1:3
Ritsuko was all business as she led him towards the entry plug. "I'll give
you
a simple lecture on the operating systems."
Shinji looked over his shoulder, raising one hand in a half-hearted wave to
Misato. She turned away, and Shinji closed his eyes wearily for a moment.
Then
he returned his attention to the Doctor's lecture.
* * *
Shinji shifted around within the seat of the 'entry plug' he was inside. It
held him rather more securely than he was comfortable with although he
supposed
that there was a safety reason for that. There were a couple of hand grips
but
he wasn't entirely sure what they were for, so he kept his hands well clear
of
them, rested on the pedestal in front of him. He felt almost as if he was
chained to a chair in some mad scientist's laboratory, right down the the
little neural-whatsits tucked into his tangled hair above his forehead.
Outside the Evangelion, the pieces were moving into place.
"Cooling-down cycle Complete! All internal cage systems in docking position!"
Fluid drained away from the canal lock-sized compartments surrounding the
giant
warmachine.
"Pilot has reached the cockpit position within the Entry Plug!"
'I could have told you that myself,' sneered Shinji to himself.
"Roger! Inserting Entry Plug!"
>From the outside, it looked like piston pressing the cylindrical entry plug
into the back of EVA-01. To Shinji it felt like a poorly maintained elevator
going down just a touch too fast... almost out of control for a second.
"Plug lock-in procedure completed!"
"Initiating first level interface!"
"Flooding entry plug!"
Shinji blinked. "Flooding WHAT!?" he half screamed as a yellowish fluid
rushed
up the plug. 'Christ, it looks like urine,' he thought in distaste.
"Don't be alarmed!" Ritsuko told him. "Once your lungs are saturated with the
LCL, you'll be able to undergo direct oxygen exchange!"
"Calm down, Shinji! You'll get used to it in a minute!" resassured Misato.
"Easy for you to say," coughed the boy irritably, now completely submerged
and
regaining his composure. "You didn't just swallow a pint of this rat's piss."
The walls of the entry plug were covered for a moment by repetitions of the
phrase 'start contact' only to be replace with dozens of coloured blocks
racing
up the walls with vertigo-inducing speed. Shinji listened quietly as the
technical staff ran through the start-up sequence: "Main power connected! All
circuits fully functional! Initiating power-up sequence!" "Opening reciprocal
circuits!" "A10 neural synapses operating within normal limits! First contact
all clear!" There were three voices - two male, one female. As expected
then.
"This is _incredible_!" Ritsuko exclaimed. "Synchro errors are within 0.3
percent!" She turned to Misato. "It's going to work!"
"Evangelion Unit-01!" the purple-haired officer shouted. "Prepare to launch."
The drama of the moment was somewhat spoilt by Shinji's tart rejoinder.
"Babe,
I'm trussed up like a chicken. What do you want me to do, dance the funky
chicken?"
Ignoring, mostly, the byplay of Misato shouting and waving her arms at a
microphone, the technical crew began opening up the layers of protection
around
the EVA. The lighter defenses, mesh screens and the like, moved first. Then
the
massive clamps around the EVA disengaged one by one. "Releasing primary lock
bolt." "Release confirmed! Releasing umbilical bridge!" "Releasing primary
and
secondary restraints!"
Even the walls that had locked around the EVAs arms, restraining it by the
pauldrons, slid away, leaving the giant clamped only to a relatively small
frame behind it.
"Releasing safety locks one through fifteen." "Internal battery fully
charged!
External power outlet nominal!" The female voice (Maya, Shinji guessed) gave
the next report just as Misato finished ranting. "Transporting EVA Unit-01 to
the launch elevator!"
With the low roar of precisely maintained heavy machinery, the entire
platform
that the EVA stood on slid slowly up and backwards towards the wall of the
immense chamber.
"What was all that about external power source?" Shinji asked absently.
Ritsuko answered. "The Evangelion can only carry a five minute power supply
on
internal batteries. Therefore the main power source is in Geofront, connected
to the EVA by a power cord."
There was a moment of silence as Shinji thought that over. He already knew
that
of course, but it annoyed him nonetheless. "You mean I'm piloting a giant
robot
powered the same way as a lawnmower. What sort of budget did you get for this
thing anyway?"
"Stop whining. You're a boy, aren't you?"
"...I refuse to dignify that with a response."
Further 'repartee' was cut off as the EVA reached the wall. The platform
locked
into rails leading upwards and doors above it slid aside, revealing a
vertical
shift that reached up higher than Shinji could see.
"Gate Five, stand by!" "Launch path clear!" "All green!" "Launch preparations
are complete."
"Roger!" Misato acknowledged. Standing in the middle of the command deck, she
turned to look up and Gendo, overlooking the technical staff from his
brooding
perch. "Commander Ikari! Do we proceed?"
Ikari's clasped hands obscured most of his face but his glasses had slid down
his nose just far enough to reveal eyes as dark and purposeful as agates. "Of
course," he said calmly. "If we fail to defeat the Shito, humanity has no
future."
Misato nodded and turned back to the techs. "Launch!" she ordered.
Power surged through the motors against the rails and hurled the EVA,
platform
and all, upwards and out of the Geofront. Shinji yelped in surprise as
gravity
drove him down in the seat.
Far above, on a city street, warning lights flared around a square hatch set
flush with the road. Panels slid away just barely in time for the EVA Unit-01
to emerge from it. The giant stood there, supported by twin beams reach from
the ground to it's shoulders.
The city looked different from this perspective. Shinji was surprised to see
that his viewpoint was higher than several of them.
"This is it, Shinji!" Misato told him.
"Ready as I'll ever be," he responded, clutching at the handgrips.
"Releasing final safety locks!" she shouted. "Evangelion Unit-01, Lift off!"
With a series of clangs, clamp after clamp released as the EVA sagged
slightly,
no longer supported by the rails. Shinji felt the giant compensate for it's
shifting balance _based on his own inner ear_ and swallowed nervously.
'Welcome
to the big time,' he told himself.
He barely heard Misato's voice wish him good luck.
1:4
For a moment, Shinji just stood there, seperated from the clamps that had
restrained EVA-01, but holding his position, getting a feel for his... robot?
partner? alterego?
Facing the EVA, apparently watching impassively, the Shito stood and waited
as
the tension rose.
'Hmm... it seems to have gauged our course of action, even though we're
underground,' realised Misato. 'We're like wild game, smoked out of our
lairs...' "Shinji!" she called over the radio.
"Yes?" came a distracted response.
"Just try walking," she ordered.
"Okaaay," the boy agreed, dubiously.
Focusing his concentration, Shinji screwed his eyes closed and tried to
conciously think through the process of walking. Bending his right leg
slightly, to take his... no, the EVA's weight. Lifting the other leg slightly
and swinging it forwards, until the balance shifts, tipping the giant
forwards.
Catching that weight on h- the EVA's left foot as it hit the ground. Adjust
balance again to bring the right leg forwards...
In the control room, Ritsuko looked on as Shinji slowly shuffled the EVA
forwards, bringing the arms into play helping balancing as his confidence
grew.
"He - he _did_ it!"
"He's up and at 'em!" cheered Misato.
"Yes," Ritsuko agreed somewhat more cautiously. "But he's over-controlling,
micro-managing details that the EVA can handle for itself if he'd let it."
* * *
Shinji brought the beast to a halt once he was happy with the progress he was
making. "Okay, I'm mobile. Now what? Do I have any weapons here?"
Misato's voice came back over the radio. "You're doing fine, Shinji. You have
a
progression knife in the left pauldron."
Shinji blinked. "That's the bit above the shoulder, right? How do I get at
it?"
"We'll open it remotely for now," Ritsuko told him. "You just have to reach
up
and take it."
With a deliberate effort, Shinji turned the EVA's head and saw the pauldron
open and extend the knife hilt. "Right." He raised the EVA's hands and pulled
it carefully out of the mounting. After a bit more fumbling, he managed to
lock
the EVA's right fist around the hilt, the blade jutting downwards. "Got it."
"Shinji, I think you want it the other way up."
"I think this is better, Misato. Now what's next?"
"Stopping the Shito," Misato's voice was nervous. "You'll have to attack it."
"Thank you, Captain Obvious," he subvocalised.
Shinji looked up, down the street, and saw the black, hunched,
spindly-limbed,
giant humanoid... thing... that was the best way he could describe it if he
were asked to. It was still about the ugliest thing he'd ever seen in his
life... though unlike the first time he'd seen it that position was now
closely
followed by Unit 01's color scheme.
The sight jogged his memory, however, and he realized that he had to end this
_fast_. For some reason he didn't feel as if it would be easy to make the EVA
win the fight for him, as it was supposed to have happened. He was too
different, too unlike the person who should have been sitting in the plug at
that time.
"Any ideas on how I'm supposed to do this?" Shinji asked, his voice not
showing
the fact that he was feeling as if someone had tied his guts into knots and
thrown him into ice-water. It was a nervous reaction, caused by stress, and
he
knew that if the LCL weren't there his nose would be picking up the faint
tang
of fear and anxiety from the cold sweat he'd be covered with. He might have
started mumbling the Bene Gesserit mantra against fear, if he weren't
preoccupied with trying to find ways out of this situation that ended in his
survival.
He was also well aware that the dinky little knife, subjectively speaking of
course, wasn't really very much of a weapon against the Shito at anything but
point blank range. Crappy situation. Hell, why couldn't NERV send the EVA up
with something _useful_ as default weapons, like... oh... tacnuke-loaded
howitzers for example.
'I'm starting to feel a little inadequate here.'
* * *
"Pulse and blood pressure topped out before dangerous levels were reached,"
Maya informed. It was a normal reaction to a stressful situation.
Understandable.
'It's a wonder the poor boy isn't going into hysterics.'
"Any ideas on how I'm supposed to do this?" Shinji's voice rang from the
speaker.
"The core is what you need to be aiming for; at least that's what the
analysts
say," Misato replied. "It's the spherical object right underneath the head."
"Ah, that wasn't quite what I'd asked about," he said dryly. "I only know
more
about fighting than Dad does about parenting because I've read books about
it."
Whatever answer was forthcoming was promptly shelved, because at that moment
the Shito decided to stop standing around like a cheap and extremely ugly
imitation landmark, and attacked.
* * *
The only warning Shinji got was the 'tingle' that seemed to run through his
body, making hairs stand on end, and the brief flash from the Shito's
'eyesockets'. The impact of whatever that energy-weapon the enemy had used
was
rocked EVA-01 back and the purple-and-green Evangelion tittered, unbalanced.
Shinji grunted as it toppled, barely managing to do as much as try and arrest
the fall with one of the EVA's arms.
This was _not_ good. Singularly bad was a better description for the
situation,
really.
"Shinji! You have to get up!" Misato's voice sounded over the com.
He wasn't listening, already concentrating instead on trying to do just that.
The awkward position, half lying down on one side, with the left arm managing
to keep it off the ground in a sort of half-slump, it seemed like an
impossible
ordeal. To get up, he'd have to move his hand like _so_, then shift the
weight
forward and bend the legs, get some purchase on the ground...
Another shock went through the EVA, and Shinji cried out in pain as he felt
_something_ clamp down on his head like a vice. The loss of concentration was
further aided by the fact that he suddenly experienced what it felt like to
have your body hauled upwards by a hand holding onto the upper portion of
your
skull, swung through the air like a cheap dishrag, and slammed into a very
solid object.
Had he bothered to notice, he'd have felt the metallic taste of blood in his
mouth from where he'd bitten into his lower lip while trying to stifle a
scream.
Then the pressure let off, or seemed to let off at least, becoming more of a
insistant throb that started around one temple, one side of the jaw, and over
one brow.
Shinji's head swam with the sudden release, and panic started to clutch at
him
as he realized exactly in what position the Shito had him.
'No! Dammit, is there some sick sort of predestination going on with these
things?' he wanted to scream in frustration.
There was a pressure suddenly clamping down on his right forearm, a little
before the wrist, and only an instant after he realized that the EVA's hand
was
still holding the knife in that hand another spasm of pain shot though him.
The
view-screens shifted towards it in sympathetic reaction, showing Unit 01's
wrist being twisted outwards by the Shito's clawed hand. The loud crunch of
breaking... something... he'd later _swear_ that it sounded like his own
bones
cracking under the pressure, could be heard.
He could dimly hear someone's voice screaming in agony, a voice that he
realized was his _own_, and another voice in the background saying something
he
couldn't make out over the noise.
The prog knife clattered to the ground as the EVA's right hand was wretched
and
turned in a way it hadn't quite been intended to turn.
* * *
The scream came from the speakers, Shinji's face on what view-screens showed
the cockpit of the EVA contorted in a pain-induced grimace and his skin pale.
"Right arm damaged!" Maya gasped. "Sync is fluctuating! Blood pressure and
pulse are through the roof!"
"Ritsuko! Do something!" shouted Misato. "He can't fight in that condition!"
"I'm trying!" the blonde scientist replied, eyes frantic as they ran over
Maya's console from over the younger tech's shoulder. "Can you sink the
neural
feedback regulator level?!"
"Y-yes," Maya replied, fingers already dancing over the keyboard.
"No!" Shinji's cry pierced the air again, but this time there was something
different about it. The pain that had been there before was still present,
perhaps even doubly so, but the cry wasn't one of denial or pleading. It was
sheer, unadulterated determination.
"I will _not_ lose!"
A deafening crack sounded even through the cockpit speakers as the head
armour
of the EVA was shattered.
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