SEELE had nearly succeeded, third impact seemed a success and all human souls had been together in what the organization would have called perfection. Yet the god they had created had bowed to the wishes of Gendo's son! Gendo had always had his own agenda, that in the end had come back to ruin everything they had all worked for.

Keel Lorenz sat in his cell; it was not an uncomfortable cell, just frustrating to remain in. He had been put here after rematerializing on the shores of Japan. According to what little information he was allowed, he was one of the last to return from instrumentality. He would not be killed, that he knew. He would be kept around as long as possible so that he could provide information to whatever organization had replaced Nerv. They hadn't even allowed him their name.

"Lorenz."

The elderly man lifted his head to look for the voice that had softly called his name but could not see anything in the cell with him.

"W-who's there?!" he barely managed to choke the words out.

"It's time."

Lorenz looked around frantically now. The voice had been soft yet had a finality to it: he could not misunderstand it's meaning.

"But I haven't told you everything yet!"

A tinkling laugh filled the room

"And now you never will."

"Containment Facility 06 is under attack! Unknown lifeform has infiltrated the defenses, scans are detecting blood type blue, I repeat bl... yp... ue..."

Static filled the com as the command center stopped for a moment. Nobody knew how to react.

"Prepare units A and D for launch. I want them at the scene five minutes ago."

The Commander's voice echoed through the near silent room, causing everyone to suddenly burst into action. He put his hands in front of his face with his fingers intertwined, unconsciously mirroring the authority of his father.

Grace hadn't been flying in quite some time. It was refreshing to feel the wind under her wings and rushing across her face. The monstrous golden body, that she had come to accept as an extension of herself, flew quickly to the location of the attack. There was another flying beside her. This one a gunmetal gray with large cannons attached to it. She would never understand Kensuke's obsession with large guns: the progressive sword was much more effective. She was brought back to reality a moment later as a face appeared on a holographic screen beside her.

"Grace. Your orders are simple. You are to engage the enemy only after allowing Kensuke to determine its defensive capabilities. Disable it quickly. Failure is not an option."

"Understood Commander," She smiled wide, "I'll bring you back a souvenir okay?"

Kensuke chimed in too, "Yeah, I'm not sure you're gonna have to go in at all Grace. I'm gonna blow this thing out of the sky! Isn't that right old timer?"

The Commander let out a sigh "Just follow the orders and everything will go as planned."

The Commander's face disappeared, being replaced by the face of Kensuke, he had a lot of bravado considering he'd never been in anything but simulations before. Grace hadn't fought an Angel either, but she had been tasked with defending CREED from the USC during their religious crusades.

"Hey Grace, we're getting close now. I'm picking up a strong AT field. I'm gonna gain some altitude and see if I can't get the drop on them."

His warmachine flew up higher and readied it's cannons.

"Grace, are you seeing this?" They had entered the area around the holding facility and the buildings were too high to see over. She went up a little higher to get a look and saw what appeared to be an enormous flock of birds surrounding a very large core. The core was just like the videos from the Commander's old fights, blood red and perfectly spherical.

"Kensuke, get down!"

Grace dropped altitude to behind the building when the birds, which were the size of cars and looked like winged jaws, flew at the two giant cyborgs at incredible speed. Kensuke just barely got out of the way before the flock essentially took the tops right off the buildings they now hid behind.

"The buildings won't give me a clear shot from here, I've got to make a run for the main street if I want to even hit this thing."

Kensuke retracted his wings and broke off at a sprint, quickly making his way to the large street. He planted his feet to stop the run and prepared to fire, but just before he got around the corner a group the birdlike creatures blocked him and began flying quickly towards him. Kensuke fired off a few shots of his cannon. It didn't seem like these things had AT fields at all yet somehow they managed to fly right through his and began biting at the armored plates of his EVA.

Grace was running before she knew it. She had prepped the sword and unit A was going full tilt at the flock surrounding Kensuke. Her unit A had long ago been nicknamed Arthur by the repair and regeneration crews. The golden and knightly look of it, coupled with Grace's skill with the sword made it a natural fit. She took a few swings into the flock, thinking she must have cleaved through at least a dozen of the things before they began to withdraw. By the time she had them off of him, Kensuke was a wreck,. Most of his armor had been torn off and he had retreated to the fetal position save for the one leg he had now lost movement in.

"Come on stupid, don't make me drag you home!" She stood up and readied herself for another attack.

"PIlots. Retreat immediately. Units B and C will cover your retreat."

"Yes sir!"

Grace picked up Kensuke in his gigantic war machine and took to the wing, though she couldn't risk going too high with him. Who knew how much more he could take.

"Tell me what went wrong Hikari."

Hikari looked up at the commander.

"I don't know yet… We didn't pick up any readings of those… Birds or whatever they were."

She scratched her head. Nowhere in the combat footage of other Angels did they show abilities like this. But then again that was to be expected, no two Angels were alike.

"Well I need information soon. I'm not sending pilots against it when we can't even figure that out."

The commander pushed his glasses up in a way that made them shine eerily.

"Did the N2 missiles have any effect?"

"No sir. They were intercepted by the flocks long before arrival."

The chief of operations walked into the command center. He had been consulting with the Magi about using the positron rifle to hit the core from exceedingly long range.

"They say that it could work… But there isn't as much energy available close by as there was in Japan… We would need a lot of set up. They calculate three days worth."

Toji was still pretty new at this job, only getting the promotion two months back. This level of responsibility had him worried to the point of breaking a sweat.

"Thank you Toji. I-"

The commander stopped halfway through his sentence as he watched the screen. Everyone else did the same. It looked as though the Angel was gone. Vanished as suddenly as it had appeared. And with it had gone the entire Containment Facility.