Buff! Finally done. This one was a difficult chapter to write.

Well, this is the first time I've written an Evangelion battle, I wish it's well done and it's not too lame or confusing.

Well, that's all from me; I hope you like it.

7-NABERIUS (II)

Misato gulped, her gaze fixed in the big screen showing the ruined battlefield, the two knocked Eva units and the horrible figure of the blood-soaked Unit-01, little clouds of steam floating from its mouth, dripping blood and guts. Unit-02 was at a little distance, ready to jump and immobilize it

"Pilots of units 04 and 05 alive but unconscious, Mayor"

"I see…" Misato answered slowly "Asuka, recover Unit-04 first…"

Asuka didn't answer, but her Eva started to move and grabbed the crippled Unit-04. A soft moan could be heard form Toji's microphone. Misato gulped.

"Shinji?" she asked softly "Are you okay?"

She only heard the sound of vomiting and a soft 'thud'. She also heard heavy breathing.

"I feel sick…" Shinji whispered.


Shinji stormed out of his room shoeless and with only his shorts and sleeping t-shirt, to be greeted by his fellow pilots in the hallway. From the door right next to him, Toji and Hikari emerged, the first wearing only a pair of shorts and Hikari a t-shirt that obviously wasn't hers. It looked like they had been busy when the alarms went off, judging by their expressions. Kensuke appeared in front of him, in a horrible checked pyjama, just as Mari appeared from the back of the hallway in a green pyjama, tying her hair up. Asuka appeared the last, putting her neural clips on, with a shirt and really short shorts. Shinji pushed the last thought to the back on his head.

"Come on" Asuka said "It's time for us to earn our salary"

The oddly clothed pilots followed the Lieutenant, bypassing Nerv operators who were shouting contradictory orders in an odd mixture of German, English and Japanese. Shinji frowned, since he knew the only thing that could cause such chaos to invade a Nerv post. When he was about to open his mouth to say what everybody knew, they were approached by Misato, a serious and determined look in her face that only confirmed Shinji's suspicion.

"The target is here" she said, tossing them a bunch of colourful clothes. They were six plug-suits "Get changed. Now. We launch in five minutes"

With that said, she hurriedly left for the control room. Asuka looked at them at opened a door. It was a maintenance room, but it would do.

"Girls inside. Boys outside. Now" she ordered. The pilots obeyed. They weren't kids anymore, and the situation wasn't one to ponder in public nudity. As Shinji hurriedly put on his suit, he could hear his friends breathing. Kensuke's was hurried and short, and Shinji feared he would start to hyperventilate. Toji's was deliberately calm and slow. Too artificial. He knew Toji himself was trying to collect himself and cast away the dreadful thoughts, out of fear of cracking up. Then Shinji realized that, even if technically Kensuke and Toji had been training longer than him, it was the first time they were facing an Angel.

"It's alright" he simply said, pressing the left wrist button that made the plug-suit tighten around his body. He did not add anything else. He didn't know what else to say, and if he insisted it would have been humiliating for his fellow pilots. Just as Kensuke pressed the button, the door opened and Asuka and the others left the room.

"Let's go" the redhead said.

As Shinji followed her at a steady pace, he was kind of surprised of the calmness that he felt. He then thought that it had always been the same. With the exception of his first time, he always had entered the battle with the same cold indifference. It was when bullets started flying, and knifes were pulled, and beams were shot, and blood was spilled that he entered a state of primal fear. Misato had always praised him as a pilot, but she didn't know that all his rage, all his strength and everything he did in an Eva was fuelled by fear. By the absolute certainty that he was going to die, as well as everything he held dear.

When the six pilots reached the plug area, Shinji eyed Asuka as she barked orders here and there, and frowned. Now was not the time. Everything was too fast, too hurried and definitely too wrong. He still marvelled at how he managed to screw everything up. He shook his head and entered the plug. Now's not the time, he repeated himself. He waited to the plug to be filled with the LCL to take a deep breath to make the liquid fill his lungs. He no longer hated the sensation, but he got that feeling again. He felt that he was too close to the Eva. Dangerously close. Like it could swallow him whole.

"Okay" said Misato's voice "Unit-01 and Unit-02 will be the first one to go. They are to engage the target in close quarters. Unit-04 and Unit-05 will follow them at little distance, to provide cover with long range weapons. Unit-06 and Unit-07 are to be in stand by. Any questions?"

"Yes" Toji said "Why the hell is that thing here already? We were supposed to have a few more days!"

"We don't know" Misato said "The target suddenly disappeared and reappeared in the beach. Just like that"

"Have we confirmed that it is an Angel?" Asuka asked. Shinji could feel the doubt in Misato's voice.

"Not really" she confessed "The wave pattern exam isn't conclusive, yet"

"I don't think it matters" Mari interrupted "We just have to go and kill it, Angel or not"

"And how do you propose we do that?" Asuka growled "If it's not an Angel it'll have no core"

"We tear it to shreds" Mari answered as if it was obvious "Angel or not, that is bound to damage it a bit"

Shinji groaned as he heard Asuka's rant at how Mari was an idiot, and she was a higher rank officer, and that Mari should put her tongue up her own butt since she knew nothing and not argue with her. Asuka's angry row could have continued for a bit, but the enormous gate connecting the Eva with the outside world opened. Shinji grabbed the gigantic pistol that was in the right side of his Eva and from the corner of his eye he saw Asuka taking a massive halberd.

"Release the Evas!" Misato's voice ordered. As Shinji felt the umbilical cord get loose and saw the timer of the internal battery starting to go down. Three hours before the S² engine started running. Three hours until he was alone.

He started running towards the beach.


"Holy shit…" Toji whispered in awe. Shinji agreed but didn't say anything. He had seen quite a bit of giant monsters, but this was just ridiculous. The massive black sphere had a diameter at least six times taller than an Eva. And, as they approached, it kept getting bigger and bigger.

"Am I the only one with a bad feeling about this?" Toji whimpered.

"Quit being such a wuss!" Asuka barked "You're not the one supposed to stab this thing!"

Oh, right; Shinji thought. That was their job. Asuka's and his, that is. Peachy.

As the Eva approached, the Angel seemed to start trembling. Given his experience with Angels, that monster was neither scared nor cold. He was probably going to launch some massive attack. They always did.

Shinji saw Unit-02 start turning to the left.

"You go right!" she ordered "Units 04 and 05, cover us!"

Shinji turned right grabbing his pistol, as a hail of bullets made their way to the Angel. The creature made no move with the exception of its trembling. The car-sized bullets impacted against him, but made no damage. On the contrary, the black sphere seemed to swallow them in its black surface.

Shinji raised his weapon and shot once, and the bullet didn't even explode or make any kind of smoke on the target. It was like that thing had eaten it.

"Misato!" he said "What the hell is going on?!"

"We don't know!" she responded "Cease fire! Asuka, get away from it!"

Asuka broke her charge. She hated it, but Misato was probably right.

"Is it an AT-Field?" Asuka asked.

"No" was the answer "No At-Filed has been deployed. He's just swallowing everything, like that time with the twelfth Angel"

Shinji shuddered. The memory of that experience was not a pleasant one.

"So, what do we do?" Asuka asked "We bomb it with N² mines?"

"We can't" Misato answered "We're too close to a highly populated city"

"What if we use our…" Asuka started, before a loud shriek interrupted her. It was a deafening noise, that pierced the eardrums of the Evangelion pilots.

"Why do you hunt us?"

Shinji's head snapped at the voice.

"What?" he asked.

"Shinji?"

"Why do you seek our demise?"

Shinji frowned. He had never heard that voice before, but it felt awfully familiar.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"Shinji, what are you talking about?" Misato screamed, trying to be heard above the horrible shriek.

"We are not you enemy, Bringer" the voice insisted "Why do you attack us?"

"Who are you?!" Shinji screamed. He was starting to fell sick. His head was spinning, his stomach was turned and that shriek was piercing his ears.

"We are your family. Why do you hate us?"

"Shinji what's wrong?!" Misato screamed worriedly. In front of her, the wave patterns of Shinji's brain were dancing erratically, as the operators searched for any kind of contamination or attack. And then it stopped. The shriek got silent suddenly, and the Angel stopped trembling. Shinji's wave pattern stabilized and everything went normal again.

And then the giant black sphere gave birth.


Toji gasped at the sight. A small crack appeared in the lower part of the black sphere, rapidly increasing in size, until it rounded up completely the Angel. With a faint noise, it cracked open like an egg. A flood of mixed LCL and blood fell on the floor, as the two part of the sphere shrunk and imploded. And then, it opened it eyes, rising above the primal liquid that gave birth to him. A four-legged creature, twice the size of an Evangelion, with scaled grey skin and head fused with the body, a strange mask covering its face. A big dark-red sphere glowed faintly in his stomach, as strange tentacle-looking hair grew on its back. The unholy creature looked around, eyeing the four Evas around him. And then, Naberius roared.

Like the unnatural roar had woken him from a dream, Toji snapped to movement. He jumped back and aimed the minigun at the Angel, firing a hail of bullets in its direction. On the other side of the monster, Mari, wielding a sniper rifle as long as tall was her Eva, kept shooting and recharging. This time, however a geometric light shield appeared in both fronts of the Angel, protecting it from harm.

"AT-Field deployed, ma'am!" an operator exclaimed.

"What about the wave pattern confirmation?!" Misato asked, only to be met with a shook of the head.

"Still inconclusive, ma'am!"

Misato frowned. What the hell was going on? Her eyes were fixed in the giant screen depicting the battle. She couldn't see Fuyutsuki's smile.


Shinji growled as he rolled on the floor, taking a shoot at the Angel, only to see the bullet get deflected by its AT-Field. He saw Asuka jumping to avoid the tentacles and searching an opening to strike it with her halberd.

"Stupid tentacles…" came Asuka's faltering voice.

Shinji jumped to his side, as one of the appendages dug itself in the floor where he had been standing a second ago.

"At least there are no crosses this time" Shinji grinned. He heard the muffled laugh of the redhead on the other side of the line.

"Mari!" Asuka shouted "I need to get close to this thing! Cover me!"

Shinji could actually feel the grin in the dark haired girl.

"Roger" she said.

"Shinji, keep those thing out of me! I'm charging!" Asuka ordered "Toji, keep it distracted!"

Shinji nodded and jumped to Unit-02's side. Instantly, a rain of tentacles came to them, until Mira started shooting them out of the way. Shinji did the same, shooting his pistol, to make way for Asuka, who danced among the appendages gracefully. When she arrived at the Angel and raised her weapon, however, Naberius moved.

Jumping higher than a creature with its size and weight should, it avoided the strike, landing near Mari. The girl tried to jump back, but the Angel caught her with its tentacles and pinned her down. One of the appendages wounded itself around her neck, starting to strangle her. Shinji could her Mari's gasps for air.

"Get it off her!" Asuka shouted, jumping to the Angel. Toji fired at it again as Shinji dashed towards it.

With a growl, Naberius lifted Unit-05 up, throwing it across the battlefield. The Evangelion described a wide parabola and fell heavily on the ground, shaking the soil, and raising a cloud of dust and dirt. It stayed motionless.

"Give me the status of the pilot!" Misato roared.

"She's alive, ma'am" Unit-05 operator said "Unconscious, and the left arm is damaged, but she's alive"

"Toji!" Misato screamed at the micro "Recover Mari! Asuka, Shinji, cover him!"

Before the two pilots could answer, however, the Angel turned around, eyeing Toji. Shinji charged the Angel, but its AT-Field appeared out of nowhere, knocking him to the ground. Shinji groaned. Were AT-Fields supposed to do that?

Unit-02 dashed past him, but wasn't able to get past the forest of tentacles that surrounded the Angel.

Then, Naberius jumped. Shinji could hear Toji's scream as he emptied the ammunition of his weapon on the creature, to no avail. The Angel landed in front of him, tackling him to the ground. Almost in slow motion, he saw the Angel round the arms of Unit-04 and twist them in an unnatural angle. He heard Toji's pain screams, which ended abruptly with a horrifying snap, leaving Unit-04 with two useless arms. As Asuka tried to get near the monster and shouted things he couldn't hear, Shinji saw the Angle opening a horrible mouth were its neck should be. It was an enormous black hole, full of sword-sharp teeth. It leaned towards Unit-04, as it moved its legs in a fruitless attempt to free itself.

And then Shinji realized Toji was going to die. Just like that. Just like the last time he needed him. He needed Shinji once, and he failed him, just like he was going to fail again. Because he was powerless. He was useless. And he wouldn't even try. He would just stay lying down on the floor, and do nothing just like last time. And he could accept it.

So he screamed. He shouted like he had never done in his life, a pained, sorrowful scream.

And he screamed, because he couldn't accept it, he screamed because he couldn't take it.

He screamed as he got up, unable to hear the Misato's panicked voice in his ear, and Asuka's words. He screamed, and the earth beneath him moaned in response.

And he dashed, still screamed. He shouted, a long pained scream as he run, and he was scared. He was scared, and angry, and sad. And the anger filled his brain, and his body, and his soul. And as the anger and the hate filled him whole he could only think one thing.

Kill. Kill everything in you path. Smash everything in your way. Destroy everything and everyone that pains and scares you. He will die if you don't. And the she will die, because you're useless.

And as he shouted, he could only hear Asuka's giggly in the back of his head, and she leaned towards him.

"Grow some balls already, Shinji" she said.

And Shinji roared. He roared at the world he despised and loved, and at the people he cared about. He roared because he was the beast. He roared because if he didn't everybody would die.

And Evangelion Unit-01 roared with him.