lavanya_six | Status Update (Reply)

Okay, so Taking Sights still isn't done yet. Remember when I said it was 80% done a few posts back? Well now it's over 10,000 words long and it's maybe 85% done. At the current rate this chapter will be the longest of them all -- and that's saying something.

I haven't been completely non-productive the last week, though. In addition to pecking away at Taking Sights and consolidating the outline for the rest of Book 1 (which will be 24 chapters total) I've been working on a new project. Shockingly, it is neither Evangelion nor Harry Potter nor Doctor Who related -- but rather a fusion of two wildly unlikely fandoms. Which ones, you ask?

I've finished Chapter 1 (of 5) and am currently editing it. I won't be posting anything of it until the whole story is done.

Also, to tide over the loyal readers who follow this blog, here's a excerpt from the forthcoming chapter of Taking Sights:

"Too damn cold," she shivered, hugging the soaked towel closer to her body. "By the way, thanks so much for helping me when I was vomiting up LCL."

Commander Ikari, who walked in front of Asuka, didn't even deign to look back at her when he said, "I wasn't aware that you required someone to hold your hair for you. I would hope you were used to sticking fingers down your throat by now, Pilot Soryu."

"I don't think that came out the way you meant it."

"That is possible."

Asshole.

"Well, it's one thing to evacuate LCL from your lungs," she said, using care to explore the tender lump affixed to the center of her face, "it's an entirely other thing to do it with a broken nose."

"And how precisely did you break your nose, Pilot Soryu? I didn't figure you to be clumsy with all the agility training NERV invested in you."

"I -- I, er, well—"

"Yes. I thought as much."

They walked on in silence.

Asuka's gaze lingered on the collapsed figures littering the hallway. Looking at the ones with limbs bent at odd angles, the teen was again reminded of the image of puppets cut from their master's strings. "Goddamn creepy," she said, shivering again. "Like a zombie movie." She wiped a trickle of blood off her lip. "Well, at least they aren't trying to eat our brains."

Commander Ikari froze mid-step. He looked over his shoulder at her.

"What?" she said. "You don't honestly—"

He turned around and brushed past her. "There's a weapons locker one level down," he said, pulling a pistol from inside his uniform jacket. "Follow me."

=-=-3=-=-

Gendo handed the Second Child two guns, each with their own holsters. One sat lopsided on the girl's waist – barely, considering her small size – and the other was a shoulder harness he helped her slip into. "You haven't practiced since Germany, correct?"

"I practice all the time."

"Eva simulators don't count."

She snorted. "Yeah, well—"

He opened her right hand and placed a 9mm in her palm. "If we're separated, go to my office. Gunfire in it will trigger a security lockdown. Nothing short of an N2 will touch you in there once the safeguards have activated." Not unless the Angel can get its puppets to think out their attacks, in which case we're both dead. Gendo left that thought unsaid. "Don't bother standing and fighting. Just run. Understood?"

"Yeah."

He stared down at her.

"Yes, sir."

"If you must shoot, don't try anything fancy." Gendo turned to the weapons locker, studied its contents, and then drew a compact assault rifle and three clips. He slung the rifle over his shoulder. "Do NOT shoot to wound. Kill your enemy, Pilot Soryu. Two rounds to the center of mass will drop most targets."

The teenage redhead raised her eyebrows and held out the gun in her hand like it was a dirty diaper. "A nine millimeter can't stop shit, sir."

Gendo pocketed a grenade and then shut the locker. "All the more reason to run away."

The Second Child fell into step behind him as led them up to the Command Center. As they past the odd fallen NERV officer, Gendo kept his own service pistol trained on the slumbering people.

"You really think they could attack us?"

Up ahead, the starkness of the hallway was broken by a young woman in an orange Technical Division jumpsuit. She laid facedown on the floor in a small pool of blood. Broken nose? "The Angel invaded their minds, shut them down. What's to say it can't induce another basic response aside from sleep?"

"You mean... hunger?"

"Among others."

"Like what? What's more basic than sleeping or eati—EWW!"

"Yes."

They turned a corner and an entrance to the lowest level of the Command Center came into view. The Second Child, however, felt the need to open her mouth again.

"So if it attacked their minds, the Eva's mind, why didn't it get us? What's so special about us? I mean," she said, in that disbelieving tone only the very young and very stupid can produce with complete sincerity, "it's not like we have anything in common!"

For that question, Gendo did not have an answer.