Version 4.0...yes, there have been many more updates on this chapter than any others. I'm just trying to make it look better than when I first wrote it...and before I had a prereader lol.
Pain.
Pain was all he could feel in his head. As he slowly regained conciousness, he clasped hishand to his forehead, trying to numb the feeling of discomfort. His body wasn't much better off, aching in every location and joint. Even his eyes hurt, so he didn't want to risk opening them right away.
He tried to figure out where he was. He groped his free hand around to try and feel something, anything. His hand found a stiff joystick further below him and as he worked his way upwards he instantly realized the texture of the seat he was in right now: his entry plug.
Shinji slowly opened his eyes, hoping not to feel them strained; but there was little or no light inside. He looked around himself, he felt like this only once before and that was when he was inside the 12th angel. Though at this moment, the LCL still looked clean. How could that be?
Shinji looked down at the back of his palm to see a little monitor that was still functioning, though it had reset and had the sign 00:00 on it. Shinji tried to remember what had happened to bring him to this position but his head started to sting badly so he immediately stopped.Now he did the only thing he could think of logically doing at this moment. He reached both hands down and clasped the double joysticks and pressed the trigger for activation.
Shinji was blinded now by the lights swirling around him. He didn't have time to be surprised that the Eva was actually activating. He hung on to the control sticks in hope that he wouldn't fall.When the nerve connections finished enabling, Shinji opened his eyes again.
Green. Hills and mountains, colored a pure lush green. Shinji sat and stared in shock at what he was seeing. He took another look around him and found that his Eva was in a kneeling position. He gave another scan of the area, still confused, but he now pulled on both command sticks and brought the Eva to a standing position.
It was an amazing sight for him. Sure, there were trees and forests around Tokyo-3, but nothing like what he was seeing now. Lush forests, rivers, streams, waterfalls, birds and an absolutely clear sky. This was much different from where he had been brought up from, where Earth was still recuperating from the second impact. What was this place? It couldn't possibly be Earth could it?
Just out of curiosity, he looked up to see the plate labelled "EVANGELION UNIT-00". Now he was sure that he was in his own Eva. He took another look around, surveying his entry-plug. Nothing seemed out of place, except for what his external monitors were telling him.
"Mother." He whispered. He was still inside Eva Unit-01. Not really hoping for any kind of reaction, he leant back in the supports and tried to relax his mind. He tried to go through the facts first. Why is the Eva still active? It devoured the S2 engine.That's whyit has power, but why are they here? Shinji took another look around and found he could not recognize any of the surrounding areaaround him. Shinji sighed and decided not to move anywhere for the moment unless he needed to, he wasn't sure if he should do anything right now. His limbs were still pretty sore.
So he sat there, waiting for something to happen, eventually.
---
Nausea.
Her first thoughts were that she felt sick. The young teenage girl tried to bring her legs up to her stomach, but found that they were blocked by some unseen obstruction. She slowly opened her eyes and moaned, she clutched her stomach with both hands as she felt dizzy. The girl tried to straighten upwhile shebrushed her bright red hair out of her face.She could try and make out where she was. Without hesitation, she knewwhere she was; her Eva's entry plug.
Asuka automatically looked up and tried to open the entry plug hatch, but she failed. "Verdunt!" She fell back down into her seat and looked around her. The LCL still filled the inside of the plug.She looked down at the bottom half of her body. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, she thought, unless you count that fact thatshe had no clue as to whyshe's in there.
Asuka relaxed and felt her stomach unclench. It seemed that she wasn't hungry, just a bit dizzy. She quickly ran through the possibilities of what just occured to put her in this situation, but every time she came close to remembering something important her head throbbed and she'd lose her line of thought. She swore silently in German before deciding for the best course of action. She wondered where the hell she was.
Asuka let herself fall into her usual sitting position and started the activation sequence for her Unit-02. As the nerve connections enabled themselves around her, she had to squint at the bright light emanating around her. Suddenly, the world flashed into view and all Asuka could do was stare.
Asuka looked forward down a huge deserted highway with about 6 lanes on each side. The buildings around her were huge, definitely at least as tall as those in Tokyo-3. There were no usual cars on this street like there should be; unless you counted the artillery, apc's and tanks surrounding her while some evil looking mechs loomed down on her from the tops and around the buildings.
Asuka didn't move, she didn't even flinch. For the moment she was paralyzed with fear. 'How did I get here? This isn't Tokyo-3 at all!' Asuka hesitated before deciding movement was probably better than kneeling in her position all day. She slowly gave the controls a few good nudges and pushed her Evangelion upwards to its standing position, trying not to make any sudden moves.
The tanks and mechs around her didn't move...yet. Asuka looked at the mechs but didn't recognize their designs. They looked like a somewhat smaller Evangelion, but they all had much more obvious looking armor sticking out every where. They were also very similar in design. Unless you counted the fact that they were only half her size. Asuka didn't have time to continue her line of thought, because as soon as she noticed the weapons they were holding,they opened fire.
The green colored Mechs firedstraight at her a few moments after shewas in astanding position. Asuka snarled as logic and reason were abandoned; she was being attacked and no matter who or what they were, they wouldn't be allowed to destroy her. The internal battery clock clicked to 4:49...
---
Light.
She saw colors all around her. It felt as if she were swimming in light. She looked around and found that she was happy, happy in this place. For only the third time in her life, she smiled.
Then the colors drained away, as if they were sinking or being covered with darkness. Her smile vanished as she wished them to remain, but there was nothing she could do to hold onto them. As all the colors dissapeared, she opened her eyes.
Rei didn't have any trouble realizing where she was in that instant. Thinking logically, she knew she was inside her Eva, which meant she was there for reason...right? She looked above her and saw on the hatch the writing 'Eva Unit-00'. She remained calm as she usually did and pressed the trigger on her right arm joystick and activated Unit-00. Though now she was trying to figure out what she was doing inside it.
The nerve connections had finished and Rei was connected to her Unit-00. She took a look around her at first. It seemed as if she was kneeling in water. She took a closer look around her and found out she was envelopped in water! She pulled her command sticks up and brought the Evangelion slowly to a standing position. She looked up and could see that she must be about 100 or 200 meters underwater at this moment! Reibecame confused for a few moments; the B-type equipement wasn't supposed to work underwater, but here she was.
'Logically,' Rei suddenly thought, 'the prototype Evangelion Unit never went through the same test precedures that the other Evangelions went through.' Rei experimentally tried to move the Eva forward, and it easily started walking on the sea bottom. Rei was surprised at how easy it was for her to move her Eva through the liquid. She stopped and decided to try and see if she could jump out of the water from where she was. She pulled back on the joysticks as the Eva crouched down and then let the Eva swing and fly upwards through the water with amazing momentum. Rei was mesmerized by how elegant her Eva seemed to be acting underwater. She actually somewhat enjoyed the feeling.
She burst through the water but didn't make it more than a few meters before the Eva sunk back down into the blue depths of the sea once more. But while she was above the water she noticed that she was very close to land if she were to move northwards.
Rei set herself and began moving towards dry land, while extending hailing frequencies to see if NERV Headquarters might be able to pick her up.
---
Shinji Ikari waited patiently for something to happen...for anything to happen. After one full hour though, he started getting restless, which involuntarily made the Evangelion itself fidget every once and awhile. Shinji finally decided he had done enough waiting and tried to decide what he should do, he went through mental checklists of what should be done in any emergency situation such as this. It was then that he had to try hard not to punch himself when the realization finally came to him.
Shinji mentally opened the emergency audio frequency for NERV and for each of the other Evangelion Units, Shinji couldn't believe he hadn't thought of it earlier. He had barely opened the channel when he immediately got a response which made Shinji jump.
"Ikari!"
"Wha-?!" Shinji yelped as Rei raised her voice slightly higher than usual through the Radio channels. "Huh? Ayanami?"
"Ikari, What is your location? Where are we?" Shinji waited for a further response, but he didn't seem to get one.
"Ayanami? Where are you? I want to know what happened!"
"I do not know the answer to either of your questions." Shinji once again waited but seeing as he wasn't going to get more information tried to think of something smart to say in a situation like this.
"Um, what do we do then?" Shinji mentally smacked himself forasking a dumb question to Rei, she would probably think of him as an idiot. Either way, he hoped Rei didn't notice.
"I am not sure Ikari, I am not one who distributes commands."
"Well, I want your opinion Rei, I have no clue as to what to do."
"What makes you assume I would know what to do?"
"Never mind...Do you know where we-...you are?"
"I have just informed you that I do not."
"Well, can your sensors pick up my Eva?"
"Negative, I do not think we are close enough together to be reading each other's energy signatures."
"...Then what do we do?" Shinji knew that if Rei weren't half as emotionless as she were he would have probably heard a sigh on the other end. Shinji knew he was being a bit dependant, but he didn't want to shoulder Rei's actions on himself. What if he made a mistake? He was too fearful of issuing a bad command. He wasn't made out to be in this kind of situation.
Rei's voice came over the line after another 2 or 3 minutes. "Ikari, I have just come ashore on an unknown mass of land. My records do not have any information on this, so I do not think I am anywhere close to headquarters." Shinji had time to make sense of her words before she continued. "We have to decide on a rendez-vous according to your geographical sensors array."
"Okay, what are the coordinates?"
"I've decided on-...Wait one moment, where is pilot Sohryu?"
"Huh?" 'Come to think about it,' Shinji thought, 'where is Asuka?' Shinji tried to think about what happened but his head still throbbed so he quickly stopped. "Rei, isn't Asuka with you?"
"No, Sohryu is not anywhere near my Eva, is she not she acompanying yourself?"
"No...you probably would have heard her by now. Where could she-..."
"There is no time to think about that now, she will be able to raise her hailing frequencies from any location, we must rendez-vous before we decide on our next actions."
Shinji didn't want to do anything of the sort, but his logic won out. He was extremely worried about Asuka though. Plus, where was NERV? Where were they?! He set off nervously towards Rei's coordinates...
---
"Damn they're persistent!"
Asuka had just finished ripping one of the Mobile Suits in half before 6 others closed in on her and started firing controlled volleys of ammunition at her. Asuka quickly brought her hands down on the controls and rushed at them as the bullets either bounced off her armor or got swepted aside by her A-T Field.
She was losing time, her internal battery clock was at 1:13. Asuka charged at the Mobile Suits and they quickly scattered, Asuka chose the two that had stuck together and followed them. She had almost a minute left.
She didn't know why they were attacking her; she didn't know what or who they were, she didn't even know how she got here let alone where she was. She felt a huge pressure amount on her back. The Unit-02 was pushed forwards by a huge shockwave behind her. As she tumbled forwards she crouched and rolled to her feet bare meters from the Leo in front of her. Without thinking she brought her hand up and crushed it's head before turning to the one that used to be right beside it.
She caught by the side of her vision another mobile suit, also colored green, but had different markings on it. It also held a much bigger gun that resembled the pulserifle Unit-00 used so frequently. Asuka dodged behind another building as a shotskimmed past just to encounter 2 more Leo's and about 10 tanks.
"Shiest!" Asuka was getting tired as well, since the nerve stems worked in between her body and the Eva, she could feel iher Eva'sfatigue. There was a stinging pain in her back where the huge missle had hit her, but it was probably nothing more than a scratch. She continued her attacks again and again, but it just seemed as if more and more enemies were approaching her. 'They never end," Asuka angrily thought. 'Where's that dumb hero Shinji when you need him?"
Then everything blacked out. For a few seconds Asuka thought she had lost conciousness, but she quickly realized she was still inside her entry plug. Asuka feltworry tugging at her as she started to realize what happened, she looked over and found her heart stop just as much as the blinking timer on her right.
Her internal battery had reached 00:00:00. Asuka, so full of adrenaline just before, slumped in her seat. She started to uselessly push her joysticks up and down to no avail. In just a few seconds, she was confident that she was going to win, and in the next moments she was defeated. She didn't even have the energy to yell or hit something in anger and defeat. Asuka heard a rumble outside of the entry plug and felt gravity pull her upwards. She felt her Eva falling and Asuka was shaken around as the huge Evangelion smashed to the ground on the outside.
Asuka held her face in her hands, 'what's going on here? What's happening?' Then, she suddenlyremembered she had never opened her hailing frequencies tocall for help. She realized how stubborn she was. She was only comforted by the fact that there was probably no friendly face out there anyways, if you could call that a comforting thought. Asuka also came to notice that this was just like the time inside Mount Asuma, except Shinji the hero wasn't here this time to save her. Asuka sniffed.
"Sheiss..."
A/N: Well, just to make sure, if any of you readers has made it this far, then there is no reason not to review. If you look below this window, there's a little button that says 'submit a review',...press it!
...and seriously, if a writer is to improve his stories, he needs to know what to improve on. If it sucked ass, then you better at least say so!