In the days since the scoreboard leaked it had been business as usual for all the country's prospective pilots, the scoreboard had pushed most pilots just a little harder in their pursuit of slot number one. Stages one through three were seeing a steady rise in their completion rates. Most pilots had completed stage one, over half had completed stage two, and under ten percent had completed stage three.
Those who had finished the third stage were as usual plunged into darkness shortly after, but what they saw when the world was returned to them was different than the previous stages.
Every stage prior to stage 4 had spawned the player facing the enemy in the style of a boxing match, but this time there was no opponent in sight, just an area with low buildings near the center of the simulator's metropolitan setting.
This new situation absent an immediate threat drew direct attention to the simulator's map for the first time, for most pilots anyway.
Within the first few days of the simulator's lifetime a small subset of pilots emerged who would simply flee the first combat encounter. Either out of fear or curiosity, some pilots left the slow moving tutorial enemy behind and went exploring the map. Some of those pilots had documented their findings on the path less traveled in wikis and forums.
At first there were basic hand drawn maps, which showed the nearby body of water and the city separated into districts. The limit on playtime meant pilots didn't have much time to explore, and what they did find had to be recreated from memory or poor (and not strictly allowed) mobile phone screen captures.
These basic maps and the lack of known landmarks were enough to tell the city wouldn't be found on any map, it was a fictional creation of NERV themselves. An early fact to be discovered was its name, "Waterfront", found on a green sign on the outskirts of the city.
Waterfront was fairly large for a game map; it contained a mostly flat city center with large skyscrapers which tapered off into smaller buildings and industrial complexes. There was a noticeable lack of civilians in this supposed city, no housing, traffic, or pedestrians. People speculated this was to avoid the moral quandary of smashing through people's homes and livelihoods, that would be covered when the real training began.
To the north past the outermost buildings there were open farms and green pastures, to the south there were arid hills with tall windmills, to the east there was a small mountain range, and to the west was the large body of water. People had trouble agreeing whether the water was a lake or an ocean because it couldn't be seen across, but they weren't likely to find out.
Somebody had quickly discovered that Evas could swim, but even before that someone had discovered that straying too far from the middle of the map would result in a ten second power down timer. If the timer ran out, the Eva would lose power and the mission would fail.
Several pilots, via a lot of trial and error and some rough calculations, discovered the playable area was a perfect circle with roughly a five mile radius. Waterfront and the surrounding area was just shy of fifty square miles, not accounting for any slopes in the terrain.
A game map of that size wasn't unheard of at the time, but fifty square miles was certainly enough for the purpose of the simulator.
Most pilots, when dropped into the fourth stage of the simulator, would do a quick turn to scan for their opponent. When they found only tall buildings obscuring their view they would begin to search the area, it was a game of hide and seek. If the pilot chose to move further into the city center they would soon be met with the first evidence of their opponent.
What sounded like a large explosion would vibrate the simulator, seemingly coming from right next to the pilot. The explosion was followed in quick succession by two more coming from opposite directions. This cacophony of explosions tended to make pilots jump out of their skin, not a single one knew what had just happened. In reality the explosions were caused by the weapon the fourth enemy was wielding, what appeared to be a naval cannon converted to a handgun. When the weapon was fired the massive projectile would leave the barrel much faster than the speed of sound, thus outrunning the report of the weapon itself. A supersonic projectile then flew past the player, emitting a sonic boom as it went, which was the source of the close proximity first explosion. Next the report of the muzzle, followed by the explosion of the projectile hitting something would reach the player, or vice versa depending on the range and position they made contact from.
A wide range of reactions came from pilots the first time they took fire. After the initial shock, most of them made for a retreat as fast as possible. Some panicked and started running, usually making it to the other side of whatever street they were crossing before the enemy could fire again. Some weren't so lucky and either lost their balance and fell into the road or crashed head on into a skyscraper.
Crashing wasn't the end however, as the naval handcannon was very slow to reload. Enemy four would hardly flinch from the recoil produced by its massive weapon, but the hand cannon had no magazine. It would instead open the breech of the weapon like a single shot rifle and pull a new massive shell as it was dispensed from a port in its thigh, then load it into the weapon. Reloading took just over 4 seconds, an eternity for any human sized weapon, not so much for a 75 meter mech. Reloading was just slow enough for a pilot to get out of the way if they were to make a mistake… but only just.
Many pilots who fell into the enemy's sights either didn't know what had happened or couldn't tell it was about to happen again, and they would pay dearly. If the pilot hadn't moved, less than a second after the Eva closed the breech on the weapon it would find its target and fire again. Another giant bullet would fly toward the pilot, this time right on target.
A single hit from the handcannon was enough to decommission an Eva if it hit somewhere vital, like the head or cockpit in the chest. If it hit a limb the explosive round would usually knock it clean off, setting off alarms and flashing red lights inside the simulated cockpit and crippling the attempt.
Kara had met this fate on her first attempt at stage four, right after being the first to clear stage three. She was still grinning, but her high was quickly doused by those three rapid explosions. She jumped, but didn't lose her concentration enough to fall or crash and instead dipped back onto the road she came from. A few deep breaths passed as she heard a commotion coming from around the corner, the sound of huge metal parts being operated with robotic precision.
Silence fell.
Kara took another breath, then slowly peeked around the corner.
She saw the enemy only a few hundred meters away, and just barely made out the shape of the weapon before she saw a ball of smoke and fire expand from the barrel. Not half a second later there was another explosion, but this time it came with a spinning of the screen as Kara's Eva was thrown backwards.
Before she hit the ground she heard a second explosion, although she didn't register it over the shock of suddenly being on her butt.
Red lights flashed in the cockpit, and the damage diagram showed her right arm completely black. Kara made the motion to move the Eva's hand in front of its face, nothing happened, but she noticed something new on the street where she'd just been standing.
Her arm.
Kara pursed her lips and used her left arm to stand back up, the now daunting sound of a reloading handheld ship cannon echoed through the city streets, accompanied by footsteps.
Just as Kara managed to get back on her feet the barrel of the gun rounded the corner, followed by its wielder. It had her targeted before she could start moving, and the last thing she saw was a ball of fire with a rapidly approaching dark circle coming directly at the view screens.
Kara flinched, but the run was over before she even heard any sound.
She stared at the game over screen for a while, then looked to her mentor, who was just as concerned.
They shared a quiet grin, then Kara hopped out of the simulator and the two went their separate ways for the day,
Training would resume tomorrow.