Chapter 39: Giants, Humans, and Beasts
Chapter 39:
Giants, Humans, and Beasts
THE UNEXPECTED WITHDRAWAL of the Victors only made the battle more confusing.
Shinji tried to break away, but as soon as Super Eva took to the sky, the Euro forces misidentified him as a Victor-class threat and knocked him back down to the ground with an explosive barrage.
“Gah!” Shinji groaned inside the entry plug.
Trois was still sitting behind him in the plug seat. She explained what she’d figured out.
“I managed to pick up a time code from a radio transmitter. The signal is weak, but we’re somewhere in Moscow Time. High latitude. Near the Arctic Ocean.”
From the moment he’d arrived, Super Eva had been transmitting his unique, internationally registered signature code, which identified the giant as Nerv Japan’s Eva-01. Even if Super Eva wasn’t registered in the IFF databases of these armies, each country’s strategic AI should have figured out who he was and flagged him green. But the computer systems must have been confused, too, and the friendly fire ebbed and flowed. This last volley had been particularly intense.
The biggest reason for Shinji and Trois’ predicament had come directly before their arrival, when Asuka/Eva appeared with a black plate on her back and rescued the first Torwächter from certain destruction. The Russian and European militaries’ trust in Nerv Japan had plummeted, not that the pair inside Super Eva had any way of knowing.
Currently, the allied soldiers considered Super Eva another of the black giant’s underlings. Recognizing that he was in danger—though not why—Super Eva hid in the thick vapors that blanketed the battlefield.
The ground had been cratered and scorched. White and gray smoke rose from the smoldering earth, and black, electromagnetic clouds flashed with lightning, blocking all sensors from seeing anything within.
The clouds would likely offer little shelter from the Angel Carrier that had attacked him, but at least the bombardment from his fellow humans would ease. Their weapons weren’t as effective as the Angels’, but they still hurt like hell.