2024-03-08: Route 612, West of Nirasaka

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<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.


How long has it been since it happened? A year. In the time that has passed since that fateful afternoon, the Earth and its attendants have circled the Sun once in full, almost precisely. There are children in the Earth Sphere, new-born, not yet concieved when Bardiel appeared.

Time is fleeting, and it is nowhere clearer than in the change from September to October. In Japan, some warmth remains, the embers of summer keeping the southern-facing portions of the archipelago pleasant enough during daytime, even as foliage makes its yearly change and the sounds of the life in the woods change from a humid cry to the rustling of dried leaves, far away.

The area where it happened is easy enough to find. While the further reaches of the roads have not been a major priority for repair, you can turn left on route 12 just before the Amarisawa River, then take Route 613 up through to the terminus point, which faces out into a broad and shallow bowl-like depression. Japan's mountains loom before you - while the mountains endured the self-destruction of Eva-00, the forests did not, and a patchwork of bare spots and scrabbly regrowth can be seen. Even so, the seasonal spirit remains, and there is quite a lot of patchily-visible red -- as if the maples have flourished.

There are retaining walls, to prevent much soil erosion, but they were clearly set by the NERV engineering groups as they left. Some traces remain - barriers, a dropped cigarette package or drink bottle in undergrowth.

Your nearest supply point is a small conbini at the turn-off from Route 12. The owner is a graying old man. It can fuel vehicles. It is a living spot in a long stretch of inaka neighborhood buildings, of which perhaps two in three have been abandoned with the remaining ones being obviously repaired. Some sort of blast damaged them, you see -- coming from just to the west.

After the end of the road, there is no discernible monitoring or active supervision of the site. With a year of weather, a nearly-full passage of winter to spring to summer to fall, you might not think anything all that awful had happened here. Perhaps it was simply a natural disaster; a freak amplification of a typhoon.

Of course, you know better. Some of you were there.

<Pose Tracker> Lucine Azul has posed.

        For every day that that Izanami, the goddess of death, would take a thousand lives, her husband Izanagi would create one thousand five hundred more. Isn't that how the myth went?
        
        Japanese folklore didn't quite have focus on it that Greek and Roman mythology did in Lucine's lessons, and her books weren't any better. However, they were still there.

        Loaded into the backseat of Nidaime's car (since when did she get a license?? They grow up so fast!) Lucine looks out the window, a faint reflection of her passive gaze visible against the fall backdrop zooming by.

        Why is Lucine here? Support, mostly. Her opinion of NERV itself is neutral, but the pilots? A completely different matter.

        What can she do to support the group without the Dianthus? .... SomethingsomethingNewtype. Maybe, as cover. There is something about a large tall man with a shorter girlfriend that artificially turns the dial of suspicion down.

        At worst, it's a picturesque road trip to remember what was lost, and build resolve for the future.

        A selfish part of her almost wants that. "... What will the plan be, Liam?" She turns from her reflection; with how she's dressed, the plan may as well look like 'somber date', but this is by design. Sneakers, dark denim jeans, a fall coat, a dull red top, her hair, now just below her shoulders, up in a simple ponytail. "Just to make sure we're on the same page."

<Pose Tracker> Guy Shishioh has posed.

On that horrible day, Guy Shishioh watched in helpless horror as tragedy piled on tragedy. He's not here today; no longer interim chief, Chief Guy Shishioh of GGG Green has a great many problems to juggle as a new normal descends on the Earth Sphere, and political turmoil splits him ever more surely from one-time allies. But he has not forgotten that day, either.

Dust puffs up near the end of the road, as though the echo of that battle still throbbed in the ground below.

Then there is a flicker and fall of Mirror Particles as Volfogg's Mirror Coating falls away, which would also have done it. The police cruiser of a Brave says, "We are here, Captain Renais, Agent Ushiyama."

The passenger door slides open and a heavyset man in an orange GGG uniform steps out, squinted eyes intent with focus and big bushy eyebrows raking up his forehead. A grimace creases Kazuo Ushiyama's face as he looks across the scene. "I can already tell ya one thing...sure wasn't an ordinary day that did this." 

<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.


        It's peaceful out here. The air is cool, but not chilly, and the surviving trees paint the hills in brilliant color. The soft rustling of the leaves fills the air.

        It reminds Liam of when he was a boy, and his parents took him to tend to the family graves.

        The big cyborg grips the door handle tightly, keeping himself steady. Nidaime, bless her heart, is now a career woman, but she still seems to think, sometimes, that driving laws are suggestions. When she finally stops, he opens the door, clambers out, and waves to their driver and her partner. "Thanks for the ride, you two," he says. "We'll call when we need pickup." As Nidaime drives off, he waits by the side of the road, holding one of the canned coffees he got at the conbini.

        Liam looks like he could be out for a nature walk. He's wearing a new leather jacket, a black t-shirt, jeans, and hiking boots. A sturdy, wilderness-ready backpack is slung across his back--a second canned coffee pokes out from one drink holder, and a large thermos full of water pokes out from the other.

        "Search for things that the cleanup crew missed," Liam says. "EVA parts, especially bits of the Entry Plug. Biological material." He pops the coffee open, and takes a drink. "We--"

        And there's the other half of their team. Liam coughs as Volfogg appears, but recovers quickly, and approaches the GGG half of the team at a slow, easy pace.

<Pose Tracker> Alouette Pommier has posed.

It's hard to believe that it's been a full year since the Twelfth Angel, Bardiel struck - a battle that marked a pyrrhic victory for the survival of humanity, yet a stinging failure to protect just two girls all the same.

Although Asuka and Rei made it out of the battle alive, if Kaworu and NERV are to be taken at their word... there are still so many mysteries about what really happened - and this investigation presents an opportunity to piece it all together. While the intelligence division is certainly leading the charge in GGG's involvement here... Alouette insisted on coming along - she was there when it all happened.

"Thank you for the ride, Mr. Volfogg," she says quietly, slipping out of the back seat of his police cruiser form. "I wouldn't have called it ordinary at all, no..." She shakes her head in agreement with the elder Ushiyama. But now that they're here... where to start?

Seeing Liam and Lucine is sure to be a good sign - they certainly hadn't forgotten about what happened so quickly - making sure things are coordinated between their groups should be a top priority. "I'm sure whoever Commander Ikari put on clean-up duty was nothing short of thorough," Alouette considers - there's nothing that's obviously Evangelion or Angel biomatter across the area. "But I think it'd be totally impossible to leave no trace behind. There has to be somewhere to start, right?" They do have Volfogg here after all.

"I recall after it took over Eva-03, the Angel used the contamination itself as a means of attack. At the same time, there's a lot we don't know about Angels... Could we still pick up even small traces of that contamination?" It might be nothing, but it might be something, too... 

<Pose Tracker> Renais Cardiff has posed.

Renais steps out of the police cruiser. "Thank you, Volfogg," she says simply, quietly, as she surveys the scene. It's... difficult to take in.

This is the first time Renais has been here. She only learned about what happened after they beat back Triple Zero, on the long trip home from Jupiter; the idea that Asuka was gone, the horror of it all... a deep-seated fear of the Evangelions sits in her stomach like a stone, moreso now.

She's not sure she believes that Asuka is still alive.

"Horrible things," she mutters under her breath in French. To Ushiyama, she nods, and in Japanese, replies, "A horrible day, surely." Her voice is somber.

"Traces, perhaps," she replies to Alouette. "But unless Commander Ikari's an idiot, he'd have done his best to purge the site of contaminants. You can't be sure something like that won't spread. We might be able to find shrapnel... but any... flesh... would have rotten away by now, I'm sure."

<Pose Tracker> Sonia Sophia-Grace has posed.

Having been at the fight with the Wolfpack in space, and then the 'loss' of Asuka, and then the situation with Shinji and Kaworu.... something within NERV reeks, and it's not the sewer system under Tokyo-Three. Nor is it the launry room after a week long camping military trip. A little beater joins the other cars, something absolutely sized for no one above about five feet tall, non-descript in color, not too damaged to be notable, not too new to be notable.

Sonia, does, in fact, know how to drive.

"We probably could, but I'm not sure we have the ability to do that level of research, especially with the sort of... situation going within the Evangelion pilots." Sonia remarks quietly from behind Alouette and Renais, walking up behind the other two woman with quiet steps. "Also, that fear of spread I don't doubt hasn't also been considered by a handpicked clean up crew." She adds on, cryptically enough.

"Liam, Lucine." She greets the other two with a polite nod. "I'd grab a soil sample anyways, maybe botany as well. Not sure if we can do that type of research without concerns being araised by Ikari-" And her tone notes she's talking about the father, not the son- "But something is off." 

<Pose Tracker> Orpheus Zevon has posed.

        A year, come and gone since the events that transpired. Though beyond what was heard in word-say, the events of what transpired to Bardiel and the Eva-99 are those that are only acquired second hand. For the future that was to come, second hand information alone was not going to be enough.

        Thus, a young man of Britannian descent finds himself reviewing the maps of the area as he finds himself on the side of the road upon Route 613. The Britannian who looks in his late teens, perhaps even in twenties puts weight onto his left foot as he keeps the motorcycle he's balancing his weight on from toppling as he looks over the expanse of that bowl-like depression. He takes off his helmet, a tinted visor raised up off his head to reveal heterochromatic eyes. One that's a gaze of a bright emerald, while the other glows unnatural crimson. An unnatural crimson iris and what nearly appears as if the shape of a bird in his pupil.

        Rummaging through his backpack he pulls out a camera. One that seems more professional grade than one might find on a phone at least. He starts taking a few pictures from the roadside of the area. To capture the depression, the spots where forest had no longer thrived, anything and everything to identify the kind of damage that had transpired. He understood that a considerable amount of damage was in part of the Angel, that it'd certainly be difficult to discern who caused what. At the end of the day, knowing the scale of damage that the Eva could dish out, and well as manage...It was going to be important should the day come he may need to confront NERV.

        Orpheus continues the ride up to a few miles before the terminus point. At which point he finds himself hiding away his bike near the side of the road concealed in nearby greens along with his helmet. From the few miles left, to the point the road ended, he planned to backpack the way forward. His helmet was removed but a pair of sunglasses.

        By the time he finally arrives at the end of that road, there's a look of dismay. Even with the barriers that have been placed up prior to prevent the erosion, the fact of the matter was that it truly did seem like there were no lingering patrols or clean-up crews that were left behind by NERV. "At this point, they've probably cleared out anything worth finding.Still..."

        It wasn't impossible to think that people. People like him might eventually come to this spot in hopes of uncovering information about the Angels or even the EVA. That as cautious as NERV was to make sure that they cleaned everything out, they'd still keep tabs on such places. That more than just identifying scrap parts of EVAs lingering out, or remnant samples of Angels, that there was a chance...Albeit with risk that there was someone that was meant to patrol such a place. That new of what areas had been cleaned...And the potential areas that couldn't have been so easily. Those would be the places he'd be hoping to find, and in doing so potential find on the small chance those that needed to gatekeep it. 

<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.


That's a net gain of five hundred, Lucine. But what are the costs?

The group gathers, and looks around the space. Indeed: other than the remnants of some kind of disaster area, it could be taken for an ordinary place, if one that befell some misfortune. Perhaps a Mobile Suit crash? That would perhaps be the obvious possibility. A destructive landing for an OCU defense MS of some kind.

The wind stirs. The wind is eternal, in some ways. Even if there was no life upon the surface of the Earth, the wind would blow as long as the air remained. Moved by the heating and cooling of the earth and the waters.

Memory returns to the group - it was not, perhaps, a deliberate anniversary, and to Orpheus it is a simple coincidence or perhaps a handy way to earmark his investigative activities in his day-planner.

A plan is formed. There are few obstacles other than undergrowth in the area going up towards the mountain slopes, where they begin to change into something high and arcing. Perhaps Bardiel opted not to tread directly through the highway -- most of the immediate areas were occasionally farmed, although of course, well, not now.

Sensors come into play. Things acute beyond the eyes of Lilim, although Volfogg might be right to say it is his own 'eyes' that he uses. A more sophisticated image of the immediate area, going up towards the mountain slopes. Motion is detected, but something about the motion up towards the patches of red foliage seems... wrong.

The eye can see it once attention is called - it looks red but it's not stirring in the wind. There is adjacent greenery that *is* doing so. Perhaps it's a quirk of the wind?

There are no immediately obvious remains of either Eva-00 or Eva-03 that became Bardiel, although something about one of those larger red patches on the mountainside may tickle at Liam's memory.

(Volfogg also detects Orpheus, who is remaining sufficiently distant from the group to not be immediately apparent. You can't hide from the police, Britannian.)

<Pose Tracker> Lucine Azul has posed.

        Giving a thankful nod to Nidaime, Lucine waves as they drive off, then turns to face Liam, placing her hands in the pockets of her coat. It's just the right amount of cold out here; not enough to chill the bones, but enough to bring a certain snap to the air and color to the cheeks. Lucine checks her own pack, filled with some goodies that seemed good from the conbini.

        She turns her head, slightly, towards the puff of dust; whatever advance warning that may have provided doesn't lessen her getting startled by the sudden appearance of Volfogg, Alouette, and Kazuo. "... Wrong tube?" Lucine asks, with with a small grin as she pats Liam on the back. "It's good to see you all here." Nodding to Sonia as she comes up, Lucine offers, "... At best, if there's something my senses might pick up, that may be a lead we may not have had. At worst... I'm another pair of eyes." She presses her hands into her pockets. "And I don't mind

        And one that seems at ease here, in the mountain quiet. The vivid colors of autumn never touched Nemi Colony, but the crunch of leaves and the smell of wet bark brings out something in the young woman. Like showing someone who's only ridden a tricycle all her life what riding a proper bicycle is like.

        Lucine has no sensors, but she does have something else: a pair of binoculars, which she uses to scan the mountains (literally; these are plain binoculars. No electricity needed.)

        It would be silly to look at the bare patches on the landscape and *not* think something was off. But could she or anyone else see anything beyond that? ".... Maybe something hidden in plain sight, or...?" Something tickles at her senses, and the young woman turns to look in the opposite direction, towards Orpheus. "... I think someone's watching us," she says, her voice hushed. 

<Pose Tracker> Lucine Azul has posed.

        Giving a thankful nod to Nidaime, Lucine waves as they drive off, then turns to face Liam, placing her hands in the pockets of her coat. It's just the right amount of cold out here; not enough to chill the bones, but enough to bring a certain snap to the air and color to the cheeks. Lucine checks her own pack, filled with some goodies that seemed good from the conbini.

        She turns her head, slightly, towards the puff of dust; whatever advance warning that may have provided doesn't lessen her getting startled by the sudden appearance of Volfogg, Alouette, and Kazuo. "... Wrong tube?" Lucine asks, with with a small grin as she pats Liam on the back. "It's good to see you all here." Nodding to Sonia as she comes up, Lucine offers, "... At best, if there's something my senses might pick up, that may be a lead we may not have had. At worst... I'm another pair of eyes." She presses her hands into her pockets. "And I don't mind trekking through the forest."

        And one that seems at ease here, in the mountain quiet. The vivid colors of autumn never touched Nemi Colony, but the crunch of leaves and the smell of wet bark brings out something in the young woman. Like showing someone who's only ridden a tricycle all her life what riding a proper bicycle is like.

        Lucine has no sensors, but she does have something else: a pair of binoculars, which she uses to scan the mountains (literally; these are plain binoculars. No electricity needed.)

        It would be silly to look at the bare patches on the landscape and *not* think something was off. But could she or anyone else see anything beyond that? ".... Maybe something hidden in plain sight, or...?" Something tickles at her senses, and the young woman turns to look in the opposite direction, towards Orpheus. "... I think someone's watching us," she says, her voice hushed.

<Pose Tracker> Guy Shishioh has posed.

"You are welcome, Agent Alouette, Captain Renais. My review of the threat assessment suggests it is unlikely we would find any active contaminants," Volfogg says, his headlights flashing as his voice issues forth.

"Yeah," Ushiyama #1 says as he reaches into Volfogg's cargo compartment for a scanner about the size of a briefcase, popping it open and extending an antenna. "I don't really get the theory, but when an Angel dies, its whole physical existence basically transforms into a neutral substance. That's what that transformation to blood is." He squints at the screen on his instrument, slowly tweaking a dial. "Still...doesn't look like this place has seen a lot of action since. Even we couldn't pick up every scrap of Zonder shrapnel, back then. There should be some remnants."

He scowls at his device for a moment, and then Volfogg says, "Agent Kazuo," promptingly. "I detect a signal up the slope. Approximately one hundred and fifty meters."

"Yeah," the eldest Ushiyama says, hefting his device up into his arms and stepping off the trail. "I see it too. Let's go take a look."

While they head off, Volfogg remains where he is, in his car form, engine idling. Lucine speaks.

"I shall reconnoiter," he says, and in a moment, is gone.

He really is a ninja...despite his mass, and the fact that he is a four-wheeled vehicle, there is rapidly no trace of him left.

(But he's moving toward Orpheus.)

<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.


        Liam coughs, and flashes Lucine an apologetic smile. "'m fine," he says. Volfogg, at least, is the one cop car that doesn't make Liam terribly anxious on sight. On top of that, he's precisely the kind of backup they need right now. "Volfogg," Liam says, with a wave of greeting. "Renais, Ushiyama, Alouette." Liam reaches back with his free hand, plucks the second canned coffee out of its holder, and offers it to Renais. "It's yours if you want it," he says, with a nod.

        A little gift, for someone he hasn't seen in a while. It's been long enough that the ways Liamhas changed might be a little surprising. Age is starting to harden his features, but his gaze is gentle, and alert without darting everywhere. His scars are a little less noticeable. There's a coating of coppery-reddish stubble on his scalp, jaw, and upper lip. As he turns a little to glance back at Lucine, he shows the back of his head--the injection ports dotting his spine are gone.

        Liam's eyes dart in the direction Lucine indicated, and linger there for a moment. Volfogg's on it, though, and Liam nods to the Brave before following Ushiyama towards the spot the sensors indicated. His footsteps crunch through the early-Fall leaf litter, slow and steady. As they approach...

        "I think that's," Liam says, pointing out that odd patch of stillness in the greenery. "Something...?" He moves closer, stopping within about ten or so feet of the perimeter. "Nothing's moving." And it's familiar. Liam's gaze goes distant as he thinks back to that horrible day.

<Pose Tracker> Alouette Pommier has posed.

"That stands to reason..." She nods, at Renais and Volfogg's confirmation that there wouldn't be any contamination. "All the same, it can be easy to miss the obvious, but it's not like NERV is a bunch of amateurs, right?" Still, it's undeniable - something about the site is off.

"Oh, and Renais?" She switches to French, in more of a hushed, whispered tone. "Are you feeling okay?" It's hard not to notice the melancholy in the way she's carrying herself. "I think... we'll get to see her again. It wasn't 'farewell'... that's what I believe." Is all she adds, before quickening her pace along the trail.

"Oh, Captain Sophia-Grace-" Alouette remarks with the slightest hint of surprise, as the short young woman quietly steps behind herself and Renais. "You're right... honestly, just stopping by here in a large enough group might be enough to set off some alarm bells, let alone bringing truckloads of equipment." She nods at Sonia's assessment. "I don't want to make things worse for Asuka and Ayanami-san, either... but I do think we all deserve to know what happened."

Liam and Lucine have their own skills to offer though - and they're working quite hard, at that. There's a genuine look of amazement as she gets a closer look at Liam, too. "It's good to see you both in good health. And your assistance is definitely appreciated, too." she smiles, perhaps she'd say more if only the situation called for it. For now, though... she notes the odd stillness in the greenery Volfogg - then Liam point out. "That is weird. There's no way that's just... some natural phenomenon." She agrees, and moves through the crunchy terrain to take a closer look. She brought some handy tools with her, too! Though for a situation like this, they mostly amount to being extremely portable microscopes.

Lucine has a flash of insight, though - are they being watched? "It's not out of the question." Alouette answers her quickly. "I'm certain word gets out fast to NERV... and anyone else with ears around Tokyo-3." She looks where Lucine looks. She simply gives Volfogg a brief look of acknowledgement before he's gone in a blink.

<Pose Tracker> Renais Cardiff has posed.

Renais looks a little surprised at the sight of Liam, but her solemn expression turns to a faint smile soon enough. "Thanks," she says, taking the coffee and cracking it open. She takes a sip as she looks Liam over. "You look... good. Very good."

Looking over at Lucine, she wryly asks, "Been taking good care of him, I see?"

Volfogg reports, and she looks over at him, then at Kazuo, nodding. To Lucine and Liam, she says, "We'll have to catch up later." Eyes on Volfogg once more, she taps her ear. 'Keep me updated.'

Drawing close to the object, she pauses a moment to take in the surroundings... and where Liam stops nearby, she warily steps toward it, every footstep deliberate, her metal hand never straying far from her hip. She's clearly expecting... *something* to happen. Drawing near to it, she crouches beside Lucine, augmented vision focusing in to get a *very* close look. 

<Pose Tracker> Sonia Sophia-Grace has posed.

"Don't get me wrong, Miss Pommier, but this whole situation rankles like a shirt does when you leave it in the dryer too long." that's wrinkle, not rankle, but still... Sonia looks at the find from across the distance, rubbing her forehead briefly before pulling her glasses up off of her face to peer into the distance.

"Still, I'm glad we're all concerned. Especially since those of us that were together on the Jupiter mis... adventure, couldn't exactly do much else than wonder while we were gone." She ambles after the rest of the group, glancing at the ground. While some wind and weather could mar them, she's looking for any specific signal as to where that piece of metal came from - directional; perhaps as to get an idea of the impact of whatever caused it. 

<Pose Tracker> Orpheus Zevon has posed.

        "What kind of joke is this...?"

        The words had escaped his lips in an annoyed mutter. It could have possibly been chalked up to bad luck, an ill-timed opportunity or otherwise, but as the two groups start to converge, Orpheus finds himself in an unfortuitous position of catching it all in the distance. His only saving grace being that with that camera he kept, not only had it been opportune for taking pictures, but its zoom functionality certainly allowed for him to keep himself at what should have been a respectful distance. Especially when the terrain provided so little in the way of concealment. He had hoped simply keeping a healthy distance would have sufficed. After all, while he'd been able to see the heavyset man wearing the GGG uniform come out spring out of his police car along with his entourage of Alouette and Renais, as well as Sonia that pops in behind them. The duo of the cyborg as he indulges in his canned coffee, and the woman that dresses in that fall coat and denim jeans.

        The cop car had been one level of concern at first, the appearance of those that came out had been nothing but an entirely different level of questions to arise. Besides the man in the GGG uniform, it seemed like the group itself had been a mish-mash. There were no apparent police uniforms, no noticeable military uniforms, but most of all...No notable NERV attire.

        Still, it was worth it to be cautious, and for a time. He tries to keep a healthy distance. Attempting to keep as a speck in the distance for as long as he can. There weren't significant obstructions to hide for. But the occasional curvature in the road that was hidden by the stone edges occasionally provided a small wall to crouch behind.

        In truth, a part of him had already considered this issue. Whether he needed to dress up in camouflage to match the terrain for such a situation. To try and crouch up on the ground if the worst came and others like this appeared. To lay low while others passed through. Though there were two reasons against it. The first being, that such camouflage was more conspicuous than anything, and left no room to wiggle. The second reason had only come when he had noticed the group...That they two seemed like they were looking, albeit a tad aimlessly.

        Volfogg detect's him the first out of the group. Though, ultimately Orpheus doesn't catch on immediately that they're aware till it's Lucine that he can see looking back in his direction. Even though he's certainly a speck on the road, he can see her through the lens staring back at him. The jig was up. It was now just a matter of how he responded to it.

        Lucine can watch as the speck she caught a glimpse of his attempt to hide again. Much easier to pick up on than before. And that's the intent...

        Even Volfogg with his ninja-like prowess would find once he'd been able to get closer to their pursuer was that well...It was no Nerv uniformed agent, no soldier scoping them down, or anything of the sort. Like most of those who had joined their party, the blonde-haired young man was dressed as a civilian. Long jeans, a t-shirt with a light button-down jacket. He looked like some sort of high-schooler, maybe even just a college student at best who'd been going where he wasn't supposed to be taking pictures and was now just trying to dodge getting into trouble. Basically, he was just a little guy...And that was the goal to look like.

        There was little way to avoid detection on this path, and so if that was the case. The best option was to hopefully appear non-hostile. A 'child' that decided to go somewhere he shouldn't have but realized he got caught. Who was now hiding to avoid a mishap. Up to this point though, he'd refuse to look back to their group. Keeping as best concealed as he could around the curves to provide any level of cover he could till one of three things happened. One, they kept moving. Two, they called out to him or three...He started to hear gunshots. Any attempt to investigate was going to be put as a second priority till he resolved this manner with the group before him.

<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.


Ushiyama climbs the mountain. (How poetic.) The walk is uphill and it is indeed a hundred and fifty meters, which is not an exhausting journey if one is in any kind of shape - and indeed quite survivable even if one is quite the potato. The weather is not perilous. The group keeps moving.

Now that Liam is focusing it would be inaccurate to say that *nothing* is moving, because there are indeed leaves on the ground. Just not as many as there ought to be. The redness is beginning to reveal its secrets.

Leaves, you see, have consistent hues, but they are average values, gestalts that the eye will soon resolve into finer colors. Even if you cannot distinguish reds so finely, subtle hues will show as shades of gray and different degrees of reflection.

But there is red on the ground itself here, as well. It's almost like spilled paint, until the group comes up over a small fillip in the ground - a quirk of terrain or topography that produced a small dip, something that preceded the horror: a small sub-depression which would have doubtless, in time, eroded away. It's the sort of subtle cupping that makes the Japanese countryside so charming.

And it hid a secret, that was peeking up, just a bit, for those with eyes to see. If the group had come forty-five minutes later or if it had been cloudy, it might not have caught their eyes at all.

It is a tree: A maple tree, perhaps four years old from its height (about two and a half meters). Not a big tree, of course. The soil in which it stood was disrupted, either in the great detonation or some time before; some thick roots erupt from the soil.

The tree is completely devoid of foliage, and is a uniform, faintly glossy deep-red. The color matches those little 'spilled paint' dribs and drabs. It has spread around, with a single crack vaguely tending up-slope showing somewhat less eerie soil beneath, to perhaps a meter's diameter from the base of the tree.

It may occur to someone, around now, that they haven't seen any birds since they started on this little nature walk.

<Pose Tracker> Lucine Azul has posed.

        Young adulthood has settled on Lucine was well, though far more subtle than it is with Liam: hair a little longer, a body with less of that awkward teenage nervousness, perhaps a little more confident in her speech. However, Renais has caught Lucine a little more in her element, even of Lucine's still every bit the alien from before. Renais's wry observation draws a sly grin, as well as a pink to Lucine's cheeks that isn't entirely from the cold. "He's been a healthy sprout, indeed."

        "... That's what I'm afraid of," Lucine says, to Alouette. "... Just being out here... I don't think anything would necessarily happen, but there'd be some awkward questions, possibly. That's the thing: while Lucine felt something was watching them, she didn't know what *kind* of attention they were getting. "Maybe... it's just that we were gone, so... naturally, we'd want a closer look." This is directed towards Sonia now. "And if a Nergal agent is here... I'm simply here to support my boyfriend, and because I was there." Which... isn't exactly a *lie*, but, it obscures the full truth.

        Perhaps, if Orpheus is looking through his binoculars at just the right moment, and in the right light (the weather is nice enough for it, after all), he'll see a flash of those yellow eyes, almost staring directly at him.

        .... From Lucine's view, it's just a speck, full of terrible possibility. She's glad Volfogg is already on the case. "... Thank you, Mr. Volfogg. I'm going to catch up with the rest, then."

        A light jog and Lucine's managed to close whatever distance there is, and then some; now closing in on the irregularity pointed out by the ground, Renais trailing behind.

        ".... Are forests usually quiet like this at this time of year?" Lucine asks aloud. "... I suppose birds and animals do begin to hibernate or migrate..." If someone told her it was normal, Lucine clearly would have accepted it as truth.

        ".... Is that... a real tree?" The glossy red tree grabs the Martian's attention, and she kneels by it, reaching out with a mitten'ed finger to nearly experimentally touch the bark-- but pulls back just as Renais scans. That's right... that could have been an ill-advised move, seeing as... what happened. ".... Angels' blood, maybe?" 

<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.


        "Good to see you too, Sonia," Liam says, nodding to her as she interjects. He half-expects to see Lina, but she's nowhere in evidence. Maybe she's off taking care of Shozo. He smiles, warmly, at Lucine's compliment.

        The hike upslope is little more than a brief warm-up, for the super-soldier. The eerie red tree, surrounded by blobs and splashes of red--like someone painted it, and did a sloppy job of it--that's a bit more involved. Liam takes a full step back, and stares at it for a long moment, trying to see if it has, in fact, been painted. He pulls his backpack off, unzips it, and removes the best protection he could get while staying inconspicuous: a couple of self-sealing particle masks, used in infectious disease wards, and by socially-conscious people during flu season.

        He has a whole box of them, in fact, and another box of puncture-resistant surgical gloves that go up to the elbow. (On him, or Ushiyama. On someone like Sonia they might go most of the way up the arm.) Then, out comes a few scalpels, and some biohazard baggies.

        "Looks like a place for soil samples, Sonia," Liam says. His voice is a little muffled by the mask, but he enunciates. "Lucine, do you--"

        Lucine touches the tree. Liam's eyes go wide. "Careful!" Thankfully, he doesn't yank her away. "That is, ah. We need uncontaminated samples." Liam kneels down to inspect the little crack, then starts investigating the tree proper. He tries to scalpel off some of the red substance, scraping it into a baggie--or if it's the bark that's been transmuted, that goes into the baggie as well.

<Pose Tracker> Guy Shishioh has posed.

Volfogg's initial response is of course a quietly radioed, "It will be done, Captain."

Meanwhile, Kazuo has come up the mountain and is scanning the tree with mounting concern. "I should've had them send Swan or Hinoki, this biotech stuff always gets me..." he chuckles, good natured. Seeing Liam and Lucine move toward the tree, he settles for popping out a receptacle from his Device, ready to at least hold on to samples. "Alouette, did you bring Doctor Sai's spectrometer? I can at least give a field test a go. If I can isolate an energy reading to go for, we can look a lot harder."

Some moments later, Renais will hear Volfogg in her ear. "Civilian. Blonde...I do not detect a vehicle in the vicinity. Most likely a curious local. Shall I escort him away?" 

<Pose Tracker> Alouette Pommier has posed.

"Colourful metaphor aside, I think we're on the same page here, Captain," Alouette nods, not even pointing out that 'rankle' isn't the correct word. "It was... difficult, not having anything to go by except for the Administrator's word, all while focused on a mission of our own. I know him, and I don't think he'd lie about something that serious... but sometimes you have to take things into your own hands."

"It could be anyone..." She nods at Lucine's worries. "And if it's someone friendly, they probably would have just showed themselves by now." Orpheus may notice she too wears a GGG uniform - though she doesn't seem particularly interested in giving him heed yet from so far away. "Well, Volfogg is pretty good at dealing with that kind of trouble, so let's just keep going for now, okay?"

The walk along the trail should be quite pleasant at this time of year, though... the air feels just a touch too still for this type of weather. "I'm probably not the one to ask about the patterns of nature... but it feels a little early for that, don't you think?" She answers Lucine, which is sure not to soothe her anxieties - especially not as Liam points out the danger of that eerie red tree. She accepts the protection Liam offers and takes a couple steps forward.

Seeing it from here... maybe her initial theory wasn't so far from the truth. "Yep! I have it... right here, Ushiyama-san," she rummages through her handbag, pushing items aside before handing the device to her senior. "I actually brought a device of my own, but if we do both analyses, we'll probably have a better chance at figuring it out."

Her gloved hand then also pulls out one of those little portable devices she always carries around, not much larger than a tablet. This one carries one of NERV's very own proprietary Angel analysis programs employed by the MAGI. "It's not like this charming little thing has the processing power of three Super-AI powered supercomputers, but it may give us a little clue. It'll just be up to us to fill in the blanks."

>ANALYZING 25%
>ANALYZING 50%
>ANALYZING 75%

"Well... what do you think?" Alouette asks, as the machine attempts to make sense of that wholly unnatural red-stained tree, and the area surrounding it. 

<Pose Tracker> Asuka Shikinami Langley has posed.


Alouette certainly knows her way around GGG's computer systems, which means she would have had access to certain programs during their collaboration with NERV.

It would be a simple matter to have kept them, as simple as just not deleting them.

It is meant for collecting data for the conclusion of the worst possibility, that of Blood Pattern: Blue

They all know that particular terminology by now from their partnership with NERV, an analysis that something is definitively identified as an Angel.

Running such routines would pick up nothing so dramatic, after all, there's no living Angel here There is no sudden alert, no alarms going off, no direct connection with the Magi analyzing such things in real time.

Severed from NERV's trio of Super AI computers, the program is such a simplistic thing in how it works. There's no cross referencing, no complex analysis, no routines for inferences, gap-filling, making leaps of logic.

Angels are such unique creatures after all, a program designed for one Angel with the parameters of True and False, might return False for every other one that emerges. All it can offer is few shared points of common ground such creatures possess.

With each climb in percentage point, it works, and works- until it completes it's analysis.

>PATTERN: ORANGE
>TRACE AMOUNTS DETECTED

Pattern Orange, that might be familiar from the battle with Bardiel. It still might take a quick trip through the glossary.

It is an analysis that represents a level of ambiguity to its composition.

The analysis shows that none of it is alive certainly.

But once set to work on what it 'thinks' of where these trace amounts are, in the stained tree and that which surrounds it.

Suddenly the program becomes more animated. The topographical map of the area suddenly lighting up, and blip-blip-blip of increasing rhythm and intensity.

The stained red areas of the earth, the tree, contain trace amounts... everywhere that crimson exists. It is present at least a meter down before the detection of Pattern Orange becomes non-existent.

What a strange conclusion, this red substance to be defined as something 'orange' in the eyes of NERV's systems.

<Pose Tracker> Renais Cardiff has posed.

Renais glances at Lucine as she reaches out toward the tree, about to reach over and pull it back before the girl thinks better of herself. She sighs softly. "... Maybe. I'm not exactly read in on Angels," she shakes her head, taking a mask and two gloves--it seems she'd rather protect her metallic bits, too.

"It's smooth. Not unlike paint," she observes, shrugging. There's a pause... and she looks over Usshi's shoulder. She's not sure what this means, but she knows enough--speaking to seemingly nobody, she says, "Yes. Get them clear of the area. And keep an eye out for anyone else..." Another sigh.

Turning to the others, she explains, "Volfogg's found someone. Probably a local. I want to get this area cordoned off, but... NERV's going to notice if we call in a team." 

<Pose Tracker> Sonia Sophia-Grace has posed.

Liam gets a brief smile at the return hello, and then at his follow up about the soil... "... you don't say, Liam." She says in the driest, most deadpan tone. "Bit more than soil, even. What in the world..." A pause. "... I get that it's fall, but this is strange, even by the standards and what I know of the Evangelions."

"So we have a wind, but items that aren't moved by it... a lack of animals, even the ones that should still be in the area even in this time of the year... and then whatever Miss Pommier is pulling, but I suspect it's not going to be anything normal." A pause. "No, that's not precognition or anything, before anyone asks, just ... just a good guess." She pulls her glasses back down onto her nose, after having had it off for quite a bit longer than normal.

"However, our lurking little friend might just be someone to speak too." Referring to Orpheus, of course. Also not a premonition, but at this point, she figures everything and everyone is here for a reason. 

<Pose Tracker> Orpheus Zevon has posed.

        Just through the camera scope he could catch the gaze of Lucine's eyes. The amber-like sight of them even if they are tinted by his sunglasses. Also now able to take in Alouette's uniform as well. In truth, he recalls some sort of relationship between GGG and Nerv but supposedly something had come to pass. Still, It's an awkward situation. One he'd prefer not to stick his head into unnecessarily. And for a time, it seemed like it'd simply be safer to come back another time.

        Yet, he knows not of these people, nor the true intent of their appearance here, but the longer he observes them the better an understanding of the situation he has.

        Still, of the three choices, it seems to be that the group chooses to simply continue up, to ignore his presence at first. It's not anything he minds in the slightest. If anything it'd be preferred if it was kept that way. So they go uphill those hundred fifty meters, and he actually follows suit. It's still risky in a sense, however, their choice not to take immediate action at least implied that even knowing he was there they'd chosen not to take lethal action. Frankly it was the worst outcome to avoid. There were still potential issues to come, but at the very least he believed he had the leeway he needed. The only true downside he could tell was that from the appearance of a few within this group as he'd been scanning them from a distance there were cyborgs amongst them. If that was the case...

        Can't rely on Geass even if they get close... If they confront me I'll need to be ready...

        There were already 'masks' he was ready to don, but he needed to know which one would benefit him in the long run. After all, if they were looking into what he thought then it could truly provide him with intel about NERV that would have been more difficult otherwise.

        It's as he thinks this that he'd already been traveling up the path again. Keeping a fair pace to catch them only as they'd begun testing. And as he'd look through the camera lens, zoomed in as closely as possible, he is able to make out a reading from one of the devices he notices. There's the sound of his camera shutter going off. At this point, he could just leave. There's no proof of what he's taking and probably for them they think that it'd be best if he'd been gone already.

        Though, if they were going to keep this up, if this was only one stop in their investigation then...He needed to confirm two things...And so, he reaches into his pocket towards his phone. Simply looking as if he's checking the time on it, or checking a message, not even pressing any of the keys, but staring at the screen. He then goes back to his camera clicking one more time and with a tone that makes it sound like he's simply sounding it out for himself. He speaks the words he'd seen on the machine as if it were completely foreign to him...

        "Pattern... Orange...?"

<Pose Tracker> Renais Cardiff has posed.

Renais lifts an eyebrow at Sonia. "Do you think so? Hm... it can't hurt. Volfogg, belay that. See if you can get our observer to come join us."

"... hopefully, it's not horribly toxic at a distance."

<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.


It certainly looks like a real tree. Of course, trees may not be anyone's particular area of expertise, but if it was winter and it wasn't covered in that strange red material, you would not find this little fellow remarkable, except for having been rocked partway to the side.

What caused this? An animal, a vehicle?

Lucine reaches -- but it doesn't feel like anything. Nothing at all. Perhaps it's not alive. Perhaps it is just paint. Except that just about any paint you can think of would flake off. When Liam crouches and gets out his scalpel, it scrapes a couple of times and then breaks off in his hand.

There... might have been a slight scratch? Hard to say.

The others approach. Alouette's scan produces a cryptic fact: The item is Pattern Orange. The recognition lights come up as the additional areas are stained in the virtual space just as they are in reality.

The crack in the ground may suggest something to Liam, or to others: the material has permeated downwards, but the topmost layer is not particularly thick. Perhaps it fractured -- which suggests a crystalline nature, or a brittle quality?

It's data, anyway. The tree has indeed not broken in the face of the winds, but it is in its slightly sheltered area. Even so, there has been an entire year for the elements to have their play, and other than that crack upon the soil, the red-clad tree stands, aloof, perhaps impregnable.

It does no harm to touch it, although there might be a subtle sense of something uncanny. It doesn't conduct heat the way you expect it to.

Even so, it is not difficult to remove the tree -- it comes off, helpfully with a substantial amount of Pattern Orange-contaminated soil, and may be conveyed in discretion to wherever the Gutsy Galaxy Guard might wish it to be. (It wouldn't exactly be hard to remove it just with manual labor. Volfogg's mighty arm, or equally mighty trailer hitch, makes it trivial.)

Further analysis will take some time, but the material is NOT indestructible -- although it is very tough. Whatever it may be, it is a layer about 3 millimeters thick, like an excessively heavy layering of spray paint, on top of the tree beneath it. That tree's wood seems to be as normal, or at least, not heavily contaminated or transformed.

It died quite quickly, you see. No chance to rot or get squishy.

<Pose Tracker> Lucine Azul has posed.

"... I suppose if they were going to do anything beyond watch, they would have ," Lucine says to Alouette. "... We don't look quite like birdwatchers, after all."

Who needs to worry about the possible dangers NERV might pose, when you have trouble keeping from inflicting yourself on them, however?

Lucine instantly feels guilty; perhaps, it was this brush with nature that made her feel a little of that invincibility she had felt, growing up, as well as that strong need to investigate everything. To examine, to touch, to know.

Scooting back so Renais and others can get a better look, the edges of Lucine's lips turn downward.

"... If it managed to..." 'Infect'. "... do what it did, could it possibly do the same to other material as well? If we suppose that NERV did clean up every trace of the battle here, what's to say that some fragment was left behind, and, given the amount of time it's had, it's managed to 'infect' the area? Not enough to... have the same effect, but, like an invasive fungus... you wouldn't necessarily know, until it fruited. Or... a colony of nanomachines." Which gives Lucine some ideas as to why and how it could work. "The material's gone inert, clearly, or the way that it spreads needs time for it to stick... otherwise, we'd see evidence of it spreading out when animals come in contact with it. Even if animals are too spooked to get close, there'd be some signs of it elsewhere... unless we're just simply seeing one spot."

<Pose Tracker> Alouette Pommier has posed.

It's such a simple analysis on its own like this, it really puts into perspective how impressive the MAGI's work is. But it's not the MAGI they have to work with today... so it will have to do.

But the little machine seems to pick up something. "Pattern Orange... that's really nothing conclusive enough to say anything about there being an Angel involved," Alouette reports, though she doesn't quite sound disappointed. "But the fact that it picked up traces of anything significant is remarkable enough." Committing the analysis to the machine's memory for later, she places it back into her handbag for later. "You might be onto something, Lucine. It could be a phenomenon unique to the Twelfth, or just one we never had the chance to observe." She realizes she's getting a little ahead of herself, though, and stops.

"It seems pretty obvious, but we're... going to need more data if we want to prove it has anything to do with the Evangelions or the Twelfth Angel. But that's how it goes, doesn't it~?"

At this point, though - there's no ignoring they've caught someone's attention. A sigh, because everything she just explained was totally overheard. "Well... breach of information is intelligence's call. I'm sure the two of you have it handled." She leaves how to handle Orpheus up to Volfogg and Renais, ultimately. "For now, I guess we should figure out what to do with this... specimen feels weird, but I guess that's the word." There's always room on Volfogg, of course.

<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.


After the first scrape, Liam's brow furrows in thought. After the second--with a little more force--his lips twist in a frown behind his mask. Partway through the third scrape, the scalpel's blade snaps off with a little 'clink', then falls to the ground.

There are, in this modern age, many coatings designed to withstand all but the most hideous forces of heat, abrasion, and pressure. The Neo Helios, for example, is painted in enamel usually used to help heatproof reentry vehicles. The odds of someone applying it to a random tree, though, on a lark...?

Alouette's program comes to its conclusion. "...Yeah," Liam says, backing away. He turns to her, and puts the stump of the scalpel back in his backpack. "Not the first time we've seen a weird Blood Type, though. Remember that slug kaiju that got hybridized with an Angel?" Seeing it in a piece of random scenery, though...

Lucine puts forth her theory, then, and Liam nods to her. "God I hope it's not infectious," he says, "but... you could be right, Lu. Least we can do is get this thing into containment and analyze it." 3G's worked with plenty of hazardous things before. He trusts them with this.

<Pose Tracker> Renais Cardiff has posed.

Orange. Renais winces, internally, as she makes a surely-spurious connection. "... Let's not talk about angels hybridizing and color orange, please."

"We'll want to take them in for debriefing, at the very least," she remarks regarding their observer. "And..." She pushes on the tree. "... Yeah, we can pull this down. Orbit Base has facilities for this kind of thing, and we should be able to get it under NERV's radar." A small, satisfied grin.

With a couple of sheets to wrap it in, backroad passersby will be none the wiser.

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