[IC] Neon Exodus Evangelion Act 2 - Crossing

[Twinwolf]

Satomi watched over the still functioning cameras, biting her lip. The headache had subsided - well, it still pounded, but it wasn't all-consuming anymore -, but her synch ratio had dropped like a rock when she was stabbed and still hadn't recovered enough for her to get back into the fight. They had managed to turn it around. No thanks to her. All she'd done was flail like a drunk and get taken out in one hit. If it had been an Angel she'd probably be dead. Not good enough... nowhere near good enough. Logically speaking, she knew that this sort of thing was to be expected. A newbie against a professional. Only her second time in the Eva. It was a simulation and it was better to fail here than outside. That didn't mean she wasn't kicking herself inside. She'd need to get better. Much, much better. She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself and think logically through the pain. Getting better started with seeing where you went wrong, right? So best to think about that...

[Notus]

As Satomi noticed, the tides had turned in the fight. Asuka struggled a bit to defend herself from Kyou's punching, try to kick Ranga off her legs, and hold Beverly's wrist so she wouldn't have a knife to her head.

 

Then things went wrong. Ahmed apparently thought it would be a good idea to actually bite her - and she had no more hands to defend herself. Unit 18's titanic maw closed around Unit 02's flank, breaching it's armour and causing a spray high pressure of blood red liquid. Asuka held a scream when she felt the pain being transfered to her own body at a high sync rate - and for a moment, her grip on Beverly's wrist wavered.

 

 Unit 16's knife hit home in Unit 02's left eye, and that time around Asuka did scream from the top of her lungs. The pain from those hits was horrible and all too familiar to her.

 Screw this. The red head thought through the pain, letting lose her control over anger.

"I'll kill you all."

 

Unit 02's remaining eyes flashed green and the air around it lit up in yellow - suddenly everyone was flying, having received a colossal impact from apparently thin air. She freed one of her legs through sheer force, and the next kick was strong enough to wreck the side of Ranga's EVA armour and whatever passed by it's ribcage. She shook Unit 20 off and stood, pulling off the progressive knife in her eye and advancing towards Kyou like a roaring bullet. 

 

 

[Bfroger6]

Unit 20 kept clinging despite the burst of energy, presumably Asuka's AT field, though Ranga could not have guessed at the moment of shock. She saw everyone else scattered through the air while she herself kept motionless in her mech. However, as she wasn't paying attention, she hadn't taken immediate notice one of Unit 02's legs had escaped her grasp and was now launching towards her...

 

And the rest was beyond her. For a moment, Asuka's foot would feel a bit of resistance as a desperate momentary field formed itself at the point of impact, but she would be able to easily break through the poor barrier, smashing all the air out of Ranga's lungs as some gore splattered the left side of her EVA's vision. She was largely blinded by the pain at that point, probably for the better to avoid having to witness the crunchy pieces of bone flying around, at the same time feeling as though they were her's. Even at such a relatively low sync rate, it was all enough to leave her laying motionless under the pile of rubble that was presumably the building Asuka had kicked her into, and as a quiet sobbing resounded through the LCL, the girl curled up within the entry plug, unable and unwilling to cut the sync completely.

[Chevaleresse]

Upon standing, Kyou froze for a moment, like a deer caught in particularly murderous headlights. She waited until the last moment of Asuka's approach, right before Unit 02 was right on top of her. . . and dove for the red Evangenlion's legs, trying to take her mobility again. She wondered why the girl was so damn upset; they'd been battered around by her this whole time, and now she was mad that they'd gotten a decent shot in? Maybe she should see what fighting without the benefit of the massive cyborg was like, see how she liked it then.

[Notus]

 Kyou managed to grab Unit 02's legs again, and the red behemoth went down to the ground along with her, making the earth shake with the impact of the fall. Asuka in turn grabbed 19's arm with her free hand, while with the other she started to stab blindly at it's back in a frenzy of rage.

First the base of the neck.

Then around where the core. Once. Then again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again.

 

Then the simulators' screens went black. All the pain went away in an instant, and Asuka was left so disoriented that it took her a moment to notice the "simulation terminated" message on the botton of her screen. Then a video comm window popped in front of her and Admiral Sauer looked at her with an air of both surprise and disapproval.

 

"Asuka, that' way past enough for a training session! These are pilots, not Angels, and you know what that  means way better than I do. So what exactly do you think you're doing?"

 

"SHUT UP!" Asuka yelled, shaking and sweating. "You said it all, you DON'T know what this was like AT ALL! You DON'T know what I've been through!" 

 

The Admiral's gaze changed. It now had a hint of sadness in it as well - or was it pity? "You are right in that. But that was because you never told me much about it. I wish I had been able to help you out before whatever this was about got to other people. I'm sorry."

 

That caught Asuka out of guard, and she slowly started taking the situation in. "No, I... I mean, they... wait a minute." The ace pilot stuttered, laying down in her plug's seat and covering her face with her hand. Shit. What have I done?

 

She hadn't planned on going berserk like this.  Her teammates last attack hit all the right spots to trigger some memories she had been trying to bury for a long, long time, but that wasn't their fault at all. The frustration of losing control like this again after so long thinking she had her emotions in check started to sink in.

 

"Verdamnt. It's not your fault, Adalard. I totally lost it." She answered after some time. "Are the kids ok?"

 

"Their vitals are fine - it was only a simulation after all. Still, you'll have to see for yourself how they're taking that last charge of yours. Specially Ranga and Kyou."

Asuka sighed. "Ok. Could you open the hatches please?"

 

There was the sound of the plugs' airlock being disengaged, and Asuka stepped out of hers unsteadilly. "Hey. Is everybody ok?" She asked aloud in the most confident tone she could.

 

[Yours Truly]

Ahmed for lack of a better word, half crawled half slid his way out of the tube as he slowly readjusted to the idea of being a regular person who is neither several stories tall or suffering from what might have been some broken ribs. It took a couple of moments for him to stop dry retching for long enough to say, "I think I'm mostly fine... except my throat feels a little weird for some reason, I think I accidentally swallowed some of the LCL back there.... but anyway that was actually pretty awesome Asuka, could all of us learn how to do that thing where you just casually threw us off of you with your AT field or something someday?."

[Chevaleresse]

Kyou stumbled out of her tube clutching her chest, nearly falling over and quite visibly crying. She took a brief moment to actually regain her footing as she looked around, zeroed in on Asuka, and then broke into a sprint at the redhead. What she yelled as she did so came out to be some kind of unintelligible mess of multilingual profanity, but the balled fist raised in Asuka's direction was pretty hard to misinterpret. Kyou put all of the force and weight behind the punch that she could muster - while she was neither particularly large nor some sort of trained fighter, she led a pretty active lifestyle and had plenty of rage and pain to put into the blow.

[Twinwolf]

Satomi sat for a while in the simulator plug, continuing to chew herself out for what had happened. Eventually, as she heard other people leaving, she took a breath and recomposed herself, adjusting her glasses as she exited the plug. "I'm fine." she said, unusually terse. She started going to help the others out, but was distracted when she saw Kyou go for a punch and paused in her movement.

[Notus]

Asuka had barely registered Ahmed's OK when Kyou got out of her entry plug, not looking ok at all.

 As the girl lauched herself over her, the red head's first reaction was raising her fists, prepare to dodge and hit back hard - only to stop the whole motion midway through

 

 Kyou's fist met her face. Hard.

 

She spun and fell on all fours, already feeling the burning on her cheek. This is definitely getting swollen later. Asuka thought to herself. She definitely had been through worse before, but it was quite some time since someone actually hit her in the flesh and the punch was actually pretty stronger than she antecipated.

 

"... you have a pretty good right hook." She managed to say after a while, getting back on her feet.

[Bfroger6]

Ranga didn't exit the plug. She remained inside, curled up, thankful that it wasn't hurting anymore. At that point, she felt the relief one feels when they're in their bed, their room, their safe haven. That's what the plug was for her.

 

She couldn't remember had she ever felt this way as a kid. It was a strange feeling, one that did not evoke the image of a soft mattress in Ranga's mind, but one of her family all stacked together, hugging on the floor, or the hard ground. Whatever they could put a blanket over and call it a bed. It was how things used to be on Earth. They changed when they started working on the big spaceship. And they changed even more now after a hundred years. What would be the next haven for her? Alma's presence? Or the group? Neither of the two really filled the role just yet. Sure, she felt safe with Alma, but the woman was still distanced a bit from her. Not someone whose belly she could rub her face into just yet.

 

Thoughts of Asuka's kick were far removed from her mind. She wasn't focused on that.

She would remain in the plug until someone went to collect her.

[Chevaleresse]

Kyou stood over Asuka as the girl picked herself back up, her attack seemingly ceasing for the moment. It was hard to stay aggressive when your would-be opponent wasn't being such at all. Kyou, did, however, continue to sputter for a few moments, attempting and largely failing to chain words together, until finally she spat out a question. "What the fuck was that for?" Kyou had been ranging from irritable to outright angry at Asuka over this entire "practice," but getting stabbed over and over in that simulation was agony; she was still panting, and not only from the exertion of running and punching the redhead.

[rustytengo]

 

Beverly watched as Kyou punched Asuka to the floor. She couldn't blame Kyou for that after all if it was her she probably would have done the same thing. Hell, she was close to doing it anyway just from being tossed around during the whole fight. She couldn't help but laugh Asuka she took Kyou's hit and Beverly knew the girl's punches hurt more than you would think. "She did it for the same reason you just punched her. So maybe you should sit down you look like your about to collapse. " Beverly said shaking her head sounding annoyed. "Well, I guess neither side won the match so the bet doesn't do anything." She finished as she looked at Asuka before walking over to Ranga's pod "Hey Little Miss the fights over time to get up." She said well knocking on the side of the pod. 

[Yours Truly]

Ahmed reacted to Asuka being laid out on the floor by crawling on the floor for a few more moments before he let out another retching sound and trotted up unsteadily on his own two feet and said, "I think you meant to say 'bet' Sir Kay, and it might not be wise to provoke Kyou any further,"  as he trotted over to where Asuka was picking herself up from the floor and attempted to offer her his aid with standing back up again.

[Notus]

Asuka refused Ahmed's hand shaking her head, before proceeding to answer Kyou's question.

 

"Lancelot here asked about the AT Field burst, and that was one of the things I wanted to show you." The red head started, thinking just how she should explain what happened whithout letting the truth slip - and hopefully without outright lying too.

 

"If you get your synch rate high enough, you can enhance your EVAs' strenght, speed and even use it's AT Fields' as weapons. What happened is that, from a certain point on, it's like getting on a state of hysterical strenght, so the downside is that you can get a bit... too wild. I just lost control for a bit there."

[Chevaleresse]

Kyou didn't seem quite satisfied. But, her head was starting to clear a little bit, even if there was still a residual ache in her as she remembered the experience. Beverly's commentary didn't exactly calm her down, but it offered another distraction. Kyou started to snap out an irritable retort, but stopped partway through. Beverly was probably right. Kyou made a noise that might've been intended to be some sort of affirmative, and then moved in the direction of whatever seating she could find, sitting down heavily and taking a moment to just breathe.

[rustytengo]

After Kyou headed over to take a seat Beverly looked at Asuka as she waited for Ranga to respond in some way. "If acting like a crazy lady catching her husband cheating is you just losing a bit of control then you probably need to talk to the shrink," Beverly said pausing then smiling to herself  "I'm quite sure she would be happy to help you with that problem." she finished "At least if you did that it might make the shrink leave me alone for awhile." she thought to herself as she waited.

[Twinwolf]

Satomi clears her throat, as the silence wears on a bit. "...So. Are we going to be reviewing? That is, looking at what we did right and wrong? That is a part of training, isn't it?" she says, in part to change the subject and in part just to get on with things.

[Notus]

On 6/10/2018 at 9:06 AM, rustytengo said:

"If acting like a crazy lady catching her husband cheating is you just losing a bit of control then you probably need to talk to the shrink," Beverly said pausing then smiling to herself  "I'm quite sure she would be happy to help you with that problem." 

I'm sure she would. Asuka thought to herself. "It won't happen again. Besides, she is a bit overworked with you around already, right?" She already had enough to deal with without having Beverly's infamous comments flying around.

13 hours ago, Twinwolf said:

"...So. Are we going to be reviewing? That is, looking at what we did right and wrong? That is a part of training, isn't it?" 

Asuka nodded, relieved that Satomi came to her rescue. "Yep, let's go for that." She said, crossing her arms and trying to go back to a professional posture. She'd think more about that incident later. "To be honest, you guys did better than I expected. You all need to work on own your synch rates and close combat skills, but you work well together and you know how to think strategically. That's a good starting point." 

 

"Beverly, Ahmed and Kyou. You guys are pretty good in hand to hand combat already, try to polish that and practice with knives and other weapons too."

 

"Satomi, you are good at planning and you have a bulky EVA. You should try to last more in battle and avoid engaging in solo combat if you think you're outclassed. Ranga, you were surprisingly stealthy with something the size of an EVA, but you get scared too easily when you get to close quarters. You should work on that, and also practice with a rifle in the shooting stand. I think you'd make a good sniper."

 

After the individual comments, she spoke to them all.

"Any comments or questions you guys would like to ask?"

[Chevaleresse]

Kyou shook her head. If she came up with something, she could ask later, but right now she was still feeling tired and angry at Asuka, and didn't want to have another outburst; she was already starting to feel a little embarrassed about taking a swing at the girl like that, even if what she'd done in the simulation had hurt like hell. After a moment of watching the situation and finally catching her breath, though, Kyou's tired expression turned into a slightly more focused frown. "Where's Ranga?"

[Twinwolf]

Satomi thought for a few moments. "These... AT fields, I think they were called?" she started, adjusting her glasses a bit, "They seem rather important for EVA combat. Do you have advice about maintaining them more consistently?"

[Bfroger6]

Kyou would feel a hand on her shoulder from behind when she called Ranga out. "Oh, I'm here, don't worry, Kyou." She seemed to have snuck up when everyone was focused on Asuka... Of course, Beverly would've seen her, but the rest of the crew wouldn't have. Well either way. "Thanks for coming to get me, Beverly. I think I almost fell asleep there..." She looked down, running her hands through her wet hair. "But I-I'll see what I can do with a rifle!" She turned to Asuka all of a sudden. She wasn't mad at the girl about what'd happened. They were all fighting and this was training. If she didn't show them this now, they were gonna lose in the real world.

[rustytengo]

Beverly frowned at Asuka's reply. It would be well known to both Asuka and Ranga that Beverly didn't like talking about herself and actively avoided the shrink whenever she tried to talk to Beverly about....things. She remained quiet as Ranga climbed out of the pod and drifted into the background. She finally perked up again once Satomi mentioned the AT fields "I'm going to guess that maintaining them as something to do with this sync rate that you keep going on about.  What is it anyway and how do you raise it?" She asked Asuka surprisingly without her usual snark for a change.

[Yours Truly]

Ahmed looked ponderous for a moment before he suddenly blurted out, "Wait, I have a question, I know that this was all just a simulation but... why couldn't you do this earlier? When we had to step in to help you fight off the Angel? Did you just... turn off the limiters or something for your simulated EVA?"

[Notus]

On 7/2/2018 at 4:46 AM, Twinwolf said:

 "These... AT fields, I think they were called?" "They seem rather important for EVA combat. Do you have advice about maintaining them more consistently?"

 

On 7/4/2018 at 10:15 AM, rustytengo said:

"I'm going to guess that maintaining them as something to do with this sync rate that you keep going on about.  What is it anyway and how do you raise it?"

"Beverly guessed right." Asuka pointed out to Satomi. "The higher your sync with your EVA, the stronger and steadier your A.T Field. Synching is basically connecting your body and mind to the EVA, and depends on how confortable you are piloting it. It varies from pilot to pilot and, as weird as it may seem, reacts to your momentary emotional state too." She crossed her arms and kept going.

 

 "The only way I know to improve it steadily is by training and getting used to the EVA. Too high a sync can end up being a danger to the pilot, though, but normally the NERV guys can limit that."

 

On 7/5/2018 at 5:23 AM, Cronos5010 said:

 "Wait, I have a question, I know that this was all just a simulation but... why couldn't you do this earlier? When we had to step in to help you fight off the Angel? Did you just... turn off the limiters or something for your simulated EVA?"

"Baka, don't talk about stuff you don't know about." Asuka answered bluntly, visibly irritated  "I have a... condition, due to which my sync rates go up too much and too fast, so in an actual battle what I did would be a very last resort thing. Besides, it would be dumb to just go all out since I was having trouble to find the second core at that time."

[rustytengo]

Beverly didn't buy Asuka's answer to Ahmed's question she was way too familiar with that type of reaction to believe what Asuka said. But she decided to not say anything about it after all she wasn't going to give Ahmed any help.  "So the big secret is practice then? A bit less interesting then you would think for a giant robot." Beverly said flipping her wet hair to the side a bit. "Not sure how comfortable I will get inside of it. I don't like the smell." She said twirling a few strands of her hair. "So are we going to have any more training today or can we head off to the showers or at very least change out of these things?" she paused for a moment "Not that I mind some of the views I get from them." She finished with a grin.