Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

Disclaimer: I do not own DC comics or anything associated with it, and am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.


Chapter Eight: The Logical Course of Action

Blue Beetle had been in a number of very bad situations before.

She had been in an emotionally abusive relationship with Gendo Ikari. She had been forced to fight a lobotomized alternate version of herself in the nether realm known as the Bleed. She had battled Angels. She had gone ten rounds with Green Lantern (and lost).

Yet this…this might be the worst situation she'd ever found herself in.

"God," she breathed in a tiny, horrified voice.

The Thirteenth Angel had stolen control of Evangelion Unit Three, and even worse, it had somehow hijacked Green Lantern in the process. Now she faced a monster that had a power ring at its disposal and was holding both the newly minted Fourth Child and her friend hostage.

I should have been there, she thought as she hovered in the air, silently gaping at the Angel, as well as the trio of Evangelions it had easily incapacitated with a blast of Green Lantern's power. None of this would've happened if I'd just had the guts to reject Katsuro's demand that I show up for another stupid demonstration today.

She no doubt that if she'd gone to Matsushiro, rather than sending her holographic double in her place, the scarab would have detected the Angel waiting to strike. This whole disaster could've been brought to an end before it had begun.

(Oh, for crying out loud!) The scarab exclaimed, obviously exasperated. (This isn't over yet! Angst later! Fight now!)

"But both Misato and Toji are plugged into that thing," she protested. "If I hurt it, I might hurt them, too."

(And it's better to just float here and do nothing?) The scarab demanded. (We have to take the chance, Ritsuko!)

Blue Beetle balled her hands into fists, loathing the very thought of it…but unable to come up with any alternative. Much as she hated it, the logic was clear.

"All right," she said. "Let's do it."

The armor covering her right hand and forearm rapidly began to shift around, forming a now familiar energy weapon.

(Annihilator Beam ready.) The scarab reported, and for once, it didn't sound gleeful at the prospect of shooting something.

Which was a good thing, because if it had, Blue Beetle definitely would've snapped at it.

"Fire," she ordered, her voice a whisper.

The scarab heard. A beam of electric blue light erupted from the barrel of her weapon, striking Unit Three in the very center of its chest. The possessed Evangelion staggered backwards, letting out a thunderous roar of pain. A large section of Unit Three's armor instantly melted, then vaporized, revealing a section of blackened flesh beneath.

Blue Beetle noticed none of it; all of her attention was focused upon the individual stuck to the Angel's core. Green Lantern—Misato—was writhing and screaming in agony, even though she remained unconscious.

Hurting the Angel hurts her, too! She thought, feeling horror grip her heart. Toji's probably in pain, as well.

(RITSUKO!) The scarab screamed. (Look out!)

Her gaze snapped up just in time to see that her attack had apparently pissed the Angel off. A lot.

A beam of emerald light burst forth from the possessed Evangelion's fingertip, and Blue Beetle felt her stomach clench. The memory of the beating she'd taken the last time she'd faced someone armed with that kind of power was still fairly fresh in her mind.

Fortunately, the scarab was quicker on the draw than she was. Realizing that she was frozen with fear, it seized control, causing both of them to dive sharply. The sensation was so disorienting that she almost wasn't grateful to the scarab.

Almost. The beam the Angel had fired at her, which was about as thick as the trunk of a two hundred year old oak tree, slammed into Mount Nobe.

Struck with that much raw power, the mountain simply shattered. Thousands of enormous boulders, which had been a single piece mere moments ago, tumbled to ground like rain. Dust billowed out in all directions, sweeping out across the landscape like a tidal wave, and the Earth shook.

It was perhaps the most awesome and terrible display of raw might that the Blue Beetle had ever seen.

My God, she thought. I…tried to fight someone with that power. I am fighting something with that power!

(We could level mountains, too. If we wanted to.) The scarab said in a soft, dangerous voice.

Blue Beetle didn't doubt that it was telling the truth, but she had no desire for a demonstration.

Not that they had time for one. The Angel fired another blast of green death at her, and this time, Blue Beetle was the one who took them out of harm's way. The energy beam crashed into the ground, punching a hole into the earth and setting off another series of tremors while the azure superwoman headed toward the a nearby forest.

(What are you doing?) The scarab asked.

"Trying to catch my breath," she replied as her feet touched terra firma, "and hoping that the cover from the trees and all the dust from Mount Nobe breaking will hide me until I figure out what to do next."

(What's to figure out?) The scarab demanded. (There's a giant monster armed with a Green Lantern power ring over there! We either run away, or we try to kill it!)

"But—"

(Look out!)

Blue Beetle's gaze snapped up just in time for her to see the Angel's fist barreling toward her at an alarming rate of speed. The superwoman in the azure armor let out a loud squawk of fear before she surged back into the air, only barely getting out of the way in time. The Angel's fist crashed into the ground, leaving and large crater in the earth and reducing several unlucky trees to pulp.

"Wow," Blue Beetle said as she looked at the Angel.

(Yeah.) The scarab agreed. (Could that EVA always do that?)

"No," the sapphire superwoman answered.

Unit Three's fist and its torso were currently almost a solid kilometer apart, its arm having stretched out like rubber so it could try and smash her. It would've looked ridiculous if it didn't represent one more thing she had to worry about.

The possessed Evangelion's arm snapped back to its original length, and it swung at her, its limb elongating out once more. Its aim was good, and Blue Beetle had to quickly gain altitude to avoid the swing. Then, even before it had fully completed its first attack, it unleashed another blast of emerald energy at her. Blue Beetle barely managed to dodge.

"Okay," Blue Beetle said to herself, "first priority: get my best friend and her damn power ring away from that Angel!"

Nimbly weaving through the storm of attacks, Blue Beetle headed right for the Angel's core, which Green Lantern was stuck to with some grey goop. Hoping that extracting her fellow superwoman wouldn't take long, she reached out…

Only to have her hand blocked as a box of emerald light formed around Green Lantern.

"No!" she cried out in frustration.

With a growl, she punched at the jade container, only to have pain shoot through her fist and up her arm. A scowl forming on her face, Blue Beetle commanded the armor on her forearm to transform into a long blade with a wicked point and then stabbed at the construct. The time, she made a mark, actually penetrating the box of solid light a few centimeters and creating several cracks in the ring construct.

(Ritsuko…)

"Not now," she grumbled, determined to liberate the Green Lantern.

(Yes now!) The scarab exclaimed, seizing control and propelling them far away from the Angel's core.

It was none too soon, either. The Angel swiped at them with its massive hand, like a person trying to swat at a mosquito. Blue Beetle would've been killed if the blow had connected.

"Thanks," she told the scarab, though without much enthusiasm.

The emerald container around Misato disappeared as she got further away from it, Blue Beetle noted, but she had no doubt that it would be back the moment she got close enough to actually pull her friend free.

(You can thank me after we get out of the battle alive!) The scarab said, as the Angel unleashed a storm of green energy bolts, which they were only barely able to avoid.

"Hey is it just me, or is the Angel not very good with that ring?" she asked, even as she had to fly a crazy path through the air to avoid the flurry of punches and green bolts of light.

(You call this not very good?) The scarab demanded. (With all these maneuvers we're doing, I can't tell up from down, and we're still barely staying alive here!)

"No, I mean, aside from that box it made around Misato, it's just…shooting at us," she said. "When we fought Misato, she was making solid holograms, and…throwing rocks at us and stuff."

(Hmm.) The scarab sounded thoughtful. (It takes a lot of willpower and creativity to use power rings effectively. By the looks of it, I'd say the Angel has the willpower but not the creativity. Which I guess is good for us.)

Yes, that definitely sounded right, Blue Beetle decided. As an offspring of the Seed of Life rather than the Seed of Knowledge, the Angel would lack imagination.

"Now I just have to figure out how to use that to my advantage," she mused aloud, even as she performed an insane corkscrew maneuver to keep from getting turned to paste.

(Are you nuts?) The scarab snapped. (We're barely surviving here! We need to go on an all out offensive! Not look for some magic button that'll make the Angel let its hostages go!)

"Damn it, scarab, I—"

She was cut off by something that sounded quite a lot like a cell phone ring tone.

"What is that?" she snapped.

(General Katsuro's calling us.) The scarab answered. (I'm patching him through now.) It added before she could protest.

"Blue, it's me," the voice of the general came into her ear. "Katsuro."

"Yes, I know," she replied, even as she did a midair back flip to avoid a particularly vicious swing. "I'm a little busy here, though, General."

"I figured," he replied. "I just wanted to let you know that your reinforcements should be arriving in under one minute. I've ordered the pilots of the Bugs to obey your commands."

"Right," she said, "thank you, sir."

"Also, you cannot allow this Angel to reach Tokyo-3," he added. "I don't care what you need to do, but keep it away from that city. The reputation and honor of the JSSDF are depending on you."

Go to hell, you prick, was what Blue Beetle wanted to say.

The scarab picked up on the thought and giggled childishly inside her head.

"I understand, sir," was what Blue Beetle actually said. "Over and out." She closed the connection.

(Perfect.) The scarab said. (When the VTOLs get here, we can all bombard the Angel together and kill it.)

"What?" Blue Beetle exclaimed. "But Misato and Suzuhara…!"

(Ritsuko! Be realistic about this! We have to kill it!) The scarab insisted.

"But—!"

(No buts! We're barely staying alive here, and if we keep playing with the Angel, then we'll be putting the VTOL pilots in danger, too.) The scarab pointed out. (An all out attack is the only logical course of action!)

Almost as if on cue, the squadron of new VTOL attack planes burst onto the scene, the roar of their engines heralding their arrival. It wasn't long before she heard the voice of the squadron leader in her ear.

"Blue Lady, this Swarm Leader. Waiting for your orders, over."

The sapphire superwoman's higher brain functions seemed to freeze, even as she continued to frantically dodge the Angel's attacks, and the awful moment of decision stretched out into near infinity.

The scarab was right in saying that attempting to kill the Angel now was the logical course of action, even though doing so would probably kill its hostages as well. Misato and Suzuhara were two people, while the Angel was a threat to the entire world.

Of course, if she wanted to do things simply by the numbers, then her quest to prevent Third Impact should have led her to destroying NERV headquarters and the two extremely dangerous Seeds of Life contained within a long time. Killing the paltry hundreds of innocent people inside the base at any given time in order to prevent the extinction of mankind was clearly the logical thing to do.

And when her alternate self from another dimension, the Scarlet Scarab, had allowed herself to die while destroying the Twelfth Angel's core, she supposed that, too, had been the logical thing to do, considering what had happened to her.

"Blue Lady, do you copy?" the squadron leader asked her.

Fuck the logical course of action, she decided.

"I copy, Swarm Leader," Blue Beetle replied. "You and your men are going to be distractions for now. Just shoot at the Angel enough to piss it off and get its attention off me. And keep your distance. This damn thing is fast and deadly."

"Acknowledged, Blue Lady." The squadron leader said.

(Ritsuko…)

"I know, scarab," she said, "but I can't just write Misato and Suzuhara off like that. I can't."

The scarab paused for a moment before responding. (Well then, I guess that's all there is to it.)

Blue Beetle had to swallow past the lump in her throat. "Thank you."

The VTOLs wasted no time in carrying out their orders, fanning out around the Angel and opened fire. Unlike the storm of missiles and bullets that their older siblings would have unleashed, however, these newer plane let loose with energy weapons.

Even the new high tech weapons didn't have the raw power to penetrate the Angel's AT field by themselves, though, but they didn't need to. The possessed Evangelion roared in outrage a dozen beams of electric blue energy struck it from all angles. It lashed out at the planes with both stretchy limbs and Green Lantern energy, but the JSSDF was only giving the new model VTOLs to the most elite pilots. They expertly dodged the attacks, using maneuvers that didn't even seem physically possible. They wouldn't have been, without the Reach technology incorporated into the crafts.

Even so, Blue Beetle couldn't help but notice just how perilously close some of the Angel's attacks came. Clearly, she needed to rescue the Angel's hostages as quickly as possible.

Okay, first, Misato, she thought, and again flew toward her friend.

She wasn't surprised when the walls of jade light once more materialized around her friend. Blue Beetle instantly transformed the armor over her hand into the buzz saw she'd used when she'd fought Misato and began to hack away at Green Lantern's cage.

Unfortunately, trying to take the Angel's new toy away instantly got its attention. It ignored the squadron of fighters and tried to swipe at her again, forcing her to back off before it turned its efforts back to the planes.

"Damn," she cursed, "if only there was a way I could get past that stupid green…"

She trailed off, suddenly unable to believe just how stupid she'd been.

(What?) The scarab asked.

"Bring up our protective field, scarab," she said, "and give it that yellow tint again."

(Oh.) It said. (Duh.)

Golden light flared around the Blue Beetle's form, and she surged forward toward her friend once more. Misato's emerald cage reappeared for a third time, but now the sapphire superwoman reached through it as though it wasn't there, easily grabbing hold of Green Lantern's arms.

"C'mon…" Blue Beetle grunted as she pulled with all her strength.

(Ritsuko! It's trying to hit us again!) The scarab warned her.

"I know, but I have to save her!" Blue Beetle said.

The gray ooze holding Green Lantern to the Angel's core was proving extremely resilient; it was stretching out a bit as Blue Beetle pulled, almost like rubber, but so far it was refusing to break.

The Angel swiped at them once more, and the scarab let out a shrill, wordless cry. With a thought, it caused the armor to shift; jets sprouted on the bottom of Blue Beetle's boots and ignited. The woman in the azure armor released a loud cry as she was suddenly rocketed away from the Angel, pulling Green Lantern with her.

For several, terrifying seconds, Blue Beetle's world was chaos. She had no idea which way was up or down, where the Angel was, or where…anything else was in relation to her. All she knew was that she was careening crazily through the air, gripping onto her unconscious friend as hard as she could.

Finally, they crashed into the ground, bouncing multiple times across several meters before they came to a stop.

"You know…that actually didn't hurt as much as I thought it would," Blue Beetle remarked to no in particular.

Green Lantern groaned softly, and the sapphire superwoman realized just then that she'd landed on her back, and her friend's body was splayed out on top of hers.

"Ugh," Green Lantern's eyes fluttered opened. "Rits?"

"Good morning, Misato," she greeted her friend. "You know, you're cute, but I need to drink way more alcohol before I start batting for the other team."

"Wha?" Green Lantern asked, frowning in confusion. Then she realized the position they were in and quickly got off of Blue Beetle. "Oh, God! Sorry, Rits! What…what happened?"

As quickly as she could, Blue Beetle gave her friend the short version. "And that thing's still got Toji," she finished. "Can you help me get him out? Are you up for it?"

"Let's see," she said. "Ring, power check."

"Power levels at four percent," her ring answered her.

"Four percent?" Green Lantern scowled. "I had a full charge just this morning!"

"Yeah, the Angel's been using your powers liberally," Blue Beetle said, glancing up at the VTOL squadron. They were all still all right at the moment, but it was just a matter of time before the Angel swatted one out of the sky. She needed to get back into the battle, fast. "Is that enough for you to get Toji if I keep the Angel distracted?"

"Only one way to find out, right?" Green Lantern, balling her hand into a fist.

A halo of emerald light surrounded the jade superwoman's body, and she took off into the air toward the Angel. Blue Beetle was barely able to keep up.

"Geeze, her courage is going to get her killed one of these days," she grumbled.

(You know, now that we've gotten past this "Green Lanterns and the Reach are natural enemies" thing, I'm really starting to like her.) The scarab commented cheerfully.

"You would," she muttered. "Okay, scarab, we need to keep the Angel's attention completely on us and the fighters so Misato can do her thing, but I don't want to try and kill it until we get Toji out of it."

(I know just the thing.) The scarab said, and Blue Beetle knew that it would've been grinning if it had a face.

Before she could demand to know what exactly it had in mind, the armor covering her forearms again, this time forming a pair of very familiar guns. Cackling wildly, the scarab fired off the firework cannons she'd been using less than an hour ago at the JSSDF's show. Spectacular bursts of smoke and colored sparks erupted from the guns, striking the possessed Evangelion right in the eye. The light and noise both blinded and infuriated the Angel, but it did no actual harm to the beast.

"You know, scarab," she commented, even as she dodged the Angel's flailing arms while making sure to keep irritating its eyes, "you do have a talent for coming up with crazy ideas. Hell, you might even rival Misato in that regard."

(I will take that as a compliment, regardless of the spirit that was given in.) The scarab responded cheerily.

Blue Beetle would've rolled her eyes if she could've taken them off the Angel without being swatted out of the sky. "Let's just hope that Misato's doing her part all right."


Consciousness did not return to quickly to Toji Suzuhara.

Instead, he returned to the waking world by degrees. Where before all had been silent blackness, he slowly became aware of light beyond his closed eyelids and sounds he couldn't identify coming from all around him. Not long after that, his brain tentatively formed its first coherent thought since the activation test's abrupt and disastrous conclusion.

What happened? Am I dead? He wondered.

Slowly, he opened his eyes. The light immediately caused him to squint, but he forced himself to tolerate it until his eyes started to adjust. He really wanted to know whether he was dead or not; it seemed like a very important matter for some reason.

Finally, his vision cleared up enough for him to make out shapes and colors. The first thing he saw was a very feminine silhouette, accompanied, for some reason, by quite a lot of green light.

Whoa, I am dead, he thought, jumping to conclusions as he took in the mystery woman's very impressive figure. Awesome! Heaven's way cooler than I expected it to be!

Then she reached forward, one gloved hand hitting his cheek with something between a pat and a slap. "Kid, kid, wake up! C'mon please, be oak!"

This was most definitely not what he'd expect an insanely hot angel (the good kind) to say and do when welcoming him into paradise, and Toji's subsequent surprise woke up him a bit more.

Finally, his blurry vision cleared enough for him to actually identify the woman standing before him.

"Green Lantern?" he asked.

Or least, that's what he tried to say. What really came out of his mouth was a sort of gurgling croak. Nevertheless, Green Lantern clearly heard it and was encouraged by the sign of life from him.

"Don't worry, kid! I'll get you out of there!" she exclaimed.

The emerald superwoman pointed her ring downwards, shooting a beam out of it. For a second, Toji thought she was aiming at him, and he tensed up in fear. However, he soon realized that she instead directing her fire at the grayish goo around him.

What…what is this stuff? He wondered, looking at the substance with disgust. The entry plug seemed to be half filled with it, and the ooze was keeping the jock firmly adhered to his seat.

Fortunately, the stuff did not seem to like the light that Green Lantern was shooting at it. The fungus-like material appeared to actually recoil from the beam that was coming from her ring, and within seconds, most of it had retreated away from his form.

"Okay," Green Lantern said, "let's get you out of here."

She grabbed him by the waist and began to pull, but Toji could feel that he still had some of that gray ooze on his back holding him in place. He tried to tell her, but he couldn't quite find the energy to form more than a few incoherent sounds.

The jade superwoman tugged harder. At first, nothing happened. Then, the revolting glue that was keeping Toji in place finally lost its grip, and he flew forwards. For a split second, terror gripped his heart as he feared that he'd go tumbling down the length of his EVA, then go splat on the ground.

However, that didn't exactly happen.

Oh, right, Green Lantern can fly. Duh, he thought as she began to descend toward the ground, carrying him along with her.

He frowned; being in the emerald superwoman's arms wasn't exactly unpleasant, but he disliked being carried around like a baby. The jock struggled slightly, trying to change positions. However, while his strength had started to rapidly return the moment Green Lantern got him out of his EVA, he still couldn't do more than squirm weakly in her arms.

"Don't worry," she told him, misinterpreting his efforts, "we're almost—"

"Warning," a flat voice that Toji realized was coming from her ring spoke up, "power levels approaching 0.00 percent."

"Uh-oh," Green Lantern said.

A second later, the superwoman's emerald aura began to flicker like an old fluorescent bulb, and her flight through the air became jerky. There were several seconds at a time where they seemed to be in free fall rather than a controlled descent. Toji was unpleasantly reminded of riding in a car with a sputtering, failing motor.

Finally, her flying ability gave out entirely, and they went plummeting toward the earth. Toji screamed as they went down. Green Lantern didn't.

"Ooph!" the luminescent superwoman grunted as they hit the ground, which hadn't been too far below them by the time her ring finally gave out.

She attempted to tuck and roll as they landed, but the teenage boy in her arms complicated matters. For a moment, Toji's world flipped flopped around crazily, before they landed, sprawled out in the dirt in an awkward tangle of arms and legs.

Under any other circumstances, the jock would have seriously considered taking advantage of the confusion and copping a feel. With things the way they were, though, he just lay there as Green Lantern hastily extricated herself from him.

"You okay?" she asked him, getting to her feet and offering him a hand.

"Yeah," he answered, allowing her to help him get to his feet. He stood on still wobbly legs. "What happened?"

"My ring ran out of juice," she answered, looking down at the object in question and scowling.

"Can't you, uh, refuel it?" he asked.

"Not here," she replied, "I have to go home in order to recharge. It looks like this battle is all R…Blue Beetle's."


(Ritsuko! They're clear!)

"You sure?" She asked, not quite willing to let up on her distraction tactics quite yet.

(Yes, I'm sure!) The scarab replied, sounding annoyed. (Geeze, I could tell you where that Chinese food delivery guy you met is right now, and you have to ask me if I'm sure Misato and Toji are clear?)

"Okay, okay, sorry," she replied contritely, finally ceasing the never ending flood of fireworks. Finally able to see again, the Angel took a swing at her, but she nimbly got out of its way. "Connect me to the leader of the VTOL squadron."

(Done.)

"Swarm Leader, this is Blue Lady, are you hearing me?" she asked, even as she performed a midair somersault to avoid to enraged Angel.

"I copy, Blue Lady," he answered at once.

"Good. Unit Three's pilot is clear, so now the mission is to kill the thing," she told him, thinking that if the Angel survived for another ten seconds, it would be far too long.

"Swarm Leader acknowledges," he said and cut the channel.

The new VTOLs immediately ceased in their harassment tactics, cranking their energy weapons to full power (Blue Beetle could easily see that the beams suddenly became brighter and more intense), and shooting far more rapidly.

The Angel's response was…not what she expected, to put it mildly.

Rather than trying more of the trashing it had been employing as its sole means of trying to swat the annoying bugs, the possessed Evangelion opened its mouth wide and appeared to vomit up large gobs of the gray ooze that had invaded the entry plug.

(Ew.) The scarab commented.

"Yeah," Blue Beetle agreed.

The VTOLs quickly took evasive action, but the stuff moved as though it was alive, arcing back toward them and catching the pilots completely by surprise. Every last plane in the squadron received a splatter of the gray stuff directly to the hull.

At first, the results of the bizarre attack appeared to be quite limited. The fighters all veered off course as the goop struck them, but they very quickly regained their stability.

"Swarm Leader, are you all right?" she asked.

"We're fine, just a little shaken up," the man replied. "Now, I—what the hell?"

"What?" she demanded. "What's wrong?"

"My controls aren't responding!" the pilot responded, sounding more frantic with every second. "Whatever's flying this thing, it isn't me!"

As one, all the VTOLs turned, their guns pointing directly at Blue Beetle.

(Ritsuko, I think—) The scarab began.

"Yes, I know," she sighed, just as the VTOLs all opened fire.

She commanded the wings that had sprouted from the back of her armor to stop flapping, and she immediately plunged like a stone as result. The deadly crossfire from the squadron missed her entirely.

"Swarm Leader, you and your men have to bail out!" she ordered.

"Way ahead of you, Blue Leader," the squadron leader informed her.

A second later, the canopies were blasted off the tops of all twelve VTOLs as the pilots ejected, their parachutes opening as they made it out into the open air. Mercifully, neither the possessed aircraft nor the Angel itself showed any interest in them.

Once the aviators had gotten a safe distance away from their craft, Blue Beetle decided it was time to act. Transforming the armor covering her hand and forearm into an energy weapon, she took aim and the closest one and mentally commanded it to fire.

Nothing happened. The VTOLs quickly began lining up to take another shot at her.

"Scarab, what's wrong?" she demanded frantically. "Why can't we shoot them?"

(They have Reach tech integrated into their systems! I'm reading them as friendly! I can't make myself do it!) It answered, sounding both panicked and miserable at once.

"But they're not friendly, and they're not even real Reach units," Blue Beetle protested.

(I know, but I STILL can't make myself shoot them! It's like an instinct that's been hard coded into my brain!) The scarab exclaimed.

Thanks to her direct connection with the scarab's mind, Blue Beetle knew it was telling the truth. She could easily feel its frustration as it struggled to overcome the mental block and failed, unable to surmount the appalled emotions it experienced whenever it even thought about killing the VTOLs.

Instantly, the scientist's brain kicked into overdrive as she analyzed her current predicament. She had managed to evade the Angel so far, if only with a great effort, but that was only because she was so much smaller and quicker than it was. There obviously wasn't such a great size disparity between herself and the VTOLs, and while she was more agile than they were, there were twelve of them.

Okay, so I can't shoot back at the squadron of planes that are trying to kill me, she thought. If I take out the Angel, that'll probably stop the planes, but how am I supposed to do that with them harassing me the whole time?

There was no doubt about it: she was in a real catch-22. If she didn't figure out a way out of it, she was going to die.

Okay, she thought desperately. What would Misato do?

The idea that instantly occurred to her was simultaneously so brilliant and so crazy that Blue Beetle just knew it was exactly what her friend would've done.

"Scarab, you work on getting our guns to fire on these things," she ordered. "Leave everything else to me."

(Everything? All right.) It agreed, though it didn't even bother to mask the skepticism in its mental voice.

Blue Beetle didn't have time to get insulted. She took off like a shot just as the VTOLs unleashed another volley at her, and by some miracle, she managed to weave through all the blue energy beams without one of them striking her. After emerging from the firestorm, she headed directly for the nearest VTOL, and, making sure to keep out of the path of its guns as she approached, perched herself right on top of the thing.

She could sense how incredulous the scarab was at her course of action, but it kept quiet, focusing on the job she had given it.

The VTOL that Blue Beetle had landed on immediately began to turn right and then left as rapidly as its maneuvering thrusters would allow it to, trying to shake her off. However, with a thought, her boots became magnetic, allowing her to hold fast to her position. Silently, she marveled at the seemingly endless number of functions her armor was capable of performing.

Out loud, she called to the other VTOLs. "Hey! Over here, guys! Target standing right in plain sight!"

The resulting reaction from the eleven fighters she wasn't standing on was predictable. They all pivoted in midair to bring their guns to bear on her and fired.

Instantly, Blue Beetle disengaged the magnets and flew into the sky, leaving the hapless VTOL she was standing on to be torn to ribbons by its brothers.

(Score! Two points!) The scarab cheered as the VTOL turned into a fireball beneath them.

"Keep your mind on the job," she ordered it tersely.

(Right.) The scarab agreed.

Blue Beetle headed to another one of the fighters and repeated the trick she'd used on the first one. Then she went to another fighter and did it again. She kept right on doing it until there was only one left.

"Can we shoot at it yet?" she asked.

(Yes, I think so.) The scarab answered, but it sounded uncertain. She could still sense its reluctance to fire on anything that so much as smelled like the Reach.

Nevertheless, she formed the energy weapon, took aim, and fired. This time, a beam of blue light erupted forth, spearing straight through the last of the VTOLs. The craft instantly began to careen toward the ground in an uncontrolled fall, the hole she had just made in it belching black smoke.

"Okay, now that that's out of the way, can we finally get to the main event here?" she asked. "I feel like this fight's been going on for a week!"

(With pleasure.) The scarab said, clearly having no reservations about attacking the Angel.

"Remember, we need to use a weapon that won't destroy the world," she told it.

(Oh…right.) It said.

Suddenly, her wrists came together as though they were magnetized to one another. Before Blue Beetle could say anything, a massive weapon covering both of her hands and forearms grew from her armor. It was almost as big as she was.

Damn, where does the scarab keep all this extra mass? The Bleed? She wondered.

If the scarab overheard the thought, it didn't bother answering her. (Can I do it, Ritsuko? Can I?) It asked giddily, sounding even more child-like than usual.

Appropriately enough, she heaved a sigh like a long suffering matron before answering. "Go ahead."

(Sweet!)

The scarab fired the weapon, and Blue Beetle had to lower the brightness settings on her HUD to avoid being blinded by the resulting column of blue-white light that burst forth from it. The beam widened the further it got away from the sapphire superwoman, eventually crashing head on into the possessed Evangelion's AT field. The barrier of orange light managed to hold for a few seconds, but it wasn't long before it buckled beneath the force of the onslaught.

Then the Angel was engulfed from the waist up in the energy beam that Blue Beetle had fired off, and for several seconds, it remained that way.

Finally, the sapphire superwoman's attack petered out. Despite the adjustments she'd made to her HUD, she had to blink away spots once it was over. Regardless, she could see what had become of the Angel well enough to make her jaw drop.

The parts of it that had been subjected to her attack had been vaporized. Nothing was left of Unit Three besides a giant pair of legs.

"Whoa," she said.

(Awesome.)

For several seconds, Blue Beetle just hovered in the air, staring at the destruction she and the scarab had wrought. Then she abruptly snapped back to reality.

"Oh, geeze, I have to get Misato back to Matsushiro before anyone notices she's gone!" she exclaimed, heading for the ground. "Hell, I have to get to Matsushiro before anyone notices I'm gone. There's no way holo-Ritsuko's projector didn't get damaged by the explosion."

(Hey, Ritsuko?) The scarab spoke up, and it sounded far more tentative than it usually did when it wasn't facing one of the extremely few things it was afraid of.

"Yes?" she asked.

(I…I'm sorry about telling you to just try and kill the Angel. That was the wrong decision.) It said softly.

"Oh, scarab," she began, not quite sure how to reassure the being she was sharing her body with. She had never been very good at that sort of thing. "I was right in hindsight, and hindsight's always 20/20."

She could feel the scarab scanning her brain for the meaning of the idiom she'd just used before responding. (Yeah, but if you'd done what I said, you almost certainly would've killed Misato and Toji.)

"Yes, and in trying to save them, I pretty much risked everything," Blue Beetle countered. "You had a valid argument, scarab. I think the fact that you're a weapon might've colored your judgment, but that doesn't change the fact that me just attacking the Angel would have been the logical course of action. I just couldn't bring myself to do the logical thing, though. Not when it meant killing my best friend and that poor boy."

(So…you're not angry at me?) It asked.

She shook her head. "Not a bit," she said. "Now come on, we really do have to double time it to Matsushiro."


Hours later found Slade Wilson sitting inside a suite in one of Tokyo-3's hotels. His remaining good eye was trained on the television, unblinking.

"Good evening, I'm Hondo Akie," the journalist on the screen spoke, "and behind me is all that remains Hyogo-2."

The camera panned out, showing the small village behind her. Or, more accurately, what remained of the small village behind her. The place looked like a giant had trampled over it, and the little wooden houses there were now good for little more than kindling.

"This is the area where the most recent 'Angel' battle took place earlier today," Akie said, "and while great devastation resulting from these conflicts is far from out of the ordinary, this battle was still unique from all the rest."

The station switched cameras, showing an aerial view of an area next to the shattered village. Three huge, roughly human-shaped imprints had been formed in the ground.

"According to eyewitnesses who saw the start of the battle, NERV's Evangelions were almost immediately disabled by the Angel. Details remain sketchy at this time, but it appears that the members of the JSSDF's new anti-Angel taskforce were the ones who won this victory," Akie said.

One of the assassin's associate's entered the room just then. "Slade…"

"Shh," the man hissed, eyes still glued to the screen.

"NERV has declined to comment on the battle at this time," Akie said, "and Channel 2 News has not yet been able to reach JSSDF high command. While it remains largely unclear what, if any, implications this will have for Japan's defenses against the Angels, the UN General Assembly has already scheduled a vote on whether to transfer the remainder of NERV's auxiliary budget to the JSSDF.

"Additionally, according to one of our sources, the Security Council has announced plans to consider transferring a portion of NERV's main budget to the JSSDF," Akie continued. "Channel 2 News will, of course, bring these developments to you as come."

Slade switched the television off but continued to gaze silently at the blank screen for several seconds, deep in thought. Eventually, his associate cleared her throat, getting his attention.

"What does this mean?" she asked.

He smiled, finally turning to her. "It means that this job is definitely going to be interesting."


The next day found Misato and Ritsuko seated side by side on one of the benches by the Geofront lake, both with a bento box on their laps. Unlike the last time they'd had lunch together, the atmosphere was less than hostile, though definitely still uncomfortable.

"So," Misato began awkwardly, after the two had spent several minutes eating in silence.

"So," Ritsuko replied.

The Ops Director sighed. "I guess I owe you a big thank you," she said. "You saved all four of the pilots, and me, of course."

Ritsuko smiled slightly. "I was more than happy to do it," she said. "But please, don't go getting kidnapped by an Angel again. That thing was scary enough without your power ring at its disposal."

Misato grimaced. "Believe me, I don't plan on it," she said.

She didn't even remember what had happened after the Angel had made his presence known; there was a blank spot in her memory from then until Ritsuko had managed to free her. Nevertheless, just the knowledge that an Angel had taken control of her like that, had used her power against the Children…she didn't think she'd ever felt so violated.

"Good," was all Ritsuko said in response.

"So, you're still not going to tell me why you decided to join the JSSDF, are you?" Misato asked.

Ritsuko shook her head. "No, Misato. I'm sorry, but I can't do that."

"Even though you've put NERV's funding in serious danger?" the Ops Director pressed.

"That's right," Ritsuko replied.

Misato sighed. "Okay."

The scientist blinked. "That's it?" she asked.

The Ops Director nodded. "Yeah, that's it," she said. "I have no idea why you're doing what you're doing, but I trust you. You have saved the Children twice already, and you are my friend, after all."

Ritsuko felt a lump forming in her throat. "Thanks," she said.

"You'll call me, right? If you get in over your head, I mean," Misato added. "Remember, my ring does pack a nasty punch."

"After seeing what it did to Mount Nobe, I'll never forget it," Ritsuko said.

"So, you will ask Green Lantern for help if you ever really need it, right?" the Ops Director pressed.

"Of course," Ritsuko said, even though she had no intention of ever getting her friend involved with her plan, no matter what.

The silence returned, but it was more comfortable this time. Finally, just as they were finishing up, the scientist spoke up again.

"So, how are the Children, anyway?" she asked.

"All pretty shaken up, but mostly fine," Misato answered, then smiled tiredly. "Asuka's so angry at our alter egos that she's about ready to start breathing fire. The way she figures it, she could've beaten the Angel if it hadn't nabbed me, and she's not too happy that you waltzed in and grabbed all the glory. I think she half-believes we conspired against her."

"It figures," Ritsuko groaned.

"By the way, that was good of you to remove Toji from the pilot roster," Misato commented.

Ritsuko shrugged. "I might have done that anyway. He was exposed to a lot of Angelic matter, after all, and it's not like he's of much use to NERV, now that Unit Three's been destroyed," she said. "Besides, I figured he's been through enough. The way we recruited him never sat right with me, and I can't imagine the sort of trauma he endured from this whole experience."


"Oh my God, she was so hot!" Toji crowed.

Shinji and Kensuke exchanged weary looks across the school lunch table. The jock had spoken of little more than the Green Lantern ever since the battle, and even though that had only been yesterday, they were both already getting sick of hearing this story.

Ignoring his friends' expressions, Toji eagerly continued with his tale. "So I wake up, right? And the first thing I see is Green Lantern. She's like Misato-level hot," he traced a very curvy silhouette in the air with his hands, "but she's in this really tight costume. It was the most amazing sight ever!"

"Then what happened?" Kensuke asked dutifully.

"Well, I was stuck inside the plug. The Angel was like this weird glue, so Green Lantern had to pull me out," he said. "I helped, of course."

"Of course," Shinji agreed, silently marveling at the attitude his friend had about all this.

You'd think he didn't realize how easily he could have died yesterday, he thought, feeling far more shaken by the battle than Toji himself appeared to be.

"Anyway, after we get back to the ground, her magic ring ran out of power, so we just had to wait for Blue Beetle to kill it. Once the whole fight was finally over, she came and picked Green Lantern up, and they left," he said, then paused a moment and added. "Me and Green Lantern made out while we were waiting."

Shinji did a double take, giving the jock an incredulous look. Kensuke went further, releasing a snort of laughter and nearly sending some of the juice he'd been drinking out through his nose.

"You did not make out with Green Lantern!" the otaku exclaimed, laughing.

"Oh, were you there?" Toji demanded.

"No, but I sure as hell know that you wouldn't have waited till the thousandth time you told this story to mention it, if it was the truth," Kensuke argued.

"I'm telling you, it happened!" Toji said.

"And I'm saying I won't believe you without pictures," the otaku replied, still smirking.

Shinji was about to speak up, to try and stop the incredibly pointless argument before it could heat up, but he was interrupted by a beeping from his cell phone. Taking it from his pocket, he held it up and then paled at the text message displayed on its screen.

"No," he breathed. "No way."

"What is it, Shinji?" Kensuke asked.

The Third Child didn't seem to hear him. "This can't be right," he muttered to himself.

But it was. The Angel alarms sounding all over the city more than confirmed that much.


Author's Notes: Good grief, I left everybody at a cliffhanger recently, didn't I? Well, thanks to Ritsuko, it looks like everybody made it past the Thirteenth Angel no worse for the wear.

Now all they've got to worry about is Slade and the Fourteenth Angel…

Anyway, thanks as always to my readers and reviewers, and thanks to my beta reader as well.

Now for some fun.


Omake

Unthinkable

Or

Ham-fisted movie reference

I should have been there, she thought as she hovered in the air, silently gaping at the Angel, as well as the trio of Evangelions it had easily incapacitated with a blast of Green Lantern's power. None of this would've happened if I'd just had the guts to reject Katsuro's demand that I show up for another stupid demonstration today.

She no doubt that if she'd gone to Matsushiro, rather than sending her holographic double in her place, the scarab would have detected the Angel waiting to strike. This whole disaster could've been brought to an end before it had begun.

(Oh, for crying out loud!) The scarab exclaimed, obviously exasperated. (This isn't over yet! Angst later! Fight now!)

Blue Beetle blinked. "Angst…later?" she asked, as though the idea was a completely foreign concept to her.

(Yes! Angst later! Not now!) It said.

"Never!" Blue Beetle exclaimed, much to the scarab's surprise. "Not angsting is simply unacceptable! Even if it's for a moment!"

(But…but…THIS IS MADNESS!) The scarab cried.

"Madness?" Blue Beetle asked. "This…is…EVA!"