Chapter 3: The Noose Tightens
Chapter 3:
The Noose Tightens
The Noose Tightens
T
HE FLYING ARMADA
didn’t simply pass Super Eva by on their way south.
The fighter aircraft began dispersing something all around Super Eva. Moments later, the material—some kind of fuel-air bomb—exploded, flattening the earth in a ring around the Eva. Before the smoke cleared, a swarm of large cargo planes appeared with their low-pressure tires deployed. They came swooping down so fast that they looked like they were in free fall.
Not even bothering to come to a stop, the cargo planes opened their rear hatches and began spewing out armored vehicles of every type and size; the largest were equipped with rectangular antennas.
“What are they doing?” Shinji wondered aloud as the vehicles began circling his Eva.
They remained just outside the boundaries of his A.T. Field. Kicking up soil with their caterpillar tracks, the armored vehicles kept circling, neither approaching nor drawing away.
Shinji followed the ring of vehicles with his eyes. It made him dizzy. He didn’t know how he should respond.
Just then, a light flashed along Euro-II’s Allegorica wings.
“What?!” In that first moment, Shinji couldn’t tell what had happened.
Super Eva lost contact with the ground and fell sideways. Euro-II thrust its long spear. Super Eva rolled to the side, just barely dodging the untelegraphed attack, but Shinji felt a crackling sensation along his A.T. Field and knew that the weapon would pass right through his defenses.
What just happened? Did those Allegorica wings somehow project its gravitational manipulation? That’s not possible.
Misato’s crackling voice came from the cockpit’s speakers, as if the signal had only barely managed to cross the distance.
<<
Shinji-kun, get out of there! They’re trying to keep you pinned down! Hurry and—
>>
The link to the command center disconnected mid-sentence.
“Misato-san?!”
Shinji—or rather, Super Eva—stood up.
“I don’t know what you’re trying, but I can jump out from this ring faster than the blink of an eye.”
But before he could jump, the Allegorica wings flashed again. The light seemed to bend, and suddenly Super Eva’s legs were scraping deep into the dirt. Instead of leaping, the giant had tumbled onto its side again. This time, Euro-II’s spear sliced through Super Eva’s right shoulder and severed the pylon.
Euro-II had descended to the ground and stood before Super Eva as the toppled giant struggled to pick itself back up.
Possessing a human-shaped body, Super Eva’s movements were fundamentally grounded in its hips, which, supported by two legs, provided all the balance for the lower body. Now, this ultimate being, whose capabilities were supposed to be limitless, flailed its limbs uselessly in the dirt.
In confusion, Super Eva lashed out at everything that touched it, but the only enemy within reach was the cold ground. The Eva couldn’t stand, and the more Shinji struggled, the more he began to panic.
He was truly in danger.