Chapter 5: A World Forgotten

Chapter 5:
A World Forgotten

 

AS VARIOUS ARMIES’ ALARMS sounded their evacuation, Nerv Japan personnel’s smart devices displayed an alert. An AI read the message aloud from speakers within their encampment.

<<The following is a revision of plate deformation forecast number twenty-two. The probability of a magnitude eight earthquake occurring between 1500 and 1600 Greenwich Mean Time is now seventy-five percent.>>

Toji rushed into the mobile command center just as Misato was asking, “What was that warning?”

“An earthquake!” Toji replied, breathless. “And from the sound of it, the probability is high.”

“Of being hit by another of the same magnitude, you mean?”

He shook his head. “According to the scientists, that was just the opening act.”

Toji switched his headset to transmit to all Nerv devices.

“Er… All stations, please continue preparations to evacuate. We depart in one hour. Leave behind the heavy machinery along with any disassembled pieces of Super Eva’s armor. And make sure everyone is accounted for.” Toji looked to Misato, who still seemed to be processing the news. “A truly massive earthquake is coming.”

“We’re sure of that?” she asked.

“Plate deformations created these mountains. But this one’s going to be severe. Simulations show that it will topple the mountains surrounding the valley. This place is going to be buried beyond recognition.”

Misato looked out the window. “The Valley of Human Bodies will be no more.”

After Seele had hijacked Kaji’s mind, he’d said that a great flood would reset the world.

In certain circumstances, the thoughts and deeds of humankind left afterimages on the next iteration. The rock formations in the valley had been left by the final battle between more than a hundred Evangelions and were imbued with their desperation for survival. Then came a new input—Crimson A1’s zoological data. The rocks metamorphosized…and died in one last gasp of freedom.

Misato thought of the next world described by Armaros and Seele, and said, “I think this valley will find peace.”

 

On a flat expanse of land some ten kilometers southwest of the Valley of Human Bodies, the aircraft Nerv Japan had borrowed from the UN waited for the recovery teams to arrive, while the aircraft of the European mixed fleet flew overhead. The recovery teams were nearly an hour late now. They’d been delayed by the throng of African and European armies making their own hasty retreat.

Taking up the rear, behind the off-road tractor towing the mobile command center and the other military vehicles, Super Eva pulled Crimson A1 along by the hand.

“Asuka,” Shinji said, “what’s so wrong with going this way?”

For whatever reason, Asuka-Eva wanted to go east-northeast, away from the rally point.

In her agitated state, loading Crimson A1 onto the cargo plane seemed a daunting task, but the recovery team had come to North Africa with a signal-stop plug in case Super Eva had proven impossible to control. As a backup plan, they only needed to find the right opportunity to put Asuka to sleep.

 

When it came time to decide whether the second giant-sized cargo plane would transport Super Eva or the Akashima, Shinji insisted he could fly home himself—and that was when he ran into a problem.

He couldn’t form an A.T. Field around Super Eva’s Vertex wings.

He didn’t realize anything was wrong until it was too late. Before, the giant had seared across the sky as if propelled by a tremendous force. This time, Super Eva leaped into the sky…and toppled over in full view of everyone. Shinji yelped in surprise.

“I’m not flying!” he said, stating the obvious. Then, with delayed realization, “I can’t fly?”

Crimson A1 stepped around the collapsed Eva and leaped from the rocks. Her two long bundles of hair—or were they wings?—spread out ever so slightly, and Asuka-Eva began rising into the sky.

“What?” Shinji said, startled, as she grabbed Super Eva’s arm and pulled him with her.

Completely off-balance, Super Eva flailed about, but Asuka-Eva deftly moved beneath him and began pushing him from below. She took hold of his other arm—the one broken and dangling—and moved back above him again, still pulling.

Shinji was too flabbergasted to feel any pain.

He snapped out of his confusion and tried to create an A.T. Field so he could find some kind of purchase.

Asuka-Eva soared even higher, keeping an eye on him. There was an accompanying roar—or rather, a chorus of vibrations.

On the ground, the science team stood awestruck, and Misato—who’d been about to attempt to load Crimson A1 onto the transport—remarked, “I don’t understand how her graviton floaters are still active in her new form.”

Familiar traces of the Allegorica’s wings remained in Asuka-Eva’s hair, but Misato had assumed the resemblance was merely vestigial.

“So then,” Misato said, “those two disc-shaped parts are the N2 reactors… And she’s using them to lift something even heavier than herself?!”

 

Shinji searched for an explanation as to why he couldn’t fly. Is it because I’ve lost too much power?

The Center Trigonus had been Super Eva’s heart, the vessel that directed the wild torrent of energy flowing into the Eva from higher dimensions. His A.T. Field-powered wings had relied on that energy to fly, and now the heart had been stolen. On top of that, the Eva was in rough shape after getting battered by Armaros. Shinji didn’t know if that was exacerbating the problem, but it certainly didn’t help.

As Asuka tugged him upward and forward, Shinji generated thrust with his A.T. Field, albeit minimal and intermittent. But this effort taught him something about the Q.R. Signum in his chest.

Armaros’ scale sent him power even as its darkness assaulted his psyche, but the farther he got from the ground, the weaker the power became.

Meanwhile, the intrusive thoughts seem to be getting stronger!

With Super Eva’s eye crushed, the virtual display in front of Shinji showed only a limited field of view. And without this to distract his mind, he couldn’t help but think about the uncertain future. He visualized the Q.R. Signum’s darkness pursuing him, threatening to swallow him whole.

But then the bright splash of Asuka-Eva’s red body danced across his limited vision, as if to chase his fears away. It almost seemed like she was trying to be playful, perhaps even smiling.

A memory returned to Shinji. The pulling on his arms felt familiar. Nostalgic.

Summer. The first swim day of the year. I take a deep breath. I flutter my legs in the water.

Then he was back in the present with a new realization. Asuka is trying to teach me how to fly.

And then another realization. We’re heading toward Tokyo-3. That’s why she’s been pulling me in this direction. Shinji chuckled. She’s going straight back to where she belongs.

 

The Akashima was loaded into one of the two giant-transport cargo planes, while the other, which would have transported Crimson A1, had no cargo. Both ignited their rocket boosters and lifted off, leaving tremendous smoke plumes in their wake as they departed the continent that had been the birthplace of humankind.

As Crimson A1 pulled Super Eva up and over the Valley of Human Bodies, the anomalous aurora painted eerie, rainbow-colored trails across the northern sky. Just then, a massive earthquake struck the mountain range below. The ground turned pale and hazy, as if the Earth had coughed, but Shinji was too focused on his perilous flight to notice what happened next.

Everything they’d seen and touched down there crumbled into dust.