally arriving at a diagram of the beachhead area and Tōkyō-2, with three paths between them highlighted in yellow.  "Makoto-kun seems to gotten his personal image stash mixed up with my work again."

"Again?" echoed Asuka.  "This has happened before?"

Unamused, Misato nodded sheepishly.  "Let's just say I ended up with a few generals' numbers after the last time.  Moving on."  She circled the first of the three highlighted paths with her laser pointer.  Route 158 runs directly from Tōkyō-2 to Fukui along the Azusa River.  Route 19 and the Chūō Expressway both run south toward Nagoya, on either side of a string of mountains that ends at Mount Ena.  So far, we've done what we can to impede any progress along these routes—collapsing tunnels, damaging the roads, and causing landslides to make the way impassable, but any good army has a corps of engineers at its disposal to build bridges where they've been destroyed, to make roads where there are none.  Still, we will fight as long as we can.  When Eisheth gets here, any war between people should stop—or if it doesn't, we'll have bigger problems than Chinese tanks running down our streets."

"Why not fix this right now?" said Asuka.  "Put Nozomi in the Eva.  Teach those Chinese and Russian bastards who's boss."

"That's not on the table yet," said Misato.

"Why not?  Nozomi doesn't have a problem with it, do you, Nozomi?"

Nozomi leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms with a thoughtful, serious expression.  "I can't say I'm thrilled with the idea of using the Eva against people, but I'm pretty sure if I have to stay in this mountain for much longer without doing anything I'll lose my mind.  If this is what we have to do to defend ourselves, then there's not much choice, is there?  Hopefully they'd see that an Eva isn't something you can take down just by shooting at it."

"True as that may be," said Misato, "we will not be using the Eva in Japan's defense at this time."

Shinji leaned forward in his seat, puzzled.  "Why not?"

"That's better explained by someone else.  Rei?"

In the dark room, lit only by the image on the projector screen, the slight glow when Rei appeared in the room was hard to miss.  She stood behind Nozomi, Shinji, and Asuka, and she made her statement as bluntly as she'd come.

"I won't allow the Eva to be used against humans," she said.

Asuka shuddered, averting her gaze.  The image of Rei was otherworldly and ethereal.  If you looked hard enough, you could see through her to the other side.  It was like having the dead come back to chat with them—creepy and nerve-wracking.  If Asuka could've jumped out of her seat to put some distance between them, she would've.

"That's all very noble," said Nozomi, "but what purpose does it serve to fight and let good people on both sides die in the meantime?  Doesn't that just weaken us for whenever Eisheth gets here?"

Misato nodded.  "You're right to say there's a risk, but if we use the Eva against our fellow man, we risk being seen as oppressors.  Rei gave us, the Americans, and the Germans each our own Eva to use for the benefit of mankind.  We are stewards of her will, and our responsibility is to that trust."

"That's ridiculous!" cried Asuka, rising from her seat.  "You can't be on board with this, Misato.  This isn't your style."

"Rei's consent is required for any use of an Eva—we agreed to do that, so if Eisheth's forces got hold of one, they wouldn't be able to use it.  This is the consequence of that precaution.  Do I necessarily agree with Rei's opinion here?  Not entirely, but I understand it and respect it.  I'm not going to worry so much about what other people do; the defense of Japan is something we can work towards with the best of our abilities either way."

That surely didn't sit well with Asuka.  Maybe it was noble, maybe it was principled, but it was also asinine!  What were they supposed to do—let the Russians and Chinese roam freely over most of Japan, over everything outside a tight defensive perimeter around the capital?  All because they couldn't or wouldn't use the Eva against their foes?

But Shinji was more measured about the matter.  "If Ayanami and Misato-san say it's worth it," said Shinji, "then that's what we should do.  Only by fighting for what we believe in can we resist Eisheth with all our will."

Rei's eyes went a little wider, but she said nothing, and the matter was settled for a time.  Maybe the others forgot it, but Asuka made sure she didn't.  As far as she was concerned, she was the voice of reason, screaming into the darkness, but no one would uncover their ears and listen.



Still, with the use of Eva off-limits, the four them resolved to do what they could within the bounds of those restrictions.  Misato ordered roads ripped up and bridges burned to keep the advancing army at bay.  Nozomi trained day-in and day-out for the time of Eisheth's appearing, or if Rei happened to find sense and changed her mind.  Shinji visited with the wounded, giving moral support since he could pilot no more.  And Asuka?

Asuka was a scientist—she had been even before she'd become a pilot.  And as such, she put her intellect—the mind of a prodigy—to use.  Misato had cleared an entire level of the mountain for research and development, something that could keep Asuka busy even as her own lab on the surface was no longer safe for her.  There, she and her mother Kyōko used their knowledge of LCL and metaphysical biology to advance the war effort.  LCL was the original stuff of life, after all.  It was malleable, and with a human being's force of will, it could be shaped into any tissue—into bone and skin, arteries and tendons.  It could be used to heal wounds that would otherwise be impossible to treat.

The results were promising.  With a small number of SDF casualties funneled to the mountain as test subjects, Asuka and Kyōko developed bandages and salves to close up wounds or rapidly heal surgical incisions.  That day, after coming back from the field hospital, Asuka walked in through an observation, overlooking an ongoing procedure.  Two doctors treated a lieutenant bearing a long, stitched-up gash on her torso.

"All right, Lieutenant," said one of the doctors, talking through a surgical mask.  "Just lie back and think of how you'd look in a mirror.  Think of yourself nice and whole.  Just focus on that image of yourself, and the LCL will do the rest."

The other doctor placed a sopping bandage around the lieutenant's waist, white material that was soaked through with LCL, tinting it red.  The lieutenant lay back on a hospital bed and closed her eyes, her brow creasing as she concentrated.  Sure enough, the white sutures dissolved, and the inflammation around the wound dissipated.  The doctors took the bandage off and wiped away the LCL, showing only smooth, unblemished skin where the incision had once been.

"Quite inspiring, isn't it?" asked Kyōko, who stood on the far end of the observation room.  "What do you think of the fruits of our work?"

Asuka grimaced.  "We slave away in the dark while people down there get all the credit?  For what, applying a bandage?  A trained monkey could do that."

"You don't enjoy just being a part of a good effort?  You don't enjoy watching?"

"You do?"

Grinning, Kyōko turned away slightly, watching the operation below as she reminisced.  "There was one time; a girlfriend of mine managed to get the number of a visiting soccer player from overseas.  We were very close, and she offered to let me watch as consolation for my lack of a love life at the time."

"I really didn't need to know that, Mama."

"It can be quite educational, Asuka—seeing how other people act, I mean.  You might learn something."

"Mama, the women I know in my life are you, First, and Misato.  Under no circumstances do I need to see you in the bedroom.  First is halfway between life and death and isn't even human, and Misato likes to call her men Father sometimes.  No thanks."

Kyōko shrugged.  "Your loss.  I take that to mean you and Shinji-kun are getting on well enough?"

"Well enough."

"How was your trip this morning?"

"We almost got ourselves killed visiting a hospital.  It's the way things are these days."

"Still, I imagine Shinji-kun made quite an impression on the wounded.  He has a knack for that, even when he's not trying to do so."

Asuka narrowed her eyes.  Kyōko was watching her from just over the rims of her glasses, the stare of a scientist studying a specimen, and Asuka felt microscopic under it by comparison.  "Spit it out.  What are you trying to say?"

"You're restless, Asuka.  You've been restless for some time.  As a child, you were always an overachiever.  You had people's attention, and they never looked away from you.  Now, you're fading into the background, doing thankless work while others are more visible, driving the course of mankind."

"So I should go out there and be a celebrity?  Is that what you think I want?"

Kyōko pursed her lips.  "Not quite.  Tell me something: before all this happened—this business with Eisheth Zenunim—how hard were you working?  How much time did you spend at home?"

"I worked all the time.  You have to live somehow.  Security for people like us isn't cheap, you know."

"You were important to your own family, to Shinji-kun.  And as long as he was listlessly wandering about trying to find something to do with his life, you were the successful one, the smart one, the one bringing home money to pay the bills."

"I don't remember you saying anything about this before."

"Oh, I reasoned you would grow out of it sooner rather than later, but things are different now.  I see you brooding to yourself, going almost passive at times.  You're letting the world go on around you.  But just because what we do may not go unrecognized doesn't mean it's unimportant."

"I know that."

Kyōko shook her head briefly, chiding herself in silence.  "You're right.  I know you know that.  Still, I felt I should say something.  I know things are going to get worse before they get better.  You've had a trying day, Asuka.  Make sure you spend some time with your boyfriend tonight.  I'm closing the lab at 1800 sharp.  No objections this time."

Rolling her eyes, Asuka donned her labcoat and put her hands in her pockets.  "Yes, Mama."

"All right, let's get to work, yeah?"

And so mother and daughter went to their lab tables, with beakers and test tubes holding all manner of bubbling concoctions, but in the light of the glassware, Asuka glimpsed her own reflection—that of a girl in the uncertain transition between youth and adulthood.  Her mother was right about one thing:  there were other people making the decisions about what humanity would do and where it would head.  Misato was one of those people.  Rei, for sure.  Shinji, too, because people respected him and would listen to him, even though he'd never sought that respect or influence.  Compared to them, Asuka was a relative nobody.  Her intellect meant nothing.  She'd come from the sea after Shinji, as so many others had, and for that, she could claim to be no wiser than them.  How could she be?  She was just a girl, one playing dress-up to be a scientist with her safety goggles and white lab coat, neither of which truly fit her, for she was still an adolescent, a child—and one used to exerting her will, at that.

"Mama," she said, her voice quiet and uncertain, "why do you think Shinji would let me..."  She shuddered even to put words to her actions.  "You know."

"I can't know for sure," said Kyōko thoughtfully, "but let me tell you a story."

"Another one of your sexual misadventures?"

Kyōko chuckled.  "A different kind of story.  Honestly, it's something I've been expecting you to ask for some time.  Maybe it's just what's been on my mind instead.  Asuka, why do you think I stayed with your father?"

"Because of me?"

"In large part, yes.  He was a philandering cad, yet he always made me believe—made me think—that once he was done with whatever piece of sweet young tail he was chasing, he would come back to me.  He was very good at that, and even when I dared to think it was a lie, I had to consider what would happen if I left him.  I'd want you to come with me, of course, but I loved my work, too, and I knew I couldn't take care of you well and do that.  And you loved your father.  For all his selfishness and unrestrained libido, he genuinely cared about you, I think.  How rare is it that children want to follow in their parents' footsteps?  I think your skill in science really made him proud, made him feel like there would always be something the two of you could relate with.  So even when people do the wrong thing, that doesn't make them bad or evil.  It makes them flawed.  That's no stunning revelation.  That's reality."

With that, Kyōko put her eyes to her microscope.  If she were waiting for Asuka to ask something else, she didn't show it, and that was fine by Asuka.  She had enough to think about as it was.  Perhaps she had grown jealous, grown resentful, of Shinji's status.  He was a symbol of humanity's resilience, deserved or not, justly or not.  Nothing Asuka did would change that or elevate herself to the same level.

And that did matter to her.  It had mattered to her.  Since the day she'd boasted about her piloting skills on the deck of an aircraft carrier, it'd mattered to her.

Just realizing that gave Asuka pause.  She loosened the band on her safety goggles, letting them dangle around her neck.  "Mama?"

"Hm?"

"I think I'll take the rest of the day off."

"Probably for the best.  I usually find it hard to concentrate after spending half the day on other activities."

That wasn't exactly what Asuka had been through, but the basic sentiment was the same.  Asuka hung up her labcoat and goggles and headed out of the lab.  She made for the base elevators and headed down, further into the cold earth, where she and Shinji lived, using rock and metal to protect them from harm.  If she'd used and abused Shinji over the past two years, she wanted to hear it from his lips, for only then could she truly believe it, and only then could she rightfully damn herself for it.



Since Eisheth rained the primordial blood of life on Earth, Asuka and Shinji had made their home in Misato's mountain base.  It was a tolerable existence.  After a while, you got used to not seeing the sun.  The meals were surprisingly varied, for the military had long since confronted the problem of repetitive, boring food, but in the long run, it made no difference.  Asuka could stand the cycle of simulated pork to fish to chicken to beef to pork again only so well.  After a while, the food lost all taste to her.  It may as well have been inert protein slush.

The amenities on the base weren't much better, either.  There was a workout area, of course.  Many of Misato's men liked to keep physically fit, above and beyond the requirements of their duties, but Asuka suspected they simply had nothing else better to do.  Though Misato had worldwide communications access in her war room, the rest of the base had to make do with five channels of pixellated satellite reception.  The mountain was a functional installation, yes, but it wasn't much more than that.  It was enough to make even Shinji—who could excel at passing the time without much to do—more than a little stir-crazy.  At times, he would wander the halls of the mountain at night.  During the day, he'd read books from the base library, and from time to time, he would tell her about these stories.  One day, he told her of an old professor who led a friend to death over a woman they both loved.  The next, he conjured up a fantasy of an American engineer sent back to the Middle Ages to pretend he was a wizard.  All throughout these stories, Asuka could only smile and nod and ask the occasional innocent question.

But after a short time, Shinji had exhausted the base's small selection.  That was when Misato started planning these trips off the base.  It was good to get away, but to visit soldiers?  To talk with the wounded?  Asuka couldn't see the good in it; such deeds were constant reminders of the senselessness of Eisheth's war and the mortality of men.  But Shinji seemed to enjoy it, and for that reason, he'd started spending more and more time in the base's radio room.  Even if he couldn't leave the safety of the mountain except on rare occasion, he could make an impact with the troops just by talking with them over a satellite link.

It was there, at a console amid panels upon panels of lights and buttons, that Asuka found Shinji that afternoon.  He had a bulky headset on and chatted with a group of SDF infantry under a command tent in the field.  Asuka put on a headset of her own, but she left the microphone up, away from her mouth.  She pulled up a rolling chair and sat beside Shinji, touching him lightly on the arm.  His eyes flickered away from the screen briefly, meeting her own, and a small smile came to his face.

"Is something happening, sir?" asked one of the infantrymen on the monitor.

Shinji's attention snapped back to the screen.  "Oh, no, not at all.  It's just my girlfriend came by.  Asuka, come over here, in front of the camera.  Say hello to the SDF members."

But Asuka shook her head.  "That's all right," she said.  "The soldiers only want to talk to you anyway.  I just wanted you to know I was here for when you finish."

"Sorry," said Shinji, addressing the infantrymen.  "She gets funny about this sort of thing.  To tell the truth, I don't know what to say sometimes, either.  It seems like everything we have to worry about pales in comparison to what all of you are doing for us."

"You're doing a fine job, sir," said a woman in battle fatigues on the other end of the line.  "And what you're doing is just as important.  If you can stop the alien, I think we'll all be very glad to have nothing to fight for any longer.  Until then, we're honored to buy time until she can be stopped, until you and the Colonel can stop her."

Shinji smiled wryly.  "With respect, Captain, I'm the one who's supposed to be giving you and your people support."

The captain scoffed.  "Nonsense, sir.  Brothers-in-arms give each other support.  No one has it easy right now.  We all know that.  Knowing how hard everyone else in the Force is working reminds us that we have an obligation—not just to ourselves but to the people who rely on us—and we're prepared for that obligation.  We've been preparing for it, day after day.  We won't let you down, sir, and I know you won't let us down, either."

"I appreciate that," said Shinji.

"And we appreciate you taking the time to speak with us, sir," said one of the men, who stood at attention in a line behind his captain.

Shinji nodded.  "How are you all holding up?"

"Two casualties yesterday," said the captain.  "Russian bombing run took them out, but we got the bomber."

"That's grim news, but at least it sounds like you're holding your own out there."

"We'll hold our own down to the last man if that's what it takes.  This is our country, after all.  Even the Americans knew it would be bloody and difficult to invade our soil.  That's why they sent the A-bomb instead of their own sons.  Now we'll just have to teach that lesson to our enemies first-hand."

A bold sentiment, but Asuka knew it to be folly.  After the nuke that fell on Old Tōkyō, after Third Impact had decimated Hakone, the islands of Japan weren't nearly as crowded as the once had been.  Any idea that they could arm women and children with shovels and hoes to hold every last inch was folly at best.  Japan could make a valiant stand, but it wouldn't last.

Boom!  The image on the screen jittered, and the SDF infantry went for their weapons.  "Looks like someone's come back to learn that lesson.  I'm sorry, Ikari-san, but we'll have to cut this short."

"Of course.  Good luck, Cap—"

The screen went black.  There was a crackle of static, and then silence.

Shinji sat back in his seat and sighed, staring at the dark monitor.  "I guess that's just the way things are," he said at last, mulling over the words like a wine aficionado tasting an unfamiliar merlot.  "All we can do from here is our own part."

"No point in worrying over anything else, yeah," said Asuka.

He nodded at that, finding peace with the idea, and his expression grew more relaxed.  Without a doubt, Shinji was still the kind of boy who worried over details and went out of his way to be considerate of people, but he'd grown quite a bit since he emerged from the sea.  Instead of bouncing between blind obedience and passive-aggressive retaliation, he thought critically about whom he would follow and why, and he did so with conviction and security.  He was confident enough in himself and in the cause of humanity that he could engage other people and give them encouragement.

In all these ways, Shinji had been going up the path to adulthood while Asuka was standing still, her head buried too far in a microscope to see what was going on around her.

"What's wrong?" asked Shinji.

"Wrong?" Asuka sat up and smoothed out her blouse, composing herself.  "Nothing, nothing.  I was just thinking you're pretty good when you're talking to soldiers.  You seem to relate to them.  They believe in what they're doing, and so do you."

He pursed his lips, thinking on the idea.  "You're right.  I guess I feel like we were those people once, fighting impossible battles.  We survived, but it was hard.  I've always thought if we had more support—if we could've supported each other—then maybe it wouldn't have been so bad."

"You know, you're starting to sound like a wise old man instead of a kid."

"I don't think—"

"I mean it.  Grow a goatee, and you'll be halfway there."

Shinji chuckled, shaking his head.  "People shouldn't look to me for wisdom, just encouragement—nothing more."

"What makes you think that?  Did you forget you're the guy who brought mankind out of the sea?"

"That didn't happen because I tried to go about things that way.  It just happened.  I did what I felt was good.  I can't explain it any other way.  I don't know how to, and believe me, I've tried to understand it.  Misato-san thinks I should be doing more."

"What does she want you to do—make yourself pretty and go on television to address the free world?"

"Something like that."

Well, that was a daft idea.  Some people are naturally photogenic and take the camera as if it were a childhood friend, but Shinji wasn't one of them.  When people watched him, he felt their stares, like they were judging him, like they demanded his apologies just from a few silent gazes, and he would shy away from them in a heartbeat.

But then, perhaps that was exactly what Shinji needed—to confront what he was afraid of, what gave him pause.  When he took his own initiative, he could be quite a force to deal with.  How long had he stubbornly looked for Rei, even when Asuka thought the search fruitless and misguided?  It animated him.  It kept him going even when he could no longer volunteer in the kitchens or hold a job on his own without worrying about his safety.

Still, Shinji wasn't bold enough to stand in the spotlight, despite the good it might do to keep the people inspired, to keep the world squarely opposed to Eisheth.  Shinji wasn't that kind of person, not yet, but Asuka could guide him toward that path.  Where Shinji would press on quietly, Asuka had the spark and determination to make something happen out of nothing.  In that, they complemented each other, and she would be remiss not to take advantage of that.

"You know, Shinji, you may not feel like you deserve it, but people do look up to you as an example," Asuka pointed out.  "And if you think they're wrong to do so, you're even more aggressively humble and self-effacing than I thought.  Misato's right; you can take advantage of that attention people will give you.  You can use it—leverage it—to keep people going despite this invasion, this war.  As someone with that kind of influence over people, why wouldn't you use that?"

"It seems crazy not to, doesn't it," he said quietly, "but I'm no example to follow.  I wanted everything to burn, and I only changed my mind when I saw how empty that world would be.  That makes me the worst person to be inspiring people.  If I had been numb enough, I would've kept things the way Ayanami made them, desolate and without meaning."

"That doesn't make you the worst person to speak to people.  That makes you the best person because you understand what it means, what that alien is trying to do."

Shinji's brow creased as he thought, and he stared into the space past the static-filled screen on the wall.  He'd have to mull it over, no doubt, and if Asuka pushed any harder, he could get stubborn, sullen, and resistant instead, but this was something they could do together.  Shinji could speak his mind honestly and freely, but only if Asuka found opportunities for him to do so.

Shinji cared deeply for others' opinions of him—the letters he'd meticulously kept, even from people who hated him, were proof of that.  If challenged on what he believed in, he might soften his rhetoric to try to find common ground and understanding.  That was the last thing mankind needed, however.  Until Shinji could be firmer with his stance, Asuka thought it a bad idea to put Shinji in a confrontational setting—an interview, a debate, or anything like that.  But with some minor requisitions made through Misato, Asuka arranged for a camera and microphone to be delivered to their quarters.  He would make a recorded statement over the Internet for all the world to hear.

These preparations Asuka pursued with fervor and abandon.  When the news media protested having no presence or ability to ask Shinji questions in real time, Asuka's words for them left no shred of doubt left.  "Shinji decides how he wants to address all of mankind; you don't get a say," she told one TV news editor over the phone.  "If he wants an audience, only then will any reporters get within ten steps of him.  Contrary to popular belief in your line of work, the world does not revolve around you."

Of course, Asuka had yet to give Shinji a full say in the matter either, preferring to put the preparations together and then deal with the consequences if he said no.  For his part, Shinji let Asuka slowly redecorate their quarters into a studio.  She hung a dark blue curtain over a back wall and hung up a set of lights to stamp out any shadows around the camera.  It was a nice change of pace from the stony, unadorned decor, but Shinji had watched these preparations uneasily with each passing day.  "Don't you think this is a bit much?" he asked her once.

"Maybe," said Asuka as she adjusted the cable from the camera to their computer.  "But there's no sense in doing something without going all the way through with it.  If this is something you don't want to do, just say so."

"It's fine," he said.  "I think it's fine.  It's something I probably should've done sooner.  If I don't like it, that's okay, but it's good to try things at least once, right?"

For Shinji, that was practically an expression of adventurousness.  Still, the choice had to be his own, and for that reason, Asuka left the camera and backdrop set up for whenever Shinji decided to use it.  It was an offer Shinji mulled over for a time, seeming to wait for the right moment to make his voice heard.  Did he want his voice felt and remembered?  Or did he hope that he could speak when the world was already abuzz, so that if he made a fool of himself, he'd be forgotten quickly?  Not even Asuka could say.

The days passed.  Asuka's trials of the LCL bandage had started to show promise with more severe wounds, allowing a soldier with a missing finger regrow it over the course of three days.  But to her dismay, there were always more and more test subjects sent to the mountain.  The war was going badly, and by the end of the week, word started to spread.  It began as worried chatter in the mess hall: the Chinese were starting to break through the mountains.  If the tunnels broke through, there would be little chance of stopping them or the Russians on their way to Tōkyō-2.  But despite the scarcity of reliable information, some liked to make light of the threat.

"If it were the Russians, I might be worried," Misato had said, "but the Chinese are just as likely to find themselves in Brazil first.  They'll sooner find themselves in front of Christ the Redeemer than this base, mark my words."

"No points if they bring us postcards from Rio before knocking down our front door," Hyūga had quipped.

Light as the two of them had been, the increasing presence of armed patrols on the base betrayed the seriousness of the situation.  Still, Asuka had her own work to do—if anything, the news portended more wounded who would need her work to save life and limb.  It was a night when Asuka took a lab notebook with her to bed as she tried to work out a pesky problem of chemical equilibrium.  Had she not started chewing on the end of her pen in thought, she might have missed the red light of the camera as it started recording the main room.  Shinji sat on a stool with a plain white shirt and a stray strand of hair falling over his forehead, but he paid that detail no mind.  He just looked straight ahead, at the camera, and said what came to him as best he could.

"Hello," he said stiffly, and he twitched in surprise at the sound of his own voice.  "Um, good evening.  But it might not be evening when you watch this.  My name is—"  He winced.  "You know who I am.  Or do you?  Is that lens cap still on?"

Asuka put down her notebook and watched through the half-open door to the main room.  Shinji hastily undid the lens cap and sat down again, looking jittery and anxious.  But the false start seemed to do him some good, for when his gaze settled on the camera once more, he spoke more fluidly.  After all, he couldn't possibly embarrass himself anymore.

"Hello," he said.  "You know who I am.  Right now, our nation is under siege, and our countrymen are dying to defend it every minute of every day.  There are people out there who ask why we should be fighting our fellow man when Eisheth is coming.  They ask if Colonel Katsuragi is fit to control the Eva, and even if she is, is it worth fighting over?"  Shinji paused.  "Is it worth fighting over?  Well, yes, but I don't want to talk about that.  I think talking about that makes things more complicated than they really are.  This isn't even really about fighting Eisheth, either, for even the people who've set foot on Japanese soil agree Eisheth must be fought.  They just disagree on how best to do it or who should be in charge of it.  So this isn't about Eisheth.  This is about..."  He frowned.  "What is this about?  Trust?  Faith in people?  Maybe it's one of those.  Eisheth doesn't believe in trust, and I think, for a long time, I didn't either.  I wanted to, but I didn't, and I lashed out against my father, against the people I wanted to care for me and love me.  That's what we're doing now, isn't it?  We don't trust each other, so we fight.  We have to overcome that.  How do we overcome that without letting everyone turn to liquid again?  That's the hard part, isn't it.  Let me see...."

For the better part of an hour, Shinji followed a meandering train of thought in front of the camera, saying what he felt and what came to mind, no matter how convoluted or puzzled he came across.  He was just a boy, after all.  He was neither scholar nor theologian, so issues of great moral weight were genuine riddles to him.  In part, that struck Asuka as part of Shinji's appeal.  He approached these dilemmas honestly, without pre-formed biases or undue conclusions.  And while she couldn't know how the people of the world would react to Shinji's wandering thoughts—even if she ultimately edited it to trim out his confused pauses—she felt the act of making this video and disseminating it would be enough.  At last, Shinji was willing to step into the spotlight that the world had kept lit for him since mankind left the sea.  It was when he was needed, in time of crisis, but the time had come, and Asuka couldn't have been prouder of him.

Yet as she glanced back at her notepad, with equations scribbled down in smudged ink, a slight sadness took hold in her heart, too.  Shinji was changing, yet she was standing still.  Though her effort had played a part in Shinji taking this step, no one but the two of them would ever know it.  Whether man triumphed over Eisheth or not, Shinji would leave a mark on the world.  What legacy would Asuka leave behind?  Her guidance for Shinji?  That was something, but it wasn't enough.



It's the fate of most people to be forgotten, to be relegated to the lost annals of history.  If one's name appears in a document, a birth record, or something else, eventually that name will lose all meaning.  Whether it take fifty or five hundred years, the contribution that person made to society will be like a grain of sand on an endless beach.  No one will be able to tell it apart from another.  There are only a precious small number of people in every generation who stick out from their peers, who make their names be remembered for more than a tiny speck of time out of the thousands of years of human civilization.

Asuka was one of those people, and she knew it.  As a pilot of Eva, her name would appear in encyclopedias and history books for decades at least, so long as mankind survived Eisheth's onslaught, but compared to Shinji, she would be only a minor footnote in the chronicle of Eva, Third Impact, and what came after.

In fact, thanks to her urging, Shinji was making even more of a name for himself.  Shinji's message to the world generated intense publicity and interest.  Chinese state television called Shinji's statement a "well-intentioned but biased appeal to men worldwide," saying he was "too colored by patriotic and personal motivations to see how Japan and Katsuragi have failed to act in planet Earth's best interests."  At home, his statement was better received.  One line in particular stood out from the rest, as a rallying cry for Japan and all the people of Earth who loved their individuality:

"When I chose to walk out of the sea, I knew it would come with pain, that people could hurt each other because of it.  That is the price we pay to be able to laugh with people, to cry with them, to lie with them in love.  Those are things we can never do in the sea.  Eisheth is coming to take all that away from us.  I won't allow it.  Colonel Katsuragi won't allow it, nor will the pilot we've spend months training for this task.  We are prepared, we are ready, and we won't let the Eisheth's brand of paranoia and fear slow us down.  I trust in Colonel Katsuragi and the pilot, just as I trust in the people of Japan to defend this land.  I'm counting on you.  I know you won't fail."

Whether this stirring confidence was real or merely a brave front Asuka couldn't say.  When Shinji had finally turned off the camera, he'd slumped on the stool, drained and exhausted.  Let there be no doubt:  it could take just as much strength of will to stand before millions, espousing confidence and fortitude, as it would to sit in the Eva's entry plug, feeling its every battle wound.  Nevertheless, thanks to Shinji's sacrifice, he'd endeared himself to the people of Japan, to those who would stand up against Eisheth.

And Asuka felt her footnote in history shrink further.

In truth, her thoughts on the matter were muddled and unclear.  She didn't particularly like the idea of being famous for its own sake.  People like that disgusted her, for they seemed to delight in being the focus of attention without having done anything to earn it.  Maybe they had money; maybe they were exceptionally pretty.

But that's always how things had been.  Kyōko had been quick to point that out one afternoon in the lab.

"I knew a girl once, back at Gehirn," she'd said.  "Very pretty girl, though working in a lab she had plenty of opportunities to hide it.  I met her degree advisor once at a party and realized that he was absolutely smitten with her:  she was more than just a student or a protegé, more like a surrogate daughter or something else.  She was quite the charming woman.  She seemed to have everyone wrapped around her little finger.  I thought for sure she was gunning for a position of power in the organization.  She had that kind of ambition about her, that single-minded drive.  I wasn't the only one to think so, either.  So you see, Asuka, people get what they don't deserve all the time.  Perception of being deserving—of being important—is enough."

That seemed dangerously cynical, but it was probably true, at least in Asuka's judgment.  "Whatever happened to that woman?" she asked her mother.

"Oh, she was brilliant enough to back up her ambitions, though they were toward an end no one really expected.  Last I heard, Yui was coasting out of the solar system as some monument to humanity."

If only Shinji's mother had known that aliens would come back to planet Earth before she could ever meet them, before she could testify to mankind's existence in the form of a petrified, immortal Eva holding her soul.  She might've appreciated the irony.  She'd hoped to show the universe that humanity had existed, at least for a short time, but the universe knew all too well.  And most people wouldn't know her name either, despite the magnitude of what she'd set out to do.

All in all, these thoughts left Asuka believing she could be unique, in a way.  There was something she wanted out of life:  to be the best at what she chose to do, to be recognized for it, to make a name for herself.  Isn't that what she'd set out to do from birth?  Why else be the overachieving child, graduating from university well before her time?  It wasn't for the challenge.  Even organic chemistry had hardly tested her.  Why else volunteer to pilot Eva?  Because it was something few other people could do?

Well, that time was over.  Her chance to pilot Eva had passed.  Shinji and Misato had visibility.  What did she have?

She had her mother back in her life again.  She had Shinji to lie beside her at night.  Those things made her happy, but they left her only partly fulfilled.  Her dissatisfaction kept her awake in the dark, and the only way she could get Shinji to sleep was to pretend she'd nodded off in his arms.

But that was a lie.

She was drifting listlessly through life, and she was wide awake to see herself going nowhere.



Thanks to Asuka's sleeplessness, she was awake and alert when the war between Japan and its enemies came to their doorstep.

BANG!  The mountain shook and rumbled.  A lamp on the endtable tilted precariously, but Asuka caught it by the shaft before it could fall.

"The hell was that?" she muttered.

"An earthquake?"  Shinji rolled over in bed, trying to get comfortable again.  "Hopefully nothing."

"I doubt that.  How often do you hear something like the hand of God slamming down on Earth that you really end up realizing it was nothing?" Asuka rose.  "I'm going to take a look."

"You think that's a good idea?"

"You have a better one?"  She stalked to the thick metal door that guarded their quarters and jammed the release button, opening the way to the corridor, and right away she was met with a pair of men wielding rifles and wearing kevlar helmets.

"Who the hell are you?" she said.

"Your personal security, Sōryū-san," said one of the men—a short, dark-complexioned fellow who seemed a bit too young and thin for his combat fatigues.  "Sergeant Ishikawa, at your service."

"Are you sure that rifle isn't too heavy for you?" said Asuka.

"I do just fine with it, thanks," Ishikawa said dryly.  "My men and I are here to ensure your safety.  For that reason, we advise you not to leave your quarters at this time."

"On whose orders?"

"Colonel Katsuragi's."

"Why?  Is there some kind of threat?"

"I'm standing my post; I really can't speak to the current status of any threat, if it should exist.  I'm not saying it does."

BANG!  The overhead lights flickered and rattled, and both SDF members tightened their grips on their weapons.

"Sure looks like it exists to me," said Asuka.  "What is the last thing you heard, then?"

Sergeant Ishikawa made a pained expression, but when Shinji poked his head out from behind Asuka, the SDF member relented.  "The Chinese have given up trying to cross through the mountain passes.  The Russians have brought in troops from the air.  The Defense Ministry tunnel has been caved in to prevent access, but this is still a mountain base, and bases have entry points.  They can be sealed as strongly as you might like, with doors as thick as I am tall, but even those doors can be breached with the enough ordinance."

"How much is enough?" asked Asuka.

"A small nuclear warhead, or several non-nuclear ones."

BANG!

"Right now," said Ishikawa, "I'm going with N2 weapons.  The Russians are smart.  The don't want to make the whole mountain a radioactive wasteland.  If they did, they wouldn't get what they want."

The Eva.  They wanted the Eva for themselves, and they would stop at nothing—even this all-out war—to get it, as much as it might weaken humanity to do so.

But they weren't the only ones being stubborn and intransigent.  There was someone else who'd refused to listen to all reason, and it was thanks only to her foolish idealism that they hadn't swatted down the Russians and Chinese in the first place.

The problem was Rei—Rei and her refusal to use the Eva.  Asuka had to change that.

She headed back inside, into the glare of fluorescent lights that Shinji had lit behind her.  Shinji himself started filling a kettle with water, but he spotted her as she headed for the wall-mounted phone.  "What are you doing?" he asked.

"Getting this mess straightened out," said Asuka, who dialed with punctuated button-presses.

"Hachibuse Internal Security."

"Yes, hello?  I need to speak to Colonel Katsuragi.  I think you know who this number belongs to."

Click.

Asuka scowled, and she glared at the earpiece in anger.  "Really?  They just hang up on me?  Being the girlfriend of the boy who saved the world needs better perks."

There was a faint sound on the other end of the line.  "I don't know what you think happened, but I'm actually here," said Misato.

Turning red, Asuka put the phone back to her ear.  "Your staff need to actually tell people when they do something, instead of just doing it."

"I view it as being more efficient."

"It's not efficient if it's confusing."

"True.  Are you calling to give me a lesson on management?  If you haven't noticed, we're a bit busy here.  I take it you met your escort?"

"Yeah, this is about that.  Is it true?  The Russians are blasting at the outside of the mountain with N2 weapons?"

"That seems to be the case, yes.  Air SDF really dropped the damn ball on this one.  They got caught out of position watching the Chinese front and left us too exposed.  Or maybe we were just too undermanned from the start."

"Of course we were undermanned.  We had an Eva and never bothered to use it."

There was a pause, and Asuka could practically feel Misato's pained stare through the phone's cord.  "That had nothing to do with being unprepared; Rei made a choice, a choice with good intentions."

"That doesn't seem to be working too well for us right now.  Misato, you've got to talk First out of this stupidity!  Her principles don't mean a damn thing if we're all dead, and I doubt the Russians want to break down our door just to give us vodka and play cards.  She has to see reason soon, or none of this will matter.  Don't you understand that?"

"I do.  And I think she does, too, but...perhaps her judgment isn't as impartial as I thought it was.  Or, it could be she's trying too hard to make it that way.  Is Shinji-kun with you?"

"Nah, he hangs out with other women at two-thirty in the morning.  I just see him when I go to sleep and wake up."

"Cute.  Bring him to me, and take Nozomi with you.  If we're going to convince Rei that we need a change in strategy, no matter the cost, we'll need both of them—Shinji-kun to convince her and Nozomi to pilot."

"So I'm to play courier for you?"

"Give yourself some credit, Asuka.  You're the one pushing for this.  You deserve the privilege of seeing it through.  I'll give the order to Ishikawa.  See you soon."

Inside of ten minutes, Sergeant Ishikawa and his men and rounded up the other civilians on the block:  Asuka's mother Kyōko and the Horaki family.  The periodic bang-bang-bang tapered off and ceased, and all agreed that was either a good sign or a very, very bad one.

"Let's not wait around to find out, yeah?" said Sergeant Ishikawa.  "Let's get going."

Ishikawa's squad consisted of eight men, and they escorted the civilians as a pack led and trailed by groups of four.  Ishikawa himself took position in the second row on the right, just in front of Shinji.  Kyōko and Horaki were in the third row from the back, and the Horaki sisters walked a single column, with Nozomi between Kodama and Hikari.

"So I'm really going to pilot Eva," Nozomi thought aloud.  "I guess I didn't think it'd be like this, needing an armed escort just to get to the plug."

"It's never exactly the way you think it'll be," said Shinji, "but you'll be fine.  The weapons they have—even N2 weapons--can't really touch you if you're prepared for them."

"And even if they do," said Kyōko, "you'll survive more likely than not.  You'll have good people in control to dial down the synch rate if you start feeling pain."

Horaki peered his head around the group, trying to get a clear line of sight on the leader.  "Sergeant, anything you can tell us about what's going on out there?"

"I thought a condition of your stay here was you wouldn't seek comment on SDF issues," said Ishikawa.

"I'm not looking for comment; I'm looking for something that might help my daughter be prepared to fight whatever is out there."

Ishikawa pursed his lips.  "I don't know much, but I suspect she'll be dealing with a lot of air support.  Anything they have on the ground will have been dropped, so if she can take the tanks and armored vehicles out, that heavy armor is not likely to come back anytime soon.  Would make things a lot easier for our people outside."

The group made their way to one of the base elevators, and Ishikawa pressed the down button while his men fanned out to encircle the group and provide a layer of protection.

WHURP!  WHURP!  A klaxon sounded, and emergency lights cast the corridor in a red glow.  The light on the elevator panel went out, and a mechanical whirring sound could be heard in the shaft...and then ceased.

"The base is on alert," said Ishikawa.  "Elevators shut down to avoid giving intruders access.  We'll have to take the long way.  Let's go!"

The "long way" was an access stairwell down to Level 11.  The base had two separate elevator and stair systems—one connecting the surface down through Level 11, and another connecting Level 11 to the rest of the base, all the way down to Level 28.  Most of the base personnel's quarters were located in Levels 6-11, while essential functions like power generation, water filtration, and the like were in the lower levels to protect them through increased security and barriers to access.  To get to Misato's command and control on Level 27, the group would have to navigate the stairs to Level 11, cross the whole of the Level to reach the second stair, and then make their way down.

The trek down to Level 11 was slower than anyone would've liked, for the stairway was narrow, and the Horaki girls couldn't maintain a brisk pace without fumbling into each other, perhaps out of nervousness or something else.

"I'd rather run hurdles in gym class than this," Hikari confessed.  "I'm constantly afraid I'm going to fall over and tumble."

"It's all right; just keep your feet," said Asuka.  "Don't worry about a thing."

But there was plenty to worry about, for in the distance above them, the sounds of battle could be heard.  Distant shots stirred Shinji and Nozomi to cover their ears and crouch down reflexively, and the hurried shouts of soldiers, though unintelligible, contributed to an air of chaos and confusion.

"That's all right, just keep it easy," said Ishikawa.  "Slow and steady.  We'll be down there in no time."

Ishikawa's reassuring words had less effect than the gunfire above them, which gradually quickened the group's pace.  Even the unflappable Kodama seemed pressed when the group reached Level 11, taking a moment at the bottom of the stair to look up in concern.

"No time to linger," said Ishikawa.  "Come along."

The squad's movements on Level 11 were more deliberate; the four men at the rear backpedaled, facing behind the group, to maintain constant coverage.  Teams of SDF members scrambled around the level, with Ishikawa pointing them back to the stair that the group had just emerged from, and not long after, the sound of gunfire came after them.  The beige walls with gray metal doors made all the corridors seem the same, and Asuka had started to lose track of where they were going.  Though she walked this path every day on the way to her lab, the slow pace and her focus on the battle happening around them distracted her.

"Here we are," said Ishikawa, leading the group to the second stair.  The door by a pair of SDF members, and Ishikawa nodded to them before touching his key card to the reader next to the handle.  As his men went ahead to secure the stair, Ishikawa stayed behind to see the civilians got through safely.

POP-POP-POP!  Three shots rang out, and a pair of Russian soldiers retreated back behind the far corner of the corridor.  One of the SDF members slumped and fell against the door, shutting it with his weight.  The lock reengaged, and the light on the card reader turned back to red.

"Get him off that door!" cried Ishikawa.  "Check his vitals."

Asuka, Shinji, and the rest of the civilians crouched down as best they could, but there was no cover to be had, save for behind the bodies of their protectors. 

One of the men put his ear to the mouth of the wounded SDF member.  "No breathing."  He touched the wounded man's neck with two fingers.  "No pulse."

POP-POP!  The Russians started to gather in greater numbers around the corner, but they were still unwilling to press.  Sergeant Ishikawa went to his belt and pulled the pin on a grenade.  "Fire in the hole!"  With a mighty toss, he banked the grenade off the back wall of the corridor, out of sight, and friend and foe alike covered their ears for the coming explosion.

BANG!  Shrapnel peppered the corridor walls, and smoke started to waft through the air.  Two SDF members shoved their dead comrade aside, and Ishikawa tapped his key card against the reader once more.  The light went green, and the door opened.  "All right, go, go!  Suzuki, plant a charge on the reader; I don't want to be followed.  Understood?"

"Yes, Sergeant!" said one of the men.

Shinji, Asuka, and Kodama went first, emerging into the crowded stairwell.  Asuka looked back to see the others come after them.

POP-POP-POP!

"Nozomi, move!"  Hikari shoved her younger sister through the doorway, right into Asuka's arms, and the girl girls tumbled into the guard railing.  Horaki grabbed Hikari in a bear hug and carried her through the door.

"Down, down, let's go!" said Ishikawa.

The group scrambled down to Level 12, with Horaki nearly carrying his middle daughter.  A charge above them destroyed the key card panel, denying the Russians access to the stair—at least, not until they blew the door off its hinges.

"Hey, I need help here!" cried Horaki.  "I think she's been hit!"  He held out a palm covered in blood, and sure enough, a splotch of blood had seeped into Hikari's yellow pajama top.  The wound was on her left side, near her lower ribcage.  Hikari herself didn't seem to realize it.  She reached for the stairwell railing and tried to pull herself up.

"I'm fine," she insisted weakly, the color already coming out of her cheeks.  "I'm just fine—"

Her legs buckled and gave out, and Sergeant Ishikawa and her father caught her on the way down.

"Don't try to move," said Sergeant Ishikawa.  He smiled reassuringly at Hikari as he started to dress the wound.  "That's the same thing I told my little brother when he broke his leg playing soccer last fall.  It's like trying to ride a bike on a flat tire.  It just doesn't go so well, but we'll get you patched up here.  You'll see."

Thud-thud.  Bullets dented the Level 11 door, just half a flight of stairs above them.

"All right, we'll have to improvise something here."  Ishikawa looked to Hikari's father.  "Can you take her by the arms and shoulders?  And Ikari-san, can you take her by the ankles?  We'll have to try to keep her as steady as we can while making our way to the infirmary."

That would prove no easy task.  The infirmary lay on level 27, next to the cage.  A pilot like Nozomi was expected to have her Eva brought back into the mountain and then extracted from her entry plug and treated as close as possible to that point.  It was convenient for Eva-related missions that Misato and her people had anticipated, but in that moment, with a enemy army bearing down on them, the infirmary was just short of being the most distant location on the base.

And Asuka couldn't even stay by Hikari's side to keep her calm as they descended the stair deeper into the base.  With Shinji and Horaki carrying the wounded girl, there was little room in the stairwell even for a meaningful gesture.  Instead, Asuka walked at the front with Shinji and Kyōko, and Asuka turned to her mother for support as she watched her friend wince and groan with each stair they passed.

The going was slow, for Shinji and Horaki were too careful not to move Hikari too violently, but to Asuka's relief, there was time.  Ishikawa's gambit to slow down the Russian advance had paid off, at least to keep the invaders off their tail.  Still, Ishikawa knew well that carrying Hikari along like that had reduced them to a crawl.

"I've called ahead for medics," he said, looking to Shinji and Horaki.  "Just hold on a little longer, gentlemen.  We'll put down and hold tight where it's safe."

Hikari's breathing shallowed, and her eyes started to stare dully at the ceiling, with a glassy, inanimate shine.

"Focus, little sister," said Kodama.  "You need to stay with us; look at me.  Look at Nozomi.  Are you with us?"

Hikari turned her head, meeting Kodama's gaze, and nodded.  "It's just getting a little cold."

Ishikawa pursed his lips.  "All right, we're stopping here," he said, tapping his card at a proximity reader.  The group passed through a thick metal door painted with white numbers—20—and were met by a single medic with a stretcher.  The man caught sight of Hikari and stared in disbelief.

"Oh hell," he said.

His reaction wasn't unfounded; Hikari's yellow shirt was sopping with blood.  On both her front and her back, the dark, irregular splotch on her clothing dripped and seeped, expanding with each passing second.  The wound lay just between a pair of lower ribs on her left side.

"That's got to be the spleen," said the medic.  "It's pouring out like a fountain."

Shinji and Horaki lay the girl down on the stretcher.

"Where's your partner?" asked Ishikawa.  "You can't carry a girl on a stretcher by yourself."

"Can't spare anyone else," said the medic, who cut Hikari's shirt off with scissors, leaving the darkened cloth on the floor.  "First three levels were roughed up pretty good when the Russians bombed them.  Every medic we have is trying to get wounded stabilized and to the infirmary."

With little more than that understanding, the medic applied and taped a bandage to Hikari's side.  There was no time to protect her modesty; she would have to go with just a brassiere.  The medic bound Hikari to the stretcher with a series of fastenable belts, each of which was tied to poles of the stretcher with simple knots.

"Can't you get her something?" asked Nozomi.  "She said she's cold."

"No blanket will help with that; that's the blood seeping out of her."  The medic looked to Horaki and nodded.  "All right, on three.  One, two...three!"

The two men raised Hikari off the floor, with the medic taking the lead.  He held the poles that ran through the stretcher over his head, trying to keep Hikari level.  Ishikawa tapped his card at the gray, rectangular reader on the right of the door and nodded at one of his men to go ahead.

POP-POP!  The group retreated, and Ishikawa slammed the door in front of them, holding the enemy at bay. 

"Carrying her slowed us down too much," he said.  "That stair's overrun.  Suzuki, ask around on the radio.  See if there's still a secure way down to Level 27."

One of Ishikawa's men trotted aside to fiddle with his radio, but Ishikawa wasn't finished.

"We can't assume there is a safe route out of here, though," the sergeant went on.  "We'll have to get away from this stair.  This is a good place to be stranded, though.  Armory's on this level.  Taniguchi, let's get some firepower.  If they come for us or we have to go through them, it can't hurt to have a few surprises in store.  In the meantime, let's get the wounded to a safer place."

Relative safety was an advanced materials laboratory.  Asuka was distantly familiar with the work, having shot the breeze with a few of these researchers over lunch now and then.  There were large, black armored boxes that served as ballistics chambers, and dented slabs of a rough, black, sparkly material showed damage from bullets large and small.  Supposedly, these could form the basis for new armor technology, both for personal use as well as vehicles.  Perhaps with a nice coat of paint it would help protect the Eva when even the AT-field failed.

Beyond that, the laboratory was fairly similar to Asuka's, with black, glossy lab benches and metal stools with uneven legs.  Ishikawa, Shinji, and Kodama helped clear one of the benches of microscopes, vials, test tubes, and lab notebooks.  Horaki and the medic set Hikari down on the cleared surface.

"You have to be careful," said Asuka.  "These tables can have all kinds of substances on them that no one cleaned up."

At that, Hikari started to giggle.

"You really need to stay still," the medic warned.  "Don't strain yourself."

"But you should see Asuka's and Ikari-kun's faces," she said.  "I know what she's talking about, and it's not chemicals or organic compounds.  Well, not the kind you're supposed to find in a laboratory, at least.  It's all right; Tōji and I have been in some unusual places, too."

"You have?" echoed Horaki.  "Where?"

"Father, this not the time," Kodama insisted, coming between him and Hikari.

Horaki looked to his other two daughters.  "Does anyone else have anything they want to tell me?"

"You're a father and a reporter," Nozomi remarked.  "I don't think that would be a good idea."

"With all due respect, your family has a bigger problem right now," said the medic, who kept two fingers on Hikari's wrist while checking his watch to get a pulse.  "Her heart's beating fast; with all this blood loss, it's not unexpected, but it tells us we don't have a lot of time.  This girl needs to get her spleen taken out of her, get sown back up, and get some blood, fast."

One of Ishikawa's men came in from the hallway, radio in hand.  "Sorry, Sergeant.  No go.  The Russians control all three staircases.  The lower levels have been sealed to preserve command and control."

"It just gets better and better," said Ishikawa.  He looked to the medic.  "We're not getting to Level 27—not right away, at least.  Can't you rig something up?  I know you've got needles and thread in that kit."

"Even if I can do some battlefield medicine here and operate on her, she would still be a sitting duck.  You can't run around a warzone with stitches holding half your chest together."

"As far as those Russians are concerned, this level is full of waste disposal and doesn't need to be bothered with," Kyōko pointed out.  "I've known too many theorists who worried about what was to come five steps ahead when they hadn't even solved the problem in front of them yet.  Save the girl's life now; worry about whether she'll make it through this battle later!"

"You're half right, Doctor Sōrhyū," said Sergeant Ishikawa.  "The Russians may not be on top of us now, but they will be.  It's not good practice to leave whole areas uncleared of enemy personnel, and they know that.  They'll come for this level eventually.  If they're thorough and don't want to be surprised by a flanking maneuver, they'll clear this area first, even though they have direct access to Colonel Katsuragi and the control on Level 28."  He looked to the medic.  "You're her doctor now.  Patch her up."

"Without real instruments, that's little short of a death sentence," the medic warned.  "Short of magic, I can't promise you I can save this girl.  Cutting into her in this situation could be just as bad as the wound she's sporting."

He was quite right about that; Asuka felt it in her bones.  Without modern medicine to come to Hikari's rescue, she would die, and Asuka would be at her side, helpless to do anything.  After all, Asuka was a scientist, not a physician.  None of her expertise could help save Hikari.

But perhaps Asuka's work could.

"Mama," she said, "we have the technology.  We can put Hikari back together."

Kyōko surveyed the instruments of the lab, fingering a pair of pliers.  "I don't think this alone will be enough to build a bionic woman."

"I mean our work!  The LCL bandages—you can heal any kind of wound with them.  They regrow lost limbs.  Why not seal a bullet wound or repair a damaged spleen?"

"Where are these bandages?" asked Sergeant Ishikawa.

Asuka winced.  "Back on Level 16."

Sergeant Ishikawa chuckled sardonically.  "Of course it is.  Certainly it's nowhere safe."



As quickly as they could, the group of civilians and their SDF protectors worked to barricade themselves in the materials laboratory.  The SDF planted grenades and plastic explosives inside the door control panels, hiding them from plain view.  Horaki and Kodama wheeled a large metal vacuum chamber—some kind of electron microscope, it seemed—in front of one of the entrances.  Kyōko and Nozomi turned over a spare lab table to hide behind for cover.

"I always used to think these lab tables were far too thick and unwieldy," Kyōko mused.  "Now, I'm really hoping I'm right."

Nozomi nodded.  "I just wish I had my pad right now."

"You'd draw this?"

"If this is the last thing we do, or the last time Hikari..."  Nozomi trailed off, staring at her older sister.  "If I had the chance, yeah.  I'd try to capture this, so people know what happened and how I saw it.  So no one forgets."

But without Nozomi's sketches to capture that scene, they could all be forgotten.  They could all die there, with no one to speak to their lives.

Asuka had no time to worry about that, however.  She and Shinji waited with a radio handset at the ready as Sergeant Ishikawa and his men ventured back upstairs, leaving the group in the hands of just a few scattered patrols that circled the lab.  If the sergeant encountered a problem while looking for the LCL bandage, or if one of the guards outside noticed Russians on their way in, word would come in over the radio, Asuka would have to take the message and act on it.  Nothing else mattered.

But what if Ishikawa and his men couldn't get past the Russians in the stair?  What if the invaders had already torched Asuka's lab to scorch the earth behind them, lest they be defeated?

Asuka could do nothing about those possibilities, however—not from an uneven metal stool in an abandoned weapons lab.  At times, she'd felt helpless as a scientist, subject to the whims and fancies of nature.  Failure and frustration were inevitable in her profession, as inevitable as the dust that collected on those shiny black lab tables, marring their perfect sheen.  A scientist can't force nature to do as she bids, of course.  Hikari was dying, and nothing Asuka could say or do would stem the flow of blood from a damaged spleen.

Yet Asuka couldn't just sit there with her thumb on the radio's transmit button doing nothing.  Hikari had been too good a friend for that.  Knowing her work might save Hikari wasn't enough.  Even if Hikari were saved, they all might die there, with nothing but the inhuman coldness of bullets, microscopes, screwdrivers, and wrenches to keep them company.  No, Asuka's mind was made up.  She would act to save herself, to save them all, though she was powerless on her own.  She would act the way someone with all the power in the world had refused.

"Shinji," she said, "I need to speak with her."

From his stool beside her, watching the medic tend to Hikari, Shinji looked at Asuka out of the corner of his eye.  "Who?"

"That's a good question.  Who is she?  The First Child, Ayanami Rei?  The Second Angel, Lilith, mother of all life on this world?"  Asuka turned the radio around in her hand, coming to grips with neither her judgment of Rei nor the feel of the cold, black plastic on her fingers.  "She won't say it, but she thinks herself a god, doesn't she?  She thinks she has power, but she won't sully herself to use it.  We fight this war like her pawns, marching onward one step at a time.  We're getting close to the end of the board, Shinji.  Either she rewards us and we become queens, or a horde of Russian rooks, knights, and bishops will cut us down first."

Shinji shook his head helplessly.  "Asuka, you know as well as anyone.  I looked for her for months.  Ayanami may watch over us, but she's too busy to listen to any one person."

Asuka caught his eyes and stared him down.  "You really think that?  Don't you remember?  When she told us she wouldn't let us use Eva against the enemy, against other human beings, you were there.  You said you trusted in her, so that made it okay.  Did you see the way she reacted?  Did you see the way she looked back at you?  I remember.  She listens to you, Shinji.  She always has.  That's how I know she's listening right now, and I won't be satisfied until she shows her ghastly white face!  She's the one standing between us and safety.  She's the one who won't do anything while Hikari bleeds to death!"

"Asuka, it's fine," Hikari offered weakly, trying to put on a smile, but the gesture looked unnatural and strained, for as Hikari lay on the cleared lab table and turned her head, she cringed in pain, unable to hold the smile against her discomfort.  Still, she persisted.  "Ayanami-san has her reasons, I'm sure.  I don't question them."

"I do," Asuka said curtly, and she turned her eyes to the ceiling.  "First!  Come off your throne and speak to us lowly mortals!"

Shinji winced in embarrassment.  "Asuka, please—"  His gaze went past her, and his mouth hung open, leaving him speechless.  Kodama and Horaki followed Shinji's eyes and backed up a step, cautious and wary.

"She's behind you," Nozomi explained to Asuka.  "I don't know why everyone's so surprised.  Wasn't it obvious she would come?  I wouldn't take being called out like that lightly."

Asuka peered over her shoulder, and sure enough, Rei was there, standing before the ballistics firing chamber.  Her ephermeral glow reflected off the rough, dark surfaces of the prototype armor material, spreading the faint light throughout the room.

"Why do you call for me?" asked Rei.

"Because we need you," said Asuka.  "Because Shinji needs you.  We could all die here, and you're standing on principle!  Shinji, tell her!"

With both Asuka and Rei watching his response, Shinji seemed to shrink under their gazes.  "Of course I'm afraid," he said quietly, "but Ayanami won't let us die here.  I believe that."

Sighing, Asuka rubbed her temple with two fingers.  "Maybe she will, but how much worse does it have to get?  Do we need to have a plague of locusts before she lifts a finger to do something?"

"It's always locusts," Nozomi mused.  "Why should we expect plagues to come from the Christian Bible?  Why not a plague of bats?  Or marmots?  Much more interesting and chaotic picture than being covered in bugs, I'd think."

"It's in Jewish scripture, too," said Horaki.  "Shared writings."

Kodama turned aside slightly, talking to Horaki alone.  "Father, this is what you comment on?  Not...'marmots'?"

"It seems reasonable to keep a sense of humor about things in these kinds of situations.  I think marmots would be pretty reasonable.  They're pesky, vicious creatures.  Sounds plaguelike to me."

Asuka opened her mouth to stop this crazy line of thinking, but the radio in her hand crackled to life.  Sergeant Ishikawa's voice was clear and to the point.  "Ginger, Ginger, this is Platinum Six.  Do you read?"

"Go ahead, Six," Asuka sent back over the handset.

"We have the package, but—"  Pop-pop!  "It's going to be a fight to return to the nest.  We'll be coming in hot.  Copy, Ginger?"

"Copy," said Asuka.  "Over and out or something."  She put down the radio handset.  "Military jargon is way too overblown.  Well, we've got something to do."  She looked to Rei.  "Don't suppose you want to help with that."

Rei's eyelids narrowed almost imperceptibly, but she said nothing.  Asuka was glad for that, at least.  Rei always did seem to know, as a rule, when to keep her mouth shut.

In the distance, the sounds of battle came through the walls.  Distant gunfire could be heard, and if Asuka didn't know better, she would've mistaken it for a child blowing bubbles with chewing gum.  SDF members called and hollered to one another outside.  "Lock that door down!" one man said.  "Don't give them any cover!"  And so on.  Hikari's medic checked the slide on his sidearm, taking a deep breath.

"There they are!" cried a man.  "Go, go!"

POP-POP.  POP-POP-POP.  Ka-BANG!  The lab shook, and a beaker tumbled and fell to the floor, shattering.  The able-bodied civilians—Asuka, Shinji, Horaki, Nozomi, Kodama, and Kyōko—crouched down behind upended tables and cabinets for cover.

"Let's get the girl on the floor here," said the medic, "before the bullets start flying."

Obligingly, Horaki took one end of the stretcher as the medic took the other, and the two men lifted Hikari off the lab table in unison, lowering her to the dusty tile floor.

Thud-thud, thud-thud!  There was a beating sound on the laboratory door, and Asuka crawled to the red release button by the entrance, pressing it with her palm.  The metal door retracted, and Sergeant Ishikawa and the rest of his men scampered inside, but there was something off about their number.

"What happened?" asked Shinji.  "Weren't there seven of you that left?"

Ishikawa met his gaze with a long, hard look.  "Didn't make it," the sergeant said simply.

Asuka stared at him in surprise, gaping, but Ishikawa paid her no mind.  He simply pressed the red release button for the door, shutting it behind them, and he placed a bundle of white, sealed packs.  To the untrained eye, they might've looked like artificial cold packs, save for the black dotted line that ran near one of the short sides.  Asuka searched and scoured the drawers of the lab, finding a utility knife that she used to slice the pack open.  She fetched a pair of latex gloves from an open box, with them, she retrieved a translucent bandage drenched in LCL.

"That's insane!" cried the medic.  "You can't get all that fluid in her wound.  Do you know what that'll do to her?"

"It'll save her," said Asuka, who knelt down by Hikari to apply the bandage.  "That fluid is going to turn to flesh and bone and whatever else she needs, as long as she has to will to make it so.  Hikari has that in spades.  You didn't see her as our class rep—she managed people with an iron fist!  No one dared question her.  Isn't that right, Hikari?"

Hikari looked up to her with an amused, if weak, smile.  "I wasn't really like that, was I?"

"You were."  Asuka snuck a glance at Kodama.  "Maybe you get it from your older sister here."

At that, even the stoic Kodama showed a concerned smile, trying to reassure Hikari.

"Just concentrate," Asuka told Hikari.  "Picture yourself whole, and if you think hard enough, that's how you'll be."  She looked to her mother.  "That's how the doctors say it, right?"

"Some of those quacks read from a telephone book just to be boring enough to sound like white noise," said Kyōko.  "On the bright side, I know the phone number of every okonomiyaki restaurant in the city, though."

Asuka glared at her mother, but Hikari was quick to intervene.

"It's all right," she said.  "I've done this before."

With silent footsteps, Rei came up beside Asuka, and Hikari's eyes followed the ghostly figure.

"Then let's do this already," said Asuka.  "Close your eyes and focus.  You've got a lot to live for.  Your sisters, your father, Suzuhara—your whole life is ahead of you."

Pop-pop-pop!  Pop-pop....  Dull sounds of gunfire rang through the halls outside.  Ishikawa and his men tensed up, and with hand gestures, he ordered his remaining men to positions near the doors.

"Well, if we manage to get through this alive, your whole life will be ahead of you," Asuka glanced at Rei sidelong, but the former First Child was grim and silent, watching only Hikari.

With a battle unfolding all around her, Asuka pressed the bandage to Hikari's chest and side, maintaining steady pressure.  The medic kept checking Hikari's breathing and pulse to look for changes.  Horaki, Kodama,Nozomi, Shinji, and Kyōko stayed behind cover, for the fight grew closer and closer.  The lab shook and rattled, and bullets ricocheted off the metal doors.

"What are they doing here, anyway?" asked Nozomi, who held one hand over an ear to keep the noise out.

Ishikawa fingered a radio transmitter with an extended antenna and an exposed switch.  "They followed us," he said.  "Couldn't get out clean.  Guess they figured we were after something important.  They were right, weren't they?"  He frowned, turning his ear to the wall.  "Oh, I think I hear Russians."  He flipped the switch on the transmitter, and a thundering blast rocked the lab.

"You still hear Russians now, Sergeant?" asked Horaki, shouting over the din.

"Don't think so!"

Nozomi worked her jaw in vain, hoping to clear her ears.  "You could've blown the door out like that.  Isn't that just a little insane?"

"Not possible.  It would take a lot more firepower than any man can carry to break down one of these doors."

A flash!  Sparks showered the floor, and one of Ishikawa's men jumped back from one of the doorways.  A bright white line started to form in the metal as a dazzling flame cut through.

"So," said Kyōko, "how many men does it take to carry a blowtorch?"

Ishikawa grimaced.  "That's not firepower.  I was talking about explosives.  That doesn't count."

"Counts the same however they get in and murder us," said Nozomi.  "Can we talk less about how they get in and think about how to stop it?"

Ishikawa flipped the switches on his detonator repeatedly.  "No charges left.  Let's take up some defensive positions; when they open up the gap they'll probably try to throw a stun grenade in here—if they care to try to take any of us alive.  Let's give them a more lethal present—like a fragmentation grenade—and go from there."

Kodama took a steel tray and held it over her chest for makeshift protection.  "Sounds like bloodshed," she said.  "I don't think all of us without armor or weapons for protection would fare well with that."

Asuka motioned to Kyōko.  "Mama, take over here."

"Why?"

"Just hold the bandage there.  If I'm not focused on Hikari, I shouldn't be doing it."

Puzzled, Kyōko came around Hikari's head and crouched behind the overturned lab table.  She took two gloves from the box and applied pressure to Hikari's wound while Asuka rose, standing straight and tall even as bullets might come flying any second.

"Asuka, please, won't you get down?" asked Shinji.  "It's dangerous out there."

"I know that.  I know that as much as anyone, and so does she."  Asuka stared Rei down.  "You have the power to stop this.  I'm asking you to use it.  I don't know what you're afraid of, but now is the time, damn you!  If there were any time to wave your hand and make the Earth bend to your will, it's now!  You held the whole planet in suspended animation for three decades, and you're standing here telling us you won't lift a finger?"

"My actions have consequences," said Rei, unmoved.  "Everything I do comes at a cost—a cost Eisheth will exact when and where she chooses."

"That price doesn't matter if we're dead!"

There was a hoarse coughing; Hikari sat up, hacking and wheezing.  Kyōko pulled the bandage away, and beneath a thin film of liquid, Hikari's bare skin was clean and intact.  Only the mixture of spilled blood and LCL remained as evidence of her wound, but still, Hikari went woozy, and the medic caught her to ease her back down.

"She still needs blood," said the medic as he injected her with some clear drug.  "We've got to get her to the infirmary, or she will be in serious trouble, no matter what magic healing she's done!"

And that was an impossibility.  Already, the Russians' blowtorch had cut a straight vertical line from chest height down to the floor.  They were starting their second, horizontal cut, trying to make a rectangular hole large enough for a man to crouch and pass through.  If salvation didn't come soon, there would be nothing left to save.

Once again, Asuka turned her attentions to Rei.  "I don't know why you're hesitating," Asuka went on.  "You went to all this trouble to give humanity a fighting chance.  You didn't have to do that.  You didn't have to come to Shinji—or to me, or to any of us.  You decided we would stand back up and fight for our individuality, so back us up!  Stop that army, or let Nozomi get to the Eva, so she can stop them herself!"

"Eva should not be used against humans," Rei maintained.  "I won't compromise principle because it is easier to do so.  I stand for all humanity.  I stand for everyone—the people in this room and the people outside equally.  Not any one person.  All people."

Asuka scoffed.  "Are you that cold now?  Now that you've realized you're an alien, impossible to touch, the people you knew once don't matter to you anymore?  No, don't pretend you're like that to me.  You can try to make yourself look like a dead fish, but you're not that.  You care."

Rei stared back at her, eyes wide and watchful, but she was utterly silent.  Sparks trickled into the room from the flames of the blowtorch as they met the metal door.  The Russians finished the second of three cuts, with only one longer, vertical cut left to break through.  Yet in Rei's eyes, Asuka couldn't see those sparks.  There were only those unnaturally red irises, like the color of blood.  Only when Shinji rose to stand by Asuka, to mediate between Asuka and Rei, did those red eyes flicker and waver.

And then Asuka understood.

"You care too much," she said, as much a realization as it was a statement of fact.  "You're not holding back because of principle or ideals.  You doubt yourself, don't you?  You think you might do too much, so you do nothing instead.  Well, I've been there.  I've thought I couldn't trust myself, that I might just screw up and fail.  It doesn't do anyone any good.  You have to trust in yourself and the people around you, or you'll just be paralized.  You'll sit alone, captive to your own thoughts, going in circles until something helps break you out.  Well, First, I'm breaking you out.  Do something now, or the only humanity you'll be saving is one without us in it.  You understand me?"

Rei's gaze fell as she thought about what Asuka had said.  She seemed to take it seriously, and as frustrating as it was to have their salvation in the hands of someone who'd deluded and deceived herself so, Asuka refused to press her.  Rei would have to make that decision now.  Either Asuka's words would get through to her, or they wouldn't, but Asuka had hope.  They were more similiar than she'd ever considered.  Like Asuka, Rei had made a mistake in judgment, unable to see how her actions and choices were affecting others.  As Asuka had neglected Shinji to work long hours in the hopes of personal accomplishment, Rei had tried to make herself too perfect, too impartial, and in doing so, she'd forgotten what was truly important:

The bonds between people, which are not impartial, not fair, but nevertheless shape people's experiences and decisions.  What decision Rei would make there only she could say.

And Asuka left her to make that choice.  Taking Shinji in hand, she sat down with her back to a set of cabinets, and Shinji sat beside her.  "You know," said Asuka, "I'm sorry.  I took for granted you would be there.  Working made me feel important, but if you had gone, none of it would've mattered.  I didn't even realize it, but I should've."

"You never did anything wrong," said Shinji, puzzled.  "At least, I never felt like you did."

"Because you were being too damn nice about it.  That's why I want to live through this, you know?  To have the chance to fix what I did wrong."

Shinji looked to Rei, and he squeezed Asuka's hand reassuringly.  "I have faith.  We won't die here.  Ayanami won't allow it."

But the ghostly girl with red eyes kept staring into space, troubled.  "There will be a price to pay," she said.  "I don't want any of you to have to pay it.  I will take up the cost, whatever she exacts, myself.  The people that aren't Japanese, people who doubt Colonel Katsuragi or the Japanese people, may choose to fight against us, to fight alongside Eisheth.  I'm afraid of these things, but there's something else I fear more."

Asuka prodded Shinji to answer.  "What is that?" he asked.

Rei blinked, and though Asuka couldn't be sure, she thought she saw a pair of tears fall from Rei's eyes.  Ghostly and ephemeral they were, though, and if they hit the ground, they made no sound and left no trace behind.

"That if you die here, I won't have the will to fight her at all," Rei finished.

The steel door began to glow white hot near the base, and the shower of sparks shortened and lessened as the blowtorch's flame neared the floor.

"Positions!" said Sergeant Ishikawa.

The men readied themselves, training rifles on the rectangular cutout that would soon open.  The medic put his body between Hikari and the breach and held a pistol sidearm with both hands.  Horaki, Kodama, and Nozomi clung to one another, and Shinji and Asuka did the same.  Shinji's certainty gave Asuka strength—the strength not to fear, to trust in Rei, foreign and strange though she could be.

Clang!  The metal rectangle fell, glowing hot at its edges, and a pair of grenades bounced inside, clinking as they hit the floor.  Asuka and Shinji embraced, trying to shield each other from the blast and—

Ka-PAM!  The shockwave rippled through Asuka's air, but that initial burst of pressure was all she felt, and the room settled into stillness and silence.  Only then did Asuka dare open her eyes—

To see a jagged piece of shrapnel hovering between her eyes.

"Shit!" she blurted out, and she pushed herself back against the cabinets to put distance between her head and the blast, but the piece of shrapnel floated there, spinning slowly but suspended in mid-air.

And in the center of the room stood Rei, her gaze unwavering and sure.

"There will be no more death today," she said.  "I have decided it.  Whatever it may cost tomorrow, I have decided it."

Pieces of shrapnel and grenade casings fell to the ground harmlessly with a small clatter.  Horaki even dared to pick up a piece and examine it between his fingers in curiosity.

A team of Russian soldiers burst into the room through the gap, guns up and at the ready.  Who can say what they thought as they charged inside.  Did they expect decimation, only to find the inhabitants alive and intact?

No one can know, for Rei gave them no chance to express their surprise.  As they begain to train their rifles on her, on the civilians, and on Ishikawa's men, Rei's stare pierced them, and in a flash of light spanning all colors of the rainbow, the Russian soldiers exploded, bursting into pure, primitive LCL.  Their remains splashed on the floor of the laboratory, inert and harmless, and their clothes fell around them.

"Those who try to do violence here I reduce to LCL," said Rei.  "They can choose to stand and walk again, but they will do no one harm."

The ghostly figure walked forward, passing through the metal of the door like it was nothing but air.  Kyōko was the first to rise and follow her, and she opened the sliding door with a single press of her hand to the release button.  Shinji, Asuka, and the Horaki clan came after, with Ishikawa's men in flanking, protective positions.  Sure enough, all the hallway was littered with empty uniforms—Russian and Japanese alike—and puddles of LCL.  All that was left was the ghostly girl who walked the walls, dissolving all those who dared raise a weapon against her.  This she did to protect those who were dear to her, knowing what terrible cost the enemy might exact in reprisal.

'I have unlocked the Eva for Colonel Katsuragi to use as she will.'  Through Rei kept walking through the halls with her back to them, she didn't turn around to speak.  Her voice—her thoughts—reverberated in Asuka's mind, almost like a silent speech.  'Go to Eva, and show the enemy your power and might.'



With Rei's blessing, the group left the materials laboratory to continue their original trek down the mountain.  Sure enough, Rei had done much to see to their safety, for the evidence was strewn all through the corridors and stairs.  Empty uniforms and puddles made the going to Level 27 treacherous, but Hikari's father and the medic were deliberate, keeping Hikari level on the plastic stretcher as they brought her to the infirmary.  The doctors hooked Hikari up to a bag of blood, but while Horaki and Kodama could stay at the middle sister's side, the rest of the group had different destinations: Nozomi to the cage, Shinji and Asuka to the control room.  They walked the same path for a time, in silent trepidation, until the group reached a fork in the mountain's corridors, where they stopped to part ways.

"So this is it," siad Nozomi, pensive and measured.  "Can't say this is how I imagined going out there to pilot for the first time.  Isn't it supposed to be momentous?  It doesn't feel that way.  More like I should be back in bed at this time of night.  Doesn't seem smart to go out there tired, does it?"

"You'll be fine," Shinji assured her.  "You just need to go out there and be indestructible.  Bullets and shells can't touch you.  All you have to do is show the Russians—and Eisheth—that we're not holding back anymore."

Nozomi scoffed.  "So it's all about symbolism.  Does that really work, or are people just going to look at us and say, 'What the hell are you doing?' "

"Probably a little of both," said Asuka.  "Now go on, for the world, and for your sister."

Pursing her lips, Nozomi gave a respectful nod to both Shinji and Asuka, and she headed into the locker room to change.  Shinji and Asuka kept on going for the control room.

"You know," Asuka said to him, "a girl notices when her boyfriend doesn't say, 'I love you,' especially when it's right before they go through life-threatening peril."

Shinji looked stricken.  "I didn't—it's not that—I just didn't think we would die!  I was trying to be brave!"

"That doesn't mean you can't say anything to admit the seriousness of the situation!" Asuka chided him.  "Besides, I know you can be brave."

"You didn't say anything, either," he remarked.

Asuka pursed her lips.  "Yeah.  Guess I didn't want to get mushy in front of her."

"Ayanami isn't here now."

"Are you sure?"  Asuka tilted her head forward and back at their SDF escort.  "What about all these guards, hm?"

"I don't care about that."

And neither did Asuka, quite frankly.  She took Shinji's hand into her own as they walked, indifferent to anyone who might be watching them.  It was a strange relationship they had.  Shinji, passive though he could be at times, cared just as much about proving himself worthy to people as she did.  He just went about things quietly, hoping to be noticed, where Asuka would constantly seek attention.  In that way, they were more similar than either could've realized when they'd first met.  Asuka took solace from that, but the hardest part of their relationship was fighting that impulse, resisting the need to prove oneself worthy of attention, admiration, or love.

Perhaps for the first time, Asuka saw how she could live in the world without chasing those needs any longer.  She had helped save Hikari—and maybe all of Tōkyō-2 as well—but how many people would know that?  Outside of Shinji and Hikari's family?  Not many people indeed, and that was okay.  That was all right by her, for her words had accomplished much, and she'd do what she'd done again even if no one but her could know what came of her deeds.  The ends were worthwhile, no matter who might praise her for achieving them.

Thus, when Shinji and Asuka entered the control room, surrounded by technicians and computer panels, Asuka didn't mind stepping back to let Shinji and Misato do their work.  After all, they had trained with Nozomi, preparing her for her task as a pilot.  Asuka had had work of her own to perform, and she'd done it well.  It was time to trust others to do the same.

From her chair at the base of the control room, Misato sat with her legs crossed.  She fingered a headset on her right ear, pressing it slightly.  "Well, Nozomi, are you ready?"

One of the screens flickered to Nozomi's image.  The girl's plugsuit had a high, Chinese-style collar, armored black shoulder adornments, and an overall dark-green hue.  "Probably not, but let's give this a shot."

Misato looked to Shinji, handing him a headset of his own.  "It's your call."

With a gulp, Shinji donned the headset and looked to Nozomi on the screen.  "Launch," he said.

Another screen changed to an exterior view of the mountain, and up came Eva Unit-14, green and black with its outward-angled shoulder pylons in the faintest glimmers of dawn.  No sooner than Nozomi and the Eva had breached the surface did flashes of artillery lit up the darkness.

"Look out!" cried Shinji.

The Eva braced itself, and the incoming shells exploded harmlessly against its AT-field.  Nozomi and Unit-14 hardly buckled an inch in response.

"Okay, that's not too shabby," mused Nozomi.  "Now what?"

"Go out there," said Misato.  "If they won't run from you, destroy their ability to make war and to hold this land that isn't theirs.  Show them this mountain and the city around it will never be theirs, and the Eva they covet so much is nothing they'll get their hands on."

Nozomi huffed.  "You guys really believe in all this stuff, don't you?  In every action being profound and meaningful?  Well, I'm gonna go shrug off some bullets and throw some abandoned vehicles around for fun.  I guess we'll see how meaningful that is."

With that, Unit-14 leapt and skidded down the mountain.  Small caliber bullets impacted and dissolved against its AT-field, lighting it up in an intermittent, rainbow-colored glow.  So majestic and marvelous was the sight that the whole control room watched in awe.  Against conventional firepower, the Eva was all but untouchable, and Asuka couldn't help but admire the sight and think back on the times when she'd been a pilot, as Nozomi was.  The beginning was grand and full of victory, but the experience only grew more difficult over time.  Some said the AT-field was the light of the soul; Asuka only hoped Nozomi's light would shine long enough and bright enough to withstand the coming darkness.

And make no mistake, Eisheth Zenunim was coming, and she would arrive soon.  Asuka saw the evidence herself when Hyūga came to Misato's chair, bearing a folder full of intelligence.

"What is that?" asked Shinji, peering over along with Asuka.

"Space telescope imaging," Hyūga explained.  "This was taken a few hours ago."

The lead photo told the whole story:  a pointed, glowing blob—artificial in shape and size—loomed large in a background full of faint stars, but larger still was the edge of some object that took up most of the right half of the photo.  It was a planet's atmosphere, with orange gas and bands of white clouds, but most distinctive of all was the great red storm that raged there.

"And so come Eisheth's children," said Misato bitterly, closing the folder, "riding an Angel past Jupiter, and to planet Earth beyond."  She set her eyes on the large monitors at the front of the control room, where Nozomi crushed a tank underfoot as Russian soldiers ran for their lives  "We may have beat an enemy back today, but we are both weakened for it, and the time soon comes when we'll have to stand together instead."

"There's nothing to be done about lives and materiel already lost," noted Hyūga.

"We'll do the best we can," said Shinji.  "We'll fight because it's right, and even if we fail, if Eisheth takes us all back to the sea, then every last person will know how hard we fought to be individuals."

Asuka squeezed Shinji's hand once again, for with his hope came comfort and warmth—warmth enough to feel alive, even as Eisheth's children came for mankind from the icy reaches of space.

[JonBob]

First a quick question:

Spoiler: ShowHide

Why not use the Eva to construct defensive structures? A giant canyon or a giant wall would help Nozomi learn to use the Eva in new ways, while slowing the enemy w/o direct confrontation.

And some commentary:

Spoiler: ShowHide

I rather like this portion from Asuka's PoV, since she's a woman of action, but there's a lot of helplessness going on. Makes it seem more grim more... natural? for the kind of situation they're in. I also like how she's become self-aware of her needs/desires. I suppose, ultimately, that when she's in action mode and less in bitchy mode, Asuka's a pretty compelling character. I like how she's able to both read Rei and Shinji correctly *and* prod them into action.

Hmmm, let's do an overview and see if anything else pops out.

Shinji and Asuka are finishing taking shelter at the hospital, then are sent back to the base. Rei's ban on Eva usage is revealed. Shinji is starting to get into his role of encourager. Asuka goes back to her scientist role but is frustrated by it since she actually does want recognition. Recognition that Shinji is currently getting. She eventually realizes this and tries to work through it by encouraging Shinji. SUDDEN ATTACK! Shinji, Asuka, Nozomi, etc have to take the long way down. Hikari gets hit, hole up in a lab room. Things are grim, so Asuka calls out Rei on her non-involvement. Asuka then points out that Rei really does have things she doesn't want to lose. Rei goes all LCL on the invaders (and other defenders?) and the Eva is deployed. Asuka feels good about the results of her actions, rather than the recognition.

Seems fairly straightforward, so far.

[Muphrid]

Regarding your question:

Spoiler: ShowHide

That's possible and might strictly obey Rei's directive, if it were possible to do so without becoming a target for the invaders. I think this violates the spirit of what Rei intends, however: that the Eva not be used in a way that is partial to one faction of humanity over another (provided that those factions are against Eisheth, at least).

Your observations about the chapter are right in line with what I intended for it.  It was fun to write this exploration of Asuka's character in a situation she was very unaccustomed to, and I'm glad it came off rather well.  Thanks for taking a look at this.

[Muphrid]

A draft of chapter seven is below attached.

[JonBob]

It got cut off! This is pretty good on conveying how Nozomi feels and is just at psychologically. I do like how Shinji is very much her mentor, even during the Eva battle. My only issue with this chapter is how far they're letting her get. They should know she's barely sleeping and drawing pictures of angels and Eisheth. Granted, there may be nothing they can do.

[Muphrid]

Yeah, I think you're right; there needs to be a little more attention on that point, either a more focused effort to get Nozomi back on track or an acknowledgement that there is not much they realistically can do.  The latter would be easier to drop in without serious restructuring, but may not be as believable.

(The full text is now attached above.)

[JustBrowsing]

A draft of chapter seven is below attached.

Ohgod, something ate your tabs and paragraph marks.  It is the wall of text to end all walls of text.

Man, the forum software really doesn't want you posting this, huh?

[Muphrid]

That's...probably unix file endings.  Didn't think of that; it looks fine in anything remotely intelligent about things...which Notepad is not.

Sorry about that.  Try this chapter 7 draft link then.  I've been meaning to update some of the look of things, because I might actually try to build a full-fledged website sometime in the next...year.  But for now, the very bare-bones html there will have to do.

[JonBob]

Terribly sorry about the late reply.

Spoiler: ShowHide

You can paint a picture of humanity being these aliens

beating?

Other than that, not much to say. I do like how you're showing some of her growth and development through her drawings and how she changes her focus. I suppose it makes sense, her being an artist and all. Also, 3-on-1 really isn't fair, and those must have been some uber rockets to get an Eva to fly around like that. Also, I had a moment of "really?" when the plane ran into the angel and diverted it. I suppose it might be equivalent to being hit by... an olive? an oreo? Maybe my proportions are off. But the multi-directional pin-down was a good idea.

I'm still not sure what to think of the Art Club president. I can see how he's used to help push Nozomi on, but I don't see where he's going beyond that (perhaps that's intentional!).

Also, I'm unsure if Nozomi going to help the JDSF pilots or not was a lone wolf thing to do or not? Or was it that way since it was a "only I can do I so I must do it", noblesse oblige-ish? I dunno, not sure where I'm really going with that point....

So yeah, kind of a short review, but hope it helps at all.

[Muphrid]

Thanks as always for your help, JonBob.

A draft of chapter eight can be found here.

[JonBob]

Spoiler: ShowHide

For an all powerful being, it seems that Rei is more relate-able than expected. Perhaps it's being 1/2 human (even abnormal one) that does it. And for having an all-encompassing view, it seemed pretty focused. Not sure where the whole "discussing with Kaworu" came from, but it gives a good place for her to vent/discuss. And yeah, Rei's final decision does kind of make sense: if you trust the humans, but don't trust Eisheth, taking yourself out of the picture will hurt less than the benefit of taking Eisheth out. Also, it would be interesting if she got a bit of satisfaction out of it, since Eisheth is kind of a dick.

But yeah, it was kind of nice to get some perspective from Rei before taking her out of the picture.

As for grammar and spelling, I didn't notice anything off. I'll try to give it another pass at a later time.