Chapter 41: Marionette

Chapter 41:
Marionette

 

“SO IT’S STUPID SHINJI’S FAULT that the land battle turned into an aerial battle!”

Asuka’s battlefield had gained a new dimension.

“Hikari!”

She still referred to Armaros by her friend’s name as the black giant flew higher into the air. The two Torwächters now attacked like they were rappelling on ropes. Their flight paths were easy to read on an individual level, but the fact that she had to face two of them at once made predicting their movements much harder.

Asuka tried predicting their maneuvers based on the fulcrums attached to the roots but to no avail.

“This…isn’t…fair!”

To make matters worse, their momentum changed every time they hopped from one trunk to another. She was currently equipped with the Bizen Osafune, the longsword that Shinji had left behind. As far as swords went, it had extraordinary reach, but it wasn’t designed to fight aerial enemies.

<<Hakone command to Unit Two. Fall back to the battleship! You have weapons waiting for you.>>

<<This is the battleship Yamato. We are currently fifty clicks away from the southeast shore of the island. ETA—>>

Whatever it was, she didn’t have time for it. To think that my Unit Two, the first Eva aside from the specially equipped Unit Zeros to achieve flight, would be reduced to this!

“Dammit! If only the Allegorica unit were reproduced, too! I flew to the moon with that thing!” Asuka gritted her teeth.

Wait…what?

She felt a spine-chilling déjà vu as she looked at the sky, like she was being sucked up into the azure expanse.

I think I flew when I was synthesized with the Eva…

 

The two Torwächters were like synchronized dancers as they opened another window. Three Angel Carriers flew out of it.

“Again?!”

The Carriers descended, and the Torwächters spindles came flying with them. Asuka evaded their attacks, noticing that Armaros was no longer paying her any heed.

“What are you looking at, Hikari?!”

An ultra-hard ribbon shot out of a Carrier’s cocoon right at the U.S. Eva. Sparks flew as Asuka blocked it with her blade.

Another Zeruel? This can’t get any worse!

“Mari!”

Eva-02 turned face up. The point of the Bizen was now sheathed in an A.T. Field, and it blew away the Carrier that swooped down at it. It made another turn and heaved the point at the sky again.

“Hah!”

The blast of the A.T. Field blew the Carrier away where she couldn’t see it, but she was now in the trajectory of the Torwächter’s spindle.

“Hikari!”

An intense shock wave accompanied a bright beam. The Zeruel Carrier activated its A.T. Field, deflecting Wolfpack’s ray. The explosion of light was blinding.

“Gah!”

A stray bullet made it through Eva-02’s field, knocking it off-balance and burning its back. Error warnings blared from the N2 reactor, suggesting an immediate cease of operations.

Her attacks weren’t reaching Armaros.

Her words weren’t reaching Hikari.

Asuka saw the distance between them as a failure of her will.

I have to go there.

How did I fly?

“I need those wings. I need them now.”

Asuka’s left hand unconsciously reached to the collar of her plugsuit, touching the ever-loosening zipper.

“Don’t do it, Asuka!” Maya’s voice boomed in the command center. “That thing is the only wall you have separating your self from the Eva!”

 

On the other side of the island, the JSSDF Akashima had regrouped with the remaining forces of the North American Alliance. The three aerial attack platforms, whose mission was to explode the Ark with their N2 charges, were somehow spared the fate of saltification and beastification, despite their proximity to the Ark. The crew of the Akashima, a robot equipped with similar N2 technologies, had also remained human.

They’d managed to repel a Sachiel-type Angel Carrier with a saturation attack. Now they were fending off black creatures that crawled out of the ground, ever-shifting, neither animate nor inanimate. The creatures were fragments of life-form data that had spilled out of the Ark, pitiful but still dangerous.

Humanity fought back, not to be defeated by these incomplete life-forms. Soldiers fired their guns from the ground, while the American attack platforms used their aerial battery to lay waste to their opponents with depleted uranium that rained across the battlefield like a storm.

Supersonic downpour and the bloodied remains of black monsters fell upon the beautiful forest. Overhead, scavengers circled the battlefield, salivating as their feast of carrion was prepared for them.

A loud rumble echoed from the earth, louder than all the artillery fire. Fresh greenery sprouted from dark red ground, rippling through the battlefield like a shadow, again and again.

“This is unreal!” the pilot of the Akashima’s upper body said.

“The American attack platforms deployed on the coastal LZ have managed to slip through the roots with supplies. Good timing, too. We’re at forty percent ammunition,” the navigational spotter reported.

Endo sucked a tube of energy gel in the harness of his command chair. “Apples…”

<<This is the Brazilian Third Brigade. Thank you for rescuing our men.>>

But the rescue mission had reduced Endo’s support of the battle with Armaros to a single shot. Shrike One and Shrike Two, the Akashima’s offensive spotters, were forced to fly at low altitude so their N2 reactors could be used as umbrellas.

“Well, our UAVs keep getting eaten by those giant bird things.”

“Hand-off confirmed. Incoming at nine o’ clock! More red particles spreading from the Ark.”

The red particles were life-form data, which turned into black monsters wherever they fell.

“Wait, hang on… Something’s weird here.”

Endo shifted his body to look at a periscope-shaped camera. The Ark was on the other side of the cliff. Red particles were scattering from the rock face, but a throng of them suddenly shot up, weaving between the vertical roots as they flew south.

“Akashima to Nerv Japan! Be on the lookout! The Ark just spat out a mass of red particles, and it’s heading your way!”