AUTHOR'S NOTE: I was going to have the big fight with Sahaquiel in this chapter, but it started getting too long, so I'm splitting it into two chapters.

BTW, I do read and greatly appreciate the feedback. It's just hard for me to respond to anonymous/guest reviews.

Central Dogma, The Geofront

Tokyo-3, Japan

7 November 2016

Riana Arashikaze was the last into the girls' locker room, but she was already out of her school uniform shirt before she even crossed the door's threshold. Her skirt was off by the time she reached her locker, her shoes were kicked into the locker the moment she got it open, and her underwear was off before she even got to her socks. Rei and Asuka were still at the skirt stage. Asuka spared her a withering glance. "Somebody's excited."

"Heck yeah," Riana answered. She forced a grin on her face. In reality, she was not so much excited as she was nervous. Or scared. Or both. Riana was not sure. Her fingers shook as she peeled off her socks and tossed them into the pile of clothes that she then stuffed into the locker. She shut the locker, then remembered her plugsuit was still inside. Asuka rolled her eyes. "I guess you're making progress," she remarked dryly. "Used to be you'd go hide on the other side to change. Now you're just naked in front of both of us."

Riana rammed one leg and then the other into the plugsuit. "So? Rei doesn't care. Why should you?"

Asuka began to put on her own plugsuit, more slowly and methodically. "I guess you've lost all that convent training, Sister Riana. Vow of modesty and all that." Rei was still getting her underwear off and studiously ignoring both of them.

Riana pressed the button and the plugsuit hissed as it conformed to her skin. "Vow of chastity, Asuka. Vow of chastity."

"You would know all about that."

Riana threw her a nasty look. "And you wouldn't."

"And what the hell do you mean by that?" Asuka's plugsuit sealed itself with the same hiss.

"You and Shinji seem sweet on each other!" Riana could not stop herself. "One more minute in that access corridor and you two would've been fucking!" Cheeks burning, she spun on one heel and stalked out of the locker room, leaving a speechless Asuka in her wake. Rei glanced at Asuka, then resumed putting on her plugsuit.

Riana cursed herself as she went down the corridor towards the large briefing room. Why the hell did I lash out like that? Yeah, Asuka's been grumpy as hell today, but that's nothing new. She snapped at Rei, too. She'll probably rip Shinji's head off in the briefing. No reason for me to be bitchy too. Riana sighed. No, Riana, you know the damn reason. You're jealous.

Riana had spent most of the previous day brooding. The scene in the corridor haunted her: Shinji and Asuka, a second away from a kiss. If the power had not come on and interrupted them, they would have finished…unless Riana had interrupted them herself. She wished she had, on some level. The scene was a pleasant fantasy: she would rush into the corridor and shove them apart, and either slap Asuka for being a slut, or kiss Shinji herself. Riana almost convinced herself that she would have done exactly that, but then doubted it; she would have just hid behind the corner, or slunk off, Riana had thought morosely.

That brought up why she cared anyway. Shinji was no Adonis; Riana thought that Ryoji Kaji and even Toji Suzuhara were more attractive. Shinji was plain, with less muscle tone than Riana possessed. When viewed through that lens, romantic and erotic fantasies tended to fade. Logically, Riana decided that the only reason that she felt any attraction at all to Shinji Ikari was because she felt sorry for him and wanted to cheer him up, and that they worked together. Both reasons also applied to Rei, but Riana was not at all attracted to Rei. Pity was not the basis for a healthy relationship; even Riana, with her somewhat limited knowledge of the subject, knew that.

By the next morning, after tossing and turning most of the night, Riana came to a conclusion: she was jealous of Asuka, but only because Asuka seemed to get everything. She got the praise, she got the acclamation, she got every male in a fifty mile radius to stare at her, and now she'd even gotten Shinji. The hatred that Riana had felt for Asuka, which had been tamped down after the fight with Israfel, was back with a vengeance, and that was why she came into NERV today with a chip the size of a sequoia on her shoulder.

At least that was what Riana was telling herself by the time she reached the briefing room.

Misato was waiting when she got there. There was a map of Tokyo-3 on the floor. Misato glanced up as Riana walked in. "Konnichi wa."

"Yep," Riana replied mulishly in English, then mentally kicked herself. It was mission time; everything else had to be put aside. "Sorry, Misato-san," she said in Japanese. "Having a rough day."

"It's about to get rougher," Misato informed her. "Hello, Shinji." The boy walked into the briefing room. Riana could not bring herself to look at him. She wanted to yell at him, which was stupid. You're stupid! she yelled at herself instead, and Riana forced herself to meet Shinji's eyes. He hesitantly smiled. She turned away. Fuck. It was like being angry at a puppy.

Rei and Asuka arrived a moment later, and Asuka noticeably distanced herself from everyone. If Misato noticed the sudden tension in the room, she gave no hint of it. "We don't have a lot of time, so we'll make this quick," Misato began. She snapped on a projector. "This was taken from our space tracking station on Cocos Island less than an hour ago. Meet the newest Angel—Sahaquiel."

The object was a black sphere, crisscrossed by white eyelike shapes. Misato advanced the projector, and next was a video. It was obviously taken from a satellite, and showed the same dark sphere. As they watched, several small satellites closed in and fired missiles at the object. All detonated against the now familiar hexagonal pattern of an AT Field. "Those are N2 mines, used in sequence," Misato told them. "Remember we used just one N2 mine on Israfel and crippled it. Here we've used about fifteen of them, with the equivalent force of 350 kilotons each, and we didn't even slow it down."

Next she showed three images, also from satellites. All three showed coincentric circles, which expanded as the images advanced. "Looks like ripples," Riana remarked.

"That's because that's what they are. This thing is detaching parts of itself and dropping them. When they hit the ocean, they're going really fast—hypersonically fast, according to Rit—Dr. Akagi. Surf's going to be up the next few days, but it doesn't really matter, because the damn thing is ranging in on us." Misato pointed to the images. "It's correcting its error every time it comes around in orbit. The last hit was about a hundred kilometers from here. It's also steadily losing altitude with each orbit, so the next pass it's going to hit Tokyo-3."

"Can it hit us down here?" Shinji asked.

"Not with one of its pieces. So the next pass? It's probably going to drop its entire mass on top of us." Misato switched off the projector and pointed to the map. "Sahaquiel is about half a kilometer across, but when it drops straight down, it'll hit with the mass of a thirty-megaton nuclear bomb. Not only will that wipe out Tokyo-3, it'll gouge NERV right out of the ground."

Riana blanched. "And that's the ball game."

"Afraid so. Now of course, we have a plan." Misato used a pointer on the map, and labels showing EVA-00, 01, and 02 appeared in a triangle pattern. "Rei, you'll be on the north side, near the school. Shinji, you're in the east, near Hakone. Asuka, you've got the west, by Rei and Riana's apartment complex."

Riana suppressed a sigh. Reserve duty for me. Of course. Well…it was already a shitty day.

"Now, we don't have an exact impact point, so you're being spread out to cover the impact radius."

"The radius is this large?" Asuka exclaimed.

"Unfortunately. This is the best Magi can come up with. Once we confirm the exact impact point—when Sahaquiel starts its terminal dive—then all three Evas will converge on that point, with your AT Fields focused above you at maximum." Misato looked at them. "You're going to have to catch it."

"Catch it?" Asuka shrilled. "With what?"

"Your Evas have hands, right?" Misato shot back. "With your AT Fields projecting at full strength, like I said, you'll catch it."

"That's insane!"

"You have a better idea?" Misato asked. Asuka did not respond.

Riana raised a hand. "I have a feeling I know the answer to this, but where do I come in? Or do I?"

Misato smiled with gallows humor. "Oh, you do. Asuka, if you thought the rest of this plan is crazy, you haven't heard the best part." Misato raised her arms as the Evas would. "The problem is that all three Evas have to keep up their AT Fields. Sahaquiel is not only big, but hyperdense. Now your AT Fields should cancel out the Angel's AT Field, and that should provide an opening…for EVA-03A." Misato pointed the clicker again at the map. In the center of Tokyo-3, EVA-03A's label appeared. "After the other Evas have made the intercept, Riana, you will move immediately to them, get under the Angel, and stab upwards with a sonic glaive. You know what I'm talking about—Asuka used one against Israfel." No one felt like mentioning that the glaive had been ineffective. "Stab for the core. It should penetrate, and the Angel will be killed."

"What happens if it doesn't penetrate?" Riana asked.

"It will." Misato's smile remained.

"And what happens if Sahaquiel blows up, like Israfel did?" Asuka asked. "We'll be okay, but Sister Riana here is going to be toast—literally."

"Nothing to worry about," Misato assured them. "Your AT Fields should protect her, and we've upgraded EVA-03A's armor with a ceramic outer cover. It's designed to reflect heat. We ran the simulation and it worked just fine." Riana thought to herself that Misato was not a very good poker player.

"So let me get this straight," Asuka said. "For the record. We run out to where this thing is going to land, we catch it like a pop fly to deep center, use our AT Fields to keep it from hitting, and then Riana runs in and stabs it to death."

"Pretty much, yeah," Misato answered.

There was silence for a few moments as everyone processed it. "I love this plan!" Riana suddenly burst out. "I'm happy to be a part of it! When do we leave?"

"Ha ha," Misato snapped. "Like I told Asuka, if you have a better plan, now's the time."

"Misato," Asuka said, "if this works, you're buying us dinner. All of us. Even Sister Riana, assuming she's not in the burn ward."

"Sure."

"Steak dinner."

Misato nodded. "Got it. Steak. You got it." The advantage to that bet, Riana reflected inwardly, was that if the plan did not work, Misato would not have to buy anyone steak dinners, or anything else. I guess that will solve my relationship problems too. Win-win.

"Any questions?" Misato asked. There were none. "Okay then. We've got about 45 minutes to get in position, so let's get to it. Good luck."

"And may the Force be with you," Riana said under her breath.

EVA-00 was in a separate holding bay, so Rei did not ride with the three of them as they got on the elevator. The girl had said nothing since the four of them had arrived at NERV. To Riana, Rei's silence was unnerving. She could not figure out if Rei was contemptuous of the others, or simply had nothing to contribute to the conversation. Of course she would do whatever was ordered of her, without question; Riana wished she could be like Rei. It was very samurai.

Shinji's voice brought Riana out of her thoughts about Rei. "Asuka."

"What?"

Riana had a sudden, nauseous feeling that Shinji was going to say something romantic, but instead he asked, "Why do you do it? Why do you pilot an Eva?"

Asuka snorted. "To exhibit my talent to the world, of course." Riana rolled her eyes; Asuka even threw in a hair toss at the end of the sentence.

"You mean…to prove you exist?"

The sudden philosophy threw Asuka off for a moment, but only for a moment. "Yeah, something like that." She paused. "You ask Rei?"

"I've asked Ayanami before." Shinji did not elaborate on what Rei had told him.

Asuka smirked. "My, how…intimate the two of you are." She glanced sidelong at Riana, whose face turned red with suppressed, confused rage.

"It's not like that!" Shinji protested.

"Why do you pilot, Shinji?" Riana quickly asked, because it was obvious Asuka was about to bait her even more—and there was no question in Riana's mind that she would not be able to resist biting the lure.

The question took him off guard. Asuka switched her interest to him. "That's actually a good question, Shinji. Why do you pilot? You hate the Evas."

He hesitated, then replied, "I…I don't know."

"You don't know?" Asuka giggled. "What are you, stupid?"

Shinji looked at the floor. "Maybe I am."

"You really are." Asuka turned to Riana. "I guess that leaves you, Sister Riana. Why do you pilot an Eva—sort of one, anyway?"

"Me?" Riana laughed. "I'm just a girl who's a heroine for fun."

Asuka shook her head as they reached the Eva bay. "Yeah, well…you'd better be One Punch Girl today, Riana. Because if you're not, we're all dead."