NOVEL WEB 1.01 – Angel Attack Pt. I
NERV HQ, Tokyo-III, Hakone, Kanagawa. August 13th, 2015
“Red Alert! Battle Condition has been raised to Level Two. All hands, report to defence stations! Repeat!”
NERV’s command centre echoed with the sound of the announcement system, and with the chatter of the dozens of operations staff. This was the busiest the room had been since the MAGI system had been finalised. Since then, the large space had really only seen a skeleton crew on occasion and had been completely empty most of the time. Today, however, the event they had been preparing for the last fifteen years had finally occurred. The Angels had returned, and the events prophesised in the Dead Sea Scrolls would finally come to pass.
However, Kozo Fuyutsuki wasn’t particularly vindicated by the work that he had pledged himself to finally coming to fruition. Right now, he was feeling a combination of boredom and annoyance as the Japanese Strategic Self Defence Forces fought a futile battle against a target which they could not begin to comprehend.
“Status of the target?”
The mood in the command centre was tense. Not only because of the ongoing red alert, but also due to the presence of the JSSDF’s local command staff. The military had taken operational control of the defence of the city, declaring that it was their jurisdiction, and that the UN forces were not needed or wanted in this situation. They thought themselves more suited to the art of war than a military R&D project that merely played at war. Kozo Fuyutsuki had no time for them. He never had any respect for fools.
“Tank battalion reports barrage ineffective,” reported Maya Ibuki, one of the primary computer operators. “Target has begun moving onto land. Battalion reports APDS and HEP rounds have no effect. Target has ignored them and is moving on foot on direct course for Tokyo III.”
The holographic display switched to a map of the Hakone region, with a plot showing the expected route of the “unidentified target”. Fuyutsuki knew that the only reason that the plot didn’t identify the target as the Third Angel, Sachiel, in accordance with the Dead Sea Scrolls was due to the arrogance of the JSDF. They had refused for years to believe them about the imminent threat of the Angels returning, and now they were paying for that mistake dearly. There would be a lot of unnecessary deaths today, and it was all going to be on the heads of these three officers. SEELE would make sure of that.
“Order the 115th Tactical Air Unit to scramble immediately,” ordered one of the officers, a man whose name Fuyutsuki hadn’t bothered to either learn or remember. “Fit the Heavy Fighter-Jets with Hydra rockets and order them to engage the enemy as soon as it enters Atami. We’ll use the urban terrain to limit its mobility. Once we have it pinned by the HFJs, we’ll move in the 56th Mobile Artillery Division and the 112th Tank Brigade into the hills between Atami and Tokyo-III. A sustained barrage from the M270s and the Leopard 2A10s should cripple it for good.”
“Also send in the 182nd strategic missile division!” ordered another one of the odious fools. “We’ll use the heavy cluster missiles to end it for good! If all else fails, we can lure it into the valley beyond the hills and use a N2 mine to finish it for good!”
“Tank battalion reports target has begun returning fire with some sort of directed energy weapon!” reported Makoto Hyuga, the primary operations subcommander. “Tank battalion reporting eighty percent of units have been destroyed! Ground leader has ordered a full retreat, and that all remaining units have expanded their ammunition to no effect. Target is still operational and continuing towards the city at a steady pace.”
“Launch the fighter squadrons! Scramble the F-22s and launch a sustained missile bombardment of the target while the HFJs get into position!” ordered the third of the men, who Fuyutsuki vaguely remembered as having described NERV as a “overfunded, overblown black hole with no use and no results”. He mildly debated whether he was thinking of another similarly odious military official, before deciding that it was a waste of his time. “Deploy the 15th Tactical Recon Unit to mark the target for the strike fighters! Prepare a full…”
Fuyutsuki had had enough of listening to the officers pantomime at defending the city against Sachiel. They could fire as much of their conventional weapons as they wanted at the enemy. None of their missiles would so much as scratch the angel’s skin. Its AT fields would ensure that. Instead, he turned his head slightly towards his former student, and probably the only man he trusted implicitly. Gendo Ikari, the commander of NERV, and the man responsible for all they had done in the last fifteen years.
“So, after fifteen years, finally the Third Angel has appeared. The Dead Sea Scrolls were correct. Although, we didn’t expect this for another month at least.”
“Indeed,” replied Gendo, his expression passive, although Fuyutsuki did note a small twitch of the corner of the man’s mouth. Gendo gave the impression of a man who had given up his humanity in order to focus on his life’s work, but Fuyutsuki had known the younger man long enough to know a lot of it was an act. Gendo pushed his feeling deep down, but he was still human. At least for now. The two men sat in silence for a minute, watching as the military continued to order their toy soldiers into battle, throwing away millions of dollars of military equipment and hundreds of human lives in pursuit of a victory they could not achieve with the technology they possessed.
“Fuyutsuki,” said Gendo, eventually. “Is everything ready?”
Fuyutsuki nodded. “I’ve dispatched Major Katsuragi to retrieve the Third Child. Dr. Akagi is currently supervising the removal of Eva-01 from cryogenic storage. Should I order the repair teams to accelerate the work on Eva-00?
“No,” replied the commander. “They’d never get the bakelite removed in time for unit zero to be combat ready, let alone the fact that we haven’t performed a reactivation procedure. However, tell the medical staff to cease treatment on the First Child, and prep her for transport to the Evangelion Cages. If the Third is unwilling or unable to pilot, we may need to rely on Rei.”
“Right away, Ikari,” replied Fuyutsuki, picking up his phone and dialling the number for the medical division. He paused as Gendo got up and walked over to the lift that would take him directly to the observation room overlooking the cage that stored Evangelion Unit-01.
“Ikari…” Fuyutsuki said uncertainly. “It’s been five years since you last saw your son. Are you sure you want to meet him in person?”
Gendo looked back impassively. “There are no problems. If the Third will not pilot, he is of no use to me. I have no interest in him beyond his role in my plans. Take care of things, Fuyutsuki. If those fools send for me, let me know immediately.”
With that, Gendo descended down on the platform, a hatch closing over the shaft as soon as he disappeared from view. Fuyutsuki turned back to the operations centre and watched impassively as the military ordered increasingly powerful weapons to be deployed to deal with the threat. He wondered whether they knew how utterly outmatched they were by the threat that faced them. How their superweapons and expensive tanks were like children’s playthings before the sheer power of the Angels. Fools they may be, but their failure would play a role in SEELE’s schemes. As would it play a role in that of Gendo’s. Like pawns in a game of Shogi, their sacrifice would be the first step in a grand strategy that would enable the instrumentality of man, and the ascension of humanity to divinity. All was right with the world. Even if God was not in his heaven. Yet.
Atami, Hakone, Kanagawa. August 13th, 2015.
Misato Katsuragi was not happy. Today was her second day in a new post, and was also meant to be a day that she had off duty to settle in. However, not only had she been called into work wearing her best dress, her plans to go to the swanky new bar two blocks from her apartment utterly dashed, only to be immediately dispatched on an errand to pick up the child of the commander of NERV, Gendo Ikari, but she had also been dismayed to find out that a code red had been called due to an unknown threat approaching Tokyo III. There was little chance of her getting back to that bar before the end of the day, if not before the end of the week.
She gripped the steering wheel and gritted her teeth. She was an operations officer in a top-secret UN black project that had so far been taken as a joke by the regular military. It had been fifteen years since the Second Impact, and it had been less than a day since she showed up in Tokyo III. If this code red was a sensor malfunction, and if she had been dispatched to pick up the boy whose photo sat on her dash for absolutely no reason, she was going to blow a fuse.
She glanced over at the picture of her mark, a fairly old one from when he was eight or so. The boy had been living with a teacher in Tokyo II until five years ago when he left without warning. NERV intelligence had managed to forward a letter to his new address, but there had been no pictures of the boy for five years. She only hoped that he looked similar enough to identify.
Unfortunately, despite the streets of Atami being deserted due to the alert, and despite having been redirected by NERV intelligence to the location of a call that had been made to Gendo’s contact phone by an individual who was the Third Child, she had been unable to locate him. She’d driven round the block three times, and the only person on the streets was a young teenage girl sitting on a bench with a small suitcase. She sighed. If anything, she could at least get the teenager to a shelter, and figure out where Gendo’s son had gone. She pulled up next to the girl and wound down her window.
“Hi, young lady,” she said, looking curiously at the teenage girl. She was about fifteen, with brown hair and eyes. Misato noted that she looked a lot like Rei, if Rei didn’t have the weird red eyes and blue hair. “I’m sorry, but there’s an emergency going on right now. If you can help me, find someone, I’d be happy to get you to a shelter.”
The young woman blinked, and looked down at a small photo she held in her hand. “Are you Misato Katsuragi?”
Misato blinked. “Uh, yes? I’m sorry, are you with Shinji Ikari? I was meant to meet him here.”
The young girl giggled and shook her head. “It appears my father was not informed about a fair few details. My apologies for departing the train station, I was told to leave by a security guard, and I thought I’d call my father to get instructions. My name is Aiko. Aiko Ikari.”
~To be continued~