The Revaluation of Evangelion (IC)

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https://dl.dropbox.com/u/39147041/AdEva%20Pictures/The%20Revaluation%20of%20Evangelion.jpg

“The year’s at the spring,
And day’s at the morn;
Morning’s at seven;
The hill-side’s dew-pearled;
The lark’s on the wing;
The snail’s on the thorn;
God’s in His heaven—
All’s right with the world!”

- "Pippa Passes", Bells and Pomegranates: Volume 01, 1841


“And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.
And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language;
and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them,
which they have imagined to do.”

- Genesis 11:5-6, The Bible, King James Version

[babel_matrix]

Central Dogma, War Room #6

The frightened muttering would not end. Against the walls, their backs warming the cold steel of the only conference room left, were the remnants of the command staff that still drew breath. On the digital table, the icon of NERV glowed a red that reminded them too much of the last twelve hours: the fluids of their co-workers, friends, family, sprayed on keyboards and smeared on the chairs in which the hail of bullets had finally stopped. Most of them were shaken, unsure of their survival. Some were already shell-shocked, staring blankly at the table, and nothing at all. Of the leading commanding officers, Maya Ibuki was the only one left alive, and somehow had retained enough of herself to look around at see what had become of the rest of the survivors. Now the Section-2 head wanted them to defeat an Angel, one that slaughtered the Mass-Production series only ten hours ago? Only ten hours ago, after the Japanese government finally gave up on campaign to slaughter the lot of them.

The chatter finally came to a halt when the double doors revealed a blonde woman in black dress pants, a worn white dress shirt and a suit jacket that had seen better days. Her hair was up in a ponytail, her eyes were hidden behind thick black shades and the grimace she bore weighed on them all. Maya Ibuki would have wilted before her yesterday, but now all she could do was wonder what had become of the real Commander. Tanaka spoke to them all in formal Japanese, a curt, almost hostile tone filling every sentence. “<Colonel Johann Fhittz will be here in twenty-five minutes to review the situation. He is officially replacing Major Misato Katsuragi as Operations Director; you will acknowledge him as your superior, give him everything he needs, and supply the latest data from the MAGI. Any sighting of former personnel, aside from those gathered in this room, is to be reported to any of the Section-2 agents you see patrolling the Command Center. Is that understood?>”

The room answered with silence, with only a few daring to give curt nods to let the Tanaka know she had been heard at all. Maya did not join in that effort; she was tired. The fatigue of combat, of monitoring the EVA-02’s defeat, of trying to decode the locks and data bombs planted throughout the MAGI by Ritsuko, and especially tired of death. How old was Aoba? Why didn’t he cower beneath the table with her? Would he be alive now? “<Ma’am!>” Maya barely believed she spoke the words herself. Evidently, some part of her still wanted to do work here, in these viscera-soaked halls. “<The MAGI are not ready; they’re still completely locked down by several backdoor processes that ran alongside the Type-666 firewall made by Dr. Ritsuko. We need her help if we're going to-- >”

“<Commander,>” Tanaka corrected.

Maya blinked. “<I’m… I’m sorry?>”

“<You will refer to me as Commander, as that is my new position as of seventy-two minutes ago. Your request to receive any instructions or advice from that traitor is denied.>” Maya's mouth hung partially agap. “<You have approximately six hours before the new Evangelion series takes off from their various locations, First Lieutenant. Get those computers back online in four.>” Tanaka turned away from her officers, her only soldiers on the front against the Angels, and left the room. The doors closed, and Maya could only shake her head in mute disbelief. She was leagues behind Ritsuko, and now she was expected to beat the woman's meticulous sabotage. "<C,mon,>" one of the technicians muttered into her ear, "<I'll help you out.>"

The cellular in her pocket irritated Tanaka. She was already on her way to the elevator, intent on meeting her new Operations Director before he saw the sorry lot in that war room. If she was going to bank everything on new pilots, she'd at least like to get a measure of Germany's idea of a Colonel.

N.B.K. #004, First Class

The turbulence on the approach was minimal, allowing for a comfortable view of the warzone below. The wound of Tokyo-3 was still gaping open, fresh and naked, and the steel pyramid of NERV-00 still pointed, defiantly, at the Heavens it had never seen before. As the plane made its maneuvers to land on the impromptu strip inside the Geo-Front, the tablet in Johann’s hands erupted with life, receiving data fed to it from NERV-00. As the footage of EVA-02’s fight plays on the right of the screen, as recorded by the JSSDF, a data feed exploded onto the left side, seemingly devoid of the usual tags of a MAGI output.

JANUARY 10, 2016, 1134
EVA-02 IS DEFEATED. THE MASS-PRODUCTION EVANGELIONS REACTIVATE.

JANUARY 10, 2016, 1135
UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECT DETECTED BY NERV-00 SENSORS, U.N. SATELLITE “DOBBY-3” AND REMAINING JSSDF AIR FORCES. OBJECT ALTITUDE OF 28,000 FEET AND DESCENDING RAPIDLY. NERV-00 AND U.N. SATELLITE “DOBBY-3” CONFIRMS BLOOD PATTERN BLUE. MASS-PRODUCTION EVANGELIONS ACTIVITIES HALTED BY REMOTE COMMAND.

JANUARY 10, 2016, 1137
OBJECT ALTITUDE OF 6,000 FEET. OBJECT DECELERATES TO A COMPLETE STOP. VISUAL CONFIRMATION MADE. NO DATA FROM BATTLE OBTAINED, SAVE FOR THE FOLLOWING VIDEO FEED.

A new video dominated the tablet, showing the Angel: a humanoid white mass, covered in what could be confused for a robe of feathers. Two giant, bird-like wings extended from either side, covered in the same feathers and terminating in small, three-fingered, taloned hands. The opening of the “cloak” below reveals a single, thick “leg”, while the top reveals a featureless white “face” that remained partially obscured.

JANUARY 10, 2016, 1137
JSSDF FORCES WITHDRAW. MASS-PRODUCTION EVANGELION DUMMY PLUGS ARE RE-ASSIGNED TO ANGEL TERMINATION, AND TO ENGAGE WHAT HAS BEEN IDENTIFIED BY THE U.N., AND NERV, AS THE EIGHTEENTH ANGEL.

JANUARY 10, 2016, 1138
MASS-PRODUCTION EVANGELIONS ENGAGE THE TARGET. TARGET TRANSFORMS.

The “cloak” reveals itself to be made of the same feathers in its wings, and all the feathers upon its body explode outward in an obscuring hurricane of white. Their A.T. fields, weak as they were during the battle with EVA-02, do nothing to repel this onslaught, leaving them covered in the Angel’s detachments. A picture-in-picture appears of a zoomed-in, still image of one of the feathers: shaped like a long rhombus, the flexible sliver of white reveals, on one side, a flat mouth filled with pointed teeth and darkness that suggests that there is space within its mouth that betrays its form. Like starved piranha, the feathers plant themselves on the Evangelion units and begin to chew through their limbs and torsos.

JANUARY 10, 2016, 1138
MASS-PRODUCTION EVANGELION UNITS 06, 07, 09 AND 10 REPORT CRITICAL DAMAGE TO LIMBS. NO CORE VISIBLE IN TARGET; FALSE LANCE STRIKES WOUND TARGET, BUT DO NOT SEEM TO FIND THE CORE. TARGET USES AN ENERGY ATTACK TO FURTHER DISABLE EVANGELION UNIT 11.

Through the blur of chewing feathers, one could see the shape of the Angel, now a long, plain torso with thin, clawed arms. Barely visible are the wiry tendrils surrounding it that once held the feathers in place. It writhed and bled as three lances bit its flesh. Though obscured, the creature’s head visibly morphs; the view is further obscured when purple energy explodes from its face, blasting an already partially-disintegrated arm off of EVA-11. Once the horizontal energy cross fades, the head has already returned to its former shape.

JANUARY 10, 2016, 1139
CORE DETECTED, BUT ALL NINE MASS-PRODUCTION EVANGELION UNITS HAVE SUSTAINED HEAVY DAMAGE TO WEAPONS AND COMBATIVE LIMBS; CHANCE OF SUCCESSFUL COMBAT REDUCED TO 0.000001%. CHANCE OF SUCCESSFUL RETREAT FOR A MINIMUM OF ONE (1) MASS PRODUCTION EVANGELION UNIT CALCULATED AT 0.0000000000000012%. DUMMY PLUGS CALCULATE “BODEN’S MATE” SCENARIO. CHANCE OF SUCCESS RAISED TO 54%; CALCULATED AS ACCEPTABLE.

The Mass-Production Evangelions, now bleeding from a thousand places, some with internal organs spilling below and cores exposed, hover closer to the eye of this storm. A long, brilliant flash filled the screen, evidently from the Evangelions, and the feed is eventually reduced to static.

JANUARY 10, 2016, 1140
IN ACCORDANCE WITH “BODEN’S MATE” SCENARIO, ALL NINE MASS-PRODUCTION EVANGELION UNITS ACTIVATE SELF-DESTRUCTION SEQUENCES. ONLY SIX SURVIVE LONG ENOUGH TO FULLY ACTIVATE THIS PLAN; CHANCE OF SUCCESS RATE REMOTELY CALCULATED BACK DOWN TO 0.02%.

A new feed appeared, this time from just outside the crater above the Geo-Front. The Angel remains, though featherless. Nothing remains of its “feathers” and its flesh is deformed in boils and tears. An opening was made in its head, and beneath it can be seen the glimmer of a core, unharmed. The creature then ascends, out of the camera’s view.

JANUARY 10, 2016, 1152
TARGET REMAINS AT ALTITUDE OF 38,000 FEET, IN LOWER STRATOSPHERE, AND IS REGENERATING. BASED ON PREVIOUS MODELS, EFFECTIVENESS OF N^2 MINES AT THIS JUNCTURE WOULD BE REDUCED TO NONE. U.N. IGNORES PRECEDENCE AND LAUNCHES N^2 MINES. DAMAGE TO CREATURE CALCULATED AT 6%, SLOWING ITS REGENERATION. FURTHER DAMAGE LIKELY IMPOSSIBLE. SCANS INDICATE THAT THE DETACHMENTS FROM THE ANGEL HAVE ONLY REGENERATED ROUGHLY 5% OF THEIR ORIGINAL MASS. MAGI WERE UNAVAILABLE FOR ENTIRE LENGTH OF COMBAT, LEAVING BACKUP SYSTEMS TO DETECT ANGEL’S PRESENCE AND RECORD MINIMAL DATA. AS OF THIS WRITING, MAGI SYSTEM IS STILL UNAVAILABLE. THIS IS THE FULL AND ONLY REPORT AVAILABLE FOR THIS CONFRONTATION.

Then that’s all there is to work with. The plane touches down on the narrow strip of asphalt, nearly clipping its wing on the ruins of a hospital. There, waiting just before the ruins, stands the new NERV Commander with her retinue of suited bodyguards. Her pose betrays her frustration.

[Lothmar]

Johann sits legs crossed in his first class seat aboard the N.B.K. #004, his hands casually gripping a glass in his right hand and casually turn and rotate the liquid that he does not partake of fore professional reasons. Then why even order you might ask? Well, the world could very well end today now couldn't so he might as well enjoy watching stars in a glass and listen to the fizzing sound as if to confirm the fact that he is still alive until the very end. Afterall, for all he knew the angel could get back up at any point and finish what it started and end the world while he was still in the sky.

But it seemed it wasn't to be so, at least not yet as the device in his left hand that sat casually against his knee began to buzz to life. He sat the glass down and commenced to read through the data and watch file after file as they drew nearer to their destination. 'I really shouldn't have expected much more considering what they just went through.' Johann thinks a little disappointed in the information in front of him but very much impressed by the display of the angel.

As the plane finally stops he unbuckles himself and waits to deboard the plane with his hands behind his back cradling the tablet he carried as he eventually made his way down the steps. He moved at a brisk walking pace and stops short standing at attention as he gives a quick salute, though if security stops him sooner he complies for a search. "Colonel Johann Fhittz, reporting for emergency duty." He adds with a relatively expressionless face that if anything possibly reflected a stern disappointment as this was no time to feign smiles or unecessary pleasantries.

[babel_matrix]

NERV Hospital Gamma, NERV-00, Japan

Commander Tanaka stood confident amongst the armed men, somehow commanding an aura that seems more substantial than the trained killers flanking her. "Colonel. Welcome to Japan; we have work to do." Commander Tanaka's English was impeccable. Such was her confidence with the language, that she has no trouble condensing the day's grave tone into the words. Wasting no time, she spoke while waiting for the all-clear from security. "I'm not going to presume you have a firm grasp of your first battlefield involving an Angel, Colonel, so let me be blunt: you have a science team, four pilots and me. You are to ask questions, you are give me results, and you are to destroy this Angel with minimal damage to what remains of our property. Given that, what do you have so far and when can it be done?"

Men’s Locker Room, [REDACTED] Testing Facility, Yukon Province, NAU

The locker room bore the same sterile smell that possessed it nearly a year ago; it was a side-effect of having a forty-locker facility dedicated to clothing the only pilot their base had on hand. Dr. Lequel had take only two steps in, stopping just beside the second to last row of beige lockers; around the corner waited the pilot of EVA-14. First we’re told the game’s done; the Angels are all wrapped up, Humanity is saved, and we can all enjoy the seething intercontinental tug-of-wars regarding the Evangelion units. Now we’ve got an Angel that almost looked like a real, honest-to-god Christmas herald chewing through nine EVA units at a time. He shook his head, waiting for any sound from the pilot, be it a muttering of numbers or, preferably, so very much preferably, the suction of a plugsuit as the Sixth Child prepared for the final synchronization tests. It’s overtime, and we don’t have nearly enough players on the ice. “Logan, you ready?”

Hallway, NERV-05, London, UK

Richard Hill was a patient man. He was willing to deal with the boy’s condition, his mannerisms and psychological profile. Every ounce of Theodore had been measured on three scales, each meticulously configured by Dr. Hill himself, and ceremoniously declared acceptable. That was when Theodore wasn’t a pilot. Now the boy was going to be flown into live combat, with nary a recognizable voice or name to speak to. For at least 48 hours, the boy would be cut off from him and the rest of those involved in his upbringing. It was dangerous. It bore more risks than the Angel itself, or so Hill was convinced. He paced outside Locker Room 2-B, contemplating arrangements he could make on Cartwright’s behalf. A female guardian. Yes, yes, someone Hill could trust… but who and how? On that note, where? If more Angels attacked, surely they couldn’t remain in—

The door slid away, revealing the young pilot. The Englishman cleared his voice before droning on. “Theodore, before you head into that entry plug, I want you to keep in mind everything we’ve discussed today… and everything that must never be discussed again. If this Tanaka, presuming she is of any real clout, presses you, you have to be ready. Are you ready, Theodore?”

United Nations Space Station “Archimedes”, Orbit, Earth

Dr. Cortez was intimidated. She was a major in the NAU Air Force, top of her class in every class she had ever attended, and had spent most of the last five years in space as America’s representative on this global mission. Yet, here, faced with the task of addressing the Eighth Child, she was as she always was: frightened. He had a look that was too intense, too severe for a youth; he was brash, as violently so as some pilots she had met back on Earth, though he had never dared to confront her directly with that wrath. But none of that could warrant the hesitation she felt. She just couldn't place it, that innate fear of this young man.

The walkway she shared with the boy was the best view of EVA-16, still suspended in zero gravity for the revitalization process, a monster frozen in time and space. She cleared her throat while looking at the Evangelion, careful to pronounce his name correctly. “Nasr.” Hoping that it got the boy’s attention, she continued without looking at him. “Dr. Eisenhower wants to re-calibrate Unit 16’s unarmed capabilities with you in the plug. He wanted me to make it clear that the plugsuit is mandatory for all operations hereon-in. We’ve still got an artificial calcium build-up to address in the leg joints, however, so you may attend to it at anytime in the next two hours. When should he expect you?”

NERV Private Jet, Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Nigeria

The stairs leading up into the jet were ragged, worn bare by years of misuse since 1974, when the airport had first gotten hold of it. Katharina stared up at the jet, a pristine and modern plane, one that would have Sana in Tokyo-3 in a few hours. On that plane, they would give her a debriefing on the Angel attack, and she would be fitted for a plugsuit while in-flight. Katharina watched as two of NERV’s Section-2 dogs flanked the clearing at the top, both waiting on their goodbyes.

The old sniper looked down at the girl, briefly seeing what once was: the shell-shocked child clenching a pistol with clumsy hands. “Don’t forget anything, and never miss. They will tell you what you need to know; ask for nothing else, give them nothing else.” Katharina was never much for words, but now they seemed necessary. Urgent. She resisted the urge to show anything to the girl, lest this become more difficult. The rest of the squad had been preoccupied when the news came, and it fell upon Wulfstan to see the newly appointed Ninth Child to NERV.

It might have been the last time Katharina would ever see her. “Goodbye.” It was all she could say.

[AkaiNeko]

Sana was worried. This was largely due to Katharina being worried, as much as she tried to hide it.

She had no idea what to expect. She hadn't expected to be called on to pilot in the first place; that door had seemed to close years ago. She certainly hadn't expected it to be on such short notice that she hadn't even had time to say goodbye to most of her unit. But she had, and it had, and that was that; she needed to deal with it and do her job.

....but she still didn't know what to expect, and that still worried her. How long would this take? Was it a permanent transfer? What, in fact, would she be doing as a pilot? What had happened that the pilots they already had needed backup or replacement? What was the tactical and strategic situation? Would her basically informal instruction and experience be enough? Hell, who was she working with?

But right now, none of that mattered. What generally mattered most was what was right before her, and right now that was Katharina. "Never miss". She smiled slightly at that; not many people could say that with such confidence. So she had a confident thought of her own: They'd see each other again. She knew it. She had to know it, or she wouldn't be able to do this. Then she nodded and hesitated a moment before throwing a salute. "Goodbye, Sub-Commander. See you soon."

[Naquadah]

Logan dripped from the position he’d been sitting in for…some number of hours. He halfheartedly glanced down at the heart rate monitor wristwatch on his left hand. That hand fell limply across the youth’s lap, draped in a wet towel, his hair no longer dripping but the towel still damp. Half a regiment of medical and science officers had been clustered ten feet back from where he sat on the bench, staring at the TV that was increasingly filled with nothing but static. They had departed…when? He wasn’t really sure, but he was still hooked up to a myriad of small devices, locked onto his skin like lampreys. But he was used to that.

And then the voice he heard cut through all his musing.

“Corbin,” he paused and surveyed himself. “Neg.” Without an ounce of shame he stiffly stood, letting the towel fall away as he started to unceremoniously strip the electrodes from his back and chest. Wordlessly he surveyed the grey and white plugsuit hanging from a nearby locker. He recognized it; it was the last thing he had been wearing, in the synth test and...

“No ‘Zophiel,’ is it?” he said, referencing the primary AI ‘Angel’ he had been fighting in simulations for the better part of a year. The screen had faded to broadcasts about UN announcements with no mention of the hockey match that had been interrupted by the attach on NERV-00. “Nine Evangelion units, with the force multiplier of implanted batteries," he began ticking things off on his fingers, "79.81% likelihood of MAGI support; 95% probability of alternative high-grade planning program; 92.3% likelihood of veteran UN tactical forecaster support; 65.7% opportunity for optimized equipment allocation considering forecasting, carrying limits, and deployment viability. The funny thing is, Unit-02 would have had the best chance against it, by a margin of at least 38-11. Any inconsistencies?”

Logan looked back over his shoulder towards the source of that voice. “NERV versus this new Angel, and Unit-14 is being bid against it. May the odds be ever in our favor.” A faint smile played across his lips as he considered.

[Whiskeyjack]

The Eighth Child snorted. “I will wear your suit when it does not shame me,” he responded shortly. Unlike certain of his uncles, he didn’t have the urge to follow the statement with a derisive comment of ‘woman.’ His contempt wasn’t even based on her gender, just something…deeper. Right now it was merely the frustrated growling of a caged beast. Unit-16 ached for freedom, for concrete pulverized beneath her feet and blood in her teeth, and her pilot felt eerily similar. Nasr clenched his hands.

Nasr had been leaning against the wall, looking at Unit-16 through the armored port. The technical staff was scrambling all over her, having reduced the gravity in the Test Creche to ease their operations. Activity on Archimedes had spiked in the last seventy-two for reasons Nasr couldn’t fathom, but on some level he felt the restraints being loosened and he strained against them instinctively. Still, it was a little nice to have another human being around, that at least let him direct some of the tension outward rather than letting it roil inside of himself. His Psych Advisor would say that wasn’t healthy, but what did that man know about him anyway?

Cortez’s words hung in the cold, still air, and for a moment Nasr enjoyed the poetry of that. Words hanging in the cold air. Archimedes, which no small number of residents called “Von Braun City,’ hanging in the cold void, orbiting. The Earth looked so serene below, and Nasr had at least appeared calm until this doctor had come to bother him. Clad fashionably – 2013 fashions, he thought bitterly – Nasr visibly stiffened when Cortez had come through the nearest port. Her discomfort was palpable, a hooved beast too close to the water where crocodiles lurked. Nasr didn’t dislike her, per se, but nothing could really break him out of one of those moods where he just wanted to be left alone but only soured when left to his own devices.

Nasr sighed. “I’ll just go now. Did he tell you if it would be another E-Type test?” The E-Type equipment wasn’t perfect, but running across the planed surfaces in the void was an experience even the jaded youth reveled in. “And what’s the hold-up with those joints?! We had this same issue last month! It’s another E-Type failure isn’t it?” He sighed with scorn, mouth settling into a hard line, his retort directed at the armored glass between him and the Evangelion, not even looking at the woman. Nasr chewed his lip a moment, then: “Fine, I will wear your suit, but I don’t want people gawking at me in that thing, or at least I will wear a robe to the plug. It just isn’t right!” he added, before his eyes narrowed. “Wait, why do we need to recalibrate now? We’re almost halfway into the station’s night cycle! In two hours it will be after midnight. I’m getting tired. This test can’t wait til ‘morning?’ And if not, why not?” It wasn’t a strong showing of any persuasive skills he might possess. The entire UNSC staff knew Nasr loved to pilot, reveled in every moment in the Plug and almost seemed traumatized when he had to get out. But the timing was off, and there didn’t seem to be a real reason for it.

[Lothmar]

"Very well." Johann adds as if to say he'd consider what questions those parameters allowed him to answer. "Can we talk and walk, I think i'll need to establish a confrence with some other facilities after the debriefing and would like to be there as soon as possible."

"I'd like a report on when we project the magi up and running." afterall it was quite obvious how useful it would be to have the magi system available for an angel conflict.

"I'll need as much information as we have on the pilots i'll be working with and their evangelions if im to formulate any true battle plan. Not just their capabilities but their locations and projected means of travel and arrival times?" Afterall, how can one play the game if they dont know how their pieces move or their statistical data.

"I'd also like a general status update on this facilities own pilots and Evangelions. The remains of unit zero are probably unuseable at this time but Unit two may be able to recieve emergency repairs so it's available as a spare in case of emergency. I have no records of unit one deploying in the last conflict, can the unit and it's pilot be made ready for emergency engagement if the angel decides not to stick to our quaint concept of time and planning?" He asks expecting the worse from the last conflict that all the pilots would be dead or unable to pilot.

"What is the status on the mass produced series evangelion scale weaponry, I doubt any of it survived the conflict but it would be a pleasant suprise if it did and would probably work better then a progressive knife for a melee combatant." Assuming it didn't require any special trick or training to use.

"For comparative purposes in making calculations of the angels abilities, shall I assume the mass produced series probably had a similiar AT field strength and armor as our current reinforcements?" He adds pecimistically having seen how horribly the mass produced series had fared against this angel.

"The report wasn't quite clear but if i'd have to guess from watching the video, the angels core is somewhere in the head region correct?" He asks because well, if he's going to tell the pilots where to attack he'd like for it to be accurate.

It seemed Johann likely had a plan of combat formulating in his head, but wanted to make sure all the variables for the equation were correct before proceding to assume the answer.

[babel_matrix]

NERV Private Jet, Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Nigeria

Katharina never let her eyes lose the girl, even as she loaded on the plane. She followed Sana through the windows until, with no more ceremony or delay, the plane rolled away as it prepared to lift off. It was the last Sana saw of the unit’s sub-commander, and the agents within waited until they had the girl’s full attention. “Miss Hosseini.” The voice was deep and had a clear, English accent that could be heard even as the turbines roared. The voice came from the black, goateed man sitting across from the chair the agents sat Sana in. “We’re escorting you to NERV-00 for a synchronization test. If the test results are anything like the ones from seven years ago, you’re going to be sortied into Evangelion Unit-02 and will be sent into live combat before the end of the day. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

Men’s Locker Room, [REDACTED] Testing Facility, Yukon Province, NAU

Lequel chuckled at that. “They will be, Logan, long as you keep focused." These small hints of a wry boy, a human child peeking out from underneath an entanglement of supercomputer and chemical wiring, were important. I just wish I knew that he’d be able to cope without issue out in Tokyo-3… the Angel be damned, there are people out there, and I can’t remember the last time I heard about a Japanese hockey match. "Now get suited up; we’re getting a wire from the command staff over there, and we need to calibrate to match their formations. I’ll meet you outside.” Corbin Lequel stepped out of the locker room, not intent on watching the shameless child dress. Leaning against the wall, he sighed audibly. I wouldn’t mind a few more Zophiels, really… but he's ready. I know he is.

UNSS “Archimedes”, Orbit, Earth

Cortez brow furrowed. Hadn’t he heard? Of course not; unlike her, no one else was ordered to approach him, and everyone else knew what sort of mood that almost perpetually possessed the boy. The occasional news feed, delayed by only seconds thanks to modern communication arrays, had only been fed to their superiors on a need-to-know basis.

Which meant almost everyone in Von Braun City already knew about the defeated Mass-Production series and what was expected of EVA-16.

What was expected of this insolent Child. “An eighteenth Angel has appeared, and has defeated the entire Mass Production line of Evangelions. Given their Dummy Plug systems and relatively bare-bone capabilities, it falls upon several new Evangelion to destroy the enemy.” The gravity of it finally found her: this kid was going to go into battle. Everything they worked on, everything she worked on, was riding on his shoulders, on his very soul if some of the muttering she caught from the metaphysic eggheads was true. She regained the composure of a soldier and marched up to the boy, her flat shoes making enough noise on the walkway, with the Evangelion’s body framing the both. Staring him in the eye, she finished, “Unit-16 is going into active duty… and so are you. If that means you need a bathrobe, then I’ll inform Dr. Eisenhower and you’ll get your bathrobe.” She had almost called his damned bathrobe. Ease on the gas, Raquel.

NERV Hospital Gamma, NERV-00, Japan

The procession of suits, Tanaka and Fhittz marched to the emergency elevator within the damaged hospital, amazingly still intact. Leaving the plane and crumbling hospital behind, the elevator doors closed and the room was filled with the exchange between Johann and Kyoko. The elevator’s wall sported a small wheel that clicked off the levels as they descended into Central Dogma, Tanaka listening to the Operations Director as he gave his assessment. “Four hours until the MAGI is up and running,” Tanaka replied. Upon being asked for the data on the Evangelion, Tanaka offered no reply; the data was passed from the tablet of one her assistants into the one in Fhittz' hand, showing four folders: EVA-02, EVA-14, EVA-15, and EVA-16.

While reviewing these folders, the elevator finally passed the threshhold into Central Dogma. “Unit-00 had virtually no remains to be salvaged, and no core to constitute a true Evangelion. Thus, it is officially scrapped. A substitute pilot for Unit-02 to replace Soryu is being flown in while it undergoes repairs and plug replacement.” At the mention of Unit-01, she interrupts. “That Unit is off-limits; we are not going to deal with it until the Angel has been destroyed, and it is neither a resource nor an option viable for this operation.” After a notable pause, she listens to the rest of Johann’s questions. An inventory of all the weapons available appear on his handheld, in a list that is a disappointing number of lines short. “Unfortunately, China is dealing with sabotage in the databases used in their factories, which means it will be sometime until new equipment can be fabricated.” The gravity of that statement takes a second to hit: every factory in China responsible for Evangelion weapons and equipment fabrication was sabotaged. Fhittz knew without checking that those facilities numbered in the dozens, with thousands of employees each.

When asked about the strength of the Angel, Tanaka simply shakes her head. “In some cases, the Mass Production Evangelions had a superior field… that they barely used efficiently. The Dummy Plug’s capability to manipulate A.T. fields was wildly overestimated, though we're still trying to figure out why. Even with weaker fields, these pilots will each be more viable than a Dummy Plug… whether or not they’re better soldiers remains to be seen.” The double elevator doors opened, revealing a plain hallway in a labyrinth of steel not unlike the base in Germany. The stench of blood had not yet been scrubbed out of these halls; by its prevalence, and the nature of the destruction that NERV-00 suffered, it might never be. “As you saw, it would seem the core of the Angel is retained in its so-called head. The pilots will be given this information as well, as well as anything else you have for them. The estimated time of launch for each Evangelion varies, but we're estimating four hours before they are ready to leave their respective bases. So you have less than four hours to give me a battle plan.”

At last their procession reached the war room, where three technicians were arguing about how to manually run the simulation of the Angel, fully-regenerated, landing in the Geo-Front and engaging the new Evangelion series. Tanaka waved Johann in, with no hint of amusement on her face. “Good luck, Colonel. Do not disappoint me.”

[Astro_sol]

The blonde boy stood still, staring at the closed door for a few moments. He ran a few hands through his hair, thinking. A transfer, and one which was quite different from his last few "transfers". For one thing, there was a lot less gunfire. This one was official, though, and official brought comfort.

The door opened; the Seventh Child stretched, wringing his hands high above his head as he made sure the plugsuit wasn't riding badly anywhere. The technicians were very helpful; after all, he could only achieve maximum efficiency if he had no distractions. It was pretty hard to distract himself from the coming attraction, though.

He was being sent into battle. A real battle. There wasn't much that could get in the way of today. Theodore couldn't help but smile a little as he considered the fact that he'd be piloting an actual Evangelion, shooting real bullets the size of cars. He felt a memory tugging at the edge of his consciousness, one that usually ended with shaking and tears...but Dr. Hill was right there. He stamped the feeling down and continued smiling. Even the yellow-purple color scheme of his plugsuit was doing nothing to detriment his day.

But Dr. Hill wasn't talking about the battle.

"I'm ready, sir." He stood at attention, his arms crossed behind his back. "I'll follow my orders to the letter." As he always did. He couldn't help but arch an eyebrow; he'd already been through this. The order had been given. Why the confirmation? Of course, he said nothing of his thoughts; if Dr. Hill saw it fit to remind him of his orders, so be it.

[Whiskeyjack]

“An eighteenth...” Nasr sucks in a breath and his eyes flit back to Unit-16, before he grits his teeth a bit.

“You’re too close, Major,” he adds into the small space between them, scotting away a bit along the wall, but his face has already started to split into a wide grin. “You know, I thought I’d missed my shot at this,” he adds. “I thought I might be laying waste to rebels at the UN’s command if this whole Angel situation was fully resolved,” and he pulls a face. “Believe it or not, I am actually glad to see that eventually has been delayed!” Now he grins widely again, showing white teeth; a rare occasional as Raquel knows.

“So the Eva series failed, pfft, what has a drone ever done that an expert pilot could not do as well or better or more innovative? Of course we can bleed, but war is just as much instinct as it is precision, take that out of it and you have a lot of pretty computers that have no will to live and thus die. The Eva series’ failure doesn’t surprise me, they have no instinct, no ambition, they stand still. But to finally put this training to good use in the name of God, to smite these wicked things that dare take the shape of His Host,” he smiles.

“So I'll be operating with several new Evas? Where are they coming from...I hope you've told them they best not get in my way! And so this test…after this test, we’ll be going back down the well.” It's not a question, as the answer is already clear. His smile quickly fades, replaced with a pensive look that quickly starts to creep towards a surreal mix of glee and horror. “Where is this false-god abomination? Is it at...is it at Hakane already?” Without waiting for a response, he stammers on: “What happened to the pilots in Japan? Are they dead?! Are their Evas dead too?!”

[Naquadah]

Logan climbs into the flaccid plug suit. “It’s time, Unit-14,” he murmurs. “Based on known data, NERV assets will be operating working at approx 48% max efficiency in the field and have below a 19% chance of successfully scoring on all objectives,” he allows himself a small smile, standing there with the suit draped over him as he looks at the other lockers in a similar but very different place. Yves. Karl. Sarah. Aisha. Wei. Jane. Francis. Vasily. Rebecca. Wherever you are now, I’ll keep this place safe for you. "Plus-minus five percent."

After a few more moments comes the snap and pressurized hiss of the plug suit contracting into place. Logan steps out from the locker room in his plug suit, carrying a small gym bag with him. “Corbin, prep complete. I estimate better odds of success than a three-win cockfighting streak in Jakarta.” he inclines his head slightly. “Will Unit-14 be handling this Angel alone?” he inquires, dead serious.

[Lothmar]

While the smell of blood did not necessarily make Johann anxious, he had to admit that some part of him was looking forward to this. This desctruction had actually been wrought by men though and that made Johann a little disappointed that he had not seen such beautiful scenery. But no matter how hard someone tries to cover up an attrocity like this, so long as it still stands a certain feeling of malice and dread will always permeate through.

While Johann only truly cared if he disappointed himself, he understood the context of Tanaka's words and knew that he especially would likely suffer the ill effects of failure first and foremost at ground zero. Then again, it probably didn't matter where you were on this ball if the angels won and third impact came.

Johann casually moves into the room and takes a seat in the background allowing the technicians to argue for a moment as he continues to review the files and complate the situation. He scribbles for a bit on a notepad making reference to two series of specialized armor plating as he was not certain of the injuries inflicted by the feathers tiny maws. He would review the data again and ask a specialist to confirm his theory later but he'd like to make it harder for those langaliers to gnaw apart his forces.

Johann then commences to draw out a crude level plane and pyramid representing the exposed geofront and a few thinner lines up top and a dot to represent the angel as he begins to calculate weapon ranges. 'Quite a distance to try and move the angel across...' he thinks slowly working his pencil from that dot to the range the evangelions could effectively combat this menace at. 'Hmm, so we could equip everyone with Type A equipment and make this a sky diving spectactle ; if the angel hasn't regenerated fully yet this plan might have better odds of success despite the limited time frame for engagement. Or perhaps a primary ground team to wait over the objective and try and lure the angel into place and perhaps engage its attackers and then a secondary team drops in from above and hits it when it's unprotected by the swarm? That's assuming two units can drop the field strength to fightable levels...' He taps the pencil silently against the pad. 'I suppose I should find out if any of the other nerv facilities will even loan us their equipment first before I go writing it into my plans.'

Assuming they dont stop when he enters, Johann continues to listen to the technicians debate how to run the simulation and once he's heard all the points he might very well chime in with the one he likes best.

[babel_matrix]

Hallway, NERV-05, London, UK

Hill assessed the boy. He did not waver, did not show any signs of doubt and hinted instead, though he tried to hide it, at a ghost of a smile. Makes sense. He could hardly have felt comfortable thinking he might never get to fulfill his calling in this world. They stood there for a moment, in the cold, steel bowels of the London base, until at last Hill smiled down at the boy. “Go on then, but first head to Lab Nine in Block D. They’re waiting for you there to fine-tune your A-10 clips before you get in the plug… Good luck.” Hill turned away from the boy, confident that he would follow through. In the meantime, so many preparations had to be made: the information available on the other pilots was ambiguous at best. NERV-00 was keeping him in the dark, which was an accepted standard under Ikari, but now even the pilots’ backgrounds were considered too classified. It stunk, and Hill made a mental note to find out why once Theodore put this Angel to rest.

UNSS “Archimedes”, Orbit, Earth

Cortez leaned on the railing, looking on at the massive, azure-colored beast that was slowly eased onto its legs. The first diamond-tipped drills were brought in while the leg joint plates retracted, revealing enough excessive skeletal growths to fill a freight truck. The boy’s rant had been unusually, almost frightening positive. Which was good, she had to remind herself. “They’re sending us a poor sample of the data, but for now the Angel seems to have suspended itself in the stratosphere just above NERV-00, likely to regenerate away from its target.” That in itself was frightening behavior; no Angel before had ever shown the will or intelligence to back off and bide its time.

“As for the pilots, we’ve been informed that Unit 02 will be going back into battle damaged… with a new pilot. It’s patchy intel so far, but from the sound of it, Germany’s ace was sacrificed in the battle.” She didn’t dare mention that it was to Evangelions that were attacking NERV itself; she really didn’t care to get into the politics of why NERV-00 came under such an attack. Hell, what am I saying? I don’t even know what the Hell went on down there! “No word yet on EVA-01, and EVA-00 was lost in the battle against the 16th Angel several weeks ago.” She smirked at the boy. “As for telling them not to get in your way? You can try telling that to the Operations Director when you get there: he’s a Colonel from the German branch. That’s your battle, not mine.”

Readying herself to walk away, she cleared her throat and took on a more serious tone. “That’s more than what I was sent to tell you, pilot... you have your orders. Address all other concerns with Dr. Eisenhower.”

Hallway, [REDACTED] Testing Facility, Yukon Province, NAU

“Only if the other branches decide saving the world isn’t good enough, Logan.” Corbin walked with Logan towards the decontamination chamber that preceded the entry plug loading area. The facility was alive with technicians and engineers running about, all in a blurred mixture of white lab coats and yellow jumpsuits that grew thicker the closer they got to the Evangelion cage. “You’ll be deployed along with three other pilots from three different branches.” For the love of God, don’t ask me where from. When Corbin and the rest of the team up there caught wind of just how thorough the blackout on information from NERV-00 had been, they met it with the usual, long-held tradition of silently cursing out every executive and branch leader that had a name. “By the time you're ready to deploy, you’ll already have the plan laid out by their Operations Director. In the event the Angel decides he’d like to have a go for it just as you arrive, you’ll already be in the plug, and Unit-14 will already be ready for combat.” Pausing, Corbin added, “So that’s got to be better odds than a three-win cockfighting streak in Jakarta.”

[Lothmar]

"Do we actually have real pilot data from the new pilots for this simulation or will we just be running a Virtual intelligence equiped with the new series specs?" Johann asks abruptly with casual curiosity not looking up from his notepad and so long as it's a language he knows he responds in the language they've been speaking ; if not he picks between english and japanese based on what the technicians look like (Asian/caucasian) hoping they understand it considering where they work. "If we have simulator records on our new candidates i'd very much like to review how they've fought in the past so I have a better concept of each individuals technigues and fighting styles to maximize the efficiency of my combat plans."

[Naquadah]

“Three other pilots? That alters the odds significantly. I’ll see you on the ground there, Corbin.” Logan offered a salute and turned to walk into Decon.

Logan pauses in the middle chamber as he is bombarded with sterilizing ultraviolet radiation. And then it’s through to the plug gantry. Through a reinforced glass window stands Unit-14. “You should have been Unit-05,” he murmurs. “What probability back then of the Eva series rolling out? Immeasurably small. And yet Ford's process failed this time.” He checks the suit monitors, went through the pre-loading checklist and A-10 harmonization check before stepping in and down into the plug. It's all an easy routine at this point, though everyone rushes frenetically, the first actual combat launch of this Eva, this pilot. “If possible, load a tonfa and a pallet reload into the wings,” he tells one of the techs. “Prog or pneumatic, it doesn’t matter, the difference in defensive applicability is negligible.” From here, he can’t see the bulk of the Eva, but he feels it in a way, a bastion so close to him.

Logan eases himself into the plug seat, toggling the wands and shutting himself inside. “Castle, Pilot is secured and ready to dive in,” he says, and for a few moments the plug is reddish darkness as it screws in. The feeling of being encased is immediate, like descending to great underground or underwater depths. And yet there’s a familiar undertone of wrongness, discord, something truly alien. Logan feels as if he’s in the heart of a mountain on another world and not entirely welcome there, but he keeps an eye on the blinking numbers. “In-plug readings show good seal, clear to pump LCL,” he reports, and the gelatinous liquid flows up from beneath Logan, coating and warming his body, and Logan easily exhales as it reaches his nose and inhales a lung-full of the medium. It’s another few moments before the Eva’s optic feeds kick in. Techs still swarm about the Eva, and he releases the wands and sits back, watching the organized chaos focused on him. "Unit-14, switching to Active Standby."

[AkaiNeko]

Sana stared for a moment. It wasn't as if she had been expecting anything else, but....he was so damned blunt about it! Live combat, in one of those....things....it didn't sound like there would be much time for practice either.

NERV-00....that was in Japan. Had she visited there? That seemed right. And had it really been seven years? They were still called GEHIRN back then, and her scores were apparently good enough to qualify, but low enough that someone else had been chosen; she'd often wondered if it was that other pilot she had met. But now the situation had changed.

Alright, then. Trial by fire it was. She could handle that, hopefully. She stopped herself from asking for details - "ask for nothing else, give them nothing else" - and nodded. "Understood, sir."

[babel_matrix]

Command Center, Central Dogma, NERV-00
A single bead of sweat ran down from Maya’s hair, tickling the side of her face as she ran laps through three hundred pages of scrolling code on her screen. She addressed the technicians on either side of her, never letting her eyes pull away from her console. “<Alright, how are we on defusing the fourteenth data gate?>”

The usually confident voice of Saitou answered her with a grave tone. “<Behind. I’m not sure how, but the machine language switched the moment we tried to access it. The counter-virus failed on contact, but the gate is still open. We’re trying to compensate now, but-->”

“<Dammit!>” The outburst came from her left, but still she didn’t dare look over. Two more viruses had been scripted in the depths of Balthasar’s logic processes, and leaving either unattended could risk its collapse. “<Melchior is refusing the agent program, and has accommodated for any variant… It’s spread the immunity to Casper and Balthasar.>”

Saitou continued his report. “<We’ve lost over 65% of the primary proxy network. They’re being used to eliminate the rest of it... estimated time of takeover by the MAGI… 3 minutes.>”

Every muscle in her body was tensed. It was beginning to feel like the firefight all over again. Focus. “<Kobayashi, keep feeding it variant agents, give it false leads. I’m almost done here.>” She stared at the two remaining viruses in Balthasar. They were sharing defenses against the agent programs; she could already see the new protocols running in this MAGI unit. A spark flew between the two events, and inspiration, not felt since she first started to learn under Ritsuko, grabbed her. “<Cancel that. Prepare every agent variant you have and have them sent to Balthasar on my command, with this script inserted into the logic processors of each.>” She passed the data over to the technician’s terminal.

“<The agents aren’t reinforced enough to…>” She could practically hear the lieutenant pale. “<B-but these are->”

“<Just do it, Kobayashi!>” Saitou’s faith in Maya took her by surprise, but she kept on, scripting a link from the backup computer straight into the MAGI. “<Ibuki, there’s adirect link to the MAGI being prepped… that’s not you, is it?”>

Without hiding behind a network of a thousand middle-men servers, the MAGI would no longer have to hunt for the offending terminal: it would find the backup computers they were depending on and take them over in seconds. “<We’re going to attack them directly, using the fourteenth gate.>”

“<…What? But we’ll be overtaken immediately, how-->”

“<Kobayashi, how are we on the modified agents?>”

“<We are… complete! Ready when you are!>”

Would they identify their internal viruses as having been brought in by agents? Could Ritsuko have missed this method, never thinking beyond the self-destruct sequence she tried to program into the MAGI? They had less than two minutes, and Maya was banking on the MAGI being too smart, and her superior being too short-sighted. Now to trick three wise men… “<When we get connected, send all modified agents through the fourteenth gate. Ready?>”

“<Aye!>”

“<Aye…!>”

The bead of sweat finally fell from her chin. “<Connected! Patch them in!>” The takeover was almost immediate. The uploads could be heard in the stations, completed barely a second before the MAGI melted through the petty defenses of the backup server. The terminal before her flickered off, the computer fans fell still, and she had no doubt that the server two levels below was close to the melting point.

The lights went out. Every electronic device plugged into a wall, save the emergency lights on the MAGI themselves, blinked off as the generators were deactivated. In almost complete darkness, Maya could only focus on her own breathing. Did it work?


War Room #6, Central Dogma, NERV-00

Three hours of meticulous planning, careful measuring of statistics and possibilities, and the power flicked off. The digital table, with every NERV technician leaning in on it, flicked off. The technicians cursed, screaming at the Heavens above, in utter misery. All of their work! Their planning and designs! All the science in the world and it had failed them, destroyed their hopes and dreams, snuffed out the fire of man when the night was at its coldest!

For five seconds. Then the lights came back on.

The NERV start-up logo appeared on the table, and the dependent staff members all stared at it in blank horror. Did they… forget to save? Did this thing even have automatic backups saved periodically? Was anything salvageable from the solid-state drives inside of it?

The screen on the wall flared to life, showing Maya with her head flat on her dashboard and her headset laid flat beside it. She raised slightly, exhaustion painted on her face, and muttered into the microphone without putting it back on. “The MAGI are back up.” She was thirty minutes early. The camera flicked off. The technicians were too crestfallen to celebrate the reclaiming of the heart of NERV: three hours of simulations on the central terminal were probably lost, permanently, or as good as permanently.

They were only spooked further when Tanaka came on the screen shortly after, somewhere where darkness surrounded her, save the light overhead. “Colonel, I have the other three bases coming on for a conference in ten minutes, and the pilot of Unit 02 in thirty. Come here with whatever you have.” Their eyes slowly drifted from the screen and landed, dead, on the notepad in Johann’s hands. He was on his third pencil.

Observation Deck, [REDACTED] Testing Facility, Yukon Province, NAU

Corbin stared down at Unit 14 with more curiosity than concern. The first and second gears were still locked, the monochrome beast’s shoulder pylons peeking out from inside the vice grips that kept the Evangelion bound. The intercom blared with reports about faulty circuits in the upper-abdomen and the six auxiliary batteries that would keep Unit-14 charged 2% above maximum for the entire flight. But more than anything, Corbin was curious about the only factor he didn't have confidence in: everyone else. Hopefully we have a fairly level-headed O.D. on this… after some of the insane plans Katsuragi apparently put into effect, something sensible and cost-effective would be a relief. That part was up to Commander Blaise to secure, unfortunately, so Corbin could only wait and see what news she brought back from her conference with NERV-00.

NERV Private Jet, en route to NERV-00, India Air Space

The agent nodded with a smile, and the tenseness in his shoulders melted away. Well, she’s taking it much better than Ikari’s son did… “Good. Did you already eat? We have small meals onboard, if you’d like to eat before trying on the plugsuits.” Leaning back in the chair, they waited until the turbulence of take-off passed before guiding Sana through the motions: her only meal onboard, the fittings (in privacy) and, when she was finally done, the silence that none of the agents seemed willing to break. The only agent that had spoken at all now kept his eyes on the clouds, purposefully avoiding having to look at the teenage girl, a living child being taken to replace a dead one, to go and do what ultimately killed the last.

[AkaiNeko]

Sana was fine with normal awkward silences. She wasn't great with people, so she'd endured them fairly often.

The meal had been very good, surprisingly. Real chicken and vegetables, apparently cooked right there on the plane. It was something she hadn't tasted in....months? Years? Probably months. Nothing fancy, but filling and very tasty. Probably healthier than MREs, too. Her new Plug-Suit was red with orange trim; she was surprised at how....gaudy it seemed. Not that she didn't like red, it was a very pretty color, but for something that effectively served as a combat uniform it seemed a little loud. Where they all like this? But it fit well and was easy to move in, and more comfortable than she had expected.

Of course, the problem with awkward silences was that they left one alone with one's own thoughts. Sana didn't think of herself as a particularly imaginative person, but she knew nothing about fighting in one of NERV's mysterious creations, and right now her mind was doing an excellent job of coming up with increasingly nightmarish predictions about what exactly her upcoming battle might entail. So she spoke up; it was something she needed to know, after all. Katharina wouldn't have minded. "U-um, Sir, I was wondering if you could tell me anything about the situation?"

[Whiskeyjack]

“Don’t you—“ Nasr hisses, holding himself back from a stream of invective before offering a derisive snort. “Well Major, thanks for the extra info I guess. Not like my life might depend on it or anything. So it’s just waiting up there? Hm. Weird.”

Nasr shrugs and turns away. “See you on the other side, Major. Unless you’re piloting me down to Hakane yourself?” He does not wait for an answer, just heads through the maze of narrow corridors adjoining the Test Creche, a circuitous route with plenty of armored hatches to pass through before he finally makes it to the high-security node connecting the pilot ready room and the Project-E engineering wing.

He takes a moment in the locker room, realizing this may be the last time he sees it. He strips, quickly dons and activates his plug suit, and wraps a towel from his locker about his waist before folding his clothes and setting them inside. “Need to make some time to pack my things, ugh the Japanese haven’t had good fashion in fifteen years,” he mutters. “At least this thing is dark-colored.” He makes his way back through the locker room to the main science and engineering labs. “Dr. Eisenhower?” he shouts as soon as he’s through the security doors, looking around at strangely empty workstations. “Huh. I guess everyone is working on my Eva.” He glances around again. “Dr. Eisenhower! I’m here for my test!”

[babel_matrix]

NERV Private Jet, en route to NERV-00, Chinese Air Space

The soft voice at his side pulled the agent’s attention towards the youth. He stared into her eyes for a moment, until at last he pulled out a tablet phone and began punching unseen buttons on its glass surface. “You’re going to be joining three other pilots to engage an Angel that is currently hovering over Tokyo-3. Aside from that, I can only tell you that Commander Tanaka and Colonel Fhittz will be on hand to guide you through the strategy, weapons to be used and risks.” His large brown eyes continued to bore into the girl, and he softened his voice, letting his Southern English accent soothe the harsh words into the potential pilot. “If there was anything else for me to tell you, you’d have it. But for now, everything is on a need-to-know basis; until your synchronization tests have been approved, I couldn’t so much as tell you the combination to this phone, much less the internal workings of where we’re going.” He glanced back at the two other agents, who simply stared blankly into the chairs ahead of them. “But the Angel threat has always been dire, and you’ve been tested before… you do know what’s at stake, correct? Is that enough for you to fight?”

UNSS “Archimedes”, Orbit, Earth

Half-completed charts, computers looping through simulations and chairs nearly a man away from their desks all marked the hurry with which the science team scrambled into the observation decks. Paul Eisenhower found an ironic comfort in the yelling of the only person on the Archimedes who could pilot Unit Sixteen. He stepped out of his office, slowly, appreciating the sight of the youth actually showing up. A man reaching his sixties, the stress of life on this international space station had weighed on him far heavier than any of his time on Earth. Through thick spectacles, he examined the boy’s face as he approached. “Ah, Nasr, my boy. What a momentous occasion!”

Normally a severe, often bitter old man, he walked briskly towards the boy, stopping only when something on a nearby terminal displeased him. He never ceased speaking, even as he typed in corrections. “It would seem your fondness for flight tests will be fed on your very first, official sortie! Granted, not quite what you’re used to… but it shall be a grand show of Unit Sixteen’s potential nonetheless. Think of the field data!” The old man grinned his false teeth at the boy, the liver spots on his scalp practically glowing with his joy.

[Lothmar]

Johann smirks slightly as the room goes dark finding the irritance of the technicians momentarily amusing. He looks up at the room in assembly with a warm smile. "Best not keep the commander waiting." He adds tapping the notepad with the back of his hand as if it were an open wound of the technicians failures he was gouging with his thumb. He tore out a few pages as he stood up, while it may not help with reprogramming everything the notes he had taken of the entire conversation while adding his own tactical input and contemplating the plan in his mind might save them time arguing amongst themselves yet again over certain details and move them a few steps back in the right direction if the system was not recoverable. "Best of luck gentlemen." He adds handing off the pages before the door closes.

Johann makes his way to the conference room at a brisk walk. The meetings went suprisingly smoothly, then again life and death situations can tend to make negotiating parties slightly more agreeable. He provided the commanders with information on how he wanted the evangelions prepared but left them with some choice so that each Eva could be adjusted hopefully to each pilots tastes. The Canadian commander was the easiest to convince, the other two commanders required a little more tactical persuasion but by the time the meeting was through he had acquired an agreement that not only would the Evas be outfitted with Type A equipment but it would be theirs to keep assuming it remained in tact following this mission - quite the stroke of negotiation.

It was unfortunate that they were not allowed to modify the prototypes or he'd already have crews at work preparing them... Beauracracy can be a real killer in times of crisis.

[Whiskeyjack]

Nasr raises his eyebrows, and struggles to hide a smile as the old man stops and codes while talking to him. Truth be told, he actually liked the old man.

“So, that Major let slip that the Enemy is lazing about in the atmosphere above Hakane like it already owns the place! Can you believe that?! I’m looking forward to disabusing it of that notion, Doctor. Sloth is a mortal sin after all.” He blinks when ‘flights tests’ are mentioned, but then smiles even wider and hikes at the towel a bit. “Are you saying I get to go after it in the E-Type equipment?! We can pincer it between fire from the ground and me in space! I mean, not that I think the E-Type is really ready for that, but if that's what it takes, Eva-16 can handle it!”

[babel_matrix]

Commander's Holographic Conference Room, Central Dogma, NERV-00

The lights came up, and Tanaka and Fhittz were left in the room laid bare: a series of reflective squares with projectors at their centers, the primitive trick of light used to bring the other commanders before them, one by one. At Johann’s desk, his tactical outline still glowed as the progress bars showed its transfer to the other Children, the one sent by satellite to the UNSS finishing first, against all sense. The stars were ever more in reach than neighbors; regardless, his plan would reach them all.

“You’re proving rather resourceful, Colonel,” Tanaka chimed, a smirk creeping onto her face, “even if your plan does make some pale. No matter what the cost, Colonel, I expect these Evangelion units to return… and if they must be destroyed, I don’t want it to be because fifty-thousand tons hit terminal velocity before they hit the ground.” She walked towards the exit while listening to whatever response Johann gave her, clearly intent on getting to the next item on their itinerary: as promised, the Ninth Child was already arriving by plane.

UNSS “Archimedes”, Orbit, Earth

The old man scowled. “No, unfortunately we’re dreadfully behind on finalizing the E-Type equipment… which is all we should expect with so much funding being redirected to the newest crater—“ Eisenhower stopped himself. Callousness was unbecoming. “I’m sorry, Nasr. I’m afraid we’re going to rely on the Alpha Shuttle for a rather rough re-entry in about two hours, when the station will have reached the optimal orbit. Once in the upper stratosphere, you’ll be following these plans as Unit Sixteen is deployed in A-Type equipment.”

The old, bulky tablet, one Eisenhower had come to use for so long, displayed the virtual model of the battle plan. After handing it to Nasr, the doctor waited to hear Nasr’s response before adding, “Thankfully, they’ve at least hired someone competent down there. Even with some disastrous blunders surrounding the MAGI system, the Colonel put in charge of this operation forwarded that rather detailed simulation of our plan of attack. Presuming the rest of these upstarts have been kept competent, you should be able to fell this beast handedly.”

Observation Deck, [REDACTED] Testing Facility, Yukon Province, NAU

"Alright, Commander... yes, I am speaking respectfully, Commander, I'm just bit surprised that you agreed to watching a trillion-dollar machine go sky-diving on iffy equipment ditched the moment the S^2 engines proved tricky... with all due respect, ma'am... hello? Hello?" Corbin slammed the red phone back onto the wall, now earning the stares of the other scientists on hand. They were already patching the instructions into Logan's entry plug, much to Corbin's chagrin.

That twit hung up on me... and why the Hell do I get the feeling she fell head over heels for this German who thinks Evangelions are birds?! On the list of the least aerodynamic objects in the universe, 60-meter-tall humanoids likely rank in the top 50! Corbin scratched his head as he looked down at Unit-14's head. I already miss Katsuragi, and I never even met the woman... Logan must be Stanley Cup-excited. If only while calculating precisely how many ways this could go horribly wrong.

[AkaiNeko]

Sana blinked. "I know, more or less. The entire world is at stake, right? I'll fight, if I can. You don't need to worry about that." She nodded her head in emphasis. Why this doubt? She had a good record, there was no reason to question her willingness to fight, or her ability to follow orders.

But it was nice to hear that there would be other pilots. Whatever was about to go down, she had a sneaking suspicion that she didn't want to tackle it alone. "Angel", the man had said. She shivered slightly. What was she getting in to?

[Astro_sol]

Theodore couldn't help but salute the doctor. "Aye, sir." That was all he could say. All he needed to say. He pulled the salute back before the doctor could respond; he needed to get ready, ASAP. He pulled a quick march that he'd been taught...before. It was quick, and sharp, and saved energy. He quickly made it to Lab 9, hurriedly following the orders of the techs with a surprising amount of patience considering his excitement; the techs needed him to be still and preferably silent if they wanted to get their job done fast and easy. He quickly headed off for transport...to an actual evangelion.

[Lothmar]

Johann knew the plan was incredibly risky... But hell, the idea of so much of mankinds precious resources, wealth and hopes just succombing to the nature of gravity like a watermelon in a metal crate! He could barely consider a better ****ing punchline to go out on.

"The world still needs the Evangelions. I fully intend to do everything in my power to see this operation through and will enjoy bringing up its success to everyone who doubted me." Johann adds following her to the exit with a slight smirk on his face. 'Afterall, i'll likely need to gain their confidence on something like this before I try something truly crazy.'

[babel_matrix]

Stratosphere, Japanese Air Space

The flesh smoothed at last. In the bitter cold almost forty-thousand feet above Tokyo-3, the 18th Angel finished regenerating the terrible wounds inflicted upon it. With its integrity assured at last, an A.T. field began to shimmer around it, tasting the thin air before focusing back on the task at hand. The Angel's arms twitched slightly, flexing inward as if struggling, until at last it through them both above its "head", as if raptured. A small, tumor-like growth appeared under its left armpit and, in a motion too viscous to be called solid, a single feather exploded from the sac. It's tiny maw of teeth gnashed eagerly, and would soon be joined by its brothers.

[babel_matrix]

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/39147041/AdEva%20Pictures/TitleCard1.jpg

[babel_matrix]

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/39147041/AdEva%20Pictures/TitleCard2.jpg

[Naquadah]

Logan facepalms, the disturbance setting off a tiny burst of bubbles, and from somewhere in the Eva’s depths he feels more than hears a low grumble.

“Shhh,” he admonishes. “We’re forechecking in the upper atmosphere. A-Type chassis operational time approx three-hundred sixty seconds, factoring no umbilical and one wing-loaded battery supplement. Hm, gravitic acceleration at nine point two meters per second squared. Mass of forty-five million kilos, truncated. Given definitional stratospheric range, operational height max fifty km; min ten km. With friction coefficients, terminal velocity is—impact-based energy release in kilojoules would exceed—hmm,” Logan frowns and pops his neck. “Best not to consider that number. Three other pilots trying for a head-check. Am I the center power forward or a wing? Or just the goon,” he snorts. “Two wings, a rover, and our goalkeeper in the GeoFront. Lord Stanley of Preston would be proud – as long as this Angel can’t crash the crease. All variables considered, success range is a range of fourteen point twenty-seven percent truncated, plus-minus five percent, rough estimate.”

He sighs and toggles the Eva’s optics, struggling to observe what the techs are doing and finally giving up, closing his eyes just as another wave of deep bass feeling stirs the LCL slightly. “But we’ll do it. I’ll do it for all of you and the world we all wanted to live in. That’s what Galahad and Gawain are supposed to do, just to do it, and because that’s our definition, that’s what we’ll do. I just wish we had an operational Stormraven, and I hope they don’t forget my tonfa.”

[babel_matrix]

NERV Private Jet, en route to NERV-00, Japanese Air Space

The agent’s face was unreadable. “Glad to hear it,” though his expression offered no affirmation of this. The plane began to dip, at a safe but turbulent angle. The agent focused on his window, leaning in towards it as he searched the skies. “We’re closing in on Japan… we’re going to be flying low and bumpy to avoid the Angel, so remain seated until we come to a stop.”

Any glances out the window reveal nothing of this Angel, but it was a given, with the range and reduced altitude. Ten more minutes passed until the remaining outskirts of Tokyo-3, all that remained of a once bustling metropolis, became visible.


Evangelion Unit-15 Cage, NERV-05, London, UK

The fastest route to the entry plug loading dock is through the walkway that stands before Unit 15. The giant red orb stared forward, a lifeless optic system that framed Theodore as he passed before it. Below, several cranes and robotic arms could be seen at work behind the behemoth, with various plates of armor being removed where jet engines and retractable wings were being fitted. Like the deft hands of a team of surgeons, they pulled the EVA apart while simultaneously replacing every piece ripped away. Unit-15 stared on, wordlessly.

Inside the loading dock, every labcoat and orange jumpsuit present turned to look at Theodore, their chatter and reports freezing along with the temperature of the room. “Good to see you’re ready to go, Cartwright,” the only friendly face in the room stated. A Liverpool native, his cheeky grin was mismatched with the rest of their grim expressions. Unusually friendly, for a complete stranger, though he didn’t get any closer to the Seventh Child. “The old lady in the cage is still getting prepped, but she’ll be done before you if we don’t get started on the cockpit calibrations. C’mon then,” he waved the boy towards the open plug behind them all, “in ya go.”



Entry Plug of Unit-14, [REDACTED] Testing Facility, Yukon Province, NAU

All around Logan, coating the cockpit in a dizzying array of colored light, the holographic screens filled his view: trajectories of flight, updated three-dimensional models drawn from the Colonel’s plans, and the newest projections from the recently revived MAGI, though that was the barest of paper-thin squares before him. They continued to flicker in and out of view, sheets of decorated cellophane passing the tube on the turbulent wind of MAGI feeds.

Feeds only a Child like Logan could keep up with. The data would flow for the next hour as the A-Type equipment replaced the majority of EVA-14’s external shell, while the Child watched and waited. Only when the first gear locks were removed did the data slow to a crawl, and then vanish. Corbin’s face appeared in a small box to Logan’s left, just as an unknown technician reported, “Second gear lock, pulling away.”

“I expect a good, clean biscuit right between the pipes, Logan, whether you’re the one lighting the lamp or mucking. Follow this German coach to the letter; this will be the last time we can talk until you show that tender what for.”

[Astro_sol]

Theodore didn't falter at the lab techs' reactions. He had a job to do. They were unimportant. The one tech who spoke to him received a nod.

"Looks like I'll be flying, today," he replied, staring at the plug rather than the tech. He'd shuddered with excitement at actually seeing the jet engines being placed on the Eva. There wasn't really anything that could stop him from making this day awesome.

He walked without another word into the plug, and settled in as the calibrations began. The orange LCL gushed in as soon as the plug was sealed; Theodore smiled as it filled, the cold liquid feeling contrarily warm and familiar to his trained senses. He deeply exhaled before it covered his face and took in a deep gulp of the liquid once it was filled, the taste of blood filling his throat and lungs. There was a tingling in his limbs, a ringing in his ears, and a rushing sensation as the cockpit came online. Theodore leaned back and closed his eyes as the Eva ran through automated diagnostics. It felt like he was being embraced; the cockpit, even in simulations, was always more comforting than even his own quarters.

Theodore sighed and opened his eyes, quickly running a sweep over the controls and diagnostic results to make sure there were no errors in the system. "7th Child, ready for deployment."

[Whiskeyjack]

"A-Type, huh? This is pretty crazy, but...hrm. A’jabani haqqan! Not much room for error, high-risk/high-reward. I hope those kids can keep up with Unit-16. This will be a fine test for my Eva! We might even catch the Angel while it's just lazing around up there and tear it to bits! La taqlaq!" Nasr grins too broadly at Eisenhower and bends low over the table again.

"So if I'm seeing this right, Eva-14 and I will close in, Eva-02 will be on the ground sniping, and...what's this! A maser shotgun! Why does Eva-15 get prototype equipment and not me?! Where's that kid from and who does he think he is?!" He smacks the table with one fist and the old device flickers for a moment at the impact. "I'll show this German who should be getting the best equipment. He'll see that none can stand before me!"

Nasr pounds the table again and this time it takes several seconds for it to recover. For once he looks a bit sheepish at the outburst. "Uh, whoops, āsif!.....um....oh, uh, are we still doing that unarmed test first? And I need time to get my things before we launch...I...I don't expect I'll be coming back up the well for some time, will I?"

[babel_matrix]

Entry Plug Inside Unit-15, NERV-05, London, UK

The moment the walls of the plug revealed the cage, the tube was filled with static screens of data. Everywhere Theodore could turn his head comfortably he could find them: trajectories marking the path of conventional forces that would be joining the Evangelions in this deployment, the measurements of the effective ranges of the sniper of their team, and the daunting task of convincing an Angel, whose mind was often thought to be too alien to comprehend, to move towards that sniper. The specifications for the experimental HELIOS Beam Splitter came in the screen, with various warnings and virtual examples of its effective range.

Twenty minutes of waiting and reading came and went in a blur, each screen bolstering Theodore’s grasp of the situation over Tokyo-3. A new screen appeared then: a video feed from Dr. Richard Hill, sitting at a terminal somewhere over the Unit’s head. “Synchrographs showing a steady ratio of 50.9%,” reported a female technician off-camera.

“All systems are go on our end, Mr. Cartwright. You’re going to be loaded onto the Flying Bertha now, along with all auxiliary systems and equipment needed for this mission, aside from the HELIOS weapon stationed at NERV-00.” Hill saluted the young man through the camera, his eyes bright with something akin to pride. “Give that Angel a taste of Hell for us all.”

UNSS “Archimedes”, Orbit, Earth

Eisenhower chuckled at the boy’s enthusiasm. “The best equipment, Nasr? Some dodgy hand cannon with experimental science? That hardly compares to a proper, progressive blade and Unit Sixteen’s formidable strength. But even without that, given the Colonel’s review, we should operate under the assumption that close-range ballistics is that pilot’s forte, while yours… Well, suffice it to say I believe Unit Sixteen will be more than well-adapted to your best abilities.” He adjusted his glasses. “After all, I’m the one in charge of arming her.”

They approached the elevator that would take them up to the entry plug bay, all while Eisenhower answered Nasr's questions as they came. “This will be the final test before your launch; from there, your drills and training will guide you. Your private property, and anything else I feel inclined to send for Unit Sixteen, will get to Earth via Shuttle Beta in thirty-six hours…” The elevator door hissed open as Nasr's asked about his return. Eisenhower offered a sad smile at the pilot. “If all goes well, I'm afraid you won't be seeing much of this old fart after today, my boy.” The bay they occupied began to rotate until, as seen through the giant, tinted windows, the plug was pointed at the base of EVA-16’s head, ready to be guided into the loading port below in zero-gravity. “From here on out, you’re officially a sortied pilot of NERV; you will go to Earth to be a hero to masses too ignorant to know everything you've done, everything you've sacrificed for their existence. You will go for the human race, and for all you seek to protect and worship.” Eisenhower stopped just short of the yellow-taped area before the plug. Before them, the gaping maw of the steel tube was flanked by two engineers in matte black uniforms, each one jotting reads down from the console on the plug’s inner-hull. “You are ready for your destiny, Nasr. Take your seat and grab hold of it.”

[Whiskeyjack]

"Huh, that's a good point," Nasr admits. "That thing would just get in my way. All I need is her claws and maybe a prog knife. You're right." He gingerly steps into the taped-off area and turns back for a moment.

"Um, doctor? Is it okay if I email you or something? I mean - you've always been the one to work on her, and now someone else will, but you know her best and I want what's best for her!" He flushes a bit and unwraps the towel from his hips, letting it fall away from the plug suit. "Wa alaikum assalam wa rahmatu Allah wa barakatuh. Thank you and take care. Because of me, I'll keep a planet around so you can come visit if you want," he adds somewhat solemnly, extending his hand and giving the old man a firm handshake. In a few seconds, Nasr is pushing past the techs and situating himself inside the plug.

Once it screws shut, he ensures the sound and video feeds are off, reaches into the plug suit's gorget and pulls out a small necklace on a white gold chain. It's an amulet, an open right hand with an open eye in its palm, silver inlaid with ivory, turquoise, and sapphire. He regards it sadly for a moment. {Arabic}"Mother, this is for you too. First that space monster, and then those filthy dogs. I have the power to make that world you wanted and dreamed of and worked toward, and I'll christen it in blood. Unit-16 and I both will."

Nasr kisses the necklace and lets it dangle against his chest before keying on the communicator. "Hey, start it up!" he barks, and in a few moments, the screens star to load. Then the plug fills with LCL and the smell of a freshly-slaughtered lamb.

[AkaiNeko]

Due to the agent's odd behavior, Sana was now actually feeling the awkwardness of the situation, rather than simply realizing its presence, and decided to wait out the rest of the flight in contemplative silence. Even so, she could only barely conceal her shocked gasp at the sight of NERV-00, torn open and bared to the sky, the pyramid still defiantly gleaming in its depths.

[Lothmar]

Johann made his way back to the command room, eventually parting with the ever busy commander whose duties required her elsewhere. Upon entering he acquires the attention of the appropriate officer to assist him. "Have Unit two's pilot escorted to the hospital elevator. I'll trade off with the agent and see them to testing. Also if the Magi is up and accepting requests and is not tasked to capacity, i'd like a status update on the angel and for it to begin a full battery of scans as soon as possible. Please forward any findings to me, i'll be monitoring the synch tests in person. And in case it hasn't been started yet, I need a team outside scouting up or modifying a site within the reach of two umbilical plugs if necessary for Unit two to place its weapon and acquire the appropriate angle on the angel." And with that Johann casually moved to the elevator to wait, his hands behind his back.

The turbulence on the approach was minimal, allowing for a comfortable view of the warzone below. The wound of Tokyo-3 was still gaping open, fresh and naked, and the steel pyramid of NERV-00 still pointed, defiantly, at the Heavens it had never seen before. As the plane made its maneuvers to land on the impromptu strip inside the Geo-Front the section two agent turned his head slightly and said "Understood." likely replying to someone over his tactical earpiece. "Looks like the Colonel will be taking over your escort to the Synch tests."

The plane touches down on the narrow strip of asphalt, nearly clipping its wing on the ruins of a hospital. There, waiting just before the ruins, stands a small section two security force to meet them. The agents signal their brother inside when it becomes apparent the colonel was not up here to take over so the procession of suits and Hosseini marched to the emergency elevator within the damaged hospital, amazingly still intact. Leaving the plane, crumbling hospital and momentary escort behind, the elevator doors closed and the room was filled with the silence of herself and the agent that had seen accompanied her on the plane. The elevator’s wall sported a small wheel that clicked off the levels as they descended into Central Dogma, pausing at only one stop to exchange handlers as the agent exited the elevator.

Standing in the doorway as it opened was a young blonde man dressed in Khaki Nerv uniform and vest with all the appropriate symbols of his position. "Thank you for your service." He adds to the agent before stepping into the elevator. Johann possesses a 'pretty boy' esque appeal with gentle looking features. His radiant blonde hair accents his deep and piercing blue eyes and his expression quickly shifts to that of a gentle soft hearted smile. "Welcome to Nerv 00, im Colonel Fhittz your operations director. You can call me Johann if you like." He adds introducing himself to the young femal pilot before pressing a button on the elevator to procede down to the lower levels for the synch tests.

[AkaiNeko]

Sana was worried, in a distracted sort of way, that she was overly used to war-torn buildings filled with bodies. This place had clearly been an active war-zone disconcertingly recently. And the "war" part seemed to have been purely technical; it was a massacre. And yet she was fairly calm. Nervous, certainly, but mostly about something else entirely. Perhaps she was just too focused on other things? After all, she DID have other things to worry about. And if she didn't do her part properly, far worse than this would happen. She decided that was probably it.

On the elevator, she stepped forward when it stopped, but the agent motioned for her to wait. It opened, revealing a friendly looking young man who traded places with the agent; the elevator continued on its way. He introduced himself as Colonel Fhittz, the commanding officer she'd heard about. He was quite friendly and calm, perhaps even gentle and charming.

She quickly decided there was something off about him. "Gentle and charming" were not attributes common among successful military officers, at least on the job, and therefore he was either highly unusual or hiding something - or both. And at least the agent on the plane had pretended to act like she was a soldier. She nodded. "Pleased to meet you, Colonel."

[Lothmar]

As the doors close and she finally exchanges greetings with him he turns to face the door. His eyes slowly relax into a contemplative gaze as his features began to cool into a serious face as he holds his hands behind his back.

<Japanese: "You havent recieved any news on the mission yet have you?" He adds remembering she was in flight already by the time he was finishing developing the strategem. "You will be piloting Evangelion unit two. Im not going to lie, you'll be going into this battle with a handicap as it's head was previously damaged in the last engagement so do try to be careful. Your roll in this operation will be that of long range support sniper and primary attacker." He adds gesturing to the cieling with a single finger. "The Angel is up far above the geofront currently regenerating after the last engagement, so we will be providing you with our prototype 20x positron rifle so that you can actually hit the bastard." He adds putting his hand behind his back again joining the other. "You will be working with three other Pilots and their evangelions in this operation. They will be deploying from high altitude and will attempt to neutralize the angels field and herd the angel to lower altitudes to be engaged in a safer manner then the obvious situation the free falling evangelions will be in even with their Type A retrofit. At this point you will take the opening shot once it's field is weakend on our command..." He adds turning his head ever so slightly to watch her to ensure she understood before changing his facing back towards the front.

"We believe the angels core is hidden inside the head from assement of the previous battle information so we suggest you aim there. It has a non standard attack type, deploying feather like protrusions covered in mouths that bite and devour their targets in a feeding frenzy. If these begin to head down to engage you, we will attempt to screen them to the best of our ability however we will also be attempting to screen for the aerial support units as well. Regardless, just focus on aiming and hitting that monster unless your weapon or your unit is directly under attack... You will probably only get between two and five shots before your neutralizers have to disengage, at which point you will be providing covering fire putting shots down range as fast as possibly without risking damage to the weapon, to hopefully draw the angels attention away from your now vulnerable allies as they freefall to conserve power."

"After this synch test, you will be loaded into unit two so that you might deploy the weapon and hopefully line up the shot before the operation begins. Worse comes to worse and the Angel attacks before the others are deployed, you will be attempting to take it down solo with only the forces we have available to assist and praying that the others arrive before it ends our resistance and initiates third impact..." He ends the narrative as calmly as it had begun as if he wasn't phased by the situation whatsoever.

[AkaiNeko]

Sana wondered why he felt a need to switch to Japanese, and decided it probably wasn't important. They were in Japan, after all, and she did know the language; perhaps it was force of habit?

As she stood at attention and listened to the colonel's briefing, she ticked off the unfamiliar and/or startling terms in her head. "Angel", again, apparently whatever she was - no, what they were fighting. "Regenerating", that didn't sound good at all. "Positron Rifle". That DID sound good. "Deploying from high altitude", she supposed that made sense in context, but it certainly didn't give her any confidence, even if she wasn't the one doing it. "Neutralize its Field", what the hell? Like a shield, perhaps, that she had to punch through? "Core", that was presumably her target, a weak-point some of kind. "Feathers", "mouths", "feeding frenzy"?! What in God's name had she gotten involved in?! And...."Third Impact". She couldn't stop herself from shuddering at that. Though she'd been born in the wake of Second Impact, and thus remembered nothing of the chaos that had followed, she had been raised by those who knew all too well that horror, and from them she had learned to respect it. And this....this "Angel" could cause another one? That explained the stakes they were fighting for, at least.

But though she raised her eyebrows at the apparent absurdity of the plan and revised her opinion of the man from "vaguely suspicious" to "very suspicious, and furthermore quite possibly insane", at the end, she simply nodded firmly and said "|Understood, sir.|" They had told her what she needed to know. She knew her role. She had her target and her weapon. She knew exactly what to do. "Never miss." She just had to do it.

Assuming her Synchronization test went well, of course.

[Astro_sol]

Theodore watched over all the information presented in front of him. He didn't read overly quickly, but what he did read was being committed to memory. He payed specific attention to the HELIOS weapon being deployed with him.

He was going to be jetpacking into a flying creep Angel with a laser shotgun.

He returned Dr. Hill's salute. "The labcoats aren't going to be too happy with me, Doctor. There's gonna be nothing left by the time I'm done."

He sat back, letting the calm of the entry plug fill his body. This effect of his Evangelion was very nice, considering all he had to do now was wait.

[babel_matrix]

{Music: Decisive Battle (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5Qo9iAB9q0)}

Command Center, NERV-05, London, UK
“Checklist confirmed up to 405! All synchronization parameters are within range.”

“Adjusting electric output of batteries for long-term flight, advising pilot to switch to active standby… active standby confirmed.”

“Re-establishing spinal cord transmission system, plug depth confirmed at twenty.”

“Third series contacts confirmed.”

“Evangelion loading dock approaching main bay of the Flying Bertha.”

Colonel Scott Raymond watched the technicians go about their routine without expression. The EVA unit and the pilot were now out of his hands. He could fret over the child soldier no longer, and it was under the worst of conditions: the child was to go to war after all. “Commander?”

Raymond looked down at his Operations Director, and grimaced. What right had he to tell them no? “Launch.” It would be hours before he knew whether or not he had just sentenced a child to death.

“Affirmative. Bertha, we are green-lit, you are go for launch.”

The camera feeds of the commercial airport requisitioned for the flight showed the giant military cargo plane launching, the leaf of NERV glowing in morning sun. The staff continued to monitor the flight, leaving Raymond to stew until the entire mess was over. He never patched in to the pilot; he couldn’t.

Primary Research Station, UNSS “Archimedes”, Orbit, Earth

All around the lab, the terminals had all been switched to the monitors and control panels necessary to facilitate the movement of Unit Sixteen. The scientists who doubled as command staff aboard the Archimedes, some of the finest from aerospace programs the world over, calmly reported their work.

“Left arm responsiveness checked, status blue. Flywheel rotation… complete. Stage four of synchronization test completed, checklist completed to stage 409.”

“Shuttle Alpha is in position to receive Unit Sixteen. Anchors set, adjusting position by +0.0049 to aft.”

“Cognitive morphology set to Arabic as the principal language, English as secondary.”

“Primary contact is completely nominal, synchronization rate holding at 55.4%. Stage five of synchronization test completed, going live.”

“Communication channels wired through Shuttle Alpha’s network. All monitoring signals mirrored to MAGI systems at NERV-00.”

“Fluid pressure in upper-left arm is 0.003 over, correcting… pressure nominal, back to blue status.”

“We’re up to item 425 on the checklist, sir!”

The old man nodded his eyes never leaving the spot where the plug had been inserted. What a rush that boy must be feeling, now that he’s synchronized with her… “We’ve done all we can, then. Load EVA-16 onto Shuttle Alpha, and launch!”

Command Room, [REDACTED] Testing Facility, Yukon Province, NAU

The circle of technicians at the round table all pressed on the contact-sensitive digital table, all under the careful monitoring of their flustered Commander. Corbin entered the miniscule cell, the only room left over to make a command center out of, and supervised the launch.

“Vertical pressure rising in abdomen, correcting abnormalities in liquid chambers 415 and 422!”

“Weapons check has been finalized, pylon battery charged to 101%, switching to auxiliary power onboard the Curia of Cicero.”

“Vertical pressure corrected, liquid chamber 345 compensating."

“Synchronization ratio fluctuating between 48.3 and 48.5%. Holding steady at 0.1 variation.”

“Checklist completed up to 425. Commander?”

Corbin exchanged looks with the Commander, who still seemed confident in the sky-diving extravaganza Logan was about to be a part of. He said nothing, partly because he had no choice.

But largely because he knew Logan would pull it off. “Confirm the Curia’s ready status," she bellowed, "and launch!”

Elevator C-43, Central Dogma, NERV-00

The elevator music reported an early stop, and the Operations Director and pilot were soon face-to-face with a disheveled man in civilian clothing: a black, short-sleeve shirt and wrinkled jeans, made complete by sneakers that looked more ragged and uncared for than his black hair. He blinked in surprise at their arrival, and then offered a grimace as he spoke in English. “I was beginning to wonder… Colonel Johann Fhittz and Sana Hosseini, I presume? The Commander advised me of your impending arrival some time ago.”

He stepped onto the elevator, giving no time to critique his disposition. “I’m Doctor Worthe, Chief Scientist of NERV.” Staring at the Child’s carry-on, his expression lightened, “May I presume you'll manage with that plugsuit for the next few hours, pilot? The other units are en route as we speak, and we're worse than pressed for time on the sync test... if I'm to understand the Colonel's plan, you're the reason we have construction cranes jerry-rigging the prototype longarm into the only unbroken launch elevator we have left.” He stared at the Colonel, the bags under his bright blue eyes giving his face a sunken appearance.

[AkaiNeko]

Sana nodded in greeting, deciding to withhold judgement on the scientist for the moment. "Um, yes sir. Pleased to meet you, sir." Then she continued quietly standing at attention; it looked like Worthe needed to talk to the colonel.

[babel_matrix]

Elevator C-43, Central Dogma, NERV-00

Worthe nodded, his eyes never leaving the colonel. The Englishman speaks to the Colonel in Japanese, believing the language to be a good way to deliver information in front of the pilot. “<The MAGI are back online, and have done a full analysis of the Angel. Damage to its outermost layers has virtually vanished, and it has begun sprouting more of these ‘feathers’ as we’re calling them. Based on the information gathered from the Dummy Plug feeds to the other MAGI, however, my models are drawing a very different conclusion: the way they consumed the hull, and bypassed the A.T. fields of the Mass Production Evangelions, originally suggested they simply had not deployed in time. Unfortunately, it wasn't so; they did indeed deploy, and had gone through the neutralization process as one. But they were neutralizing the Angel; the 'feathers' were not brought down to size, and were in fact in possession of weak A.T. fields themselves. The barriers that remained for the M.P. units were too weak; the feathers neutralized the fields and breached their defenses, creating the feeding frenzy you saw in the footage. Until the MAGI itself analyzes the attack once more, we won't know if these are simply reflections and multiplications of the Angel's own field, or if each feather is some sort of 'spawn' coming from their host, complete with individual A.T. fields.>”

The elevator doors opened, and Maya Ibuki walked into the elevator without looking up from the clipboard in her hands. With bags under her eyes to match those of the Chief Scientist, she looked even more flustered in her wrinkled uniform, with a notable cut in the arm of her uniform, as if from a grazing bullet or shrapnel. Glancing up to nod politely to everyone else, her eyes locked onto the red plugsuit, and the girl that occupied it. For a moment, with her eyes widened, she relieved it: reading the incredible synchronization rate of the Second Child, then the screaming agony as it filled the speakers of the Command Center, and finally the report of her agonizing death after extraction. Already, they had filled her exact plugsuit, complete with the black "02" printed above the chest, with a fresh body. Her eyes turned glassy, and she focused intently on her clipboard.

None of this went noticed by Worthe, who was busy with his full report from the MAGI, as requested by Fhittz. “<It’s difficult to calculate, but… if the three Evangelions in the air neutralize the Angel without a sizeable A.T. field to dampen the space between them and these 'feathers', we're likely to see something akin to what already happened once: they'll be ripped apart, consumed from outside until their very cores, in this case the pilots, are eaten alive. With no way to neutralize the phase space between the Evangelions and every ‘feather’ that it releases, it is unlikely that your interceptors will be able to affect them. Currently, the Angel has generated twenty such feathers; by the time Units 14 through 16 arrive, that number will have tripled.>” With a shrug, he added, “<On the bright side, that still puts it at less than forty percent of its original efficacy, by MAGI predictions. The data will be available on your console at the command center, Colonel… I’ll be there to advise you if anything.>”

(OOC) Special Consideration:
If the O.D. wants to stop the man before he lists the horrors of what might befall the Second Child and the other pilots, he needs to roll Scrutiny (+0) to realize it before it comes out.

[Lothmar]

"Pleasure to meet you doctor." Johann adds in response to the scientists greeting.Johann remained silent so as to let the pilot understand the situation, afterall such knowledge would possibly even provide a tactical advantage if used correctly.<"Interesting. So through many small fields working in concert they can tear down a much stronger field by each causing stress on a different portion..."> Johann adds closing his eyes and taking a single breath. <"Regardless If we can learn which this is before the operation begins i'd appreciate it as each might require a different strategy to handle."> The opponent was certainly making this a match to be anticipated and it hadn't even started yet.

Johann kept his eyes focused on the conversation at hand and tried to keep his face still. He could feel Ibuki's presence and the air almost changed entirely when she caught eye of the new pilot. She was likely staff here and probably worked with the previous pilot. His mind started to wander slightly wondering how well they might have actually known each other and what she had witnessed that now caused her such pain. Oh how he was tempted to ask Sana to introduce herself ; but work kept his mind relatively focused.

Johann pauses to hold his chin but then turns to the scientist extending and gesturing with the hand for effect. <"If explained do you think the other pilots could replicate such a 'buffer' effect, or do you simply mean that in the sense that each should have as strong a field as possible remaining to protect them? Is it possible that the Evangelions might be able to 'destablize' this field and open the phase space to real space so that our conventional forces might be able to serve their original purpose of destroying these feather masses? Or would destablizing this space and their At fields cause these feathers to possibly lose their physical shape?"> The only problem at that point was in whether or not they could target them in mass or if they could only pop them one at a time like pimples.

Unfortunately they could spend years guessing and theorizing about the angels and still not be any closer to truly understanding how to fight them.. Sometimes you just needed to stab at whatever is stalking you in the shadows and hope you can take it down.

[babel_matrix]

Elevator C-43, Central Dogma, NERV-00
"<If they tried to neutralize every feather, one by one, when an estimated sixty of them will be in the air, you would at best be able to destroy most of them only just as the Evangelions begin to drop out of the sky from loss of power. No, unfortunately the most those interceptors might do is provide a distraction so the Evangelions can destroy the source of their existence.>" The elevator dinged, and the doors opened to reveal Evangelion Unit 02.

Its face had been mangled: the two cameras that made its left eyes were mostly naked, with pipelines and electric wires still bared, save for the polymer glass that had encased it to protect it from the elements. Everywhere that was visible on the shoulders, pylons and head were pock marks where the paintjob had been scorched away entirely, with the rest of the red and white colors faded and obscured by dark burn marks.

"<Of course, this is all theory based on third... no, really, fourth-hand information. If we could get the Angel to react... violently... to something prior to the Evangelions engaging, the MAGI might be able to gather more data on how this functions.>"

[Lothmar]

<"That's what we're here to do isn't it doctor? Destroy the angel.">
Johann adds exiting the elevator onto the catwalk as he stands there momentarily in respectful silence to the machine that had once been known as the pride of Germany. <"A bait and switch as it were... Whether or not the angel would actually take the bait though to draw the focus initially away from the eva's though is very uncertain... And i'd rather not risk drawing the angels ire when we only have one Evangelion available and even that is uncertain for the moment.">

"Sana, this is Unit two. As I said, it's a little damaged but it should still serve the purpose we've designated you."

[AkaiNeko]

Sana was wary of Colonel Johann Fhitzz; the man simply did not strike her as trustworthy. But she had decided that, pending further observation, she had a more-or-less positive opinion of Doctor Worthe. He was certainly focused on his work, and he had a rather mad-scientist-esque look about him.

The young Lieutenant on the other hand, whose uniform identified her as one Maya Ibuki, worried her immensely.

Sana was, as per her job and her training, a fairly observant person, and though social interaction was not a strong point for her, that didn't mean she couldn't read people fairly well. She had seen the young woman's expression, had felt the air seem to freeze when she looked at her. There was something very wrong with the situation, something that Ibuki was terrified of and determined to ignore, and something that she, personally, wasn't being told. Of course, she could only begin to guess what it was, and right now that was not a good idea. She had to focus, had to be ready to play her part.

And then the elevator opened and it all clicked together. The....Evangelion she had been selected to pilot, Unit-02, was a terrifying sight. It was enormous, several stories tall, painted the same red and orange as her plug suit. It seemed to have four eyes, and towering pylons on each shoulder, adding to its imposing silhouette. But that wasn't the worst part. No, that was the obvious signs of serious damage, recently sustained, and the equally obvious conclusion drawn from it: This unit had been in combat very recently. It had taken serious damage. Lieutenant Ibuki had reacted with horror upon seeing her in the Plug-Suit that corresponded to it. It was almost certain that the former pilot of this unit had been killed, and judging from the situation, it had probably been within the last day or two. And judging from the Lieutenant's reaction, it had not been pretty.

Nevertheless, she had a duty. She acknowledged the comment with another nod and waited for someone to get around to telling her how to go about starting the test. A question occurred to her: "Er, excuse me, sir, but will I be able to see properly?"

[babel_matrix]

Evangelion Cage #6, Central Dogma, NERV-00

The doctor nodded, reverting to English. "Barring a complete reversal of your prior synchronization tests, all combat capabilities should be fully enabled for you, including a full, healthy quadruplet of eyes... but we really must test for those complete reversals, if some of the reports I've reviewed on previous activations are true." Scratching the ill-shaven chin of a Chief Scientist, he gave a long stare at EVA-02. The technicians began to clear the draw bridge that sat before its face, the green eyes of the beast flickering in unison as if suddenly powered in a test. The doctor squinted his eyes at this, staring at it while he spoke. "Well, Child, come with me. The plug is already prepared, except for the pilot. I'll meet you in the Command Center shortly, Colonel, for my full report." As he walked, expecting the Ninth Child to follow, she couldn't shake the creeping suspicion that the beast's blank, glass eyes were following her.

[AkaiNeko]

Sana hurried to catch up to the Doctor, clutching her bag tightly and trying to shake the odd feeling that the Evangelion was staring at her. Which was annoyingly difficult to do when the thing that seemed to be staring at her appeared to be a battle-scarred demon the size of a sky-scraper, whose former pilot's very recent death she was trying not to think about. Which she also happened to be about to climb inside of, as its new pilot....

She briefly considered humming, she'd seen people do that to distract themselves before. But she caught herself and took a deep breath. She could do this.

[babel_matrix]

Evangelion Cage #6, Central Dogma, NERV-00

With the girl tailing behind, Worthe marched her through five teams of technicians most of them busying themselves with consoles lined in a tight hallway that connected the cage walkways to the upper chambers, where the entry plug waited along with three technicians in the observatory above EVA-02's head. The plug, the same bone-white color of all the test plugs Sana had to endure in her younger years, waited with an open maw.

"<How are we on the preliminaries?>" Worthe yelled out his questions in Japanese, expecting an answer from no one that he had addressed properly.

Sure enough, one of the voices rang out from a technician who didn't dare look up from his screen. "<We're green on checklist items up to 256, with exception of item 120.>"

"<Naturally,>" Worthe muttered sourly. "<You'd think I hadn't noticed the recently gouged out eyes, hastily replaced...>" In a louder voice, though there was little doubt that the entire room heard his comments, he added, "<Cancel all non-critical exception notifications; we will have to make do with that.>"

"<Aye.>"

At last the two had reached the plug proper; the inside was bare save for the cockpit, though the smell of LCL already wafted out of the doorway, as if permeating from the very walls of the entry plug. He offered his hand, both to help her in and to take her bag of belongings. "<Be sure to keep the A10 clips on for the entire testing phase as well as out there on the field; they're going to be critical in the calibration phase. In you go, now.>"


Entry Plug of EVA-02, Central Dogma, NERV-00

Through the dark orange of the charging LCL, Sana watched as the tube shimmered with light: the walls went through cycles of visions and patterns, colorful and wondrous, in such a way that no test plug had ever shown her. There was a creeping sensation that washed over her as the visual modifiers worked their magic, as if someone had placed comforting hands on her shoulders. The feeling surged deeper within her, and a warmth that was alien to Sana coated her, one that soaked into her bones and made her shiver involuntarily.

When at last the walls reflected the vision of Evangelion Unit 02, and the voices of the technicians in the observation deck began to hastily report the new series of synchronization tests, the overt presence had apparently left. Despite its absence, it had left a great feeling in Sana's mind: somehow, this was perfect, and everything really couldn't have gotten any better. The brief episode of these thoughts came crashing down when Worthe's voice filled the plug. "Good news, Ms. Hasseini."

A small vid-screen appeared at her right, showing the Chief Scientist grinning with all his teeth, apparently at some other camera or screen. A technician rubbed his eyes before whispering to Worthe about facing the wrong camera. The Englishman turned to face the right lens, his smile never faltering. "Your synchronization ratio is hanging nice, just over the 46 line. You're officially the proud new pilot of EVA-02. We've just a few more tests on our end, so sit tight until the Colonel decides contact all pilots for the order to launch."

[Naquadah]

“Pilot, T-minus five-hundred seconds to drop point,”

“Copy that, Cicero. Toggle external locks down to safety-two.”

An Angel. A real Angel. He almost couldn't believe it. All that time, all that training, all the horror of knowing-but-not-really-knowing what the pilots in Japan had gone through, and now he was facing an Angel himself. Except this one is different. It thought tactically. It made the Eva series come to it. It retreated when it got hurt. It was very...human in its actions. It didn't engage. It repelled in self-defense. Is that so blameworthy? But...no. It's the opponent. This is on the level of the Canadiens-Maple Leafs or Slough Jets-Bracknell Bees. Or...or Finland-Sweden! Maybe even on the level of the Battle of Ontario! Maybe. His heart started to pound.

“Adjusting locks to yellow seal. Updating your feeds based on our radar and lidar. Confirming allied unit approach. On your HUD, Pilot. T-minus four-fifty.”

Eva-14’s optic feeds highlighted with dots and arrows. Outside the Eva’s actual line of sight, but the direction and range fed through the plane’s own sensors – another heavy transcontinental plane and what appeared to be a modified re-entry capable space shuttle. That was definitely odd.

"Copy, Cicero. I have sensor feeds on transports for Eva-15 and Eva-16. No visual yet."

“Pilot, we've finished the final A-Type test. Your board is reading all green.”

Logan’s eyes flitted away from the radar and to the status displays for the Eva. The A-Type jets all showed green, with electrical output readings and no less than four indicators of internal and wing-loaded battery power. But it was the armor integrity readings that really drew his attention. This armor is too light, and there’s not enough power. We’re in overtime before the first whistle. He had seen what the Angel had done to the Eva series and was glad when the new German commander at NERV-00 ordered that the Eva be installed with a set of armor modified to repel even the diamond-tipped drills used to create new tunnels through solid bedrock. But those things were tissue paper compared to me.

“Copy. Cicero, toggle arm locks to safety-one. Temporarily disabling upper-body safety-zero internal locks. Unit-14 will initiate Phase 4 manual arming sequence under umbilical power.”

“Aye, switching arms to red seal and disengaging primary restraint. Confirm restraint release. Keep it touchy, Pilot.”

The shoulder and forearm restraints on Unit-14 unscrew and retract. For a moment the Eva’s shoulders sinks forward before the muscles tense.

“Pilot confirms. Eva-14, readying armaments.”

The left arm reaches behind it to the larger weapon rack at the small of the Unit’s back; the hand locks in place around the bullpup grip of the pallet rifle stored there, pulling forward and around. The massive machine then reaches for a nearby weapon storage rack on the launch bay wall, first retrieving a magazine for the rifle and loading it, then stretching back to take a tonfa in hand. The armed Eva lowers its hands slowly and delicately, Logan very aware that even a small synch spike could result in the Eva causing significant damage to the plane’s interior.

“Eva-14, arming sequence complete. Upper-body localized safety-zero locks re-engaged.”

“Copy that, Pilot. T-minus one-twelve to launch.”

Logan ticked down the final seconds, steadying his breathing. His stomach turned slightly, though he wasn’t sure if that was combat nerves or the normal uneasy feeling he felt inside the Eva, like its body and even its mind were pressing down upon him physically and spiritually. The timer on his HUD similarly ticked down, switching from green to yellow at forty-five seconds.

“Cicero, switch all locks to safety-one.”

"External locks confirm disengaged. You're all green." The Eva tensed slightly, its weight shifting as the locking frame no longer supported it, but Logan kept it from adjusting its balance. Hold still, girl, we can't afford a roll right now.

The HUD timer changed colors again, from yellow to red at twenty seconds. When that hits zero, it's all over in one-half of a period. One-sixth of a full game.

Logan's eyes flitted for the thousandth time across the status board. “Confirm all seals red. Increase plug depth and initiate standby power disconnect sequence.”

The umbilical power cable plug slid easily from the Eva’s back, quickly retracting into the ceiling. The number ‘599.99’ appeared in blood-red letters in place of the umbilical’s power feed indicator.

Six hundred seconds max op time, significant charge reduction of one-tenth max charge per A-Type correctional burst. Extra battery loadout equals thirteen point five-one-three repeating percent reduction in maneuvering capability per battery, cumulative to reduction of twenty-seven point oh-two-seven repeating degradation. Max unpowered drift 10 km, min 6 km, after which power remaining is op-negligible.

“Pilot, we have confirmed umbilical disengage. T-minus seven."

At five seconds, the HUD operation timer started to flash and beep. Logan took a last deep breath. "Eva-14, all internal locks disengaged, switching to Active Mode." The Eva's eyebands flash bluish as its muscles automatically tense and relax.

The timer hits zero and blares, and that '600.99' battery clock immediately starts to violently tick down.

"Cicero has received the green light from NERV-00. Commencing operation! Pilot, no, Logan...good hunting!"

Logan felt his belly drop out from under him, and saw nothing but the sky above.

[Astro_sol]

Theodore flicked on the display timer, which currently read six hundred seconds and dropping.

He flicked the display off, his body unmoving. Then he turned it back on again. Time, sure enough, was moving at about the rate he thought it was.

He'd given everything a once-over, and used the time spent on the plane to get acquainted with the situation he was about to literally jet into. His training helped with the fear factor of it all, along with the sheer comfort of the Evangelion itself; he'd wondered for a while if they'd been pumping morphine into his LCL. No, the fact that he was about to face a behemoth that had already won against everything that'd been thrown at it up til now. It was regenerating, so obviously it'd been hit with a lot of force. Theodore had a laser shotgun and orders to bring it down, so why should he feel scared if he had the ability and willingness to follow said orders?

He flicked the display off and on again. He had to keep his mind active, or it would sink into the past...and places he really didn't want to go again.

[Whiskeyjack]

Nasr’s fingers curl tight around the control wands. Outside and even filtered into the plug, he heard the slight strain of metal on metal as the Eva tried to mimic his movements, but she is still held tight in place by restraints. I could snap them, Nasr thinks. But what would be the point? The tools of men cannot bind the Heavenly Host. Not forever. But I am ever a faithful servant, and now as ever, my role is to submit to God.. The shuttle crew were silent, but Evangelion Unit 16 had been patch in to the external cameras, and Nasr’s eyes contracted as light flared around the shuttle. It rocked slightly as air friction hit it. It turned slightly and Nasr peered down, hoping to see his target but knowing he was too far away.

{Arabic} “..they shall feel neither the scorching heat nor the biting cold. Trees will spread their shade around them...” he murmurs.

Around him, a warning starts to beep. A yellow clock is ticking down – time until (projected) operation start. It is measured in the tens of minutes – it will take the shuttle some time to re-enter, gather its bearings, deploy to the proper location.

Beneath it is another clock. It is measured in the hundreds of seconds. 600 seconds flashes there in an icy blue, next to a trio of battery icons, all full and blue. Soon enough, Nasr knows, those icons will be turning green, then yellow, then red, then flash empty. The time limit is itself exhilarating. There will be time to spare by far with Eva-16 committed, he swears.

This will be risky. Unlike the other Evas, arriving by military cargo plane, Eva-16 is being inserted via re-entry shuttle – not exactly something with a gaping rear cargo door. Instead, as Nasr understands it, he’s actually going to have to stand and jump out of the opened back, without hitting the shuttle of course, as that would probably put it into a death spiral towards the ground. A slot usually reserved for deploying small vehicles or remote tool-arms into space, not giant robots. The window will be small; Eva-16 is not much burden in the absence of gravity, but when the grasp of the well really and truly hits, it will be a chain around the shuttle’s neck, dragging it to fiery death if not quickly removed.

Despite all that, Nasr grins and keeps grinning. The feeling is indescribable. Pureness and calm. This is how they all describe being close to God, he thinks. This must be what it’s like.

Nasr thinks about the first time he had been in this Eva.

That had been before the void-jaunts, before the bite. A year ago or more, he doesn’t remember the details of that day, just the details of the machine. He had only ever sat in the simulator, or a couple of times in the actual cockpit. But it had never been on, and he’d gotten in and out in a small room with no windows. He knew the controls—such as they were—by heart. They were less complicated than those of a helicopter even. The techs had said the system didn’t need much manual input – that it was just to help the pilot focus. He knew how it worked, some brainwave machine his mother had worked on . . .

Nasr’s stomach lurches as gravity plunged a fist into it, and the Eva twitches, causing a cascade of red lights and angry shouts from the cockpit.

{Arabic} “Focus,” he murmurs. "Be still!" he hisses to the Eva, though reveling in the power and the reaction even the tiniest movement engenders in the world. The top clock is winding down even lower. The Eva’s hands feel tense despite its restraints. All it carries is a progressive knife, modified with an enhanced guard plate. It’s enough, Nasr thinks. All the rest is inside, and that is all I need.

The common channel is open but muted, a flat indicator noting that nobody is talking over it. Soon he figures that channel will be alive with orders and screams and the shriek of metal from other machines.
Let that other kid deal with its spawn. I’ll go for the throat and dive it home in one fell swoop.

The shuttle leveled and, just as suddenly, lurched down. Gravity and weight had a meaning once again, and Eva-16 was a lead weight in the bird’s belly. The numbers ticked down faster and faster, and Nasr just thought he could make out the specks of the NERV planes bringing the other Evas.

The channel from the cockpit opened. “We’re waiting on the launch order. Don’t waste any time when we send it over, Nasr, or we won’t be able to stabilize in time. We’re releasing the restraints and popping the top. Stay frosty."

Nasr grits his teeth and above, the blank grey canopy opens to reveal dark blue. No clouds, just twinkling stars and, inexplicably, bright sun. Far above the cloudline.

“Pick her up, get ready to flare your jets for a quarter of a second. Keep it nice and tight there. We’re disconnecting your external power. Pivoting starboard point one-seven, yaw nose down three-point-nine. Prep for inertial compensation and get ready to inject NO2 to all stability thrusters.”

Eva-16 stands, the half-horn on her head glinting wickedly with starlight. The operational clock nears zero and Nasr tenses the Eva’s leg muscles. The beast's its A-type wings shifting into the ready position, and the Unit is ready to jump out and clear the shuttle. {English} “Eighth Child, Unit-16 all green,” Nasr reports. As the operational clock hits zero he shouts, “Allahu Akbar!”

[AkaiNeko]

Sana sat in the Entry Plug, watching the technicians swirl around the Evangelion. Her Evangelion, now.

And she watched. And watched. And waited. And watched. And waited. Watching, waiting, waiting, watching, doo dee doo dee doooo....

She felt good. Calm. She had no idea why, but just being in the Plug felt....right. Friendly. Healthy, comforting, warm. Safe. It was very hard to pin down or properly describe. But thanks to that, the nervousness that had threatened to consume her earlier was mostly gone, and in it's absence this was really just another deployment, another target designated for elimination, just like plenty before it. Wade through a war-zone. Find a vantage point. Wait forever for the shot. Take the shot. Get the hell out. It WAS unusual that she had comrades to worry about; in that sense, it was more like an over-watch mission. But it wasn't, because it was apparently her job to eliminate the target, not protect her comrades. If she wanted to keep them from harm - and on a baseline she did - she would just have to take out the target as quickly as possible.

Which brought up an excellent question, actually. "Um, sir, or whoever is listening, uh, how do I control this thing?"

[Lothmar]

Johann sees them off with a silent nod stepping back into the elevator to return to the command center to see to things. He closed his eyes and listened to the floor counter tick one after another, only opening them when he counted high enough but before the elevator shifted to stop. As the doors opened he stepped into the command room and walked over to his post.

"Have all aerial combat crews both Vtol and jet check in and provide status, tell them to hold position and get ready for an attack run on our command."

"I need a status update on the three inbound Evangelion units and their position in regards to the opration. Have the planes give the angel a wide perimeter until unit two is in position and locked on target, or I order otherwise as i'd rather not have them shot out of the sky while circling like buzzards." He adds standing at ease with is hands behind his back taking in the atmosphere of the room.

"I'd also like a status update on the prototype deployments. Have the support vtols carrying the beam splitter hold position and ready to make the drop until I give the word, i'd rather preserve the Eva's limited power if possible. Is the type twenty fully assembled and in position on site for unit two or will the Eva have to adjust everything on arrival?" Johann inquires mildly.

"Once the synch tests are confirmed, unit two is to launch, get plugged in and into position. We will launch aerial evangelion strike team once Unit two is in position." When suddenly a picture came up on the monitor.

"Um, sir, or whoever is listening, uh, how do I control this thing?" from Sana.

Johann closed his eyes and leaned his head forward slowly gripping the bridge of his nose with his fingers trying to hide a slight sigh. 'And this is why I wanted to know more about the actual pilots like say, oh I dont know... If they're completely green and never even gotten around to test driving a unit yet!' He thinks in mild irritance to himself as he attempts to collect his composure for a few seconds while praying someone else starts this little talk with her in the meantime. 'My fault for making assumptions though and not asking when I had the chance with that one though I guess...'

[babel_matrix]

{"Decisive Battle" music stops playing.}

NERV Command Center, Central Dogma, NERV-00

“Whoever is listening” is a fairly wide audience. Really, it could easily be interpreted as everyone in the command center, as they are all listening in on one level or another.

Which is precisely how the devices within the plug interpreted her message.

A hush fell over the crew as Sana’s voice rang out over the speakers all over the command station. A few jaws dropped amongst the lower-ranking technicians, their hands shaking as if to indicate the impending nervous breakdowns. Lieutenant Ibuki just shook her head sorrowfully, while the other two officers under Colonel Fhitz twitched. One of them finally face-palmed, eventually realizing that she was on camera. She did a poor job of pretending at wiping the sweat from her brow while avoiding making eye-contact with the camera.. Hovering over them all on her own raised platform, right arm poised in her left palm while covering her mouth with a half-made fist, was Commander Tanaka and the new vein that started to pulse on her forehead. Fuyutsuki stood at her side, coughing away a chuckle.

“Colonel, I will guide her through the steps as necessary; the crew should be able to handle her launch without my direct guidance. It should be the least of their capabilities, in fact.” The voice, belonging to the only one who seemed un-phased by her admission, leaked from the Englishman. Worthe stepped up to the microphone near the communications officer, and bent low while speaking softly to the Ninth Child. The rest of the technicians returned to their operations, understanding the expectation (and warning) in Worthe’s statement. “Hello again, Sana. This is going to sound a bit strange, but please follow my instructions to the letter and trust that I am guiding you correctly. The Evangelion interface is based on thought patterns…”

He would continue to lecture her as Unit 02 was loaded onto the cargo elevator up to the Geo-Front’s surface. The slow crawl up, on a platform large enough to fit six such Evangelions, would serve as good time for her to make her first stumbling and establish the association between the giant’s trigger finger and the triggers on her controls. Worthe was a surprising good teacher, such that one might wonder if he ever had to lecture someone on these concepts before. The afternoon had all but snuck away from everyone underground, the feeds from EVA-02 showing the dipping sun as the evening approached. A towering tripod mount, previously mounted by the construction crews shipped in after the JSSDF’s withdrawal, had already been raised, while the positron rifle was prepared on a separate elevator between EVA-02 and the firing point. Confident that she can at least slowly marched up to the rifle, mount and engage it with his instructions, Worthe readied to guide her through the motions to do so.

“We’ll have it up in less than two minutes, Colonel,” Worthe reported, never letting his bright blue eyes leave the camera feeds of Unit 02’s activities.

[Lothmar]

"Thank you doctor." Johann adds leveling his head having collected himself.

"When unit two is in position have the support Vtols deliver the package for unit fifteen, when it is safely in the Eva's hands and the Vtols have cleared the area the flight team will deploy as planned. Unit two should easily have acquired the target by then." Johann adds with confidence.

"Open a communications channel with Evangelion pilots fourteen to sixteen, I'd like to get all the pilots on stand-by and perform a walk through since the operation will likely commence in the next five minutes." Johann adds secretly wanting to make sure that none of the pilots he was dropping was as green as unit twos since they were in the most danger.

[babel_matrix]

Entry Plugs of EVA-14, EVA-15, EVA-16

The Colonel appears in a communications window in every entry plug, along with three other, smaller vid-screens showing the various pilots.

Stratosphere, Japanese Air Space
The Angel begins to raise its arms, and the various feathers tucked under its thin appendages straighten as they are strained by the motion, with over sixty feathers making a neat film connecting the torso to the arms. The claws that end each hand of the beast twitch as if in anticipation, the tips a dark red as if still dipped in the blood of the Mass Production series. The creature can be seen leaning forward in the feeds from the MAGI.

The movement is instantly reported across every board in NERV-00. The Angel has, for now, held steady at its altitude, now giving the illusion of looking down, directly at the base.

Perhaps directly at Evangelion Unit-02 as Sana wills it forward after Worthe's instructions.

[AkaiNeko]

Once again, Sana was inching closer to understanding precisely what she had gotten involved in. She had genuinely believed - mostly - that teaching her, at the very least, the basics she would need to carry out her part of the operation had been planned for, given that her total lack of experience as an Evangelion pilot should have been well documented. Surely NERV, an absurdly well-funded organization formed and supplied by what was essentially the power-seat of the modern world, staffed with many of the brightest minds humanity had to offer and tasked with nothing less than the salvation of humanity, which had created what simple logic dictated, in Sana's mind, were quite possibly the most powerful and advanced tools of war on the face of the planet (or in the general vicinity thereof), which had gone well out of its way on extremely short notice to seek her out and fly her halfway around the world during a literally apocalyptic crisis and furthermore had actually gone so far as to make her, or more precisely her ability as a sniper, the linchpin of their plan to defeat what was at that moment literally the single greatest threat humanity faced, had realized that at some point in there they would need to teach her how to actually pilot the damned thing?

Nope. The fate of the world apparently rested in the hands of a bunch of short-sighted morons, at least as far as senior officers went. Well, now it was in her hands as well; she made a note to speak very slowly and clearly around said senior officers, since it seemed they were an unholy fu-

....no. Bad Sana. They're under a lot of stress, and sometimes things get lost in the shuffle. It happens. You still have a job to do, people are still counting on you. The stakes haven't changed.

And if she was honest with herself, she was enjoying the "training", thrown-together as it was. The Evangelion was fairly intuitive to control, and Worthe was actually a decent teacher, and after a few minutes she was walking her....well it was hardly shiny, but it was new to her and damn it it was a giant freaking robot! - cyborg - er....mecha, that works. Whatever it was, after a few minutes she was walking it unsteadily across the enormous elevator and had more-or-less gotten the fingers figured out, and it was REALLY REALLY COOL. The generally positive feeling the Entry Plug seemed to impart had reasserted itself as well, and she was feeling ready. Maybe even eager. She realized with a start that she wanted to do this - she was excited for it! She quickly marshaled her self-control; feeling comfortable was one thing, but she needed to focus. She absolutely could not let the fact that she was piloting a humongous mecha and was about to fire a prototype antimatter sniper-rifle the size of a skyscraper at a giant monster that was hovering miles above in the stratosphere and was very close to causing the apocalypse distract her.

....she forced herself to think about the last pilot that had sat in here. The endorphins quickly dropped to more manageable levels. She again reminded herself that, fundamentally, this was much the same as plenty of other assignments that she had completed without a hitch. She was focused once more.

And suddenly, the elevator reached the top. The rifle - her weapon - was before her. In the sky far above, an angel watched.

[Lothmar]

"Really?" Johann adds with a slight bit of intrigue as he hears this... 'Is it listening in, does it understand what's happening?' he thinks to himself.

"Allright men listen up. The angel is almost fully healed and showing signs of activity so get ready to deploy early on our command. By the time you're in position your sniper should have target lock but at this point I dont think things will go as planned. The core is hidden inside the angel, we believe in the head so if the sniper fails to take it out in the first shot that is where you need to focus if you get the chance."

"Units Fourteen and Sixteen, you are primary neutralizers, your secondary task is to try to keep the angel in position for the gunners. We've got some wingmen up there for you, but currently we dont know if those feathers are protected by their own At field or if the effect is simply an extension of the primary angel. If it's the second we'll try and help you weed them so you can focus on the main threat, if not focus on defending yourselves. Unit Fifteen, your primary duty is fire support and your secondary is neutralization if fourteen or fifteen are unable. We're getting ready to deploy you now. There should be some Vtols coming up along side your plane to deliver the beam splitter, after you've secured it you are to disembark, at that point we will launch Fourteen and sixteen and you all know your parts then." Johann adds signaling someone in the control room to have the planes commite to disembarking runs and for the Support Vtols to make their delivery.

"When operation power reaches the halfway point, you are to disengage and head for the ground immediately as we only have enough vtols to catch one Eva in case of an emergency."

"Sir, Support squadron Red is pulling up along the Flying Bertha now. Weapon is in position for pickup." One of the technicians adds back to him.


"Good. Evangelions fourteen through sixteen, Commence Freefall and At field activation." Johann adds giving his own twist on the standard 'launch'. The planes were easily high enough to compensate for the initial drop as the pilots put their At fields in place, afterwhich they would glide into position. Though unit fifteens glide was more falling with style since it was directly overhead of the angel.

"Have support squadron red merge with Blue for emergency catch procedures." Johann adds once the weapon was recieved.

[Naquadah]

The pilot of Eva-14 is a young man who looks a couple years older than the other pilots. His hair is brown and beyond regulation length, floating slightly in the plug, and he looks flatly at the camera with forest green eyes.

Logan listens to the German give his orders and nods. “NERV-00, command confirmed," he says with a slight crisp accent, then adds, "Eva-14 suggests adoption of singular standard deviation of one-point-five sigma. Suggest Eva-14 deploy ‘Tanking Protocol’ against target. Clarification follows. Unit-14 has the ability to attempt to forcibly draw enemy attention with an Absolute Territory Flare, code-named ‘Tanking Protocol’. Coupled with extensive reinforcement of frame to negate targeted damage, Eva-14 can hold enemy attention, hereinafter 'aggro,' while allied units commence purely offensive operations. Statistical analysis shows that Eva-14 is twenty-two-point-zero-one-niner-four more likely to resist incoming swarm damage than allied units while holding aggro. Suggestion still falls within overall six-sigma QC standards. Primary opportunity of deployment of ‘Tanking Protocol’ is temporary flux of Eva-14’s A.T. Field, resulting in reduced Neutralization capabilities while Flare engaged; however, enemy aggro projected to continue after Flare disengages and A.T. Field returns to full strength. NERV-00, please confirm response to usage of 'Tanking Protocol' aff/neg ASAP."

Logan pauses, waiting for an answer, his thumbs tapping slightly against the control wands.

[Lothmar]

'Interesting.' Johann thinks making a little note for the future as he actually had very limited knowledge of the evas and their pilots capabilities, little he could do about it now though.

"Negative for now, however if it turns out the feathers are in fact seperate entities with their own fields I may approve its use then." Johann adds most certain he wouldn't use it. Afterall he doubted the angel would single mindedly pursue such a trick if its At field was under threat of neutralization. Hell if the main body was being attacked wouldn't it direct the lesser versions of itself to attack appropriately? No it seemed like it would just reduce the efficiency of neutralization efforts.

[Whiskeyjack]

The windows flash open, and Nasr takes a look at his squadron.

The first person he sees is the German Ops Director. Great, my CO is some Euro pretty boy, Nasr thought as the man started giving orders. Nasr almost rolled his eyes. The ‘plan’ is hardly a plan, but that wasn’t really surprising. What is surprising is how solemn this man essentially told them ‘run up and smack it until it dies.’

Two Caucasian boys, pilots of Evas 14 and 15. One seemed a bit older than him, and immediately launched into a confusingly-phrased diatribe about his Eva’s special capabilities. Nasr couldn’t really place his accent – it seemed muddled, two or three accents mushed into one. The pilot was going on and on about some kind of A.T. Field manifestation, Nasr understood. He seems precise, which is obnoxious...but hopefully he can help me tear that Field down well enough. Seems like his armor is set up for those piranha-feathers, wouldn't be bad for him to draw them away if he actually can. It was admittedly quite enjoyable to hear the German shut down his plan, as if that bulky Eva getting the Angel’s attention would last long when Unit-16’s A.T. Field smashed into its own and Unit-16 herself started tearing the space monster apart. Nasr licked his lips, feeling Eva-16's fingers twitch, eyes flitted subconsciously to the prog knife indicator; modified with a more comprehensive grip, the blade would be excellent for parrying, while Nasr would use the Eva’s claws against their prey.

The other boy was clearly British. He hadn’t said anything yet, but he looked comfortable enough in his Eva, comfortable in a way that Eva-14’s pilot did not. He had the same facial and upper-body tension that Nasr had been schooled to recognize: another child combat-trained by some organ of the world government for the purpose of piloting their newest war machines. Nasr was sure, this pilot would be a kindred spirit at least partially in how they were brought up, he could feel it. Even if his Eva is painted hideously, Nasr thought as he zoomed in on that plane.

Then there was a single girl, some kind of Mediterranean if not Middle Eastern ethnicity. Nasr couldn’t help but raise his eyes at the caption to her video feed: Unit-02. So it did survive.] But from the background noise emanating from her channel, she was currently on another wireless channel simultaneously, this one closed, and it seemed whoever was talking to Unit-02’s pilot was essentially telling her how to pilot the Eva and set up some sniper rifle. So they’re so desperate that they’re taking kids who haven’t even been properly trained. How embarrassing. Being a part of this formation is hardly as prestigious as it would’ve been a year ago, he thinks sourly.

The Eva's eyes flash blood red as she tenses her muscles, unfurls the A-Type wings fully and prepares to jet from the launch bay. “All right, all right, got it. We’re cleared to go, right Colonel? Unit-16 will smash aside the Angel’s A.T. Field and then tear its face off! Hope you guys can keep up with her!” he smirks, looking at the other two male pilots. “Unit Fifteen, try to keep those feathers off of me with that toaster oven gun, and Unit Two, try not to plug me with that pop gun of yours. Unit Sixteen, initiating sortie!” He shouts an ululation as he urges the Eva into the air.

[Astro_sol]

Theodore gave the screen his full attention. This would be his commanding officer for the sortie. So he would be fire support; understandable, considering his skills. He nodded at the man's assessment.

He glanced at the other screens. A Middle Eastern boy, who seemed a little too excitable for his liking. A professional would keep his cool, no matter his age; what kind of support would they be sending? The other boy, the pilot of Unit 14, was more to his liking, if a little verbose.

He keyed the comm link to the Commander. "Aye, sir. Unit 15 Pilot Cartwright is ready to deploy. Just say the word." Then he keyed the comm to the other pilots.

"Pilots of Unit 14, Unit 16, hello. This is Theodore Cartwright, pilot of Unit 15." he said in a crisp English accent. "Pilot of Unit 16, I'll do my best to keep them off of you, but I hope the two of you will do well to stay out of my line of fire. This "toaster oven gun" could just as easily fry the two of you with the target." He'd flipped through the specs, the gun was a thing of beauty. "I don't think either of you have logged any hours in flight combat simulations. I have not, myself, but if you two stay out of my way then we should avoid any real problems." There, that couldn't possibly be taken the wrong way. It wasn't as if he needed their help, after all.

He wasn't worried about the op.

[Naquadah]

Logan's eyes narrow as he looks over the other pilots and ops director.

NERV-00 Designated Castle plan critical fail chance approx 47 percent, truncated, given op parameters, assigned roles, and likelihood of Unit loss to enemy swarm system.

Unit-15 maser armament not present in standard database or sims. Likelihood of catastrophic incident exceeds eighty-four percent. Pilot stability and perceptive functions approx nominal given current sourcing, reducing critical friendly-fire chances by min 16 percent truncated. Lowest aggro pull priority.

Unit-16 pilot instability noted. Competitiveness skews above-average to sex and ethnic norms. Given detected loadout, expect primary CQC DPS. Secondary aggro pull on priority list.

Unit-02 efficacy max 68.214 percent, plus-minus 12.11 percent. Pilot expresses extreme signs of unfamiliarity with Evangelion system; suggest mandatory tutorials following (successful) op. Pilot inexperience lowers success chances by approx 12 percent, truncated. Given existing battle damage, offensive Angel attention directed towards Unit-02 has a 35.415 percent higher chance of disabling Unit-02 than Units-14 through -16. Priority one to deflect aggro from Unit-02.

Conventional forces marked on HUD, multiple assault and support VTOLs; estimated combat support efficacy negligible given full enemy A.T. Field, increase max 12 percent truncated with full Field Neutralization. Likelihood of zero casualties, .00041527 percent. Likelihood of complete losses, 83.217 percent. Combat effectiveness nonexistent without Eva support, minimal with complete support. No priority to pull aggro.

He closes his eyes a moment. What a mess, Corbin. His hands tense around the control wands as he flicks the control opening the launch bay and electronic mobile loading ramp.

“Copy, Castle. Locking open common frequency to allied units,” Logan says as the wheeled loading ramp beneath Unit-14 begins to whir and reverse until the Eva is on the lip of the transport bay.

After another half-second, the Eva is off the plane, falling. Logan tenses the Eva's muscles and unfurls the full A-Type wings, setting the floater to glide passively towards the target. The HUD marks the other Evangelion units and, far below, the Angel. Much farther below is a tiny dot compared to the large squares around the other Evas and the red triangle at the Angel's projected center of mass, though it's still not visible to the naked eye and the Eva is not detecting its A.T. Field either. That tiny dot far below is, of course, Unit-02, preparing to snipe the stratospheric monster.

Logan takes a deep breath, focusing his mind on the machine around him, willing it into further motion and combat readiness. “Logan Yates and Evangelion Unit-14, clear of delivery craft.”

Logan pivots his Eva at the Angel and thrusts forward under A-Type power, watching the cloud of feathers slowly expand. "Proceeding to nearest phase space negation effective range increment. In the pipe, five by five."

[babel_matrix]

Stratosphere, Japanese Air Space, Earth

The Angel clicks in anticipation, and its head turns slightly as the Evangelions begin to launch all around it. The feathers on its limb begin to vibrate, shaking violently and slowly breaking away the thin, fleshy strings that keep them bound under its arms.

Commander Center, Geo-Front, NERV-00

"<The target's A.T. field has manifested! MAGI is calculating its strength...>" Ibuki reported.

Worthe paused his instructions to Sana. "The long-recorded sensitivity to A.T. fields... but did it spot Unit 02 first...?"

[Lothmar]

<"Understood..."> Johann adds casually aknowledging the fact as he waits for further information on the field strength or manipulation.

"Lets run on that assumption as a worst case scenario Doctor. Best case scenario is that it pays attention to the threat closer to it at this time." Johann adds waiting for the waited update that Unit 2 was in position and preparing the shot so he could help walk her through.

"Have all conventional forces begin target lock procedures now, do not fire without my command."

------
OOC: Full round 'aim action' for Assault/interception troops.

[Whiskeyjack]

The shuttle’s nose tilts backwards and Nasr half-steps, half-hops backward out of the cargo bay.

The Eva drops like a stone, Nasr’s mouth twitching slightly as he steadies the Eva with her own weight and muscle mass. He unfurls the A-Type wings but doesn’t yet activate the float unit, instead free-falling toward the Angel’s last known position. {Arabic} “I can see you, eighteenth monster! Pray to whatever false gods you believe in, I’ll send you to meet them soon enough!” Nasr crows. {English} “Unit-16, spreading my A.T. Field and engaging the target!”

1 round expended, 9 rounds of battery left.

[babel_matrix]

{Music (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5xfIcR4-tA&list=UU60KNrjgGdNqJO1Zn0OSYKQ)}

Stratosphere, Japanese Air Space, Earth

The streamlined body of EVA-16 ripped through the air, purposefully accelerating with little resistance from its extended A-Type wings. The azure bolt through the sky hardly goes unnoticed, and if the Angel was alarmed before, it reveals its open hostility now. The top of the creature’s head seems to form a hole, and it soon widens to reveal a maw lined with teeth that seem to rotate along its circular opening, creating an inverted saw of fangs. Within that mouth, the glimmer of the core shines in the dipping sun, magnified and analyzed by satellites under the MAGI's control.

The feathers explode from its body, whirling around the angel in a pattern resembling a Celtic knot, widening its horizontal path with every second. Its already grossly distended arms grow even longer, each one stretching to almost five decameters in length and adding two new joints along each limb. The lower-half of the creature shivers beneath it.

The familiar red glimmer inside its gullet is replaced with a purple brilliance that is familiar to all who studied the battles with Angels before this one: a terrible, 80-decameter-tall crucifix of malignant energy is erected from its mouth, intent on impaling the approaching Unit Sixteen.

Command Center, Geo-Front, NERV-00

Maya Ibuki looked away from the screen, tears already forming in her eyes. The exhaling of relief from all around her make her look back up to the screen. Much to her surprise, the EVA-16 glides masterfully around the crucifix, avoiding the impact and gliding, seemingly without effort, around the extended arms. Commander Tanaka watches in silence.

[Astro_sol]

Theodore checked all the digital gauges before making his decision. He was positioned directly above the Angel, the prototype Maser weapon in hand.

It was go time.

"Pilot Cartwright, initiating drop," he said in a dissonantly calm voice for what he was doing. He didn't jump from the bay of the craft; it was more of a short hop and letting gravity do the rest. "Initiating A-Type Equipment." He flicked pressed a few digitally projected buttons and grabbed the handles of his Eva as the jets located all over the armor engaged. He quickly dipped the mecha forward towards the target. "Ugly mug." Theodore's consciousness flickered even with the natural dampening effects of being suspended in an advanced plug filled with LCL. He stayed conscious, though, and willed the Eva (which was so easy, he always found) to bring the weapon at his side to bear on the Angel.

He saw the creature begin to shift, and another Eva free fall directly at it. He blinked as the creature shot an energy weapon at Unit 16 (he recognized it due to digitally recognizing software), which it then dodged. He flicked on his communicator. "Careful, pilot," he said, his voice light, even with his straining to focus on his drop. "It'd probably help if you turned your jets on."

Full Round Move Action expending one Round of battery. EDIT: 13/15, yeah.

[AkaiNeko]

Sana, or more properly Evangelion Unit-02, gripped the enormous rifle and sighted down its length, through the scope, and into the stratosphere. On her screens were marks indicating the positions of the other Evangelions and the Angel, her ammunition count, power levels, heart-rate, communication windows to the other pilots and HQ, and any number of other things. She heard Logan's suggestion get shot down, Nasr and Theodore each trying to sound like more of an overconfident jockey, Nasr throwing a snide comment her way, and Worthe continuing to deliver instructions and advice.

She ignored all of it, filing it away for reference, save the wonderfully convenient atmospheric readings and range indicator, concentrating solely on the Angel at the other end of her rifle, connected by a line of murderous intent. She breathed slowly and deeply, letting her training and experience guide her and steady Unit-02's hands. This was easy, this was something she knew, mecha or no. Even if the target was....that thing. She couldn't help but pale slightly at its display of power, and gave a small sigh of relief as Unit-16 dodged the blast. She prayed she would have time to set up her shot and spoke, forcing herself to calmly let the Angel drift into her sights. "Command, this is Evangelion Unit-02 pilot Sana Hosseini reporting in position and ready to fire. Just say the word."

[Whiskeyjack]

The indigo beam lances towards Nasr and the blue-purple Unit-16. Nasr sucks in a breath in that half-second he has to react, his eyes glinting with the beam horror driving towards him. In the span of a neuron firing, his training has completely kicked in. Nasr jams the left stick down hard and twisting the right wand to the left, all while projecting an instinctual response of MOVE!!!

And Eva-16 responds. The starboard maneuvering jets flare hard for a split second and Eva-16 hunches her shoulders and lowers her head, pivoting around the beam; her shoulder and facial armor steam from the superheated, ionized air but she is none the worse for wear.

The beam crackles right past Nasr’s head, and that is more than enough. He gasps for breath for an instant, then pushes both wands forward, eyes at their widest and most contracted. “No one attacks me with impunity!”

Eva-16 charges through the air towards the Angel, all the A-Type jets streaming. Its left hand holds its prog knife forward in a defensive position, while its left hand extends back, claws glinting menacingly in the sunset.

"I'll tear you to pieces! You call that an A.T. Field?! Unit-16 will shred it!" Unit-16's eyes pulse with a red fire once again. Anything observing Unit-16's A.T. Field sees it spike and then drop in strength, with disruptive waves rippling out towards the Angel and its spawn.

[babel_matrix]

Command Center, Central Dogma, NERV-00

The MAGI readout began to draw the phase space diagram, showing the A.T. field strengths of EVA-16 and the Angel side-by-side. Each graph stretched into infinity as they approached the center, but Angel's spikes were devastatingly high. Only as Nasr announced his challenge did the spikes begin to falter, though they still stood stronger than that of the single EVA.

Maya rushed the graph before the Colonel's screens, along with the new scans of the Angel's anatomy, and the now-obvious track of flesh between the core and a cage of bone positioned just beneath it. The MAGI readouts included pages upon pages of superfluous data, estimations of pilot life expectancy and Geo-Front vulnerability, raw data that Ritsuko would have wrangled herself if it wasn't her sabotage that crippled the MAGI. Ibuki scanned it all, storing the screens that could only, at best, help their research.

Then she saw the prize she sought. "<The Angel's A.T. field is still up, Colonel. If at least one unit can maintain Unit 16's neutralization, the MAGI predict a 94.45% chance of the A.T. field being penetrated by the positron rifle.>"

[Lothmar]

Johann leans forward to press a button to drop off the group call temporarily and focus on a strict one on one line with Unit 2. "Sana the target is now vulnerable, sorry there's not more time to line up the initial shot but I get the feeling one of these pilots will probably be wrestling it in a minute so you're going to have to take that first shot now. Thankfully the heads the most damaged part so it should be easy to destroy but if my readings are correct, the Core a reddish sphere which is your target may be able to retract into or move around inside the body. So if we destroy the head you move onto the body if the core is still not visible." He adds providing her the general priority of targets and walking her through in a calm collected manner.

[Naquadah]

“Castle, do we have an official designator for this Angel? And a note for due diligence: Fourteen’s debuffing will preclude deploying an aggro-pulling A.T. Flare. However, absent command-line correction, Fourteen will deploy to support and sustain Sixteen’s odd man rush while conserving angular momentum.” After a few moments, if there is no response Logan pokes his Eva forward gingerly, trying to avoid being shredded by the piranha-feathers. That ginger movement quickly turns into an aggressive acceleration and fly-by buzzing of the Angel.

Eva-14, despite her size and bulkier armor configurations, is still nimble and precise in the air. Logan is conservative with his battery power, letting the A-Type provide minimal lift and maneuvering primarily with the Eva’s own inertia generated by its mass and the previous thruster usage.

Logan winces slightly as he comes into contact with the edges of the Angel’s A.T. Field; upon encountering the Angel’s phase space, the Eva tries to push for control beyond what he wants to give it. She’s so strong right now. It’s all I can do to hold her back from bodychecking the Angel despite that Field. What is this anger? It’s visceral. He swallows, mouth feeling dry despite being filled with LCL. Despite the Eva’s aggression, Logan is calm – startlingly calm. His heart rate barely increased when the beam shot at Nasr, and even maneuvering past the Angel’s arms and its swarm of spawn barely elicits any sort of physiological or psychological fight-or-flight response.

{French} “Shhh, steady as she goes, you'll get your chance,” he says quietly, eyes scanning proximity data and ammunition feeds, then: {English} “Unit Fourteen, in the pipe. Unit Fifteen, be prepared to contribute your Field as well if the enemy’s defenses are not negated. Calculating thrust to crash the crease. Standby.”

Unit-14 darts into an up-close-and-personal position with the hulking Angel; Logan feels that he—not the Eva, he himself—can just reach out and touch it if he chooses. “I'm preparing to feed spotting data to allied ranged DPS once the sensors can penetrate the A.T. Field. Speaking of - AOE is all clear, LOS optimal, lighting the lamp!” And then Logan’s Eva sends probing ripples of disruptive power into the Angel’s phase space.

[Whiskeyjack]

Perhaps they aren’t completely useless after all . . . Nasr thinks as he watches as Unit Fourteen glide in close and hammer the Angel’s A.T. Field with its own.

“Holding A.T. neutralization at current pulse level…Engaging!” The Eva’s thrusters pulse again and Evangelion Unit-16 charges through the air towards the Angel.

“Eat this, Shayāṭīn!” Eva-16’s right arm stretches far back behind her shoulder, and the plug’s targeting systems make miniscule adjustments to the trajectory and attitude of each slashing surface. In an instant the claws strike forward in a rending slash at the Angel. Get through, get through, get through, Nasr thinks as the Eva’s claws scratch against whatever might remain of its external A.T. Field . . .

[Lothmar]

<"I need a projection on whether the combined total AT fields or what even split between them of the aerial team can completely outstrip the Angels field so that we can provide vtol and jet support fire.> Johann adds hoping someone can come up with the calculation quickly since he doesn't know the effective strength of the evangelions he's working with as he presses a few buttons to unmute himself and rejoin the general chat.

"No." Johann answers as if to imply it was unimportant while not knowing that in fact that such knowledge was not prophisied. "Aknowledged pilot, good hunting." Johann adds in response to unit 14's statement.

"Copy that pilot, we'll connect your datafeed to unit two." Hopefully to improve the chances it doesn't shoot down Nasr who like he expected tried to get close. Johann thinks turning to another bridge crewsman. <"Begin patching Unit 14's calculations through to unit 2 as soon as they're available for future shots.">

"Magi update to flight team. Angels core can likely move between the head and body while remaining inside. Angel has an effective synch rate of one hundred fourty. Unit 15 you will need to contribute to neutrilization so that the flight team has any chance of hitting it most likely. If you can work together and keep it down we can begin active shelling." Part of him knew he should probably say something alonge the lines of 'but dont jeopardize yourselves since you'll likely be able to do more damage overall if you're intact' ; but the other part wanted to see them bleed...

[babel_matrix]

Stratosphere, Japanese Air Space, Earth

EVA-16’s claws slam into the Angel’s A.T. field, causing the octagonal shield to manifest with bright, multi-colored brilliance. Despite the massive shield between them, EVA-16’s fist slowly unfurls into the barrier, the film of the Angel’s soul slowly taking on the shape of the intruder’s claws as buy precious inches closer. As a second enemy approaches, encroaching upon the Angel’s soul with its own, the Angel’s mouth opens wide, the saw-like movements of the teeth freezing before the pilot of EVA-16. It lunges forward, its core sinking slightly into its body, freeing space inside the terrible head until it is nothing more than a distended, boneless maw lined with eager teeth. With a sickening chomp, the mouth passes its barrier to engulf the arm of EVA-16. The teeth spin until they are a blur, spewing the Evangelion’s red gore in a gruesome nova, filling the air.

The Angel clenches for precious seconds, causing the charging Evangelion to loop around as if spun by the hideous creature, until at last the pilot manages to rend its arm away before it is severed entirely. A ring of unarmored, ripped flesh marks the attack as the Evangelion maintains its proximity. The attack seemed to have an effect on the Angel as well: its arms spasm and shiver in a vulgar manner, as if the beast were in the throes of some pleasure. The core visibly moves back into the head and a soft, violet glow can be seen from the pursing, blood-lined lips that top it.

Throughout it all the feathers flitted about and dispersed into three small whirlwinds, assaulting the lobotomized bio-androids as they stuck to their bodies. Though hardly as impressive as the footage of the battle with the Mass-Production series, they are still numerous and latch on, coating them in white until only half of either Evangelion’s armor is visible. Inside their plugs, Theodore and Nasr can hear them: gnashing teeth chewing on armor plates, some wedging between the A-Type equipment plates and finding the soft, biological meat within. The gnashing is impossible to drown out, and fills their plugs. Logan's specialized armor holds against the creatures, the hardened plates proving a tough meal for the carnivorous leaves of flesh. The sensation, of hundreds of insects crawling just under Logan's plugsuit, is moderately unsettling, incomparable to the pain in Nasr's arm.

As EVA-15 approaches, the feathers come to it as well, chewing at the air as they make a humble tunnel to receive it, though readouts in Theodore’s plug reveals that most of those in his way are unprotected.

Command Center, Geo-Front, NERV-00

“<MAGI calculating 29% of the target’s area weapon as vulnerable to conventional weaponry and all forms of Evangelion attacks,>” Maya reported.

Aihara nods, and follows through with the Colonel’s prior orders. “<Wiring information to EVA-15’s plug for fire support guidance.>”

“<Severe damage to EVA-16’s right arm!>” Hashimoto hollers at the officers under him. “<We have nervous system breakdowns in joints four and five, get that-->”

Aihara turned to the Colonel, pushing the mouthpiece of his headset close away from his face. “<Colonel, your orders for the interceptors?>”

Throughout it all, Worthe stares at the readings coming from the positron weapon. Every level measured by his own equations, far more well-tuned than the post-it notes the engineering team had tried to leave him, was put to task as he slowly weaned Sana off his instructions. She was ready, he felt; now he just had to make sure the science team on the tier below him did their job to make keep the fuse lit without melting the barrel, the umbilical cables running behind EVA-02 at over 101% efficiency, and the compensation data accurate on a second-by-second scan of the Earth's movement and the pressure changes from ground level to the edges of the Evangelion-friendly layers of the atmosphere.

He had dedicated the science team in the War Room to the HELIOS gun; though there was no room for error there, accelerated anti-matter beams were notoriously temperamental. He was unusually superstitious, for a man of his beliefs.

Worthe hummed the Anvil Chorus to himself, if only to keep from holding his breath.

[Lothmar]

<"Have Viper Wing, Cobra wing and Python wing Perform a fly by and pick off the ones outside the angels field after Unit two has fired, we dont need explosions distracting her aim. Let me know if the angels phase space area and the protection it offers to the feathers decreases as the units weaken its At field and offers larger concentrations of enemies for attack."> Johann casually orders from his standing post as he watches the screens with an intense stare as if hoping to notice some minute detail that might turn the battle in their favor.

[AkaiNeko]

Sana concentrated. She saw the three-way attack her fellow pilots launched against the Angel. She saw the clashing and wavering of the strange phenomena everyone else seemed to be referring to as AT Fields. The whirring of teeth and the spray of blood. The feathers swarmed, the jets launched their missiles into their midst. She heard Nasr scream in pain and those in the command center shouting to each other, and through it the colonel giving her permission to fire. All was chaos and fury.

She grit her teeth and ignored it all.

It was a long shot, farther than even this great weapon's ideal range. The swirl of energy and dust and blood was no great hindrance, but Unit-16's oddly bestial frame, locked in close combat with the monster, certainly was. But the Angel was massive, even more so than the Evangelions, and presented a good, hulking target-profile even from this distance. She breathed, long and deep, just once. Then she squeezed the trigger and sent a pillar of light screaming into the heavens.

[babel_matrix]

Stratosphere, Japanese Air Space, NERV-00

The Angel's head, grotesque and expanding as if to bite again, didn't even flinch as an almost blinding beam of blue energy rose from the Earth like the lance of Odin, striking the Angel's head at its very center, the energy of anti-matter dispersing in raw, unforgiving heat. The flesh barely bubbled, and the Angel showed no signs of pain; if it knew of such things, then it was likely that the nerves that would report it were disintegrated too quickly as the entirety of the head vanished. The core sat, naked and glowing hot, with the slightest trickle of smoke from where the positron beam kissed it.

Every feather in the air, and every feather burrowing into the two Evangelions nearest to the Angel, let out a shrill choir of screams that were too-human, like children set aflame.

[Astro_sol]

Theodore simply blinked again as the target releases an area attack; feathers were now tearing at his teammates. Unit 16 also seemed to have disregarded his warnings, and now had its arm shredded. The pilot was probably feeling that.

He'd felt simulations of catastrophic damage. If he could take it, the other pilot could take it.

Then he saw the hot blue beam, and he knew that the far off Unit 02 had scored a shot. The screaming was irritating, but through the ever calming haze of the entry plug, Theodore could see the gleaming core. He had to take the shot.

This was going to suck.

"This is Cartwright, I have a visual on the target's core. Moving in to take the shot." He was proud of the fact that his voice didn't quaver once; he always tried to emulate the RAF pilots of old's voices. He jetted directly downwards towards the Angel, keeping his AT Field up so he could blitz through the nasty feathers whose effects he'd already seen. He kept the HELIOS tucked in his arms targeted on the gleaming core, the targeting reticle rested on it. When he got as close as he could manage, the gun just a few decameters from the target, he wordlessly pulled the trigger of the handle in the plug.

[Naquadah]

“Pilot!” Logan shots to Nasr, “Are you all right?” He grits his teeth even as the piranhafeathers swarm over him, gnawing at Unit-14 despite her enhanced armor. Logan barely notices those nibbles when he looks at the results of the Angel’s maw applied to an Eva’s body. That should have been me, I’m set up to deflect fanged maws and even that Eva’s slapper didn’t get through – no, Logan, just focus on that big lumpy biscuit and its crumbs. He glances again at the accumulated human force output. “Unit-14, painting tar----correction, incoming beam attack, I need to draw some of that attention. Le diâble est aux vaches.”

And then the Angel’s head explodes. It takes Logan a few seconds to understand the gravity of what just happened, as well as the gravity of what might be about to happen. After a shot like that, it will focus on Unit-02 unless we take it down now. The piranhafeathers scream and writhe, and then Unit-15 is darting in and shooting at the exposed core. “Good dangle, Pilot, let’s have another on the top shelf just like that. Uplinking Unit-02 to Unit-14’s data feeds,” he says to Sana. Just make it count again.

There’s a flash from above as Unit-15 shoots the Angel in what remains of its head. Unit-14 floats around closer to Unit-16, feathers latched on it and burrowing despite their screaming. “Approx ninety-four percent chance Angel can still use its A.T. beam weapon and...” he watches with horror as the Angel’s head regrows around its core, Unit-15’s shot apparently accomplishing little. Logan winces slightly as the feathers start to burrow into his Eva. “Calculating a chance of below ten percent for Units Fourteen and Sixteen to penetrate the enemy’s A.T. Field with current load-out and Neutralization levels,” he adds with a frown at the video link to Theodore.

[babel_matrix]

Stratosphere, Japanese Air Space, Earth

The remaining feathers, those that hadn't already clung to EVA-15 and found their homes in the other Evangelions, rushed the bleeding stump that was once the Angel's head. Their cries were softened, like cooing babies, as the gnashing teeth stiffened, leaving almost a dozen lop-sided grins all over the new face of Bachiel, a segmented, spiraling mess of thin flesh. The Angel's orientation suddenly seems reversed, which given its symmetrical body, was simply a matter of the newest growth in its face: now it was marked by a giant, single eye of a vaguely yellow, pus-like color, dotted with almost a dozen purple pupils in an uneven spread. The hideous bulb stared down into EVA-02's scope.

Command Center, Geo-Front, NERV-00

"<Units 14 and 16 have high levels of invasive damage, they're starting to suffer muscular trauma!>"

"<MAGI calculates a 12.4% chance of the Angel being capable of regenerating again... Colonel, a high-energy signature from inside the Angel!>"

"<EVA-02 has cocked the rifle! Second fuse charging---!>"

[AkaiNeko]

Firing the positron rifle had been something approaching a religious experience for Sana, and she had all but shouted in exultation as her shot hit home, blasting the Angel's head into oblivion and exposing the bright red jewel of its Core, her ultimate target. And now she was staring in something between abject horror and chuckling bemusement as the Feathers performed their grotesque self-sacrifice to create a new head around the gleaming organ, their disturbing cooing, so at odds with the sight and yet so appropriate, echoing loudly over the open communications channels of the other pilots and into her mind and the newly-formed, cyclopean face seeming to leer at her.

Directly at her. Well....they did say regenerating, after all, and she had seen what this thing could do. Really the joke was on her for assuming one shot like that would be enough. And now it not only had her location, which of course it had from the beginning, but also knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that she was a serious threat. She had to finish this now.

Actually, no she didn't. As her training kicked back in and she mechanically readied the rifle for a second shot, an annoyingly large percentage of her instincts screamed very loudly at her to fire again as quickly as possible, but she shut them out. The fastest way to screw something up was to rush it, as Katharina had very subtly joked. So she buried her fear and, with the whirring of the generators charging the new fuse in her ears, steadied the gun once more over her target, strange as it was to be doing so to something whose head she had just blown off. And it was something of a mood-lifter when the data-feed from Unit-14 began trickling in, very nearly turning the less-than-ideal range into a non-issue. She decided now was a good time to say something, because she might not have another chance. "Thanks for the feed, 14. And all of you, thanks for the cover. Though I do recommend that 16 try not to cuddle with it for this next shot. Command, do we know where the Core is currently located?"

Now she just had to wait, and pray they could give her the time they needed.

[Lothmar]

"The core is still within the head, however we believe it likely has the ability to retract into the body as well if the head is destroyed and may try to avoid the attack this way. While trying to destroy the core would be the quickest way to end this, it may perhaps be more prudent to target the body to leave it no place to run as the head is already severely damaged and being attacked by Unit 15's beam splitter." He pauses thinking to himself for a moment that his future survival and operational success might very well hinge on limiting the damage to the evangelions so that they can be repaired before another such incident as well as save needed funds. He would just have to be satisfied with the pain that had been endured thus far.

"However unit fifteen will still have a clean shot even if you do take the head in excess. Eliminate the angels head and clear the core for attack!" Johann adds giving a clear and concise order without changing the tone or inflection in his voice.

[Whiskeyjack]

{Arabic} “Damn damn damn DAMN DAMN!” Nasr growls as an alarm starts to go off in the plug and bubbles seethe up his right arm from wrist to bicep as Eva-16 finally tears her arm free. {English} “Ugh, perverted monster is enjoying that far too much, how disgusting. And I was so close to the core, cheeky devil! Is that Field down yet?!” Then the Eva shudders again and Nasr furiously scratches at his shoulders and back as the feather swarm attempts to burrow under the Eva’s armor and into its reinforced flesh. “Ugh, someone take care of those things . . .” And then the feathers start to shriek and writhe, though they keep trying to burrow. Nasr looks around, trying to discern why when he sees the crackle in the air from the particle beam and feels the Angel shake so close to him as it takes a direct hit. Nasr watches as Theodore takes a shot at the Angel's regenerated head next.

Trying desperately to get the Eva to shake her right arm, he says, “Right arm stunned, but she’ll shake it off. I’ll keep hammering at its A.T. Field. Fifteen, either do the same so Fourteen and I can actually get through or make your shots count!” He winces as he sees the feathers swarm Unit-15, and even more as those on him burrow deeper. "Much more time and this and those baby-devils will chew our limbs off..." Nasr grits his teeth and unleashes a stronger A.T. pulse at the Angel's own Field.

[babel_matrix]

Stratosphere, Japanese Air Space, NERV-00

Violation. Penetration. Intruder. Unwanted approach, beyond any reproach that words alone can express, and the sickening tearing of one's soul as it is abused by another. These are the sensations that may or may not be lost on an Angel as the light of it's soul is trampled upon by one such as Evangelion Unit 16, who pressed ever deeper.

The threat of Sana's marksmanship suddenly seems to pale as the Angel spins in place, far faster than its previous agility would have suggested, and reveals a brilliant spark in its sickly eye. The familiar sound of the Cross Blast fills the air shortly before the physics-bending heat finds itself hurtling straight at Nasr and Logan. The lavender blaze fills their plugs. The beam was cut off shortly after as the Angel closed its eye and spun again, narrow avoiding the second beam of scorching light meant for its newest head. It returns its gaze to EVA-02, even as EVA-15 points the HELIOS Beam Splitter that passively maintains its lock... and melts it away. Only the eye remains, hovering before the glowing core, held there by unseen force even as the rest of the head is melted away.

[AkaiNeko]

Sana stared. She had....she had missed, right? That's what happened?

....yes. Of course. She had missed, surely. A last-second muscle spasm or relaxation, some errant twitch or....gust of wind or something, that made far more sense and was far less worrying than the alternative. Because that was that the Angel had dodged the shot, which meant it was a whole lot scarier than she had realized.

As she had brought the gun to bear once more on the thing, she had seen it ready another blast, and been very confused when it attacked Units 14 and 16 - a moment ago it had been quite focused on her. But then she had fired, and it had....dodged. One moment that freaky head with its freaky eye had been dead-center in the path of the positron-blast, and the next it was safely out of the way. That was all there was to it. It was a perfect shot, according to both her instincts and the readings on the instruments around her. Now maybe that seemingly foolish decision to focus on the others made more sense. Maybe that first hit had been a lucky shot, a momentary lapse in awareness. Maybe it realized they were working on a time-limit, and was just playing with her comrades until they fell out of the sky, preferring to kill the targets right next to it before dealing with the one several miles away.

She shook her head slowly. Screw that. She wasn't losing to this thing. They could do this. "Sorry about that. I think we'll need to coordinate better, make sure it's occupied, so it doesn't do that again." And actually, now that she thought about it, Unit-15 still had a....laser-shotgun-y thing, right? Maybe now he would have a better shot....

[Astro_sol]

Being covered in the feather-abominations was...irritating, but it didn't hurt yet, which meant that Theodore could continue firing the Maser weapon into the creature's ugly face. The cross beam had surprised him, but it wasn't directed at him so it wasn't a concern. He didn't need his teammates for anything besides Neutralizing purposes, anyway. Even the sniper in the distance had missed a clean shot. He was sure he could have made it himself, but his present duty was satisfying enough.

"HELIOS weapon is holding, thermal sinks are reading nominally." For a prototype, it was working quite well. Although the Angel had regenerated, his continued firing was eating away at its skull...thing.

"I'm having success, but I'm aware that conventional forces are having trouble breaching the target's AT Field," he snapped crisply into the communications window to the commander. Fhittz, was it? "I shall begin Neutralizing as soon as firing the HELIOS becomes untenable." He was sure to ignore any jabs from his teammates. From his point of view, Theodore was the key to this mission being a success, perhaps with some help from the sniper, the only other person to score a hit.

[babel_matrix]

Stratosphere, Japanese Air Space, Earth

The creature ceased its whirling, though its sickly distended arms had grown in their small tornado of flesh. Now measuring almost a full 10 dam in length, twice the length of an Evangelion, the arms had lost all indication of joints or bones. Against the laws of gravity, they began rising up in a jointless double-helix that mummified the Angel's torso, leaving only its shoulders and core revealed. The base of what was once its neck twitched and began to widen, as if it were intent on swalling the floating core whole. The eye slowly melded into the core's surface, creating a brief flash of violet before vanishing.

[Lothmar]

"Negative Pilot," Johann interjects to unit 15. "Neutralize the At field immediately so that all forces may begin a series of attacks that will hopefully finish off the now~" Johann adds in a slightly more serious tone as he gives the order.

<"Sir! The core is retracting into the body!">

"Tsk... Allright 15, procede with neutralization as planned - break off target lock and strip the remaining At field. All other units will hold their fire, the Evas and conventional forces will launch a simultaneous attack salvo against the angels body in an attempt to expose the core when the At field is down, it cant dodge all of our attacks... Unit fifteen can continue to pour on the heat once the field is neutralized." Lets hope the Eva's hold up long enough to see this through.

[Naquadah]

“Look out!” Logan shouts as the indigo light fills the space around him, pushing Nasr out of the way of the A.T. blast. Pain erupts down Logan’s leg, the LCL seething as Eva-14’s armor plating down the leg cracks and vaporizes, searing the flesh beneath to a crisp. Logan bits his lip but doesn't make a sound. He looks down to see the plates in the leg re-set and steaming, and while the scorched flesh is sloughing off, fresh muscle and skin grow rapidly back into place. Amazing. Then there’s a flash from above, and Logan gasps, wondering who else was hit, and sees the Angel’s head explode again under continuous fire from Theodore. “I don’t think Sixteen and I can even get through, never mind we’re all being crunched on like pork skins...” He glances at the information fed by NERV-00. “Based on data feed, quadratic phase reduction of 64.2857142....et cetera percent.” And purses his lips. “Not enough for me to break through, even if the tonfa increases the negation to 71 percent truncated. Chances of my breaking through with precision targeting with current load-out, hrm, effectively nil.” He winces hard as the feathers start to chew again, and flicks his communicator to feed only to Sana.

“I will reconnect direct data feed. Unit Two, given the speed at which the spawn can dismember an Evangelion-sized target, we are rapidly running out of time. I am feeding you visual on the core’s location. I don’t think it’s logical to paint the target again if you miss again; my Evangelion is being slowly torn apart and I will need to focus on removing the Angelspawn acting to that end. Good hunting, and no pressure,” he adds, nodding solemnly, turning the other feeds back...

Just in time to hear Johann order Unit-15 to bring the Angel’s A.T. Field down and ordering conventional forces into position. “Unit Fourteen, targeting feed rebooting and recon—wait, scratch last and apologies, Castle, Fourteen will engage the Angel directly, supporting Sixteen once Fifteen brings its Field down. Apologies, Two, but hopefully we can distract the enemy from dodging your shots again. Suggest you hold your fire until we take our turns at it," he adds to Sana.

[babel_matrix]

Stratosphere, Japanese Air Space, Earth

With a glint in its core, just as a gurgling noise erupts from beneath it, the Angel's wrapping arms part to reveal one of the clawed hands that had been hidden away in its folds, the barbed tips of its fingers now coated in a viscous, blue fluid that the MAGI begins to analyze. The core sinks into the body, and the sounds of bones crunching together could be heard inside.

With EVA-16 still pressing against its A.T. field, eroding it with renewed vigor, Bachiel silently shoots the vicious claws at the core of the Evangelion, each barbed tip seemingly pointed at the very plug Nasr watched from...

Only to have a 25-meter-long night-stick bash the side of the hand,sending it towards the Earth in a long arc as the arm tries to slingshot itself back towards the Angel's body.

[Astro_sol]

Theodore kept his jets firing and his finger on the trigger until the order came through.

"Negative Pilot. Neutralize the At field immediately so that all forces may begin a series of attacks that will hopefully finish off the now."

"Aye, sir," Theodore replied, regretting the loss of damage that he was doing, but orders were orders. He willed the Eva easily to release its trigger finger (the plug diagnostics had indicated that it was some kind of prototype, which explained a lot). With that done, all it took was focusing his will into a force, which slammed against the field of the abomination below him. "Neutralizing the target's field now. If there's an opening, it's now."

He noticed the Angel swipe at Unit 16, only to have 14 parry it away with an impressive swipe of its nightstick. He thumbed the communicator to the pilot of the latter's cockpit. "Nice one, pilot. If we keep this up, it's toast. I'll shoot it again after its field is down."

[Lothmar]

"Assualt Vtol wings Diamond, club, spade, Commence attack on the angel." Johann adds calmly watching the screen erupt in a hail of missile and rocket trails as the angels body was checkered by various explosions one after another.

[Naquadah]

Logan expertly interposes himself between Unit-16 and the swinging claw, his tonfa swiping backhand at the Angel’s “wrist” to send the blow spinning away clumsily. “Unit Fourteen, now registering full A.T. Field negation. Good assist, Fifteen. Engaging offensive CQC. Sixteen, I’ll open the crease for you to follow up.”

Logan breaks away from his guarding of Unit-16 to drive for the Angel’s body, bringing the tonfa in towards it with a brutal forehand shot as bullets and missiles explode around him, impacting the Angel's flesh and clearing the way for his strike.

[Whiskeyjack]

“What are you---” Nasr shouts, flaring the jets to avoid the Angel’s strike as the purple cross explodes right where he had been. He sees Unit-14 take the brunt of the hit as the blast chars its leg. Nasr looks on for just an instant before retuning his attention to the Angel, raising its arms and clawing down at him – and impossibly, the damaged Unit-14 is right there too, batting the Angel’s claw away with a tonfa as it slapping a child on the hand.

Nasr’s eyes are big. Is he trying to show me up? Like I’m weak and can’t defend myself...I’ll show him! And then the HUD starts to beep frantically. Nasr sucks in a breath.

“I’m finally showing an A.T. nullity!” Nasr shouts with a gleeful rage. He looks up at the Angel re-forming, trying to hide its core, just as NERV VTOLs unleash their salvoes at the relatively defenseless Angel and Unit-14 takes another action: diving into the midst of shells, missiles, smoke, and fire to club the Angel brutally with its nightstick. “This might be our once chance at a direct hit! Pilot---Pilot of Unit Two, get ready to fire near my position, I’m going for the core! Unit Sixteen, breaking through as well!” With a quick flick of the wrist, the prog knife is in the Eva’s right hand, the thrusters flare, and Nasr charges knife-first for the Angel’s core. He sees Logan's strike deflected by the Angel's long arms, and it seems it can't turn to deal with him, and then his knife is finally in it.

[babel_matrix]

Upper Stratosphere, Japanese Air Space, Earth

"Assault VTOL wings Diamond, Club, Spade: commence attack on the angel."

The Colonel's voice comes in crisp, and the twelve F-35B's get into formation before blasting into their maximum speeds at just over Mach 1.4 less than a click above the position of the target. Diamond leader, an American, clicks on the communications as the jets reach their break neck speeds, slowly lowering altitude as they went beyond their super-cruise speeds. "Diamond leader acknowledges, club and spade leader are go. Attack run initiated."

The short sentences had barely left his lips before they were in range. He didn't even hear the full payload of sub-nuclear warheads fall from his bays while the wing-mounted missiles shot one after the other. The payload floated downward from all twelve fighters, and then continued to burn towards the target as the F-35B's cleared the range of retribution, gone before they could watch the Angel's rubber-banding arms suddenly lurch upwards to try and block the missiles. Without no A.T. field to answer this assault, the Angel's clumsy defense proved-half effective: the full payload was divided between what remained of the Angel's body and its gross appendages, and the assault was almost enough to distract it from the incoming butt of the pneumatic tonfa that smashed its hand.

Bachiel had barely managed to float away from EVA-14's assault, lurching awkwardly with its limbs still entangled in the air, only to find EVA-16, a white-hot blade in its partially-maimed hand, charging with a vicious, agile stab. The progressive knife tastes flesh in the center of the Angel's chest, kissing the reinforced rib-cage that held its core within and remaining embedded as EVA-16 presses into it. The Angel is pushed back as it desperately tries to writhe off of the blade, to no avail. From its intense vibrations, red gore comes out of the wound in a stream along with the chunks of disintegrating bone.

The thin smoke screen formed by the bombardment detonated in the thin air was immediately cleared when the positron beam fired between EVA-16 and the Angel, barely missing both of their waists as they struggled.

[Naquadah]

Logan's brow furrows as his strike goes wide, the Angel somehow twisting around him or using the momentum of being hit with multiple missile strikes to propel it away from his blow. “Initial strike, no joy. Recalibrating. Vector acquired. Accelerating to attack speed.” Logan pivots the Eva on a dime as his strike takes him past the spinning monstrosity, and he turns and charges back at it. He clubs at it with the tonfa, and this time the Angel can’t get away. Logan allows himself a small and satisfied smile.

“Impact confirmed. Deploying shock ram,” Logan says evenly at the moment of impact, thumb pressing on one of the wand’s modular buttons. The pneumatics in the tonfa slide back into the hilt and then slam home, causing a reverberation through the weapon that further tears at the Angel’s flesh with destructive vibrations. “Sixteen, I’m pushing it towards you. Impact inc.”

[Whiskeyjack]

“Aghhh!” Nasr screams, his right wrist erupting in LCL bubbles. “And I just got the feeling back in it!” Outside, one of the Angel’s feathers has hewn through his right arm at the wrist, the hand twisting back to a completely unnatural angle with a sickening crunch, the palm splaying open as nerves fire madly--and then the entire hand simply drops away. Nasr can’t help but watch it with a horrified fascination, up until the point where the armored appendage is pulled to the ground far below by gravity. Thankfully, the Eva's modifications prevent it from losing much fluid, but the feedback of missing a hand while still looking at his hand causes Nasr to grind his teeth and glance about with wild eyes. He stares at his hand, trying to process the feelings thinking, How can it be so much worse than the simulations?! Nasr is quickly overcome with a wave of nausea and a throbbing headache, his eyes filling with tears that hte LCL can't seem to clear away fast enough, and it’s almost too late when he remembers what that hand was holding...

“The knife!” The shout is a strangled cry, and Nasr swallows bile as he forces the Eva to move. Unit-16 twists and bends at its waist, stretching upward, reaching for where nerves and reflexes tossed the knife upwards when the dead fingers uncurled as the hand was severed. Nasr’s left hand stretches out to the object on the HUD and—fingers deftly close around the hilt. In the same motion, Nasr pivots as the Angel shudders, indicators noting that Unit-14 just assaulted the Angel from the other side.

And then the Angel staggers towards him. “Copy that Fourteen, my knife’s in the wrong hand, but that won’t hold me back!” he cries, taking a half-second to twirl the knife in his left hand before driving the vibrating blade forward into the Angel’s chest once again. “A heart for a hand sounds like an even trade!”

[babel_matrix]

Stratosphere, Japanese Air Space, Earth

The tonfa's extra force made ripples in the previously tight skin of the Angel's consolidated form. The paper cuts formed by the bombing run of the U.N. jets now spray gore in every upward direction, framing the progressive knife flung into the air as Unit-16 grabs hold of it. The Angel, knocked sideways by the pneumatic force of Logan's strike, revealed its back to the downward stab from a vengeful Nasr, cleaving through flesh and ribcage with a cry that was almost mimicked by the bound face of EVA-16.

The dual wounds, before and behind the Angel's core, now exploded outward as the alien bones' structural integrity finally buckled, and shattered.

The core glistened before them all, covered in heavenly viscera. It glowed brightly once more, and blasted Theodore through the frontal, gaping wound with another cross of power.

[AkaiNeko]

Sana cursed silently. She had told him. There was no shot. There were friendlies directly in the line of fire. Now was not the time, just be patient. Did the idiot colonel listen? Noooo. What in the hell was it with non-snipers?! They all seemed to think marks-persons were some sort of magical insta-kill tool, just point them at the enemy and they die, no questions asked. It was a delicate process, as much art as science, full of instinct and estimation. It took time to do these things right, along with the patience to give it that time and the judgement to know when to stop waiting and start doing. But no, just fire now, while both 14 and 16 are engaging your f****** target in close quarters combat, IT'LL ALL BE JUST F******* FINE.

Deep breath. Moron. She automatically readied the rifle for another shot. Naturally she hadn't hit the Angel; for just a moment, she had actually thought she had a good opening, but then 16 was back in the line of fire and she had been forced to twitch it out of the way lest she bisect her own team-member.

Speaking of which. While she was....perhaps less than pleased with her CO, Sana was developing a fairly positive opinion of the rest of her temporary team. The pilot of Unit-14, Logan, seemed all right - calm and professional, focused on proper coordination and willing to hang back to support the others. She liked that. Theodore of Unit-15....well, he could fly and shoot, she would give him that, but he was much less willing to work together. She was pretty sure he was putting that accent on, too. And Unit-16's pilot, Nasr, seemed to be about as arrogant and overconfident as they came - but he also seemed to be a hard fighter, and not only recognized the necessity of teamwork, but had quickly begun coordinating very effectively with Logan, much to her surprise. Now if only that stupid colonel could stop ordering them to obstruct her view....

Looking down the sights, she saw the unlikely duo continuing to demonstrate what good teamwork could do; she realized to her chagrin that she actually had a small smile, seeing the monster so perfectly boxed between the two powerful combatants, and cleared her face of expression. Focus.

And then there it was. The Angel's chest cavity finally collapsed under the brutal onslaught, and the Core was before her once more. She wasn't about to let another chance slip by her. Once again everything was muted and slow; nothing mattered except the target, glowing its bright, otherworldly red from within the Angel. She brought the enormous weapon to bear once more....waited just a heartbeat....the strange, jewel-like organ glinted ethereally in her sights....and breathed out powerfully as she squeezed the trigger, sending another blast of positrons skyward to impact the Core - just as the next blast from Theodore's laser-shotgun-thing hit.

[Astro_sol]

Theodore hadn't thought much of the crosses as they'd attacked his teammates. Well, teammate. The Angel had seemed to have it in for th pilot of Unit 16. He couldn't exactly blame it; he didn't exactly like the kid much himself. The pilot of unit 14, he gave good support. Odd, but effective, and that's honestly all Theodore cared about. Unit 02 needed to be a better shot, and-

and then the pain hit. Theodore didn't let out a whimper as the beam impacted, with all of his AT Field traded into eroding the Angel's own. His jets didn't fire in time, and the beam took him full on in the chest. His arms started to buckle and pain flared up in his chest as the armor heated and melted away. His training kicked in, though, and he gritted his teeth. Focus on the target. Kill the target, end the pain. Kill the target, end the pain. Focus. Focus on the target. He gripped the controls, his arms starting to stop shaking. Kill the target, end the pain. He sighted the gleaming core around the beam, and squeezed the trigger, sending a varied stream of lethal maser radiation.

He barely noted through the agony that the core itself was only visual due to a straight shot from the positron beam. Unit 02 could shoot after all.

[babel_matrix]

Command Center, Central Dogma, NERV-00

Nasr's scream filled Ibuki's headset. She typed furiously while patching her headset into the NERV medical team, mixing her reports to the Colonel and her instructions to them at the same pitch. "<Lowering synchronization of Unit Sixteen by nine points! Be ready to receive the Eighth Child into emergency care!>"

Over their heads, the three battery timers for each Evangelion ticked away, with EVA-15's auxiliary feed showing only four minutes and fourteen seconds remaining.

Worthe directed the technicians as they quickly worked to re-calibrate the rifle. They couldn't afford another miss. Precious seconds later, the nearest technician shouted over the flurry of commands and reports. "<Fuse loaded, positron rifle is cocked! Pilot is GO to fire in 3... 2... 1...>"

"<The target has breached every level of Unit Fifteen's breastplate, severe damage detected in upper-core circuitry!>" Hashimoto yelled.

The command staff fell into a brief moment of silence as EVA-02 pulled the trigger.

Stratosphere, Japanese Air Space, Earth

The beam of positrons, force-fed against gravity and towards the Angel's very heart, slammed into Sana's target. The coating of the Angel's core, impressive as it was, melted away as the heat of the energy weapon burned into that crimson marble, causing it to change into a lighter shade of red, then pink, and slowly brightening to white. Just as the beam threatened to thin, to spare the core from complete destruction, EVA-15's last volley scorched the air, fusing molecules into ozone with each beam's passing. The spread burned holes into the Angel's body, melting flesh while a few of the centermost beams found the core's already fragile surface.

The Angel could bear no more. With a loud, wet crack, the white-hot core released the energy within. Forced through the opposing wounds in the Bachiel's body, the super-heated blood of the core forcefully sprayed out in opposite directions, spraying EVA-16 in a boiling mist. Bachiel's body bubbled, swelled in odd angles and against Nasr's bleeding hull. Its elongated arms were sucked into its body in a violent cyclone of seemingly boneless limbs, the only motion it could manage before erupting into more of the gnashing feathers, filling their vision with a new mist of the terrible parasites that were eating through their bodies, desperately seeking out the pilots within.

The gnashing was quickly replaced with a final, unified, and guttural scream. Every feather within the very muscles of the Evangelions, and in the air, disintegrated into blood, causing gore to explode from every chewed-in opening on the bodies of the three wounded units, and creating a sudden deluge of gore to fall earthward, towards EVA-02.

Command Center, Central Dogma, NERV-00

The Command Center went ballistic. The most desperate defense, the most unsure of fates and leaders they had ever faced, after barely surviving the assault by JSSDF, finally broke the levy of emotion they all put up. Cheers, pumping fists and tears marked every lower division of the command staff, while the leading officers still went about their business. Worthe began painting the routes for the Colonel's support ships, simultaneously directing the flight paths for the Evangelions. Maya threw Worthe several screens worth of atmospheric data from the MAGI to aid him, while the communications officers relayed all the instructions to three plugs in the sky.

They couldn't celebrate until they no longer had three Evangelions thousands of feet above any reliable power source.

Behind them all, as Fuyutsuki stood with a stoic look at the Angel's death, Commander Tanaka rose from her seat. "<Fuyutsuki. Please take care of things for me.>"

The old teacher did not smile at those familiar words. He knew where she was going. "<Aye, Commander.>"

[Lothmar]

Thankfully the feathers had not continued their vicious feeding even after the angels main body had perished. It was also good that it didn't explode like he assumed it would thereby destroying two if not three of the flight team evangelions. And while the operation was successful, the Colonel was not happy with how things turned out.

"Good work pilots. Unit two, good job out there. Begin packing up the rifle for the work crew and then head back to the lift and we'll get you out of there. I've gotta coach the air teams down so i'll be closing communications now." The colonel adds with a salute to the pilots as he presses a few buttons cutting off his communications with unit 2.

[Naquadah]

Despite himself, Logan smiles broadly as his Eva is sprayed with blood. “That’s the game,” he breathes as the pinching and grinding pressure disappears. “Stabilizing A.T. Field deflective capacity.” In an instant, Logan feels as if wrapped in a warm blanket as his stretched-out field retracts from where it battered the deceased Angel and recoagulates in a protective film across his Eva’s battered body. And that was another thing.

“Unit Fourteen, reporting cessation of piranha-feather-originated skeletomuscular rending stress with the nullification of the Eighteenth Angel’s cohesive capabilities.” He glances at his HUD, at the numbers still ticking down. “Operational time alert. All aircraft, prepare for descent. Fifteen, Sixteen, do either of your Evas require assistance? I have enough operational time remaining to lend you a hand in getting down safely.” That being said, Logan attaches the pallet rifle to the holster at the small of the Eva’s back. One of the shoulder batteries pops out of a wing, its charge expended. Logan pulls it out and grasps it in one hand, holsters his tonfa in the now-open wing slot, and prepares to receive landing data from the GeoFront.

[Astro_sol]

Theodore's Eva had the distinction of receiving the spray of blood from underneath, coating everything below with gore. It felt in the plug like he'd been the one that just got soaked. Of course, it felt like there was a crater in his chest, too.

"Pilot Cartwright reporting. Sustained minor damage to my "bird", but she can still fly." He glanced at the readout being fed to him by NERV Boston. "My readouts are showing that I'll land with a bit of room to spare. Beginning descent now," he finished in the same calm voice.

As Unit 14 pilot's spoke, he glanced to the side, where he kept his communication windows. "I'll be fine, pilot. I've played flight simulators before. Are you sure you don't require assistance?" he asked in a light hearted chuckle. Did the kid honestly think he, of all people, needed help? He'd probably been the most successful pilot on the mission. "Those "piranha-feather-originated skeleto****s" had most of you for lunch." Speaking of, he resisted scratching his head, where he still felt phantoms of awful itches.

[Whiskeyjack]

Nasr’s right eye twitches as he feels his connection with Unit-16...warp. It’s an uncomfortable feeling, like someone reaching into his brain and twisting his perceptions and emotions and connections with others. The nausea flares up again and in response to what he believes to be an attack, Nasr draws back the knife again and plunges it forward—straight into a spray of gore. The HUD spikes as sensors detect spreads of microwaves and ionizing radiation from the ground-mounted beam rifle. Steaming blood drenches and scalds Nasr, and ichor erupts from the Eva’s warped and gouged armor plates as the Angel’s spawn burrowing into the Eva explode in their own deaths, in a brutal mimicry of their parent.

The clawing and biting beneath his skin immediately fades, replaced with a somewhat-pleasant wet, throbbing heat. “Good shot, ground unit,” he mutters across the open channel, still breathing heavily and trying to ignore the pain in his wrist. “It took long enough, but good shot.” His head and wrist still throb, and Nasr closes his eyes slowly several times as the A.T. Field re-forms around the Eva. That German almost got us killed. If he hadn’t finally ordered Fifteen to stop shooting and tear its Field down, we’d still be fighting it and would be torn apart and...it’s not like Fifteen is blameless, if he can’t formulate an original thought or adapt behavior to meet the tactical situation then what good is he? But for that German to wait so long to bring the Field down, inexcusable incompetence. And ALL of these people clearly have no aerial or drop training at all. Two and Fourteen pulled it out in the end at least.

Nasr sighs and opens his eyes again, grinning. “Unit Sixteen, beginning descent. I'll try to catch my hand on the way down,” he adds.

Nasr jams the wands forward as hard as he can and the thusters ignite with a whine, driving the Eva forward at breakneck speed. Nasr's grin intensifies as the ground grows in front of him.

[Naquadah]

"Yes, one does expose onself to additional damage when one actually uses one's A.T. Field for its intended purpose in a timely manner. However, no assistance needed, Unit Fourteen has sustained only nominal damage despite deep penetration by enemy parasite units. My loadout is displaying more battery energy than required to make safe descent. Yours, well," Logan just trails off. "See you in the locker room."

Eva-14 starts to descend, staying just ahead of Theodore just in case Unit-15 runs out of battery and plummets. He shakes his head when Unit-16 rockets towards the ground under A-type thrust.

At least he has two wing batteries to support his drop. Logan isn't certain Theodore can do the proper calculations to ensure that free-falling at terminal velocity won't happen, and given what he knows of 16's loadout, that pilot is not in danger of crashing unpowered as much as 15 is.

[AkaiNeko]

Sana breathed hard, staring through the scope at the site of the now ended battle. The Angel exploding in what she could only assume was something like blood, the same substance geysering out of the wounds left in 14, 15 and 16 by the Feathers. Sana shuddered, having begun relaxing her control a bit. That was definitely not something you saw every day.

She had done it. They had done it. The Angel was dead! They had won! They hadn't even lost anyone, despite the colonel's seeming efforts to the contrary, between the insanity of the plan and its flawed execution.

....no. That wasn't true. Her own Evangelion was good evidence that at least one pilot had been, at the least, horribly injured in the battle before she had ever arrived. Which was why she had been called in the first place. And judging from Lieutenant Ibuki's reaction....well, Sana was used to visiting graves. She would find time to pay her respects, if it was necessary and possible.

She heard the colonel's order. "Understood, sir. Just gimme a minute." She was smiling as she took a last look through the scope, seeing the fine mist of Angelic blood shining a vibrant red in the sunset, and her fellow pilots beginning their descent; she hoped Nasr didn't get himself killed. Then, hoping that she could get some pictures of the scene later, she began removing the gun from its mount. A funny thought hit her, and she began to laugh.

[Astro_sol]

Theodore worked the controls with steady hands. The pain in his chest and head had faded to a dull ache, although his head still itched. Not as much as his wrist did, though, where there was still the faded black tattoo. It always itched after particularly hard simulations, and those had been nothing compared to this.

He could have done it himself. If he'd had the Positron Cannon, he probably could have eliminated it in 2 or 3 shots, flat. The other pilots were unnecessary; he was sure that he was a better shot than Unit 02's pilot (Hosseini, was it?). Unit 16's pilot...Nasrwhatever, was probably going to die in a mission or two. Unit 14's pilot was...odd. But he could fight, at the very least. He was still unnecessary, though; all Theodore needed was a gun and a target.

He refused to admit that the Positron beam had been the real kicker. If it hadn't been for him, the Angel may have rebounded again. In fact, he was sure his laser shotgun could have handled everything from the get go, as long as his teammates had stuck to Neutralization. He was sure that he wouldn't disagree with his superior officer, not to his face, but he was sure the plan would have been better with him having the big gun. Or everyone else Neutralizing. Compared to him, it was all they were good for. Thus, it was hard to keep his voice level as he replied to Yates.

"I beg your pardon?" he asked. He maneuvered his Eva into a dive, decreasing the time it would take to get down. He was sure he could fire an extra hard burst at the end to compensate. "I fly just fine, thank you. I'll see you there."

[babel_matrix]

Entry Plug, Evangelion Unit-02, Geo-Front

Sana's elation did not end at the amusing thought. Victory coursed through her veins as heavily as it did through the Evangelion, until the very LCL she breathed seemed to be infused with it. Like a drug, it rose Sana to a heightened state of rapture, unlike anything she had known outside of it, or so it seemed to the young girl exposed to this sensation. The gun was weightless in her hands... her hands, as now the line between Unit 02 and Sana blurred slightly. It took focus to break through that illusion, more powerful now than even at the height of her synchronization. Sana would feel this enchanting gaiety, shared with what felt like her greatest companion this far from her old unit, until it would be ripped away suddenly, violently, awfully by the disconnection of the plug being extracted from Unit 02's core.

Entry Plug, Evangelion Unit-16, Stratosphere

Nasr could feel the wind on the Evangelion's face. The magnifying surface of the Earth, slowly losing its curved horizons seen from their previous altitudes, put Nasr's heart to race as he could feel the nervous exhilaration fill Unit 16 as it filled him. Evangelion Unit-16. Bound in space, forced into testing the most experimental equipment ever designed for its kind, in the deadliest environment they could conjure. Now, descending from the Heavens to land upon Earth, bringing with it the boy... the man who would save the human race, Evangelion Unit 16 was finally allowed to feel the joy of the Earth's air, and shared this sensation with Nasr. It filled the teenager, incapable of being ignored, but Nasr would not be overpowered by it.

For those below, it was a dangerous, climactic battle that might have decided the fate of the human race, with odds more terrible than most Angel battles before it, with a fantastic showing of martial prowess by the Arabian prince from outer space.

For Nasr, it was Tuesday.

Command Center, Central Dogma, NERV-00
Worthe sighed loudly after approving the routes sent to the Evangelion units. With that planning, and the rather enthusiastic descent of each pilot, they would be able to plug into the power grid and actually get themselves to the cages. As ravaged as those barely-salvaged chambers were, they could at least extract a pilot safely. Given a few days, they might even manage to prep the Evangelions to leave for a facility capable of repairing them. Noting the absence of the Commander, Worthe approached Johann with a tense smile. "The command staff can take it from here, Colonel. Shall we go to the cages and thank the pilots? I'd say they just made you look pretty damn good right now, despite doing the world's first Evangelion airborne engagement without prior trial runs."

[Lothmar]

Johann watched and listend casually as the children talked amongst themselves and made their way to the surface. It was then that he heard Worthe's speak.

"Yes, I suppose they can." He adds standing up and straightening his clothing. "I doubt they'll care for our thanks even if it was sincere, but we should try and make them feel appreciated." It was the part about making him look good that made johann smirk slightly with a hint of a chuckle.

"I'd hate to see an operation if they were trying to make me look bad then. But that's probably just me thinking I could have done a better job at leading them though. I suppose all I can do is try harder next time, assuming there is a next time and they decide to keep me on for it." He adds following Worthe on their way down to meet the pilots.

[babel_matrix]

Command Center, Central Dogma, NERV-00

The electronic doors slid away as the two men marched down the long stretches of hallways they would need to navigate to get to the cages. At every other turn there would be a pile of debris, a collapsed hallway or a floor that had fallen away to the level below. At their first turn, the doctor answered Johann with a chuckle. " If you're worried about the pilot of Unit-16, don't be; Maya's call for an emergency unit was needlessly preemptive. The damage to those three units is hardly without precedent, either. Perhaps its all the new data I get to play with, but overall I think the operation was a resounding success."

The few screens that had not been filled with bullet holes now showed the normal screen savers. The Angel alert had been dropped seconds ago.

[Whiskeyjack]

Nasr feels the rush of real unadulterated gravity, not the paltry imitation of a rotating cylinder. The altimeter counts down quickly, the other Eva units still high above. Despite the loss of a hand and the itching pain from the burrowing feathers, Nasr feels great. {Arabic} “This is what angels must feel like,” he murmurs. “And this homecoming, yes, there is a lot of unfinished business.” Not even that sobering thought can dampen his mood though, and Nasr looks back up at the clouds at the sunset, then back to the ground, making minute adjustments to his vectored thrust. The hole into the GeoFront looms large, a misshapen gaping maw in the earth, and Nasr dives straight in even as the altimier starts to beep an impact warning.


The Eva deftly swoops into the GeoFront, around the command pyramid, and lands with a thud—but perhaps not as big of a thud as might be expected for its size—in a formerly-pastoral scene near one of the GeoFront-to-Hangar access elevators, part of its shaft visible due to damage to the ground.

Nasr surveys the scene for a moment, frowning. Slightly. What happened here? He straightens the Eva from her landing crouch before he punches in the NERV communications channel. The battery numbers are ticking down - and now they start blinking urgently. {English} “Unit Sixteen is on the ground. I need a power cord.”

[babel_matrix]

Entry Plug, EVA-16, Geo-Front

A young Japanese man appeared before Nasr in a small window on the plug's interface. His voice was familiar at this point, as one of the lower communications officers for the mission. He spoke with a thick Japanese accent, but was clearly fluent in English. "The routes will appear on your HUD--" Even as he said it, the thin trail of light drew itself in the AR visualizers, showing a plug rising from the ground just a few decameters away. "-- for both the plug and appropriate launch point. At the launch point, you'll be switched to the elevator auxiliary power grid for the ride down."

Nasr could hear officers beside this man speaking similar instructions to the other pilots. Soon enough, they would all be extracted and ferried into some debriefing room or the lockers, depending on how briskly their beloved operations director made his way to them.

[Whiskeyjack]

“Copy, control,” Nasr responds, still looking around as he moves the Eva forward slowly and deliberately, somehow feeling that an unseen enemy could jump out at any point, but his eyebrows raise when the AR indicators in the HUD immediately pop up along with the power umbilical. “At least someone here knows about prompt action.” The battery is in its final seconds when he finally hooks up the umbilical. “I’m plugged in. Proceeding to elevator. Did Unit Two already fall back? Oh, sorry, didn’t see my severed hand on the way down. I imagine it’ll turn up though.” Nasr keeps the prog knife in the Eva’s remaining hand, just in case, and moves towards the elevator.

[Naquadah]

Logan ignores the communication from Unit-15’s pilot, dropping past him towards the ground. Unit-16 sped ahead, of course, and now Logan’s HUD is being marked with an arrival route to a power station and an elevator to NERV-00’s Eva Hangar. “This is a little different from the Yukon base,” he murmurs as his Eva dips into the GeoFront itself. He looks around as the Eva descends, remembering the video feed he saw of the fight at the GeoFront on, he supposed, some NERVNET feed to other facilities. “Where are the remains of the Eva Series,” he muses quietly. “Unit Two is operational again, I wonder what if anything the Angel left of the Mass-Produced Units. Bloody dismembered gobbets, I suppose.” Unit-14 lands next to an elevator and promptly plugs in. “Time for the celebration party?” he asks as the Eva descends into the earth.

The hangar is, if anything, in a worse state than the GeoFront itself. Torn up, with large patches of hardened bakelite, scorch marks, bullet holes...Logan just winces as he guides the Eva into a battered cage. Nearby, Units Two and Sixteen are already powering down, and Logan starts the sequence and sits back. “Until next time, old girl,” he murmurs as the plug withdraws.

Once the hatch pops, Logan steps out and very efficiently and non-violently coughs up the LCL in his lungs into a nearby basin. He unzips the plug suit halfway down his chest and stretches, pausing a few times to spit out more of the orange medium. He glances back towards the other Units. Fifteen has yet to arrive in the hangar and... “Those two haven’t popped their plugs yet?” he asks nobody in particular with a small frown then shrugs and looks for the sign to the locker room.

Once there, Logan finds the dry towels, heads for his locker and opens it. "Curious," he murmurs when he sees the suitcase, "But no reason to get it all dirty." He starts to pull off the plugsuit and notes the location of the showers. By the time anyone else arrives, he's in the shower.

[babel_matrix]

Geo-Front, NERV-00, Japan

The entire scene of the diving and withdrawing Evangelions is highlighted by a sudden, localized Angel blood shower that creates a beautiful rainbow over the scorched earth of the Geo-Front.

[Lothmar]

"No more so then any other." Johann adds in regards to Nasr following Worthe at a reasonable pace on their way down through the facility. "That's just it I was hoping to perform beyond precedent. Afterall if one only lives within the standards set by those that came before us we do not distinguish ourselves or advance as a whole." He adds in a slightly sarcastic manner.

'And humanity has stagnated.' Johann thinks to himself.

[babel_matrix]

Hallways, Central Dogma, NERV-00

The smile was ever-present on Worthe, mis-matched with the bags under his eyes and the strain in his stare. "Where we're going, Colonel, we're not going to be treading any ground familiar to humans." They soon found themselves in a hallway that had its side partially ripped open by an explosion. Though still safe to walk through, the opened panel revealed the cage into which EVA-15 slid. Its head bent forward as the plates at the base of its neck pulled apart like a steel flower, revealing the plug as it slowly ejected from the core. "I have it on good authority that we're going to be flying significantly blinder than our predecessors."

Their steady march took them past this vision, and ever closer to the elevator at the end of the hallway. "For that reason, the Commander is going to need people who don't give a damn about precedence... competent people, people who have no trouble working in the dark." They stood before the elevator doors, but Worthe did not push the button to summon it. Instead, he stared at Johann, as if searching for something in the German's composure. The scientist's smile was gone. "You're technically a temporary Director of Operations, Colonel... as I am a temporary Chief Scientist, as Tanaka is... or was a temporary Commander. She'll probably keep her job, in no small part thanks to the work done out there... Are you willing to keep stumbling in the dark with us?"

[Whiskeyjack]

Nasr takes a few minutes to drain the plug LCL and do all of the undignified coughing-up of liquid oxygenating medium in the plug itself, rather than on the gantry outside of it. The feeling without the LCL is somewhat empty, he notices. He watches Unit-15 enter the hangar and keys in the plug eject sequence before he has to deal with that pilot right now.

Nasr hops from the plug, still dripping orangeish fluid and pulls hte A-10 clips from his head, takes a glance around, and walks quickly and purposely for the locker room, stripping off his plugsuit gloves in the process. He hears one of the showers going, sees the discarded grey-and-white plugsuit hanging up – the pilot of Fourteen must have beaten me here, and, God help me if I have to shower with him! Hopefully they have the decency to put in separate stalls...

Nasr grabs several towels, unlocks his locker, blinks at the contents and pulls out the e-reader, turning it over in his hands. He stands there looking at it for a minute, checking the note and seeing what might be loaded onto it, and whether it has a password lock option.

[Astro_sol]

As Theodore dropped, he took a moment to scan the landscape. Or lack thereof.

"They really did a number on this place," he said quietly, awed. The leveled buildings, the scorched greenery, the pitted hills, it all screamed wasteland. And now it was raining blood. He thought it suited the look.

He jerked around as he listened in the communications. He was going to be the last one down! He angled as close as he could towards the designated elevator, knowing he had precious few moments of power left. He landed and quickly maneuvered the Eva in place, just as everything powered down. Of course, he was soon fitted in to the grid, and the vision came back on in the plug. He got to see the ruins close up, now; shredded steel beams surrounded the tunnels, and every once in a while the elevator jerked as it hit some blockage that had been missed, or added in the aftermath of the battle.

When he was finally fitted into the cage, he kept completely still as the plug ejected from the Eva. He could see 14 and 16 in the other cages. The bastards had beaten him there. He quickly cough/vomited into the trashcan, attempting to make it look dignified but failing, of course. With that done, he began scratching at his hair. LCL was fine while you were submerged in it, but it always dried awfully. He moved quickly for the boy's locker room, finding it easily thanks to the easy to follow signs (although some still bore scorch marks). When he entered the locker room, he quickly gave Logan a short nod. "Pilot," he said. Then he rushed for the first available shower. He had to scrub. "Well," he said, almost too loudly to let Yates hear, as he turned on the hot, soothing water. "That was a disaster of a mission if I've ever seen one."

[Lothmar]

'Yet another place we will defile with our presence.'

"Stumbling through the darkness as a group is a good way to trip over one another." He adds slightly solemly despite the intended humor. "Though I doubt we would actually have the time needed to navigate it safely even if we weren't a hazard for one another." Johann adds stepping forward with his hands behind his back in front of the button.

"It is instinct. Even if those we walk with use our success to their advantage, we must walk this path for ourselves first and foremost and should others be delivered safely because of our efforts, so be it." He adds in a tone that perhaps suggests 'Perhaps the question should be, are you willing to stumble through this darkness with me?' as his hand reaches out for the button.

[Naquadah]

Logan hears the door and lockers open twice as he's in the shower, and then the noise of other shower stalls starting before someone with a British accent starts talking. "Have you seen one? A successful Evangelion-scale mission, I mean," Logan calls from a nearby stall. "If you want to discuss disasters, look at the footage the first time that Angel appeared. That was the disaster, with double the number of players on the ice to boot. In our case, well, nice hat-trick with your gun."

Logan relaxes in the warm water, scrubbing at his scalp. "Pleasant to meet you by the way, Pilot of Unit Fifteen. And since 'Pilot' could really apply to four of us in a radius of approx fifty meters, plus crewmembers from however many VTOL and fixed-wing conventional support forces we have on-site, you should probably differentiate with alternative nomenclature. You can refer to me as Logan."

[babel_matrix]

Men's Locker Room, Central Dogma, NERV-00

As the other two pilots shower, (hopefully in their separate stalls,) Nasr looks over the memorandum attached to the device.

"To the Pilot of Evangelion Unit-16,

This device was delivered to NERV-00 prior to the battle with instructions from Doctor Eisenhower, Leader of the Science Team on the U.N.S.S. Archimedes through one of his team members in Tokyo-2; the associate, Doctor Tokudaiji Yoshida, showed his credentials and the approval was wired to us from the Archimedes. Any and all information recorded or written in this device is subject to..."

The legal labyrinth put to print for most of the rest of the page is rather droll for anyone who has worked within the U.N. or NERV before, save for the final line on the document.

"The doctor claims the password is the date of the first day you were loaded into Unit 16's entry plug; records show that to be ▓▓▓▓▓▓ ▓▓, ▓▓▓▓, but this password was not accepted in any combination.

Again, please report any discrepancies or confidential data inside this device, should you gain access to it.

Sincerely,
Kenka El-Hashem
Chief Operations Officer of Section-2"

[babel_matrix]

Elevator, Central Dogma, NERV-00

The elevator doors close before the two men, and the lift rises to take them to their pilots. Worthe weighs the Colonel's words, and concludes with a grin. "Well, as we're working in an organization with a history of being bent on using variably dysfunctional Children, I have to wonder how far any of us are going to get on our own. I say we turn on the lights, hmm?" The man seems off-balance, flippant, even irrational; the prestige of being the Chief Scientist at NERV was melting before his sudden shift in mood. One wanted to believe it was an act, so long as that one was anyone who didn't want to believe that an unmedicated, bipolar insomniac could be put in charge of something this critical to the existence of the human race.

Yet, as Johann watched, he could only be certain that this is the very real Robert J. Worthe. "In any event, Joh, I'm only bumming this ride with you to get away from that lackluster team back there... besides a few key officers, I'd say the lot of them were almost worthless." He presses another button on the elevator just two floors beneath the alleged location of the locker rooms, if the confusing array of directions in the base were any indication. Worthe is clearly intent on going somewhere else.

[Whiskeyjack]

"Heh," Nasr smiles softly as he enters the correct passcode, a combination of numbers that would definitely horrify anyone familiar with the pilot training program or the Evangelion program as a whole. He reads the first document slowly, and re-reads it twice again, ignoring the pilot of Unit-15 when he enters. After a few minutes, Nasr smiles fondly, powers the device off and puts it back in his locker.

Noting that the two other male pilots are currently in the shower stalls and talking about something assuredly inane, Nasr quickly strips in the locker area and wraps a pair of towels around himself, hurrying to the shower area and exhaling loudly with relief when he realizes they do have separate stalls. He picks one as far from the other two pilots as possible, turns the water on, and slips in under the hot water.

[Astro_sol]

"...I think it's pleased to meet you, dude. Logan." He'd stick with the name, at least. He'd done well in the battle. "Ah, well. I did watch the battle; I had all the available files to read on the way here. It was pretty gruesome, I'll give it that, but we would have won then, too."

He did beam at the compliment. It was deserved; he'd done his job. "You did well, too. If it weren't for you and my sharpshooting, as opposed to whoever piloted Unit 02, that Nasrwhatever would've gotten creamed. Although everyone went a little crazy at the end, which made it all work out. Somehow." He finished scrubbing at that and turned the shower off, getting out to head to his locker, intent on reaching the letter and seeing what was inside.

[Lothmar]

"If we are trecking territory man has not been, then we will have to bring such light with us..." Johann adds with a serious tone that doubted they possessed such a light.

'One wonders how brightly or how long this candle of hope will shine in this gale of despair.'

"We can likely pick and choose whom to keep though it might take some convincing, I doubt the others will want to stay after what happend... So if you have any candidates for staff in mind, i'd keep it under consideration in case they ask."

'I wonder if they actually intend to reinstate this facility in its current condition. We shall see I suppose.' Johann thinks to himself as the door opens.

"Have fun doctor and be careful." He adds closing his eyes and waving goodbye as the doors close. He walks through the hallways only occassionally opening his eyes partially as he walks if he feels the need to confirm his location as he takes in his surrondings as he listens to the sounds in the background of heavy machinery and the argument and anger of the various work crews as they assessed the damage. He paused outside and looked over to the sign for the locker room deciding to give them some privacy for now as he stands leaning against the wall as he casually thumbs through some files on his tablet but keeps his eyes closed for the most part as he casually listens to the surrondings.

[Whiskeyjack]

“Creamed? Hah!” Comes a noise from another stall.

“I got as creamed I did because I was the first one to it and the first one to smash its A.T. Field. What would have gotten me more more creamed was if you kept refusing to actually put your Field to use. The German made one good call at least today having you do that. Your shooting wasn’t bad, I’ll admit,” he adds. “You missed less than Two did after all, and you never came close to bisecting my Eva with a beam rifle shot. And you both did alright, though I’m assuming you’ve logged minimal A-Type simulation hours? Those’ve always been my favorite, and she performed better than I'd ever imagined under gravity.”

[Astro_sol]

Theodore paused as he began to open the letter.

"Minimal hours? Psh. It wasn't my favorite, but I've done my fair share of each simulation. My favorite was Macross Missile Massacre. My top survival time is 3 minutes 23 seconds. It turns out it's kind of difficult to dodge an infinitely spawning swarm of guided explosives." He smiled as he reminisced.

"Oh, and Nasrwhatever, I'll be keeping a limb count. You're last on the board, what with your missing right hand. Good show."

[Naquadah]

Logan doesn't answer the comment on idiom. “I performed the task assigned to my designated role and the specialization of my Evangelion,” he says, still under the water.

“I’m unsure if we could have won before. When last I viewed the files, I did not have any data on NERV’s remaining Evangelion units or pilot capabilities. Certainly the Eva Series did not utilize their A.T. Fields as effectively as we did, despite both the delay in fully nullifying the Angel’s phase space and the Massed Produced Series’ superior melee weaponry. Despite the odds, we did win. In the words of Jacques Plante, I think the experience could be summed up thusly: ‘How would you like a job where, every time you make a mistake, a big red light goes on and 18,000 people boo?’ Except I suppose, in this case, there would be nobody left to boo, and that’s a shame in and of itself. Anybody else ready for dinner?”

[Whiskeyjack]

"So if you don't want to learn that my name is Nasr, I spose I should call you 'little British prig,' huh?" Nasr snorts, only half-joking. "And I'd like to see you make that knife hit with the wrong hand while your brain's yelling that you're maimed. I guess they have a simulation module for that, right? And I consider myself first on the board. First to arrive, first to smash its Field with our own, first to hit--even if that monster deflected it, heh. What's a hand, they'll replace it. 'No guts, no glory,' that's what the Americans say."

There's a splashing noise from Nasr's stall and water starts to run out from under the curtain. "Anyway I wonder if we're going to be stationed here. I certainly wouldn't trust those elevators if we all had to launch from here. It's not like there's still a city to protect up there. Hakane's breathed her last."

[Astro_sol]

"That's "Successful Little British Sprig" to you." Theodore cracked a grin. "Nasr it is, then. And I seriously doubt it," he continued, addressing Nasr's last though. "This city's screwed. That's some serious battle damage; if I were defending this place, well, I wouldn't. Too hefty of a repair bill." He finally tore open the letter.

After reading the contents, he quickly ate it. The fact that it had that name on it...he couldn't afford to let anyone see it. He quickly got dressed in the given NERV attire. "Alright, you tossers. I'm off for debriefing."

[Naquadah]

Logan gets out of the shower and walks to the lockers, dripping naked and casually drying himself, not trying very hard to be modest. He watches Theodore read the letter, opens his locker after basically dropping his towel to the side, and pulls the suitcase and clothes out.

Still completely naked, he pops the suitcase latches and peeks inside.

[AkaiNeko]

Being in the Evangelion was something Sana found she enjoyed immensely.

Getting out of it was not. F***ing Christ, she had almost forgotten just how much fun purging LCL could be.

Everything hurt. She couldn't see straight, her vision swimming and blurring. She felt cold and sore and she was pretty sure she had a migraine coming on. And she felt....weak, and uncertain. Which really was not something she liked feeling. Her stomach turned once more as she steadied herself against Unit-02; she took a deep breath and straitened, VERY carefully, and began to work her unsteady way to the locker room.

Fortunately, NERV locker rooms, in her experience, were all more-or-less the same, so when she finally got there, now with the itch of dried LCL added to her list of woes, she had relatively little trouble finding her increasingly tortuous way around. To the toilet, specifically, where she knelt and vomited once more before crawling to the shower. She turned on the water as hot as it went to clear her head, before fiddling with it to bring the temperature to something more manageable. Then she just lay there for a minute, letting her muscles relax and her head stop pounding and her stomach calm and her eyes stop aching and....

....she shifted her concentration to the conversation drifting over from the boy's side, before working her way to a sitting position and stripping off her plug suit. Then she sat there some more. The temperature was just right.

[Naquadah]

"Oh, how predictably lovely," Logan murmurs, looking up at Theodore. "And...that's just awkward. I knew it was time for dinner," he murmurs, turning back to looking inside the case and seemingly unaware of the social awkwardness of his own nudity. Logan's eyes crinkle slightly at the meds, but the other contents more than make up for it. "Preseason right now, Maple Leafs playing in two days, no, tomorrow given the time and date change," he allows himself a small smile.

[babel_matrix]

Virtual Conference Room #2, Central Dogma, NERV-00

The projectors came alive, and the sole obelisk of SEELE-01 manifested before Kyoko. She stood in the center of the room as she had less than two days ago, when she was given her post, when her survival was still unsure. Now, with an Angel under her belt, with the project and operations of NERV salvaged, she could hold her head up to the unknown voice with real confidence. "Our mission has been completed; the results and data should have arrived in the virtual dead-drops specified at least two minutes ago. The Angel's remains are being salvaged now, though the MAGI indicate that it will take at least thirty minutes for the rest of it to fall to the Earth. Were the results of this operation to your satisfaction?"

SEELE-01 did not answer. Instead, the voice of SEELE-02's interpreter filled the room, the new pillar manifesting to Tanaka's right. "You performed within the parameters, Commander Tanaka... as did the pilots, though I suspect these transcripts of their communications are only a hint at how... challenging their cohesion will prove in future operations."

SEELE-11 interrupted, far less cynical-sounding than in their first meeting. "The performance of this Operations Director was admirable, if unconventional. Did you have no opposition to his proposition regarding the use of A-Type equipment?"

"Colonel Fhittz had come to a similar conclusion as my own regarding letting the Angel regenerate fully. Given how little we knew of the Angel, and the potential risk of facing it in the same scenario with less units, the choice was obvious." Tanaka reported to them all with a stiff pose, never moving her head to address a pillar or stare at anything aside from SEELE-01. "Given the diversity of the Angel's capabilities, hindsight shows that it was the only real choice for victory... and the least costly."

"We will deal with the financial backlash of the continuing operations of NERV," SEELE-01 finally spoke. "The important issue now, Commander Tanaka, is this: your official promotion to your presently temporary position, which we have approved, and your continued watch over our assets."

Tanaka nodded, having no reason to smile. Yet. "Given this promotion, I must now formally request access to the white-grade-classified files of the former Commander, Gendo Ikari."

A furious line of Cantonese muttered in through SEELE-02's microphone. "Please, Tanaka, do not feign ignorance before us! You know of the Human Instrumentality Project... and we've already checked your summary of its parameters, and every other secret you've ripped from our bosoms and hidden away in what you presumed to be secure servers." Her eyes widened at this. "Yes, but we can appreciate how... thorough you were in your spying. After all, Ikari's betrayal might have led all humanity astray had you not proven so... curious."

"More truthfully, you already know everything you would have to know to ensure this project's success. The tools beneath Terminal Dogma are secure, but they cannot remain in the ruins of NERV-00; you know what is at stake, and how vulnerable they are now. We require that the children of Adam, those who ate the Fruit of Life, no longer stand in the way of our escape from stagnat--" SEELE-01 entered into a brief coughing fit while Tanaka regained her composure. "You have command of NERV, Tanaka, but we shall be the ones to command the destiny of mankind. We shall shape our salvation, and our covenant with Lilith will be completed... in time... but you will not, and can not take Gendo's opportunity for betrayal."

"As you know, the bell that hung around Gendo's neck ceased to ring at the most critical of times," SEELE-11 described, that dark mood slipping into her words until they became blatant threats. "... but the one hung on yours will never fail us. Nor shall you ever find it."

"Indeed. For the remainder of your tenure as Commander of NERV, you will be operating with a larger margin of autonomy, not dissimilar from the one that allowed Ikari to keep the operation running smoothly. You shall focus on securing our victory against the Angels, while we ensure that the pests in the United Nations do not turn on our salvation."

"I trust you will perform adequately, Tanaka?"

"I shall."

"Be sure that you do... or else that bell about your neck will become your noose."

"Congratulations on your promotion, Commander Tanaka. Do not disappoint us."

The pillars vanished, and the lights came up to reveal the segmented green walls that surrounded her.

[Whiskeyjack]

Nasr sighs loudly as he hears Theodore splash away and his is the only shower still on. He lingers for several minutes, scrubbing under the hot water, eyes returning again and again to his right hand and how it feels. I can't see how it's necessary for us to feel that stuff, he thinks sourly, but then again I'm not a tech.

After a few more minutes, Nasr turns off the water and spends some time in the closed stall furiously drying himself and wrapping up in no less than three towels. He walks to the lockers, still coming down from the battle high. He opens his eyes...to be confronted with a still-naked Logan fiddling with something in a suitcase.

After a moment of shocked silence, Nasr screams. "What's wrong with you?! Put some clothes on!" Nasr grabs for his own NERV-issued outfit and covers his face with it, backing up and trying to find some privacy.

[Naquadah]

"Hm? What?" Logan looks up from the collection of pills to see--an Arabic mummy? No, that's not a thing, he has to remind himself.

"Oh, Pilot of Sixteen. Nasr, correct? If my conversation with Unit Fifteen's pilot was inaudible or you were not present, you may call me Logan." He extends a hand to shake and when Nasr continues to freak out, Logan simply blinks and glances down at himself. Nope, everything's normal, still naked.

"Is there a problem, Pilot?" he asks as Nasr backs away with his clothes in hand and quickly moves behind another partition to change. Logan shrugs, takes a single pill from one of the bottles in the case, swallowing it without water and latching up the case. Then he casually dresses and moves towards the exit. "You know, inappropriate emotional response is symptomatic of exhaustion and low blood glucose, among other psychological, physiological, and physiopsychological disorders..." he warns before exiting the locker room. Given statistics for world cuisine quality, the food here at NERV-00 should be in the top two percent of food available to military or paramilitary bases worldwide...of course, there's likely an eighty-seven-percent reduction in quality given current infrastructural damage to this base. Probably another night of MREs.

[AkaiNeko]

Sana listened to the exchange with bleary amusement, and waited for the cacophony typical of epic locker room miscommunications to subside. Hearing someone leave and the panicked flailing finally cease, she called out "Hey, who's over there? The hell was that all about?"

In the meantime, she slowly rinsed herself off in the shower, trying to work the kinks out of her muscles. The pounding in her head was starting to subside, and she could stand more steadily. Then she reluctantly turned off the water and dried, finally heading to the locker with her name taped to it.

[Lothmar]

Johanns eyes were open casually as he examines an email and closes it and the device as he hears someone inside coming to the door. "Hello." he adds casually to Theodore as he exits the locker room. He pauses before continuing with a look that says 'you might want to move' as he hears Logan approaching the exit and does not want one to run into the other.

"Congratulations on a successful operation." He adds to both of them in a friendly upbeat manner as Logan opens the door. "I thought i'd come down to thank you for your hard work and introduce myself in case we work together in the future." This being a temporary assignment for many of them. "Colonel Johann Fhittz, pleasure to meet you." He will shake hands if they are presented or return a salute with a slightly amused tone before telling them 'at ease'.

[Astro_sol]

Theodore recognized Fhittz's face the moment he stepped out of the locker room. He nearly dropped his belongings as he pulled himself into a crisp salute.

"Sir, Sergeant Theodore Cartwright, pilot of Evangelion Unit 15, reporting, sir!" At the at ease from the Colonel, he dropped into a more comfortable stance. "I think things could have gone better, but I think jet-equipped units facing the target was an excellent move, sir." After all, his superior had nothing at fault. The operation was successful; the only reason it could have failed was due to the others screwing up. Surely he wouldn't.

[Whiskeyjack]

{Arabic} "What is your problem?! Not everyone just wants to see...that! Just...there! Gah!" Nasr quickly dresses himself in the NERV attire, not even noticing that Logan is gone.

{English} Who? What?! Th-the pilot of Fourteen was just-just-just standing around naked all over the place and just looking at people like they were crazy! It was actually crazy! Wait. Who's that? Is that the pilot of Unit Two?" He pauses a moment. "Wait. The female locker room---you mean women can see and hear us in the showers?! What kind of hellhole is this country!I'll-I'll talk to you when you're decent!"

With that, Nasr rushes out of the locker room, tablet in hand.

[Naquadah]

"Oh," Logan says as he exits, straightening and offering a salute, although he doesn't catch any of Theodore's gushing over Johann. "Sergeant Logan Yates, designated...hm, ninety-eight percent chance that's in the file. Please disregard."

Logan frowns slightly. "Temporary? Hm. I suppose NERV must have more spare Eva pilots, or more relatively-ineffectual mass-produced Units, plus whatever biomass was recovered from those that engaged the Eighteenth Angel. Although one-hundred percent chance that all assignments are 'temporary' in an absolute sense." He inclines his head.

[AkaiNeko]

"What? No, uh, I can't-" Sana trailed off as who she decided to assume for the moment was the pilot of Unit-16....ran screaming from the room in abject terror. Then she blinked a few times, and her headache slammed back into her with full force. What. The. Hell.

Well, now she had confirmed he spoke Arabic - it had been a little fuzzy back in the Evas - and hated "indecency". So that was something. Maybe he was gay....? No, he reacted like that to Logan, too; some kind of royalty from down south seemed more likely....she shrugged, rubbed her head, winced, and turned back to her locker.

She quickly pulled on the new clothes, relieved to see they were normal and comfortable rather than some dressy uniform. She pulled her jacket out of her backpack and put it on over that. Then she looked curiously at the fine wooden box; she didn't recognize it, and her instincts took time off from fighting of the migraine to yell at her about IEDs. But that was stupid here in the middle of NERV, so she opened it. And stared for a moment before breaking out in a smile; her head actually stopped aching. This had to be from Katharina; how had she managed that? As she closed the box and carefully stuffed it into her backpack, wrapped in her other clothes, her head started hurting again; she made a note to put it to good use later. It would give her something nice and comfortable to concentrate on. Then she slung the bag over her shoulder and left the locker room.

[Lothmar]

"Dont worry, you're not the only one." Johann adds in light hearted tone in regards to the 'things could have gone better' statement.

Johann liked the cold clinical way Logan thought and it made him smirk for a moment. "It may be Logan but I think it's still courteous to introduce oneself to someone even if you have a foreknowledge of that person. Especially if you will be building a working relationship with them." He adds taking a few steps away from the doorway so they wouldn't clog the boys exit for when Nasr left in a few moments likely in the midst of his following dialogue.

"I say temporary because I doubt this post is going to remain and once we transfer everything to New Boston there is currently no guarantee that future operations will not be under the capable hands of the team at that facility." He adds keeping his hands behind his back as he turns back to them. "So until then, I intend to improve our functionality as a group by familiarizing ourselves with its members since we will still be a unit at least for the escort, if it is not in fact a permanent stationing. I wont schedule any activities until I learn more about the demands on our various schedules but expect to perform some activities tommorow."

With that he moves one hand into the air and points up. "A temporary barracks is being set up on the surface of the Geo front, I hope you like camping." He adds in slightly sarcastic tone but wouldn't be suprised if they were going to actually camp out in tents.

[Whiskeyjack]

Nasr bursts out of the locker room with an exasperated glance backwards and nearly runs into Logan, stumbling against him, and logan's heavy suitcase swings back and clocks Nasr in the knee. Nasr grabs at his knee and hisses, "Why in all the hells are you just standing outside the door like..." He trails off when he sees Johann, swallows hard then straightens, clips his heels together briskly and salutes. "Master Sergeant Nasr Abd al-Aziz ibn Abbas al-Rashid Al Saud, reporting, sir." There's an edge to his voice suggesting irritation not just with Logan but this entire awkward situation.

"I'll have my after-action report on your desk by 0530." He looks around for a sign to the mess, then notices the other pilots are still just hanging around and it dawns on him that he's stuck literally right here for a bit. "So, uh, Colonel. Do you know if the recovery teams ever found her hand - that is to say, Sixteen's? I tried to catch up with it on the way down but never picked it up on my sensors. Didn't have the battery life to go hunting for it either."

[babel_matrix]

Meanwhile, Out in the Geo-Front

The recovery team stood by as they awaited the cranes and truck being prepared for the recover of Unit Sixteen's hand. The great blue fingers, partially chewed away at the knuckles, had leaked several gallons of Evangelion blood into the once-beautiful, once-very brand new all-black sedan. It seemed that, against all chance or reason, it had survived the JSSDF attack with little more than a bit of soot and ash on its hull.

The stratosphere-dropped backhand from Nasr, on the other hand, was not so easily evaded. The two heads of the team looked upon the crushed heap that was once the beautiful vehicle, perhaps the pride and joy, of the former Section-2 chief who was now their Commander. Neither spoke for a period, taking a long moment to come to the inevitable assessment.

"<So, are you going to tell her?>"

"<Nope.>"

[Naquadah]

"Camping in the GeoFront." Logan thinks a moment. "Average temperature this time of year is between two and fourteen degrees. We had neg sixty twelve days ago at my previous base. Ergo, camping sounds lovely." He shrugs.

And I should be able to get a clear satellite feed up there at least.

Then a thought occurs to him. "How long do you estimate until we evacuate this base, Colonel?"

[Lothmar]

"Good to hear." the colonel adds in reply to Nasr's statement on fileing his report. He makes a mental note when he hears 'her' but shows no sign of this on his face. "We had enough support crews to catch and carry a whole evangelion at a time. Since you all landed safely and no equipment was lost, I think it will be recovered in a fairly expedient fashion." Whether or not it can actually be reattached or if it would be easier or quicker to make a new one was uncertain.

"In approximately fourty eight hours." He replies to Logan.

[Whiskeyjack]

"Forty-eight...when is the briefing on ev--sorry for jumping the gun, sir," Nasr says quickly, straightening again. "I was just thinking how long it takes for an Eva's load-out to be changed, in case we'll be needing to put in equipment requisition forms if the Evas will be on active duty escorting the evacuees to...wherever." He grimaces. "After all, when Unit Two was originally sent here from Germany, it got attacked by an Angel at sea. If we're shipping four Eva Units, spare gear, personnel, everything to a new base outside of Japan...I'd be worried about more than just Angels trying to pick at the low-hanging fruit."

And then his stomach rumbles.

[AkaiNeko]

Sana came around the corner in time to hear the colonel's news; part of it nagged at her. She threw a quick salute and asked, "So, we don't know if this is a temporary assignment or not, yet, sir?"

Fortunately, on the off chance he hadn't been joking, camping was not a new experience for her. She frowned slightly in sympathy at Nasr's stomach growl; hunger often caused, or exacerbated, headaches in her experience. And of course the comments about Unit-02 reminded her: She was an outsider here, only called in because of her Synch Ratio with a damaged Evangelion who's true pilot had been....well, something had happened to them. The others had knowledge that she didn't, even about her own (temporary?) Evangelion. A small sigh. Great. She missed her unit already.

[Lothmar]

"Ah, excellent timing." Johann adds as Sana appears at the hallway intersection and chimes in following the grumble of Nasr's stomache. "Follow me, we can talk on the way." He adds heading back towards the lift that he came down on.

"I'll answer Nasr first. I doubt we'll have time to refitt or repair the Eva's before shipping but in case they tell me otherwise, consider what you'd like in case I ask for your opinion. Sana aside, you all likely have decent time logged with your individual units and can likely provide insight into things I hadn't considered as the information I've had till this point on you and them was limited to say the least." He adds ever so casually as if to confirm 'hell yeah they let me run that show with only the slightest idea of who and what I was working with'.

"As for the possibility of attack, that's why I intend to transport you with them in case we run into a problem the UN fleets cant handle. And while I would not openly admit to condoning such an action, the type A equipment would be useful if we were forced to play hop scotch with the UN fleet like unit two did in that very engagement you are referencing. Or engage a somewhat distant enemy fleet in close quarters, to which I will condone such behavior." He adds with a smirk pressing the door button.

"That is correct Sana. Currently I have not been provided data on whether or not new Bostons nerv facility has a full compliment of Evangelions or pilots or an operations director for that matter. If they do, then we are likely simply the escorts and we will go our seperate ways. If not, then some or all of us might end up stationed at Nerv one indefinetly." He adds as the doors open and steps inside holding the door until all are aboard.

[Astro_sol]

Theodore snorted. "They need Evangelions, and for that they need the best pilots. So I, for one, am at least okay." He probably should have felt bad for being excited at the prospect of facing more destructive creatures than the last one, but he was simply too thrilled to finally have a chance to pilot.

[Naquadah]

"Careful, Pilot. Sorry about the case, it can't be helped," Logan says to Nasr. "Seems we are having our debriefing right here for now." Logan just rolls his eyes at Theo and then notices Sana is here.

"The pilot of Unit Two," he says. It's not a question. "Excellent shooting out there, all things considered," he adds.

Logan looks over to Johann. "Colonel, is the mess operational? I estimate most of us have suboptimal blood glucose levels given projected transit time to the combat zone the past twenty-four hours." He presses the elevator button again.

[AkaiNeko]

Theodore's comment made Sana's head pound even harder, and it took everything she had not to say anything. Or throw something at him. She instead nodded and smiled at Logan, easily recognizing the voice and demeanor. "Thanks. And you're the pilot of Unit-14, right? Good flying up there. And thanks again for the data feed." She held out the hand that wasn't massaging a temple. "I'm Sana. Sana Hosseini."

[babel_matrix]

The elevator doors open at last, and the Colonel escorts the four Children up to the barely-functioning mess hall, closer to the surface. Beneath them, the wounded Evangelions find themselves under rudimentary repair analysis and purity tests to expunge the Angelic blood. Above them, the first tents are made with materials received, in the best faith they could conjure, from the JSSDF that had ravaged the facility days before. The letters were going out, electronically and, slowly, by paper: NERV's primary operation would be moving, and almost everyone in NERV-00 was fired.

The news was spreading like wildfire amongst the survivors: retirement for many of them, hugs and words of joy could be seen in men and women never before so happy to get canned. Enthusiastic calls and cheers could occasionally be heard from beneath the hoods of the clean-up crewmembers working a mile to the west, where they cleansed the marshes formed by scorched soil and soot that made vermilion mud. In truth, it might take them many days after the departure of the Evangelions to clean up every bit of the thinly-spread Angel ichor. Still, even they were happy to be away from betrayal, from gunfire and the deaths of so many of their co-workers.

Maya Ibuki, in the medical tent in an attempt to finally get sleep after almost 48 hours of operation without rest, strained her eyes to read the text of the missive handed to her:

MAYA IBUKI: RELOCATION TO NERV-00 RUSHED AND APPROVED BY CHIEF SCIENTIST ROBERT J. WORTHE. PROMOTION REQUEST SUBMITTED AND APPROVED BY COMMANDER TANAKA ON DR. WORTHE'S RECOMMENDATION. AWARD CEREMONY WILL BE DELAYED UNTIL OPERATIONS ALLOWS. CONGRATULATIONS.

The now-Captain Ibuki would not be the only jaded transfer that day.

The Vindicator, U.N. Fleet Exodus, United Kingdom Waters

The waters were turbulent, shoving harshly against the impressive hull of the Vindicator, the largest super-carrier made in human history, and specifically built to answer the unusual problem of carrying multiple Evangelion units across the sea, a problem barely managed by EVA-02 on its transfer out of Germany.

Also, as hindsight shows, a huge waste of funds given the inevitable preference of flight as the mode of transportation for these weapons. Had it not been for NERV-00's need, the ship's captain would have continued being in charge of a ship that would see no time at sea, with a crew of bored engineers, whining pilots and stir-crazy marines, and a career in an official dead-end. Instead, Rear Admiral Paul Jenkins found himself ordering about engineers, demanding drilling for the marines and asking the pilots to be ever so slightly less useless in a carrier with only four VTOL aircraft.

The crew had recently seen many changes, and several engineers were fresh on the boat for the first time. One such engineer worked tirelessly in the bunks, carefully peering to and fro to make sure no one saw the device being prepared, or the silenced gun beside it. It was the fifth device of its kind, the other four already stowed away in the nooks and crannies of the ship. The blasts might take them all, but that mattered not: this agent worked for a higher calling than simple preservation of life, of sinners and the single martyr willing to serve a higher power.

The prophecy had come true: God's angels continued to descend from Heaven! All that remained was to be rid of the devil's servants, the agents of Satan that challenged God's messengers and tried to delay the Rapture, the coming of Christ in all his glory. This would be the moment of truth, when the Evangelions, and the pilots who did Lucifer's work, would meet their end.

The call went out: they were launching in five hours to rendezvous with what remained of the United Nations fleet after being ravaged in several conflicts with Angels. The work on the fifth bomb was completed, and all that remained was the right moment, the perfect distraction, the divine strike of righteous fury. A golden cross, with feathered wings replacing the horizontal beam, hung from the infiltrator's neck.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/39147041/AdEva%20Pictures/EndCard.jpg

[babel_matrix]

January 17, 2016, 0420 Hours

Geo-Front, NERV-00, Japan

The morning sun had not yet made its appearance proper, instead dimly painting the sky to signify its approach. The call of the cicadas, a permanent feature of the perpetual summer of 21st-century Japan, permeates the above-ground base of operations. The last of the night's watch patrol the deployed fortifications, occasionally setting their eyes southward to the gaping hole in the Earth.

The main shaft of Central Dogma, normally closed and fortified by ten layers of armored doors, was now left completely exposed. A squadron of VTOLs would carefully lower themselves inside and, as the guards counted the minutes, would emerge fifty-seven minutes afterwards with an Evangelion in tow, locked onto one of the cage frames salvaged from below. The patchwork repairs implemented in the short time since the Angel attack could seen in every frame that arose, with EVA-16's maimed limb terminating in a blood-soaked, bandaged stump.

In his impromptu sleeping quarters/office, Johann conducts himself accordingly, his guidance for the VTOLs already outlined in the previous day. In a military tent divided in two to separate genders, activity could be heard: perhaps stirred by the VTOLs carrying away their Evangelions, perhaps for their own reasons and practices, three pilots were awakening to the delayed day of departure.

But no such stirring came to pass from the girl's side of the tent: Sana had been pulled into Central Dogma, per Worthe's instructions to Colonel Fhittz and Sana, for synchronization testing that would take most of the night.

Terminal Dogma, NERV-00, Japan

It stood before her, a metal grin permanently etched into its jaw. It was still locked to its cage, still bolted down by restraints that could resist any earthquake measured in human history and yet, somehow, it seemed to stand, to hold its head up high and stare at Sana, as if to tell her: I am here, only because I choose to be. It was, by all accounts, inactive except for this skulking feeling of dread that slipped into the heart after looking upon the horned monster.

It's cage still had traces of 21st century Bakelite on the walls and all about its feet restraints. Standing before it, EVA-02 balanced on the rails of the route to the launch pads and elevators, an umbilical trailing behind her. The path was normally reserved to send this beast to the surface, to battle Angels as she just had. Instead, their destination was to be the main shaft, where she had watched EVA-14 be the first to be extracted. Unlike the VTOLs, she would be going down.

Her mission was clear: deliver this Unit to Terminal Dogma, move it into a unique restraint system down below for transportation, and return. She had been chosen for being the only Evangelion without injuries, and without real exposure to the Angel and its hungry spawn. It was, according to her instructions, her chief qualification. She was expected to be more than capable of what ultimately amounted to an exercise in manual labor with an Evangelion.

She was also expected to keep this operation a secret from the other pilots, and everyone aside from the Commander and Chief Scientist, the only explanation given for the lie they told everyone else. They never bothered to mention that this would be the second time that these two Units went down the main shaft together, into the bowels of NERV.

The Chief Scientist's sleep-deprived mug exploded onto Sana's interface as she shared this moment with the first and only Evangelion Test Type, Unit-01. "The cage frame is about to be disengaged. You just need to drag it along the rails and, upon reaching the shaft elevator, carry it to the center. From there, await the VTOL drop of the restraints and the elevator lowering..." Worthe rubbed his eyes for a moment before continuing. "How are you feeling, Hosseini?"

[Astro_sol]

Theodore awoke first, the familiar sounds of VTOL engines making quite the effective alarm clock. He was adept at rising early, but his training had always called for getting proper sleep when possible, as it was necessary for maximum efficiency. He thought he caught a whiff of blood in the air, which made memories of the last battle flash before his eyes. The shrieks of the feather-things, the gnawing in his head and arms, the laser piercing his chest...

He was still clutching at his heart as he shook himself and steadied his breathing. No need for that.

"Oi," he said, nudging the two blokes next to him as he got to his feet. His blonde hair had fallen limply in front of his eyes. "Wake up, time to ship out."

[Whiskeyjack]

Nasr rolls awake with a grumbling noise at the lightest touch, shaking his right arm out of pins-and-needles and rubbing his eyes with his other hand. "Mmm...figures it's morning already, definitely not used to this natural day and night thing. Wh-VTOLs?" he tilts his head when he hears the noise. "Are they moving the Evas? Without us?" In a second he's on his feet, collecting his few things. "I'd have thought we'd be traveling hot-loaded again!"

[Naquadah]

Contrary to Theodore's belief, Logan is awake, just laying there quietly watching something on some kind of screen. When he's poked, his response is to throw a vicious elbow to the source of the annoyance, turning his head towards the enemy and...blinks, pulling the hit as he sees who it is. "I. Was. Awake," he says shortly, poking at whatever device he has. "And I have yet to receive orders from a designated commander-type unit. Ergo it is still personal time." Nevertheless he sits up, looking around.

[Astro_sol]

"Commander-type unit? Did you take drugs last night, or something?" he said to Logan, before turning to Nasr. "Of course they're moving them. Command can't have all of their assets in one place. If we were attacked, NERV would lose not only the Evangelions, but the pilots as well. They'd be screwed."

He'd been done packing. He honestly didn't have that much to pack.

[Naquadah]

Logan ignores Theodore; he simply locks up his suitcase and stands up, stripping off the undershirt he slept in. He peels the wrapper off of a high-protein ration bar and cracks open a small can of some kind of coffee drink, its strong and slightly sweet smell filling the small tent. Logan sips at the drink and nibbles at the bar as he undergoes a full stretch and flex routine. Once that is done, he finishes the snack, dresses in the same NERV clothes from the night before, picks up his suitcase and steps outside after tossing a long glance at Nasr.

[babel_matrix]

Geo-Front, NERV-00, Japan

Outside, the commotion is a low hum of metal cases clicking shut and the other tents being disassembled. The small colony of temporary abodes, wrapped around the main road that leads to the nearest entrance to the base proper, was beginning to melt as workers packed the equipment up.

Their journey home, and the journey to NAU for a select few, had finally begun.

A low-ranking officer marched up to the tent of the pilots, a clipboard in hand. A father with a child not much younger than the pilots within, he could imagine how successful he would be in waking his own son before five o'clock in the morning. Nasr's declaration, and Theodore's low voice, eased his parental sensitivities. The Japanese man stepped into the tent, taking inventory of the youths, and declaring his orders in flawed English. "Pilots Cartwright, Al Saud and Yates!" Presuming they do not interrupt him, he continues. "Please report to loading zone four at 0500 hours. You will receive further instructions on arrival."

[Whiskeyjack]

Nasr winces slightly as his name is read out. "Loading Zone Four, understood. Will breakfast be there?" After he gets an answer, he starts to collect his few belongings. Once the officer leaves, he says, "Well, my after-op report is filed." Nasr tosses a sidelong glance at Theodore and then Logan and shrugs. "If yours aren't, maybe you'll have time to do them on the trip if we're not going to be loaded in the plugs."

When no announcement is made to Sana, he steps out of the tent, turning to comment back to the other pilots, "I guess she got up early. Want to bet they're still trying to figure if she can cut it with Unit Two?"

[Astro_sol]

"I filed mine as soon as I had the time." It wasn't like he'd had anything better to do, trying to fall asleep the previous night. It was easier than easy to recount the events that had transpired against the angel feather-thing. At the comment of Sana, Theodore snorted. "Probably. She cut through at the end, but her accuracy under stress was subpar, especially compared to mine. Maybe next time they'll put me behind the Positron Cannon."

[Naquadah]

"I observed no critical errors in Pilot Hosseini's performance," Logan says evenly. "Shooting at a moving target kilometers above the earth, around allied units buzzing the target and the target's own swarm of spawn, factoring in water vapor and temperature refraction, horizon curvature, solar wind interference...utilizing a badly-damaged and unfamiliar Evangelion," he trails off. "Though certainly, Sergeant Cartwright, you should perhaps take the next turn with that rifle. I have no doubt you would perform admirably with that sort of assignment." Though Logan leaves unspoken the implications of long-range support of three teammates coordinating teamwork at close range.

He looks back through the tent flap as he steps out. "Shall we go?"

[Astro_sol]

The implications of the statement soared over Theodore's head. "Well, it's not as if she didn't have state of the art targeting computers calculating most of that for her. And most of that is simple math anyway." Well, it was for him, at least. Math was just following instructions, and Theodore memorized instructions. "But yeah, gimme sniper position, it'll make you guys feel useful maybe."

He nodded at Logan's last question, shoving out past him with his suitcase in tow. "Yeah, yeah, let's get out of here. This whole area smells like gunpowder." Which was good, but brought back too many memories.

[babel_matrix]

Geo-Front, NERV-00, Japan

The same officer marched across the camp, towards the command center. Turning the flap, and crestfallen to find that he was the only one given this absurdly early wake-up call, he made his rounds to the various tents, delivering the Commander's instructions regarding the early departure to the shore while they waited for the Vindicator to get in loading range. It was an almost schizophrenic deployment: the U.N. fleet would be arriving four hours ahead of time, and the Sub-Commander was scrambling to get everything loaded as quickly as possible... while most of Central Dogma was under a complete lockdown, evicting most of the command staff and leaving only Worthe's hand-picked team and the Commander's own retinue of guards and officers. How much would be left behind was above Kan's pay grade of knowledge. But he did know this:

Operations Director's Temporary Private Quarters
The Operations Director, whose tent the hapless officer now approached, was not amongst those chosen few. Kan cleared his throat before daring to interrupt, and potentially rouse, the Colonel within. "<Colonel Fhittz, sir? This is Second Lieutenant Kan, reporting on behalf of the Commander with revised orders and schedules, sir!>"

Loading Zone Four
The trucks were already being loaded with the auxiliary tents and the equipment the NERV workers had stowed away within their depths. The quarter mile of cables running from Central Dogma to the base was now being drawn into giant spindles, the entire process the most archaic, but sure-fire way to thwart wireless interception of the MAGI processes. Next to these trucks, the cooks were hard at work to feed a force of 200 officers and high-grade workers with food worthy of their positions as the defenders of humanity, survivors of betrayal and war.

As most had figured out on the first day of this sort of deployment, the cooks were a long ways from delivering that sort of stock. In their defense, the beige slop prepared for breakfast could convincingly taste like grits or mashed potatoes if one closed his or her eyes, and chewing the accompanying biscuit was both a necessity for sustenance and a fun challenge for those who valued their teeth.

There, waiting with the loading trucks meant for cargo, were the all-black troop transports that awaited two hundred men and women and the four Children that saved them all.

[Astro_sol]

Theodore exhaled sharply at the sight of food. The slop was actually palatable compared to some meal plans in his past. The Project had always required sustenance, not taste. The accompanying biscuit actually got him vocal.

"Holy ****! Hard tack!" He started gnawing on it with a contented expression, his eyes glazed over. "Hard taaaaaaaack."

After chewing on the bread for a bit, he perked up. "Hey, anyone know where those jet pilots are?" He'd been wondering, as the itches in his head had gone away. That and he'd remembered having assistance from those pilots. He would have won without them regardless, but they'd saved him some pain. "Someone thank them for me, they saved me some trouble with those feathers."

[Naquadah]

Logan blinks slowly, processing what he's seeing - the first time Fifteen's Pilot wasn't being a complete condescending jerk. Keeping his eyes on Theodore, Logan retrieves a small bowl of the protein slurry and a couple biscuits, dipping the latter into the former as he eats. "Ah, yes, it makes sense you would also have an emotional response to field rations," he finally notes, gnawing on the biscuit.

Not knowing the answer to the second question, he doesn't even address it, until--"Did you notice what the Angel did when the jets fired on it? I found it strange that the Angel tried to block the bombardment against it by raising its arms. Almost as if it expected its A.T. Field to appear and protect it from the conventional barrage, and acted as if it still could do that, but all it did was block some of the hits with its arms - ineffectually. Curious. Perhaps the Angel was not fully aware that it no longer had a projected Field, though how it would not know that is beyond my ability to speculate." He keeps eating, ruminating.

[Astro_sol]

"Dude, anyone would have an 'emotional response' if you had hard tack dipped in bacon grease. Or just plain hard tack for 8 years straight." He chewed thoughtfully. His eyebrows scrunched up further at Logan's words. "Dude, even if I had my shield up, I still dodge. If I had a shield, I'd block with it, too. Maybe it used its arms for the same reason." To be honest, he hadn't really thought about it, but he began dredging up more memories of the battle the previous day.

[Lothmar]

Johann exited the tent still fidgeting with the last button on his vest. <"Revised you say."> He adds in a matter of fact and not questioning tone. <"Very well, would you like to come in?"> He adds not knowing if he intends to just drop off information or debrief him in person.

[Naquadah]

"I am quite familiar with hard tack, mostly with elk sausage and maple syrup," Logan responds, scooping gruel out with the biscuit. "Good elk and moose hunting at my old base, even with the climate changes."

He thinks about Theodore's response. "Maybe. It does not quit mesh with the hypothetical mental processes of Angels that I have seen in science team modeling. Not that it matters much. Just curious." He looks at the black transports. "I suppose they air-lifted all the Evangelion out of the base already." Logan brushes his hands against each other and glances around and then at his watch. He plainly looks a bit exasperated and then looks back up at Theodore. "You are British are you not, Pilot Cartwright? Who's your team in the Premiers? Did you see the Bees pull it off last season?"

[Whiskeyjack]

Nasr can't help but wince slightly when he sees the food. {Arabic} "People actually live on this slop? Is it even halal? Archimedes at least had a proper cafeteria, though under the circumstances..."

He takes the food with a straight face and an acknowledging nod, sitting with the other pilots not because he particularly wants to, but because he knows nobody else here.

Nasr eats a spoonful of the gruel and coughs, swallowing hard and gulping water. He glares at the remaining food, quickly shoveling the gruel into his mouth and swallowing to avoid the taste. {English} "How long until dawn? I have to pray before we set out."

Nasr breaks up the biscuits into smaller chunks and quickly eats them with a dry mouth, listening in on the conversation of the other pilots about the angel. He snorts. "Who cares what it thinks? It doesn't want to get hit, it reacts, it figures out it can't react the way it wants to, but its arms aren't as important as its core and it can always regrow them, so it does what it has to. Cartwright has the right of it. Instinct. Like any other animal." He glances around. "Looks like we should be rolling out soon. I wonder if they already moved Unit Two or if they're still testing Hosseini in it down in the hole...I still think it's weird for them to move the Evas with no easy way for us to get to them if something happens." He checks his watch again.

"Hurry up and wait, huh. Every military is the same. Though I bet that German got to sleep in," he grumbles, chewing on another biscuit.

[babel_matrix]

Operations Director's Temporary Private Quarters

The officer salutes sharply in the same, tight form Fhittz would see back in Germany and, indeed, everywhere the U.N. dipped its fingers. "<Our schedule has been moved up by an estimated two-hundred and ten minutes, though the pilots and critical staff will be moving out in the next twenty, ahead of the rest of our forces. This includes all four Children, yourself, the three leading officers of the Technology, Communications and Evangelion teams and the Chief Scientist.>" From behind the papers on his clipboard, he produces a glass and metal sliver: another tablet, this one flowing with organization charts and contact information for the U.N. fleet. "<The Commander asked that you proceed without the Chief Scientist and the Ninth Child until they have finished their tests in Central Dogma.>"

[Lothmar]

The room feels strange, despite its termporary nature it does not carry any feeling of being used. What little there is, is neatly packed away or sorted, as if someone could pick up their life on a moments notice.

<"I see..."> Johann adds considering the situation for a moment.

'Sounds like the commander is doing something other then tests... Or perhaps she knows something and is holding back Unit two for some reason.' Johann thinks to himself, either was not very appealing to him but there was little he could do at this point besides keep vigilant.

<"Very well, I'll see the pilots aboard the vessel. You're dismissed."> Johann adds expressing his intent to escort the pilots before proceding towards their tented area and not finding them in their tent tries for the next most likely bodily need as he had no intention of checking the latrine.

[AkaiNeko]

Sana nodded in greeting, trying to ignore both the creepy vibes that seemed to roll off of the barely-restrained behemoth standing before her and the tiredness that she had yet to fully shake off - soldier or no, oddly uplifting feeling emanating from somewhere within her own behemoth or no, she still liked her sleep. "Feeling fine, sir." She stepped forward to grasp the cage and Unit-01 along with it; the intimidating aura did not diminish with the closer proximity. Though she usually preferred a knife, it was hard not to feel grateful for the reassuring weight of the enormous pneumatic hammer secured to Unit-02's weapon rack, and that of the spikes that had been loaded into its right "wing".

[babel_matrix]

Central Dogma

The restraint frame went along the path with ease, helped along by the portions of the rails that weren't disabled or damaged a week prior. EVA-01 offered no resistance, and remained as still as one might normally expect from an unmanned weapon. As EVA-02 backed away with it, stepping cautiously in the cavernous tunnel, Sana's readouts could see the elevator platform where she was meant to carry the bound monster.

"We're going to keep EVA-01 in the restraints for now. Just keep it steady as the elevator descends." A round, black plate of heavy metal, it didn't so much as budge at the arrival of EVA-02, who was now literally carrying EVA-01 by its bindings. The strain could be felt in Sana's own arms as the muscles of EVA-02 were put to task, carrying its own weight plus that of the innards of a proper EVA cage.

At last centered on the platform, the elevator began lurching downward. Above EVA-02's head, between it and the dot of blue sky that was so many floors above, a four-part hatch slid together and remained only barely open, allowing the umbilical cable to run down as EVA-02 was lowered in.

Terminal Dogma

Maya Ibuki's voice could be heard faintly through Worthe's microphone, still speaking in Japanese. "<Cutting standard optical feeds to the entry plug; switching EVA-02 to S.I.C.-only view mode.>" Shortly after whatever it was she said in this land's native tongue, Sana's view of EVA-01 and her surroundings became raw, multi-colored polygons. The level counters that were painted on the walls of the shaft, the deep scratches on the elevator floor, the paint job of EVA-01: all of it faded as it was all smoothed into matte colors. EVA-01's purple frame was only slightly diminished as a plain gray effigy of itself.

At Sana's surprise, or what Worthe reads as surprise, he mutters into the microphone while looking at a readout elsewhere. "Don't worry about the visuals, pilot: this is required for the operation at hand, and will be in effect until you leave Terminal Dogma." What little to no objection Sana might offer is interrupted by the shaft's wall opening up before Sana to a long hallway. The simplified view of the SIC system ignores whatever light or darkness might be at play here, and reveals an opening door at its end.

There, slowly revealed by unclenching hatches, lowering barricades and unscrewed bars, was a thin walkway in a stagnant sea of fluid the visual system painted a sky. The walkway, a matte black, would be just wide enough for EVA-02 to balance EVA-01 across its to get to the objects that rested at its end: two green halves of what looked like a giant coffin, big enough for the Angel they just defeated, and the red crucifix that was the centerpiece of this bizarre dome.

Upon the crucifix, the graphics of the SIC view mode seemed to pixelate and form errors, briefly forming the outline of a humanoid upon the cross. The errors were compensated for and vanished, leaving the cross seemingly blank, and unoccupied. There, viewable in a zoomed window to Sana's left, she could see that two bolts not unlike those loaded in her wing had already been nailed at the far ends of the arms of the crucifix. "Remove EVA-01 from the restraints and proceed with it to the containment unit, pilot." As he says this, the crucifix rotates horizontally, and the cables hanging from the top of the dome that carry all three parts of the device maneuver to lower the turning cross into the blue sea of unknown liquid, clearly too viscous to be water.

[Naquadah]

"Speaking of," Logan replies quietly as he sees Johann approaching. When he is close enough, Logan stands and gives a salute. "Good morning, Colonel. As can be readily observed, all pilots are present at the instructed staging area at the operational time and ready for deployment, with the exception of Pilot Hosseini." He glances at the transports. "Orders?"

[Astro_sol]

Theodore actually chuckled at Nasr's words, but stopped as soon as he saw the Colonel, snapping to attention with drilled instincts and saluting.

"Colonel, sir! Sergeant Cartwright, ready to ship out." It seemed silly, but he'd always been taught to show proper respect to his superiors. He didn't honestly expect a beating, but...

[AkaiNeko]

They were hiding something. Obviously - and not just from Sana, of course. No, she was a tool to hide whatever it was from....someone else.

She had been a little worried when they gave her such an odd time to run Synchronization Testing, but had quickly banished such thoughts - after all, she had reasoned, under the circumstances, she was lucky to be getting another test before they set sail. But then she had received her real orders after suiting up and launching. Still, she had hoped that it was just some sensitive bit of information management - maybe 01 had a nasty reputation among the other pilots? Or something? OK, terribly unlikely, but Sana tried to be optimistic - surely they wouldn't drag such a neophyte into something really serious, on a relative scale, right? Her luck couldn't possibly be that bad, right? Right?

And then they had blanked out her view, much to her annoyance. That was it, then. She was now dealing with something so secretive that they felt the need to make use of their least proven, least knowledgeable pilot in order to keep whatever it was under wraps. Oh God. Was it possible she was being used as some sort of sacrifice? Were they expecting something to go wrong, and thus sent in the pilot with the fewest resources pinned on them? Hell, was this even supposed to be happening, or was Worthe acting on his own? Who all knew she was down here? Worthe, obviously, and that had sounded like Lieutenant Ibuki....ok, maybe this wasn't that bad. She had a pretty good feeling about Ibuki - at the very least, she hadn't come off as someone who would easily throw a kid under the bus. She forced herself to remain calm.

The tension building in her gut very nearly reached a breaking point when she almost saw the thing on the cross in front of her. It was incredibly unnerving, knowing that something the size of an Evangelion and important, and therefore almost certainly dangerous, enough to be buried away in the heart of NERV-00 was RIGHT GODDAMNED IN FRONT OF HER and she COULDN'T EVEN SEE IT....

She silently thanked her old Commander for forcing her to perform combat drills while he set off explosives around her. It had done wonders for her nerves, once Katharina had finished beating him up for it and gotten her to relax afterwords. She nodded to Worthe, steeled herself and began to free Unit-01 from its restraints.

[Whiskeyjack]

Nasr looks up as the colonel approaches. He stands, not even trying to snap to attention like Cartwright; in fact, his salute is somewhat lazy and doesn't wait to be put at ease before he gets back to his breakfast. "So, what's the plan.....sir?" he asks around a mouthful of biscuit. Swallowing, Nasr offers a wide smile, his eyes gleaming in the stark light illuminating the area. "Or are you here to get briefed just the same as us and everyone else? Sir?"

Nasr takes another look around. "Hm, where's that girl? Do synch tests usually take this long for other people? Is Unit Two's pilot just going to meet us wherever we're going?" He frowns, annoyed that someone else may be getting preferential treatment.

[babel_matrix]

Terminal Dogma

EVA-01 was, without the restraints frame, far less cumbersome. With the discarded tools left on the elevator, and EVA-01 carried securely in her arms, Sana approached the giant cross. One of the halves of the coffin dipped into the water, and was carefully positioned just beyond the cross and underneath the viscous waves as if ready to scoop up the crucifix at a diagonal angle. The other half of the box, which now hung over EVA-02, mirrored this position.

As Sana reaches the now fully turned cross, with its bare side turned to face her, a U-shaped walkway comes up to disturb the surface, forming a bracket that let EVA-02 walk to either side of the giant, flat crucifix. With little ceremony, the cross is laid flat into the nitch formed by this makeshift dock. Whatever was on the other side of it, now facedown in the ocean of unknwon liquid, was now being drowned, if it was capable of drowning.

Worthe's face finally turns away from his feeds. As he speaks, small data nodes begin identifying materials all around Sana: the giant containment lid was apparently made of diverse layers of ballistic ceramics, titanium and treated fabrics, the last of which were the only ones Sana had never encountered or heard of before. The bridge they stood on was some hundred feet thick and made of layered metals that would never provide this sort of buoyancy without the support she could now scan under the waves. The liquid itself...

[REDACTED]

... was a mystery. The crucifix before her, even more disturbingly labeled than the liquid, simply read as "Unknown Substance" in plain, small text. "Hosseini, the orders I'm about to give you are going to sound very... unorthodox, but these orders must be followed to the letter to ensure proper containment of EVA-01." He pauses, as if she might suddenly have a change of heart at a time like this. "First, spread your A.T. field to maximum, as you were taught earlier. Then, lay EVA-01 with its arms extended along the arms of the containment device. Center its torso in the middle of the device and, once it is in place, install the first restraint bolt. This is done by puncturing its left hand and the containment device using the pneumatic hammer in a single, swift hit. The SIC system will guide you to ensure maximum penetration with the least loss of structural integrity in the containment device." Behind him, Maya simply grimaced at her monitors; it was otherworldly to hear the orders to crucify Unit-01 being read aloud like IKEA furniture assembly instructions.

[AkaiNeko]

....he wanted her to crucify Unit-01?

Sana dragged the other Evangelion onto the great crucifix.

Well, obviously that was what she was supposed to do - contextual evidence had led her to that conclusion well before he had actually said anything - but hearing it described like that just seemed....off, for some reason. Wrong. More important than that, though, was what the crucifixion implied. For starters, Sana was more-or-less agnostic. She had taken the word "Angel" pretty non-literally at first, and had yet to see any logical reason to stop doing so, their now deceased opponent's aesthetic similarities to classical representations of Heavenly beings notwithstanding. Surely God, or His Servant at any rate, could put up a better showing? But now? Here she was, in her giant cybernetic monstrosity, nailing another giant cybernetic monstrosity to a giant cross, deep under NERV-00. This was getting weird. Well, weirder. Much, much weirder.

She carefully guided Unit-02, holding the first nail in place. She took a deep breath to steady herself. Then she brought the hammer down.

Second, WHY IN THE HELL DID THEY FEEL THE NEED TO HAVE HER CRUCIFY UNIT-01? They already had a cage for it. The horrifyingly logical explanation was, in fact, something that she had guessed earlier: they expected it to move, and the cage wouldn't be enough to stop it. That was the most reasonable explanation for this method of restraint. At least it partially explained the "Unknown Substance" note. And the questions that it raised....not something she wanted to think about. She knew Evangelions were at least partially organic. Had this one obtained some sort of will of its own? Could that happen to her Evangelion? While she was in it? Or perhaps....its pilot had gone rogue? Both? Was this to ensure that that pilot couldn't return and make contact with their Evangelion? Or had they, like, merged somehow? They did call it "Synchronization", after all....this line of thinking was brushing uncomfortably close to other questions she already wanted answered....but no. No, nope, nuh-uh, no. Now was not the time for speculation in that direction.

She continued pounding nails into the still form below her. Even now it radiated a menacing strength, and she once again self-affirmed her guess as to the reasoning for this process.

And....there was still the....thing on the other side of the cross. What was it? Why was it here, and why was it restrained in this manner? Was it....dead? Drowning? And....wait. Neurons fired, making a connection that perhaps should have been obvious. Drowning. Breathing. An unusually viscous liquid, somehow related to Evangelions. The sudden realization was like a punch to the gut, if largely due to the implications: The liquid below her was very likely LCL. She was swimming in the stuff, she had swam in it before, for years now. And yet the sensors read [REDACTED]. If anything, that made her guess more likely; why bother hiding something she had no reason to recognize or remember? But at the same time, why in the hell would they want to hide the fact that this was LCL from her?

....because it meant that the thing on the cross, Evangelion Test Type Unit-01's new bunk mate, was alive. Right now, the LCL was being used to keep it breathing. Sana stood up - no, she stood Unit-02 up. She wanted to be out of here very badly.

[Lothmar]

Johann returned the salute to the pilots before him and silently nodded them at ease. "And a good morning to you as well." He takes in the various bits of conversation of the pilots and addresses them in a singular encompassing answer. If he doesn't like someone's attitude or response he does not make it apparent.

"We'll be moving out in aproximately fifteen minutes with certain key personell ahead of the rest of our forces," He says this in a flat tone that suggests it wasn't his idea and he might not even like it. "when you're finished im going to see you to the transports personally. We are to procede without Hosseini for the time being, we will likely see her again before we reach our destination though." As he says this he walks over to get himself some water, either a cup or a bottle if it's available.

[babel_matrix]

Terminal Dogma

The objective markers on Sana's HUD floated over the hands and biceps of EVA-01's arms, with its feet evidently to be left hanging freely. With a spray of blood and the rending of armor, the hammer drove each bolt through every point with undeniable force, crushing the limbs between the bolts and the crucifix. Throughout it all, despite the ever-present feeling that it would, Unit-01 did not stir. Its blood trickled into the sea beneath them wherever it did not drip from EVA-02's hands and hammer.

Only when the fourth bolt was in did Maya seem to let go of her breath. Worthe, by contrast, didn't seem the slightest bit phased, and at some point had found himself deeply interested in a monitor somewhere. "Very good, pilot. Return to the elevator; you're done here." EVA-02's pneumatic hammer slides into the weapon rack with ease, coating it in the blood of the bound EVA behind it.

As EVA-02 stepped aboard the elevator, careful to not crush its own umbilical, it turned about to be ready to enter its own cage once again. Just as the elevator began its slow crawl upwards, the sound of tearing steel pulls Sana's attention back to EVA-01, if it had ever left: Unit-01's mouth was opened, its maw opened wide as if in a silent scream. It did not move further, and let out no yell that might have been expected from such a visage... but if it were not for the lightless, matte visuals of Sana's entry plugs, she might have seen its eyes glowing white from the moment the first bolt bit its hand. Now, its gaze was turned directly to her. The halves of its coffin finally met, sealing the beast within.

Worthe's face was enlarged in a giant window that dominated the plug, a frustrated furrow resting on his brow as he spoke in a low, tense voice. "As you were briefed earlier, Hosseini: everything done and seen here today is of the top level of classification by orders of the Commander. Nothing shall be recorded, and nothing shall be reported except to her and myself."

The rest of Sana's time in the Dogma levels of NERV-00, the last time she would be here, ended on that note, with guards at every exit to guide her back to the surface base. Worthe followed both her progress out of Central Dogma and the progress of the moving crews throughout Terminal Dogma. With Lilith and EVA-01 securely hidden away, every specimen old and new was ready for transportation. He picked up the white phone in a nearby console that only called one number.

Temporary Base of Operations

Among the ashen wastes and ruins of the Geo-Front, the limousine Tanaka rode in was worse than out of place. It would be just as out of place for her to have simply taken her own car for her first trip outside Central and Terminal Dogma in the last week, a fact that did little to console her when she found it compressed flatly on the ground, both it and the ground around it vaguely in the shape of an Evangelion hand. The recovery teams would have Hell to pay for trying to get by without telling her about her prized vehicle's demise... Hell that would probably include forced relocation to NERV-01.

Her earpiece rang with a phone call. A simple brush of her hair, with her finger caressing the device's surface, answered it. "<EVA-01 has been locked down. No omega events were detected, but a beta event did occur that the Ninth Child was witness to.>" Worthe's Japanese was flawed, but the message was clear enough.

"<That should be acceptable. Beta events have been thrown across newspaper headlines in the past;hardly worth further attention.>" She looked to the driver before continuing; though it was difficult to see through his shades, she had been trained years ago to model a person's face with merely a profile glance. After confirming him to be one of her own, she continued. "<I'm going to be doing some PR work with our pilots, and our new Operations Director.>"

"<Then we're keeping Fhittz?>"

"<Yes. The recommendations from SEELE were certainly well-qualified... and clean.>" The base came into view, and soon the line of troop transports, and the dust that was still settling around them, filled her window. "<Too clean. The lot of them offered their resumes with disapproval for the handling of the battle after receiving declassified reports from SEELE.>" She smirked at the memory. "<That's nine U.N. colonels and a general on leashes I don't own barking at a plan that worked. Fhittz seems sharp enough to do work for us, and he's precisely what I need in such a position. What's the status on Adam?>"

"<Secured, but otherwise immune to isolation. I was in the surgery room for five hours with the surgeons as they attempted dismembering the host yesterday, this time risking the host's life with some rather unorthodox lines of amputation. The prognosis has not changed: Adam cannot be removed from its host, and they have a hereunto unknown symbiotic relationship with no discernible attributes, except the host's limited, yet extraordinary regenerative ability.>"

"<We will now designate the host itself as Adam, the First Angel. Follow the Delta plan and have the surgeons ready at any moment's notice to cut Adam back down to a manageable size for containment purposes. If needed, have them do it now before we go to sea.>"

"<Understood, Commander.>" The call cut off, and Tanaka was left watching Fhittz with the line of Children before him. She took a moment to wait in the sedan as she measured their poses.

[Astro_sol]

Theodore dropped the salute and returned to breakfast. Fifteen minutes til departure, and the pilot of Unit 02 wasn't coming?

"What could she be doing that's so important that they didn't need me?" he mused aloud. "I mean, I'm the one with the perfect shooting record. I bet I could take her in a fight, too." And she was probably involved in something using an Eva! Were they testing her in the plug again, maybe? Maybe he didn't need to be jealous. Maybe Hosseini sucked and Command wanted to make sure they had the right pilot.

[AkaiNeko]

Sana began to relax only after being lifted safely out of Terminal Dogma, her vision being restored to normal near the top. She began to breath easier, and her conspiranoia-fueled fantasies of an early and ignominious death started to peter out. In hindsight, it wasn't all that strange, really. At least in context. The Angel had been pretty Lovecraftian in its own way, and she herself was piloting a gigantic cyborg-thing that apparently had at least some of the powers of the Angel. NERV having another such being locked away in their basement was hardly an outlier.

And then she got out of the Entry Plug and the headache hit again and she stopped caring for a while. She blearily followed the security team to the locker room; once again, the shower helped somewhat. She got dressed, grabbed her backpack and followed the team out to a VTOL.

[Whiskeyjack]

Nasr, sitting out of Theodore's field of vision, dramatically rolls his eyes when the other boy speaks. "I'm done, they're done, can we please get on with it? Sir?" Nasr hopes that on the transport he can put on some headphones and read until it's time for salah...and he grimaces when he realizes he'll have to ritually purify and pray inside an APC.

Nasr clenches his fists for a few more seconds before he erupts from sitting into standing and blurts, "So, where did our Evas go anyway? And where are we even going?!"

[babel_matrix]

Temporary Base of Operations

The Colonel's apparent disinterest, and the apparent fretting of every Child, would have been amusing if they weren't the key tools to her survival. She had opened her door just as Nasr finished his outburst at the Colonel, who had found his desired bottle of water. Theodore had the grin of an eager recruit, and Logan seemed content to observe the racket.

Tanaka's business slacks, dress shirt and jacket might have been out of place on most other United Nations-sanctioned military bases, in particular for the Commander of the forces that surrounded her. Stepping out of the armored luxury sedan with black-gloved hands, she seemed more a hitman in an urban setting than the leader of their clandestine forces. She removed her sunglasses as she approached the group, her blue eyes clear and her blonde hair in a tight ponytail. To those with a trained soldier's eyes, she more stalked than sauntered towards them.

The Japanese woman approached with an emotionless mask stopping just a few feet short of their table before addressing them in flawless English. "Logan Yates. Theodore Cartwright. Nasr Abd al-Aziz ibn Abbas al-Rashid Al Saud." Perhaps to Nasr's surprise above all others, she pronounced it in full without error. "As you should have already been briefed, I am Kyoko Tanaka, the Commander of NERV." She started her gaze at Nasr, as if to answer his question to the Colonel, and slowly alternated between every pilot. "You are all being assigned to continued service in your tour with NERV as the sortied pilots of EVA Units 14, 15 and 16, respectively. You will perform this duty along with the Ninth Child, Sana Hosseini, sortied pilot of EVA Unit 02. You, and the Evangelion units, are going to board the Vindicator and will remain on passive alert for the entirety of the move to NERV-01, in New Boston. Temporary cages are being prepared onboard in the event that the Units must be activated at sea."

Returning her gaze to Nasr, she finishes. "Does that answer you question, Eighth Child?"

[Lothmar]

Johann took in a deep breath through the nose as he turned about with water in hand as if ready to deliver a possible retort but decides not to with a casual exhale as he sees the Commander approached. Johann perhaps had a momentary look while the commander was facing him that might have subtely suggested 'you want to act like a child, I will treat you as a child' as he watched the commander address Nasr.

He was torn on whether he found the commanders continued existance and works more useful or dangerous to his efforts and that gave him the slightest contemplation of shooting her (obviously not here though). However he had a feeling she felt the same, though he could easily see her feeling more secure in her position of supposed authority and having the advantage to easily tilt the field in her advantage if she ever needed to do so... And if she did, that would likely spell his end.

Though as she continued and began looking into his eyes Johann has a slightly amused look as if to say 'I couldn't have said it better myself' as she breaks down the situation. The way she worded it though perhaps made Johann feel a bit like an executioner... Unfortunately the executioner still has to look to the person in charge for the sign of approval before acting which made it a slightly less enjoyable prospect.

[babel_matrix]

YAGR-3B Close Air Support VTOL Aircraft "Gold Leader", NERV "Kubo" Airfield, Geo-Front

The guards that flanked Sana opened the last set of doors she would have to see of the dilapidated base behind her. There, with her eyes easily adjusting to the soft dawn of Japan, she saw the latest Heavy Fighter Jet-VTOL rolled out by the United Nations only weeks ago, its loading ramp facing her. Standing before it, his hands held behind his back, was an old man in an unfamiliar brown suit, and a plain blue gem that seemed to serve as a clasp just under his neck.

Though Sana had never seen him before, he was already offering something like a sad smile at her approach. He nods at the guards, who are dismissed with that motion alone, leaving them alone to walk into the VTOL craft. "Good morning, Hosseini." After a pause to gauge her response, he added, "I hope she didn't give you too much trouble?"

[Whiskeyjack]

"You're..." Nasr begins quietly as he's addressed by the strange Japanese woman. He can't help but wince as she says his full name - not because it's pronounced wrong--it isn't, for once--but because he's basically been completely outed to anyone who didn't really know who he is...or was. Or so he thinks, at any rate. Blue eyes on an Asian, and dyed hair...this must be...!

Nasr straightens. "Sir, yes sir, thank you, Commander, sir," he says crisply, having been taught to call superior officers 'sir' regardless of gender. That's strange, he thinks when noticing her demeanor. The sidearm is not really a surprise, and for a military commander, earwigs are and have been common for decades, but the care she's gone to in picking a covert model and going to further lengths to hide it makes Nasr wonder exactly why the NERV commander wants to hide the fact that she's wirelessly connected to someone else. It probably has to do with the evacuation, Nasr thinks, but something still feels off about it - why would the Commander be covert about overseeing the evacuation of her own facility?

"The...the Vindicator super-carrier? Pardon me for asking, sir, but what force would try to assault a UN super-carrier convoy at sea...aside from an Angel, of course? Sir, is NERV expecting a repeat of what happened to Unit Two en route to Japan?" he stammers, trying to process both the Commander's words and the things he's noticed about her. He tries to think about what he knows about Boston - wrecked in Second Impact, part of the old United States' huge rebuilding project in the wake of Impact, and a major city in the post-USA North American landscape following the merger of the US and Canada...a major eastern seaport, a jewel in the waves, or so he remembers the ads from the Internet.

[Naquadah]

Logan salutes the Commander. "Good morning, mum," he says formally, holding at attention.

Logan can't help but grin as their transfer is explained, and for a moment it's like he's a normal kid. "In the home of the Bruins, huh? Well, I'm more of a Maple Leafs fan myself. Even if I'm there, I'm going to be for the Canadiens in that rivalry. Not a Bruins fan at all. Even in old copy, I was always for Hartford in the Battle for New England. But I suppose there's better access than Japan."

Then something else occurs to him. The smile vanishes, the clinical analysis begins. "Commander, will the Evas be outfitted with either A-Type or C-Type equipment to preempt equipping for combat over the open sea, given the limitations of B-Type AMBAC efficacy and gyroscopic resistance when exposed to an external liquid friction-medium?" Logan thinks about the shipment of Unit-02 and how it was luck and expenditure of considerable conventional resources that prevented that Unit and two Pilots from being eaten by an aquatic Angel when tossed in the drink in B-Type equipment.

[Astro_sol]

Theodore squinted his eyes as the blonde lady approached. Blue eyes. Blonde hair, preferred in ponytail arrangement. Walked with purpose, on alert. This woman was trained. She was also Kyoko Tanaka, his superior here, and that was enough of a buzzword for him that he snapped to attention, although he hadn't stopped grinning. He remembered Dr. Hill's words.

"If this Tanaka, presuming she is of any real clout, presses you, you have to be ready. Are you ready, Theodore?”

"Aye, sir," he replied, partially to himself. Having the Evangelions at sea would leave them vulnerable, of course, but he didn't let it trouble him. Surely his personal skills would see him through no matter what happened. Besides, Nasr had the right of it; an attack at sea had happened before, but the Evangelion was able to fight it off, even with two pilots in the Entry Plug. "I have no real questions, aside from what all we can do to pass the time while staying on alert on the ship." Personally, he wanted to spend the time sparring with his fellow pilots. Maybe show them who was top dog. His hand at his side closed into a fist reflexively.

[babel_matrix]

Temporary Base of Operations

She was rather surprised by the barrage of questions. Tanaka weighed her words with Nasr, with little delay. "As you've stated, there are the Angels. None have ever come so close one after the other in the past, but I will not risk comfort until we're secured inside New Boston and the Evangelions are repaired." She stared blankly at the Sixth Child, only barely able to cut through to the meat of his question. "Much to my disappointment, C-Type equipment is almost non-existent, with the only two kits ever crafted and tested having suffered destruction in the siege a week ago. A new set is being salvaged at New Boston, but even that must be tested first."

She had turned sharply to look at the blonde English boy as he spoke, finding something distasteful in his voice. "You will spend your time wisely, according to whatever regiment Colonel Fhittz has in mind." With no hint of mirth, she looked at the Colonel and spoke in an almost sarcastic tone. "I trust you will have appropriate combat drills to busy these pilots?"

[AkaiNeko]

Sana was wary of this old man. She wasn't sure why, but she thought it had something to do with his air of....connected-ness? He seemed to know a lot about what was going on, or something like that. And the only others who gave that feeling around here were colonel Fhittz and Worthe. She still had a decent opinion of Worthe - he had been the one to run her through the basics of piloting her Eva, after all - but this morning had been a good reminder that she couldn't necessarily trust him. And she was increasingly concerned about the reactions others gave the pilots - that sad smile said nothing good about what she could expect in the coming days. Still, he seemed all right. Vague suspicion was no justification for impoliteness.

Not that she had any clue what he was talking about. Her face shifted slightly in conclusion as she nodded. "Good morning, um, Sir?" "Sir" seemed a solid bet here. "Um, who do you mean? Unit-01?"

[Lothmar]

'Appropriate' and 'combat' both might have been a bit of a stretch for what he had originally intended for the activities he had in mind ; but it was true that he had to prepare them and keeping them in the correct state of mind without tiring out the body in case of an incident would be paramount to success...

"Absolutely." he adds in a warm and slightly upbeat tone, his reply being simple and to the point as if to say 'your trust is not misplaced'.

[Naquadah]

"Understood, mum," Logan simply says, though he's more than a little concerned that the new NERV commander seems so bemused as to how to address and understand him. "If anything happens, we shall simply have to ensure that the Evangelions do not get wet," he adds, half-straightly and half-wry.

From the Commander's and Ops Director's tones, it's unlikely he'll get to catch up on post-season stats or even start a fantasy hockey league while aboard the ship to New Boston. Logan's shoulder slump slightly at the realization.

[babel_matrix]

YAGR-3B "Gold Leader", Kubo Airfield

The old man nodded, his expression melting into a more stoic face. Somehow, it seemed to liven him up. "Yes... You'll have to excuse my assignment of gender to the Evangelions... a habit of an old associate, and I'm afraid I've acquired it." The ramp into the YAGR-3B was steep, but within waited four pairs of cushioned seats. Though no overhead compartments were visible, there was more than enough leg room to allow for Sana's backpack.

The elderly gentleman listens to Sana while ducking into a front seat on the left-hand side, not apparently loaded with any luggage whatsoever. A single Section-2 agent sits in the corner of the tiny cabin, his head bereft of sufficient hair and a large face only partially obscured behind giant sunglasses. The ramp began to close them in with a silent rise, and soon the aircraft would lift off to head for the main shaft.

Temporary Base of Operations

Tanaka let out a deep breath of relief through her nose. The tightness of her schedule did not lend itself to personally attending to a squadron of children, much less Children, on a military boat ride. "Very good. For your continued service, I will be forwarding the profiles of every pilot to you shortly."

Her gaze returned to the pilots, wincing as the first troop transport drove by and threw sand into her eyes. "I have read them in detail, and I cannot expect anything short of a resounding success in our future operations. The first seventeen Angels were defeated with an untested soldier, a mentally-ill civilian and a German pilot with severe trauma, two of which were piloting pre-Production Evangelions. Including the Ninth Child, you four are, for all intents and purposes, soldiers above and beyond in equipment, training, stability and personal grade of quality. You will not have any excuse for failure."

Tanaka let the words hang there for a moment, gauging their reactions and waiting for anyone to dare a question. If none arise, she will end on that note and start walking towards a clearing in the base meant for VTOL landings.

[AkaiNeko]

Sana found that she rather liked this old man; another quirky superior hardly made much difference at this point, and he was really only slightly quirky. Furthermore he was friendly and polite, and, she assumed, not unlike a grandfather, comforting and perhaps a bit kindly, though she got the impression that there was much more below the surface. But she was also conscious of the MIB's presence in the corner. She talked quietly with the older officer while watching out the window; she found herself wishing that this return trip had given her a chance to go somewhere besides the Geofront. It was a shame, really, even if there wasn't much left of Neo Tokyo 3 by now.

[Astro_sol]

Theodore felt himself bolstered at the Commander's words. Well, of course it was the truth, at least partially. He was certainly above and beyond the regular cut of humanity. He snapped a farewell salute as Tanaka made to leave.

"Aye, aye, sir! No matter how many come, they'll keep on dying as long as I've got ammo," he very nearly shouted, finishing off the salute a little too forcefully. He turned to the other pilots and the Colonel as he began to clear his part of the table. "Sir, I think I'll go on and ship out. Do you have any ballistics training planned? What about sparring? Please tell me there's sparring." He gave Nasr a nasty grin.

[Whiskeyjack]

Nasr nods as Tanaka speaks and offers the Commander a salute as she departs. He turns to address Fhittz, noticeably calmer than minutes before. He checks his watch and hisses in a breath. "Colonel, I need to prepare my, er, seat or whatever in the transport so that I may offer up my prayers. I request dismissal with leave to do so, and I would appreciate if I could borrow a compass for use during the trip." He looks completely nonplussed by Theodore; some petty rivalry is not as important as performing salah on schedule. That's pretty much the only thing more important than petty rivalry to Nasr, but whatever.

[babel_matrix]

Temporary Base of Operations
The transports began to move out as roll calls were completed, the majority of the equipment left for engineering teams to pick up later and a small platoon to guard. Carrying literal truckloads of personnel, the first two trucks rolled onto the main road: at the fork nearly a mile away, most would be heading left for Tokyo-2 for reassignment and debriefing. The pilots, and their Operations Director, would be turning right, towards the docks and the rest of their lives as pilots.

YAGR-3B "Gold Leader"

Sub-Commander Kozo Fuyutsuki, as he eventually introduced himself, was cordial and pleasant with the small talk. The plane ride was all but free of turbulence until it descended into Central Dogma to add its cables to lifting Unit-02's containment cage out from the ruins. He used short answers, and occasionally looked longingly at the ruins of Tokyo-3, as if watching the metropolis that once was. Sana had mentioned the regretful missed opportunity of exploring that great fortress-city, or any other place in Japan for that matter. "You might be surprised to see how low the population has gotten throughout most of Japan," Kozo stated wistfully. "The mass evacuation and relocation out of Tokyo-3 was expected, already considered and came as no surprise... but that so many in Japan, as a whole, wanted nothing to do with the land where Angels roamed... this country will take years to recover, and is a shadow of the nation you should have had the chance to see." The darker tone of their conversation, and the weight of the Evangelion beneath them, dragged a direct question out of Sana: the former pilot of Unit 02.

{{{Music: Robes des Champs (http://youtu.be/GDbImU-NidE?t=44s)}}}

Kozo began tapping into the tablet on his lap, a panel of economic reports that he had, until now, been happy to ignore. "I watched them suffer burdens that few soldiers could shoulder, watched children become adults without love, without homes." His tone was grim, but his voice neither wavered nor hesitated in responding to the inquisitive pilot. "The Second Child was perhaps the worst off of them. She had been a normal, if prodigiously intelligent girl... crafted into a soldier, forced to war with a burden no one could relieve." He returned his gaze to the panel; his absent-minded tapping swept the screens away as he glossed over them. "I did not know her personally, Hosseini, but if the Second Child ever found solace, it would have been in her last moments, inside Unit 02." Kozo looked up from his panel and faced the window, once again staring out at Tokyo-3, even as the hole in the Earth slowly faded from view. "When was the last time you were not a soldier, Hosseini?"

[AkaiNeko]

"Um....I guess it would have been ten years ago, some time after my parent disappeared. I'm not really sure when I became a soldier, officially or otherwise. It just happened after I was....adopted, I guess." Then she sighed.

Right then, in that VTOL, hovering high in the sky, with the ruined nation of Japan spread out below them and Evangelion Production Type Unit-02 - her Evangelion, now, but someone else's before, someone who she now knew for certain to be dead - dangling between, there was, in a situationally relevant sense, almost nothing Sana would rather not do than ask the question that she knew, without a doubt, she had to ask. She tried to tell herself that there was still a fifty-fifty chance; seven years ago, there were two Eva pilots, both of them girls. Shortly before she had arrived at NERV-00, there had been three, but the third had been a boy. Fuyutski had just confirmed that the former pilot of Unit-02, her predecessor, was a girl, and a traumatic history didn't necessarily narrow it down. So it could still go either way.

But....Sana was very good at guessing how things worked. She was fairly certain of the answer her question was going to receive. All she could do was steel herself for another loss. She took a deep breath and, doing her best to keep her voice neutral, spoke. "What was her name, Sir?"

[babel_matrix]

YAGR-3B "Gold Leader"

"I'm afraid that's classified, Miss Hosseini." A few beats past, just as Tokyo-3 vanishes. The agent behind them both began to clear his throat. Kozo turns to Sana, without a coy look to match the timing of his words. "Asuka Langley Soryu." The Section-2 peon fell into a coughing fit.

[Lothmar]

"You'll see once we get there." Johann adds to theodore with a coy smile. "Im sure that can be arranged, you are dismissed." Johann adds allowing Nasr to go and prepare his place in the transport for his prayer. He would have to see about acquiring a compass from one of the soldiers or agents in the convoy however.

"If you'll excuse us commander, I have assets to manage." He adds in reference the pilots ready to lead them off to the vehicles and manage the little monsters once dismissed.

[Whiskeyjack]

Nasr makes his way to the designated APC with a small bag of belongings and two large bottles of water. Sitting on the edge of the compartment, he pours water from the bottles into his hands and rubs it three times across his hands, face, hair, and feet. That being done, he shakes the remainder of wetness off, glances at the sky to find the direction of the sunrise and a rough estimate of the direction towards Mecca, finds an empty space in the transport.

"Allāhu Akbar," Nasr intones quietly, raising his hands to his face, flat with the palms out. He then crosses his arms over his chest, right over left.

{Arabic} "I declare You free and far removed from all imperfections, O Allah, and all praise is for You. Blessed is Your Name. Great and Exalted is Your Kingdom. None has the right to be worshipped besides You.

O Allah forgive me, and have mercy upon me, and suffice me, and raise my rank, and grant me safety and well-being, and grant me provision...In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful."

Nasr withdraws his small tablet and glances about, noting the response of the other pilots if any. He smiles as he sees that the Old Man did have the foresight to put an e-copy of the Qu'ran on the tablet. Nasr tabs through the table of contents, selects 'Sura Al-Fatiha.' He knows the words by heart, but still there is something of comfort and tradition in following along with his eyes. After that, he tabs over to a different reading, and the morning prayer continues as the transports start to fill up.

The caravan is well-underway by the time Nasr finishes with his prayers, and as he finishes, opening his eyes, he leans back against the seat and thinks about how Japan looks from space.

[babel_matrix]

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/39147041/AdEva%20Pictures/TitleCard1.jpg

[babel_matrix]

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/39147041/AdEva%20Pictures/TitleEpisodeCard02.jpg

[babel_matrix]

January 20, 2016, 0955 Hours
{{Music: Des Cordes: Opus 2 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y34x_ZV091c)}}

The Vindicator, International Waters, Pacific Ocean

The modern fleets of the United Nations had foregone the nuclear engines of the 20th century, replacing them instead with the revolutionary N^2 engines. With turbines running with the aid of N^2 technology, running at nearly double the strength that the cumbersome, safety-burdened nuclear engines could put out in the 20th century, a modern fleet was a marvel, putting even civilian speed boats to shame. Combined with more intelligent builds, lighter frames and smart weight-distribution, even the Vindicator, the heaviest sea craft ever constructed in human history, could strike out at the sea at an almost unacceptable speed of 60 knots, with a standard cruise speed of just over 40. With only some support aircraft located directly on the Vindicator itself, and with helipads that lowered the majority of these craft into its frame, it was a speed that was viable. Still, no sensible captain would take a ship as experimental, expensive and titanic as the Vindicator to anywhere near those speeds lightly, much less for the entire duration of a crossing of the Pacific ocean.

With Commander Tanaka anywhere near the helm, however, things moved along at precisely those speeds. The Vindicator and its compliment of two Ford-class supercarriers and four Iowa-class battleships, all from the NAU, are cutting across the Pacific at an average speed of fifty-five knots or, as it is known colloquially and affectionately by the NAU-native U.N. sailors on-board, "running like our ***** are on fire." The other supercarriers, the Callous and the Hubert, were not originally designed for these speeds; each one had their entire unit of VTOL craft chained to their decks to avoid having these speeds launching the net worth of some developing countries into the ocean behind them.

Suffice it to say, the engineers and marines were all quite pleased, if not downright amiable about the situation. This was notably true when the Children evidently had to run a three-legged race on deck when the ship was at its "calmer" speed of 35 knots. The German that commanded this, and the medicine (basket)ball game, and the gladiator match in which the thickness of the foam on the weapons was less a safety measure and more a suggestion, had begun to develop a reputation amongst the staff.

As well as a betting pool based largely on child mortality.

The third "exercise" was completed on the third day of the trip, with only a day and a half left of the miserable boat ride. The pilots were given the results of this grueling exercise before being allowed down below to bathe and dress. The crisp morning, and their NERV overlord, were both done with them for now.

Storage Bay

The speeding supercarrier had enough dampening technology in place to ensure that no one onboard actually felt the insane force of their trip. Despite this, Doctor Worthe swayed in his chair as he tried to look over the work being done on EVA-16's hand. The bags under his eyes were more pronounced than usual, thanks largely to his nausea-induced pallor. Seventy-two hours and an unhealthy amount of sleeping pills had done nothing to relieve him. Maya was effectively his set of eyes, politely "repeating" what he was already supposed to know, blankly staring at the same screens she was watching. "<The bone coupling has been pushed out by the regenerative tissues, but the 7th Engineering team is reporting an issue with the Sliver matrix. The MAGI predict a 74.45% chance that there's a surge in the new index finger, contrary to 7th Engineer's opinion...>"

"<Yeah... I see... Yes.>" Ibuki blinked at the vague response, and decided Worthe would probably side with the MAGI. Before them, laying with its head partially lifted and a plug waiting to be loaded, was the Eighth Child's EVA, with a dozen NERV personnel on the catwalks that surrounded its frame. Flanking it were EVA Units 02 and 14, with EVA-15 near the back of the ship. The storage deck had been enlarged to take up almost the entirety of the back of the carrier, yet only had four, very well-guarded entrances. The U.N. staff was barred from entering, leaving the engineering and science teams to do their dark works away from prying eyes. Leaving Worthe to do the job he was born to do. "<I... urk...>"

On land. "<Aye, sir.>" Maya didn't even turn to confirm that the good doctor had run off to vomit elsewhere.

Officer Quarters

An old man opens his eyes, and groans. He had no issue with sea-sickness, but the cramped conditions and predictable walkways of a military ship always put him at ill-ease. He threw the covers off, laying in bed for a moment in a plain white t-shirt and boxers, and wiggled his toes to get feeling back into them. It would be about a fifteen-minute ritual to get fully mobilized again and finish his morning exercises, activities he loved a full thirty years ago. With a final, defeated sigh, he swung his legs over the edge of the stiff mattress.

[Lothmar]

"And, time..." Johann adds clicking off the stopwatch before casually making some notes as the other team had won the race by a substantial margin.

"You've all done fairly well on these tests so far but you three will have to try harder in the final games if you want to have any hope of closing the points gap with Nasr to earn this months squad leader position." He adds giving Nasr a hint of praise in the tone of his words. It was actually Johanns hope to build up the smug pilots pride so he could embarass him with a crushing come from behind defeat if possible.

"You're all dismissed, get some rest, get cleaned up, relax a bit if you want. Just make sure to visit the cages below deck at least once, I want you to have a feel for the route in case of trouble. And who knows, it might give you an advantage in a later competition." He adds casually dropping a hint to the pilots.

"If you have any questions feel free to ask me now while I have you." He adds mainly because he intends to do some walking around of his own and it might be hard for them to locate or contact him quickly under thos circumstances.

[Astro_sol]

Theodore wiped the sweat off his brow. He wasn't too exhausted, thanks to his comprehensive physical regimens over the years. Of course, he was extremely frustrated with his performance; he'd never actually played basketball, and three-legged races were stupid anyway. When would he ever use that in combat? At least he won at sparring, with (he grudgingly admitted, and never would aloud) some small help from Nasr.

Logan had actually been of some help during basketball, too. Theodore was sure they would have won if the object had been throwing the ball at each other's heads.

That left Sana, and the only place she'd been any good was during the sparring match, so she'd lost that anyway. Thus, after the German Colonel dismissed them, Theodore immediately began to do what he did best (well, second best after shooting).

"By God, girl," he said, leaning against the cold metal of the ship. "Let's hope you don't get sent in close combat." He looked up to the Colonel. "Is there anywhere I can shoot, sir? A range, or something? My trigger finger's itchy." He needed to let off some steam, and do something that could maybe help him when the **** hit the fan.

[Whiskeyjack]

In the sparring contest, Nasr delivers some brutal attacks at Logan while easily knocking aside Sana’s attempts to hit him. He even manages to parry for Theodore a couple times, and focuses on Logan first as the only other pilot he’s seem perform at all in melee combat—and then, superbly at that. He also gains a degree of respect for Theodore, who performs well in melee offense…Nasr isn’t that surprised, the English boy seems too hotheaded and eager to prove himself to work defensively, but he can be good as a guided weapon, albeit an unimaginative one, as proven both in the Angel combat and the sparring.

During the basketball game, Nasr barks directions at Sana, which are mostly not helpful until Colonel The German starts to yell encouragement and rules to her as well. Even though Logan is great at defending—and Nasr had an idea of that from the Angel fight—Theodore performs surprisingly poorly at shooting, though his badness at offense is exceeded by Sana’s terrible job on defense. Still, even with the very heavy ball, Nasr is able to line up penalty shots and score despite Logan’s best efforts, and it seems The German’s instruction is able to help Sana perform semi-competently.

In the race, Logan and Nasr are very much in sync. “One-two-one-two,” Nasr calls, and Logan follows the steps accordingly and with surprising precision, leading them to an easy and fast victory over Sana and Theodore, who tumble several times and can’t seem to synch up their movements. He and Logan work really well together, he notes – just like in the combat when they slammed the Angel back and forth between their Evas allowing the other pilots to take potshots with the Angel’s attention solely focused on them.

Nasr notes that the crew has been watching them avidly, and strives to show off a bit – after all, the pilots are supposedly the best hope for Mankind, and the UN soldiers should see that the pilots are training seriously and going to do their jobs!

After the race, Nasr whoops an ululation and slaps Logan on the back several times, grinning like a maniac. “Way to go, Canada!” he cheers. “We destroyed them!”

When Sana and Theodore finally catch up, he says, “Uh…good effort, no really, it was a good effort,” with a smug smile. He slaps Logan on the back again and grins. Once The German declares that he’s furthest ahead in points, Nast is perhaps surprisingly not gloating about the wins, and if anyone mentions them, he merely says, “It’s right and proper to work to be the best in the eyes of God. For those with faith get their rewards, in this life and the next. We all have to work hard, NERV is only as strong as its weakest pilot.” If it’s the time to perform salah, he heads back to the pilot quarters to do so. If not, after just a few seconds of The German letting them go, he asks, “”So, what do you want to do?” to nobody in particular. He does not seem to be interested in going off by himself. "Anybody else want to check on their Eva?"

[AkaiNeko]

Sana officially felt like crap. She had been feeling seriously off for days. Sparring had not gone well; she defended well, but her strikes had no power behind them, and she couldn't seem to get herself worked up enough to do something about it, even with Theodore and Nasr, who both definitely needed a good beating, as the recipients. She was pretty sure the three-legged race would have gone better had she not been paired with Theodore, but she couldn't deny that she just hadn't done well there, either. Basketball....Sana remembered basketball. She was actually fairly good, for an amateur; she had played from time to time on the various bases she had been stationed at over the years. She knew perfectly well how to play basketball. Unfortunately, basketball was not played with a ten-pound medicine ball. She preferred to think of the sport that they had played in lieu of basketball as "Johann-Ball". Thus, she did not do well playing Johann-Ball, due in large part to the fact that interrupting the flight of a heavy, dense object with one's own body was rarely a good idea on its own merits.

While massaging her still-sore shoulders, she ignored Fhittz and Nasr while flipping Theodore the bird. She needed to rest for a good long while, alone, and didn't really feel up to looking at Unit-02 just yet. Or dealing with Fhittz or Theodore, for that matter.

....aaaand there went her efforts to not think about what was really bothering her. She sighed heavily. Really, if he weren't so desperately insufferable, she might have been grateful for the distraction the colonel's "activities" had given her. But she was no longer the small girl she once was; she could deal with this. She could. But in order to do that properly, having more-or-less gotten over the initial shock, she needed some time to think, to be alone and better come to terms with it all. Which was hard to do when trying not to die via medicine ball. But, well, she didn't really want to be alone either. Not now. And she was hungry. Obviously she just needed to find a mess hall away from their cabins and chill out for a while. Maybe after a meal she could find a rec-room to relax in. Yeah, this was sounding like a good-

....why were her instincts giving her some very hard nudges in the general direction of the crowd of onlookers? Something was wrong. It was a feeling....not unlike the moment before an IED went off, or someone in in a crowd started shooting. And....the colonel looked like he had noticed something, too. She hated to do it, but professionalism easily trumped personal distaste. Quietly, she asked, "Colonel, does something seem off about the audience today?" She also began reconsidering not going with Nasr.

[Naquadah]

"You know, our utilization of energy and coordination was roughly 333 percent greater than our rivals' on that run," Logan says calmly despite being walloped on the back vigorously. "Congratulations, Nasr, you have certainly exhibited a particular set of optimized skills in these training sessions." There's no hard feelings, Logan is perfectly happy to have excelled where he did, and finds Fhittz's ranking system hopelessly simplistic compared to a fantasy league.

Logan is disappointed--though not necessarily surprised--that Cartwright isn't nearly as competent as he likes to make himself out to be, and he's certainly no athlete like Logan...and Logan was even surprised he managed to bop Cartwright a couple of times with the 'padded' batons. "Cartwright, I could make a suggestion for stress relief but 67.8725 percent of those I have made the suggestion to before have taken it as offensive, inappropriate, vulgar, or violative of NERV and/or UN human resources policies. Needless to say that by implication, I will gladly give you privacy in the pilots' quarters if you require time for biological stress-relief," he says quietly to Theodore.

However Sana's performance was something different. "Pilot Hosseini, you look suboptimal. Are you experiencing any less-than-ideal conditions of hydration, O2 saturation, or electrolyte levels or any unusual circadian or hormonal cycles?" Logan frowns with a concerned look. "You seemed to react as if suffering from lowered levels of expressed noradrenaline during sequences designed to trigger adrenaline production. Perhaps you should hydrate and intake electrolytes and calories."

Logan glances around at the crowd. Certainly not strange that people would be looking on with that spectacle, but he isn't really sure what Sana is seeing that might concern her. "Are you an agoraphobe?"

[AkaiNeko]

Sana blinked and looked over. Oh, Logan. She tried to keep up with him. "Um, yeah, I know I was off. Yes, I'm staying hydrated, I was raised in a desert. I know, I just couldn't get into it. And no, just a low-to-mid range sociophobe, but that's not what's bothering me. Does, uh, does something seem off with the crowd today? To you? I've just got this....bad feeling. Way too familiar."

[Naquadah]

Logan glances around. "I am not sure what you're referring to. Are you unused to being surrounded by UN forces in a non-hostile setting?"

He glances at Nasr. "We are all suboptimal for nutrients after the caloric burn of that training. Suggest lunch."

[Astro_sol]

Theodore snorted. "Do you ever say anything simply? Like, if you're going to say it simply at the end, why use such a complex lexicon?" He smirked. "See? I can use fancy words, too."

He frowned at the crowd. "I don't see what you're talking about. It's a crowd. We did sports. People do that."

[Lothmar]

Johann smiled slightly as he took off his jacket and folded it on his arm before taking a knee to obscure line of sight with his face from the crowd in the collection of children as she silently asked him that question. He gave her a look that suggested 'Very observant of you' but wasn't about to say it aloud.

"I had one planned but I still need to confirm with the captain as to whether he would permit such activities." He says to Theodore in regards to shooting. "So be ready just in case." He adds eyes shifting slightly to Sana as if to indicate the warning he would not say aloud.

In a gentlmanly tone he adds. "Here take my jacket, it's drafty out here." as he hands the jacket to Sana that secretly contained the sewn in holster and the accompanying pistol. "Cant have you catching your death now can I." He adds with slight internal chuckle as he thinks 'of anything other then service'.

If nothing needs to be said he stands up to leave. "If you'll excuse me, I have business elsewhere." If possible he intended to shadow the pilots, perhaps he could 'acquire' a different uniform so his activities would be less noticeable.

[Whiskeyjack]

Nasr

"Are we sticking together then?" Nasr sighs, oblivious to the exchange of the gun and everything else. "I mean, that's fine, but let's eat!"

He looks at the crowd a couple more times...nothing seems out of the ordinary, but then again Nasr is quite used to being the spectacle of crowds.

[Astro_sol]

"You go on ahead," Theodore said. He didn't intend on eating with them just yet. He needed to walk, get a feel for the boat. As well as pick out the best routes to the Evas in case things got dicey. "I'm off for a shower." With that, he leaned off the wall and began to trudge off, his hands shoved in his pockets.

Let the winners gloat, he needed to vent.

[AkaiNeko]

Though she raises an eyebrow at him, Sana has enough faith in Johann's pragmatism to pull on his jacket with a nod of mock thanks; her eyes widen slightly when she feels the weapon, and she nods again, this time both in genuine thanks and silent acknowledgment. "Thanks, sir. Should've thought to bring my own jacket, I guess; lesson learned." She also gives him a significant glance in the direction Theodore had gone off in. Then she turns to the others. "Yeah, maybe it was nothing. Lunch does sound good; let's go. And Logan...." she looks specifically at him, "....I am UN forces."

[babel_matrix]

Flight Deck

The extra crew found top-side had already vanished into the ship when the pilots were dismissed, the suspicions of them melting back into the massive super-carrier. Soon the rushing whistle of wind picked up as the Vindicator gained speed, forcing more of the crew to follow the pilots and their Operations Director down.

Inside the well-lit corridors of steel and occasional pipework, the gentle hum of the reactors below them created the ambient buzz they had grown accustomed to in the last few days. Human traffic here had already thinned, and at only twenty feet from the door were they all split up: Johann heading towards the crew lockers, Theodore to the locker room designated purely for NERV personnel, and the rest looking forward to a feast that put the meals they suffered in Tokyo-3 to even greater shame.

Second Cafeteria, Crew Quarters

The cafeteria was all but empty, as most crew members didn't consider 1010 a good hour for lunch. Between the absurdly early breakfast, jet lag and a vicious, almost life-threatening three-legged race on a windy flight deck, the appetites of the three adolescent pilots would be more than a match for the U.N. Navy cooks, who had just begun preparing simple, but well-crafted portions of vegetable dishes, meat slices and an unusually well-stocked variety of citrus drinks.

Those pilots who knew what the uniforms meant could identify those in attendance: two minor flight officers were poring over a tablet showing unreadable data, a trio of pilots were playing poker, (with one of them, a woman of Chinese descent, clearly in the lead,) and both a power plant engineer and a marine who were eating alone in silence, away from everyone else.

"Dammit...! Sir." The female pilot had apparently bested them again as a young British man threw his cards down with his exclamation. The other pilot, a Spanish man evidently hailing from the NAU, was failing to suppress a guffaw at the outburst.

Hallway 25-D

Theodore's hurried pace got him to the showers fairly quickly. The halls in this part of the ship are all but barren, with the occasional U.N. engineer or exhausted NERV scientist passing the pilot, either one offering Theodore nothing more than a curt nod, if that much.

When at last he enters Locker Room G, he is greeted by the same, sterile blue lockers that line every U.N. facility he's ever seen. The wooden benches running down the middle of both aisles of lockers are bare, and every locker is closed and locked neatly, professionally. Every indication, at first, is that he has the locker room to himself.

In the back, humming ever so quietly is the sound of running water. It sounds like a sink running freely, unattended; but his senses tell him otherwise: he's not alone in this locker room, and whoever else was there was being quiet enough to go unnoticed by lesser men.

Men's Locker Room D

The sloppiness of soldiers at ease was measurable, for an officer of Johann's experience, in how they kept their facilities. Fhittz could immediately measure it in how almost half of the lockers in this facility were visibly unlocked, with some contents even spilled sloppily onto the floor. It was in violation of at least three codes of behavior in the U.N. rules, and probably a smattering of others in those kept for Navy personnel... it would also prove quite useful for Johann's purposes. A brief survey proved that the crew was gone from this place, though there was no telling when a stray dog of the U.N. might wander in.

Officer Deck

The old man donned his trench coat, pondering how his pet was doing in New Boston. The lazy morning at sea was just what he needed, though a nice cup of coffee was too good an idea to pass up. He cussed lightly as he put on his ragged brown fedora, remembering how piss-poor the coffee was in the break room nearby; the march to the crew cafeterias would be worth it, or so he mentally whispered to his joints. After patting himself down and slipping into his black leather loafers, the ragged old gentleman left his quarters in a saunter.

[Naquadah]

"Pilot Cartwright could do well with a cocktail of mental health prescriptions added to his hydration supply. I shall have to make a note of that for the medical team. Hopefully his biological stress relief will suffice until that time," Logan sighs after Theodore disappears.

"After we eat I believe it prudent that we discern the optimal routes to the hangar, in case of emergency. And I would like to see if this ship is receiving any entertainment broadcasts..."

The aura of food wafts over them, and Logan's stomach growls...a little too regularly or precisely to be a completely random body function.

[Whiskeyjack]

Nasr scans the cafeteria, frowning at the poker game. "Is this really what the UN does in its off time down here?" he mutters. "At least those two are working...hey, Hosseini, what were you and The German muttering about earlier with the crowd? And how can you be cold on this ship," he wipes a bead of sweat from his forehead. "It's an engineering marvel, but it's going so fast, no wonder it's hot, or that's the food...so as your fearless leader until The German says otherwise, I say we eat! And you make a good point there, Yates. We need to be able to get to our Evas quick if something happens like the last time Unit Two was transported."

He looks sidelong at Hosseini as he says that. "Speaking of, how were your synch tests? Oh I'll admit you did all right out there sniping even if you did almost hit me one time, I just want to know if there's anything we need to watch out for, if your Synch Ratio isn't quite right or something. I mean I'm not trying to sound like a jerk about it, you know, not like Cartwright. But it is our lives on the line if we sortie, and if there's a problem with Unit Two I, as squad leader or whatever, will need to take that in mind when we launch."

Nasr keeps talking as he ushers Sana and Logan towards the food line.

[Lothmar]

Johann begins examining the scene before him... Despite it being convenient, Johann had come to learn that there is often more then meets the eye and sure enough an out of place 'beep' caught his ears. Johann gets changed quickly and acquires a bag to haul around his clothes as he listens casually for another beep to no avail. He pulls the cap down as far as it can go and tucks his hair in to avoid excess exposure and he finishes the diguise with the shades as he makes his way to the exit.

'Someone has likely infiltrated the crew, if these poorly placed uniforms and strange beeping are any indication there are might be bombs in the reactor and the Vtols as well as areas commonly accessed by the crew. Cripple our movement and our means of escape as you kill as many as possible and then sweep up, very clever. But, best to get some hard evidence before I get everyone moving.' He thinks to himself calmly repositioning himself in the room away from the direct observation of anyone who might enter as he closes his eyes and focuses on listening for the strange beeping sound.

[AkaiNeko]

Sana was trying very hard not to let her worry and frustration show. She was even pretty sure she was succeeding, more or less. She was getting those kicks from her instincts here, too? As far as she could tell, there were no commonalities between the crowd from up above and the bystanders down here. So, what did that mean? Some group on the ship was secretly against them? Or maybe everyone? Unlikely, at least in the latter case. There was a bomb? Was there something invisible following her? Damn it all, she had nothing to work with. She sighed slightly and resigned herself to continuing look-out duty and hoping the colonel had more luck than this.

....wait, Nasr and Logan were talking. And more importantly moving towards the food. Dammit, focus! Act normal. "Oh, uh, I've just got a bad feeling. Not sure why, but the colonel apparently agreed with me. I just like having a jacket - temperature can change quickly." She was vaguely annoyed at Nasr referring to Fhittz, whom she still didn't like much, as "the German". She had more than one German friend, he didn't need to be giving them a bad name. "The synch-testing...." She suppressed a shudder at the memory of Unit-01's gaping maw, "....went just fine; no real issues, my continued weakness upon exiting the Plug notwithstanding." Somewhere in the back of her mind, she finally realized that Logan was making somewhat oblique references to masturbation, and quickly put that thought out of her mind. On the other hand it was nice to have her relatively good opinion of Nasr reinforced - he was smug and arrogant, yes, but he at least tried to be polite and concerned about people besides himself, and seemed to be taking his as-yet-unconfirmed responsibilities seriously.

[Astro_sol]

Theodore knew he'd made the right decision as he prowled down the halls of the ship. This place was a maze, but all it took was making it to his destination once and there wouldn't be any more trouble. After a few minutes of wandering, he found the NERV locker room and settled in, moving straight to the sinks to wash his hands and face. He turned on the faucet and began to splash water onto his cheeks. He stared back into bloodshot eyes between scrubbing.

He was supposed to be the best, right? He was sure he could take any of those chumps in CQC, but no, they had to play Basketball and a frickin' 3-legged race. Those weren't useful! He'd never use those skills in combat, aside from maybe some dodging ability in the former. So of course he lacked some skill in sports, but now the whole ship thought he was a phoney, even his fellow pilots.

He grit his teeth and closed his hand into a fist, raising it above his head to crash it down on the counter...

Then he heard it. The sound of running water. The noise it made was slightly off from the sound of his own faucet. He slowly turned his own off and pulled an about face, both hands closed into fists at his sides now.

"Oi! Who's there?" Who saw him? No one needed to see him right now.

[babel_matrix]

Second Cafeteria, Crew Quarters

The array of food before the youths only redoubles their keen appetites, bringing the gurgling complaint of their stomachs as odors waft from behind the cough shields. The gun at Sana's side seems heavier as people begin to move in the seating area behind them, while Nasr and Logan remain oblivious, still steeped in their jigsaw conversation about medication, jackets, sync tests and wanking.

The marine grimaces as he tosses his incomplete meal in the trash and walks out of the cafeteria without a word, hands in his pockets and a tense pose in his step. The engineer continues jamming into his phone, his hat covering his eyes as he hastily eats. The officer takes another round of money from her subordinates, and begins shuffling the deck anew.

Men's Locker Room D

Johann grips his bag as he stalks through the locker, focusing on his memory of that singular noise, that electronic exclamation that was rather distinct, not a recognizable signal from any modern phone, watch or U.N.-issued device. It may have been nothing, could have been anything really, given the international crew working for the flagship of globalization, the United Nations. But it was too coincidental, too out of place in the sudden climate he and Sana had caught wind of above.

Johann's memory, and his hearing, proved keen enough that he remembered exactly how it sounded, and where it sounded. Towards the back on the right-hand side of the locker room, he could narrow it down fairly easily: four lockers, and only one was actually closed, the others almost barren save for spare uniforms from various groups. The paper name tag had been removed on this one, a simple code violation that was a Mark of Cain under Johann's scrutiny.

Men's Locker Room G

There is a tenseness in the silence that follows. The other sink continues to run, and now the shuffling of feet tell Theodore that someone is certainly in the over-sized stall meant for the few handicapped crew members this vessel could potentially use. That the person doesn't respond immediately sets off scenarios in Theodore's mind, given that it was a military vessel, given the strange behavior of the others, given the---

"HHUUUUURK!"

--- and then the mysterious stalker vomited violently into a toilet. A cough, then more dry vomiting, and at last the desperate panting of someone who truly, desperately wanted to stop puking. "... Worthe ..."

[Naquadah]

Logan just frowns as he watches Sana. Increased pupil contraction. Increased nostril dilation. Heightened villus hair sensitivity. Cognitive distraction.

He doesn't quite know what to make of it, though he does know they are classic signs of agitation, wariness, and stress. He looks around the area again as the UN Marine exits and as others start to filter in. If an observable state that has cause for alarm exists now and has existed for some amount of time in the recent past, enough to alert the Colonel and now Pilot Hosseini, why are they not alerting Pilot Al Saud and myself?

Logan looks over the food, but keeps surreptitiously glancing around the room, feeling like there is some small but very important piece of information he is missing.

[Lothmar]

'Break a mirror? No too loud... Bend the vents.' He thinks attempting to come to the quietest solution to his problem.

Thinking quickly Johann takes his belt from the bag, bending and crimping it so that it bends in a direction more easily before he slides it up from a lower to grate and fidgets it for a moment until he can grab the tip and pull it through. He then commences to twist the belt so that it pulls the lowest metal slit up and the upper one down towards the central point until he can look inside. If he continued he could likely snap two of them off with a good tug but that wasn't needed just yet and that would be fairly noisy as well.

'A beeping paper bag. No physical wiring to the latch that I can see from this angle.' He thinks removing the belt and using the polished brass square as a reflective surface and bends it at and angle so that he can check against the door at the base and top for anything that looks like a pressure or laser trigger that might be set off by opening the door.

He was at an impass. He had no intention of attempting to mess with a bomb that could kill him, however whether or not someone could get to this bomb in time and disable it was unknown without further knowledge of the contents. It would likely be safest for him to get away, but to what end if there were multiple such bombs aboard? His best chance for survival would be to give the people who would risk themselves the most knowledge he could acquire.

After a quick inspection in this fashion he leaves the room at a quick walking pace making his way down towards the hangers where he can hopefully make covert contact with the guardsmen personell and get the ball rolling.

[babel_matrix]

Men's Locker Room G

Worthe could be heard splashing water on his face before cutting the sink. Theodore has more than enough time to clean up his face before facing the head of NERV's scientific projects and breakthroughs; as the man who was likely responsible for prepping the maser weapon Unit 15 wielded in Theodore's triumphant first showing, and having a role not dissimilar from many of Theo's former handlers, there was much the Seventh Child could choose to relate on with this man, profuse vomiting notwithstanding.

When at last the stall door opens, revealing a ghost of the former Chief Scientist that was guzzling a bottle of foggy water, it's clear that the man was not sea-bearable, much less seaworthy. His face and hands, still wet with thankfully clean water, are trembling. "Oh..." The sunken eyes of the Chief Scientist wince, as bloodshot as the flush in his cheeks from the efforts made at the porcelain throne behind him. He offers half of a smile, life creeping back into his expression. "Pilot Cartwright. I don't believe we've met outside the debriefing, have we? Between the work on the EVAs, the hoops Johann has you kids jumping through and... my present state..." His pause is marked by him pulling some of the paper towels from a dispenser near Theodore. "... I suppose that's no surprise. How goes the good Colonel's training regiment?"

Storage Bay

Colonel Fhittz finds his way to the storage bay with ease, having already practiced any route he would care to learn with a tour of the facilities on the first day aboard the Vindicator. Searching for an opportune moment, waiting for the various NERV personnel to be singled out so he could begin his task, he has a choice of those inside the storage bay, already segregated from the rest of the ship: a pair of Section-2 agents, one of the captains of the guardsmen on duty, and a science team member drinking a cup of coffee at a rest station setup next to Unit 16's foot.

Second Cafeteria, Crew Quarters

As the Children converse, the crew entering and exiting the cafeteria as their schedules allow, a particularly shady figure catches the eye of Logan in his search for the missing information. Walking by the first large passageway out into the hallway is an old man in a worn, brown trenchcoat and a fedora, a large nose and narrow eyes framed with the plumes of gray hair that stuck out of the hat's interior. The departure from uniform is obvious, but Logan alone notices the same style of earpiece that the Section Two officers throughout the ship have equipped. Despite that, this old man was a complete and perfect stranger, his position and nationality both indeterminate.

His eyes scan the cafeteria, passing over the Children almost too hastily. He vanishes just as the engineer finishes his plate, putting his phone away with a chuckle through a mouth filled with food. With his tray on the rack and the remains of his food in the trash, the engineer tries to exit with the other door way, only to bump into the old man with such force that one might believe the engineer was shoulder-tackled. "God bless," the old man offered in a soft voice. The engineer's back is turned to Logan, but the nod he gives is delayed, offered when the old man was already on his way, apparently heading towards the hangars. After a confused shuffle, his gaze slowly drifting from the strangely dressed old man, the engineer departed the scene.

[Lothmar]

Of those in assembly the section two agents seemed the most likely candidates who could verify his status in his current state. "Hey man, thanks for loaning me that bill earlier. Had to get my wallet from the locker room. Sorry to ask but can you break this?" He adds tipping his glasses down with one hand so they could see his eyes and hopefully recognize him while presenting one of the section two agents a paper bill appropriate for their setting (Not sure what currency nerve pays its allowance in or whether its regional) with the phrase 'Code Silver ; Delta scenario' underlined for effect and a security code to verify his station.

Nerve had a color coded system for various threats and alphabetized scenarios that could go with them. Silver was for bombs. A delta scenario implied enemy infiltration and possibly monitored communications meaning that they should only use secure forms of communication or deliver messages in person. It was his hope that they understood his reference and would walk him in under the pretense despite how it would look so that they could talk in a secure area and he could get some orders out.

Security would need to be shored up in secret so that if they were being monitored it would be hard to notice and they would sweep the cages and make sure that everyone of importance be they Nerv staff or pilots was secured. If the cages were secure loading the pilots into the eva's would likely be the most secure place to put them until they could gain control of the situation. The admiral would need to be notified so he could organize a response on his end as well with the un forces ; this would likely be what would light the fuse.

Hopefully if they couldn't save the vtols which he suspected were sabotaged to prevent escape they could at least keep the reactor from being hit, those reactors going critical could likely take out anything except maybe the Evas if their At fields were up - though they'd likely sink after the explosion and that would be that.

[Astro_sol]

Theodore blinked several times at the sight of the disheveled doctor. He knew this guy. Old instincts that belonged on men triple his age slowly quieted.

"Ah! Doctor! Are you alright?" After getting a response, the boy continued He needed to rant. "Training's easy. I could run around the ship all day, but I think we could skip all of this basic stuff and move straight on to more combat-oriented training. I don't feel like I'm learning anything at this point hitting anyone with foam bats or shooting hoops. I've been pushing for more sparring, and if we had to do a sport, maybe something like dodgeball." With iron balls. "I don't care if my team is good at sports. I want to make sure they know how to stay out of my line of fire," he finished with a shrug.

[babel_matrix]

Men's Locker Room G

The Chief Scientist, still pale, sips on the electrolyte-refilling fluids as he listens attentively, seemingly never dulled by the Child's bombardment. In fact, it seemed to liven him up, curiously so. "I had fallen under the impression the tasks were more about cohesion, at least in theory... though from what you're telling me, you still don't trust them to work well within your parameters. Are you proposing that your synchronization with the other pilots should be... further explored?" Sunken eyes, raw throat and sips of enhanced water combined to give this statement a more sinister bend that the good doctor likely intended.

Storage Bay

The agent's initial response to the approach of a crew member was the usual: a foot-long approach with a stiff palm shown upright to ward off curious crewmen, his right hand kept still near the hip holster only half-hidden by the bottom of his suit jacket. His female counterpart took a similar position, standing by the door to get range enough to fire on hostiles. That the crew member approached and started talking, with a bill in an out-stretched hand, almost saw both agents drawing their pistols, neither one willing to wonder why this man refused their authority nor hesitating to avoid complications.

Johann stayed just the right distance away, his arm outstretched with the folded bill. The agent snatched it from his hand, realizing it to be one method of information transfer, and unfolded the Japanese tender. Two beats later, he pressed into his earpiece, speaking in Japanese. "<Sir, we have a specialist from the power plant here about the wiring problem. The very bad wiring problem.>" He pauses, seemingly waiting for orders. Less than a minute later, as if summoned with magic, an older gentleman casually walked into the hallway, a smile creeping onto his face. The Section Two agents nodded towards the old man before dispersing in opposite directions, as if to clear the hallway.

"[Good morning, sir. Here about the wiring problem, I take it?]" the man greets in German. Johann is not fooled by the man's pleasant demeanor and casual dress: though the man does an amazing effort to hide it, he is a dangerous thing, a monster stalking the halls of men, a Fenris whose maw would swallow Johann whole if he were a lesser man, one less wise. For all this, however, Fhittz could also tell that the man's aura was not meant for him. For now, at least, the stranger's reception was actually warm. Once both agents have secured the hallway, confirming that they are not being watched, he motions towards the hangar and then walks in by his side, never giving his back to the Colonel. When at last they're within the threshold, he turns to the Colonel and stares into his eyes. "[I'm sorry that our first introduction must be under these circumstances. I am Kenka El-Hashem, head of Section Two, at your service. I understand you've stumbled upon our explosive problem on this vessel?]"

[Lothmar]

["I've got some time before my shift to help out."] He knew it would likely do him no good against such a beast but it always felt good to be armed since even some monsters tned to die when you shoot them in the head. But woe to the foe that would have to face such a beast when it is anything but off guard, even worse if he was aware and had perhaps caught you off guard instead. He follows him keeping mirrored pace into the hangar.

["Circumstances aside im not. It shows you're very proactive and good at what you do if I havent noticed you yet."] Johann couldn't stand it when desk people were in charge of spooks as the best leadership can often be done or learned in the field. ["Colonel Johann Fhittz, operations director."] He smirks a bit at the statement. ["Indeed. I had intend to investigate further into suspicious activities which is why I acquired this disquise, however no sooner had I finished did I discover a likely bomb in mens locker room D. I figured it would be best to get to section two and get a security brief to ensure I wasn't stepping on anyones toes and to make preperations without our enemy catching on if possible."] Afterall wasting time in such a situation was a big no no for him and if they could flip the script, all the better.

[Astro_sol]

"Well, yeah, there's teamwork and all, but I don't trust them, no." He frowned. "I already had doubts about Sana, and she did terribly at just about everything." He neglected to mention that so did he. "Nasr seems too gung-ho of a bloke," he continued without a hint of irony, "and Logan...well, okay, I don't actually have much of a problem with Logan. But, no, I don't trust them. I've done plenty well on my own up til now."

At the doctor's last statement, Theodore gave a nervous grin, as he didn't really know what other face to make. "Well, um, I dunno, doc - I mean, sir." Too many soldiers had called scientists of all kinds "doc", and it was ingrained in how he saw every scientist, superior or not. "If you mean explored in a way that would benefit us the next time an Angel hit, then yeah." Maybe the doctor had something better in mind? What if they were forced into an obstacle course? Or compared their abilities in the Eva somehow? Scientists could do just about anything with computers, right?

[Whiskeyjack]

Nasr gets his food, even instructing the cooks what to give the other pilots based on what looks and smells best and healthiest. Then he ushers everyone into a place to sit. "Now, unless you object, after this we'll find our way to the Eva hangar...would have been good for Cartwright to stick with the group but who knows about that guy, huh? Seems like a blowhard jerk, couldn't even be bothered to think laterally and negate that Field, you know? Just be glad i'm winning and not him, for now, he would never stop gloating about being number one, I'm sure." Nasr takes a big bite out of something thankfully tasty, loosening his collar, and anyone looking can see links of a fine gold chain and the glint of some kind of jewel from in there.

"So...Hosseini," he says awkwardly around a mouthful of meat. "Where are you from? I get that Yates is Canadian and Cartwright is British, and I'm obviously Saudi, but what about you?"

[Naquadah]

Logan picks at the food, some of which Nasr selected for him and some of which he picked on his own. He doesn't really mind the Saudi boy puffing up as team leader; truth be told, he's acted less foolhardy and more conscientious since he seemed to think he would hold that position, at least for now. So Logan acquiesces, though he does insist on picking up some of his staples: a slew of exotic fruits, eggs and biscuits, coffee with cream, and if available, jerky.

"That man was quite odd, though I cannot precisely quantify my reasons for thinking so. To be certain his raiments were irregular but there was something else, in how he looked at the room, and at us, and he had an earwig," Logan murmurs as the bearded man exits, and he nibbles at a piece of food. "And that interaction was outside the parameters for accidental impacts and courteous apologies. Is that the source of your disquiet, Pilot Hosseini?"

[babel_matrix]

Storage Bay

"[You needn't worry about that particular bomb for now, nor any others you might encounter. In fact, I wanted to thank you for not tampering the one you found.]" His squat head nods softly as he leads Johann to the rest area and begins pouring himself a cup of coffee. "[The only reason I came by here is because the surveillance systems we have rigged all over that dead bomb tipped us off to your own curiosities... and initially curious behavior. My men nearly rushed in, thinking you had somehow planted the bombs...] {Amateurs.}" The Arabic word he ends on is spat out more like a curse than anything; it's all Johann can assume, not knowing the language. The old man sips his coffee with a grimace. "[You've piqued my interest, though, Operations Director. What raised your suspicions before you were aware of the twelve bombs planted throughout the Vindicator?]"

Men's Locker Room G

Worthe returns the grin, which was close to rictus given his unhealthy appearance. "Well, you all might be in luck, Mr. Cartwright. I was catching up on the living conditions and behavior patterns of the former pilots, and I... ugh..." The boat pulses a bit harder than normal, the dampeners somehow skipping a beat against some errant wave, and it was enough to put the Chief Scientist at a standstill. "... another time... pilot." Robert retreats into his unofficial living quarters: the handicapped stall of the men's room behind Theodore. Theodore is once again virtually alone, with muted sound of gentle waves and dry heaving to comfort him.

[AkaiNeko]

Sana mostly ignored Nasr's selections; she knew how to choose her food, and wasn't really in the mood to give him his way just to be friendly. It was good, though, perhaps unusually so. But she wasn't about to complain. She glanced up at Nasr's question....a gold chain? Seriously? They were essentially soldiers on base, and under-aged soldiers at that; who in hell was he trying to impress? And really, her name was Hosseini. That didn't give him any clues? She was almost regretting thinking positive thoughts about him. She swallowed and resisted the urge to give him a look before answering. "I'm northern-Saudi. Or whatever they're calling that hellhole right now, I don't know if it's officially part of the country at the moment."

She's glad to see that Logan seems to have picked up her concern for the situation; at his statement, she glances around and, seeing no one unusual, asks, low and calm, "What guy? What'd you see, Logan?"

[Naquadah]

"The man was older than past the standard military age of mandatory retirement. I--I could not place his national origin," Logan adds with a frown, as if this is very strange and unusual. "He bumped into that engineer who was eating upon exiting; it seemed a casual collision but the engineer reacted as if he had been body-checked. And then the old man just walked out. His raiments were a trenchcoat and fedora, but nobody seemed to pay that much mind, strangely. I believe his route would take him in the direction of the hangar, but his ultimate destination is impossible to determine without ongoing surveillance. He looked at us, but it was a very fast glance. He lingered over others longer, and wore an earwig."

Logan takes a few more moments to eat before asking, "What did you see?"

[Lothmar]

"Instinct, I usually pay attention when I sense a strong animosity from people." Johann adds calmly. "Even more so if they're trying to mask their presence by hiding in a group. It's part of the reason I had the children performing their excercises in such an open area, I was hoping to catch one of them slipping up in order to investigate further. There were too many regulars for me to narrow it down conclusively so I figured i'd investigate the locker room and gather a disquise so that I could shadow some locations. From there it was a simple matter of pieceing together the small details and violations that wouldn't normally stand out nearly as much if someone wasn't specifically looking for it." He pauses for a moment.

"Admittedly I had no idea to what extent the bombs were actually spread or in what number, though if the locker room was any indication they were likely planted to take out the vtols, the reactor and high traffic or population areas." He asks curious if his hunch was in fact correct having not considered structural weakpoints as a possibiliy as he was not familiar with the ship design.