I dont own nothing

Episode 2

"Here we go," he said quietly, steeling himself. "Cover me."

"Roger," Rei answered just as quietly, and EVA-00 opened up

with its autorifle as EVA-01 charged forward, deftly ducking around

and leaping over the few small buildings which stood between him and

the target. The bullets being pumped into the Angel had little effect,

but they served their purpose and distracted it long enough for Isamu

to make his attack. EVA-01 leaped into the air and sent the naginata

slashing downward in a mighty arc, neatly bisecting the Angel in a

spray of purple gore.

"Not bad," Rei remarke.

Isamu drew back a step, whirling the naginata upright again, and

smiled. "They're getting - "

What they were getting, she would never get to say (which was

probably just as well, since context shows that it was almost

undoubtedly wrong). The two halves of the Angel twitched, then

shivered, and, as Rei and Isamu watched in horror, each shrank into

itself slightly, its flesh flowing like clay, and became a smaller

version of the original.

Daunted by this division not at all, the Angels advanced.

"O no!" Isamu snapped, backpedaling as the nearer of the two

halves turned on him and cut loose with a particle beam. He leaped

back, grabbing an autorifle from the nearby weapons block. "Target

zero one zero!"

Roles of point and mark utterly forgotten, Isam and

Rei dropped into sync. "Targeting," Rei answered and both

autorifles spoke, razing the Angel's body. It staggered, forced

back by the hail of bullets, purple ichor spraying everywhere. Isamu

kept his finger on the trigger, concentrating fully on the target,

going for maximum damage-

And totally unprepared for the particle beam that came

tearing in from the side and caught EVA-01 in the midsection, sending

it sailing through the air to smash headlong into the side of a hill.

It struck with such force that it was buried almost waist-deep in the

side of said hill, and there it remained, unmoving.

"Isamu!"Rei cried, but her impulse to rush to his side was

cut short by the more immediate problem of the two halves of the Angel

bearing down on her. Having been given a respite from the sustained

gunfire, the first half had regenerated and now showed no signs of

damage. Rei took aim at the second half and let it have a taste of

bullets. Again the shots staggered the Angel but Rei could not keep

up the attack because of particle fire from the other half. And again

the damaged half regenerated as soon as the shooting stopped.

"Control,"Rei said tensely. "I need my point man right

away."

"Withdraw, Rei," Misato ordered. "Rescue teams are already

going after Isamu. We're going to have to rethink our approach to this

one."

/

"And what is that supposed to mean?"

Kaji felt himself becoming irked at the interrogatory tone

directed toward Misato.

"Sir, per your instructions I've been monitoring

our progress and performance, and looking for anything which might

negatively impact our efficiency. I've found something."

This succeeded in diverting Ikari's stare away from Misato.

"Go on."

"The current combat configuration," Kaji continued evenly, "is

inefficient. They do not complement each other, they duplicate

each other. The same holds true of Shinji and Asuka; they are both point

elements. We're both mark elements. Neither team complements itself

in its current configuration. If the teams cannot complement

themselves, they will be inefficient."

"And at unnecessary risk," Misato added.

"Your suggestion?" Ikari asked, his voice studiously cold.

"Follow MAGIS's recommendations," Kaji replied without

hesitation. He almost didn't notice that Misato had softly echoed him.

A long, hard stare pinned them as Ikari looked down at them.

"And that's the way it is?"

"Yes," they stereoed.

Another silence, another hard stare.

Then: "Very well. The combat team assignments will be

changed per MAGI recommendations. But this had

better work."

Kaji suppressed a sigh of relief. Thank God Ikari hadn't asked

him to explain why Shinji-Isamu/Asuka-Rei wouldn't work. He would have felt

distinctly uncomfortable stating his belief that he could keep Asuka's

impulsiveness better under control.

"It will work," Misato replied to Ikari's veiled threat, and

Kaji felt her grip on his hand tightening.

"It will, sir," Kaji seconded. Surely there was enough proof

already.

/

"They're weakening!"

And so they were. As their separation increased, the two

creatures' movements became less sure, more fitful, their energy

blasts decreasing in frequency, power and accuracy. Being drawn apart

was fraying the link between the two aliens which were really one.

It appeared that the bipartite Angel was realizing its

predicament at the same time, though, and the two halves began trying

to turn round and head back toward the middle of the city.

"There, they've got it sorted," Shinji announced. "Time we wrapped

this up, I think."

With that, he jettisoned his EVA's power uplink, and, across

town, Rei did the same. Both EVAs abandoned their projectile weapons,

took Progressive Knives in hand and closed with their quarries.

Had Shinji and Rei been acting in true synchrony, as Shinji and Rei

undoubtedly would have, the Angels would have retained enough of their

own natural synchrony to fend off their attacks in uinison. As it

was, though, they were not synchronized - merely acting along the same

basic plan, keeping roughly to the beat of the same song. Rei

attacked, as Rei always attacked, with her EVA's Prog Knife held

blade-forward and the heel of the other hand behind the pommel,

driving the weapon forward against the Angel's defenses with all the

strength of 00 arms. Shinji, on the other hand, held it

blade-down, stab-fashion, used bending and used 04 free hand to block the

Angel's arms as they tried to intervene. The disparate methods of

furthering the same aim threw off the Angels; combined with the

faltering element introduced by their separation, it was enough.

The blades of two Progressive Knives plunged into two Angel

cores on the same beat, and that, it seemed, was close enough; the two

Angels thrashed, then slumped.

"Evangelion Combat Team No. 1," said Shinji, his grin evident in

his voice. "Point element reports mission accomplished. Unit 04,

ready for pickup."

"Unit 00, „Rei chimed in. "Ready for recovery."

"I. Don't. Believe it," Asuka muttered.

Episode 3

The bus dropped them at the Greendale Mall in the gathering

gloom of afternoon. As they rushed inside out of the rain, Shinji once

again considered asking for a motor-class. Hitching

rides from one or the other was fine in clear weather, and

transportation was no problem anyway when Major Katsuragi was around,

but on occasions like this, having to rely on Tokyo's rather

sparse public transportation was a pain.

Hand in hand and unselfconscious, Rei and Shinji did the food

court sweep - large cheesesteak (hold the onions) for Shinji and fries

for both of them from the Steak Escape, small Szechuan bean curd for

Rei from the Panda Express, one of those huge strawberry shakes from

the Haagen-Dazs shop and an extra straw. They found a corner table by

the ice-cream kiosk and, after their usual fashion, dealt with the

food before starting the drink.

"Strange test," Shinji remarked, leaning forward to sip from his

side's straw.

"Mm," replied Rei, using her own.

That exhausted all their conversational gambits for the

afternoon. Taking another sip from the drink, they lost themselves in

each other's eyes for the nth time that day, as the peripheral

synchrony continued to surround them, bringing with it the faint touch

of mind, the sense of union which drew out and deepened as their hands

migrated away from the cup and closed around each other, inner warmth

dissolving the outer cold.

Unconsciously they leaned further forward, the now forgotten

straws falling to the side, their eyes never breaking contact until

the last few millimeters, when their lips softly touched.

They stayed like that for some time before pulling back and

looking at each other again, their eyes a bit wider at the memory of

the faint shiver which had rippled through them when they had touched

in that way.

Then Rei closed the distance again, kissing Shinji more strongly.

Shinji reflexively responded, deepening the kiss. His tongue brushed

lightly against Rei's.

/

Kaji is waiting to Shinji.

„We need to talk"

/

When Shinji come with Kaji to the Terminal Dogma he become in shock. The 2th Angel. Kaji is tell him everythink about Human Instrumentaly project.

Episode 4

The collider wasn't all that much to look at, considering what

it could do. A reinforcement collar was bolted around the power

socket, and a matching collar around the collider apparatus mated to

it. Protruding from the collar was a translucent orange-gold cylinder

about the length of a standard power plug (out to where the cable

would start), flat at the end. The housing, like much of the

apparatus within, was made of a substance called Elerium-115, whose

precise composition was classified at the highest levels of X-COM and

SEELE.

"All systems standing by," Asuka Soryu-Langley reported over

the comm network to the experiment control room. "Ready whenever you

are."

"Second Child reports ready, Dr. Akagi," one of the techs

reported. "Collider is nominal and on standby, Major."

"Excellent," said Ritsuko Akagi, nodding. "Begin first

connection."

"Engaging initial neurofeeds. Pilot is connecting." EVA-03

began to hum as the initial charge of external power was supplied.

"All neurofeeds nominal. Ready to engage collider."

Ritsuko nodded. "Begin second connection. Activate the

collider."

"Collider engaged."

On the back of EVA-03, the Elerium "plug" glowed and began to

hum softly.

"Second connection initiated," the tech reported. "External

power disconnected. Nerve pulses approaching borderline in six.

Five. Four."

"Energize all systems."

The collider's glow increased, and the hum it produced became

a subsonic rumble throughout EVA-03's superstructure. In the cockpit,

Asuka felt a surge not unlike a rush of adrenaline. "This is

incredible," she said, mostly to herself. She'd been told that the

power feed from the collider might make her feel different, but she

hadn't expected this: she felt stronger, more powerful, and reached

out to embrace the consciousness of her EVA, to feel the power in its

entirety.

"Two. One. Neurosync borderline cleared-"

That was when the alarm went off, the synchrotron suddenly

went berserk, and something unpleasant clawed at Asuka's mind.

"What's happening?!" Misato demanded.

"Synchrotron just went crazy!" an alarmed tech reported.

"Neural pulses are feeding back!"

"Abort the test!" Ritsuko snapped. "Cut the power to EVA-03!"

"No good! EVA-03 isn't responding! Power output from the

collider is at 400% and still increasing!"

"Eject the plug! Now!"

The dorsal armor protecting the entry plug snapped open, but

only partway. Some kind of translucent pink webbing kept it from

opening fully. Registering that the exit path was still obstructed,

the EVA's safety computer overrode the entry plug's ejection sequence,

preventing the ejection charges from smashing the plug against the

armored panel.

"Foreign material is preventing entry plug ejection," reported

the chief console tech. "DNA pattern Blue - it's an Angel!"

"What the - an Angel?!" Ritsuko gasped.

"Control, what's happeni-" Asuka started to cry out before

her transmission was lost in a burst of static.

"AT Field generating!" another tech hollered as EVA-03

strained against the bolts holding it in place. Then its four eyes

glowed brightly, and from within the confines of its helmet a roar

could be heard.

Then everything went white.

/

It occurred to Shinji to ask Ikari why he was not being sent to

back up Rei. It also occurred to him that Ikari would refuse to answer,

and that the whole exercise would be a waste of time - worse, would

give Ikari reason to believe that Shinji suspected his motives. Shinji

recognized that his biggest asset in his search for the truth about

NERV's operational motives was the fact that Ikari believed him to be

too simple-minded and unsubtle to suspect ulterior motives; he didn't

want to tip his hand too soon.

Instead of saying anything, Shinji merely nodded, patching his

sensor system through to the surface information net so he could keep

track of what was happening to the other EVAs.

To him, Ikari merely said, "A land-based Angel is approaching

from the east. If Ayanami fails to stop it in Shrewsbury, you are

expected to halt its advance no closer to the city center than the

west bank of Lake Quinsigamond."

"Aren't you going to tell him the attacker is Unit 03?" Maya

inquired as Ikari did so.

"If he knew that, he might refuse to launch against it," Ikari

replied. "He will not, however, refuse to assist Ayanami if she has

difficulties."

Maya and Makoto shared a glance that carried their mutual

distaste for Ikari's increasingly Machiavellian command style of late,

but said nothing.

"Is there any response from Unit 03?"

"Negative, sir," Maya replied. "It won't recognize the

shutdown code or the ejection signal!"

"The pilot?"

"We have her respiration and pulse, but..."

Ikari was silent for a moment, then steepled his hands. "From

this moment forward, EVA-03 is expendable, and the target is

identified as the 8th Angel."

"But sir-!" Makoto spun in his seat.

"Draw the line at Lake Quinsigamond as planned," Ikari went

on. "Destroy the target."

Hidden in the shadows, EVA-04 crouched against the flank of a

hill, autorifle at the ready, as EVA-00 lumbered past, hunched over

like a gorilla and apparently ignorant of the danger behind it.

Silently, Rei raised her rifle, aiming for the back of the rogue EVA's

head. Her finger tightened on the trigger.

...Asuka's in there, she hesitated.

In the next second the EVA paused, twitched, and leaped into

the air.

"What-AAH!" Rei yelped as something slammed into Orcus and

pinned it to the ground. The external camera revealed it to be

EVA-03.

03 hunched down over 00, and pinkish fluid oozed out

of its body, landing on the black Evangelion's left arm, which

immediately began to distort as the Angel invaded.

"Unit 00's left arm has been compromised!" Maya reported.

"Angel is invading the nerve joint!"

"Sever the arm," Ikari said flatly.

"But that will cut the nerve connection-"

"Sever it now." Ikari repeated. "Before the infection

spreads."

He did have a point, Maya had to admit, and hit the button. A

shaped charge blew EVA-00's left arm off, leaving a bloody stump. Rei

howled in agony, clutching her real arm, and EVA-00 collapsed to the

ground. EVA-02 jumped back, dodging the flailing arm, which smashed

into a nearby building.

Deciding, correctly, that the black EVA was no longer a

threat, EVA-03 turned and continued on its lumbering path toward

Tokyor-3.

On the bank of Lake Quinsigamond, EVA-04 stood, its weapons

still holstered, and waited. In the cockpit, Shinji fretted. He'd been

rushed out without a proper briefing, par for the course at NERV, but

still. He didn't even know what had just flattened EVA-03, though his

patch to the command system contained, among other things, the

reassuring indication that Rei was alive.

Presently, it came in sight, walking nonchalantly across the

Route 9 bridge if it were the most ordinary thing in the world:

EVA-03.

"Control," Shinji inquired, his brow furrowing, "I don't see

anything but EVA-03."

"That is your target, 04," said Ikari. "Evangelion Unit 03

has been taken over by an invasive Angelic presence. You are to

intercept and destroy it at once."

"Er... roger," Shinji replied, trying his best to ignore the spike

of ice that had just been driven into his heart and keying an

EVA-to-EVA circuit open. "Hello, hello, Unit 03, this is Unit 04,

come in. Asuka, are you there?"

No response.

"I can't raise Unit 03 on EVA-to-EVA, Control," Shinji reported as

EVA-03 continued to close the distance between them.

"Roger, EVA-04," Maya replied. "No luck from this end

either."

Keying the nearest external camera, Shinji zoomed in for a closer

look at his quarry. It lumbered forward, silhouetted by the setting

sun, its eyes four glowing points of white light in the midst of the

darkness.

"Unit 03's entry plug is exposed," Shinji reported as his view

zoomed in close enough to offer some detail. "Looks like the

auto-eject blew the socket armor off, but the end of the plug is

covered with some kind of... crud." Shinji peered at the image more

closely. "Looks almost like it's been webbed in place by a giant

spider. I'm going to try to cut it away with my Prog Knife, if I can

get 03 to hold still long enough."

"No," Ikari said flatly. "We don't have time for that.

EVA-03 is to be treated as an attacking Angel, 04. Attack and destroy

at once."

"Like hell!" Shinji snapped. "One of our pilots is trapped in

there!"

"Mr. Ikari you will follow my instructions."

"Let me say it slowly and clearly, Gendou," said Shinji, the

strain on his patience evident in his voice. "No way.

There's too much risk to the pilot in a direct assault. Let me get

the entry plug out of there and then I'll go to town; -not before-."

"Your insubordination is intolerable."

"Christ!" Shinji retorted, not believing he was hearing this.

"Your inhumanity knows no bounds, does it, Ikari?"

Ikari decided he had had enough. "We haven't time for this.

Control, cut Shinji's synchronization with EVA-04 and remote-substitute

the dummy plug signal."

"But sir-" Maya started to protest. Getting the entry plug

out certainly wouldn't take -that- long.

"Do it now!" Ikari demanded.

"... Yes, sir."

Like a thrown switch, EVA-04 disappeared from Shinji 's awareness,

and the cockpit went dark. A moment later, red emergency lights came

on.

"Oi, what the heck-?!" Shinji demanded. Then the front screen

gave him an answer:

DUMMY SYSTEM OPERATIONAL

01:REI

"Signal reception confirmed. Control system switched," Truss

reported.

"Good," Ikari said flatly. "Release the system. Commence

attack."

Deep within EVA-04, something recoiled at the sudden switch of

command inputs. Confused and in pain from the unexpected change, the

unit reeled, then righted itself and lashed out at the nearest

available target. Unit 04flared, and it lunged forward,

charging EVA-03 even as 03 leaped into the air, intending to catch 04

in a choke hold. But when the two EVAs collided, it was 04 that

remained standing, 03 knocked back by a solid left hook to the jaw.

Before 03 could get up, 04 was upon it and had its hands locked

around the red EVA's throat, squeezing mercilessly, lifting it into

the air. 03 clawed frantically at 04, trying to break free of its

crushing grip.

No,Ii want alowed not in MY WACH" 04 eye from red became white, the Avatar state is active shut down dummy pluge system, now Shinji have full control after deactive state kock off 03 and with progres knife cut spider web adn saved Asuka, then uyed airbending slash 03 in half.

/

"Do you realize the damage you have caused?" Gendo asked

"I realized the life I saved" Shinji said.

"Disobeying orders, Misuse of NERV property, threatening NERV itself, all capital offenses" Gendo said.

"So you are going to execute me?" Shinji asked

"No, that would cause too many problems. You are to be stripped of your rank as pilot and relocated to secure facility" Gendo said

"So you're imprisoning me?" Shinji asked

"If you choose to look at it that way" Gendo said and the guards put there meaty hands on each of his shoulders. Shinji used metal bending to break the cuffs and knocked the guards away with a gust of wind. He then kicked the desk (which was mostly metal) and sent his father crashing into the bulletproof window. Through his metal bending he felt two of his father's ribs crack, which Shinji found extremely satisfying. Shinji leapt onto the desk and looking down at his pinned father, raised his hand to cover him in fire, only to stop as the implications of what he was doing hit him.

"What's happening to me" Shinji thought in horror as a small army of guards rushed into the office and pointed guns at him. Shinji dropped his guard as two agents rushed forward and pulled him off the desk and pinned his arms behind his back.

"Get him out of here!" Gendo half shouted half gasped and the guards hauled him out of the office and "escorted" him out of the base.

Episode 5

The Angel stumped forward, paused for a moment in the middle

of Park Avenue, and then abruptly issued a bolt of blinding white

power from the gem-like red core in its chest, blasting a great,

gaping hole in the ground.

"Where did it come from?" Ritsuko Akagi demanded.

"I don't know! It just... -appeared- there," said Makoto.

"Good Christ!" Maya Ibuki cried, down in the control room.

"That thing just blew through eighteen barrier layers with one shot!"

"Station EVA-00 and EVA-01 within the Geo-Front itself, then,"

said Misato Katsuragi - dirty, bedraggled, her arm in a sling and her

head bandaged, but out of the infirmary and back in command. She had

insisted; concentrating on mastery of a crisis was the only way to

keep from being overwhelmed by how much everything had changed, for

the worse, in the course of the last twelve hours.

She tried not to think about what she would do when she no

longer had a crisis to keep her occupied.

In the cockpits of their EVAs, Isamu and Rei considered similar

things.

/

A massive plume of fire and debris rained down from the

ceiling of the Geo-Front cavern as the Angel breached the final

defensive barrier, emerging from the resultant cloud of smoke a moment

later and descending toward the cavern floor. The moment it was clear

of the destruction above, it promptly came under fire once more, this

time from the twin autorifles wielded by EVA-00.

The bullets had no effect.

" Its AT Field is up, Control!" Isamu snapped, discarding

the rifles and grabbing two rocket launchers from the weapons cache at

his feet. Perhaps the missiles would distract the enemy long enough

for Rei to move in and do some damage. But, before either of them

could act, what looked at first glance like large grayish ribbons

unfurled from the Angel's arm stumps. These ribbons snapped taut and

lashed out before Jon could even react, and in a flash 01 arms

were gone, cleanly shaved off at the shoulders. Isamu howled as the

pain exploded across his body far more intensely than he had expected.

He curled up into a tight ball for two seconds before forcing the

agony out of his mind. Just in time to experience another stab of

pain as the ribbons struck out again, slicing one of 01 legs

apart. The unit promptly lost its balance and began to topple over.

Through the haze of red which had become the sum total of his

consciousness, thought he heard a voice cry, "Go!" In the next

instant 01 was gone, followed by wrenching vertigo as ejection

charges sent Jon's entry plug careening skyward. EVA-00 itself

collapsed to the ground, a pool of blood forming under its

half-crushed face, which was turned toward the Angel as it retracted

its ribbons and energized its beam weapon, preparing to finish Moloch

off.

Before the Angel could shoot, however, its attention was

diverted to the more immediate problem represented by the one-armed

black EVA bearing down on it at a run, a large silver canister

clutched in its remaining hand. The Angel probably didn't know what

the "N2" in big white letters on the canister's side meant, but

everyone else did.

"Rei!" Misato shouted. "What are you doing?"

"We have to stop it," Rei replied, quiet as ever but with an

audible undercurrent of tension. It was plainly obvious she intended

to force the N2 bomb past the Angel's AT Field and detonate it. At

that range, it was suicide.

The color drained from many faces, and in the control room,

John Trussell felt his heart skip a beat.

[If things remain as they are, I will not survive the next

Angel attack.]

"REI, NO! DON'T-"

Rei shut down her comm system, and the audible pleas stopped.

In the next instant she was upon the Angel, and drove the canister

forward, forcing it through the AT Field, priming the detonator as she

did so.

It must be done. For all our sakes.

But in the back of her mind she could hear a pleading voice

not mutable by any communications shutdown.

Rei, please don't do this.

Shinji.

She tried to push him away, to maintain her concentration. I

must do this.

The canister penetrated the field completely. She activated

the detonator and it began counting down from five seconds. This

would do enough damage to buy time, time for them to Active 04

and give Shinji a chance to finish the job...

Jon...

I am nothing without you.

She would die.

I...

Please don't leave me.

She would not see Sinji again.

A new emotion clawed at her.

...I don't want to die.

00 threw itself backward, letting go of the canister just

as the timer reached zero. A flash of white light eclipsed everyone's

view as the N2 bomb went off.

The intention had been for the bomb to be past the AT Field

when it went off, but as it happened it was caught halfway, nearly

pulled back out by 00 retreat. As such, most of the blast was

absorbed. When the light faded, both Angel and EVA-00 were sprawled

on the ground, some distance apart from each other. Orcus was in

terrible shape, its chest armor shattered and caved in, its neck

twisted at an entirely abnormal angle, and the lower half of its

remaining arm missing.

The Angel's front was similarly scuffed and charred, but a

moment later it rose back up and continued on its course, giving the

two downed Evangelions no further thought.

Sinji swore and fought for control, almost laying the Corley over

on its side, as the shockwave from the mostly-muted explosion washed

over the roadway, nearly blowing him into the guard rail. Then he

skidded to a halt, putting a leg down, and flipped the visor of his

helmet up, taking in the tableau of destruction and realizing just

what that enormous explosion had been.

"Oh, God, no," he murmured, his guts twisting as he forced

himself to take in the ruin that the blast had made of Unit 01, and,

not far away, the bloody, shattered wreck of Unit 00. The latter lay

on its face, and the entry plug cover was gone; so where was the plug?

Just as he thought that, the plug, on its parachute, crashed

into the park pond in the foreground of Shinji's view, only a few dozen

feet away. As it settled, it rolled (as it was weighted to do) so

that the hatch was upright, and that hatch popped open, releasing a

minor deluge of LCL and a wet, bedraggled, coughing, thoroughly

displeased-looking pilot.

/

Ritsuko Akagi's expression had nothing on Gendou Ikari's when

Isamu and Sinji entered the EVA bay.

"I told you to be out of the city by midnight," he said

coldly.

"It's eleven forty-five," Shinji replied. "And to hell with you,

anyway."

"You are neither welcome nor needed here," Ikari said,

indicating the closed hatch of the purple EVA behind him. "Recovery

Team 1 brought Rei in five minutes ago. She will have EVA-04

operational very shortly."

"It won't work," Isamu muttered under his breath.

"You have something to say, Mr. Isamu?" Ikari demanded

sharply.

Isamu looked on the verge of wilting before that sharp voice of

command; then he stiffened, stood straight, and said flatly and

evenly, "I said it won't work, sir. Unit 04 refused to accept me, and

I sincerely doubt it will accept Rei or the dummy plug. It only wants

one pilot now."

"Mr. Isamu," Ikari observed coldly, "the Evangelion is a

machine. It does not 'want'. It merely follows instructions, as I

expect its pilots to do."

Shinji snorted derisively.

"I'm not disobeying orders, sir," Isamu replied stiffly. "I'm

merely trying to save time and lives by reporting what I believe, from

experience, will happen. And if I'm wrong I'll take responsibility

for my error - but I strongly recommend that Sinji be given the pilot's

seat."

Ikari stared hard at Isamu, but the boy never flinched, giving

him back as flinty a glare as he absorbed.

Behind them, EVA-04 twitched slightly, making the

superstructure shiver beneath their feet; an alarm blared, and the

entry plug ejected, popping open in a shower of LCL.

Rei Ayanami emerged, one arm in a sling, bandaged around her

head, and unsteady on her feet; then she stumbled, dropped to her

knees and unceremoniously vomited through the grillwork of the

catwalk.

As one the three men on the gantry crowded toward her, concern

on their faces (even Ikari's).

Wiping at her mouth with the back of one hand, she looked up

with shame in her eyes and reported softly, "Synchronization

failed... I... I'm sorry."

Ikari turned again to Isamu and Shinji, both of whom stared hard at

him; then he keyed his wristcom and announced, "Rei has failed.

Prepare the dummy plug."

"The dummy plug is based on Rei's pattern, you idiot!" Shinji

snarled. "If she can't sync with EVA-04, a cheap copy of her's not

going to do it either. For Christ's sake! Get the hell out of my way

or I'll throw you off the catwalk!"

Ikari turned his full glare on Shinji. "Don't ever presume to

give me orders, boy," he snarled. "NERV is -my- operation. I built

it from the ground up. I control it. I give the orders. You are

just a stupid upstart boy with no -concept- of the things you're

meddling in! You've been a thorn in my side since you first got here!

Undermining my authority. Disrupting my experiements. Corrupting my

personnel. Interfering with Rei! You've made her unwarrantedly

erratic. I won't have any more of it! Get out of this base before I

have you SHOT, you miserable little - "

The slap echoed like a rifle shot through the Evangelion bay,

and for several long seconds afterward, there was utter silence.

Rei Ayanami, her whole body quivering with rage, pinioned

Gendou Ikari on her crimson, furious stare for ten long seconds; then,

in a quiet voice that dripped with pain, she said to him,

"I don't know you any more."

Turning, she stormed out of the bay.

Gendou Ikari, the left side of his face slowly reddening,

stood in absolute shock as, his face hard as stone, Shinji walked

past him onto the catwalk.

Turning back, he grinned a mirthless grin at Isamu.

/

"OK, 04," he murmured. "Let's do it... one more time."

The entry plug came obligingly to life around him, followed by

the EVA itself, without a fuss.

"EVA-04 is operational," Maya Ibuki reported, feeling

unnaturally calm as she watched the green signal boxes march across

the Big Board. "Synchrotron is holding at 240% ."

"My God in Heaven," Ritsuko Akagi whispered.

The EVA bay shook as the attacking Angel breached the armor,

and a moment later the beast was in the bay, lunging past EVA-04,

reaching for and slashing away the control room windows with its

razor-edged ribbons of death.

"No, I don't think so, son," Shinji snarled, launching EVA-04 into

its path and slamming it against the side wall before it could strike

again and wreck the room completely, killing its occupants. "Maya!

Hit me on No. 13, fast!"

"Right!" Maya replied, thumbing the launch key for Pad 13.

With a crash and sizzle of capacitors, the launch catapult the EVA and

Angel were standing on flew back up out of the bay, flinging EVA-04

and its quarry back to the subsurface.

"Thought you had a free ride, didn't you?" Shinji demanded,

slamming EVA-04's fists repeatedly into the Angel's glowing red core.

"Well the party's over, Chester! I've lost way too much that's

important to me today to let you come along and stomp on the wreckage!

D'you hear me? Huh?"

On and on he ranted, driving the Angel back and back and back,

further away from Central Dogma with each passing moment, battering it

relentlessly with EVA-04's fists and feet, never letting it have a

moment to gather its wits and strike. Finally he pinned it against a

hill and hammered at its core, over and over, reduced from ranting

semi-coherently to simply shouting inarticulately in rhythm with his

strikes. The core's glow began to flicker and fade under his

merciless pounding, and the NERV personnel who had abandoned the

smashed control room and now stood on the Central Dogma plaza watching

the battle were already drawing breath to cheer

when the power ran out, and EVA-04 ground to a halt.

"No!" Shinji protested. "No no! Don't do this to me now! Not

now! For God's sake, not now!"

Sensing its change, the Angel reared back, its core glow

brightening again, and slammed its ribbons into the inert EVA, sending

it crashing limply back against a neighboring hill. Shinji screamed in

sympathetic pain as the Angel tore away EVA-04's chest armor, laying

bare the greyish-brown flesh of its chest.

Maya Ibuki gasped in shock as the chest of the Evangelion was

laid bare, for embedded in that grey-brown flesh was a dark red orb -

an Angel's core.

Rearing back, the Angel began hammering at the core with its

ribbons, just as EVA-04 had been pounding on its own with its fists a

few moments before. The powerless EVA jerked fitfully under the

battering, as, within its cockpit, Shinji shouted to his

recalcitrant mount to get up and save itself in every language he

could remember the word for "move" in.

"... Move, move, I -know- you're not just a machine!

Unit 04 - GET UP AND FIGHT!"

On one of the consoles in the wreckage of the control room,

unnoticed by anyone, a sudden block of text spurted onto the screen.

Then the last few characters scrolled into infinity, before

the console sputtered and lost power.

Outside...

... -something- happened.

EVA-04's core glowed; its eyes glowed; it stiffened, arched

its back, and then sat bolt upright on the hillside, swinging its jaw

wide and screaming defiantly into the Geo-Front night. The Avatar state.

Unit 04 used al bending art, Unit-04 opened its jaws and roared as its eyes flared. Unit one raised its hand and lashed down and the Angels A.T. field was ripped to shreds. The angel collapsed as the Unit got down on all fours and crawled over to it. 04 is shut down.

End of season 2