[IC] Neon Exodus Evangelion Act 1 - Promised Land

[Chevaleresse]

Kyou did as she was told, ducking through the hatch with a mixture of lingering anger, sheepishness, and embarrassment. "I just wanted to see where the people I met earlier went." Her gaze slid around actually making eye contact, and her feet shuffled about nervously. "I didn't know it was. . . you know. This important." I really screwed this up, didn't I? 

[Twinwolf]

Satomi nodded - of course he'd prepared an area for her studies. "Thanks, Father." she said simply, heading over to the desk and taking a few of her possessions out of the bag. "Is it alright if I put a few of my personal books here?" If the answer was affirmative, she'd put the books neatly aligned at the corner of the desk. The academic books on top and the more relaxing, fictious material on the bottom. "What's the settlement like, by the way? I mean both in terms of environment and what's been built so far."

[Notus]

Kyou, Beverly, Ahmed and Ranga

 

"...Oh." Alma's expression clearly softened when she saw it was just other children. "Well, anyway it is pretty rude to stay hidden and listening like this. You should apologize to your friends, not to me." Then she added in a more friendly tone. "At least now I know there is a secret passage in my office. Guess the building crew will hear a bit of me soon." 

 

Satomi

 

"Sure, it is your space." Dr. Hashimoto answered. Personal space was sacred for him, specially at work. Then he sat down and considered her second question while adjusting his glasses - the same habit his daughter had.

 

 "We landed near a lake so that we could have a good water supply close by. The area has been cleaned for the construction work, which is underway using our best machinery. In one or two days we should have something similar to a small village with a school, medical center and a market. Right now we're using tents as a provisional solution, and we've built a fence around the perimeter to keep out possible dangerous animals. There's a forest beyond that, and some mountains even farther that are probably the source of the lake's water. It's actually a very promising place. " 

[Chevaleresse]

Kyou relaxed a bit upon discovering she wasn't in that much trouble. "Y-yeah, I'm sorry, Ranga. I, like I said I didn't know anything about this. I just got curious. . ." And I don't want to go outside, she added silently. It felt. . . strange. She'd spent her whole life on the ship, after all. Crash was excited to see Canaan, but at the same time the nervousness she felt was incredible. "And, um, Doctor-" there was a slight hitch as she searched for a name and came up blank "- there are passages like this all over the ship. I can get all the way from my cabin to here without setting foot on a main deck. If, uh, I want to."

[Bfroger6]

Ranga flinched again when the hatch was kicked open. She gripped the Doctor's hand tightly in a moment of panic, jumping to her feet, but reassured by the Doctor's presence.

Relief washed over her when she noticed it was just Kyou, and she let out a sigh, smiling. "T-the noises just scared me. I didn't know it was you, Kyou."

 

The young girl turned to Doctor Neumman again, looking up at the woman's face. "Thank you, Doctor." She shily exclaimed, letting go of the hand and walking over to check out the newly made hole in the wall. She bowed down and ran a finger across the sides in a child-like interest. "Wow, Beverly, you must be really strong, you kicked it so easily!" She exclaimed, sounding honestly surprised, as she turned to the older girl.

[Yours Truly]

Ahmed decided to add a more personal touch to his apology by suddenly crawling out of the hatch and attempting to shake the hand of everyone inside of the room while saying a variation of "I am very sorry for any inconveniences we might have caused for you Miss/Doctor (Only use an applicable pronoun) [Insert name of the person he was apologizing to here], we were simply wandering through the bowels of the ship in search of Adventure! And to find out where everyone else went".

 

He made damn sure that he had personally apologized to everyone inside of the room when he crawled back into the hatch, and proceeded to offer an apologetic handshake to Kyou before he said "I am very sorry for potentially putting you into trouble Sir Kyou".

[rustytengo]

Beverly puffed her checks slightly at Kyou's "apology" or lack of one. Not that she really cared about being considered a friend or not She waved away Ahmed's handshake well saying "Its fine" under her breath.  She looked at Ranga after she spoke to her "It wasn't just me. I suspect that it had help from those skittering behind it as well." She said sheepishly as she made sure her clothes weren't torn. 

[Twinwolf]

Satomi nodded again, thinking. "I think I'll go down there later, to see what our new home is like. Where are we going to live for now, by the way? On the ship because of your position or down on the surface?"

[Notus]

Beverly, Kyou, Ranga & Ahmed
 Alma smiled looking at the children and shook her head, letting go of the tense situation that just had happened. "Well, now that this is settled, why don´t we all go to the settlement? You should go find your families there too, right? Besides, it´s a whole new world we are yet to see and at least I am itching to take a look at it and breath some fresh air!"

Spoiler

 

 After getting the children´s attention, Alma walked with them out of the ship. The sky was blue, just like back on Earth, and the water of the lake wasn´t red or LCL orange - something that was new to the doctor and the children alike, having seen that clear blue hue only in old, pre-Third Impact pictures. The settlement, a rather large area around the immense ship´s entrance, was bustling with activity. The white barracks that composed the provisional camp were all over the place, and the sound of machinery working and people talking, laughing and shouting orders around provided a really lively background.

 The doctor checked her communicator and started guiding the kids through the camp. She ocasionally complimented people passing by with her ever present smile, always being answered in kind - if she was really that popular, or it was only that everyone was happy to find a new home, the kids didn´t know. "It´s right over there!" She said after some time walking, looking back at them and pointing towards a group of barracks a some five hundred feet away from them.
 
 While she was looking back, a girl around their age crossed the path ahead of them and stopped, looking straight at the children. She wore a simple white dress, had clear blue hair the colour of the sky, and stared at them with vivid red eyes and a neutral expression. The girl shook her head slowly in a negative sign, and pointed back towards the ark.
 
Then the ground exploded under her.

Spoiler

 

It all happened in a split second, while Alma was looking back at them to show their destination. In the blink of an eye, machines were flying along huge chunks of earth, tents and people. Their supposed new home was gone for good, there was no doubt, and the reason seemed to be the enormous pillar emmerging from the earth right before them. The one that seemed to be made of white flesh and black, rib like structures. The one that seemed something out of a really bad dream - or a history book.
 "...A-Angel..." Dr. Neummann stuttered, looking at the thing with terror in her eyes. She then turned back towards the kids, grabbed Ranga and Beverly by their hands and started to run. "BACK TO THE SHIP! NOW!" The doctor shouted as they ran.


Satomi
"Oh, we are staying in the settlement as well, just near the Noah so I can get here for work more quickly. I dislike special treatment, you know." Daisuke answered. Then he thought a bit and added "Though I´ll probably be here for most of the ti-"
A strondous noise, like an explosion, interrupted him. It actually shook the ark, even though the ship was of colossal proportions, and an alarm siren went off shortly after. Whatever that was, it was serious. "Stay here, Satomi. Don´t allow anyone in except me. I´ll see what is going on." Daisuke said before running out of the office with worry written all over his face.

[Chevaleresse]

Crash had been avoiding going out of the ship for a while. She knew it was irrational, that her parents were probably worried about where she was at this point, but the prospect was just intimidating. Her entire life had been one surrounded by metal and machinery, the hum of electricity being to her what the sound of a breeze might have been to most people. She'd spent the entire trip out hanging a bit too close to the people she'd met that morning, resisting the urge to actually grab their hands. Gradually, though, she'd calmed down, the new experience growing on her already. It was actually really nice, how fresh the air smelled, and the open sky was beautiful - 

 

Kyou froze in terror. What the hell were these things? Angels? They didn't look very holy. . . or friendly. Definitely not friendly. Were these the things that had destroyed Earth? And now there were right there and they were going to kill everyone and oh god she was going to die and she hadn't even seen her parents since she left the house today and - 

 

The girl more or less remained motionless, as if she'd been petrified on the spot by the monster's appearance, her eyes glazed over with an all-consuming fear.

[rustytengo]

Beverly sighed as she was brought along to go meet this foster family. Though to be fair she would of probably never done it on her own. Once outside her squinted very hard against the sunlight as her eyes adjusted to the light. It was surprising to her to day the least. The sun, the smell, the slight breeze. it all felt good he even smiled a bit because of it, and the slightly creepy girl couldn't ruin it....wait what. That's what Beverly thought as she saw the girl who she reminded her of something she once read. Though she didn't have much time to think as everything went boom.

 

in a flash the scene changed to that of idyllic to war zone. Beverly covered her eyes from the dust as the angel rose the next thing she knew she was getting dragged back to the ship by the shrink Beverly didn't protest. Though she looked back standing there frozen she saw Kyou. She let out  "Merde! Pas cette fois!" and struggled to get her hand out of the grip of the shrink. Once she does she falls backwards, though that only lasted a few moments before she was up and running towards Kyou. Making her way through the fleeing people and probably narrowly avoiding getting impaled by something she made it. She Grabbed Kyou's wrist and pulled her along with her "Hurry up Kyou! Scamper back to the ship you rat!" she said hoping that her words would at least get the girl moving faster as they ran back towards the ship.

Edited August 28, 2017 by rustytengo

[Chevaleresse]

Beverly's grasp broke Kyou's stupor, the touch prompting a loud, wordless scream that seemed to take whatever force had frozen her with it; once she started moving she didn't stop, simply sprinting at high speed while blubbering unintelligibly in what might have been Farsi and crying. The physique she'd developed from climbing around the ship and the various machinery to keep it running started to show as she darted across the landscape, back toward the (relative) safety of the Ark. 

[Yours Truly]

Ahmed was busy taking in the sights when everything quite frankly went straight down to hell almost immediately after that creepy looking girl showed up.

 

He was frozen by indecision as he simply stared at the 'angel' for a few torturous moments, and he eventually decided that the only reason why he shouldn't jump kick the Giant monster in it's privates would be the fact that he doesn't have a big enough boot.....but then again, he knows where he might get one.

 

This is why he decided to simply shout out "Your mother was a turtle!" Before he frantically bravely ran towards the Ark while doing his best to try and call his father on the communicator.

[rustytengo]

Beverly held on tightly to Kyou as  they ran back to the arc. She wasn't going to let go until they were safe.As they ran Beverly kept up quite well even if she was still a bit off do to the cyro,her longer strides managed to make up for that. Occasionally Beverly would pull the shorter girl out of the way of a flying piece of debris.    

[Bfroger6]

Ranga kept close to the Doctor as the woman led them outside. She had imagined this moment for so many times just as so many others probably have as well, and now that it was finally here, she felt released. Even back on Earth, she'd hear stories from her family about what their grandparents have told them of the lost world...walking towards the opening hatch of the Ark, towards the light, she assumed that was what every day back in that time must have felt like for people whenever they would wake up.

 

And she was right to feel excited. With the first step out of the ship, Ranga had to hold her hair down as a breeze ruffled it. Her dress caught on her legs and she chuckled. She couldn't quite look at the brightness yet, but what she could see taking shape before her was more than she could ever have hoped for. And so she had no qualms against following the Doctor, waving at all the people who greeted the woman, a happy smile on her face mirroring everyone's expressions. When they encountered the blue haired girl then, Ranga waved at her as well. Her smile quickly washed away, though, as did the images she imagined of her new life here, as the blue haired girl shook her head. Ranga turned in the direction where the girl was pointing-the Ark-wondering what she meant. The sky seemed awash with a bleaker hue all of a sudden, and the breeze carried an ominous undertone. Before she could think, the ground shook underneath her and she dropped to her knees. Wasting no time, she looked back to see the enourmous entity that had made itself apparent, its grotesque form dulling her expression. She couldn't feel fear, for there was a maelstrom within her.

 

Ranga heard the word 'angel' through the blur and felt her feet hitting the ground as she ran with the others, holding Doctor's hand tightly to not lose grip to reality.

[Twinwolf]

Satomi stumbled as the room shook, and by the time she was on her feet again her dad was running out. She swore in Japanese basically the moment he was gone. This was bad, very bad - who knew what that jolt had done to anyone still in cryo, never mind that an explosion big enough to shake a ship like this was bad enough news on it's own. Where had it even come from!? She grabbed her communicator - did it only have her dad on it, or was it more general than that - say, a list of active communicators? If she could she'd try to raise the doctor first, and when that inevitably failed she'd settle for someone on the bridge crew - her dad's influence would be good for something wouldn't it?

[Notus]

All
 Alma stopped and shouted when Beverly broke contact from her, but as soon as she realized what the girl was doing she nodded in approval and resumed the run. The girls, as well as Ahmed, were fast and soon catched up to her and Ranga.
 Around them was hell. Debris from the Angel´s simple act of emerging from the ground were falling hundreds of meters away. The sound of laughter was replaced by screams and an alarm horn, and all the people outside the ship were either running like them or being crushed. They were lucky not to be in the later group, but would they be able to take cover in time?

 The doctor looked over her shoulder to keep tabs on the monster´s actions. Now it had fully emerged, looking like a white worm with some king of black bone cage around it like an armour. The Angel was over a hundred meters tall; it´s head, bearing a single red orb resembling an eye that rested above a mouth full of disproportionate teeth,  was slowly turning towards the crowd that gathered in the ship´s entrance. She started to panic - they were too far yet if that thing decided to attack - and put all her last efforts into running along Ranga and the kids, as unlikely as their success seemed to be...

 And then, a crimson blur lept from behind the Noah and crashed with the Angel, smashing it into the ground on the opposite direction.

Spoiler

 It was one of the giants Kyou and Ahmed saw earlier. It had thrown itself, shoulder first, into the Angel and then proceeded to try and immobilize the opponent on the ground. 
 At the same time, the loudspeakers of the ship came alive with the sound of Admiral Adalard Sauer´s voice. "Attention all settlers outside of the ship, the main hatch and safety bulkheads will be closed as soon as the enemy gets up. Prioritize getting inside of the ship fast!" 

 Alma didn´t spend much more time looking at the scene behind them and just followed the instructions. Luckilly the crimson robot seemed to be doing a good job of keeping it´s foe down, and when the hatch closed the entire group was safely inside the ship.

The doctor took some time to catch her breath before speaking again to the children. "Are you alright? Anyone injured?" She asked, right before her communicator started to ring. She looked at the screen and picked it up. "Satomi? Were are you? Are you alright?" She asked, still panting from the effort

[Yours Truly]

Ahmed had made a cursory attempt at triple tasking as he tried to keep his grip on his communicator while he barely managed to yell at the giant red robot to "KICK IT IN IT'S GIANT BALL!" and ran towards the ship at the same time. The sheer amount of effort this took caused him to collapse into a disorganized pile when everyone finally made it into a relatively safe position inside of the ship.

After a moment had passed he tried his best to stand up before he tried to answer the Doctor's question by practically shouting out the words "I'M FINE BUT WHAT WAS THAT AND WHY DO WE HAVE GIANT MONSTER PUNCHING ROBOTS IN THE SHIP?". A part of him realized that he might have technically broken his promise to Kyou already, but another part of him successfully argued that the doctor might chalk it up to nothing but a slip of the tongue by the time he found the energy to start walking again.
It only took a few short moments before he realized that he has yet to talk or meet any members of his family today, and he immediately started to try and contact pretty much everyone he could think of.

[Twinwolf]

Satomi had been almost expecting that the doctor wouldn't pick up - so she was surprised and a bit glad when she did. "I'm in Father's office on the Ark, I'm fine." she said, beginning to pace back and forth. "The ark sort of... shook, and there was a sound of an explosion and then Father ran off to go see what it was - what's going on down there!?"  The doctor sounded panicked, out of breath - something was horribly wrong. 

[Chevaleresse]

Once they were safely inside, Kyou immediately collapsed to her hands and knees, panting both from the exertion of sprinting for her life and from the continuing throes of terror as she tried to wrest control of herself from the surging emotion. Nothing they'd seen outside was supposed to exist any more. Not the Angel, and definitely not the EVA - though a part of herself was oddly relieved that her knowledge of the things existing on-ship wasn't liable to get her shot going forward. Not that this relief was enough to offset the crushing fear she was still experiencing; it looked like the girl was about to hyperventilate and pass out.

[Notus]

Satomi
"You probably won´t believe me if I tell you but -" The doctor thought a bit before completing the sentence. "Well, nothing good ever comes from hiding things. There´s an Angel here. It attacked the settlement, but a robot, of all things, showed up and is trying to fight it. I think... I think it is an Evangelion unit." Alma herself sounded perplexed with what she was saying. That was stuff from story books talking about the End of the World - the attack of the mysterious alien creatures called Angels, the war waged to defend human race with the use of the metallic titans known as Evangelions (or EVAs for short) and the way it ended horribly, but with humanity still breathing even if barely. And apparently this was all repeating itself just outside the ship, whose reinforced hatches and bulkheads now seemed rather fragile. "Your friends are ok, they were with me when it happened. We are all inside the ship now- wait a moment."

 Alma had noticed Kyou breathing too fast and walked to the side of the girl, kneeling in front of her. "Calm down, everything is ok." She said softly. "Beverly helped you, we are inside of the ship and fighting that thing back. We´re safe, I promise." the doctor held Crash´s hands to try to convey a feeling of safety, as hard as it was in this situation. Then she came back to talking with Satomi. "Let´s try to regroup somewhere else. Where can you meet us? Your friends are scared, it would be good to have you with us."

Ahmed
The comm beeped for a bit before Ahmed´s father picked up. "Son? Where are you? Did you make it inside of the ship?" the man sounded out of breath and worried. 

[Chevaleresse]

Kyou's vision started to swim a bit; she clutched the doctor's hands hard enough to be painful for the both of them when Alma grabbed Kyou's. She was safe, for now. She was fine. She wasn't going to be crushed by an Angel. She was back inside, back with the feel of metal flooring under her feet and the comforting whir of electrical motors. Her friends were here. Her breathing slowed as the death grip on Alma's hands relaxed to something less apt to cause circulation issues. After taking a few deep breaths, she let go entirely and stood herself back up. "Um, moteassefam. I don't know what came over me. . ." Her voice still wavered, but she was at least coherent now. "Shit. . .!" She dug her communicator and frantically dialed her mother. "Okaasan? Okaasan? Come on, please pick up. . ."

[Notus]

Kyou
The communicator rang once, then twice, then again... and again... and then it fell silent with no answer from the other side of the line. An automated message then showed in the screen, saying at work! with a little hammer emoji beside it.

[Twinwolf]

Satomi froze in her pacing, and didn't respond for a bit at the mention. Angel. Singular, capital A. She knew what those were, she'd paid attention in history class, she'd read about Second and Third Impacts. She'd tried to doodle one from the description of what they were one time when she was 6 and compared it to the sort most people had considered before all of that. But they were those scary things from the story books, from history long gone that her great grandfather might have been alive for. They were gone. Except here she was being told they weren't. "A-Angel?" she asked incredulously. "That's... that's impossible, a-are you sure-" pause, a deep, shaky breath. She adjusted her glasses again. "Never mind. I know how that sort of question goes. W-Where are you even? I'm just in Father's office now, like I said. Can you think of somewhere to meet?" Should she go even? Father said to stay here - but no, she had to know what was going on properly. "Does the communicator have a map or something? I don't know my way around the ship yet."  Satomi's voice... it wasn't quite steady. She was clearly trying to make it that. but it didn't quite work - there was a shake in her voice. She was also very clearly terrified at the prospect presented to her.

 

What even was going on... this was supposed to be perfect, their new home. Everything was supposed to be fine. An Angel was the opposite of fine, very very much not fine. What would they do? Leave, go to some other planet? Did they even have that option? She had no clue what state the Ark was in. But what if Angels were just... a thing on other planets? Then they'd have nowhere safe. Was humanity - no, can't think like that. An... an Evangelion? She'd mentioned an Evangelion. Research had been forbidden, she knew that. Of course it had after Third Impact, from what she knew. But she had never read any sort of record of the Evas being destroyed. Or maybe, maybe it wasn't an Eva, but some other, entirely mechanical sort of robot - that wasn't impossible was it? Jet Alone could have worked if they'd had more time. Whatever it was called, wherever it came from, it didn't matter. Right now it was hope that they weren't collectively fucked as a species. 

[Chevaleresse]

"No, no, no no no nonono that's not how this works. You're supposed to answer and tell me that you're in the crowd somewhere. . ." She hurriedly punched in another number; this one belonging to her father. "Bâbâ, lotfan. . . pick up, this isn't funny. . ." This couldn't be happening. Not today. Today was supposed to be amazing. She was supposed to make new friends and move into their new home and finally have new places to explore, not. . . She couldn't even think that. She refused to. It wasn't possible.