Command center.
Katsuragi stared at the central screen tensely. The Angel, which had been practically torn apart, finally went silent only a minute after its Core had been pierced by Eva's quantum knife. "Simply amazing survivability!" But the worst thing was something else...
Misato nervously bit her lip, feverishly trying to figure out all the troubles that would definitely fall on her after today's... beating of Angel. And the more she thought, the more scared she became... and the more she wanted to run away somewhere on vacation, preferably to Russia, they definitely wouldn't find her there.
Shinji... has outdone himself. No, the fact that the Angel was destroyed is good, but HOW it was destroyed will clearly not go unnoticed, after all, this is the second time that Eva-01 has demonstrated results that are at least three times greater than the most optimistic forecasts for its capabilities. And most importantly, the second time this happened without the pilot losing control...
Katsuragi sighed, trying to do it unnoticed. "This kid is inimitable after all..."
- Eva's AT field has dropped to three hundred units! Communication with the cockpit has been restored! - Misato took another deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment. "Shinji, please, I beg you, be quiet now, be a human!"
I slowly straightened up, gradually reducing the power of the AT field. Now, after Eve and I had absorbed some of the Angel's dissipating energy, we needed to return to a state of rest as quickly as possible, otherwise all the absorbed energy would simply be wasted, completely unabsorbed. Raising the quantum knife, still being burned out in my hands, to my face, I examined the blade. There was obvious deformation, and after a couple of seconds it stopped working altogether, the white glow faded and a dark gray, slightly melted surface of the material was revealed to my eyes, the knife no longer had a sharp tip.
"Shinji, how are you?" Misato's voice sounded in my head, tearing me away from contemplating the dead weapon.
"Okay," I answered calmly, lowering my hand and turning Eva's body towards the shaft from which I came.
Step, one, two, three... With the AT field completely collapsed, Eva's feet sink deep into the ground, but that's a minor thing. The bad thing is that the absorbed energy literally flies out the window, being spent ahead of Eva's own strength. It's a pity, though... With each next step, the awakened greed and professional stinginess even for crumbs of personal power, buzzed more and more, persistently whispering that he himself would be able to deliver Eva-01 to the NERV hangar without overexerting himself and in general - the Moor has done his job - the Moor can leave. For about ten seconds, sincerely, well, almost, resisting the pressure, I acknowledged the reasonableness of the arguments of the "inner hamster" and stopped.
"Misato, is my mission complete?" I asked, stretching my neck inside the cockpit. The answer came only after a few seconds and in a somewhat cautious tone.
- Yes...
- Great. - I moved Eva's shoulders and squeezed my right hand a couple of times with my left hand, which was itching a lot after everything that had happened. - Eva's a little tired, so I'll park up here. Will you send a tow truck?
- Uh-uh-uh... - The command center answered me, instantly falling silent, even to the background noise.
"Thank you, Commander, I've always believed in you," and before Misato could react, he quickly placed the Eva in a sitting position, additionally leaning his hands on the ground and activated the capsule extraction process.
- Stop, you bastard!!! What a pri... - the capsule blinked and plunged into darkness, simultaneously cutting off the connection. Oops... Well, let's say I didn't hear that. I can't lie to my commander's face, can I? I'm an honest and diligent pilot! Right? Shinji's ominous chuckle came from the depths. I'm a bad influence on him, a bad...
After waiting for the LCL to drain from the capsule and going through the lung cleansing process, I slowly made my way out into the fresh air. The view from the top of Evangelion was epic: a couple of square kilometers of soil dug up to pieces, an absurdly huge, torn apart carcass of an Angel, and against the backdrop of all this, the clear sun and a pleasant, slightly warm breeze with the smell of foliage. Beauty...
After admiring the view for a couple of minutes and letting the warm wind dry my damp hair a little, I pulled the first aid kit out of the cabin and started going down. It was much easier for me to hold on to the amount of spiritual energy I had received, but it still stubbornly tried to start regenerating the "phantom" wound on my chest and the burns on my palms, which was absolutely unacceptable. And since "paranormal" methods of treatment cannot be used, I have to act with the usual ones, the wound is not going anywhere, but quite the opposite.
Sitting down next to Eva and leaning on my metal-covered knee, I began to take off the top of my suit. The pain from the burns was nothing, certainly compared to indigestion, perhaps nothing could cause such torment to the body as some food. And although I am a vampire, an omnivorous creature in principle, I still agree with this opinion, what happens after certain types of blood I will probably remember for the rest of my life, or rather, all my remaining lives. So I was able to tear off the gloves from my hands, as well as perform acrobatic tricks of tearing my hands out of the sleeves with my chest burned to the flesh and bleeding, without any particular problems, and even commented on it all almost culturally. Well, how "almost"? I spoke pure Goblin, sometimes switching to the common Drow dialect. If Rung had thoroughly trained me in the first, one might even say - masterfully, then in the second ... well, let's not talk about that. It is important that the universe, in the person of this particular jumpsuit, learned from me a lot of new, I would even say – secret things about its biography and psychological portrait. It was imbued. And even listened with rapt attention.
In such a warm, friendly and sincere atmosphere, against the backdrop of a peaceful, idealistic picture, I spent the next ten minutes performing all the necessary emergency medical operations on myself. Shinji had long since gone quiet and seemed to be in deep cultural shock. Finally, the first aid kit's capabilities were exhausted and I, slightly wincing, finally lay down on the grass...
...
I feel like I'm from the Nara clan... Yeah... And I also feel like Misato really wants to beat me up... And maybe she's not the only one... Most likely... Mmmm... The clouds are really pulling...
I was pulled out of my well-deserved slumber by the appearance of a helicopter, even two. The terrible monsters, who dared to interfere with the sacred process of contemplating the skies, were landing about twenty meters away from me, while raising a godless dust and noise. And to hell with the noise, but when either a twig or a dried stalk of grass flew into my eye, I immediately wanted to kill someone. However, the state of relaxation still held on and thoughts of murder ran into a cracked, but still strong and even in some ways monumental, wall of laziness.
Meanwhile, the helicopters landed and three people jumped out of them, pulling out first aid kits, all three dashed towards me, but the fourth pilot did not leave the cabin and, as far as I could judge, was now actively reporting the situation. I watched all this without changing my position and only squinting down, while quietly and carefully freaking out. The reason for my freaking out were the bright red stars on the bodies of both helicopters, painted slightly behind the wing, as well as the suspiciously familiar uniforms of the pilots. It's not that I was a big expert, and Shinji was not one either, but we could still tell the difference between the Russian uniform and the Japanese with joint efforts. Slowly but surely, a number of questions arose in me for a certain gray-eyed person dear to my heart and soul...
Finally, the pilots ran up to me and the fastest one, who was a couple of meters ahead of his comrades because he had not taken out his first aid kit, turned to me with alarm:
- Boy, are you alive? - the question was asked in Russian, and the questioner himself did not look like a classic Japanese at all. Conclusion? I have a Russian in front of me. Brilliant. However, this is... unexpected.
- Seryoga, he doesn't understand our language! - the second one jumped up, a man of about thirty, with black hair and a slight stubble, opening the first aid kit right on the go and sitting down next to me at full speed. - Slav, you seem to speak English better, try it, okay? - This was already addressed to the third pilot, who also managed to fall to the ground on the other side of my body.
- Right now...
- No need, I understand anyway, - I said, starting to rise, I somehow didn't want to lie down. It turned out with an accent, the lack of language practice in this body was telling, in principle it's not a problem to remove it, but... better not.
- Uh...
- F*ck.....
Two pilots expressed a common thought and only the third, who remained nameless, made an attempt to react somehow:
- Hey! Where to?...
"Everything's fine, just a scratch," I waved my hand, getting to my feet. Apparently, the guys were too surprised by my knowledge of the language, since they still didn't have time to quickly prevent me from getting up, although I wasn't in a hurry.
"Well, kid, you're something..." the first one, Seryoga, drawled.
- Yeah, damn, kid, are you crazy, where are you jumping?! A wound across your chest, you're going to die now, and what are we going to tell your guys?! - The "nameless" one flared up.
- I say, everything is fine, - and without transition: - Do you have anything to drink? - the way they looked at me... Yes, it was worth staying on the surface for this.
- Dude, can you?
- Of course not, I'm underage. So, will you share?
- Ahem... What a samurai... - Slava grunted somehow muffled, either suppressing a laugh or clearing his throat.
"Well, here you go, if you're not joking..." Sergei reached into his inside pocket and pulled out a flat flask.
"Seryoga..." the third one began warningly.
"Okay, the guy deserved it," the flask passed into my hands.
Having unscrewed the cap, I took a big sip under three slightly stunned and surprised looks. Hmm... Cognac... Good cognac. A pleasant wave of warmth passed through my body from the esophagus and my head began to buzz slightly. Not dangerous, I still can't get really drunk, even in this body, only the bare minimum, after which the innate protection of the mind comes into play, and then even the hardest drugs can't do anything, not to mention simple alcohol.
- Okay... - I handed the flask back, looking at the panorama with the murdered Angel. - Too bad the commander will be rushing in soon...
"Why is that?" asked Sergei, taking the container and thoughtfully looking at it, before taking a swig from the bottle.
- He will kill me... Or maim me, it depends on my luck...
"Yes. The bosses are like that," Slava agreed, also taking a flask from somewhere and taking a sip, he handed it to the third pilot.
He accepted it, looked at me very skeptically and suspiciously, but still drank it, after which he introduced himself:
- Valery Grigorievich Stogin, senior lieutenant of the Russian Air Force.
- Shinji Ikari, NERV lieutenant, - they shook hands, after which Valera came to his senses and exploded again: - Your mother, lieutenant! Your hands are all burnt!
"It happens," I answered philosophically, starting to look at the view again. After a few seconds of choice swearing, the flask was back in my hands. We drank...