=][=
Their beat-up coupe entered a mountain tunnel, and then then turned right *into* the mountain, into a dead end passage. Red emergency lights illuminated the area, and Shinji tried to look for a door now that they found a parking spot.
A deep mechanical whine sounded, and then the place began to sink into the ground. It was no parking spot. The whole thing was an elevator.
The elevator didn't descend straight down, but sideways. Layers upon layers of metal and machinery passed them by, and not a hint of natural rock or soil anywhere. Then the dim red light suddenly broke into natural sunlight, and the boy winced in pain at the sudden brightness.
NERV was inside a massive, man-made semi-spherical hollow underground. Shinji couldn't help to gasp, impressed, as the elevator bringing them down showed the dome lit from above by rays of reflected sunlight. It was huge. He could see buildings hanging off the roof, like the stalactites of a cave. Though it was an enclosed space, it felt even larger than the valley above. The ground, he could see, was lush, green, and forested. There was even a lake!
"Whoa! A geofront! A real geofront!"
"That's right!" Misato replied happily, "This is NERV's secret base! Our fortress and foundation for rebuilding the human race!"
A small warship, a missile-carrying Destroyer, floated on that lake. He wondered: How the heck did they manage that?
The surface of the geofront lacked any other buildings than an large inverted pyramid that was filled with water, with rising metal pyramid jutting off one of its corners, and a tall thin building nearby that looked like an observation/office tower.
A ropeway train line carried them from the topmost layer of the geofront's roof down to the geofront surface. Entering NERV itself, the golden pyramid underground was just the tip of an iceberg. Much of it was apparently even deeper than that, behind levels and levels of even more metal and armor plating. Moving walkways conveyed them from one section to the other. Shinji looked around with undisguised awe.
"Let's see…" mumbled Misato as she tried to make sense of the map she was carrying. "If we came in there then we should be coming out …here!" The door opened with a whoosh, and air rushed up from below. It was a walkway over a tall pit. "This is why I hate wearing a skirt around here!" she complained while adjusting at her noticeably more exposed legs. "I wonder where in the heck Ritsuko is…"
It was an awe that shortly turned to frustration as it became clear they were thoroughly lost. They had yet to see anyone else around. Amazing as it may be as a feat of megaconstruction and terraforming, they were like ants lost in a maze and far above .
Mentally, the Space Marine collapsed to his knees. /'It's like campaigning with Leman Russ all over again!/' he blubbered out to the heavens. /'How can you get lost three sectors on foot? How?'/
/'I doubt Leman Russ had thighs that…'/ That thought was interrupted with an internal thwap to the head. He felt a disapproving tendril from his female advisor.
/'That's true,'/ said the Space Marine, his eyes slightly glazed in memories millennia old. /'If only Leman Russ had –'/ She thwapped him next.
Finally, exasperated, Misato went over to a phone and yet again paged her friend for help.
=][=
Meanwhile, deep inside NERV's Command Center, the main screen showed the Angel's slick black flesh, steaming under the heat of an antimatter explosion, begin to twitch and bulge. Gills on its neck flared out, and from underneath its bone-like mask, something began to push out.
A second avian bone-mask face pushed through, lacerating its own skin and flesh on its way out. The other head quivered, still clearly alive.
The empty hollow in its eye sockets flashed. A cross-shaped spinning pattern of light appeared briefly.
And the viewscreen exploded into brightness.
Thoom.
=][=
In another part of the base, over some coolant tanks, the public address system announced "The Chief of Project E at Section 1 of Technical Department, Dr. Akagi Ritsuko, Dr. Akagi Ritsuko. Please contact with Captain Katsuragi Misato at Section 1 of Operation Department immediately. Repeat: Please Dr. Akagi Ritsuko, please contain Captain Katsuragi Misato at Operations Department Section 1, immediately."
Ploosh. Someone swimming in a deep pool of orange liquid drew close to the ladder and made her way up to the grated metal walkway.
"Unbelievable. Even at this time, she still manages to get lost," she muttered under her breath as she discarded her goggles, and put on the eyeglasses nearby.
=][=
The underground levels of the Central Dogma, the name for NERV's HQ, was laid out in a confusing hexagonal pattern.
As she complained into the phone booth, Shinji held the map. It was amazing! It completely failed to make any sense at all! Why did section 3-A lead to 6-F and only then to 3-B? It was like it was purposely made to confuse any invaders (and/or hapless visitors) from gathering information about the facilities!
No, wait, that didn't make sense. I mean, employees were paid by the hour, so wasting their time getting from place to place was just bad practice. They were already on underground level 20. If this was a building, they would already be seventy meters high in the air. The guide map was multiple sheets of dense traceries for each level. He could see that Misato had particularly annotated in red marker the location of bathrooms, and the command center entrance.
That would be great, they could go there, if only they knew where on the maps they actually were right now.
She had them enter yet another elevator, in the hopes of going deeper somehow managing to strike gold location-wise. She yelped as the door opened to reveal someone already waiting there, her face showing all the impatience banked over the years of knowing Misato Katsuragi.
The person was a blonde woman with neck-length hair and mole just . She was wearing a swimsuit with white lab jacket over it.
Shinji wondered if inappropriate uniform choices was kinda NERV's whole deal.
"Oh, hey! Ritsuko. Good timing!" Misato grinned sheepishly.
"Why are you wasting my time, Captain…?" she said flatly, aggressively entering Misato's personal space with an intense look. "Don't you know we're short on time AND manpower?"
Misato backed away from the force of that glare. "Heheh, sorry…"
Ritsuko Akagi turned to face Shinji, and asked "So, is this the boy?"
"Yes, according to the Marduk Report, he's the Third Child."
NERV's chief scientist saw the young teen quirk his left eyebrow, sardonically Vulcan-like, at being talked about as if he wasn't there. He had, if just briefly, reacted to the words 'marduk' and 'third'. Her lips quirked a bit, noticing the keen attention in his gaze. She recognized that he was making a mental note of those words.
"Pleased to meet you," she said, a small fake smile crossing her face. This child... was not so simple.
Shinji smiled back. "'Ello dere." He coughed. He'd been distracted by wondering how a swimsuit and a lab coat found their way together. It even looked damp. "I mean, pleased to meet you too." he said in Japanese and bowed. "But, I don't know your name."
"I think he might even be worse than his father…" Misato said with a grimace.
To this, Ritsuko could only lift her eyebrow in much the same way as he did a few moments ago and experimentally said back in English "Ah, that was impolite of me. My name is Ritsuko Akagi. What's yours?"
"S'aright. M'name's Shinji Ikari, but I think yaz already knew dat. Amma happy to meets ya, Akagi-sensei." He bowed again.
Ritsuko's smile grew a fraction. "That's an… interesting accent you have there. Where did you learn it?"
"Here and dere. Books."
My, what an uncouth boy he could sound like, lacking the daggerlike diction she knew from the older Ikari.
Misato could actually understand English, having been raised to an multicultural expedition and been to many international postings, but had to say "I didn't understand that at all! Was that even English?"
"Oh, sure." Ritsuko nodded and turned away from the young teen. "Purer English than most I hear around here, since it actually sounds like it comes from England." Granted, the very roughest parts of England, but who really cares? Practically the entire island was under the sea these days; she thought.
Misato and Shinji followed her into the elevator.
=][=
Thoom.
The Angel jerkily got back to its feet. Its eye sockets flashed again.
Thoom.
The cross-shaped beam slammed onto the mountainside, pulverizing the missile launcher building that popped up, and then exploded. [SACHIEL] had a ranged attack now. Tank formations were pointless, anything on the ground would just die. The beam might or might not be fast enough to catch jets, but jets lacked the ability to carry anything powerful enough to hurt the creature.
The JSSDF generals, representing UN forces in the area, grit their teeth and looked up to the command tower.
"Ikari, you are the commander of this operation from now on. We'll observe how you will deal with this," spoke the commander in chief of the UN attached forces.
"Yes sir." replied NERV's Commander.
The general to his left, who looked a fair bit younger, said "Thinking of our available weapons, I have to admit we have no effective measures against the target."
"But are you confident of defeating it?" asked the JSSDF operations commander again.
"NERV exists for that purpose," was the curt response.
"We expect much from you. Do not disappoint us."
Standing behind Gendo Ikari, a tall old man with peaked white hair murmured "The UN Troops can only do so much after all." They watched the giant creature stomp forward, unchallenged in the dying day. "It is able to augment is own abilities."
"It has acquired intelligence," Gendo replied. "The invasion is not so far off."
"What are you going to do now?"
"I'll activate Unit One."
"Unit One...? But, we have no pilot."
"There is no problem. We have a spare." Gendo Ikari stood up. "Fuyutsuki. I shall entrust this to you."
The tactical broadcast system announced with a female voice "Target is on the move!
A male voice added "Present rate of interception is 7.5%!"
"Target is entering city limits!"
Gendo Ikari made his way over to the personal elevator and left the command center, a section of the deck sinking to the floor. Gendo just nonchalantly vacated his post in the middle of battle.
Kozo Fuyutsuki watched him leave and mused sadly "After so long... they will meet again."
=][=
The elevator went back up, and they emerged into a corridor with a moving walkway. The women began to speak again, pointedly ignoring Shinji. He took this time to listen to Ritsuko complaining at Misato and Misato snapping back defensively.
The Geofront was at battle stations, but something known as Unit-01 was under refrigeration.
Misato wondered if it would even work - it had never worked before.
Ritsuko mentioned a rather plain pun in the Japanese language (oni, the mythological Japanese monster, and oh- ni - zero nine) about the 1 behind nine zeros about the chances of it working. The chance of it working now was abysmal. And yet still they had to keep it under cryogenic suppression.
What was it that they made that they were afraid of?
The moving walkway went into a dark room. As soon as he asked why it was so dark, the lights snapped on - blang, blang, blang, blang - revealing a gargantuan purple face. The boy pulled back in shock.
He felt again that strange pressure.
"A giant robot…?" he muttered. He started to leaf through the booklet they gave him, but fumbled his grasp. It fell off into the orange vat of coolant.
"Hey, be careful!" shouted Misato.
"You won't find it there in the manual anyway," said Ritsuko.
"No. But the guidebook could have had a lot of useful other info and rules," Misato said mulishly.
His amused look implied /'… that you don't even follow?'/
Misato gave a snort of /'... don't you backsass me boy, you ain't that cute.'/
/'I sense something here,'/ the Farseer whispered. /'A soul that is not a soul. A mind that is not a mind. And rage. Such aimless rage!'/ The complex shook as the Angel [SACHIEL] unleashed its energy attack upon the city. Dust and small debris began to shower from the ceiling.
She shook her head sadly. /'I have a feeling all the rules just ceased to matter.'/
How strong is it, if it could be felt kilometers deep underground!
"This is your father's work, Shinji," said Misato.
"This...? It's that important?"
"You'd be correct at that…" Ritsuko muttered under her breath. She threw her shoulders back and said confidently "This is humanity's last and best hope, the artificial human weapon, Evangelion!"
Shinji nodded. He turned to her, licked his lips, and then asked "... Then, what is its gender?"
"What?"
"I noticed you said artificial human with much practice. If this was an android or a battle machine, it would be genderless. You would have said HUMANOID. But you were careful to emphasize artificial HUMAN." His eyes, dark and focused, seemed to plunge into her. His tone was all too familiar, peeling away other people's barriers. "The natural guiding characteristic of humanity is its duality, which allows for emotional attachments and beneficial mutation. I suppose it could be neuter, but people have called weapons from tanks to ships as he and she before."
Anyone else would look at the heavily armored humanoid weapon and go 'This is a giant robot.' But the boy's very being was screaming at him 'this is no goddamn robot, boyo, no regular robot!'
He smiled a bit. "What is his or her name?"
Misato scratched her cheek. "It's a big fighting robot, Shinji. There's no male or female about it. Ritsuko's just being… scientist-y. They tend to get poetic that way."
Miss Misato, that's so imprecise. How anathema to serious science.
Ritsuko could only stare down with horror, as Shinji reminded her too keenly of just whose son he was.
At this silenced point, Gendo Ikari appeared in a blind passageway above the Evangelion.
A square-faced man with a goatee, wearing orange sunglasses indoors, his sallow eyes set in a perpetual glare. He was wearing a collarless black jacket and black pants, with his hands in his pockets. He stared down at his son, like a child watching ants pass underneath, and holding a magnifying glass. To observe... or to burn? It was still undecided.
"Hey Shinji." He drawled out, his words friendly, his tone and expression completely not. "It's been a while."
Shinji Ikari stared up at him. "Yes, father." he replied with the same faux friendliness. "It has."
Ikari and Ikari stared at each other, motionless, unblinking, for what seemed like minutes etching away. Thoom. They stood in sullen silence even as the world was on the verge of breaking around them.
"What are they doing?" Misato whispered to her friend.
"Oh, no. Not here. Not now…" was all the response Ritsuko could give, her voice breaking. "Not two of them…"