Chapter 15: With a New Name

Chapter 15:
With a New Name

 

QUATRE’S MUTANT EVA stood waiting outside, clearly hostile.

The matter pressed upon Maya’s mind as she prepared to evacuate Super Eva, the whereabouts of whose pilots were unknown, along with the replica Longinus by way of the underground rapid rails.

Is the heartbeat getting faster?

Maya had devoted all of her time to fitting Super Eva with his new restraint armor. At first, she thought the exhaustion had finally gotten to her, but the change was real enough. She looked up. There’s light in his eyes!

“Everyone step away from the Eva!”

Cage personnel were caught off guard by her declaration. They immediately stopped working and started running.

“Never mind the cable management! Shinji-kun, are you there?!”

<<Maya-san,>> Shinji said, through Super Eva’s external speakers. His consciousness had returned to Super Eva as soon as he entered the plug in the classroom.

<<I really don’t have wings anymore. How is this thing supposed to fly?>>

“You’ll never know until you try,” Maya said.

<<All right, then.>>

“What?”

 

Toji and Asuka were returning from the school.

Searchlights mounted upon the other divisions of Nerv headquarters lit up its center, which was shaped like a satellite dish. Everyone had been started by the sudden appearance of Quatre’s mutant Eva. Turncoat Rei Quatre stood at the tip of the Q.R. Signum in the mutant Eva’s chest, wearing Shinji’s plugsuit. She noticed Toji and Asuka, and waved to them. The mutant Eva copied her.

The one-armed mutant grabbed the Eva arm dangling off the cables hooked to antenna arrays and grafted it onto its right shoulder.

“I guess that was bait,” Toji mused, finally understanding Misato’s plan.

In the middle of the reflector, a vertical shaft offered a view down to the sarcophagus covering the old Geofront. This was the same shaft through which Quatre had once infiltrated the command center, so everyone was understandably nervous. The air was electric as Trois trained her rifle on Quatre from the Komagatake sniping post, ready to fire at a moment’s notice.

The searchlights lit up another spot, some distance away from Quatre’s Eva. It was there that Katsuragi Misato, commander of Nerv Japan, confronted Kaji Ryoji, vessel of Seele.

 

Misato ruminated over the facts—facts she couldn’t bring herself to believe.

“So, the black giant going wild in Europe… You’re saying that the Euro Eva is now Armaros? Why?”

“Because the Euro Eva killed Armaros.”

“That can’t be…”

“And if the son of Gendo defeats the Euro Eva with Unit One, he and Unit One will become Armaros. If Asuka Langley defeats that black giant with Unit Two, they shall become Armaros.”

“We can’t be rid of him.”

“Correct,” the Kaji-vessel said, somberly. Under the three spotlights, the shadow of his two arms multiplied into six. “It’s a fundamental truth of this world. Nothing ever changes.”

“You’re wrong… That’s insane! Even if it were true…why have we been fighting this whole time? Just so we can say we tried?!”

“Thus my question: ‘Satisfied?’”

The Kaji-vessel didn’t so much as grin. Misato felt as if the real Kaji was admonishing her.

“Nothing changes. The one who defeats the most powerful being in existence simply becomes the new black giant. That’s all.”

The black giant was the minister of the Human Instrumentality Project, which would continue to exist as long as there were humans.

“And that’s the Evangelion?”

“No. This is all part of the Mechanism, which is part of the Ark.” The Kaji-vessel sighed. “You did good, Katsuragi.”

Don’t say it like he used to!

But her spirit had already been broken.

 

Toji and Asuka had made it to the VTOL deck. They contacted the command center for permission to operate the Platypus-2.

<<You know how clumsy Soryu is. Apparently, she left something huge on Yomotsu Hirasaka.>>

<<Oh, no you don’t. Sensei! This guy was planning to fly all the way to Europe before I told him where we should go!>>

The two were pointing fingers at each other like children. Misato listened to their banter.

What is going on back there?

Their tone didn’t reflect the hopeless situation that had just been presented to her—the inevitable remodeling of the world and the implacability of Armaros.

“Stop your bickering! Don’t you know this is an emergency?!” shouted Fuyutsuki. “You have orders to stand down. Act your age!”

<<We’re acting because it’s an emergency!>> Asuka shouted. <<We’re going off to save our friend and pick Unit Two up along the way. It sure as hell beats sitting around and doing nothing. This is the final act, and I’d much prefer to go out with a bang!>>

The final act.

Asuka’s words rang throughout the command center.

She has a point. If there’s anything after this…

But no. Everyone felt that Armaros’ resurrection was a sign that whatever came after this was the end. Fear, or perhaps determination, coursed through the veins of all present in the command center.

<<Commander!>> Hyuga’s voice came through the comms. <<It’s Cage Two! Super Eva is on the move!>>

Misato gasped, realizing that Shinji had agreed with his classmates. They’d been on the defensive ever since Novaya Zemlya, always reacting, while never really solving anything. Now, she felt the push toward action.

<<Can we go now, Misato? You can’t keep us any longer!>>

<<Fuyutsuki-sensei, I leave the rest to you.>>

<<You two!>>

Misato frowned and sighed deeply, scratching her head.

“List their flight under reconnaissance! Hyuga-kun, rewrite the code for Super Eva.”

Misato directed her next question to Fuyutsuki, who’d gone silent over her headset. “No objections, Assistant Acting Deputy Commander?”

<<And what is it that I must object to?>> the old man replied. Fuyutsuki had long ago decided that he would go with whatever policy Nerv Japan enacted. His only job was to give everyone a dose of common sense.

<<Now accepting new registration code!>> Hyuga said, waiting for Misato’s command from the middle deck.

These damn kids. They’d sulk in a second if we stopped treating them like adults!

Misato looked into Kaji’s eyes and said, “May the world never need another Evangelion. Evangelion-01 Final Model, lift off!”

The power lines were still damaged from the previous battle. The remaining city lights went out as what little power remained was spent. Behind Misato, the 3,500-ton giant leaped into the air. Shinji took a deep breath of LCL as the powerful acceleration shifted into weightlessness. He clutched his grip uttered a single word.

“Fly!”

The four pylons of the newly christened Final Model shifted positions, wrapping around the small black circle on his back, the Time Brake. Four black wings sprouted out of it—the wings of the giant of light.

Asuka whistled. She was already seated inside the parallel duplex cockpit of one of the new Platypus-2’s, issued to replace the one lost at Novaya Zemlya. Toji cheered from outside the craft when he saw the wings of light; he was still setting up the cargo pods. The wings were relatively closed, and they seemed to push Final Model through the air more than anything else. Shinji sped through the east side of the caldera and vanished from sight. Burning particles scattered behind him like feathers, leaving an afterimage of the wings.

The 120-meter-tall giant left a shock wave as he went away, but the caldera still rumbled.

“All right, Toji,” Misato said. “I know this seems like a waste of time to you, but I hope you’ll tune in to our worthless struggle.”