Asuka, Rei, and Shinji all aimed their positron rifles at the protruding hand.
"Wait!" said Misato, "until it emerges completely, so you have a better shot. Then try to find its core and aim for that."
The EVA pilots tensed up and prepared to aim. The lava began to pool around the jet and oozed down the floor. It hissed as it entered the lake of LCL and turned the Angel blood to steam. Orange fog began to fill the air. The pilots had to adjust their EVA's visual filters to see through it.
Then the center of the lava began to roil. The Angel emerged again, this time leaping bodily out of the lava. The positron rifles roared and three bolts of energy raced towards the Angel. Rei's bolt missed entirely, Asuka's just clipped the creature's tail. Shinji's hit it in the dead center of its mass. The Angel let out a moan as it twisted and fell back into the lava.
"Did you see that!" said Shinji, "It looked like a big lobster!"
"It was an Anomalocaris!" said Asuka.
"What?" said Shinji.
"Some big prehistoric crustacean. I took a paleontology class in college in Germany. It looked like that, except its hands were like a person's."
"They were really spiky," said Shinji.
"It had no legs," said Rei.
Shini and Asuka glanced back at her.
"It had no legs, how will it come out of the lava," said Rei.
"Rei has a good point," said Misato, "we have an image of the Angel freeze-framed up here and it doesn't appear to have any legs."
"Then how will it get out of the lava?" asked Asuka.
"Maybe it won't," said Fuyutski, "Maybe it just jumped up now to look around. Maybe it's going to just wait until the entire complex fills with lava and swim upward."
But then they no longer needed to speculate on what the Angel planned to do. They heard the loud moaning again and then the sensors beeped indicating that they had detected an AT Field. At the same time the fountain of lava changed direction. It tightened into a jet and tilted horizontally, shooting a concentrated blast of lava at the EVAs.
Fortunately it was Unit 02 that was hit by the jet. The blast melted its positron rifle and knocked it back, but the D-Type equipment was designed to take a lot more pounding than that.
"Shinji, Rei, get behind Asuka!" said Misato. "Your armor might not be able to take it if it aims the blast at you."
"Hey, you're just going to let it keep blasting me!" said Asuka.
"Your EVA is the only one that can handle it!" said Misato.
The jet suddenly tightened again. This increased its strength until Unit 02 staggered under the high pressure blast of lava hammering against it. The lava that bounced off of its armor splashed around the cave and pooled at Unit 02's feet. Shinji reached forward with Unit 01 and steadied Asuka so she wouldn't fall over.
"Aim your positron rifles at the jet's source!" said Misato. Rei and Shinji complied and the bolts of energy lanced out once more. The jet suddenly wavered and then cut off completely. They heard the whale-like moan again.
"It didn't seem to like that," said Misato. "Try a random firing pattern into the pool, maybe you'll hit it again. Shinji and Rei began to shoot, but nothing happened. They didn't hear anything and the lava fountain had again become vertical and unfocused.
Scraaaaack-aaack.
"I heard something again!" said Shinji as the ground cracked under Unit 01.
"Ikari look out!" said Rei.
Shinji jumped as one of the huge spiny hands, easily as big as his EVA's entire torso, smashed out of the ground underneath him. The spiny fingers wrapped around Unit 01's right leg and dragged it down into the lava.
"Shinji!" screamed Misato and Asuka.
"Ikari" shouted Rei.
Asuka rushed as quickly as she could to save her teammate. Unit 02 leapt into the hole in the floor from which the Angel had emerged. Unfortunately, lava is much denser than water, so Asuka sank very slowly into the molten rock. She kicked impatiently to accelerate her descent.
"Stop Ayanami!" shouted Misato. Rei had just been about to follow Asuka. "Your armor won't be able to take it."
"Ikari's is incapable of withstanding it as well," said Ayanami.
"You won't be able to help him," said Ritsuko, "Your EVA will barely be able to move, let alone fight."
"Asuka, come in," said Misato.
"I read you," said Asuka, "this damned lava is too murky." Her voice sounded slightly panicked.
"The magma hasn't eaten through his umbilical yet," said Ritsuko. "Judging from its readings he's about a hundred meters to your left and twenty meters below you."
Asuka swam through the thick magma. It wasn't like swimming through water. The magma was more like some kind of thick gelatin. Luckily it was pahoehoe type magma rather than a'a type or she probably wouldn't be able to move through it at all.
Asuka finally spotted Shinji. Unit 01 was struggling with the Angel, punching it with one arm while using the other to fend off the Angel's talons. The Angel was attempting to slash at Unit 01 with one arm while it still held Unit 01's leg with the other. The punches didn't seem to be hurting the Angel at all.
Asuka came up from behind the Angel and speared it in the back with her sonic glaive. The glaive bounced off of Unit -01's back with a clang. The Angel turned and swiped at Unit 02 with its free claw. Asuka parried with the glaive and the two combatants pushed each other apart.
Asuka could see that Unit 01's armor was starting to melt off. She kicked towards the Angel and swung her glaive at the arm that held Unit 01. The glaive again bounced off with no effect. Asuka drew her progressive knife with her EVAs other arm and parried another swipe of the Angel's claws.
"Asuka," said Ritsuko, "the heat has crystallized its body structure, you'll never be able to damage it with your blade weapons."
"I understand," said Asuka, "sorry Shinji." She swung her glaive and lopped off Unit 01's leg at the knee. Free from the Angel's grasp, it began to float limply upwards. Its body was less dense than the magma. Shinji had lost consciousness.
Asuka tried to grab Unit 01 to return to the surface, but the Angel now turned both of its huge, spiny hands on her. She managed to block the first strike with her knife and glaive, but was unable to move to help Shinji.
As the magma finished eating through one of the armor plates on Unit 01 and touched the mighty cyborg's bare skin its eyes glowed and Unit 01 suddenly became alive again. It swam for the surface of the lava at a terrific speed.
"Did you see that?" asked Asuka.
"Yes," said Misato, "Rei, look for Unit 01 emerging and help it."
"I think it went berserk," said Ritsuko.
"We're hauling you up Asuka," said Misato. "We need to come up with a new strategy."
"Schiest," said Asuka as the Angel swung one of its arms and sliced through the armor on her leg. "Go ahead."
The cranes began to haul Unit 02 back towards the surface. The Angel followed, swinging its claws. Asuka managed to block both its hands with her sonic glaive but was forced to let go of the weapon as the Angel attempted to pull it and her back down into the magma.
As Asuka emerged to the surface she noticed that the pool of lava had grown into a lake. It now filled nearly the entire cave. Rei was hauling the limp and charred Unit 01 through the tunnels to the surface. Asuka saw its armor falling off and was disturbed to see charred skin underneath. Another damn NERV secret.
The lava pool rippled and Asuka saw the Angel peeking its eyes above the surface for a look. Unit 02 dangled from its umbilical and coolant cables far above the surface of the lake of lava.
"I think Commander Fuyutski is right," said Misato. "It's just going to wait in the lava so that we're forced to engage it on its terms. Eventually, if we do nothing to stop it, the entire NERV HQ will turn into a volcano."
"And we can't do anything to seal the magma tube if there's an Angel down there waiting to fight us," said Ritsuko.
"Asuka, stand by for orders," said Misato. "We're trying to develop a strategy."
"Could we pump coolant onto the lava?" asked Hyuga.
"That might seal a normal volcano if we're lucky," said Ritsuko, "but the Angel can just break through the solidified lava crust and let more lava out."
"That goes the same for most other way to stop the lava," said Misato. "I think we're going to have to kill the Angel before stopping the volcano."
"What if we used an N2 mine?" said Gendo. The rest of the staff looked at him in sheer, utter horror.
"It may be the only way," Gendo said. "This Angel must be stopped. An N2 mine might be able to kill it, or stun it so that we can finish killing it later."
"If we can deliver it without killing Asuka or caving the entire HQ in," said Misato.
"That," said Gendo, "is a problem I suggest we set the MAGI to work on. Right. Away."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Author's Note: I'm sorry I've taken so long to update. I've been very busy and was also without Internet access for a while. I think the story is moving along well so far, but I'm definitely starting to think its will need at least one sequel to deal with all the premature revelations going on right now. I'm not sure if I should write a sequel and post it as a separate story, or just keep adding to this one. I'd definitely have to change the rating from T to M if I was to extend the series, I might just want to post each "episode" separately, but that might make it hard for readers to find each of them. Plus, I have another EVA fanfic idea and a Tenchi fic idea too that I'd like to work on. But it would be a shame to leave the situation I've been forced to create unresolved.
And just to make things clear, I'm not trying to ship Asuka and Shinji by having her save his life. Saving someone's life, particularly that of a comrade in arms, doesn't indicate love, it just indicates common human decency. To be honest I haven't really thought about how I'll handle relationships if I do end up extending this fic.
