2022-10-15: life ⇔ z( birth + growth )
- Log: 2022-10-15: life ⇔ z( birth + growth )
- Cast: Kaiju Navi, Eight York, Asuka Shikinami Langley, Excellen Browning, Zan, Rei Ayanami, Guy Shishioh, Yuta Hibiki, Kaworu Nagisa, Lucine Azul, Shinji Ikari, Liam 7-020, Alloy Kaas
- Where: Side 5 - Shoal Zone
- OOC - IC Date: U.C. 0096-10-15
- Summary: In the depths of the Side 5 shoal zone, MAGI catches wind of a new Blood Pattern: Blue. The Tenth Angel arrives hot on the heels of the Ninth, its sudden appearance blazing an aggressive path towards Earth -- towards Geofront -- as NERV and the Federation's chosen defenders rally to meet a foe markedly stronger than its predecessor. Yet, not all is as it seems. Is this really the Tenth Angel--? ALSO FEATURING: Mysterious Glow Cloud diplomacy!
<Pose Tracker> Kaiju Navi has posed.
It comes from space.
The timing is a little odd, but not by much; it isn't -that- long since the Ninth Angel, Sandalphon, was eliminated. Most at Geofront are assuming it grew to maturity during MAGI's blindness, but of course that raises questions all its own.
Ultimately, whatever anomaly might be said about this new entity is minor at best, especially in the face of a certain, unmistakable reality:
LEVEL 2 ALERT! LEVEL 2 ALERT!
ANALYSIS COMPLETE
Pattern Analysis : Blood Type BLUE 10
Hypothesized as 10th ANGEL
The Tenth Angel has arrived.
---
It floats in space, its frame massive and just barely cresting below the size of most spacebound warships. And yet, the creature could be easily lost all the same: hidden amid chunks of space debris and slowly orbiting asterois, the Tenth Angel looks most like an enormous, leaf-like piece of coral -- its rocky shape only distinguished from the rest of the debris by sheer size, the rainbow shimmer of its multi-colored structure, and its strange, twin-horned shape of what amounts to its highly unorthodox body. Its prismatic body makes the last feature of its body all the more noticeable:
Pits. Pitch black pits, pockmarked across its smooth, rocky surface, almost as if it was developed with them.
It looks more like a chunk coral from a far off, alien world than anything that can rightly be found on the world of humans. But, given what it -is-, perhaps that's natural.
Right now, the Tenth Angel's drift is a lazy one - relatively speaking, for the vast distances of space. But there's no mistaking its current trajectory:
Its path is taking it straight to Earth. Straight to Tokyo-3.
That path is not unobstructed, however. Aside from the various space junk that floats in orbit around the Earth, there's satellites, rocks, PLANTs... and a shimmering cloud-like entity, streaked through with lightning-like tendrils, colors shifting and throbbing within its form, a more solid object veiled deeper within its presumed body. The creature that has been colloquially nicknamed the Glow Cloud shows the Tenth Angel no more hostility than it has anything else it's approached, but it is most distinctly in the way.
Colors flash within it--orange-yellow-green, and finally a throb of bruise purple. The lightning tendrils flash too, entending and retreating within its form. It doesn't make any sound. But that's space for you.
There is a glow.
The Tenth Angel stops.
Debris, satellites, rocks don't particularly deter it, nor does it seem interested in wiping them out; most simply cascade against its AT Field in a process that is harmless for it, and simply shreds the incoming object as a natural matter of due course.
But this...
The Angel stops. The shimmer of the Glow Cloud reflects upon the non-euclidean shape of the Tenth Angel, painting a rainbow upon a rainbow. For a long time, it suspends there, motionless, as if - whatever the Glow Cloud is there to communicate - falls upon deaf ears.
And then, there is a crimson shimmer in space.
It lasts only a few moments. Little ripples in the fabric that weaves the void, pulsing a single bright hue of crimson red like beating veins all around the cloud and the coral.
The tempo of these pulses escalates rapidly. And then it stops.
Throughout it, the Tenth Angel is inert.
The flash of colors and lightning-tendrils had stopped for a moment, waiting for the Angel's response. When it finally comes, and once it stops, the Glow Cloud sends pulses of color anew amid the crackling within its body--purple purple purple indigo rosy pink orange... A light show not unlike the dark before the dawn, and the dawn that comes in turn.
As it signals (are they signals?), its tendrils stretch out, branching and branching and branching endlessly like an infinite number of outstretched arms.
Colorful pulses reignite.
They are met almost immediately by branching zigzags of crimson, like angry red lightning bolts in space.
It's like an abrupt rejection -- like an argument, when one party attempts to shout over whatever the other is saying. Is that what is happening?
If it is, there is only crimson to answer the cloud's many colors. And then, as it continues on, tendrils branching ever-outward...
... there is nothing but silence to greet it.
No more flashes of red. The Tenth Angel remains lifelessly inert for a minute longer.
The Glow Cloud, too, is still and silent. Perhaps it's waiting for a different sort of response. Perhaps there's nothing more to say. Perhaps all of that is only the projection of humans, seeking familiarity in literally alien things. The Cloud simply stretches out into literal space, a soft shift of textures flowing through its form.
And then two long, coral protrusions towards the Angel's front rotate forward, presenting a myriad of holes.
Rainbow halos pulse around each of those pitch black pits, and one by one -- each of them expands, violently.
What happens can't be seen directly. It can't be heard either, not in the depths of space. But its effects are easily witnessed.
Everything within its path is obliterated.
Junk and debris are simply wiped out. Satellites melt to slag in seconds. Asteroids become glowing orange splatters of molten space rock. All is reduced down towards a violent end. All around the Tenth Angel.
All except the Cloud.
All that is caught within the radius of the Tenth Angel's strange assault is the very fringes of those innumerable branching tendrils, as if cauterizing their infinity.
As if sending a warning.
The pits of the Tenth Angel shrink back down. Its protrusions fold backwards.
It waits.
It needn't wait long. The searing, molten heat that burns the equivalent of the furthest fingertips of the Glow Cloud send those tendrils shrinking back in violent speed. In contrast the the Angel's deceptively serene stillness, the cloud wobbles and shakes, lightning flashing in all directions within the crunching confines of its insides.
The Cloud continues to crunch in on itself, in fact. At first slow, as if shrinking away from the overwhelming attack; then, as has been observed several times before, with a crumpling rapidity as if someone were crushing a sheet of paper into a wadded ball, it implodes and vanishes.
All that's left behind is a shining four-pointed star. It shines for several seconds. Then it gutters out and is gone.
Nothing is left to block the Angel's way. And so its journey resumes, amid the cooling slag in space.
KTS: Kaiju Navi has deployed in The Tenth Angel - Ophaniel. KTS: Kaiju_Navi has deployed as a Boss for 12 opponents. KTS: Shinji Ikari has deployed in Evangelion Unit-01. KTS: Asuka Shikinami Langley has deployed in Evangelion Unit-02. KTS: Rei Ayanami has deployed in Evangelion Unit-00. KTS: Excellen Browning has deployed in PTX-007-03C Weissritter. KTS: Rei Ayanami has changed loadout. KTS: Kaworu Nagisa has deployed in Evangelion Unit-04. KTS: Yuta Hibiki has deployed in Sky Gridman. KTS: Lucine Azul has deployed in Dianthus Mk. 3. KTS: Alloy Kaas has deployed in Evangelion Unit-Null-Sigma. KTS: Eight York has deployed in Clop-class Cruiser 'Ra Mari'. KTS: Zan has deployed in BT-104 Zan Robo. KTS: Asuka Shikinami Langley arrives loaded onto Eight York's combat deck! KTS: Yuta Hibiki arrives loaded onto Eight York's combat deck! KTS: Liam 7-020 has deployed in GAT-01D Long Dagger Fortestra. KTS: Excellen Browning arrives loaded onto Eight York's combat deck! KTS: Rei Ayanami arrives loaded onto Eight York's combat deck! KTS: Liam 7-020 arrives loaded onto Eight York's combat deck! KTS: Lucine Azul arrives loaded onto Eight York's combat deck! <Pose Tracker> Eight York has posed.
"Picking up dangerous energy patterns, Captain. Can confirm NERV's intelligence--this looks like their Angel. And I'm picking up a.."
"That's our Cloud, isn't it?" Captain York asks Astelian, her Ops officer. "Observe, but don't get too close. We don't know what it can do--"
"Picking up a MASSIVE flux of energy from--"
"All power to shields!"
The Ra Mari is not in the path of the Angel as it unleashes that dark power. This is good; for all the power her shields can bring about, Eight is not certain they would be enough against that blast full on.
"Sir, the Cloud--it's--it's gone!"
"...Noted. Everyone, get ready. This isn't gonna be pretty."
Eight communicates over the channel to the pilots stationed on and around her ship. "All right, most of you know more about these foes than I do, so I won't tell you what to do. I've gotten you here, and I'll back you up, and that's my job. But there's one thing I will tell you--"
"Be careful. Come back alive."
A pause, as she sees her officers finish their work. "Clear to deploy. Sending targeting data now..."
KTS: Eight York targets Asuka Shikinami Langley, Rei Ayanami, and Yuta Hibiki with Coordinate. KTS: Eight York has activated the Spirit Spirit Command. KTS: Eight York coordinates maneuvers, raising Rei Ayanami's Piloting! KTS: Eight York coordinates maneuvers, raising Yuta Hibiki's Piloting!
<Pose Tracker> Asuka Shikinami Langley has posed.
Why is she on the Ra Mari? Well in part it's because their Captain helped contribute to her singular commendation she's received since her transfer to the Tokyo Branch of NERV.
And in part because she can't stand to even glance in Shinji Ikari's way at the moment. She basically said nothing to him on the way to the alert. And nothing as they went their separate ways. Loaded up in the entry plug of her Evangelion, space feels much the same as Earth save a sense of lightness that barely conveys in it's warm fluid interior.
It feels just as awkward to her without gravity as with.
Evangelion Unit-02 exits the hangar bent over, until it reaches the Catapult deck. And then it strides forward, magnetic boots clonking a vibration throughout the ship as they attach and detach again and again and again to the deck. There are clumsy thrusters attached near the Umbilical cable, but she's not using them for now.
"<Launch around me. I don't care if it's inconvenient. I'm taking the Prow.>"
It's perhaps a big ask given the Catapult beneath her, however, there's method to her madness. It may seem like a selfish request. However - she just witnessed that cloud shredding everything. And who knows whatever that Glow Cloud is. If either turns towards the Ra Mari-
-well it might take an AT Field to defend against it.
She's not communicating that to anyone though.
Least of all to Shinji Ikari, to whom she's not communicating annnnnnnyyyythinnnnggg.
"<Tck. You worry too much.>" She tells the Captain of the ship before, "<Targeting Data Received. Engaging.>"
The Crossbow Rail Gun lights up shimmering strands from the limbs, its humming lost to the void of space.
Evangelion Unit-02 then unleashes a Salvo utilizing that data, as stake after stake is sent hurtling through the Abyss of Space to give the Angelic form a warm welcome.
This surely will have no consequences to anything in its path if she ever misses a shot.
Editor's Note: Ritsuko Akagi is a smart cookie and probably had Weapons R&D design them to disintegrate over time when exposed to a vacuum.
Probably.
KTS: Eight York coordinates maneuvers, raising Asuka Shikinami Langley's Piloting! KTS: Asuka Shikinami Langley targets Kaiju Navi with Super-Electromagnetic Crossbow Barrage! KTS: Kaiju Navi's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage. KTS: Kaiju Navi partially guards Asuka Shikinami Langley's Super-Electromagnetic Crossbow Barrage, taking 1575 damage! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 143325 <Pose Tracker> Excellen Browning has posed.
As some individuals have noticed, Excellen is a busy busy bee.
While she prefers to spend her days buzzing from lonely flower to lonely flower though, sometimes instead she is spending her days moving from assignment to assignment under the remit of the Londo Bell military organization. The Assault Team, or ATX for short, is designed to be a highly mobile assault unit. While they primarily utilized humanoid assault units that arose from machines made for facing and fighting other earth-based forces in combat, they were also conceptualized as being able to face less-than-human entitities.
"Y'know, it is kinda romantic, the notion of a white knight riding out on her loyal steed to face down hideous monsters from out of space. But..."
...
"... where are all the hot green space babes with rubber foreheads?! I really feel I was sold a false bill of goods when it came to watching those classic Sci Fi television shows with my dad when I was little!!! I always thought I could be like a Captain Kirk... or I guess more like an Ensign Beckett Mariner. But how am I supposed to romance us through to peace in space with something like that?!"
And that was before it decided to open fire, firing across the Ra Mari's nose and slamming into satellites and asteroids - melting them into slag within seconds. Excellen starts to sweat...
... "Do you think it heard me?"
Regardless once the order is issued, ATX-2 responds over the general comms, <Aye aye oh captain my captain~! Ensign Browning, ATX-2, launching to take up a fire support position.> With that the Weissritter launches out of the Ra Mari and takes off into space, only to quickly wheel about and approaching one of the convenient combat docking station on the hull. Assuming a prone posture, the Weissritter disengages its Oxtongue Launcher from its back. The massive weapon, easily taller than the unit that carries it, is laid across the barrel in front of the Weissritter. The barrel action is worked, loading a ballistic shell into the breach.
She waits patiently for the target resolution to move into the crosshair. "Closer... closer... hiiiiii~ Target-chan~!!"
The bright flash is accompanied with the silent rapport of a weapon fired in deep space - at least outside the Ra Mari. Within the part of the Ra Mari she is decked to, and upon the Weissritter itself, the vibration travels through the metal and produces both a rumble and dull roar! Excellen expertly pumps the barrel with each shot, loading a new round into the breach, and clustering multiple ballistic intending to have them land on the 10th Angel's body!
KTS: Excellen Browning has activated the Valor Spirit Command. KTS: Excellen Browning targets Kaiju Navi with Oxtongue Launcher B Mode! KTS: Kaiju Navi's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage. KTS: Excellen Browning rattles Kaiju Navi, making its next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Kaiju Navi partially guards Excellen Browning's Oxtongue Launcher B Mode, taking 4140 damage! KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Excellen Browning's Hiiiii~<3 Target-chan activates, causing Insight L1! KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Excellen Browning's Catch Me If You Can~! activates, causing Jam L1! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 139185 <Pose Tracker> Zan has posed.
Zan, after repairs assisted by the two corporations that fielded him in the first place, is back at work. Or he was. After the Ninth Angel fight it was decided that he needed to get back to his core duty. The Orbital Ring needed some repairs after a few fights along it and stray beam sabers, units crashing into it, missiles, and who knows what else is deployed these days.
That had lead to the Iron Railer with Zan aboard being launched back into space. A brief stop at the GGG base was done before, and that had lead to Zan getting some interesting information before someone had reminded NERV that he was to be observed from the Federation side of things. He is still a sentient AI, after all.
Said thought processes had lead to Zan requesting some materials, and it was decided to send him to the shoal zone specifically to get more materials than they could supply. That was a lot of material. And past AI incidents had shown what could happen with such material and an AI left alone.
So Zan had a few minders assigned. Mostly remote controlled drones from afar but human interaction could be a thing, too!
And since he had no reason to deploy his more space based weaponry, that had resulted in his showing a few new tricks that others had not seen before. Magnetic beams were being used to pull in material for Zan to analyze, sort through, and go over. A backhoe was being used to move it materials along the length of the train and a giant clamp was used to pinch material together.
The smaller, more humanoid module of Zan was floating in space as he used what amounted to a giant welding gun to keep pieces together for the recycling process. One that was actually in the train as it melted and chewed pieces in the engine's power source to melt down and make more supplies for the eventual track repairs.
Of course, that is interrupted when the signal comes in. Zan's circuits get confused as he looks towards Earth, one of his extra limbs hanging on to the train. Then he analyzes further and turns towards deeper into the shoal zone.
In age old fashion, Zan sums up the problem easily. << Houston, we have a problem. Tenth Angel alert detected. >> He transmits to those assigned to mind him.
<< Iron Railer beginning pack up and switch to combat protocols. Zan deploying to intercept. >> He transmits next.
The train starts to pack up remarkably quickly by itself. Beams, machinery modules, and everything going into the different train cars they came from as the smaller Zan heads towards the Angel to intercept. He's just in time to see it well... do a lot of clearing and that gives him a bit of pause.
Pulling up his multi-purpose rifle, he decides to test if it is an Angel by firing off a laser usually used for cutting at it. With the safeties off at that.
KTS: Zan targets Kaiju Navi with Cutting Laser! KTS: Kaiju Navi's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage. KTS: Kaiju Navi fails to evade Zan's Cutting Laser, taking 1350 damage! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 137835
<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.
This is the furthest that Rei Ayanami has ever been from the planet Earth.
You could make an exception for Tsutsujidai if you wanted to say it was always in the PLANTs, but that might not be entirely correct. Certainly, she didn't take a shuttle up there. She took a train, and a nap.
Traveling in close quarters is not a lot of fun, but Rei was, perhaps, slightly surprised to find that it wasn't so hard, when you put everything together. She is used to artificial and enclosed environments; the interior of the Ra Mari and perhaps any other military spacecraft is going to be like a section of the Geofront that does not open up to anything else. (Well, it can open up to other things. But you shouldn't.)
And the lack of gravity is not a problem. Rei has her share of experience floating, if not, quite, in air.
There is another problem, of course.
The Angel.
-=-=-=-=-
"Activate," Rei Ayanami says. (Evangelion Unit Zero has been mounted in a connector port attached to the Ra Mari. The unit is not that heavy comparatively, but it is eighty meters tall, and you can only cram so many Evangelions into it. Laid out, with the ESV module atop it, equipment attached to the hull, it had a certain appearance of a towed corpse.)
"Disconnect pressure gantry," Rei says, as the accordion-like white tube with its gaping connector that embraces the Entry Plug with space for full extension and safe boarding floats and then retracts onto the second ventral access point for which it had been mounted.
"Disconnect magnetic lock." Eva-00's hips raise slightly.
"Cable clear. S-Type maneuver clear," Rei states.
Rei thinks back to what she saw. As Eva-00 drifts, unlimbering its shield, its monoptical head turns to gaze at the still-gently glowing, oddly liquid remains of the intensely superheated portions of the shoal zone.
The glowing cloud...
Did it die?
The thought is subtly disquieting. Eva-00 shifts its weight, drawing up its legs. The ESV is held against one arm, while the other raises up the 440mm sniper rifle.
Aim. Aim. Wait. The S-type thrusters push a little forwards, a gentle whisper of micro-fused gas as Rei pulls the trigger.
There is no sound, although the entry plug plays a rather lousy substitute for efficient audio feedback. Long seconds pass.
Space, after all, is a rather large place.
KTS: Rei Ayanami has changed loadout. KTS: Rei Ayanami has changed loadout.
<Pose Tracker> Guy Shishioh has posed.
"Well ain't that some shit," Ayame Ushiyama says at the Mobile Operator station.
Orbit Base is on alert, as all NERV stations will be, with an Angel alert on the board. But with neither King of Braves in operation, SeiRyuJin still not quite successfully formed, and Big Porcauto just not very good for space combat, it's expected that Orbit Base will serve a primarily advisory role on this outing.
"I'd attempt to speculate," Hinoki Sai mutters from the Research station, but then lowers her glasses to pinch her nose. "But I stopped having the faintest guess when the annihilation sphere came out."
"That's fine," Intelligence says, Kamuy Pauvre Saginomiya's glasses gleaming in the streams of data. "Not even the Zonders ever operated on quite such strange principles. Just let me know if anything stands out to you, Miss Sai. Your experience with Betterman should help this make a touch more sense for you."
At the back of the Main Order Room sit the top three commanders of the moment: Yang Long-li, Supervisor; Urchin Prickle, Advisor; and Guy Shishioh, Acting Chief of GGG Green, standing in for Shigeru Akamatsu of GGG Blue. Guy's stood up to watch the monitor. "If something with offense like that gets even CLOSE to Earth..."
"Legally it is already close to Earth," Yang notes, passively.
...Guy runs a thumb along his jaw, and then hops the desk, walking down the aisle toward the front. "Ushiy--" ... "Ayame," he clarifies, because two people started to look up, "...How's you and Tsuguo's little project?"
Now the two DO look at him, and then at each other, and then matching sickle grins slash their faces.
"I'll load it on the Wadatsumi's Mirror Catapult right now!" Tsuguo Ushiyama says from Engineering. "Load time, before you get there!"
"Bringing up Mobile Operations system right now!" Ayame adds. "Oh boy, it's got ammo counters now...!"
Guy grins, turns on his heels and steps lightly back toward the command desk. "Just use the usual Emission program, I think?" he says, and slaps his palm on the reader that opens the command elevator in the Order Room's central pylon.
Urchin Prickle blinks, baffled. "Hell are you goin' in the middle of a fight, Chief?"
Guy spins on his heels. "Getting my helmet," he says, and the doors close.
WHICH IS WHY:
A spear of light surges toward the Shoal Zone from Earth - an electromagnetically hyperaccelerated mirror-coated projectile, shot from Orbit Base to the battlefield in moments. Those settings would probably G-LOC a normal person to the tune of a prolonged hospital stay, but the Superhuman Evoluder is anything but normal.
The mirror particles crack off and fall away, and the jet engines on a VF-171 Nightmare Plus take over thrust. It's been painted the same gold-yellow the two 3Gs have taken on as their space forces colors.
"Feels inelegant to just have A Gun," Guy mutters to himself, fingers flicking nimbly at toggle switches. The Variable Fighter's gunpod ignites, raking fire across the Angel's surface.
Also feels weird to not be announcing his presence with a scream from the gut, instead opening comms the old fashioned way. "Mobile Captain Guy Shishioh," he calls on the coordination line. "I'm here to help!"
KTS: Guy Shishioh has deployed in VF-171 Nightmare Plus <Fighter Mode>. KTS: Rei Ayanami targets Kaiju Navi with Sniper Rifle Sighted Shot! KTS: Guy Shishioh targets Kaiju Navi with Gun Pod Shot! <Pose Tracker> Yuta Hibiki has posed.
Yuta made a promise. The next time an angel attacked, he would be there. Every time he's been in need, his friends have been there to fight by his side, and he's not about to let them down.
But maybe... it would've been nice to fight this battle on solid ground! For a young man who has never dreamed of seeing the stars quite this closely, it's more than a little overwhelming. Yuta stays close to a window for as much as the journey as possible, mouth open in awe. He'd meant to take pictures to show Utsumi and Rikka when he gets home, but any thought that isn't sheer awe at the beauty of the Earthsphere is gone the moment they're in space.
"Have you ever seen anything like this..?" Yuta breathes, blue eyes shimmering with emotion.
"If we have, it's not like we remember." Comes a nonchalant answer. Sky Vitter, for all his presumed coolness, sure seems to be spending an awful lot of time staring out the window, too.
Unwilling to leave Tsutsujidai undefended in Gridman's absence, the Neon Genesis Junior High Students have split their number. Two join Yuta aboard the Ra Mari, and two remain back at home. Vit was the obvious choice for a space mission, and Max assigned himself as Junk's guard while Yuta and Vit are out doing battle. It had been a bit of a trial to carry Junk on board, but it was worth it to fight by the side of their comrades.
"Captain Eight," Max speaks up, his arms folded in front of his wide chest. "If I may be of service during the battle, please, call upon me."
When they come upon the angel, Yuta looks utterly shocked. Vit puts a hand on his shoulder. It's some sort of... coral beast, fighting a glowing cloud? Before he can think to question it too much, a wave of energy reaches the Ra Mari. Yuta cries out in alarm, and even Vit looks concerned, holding the young man tightly as the ship's shields protect them.
"We better get out there, kid." Vit's face is grim. "Don't like the look of this one."
"Right." Yuta glances around. Everyone on this ship is about to know his secret, but... it can't be helped. "Captain Eight, thank you again for the ride. Please stay safe!" The young man approaches Junk, with Vit at his shoulder. Max moves out of the way.
"Access code..."
"Access..."
"Sky Vitter!" "Flash!"
And with that, Sky-Gridman is here! Floating gently near the Ra Mari in space, back at his full size, he's a glowing beacon of red-and-blue in the darkness of the void. Taking a moment to move his arms and legs, and test his thrusters, the Giant of Light gives himself a firm nod. Eva-00 is just nearby, and Gridman ignites his thrusters just a bit, manuvering next to its side. Rei's in there, right? It'd be good to have an ally to fight side by side with in this new, terrifying place...
A little wave from the Giant, toward the Eva. It looks like Rei's going to be sniping... Maybe she could use an ally keeping her safe. "Let's fight together! I've got your back!"
"Yuta!" Gridman shouts, "We have to give this one our all! Think of our allies!"
Heart pounding, Yuta refocuses on the Angel before them. "Right! Let's do this, Vit, I'm counting on you!"
"You got it, Gridman. Tracking Beam Cannons!"
From the guns on Sky-Gridman's back, beams of light launch toward the monstrous Angel. It's a test, more than anything, as Gridman tries to feel out which of his weapons would be the most effective on this foe. All the same, Yuta holds his breath, praying they're effective.
KTS: Yuta Hibiki targets Kaiju Navi with Tracking Beam Cannons! <Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.
The MAGI complete their analysis: blood type blue.
According to their hypothesis, the Tenth Angel has come.
It's somewhat later than Kaworu had anticipated, actually. He'd given his assessment that another Angelic entity would appear soon after the one called Sandalphon, but it ended up taking its time. It seems to be a cautious one, this time. Cautious... but not incapable of force.
From within the entry plug of the silver Evangelion, Unit-04--normally Mari's Unit, but she wasn't available to deploy today--Kaworu gazes out at Ophaniel. Clad in his black plugsuit and silver interface headset, his right arm rests on his right leg, bent to hook on the edge of his throne; his left hand is settled on the armrest while his left leg dangles in the LCL. Unit-04 crouches on the transport provided by Zan, but that doesn't interfere with his visuals.
The Angel floats closer and closer towards the Earth... until it reaches the so-called Glow Cloud, blocking its way. Lights and colors blink and flash like a radio tower. The Cloud spreads. The Angel attacks. And the Cloud shrivels and crunches up until it's gone. In other words, it has run away.
Kaworu, who so often smiles, observes this without one. The edges of his eyebrows peak while the edges of his lips tuck down.
"You tried. It's not your fault they wouldn't listen," he murmurs, seemingly to the void.
Eight sends out a transmission to the collected pilots, telling them to come back alive. Now Kaworu smiles, faint and crooked but sincere. He may not be on the Ra Mari currently, but it's close enough. "<Thank you, Captain York. We'll do our utmost,>" he transmits back. To Guy, he sends, "<Your assistance is much appreciated, Acting Chief Shishioh.>"
He side-eyes Asuka in Unit-02 when she brushes off Eight's concern--but that's not really his concern. Instead, he turns his gaze from Unit-02 to Unit-01--to Shinji within. There are things he can't ask the two of them, but... it wasn't beyond his notice that the two of them avoided each other on the way out and up.
That's why he sends a private communication window to Unit-01, an audiovisual feed to Shinji alone. "Shinji? Is something the matter?" he prompts gently. Silently, he's grateful for Yuta (or rather, Gridman) moving
towards Rei to support her; with them watching out for each other, he can focus on this for the moment.
At the same time, Unit-04 unfolds and produces an assault rifle. Positioning himself against the train, he takes aim on Ophaniel and delivers a simple opening shot, not taking any special care with its A.T. Field just yet. In Kaworu's view, there isn't any point in trying anything excessive right away. Not against this opponent.
C.C. teleports in.
Akane Shinjo teleports in.
POT: C.C. is now set observer.
POT: Akane Shinjo is now set observer.
KTS: Kaworu Nagisa targets Kaiju Navi with Assault Rifle - Single Fire!
KTS: Kaiju Navi's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage. KTS: Kaiju Navi fails to evade Rei Ayanami's Sniper Rifle Sighted Shot, taking 1800 damage! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 136035 KTS: Kaiju Navi's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage. KTS: Kaiju Navi partially guards Kaworu Nagisa's Assault Rifle - Single Fire, taking 1215 damage! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 134820 KTS: Kaiju Navi's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage. KTS: Kaiju Navi fails to evade Guy Shishioh's Gun Pod Shot, taking 2100 damage! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 132720 KTS: Kaiju Navi's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage. KTS: Kaiju Navi partially guards Yuta Hibiki's Tracking Beam Cannons, taking 1995 damage! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 130725
<Pose Tracker> Lucine Azul has posed.
Having arrived on Eight's ship as a well-meaning gesture from the Nadesico (reality: Lucine wanted to), the gardener pilot couldn't have arrived fast enough the second she heard their "Cloud" was present.
And that, by extension, there was also an Angel. Just... how would the two react to each other? It's not as if they could come to the Glow Cloud's 'defense', as it's just as likely it would simply--
..... well, it could do that, which is 'crumble into a ball and disappear'.
".... I had wondered if the glowing cloud was some sort of Angel in itself... now, I feel terrible that it had to deal with all of that." Lucine considers aloud. "... While I'm going to assume that the glowing cloud will reappear like before, if this Angel makes it to Earth... Though..."
Maybe Lucine just isn't good enough to understand what she's perceiving, as she looks towards the exchange between Angel and Glow Cloud. Something felt off by the way that interaction came, like something on the Angel's side wasn't lining up with what was visible. "...." To say what she feels aloud, even on the ship of someone who seems to also be a Newtype, may render a false positive.
"The Angel is rather pretty," she says, instead. "... Like those videos I've seen of underwater reefs..." That is the end of Lucine's useful contribution. Perhaps she will do better as a pilot.
Into the bay she goes, pilot suit on and fitting the helmet over her head. A few climbs and she's slipping into the Dianthis's opening cockpit like a hand into a glove.
What if...? But how would Lucine even know what Angels were capable of, especially out here?
Into the void of space the Dianthis swims, a bright flower against the dark. Balls of light follow, turning the sea of stars into a summer night of fireflies, with an alien butterfly casting them away into the nonexistent breeze. <"Lucine Azul of the Dianthus, present. Let's all do what we can.">
<Pose Tracker> Shinji Ikari has posed.
An Angel sighting is never something Shinji is happy about. It is, grimly, a more straightforward problem for him to worry about than the one eating at his thoughts. His mind tries to trade one unspeakable reality for another one, and as terrible a pact as this would be, it fails. One can hold many terrible realities at once. On a completely unrelated note, Shinji watched Asuka uncomfortably, but did not find the nerves to say a single word to her before she went her way, and he went his.
He needs to focus.
But it's a strange signal that's caught today. "That... cloud," Shinji murmurs as he watches, eyes wide. It feels like the world's strangest nature documentary with none of the necessary narration to understand it. A conversation taking place within the sort of organisms seen under a microscope, except impossibly big. He remembers that colorful cloud, uneasy and afraid of it at first, but now...
Is it on... their side...? It does not, or cannot, stop the Tenth Angel from arriving, and Shinji wonders if the strange, colorful being is hurt with an ache in his chest. There wouldn't be anything they could do for it if it was.
Hands squeezing Unit-01's controls, he nods resolutely for his own benefit while responding to Eight: "<R...Right.>" 'Come back alive,' always reminds him that they might not. "<Engaging...!>"
Kaworu appears in his communications privately, and Shinji reflexively glances outside the entry plug to physically see Unit-04. "...It's nothing," Shinji lies. "I'm all right." Kaworu needs to not worry about him. If Kaworu were distracted during the battle and something happened, Shinji might never forgive himself. Shinji does not know how to stop being the kind of person people need to worry about.
Unit-01 prepares the rifle deployed with it today. Shinji's watching Asuka dive right into things as always, and tries to offer support fire with an attempt to make a precisely aimed shot.
KTS: Shinji Ikari targets Kaiju Navi with Type MM-99 209mm AU Assault Rifle Shot! KTS: Kaiju Navi's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage. KTS: Kaiju Navi fails to evade Shinji Ikari's Type MM-99 209mm AU Assault Rifle Shot, taking 700 damage! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 130025 KTS: Lucine Azul targets Kaiju Navi with Lunate Crown v.2 Fireflies! KTS: Kaiju Navi's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage. KTS: Kaiju Navi partially guards Lucine Azul's Lunate Crown v.2 Fireflies, taking 1125 damage! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 128900 KTS: Lucine Azul begins a Formation attack!
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
Not long after he signed up with NERV, Liam spent a few days aboard the Ra Mari, cross-training for space combat with its crew. It's good to be back aboard, even under these circumstances--rumors of an Angel sighting, and the lingering fallout of the battle with the Vajra. When the alert goes out, Liam suits up, heads to the hangar, and does preflights as other machines launch. His Long Dagger has finally been repaired after his disastrous fight with Chienne, though it involved the full-out replacement of both its legs.
"Focus, Lucine," Liam says via tightband, as his dear friend speaks about the cloud and the Angel. "Remember Jophiel." A pause, and a huff of breath. Focus.
"I've got your back."
Then, he switches over to the mission band. "Pilot 7-020, launching." The Long Dagger steps onto the catapult rails. Clamps lock its feet in place. Seconds tick down, and then WHOOSH
The GAT-01D flies free, into the void. Liam burns the jets hard, turning right; the Mobile Suit's head tracks the Angel, its CIWS roaring silently as it pours lead downrange. The cyborg executes a turn that would put hideous pressure on an unaugmented pilot, and comes to rest on the Ra Mari's deck.
Right next to Excellen's machine. This may be awkward.
Liam lets out another breath, and takes stock. The Evas are here. Zan is here. Guy is here, in a Nightmare(?!). They're not alone.
KTS: Liam 7-020 targets Kaiju Navi with Igelstellung 75mm Multibarrel CIWS Dash-and-Fire! KTS: Kaiju Navi's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage. KTS: Kaiju Navi fails to parry Liam 7-020's Igelstellung 75mm Multibarrel CIWS Dash-and-Fire, taking 1575 damage! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 127325 KTS: Liam 7-020 has engaged Kaiju Navi!
<Pose Tracker> Alloy Kaas has posed.
Eyes closed, arms folded across her chest. Alouette Kaas exists in the blanket of LCL, sheltered in the plug within Evangelion Unit Null Sigma. Trying to pick out the subtler stimuli, she focuses on her heart beat. Until it is the loudest thing she can hear. She wasn't bored, she had elected to go along with Zan. No it isn't boredom. If she had to put words to it, she would call it grounding. The exercise, regardless of name, hadn't yielded other results she had hoped for.
Alarms sound and holographic windows pop up flooding the plug with information. With a wave of a hand most are dismissed. Only the necessary data, but it still takes an eternity of moments to scan and understand what was happening. Null-Sigma comes to life, as if she had just been awaiting this. But the sight Alouette recieves, is a disturbing one regarding a familiar cloud.
"What the hell just happened?!"
Alouette goes for emergency deployment as more comms and details flood senses. The magnetic locks and anchors burst away from the frame of the Eva.
"Unit Null-Sigma, deployed. Unit Zero-One, Zero-Four, I'm at your four o'clock."
The grip of the control sticks in her hand, Alloy finishes the umbilical hook-up, and Null-Sigma is moving. With a quick grapple of a line to the farthest end of the larger Zan vehicle, the heavy fall of the magnets engaged from the feet... The Evangelion takes a run down the longest length she can manage, and leaps off.
"Hey Shinji! Don't worry, we're working together again all of us. HUYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
Alloy finishes her minder with a yell, as what seemed to be a straight line, turns out to be a wide arc pendulum. It almost seems like slo-motion, but it's not. The large organic being surrounding her builds up inertia through the full arc. Only when it comes back towards the Angel does it become clear how much speed she had built up.
The grapple detaches and Unit Null-Sigma rockets towards the being. Alouette pulls the extra limbs that are the feature of her Eva, in close, wrapping them to act as barrier to other junk... until she closes in and, the large flash of energy released as her own AT-Field peaks on impact with another.
KTS: Alloy Kaas has activated the Spirit Spirit Command. KTS: Alloy Kaas: Will Barrier Activates. KTS: Alloy Kaas targets Kaiju Navi with Mariana Trench Warfare! KTS: Kaiju Navi fails to parry Alloy Kaas's Mariana Trench Warfare, taking 6890 damage! KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Alloy Kaas's Geass Directorate Survivor activates, causing Sparkle! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 120435 KTS: Alloy Kaas has engaged Kaiju Navi! KTS: Alloy Kaas completes the Formation attack!
<Pose Tracker> Kaiju Navi has posed.
Did the Angel hear Excellen...?!
It's unclear. Terribly, terribly unclear.
As it is, the Angel that looks like nothing so much as a massive leaflet of space coral doesn't even seem to acknowledge the presence of the Ra Mari, its crew, the Mobile Weapons -- or even any of NERV's machines sent to engage with it. It simply continues on with its trajectory, anything in its path battered by its AT Field, as if it has not reached a point where it feels aggression is necessary.
As if it has not reached the destination where it intends to deploy that strange violence.
There's no prize for guessing where that location may be, but the prize for preempting it, is, well --
Preemptive violence.
The Crossbow Rail Gun of Evangelion Unit-02 lines up. The Tenth Angel, Ophaniel, does not try to get out of its path. Shots are fired -- and each one of the stakes is intercepted one after the other by a force that is invisible up until the exact moment of impact, where octograms of prismatic force pulse along where they suspend those stakes in mid-air.
There is a strange shudder in the Angel. Asuka may see one of the holes in its larboard side expand slightly with a rainbow halo's shimmer.
And then all those stakes melt, immediately.
The moment it happens, there registers faint, brief blips on communication frequencies at and around Unit-02. Background radio emissions spike to briefly unconventional and anomalous levels, and then simmer.
The Angel resumes moving.
It's like this as the others advance, too. Zan's laser is intercepted across the surface of Ophaniel's AT Field even as it slowly floats past him like an unobtrusive piece of shimmering rock; the Gunpod of Guy's very 3G Variable Fighter finds its bulletfire ricocheting off strobe pulses of octagonal shields. The rifle fire of Evangelion Unit-04 strikes the same spot, straining that AT Field towards brighter colors -- soon joined by the Gridman's beams of light, scorching across its metaphysically-protected surface in a bright flash of neon yellow.
The sniping shot of Unit-00 and the support fire of Unit-01 hit in concert on that same spot; bullets are intercepted, quivering and crunching against an octagon of violently pulsating colors of brighter and brighter reds, blues and yellows mixing into other myriad hues --
But it is not until the Weissritter's clustered ballistics that their attacks actually elicit a -reaction-. The AT Field shatters briefly thanks to the accumulated damage; the Oxtongue Rifle hammers its offensive across the rocky surface of Ophaniel in the seconds before the AT Field reasserts itself, shearing off a chunk of glimmering space coral into the air.
And the Tenth Angel pauses.
It seems almost lifeless, hanging in the air like that -- offputtingly so, even compared to its inert movements from earlier. Little, rainbow hallows shimmer, so translucent they can scarcely be seen as they dot the entirety of its massive frame.
And then it -spins-.
<"Lucine Azul of the Dianthus, present. Let's all do what we can.">
<"Lucine A ul o t e Di n hu , pr se t. L t' ll d w a e ca .">
<"LUCIne AZOOOOOOOOOOooohhhghl of thAAAAAEEEEEEEEEE DiANNNNNOOOOthhhhhhhhhhhhhus, preSeEEEeent. Let's all do SSSSSSSSSSKKKKKKKKKHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH">
Static screeches and bounces Lucine's transmission the exact moment it comes out over and over and over until the message becomes distended and painful to hear, interspersed with interference and insanity. Her attack and the CIWS of Liam's Mobile Suit pepper across the AT Field of the Tenth Angel in shimmering ripples just as the strange entity rotates a full ninety degrees in space as if possessed by some invisible, natural AMBAC, presenting its would-be underside to the entirety of its aggressors. Halos shimmer around its pitch black pits.
And they expand.
Null-Sigma crashes through that strained AT Field -- and it is just as its AT Field IMPACTS violently with the Angel's rocky surface that Alloy might feel the LCL of her entry plug begin to heat.
It comes in pulses. One mild. One a bit more intense. More and more and more in increasing frequency and intensity until it becomes an exponential process of pulses, invisible to the naked eye. Alloy, at its epicenter, receives the worst of it, as visual and radio communications distort into scrambling images and static screeches if she remains within its range too long, threatening to push past her AT Field and start heating up the Evangelion itself.
The rest receive varying levels of this unseen onslaught as communications across the battlefield distort and wobble. Rapidfire signals spread outward invisibly with a tap-tapping assault of electromagnetic frequencies that look to catch anything in its radius and -hammer- it with rapidly growing heat. The Weissritter and the Dianthis are specifically targeted, it seems, rather than the generalist assault the Angel employs for the others: two holes open outward and then winnow -down- into pinpoint pricks of void-like black, as if focusing -in- on Excellen and Lucine's machines... before sudden, impossibly potent tightbeams fire invisible paths of force towards their machines with inexplicable, drilling force.
Radio frequencies.
It's attacking them with radio frequencies.
KTS: Kaiju Navi has activated the Strike Spirit Command.
KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Alloy Kaas with 144MW - The Woodpecker! KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Shinji Ikari with 35MW - Duga! KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Guy Shishioh with 35MW - Duga! KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Kaworu Nagisa with 35MW - Duga! KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Excellen Browning with 97MW - Dnestr! KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Rei Ayanami with 35MW - Duga! KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Eight York with 35MW - Duga! KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Lucine Azul with 97MW - Dnestr! KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Liam 7-020 with 35MW - Duga! KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Asuka Shikinami Langley with 35MW - Duga! KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Zan with 35MW - Duga! KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Yuta Hibiki with 35MW - Duga! KTS: Excellen Browning has activated the Alert Spirit Command. KTS: Excellen Browning successfully evades Kaiju Navi's 97MW - Dnestr KTS: EN Regen activates. Your new EN value is 25. KTS: Asuka Shikinami Langley has activated the Spirit Spirit Command. KTS: Asuka Shikinami Langley's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage. KTS: Asuka Shikinami Langley partially guards Kaiju Navi's 35MW - Duga, taking 1450 damage! KTS: EN Regen activates. Your new EN value is 63. KTS: Eight York blocks Kaiju Navi's 35MW - Duga, taking 5280 damage! KTS: EN Regen activates. Your new EN value is 104. KTS: Rei Ayanami's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage. KTS: Rei Ayanami partially guards Kaiju Navi's 35MW - Duga, taking 3190 damage! KTS: EN Regen activates. Your new EN value is 145. KTS: Yuta Hibiki successfully evades Kaiju Navi's 35MW - Duga KTS: EN Regen activates. Your new EN value is 186. KTS: Kaworu Nagisa fails to react to Kaiju Navi's 35MW - Duga, taking 3520 damage! KTS: EN Regen activates. Your new EN value is 227. KTS: Shinji Ikari successfully evades Kaiju Navi's 35MW - Duga KTS: EN Regen activates. Your new EN value is 268. KTS: Alloy Kaas's Will Barrier activates, negating 500 base damage. KTS: Kaiju Navi rattles Alloy Kaas, making her next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Alloy Kaas blocks Kaiju Navi's 144MW - The Woodpecker, taking 3675 damage! KTS: EN Regen activates. Your new EN value is 309. KTS: Zan's Force Wall L1 activates, negating 1000 base damage. KTS: Zan blocks Kaiju Navi's 35MW - Duga, taking 2380 damage! KTS: EN Regen activates. Your new EN value is 350. KTS: Liam 7-020 blocks Kaiju Navi's 35MW - Duga, taking 2640 damage! KTS: EN Regen activates. Your new EN value is 391. KTS: Guy Shishioh has activated the Wall Spirit Command. KTS: Guy Shishioh's EN Barrier activates, negating 1000 base damage. KTS: Guy Shishioh fails to evade Kaiju Navi's 35MW - Duga, taking 4080 damage! KTS: EN Regen activates. Your new EN value is 432. KTS: Lucine Azul successfully evades Kaiju Navi's 97MW - Dnestr KTS: EN Regen activates. Your new EN value is 473. <Pose Tracker> Zan has posed.
Seeing his laser just hit the AT Field has Zan confirming that's the target. And that means he is going to need bigger. He floats backwards before turning his head to look at the Iron Railer train.
The train starts to move.
Then the radio waves hit. And the train stops, even ramming into something right in front of it lightly as it goes dead.
Zan looks confused, bringing his hand up, then looking to the train before looking back at the Angel.
And his broadcasts are silent.
The AI looks very much in confusion between the train and himself for a few seconds as he seems to be trying to figure out something.
The orange optics dim for a second before coming back to full power and the gun is brought up to fire off what looks like large nail binder staples at the Angel.
Communication finally comes spotty, << Wh... ened to... ot... ain. >> A lot of it is lost, but the AI's face has what can only pass as confusion as he unloads on the Angel with the load of giant staples.
KTS: Zan targets Kaiju Navi with Nail Barrage! KTS: Kaiju Navi's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage. KTS: Kaiju Navi fails to react to Zan's Nail Barrage, taking 1400 damage! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 119035
<Pose Tracker> Asuka Shikinami Langley has posed.
Asuka notices Shinji offering his own assault fire out of the corner of her Entry Plug's visual field. Does that mean he's paying attention to her right now? Trying to back her up? She's glad but - it's also so awkward. So instead she talks to Rei, "<How's your angle on it Commander's Pet?>"
Which is only slightly
less awkward
than talking to Shinji comparatively
Looking at Gridman appear in Space, she she catches a signal appear, and - "Wait is that Guy in a Nightmare?" Asuka comments to herself without her radio, surprised to see him show up in what she used to fly in the AEU. "Geez. ... At least he's got good taste."
Asuka sees the ATField catch all of her bolts, not exactly an unexpected outcome. Which is when all the stakes melt. The communications blips are not something she notices at first - then she looks down at her radio control panel, catching the little spikes of interference. "<Some kind of attack? AT Field to Maximum.>" At the front of the ship, the AT Field of Evangelion-02 unfolds like a blossom of geometric shapes that ripple outwards like a wholly flat surface of a pond out here in space.
It still isn't apparent until, that Oxtongue breaks free and - Lucine's radio is distorted into a SCREECH as Asuka quickly pounds her console to try and turn it down. "<What is it doin->" It hits her as she sees one pulse after another, more mild, then stronger, and stronger.
"<The Tenth Angel! It'sSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS>"
"<The Tenth Angel! It's-> using radio frequencies!"
Asuka might as well call out into the void outside, for all the good that's doing her. The signal interference disrupting her ability not just to transmit but to receive as it becomes a cacophony. As heated pulses begin trying to hammer her. The interference is strong, but she tries to shift the AT Field in real time based on the little hints of signal distortion to at least intercept some of the growing pap-PAP pulses of electromagnetic frequencies but that quickly becomes futile given that it can just attack them at all sides.
"Anyone have any bright i-" Asuka pauses, realizing in that moment that her messages aren't getting through. Only recently had she learned the value of teamwork at all, but now their ability to communicate has been silenced. "Tck." Without a word she waves her crossbow like it was some kind of landing baton at the airport, as if trying to motion for Shinji to follow her lead, before she takes aim and tries to fire - at that same spot she saw Excellen strike.
It is a gamble, given that she saw part of its response but...
... at least she still has her AT Field, that's at least far better than nothing, even if she can't talk to anyone.
KTS: Asuka Shikinami Langley targets Kaiju Navi with Super-Electromagnetic Crossbow Snipe! <Pose Tracker> Eight York has posed.
Eight isn't bothered by Asuka's rebuff. She laughs a little, not into the radio, which prompts a weird look from their weapons specialist. But he goes back to his work. Eight, for her part, listens to Excellen and thinks fondly of her own green space babe without bringing him up to Excellen. Instead she looks at the Weistritter launching. "Acknowledged."
Towing the Eva was a little creepy. But it's fine, Rei. It's fine.
"I'll do that," Eight said to Max back when he offered hep.
She watches Gridman appear, and... Well. It's always something of a sight. But her eyes track to the others, too, and as she response to Kaworu she says, "Acknowledged. Keeping battle position behind you."
Lucine calls the Angel pretty... and Eight feels--
"Aaah--" It's not just Eight who hears the radio go haywire. The pulses, and then more, and more--Eight hears some of it. Their systems get more of it. The attack makes the whole ship shudder.
"Captain! If we take another hit like that, we're going to have to withdraw!" Fari is... nervous, to say the least, seeing a strange creature like that. "Well, we haven't yet," Eight says. "So until we do, we'll fire everything we have. Get the Hyper Beam System charging. For now, load up the missile tubes."
"Get me a denial out there--fire as much as we can, try to soften up the AT Field for the others."
The Ra Mari turns, and starts barreling out with missiles past its many shields, each ne launching towards the great... rock? The terrible form of the Angel, alien as it is.
KTS: Eight York targets Kaiju Navi with Clop Missile Array Area Denial!
<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.
Silly Shinji. People worry you because they care. But that isn't easy to see, is it?
Kaworu's gaze on his friend is level. He doesn't accuse him of lying, but there's a certain sadness in his eyes that implies he knows Shinji isn't being truthful. All the same, he offers him a muted smile. "<All right. We can talk about it after we've returned, if you like,>" he replies agreeably. He turns his gaze outwards, to where the Glow Cloud had been. Shinji had voiced his observation of it, so... "<...Are you curious about that being?>"
He's of course not the only one. Alouette expresses her confusion about what just happened with the Cloud and the Angel. "<It appears the entity known as the Glow Cloud attempted to dissuade the Angel from its approach, only to be forced into retreat by its attack,>" Kaworu explains, transmitting to the battlefield at large along with Alouette. "<I don't believe it was more than superficially injured.>"
Alloy follows up by stating her position relative to Shinji and him. "<Understood. I'll provide cover fire for you, Alouette,>" he responds. Unit-04 adjusts his sights accordingly as Unit-0S closes in on Ophaniel.
However...
However, Ophaniel may be still, but it is not inactive. Lucine's transmission distorts, then repeats, then warbles, until it is beyond all recognition. Kaworu narrows his eyes as he dons a slight frown, though he doesn't blink at the cacophony. Rather, he's more concerned his transmission outwards might well have been distorted before reaching some if not all of the others. He can still hear Eight, for example, but did she hear him...? From there, invisible waves erupt forward in all directions--all directions that include the Angel's foes, at least.
"...." Kaworu not-says as the radio waves ripple around Unit-04. He--that is, the Evangelion--jerks and twitches in understated agony; even so, at Kaworu's will, he clings to his sniper's perch. Kaworu himself grits his teeth as the LCL around him heats, grip tightening on Unit-04's controls. When the attack passes, he heaves a soundless breath that bubbles up through the liquid around him, head sagging to his chest. It's throbbing...
"I see. So that's your <true nature> (read: <voice>)," he murmurs, bangs hiding his eyes from view.
Pained and not without effort, he raises his chin and squeezes the controls. An instant later, Unit-04 raises his assault rifle to focus in on Ophaniel, specifically where Alloy is in its grips, then opens with a rapid burst of spread-out fire meant to weaken the Angel's A.T. Field and make the others's attacks more effective.
(semi-auto killed the radio star)
KTS: Kaworu Nagisa targets Kaiju Navi with Assault Rifles - Double Trouble! KTS: Kaworu Nagisa has activated the Enable Spirit Command targeting Alloy Kaas KTS: Kaiju Navi's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage. KTS: Kaiju Navi fails to react to Asuka Shikinami Langley's Super-Electromagnetic Crossbow Snipe, taking 2320 damage! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 116715 KTS: Kaiju Navi successfully intercepts Eight York's Clop Missile Array Area Denial #151:dodefend, line 11: Range error ... called from #151:+defend, line 49 (End of traceback)
KTS: Kaiju Navi's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage. KTS: Kaiju Navi fails to react to Kaworu Nagisa's Assault Rifles - Double Trouble, taking 4680 damage! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 112035
<Pose Tracker> Yuta Hibiki has posed.
"No good!" Vit shouts, above the noise of the crackling radio failure. At least Gridman and his components can communicate without the need for radios. If worst comes to worst, they'll still be okay. But should it start to affect the connection between Gridman and Junk...
Gridman sees the actual attack coming a mile away, and avoids it with a last-minute dive to the left. Yuta can't fight the way he'd prefer to without gravity, not able to flip or leap away from attacks, or surprise an enemy with his acrobatics. He probably won't get lucky with a dodge again. And besides that, their attack didn't even seem to phase this thing! Angels are really on another level!
"Max!" Gridman calls, his voice coming through Junk in the Ra Mari. "Do you see any weaknesses from your position?"
With a stoic glare out the window, Max speaks, from behind his mask. "I do not. As long as that creature has such a powerful barrier, our attacks will be no good. Perhaps you can strike precisely the same position as Miss Ayanami, in an attempt to shatter it?"
"Rei!" Yuta calls, praying she can hear him. "Let's hit it at the same spot! I'll give it all I've got!"
Radiant light, pure and unfiltered like the sun in Tsutsujidai, begins to shine from Gridman. Yuta thinks of his friends, helpless on the planet below them. They couldn't let this monster by them -- they just couldn't. It'd be too terrible for words. And with how much other worldwide disasters hurt Akane... If this kaiju reached the planet, her heart would be more damaged than ever!
Determination flares in Yuta's heart. In one voice, Gridman and Sky Vitter shout, "Vitter Beam Barrage!"
Dozens of beams of light launch from Gridman's back, this time. They outshine the distant stars, blazing a meteor's path across the battlefield toward the coral-beast.
Let it work, Yuta thinks, as though his urging could shatter the barrier of the Angel, break apart and vanish, monster!
KTS: Yuta Hibiki has activated the Focus Spirit Command. KTS: Yuta Hibiki targets Kaiju Navi with Vitter Beam Barrage! <Pose Tracker> Excellen Browning has posed.
Somehow, somewhere, deep down in her ponytail... Excellen feels a cold tingly chill. She shudders while clutching both control sticks in her hands and staring at Ophaniel through the optics of her machine. <Geeze, this thing makes my ponytail feel all tingly. Ever get that feeling that someone is watching you, but you can't SEE the person watching you?! It's like that, but a THOUSAND times worse.>
<... you don't think they know how to hold a grudge do you?>
At the very least Excellen is allowed a brief respite from focusing on the unnerving feelings she's getting from the Tenth Angel by Liam coming to a firing position at her side. She hears his voice, hears him mention Lucine, and all at once she sends a video over to him of her cheerfully smiling face. <Hi Liam~! I didn't know you were in on this sortie too... oh that's right, I thought I heard Lucine's voice too. How are you two doing? Good? Did you happen to bring any fresh veggies with you?! Maybe we can make a fancy stir fry to celebrate our victory! ... wait, what's that?>
She sees the thing spinning. Then she hears Lucine's voice...
... no, not Lucine's voice. Increasingly it becomes distorted, increasingly is screeches violently, all the while the cold tingle she feels grows more and more pronounced. She doesn't know what's going on but she figures it's not going to be good for her.
<... ku... disengaging to evade!!> Hissing screeching static responds. She can only hope someone on the other end hears her. That doesn't change the fact she needs to MOVE though. With a flourish the Weissritter manages to holster the Oxtongue Launcher onto its magnetic port on the back of her machine. Then the Weissritter uses both hands and then its feet to KICK off of the side of the Ra Mari just in time for a beam of pure black energy to consume her former position.
"Oof..." Excellen mutters. Her eyes catch a similar void-like space where Lucine's Dianthus was once located. She pauses to bring one finger up to her chin, and tap it slowly... it looks like it took Lucine's audio and did SOMETHING with it... but why? Was it trying to communicate? And was there a reason it came after her too?
... ugh, rubber forehead aliens would be way easier to figure out.
Once there is a pause in the barrage though, the Weissritter zips back down to the docking point and reattaches. However she doesn't have the time to unleash another Oxtongue Launcher attack. Thankfully now that she's in closer range, though, she has a few more options at her disposal:
<Alright, clear the way for a Gespie classic!! Split missile, fire!> The ATX pilot declares cheerfully even through the distortion being caused by the Tenth Angel. A pair of large missile pods disengage from the back of the Weissritter before flying off towards their target!
Even as the missile pods split open to unveil and launch their payload though, Excellen catches what Asuka is saying on the radio. <Huh?! Say again? The Tenth Angel it rodeos frequently? Is this some kind of weird NERV categorization system I don't understand?>
KTS: Excellen Browning targets Kaiju Navi with Split Missile! <Pose Tracker> Shinji Ikari has posed.
The look Kaworu gives Shinji immediately fills him with guilt, and his eyes dart away from the communications, unable to mask it. "<...All right,>" he agrees, privately, already caught and not enough of an actor to pretend further.
But on the nature of the being... Shinji is curious and perks back up to pay attention. "<The Glow Cloud?>" Relief settles on his face. "<So it wasn't hurt...?>"
Alloy assures him they're together again. Shinji breathes in slow and lets it out slower. He's fought Angels before and won. He just has to do it again. (And again... and again...) A round of attacks flies into the Angel, Shinji's nerves alight as he watches every reaction, from its crumbling AT Field to its eerie, shimmering form.
A distorted transmission fills Unit-01's entry plug and Shinji grimaces, teeth rattled with an electric sensations as he grips tighter at the controls to keep from reflexively covering his ears.
"<Azul, -- you --!>" He doesn't realize his transmissions aren't going through correctly, either, catching only fragments of his panicked, shouting voice. If he could understand what was happening to Alloy right now, the sound would be even more pitched and grating.
Shinji's instincts are sharper than he ever gives himself credit for, and when the Tenth Angel makes its subtle shimmers and a flicker of increased heat, Shinji feels his attention rocket up his spine and demand immediate action. The onslaught is invisible, but his AT Field, in this single moment in time with a little luck to go with it, is perfectly timed.
"<What -- ?! -- everyone -->"
Asuka's trying to say something, but Shinji can't make it out. Why is every message so distorted?! This unseen assault, it's...
"Radio frequencies?!" he shouts, to no one, because he cannot be heard. He looks up over the battlefield with new panic, every broken piece of static as good as silence. If there's any new data coming, or important warnings, none of them are getting it.
Without speaking, Asuka still signals him. Shinji's attention is too much on her Unit-02 not to see it. She makes her motion, and Shinji nods -- again, where no one can see -- as Unit-02 adjusts position into a crouch. Asuka's shot leads the way for his careful aim before he fires, chasing her shot with one of his own.
KTS: Shinji Ikari has activated the Strike Spirit Command. KTS: Kaiju Navi's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage. KTS: Kaiju Navi fails to react to Yuta Hibiki's Vitter Beam Barrage, taking 3120 damage! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 108915 KTS: Shinji Ikari targets Kaiju Navi with Type MM-99 209mm AU Assault Rifle Reckless Fire! KTS: Kaiju Navi's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage. KTS: Kaiju Navi fails to intercept Excellen Browning's Split Missile, taking 2800 damage! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 106115 KTS: Kaiju Navi's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage. KTS: Kaiju Navi fails to react to Shinji Ikari's Type MM-99 209mm AU Assault Rifle Reckless Fire, taking 2175 damage! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 103940 KTS: Shinji Ikari roots his unit, coming to a standstill and leaving him vulnerable.
<Pose Tracker> Guy Shishioh has posed.
"Don't worry about me too much," Guy notes. "I'm a trained space pilot, I'll have you know!"
What a weird way to specify that, if you don't know he's talking about being trained to fly exploratory spacecraft. Ten years ago. Still, it translates well to the fiddly operation of a machine like the Nightmare. "I wouldn't just leave you all to deal with--"
HE doesn't just feel it when his radio starts ricocheting signals into his face. His Evoluder body can parse radio on its own, interpret it, process it. Mixed up like this, it ends up feeling like an illness in his stomach, and he grunts and then groans, grimacing. "Oogh. That's...radio signals?"
The second wave of them RAKE the entire machine, and send what feels like a spike through Guy's entire head.
Back at Orbit Base, Ayame's good cheer is already draining. "Oh yikes those are some vitals," she says, causing Actual Military Man Urchin Prickle to make a noise. "Uhm. Captain, you alright over there?"
"I'll be OK! Get Kamuy on this data! It's doing something with the radio waves!"
Whether THAT gets through is anyone's guess. Guy doesn't have time to play the most sadistic Two Generals game he's ever encountered, driving his machine in closer. He's a brawler at heart, even dealing with something firing radio cannons at them. He flicks two switches, and is satisfied by the missile targeting starting up, selecting about 35 spots from visual assessment. "Visual targeting isn't gonna get us too far, but rewriting the entire lock system for this isn't gonna work out this time," he mutters. Maybe if Alouette were here.
...worry about that later. For now, he releases the missiles to riot on ahead of him.
KTS: Guy Shishioh has activated the Valor Spirit Command. KTS: Guy Shishioh targets Kaiju Navi with Micro-Missile Array Lock! KTS: Kaiju Navi's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage. KTS: Kaiju Navi fails to react to Guy Shishioh's Micro-Missile Array Lock, taking 2080 damage! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 101860
<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.
"Adequate," Rei answers the Second, although she doesn't know if it will be. Still, it was an answer. One word, no more, no less. The fact that the Second identifies Shishioh... in a VF? Rei wonders.
Eva-00's head - which is rather impersonal, almost mournful, in its cyclopic glory - turns slightly, towards Gridman. This close, Gridman -- and thus Yuta -- can glimpse that there is some sort of camera assembly underneath the thick protective lens. Sort of a five-part thing. Must be panoramic.
"Gridman," Rei says, in her usual soft tone. An unusual impulse crosses Rei's mind. An impulse to say *more*.
The words do not form. The thought is not even verbal. It feels almost as if she wants to reach her hand out - the Evangelion's hand - and to spread it (?) over--
There is no time to live with this feeling. "Kaas," Rei says, turning Eva-00's head away from Gridman as she makes the attack run and strikes. The proof of the AT Field is shown when the infalling attacks are suddenly subjected to the implacable defiance of the Angel's outer boundary.
Rei finds that she's breathing rather quickly. There is a strange duality of sensation. Part of her knows, of course, that she is in the entry plug and within the context of an active Evangelion unit. It is quite certain that she could survive re-entry (although whether Eva-00 would be able to function afterwards is a different story; orbital drops usually take well over five minutes, after all).
But this?
Something is coming -- something that makes the screens of Eva-00's plug panoramic view flicker. That illusion that she can see everything, other than what can easily be taken from the struts of canopy glass, fails. There is passing nervous feedback; fortunately the intense radio emission cannot --
it hurts
Something like a searchlight passes over Rei and her plugsuit, illuminating her momentarily within the plugsuit. Where it touches is the sense of agony, almost chemical, though it - mostly - fades, leaving a trail of cavitated bubbles afterwards as Rei exhales and--
-- others are -- it's breaking up.
alone?
i don't
They're speaking to her. She hears other words. Ikari. He's panicking. Rei turns her head, seeing Eva-04 -- Nagisa, the Administrator, he's -- and there are the other, the smaller units, the valiant harriers. Something crackles through:
'--ei'
rei
me?
for now
'--it at the -- me - spot'
same spot
'-- all i've got'
yes
Rei breathes out and brings the Sniper Rifle up. Miraculously, other than some transient heating, it has not exploded or broken down or anything. She watches the optical software activate. The visual feed from outside is coming back, more reliable, even if the HUD elements are still giving error messages. She lowers the weapon slightly. Center the target, as was said once upon a time.
She almost pulls the trigger but then someone flies in front of her view. Courage.
Heart beat. Heart beat. Heart bea
pull
The rifle still kicks in space. Firearms function fine in space, if they include oxidizing compounds in the propellant (and NERV's does, of course; what if an Angel destroyed all the oxygen in Tokyo-3?). The round flies, invisibly. Not quite invisibly; it is far enough away that you can actually see it going. The targeting is impeccable; the same point that Gridman fired upon.
Will it be enough? Rei doesn't know. The S-type equipment's thruster pack begins firing, and the long thin wire of power transmission to the Ra Mari begins unspooling as Rei turns towards Ophaniel; towards DOWN.
"We must approach," Rei tells Gridman - or its ally - through the haze of radio distortion. "It will destroy the ship if we don't."
KTS: Rei Ayanami targets Kaiju Navi with Sniple Rifle Leading Shot! <Pose Tracker> Lucine Azul has posed.
Lucine smiles softly at Liam's reminder. She replies back over the tightband. <"I'll be fine. There's something strange about this Angel, so I'm being cautious until we know better.">
This is likely the only means of reassurement Liam gets before the Angel takes her earlier milquetoast call to action and spreads it out into indiscernible, indecipherable, disingenuous dribble. A weapon of waves.
Like Excellen, Lucine also notices that she is one of the few being focused on. Unlike Excellen, she didn't have enough time to realize she's not the only one. Instincts kick into gear, and Lucine is flying around through the air.
The broadcast continues, making concentration even worse. The teal-haired pilot grunts with frustration, turning the radio frequencies off. ".... It's not as if it'd be safe to broadcast to everyone's mind, even if I could do something like that..." She grips her controls, and breathes. "..... I think I Excellen there... Shinji as well. Maybe the EVA pilots have another way of communicating... I hope so, anyway..."
Forcing her back straight to keep from drowning in self-pity, Lucine forces her eyes towards the Angel. "... Fine, then. You think that'll win you an advantage?" That rare glimmer shines in her eyes, hawkish gold.. "... The Dianthus is made for moments like this."
It might as well been said into the voice, having only been broadcasted to the air of her cockpit. But it forces Lucine to act.
"... Let me show you what it's like!"
The back panels of the Dianthus's 'cape' spread out in a five-pointed mandala behind it, glowing bright magenta. "Hear me cry!"
The charging petals emit a pulse, though not something using radio waves. A band of force, for what might only amount for a second extra's worth of time for Eight's ship.
It's the thought that matters.
KTS: Lucine Azul targets Kaiju Navi with Lunate Crown v.2 Howl!
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
Liam agrees with Lucine: this angel is beautiful, like an alien plant or an abstract sculpture. But the trail of emptiness it's left in its wake shows just how dangerous it is. Once again, NERV has to kill something that's a threat to all life in the Earth Sphere, no matter how hard it tries to survive.
<"No vegetables present,"> Liam says, to Excellen. Which is true insofar as neither of them brought any. At least she broke his train of thought? Then the Angel starts to spin, and Lucine's voice repeats itself, growing increasingly distorted.
"<Kaworu,>" Liam says, "<Is it trying to communicate?"> A few, horrible seconds pass; an alert on the Long Dagger's sensors snaps Liam out of that reflective stillness. <"Detecting anomalous microwave siGn#tu##--"> Static swallows Liam's transmission halfway through as Opahniel's radio systems(?) start broadcasting in earnest. The young cyborg lets out a soft hiss of breath--the others' signals are breaking up, turning into a cacophony of noise and bad data. The Long Dagger's sensors lignt up with a TARGET LOCK signal.
The Mobile Suit raises its shield, and crouches low to reduce its profile. The wave of electromagnetic force rakes against the alloy plate, and a heat warning sounds. Liam ignores it; the air isn't nearly hot enough to bother him. But this--is it trying to cook them all alive?
The shield slides back onto the Long Dagger's upper arm. <"Ta## -- shot."> The Mobile Suit draws its beam rifle, steadies itself, and autobalances to compensate for the Ra Mari's maneuvers. Liam waits, waits, waits until there's a breach in the AT Field, and then fires, aiming to punch a beam clean through and into the Angel itself.
KTS: Liam 7-020 targets Kaiju Navi with M703 Beam Rifle Sighted Shot! <Pose Tracker> Alloy Kaas has posed.
Alouette held her breath at the last moment. Fear of bouncing off the AT-Field and being unable to recover in the near-vacuum. Instead it gives way as her Evangelion's AT-Field breaks through the targeted area. With a loud gasp and and a yell that chases away panted breath, Alloy fixes her Eva to the surface of the entity.
The four tentacles unwrap from their ballistic protective stations. The large humanoid rears back and the fists come down, but there isn't time to start rending the outer layer of the being.
She doesn't know if it is noise, or a feeling, or all of the above. Alouette's hands come away from the controls and try to cover her ears. It's overwhelming, it's loud, it's painful. She screams... or she thinks so, she can't hear it. The immense pressure blankets her, pressing down like fathoms of water, with an ice shelf crushing down on top. It's a sensation that defies her ability to explain. Her teeth feel like they are vibrating, a static feeling seems to be resonating in her bones, her skull, to the inner ear. Blood begins to trail from her nose and ears.
Alloy can't call for help, can't think about anything but making it stop. Frantically, controls in white-knuckled fists, one, three, then six limbs start trying to tear through, until the armored organic giantess is pounding down with all of them. Alouette can't even feel the impact. This feeling is going to swallow her, she has to break away. With whatever cohesive thought she can manage... she continues. Her mouth forms the words, a plea or demand, to stop. Over and over she screams into liquid medium. What a small detail of a blessing. Bubbles result from her frenetic actions. A small affirmation she won't recognize now, that this is happening. It's not another nightmare. One thing wraps itself around her spine, a cold chill. Isolation. Alone. That fear is icy fingers clawing its way to the surface. Is it coming from somewhere, someone else? A shockwave catches the Evangelion with it's limbs raised, and...
...falling? Ever so slight in terms of how it feels in the LCL filled vessel. Every measurable unit of distance that grows between Null-Sigma and the Angel, the pressure, THE sound lessens, and her own thoughts start to come back clearer. Voices start coming from somewhere, as the comms break through.
KTS: Alloy Kaas has activated the Spirit Spirit Command. KTS: Kaiju Navi's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage. KTS: Kaiju Navi fails to react to Liam 7-020's M703 Beam Rifle Sighted Shot, taking 2880 damage! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 98980 KTS: Kaiju Navi's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage. KTS: Kaiju Navi fails to react to Rei Ayanami's Sniple Rifle Leading Shot, taking 4680 damage! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 94300 KTS: Kaiju Navi's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage. KTS: Lucine Azul rattles Kaiju Navi, making its next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Kaiju Navi fails to react to Lucine Azul's Lunate Crown v.2 Howl, taking 1350 damage! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 92950 KTS: Alloy Kaas targets Kaiju Navi with Crushing Embrace! KTS: Kaiju Navi's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage. KTS: Kaiju Navi fails to parry Alloy Kaas's Crushing Embrace, taking 3000 damage! KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Alloy Kaas's Geass Directorate Survivor activates, causing Sparkle! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 89950 KTS: Alloy Kaas has engaged Kaiju Navi!
<Pose Tracker> Kaiju Navi has posed.
Little translucent halos continue to shimmer around the many strange holes pockmarking Ophaniel's body. Unlike the way they sometimes manifest on other Angels, these seem almost like permanent fixtures when the coral-like entity is in an alert, offensively-oriented mode, constantly making micro-adjustments on the size of those holes as if calibrating the intensity to which they manipulate the radio frequencies in the space around it.
And yet, for all that subtle activity, the rest of the Angel feels so... placid. It is a far cry from the shrieking rampage of Sandalphon; whereas the Ninth Angel felt so terribly like a confused newborn, this one feels almost strangely devoid of any such impulse.
Like some strange form of Angel maturity, it just rotates in the space that surrounds it, and confronts its aggressors just as Asuka levels an assault upon that same area that Excellen had struck. Its rotation is almost like an immediate reaction, like it is -yanked- in a certain direction through space to specifically avoid Asuka striking clean on that vulnerable point in its defenses. At the same time, one of the holes at its starboard side magnifies intensely in size with the expanding of its shimmery halo.
Things do not work entirely the way the Angel seems to want them to. The electromagnetic launch of Asuka's bolt -hammers- into that weakened stretch of AT Field and manages to pierce through it after some struggle; some of the force is lost, but it doesn't make the CRACK of the bolt across that coral surface any less impactful as it impales into the broad side of Ophaniel. At the same time--
That enlarging pit begins to warble.
Tck.
Tck Tck
TCK TCK TCK
TcktcktckTCKTCKTCKTCKTCKTCK TTTTTTTTTTEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
And radio frequencies grow to such an intensity that the electromagnetic radiation becomes almost a focused beam hurtling towards Evangelion Unit-02. It will puncture straight through defenses, AT Fields -- anything in its way. And if caught within -- it'll begin to rapidly melt the metal plating of Unit-02 and start boiling at the LCL within as it transmits a discordant plethora of violent echoing transmissions both from Asuka and others straight through the Evangelion.
It's an assault that only comes to an abrupt end when Zan's massive staples CRASH across Ophaniel's coral exteriors seconds before its AT Field re-knits itself, carving off little chunks of what constitutes its body. Its response is immediate and reactionary; several holes from opposite sides of its immense body activate in halo pulses, releasing sudden RF in rippling waves from multiple directions. They will intercept in cross-hairs directly at Zan's location --
--and continue on with their pulsing, combined onslaught to catch Evangelion Unit-04 in its wake as well.
Between the two of them, radio messages and visual feedback bounces back and forth chaotically, mixing distorting static with sounds of one's voice or the other with increasing intensity the longer they are caught within that cross-hatching field of radio waves. Fortunately, that duration isn't long; Unit-04's rifle fire goes off the SECOND it is targeted within those cross-hairs of radio waves, bullet fire rippling across the Angel's AT Field in blooms of geometric patterns that send Ophaniel literally -flipping back- defensively. It looks almost absurd, like a leaf caught in the wind...
... but that makes it no less dangerous for those caught in the path of that bizarre movement.
Unit-00 fires. Its sniper shot manages to strike the PRECISE point that Kaworu's did; it -shatters- through, piercing smooth, dense armor and EXPLODING out the other side in a rain of multi-colored coral as Ophaniel begins to move. It provides opening for Gridman's array of beams and Liam's patient, pinpoint shot, ripping across the strange shimmering surface of the Angel's body in a ripple of plasmic heat. Yet there is no sound, no outward reaction from the Angel. It just -moves-.
And as it moves, the immense, alien proportions of its body bring it on a flipping collision course with Gridman, Unit-00, Liam's Mobile Suit...
... and Unit Null-Sigma.
As the Evangelion rampages at that point on the Angel's body is -precisely- when Ophaniel flips. And as she tears off chunks and chunks and CHUNKS of coral, the sheer force and speed of Ophaniel's movement seeks to -flip- Alloy and her Evangelion -off- of its strange, eldritch body just as the broadside of it comes towards an unfortunately violent incoming trajectory towards any caught in its path.
It's then, as it reorients itself, its long side pointed straight vertically (for as much as 'vertical' means anything in space), that the next volley comes in. The Ra Mari's missiles fly outward as a hole at the cracking, crumbling 'belly' of the beast expands and contracts and expands; every intensifying pulse catches the ship's missile volley on its peppering path towards the warship -- but it leaves an opening in the Angel's defenses for -others- to exploit. To whit:
Even More Missiles, courtesy of one Excellen Browning and one Guy Shishioh.
As the Ra Mari's missiles explode prematurely in crackling ripples of heat, they provide a smokescreen for the -others- to rip through. The Weissritter and the Nightmare's payloads RIPPLE across the broad underside of the Angel, shuddering across its AT Field and tearing -through- it just as the radio frequencies it emits INTENSIFY. Another hole activates with invisible life, bursts of intensifying radio frequencies that seek to catch Guy's Variable Fighter in its path, distorting panoramic visual data with bursts of static and other, stranger visuals perhaps not best not dwelled upon overlong if caught within its crosshairs. Those two holes magnify -- and then seem to almost -tilt- by the shift of the glowing halos controlling their output --
--until they create a large, unseen field of crossing, chaotic noise and information that seeks to catch the Weissritter within its overwhelming wake.
As the smoke clears, though, the damage is becoming swiftly apparent. Large chunks of the Angel are gone, which makes something else apparent.
there's something inside it
Grayish tan plates. Not metal. They look smooth. Organic. Familiar. Its body tilts.
And that is exactly when Shinji and Evangelion Unit-01 exploit the weakness created in its AT Field just as Lucine and the Dianthus do.
Assault fire ripples across the very top of Ophaniel. It shreds through shimmering coral, every impact chased by pulses of force from the Dianthus that help sheer off chunks of that strange body(?) of the Angel's(?). Holes vacillate wildly between large and small configurations, expanding and contracting like the wild beat of a heart as that assault ends...
...
In the midst of the damage caused by Dianthus and Unit-01, two large, expressionless protrusions like eyes clustered together on a flat fish can be seen.
The Ninth Angel, Sandalphon's 'eyes.'
Ophaniel turns. And the pits at its head surrounding that blown apart stretch of coral expand rapidly.
Their first assault is a concentrated beam of radio frequencies, just like what it targeted Unit-02 with. This, it focuses on Lucine and the Dianthus, sending ricochets of radio frequencies outward to try to just -obliterate- the machine outright in the mounting intensity of its assault.
The second...
<Pose Tracker> Kaiju Navi has posed.
... The second is stranger.
Ophaniel tilts. Sandalphon's lifeless, eyelike protrusions fall on Shinji.
And the Tenth Angel unleashes an unseen attack that seeks to blow Evangelion Unit-01 straight off its crouching perch.
It's not radio waves. Or if it is, it's to a degree, intensity and nature that defy any human explanation. And yet, all the same, if Evangelion Unit-01 is caught within the blast radius of that sudden, invisible assault, Shinji will be subjected to sudden, static pitches of voices as the strange, alien radio interference mounts, building up superheating electromagnetic radiation throughout the Evangelion and its AT Field.
Voices from the other pilots on the battlefield.
And voices further still.
A couple arguing.
The sound of a gunshot.
A baby crying.
A strange, juicy squelch.
A jarble of distorted, alien sounds.
Someone asking for help.
A long, low static scream.
Something that sounds dimly like Gendo Ikari--
Visual data will flash in incomprehensible, maddening bursts across Unit-01's panoramic in time to the mounting sounds. That just keep coming. And coming. And COMING.
All across Evangelion Unit-01, the invisible force behind the would-be 'Tenth Angel's' assault blooms past and to either side of its impact point, the ripple of explosions it creates as it devastates space junk, rock formations and satellites forming a grand cruciform that dwarfs everything in its wake.
KTS: Kaiju Navi has activated the Strike Spirit Command. KTS: Kaiju Navi has activated the Strike Spirit Command. KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Eight York with 35MW - Duga! KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Kaworu Nagisa with 235MW - Jindalee! KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Asuka Shikinami Langley with 640MW - Container! KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Zan with 235MW - Jindalee! KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Excellen Browning with 235MW - Jindalee! KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Lucine Azul with 640MW - Container! KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Shinji Ikari with errData_notfoundMW - Cross Beam! KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Guy Shishioh with 144MW - The Woodpecker! KTS: Kaiju_Navi Changes attack to Yuta Hibiki, Alloy Kaas, Rei Ayanami, and Liam 7-020 with Reorientation. KTS: Rei Ayanami's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage. KTS: Rei Ayanami fails to react to Kaiju Navi's Reorientation, taking 3720 damage! KTS: Kaiju Navi has engaged Rei Ayanami! KTS: EN Regen activates. Your new EN value is -67. KTS: Zan has activated the Wall Spirit Command. KTS: Zan charges into the attack! KTS: Zan's Force Wall L1 activates, negating 1000 base damage. KTS: Kaiju Navi rattles Zan, making its next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Zan partially guards Kaiju Navi's 235MW - Jindalee, taking 5487 damage! KTS: EN Regen activates. Your new EN value is -26. KTS: Eight York fails to react to Kaiju Navi's 35MW - Duga, taking 4180 damage! KTS: EN Regen activates. Your new EN value is 15. KTS: Asuka Shikinami Langley has activated the Spirit Spirit Command. KTS: Asuka Shikinami Langley has activated the Alert Spirit Command. KTS: Excellen Browning has activated the Alert Spirit Command. KTS: Asuka Shikinami Langley fails to Evade Kaiju Navi's 640MW - Container, taking 5310 damage! KTS: EN Regen activates. Your new EN value is 56. KTS: Kaiju Navi rattles Excellen Browning, making her next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Excellen Browning fails to evade Kaiju Navi's 235MW - Jindalee, taking 5487 damage! KTS: EN Regen activates. Your new EN value is 97. KTS: Shinji Ikari's EN Barrier activates, negating 1000 base damage. KTS: Shinji Ikari fails to react to Kaiju Navi's errData_notfoundMW - Cross Beam, taking 8320 damage! KTS: Kaiju Navi roots its unit, coming to a standstill and leaving it vulnerable. KTS: EN Regen activates. Your new EN value is 138. KTS: Yuta Hibiki rushes into the attack! KTS: Yuta Hibiki partially guards Kaiju Navi's Reorientation, taking 3772 damage! KTS: Kaiju Navi has engaged Yuta Hibiki! KTS: EN Regen activates. Your new EN value is 179. KTS: Kaworu Nagisa's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage. KTS: Kaiju Navi rattles Kaworu Nagisa, making his next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Kaworu Nagisa fails to react to Kaiju Navi's 235MW - Jindalee, taking 5487 damage! KTS: EN Regen activates. Your new EN value is 220. KTS: Liam 7-020 has activated the Spirit Spirit Command. KTS: Liam 7-020 has activated the Spirit Spirit Command. KTS: [Lucky] Alloy Kaas's Survivor Against The Odds activates, and luck goes her way! KTS: Alloy Kaas successfully blocks Kaiju Navi's Reorientation KTS: EN Regen activates. Your new EN value is 261. KTS: Liam 7-020 blocks Kaiju Navi's Reorientation, taking 5520 damage! KTS: Kaiju Navi has engaged Liam 7-020! KTS: EN Regen activates. Your new EN value is 302. <Pose Tracker> Eight York has posed.
With communications down, many might feel alone in their cockpits. ...Eight is more conscious of the fact that she can't contact the rest of her crew. "Rezza, get some runners ready. Astelian, keep us on this heading. Fari, status report."
"The Hyper Beam System is ready, Captain!"
"Finally. All right, keep us out of there as best you can," she says to her pilot, Chovan, even as the ship rocks with the inability to get out of the way of the next maneuver. Pure radio waves seem to crash into the ship, and the whole craft rocks with it. "Gh--"
But the Ra Mari isn't out yet. The whole thing seems to light up, arrays all over the ship bursting into light as the Hyper Beam System enters its final phase of charging.
"Give it everything she's got, Fari. On my mark..."
Energy gathers and gathers at the bow of the ship, becoming pink flourescence quickly--and then gathers more, higher, brighter.
"Hyper Beam System, Colossus Array--"
The Ra Mari is utterly still for just an instant. Captain York calls, "FIRE!"
Huge beams rocket forth for the Angel, directly for its center mass.
KTS: Eight York has activated the Attune Spirit Command. KTS: Eight York targets Kaiju Navi with Twin-Barrel Hyper Mega-Particle Cannons - Colossus Array!
KTS: Kaiju Navi fails to react to Eight York's Twin-Barrel Hyper Mega-Particle Cannons - Colossus Array, taking 6720 damage! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 83230 KTS: Guy Shishioh has activated the Wall Spirit Command. KTS: Guy Shishioh successfully evades Kaiju Navi's 144MW - The Woodpecker KTS: EN Regen activates. Your new EN value is 343. KTS: Lucine Azul has activated the Alert Spirit Command. KTS: Lucine Azul has activated the Alert Spirit Command. KTS: Lucine Azul successfully evades Kaiju Navi's 640MW - Container KTS: EN Regen activates. Your new EN value is 384. <Pose Tracker> Zan has posed.
The bursts of high frequency radio are something that Zan can not detect, even if he can absorb the heat off of it to a degree to repower himself. That means that there's sparks, explosions, and various fires over the construction robot body that he has. It is not built for withstanding such things as radio wave assaults. It's sturdy, yes, but this? This was something beyond any civilian designer's dreams of his enduring.
That has Zan floating there as he assesses damage to his systems, internals compensating and putting out the fires with built in coolants as he backs off of the assault to watch for a few minutes.
Trying to get around the radio interference is even worse. And he knows that he will have to ask for compensation ideas from NERV in regards to it.
A glance is given to his larger train body before he gets an idea it seems. He even snaps his fingers, which doesn't transmit at all in the void of space. Putting the gun away he instead pulls out... a giant hook? Jets flare on the hook to extend it out on a line from the handle, a winch apparent on the part that Zan is holding.
Then he charges forward, back thrusters flaring as he lets the hook trail behind him on the line, spins, and tries to literally use the hook as a giant swinging projectile on the Angel's exterior coral bits.
KTS: Zan has activated the Spirit Spirit Command. KTS: Zan has activated the Accel Spirit Command and Has Engaged with Kaiju Navi KTS: Zan targets Kaiju Navi with Power Swing! KTS: Kaiju Navi parries Zan's Power Swing, taking 1710 damage! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 81520 KTS: Zan repulses Kaiju Navi, forcing it to disengage. <Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.
'Is it trying to communicate?' Liam asks.
"No, it's trying to kill us," Kaworu replies.
By the time he says this, it may both be too late for the message to reach him and too late to tell him anything that hasn't already been made obvious. At least Kaworu's expression has a chance to warm with a smile when Shinji both drops the facade and expresses relief that the Glow Cloud is all right. Perhaps that's confirmation enough that Shinji has something to be glad about here in this agonizing battlefield. It will need to be, given how disrupted communications become after that.
Yet though communications are disrupted, Asuka and Shinji still manage to communicate between each other--to coordinate an attack based on sight rather than sound. Kaworu watches this for a moment. Then he smiles slightly, bittersweetly, and glances to one side.
"What exactly are you saying I have to learn about this, Mary...?" he murmurs.
Still, he shakes his head as if to shake off the distraction. As Ophaniel's attacks continue, waves shooting out from those rainbowed holes like Pride bullets, visual data begins to distort as well, so their coordination won't be able to last much longer--nor will anyone else's. Unit-04's visual panels pixelate; his speakers squeal and crash; Kaworu frowns.
All outside visual and audio input go black.
He didn't need them, anyway.
The Angel this time has learned a great deal since the last. It's indeed matured quite a ways from the mewling babe that Sandalphon was. Is this the difference its added time makes...? Kaworu can't help but think that as the Angel rips through the battlefield--Alloy's managed to right herself, which is good; Rei and Yuta are still working well together, despite the damage they're taking; Guy is doing well, and Eight is hanging in there; Lucine and Liam are having trouble; Asuka will be just fine; and Shinji--
"Shinji!!" he shouts, eyes widening in fear.
Unit-04's A.T. Field lights up into existence as he rises, opening up a barrage of bullet fire that cracks a pattern across Ophaniel's A.T. Field. Rei's strike made excellent use of his last attack; he trusts that she and the others will make good use of it again. As those bullets hail in towards the Angel, the silver Evangelion rises. Once the assault rifle is fully spent, he finally abandons his sniper post to leap off his train car towards Unit-01's. It doesn't matter that Ophaniel's beam splits into a cruciform, threatening to spear Unit-04 as Jesus was on the cross despite the light of his heart. Kaworu's fear is only for Shinji; his only desire is for Shinji.
Some things never change.
Even so, he can only land lightly at his side, umbilical cable swaying in the zero gravity as magnetic boots reattach him to the train. The S-type equipment is still functional, but Unit-04 and Unit-01 have both taken significant damage... This battle will be decided for them before much longer, one way or another.
Kaworu looks tenderly upon the darkness as Unit-04's hands brush Unit-01's armor. A gentle sound--not of the air or of electronics, but of the soul--will cut through the noise to reach out for him.
Shinji...
I'm here.
Some voices cannot be defiled.
KTS: Kaworu Nagisa has activated the Resupply Spirit Command. KTS: Kaworu Nagisa has activated the Resupply Spirit Command. KTS: Kaworu Nagisa targets Kaiju Navi with Assault Rifles - Forever Firing! KTS: Kaiju Navi fails to react to Kaworu Nagisa's Assault Rifles - Forever Firing, taking 4725 damage! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 76795 <Pose Tracker> Asuka Shikinami Langley has posed.
A snippet of radio gets through to her, "<What!? Rodeo!? Are you some kind of Texas Colony loser or something?>" Her shot however gets deflected by its quick turn as she grimaces, "Tck. Fast." She's glad Shinji backed her up but-
And then there's just this moment where Asuka hears the warbling screech. That slow build as she tries to raise her AT Field, "AT Field to Maximum."
It's a nice thought perhaps, something noone will realize, her trying to protect the Ra Mari from the consequences.
As suddenly that focused beam punctures right through her ATField, right through the Evangelion. There's suddenly a garbled scream that becomes static.
And Eva-02 sports a hole in its armor plating, with melted seams, to those looking closely there's something greyish within - in space, noone can smell the charred flesh. Inside the LCL, Asuka looks beet red, from the sudden rise in temperature boiling her, bubbles rising from her lips as she pants, the sheer heat burning her airway. "You think - THAT - was enough to take me down?"
And that's when she comes to the conclusion that staying on the ship, is the worst thing she can do to protect it. "You're going to be just a BLOOD PUDDLE floating through space when I'm done with you!" Coming to a similar one as both Rei and Gridman.
Without being heard due to the radio loss, she makes a certain decision and engages the S-Type equipments thrusters on her Eva's back, as the Umbilical cable is unspooled into space. It's fortunate that despite the lack of the radio, she can see the Ra Mari charging it's Hyper Mega-Particle Array and swerves aside.
The sudden reveal of its familiar organic plates flying off, pieces gone, and lifeless protrusions of Sandalphon's eyes-
"How!? Didn't it's body undergo image collapse!?"
There's something strange going on here, and she's not certain what it is.
There's a certain wariness there, however it's now one of those weird Angels, with a mystery where they have to figure out how it's attacking them, how to find the core. Seeing one of the lifeless eyes of Sandalphon fall onto Shinji - and then the she feels a spike of fear as the massive explosion of radio frequency hammers Eva-01. Causing her to momentarily pause.
He's still probably fatigued from everything the other day. He couldn't even keep up with Savage DDR, and here it is hammering him. "PICK ON SOMEONE YOUR OWN WEIGHT CLASS!"
That's a huge assumption - that she is, but it is Asuka.
Asuka fires a crossbow bolt right at one of those eyes, while engaging her S-Type Equipment to come in as close as possible. Even if it strikes the AT Field, she rockets across towards that point of impact to hang off of it. Like she's setting herself up for some kind of plan. Whether it's a good one?
Guess she'll find out real soon.
KTS: Asuka Shikinami Langley targets Kaiju Navi with Super-Electromagnetic Crossbow Impaling Shot! KTS: Asuka Shikinami Langley anchors Kaiju Navi, forcing it into close range. KTS: Kaiju Navi fails to react to Asuka Shikinami Langley's Super-Electromagnetic Crossbow Impaling Shot, taking 5060 damage! KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Asuka Shikinami Langley's Sole Shikinami activates, causing Insight L1! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 71735 KTS: Asuka Shikinami Langley has engaged Kaiju Navi! KTS: Liam 7-020 has launched from Eight York's combat deck! KTS: Asuka Shikinami Langley has launched from Eight York's combat deck! <Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.
The Angel is moving with speed and agility. It simply and suddenly flipped. Rei stares at it for a moment, because its size - it got there so quickly -
Eva-00 is struck and bowled over.
The S-type thrusters kick in, stabilizing the Evangelion, but the blow has splintered the barrel of the sniper rifle, which was probably already pushing it being exposed to space with only some surface preparations. Rei glances at it even as space reorients towards --
towards--
towards--
towards--
Towards what? Rei feels a terrible vertigo. A thrill of terror and nausea runs through her even as she throws away the rifle. Behind her, quietly, something pulls, as if she's on the end of a long, long... ah.
Quietly, silently, the cable snaps. The Ra Mari regains a significant amount of reactor capacity, just in time. An implacable timer begins within Eva-00's plug. Rockets implode, a fragment cloud forming. Stone is torn away, revealing something within. Unit One is attacking it with its usual muscular assertion. Rei shifts the ESV in her hand--
Strange sounds fill the entry plug.
An immense white LIGHT smashes towards Eva-01.
Rei's mouth is slightly, slightly open. A faint breath - a wordless gasp - becomes a subtle trail of bubbles.
Her voice has a tone of pleading when she speaks next. "Gridman," she implores. "Please, help Ikari!" Will pushes her forwards, quite literally (subtle muscular tensions conveyed through the A10 clips turn into thruster commands). Eva-00 wobbles only slightly when the ejection of the progressive knife comes out into the hand --
The eyes are a surprise to Rei, but she doesn't voice it. Swiftly, the orange and gray-dappled Evangelion comes not far alongside Eva-02, leading with a lunging thrust of the progressive knife with one hand and then grinding it inwards, gouging, digging. The ESV, let loose near the Angel, hangs in space, moving with a miniscule orbital velocity.
Most of the rest of what Rei says is little gasps and grunts of effort.
KTS: Rei Ayanami has activated the Enable Spirit Command targeting Yuta Hibiki KTS: Rei Ayanami has activated the Trust Spirit Command targeting Yuta Hibiki KTS: Rei Ayanami has activated the Attune Spirit Command. KTS: Rei Ayanami has activated the Enable Spirit Command. KTS: Rei Ayanami targets Kaiju Navi with Progressive Knife Drive! KTS: Rei Ayanami has launched from Eight York's combat deck! KTS: Kaiju Navi parries Rei Ayanami's Progressive Knife Drive, taking 1620 damage! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 70115 KTS: Rei Ayanami has engaged Kaiju Navi! <Pose Tracker> Yuta Hibiki has posed.
Yes! They're getting through, the barrier shatters, the outer shell cracks, and --
"What the HELL is THAT?" Yuta shouts, looking at the clustered eyes peeking through the damaged parts of the Tenth Angel. He thought these things were supposed to be weird geometric things, not... whatever this is! Some kind of monstrous thing-within-a-thing. Even Akane wouldn't appreciate the creepiness of this monster, even if it was a kaiju...
"Stay with me, kid." Comes Vit's voice, though even the ever-casual man sounds rattled. "We're seeing this through to the end, and going home to eat some of mama's cooking. My treat."
Yuta feels like shaking, but tries to focus on his companion's voice. Glancing to his left, he squints. Rei is saying... something. The static is getting bad. Thankfully, he has two other people listening. Hopefully they can piece her words together.
"--oach. Destroy --don't--"
"She wishes to engage the Angel in close range." Gridman helpfully provides. "I believe she's made the right choice. We must draw it away from the Ra Mari."
As if to emphasize Rei's idea, the Angel lurches toward them. Another attack is launched their way, and Yuta makes his decision. "We move forward!" He shouts, Gridman's thrusters firing to full speed as their hearts beat as one. The attack strikes Gridman head on, but he presses through it, Yuta crying out in pain. It doesn't just hurt him, though, there's... phantom impressions, imprinting themselves over Gridman's sensors. They can't make out any specific words, but the ghost noises have a wailing, eerie quality to them. It's unsettling. Yuta doesn't like it one bit.
Gritting his teeth, Yuta manages, "I can't take this--!"
The closer he gets to the angel's attack, the harder it is to cling to his bond with Gridman. Back in the Ra Mari, Max looks at Junk with deep concern. The picture glitches and fuzzes out, until finally, the angel's attention seems to pass from the Giant of Light. "Gridman! Now's your chance!" Max shouts, clenching a fist.
"Right--!" Yuta pants, shaking off the horrible noises. They have to strike while it's distracted! "Sky St--"
Rei's voice takes Yuta's attention before he can fully commit to his attack. Shinji's bearing the full brunt of the Angel's wrath in what looks like an absolutely horrifying attack.
"No-- Ikari!" Yuta screams, changing his flight path entirely, racing to the side of his friend. "I'm on it, Rei! Please, Ikari, hang on!" Flying faster than he can ever remember, Yuta carries Rei's hopes, all-but embracing Shinji's Eva once he's reaches his friend.
Once Gridman is close enough to Shinji's Eva to offer his assistance, Sky Vitter detaches from Gridman's back, leaving him floating helplessly in space. "Take care of him, Yuta. I've got this."
Tears well up in Yuta's eyes, impossibly, as Gridman's metal face stays unmoving. Kaworu is here, too, thank goodness. If anyone can reach Shinji in this moment, it'd be him. They were bonded, somehow, and Yuta never realized how vital a connection like that is until this moment. "I'll protect him. I can take a lot more hits before I'm in trouble."
There's not much he can do for Shinji right, now, but Gridman allows Yuta to take full control. Gridman knows the futility of Yuta's actions... but Yuta's determined. There's no stopping him when he's like this. After Yuta does his best to try and patch up the Eva, he spins as best he can in space, putting himself between Shinji and the Angel. Yuta holds his arms out wide, protectively.
As Yuta tries to tend to his friend, Sky Vitter races across the battlefield. "Picking on the anxious kid, huh? What a piece of shit you are." Blue light flashes from the jet plane's 'cockpit' as he speaks, contempt in every word. "I'm gonna make you regret it!"
Flying straight 'up', Sky Vitter twists as he ascends. Rising above the shattering Angel, he unleashes his ultimate move. Even this sardonic, uninvolved man has a heart, and it's full of protective rage. Yuta's told stories about this Ikari kid. Always happy to be there for his friends, even though he looks like he's about to melt into a puddle half the time. Time and time again, he's been at Yuta's side on the battlefield. How difficult must that be for him?
"Amp Laser Circus!" Vit calls out, spinning, firing a host of missiles. He flies a deadly path over the coral-like monster, missiles raining down on it as Vit crosses the battlefield.
KTS: Yuta Hibiki has activated the Trust Spirit Command targeting Shinji Ikari KTS: Yuta Hibiki has activated the Trust Spirit Command targeting Shinji Ikari KTS: Yuta Hibiki has activated the Trust Spirit Command targeting Shinji Ikari KTS: Yuta Hibiki targets Kaiju Navi with Detached Amp Laser Circus! KTS: Excellen Browning has activated the Trick Spirit Command. KTS: Excellen Browning has activated the Trick Spirit Command. KTS: Excellen Browning has activated the Valor Spirit Command. <Pose Tracker> Excellen Browning has posed.
While the ATX Team has had a decent amount of experience fighting human-made machines, and even some experience fighting kikaiju and the like fielded by Dr. Hell, the Eldritch natures of these beings is something completely outside Excellen's realm of experience.
Or so she believes, at least...
Something strange happens after the combined missile assault by herself, Guy, and the Ra Mari. The creature is broken... ripped open, large chunks of its body simply missing. Worse though is that there is something else inside of it. A creature, which Excellen recognizes from when she gave a brief glance through the dossier before the mission. <Wha...?! Was that just... some kind of egg?>
It is at that point though that there's a massive surge of electromagnetic energy fired in her direction. Distracted as she was by this sudden sudden development, she doesn't notice the telltale distortion over the radio until it is too late. Pulling back on her control handles too late, the Weissritter is slammed by the full force of the blast and is sent careening from the deck of the Ra Mari. Meanwhile the electronics aboard her machine, within her cockpit, emit static and smoke and briefly everything goes dark...
... dark and smoke, the dim smell of blood. She doesn't remember these things but they stir a painful memory in her. A thing she'd rather forget. A thing she has forgotten. For those frightful moments before her unit's OS reboots though it's almost like a great yawning abyss had come back from the past and tried to drag her back into it.
<...ka...I'm okay... ugh, the WeissARRRRRRIIIIIAAAAAIII hit hard. I'll move on my own find a taaarrrrrrIIIIIIIIIAHHH hit from.>
Her voice more serious than it usually does. For a moment she actually sounds like the ATX Team's crack sniper, rather than the HR team's worst nightmare. The Weissritter zips around through the slagged debris of satellites and asteroids, before settling down on the cooling hulk of one of the larger rocks. However, just then a burst of missiles explodes from the otherside of the rock - a pair of split missile canisters, unleashed during her flight, covertly unleashing their payload.
Meanwhile the Weissritter itself draws the Oxtongue Launcher out - boosting off of the piece of debris and approaching the target at full speed. She fires ballistic round after ballistic around, each one causing her unit to go into a chaotic spin as the forces of the round briefly overcome her unit's Tesla Drive. Within a few hundred meters of the Tenth(Ninth?) Angel, she suddenly tosses the Oxtongue launcher 'upwards' and as her machine raises its arm to fire from the tri-linked beam cannons that replace the Gespenst's more typical plasma stake load out. Sliding as close as she dares, her machine uses its other arm to draw out a beam saber which flashes to life in a bright glow of green, being used to slash 'upwards' as the Weissritter maneuvers to 'catch' its own weapon.
The Weissritter then turns, drawing aiming the Oxtongue Launcher down as the barrel heats up - a bright yellow plasma glow growing from deep within as its energy cells push every ounce of energy into the emitters. Still silent, still not trusting her own radio from being used against her, she pulls the trigger and unleashes a sustained bright yellow beam of energy directly down at her target - hoping to consume it within its destructive path!!
KTS: Excellen Browning targets Kaiju Navi with Oxtongue Launcher D Mode! KTS: Excellen Browning has launched from Eight York's combat deck! KTS: Yuta Hibiki has launched from Eight York's combat deck! KTS: Kaiju Navi fails to react to Yuta Hibiki's Detached Amp Laser Circus, taking 6840 damage! KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Yuta Hibiki's Telepathic Link activates, causing Insight L1! KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Yuta Hibiki's Mediumship activates, causing Nullify! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 63275 KTS: Kaiju Navi fails to react to Excellen Browning's Oxtongue Launcher D Mode, taking 6700 damage! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 56575
<Pose Tracker> Guy Shishioh has posed.
"So this is an Angel," Guy mutters. The data is one thing, but seeing the way it swerves is...distressing. Zonders didn't move that way, mostly. The AT Field bothers him less; Zonder Barriers were the absolute first problem GGG had to solve, and almost everything about GaoGaiGar was designed to handle them from the getgo. Seeing it flash and flicker is mostly nostalgic for him.
The radio wave blasts - are those masers, technically? That's a problem, though. "It's not like a coherent weapon so much as manipulation of the force..." Guy grits, mostly to himself. With the disruption to communications, even laser comms are more of a danger, than anything. His missile fire blooms through the field, but he sees it preparing to reply - and kicks up the thrusters, veering the Nightmare into a sharp ascent (as much as anything is 'going up' in space...) that clears the rapidly-forming crosshatch of radio death. That leaves him free and clear.
And watching. Watching that horrid...metamorphosis? Transformation? Anti-birth? More important than all else, a dire cruciform seeks to purge Shinji Ikari from the world of material objects. "Ikari!" Guy yells out, much in time with others. Teeth gritted, body tense. But, no surge of strength. There's no G-Stone pulsing through this machine to rise in answer to his mounting defiance.
But his own body does, and there's a faint green cast to his cockpit as the G-Stone within his every cell keens at him. He plants his foot on the throttle, and drives his Nightmare onward. And when he's got full acceleration, he grabs one of the transformation levers, and pulls.
It's satisfyingly rapid, the switch from a swerving plane to the humanoid Battroid, and Guy knuckles three more toggles, shifting priorities on the pinpoint barrier.
Back at Orbit Base, Ayame whispers, like a football fan realizing the play, "He's gonna punch it."
Prickle, in the back, like a man who has just heard his boss is planning to tackle a cosmic radio hell-leviathan with his fists, yells, "HE'S GONNA PUNCH IT?!"
"HAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!" Guy roars, the Pinpoint Barrier blazing around the Battroid's fist as he aims to drive it into the AT Field and hopefully punch clean through it to the Angel beyond.
Guy Shishioh transforms to VF-171 Nightmare Plus <Battroid Mode>
KTS: Guy Shishioh has activated the Spirit Spirit Command. KTS: Guy Shishioh targets Kaiju Navi with Pinpoint Barrier Melee Piercing Strike! KTS: Kaiju Navi fails to react to Guy Shishioh's Pinpoint Barrier Melee Piercing Strike, taking 5520 damage! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 51055 KTS: Guy Shishioh has engaged Kaiju Navi! <Pose Tracker> Alloy Kaas has posed.
The falling sensation accelerates as the Tenth Angel reorients itself. The opposite side of the Angel comes 'down' particularly heavy handed. Time seems to slow again from Alouette's perspective. Anticipating the impact, she braces for it. Waiting for the scream of alarms, the jarring rag doll whiplash...
"Don't. Screw. With. MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!"
Furiously she screams back at the Tenth Angel. Alloy arches forward into the controls. The LCL starts to bubble and boil as the young woman bears the inceasing pain. The tentacle limbs of the Eva flare out wide, as the pilot roars. A collision of Octagonal arrays as layers of AT-Field warp and struggle. The large figure of the Evangleion a silhouette along the surface when backlit by the sun in the rotation.
Comms fill with static and Null-Sigma loses communications. Everything feels on fire. The medium within the plug that holds her, the LCL is filled with Caviation from the EM Radiation. Struggling against the fury in the plug, Alouette bears down and, Null-Sigma's tentacles in turn slash and try to rend the Angel itself. Like a viper, striking at prey, the weaponized edges strike, strike, STRIKE! She can't see if she is doing anything. Alouette can't see at all right now. She doesn't need to. Hit after hit, she screams but nothing can be heard. But with each biting slash...
"killyou killyou killyou, I'll KILL YOU!"
No one can hear it, not even Alloy herself. It doesn't matter. Thought. Intent. Action. She'll drive it into the atmosphere with her own hands. She can't stop. Maybe they could burn together. Then a thought, an image. Alloy and Shinji in front of Alexis. An echo of telling Shinji, as long as they do it together, all of them, they can overcome anything. Then another time, fighting another Monster. Together...
<Pose Tracker> Lucine Azul has posed.
"... Eyes...?" Staring back at something massive and humanoid in the middle of so many Angel bits and pieces against a background of the void of space, fills Lucine with deep dread. It tickles that uncanny valley in her mind's eye just enough that the pilot is forced to remember the forces she's up against: something beyond the familiarity of any race of sentient being humanity has known.
Lucine doesn't know the full importance of these eyes, but many others will know whose eyes those originally belonged to.
It's coming.
Her heart flutters in her chest, a shrieking canary ramming against the wires of its cage. Her eyes widen. "...!" It's coming, says her mind, her gut, her instinct, her intuition, whatever mass of responses and nerves that drives a pilot to make a call on the impossible
She pulls at the controls. The Dianthus pivots sharply at just the right time from the radio assault, physically wheeling around back towards where Shinji was close by. Was Kaworu here too? And Liam, where's Liam?
.... oh no
"Damn it!!" The radio screams at her as Lucine tries to relay information, cutting her off. "... Is this all I can do...?" She imagines the hollow way Ryoko talked about her abilities as a pilot. What if it wasn't because Ryoko looked down on herself, but because she felt helpless at being able to do anything else?
She takes a breath. It's risky, taking her attention off the Angel, but at the very least--
A touch. A stretch at the cage around her mind, reaching out like she was doing with her fingers, like she did with the glow cloud. Stretch just a little further, a little longer, a glance, a brief feather's touch of a connection. Information. Exchange. A bridge, built on petals, intangible.
... It'll be okay.
Her hand touches something. "-hh?"
No, her hand is touching something physical. Her monitor. ".... oh..."
KTS: Lucine Azul has activated the Foresee Spirit Command targeting Liam 7-020 KTS: Lucine Azul has activated the Foresee Spirit Command targeting Kaworu Nagisa KTS: Zan has activated the Resupply Spirit Command targeting Alloy Kaas <Pose Tracker> Shinji Ikari has posed.
Though the attacks are invisible, patterns are emerging. The Angel's focus isn't completely unreadable. The warbling of its wounds. The way other units and machines are reacting on the field, and the way the Angel's efforts can only escalate.
"<--KA!>" But it's pointless to scream.
The Angel is breaking apart. Something inside. Shinji's breath holds. The core...? Shinji's teeth grit as Unit-01 pulls the trigger of its weapon, the shot puncturing through with the help of Dianthus. His eyes narrow, his breathing comes heavy. If they can expose the core --
That's not an Angel core.
Sandalphon's eyes are upon Shinji, and the instincts that protected him the first time are cold, empty urges, useless in the face of this new assault. Not radio waves. Not something a boy like Shinji, normal and average in every conceivable way, can possibly hope to read.
An AT Field means nothing. Unit-01 sails from its perch, Shinji inside it, prone and lifeless as the rifle in its grip rolls off, lost and away. The Evangelion unit arching its back, and if it were a human spine, it would break. Convulsions rattle through the machine, or the beast, its mouth open as if it were screaming. Every twitch of its limbs is impossibly organic, range of motion pull and jerked too far.
Shinji's screaming may be broadcast over broken communication systems for some present: occasionally distorted with audio noise, occasionally relaying every quiver of his agony in deafening clarity.
Unit-01's throes cease, the brutalized frame resembling a drowned corpse more than a broken machine, tethered only by its umbilical cable. The screaming ends, followed by a single, broken sound pulled from Shinji's raw throat, as useless as every other time he's uttered the word: "Father...?"
Then, finally, Shinji is silent.
The noise assault on his mind continues, unrelenting. Curled up, hands pressed to his ears, Shinji waits, he thinks, to die. Alone. Trapped in an Evangelion, surrounded by everything and nothing, he's going to die. He's going to die, and what if everyone else is going to die, and he can't see, can't hear, can't do anything! Useless, worthless, pointless...!
A familiar voice weaves into his awareness, heard inexplicably in his chest instead of his head. His lips mouth Kaworu's name, but his voice can't speak more than a shattered fragment of it. Kaworu's alive. Kaworu's here. And with that cutting through, other voices begin to, clearer in all the agony, calling out to him... It'll be okay. Together, it'll be okay.
Shinji swallows, slowly unfurling, taking Unit-01's controls back in his hands. They're still okay. They're still alive. He's still alive. They haven't lost yet.
Unit-01 moves, one limb at a time, setting back onto the train car and finding stability with Unit-04's help, and protected from any follow up thanks to Gridman. No rifle in hand, Unit-01 poises itself to launch, springing toward the Angel. It rips a weapon from its shoulder pylon, joining the assault with with its prog knife to puncture into the Angel's defenses, driving the blade in with both arms.
Though it's only for his own satisfaction, Shinji shouts a battle cry within the entry plug, past hoarse throat and shaking body.
KTS: Alloy Kaas has activated the Valor Spirit Command. KTS: Shinji Ikari has activated the Valor Spirit Command. KTS: Shinji Ikari has activated the Valor Spirit Command. KTS: Shinji Ikari has activated the Valor Spirit Command. KTS: Shinji Ikari targets Kaiju Navi with Progressive Knife Drive! KTS: Alloy Kaas targets Kaiju Navi with Death From The Abyss! KTS: Kaiju Navi fails to react to Shinji Ikari's Progressive Knife Drive, taking 4500 damage! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 46555 KTS: Shinji Ikari has engaged Kaiju Navi! KTS: Kaiju Navi fails to react to Alloy Kaas's Death From The Abyss, taking 9120 damage! KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Alloy Kaas's Geass Directorate Survivor activates, causing Sparkle! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 37435 KTS: Alloy Kaas has engaged Kaiju Navi!
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
'<--ing to kill-->'
Liam's heart tightens as any hope of solving this peacefully--of making first, successful contact with an Angel--dies. Ophaniel's massive bulk starts reorienting in space, twisting and spinning. The Long Dagger steps back and braces once again, even as its armor starts to glow with radiant heat. Sparks spit from its body into open vacuum. In the cockpit, static starts to overtake the screens. He sees Ophaniel coming for him; it could crush him against the Ra Mari's hull, or send him flying back, taking huge chunks of armor with him. Neither is an acceptable option.
"No," Liam chokes out. As Ophaniel rushes him, he raises the shield, and decouples from the mag-locks. The Angel slams into the GAT-01D, and an ugly CRUNCH reverberates through the Mobile Suit's cockpit. The shield bends inward, nearly splitting in two. The arm holding it groans and shudders as servos strain beyond their operational limits. The Angel's radio waves are cooking it, and there is nowhere for that heat to go. It's not even aiming at him; through the scrambled feed, Liam sees Eva-01 take the brunt of Ophaniel's fury. His eyes focus on something else, something he would swear is a system error if he didn't know better.
Sandalphon. Sandalphon, here. Liam's guts twist.
The radio keeps spitting garbage at him, howls and wails that don't sound like they came from any earthly being. Human voices he can't make out. Kaworu's voice, reduced to an electronic, tonal screech. Lucine's voice, focused on a single, repeating vowel sound. "I'm sorry," he chokes out. The Angel can't hear him. Would it stop if it did? "You were going to hurt people. Stop. STOP!" As he talks, Liam moves on autopilot, rebooting the cameras and targeting computer. It doesn't help that he's still being cooked alive. He can feel it through his normal suit; any moment now, his skin will blister, his brain will overheat, his nerves will scorch. Funny how it wasn't the Proto Helios that--
'... It'll be okay.'
Lucine. Liam is no psychic, and he scrabbles at her presence like a drowning man reaching for a life preserver. But she shows him the way through, the patterns in the Angel's assault. Patterns she feels rather than sees.
And Liam trusts her.
He reaches for the caged-off button marked PURGE, and presses it. Blinding light surges through the void as the Fortestra splits apart and blows clear from the Long Dagger's frame. The Mobile Suit swoops forwards, into one of those invisible radio shadows, and draws its Beam Saber. The blade bursts to brilliant life, and Liam drives it forward in a two-handed grip. Lucine showed him. He trusts her. She'll keep him safe, won't she?
Liam 7-020 transforms to GAT-01D Long Dagger
KTS: Liam 7-020 targets Kaiju Navi with ES01 Twin Beam Sabers Thrust! KTS: Kaiju Navi fails to react to Liam 7-020's ES01 Twin Beam Sabers Thrust, taking 4230 damage! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 33205 KTS: Liam 7-020 has engaged Kaiju Navi!
<Pose Tracker> Kaiju Navi has posed.
Ophaniel -- Sandalphon? -- the Tenth Angel -- the Ninth Angel? -- tilts slowly in space. It isn't the corpse of the Ninth Angel residing inside the Tenth. Angels don't leave corpses. And the coral of Ophaniel's body seems to be blooming out of Sandalphon's, integrating and subsuming the gray plates beneath.
Like someone had taken a base template of the would-be Ninth Angel and forcibly evolved it until it reached this new form, utterly alien from the original.
In the wake of its unorthodox Cross Beam, Ophaniel, such as it is for the time being, slowly tilts until it is, for lack of a better term, facing downward in its default, elongated position once more.
And then it begins to move once again.
It seems almost heedless of the still very much operational machines and weapons that surround it. It's also phenomenally slower than its original pace. Maybe because it's already taken so much damage already? But there's almost a feeling, in the aftermath of that immense attack, that it is almost -- lifelessly listing for a few, brief moments in some sort of default state. Like it was disconnected from some essential guidance--
It doesn't last. Its trip only takes it a fraction of the way forward until the Ra Mari has it in its sights with a fully charged particle beam. Deep black pits at the Angel's side expand like dilating pupils in some facsimile of dawning awareness of what is coming. But it doesn't matter;
Hyper beams > Radio waves
At least in this instance--
FWOOM
The sound of the Hyper Beam System's megaparticle cannon firing is silent in space. But the sight of it is still blinding in its intensity as it hammers INTO the broad octagon of Ophaniel's AT Field -- and then THROUGH it, shattering the AT Field completely as it roars its burning path through the main mass of the Angel.
Particles flicker and surge into dying embers of power as the deceptively still form of Ophaniel emerges, its once multi-colored coral body now largely glowing a hue of superheated orange, the void of space wobbling around it with the intensity of the heat it is now cloaked in.
More pieces of coral have melted off. Where the 'Sandalphon' segments are not fully converted, the black pits of Ophaniel still exist, the halos that frame them forcing them to widen on the inert gray plates of the Angel. It's a herald.
A herald to the rapid burst of criss-crossing radio patterns that intend to SCREAM across the Ra Mari's surface like a tidal wave of electromagnetism crashing upon the shore, sputtering frequencies and information across their communications array that vary from recordings of Charles zi Britannia's speech at the funeral of his son Clovis to someone feverishly explaining that humans were wrong to steal Earth from the dinosaurs and the reasons why all date back to a conspiracy billions of years ago to a calm, soothing voice explaining the best way to prepare a space crepe in zero g.
The soothing quality will not actually affect how hot those radio waves are going to bake the outer hull of the Ra Mari if those angry, invisible ripples connect.
Sadly.
Fortunately, the bombardment doesn't last long -- not when the others are making such a concerted effort to peel the Angel, whatever its designation might be, away from the Clop class. The heavy, all-in firing of Evangelion Unit-04 RIPPLES through superheated coral-like exo-armor in a way that makes the cooling but not yet solid material splatter soundlessly into space; said cooling process is not helped by the bright yellow pillar of plasmic light that POURS into the Angel's shimmering, furious hide, puncturing past defenses and creating a hole through coral straight down to the brownish-gray plating beneath with such force that the shockwave -knocks- the Angel downwards, making it almost seem to bend inward improbably at the point of impact. But most importantly --
--it leaves it open to Sky Vitter's assault, moved into some semblance of verve at Shinji Ikari's plight; missiles rain across the eldritch thing's body, ripping through it, billowing outwards in heinous plumes of heat.
Its only response to the sheer damage is the strange, uncontrolled fluctuations in radio emissions that surround it as it twists.
Ranged attacks provide opening for those closing in, hoping to keep its attention off of the Ra Mari in a more direct approach. Its buildup of radio waves is preemptively interrupted when Evangelion Unit-00 COLLIDES with it, prog knife in hand, followed shortly by Zan and his mighty hook. Though the sudden and inexplicable -tilt- of its body lessens the impacts, it still makes the subsequent BURST of radio waves it tries to track Unit-04 and the GAT-01D FAR less threatening then they might have been with proper refocusing; and more importantly -- it gets both Rei and Zan -attached- to the blistering hot hide of the Angel.
Evangelion Unit-02 scores a more direct hit with those bolts, IMPALING through Sandalphon's utterly unemotive eye; at the same time, pits around the Angel's 'head' widen, radio waves creating an abrupt and violent cross-hatch of overwhelming signals and superheating radiation that fill Asuka's radio frequencies with
brief, aborted sounds of shinji ikari screaming
nonsense and junk information in the seconds before she successfully makes landfall. If she survives it...
Well, she'll have her opening.
And it's thanks to Rei and Zan's efforts and Lucine's calming guidance that Liam finds his, too; the Angel is unresponsive to his calls. It's unlikely it could even understand them or appreciate them if it heard them. But the GAT-line mobile suit manages to -drive- that beam saber into the side of the Angel all the same, finding a precious opening to get into its defenses and -cling- there... just as Shinji, battered though he and his Evangelion are, manage to do the same. The prog knife DRIVES in. It gets its foothold even as it carves straight down into Sandalphon's more organic plating. And just as it does--
'killyou killyou killyou, I'll KILL YOU!'
'HAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!'
Null-Sigma's rampage combines with the GGG-colored Nightmare's pinpoint barrier blow to CRASH into the sizzling opening created by the Ra Mari. With blow after blow after blow followed by a Battroid's CRASHING impact, a brilliant light blooms from Guy's point of impact that contrasts sharply with the violent and visceral way Alloy's Evangelion just -rips- chunks away from the Angel. There is a bright flash--
... and in the aftermath of those twin impacts, three things are very clear:
1) The core is exposed at the dead center of the Angel, opened by Null-Sigma and the Nightmare's blows; every single one of those strange, void-like pit connects to that somewhat small sphere of coruscating crimsons, like pitch black veins of nothing connecting to an eldritch heart.
2) This creature is absolutely Sandalphon. The Sandalphon that was destroyed.
3) There is an immense black pit forming directly underneath Alloy and the Null-Sigma.
...
<Pose Tracker> Kaiju Navi has posed.
there is an immense black pit forming beneath all--
<"killyou killyou killyou, I'll KILL YOU!killyou killyou killyou, I'll KILL YOU!killyou killyou killyou, I'll KILL YOU!killyou killyou killyou, I'll KILL YOAAAWWWAGGHHGHHHZZZZZZZZZZHH">
The outpouring is immense, but concentrated. At its epicenter is Alloy, but it is -focused- into an unfathomable, immense, invisible pillar of radio waves that look to SCORCH through the Null-Sigma --
burning an obliterating, crackling path of jumbling information, voices, screams, thoughts, begging, hate, love of discordant destruction straight for Lucine and her machine.
Other machines, not caught within that epicenter, still must bear a softened blow, close as they are to Ophaniel - Sandalphon's - body, as the thing starts to spin, and -swing-, and -thrash- in space, reflecting the previous desperation of the infant that came before this more developed form.
But if they can hold on -- if they can survive that onslaught, that thrashing--
--the core is just within reach--
And any questions may have to wait until the deed is done.
KTS: Kaiju Navi has activated the Strike Spirit Command. KTS: Kaiju Navi has activated the Strike Spirit Command. KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Asuka Shikinami Langley with 235MW - Jindalee! KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Eight York with 235MW - Jindalee! KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Rei Ayanami with 144MW - The Woodpecker! KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Shinji Ikari with 97MW - Dnestr! KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Alloy Kaas with 1437MW - Arecibo! KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Lucine Azul with 1437MW - Arecibo! KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Yuta Hibiki with 1437MW - Arecibo! KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Kaworu Nagisa with 10MW - Cobra Mist! KTS: Kaiju Navi targets Liam 7-020 with 10MW - Cobra Mist! KTS: Kaiju_Navi Changes attack to Zan, Guy Shishioh, and Excellen Browning with Reorientation. KTS: Asuka Shikinami Langley has activated the Focus Spirit Command. KTS: Asuka Shikinami Langley successfully avoids Kaiju Navi's 235MW - Jindalee KTS: EN Regen activates. Your new EN value is -60. KTS: Eight York successfully avoids Kaiju Navi's 235MW - Jindalee KTS: EN Regen activates. Your new EN value is -19. KTS: Guy Shishioh's EN Barrier activates, negating 1000 base damage. KTS: Guy Shishioh parries Kaiju Navi's Reorientation, taking 1080 damage! KTS: Kaiju Navi has engaged Guy Shishioh! KTS: EN Regen activates. Your new EN value is 22. KTS: Asuka Shikinami Langley has activated the Spirit Spirit Command. KTS: Asuka Shikinami Langley has activated the Spirit Spirit Command. KTS: Guy Shishioh has activated the Trick Spirit Command. KTS: Excellen Browning successfully evades Kaiju Navi's Reorientation KTS: EN Regen activates. Your new EN value is 63. KTS: Yuta Hibiki fails to rush. KTS: Yuta Hibiki partially guards Kaiju Navi's 1437MW - Arecibo, taking 7680 damage! KTS: EN Regen activates. Your new EN value is 104. KTS: Lucine Azul fails to charge. KTS: [Mirage] Lucine Azul's Glimmer Engine activates, and she slips into a mirage. KTS: Lucine Azul partially guards Kaiju Navi's 1437MW - Arecibo, taking 0 damage! KTS: EN Regen activates. Your new EN value is 145. KTS: Shinji Ikari's EN Barrier activates, negating 1000 base damage. KTS: Shinji Ikari fails to react to Kaiju Navi's 97MW - Dnestr, taking 3510 damage! KTS: EN Regen activates. Your new EN value is 186. KTS: Zan has activated the Wall Spirit Command. KTS: Excellen Browning has activated the Trick Spirit Command. KTS: Zan's Force Wall L1 activates, negating 1000 base damage. KTS: Zan parries Kaiju Navi's Reorientation, taking 540 damage! KTS: Kaiju Navi has engaged Zan! KTS: EN Regen activates. Your new EN value is 227. KTS: Kaworu Nagisa's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage. KTS: Kaworu Nagisa fails to react to Kaiju Navi's 10MW - Cobra Mist, taking 2860 damage! KTS: EN Regen activates. Your new EN value is 268. KTS: Rei Ayanami's EN Barrier activates, negating 1500 base damage. KTS: Kaiju Navi rattles Rei Ayanami, making her next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Rei Ayanami fails to react to Kaiju Navi's 144MW - The Woodpecker, taking 5070 damage! KTS: EN Regen activates. Your new EN value is 309. KTS: Alloy Kaas fails to evade Kaiju Navi's 1437MW - Arecibo, taking 6400 damage! KTS: EN Regen activates. Your new EN value is 350. KTS: Kaworu Nagisa has activated the Resupply Spirit Command targeting Yuta Hibiki KTS: Eight York has activated the Resupply Spirit Command targeting Guy Shishioh KTS: Guy Shishioh has activated the Trick Spirit Command. KTS: Liam 7-020 rushes into the attack! KTS: Liam 7-020 successfully avoids Kaiju Navi's 10MW - Cobra Mist KTS: EN Regen activates. Your new EN value is 391. <Pose Tracker> Zan has posed.
Zan, attached as he is, gets dragged along as the Angel reorients when his hook digs in. Instead of letting go, he stops the line going out by grabbing it with one of his normal arms as the extra arms unfold from the shoulders and push away from the Angel itself to let it swing him up into a good position where he can release the hook and give it a mighty whirl over head, picking up speed.
Thrusters flare as Zan spins his body once he has a target lock, and more flare on the giant hook itself before he changes trajectory and lets the hook and line fly as it aims at the core itself.
Zan stays in the final position as the jets guide the hook in a powerful, large trajectory straight in.
And finally gets through the interference a bit, << You... Angel... me...! >> He sounds more than a bit angry.
Away from the fight, the Iron Railer briefly comes to life before shutting back down again. Like a toy train without batteries.
KTS: Zan targets Kaiju Navi with Guided Hit! KTS: Zan anchors Kaiju Navi, forcing it into close range. KTS: Kaiju Navi fails to react to Zan's Guided Hit, taking 7200 damage! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 26005 KTS: Zan has engaged Kaiju Navi! <Pose Tracker> Eight York has posed.
Captain York can't say she exactly understands what she's seeing. An Angel matching the description of the last, somehow partly here? Tilting, now? It is again moving, though, and that she can see. And she sees the Ra Mari's cannons pour through the AT Field. Whatever else is true... it would seem that the Federation's experiments in making bigger guns have borne fruit. Eight York, in her chair on the bridge of the Ra Mari, hopes that that will be enough to see her crew through alive.
Indeed a tidal wave of electromagnetic freqeuencies slam across the outer hull, and it's a very good thing that most of the mobile suits and similar out there have disengaged from the ship. The paint on the Ra Mari begins to bake, curling up, superheating even through its shielding. But before it can start to cause pieces of the ship to buckle, the othrs interrupt.
"Captain York here, to anyone who can hear. Thanks for that."
She's not sure anyone can. But she looks to her bridge crew. "Fari. Can we fire again?"
"...Yes, ma'am, but not at full capacity. That last blast knocked out a few of our connectors. We'll have to use up a lot more energy to make up for it."
"...Damn. Send a runner to Engineering. Lavhi'll get us that power, one way or another."
A crew member takes off, going through the bridge doors into the ship in zero-gravity, rushing along with inertia to carry her in her normal suit.
Meanwhile, Eight looks at the core at the dead center--that small, black sphere...
The one that was destroyed. "Evasive maneuvers! Don't let it get another shot at us like that!"
Licia Chovan takes direct conrol of the ship, and the Ra Mari banks upward, off its previous track, to become as small a target as possible relative to the Angel and its radio assaults. As it happens, she sees Guy out there in his Nightmare Plus, and quietly regards him for a moment.
"If you can hear me," she murmurs, "Keep fighting."
Then, she exhales, and rols her shoulders. "All right then, Fari. Get me what you can get us. Astelian, get me all the power you can to the main cannons. Fari, prepare to engage the shield as soon as we finish firing. And..."
"Let's hope. Pattern J-Alpha Two. Fire on my mark. Three... Two... One..."
"MARK!"
Once again the Ra Mari's cannons charge, and it is not the sheer spectacle that it was a moment ago--it is merely every gun on the ship beaming up ready to fire. But that's fireworks enough.
The Ra Mari's cannons, not as spectacular without the full array, nvertheless send concentrated fire barreling towards the Angel's core.
KTS: Eight York targets Kaiju Navi with Clop Missile Array Anti-Ship Missile! Eight York has cancelled her attack.
KTS: Eight York targets Kaiju Navi with Twin-Barrel Hyper Mega-Particle Cannons - Focused Assult! KTS: Kaiju Navi fails to react to Eight York's Twin-Barrel Hyper Mega-Particle Cannons - Focused Assult, taking 7320 damage! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 18685 <Pose Tracker> Asuka Shikinami Langley has posed.
'-KA'
She tries to force herself not to look. For once Evangelion Unit - 00 at her side is a welcome sight instead.
Within Evangelion Unit-02's Entry Plug, Asuka is breathing so hard in the only slowly cooling LCL that it looks like she's rabid from the rising bubbles. The sudden Crosshatch of Shinji's screaming, brief and aborted fills her entry plug. And it's a telling sign - one that shockingly - rather than unnerves her, focuses her with the unsettling knowledge of what's at stake.
"You won't- get the chance-!"
Evangelion Unit-02 dives towards the eye suddenly - and grabs onto the Bolt that's impaled in its eye the four green optical 'sensors' making eye contact just as unemotively as she RIPS the bolt out of the eye and kicks off with a diagonal thrust that threads her right through the cross hatch of killing radio frequencies that are focusing in on her.
"IT'S-"
Her Umbilical cable melts, and the timer blips into being on the side of her plug. She doesn't care.
Her thrusters take her right towards the core.
"-TOO LITTLE-!" The radio screeches in the entry plug, her ears ring, she can't even hear properly right now, so she bellows her rage and focuses it right into the target in front of her. By hand, Evangelion Unit-02 tries to drive the first bolt into the Core.
Cores are tougher every time, but she just tries to wedge that point just in. Even just a tiny bit, her hand steadying it. And then she puts the head of the crossbow to the back of the first one and mashes the trigger inside of her Entry Plug's induction levers.
The second bolt splits the first - the third bolt splits the second - each one trying to hammer the next point further - and further in - just one after another.
"-TOO DAMN LATE!"
And eventually, as she hopes, split that crimson organ like a tomato facing a nail gun on auto fire.
KTS: Asuka Shikinami Langley targets Kaiju Navi with Super-Electromagnetic Crossbow Drive! KTS: Kaiju Navi fails to react to Asuka Shikinami Langley's Super-Electromagnetic Crossbow Drive, taking 8280 damage! KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Asuka Shikinami Langley's Sole Shikinami activates, causing Insight L1! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 10405 KTS: Asuka Shikinami Langley has engaged Kaiju Navi! <Pose Tracker> Excellen Browning has posed.
brief, aborted sounds of shinji ikari screaming
Somewhere...
... Her body feels cold, but her hands feel hot. She feels the gush of blood running between her fingers. Her own entrails trying to push their way to freedom. The tang of blood on her tongue. Everything was growing dim and hazy. All around her she can see the bodies of her fellow cadets - countless young men and women. Many broken, battered, some impaled, one there with their neck twisted at an odd angle. Staring at her. She then sees him - the body of a young man, she doesn't know his name. He's unsconsious, but she can see his chest rising and falling. If she could wake him up, maybe he could help her? Maybe he could go for help?
But there is something else here.
Through the smoke, thick and black, she sees something glowing. Blood Red. It's staring at her - she can feel it, that ice cold prickle at the base of her ponytail. Staring at it, it staring at her. She opens her mouth to scream, to rouse the young man from his slumber, even if her wounds are too much... even if she dies on the operating table... the last thing she wants is to be taken by that thing.
That thing.
<Core sighted!! Moving to engage! Evangelion Null-Sigma there's a... get out of there!>
The voice scarcely sounds like Excellen at all. She's so full of anger and fear. She can't remember anything clearly, but something about that red core awakens something deeply unpleasant within her. As the creature - Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh Whatever! - moves to slam into her with its own body, Excellen's Weissritter rapidly engages its thrusters, maneuvering in a way that the geforces should be difficult for a human pilot to manage. Indeed, momentarily, Excellen does feel the blood being pulled from her head and into her feet. Blackness blooms across her field of vision, and she feels lightheaded ...
... but just as suddenly everything is clear. Excellen and the Weissritter, her Weissy, move as one before descending with its Oxtongue Launcher wielded like the Oxtongue Spears of old - the White Knight facing down the dying beast as it has its teeth sunk into, mauling an innocent child. Instead of sniping from afar she tries to get close. As close as she possibly can to that red core - until the only thing between her and it is the barrel of her Oxtgonue Launcher.
One after another, the heavy ballistic slugs of the Oxtongue's B-Mode are fired into the core alongside everyone else's attack. She hopes distantly that it will be enough to keep that Red Eyed Beast from stealing a child into the dark!
KTS: Excellen Browning has activated the Valor Spirit Command. KTS: Excellen Browning targets Kaiju Navi with Oxtongue Launcher B Mode! KTS: Excellen Browning rattles Kaiju Navi, making its next maneuvers more difficult. KTS: Kaiju Navi fails to react to Excellen Browning's Oxtongue Launcher B Mode, taking 4530 damage! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 5875 <Pose Tracker> Yuta Hibiki has posed.
Shinji's okay. Okay enough to race forward and attack the Angel with a knife, which brings a smile to Yuta's face. Shinji's way stronger than he'll ever give himself credit for.
More horrible radio transmissions. Gridman visibly winces, trying to raise his arms to protect himself from it. Yuta cries out, overwhelmed by the noise and pain, helplessly floating in space. It's awful, and it feels like it's never going to end. In the Ra Mari, sparks fly from Junk's monitor, the image glitching out once more. Yuta wants to curl up, he wants to hide, he wants to be back home, safe in Tsutsujidai. It's too much!
"Gridman! Pull yourself together, you're almost there!" Max shouts, fear in his voice. Hearing Yuta's whimpers and cries of pain through the machine is awful when he can't be out there helping the young man. "Fight!"
"I've got you!" Soaring back across the battlefield, Sky Vitter merges with Gridman, giving the Giant of Light the ability to move in space once more. "You did a brave thing, kid. I'm proud of you. Let's tear this thing up and get out of here."
"We are almost out of time." Gridman says, his voice hoarse. The strength of the Angel's attack was even affecting him. "We have to make this count."
As if to confirm his words, the gemstone embedded in Gridman's forehead flashes urgently. Yuta doesn't want to face this battle anymore, he doesn't want to hear the distorted screaming of his friends and allies. But he's simply a passenger here, when Gridman wants him to be.
Yuta isn't moving. Gridman hesitates, then tries again. "Yuta. Your friends have always fought for you. You must fight for them."
It works. Yuta rallies as Gridman gets into a fighting stance. "Right." His voice is all-but a whisper. "I can do this."
"Let this be our final attack!" Gridman tries to summon bravado into his voice, hoping to inspire his companions to do their best. "All together, we cannot lose!"
Blue-white thrusters burn hot in the cold of space, and Gridman races toward the angel. There's... something showing in there. The core. Kaworu talked about this once. All they have to do is destroy it, and this will end. There's no sympathy for the Angel in Yuta's heart, only a cold, desperate desire for it to die.
"Disappear." Yuta whispers, frantically, as they fly toward the Angel. Max's heart sinks to hear it. What are they putting this child through? "Disappear, disappear!"
The core looks fragile, Gridman thinks. A direct attack is their best bet, especially when they're this low on energy. "Faster, Vit." He urges, and the fighter plane obliges. Bits of armor are torn from the Giant as he accelerates, putting everything he has left into the approach. They've been lucky to be mostly ignored by this creature, hopefully that trend will continue.
"Sky Strike!" Gridman yells, his voice echoing through Junk into the Ra Mari. "This is my all!"
Haloed in the light of his dwindling time, Gridman flies fist-first into the angel's core, punching it with all the strength he can muster. Let it be enough..!
KTS: Yuta Hibiki has activated the Detonate Spirit Command, reducing the Sky Gridman to 1 HP! KTS: Yuta Hibiki targets Kaiju Navi with Sky Strike! <Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.
In the silent darkness of Unit-04's entry plug, Kaworu's considerable senses have no distractions. The emotions that flare continuously on this battlefield burn as brightly to him as the stars strewn across the heavens. It's that understanding of everyone's presences, that ease with which he can sense them, that allows him to operate this Evangelion without his data. They flow around Kaworu like a river around a stone. Though they may be deafened and unreachable to each other, he hears them.
Alouette unleashing her rage, something she bottles up so often so imperfectly, with reckless abandon now that she's presented with a target she is free to annihilate.
Asuka defending herself and that which is close to her heart with her shield of spikes, the embodiment of thurisaz puncturing her foe with the force of her pride.
Rei with her own fear and her care, thinking of another first even as her umbilical cable snaps and she is left with a scant few minutes to do what must be done.
Yuta splitting from Vit to rush to Shinji's defense at Rei's behest but also his own will; normally indifferent Vit disturbed, even angry, as he is for once motivated.
Excellen branching away from her usual playfulness towards an atypical seriousness, perhaps pushed onwards by the shadows that still claw through her brain.
Lucine reaching out with her Newtype senses, conveying reassurance to Kaworu and Liam alike; Kaworu hears it, and sends back a wordless but grateful acknowledgement.
Liam who cannot transmit, only receive, who can only look at the blood around him and lament that it has been spilled, that it must be spilled, trusting in Lucine.
Guy so implacably himself, who acknowledges the power of the Angel but refuses to be anything less than who he is at all times, and so charging forth fist-first.
Zan enraged at the Angel for isolating him so thoroughly and utterly not just from the others but also from himself, a fate truly terrible for a silicon lifeform.
Eight maintaining her composure in the face of overwhelming power, searching for new tactics even after her biggest gun is used and spent, still reassuring the rest.
Shinji...
Shinji, who always finds the greatest reserves of strength in the throes of his weakness. Shinji, who screams himself hoarse, but still hears his voice.
And Ophasandalphoniel, who is momentarily lost.
Kaworu helps Shinji up as Yuta defends the both of them, and he gazes at his back as he launches himself progknife-first at Ophaniel. The Angel, whose exterior has fully crumbled away at this point to reveal its core, takes neither this nor anything quietly save in a literal sense, bursting radio waves back. Unit-04's A.T. Field reduces its already weakened strength, though, and as battered as he is from the previous attacks, he cooks only a little. Only a little.
Kaworu is far more disturbed by the black hole of audiovisual information that opens up at their feet. That outpouring of noise on not just a physical but also a psychic level immobilizes him far better than any other attack he's received, and he reflexively clutches the side of his head. It throbs. It throbs. It feels like something is spilling out, but he feels nothing under his fingertips. Only skin that has been knitted cleanly closed over a problem.
...I know. I don't blame you, he rasps, lips forming soundless words, lungs robbed of breath he didn't need anyway, to address what isn't Lilim anyway. But this one won't work either. You must exeunt.
Unit-04 remains still. However, Kaworu expresses to his kin through their minds, the whole or parts of them too alien for the rest, a pressure beyond force, beyond sight or sound.
KTS: Kaworu Nagisa targets Kaiju Navi with Shock! <Pose Tracker> Alloy Kaas has posed.
Alloy struggles to stay conscious.
"D-ie..."
There is no way for her to process the amount of information that she is being hit with. Information, data, all weaponized, all unfiltered. The 'ground' beneath Null-Sigma becomes a void. A flash of red. The core. Destroy it. Stab it. Shoot it. Crush it...
The static feels like a thousand bites and stings, ripping at her skin. There is no more time, she thinks to herself before her world, consciousness is swallowed by the light.
<Pose Tracker> Guy Shishioh has posed.
Eight reaches out, maybe mostly for her own sake. Guy's access to the Limpid Channel, its lapping ocean of intentionalities and wills, is a far cry from what he knows Mikoto can do these days. Still.
The G-Stone is an information circuit, at its core.
Keep fighting he can do. Between Kaas' blows and Guy's own, they tear away enough of the overlying Angel to reveal the creature within, and Guy jets back just enough to take in what he's looking at.
"That's," Guy grits his teeth.
Back at Orbit Base: "Core exposed!" Ayame calls, and punches the air. "Hell yeah!"
"Did it eat Sandalphon?" Prickle mutters, scratching his head.
"More like, did Sandalphon parasitize Ophaniel?" Hinoki wonders. "Or was Ophaniel only ever a shell?"
"Doctor Akagi's report will be a fascinating one, I expect," Supervisor Yang pipes in, edging his glasses up, catching the light.
Guy doesn't quite have a VF pilot's instincts, and uses the verniers to back up rather than several quick changes. Then, rather than rely on the auto targeter, he jams his left hand against the screen, the G-Stone circuit emblem igniting on his hand. He watches the tracker swirl around wildly before highlighting the core, and then confirm itself more times in a moment than he bothers to count. "FIRING!"
The Nightmare Plus rears back, as every missile box on the machine ignites and sends wave after wave of missiles corkscrewing through space trailing fluffy white smoke.
KTS: Guy Shishioh targets Kaiju Navi with Micro-Missile Array Itano Circus! KTS: Kaworu Nagisa has activated the Resupply Spirit Command targeting Rei Ayanami <Pose Tracker> Lucine Azul has posed.
As shocked as she was to realize she had physically tried to extend her hand out like a complete dork, Lucine is pleasantly surprised that her exertion, as well as the threatening boomboombooms of possible oncoming headache, have beared fruit. There's the dull ache from Shinji's disconnection and loneliness, resonating with her earlier much more pointed experience with it during the attack on Paris. But, he wasn't alone. He had come to a realization, even without Lucine's help.
Then, a grateful acknowledgement from Kaworu, someone who seemed so accessible to Lucine, yet as far away as if she was as safely blind to the world as anyone else.
And that connection with Liam, somehow just made a little easier due to her closeness to him, is like the grip of two grasping hands, fingers interlacing with one another.
She succeeded. Somehow. It will hurt later, but her tears float in the air of her visor, her lips smiling in spite of the sight of the terrible fusion of Angels.
And so it comes, the invisible strike. Lucine's head hurts as her senses reflexively ring alarm bells in her mind; she somehow has the presence of mind to turn the Dianthus away.
Like the heat from a blistering explosion, the Angel's pillar of radio waves fall by pilot's senses, drawing out a grim estimate of what it would have been like if that *did* hit her.
"... This is... our chance?" She spots the other pilots flying in for the kill. ".... Liam..." He was close by. He'd know what she was doing from experience.
A dance of fireflies, setting the scene for her goodest, dearest friend to make his shot.
KTS: Lucine Azul has activated the Alert Spirit Command. KTS: Lucine Azul has activated the Alert Spirit Command. KTS: Lucine Azul targets Kaiju Navi with Lunate Crown v.2 Fireflies! <Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.
Whatever the Angel is, it's here, it's there. It's a heavenly body and Evangelion Unit Zero is on it with three minutes and fifty-four seconds until total annihilation. Immense beams smash into the rapidly dying creature - colony?
Rei hears sounds. Space crepes. A familiar 'All Hail Britannia' from a familiar voice. The LCL feels warmer. Rei sweats in the plugsuit, heedlessly; though her skin absorbs fluid from the LCL. A balanced system. Tilting. But a top can tilt quite far before it falls.
There is a sound. Something collides with Eva-00 and it produces an actual SOUND - a piece of the Angel, perhaps. There is an impulse of motion and Rei stabs the prog knife into the blackening coral and tucks her head hin and realizes her heart is pounding like a jackhammer. The Second is screaming.
There is that same searchlight-sunlight feeling against her. Rei does not mind the sun - she only burns, despite her pallor, after a rather long time, a time that would suit the average Japanese girl - but she does here; she does now. It runs up her right side, over Eva-00's (her) arm, over the Evangelion's torso (her hip, her breast), over her leg even as she pulls herself to the side --
She had been standing partway over one of those ghastly pits.
What Rei does not see is how badly the layers of special enzymatic-inlaid special armor on Eva-00's side are. They are -- flattened, oddly; there are a few bubbles around the shoulder joint. There is static --
-- Let this be our final attack! --
That comes through loud and clear.
Eva-00's head turns momentarily, back towards that pit. The others are attacking the core. Where is it? It's near - Rei thinks she can glimpse an explosion through the adjacent pit.
Her shoulders hunch slightly. "Extend," she whispers to herself. Eva-00 glitters in the heavens, leaning forwards -- the flaring light coming to iridescent brightness as it enters that invisible zone of horrifying radio-wave emissions, the AT Field filtering out 99.8% of the energy emission but still leaving a palpable sense of heat. Eva-00 reaches out to grasp the other end of the pit.
One leg down *into* the hole. Like a bath that's too, too hot. Shock, and pain, but there isn't an acclimation. A faint sense of turbulence in the LCL, but leaned-forwards Rei does not see it and does not care to look. Bring down the other leg - hesitate for only a moment -
The hole could hold Eva-00, if it went in feet first, but instead it's crawled partway in at a horrible angle. In the dark pit of the aperture, lit only by the distant fourth-hand lights of explosions, Rei lowers herself downwards. Belly, shoulders. Arms. Dig inwards. Bring up the legs.
is this what it's like? Rei wonders, before closing her eyes.
"Hngh!"
Eva-00 suddenly pushes one way with its hands, and the opposing direction with its feet, with the aim of forcing stone to rip apart.
KTS: Rei Ayanami has activated the Attune Spirit Command. KTS: Rei Ayanami targets Kaiju Navi with EVA-00 Unarmed Brawl! KTS: Kaworu Nagisa shocks Kaiju Navi, reducing its Morale significantly. KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 5875 KTS: [Spirit Defense] Kaiju Navi's Spiritual Adjustment activates, and its spirit is adjusted. KTS: Kaiju Navi fails to react to Yuta Hibiki's Sky Strike, taking 2700 damage! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at 3175 KTS: Yuta Hibiki has engaged Kaiju Navi! KTS: Kaiju Navi fails to react to Guy Shishioh's Micro-Missile Array Itano Circus, taking 7200 damage! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at -4025 KTS: Kaiju Navi has been defeated! KTS: You're out of the fight. Consider using +eject to leave the battlefield. KTS: Kaiju Navi fails to react to Lucine Azul's Lunate Crown v.2 Fireflies, taking 3000 damage! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at -7025 KTS: Kaiju Navi has been defeated! KTS: You're out of the fight. Consider using +eject to leave the battlefield. KTS: Lucine Azul begins a Formation attack! KTS: Kaiju Navi fails to react to Rei Ayanami's EVA-00 Unarmed Brawl, taking 5900 damage! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at -12925 KTS: Kaiju Navi has been defeated! KTS: You're out of the fight. Consider using +eject to leave the battlefield. KTS: Rei Ayanami has engaged Kaiju Navi!
<Pose Tracker> Shinji Ikari has posed.
Shinji currently held together by the fragile pleas and assurances of his friends. Unit-01 is being held together by feats of NERV's engineering, though stands one precarious wrong move away from crumbling and taking Shinji with it. Shinji drinks in air like he's suffocating, all of it too warm around him, and now he understands why it was so familiar.
He had hoped throwing himself in so close would be where it ended. It's not. Shinji's body burns from within and without. Every moment hurts. Every thought hurts, scraping his brain against wrong sounds that carry into his bones. Invisible attacks continue, merciless. Shinji has to pilot through it. He's shaking almost too violently to physically manage the controls. But only almost.
Ninth Angel, Tenth Angel... Shinji does not understand Angels, or what's happening, or why these two have merged together. Where some of his friends and comrades scream emotions at these creatures they fight, Shinji feels nothing but that terrified life or death drive to survive. He sees the core. A pit threatens to devour all of them, promises of death scattered over the comms, and it's Alloy at the center of it all.
A cruel dilemma presents itself, but Shinji does not take time to debate it. Together is what Alouette had told him. Together they win. And a win doesn't matter if it isn't together.
Everyone else can target the core, and Shinji trusts them to. Unit-01 does not use its arms to strike at the Angel's exposed weakness, but to grip hold of Null-Sigma and use the last of its power to pull away, to drag Alloy from the center of this unimaginable storm and desperately find some semblance of respite before they're destroyed within their Evangelions.
After the first thrust away, Unit-01, with Null-Sigma, drift more than they fly and Shinji watches the. If another attack comes, this time it will be Shinji's turn to stand between her and a threat.
KTS: Shinji Ikari has activated the Dash Spirit Command and has failed to disengage. KTS: Shinji Ikari targets Kaiju Navi with Pass! <Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
As he pulls the Beam Saber out, Liam gets a better look at what's inside the Angel. He'd thought Sandalphon had been absorbed, but it looks more like the second Angelic form grew out of it. Kaworu noted that Sandalphon's Core hadn't ruptured into Core Fluid upon its death--it dissolved into mist. Liam saw it.
What happened to this thing? Is this a natural progression of Angelic development, or did something do this to it, like how the Jama altered Jophiel?
"<--ts Sand--on. Re-- it's --phon.>" Liam's voice--loud, worried, determined--is almost lost to the static. "<ALOUETTE!>"
He doesn't know her that well. But he doesn't want to lose anyone else.
But the Long Dagger clings to the Angel's form, its hands digging divots into the coral-like exoskeleton. "I'm sorry," Liam repeats. "You deserved better than to be alone. Feared. Trapped in a body that only hurts people." It's odd. With the radio scrambled, he doesn't have to worry about other people hearing him, so much. "I'm sorry."
Sandalphon does not respond. Or does it? Alloy's transmission--which was worrying in its own right, is she losing control like he keeps thinking he will?--echoes in his ears. The TARGET LOCK alarm starts blaring again, underscored by Alloy's voice. "Sorry," Liam chokes out. "Can't let you kill." As the Angel's form bucks and shudders and twists--bringing back the fresh, awful memory of something young and confused, surrounded by people trying to kill it--the Long Dagger grips tightly, its AMBAC compensating for the Angel's motive force. Its body swings and repositions as more of those dark pits form beneath it, forcing Liam to let go and boost back in to close range. Liam focuses on that, rather than on the fear and anger in Excellen's voice.
Brilliant motes of light streak in. Liam knows what those are, and who shot them. "Lucine," he breathes. The Long Dagger pulls out its second Beam Saber, and ignites it. "Together." The adrenaline has been roaring in his ears since the fight began, but now it's joined by something else: a feeling of purpose.
The GAT-01D races forward as the Angel's body bucks. It holds the Beam Sabers in a reverse grip, and it comes in low, beneath Eva-02. It raises both weapons high, and then drives them deep, drags them down, pulls them free. "I'm sorry," Liam whispers. He waits for just a moment for the rest of Lucine's firing pattern to hit, and comes in again, driving both blades for the Core once more.
KTS: Liam 7-020 has activated the Valor Spirit Command. KTS: Liam 7-020 has activated the Valor Spirit Command. KTS: Liam 7-020 targets Kaiju Navi with ES01 Twin Beam Sabers Combo! KTS: Kaiju Navi fails to react to Shinji Ikari's Pass, taking 0 damage! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at -12925 KTS: Kaiju Navi has been defeated! KTS: You're out of the fight. Consider using +eject to leave the battlefield. KTS: Kaiju Navi fails to react to Liam 7-020's ES01 Twin Beam Sabers Combo, taking 6480 damage! KTS: Your unit's HP stands at -19405 KTS: Kaiju Navi has been defeated! KTS: You're out of the fight. Consider using +eject to leave the battlefield. KTS: Liam 7-020 has engaged Kaiju Navi! <Pose Tracker> Kaiju Navi has posed.
Cores are tougher every time.
This is especially true as a direct comparison to Sandalphon before it. Sandalphon was noticeably weaker even compared to other Angels. Young. Underdeveloped.
Ophaniel, though...
Whatever the implications of its existence are, it is almost like it has been custom adapted based on the failings of Sandalphon before it, and it shows. The core at the center of the Angel - Ninth, Tenth, it hardly matters now - is -dense-. Developed. -Strong-. It is still, always, the most vulnerable part of an Angel --
But destroying it will take concentrated effort.
And concentrated effort they provide. Unfortunately -- the Angel is still moving, -aggressively-, as the crew of the Ra Mari open fire with another blast of the ship's cannons upon the core. It -BURNS- straight through the center of the strange, multiform entity; in its crackling wake, the core is glowing, little cracklines present that weren't there before. Fault lines to be exploited. Several of the void-like veins that lead to the radio-emitting holes of the Angel have been severed.
But more remain. They begin to expand, ready to fight to the end.
And then --
A pause.
...I know. I don't blame you.
But this one won't work either. You must exeunt.
The pits widen -- and then contract. In the realm of Kaworu's mind, there is a voice, fractious and grasping -- more impressions and abstract considerations than words that perhaps only the current pilot of Unit-04 is uniquely equipped to parse.
enough?
not enough
exeunt
know
grow
live
...
next time
And suddenly, the Angel's thrashing simply... stops.
From the outside looking in, it looks like the Ra Mari's attack managed to damage -some- critical component of the core to stun the Angel, to make it suddenly go limp like a puppet without its strings.
Whether that -is- the case or not, it provides an opening -- an opening the others exploit to great, violent effect. Missiles from Guy's Nightmare frame fall like rain until their explosions become an uncountable mass of force and fire crackling across the broad crimson curve of the core. He might not have a VF pilot's instincts -- but that corckscrewing volley is -more- than effective in setting the stage for the others.
Through the rippling heat, ballistic slugs from the Weissritter's Oxtongue crack across the coruscating shell of the Angel's core with unerring accuracy. It fractures. The fault lines deepen further.
The glowing fireflies of Lucine's Dianthus ignite across the bubbling, fissuring, superheated surface, guiding the path and weakening the structure for Liam's GAT-01D to drive DEEP into that core. It pairs well with the CRASH of Zan's hook across its surface, digging in -- with the hammering PUNCTURE of Unit-02's cascading bolts being -shoved- into and -through- the core until it punches straight through. With how Gridman SLAMS his fist into the fracturing crimson orb from its other end, making faultlines encompass the thing like a strange, messy line of splintering longitude on a blood red globe...
... and how Rei and Eva-00's dips into the deep black of that hole straight towards the core; as it grabs, the sensation within is strangely cold, strangely empty, like a vacuum devoid of the radiation that once ignited along the Angel --
--but it hardly matters as the Evangelion RIPS one large chunk of crimson out of the battered and beleaguered stone.
The damage capstones. The core receives too much damage, too fast. It seems to bubble.
Right before it simply -shatters- in a dizzying burst of glittering reds.
Ophaniel exeunts.
... And, just like Sandalphon before it, Ophaniel's demise is oddly anomalous. What might have been written off as environmental effects here are harder to ignore as the Angel fails to undergo a proper Image Collapse; instead, as the core shatters, the Angel's form ripples in that way one might expected--
--before it collapses in on itself rapidly, until it leaves nothing of itself in its wake.
Nothing but a thin, red mist that rapidly dissipates within the boundless infinite of space, leaving none of the bloody signs of its existence like a proper Angel would -- should.
So then what - or where - is the proper Angel, exactly?
<Pose Tracker> Excellen Browning has posed.
The battle is over...
For the Evangelion pilots, and those more familiar with how Angels function, the sudden collapse without the burst into a bloody mess might signal something. To Excellen... she's just relieved it is over. She reaches up to pull the sealed helmet of her pilot's suit off, unleashing her sweat drenched pony tail which she shakes back and forth vigorously allowing beads of sweat to spray to and fro.
<Wow... that was pretty intense huh?! I wonder if Lieutenant Nanbu would be impressed if he saw me get all serious like that! He probably wouldn't recognize, he'd sa....>
'Excellen branching away from her usual playfulness towards an atypical seriousness, perhaps pushed onwards by the shadows that still claw through her brain.'
In the darkness of space, between the stars, the Red Eyed Beast stares back at her. She gasps in horror over the radio, her hands dropping the helmet to leave it to float in mid-air within her cockpit as her hands fumble for her control sticks!!
But then she blinks, and the Beast is gone. All that's left is her own reflection in the starscape of the darkened monitor.
<... hah, sorry about that. Must just be seeing things. Anyway~! Let's see about that stir fry huh?! There's also this cuuuuuuuute romantic comedy holovid I've been meaning to watch. Bring your own beverage... or don't~! The Browning Bar is always open and well stocked!!!>
With that the Weissritter holsters its Oxtongue Launcher with a flourish, and zips its way back to the Ra Mari for docking.
<Pose Tracker> Yuta Hibiki has posed.
As the Angel disappears into nothing, so does Gridman. With one last worried glance back toward Rei, the Giant of Light vanishes from the battlefield.
On board the Ra Mari, Yuta and Vit emerge from Junk, beams of light heralding their return. Yuta immediately sits down, all-but collapsing, looking at his hands. His body still feels too hot, the pain of the Angel's radio waves resonanting in phantom pulses.
"Well done, Yuta." Gridman says, softly. Yuta nods, not making eye contact. Vit and Max exchange a look.
A suit jacket is placed around Yuta's shoulders. Glancing up, Yuta discovers it's Vit's -- the tall man settling it carefully around his shoulders. Vit looks a little uncomfortable. He's not used to expressing care, or feeling it, really. "I'm thinking the cake thing. At mama's."
"Yeah." Yuta says, getting to his feet as Max offers him a hand. "That sounds pretty good."
Maintaining his post by Junk, Max waves the other two men to go get strapped into a seat safely for the journey home. Vit and Yuta wander off, chatting about the food awaiting them back home. The young man sits facing away from the windows this time, making no effort to look out at the wonder of space surrounding the Ra Mari.
Max glances sideways at Gridman. "Yuta has been doing worse and worse after each fight. He does not have the heart for endless battle."
"What can we do?" Gridman asks, watching Yuta walk off. "We have a mission to accomplish. We have no choice but to continue relying on his strength."
"Hmm." Max answers, leaning back against the wall.
With any luck, the journey back to Tsutsujidai will be uneventful. Yuta falls asleep, leaning against Vit's side, pinning his arm down so he can't use his phone. It's annoying, but... Vit doesn't do anything to adjust. All is quiet, until...
Beep.
<Pose Tracker> Guy Shishioh has posed.
Guy's roar is matched by the silent bloom of explosions across the beats, followed soon after by more precision, tuned strikes.
It's a strange feeling, he reflects; hand placed to the console, having to physically shift levers to move and change. His Evoluder powers allow him to force his will upon the machine to a point, but it's not like Galeon or PhantomGao, not a fusion of man and mechanoid.
Hm.
"Orbit Base," he calls home, now that comms are less A Whole Problem. "I'm heading back, I'll meet Wadatsumi for pickup en route."
"Everyone, you did well today," he adds, shifting the Nightmare to fighter mode for the long-range journey. "Seems like we might still have a mystery on our hands. Kaworu, let me know if there's anything GGG can help with."
And then the thrusters flare, and the VF-171 with a green three-G mark on its side roars away.