"What is it, Ranma?" he heard Misato's slightly exasperated, and nervous voice come up over the line.
"Nothin.. jus.. when the plug's bein inserted, it looks like a giant.."
"Shut. Up!" the woman snapped, angrily. He could hear the tell tale signs of nervous laughter in the back ground, as if they found it funny, but the situation wouldn't let them just relax and go with it. He couldn't blame them, he supposed. It's not everyday you see a gigantic monster rampaging through the mall.. not that he cared.
"So.." he hmmed, "What's these things do?" he tapped his headwear again.
Ritsuko's voice came up this time, "They transmit your brainwaves directly to the Evangelion in a readable form the Android can understand."
"Right..."
It was the doctors turn to sound exasperated, "They help you control the robot."
"Why didn't you jus say that in tha first place." he snapped.
It was then he heard Ritsuko's voice take a mean edge to it as she ordered them to, "Flood the tank."
Ranma watched, a little nervous, as a strange orange liquid began to fill the plug. He was only slightly relieved when he realized that whatever this junk was, it didn't change him into a girl. He didn't even want to think about what these nut bags were gonna do to him once they discovered that little facet of his screwed up life. A sense of desperation flooded him as he became completely submerged in the stuff, it taking an extreme force of will to expel the air from his lungs.
"Took that better then I thought." Ritsuko's voice came back, some grudging respect present.
"Whatever." he grumbled, "What's tha point of this stuff now?"
"The LCL, or Link Connected Liquid, acts as a supplement for your head gear, transferring vital statistics to the Evangelion that we then use to monitor your health, sync ratio, and other various odds and ends. I'm sure you don't want me to go into specifics, do you?"
"No." Ranma snapped.
---
Gendo listened to the com chatter as the Bridge crew busied themselves with preparations for Unit One's activation. There was something really wrong with his son. Though he didn't know it, he had people keep an eye on him, monitor his physical and mental well being so when the time came to eventually bring him in, they would be able to gage his reaction and act accordingly. The reports noted his son as being Shy, some what cowardly, with a mental defensive mechanism of doing what he was told to get by. Sure, there was other information present, but this had been the most important in Gendo's eyes. He didn't doubt for a second that his son either hated him, or at the very least didn't like him, but if he was easily impressionable it wouldn't have mattered to him in the long run anyway.
"Fuyutsuki."
"Sir?" his second in command leaned close.
"The Third Child.. does he seem, odd to you?"
The man eyed the monitors, paying careful attention to the boy. He seemed nervous, which wasn't to be unexpected given the circumstances, but he also seemed confident and strong. Everyone in command had a chance to read the boy's dossier, which from the looks of things had to have been completely fabricated, at least in regards to the boy's mental health. Where they had expected a shy, docile boy, it looked like they had gotten some one arrogant, egotistical, and a little nuts if you asked him. "Quite." he spared the man a glance, "Second thoughts?"
Gendo waved that notion off lickety split, "No. We have no choice, I'm afraid. Find out how our information on the boy could have been tampered with."
"The Council?"
"SEELE?" Gendo frowned, it was a possibility, though remote. They didn't have a reason to move against him like this. Perhaps they had a reason not to trust him, but that wasn't enough. He knew them, at least how they operated. No, this had to be some one else. "Doubtful. Still, don't rule out any possibilities."
"Sir." Fuyutsuki nodded, stepping back and away from the other man.
---
"Connect the main power."
"Power connected. Initiating second contact." Aoba's fingers flew over the keyboard, "A-10 nerve connection accepted. Initiating linguistics module."
Ritsuko turned the microphone on, "Ranma, Japanese has been hardwired into all Evangelion Operations. From now on, do all your thinking in that language."
Ranma rolled his eyes, which annoyed the doctor. "Whatever."
"Status on contacts?" Ritsuko shot the question at one of the operators.
"All initial contacts are in the green. We're ready for the next stage." Maya answered back.
Ritsuko nodded, "Begin."
"Connecting Mutual power lines." Maya spared a display a look, nodding, "Mutual lines connected. Synchronization holding at 38.3%"
Ritsuko let out a relieved breath at that, "Good. How are the harmonics?"
"Harmonics well within established guidelines." Maya chattered about, excitedly, "I think it's going to work this time!"
"This time?" Ranma's question was ignored.
Ritsuko turned to Misato, "Everything’s ready."
Misato grinned, "Release the first lock bolt!"
Makoto nodded, "Releasing first lock bolt." the view screen flickered on, showing the purple android known as Unit One as a set of locks screwed themselves. "First bolt released, retracting umbilical bridge." the bridge holding the Evangelion in place pulled back as he said that, "Releasing second lock, second lock released."
"Remove the first and second binding, then cancel the first through 15th safety locks." Misato ordered.
---
Ranma watched with a sense of agitation as the locks that held the Evangelion in place began to pull away. He didn't understand what was going on, but he really, really started to realize how severe the situation was becoming. He was about to enter battle in a giant robo, a battle he could tell would only end in his death, or the death of the Angel. Geesh, talk about tense.
Misato's face popped up on a screen, "Okay Ranma, we're moving you to a Catapult. In about five minutes the mission will begin, are you sure your ready for this?"
Ranma spared her a look. "Can... can I get a few minutes to myself?" he cursed himself for sounding scared, but he really couldn't help it.
Misato blinked. That wasn't like the boy she had met earlier that day. For a instance there, he was just like any other boy his age, scared, uncertain.. it was a good sign as far as she cared. "Take all the time you need, Ranma."
"Thanks."
---
Ritsuko double checked her readings. Everything seem to be in order for the launch. "We're ready to launch, Katsuragi."
Misato hesitantly pressed the comm switch, "Ranma? It's time."
---
Ranma buried his hands in his face when Misato's window faded. Focus Ranma, focus. Forget about the past, don't let the fact some ditzy genie sent you to a place like this mess you up none. That wouldn't help anyone. He took in a deep breath, trying to calm down. He may not want to be here, may not want to have anything to do with the people in this world, but now that Shinji was gone.. did he really have a choice? He knew, mainly through his friends, how the series ended with Shinji at the helm. The kid, god, he didn't even want to imagine what he was going through back in his world.
He grimaced. That didn't matter anymore. Shinji had escaped this fate, and now he had to deal with this shit. "No more f'ing around Ranma. Yer the only hope for humanity.. man, this is so lame." he sighed, rubbing his forehead. Life sucked.
---
"Ranma?"
"Yeah.." his voice came back over the intercom, slightly subdued. "Let's do it."
"Launch Cat one!"
---
It could sense danger. The vertical, the horizontal, it felt everything. Danger was coming, it would be required to defend itself, nothing would impede it's goal.
The Angel turned down a long dark street, where it become motionless, the only movement that could be detected was in it's eyes as it blinked every few seconds.
The iron plates of the street opened up, two long vertical poles shooting upwards. It could feel the danger getting closer and closer. It wouldn't be long now. It wasn't disappointed with a large purple behemoth shot out of the ground, it's head snapping up as it reached the end the top. The Angel could feel the danger within the monster, past the armor, past the flesh, deep within it's very core the danger it felt did lie.
It would die.
---
Ranma felt a little queasy from his journey to the top. Damn those Cat's made a roller coaster look tame in it's ability to upset a stomach. Argh. He shook his nausea off, eying the gigantic Angel standing a hundred or so yards away from him. He forced back a nearly overpowering fear that had been building up as the seconds went passed. He would not run away from this, he'd face the crap his life threw at him and come out on top. He would not run away. If Ranma realized his line of thought had mimicked Shinji's in the original line, he would have slammed his head against the nearest wall he could find.
"Ranma."
"Doc?"
"Just concentrate on walking for now. Picture the Eva moving in your mind, and will it forward."
"'Kay." he grunted, doing just that. A sense of exhilaration swelled up within as he literally felt the Eva step forward. It was only now, after finally commanding the Behemoth, that he realized something he had always wondered about the Evangelions. He could literally feel the Eva's fingers as a cool wind passed by, feel the slight discomfort at the end of his foot as the Eva stepped over debris left behind by the Angels repeated energy attacks. It was as if he was hotwired into the beasts nervous system, every pore underneath the armor felt like his own. It was almost as if he was out there, which weirded him out a bit.
"RANMA MOVE!" Misato's voice pierced his thoughts. Looking up, he panicked at the sight of the Angel bum rushing him. Instinct honed through lone years of training kicked in at that point, the Evangelion kneeling down for only a moment until it leaped upwards and over the rushing Angel. Flipping in mid air, it came down to the Earth with a titanic crash, the metal and concrete beneath breaking away into a gigantic crater as it failed to hold it's weight in check.
"Holy shit!" Ranma's eyes widened. He knew for a fact he hadn't mentally commanded the Eva to do that. What the hell was that all about?!?
---
"Amazing!" Misato chirruped. She didn't even know the Eva's could do something like that!
"I detected a spike in his Sync ratio for a brief moment Dr. Akagi!" Maya stammered excitedly, shock evident.
Ritsuko practically pushed Maya away from her console, her fingers flying over the keyboard like a thing possessed as screen after screen of data flooded the monitors. "Fascinating! For a period of 0.0000003 seconds his Sync ratio jumped to seventy percent!"
"How is that possible!" Fuyutsuki demanded from up above.
---
Unit One whipped around sluggishly, catching sight of the Angel as it turned to face it's enemy.
"Okay ugly.." Ranma willed himself forward again, the mechanical monster slowly, painfully slow, lumbered forward. This was going to be a pain in the ass, and he knew it.
The Angel seemed to stay still for a moment, as if examining the thing for something that had been present a moment before, but wasn't anymore.
"Just you wait!" Unit one took another step. "I'm gonna kick your ass!" Another step, "God's gonna feel you getting your ass kicked!" Another step, "I hate you!"
---
Misato sweat dropped, "ETA until he arrives?"
"At current rate of speed, and if the Angel continues standing there, five minutes."
---
"Okay, this is taking too damn long." Ranma grunted, forcing his will into the Evangelion.
Unit one stopped moving, for a second it just stood there doing nothing, but slowly it's right arm began to rise, the Angel blinking at the action curiously, at least until Unit One extended it's middle finger.
---
"He's flipping off the Angel..." Gendo blinked.
---
The Angel answered the gesture of good will in kind, it fired off it's energy beam, a huge lance of purple energy exploding forward directly towards the lumbering Unit One. Just as it looked like the energy beam would slam into the Eva the Angel caught a black shadow leap upwards, it tracked the figure's motion through the night sky, aided by the brief luminance of the moon overhead. Raising it's arms, the long spikes sticking out of it's elbows began to pull back in preparation for an attack.
Ranma saw the Angel do just that, and shivered in fear. The Eva acted again with out him even trying, launching him into the air out of the way of the beam of hot death, a fact that was really beginning to aggravate him. As he crashed down into the Angel, he flinched just a little as those long spikes jutting out of it's elbows slammed forward, one directed at his head, the other at his left shoulder. Unbelievable the Eva acted again under it's own violation, tilting it's head to the right and just barely dodging the spike that shot forward, unfortunately the second spike managed to slam into his shoulder, but not pierce the armor. Crashing on top of the Angel, he was only partially surprised to see the Angel use his forward motion to lift him up slightly, before it fired it's energy lance again, blasting him back into the sky while a diagonal cross flared across the sky.
---
Misato spared only a moment of her time watching as Unit One crashed into an unseemly heap on a nearby mountain range, unmoving. "Damage report!'
"Upper left Torso's nerve connections shorted out, redirecting to nerve nexus A-17" Maya informed, quickly doing just that.
"Status of the Pilot?"
"Unknown, I can't get a reading inside the Plug. Sensors must have been damaged in that blast!" Makoto exclaimed.
"Unit One?"
Ritsuko grimaced, "It's still operational, but it's not receiving any brain waves from the pilot! It's like a doll whose strings have been cut!"
---
Ranma groaned, idly rubbing his head. Okay, that had hurt, and hurt real bad. "Misato?"
No answer.
"Figures." he shook that thought off. Honestly, he shouldn't rely on them for help. When it came time for battle, he could only count on himself. He was grateful for this moment's respite, he really needed to think about everything that had happened. Four times, four damn times the Eva acted on it's own accord. He realized if everything went the way it was 'suppose' to go the fight would have been over by now. He ruefully shoved that thought away. Shinji wasn't here, he was, now it was his problem to figure out how to beat this thing and get out of it alive.
Why? Why had the Eva acted on it's on, and in the way it did. For brief instances there it felt like the Eva had been trained in Martial Arts. It knew when to jump, how to land, when to dodge. It was eerie. It was almost as if it was acting on...
Ranma suddenly got a clue. "Instinct!" which was quickly followed by an epiphany. "Course! Eva's are like giant dogs.. no wait.." he frowned, "Whatever! Like beasts! Instinct! They respond to instinct!" he grinned. Well, if there was one thing he had trained most of his life in developing, it was his instinct. Now, how was he going to go about using that? He wasn't stupid, as it stood he'd get his ass handed to him ten ways from Sunday before it shoved a purple cross up his ass for all his troubles with the way things were going.
---
"Status on the Angel?" Misato leaned up behind Makoto, staring over his shoulder while completely oblivious of his sudden blush.
"It hadn't moved until just recently." he brought up various screens of the Angel, "I think it was waiting to see if Unit One would get back up. Since it hasn't, I think it's moving in for the kill."
"He's full of himself, isn't he." the Captain grunted. She swore, if Ranma wasn't dead in that Eva, she'd kill him when he got out for scaring the hell out of all of them.
---
It was a long shot, he realized. Who knew what could happen if he did it, to both him and the Eva. He debated about it, agonized over it, and in the end he figured what the hell. Either it didn't work, and they all died, or it did and he lived to fight another day. Closing his eyes, Ranma felt a coldness come over his mind and emotions. Buried in ice, unobstructed by reason or doubt, he allowed his instincts to come forward.
---
Makoto blinked, shooting Maya a glance. "Maya?"
After typing away at the console a bit, the woman nodded, "I've rerouted the sensor feeds from the Plug!"
Misato grinned, "Can we get a visual?"
"No." Ritsuko, busy at another terminal snapped, "We're only capable of monitoring the pilots vital statistics at the moment.. this is odd."
"What is the problem, Dr. Akagi." Gendo spoke up, this time.
"Everything!" The doctor frowned, "His neural connections are working at top efficiency, but his body, everything from his heart to his spleen have slowed down in operation. It's similar to entered a meditative trance, but I can't figure out why he's in this state."
"Ca-ca-captain!!" Makoto exclaimed, "Unit One reactivating! These readings can't be possible." he shot Maya another look, "Maya confirm?"
"Confirmed! Dr. Akagi! The Pilots Sync ratio is fluctuating wildly!"
"What?" Ritsuko brought up another screen at her station, frowning, "How is this possible?"
"What is it?" Misato tried to look over her shoulder, and she managed to do just that, but then remembered she didn't know how to read all this mumbo jumbo. She didn't voice that thought aloud, however.
"It's fluctuating so fast it's hard to get a direct reading." the doctor gritted her teeth, "Between.. seventy and eighty percent!"
"Captain!"
"What now!?"
"Your not going to believe this.." Makoto stared at the screen in awe.
"What are you.." She looked up and saw just what was happening.. "What the.."
---
Unit one came alive as the instincts of one boy merged with the primal fury of the beast within. Rising to it's feet, the giant behemoth turned towards the Angel, it's white eyes glowing with menace.
The Angel stopped, sensing the danger once again. Only this time instead of the danger being focused within the Eva, it had surrounded the Eva itself.
Rolling it's neck, a sick snapping sound reverberated across the city, the Eva's mouth breaking open as if to sigh in relief. The Angel got really confused when the Eva almost casually fell into a stance, one arm raised toward it. When it gave the 'come get some' gesture, the Angel did just that.
If it was possible, Unit One smirked just as the Angel entered melee range. Faster then it had a right two, the Eva launched forward, slamming both fists into it's chest and stunning the creature. No where near finished, the Eva jumped up, delivering a brutal snap kick to the side of the creatures head, a loud sickening snap resounding all over the city as a spray of blood erupted from where it's face use to be.
Staggering back the Angel blindly swung it's arms in an attempt to ward off the four hundred feet of pissed off Eva. Not that it did it any good.
Pressing the advantage, the Eva rushed forward, ducking low under the Angel's flailing arms and burying it's fist in it's stomach with such force the first plowed right through it's body, erupting out the other end in a spray of bloody gore that blanketed a large part of the city. Ripping it's arm back out, Unit one grabbed one of it's arms, twisting around and yanking hard in a throw, the Angel flying and slamming into the ground, unmoving.
---
Fuyutsuki clucked his tongue, "I didn't know your son knew martial arts."
"Me either." Gendo deadpanned. Watching as Unit One hung back for a bit as the Angel slowly struggled to it's feet. He was angry his son hadn't pressed the advantage, but didn't let it show.
"Dr. Akagi! Unit One's AT field just deployed!" Maya exclaimed.
"About time!" Ritsuko snapped, pulling up another window before blinking, "What is that boy doing?"
"The AT field is coalescing in front of Unit One's Fists!" Makoto frowned, quickly zooming in the picture. "See?"
Misato frowned as a swirling orange particle effect became visible. Like a whirl pool, the particles seemed to be swirling in place, waiting for something. "What's this suppose to do? I didn't even know the AT Field could be use like this!"
---
The Angel didn't know what the hell had happened, all it knew was that the Danger had suddenly become so powerful it didn't give itself a chance in heaven of actually overcoming this obstacle. It's options were short. Escape wasn't an option, defeating the Danger wasn't an option. Self destruction? If it destroyed the Danger, it would be worth it. It's mind set, it decided to do just that. Lumbering forward, it watched the Danger as best it could with one eye, the other destroyed in that brief skirmish.
Unit One smirked again, a dark, primal sound echoing from it's vocal cords in a sick mimic of a chuckle, before it snapped into action. Rushing forward it waited until it reached within arms reach of the creature, before flashing upwards and completely dodging the creatures arms as it tried to latch onto him. Faster then it had a right too, Unit one descended from the sky right behind the Angel. Twirling around, it brought it's fists to his chest, unfurling them some what until they formed knives, before his fists flashed forward, piercing through it's back like a hot knife through butter and piercing the core. The Angel screamed, an unearthly thing that should never have been cast upon this earth.
And then the core erupted in a conflagration of red hot death as the energy within was unleashed.
---
Ritsuko watched the screen as it flash bright white, a huge detonation of purple energy in the form of a cross. It took awhile, but the screen started to settle, the monstrous figure of Unit One standing on a hill over looking the city in triumph was a bit over dramatic in her opinion, but she really couldn't fault the results.
"Communications restored." Maya reported.
Misato quickly hit the comms button, "Ranma?"
"Hey.. Misato." he chuckled across the line, "I figured it out."
"Figured what out?" she asked. The boy sounded loose, relaxed, calm. Totally opposite of what she expected of anyone after brutally tearing apart the enemy.
"How these robo's run." a deep sigh, "Instinct."
"Oh..."
"Hey, pop there?"
"Yes he is.."
"Hey pop!"
Gendo frowned, pressing the comms button, "Ranma."
"Old man, tell those SEELE fuckers I'm workin on figurin out where they live!" he snapped angrily.
Gendo blinked.
Ritsuko blinked.
Fuyutsuki wondered how much hell that one sentence was going to cost the boy.
---
Let's Look Toward:
Read the comments on this episode
See other episodes by Matdeception
(Posted Sat, 01 Jan 2005 06:18)
Questions? Problems? Suggestions?
Send a mail to addventure@bast-enterprises.de
or use the contact form.
らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
All other series and their characters are © by their respective creators or owners. No claims of ownership of these characters are implied by the authors of this Addventure, or should be inferred.
The Anime Addventure is a non-profit site.