Unit 00's foot loomed over them, and Asuka glared up at it, because even that blue-haired doll wasn't stupid enough to believe that this baby was an angel, was she?

Yet the foot descended towards them, and even as Asuka grabbed Kaworu tighter, trying to figure out which way to run, two things happened.

The descending foot hit a wall of solid light. As it scrabbled there, Unit 01 body-slammed it.

Asuka could almost hear Shinji demanding to know what his father was thinking, telling his doll to kill not just this idiot but the best pilot they had… except her sync ratio…

Her blue eyes unfocused as she fought to keep herself from falling into the abyss. Yes, that was right, she could open her heart to the Eva, that would make her strong. If Kaworu was trained to be a pilot (unlike Shinji) then he should know what he was talking about even if he was a little kid, right?

"Asuka!" Shinji's voice boomed from the speakers as Unit 01 fell to its knees and one hand, braced over them protectively. "Are you alright?"

"Of course, why wouldn't I be?" she demanded. "He's the crybaby, not me!" (Asuka was strong, Asuka wasn't someone who begged for someone to save her.) "What were those idiots thinking, letting him be a pilot candidate? Is he an idiot savant or something? He may be my half-brother but he's mentally what, five?" Kaworu was clinging to her, looking up at the Eva.

"Asuka, he's an angel!" Shinji said. "You have to get away from him before he kills you! If that other one tampered with your mind, then who knows what he's done!"

Who the hell did Shinji think he was, giving her orders? "Not you too… But then, you're both idiots!" She pointed at Kaworu, who was hiding against her now, arms wrapped around her and gripping the back of her plugsuit for dear life. "You know what angels look like: how could anyone mistake this idiot for an angel?"

"It could have taken him over, like…" Like what happened to Touji. She could picture Shinji cringing as he thought of it.

"How are you supposed to fit a core into this?" Asuka demanded, jabbing a finger into Kaworu's side. "He's way too thin!" On general principles, forget core-hiding ones.

"I don't know, but he generated an AT field, Asuka! He took you out of your Eva, and then killed the angel."

Asuka's eyes narrowed and she jabbed Kaworu in the side again. "You took me out of my Eva?" And stole her kill, she almost said, but her mind shied away from the thought of that angel.

"That woman wasn't protecting you," Kaworu said, looking angry but not at her. "Evas are made from Adam to be servants of the Lilim, right? So I'm just as good as that Eva!"

"How am I supposed to pilot you? You're too small," she said, half with aggravation and half not because he was a child so it wasn't quite his fault he was an idiot. It was almost endearing, that he wanted to be her Eva and help his (big) sister fight, but, "Idiots like you shouldn't be allowed on a battlefield any more than Shinji should."

His white hair was surprisingly soft for something that could stick up on its own like that, without any gel. Oh, right, this was what they called 'idiot hair.' That explained it.

There was a soft, quiet happy sound when she patted his head, and maybe having him as a little brother would be something like having a pet? Only it would be easier to train him to fetch stuff for her than Pen Pen, she was sure of it. She'd have to be nicer to him than Shinji, but Kaworu was clearly retarded or something: what was Shinji's excuse?

"I could try to become Eva-sized… I've never tried to change before, though. The old men wouldn't let me. I'd be a much better Eva for you than that woman."

Asuka patted him on the head again, because he was talking nonsense and it was cute but he should shut up, even though when Asuka was just talking to stupid Shinji it didn't count as 'the adults are talking.'

"You should have a better Eva than that woman, sister! She didn't protect you at all!" Kaworu said, outraged.

This was not the time for little boy fantasies about turning into giant robots. "I don't need anyone to protect me," Asuka reminded him. "You're the one talking about perverted old men sending assassins after you!"

"I won't let you do to Asuka what that angel did to Touji!" Shinji ordered Asuka to, "Get away from him!"

Even though the dummy plug was activated because Shinji refused to fight and try to rescue Touji, so wasn't it the idiot's own damn fault? It was because he was a coward who couldn't take risks, who knew he shouldn't be trusted with a single person's life, forget the world's, that Touji was dead.

Asuka just glared as Shinji drew back his fist, knowing he didn't have the courage to do it, but, "Don't threaten my sister!" Kaworu said angrily.

Shinji had the courage to strike… only after the AT field was in the way making sure that strike wouldn't do anything, not with such a puny will behind it. Asuka was unimpressed: for Gott's sake, who let the Commander make this idiot a pilot?

"There, you see?" Kaworu said, turning to her and breathing a little hard, panic and fear in those red eyes despite his attempt to look like a boastful little boy who wasn't afraid of anything. "I am an angel!"

"So what?" she said, taking a step back only to put her hands on her hips. Then she grabbed his ear and gave it a harsh tug, twisting a little. "Are you trying to get me to take you seriously or something? Don't make me laugh!" she told him. "Unless you're me, a little kid is a little kid! Don't act like you having an AT field is going to make me change my mind about anything: I'm the pilot of Unit 02! There's no AT field that can stop me from doing whatever I want! And that doll is a hundred times creepier than you'll ever be…" Wait a minute. If Kaworu was one, when he at least acted human, and they looked so much alike then "Rei's an angel?"

"What?" Was Shinji's so-intelligent comment.

Kaworu nodded, peering up at her out of a corner of one red eye since she was still holding his head at an uncomfortable angle. "She's like me."

"I knew it! I knew something was up with that doll!" Asuka crowed. "You're a lot more human than she'll ever be, so if you're an angel, something that creepy and inhuman had to be. So you're half-angel, since you were made with human genes, and she's a real angel?"

"She contains Lilith's soul," Kaworu said. "She's half-Lilim too, but her Lilim genes are really evil genes. From Lorenz Keel – he's the boss of the old men – his daughter. And he said that his daughter was even more evil than all Lilim are, since she wanted to kill all the Lilim so she could become a god herself. I don't get how that's any different from what the old men want to happen, though. Instrumentality is just really stupid."

"And if you think so…" That was an expert opinion on stupid things. "Anyway, if you've got an AT field, then what was that about assassins trying to kill you? Since when are there angel hit squads?" Asuka pulled hard on his ear again.

"The old men have people killed a lot, so they'll kill me if I'm disobedient and don't go find Lilith and cause Third Impact. Oh! After Armisael," Kaworu remembered. "Armisael's coming already, though, so I don't have much time left."

"So how is this hit squad supposed to get through an AT field?" was what Asuka wanted to know. "So the perverts who made you have angel-fighting tech that NERV doesn't have?"

"Um, there's the replica lances? And they're making a bunch more Evas with dummy plugs."

"So they were going to send 'a bunch of Evas' after you for not wiping out the human race?"

Kaworu blinked at her, still not getting the point but looking properly chastised and wanting her to know that he was trying to figure out what she wanted? "They usually have the guards kill people who aren't obedient."

"Do these guards have AT fields like you?"

"Well, all Lilim have AT fields, but they've only got weak ones like you and the rest of the Lilim."

"What the heck is a Li-Never mind. You mean human, right? What the hell were you worried about a bunch of regular humans for if you've got an AT field? You're worse than Shinji! You're my brother, and you were going to let weaklings kill you? Stop being so stupid!" she said, and shook him. "You are not allowed to die, understand… Oh for… And now he's crying again," she said, letting go of Kaworu's ear and looking up at Shinji only because there wasn't anyone else around to share her disgust.

"Asuka, there's another angel coming! You need to let me kill that one and get to a shelter before they join forces!"

"Another one?" Wasn't this a little ridiculous?

"Armisael," Kaworu said, and she remembered he'd said that name a little while ago. "Then me, and then it's the Lilim's turn to be the ones to cause Third Impact. The old men will do it themselves if I don't do it for them."

"He's telling lies! Rei's not an angel!" Shinji sounded about ready to howl from frustration: well, now he knew how she felt, dealing with him and now Kaworu. "Don't listen to him, Asuka! You have to… If the dummy plug was working my father would already have activated it! I don't want you to die like Touji!" Killed in order to kill the angel.

She ignored him. "So, if you're an angel, with an AT field, and my brother, then you can kill this angel?"

Kaworu looked thoughtful, then nodded. "I'm a lot stronger than she is."

"I should damn well hope so! So go do that, since it would take too long for me to get back to NERV and get in my Eva," with these idiots arguing with her about her brother, "and there's no way this idiot and the angel doll can beat it themselves. Don't embarrass me! You're my brother, so if you screw up, it will make me look bad," she said.

"…Will you watch?" he asked hopefully. "I watched your battles and simulation training…"

"Sure, that's fair." This way she could tell him what he did wrong, too.

The boy perked up instantly and practically tackled her, wrapping his arms around her and picking her up. She would have hit him and asked what the hell he thought he was doing if he wasn't flying. Obviously going towards the angel, then.

Shinji jogged after them.

"What's that?"

"Armisael is an encroachment type: she's taking over Rei's Eva," Kaworu said, looking around.

"Put me down by Shinji's entry plug," she told him.

"But he didn't care that Arael was hurting you!" Kaworu said, startled and angry on her behalf. "He wanted me to stop shielding you so Arael could hurt you more! He didn't really care about what happened to you or the cat! He's, he's just like the old men!"

"That's not… he's the one who killed the cat!"

"The cat was hurting!" Kaworu said, glaring around Asuka at Shinji. "You were just going to leave it there to suffer and die anyway! It was hungry and alone and you didn't care! You selfish, you, you Lilim! You don't care about anything but yourself and what's convenient for you!"

"Hey!" Asuka said. "While you two idiots are arguing, that useless doll is getting her ass kicked! One of you do something before she ends up like Touji, Shinji!" because the angel was putting itself into Rei's Eva, and might take it over around her.

"You'd better not hurt my sister!" Kaworu told Shinji, then threw Asuka onto Unit 01's shoulder and took off.

Asuka managed to land and get to her feet, of course, but just throwing people around… Well, he did know that she was Asuka: it probably hadn't even occurred to him that she might not be fine if she was thrown onto an Eva. And clearly Rei needed the help a lot more than Asuka needed to be treated like a china doll. Even when Shinji stumbled as Kaworu disarmed him, taking the prog knife and wrapping it in the same glow he was using to float through the air.

Some of Armisael's white helix extensions whipped through the air towards him, but he just blocked them with his AT field and seemed to be peering at her, trying to figure out where the core was.

Then he paused, and took on a thoughtful pose, and, "What does he think he's doing?" Asuka demanded when one of the tendrils lashed through the space that used to be protected by his AT field to hit Kaworu. It was possible this was some clever angel power tactic, taking it over like other angels took over Evas, but this was Kaworu.

Or maybe he wasn't just being stupid, since the angel withdrew itself from Unit 00 as lightning-quick as when it snapped out to ensnare Kaworu, its mass rushing towards him instead and coalescing in a glowing oval in front of him.

Then Kaworu flew back towards her carrying something that looked like Rei and crowed, "I got another sister!"