zwei # dream → rising sun (backdated to Monday, February 4th)

[antabaka]

[When Asuka saw the new buttons on her SFC, she didn't think much of them. Sure, she didn't remember them being there before, but what would really happen from pressing a button? Which is why she pushed one - and subsequently wound up asleep.]

[The dream starts with a view of Asuka inside some sort of cockpit. A few might recognize the strange red garment she wears from the day she showed up. Her face shows a smirk that matches the confidence in her voice as she speaks.]

Full power, maximum speed from the start, got it?

[A boy of the same age range answers over some internal communications system, face unseen.]

I know that. We'll finish in sixty-two seconds.

[From somewhere else two voices speak, a man agitated with nerves--]

Target entering Ground Zero.

[--and a more collected woman.]

Detach external power cables.

[A blast of air sounds from somewhere behind whatever Asuka's sitting in, prompting a timer to start counting down from just over a minute's length. The woman makes another order.]

Launch.

[A sense of movement, and what can be seen of Asuka's surroundings in the screens slips down as if she's rapidly rising up some mechanical tunnel. More attention-grabbing is the fact that music has begun to play.]

[It's mere seconds before the view shifts to outside whatever Asuka's piloting, which turns out to be a huge, red, humanoid mecha. It fires out of an opening in the street together with another mech, this one purple with green stripes and a prominent horn on the head. Below is a strange, silvery monster of similar scale. With hardly any hesitation, the two mecha - Evangelions - draw weapons, and with a graceful flip synchronized to each other and the music, throw them down to the earth. Each lengthens into a spear which bisects the monster - an Angel - down the middle.]

[Rather than fall down dead, however, the Angel morphs! Its two haves become copies of its former self, one a steely grey, the other copper. The Evas meanwhile land, drawing huge scale guns from structures that pop out of the ground. Each runs and fires at the twin monsters, until they strike back with laser-like beams fired from what must be their faces.]

[So what to do? Flip. Five of them, in tandem, matched to each other and time perfectly to the music, carry them backwards onto a panel on the ground. This triggers another panel to come up vertically before them: some thick sheet of metal, which shields the Angels' blasts. They lean out from either side to fire at them after, but the monsters leap! When they come down, their claws slice through the sheet of metal with no resistance; the two mechs are lucky enough to have dodged out of the way first.]

[Somewhere in the background, the woman from before shouts orders, but within the dream it seems to fade away under the flow of the music. The effect is soon seen, anyway, as missiles fire from a hillside, a weaponized building, and special vehicles among the landscape. The Angels are unaffected, but the attack gives Asuka and her fellow pilot time to reposition.]

[They run up and quickly strike. First, an uppercut from the right fist. Second, a roundhouse kick from the right foot. Their targets are forced to collide and remerge into a singular body. This is it!]

[In one final attack, Asuka and her compatriot leap in their Evas, rising high into the air. The spin gracefully above, then align to mirror each other: inner legs together in down in a kick that slams into the united Angel. The feet strike against a pair of red orbs on the Angel's torso, and the force of their landing is so hard that the thing is forced to slide back across the landscape. As they do, the orbs glow, culminating in a massive explosion.]

[When the air clears... Well. Gone is their grace and synchronization, as in the resulting crater lie the two mechs, collapsed in an awful heap. A young woman, different from the one before, speaks from offscreen.]

Both Evas confirmed operational.

[And like that, the dream ends.]

(OOC: This dream is non-interactive, so responses should come via the network. It's safer for your character that way, trust me. Also, I seriously recommend watching the video in the "music" link above! I tried to describe the battle as best as I could, but the sequence itself shows it best.)

Comments

[Video]

[makainoou]

Nice finish.

[He's actually not being sarcastic, it was an impressive explosion.]

I guess those must be your "angels."

[Video]

[antabaka]

[When Asuka woke up - was she more tired than she thought? - she figured to check her SFC again. She doesn't think she found out what the buttons did, but now that she pushes at them, they don't do anything. It's not until she gets a reply to her dream that she starts to figure it out.]

[What he says perfectly references her dream, and when she checks, just look at that. There's her dream.]

[Now she goes back an responds to him.]

How did they make my dream show up on here?! And why did they have to include such a bad finish? Ugh, if stupid Shinji hadn't messed up the timing, we wouldn't have landed in such an uncool way!

[Huff!]

But yes, that's an Angel.

[Video]

[makainoou]

Hell if I know how they did it.

It could've been worse. I can't say I get why the synchronized fighting was necessary, but at least you got that part down.

[Video]

[antabaka]

I probably shouldn't be telling you this stuff at all, but I guess it doesn't matter when we're in an entirely different universe. If your whole "demon overlord" shtick has anything to it, you're not from mine, anyway.

[Shrug.]

You saw how the Angel split in two, right? The first time we sortied against it, I beat the first form with just one hit and thought it was over. But then it changed like that and beat us both. Misato--she's a Captain and coordinates us in battle--gave us that plan to beat it. It was such a pain! Shinji and I had to memorize the music and learn to synchronize to each other so that we could defeat it.

[Video]

[makainoou]

Your Earth doesn't sound like the one I've heard about anyway.

Hmph. It would be a pain having to rely on someone else to keep up with you.

[Video]

[antabaka]

Exactly! Especially stupid Shinji.

The whole process was annoying and dumb, too. There was this game with circles that lit up on matching mats, and we had to press them at the same time.

[Think like a very odd version of twister.]

It would be annoying enough having to do that on my own, but with someone else? And you saw how he messed up still at the end.

[Video]

[makainoou]

A lot of idiots just don't cut it.

[Video]

[shippingmath]

You have mechas?

[Dirk might just sound a bit more eager than he has in past conversations. Mostly because holy shit giant robots it is like something from his animes. It is something from his animes.]

[Video]

[antabaka]

[Asuka's eyebrows certainly raise to hear him that excited about it. It is totally from the animes. The formative 90s animes! Not that she knows, and there's no harm leaving that 4th wall unpunctured.]

[While normally her pride and joy to talk about, right now she looks sulky.]

I guess you could call them that, but they're more complicated than whatever giant robots you might see on TV. I just don't get why they had to show my dream about it on the network like this. The puzzles were a pain, but that doesn't mean there should be free reign to go pulling stuff out of people's heads!

And even then, why'd I have to go and dream about that battle? Couldn't they have shown the last one I was in?

[Video]

[shippingmath]

Because the scientists are proven to be bags of dicks, and the curses by extension are the same.

As for the mech, I'm counting on that. Do you just pilot that thing, or do you know how it works? Give me the deets.

[Video]

[antabaka]

So that first one was a lucky break for me, huh?

[Siiigh.]

You're lucky you're not from the same earth as me, or I wouldn't be able to tell you much. Things like 'top secret' or whatever hardly mean anything here, though, and you already saw part of it from the battle.

Obviously, I'm one of the pilots - the Second Child, pilot of Evangelion Unit-02. The red one, of course. If stupid Shinji ever shows up you can grill him about Unit-01, which is the other one you saw. Not that he'd know much when I'm the one who's been training almost my whole life.

There's also Unit-00, the prototype model. Unit-01's the test type, and mine is the production model.

[She looks pretty proud about that.]

That thing I was wearing in the dream is a plugsuit. You saw me in it when I showed up, too. It helps monitor the pilot's health, among other things. And this--

[She tilts her head forward, and reaches up to tap one of what looks like a set of hair clips.]

--is the interface headset. It helps aid synchronization, which the plugsuit helps with, too.

Want to know more?

[She grins. Nothing's quite so satisfying as getting talk about things related to her status as pilot.]

[Video]

[shippingmath]

It wouldn't matter if I were. Evidence shows that we remember nothing about Vatheon even if we're returned to our own worlds. Time shenanigans, and all that.

[He nods as she talks- he's definitely mentally taking notes.]

Hell yes I would. Too bad one of the units itself isn't likely to show up, I'd love to get my hands in that.

[Video]

[antabaka]

Get your hands in--? No way! You aren't a pilot and you aren't a technician. You aren't even part of Nerv. And if you tried to pilot it, it wouldn't work.

[Her arms fold, and her grin inverts.]

I almost don't want to tell you now. If one of them did show up, I wouldn't want you trying to get your hands on any part of it.

[Video]

[shippingmath]

Who said I wanted to pilot it? I just want to see how it works. Besides, if one of them does show up, there's no guarantee you'll get a technician with it, is there?

video;

[keepsthefire]

[Rin is just... staring. A lot. Kind of shocked, but also like he's trying to say something.

Eventually words do come out. Well. A word.]

Mecha...

video;

[antabaka]

[Aww yes. Nothing like some dumbstruck awe to boost your ego. Don't mind that smirk of hers, Rin.]

They're called Evangelions.

video;

[keepsthefire]

[It's about to get an even bigger boost.]

You're a mecha pilot... that is so cool!

video;

[antabaka]

It totally is! I'm an elite pilot chosen to help save the world. There's nothing cooler than that.

video;

[keepsthefire]

Y-you're like a manga hero! Wow! You just got like... ten times cooler!

video;

[antabaka]

Hmph. Better than a manga hero, I'm the real deal. That's my life, and even if the Angels didn't start attacking until this year, it's what I've spent so much time training for. Even if that battle was a little out of the ordinary.

[Video]

[heartstoppingly]

... they are called 'Eva' where you are from then?

[Video]

[antabaka]

Evangelions, actually. Eva is just for short. Why, are you curious?

[Video]

[heartstoppingly]

Evangelions. [He might be curious about them but he's not about to tell you that...]

We have similar things back home but not quite so agile.

What are those creatures you were fighting?

[Video]

[antabaka]

You do? What kind of things?

[Her turn for curiosity.]

They're called Angels. We know enough to fight them, but not a lot in general about what they want or why - just that they'll wipe out humanity if we let them.

[Video]

[heartstoppingly]

They are called Knightmare Frames. They sort of look like your Evangelions but bulkier.

... Angels? They just appeared then?