(Note - the below written in the assumption that the Seele dummy plugs were not, in fact, cored by Reibots (seeing as those are gone and everything). I've also blurred the distinction between pilot and Eva at many points - that's intentional. I know it's not quite Impact, but I -liked- that battle sequence, dammit, so this should be assumed to start with and include the originial footage.)
"One more left," she murmured, blue eyes glinting as she spun the massive machine on its heel and sent it into a run.
The production series Eva ahead of her reared back and threw its sword, as though hoping it might somehow destroy her before she closed the range.
With a sneer, she reached out to brush it aside with the AT field.
There was shock, and then there was pain, and the Eva went over backwards to slide forward like a runner coming into base as she jackknifed in the control chair.
All around her was a haze of screaming red and flaming lights, with a bar of solid, raw agony driven straight backwards from one eyes and sending waves of pain, like solar prominences, to drum against the inside of her skull and try to force their way out.
"No, stupid!" she gasped to herself. "Don't... have time!" And with that, she locked the pain in a box and forgot about it, just like her sensei had always said she could.
0:00, the mission clock glared down at her. Her working eyes teared in frustration. "No, dammit! I still have to kill you!" she screamed at an uncaring, unhearing universe.
Something in that phrase resonated, and she repeated it, venom intact. "Kill you! Kill you!" The connection snapped into being, clearer than she had ever felt it before. "Kill you! KILL YOU!" She began to rise, dragging herself from the earth against every obstacle in her path. "KILL YOU! KILL YOU!"
There was blow to her chest, driving back to the ground. She screamed in fury and reached for the throat of her last foe. Hands locked around her wrists and drove them down, stronger than the production series should have been.
Then other hands joined them. Shock gave her a moment of vision - four of the production series crowded around her viewpoint, toothy jaws gaping wide.
It was a nightmare, and there was nothing she could do about it, no rescue or escape.
"Asuka!" she heard his voice, and the pain stopped. For a moment - she would never know how long a moment - there was only relief, but then perception returned, and with it, concern for others.
She knew Evas, and she knew battles, and even without eyes she could follow the course of the fight around her quite easily. Shinji's pained grunts, the harsh distant thuds of footfalls, the crash of a falling giant, the sharp -snap- of armor failing... the picture was quite clear to her mind, and she listened with desperate intensity... for a reason that, now, she was aware of, though still not ready to admit.
Shinji screamed.
Mere minutes before, moving her Unit 02 had taken all the effort she could muster. Now it seemed that all she needed was will. She lunged upright and towards his voice, working hand over hand to pull the long awkward lance from her eyes.
She couldn't afford to have it slow her down, now, and besides, it was the weapon nearest to hand. She spun it as it came free, whipping it into a one-handed ready position. It shifted in her hand, changing shape in a way that somehow had to do with her own desires.
She half smiled as it finished. There was nothing in the history books like that cross between a naginata and a double-headed axe, but it should do quite nicely nonetheless. Such a thoughtful weapon - and her eyes didn't hurt anymore.
She crested the rise and saw them come into view, six production series models clusted around a battered Unit 01. The broken shafts of five of the replica Lancea and the shattered corpses of the remaining three Evas lay scattered around it.
She could see the stubs of the broken lances embedded in his body.
Before his throat hovered a long, slim, double tined shape that she somehow knew to be no replica.
"Shinji?" she asked softly, trembling with relief and hope.
"Asuka," and she heard satisfaction and soaring joy in his voice.
"Sorry I took so long," she said, in what seemed a pale imitation of her old caustic tones.
The nearest of the four production series whipped around and sent its sword screaming towards her. Shinij screamed and lunged towards it, snagging the Lance out of the air and bringing it up as though to strike the flying weapon out of the air - too late.
She leaned her head a little to the side, then snagged it out of the air with her free hand as it went past.
The false lance in her right hand shortened its haft, becoming more wieldy and flexible, and quickly its sister to the left shifted to match its form.
Shinji laughed, and cast the true Lance.
It struck and kept going. There was a terrible shifting feeling in her bones, like a giant subwoofer tuned to put out a disturbing subliminal.
The Eva's armor shattered into a million fragments that were tiny only in comparison to the Eva's own scale - even the smallest was probably six feet across. The flesh underneath liquified from head to toe, seeming to go in an instant from solid muscle and bone to a single great mass of LCL.
And all of it -splashed- away from the Lance's point of impact.
"Well, -shit-," she said softly.
Shinji laughed again, and jerked his hand back. The Lance was tugged from the earth and back to his hand as though attached to a string. "Shall we?" he asked softly.
She laughed herself, then. "Let's." With that, she charged down the hill, weapons ready. "Watch out for the fallen ones - they regenerate."
"I'll keep that in mind. But I doubt the one I hit will be getting up again."
"Something tells me these cheap Taiwanese knockoffs I'm carrying will do the job well enough."
He laughed again, and she mused with a smile that she had heard him laugh more times today - of all days! - than in any other -week- she had known him. "So, let's."
The production series split up, two on her and three on him. The first to reach her was one of the disarmed ones, lunging towards her with its prog knife. She sneered and brought her right side axe down in an arc that sliced cleanly through its leading left arm and down into its hip. The other axe struck more truly, through the crown of its head and deep into the chest.
She ripped both free as the production unit began to fall and its lance-armed comrade brought its weapon down in a great scything arc. She brought her left up and around, batting the larger weapon aside, then hacked up and in with the right, butchering its chest from the side.
That awful soundless nonphysical impact came again as she turned her attention to Shinji's battle.
They stood in an equilateral triangle with one point towards her and Shinji at one of the far points - which was better tactics on Shinij's part than she had expected, drawing them out of mutual support range like that.
The far surviving production series drew back to cast its lance, and Shinji whipped around and threw first. She had to whistle silent admiration for the accuracy of the production series' targeting computers - the two flying lances met in midair.
Not that it did much good. The True Lance shattered its double as easily as, a moment later, it shattered that double's caster.
One of the three regenerated units charged in from Shiniji's right. She started to move in support, but the Lance leaped back to his hand with a supersonic -CRACK- as he spun and swept it up like a baseball bat. It caught the production unit in the side and batted the massive machine into the air like a rag doll.
The Eva didn't hit the ground again, but instead disintigrated in midair - a less spectacular effect than a straight strike, she thought, but still quite effective.
The remaining armed Eva drew its arm back to cast. She crossed the distance between them with a scream and a single leap, cutting it nearly in half as it fell.
Shinji turned towards her, saying, "Hey, thanks AsukaAAA!!" and throwing the lance in an arc that seemed inescapeable.
Simulaneously she gasped and forgot about trying to tug the stubborn axe from where it was buried in the production model's corpse to jerk upright and throw her remaining weapon to spin across the distance between them.
There was a moment of terror in her heart as the weapons passed each other in midflight, but then she felt the True Lance strike behind her and saw the production model that had been charging Shinji from behind go down with her blade buried in its chest.
"Gott sei dank," she breathed. He was alright.
Blessed be.
-n
(Some days, I love my muse.)
===========
===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."
"One more left," she murmured, blue eyes glinting as she spun the massive machine on its heel and sent it into a run.
The production series Eva ahead of her reared back and threw its sword, as though hoping it might somehow destroy her before she closed the range.
With a sneer, she reached out to brush it aside with the AT field.
There was shock, and then there was pain, and the Eva went over backwards to slide forward like a runner coming into base as she jackknifed in the control chair.
All around her was a haze of screaming red and flaming lights, with a bar of solid, raw agony driven straight backwards from one eyes and sending waves of pain, like solar prominences, to drum against the inside of her skull and try to force their way out.
"No, stupid!" she gasped to herself. "Don't... have time!" And with that, she locked the pain in a box and forgot about it, just like her sensei had always said she could.
0:00, the mission clock glared down at her. Her working eyes teared in frustration. "No, dammit! I still have to kill you!" she screamed at an uncaring, unhearing universe.
Something in that phrase resonated, and she repeated it, venom intact. "Kill you! Kill you!" The connection snapped into being, clearer than she had ever felt it before. "Kill you! KILL YOU!" She began to rise, dragging herself from the earth against every obstacle in her path. "KILL YOU! KILL YOU!"
There was blow to her chest, driving back to the ground. She screamed in fury and reached for the throat of her last foe. Hands locked around her wrists and drove them down, stronger than the production series should have been.
Then other hands joined them. Shock gave her a moment of vision - four of the production series crowded around her viewpoint, toothy jaws gaping wide.
It was a nightmare, and there was nothing she could do about it, no rescue or escape.
"Asuka!" she heard his voice, and the pain stopped. For a moment - she would never know how long a moment - there was only relief, but then perception returned, and with it, concern for others.
She knew Evas, and she knew battles, and even without eyes she could follow the course of the fight around her quite easily. Shinji's pained grunts, the harsh distant thuds of footfalls, the crash of a falling giant, the sharp -snap- of armor failing... the picture was quite clear to her mind, and she listened with desperate intensity... for a reason that, now, she was aware of, though still not ready to admit.
Shinji screamed.
Mere minutes before, moving her Unit 02 had taken all the effort she could muster. Now it seemed that all she needed was will. She lunged upright and towards his voice, working hand over hand to pull the long awkward lance from her eyes.
She couldn't afford to have it slow her down, now, and besides, it was the weapon nearest to hand. She spun it as it came free, whipping it into a one-handed ready position. It shifted in her hand, changing shape in a way that somehow had to do with her own desires.
She half smiled as it finished. There was nothing in the history books like that cross between a naginata and a double-headed axe, but it should do quite nicely nonetheless. Such a thoughtful weapon - and her eyes didn't hurt anymore.
She crested the rise and saw them come into view, six production series models clusted around a battered Unit 01. The broken shafts of five of the replica Lancea and the shattered corpses of the remaining three Evas lay scattered around it.
She could see the stubs of the broken lances embedded in his body.
Before his throat hovered a long, slim, double tined shape that she somehow knew to be no replica.
"Shinji?" she asked softly, trembling with relief and hope.
"Asuka," and she heard satisfaction and soaring joy in his voice.
"Sorry I took so long," she said, in what seemed a pale imitation of her old caustic tones.
The nearest of the four production series whipped around and sent its sword screaming towards her. Shinij screamed and lunged towards it, snagging the Lance out of the air and bringing it up as though to strike the flying weapon out of the air - too late.
She leaned her head a little to the side, then snagged it out of the air with her free hand as it went past.
The false lance in her right hand shortened its haft, becoming more wieldy and flexible, and quickly its sister to the left shifted to match its form.
Shinji laughed, and cast the true Lance.
It struck and kept going. There was a terrible shifting feeling in her bones, like a giant subwoofer tuned to put out a disturbing subliminal.
The Eva's armor shattered into a million fragments that were tiny only in comparison to the Eva's own scale - even the smallest was probably six feet across. The flesh underneath liquified from head to toe, seeming to go in an instant from solid muscle and bone to a single great mass of LCL.
And all of it -splashed- away from the Lance's point of impact.
"Well, -shit-," she said softly.
Shinji laughed again, and jerked his hand back. The Lance was tugged from the earth and back to his hand as though attached to a string. "Shall we?" he asked softly.
She laughed herself, then. "Let's." With that, she charged down the hill, weapons ready. "Watch out for the fallen ones - they regenerate."
"I'll keep that in mind. But I doubt the one I hit will be getting up again."
"Something tells me these cheap Taiwanese knockoffs I'm carrying will do the job well enough."
He laughed again, and she mused with a smile that she had heard him laugh more times today - of all days! - than in any other -week- she had known him. "So, let's."
The production series split up, two on her and three on him. The first to reach her was one of the disarmed ones, lunging towards her with its prog knife. She sneered and brought her right side axe down in an arc that sliced cleanly through its leading left arm and down into its hip. The other axe struck more truly, through the crown of its head and deep into the chest.
She ripped both free as the production unit began to fall and its lance-armed comrade brought its weapon down in a great scything arc. She brought her left up and around, batting the larger weapon aside, then hacked up and in with the right, butchering its chest from the side.
That awful soundless nonphysical impact came again as she turned her attention to Shinji's battle.
They stood in an equilateral triangle with one point towards her and Shinji at one of the far points - which was better tactics on Shinij's part than she had expected, drawing them out of mutual support range like that.
The far surviving production series drew back to cast its lance, and Shinji whipped around and threw first. She had to whistle silent admiration for the accuracy of the production series' targeting computers - the two flying lances met in midair.
Not that it did much good. The True Lance shattered its double as easily as, a moment later, it shattered that double's caster.
One of the three regenerated units charged in from Shiniji's right. She started to move in support, but the Lance leaped back to his hand with a supersonic -CRACK- as he spun and swept it up like a baseball bat. It caught the production unit in the side and batted the massive machine into the air like a rag doll.
The Eva didn't hit the ground again, but instead disintigrated in midair - a less spectacular effect than a straight strike, she thought, but still quite effective.
The remaining armed Eva drew its arm back to cast. She crossed the distance between them with a scream and a single leap, cutting it nearly in half as it fell.
Shinji turned towards her, saying, "Hey, thanks AsukaAAA!!" and throwing the lance in an arc that seemed inescapeable.
Simulaneously she gasped and forgot about trying to tug the stubborn axe from where it was buried in the production model's corpse to jerk upright and throw her remaining weapon to spin across the distance between them.
There was a moment of terror in her heart as the weapons passed each other in midflight, but then she felt the True Lance strike behind her and saw the production model that had been charging Shinji from behind go down with her blade buried in its chest.
"Gott sei dank," she breathed. He was alright.
Blessed be.
-n
(Some days, I love my muse.)
===========
===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."