Prologue

Red waves lapped at a shore of grey stone and pure white snow. A stark contrast to be sure, and a big indicator of just how big an effect Second Impact had on the world, fifteen years ago. Even here, literally on the opposite side of the world, on the shores of the Arctic the oceans remained red.

With a shiver, Ryoji Kaji tossed the butt of his cigarette down into the crimson water, watching as it sank beneath the waves. There was a lot of red in his life he mused, glancing up at one the biggest contributors to that.

Two hundred and sixty feet of red-armoured humanoid cyborg stood quietly on the shore, glaring balefully inland. Currently, it was still tethered, a long cable as thick as he was tall attached to a port in its lower back connecting it to the nuclear reactor of the command ship he was standing on, but he knew it could be launched in mere moments, and knowing the pilot, it was only a button's push from being unleashed. Piloted by his young ward, one Miss Asuka Langley Soryu, it was one of the world's few Evangelions, monstrous war machines built to defend humanity from the Angels. And that was why he was here.

Well, officially of course.

As NERV's Special Inspector, he was there to oversee the capture of one of those very creatures. They were humongous beasts, as big as an Eva and apparently possessed with the desire to wipe out what was left of humanity, to finish off what Second Impact had started. That was all they knew, or at least, all they were told.

The Angel was the Third they'd found, although the first two were so heavily wrapped in secrecy even a lot of NERV barely knew of their existence. This one had been codenamed 'Iblis' and fortunately for everyone present, was currently trapped with several thousand tonnes of permafrost. The plan was to extract it and transport it to Bethany, NERV's Angelic Research branch and a prison purpose built to hold one.

Unit-02 was on hand as a insurance policy, but all going well, excavation would be finished within the hour and the Angel could be loaded upon the Over the Rainbow, a supercarrier on loan from the UN for transport. The carrier was moored just a little further along shore, and had been anchored to five other smaller freighters. Each one had been fitted with an immense obelisk, experimental anti-AT Field technology, that when coupled with the freezing systems on board the supercarrier, would ensure the Angel remained dormant throughout the trip.

Kaji had his misgivings about the whole thing, but kept them to himself. The operation had been passed off by the Supreme Commander and the Security Council, both of whom he knew would not have done so without SEELE's say so.

He shrugged, giving Unit-02 one final look, then headed for the relative warmth of the command ship's bridge. As the Angel was being sent to Bethany, it had fallen to the base's commander to coordinate the effort, and Bart Schreiber was not afraid to put in a little effort, not for this prize. He had brought over what was functionally his entire command centre, the Ural II, a repurposed Russian warship, specifically to run the operation. Unlike other NERV Commanders, the man was undoubtedly a scientist, and a clever one at that, perhaps second only to NERV's founders and Ritsuko Akagi herself. As Kaji stepped onto the bridge, he fancied he could feel the excited aura the man gave off, one he had been maintaining for the last six hours.

He glanced at Kaji, practically buzzing with anticipation. "I will have to apologise to your ward, Mr Kaji," he all but gloated. "It seems we didn't need Miss Soryu after all."

"I'm sure she'll be rather disappointed," Kaji replied with an easy grin. "But it's better to be safe than sorry."

"Yes yes," Schreiber said rather dismissively. "That's what they said when I was told that the newly commissioned Unit-05 was to be posted in my base. Apparently they don't believe my pylons will do the trick."

"Call it a failsafe. We don't exactly know what the Angel might be capable of."

"True, but we will, Inspector. We will."

Ignoring the rather unhealthy gleam in Schreiber's eyes, Kaji instead moved over to glance at the technician's monitors. He leaned on the back of one particular pretty young technician's chair, offering her a roguish wink.

"Still all quiet there," he asked in accented Russian.

The girl blushed, but maintained her professionalism. "Yes sir, the Blue Pattern is present, yet still dormant."

He nodded, and straightened, glancing out of the window. Passed the waiting Evangelion, excavators had all but removed a mountain of ice and stone, revealing the Angel buried within. Kaji could best describe the creature as an odd mix between a tortoise and a snake, with a towering central shell and long segmented neck and tail. It was curled up, trapped within a ball of ice.

Around it, machinery was moving the sides of an armoured crate into position around it, massive armoured bulkheads filled with cooling systems. Three sides and the bottom had been fitted already, hours and hours of gruelling work going into the task. Swarms of engineers could be seen climbing over the construction, seeing to the locking mechanisms. The fourth and final side was being lifted into place, and with that, it would just be the small matter of getting the cage onto the Over the Rainbow.

Kaji cringed when he thought about how much this whole endeavour had cost, and the sheer amount of destruction it had wrought up on the environment. NERV soaked up huge amounts of resources as it was, not counting its competitors, and there were always ongoing projects to restore the world to what it was, even fifteen years on. He just hoped it had all been worth it.

When she'd been told she would be heading up to the Arctic Circle with Kaji and Unit-02 to help secure an Angel, Asuka had been little more than ball of glee. Finally, after years and years of training exercises and simulations she was finally going to get to go on a real mission. She was going to get to show off her abilities in combat with a real Angel! What she had not expected was to have to stand on a barren shore watching NERV's engineers build a damn box around an ice cube.

And it was taking hours!

She'd done her best to prepare, to be ready for the worst case scenario, studying the Angel just in case. It was an odd creature, far different from the humanoid simulations she'd fought. The Angel's main body seemed to be a huge domed shell, a few stumpy horns crowning the top and eye-shaped markings on its front. Wrapped around it's body was a long tail and neck, scaled by the looks of it, and four legs could barely be seen beneath the shell. Asuka thought it little more than a mutant turtle, likely slow and ponderous, an easy fight.

If it ever happened.

Of course, planning strategy could only last so long, and NERV had yet to acquiesce to any of her requests for entertainment being built into her plug. She wouldn't need it they said, they longest you'll ever be in the plug is during sync-tests, when they needed her to not be distracted anyway. Bloody scientists.

Asuka had turned her attention to the fleet in the bay behind her. The ships present were different enough, the super-heavy cargo carriers rare enough post-Impact, but NERV and the UN had rounded up nearly a dozen to transport the equipment for this operation, her Eva included. The UN's pride, Over the Rainbow, was front and centre, ringed by the haulers with their obelisks. She barely understood the science behind them, clever as she was, but knew of their effects since they'd tested their AT-Field dampening effects on her and Unit-02.

She moved onto scanning the legions of crew in the area, at least a little thankful that the Eva was keeping her warm. The men and women out on the shore wouldn't be so lucky, many of them red-faced from the cold. Asuka had a little moment of happiness as Kaji had appeared on the deck of the Ural II for a few minutes, but he'd disappeared back inside over half an hour previously.

The girl was just wondering if she could get away with taking a nap when movement caught her attention. Engineers were running, fleeing from the almost complete cage, jumping into vehicles or merely running frantically across the snow. Alarms were blaring across the fleet, spotlights swivelling around to bathe the cage in light.

It only took a minute for Asuka to realise what was happening, her skin tingling with apprehension. There was a deep rumbling groan followed by a sudden crack, like a lightning bolt had struck nearby, and then an otherworldly wail pierced the air. Vapour exploded out of the gaps in the partly closed cage and then the whole thing shook as if hit by tremendous force.

"Bringing Unit-02 to combat readiness!" Asuka snapped, hitting buttons and switches with long-practiced ease.

Unit-02 to responded quickly, straightening slightly with a low hum. Its four green eyes flashed, and its entire body shook as it flexed its fingers before clenching them into fists.

"Unit-02, aim to disable only. I repeat, aim to disable only!"

"I know, I know," Asuka growled in response. As she did, she reached back up over her shoulder, tugging off the assault rifle that had been fixed to the Eva's armour.

The cage shook again, the nearest side shuddering and breaking free slightly from the rest. Then, a flash of light exploded out from within the cage and the side flew off, crashing down and kicking up small avalanches of ice and snow. From out of the mist rushed the Angel, sections of its icy cocoon still hanging to it. Contrary to Asuka's earlier assessment, the beast moved with surprising speed, skittering forwards on legs seemingly to thing to possibly hold its weight.

Asuka yelped with surprise and opened fire with her rifle, barely managing to get off a burst before the Angel bull-rushed her. Shells the size of cars raked across the Angel's shell, several missing completely and exploding against distant hilltops. Unit-02 fell to its knee as Iblis rushed by, seemingly only intent on escaping into the ocean, but Asuka was nothing if not a consummate fighter, and grabbed at is tail as it passed her with her free arm.

The Angel wailed in rage and shock, twisting its head around to glare at the red Eva. It's head was little more than a bone-white skull, the sockets seemingly empty, but they flashed and suddenly Asuka's right arm erupted in pain. Blinking stars out of her eyes, Asuka bellowed out a warcry and pulled the trigger of her rifle, only to have nothing happen. She glanced down to see the shattered, glowing remains of her weapon and tossed it aside.

She ducked another blast from the Angel's eyes, which exploded against a hillside with an impossibly cross-shaped explosion, and activated her prog-knife. In one smooth motion, Unit-02 ripped it out of its pylon mounting and jammed into the Angel's shell. The knife carved into the bone-like material, cracks appearing around the entry point and the Angel screamed.

With a mighty heave, Iblis lifted its tail and smashed the Eva against the ground, before spinning and blasting her with another flash of light. It turned and began to run again.

"Asuka! Are you alright?" Kaji's voice came in over the comms.

"Yes!" Asuka snapped back, more angry than hurt.

"Good. Listen, we're moving the obelisks to block its escape. We need you to hold in place for a moment."

Unit-02 was already up and moving. "Understood!"

The Angel had reached the shore when Unit-02 leaped onto its back. With a wail, both fell into the surf. The Eva was up first, meeting the Angel's head with a crimson fist and forcing back below the waves. An uppercut caught it when it resurfaced, just in time for a volley of spikes from the Eva's left pylon to catch it along its scaled neck. It ducked the second volley, which instead buried into its shell. Eyes flashed again, but Asuka forced the energy into the air by grabbing its throat.

Iblis struggled as the red Eva's fingers tore into its throat. Asuka raised her fist for another strike only to be blindsided by the Angel's tail. She fell into the water backwards, losing sight of the creature momentarily as Unit-02's head dipped beneath the frothing waves.

"Asuka, stay down!" Kaji yelled.

A piercing whine cut through the air as the area was drowned in eerie red light. Asuka watched as the obelisks around them began to glow brighter and brighter, light pulsing around the structures as it flowed into the crystalline focuses mounted at the top. In response light fractured and then shattered around the Angel as its AT-Field succumbed to the suppression field.

Asuka, not at the centre of the field but still close enough to feel its effects eroding her defences, forced Unit-02 to scramble back away.

"It won't hold long. Disable it!" She heard someone shouting aboard the Ural, and in response the fleet's military escorts opened up on the Angel. Explosive rounds and missiles pummelled the beast, raining blood and shards of bone into the bay.

"Asuka, the nitrogen tanks!" Kaji yelled.

She looked up and around. There was a large tanker in the fleet carrying thousands and thousands of gallons of liquid nitrogen for the express purpose of keeping the Angel frozen until they reached Bethany. It was nearby, the deck noticeable by the four large steel orbs mounted on it.

Not even thinking, she urged Unit-02 forward and grabbed the boat, bodily dragging the entire thing closer to the Angel, trying to ignore the shouts of its crew as they tumbled around the decks. With one arm, she lifted the ship's prow, aiming it towards the Angel, before stabbing at the foremost container with a finger.

Free of its pressurized containment, the nitrogen blasted forwards out of the hole, liberally spraying all over the Angel. The nitrogen boiled on contact with the air, quickly becoming clouds of gas, but still cold enough to freeze the Angel's ocean-soaked body. The Angel wailed as the ice took over its body once more, and still under assault of Schreiber's pylons it could not keep going, the light in its eyes fading to dormancy once again as ice enclosed its skull.

Asuka didn't waste time hanging around, as soon as the flow began to slow, she fell back, dragging the ship with her, before Unit-02 suffered the same fate. Already patches of ice were clinging to her armour.

Unit-02 fell down backwards, sitting in the chest-high water when Asuka stopped, panting heavily with exertion and excitement.

"We've got it, Asuka. Well done..." Kaji spoke after a moment. "Well done."

Several hours later, in a dark cavernous office atop NERV Japan's pyramid-like main building, Kozo Fuyutsuki strode across the sephirot embossed into the floor and dropped a computer tablet onto Gendo Ikari's desk. The younger man looked up at his old teacher, raising a quizzical eyebrow.

"Schreiber and Kaji just reported in," Fuyutsuki explained. "The Third is under containment."

Gendo nodded and pulled the tablet towards him, casting a perfunctory glance at the correspondence displayed. "Good," he said simply.

"Time to start preparing for the Fourth then?"

Gendo nodded again, then reached over to type something into a keypad built into his desk. There was a beep of acknowledgement followed by a hiss, then a small drawer opened at his side. It was mostly empty, but for a few documents, a dusty old photograph and a single envelope marked 'Shinji'. He pulled the envelope out, glancing at it for a second, then closed the drawer.

"You already know what to tell Akagi," he said smoothly, handing the envelope to Fuyutsuki. "Make sure that gets to Katsuragi... It's time my son faced his destiny."

A/N: And there we have it, the Prologue to Double Threat, a chapter that the orginal version never even had. To those who see this as being familiar, you may have read it over at the Spacebattles Forums, or the previous upload on this site. I used to have another account, but can no longer access it, so believe me when I say, this isn't a stolen fic! I am the original author!

This fic has been a labour of love for a number of years, though its still ongoing due to life and muse-abandonment. It's also taking longer as I've gone back to overhaul the older chapters to fit better with the story's direction and fix all my silly mistakes.

So, take this version as THE definitive version of the fic, hopefully fully proofread and satisfactory. I'll endeavour to keep this routinely updated as I clean up chapters, but remember, you can see the WIP version any time on SB.

Thanks for reading!

Manic.